I can’t believe my 2nd son, Timothy James Messina, is 24 years old today! I was a labor and delivery nurse in the Air Force stationed at Scott AFB, Illinois when I became pregnant with Tim. Joe was about 15 months old and Rich was also in the Air Force and stationed in Columbus AFB, Mississippi, attending pilot training. We were having a really hard time trying to be assigned together and as I was working nights and parenting a toddler alone and pregnant…I decided being at home was the best bet for me. I was released from the Air Force and 3 months prior to Tim being born, I joined him in MS. It was H-O-T. Very hot. I don’t do heat well and wow, being pregnant didn’t help the heat. He was born on the first cool-ish day after a long hot summer. I had been suffering with horrible heartburn. I would chew trays of ice cubes a day…and still had heartburn. Tim was born with lots of long strawberry blonde hair. The nurses were amazed at how much hair he had! It was literally longer than mine! It hung down past his ears and down the back of his neck. Tim was born during the time when you were sent home 24 hours after the baby was born. My parents arrived when Tim was two days old and the first thing my dad said was, “That boy needs a haircut!” As the weeks went by the hair turned redder and redder….and nothing has changed. He still sports thick, firecracker red hair. He does have the temper to go with it….although he can be incredibly patient until he is pushed over the edge….then watch out. I remember when the boys were little, Joe, his older brother by 22 months, would push Tim’s buttons until he snapped. Joe would come running into the kitchen to hide behind me screaming, “He’s going to kill me!” and see Tim, face red and scrunched up in anger barreling after him, ready to do just that. Thankfully they get along a lot more than they disagree. When Tim was an infant, he would just watch everything around him. One of our friends said he had a “wise, old soul” and that was exactly what it seemed like. Tim was so inquisitive. His favorite time to quiz me on what he was wondering about was when we were in the car. He was obsessed about time. “How many minutes, seconds and hours until…..” That carries through to today where he plans out each of his days and gets pretty cranky if someone or something causes his schedule to go sideways. When he was two or three, he had a United States wooden puzzle that he would put together. I used to think it was hysterical that he would put in two pieces for Michigan (the mitten and the U.P.) and say, here is “Mish” and “Mish – again!” My father-in-law came to visit about that time and took the wooden puzzle and turned it over so it was just the wood side. He told Tim to put all 50 pieces together like that and he did. I will never forget what Rich’s dad said after that. “This kid is really smart and you are going to have your hands full keeping him occupied and learning.” He was so right! Tim listened to everything I was trying to tell his brother Joe (in kindergarten) about reading and writing and pretty much taught himself how to do both by the time he was turning 4. In preschool, Tim was really shy and so his teacher would help him by letting him read books to the class. He ended up skipping kindergarten and going into 1st grade…so he and his brother, Joe, were only one grade apart.

Tim was born in Mississippi, moved to Minnesota when he was about 9 months old, and then lived in North Dakota, Colorado, Okinawa – Japan, Norway, Nebraska, and then now he is back in Colorado. Tim has an affinity for languages as he did really well in his partial Japanese immersion classes for two years in Okinawa, Japan. Then when he moved to Norway, he took Norwegian and Spanish. By the time he had 3 years of those two languages in Europe (they teach foreign languages differently than they do here in the U.S.), he was pretty well-versed in both languages. Tim had a passion (actually it was more of an obsession) with basketball. He played basketball, baseball, rugby, and soccer in Norway. When we moved to Nebraska his freshman year of high school, he hit the ground running with basketball. His junior and senior year, he got back into rugby and played for the Nebraska all-star team and then played the first few years he was at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His studies started demanding a lot more of his time (he was on an full academic scholarship the 4.5 years he was there) and internships started taking up extra time set aside for sports of his own. He worked as an intern at Husker Power for several years. Tim got to teach strength, conditioning, and agility to the cheerleaders, dance team, the girls basketball team and the wrestling team…to name a few. He enjoyed working with the wrestling team so much that he volunteered to continue to help train them after he graduated.

