Alleluia

The second of three events has now taken place: event one Sarah finishes her chemo, event two we have moved back into the camper, one more to go and we will be off again. Well, actually many people say I am off anyway but that is beside the point.

We pulled the camper out of storage last Saturday and hooked it up, except for the sewer hose, I could not find the elbow that goes into the ground and attaches to the hose, and I looked everywhere and could not find it. I went to four different dealers here in the area to find one and finally found one. So we got all hooked up and we have only one minor problem a very small leak in the bathroom. I don’t know if I will be able to fix it but may try or get someone to do it for me, we’ll have to see how that goes.

It is really nice to be able to sit here in our home and look out the windows at the other campers and the pastures for the cows and horses. We are here until June 1 and then we are off to Omaha area to stay at the KOA until the house is ready. We are going to Mesa this winter, if all goes well, and still travel as much as we can.

The GOOD news is Sarah is progressing nicely, the radiation doesn’t seem to bother her much, they tell her about the third week she will begin feeling tired but it shouldn’t keep her down like the chemo did.

It got down to 29 degrees last night, I let the water dribble a bit to keep the water line coming into the camper from freezing, you folks know what I mean. Tonight it isn’t suppose to go below 32 so no need to dribble again.

The apartment was a Godsend for us and I probably wouldn’t have thought of it if our friends Norma & Orren hadn’t told us about it. I thought it was still assisted living but Orren knew it had been converted to regular apartments; it worked out great for us. It goes to show if you have Faith and good friends, you can accomplish anything.

I took the week off from driving to accomplish all of this and go to my dental appointment tomorrow. The dentist office called to remind me of my appointment, I said I would be there but I would not have bells on, I don’t like going to the dentist. I hope I can find a good dentist in Omaha, one that will give me gas when cleaning my teeth; I cannot have my teeth cleaned without it. I know I am a BIG baby but that is the way it is.

Nothing else going on in our exciting lives, I am beat from all this moving. I have the backseat of the truck loaded with stuff that came from the camper but there is no place to put it now, either the camper shrunk or we accumulated more stuff. Oh well, that’s life I guess.

Later.

Dreams Do Come True

Halleluiah

Halleluiah – it is done, Sarah had her final chemo treatment today. She has an appointment to see the radiologist next Monday and also will have the port removed Monday. The worse is behind her and we can see a light at the end of the tunnel. Thank you, everyone, for your prayers, thoughts and the positive thought patterns you have been sending her. It has helped her get through this, believe me.

Not much else to report, but I am working too much. I worked a whole three days this week, all of them in a row. On top of that, I have the added pressure of keeping up with my brother on the slots and trying to outdo everyone else on Candy Crush. (If you are on Candy Crush friend me on Facebook so I can get lives from you, I need all the help I can get.)

I am in the process of reading some books Mike Cord gave me, he wants them back, so I want to get them all read before we leave Des Moines June 1.

We have Robert, Daniel and Tiffany and their families coming to visit the weekend and Steve and family from KC are coming in also. In addition, Rusty, Carl and Merilee are coming, so it will be a lot of fun. Sarah usually has good days on Sat and Sun so she should be ok with them all here.

Next week will be a rest for her from any form of treatment. We will have to impress on the doctor Sarah has to be done with radiation by May 31 because we don’t have a place to park the camper here in Des Moines after that. I was able to get us into the KOA in Omaha for June so we do have a place there.

We were informed our townhouse hasn’t been started yet so the completion date has been moved to July 1. We don’t mind that because it will give us a chance to observe some of the construction and give us the opportunity to look for furniture.

I am still looking at going from a fifth wheel camper to a motorhome it will depend on what I can find and the cost. It may take a while but I am sure we can find what we want out there somewhere.

That’s all for now – Dreams Do Come True.

Two More to Go

Two more to go and Sarah will be done with the chemo part of her treatment. We will find out next week when she begins her radiation treatments. I cannot say enough about the folks at the Stoddard Cancer Center at Methodist hospital here in Des Moines, we are so glad we stayed to have Sarah take the treatments here. These folks are wonderful, considerate and bend over backwards to make the patient feel comfortable.

We haven’t been doing too much, it has been cold. I am told yesterday a year ago, it was in the eighties here and yesterday the temperature didn’t get above thirty and it was eleven above this morning. I apologized for not being AZ so it would have been warmer here.

Speaking of AZ we are going to be in Mesa next winter, the Good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, we have been graciously accepted back into the fold of the Décor Team. We are looking forward to it and we are looking forward to seeing everyone again.