Tim now lives in Fort Collins, Colorado. He is the manager and a trainer at the 9 Round kickboxing gym that just opened there. He is also four classes into his master’s degree in strength and conditioning training. Tim is a health nut and is always in a gym or out hiking. He loves kickboxing…as do I…and I would like to think that all those hours training in martial arts when he was younger helped shape him to be the great teacher he is today. He also belongs to a “meat head” gym where he lifts everyday. Tim is a big UFC fan and can spew so many facts about fighters and moves. I really enjoy watching with him. I have two black belts myself, and close to another one in a third martial arts program. Add to that two years of kickboxing experience and over a decade of watching mixed martial arts, I really appreciate watching fight nights with someone with a high fighting IQ. If we aren’t together, like tonight, we are often texting back and forth comparing notes on what is going on and what our predictions are. Tim wants to eventually work with MMA fighters, and I think he would be terrific at it.

So I have told you some of my memories of Tim as he was growing up…but I want to impress on you how incredibly proud I am of this kid. He is so driven and so organized with his life. He sets goals and then makes a solid plan to reach those goals. Tim mentioned he wanted to get back to Colorado. I know it was hard to leave his friends in Lincoln, Nebraska, where he lived for 6 years. However, he took the plunge and went out there to Fort Collins and started his life alone out there. I sure do miss seeing him, but I am happy he has gone out to where he wanted to be. He calls me a couple of times a week to keep me updated on his classes and job. It was great seeing him last weekend and I am looking forward to seeing him in a month in KC for Joe’s wedding. So happy birthday, Tim. I love you and I am so very proud of you!

First of all, Joe and Michelle have recovered fully from their COVID-19 battle. Michelle had it much worse than Joe, who only had minor cold symptoms. They are both no longer contagious but Michelle will have to take some time off of work until she can go back per their protocol in place. She works for the government and they have strict rules for these situations. They are not sure where they contracted it, but are thankful that their friends and co-workers they have been around all tested negative. What did quarantining together allow them to do? Get plan B going for their wedding! They called the venue and they had just had a cancellation and so they took that date. Their wedding party can still all make it, but they had to coordinate a bit with getting a new photographer, DJ, and someone to do the girls’ hair. So the wedding is now….drum roll, please….October 17, 2020. So 5 weeks past the first date, which was this past Saturday. I am not going to lie, it was a tough day for all of us, but especially the bride and groom…who had to let it pass like just another…when it would have been their wedding day. I had gathered some things for Michelle (and Joe) since I was unable to have a bridal shower for our side of the family for her. Many of you that are friends of mine on Facebook, knew I was putting together a recipe book for Michelle. Many of you sent recipes for the book. I had 100 recipes and it turned out great! So thank you from the bottom of my heart. They were able to open my box and open some gifts for their kitchen along with the cookbook. Now we are on wedding countdown again. A month from today!

Although we weren’t at a wedding this past Saturday, two people that were supposed to be at the wedding with us changed their travel plans from Kansas City to Omaha and came and spent the weekend with us. One was my brother, Craig Neitzke, from Houston. It was great to have him here when it wasn’t crazy (every time he has visited there has been a major family event going on with a lot of extra people). He got to visit the Harley Davidson store and our store for a little shopping before learning how to play Settler’s of Catan…our favorite board game we play at least one night a week. I think Craig enjoyed the cooler weather up here in Omaha! Our other visitor was our son, Tim, from Colorado! It was fun having him here to play Settler’s….and to also watch the UFC fights with. He and I have watched them together for years…actually over a decade. If we aren’t together to watch them, we text each other, but it is much more fun live and in person. I have missed him!

I want to send a special shout out to those who were just so wonderful last week when everything hit the fan and my spirits hit the dirt. Todd and Deb Banchor….you are the best surrogate big brother and sister a gal could ask for. They brought over pie….and more importantly, hugs. Wanda Oslica talked me off the preverbal ledge with a phone call. Paula Buck brought over chocolates (always will cure what ails you!) Spending time with Craig and Tim, and lots of time on the phone with Joe and Michelle helped as well. I haven’t seen Joe since my birthday in mid February. I am missing my oldest child A LOT. I will see him in 4 weeks….I just need to get through another chemo treatment next week and pray that the blood thinners worked and my lungs are clear when I am done. I will be having an teleconference with my sarcoma specialist from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN on Oct 7th to confirm that we will continue with what we have been doing. That is my hope!