I have been working very hard at Enterprise Car Rental moving cars here and there. To show you have difficult this job is, yesterday we had to take three new, no miles on them, Kia Sorrento from the office to the airport, twenty miles, then the three of us got into another car and rode all the way to Davenport, IA, a hundred fifty or so miles. I finished a book I was reading on the way over, it was pure torture to sit there and ride all that way. When we got to Davenport I got in a 2013 Ford Explorer, two miles on it, and took it to the airport in Des Moines, then we all hopped into the car and rode to the office. I am telling you it is just plain hard work. Actually, I love it, I like to drive and sometimes I get to just ride and read. It doesn’t pay much but it almost buys the groceries.

Last night we met Norma & Orren for dinner at a Mexican restaurant here in town. We had a good time and the food was good.

I am on the slots on Facebook so if any of you are also playing them, send me coins or spins. Also, I need lives on the addictive Candy Crush game, I am stuck on 38 but I’ll get off it eventually, most of it is luck but some strategy is involved also.

I am reading a book by Lee Childs, seems like it will be a good one. Just finished one by the same author that had an ending I didn’t see coming. Mike Cord gave me ten or so books to read; most of them are Clive Cussler but a couple also from Lee Childs and Vince Flynn. I had never heard of Vince Flynn until a couple of years ago I was standing in line at Wal-Mart in Branson, MO, I was looking at some paperback books and a lady behind me asked if I had ever read any of Vince Flynn’s books, I said no and she told me I should. I found one in the library here at the apartment building, read it and enjoyed it so I will read more of his writings.

NCAA wrestling tournament begins today here in Des Moines. The media is saying 25,000 people will descend on this town over the next couple days and dump many millions of dollars on the local economy. I never liked wrestling, I think because I never understood it and I really didn’t want to spend all day at a meet. Our oldest son Robert tried it one year in high school, it didn’t last very long, I hope it wasn’t because I wasn’t as gung ho about it as I was other sports. I do know this it is a HUGE sport here in Iowa and it was in Wisconsin.

That is all for now, not much happening.

Till Later – Dreams Do Come True

FOUR More To Go

Confession time, I had good intentions of writing before now but I have become addicted to the slot games on Facebook. My brother and I send coins back and forth to each other; sometimes I include others if I know they are playing these stupid games also. We talked this morning and he asked me not to send him any coins for awhile because he get booted out of his current game. It is fun, time consuming, mindless game but I enjoy it while listening to music. However, it has wormed its way into my reading time; I have to get back to the reading. I also have another game I play, frustrating as it is, Candy Crush or something like that. I have reached an area where the only way to clear it is by dumb luck, so we’ll see if I can be dumb enough for it. It seems to me the only purpose for these games is not for the enjoyment of the players but to try to entice you to buy more lives, levels or coins. As I have said before anyone who pays for the coins or lives, is nuts, I haven’t reached the level of having to pay to continue playing, we’ll see what happens then. Of course, I have bought games before and I guess this is the new way of buying games.

Sarah is down to FOUR more chemo treatments and then no more chemo, she is thrilled about that as am I, I don’t like to see her have to go through the after effects of the treatments. She has tolerated this whole affair much better than I would have been able to do.

We have decided to get the camper out of storage on April 20 and begin moving our stuff back to it. We don’t have to vacate the apartment until the last day of April but I want to take my time moving and be able to test everything in the camper before moving back in. It will be nice to get back in the camper, this apartment is ok and has been a Godsend but I want my home back.

I am currently reading a couple of books one is an old one by Andy Rooney, he was on “CBS 60 Minutes”, on Sunday night, it is called “Pieces of My Mind”, it is a collection of his columns and writings he would give on TV. They are old enough to bring back memories of when I was young. One of them was about the media, of which he was a part, in their reporting of a story. He said the reporter’s obligation is to report what is factual; the reporter’s obligation is to investigate the story to make sure what they are being told is in fact the truth. The reporter should not just take as fact what the subject tells them but to research and tell the truth and keep bias out of the story. What I found interesting about the piece is even though it was written twenty odd years ago, it applies to everything today. My greatest fear is the younger generation is not learning history and will not learn from it.

The other day there was a piece on the radio about the New York school system, 80% of the students graduating and going to junior college are illiterate, 80% of them. What I am wondering is, http://www.caliteracy.org/rates/, this piece gives some troubling data. It seems to me all the government wants to do is throw money at the problem instead of finding the cause of the problem. I know many people think they know the cause but really don’t. I believe the powers to be need to ask the front line troops, the teachers, what they consider the cause. I don’t mean the teachers who are the union reps or the administrators I mean the ones doing the actual teaching. Then instead of taking the money to pay admin salaries put the money where it is most needed at the classroom level. I don’t have an answer for the cause of illiteracy but I would bet it could be identified, if it hasn’t already been, and corrected.