Do you ever feel like the world is working against you? I have been in that constant state for about 11 months now. The blows just keep coming. Just when you think there is something good to hold onto, it gets ripped away. Sorry…just feeling a little raw at this point. The wedding has been postponed. Both Joe and Michelle are COVID-19 positive. The big, beautiful wedding they have been planning and I have been escaping to when my days have gotten dark, has been scrapped. I don’t know what their plans will be from here on out. We will just wait and see. For now, I am trying to figure out what I am going to do with all the wedding and rehearsal dinner stuff I planned to surprise them with that now are null and void and have the wrong dates on them. I am pleased to say that they are both handling this much better than I am. I am crushed, but that is my selfish human side that has been literally living for this event since my diagnosis. Ah well, I am sure this feeling will pass as they move on to celebrate when and where they can. They both have cold symptoms but are doing fine and quarantining at home with their dogs. I am sure they will have plenty of time together over the next few weeks to figure out a plan that works for them.

Today I went and got my three month CT scans done of my chest, abdomen and pelvis. I decided to follow the advice of the nurse I saw last time in the radiology department and asked for them to access my port rather than try and start an IV. That is what it is there for, afterall…easy access and less pokes for me. They didn’t have the proper equipment and had to jerry-rig a huge needle coming out of my port. I am not certain the radiology nurse really knew what she was doing. Made me a little nervous. This port goes directly to the large blood vessel feeding into my heart. I think I shall see if I can swing by the cancer center and have them access my port for me prior to the scans in 3 months. Yikes. That being said, the scans themselves went well and went by quickly. The radiology department was packed. I went to another waiting area to stay away from the crowds, even though we were all masked and separated somewhat. I was called almost right away and done within 20 minutes. Trying to secure a 1.5 inch large bore needle out of my chest took longer than the scan itself, I think. (that is 3 times the size of the need they normally use) I hadn’t had anything but water since dinner the night before, so I got something to eat and headed home. I had been home about an hour when my doctor’s office called. He wanted to talk to me about the results of my CT scans. I have to admit my heart jumped into my throat because I had a zoom meeting set up for tomorrow to talk to him about the results. If he was calling me so soon, something must be wrong. So there is good news and bad news. Good news first, because it is good news. My tumors were all stable or showed some shrinkage. Yay! This is what I wanted! So this is good. The bad news, and the reason he needed to call me straight away was that I have a small blood clot in my left lung. He says these are not uncommon and are easy to treat. He called in a prescription of Eliquis for me (which Walgreens was out of, so I have to wait until tomorrow to pick it up). It is a new generation blood thinner which I will be on for 30 days. My doctor seems to think it will not cause any issues. However, I have to take it a bit more easy….try not to do anything that could cause me to bleed in anyway. So kickboxing is on hold. However, I think the speed bag should be fine! Anyhow, so that is the deal…I am relieved that all is going well with the tumors and the chemo. I think I could have had this blood clot for a few weeks now and it hasn’t slowed me down, so I would love to just treat it and be done with it! I have a wedding to dance at in 8 days! I kept asking my doctor about the meds he was putting me on and restrictions, side effects, etc. (I am a former nurse and I also like to know what is going into my body.) He just kept saying, “Don’t fall.” I finally told him I was planning on cutting a rug with my family on the dance floor at my son’s wedding next weekend and I would try my best not to fall! Don’t worry, I am not taking this lightly….this would have totally freaked me out a year ago. However, I will take it easy and listen to my body. But on to the wedding!!!

Well, it is the icky week…the week after chemo where I am tired, emotional, and feeling nauseated. I was able to take my five mile walk this morning but just couldn’t handle a kickboxing workout today. I didn’t have a good night’s sleep and that added to the tiredness of the day. I did get a phone call from my local oncologist’s nurse this afternoon. I had been pleading with my doctor to run a hormonal receptivity test on my tumor that was removed from my pelvis in Nov 2019. It was an uphill struggle to get him to run this very simple test that should have been done straight away. Anyhow, the test took all of 4 days to get completed. My tumor came back to be greater than 90% positive for estrogen receptors and greater than 70% for progesterone receptors. This means my cancer could be treated in other ways than just chemo if I needed a break or when it stops working. I could actually use hormonal therapy to combat the growth of my tumors. There are many LMS thrivers out there that have never been on chemo and have had stability on drugs that stifle the growth of the cancer through hormone blockers. Because my tumor is so highly receptive, there is a change that will work for me if I need it as well. It is just another weapon in my arsenal. It was a small balm in my day. I am unhappy that I am having to educate my own physician and fight so hard for these tests that should be commonplace. But tomorrow is another day, and even though I am feeling a bit green right now, I am going to go settle into bed with a book for awhile and hope that sleep comes more easily.

I am long overdue for some special thanks…and I don’t want to forget. Thank you so much to Fiona Macklon for the gorgeous flower arrangement! Thanks for remembering it was my 6th round of Doxil and what a big deal it was to get there! Thanks also to Kathy Martz, who send some yummy edible arrangements for the whole family to enjoy. I think I am going to try to recreate those chocolate covered apple slices. Wow! Also thank you to my Uncle Steve for the Christmas ornament. I am fighting my best fight right now and I appreciate you supporting me. Brekk Macpherson….my good friend and housemate in nursing school…thank you for the wonderful plaque. Both you and my Uncle Steve went along the same vein….cancer can change your life but there are a lot of things in your life that cancer CANNOT take from you. Thanks for reminding me of that when sometimes the days are darker than others.

Well, off to bed to try and continue to recover from the chemo a bit before the big shin dig in Kansas City (my son’s wedding) in 11 days. (Not that I am excited and counting or anything!)

14 years ago a tiny little girl from Shangrao, Jiangxi, PRC officially became our daughter. Ling Guang Su was placed into our arms the day prior for the requisite 24 trial time at the hotel for compatibility. She was 20 months old, wearing 9 month clothing and scared to death of us and everything around her. She most quickly found common ground with her big brothers who blew bubbles and placed ball with her. She had her daddy wrapped around her finger pretty quickly as well. Since I was taking the place of her foster mom, I was not as much appreciated. (This is common but didn’t make it any easier.) Lily would cry and scream if I touched her Baba (her daddy). Since we hold hands everywhere we go, this was an issue. After several days of letting me do all of her caregiving activities, the wall began to crumble and we became a family. There were bonding issues for years and there may always will be due to her early life in China. However, today, 14 years ago, Ling Guang Su became officially Lily Su Grace Messina and her life was changes forever. Now we can’t imagine a day without her! I thank God for leading us to her through the help of so many people along the way. We lived in Okinawa at the time we adopted her and having the support of our families even though everything was being done so far away from them meant so much. I often think of her Chinese parents who gave her up for a better life…and whether or not she has a sibling or two in China or elsewhere that she may never know. All I know is that she has been daughter officially for 14 years today and I can’t be more thankful! Happy forever family day Lily!

I did a little something yesterday….something that most of you take for granted. Last summer when Joe proposed to Michelle, I decided to grow out my pixie cut straight blonde hair to an all-one-length bob for the wedding 15 months later. Should have been an easy thing for me to do. However, cancer stepped in and chemo had me bald at the beginning of 2020. By the end of March, I was switching chemo regimens and the new chemo allowed my hair to grow back. It was no longer straight and blonde, but brown and curly. This was jarring for me as I walked by mirrors in my house. I have been wearing some kind of head covering since the turn of the year. Well, yesterday I got a hair cut. I went back to my old pixie haircut, which looks different with dark hair and curls. I have always been told that the difference between a good hair cut and a bad one is about 2 weeks. So I waited until I was in the 2 week zone from the wedding. I also got some advice and some mousse to control things a bit better. During the night, a cool front came through and now the weather is so much better. I still have to be cautious about being in the sun due to the chemo, but it was cloudy and cool this morning for my walk. I even slept a bit later and caught up on some steroid -stealing make-up sleep as well. I went out on my normal 5 mile walk with Tallinn completely hatless. It even confused him. He always knows that if I reach for my green Boston Red Sox hat, we are going for a walk. Anyhow, it is oddly freeing to get to go out of the house without covering my head. It was covered because it was bald for almost 4 months…then growing out and crazy unruly after that. Now I feel almost human again. I have scans planned for this Thursday with a zoom meeting with my local oncologist the next day for results. Hopefully it is still working. I am just getting back to “normal”. Here are some photos of the hair cut!