I love reading, I go nowhere without a book. It used to be more difficult but with the advent of eBooks, I always have one available on my IPhone. I have both the Nook and Kindle apps on the phone so my choice of books is endless. If you have kids or grandkids buy them a book and get the interested in reading. Just to be clear I don’t own any stock in a book company.

We are almost to spring; I am looking forward to no more snow. It is suppose to snow more today, I guess we received a couple inches of snow last night but it seems to be melting faster, good sign.

We were invited to Candi & Russ’ for dinner yesterday, it was great. Candi made a strawberry, rhubarb, apple pie, I loved it. We had a great visit and we thank them. Candi is a cancer survivor, twice, and doing well.

We need to go to the store today, I hate grocery shopping now, not that I liked it before, but the cost of food has risen dramatically in that past few months. I have trouble finding enough food to buy on a hundred dollar budget. I guess I will have to give up my ice cream and M&M’s.

I guess I will call it quits for now, it is time to eat.

Till later – Dreams Do Come True

Five to Go

It is March already, although when we first moved into the apartment I didn’t think March would ever get here, but here we are. I didn’t need the calendar to tell me because the girl’s High School basketball tournaments are this week and I can see all the cars parked for the games and we have had SNOW. The weather people called for one to two inches and we received over ten inches, so much for their computer models.

Well, it has been awhile since I wrote so here goes with the update.

Sarah is doing GREAT, she has some tingling and numbness in her fingers and toes so the doctor has been adjusting the dosage each time and she has less tingling so that is a blessing for her. Her attitude is still great but she can’t wait for this all to be in the past.

Monday, February 11, we went out to eat with Russ and Candi, one of our favorite places Smokey D’s. If you like BBQ and you are in Des Moines or just passing through, they are at the 2^nd Ave exit on I80-35, great food and plenty of it.

Wednesday, February 13, we went out to eat with Mike and Shari to the buffet at Prairie Meadows. Of course I had to play the slots for a few minutes, didn’t win anything. If any of you see my Facebook page, you will see I have taken up playing slots on the computer, doesn’t cost me anything. My brother Larry got me going on these games, some are fun others not so much. I will play until I have no more credits and then wait for someone to send me credits or the game gives me free credits. Now I suppose there are a lot of people who pay money for the credits, they are constantly asking you to buy credits, but I guess I’m not into it that much. Actually, I can’t see where it is to my advantage to buy them, it doesn’t make sense, but someone must be paying for credits or they wouldn’t be asking for them.

Sunday, February 17, we went to Orren and Norma’s, we took a couple of Papa Murphy’s pizzas and had lunch with them. Orren has been recovering from a bad case of pneumonia but seems to be getting better daily, it will take some time for him to get his strength back. We are planning to go over again tomorrow afternoon to see them. Norma is putting together a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle, I think she started it in 1982, not really but the pieces are too small for me, I won’t touch it.

I have been getting two to three days work in at Enterprise, it is not much but enough for me. As I have said before the work isn’t hard, where else can I get paid for driving a car from point A to point B, or better still ride one way and read a book the whole time. There have been a couple of times where it has been a bit stressful the past couple of weeks due to the snow and the idiot drivers out there. According to the state of Iowa you aren’t suppose to be texting while driving. Ask me how that is working. It AIN’T. I had someone the other day just about get me because they weren’t paying attention to their driving. Then you get the ejit sitting at the stop light and it turns green, do they go, NO, they are sitting there catching up on the texts or emails.

Next week the boy’s are in town for the state High School basketball tournament. Again, they are calling for snow on Monday and Tuesday. I will be happy when April arrives, not to say we can’t get snow in April, but it is less likely to happen. Besides we have plans to move the camper out of storage and into the campground on April 20, so hopefully all the cold weather and snow will be gone by then. I was going to take the camper to the dealer who winterized it and have them dewinterize it but I decided if there are any leaks I will deal with it instead of paying the dealer to tell me there are leaks and then charge me to fix them also. Anyway hopeful everything will be good. We have gone out to the camper a couple of times and it seems to be OK, I guess we will know when we move back into it.

I found a great way to get magazines without buying them. No, I don’t take them from the doctor’s office. I got a library card and get them from the library electronically on my IPad. I download most all of them, then go through them, and read what I want, with the IPad it is almost the same as having the magazine. The other thing I did, which I said I wouldn’t do, was sign up for Netflix, I watch movies and TV shows on the IPad, of course, you have to have a good WIFI connection, which we normally have. There have been two instances where Mediacom, the local cable/internet provider, screwed up the billing and payment for this apartment and we were without for a couple days, but when it is working, I love it. I am listening to satellite radio on my laptop as I am typing this.