Not a lot to write as I should be in bed sleeping…but the steroids have my mind up and running tonight. I had my 6th round of Doxil today. I will be getting CT scans of my chest, abdomen and pelvis next Thursday and then will have a zoom meeting for the results with my local oncologist. He will push my scans to the Mayo clinic and then I will also have a zoom meeting with my sarcoma specialist there at some point. I am hoping for overall shrinkage or stability. I could then stay on doxil for longer.

I convinced my doctor to finally do some tests on my tumor removed in Nov of 2019….tests that should have been automatically run in pathology after the surgery. I have been asking for the tests for months and I finally realized I wasn’t speaking his language. You know the infamous 5 love languages? Don’t get excited….I wasn’t speaking a love language to my oncologist. However, he is an older doctor and has the mentality of treating the pathology and not the patient. (at least that is the jist I have gotten from him). In the beginning of our relationship, he would print out pages and pages of medical studies for me to review on different kinds of chemotherapy treatments and their efficacies with LMS. So I printed out 4 studies about the kind of treatment I wanted to have available to me if these tests showed I qualified. He was pretty impressed and told his resident that if I were his resident, he would have been impressed and told me what a good job I did. The resident half rolled his eyes/half glared and me through his protective eyewear and mask at that comment. Good thing he’ll be gone and a new one will be there next time. Here’s to shrinkage or stability so I can know I can continue this protocol! I have gotten spoiled feeling normal 3 of the 4 weeks!

This is something that I have been following mostly on social media between my friends. I wanted to touch on it a bit from my point of view. Take it or leave it. It is my personal opinion. I live in Omaha and they just last week passed a mandatory mask rule in public settings. Nebraska is one of a very small number of states who never had a lock down in effect. Nebraskans pretty much were doing what they should be doing. However, we are in the middle of the country and the virus seemed to hit the coastlines and then move inward. We were one of the last places to really get hit. So as we were starting to open up and let more people into churches, restaurants and stores, we were peaking. This did not help a lot. A few months later and we were considered a hot spot. Now if you look at our numbers, you won’t see high positives or death rates. However, if you compare that to how many people actually live in Nebraska (a mostly rural state), it is troubling. Granted, we have some of those meatpacking places that have driven our overall numbers up. We also have a couple of assisted living homes who have bit hit hard.

I have read on Facebook the argument that we shouldn’t live in fear and we should trust in our faith in God to take care of us. I have a few things to say about that. I am not going to lie…my faith has been battered about a bit over the last nine months with this cancer diagnosis and treatment. However, my Lord has never left my side. Just because I am weak doesn’t mean He is. But I also don’t believe that the Lord gave us brains so we wouldn’t use them in His name. I am not going to dance into a pit of rattlesnakes or run into moving traffic because I have faith God will spare me. That is ridiculous. I am going to use my free will and my brain to make wise choices. So when it comes to physical distancing and wearing a mask, I am going to do it. I am going to be especially vigilant because of my weakened immunity and underlying chronic illness. Let’s face it, my lungs were weakened when they were attacked by the first chemotherapy I was on. Because they have been attacked, especially so recently, I am very likely to get very very ill if I were to contract COVID 19. So I am careful. Not because I don’t have faith, but because God gave me free will and a brain and I am using both. Do I believe that the press is promoting fear-mongering? Yes, I do. The press when I was growing up was great. Walter Cronkite reported the facts and then you decided what to do with that information. There was no reporters interviewing other reporters and their opinions making stories into headlines. This is why I often read American news through the eyes of foreign news sources, like BBC. They tend to be more factual and it is refreshing to not get thrown down a rabbit hole of liberalism or conservatism.