I don’t know if we are going back to Mesa, AZ next winter or not. I have written Mikki, our boss at Cal-AM, but haven’t heard from her. I suppose I should call, I’ll try to do that next week. If we can go back and work, we will go back to Mesa, if we can’t work, we will most likely go to FL for a couple of months. Even though we have bought a townhouse, we probably won’t be there that much, because I still want to travel and see a few places in this great country while I still have the ability. The townhouse will be a good place to come back to especially if one of us gets sick or disabled.

I think I have said we are looking at the possibility of trading for a motor home, still looking but we haven’t found anything to our liking. Well that isn’t quite true I did find one but by the time I inquired about it the dealer had sold it. Oh well, if we are to have one we’ll find it.

That’s about it for now; hopefully I won’t wait so long to write again.

Dreams Do Come True

Nine to go

Carl & Merilee were over last Saturday and the three of us went to the RV Show at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. Sarah stayed home she didn’t want to get out with the crowds, I’m glad she didn’t go it was not much of a show from my perspective. I suppose I wasn’t that enthused with it because it was mostly weekender campers, with a few high end units thrown in for good measure.

McKee Auto & RV had some expensive motor homes there, I think the most expensive was about $250k but none of them had any character to them. There wasn’t any of them I would want even if I could afford one. I was looking for Mobile Suite fifth wheels, Bob & Joe’s RV from Guthrie Center use to sell them, so I went looking. I found Bob & Joe’s area and I found an Excel, same brand we have, and I found Brian Triplett of Petersen Industries, but I didn’t find a Mobile Suite. Brian told me, Bob & Joe no longer handle the brand anymore. It was nicer sitting in the fifth wheel than one of the motor homes, so I may have to rethink my thought about moving to a motor home. I have to give this more thought.

After the show we came back, picked up Sarah, and went to watch the bald eagles, they are by one of the dams in downtown Des Moines. We headed over to the sixth street bridge, you can actually park on the bridge, so we did and Merilee got some great pictures of the eagles. I have been told at one time there were up to a hundred eagles in the area because of the open water, it makes it a good feeding place for them.

Afterward we went out to the Machine Shed to have supper and since we wanted to wait a bit for desert, we bought an apple pie and picked up ice cream to bring home for later. Cynthia came over and we had pie and ice cream

Yesterday, Sunday, Sarah and I went to the grocery store, what a sticker shock. I am trying to eat healthier and so we were judicious in our purchases, no ice cream or soda for me. I have to be very concise of what I eat for my diet, it seems I’m not losing weight as fast as I would like.

Sarah and I have a device called Fit Bit One; it tracks steps, flights of stairs, calories and miles, and sleep patterns. They are great except for today. I drove for Enterprise today; we took a car to North Liberty and then went to Cedar Rapids to pick up a truck. It was a 26 ft box truck, diesel with an air ride seat. Now for those of you who have never driven or ridden with an air ride seat, you are constantly going up and down because of the road and suspension of the truck. So when I get home I look at my Fit Bit and it shows I have gone over 13,000 steps, climbed 239 flights of stairs, traveled over 4 miles on foot and burned over 2200 calories. It sure made my stats look good in the program, but alas, I know how it happened so I made a notation of my activity in the program. I guess I will leave the device home the next time I drive. Boy 2200 calories burned I could eat without worrying what I ate, no better not.

Our friend Orren came home from the hospital the other day, we haven’t seen him except for a couple minutes via internet, and he looked pretty good then.

Wow, I have worked two days this week, I don’t know what is the matter with me, it is dragging me down. Actually I love it, where else can I get paid, although it isn’t much, to either drive a car somewhere or ride half way and drive the rest of the way. I drove a new Camaro yesterday, nice car, handles well and lots of get up and go, but you felt every bump in the road. Don’t get me started on how difficult it was getting out of the car, I thought I would have to get a crane to help me, but I managed.

We went out to eat with Mike & Sheri Cord last night to the Chicken Coop, I had never heard of the place before but it was good food and we always enjoy their company. Mike gets books from his brother in law and lets me read them so I have several books to read again.

I don’t know about any of you but as I get older I look in the obituaries to see if my name is in there, so far it hasn’t been but I find most of the folks listed are not much older than me and with getting a year older I wonder how much time is left. Not to worry I am not getting morbid but I do wonder about it sometimes. I figure if the old adage is true, “Only the good die young”, then I will be here for quite some time yet.

I think we have received all of our tax forms now but I am in no hurry because I am sure we don’t get a refund and if we have to pay anything, I am not in any hurry to do that either. As I told the guys at work the other day, my goal is to outlive my money and that should be in about a year and a half.

Tomorrow Sarah has another treatment, then we are down to eight left, we are getting there. She will then go through some radiation and we will be able to get our life back on track. I love trains so this is like our train is sitting on the siding waiting for the long slow freight to pass us.

Till Later, Dreams Do Come True

Des Moines, Jan 30, 2013

I thought I would write my blog, or at least begin it, I haven’t written anything for a week or so. Our internet in the apartment is not working, it seems Mediacom posted the payment for the service to a different account and now they can’t find it, at least that is what Mediacom is telling me. So I will start this and finish it when we get service.

Sarah has had two of the single drug treatments and other than the tingling in her fingers and hands; she has had less side effects with these treatments than with the others. She is a completely different person after the treatments, which makes it easier to see her go through them. Her treatments are now set up for every Thursday or at least that is the day we have requested them to be on.

I am driving for Enterprise, I don’t make much money but I am enjoying it. There are 80 drivers, they are trying to hire more, and we call in each evening to see if we work the next day. I hear some of the drivers complaining about the call in because they can’t plan anything, for me it is fine. I find the mix of personalities to be very interesting, I have ridden with several a few times and some like to talk a lot and others don’t, one of them has scared the daylights out of me with his driving but other than that I am having a good time with it. Usually we ride to a location and pick up cars to deliver them and maybe get another car at the drop off point or we car pool back to our home base. Nothing to hard or strenuous about it, my kind of job. Yesterday we went to Davenport and I drove a new Chevy Equinox back, it had 2 miles on it. Sarah and I had look at and driven one before we bought the Lexus and now I am glad we didn’t buy the Chevy. I liked everything about it except it was a bit confining, our car is a bit bigger and I like the extra space.

Today I was suppose to work but we have a winter storm going on outside with winds and blowing snow, so no road driving for us. I could have gone out and helped clean snow off cars and move them around so they can plow the parking lot but I don’t have anything but tennis shoes and I’ll be darn if I am going to freeze me toes off. The other reason is I got sick Saturday night and Sunday morning, I believe it was the 24 hour flu or some such thing, but I worked yesterday, probably shouldn’t have but I did and so I figured I would stay in today and rest.

Speaking of last Saturday the fire alarm went off again, five or six times since, we have been here. I decided to go down and see what problem was. Sixteen floors down, not too bad because I am going down, but dumb me decided to walk back up after the all clear was given because I didn’t want to wait for the elevators to come back to life. I will never do that again unless necessary, I thought I was going to die. I did find a couple of interesting things on the way up though. We have grocery carts in the parking garage to be used to carry your groceries or other large items to your apartment. The unwritten and logical rule is you are to take the carts back to the parking garage, second floor, when you are finished with them. I guess some folks are very smart, more likely just lazy, but I found two carts on different stair landings. It takes less than five minutes to return the carts.

One of the things I like is the way we get rid of our garbage; we have the “Chute Room” located across the hall from our apartment. All I have to do is put the garbage down the chute and it drops sixteen floors, I love it. Now saying that, remember what I said above about some people are not very smart or just plain lazy, well that also applies to getting rid of garbage. Someone put boxes of trash in the Chute Room and left it, I suppose they thought someone else was going to put in the chute for them. Well that didn’t happen, I saw the manager the other day and mentioned the things I saw about the carts and the garbage and she said they would take care of it. She said with the garbage they would go through it and see if there was anything with an address on it and then they would charge the folks them for the disposal of their trash. Human nature never ceases to amaze me.

A friend or ours, Orren, has been in the hospital for two weeks with pneumonia and has had a difficult time getting rid of it. I was able to go see him a couple times but then I got sick so that stopped the visits. The last I heard he was suppose to be getting out sometime this week. Orren, we’ll keep you in our prayers.

Even though it costs me money, I am very happy I have the truck parked inside, I go down every 7-10 days and start it and let it run for fifteen minutes or so. I don’t drive it but I do role it forward and back again just to keep the grease on the bearings, whether it does any good or not I don’t know.

The big RV show for the year is this coming weekend so I am going with Carl & Merilee are coming over to go with me. I love going and just looking but also Sarah & I have been thinking of going to a motor home so it will be nice to see what is available, not new but used. It should be fun to see.

Not much else is going on so I will close for now.

Dreams Do Come True