This past week Rich and I were both exposed to someone who was COVID-19 positive. After 9 months of being so incredibly careful…everything was dashed when I was in contact with someone who was COVID-19 positive and not wearing a mask. I was, however. That is not how things work though….it is the person who is COVID positive who need that mask the most. This young person was infected because he played hockey and softball with a guy who was positive. I have to say, I was mad. I was unChristianly mad. I could have gotten very sick even though I had done everything right. I have not been that mad for that long in a very long time….if ever. I have my son’s wedding to go to in 3 1/2 weeks. That has been my first goal to achieve with living with LMS Stage IV…to make it to this wedding. All was going well until this chance crossing with this guy, who is a friend. Rich and I had to go through getting tested early Saturday morning. The kind of tests they use here at the Test Nebraska sites are the nasal swabs…they ones that “practically touch your brains,” as Rich would say. They take a long swab and stick it up one nostril until it touches the back of your throat. Then the tech will spin the swab. They remove the swab and then repeat on the other nostril. It isn’t pleasant, but in the vast scheme of things that I have gone through in the last 10 months, it wasn’t too awful. If you ask Rich, he will have a different answer though. We were tested on a Saturday morning and the lab did not get our samples until the next morning. The clock started at that point…72 hour wait. We received our NEGATIVE results this morning at 0500. But we had to go through all the scenarios for the three days we were waiting for our results to come back…the impact to our family….Lily being able to start school (which she will be live once a week and the first day is tomorrow)…the wedding….our business possibly having to close for awhile…and no chemo treatment for me. It was really awful to always have that in the back of your mind and it really could have been avoided with the simple wearing of a mask. Sigh. So I support the wearing of masks…physical distancing. I am not living in fear. I am living my life as best I can without losing it to a nasty virus that could easily kill me. I know I will have to be careful at the wedding….but this is my child’s wedding day and I won’t miss it or sit in a corner. Actually, I can’t wait! My other two kids are in the wedding so I will be a weepy mess I have a feeling. Good tears though!

I wanted to thank Judi Wilson for a wonderful book…. “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse” by Charlie Mackesy. It is a book about friendship and just being who you are. It is a very short read, but an impactful one. I have considered Judi my best friend since we met in Minnesota in 1997. We had 5 kids between us and we were each others’ sanity check. Nothing has changed 23 years later. We now have 6 kids between us and 5 of them are adults. A whole new challenge. Anyhow, I hope you all are well and you are all staying safe!

I dub the week after chemo the “icky week” because I am tired and nauseated and over emotional. I am going to toot my own horn for a second and let you all know that I did 5 kickboxing workouts this week. I sucked it up and did it and am better for it (I hope!). I did miss walking my five miles one day but it was a torrential downpour and honestly, it was the Holy Spirit giving me a nudge to just take it easy. That was yesterday and that rest got me over the hump. I went to bed before 10 last night and slept pretty hard until 7 this morning….and no cancer dreams. I even woke myself from a dream and smiled thinking it was nice to be dreaming of something ridiculous and that didn’t have to do with cancer.

I have been binge watching “Good Bones” on Hulu this week after I finish my workouts, walks and work. It is a show about a mother and daughter who rebuild houses in Indiana and flip them. They are a hoot. I just enjoy watching the show. The mom, Karen, said something yesterday on one of the shows that has really just stuck with me. She had just had a big disappointment…something had gone wrong and all her hard-laid plans were dashed. So Karen said something along these lines….”You know how you have a big disappointment and you realize you are having an over-the-top reaction to that disappointment? You realize you are making a mountain out of a molehill but it is YOUR reaction and you just can’t help it. You need to just digest the situation and let yourself have your feelings, even if they are over-the-top…and others need to let you.” It was just the perfect message for me to hear. Cancer patients, especially those with a stage IV diagnosis battle their emotions….battle depression on a level you can’t imagine unless you have walked in their shoes. That is okay. That is NORMAL. I have been strong for a lot of people for a long time and it wears on me. I cannot be strong for you right now because I need to be strong for me. Please allow me that. It will get better as time goes on. It already has. Today I met a bunch of wonderful women in a LMS newcomers zoom meeting for newly diagnosed patients. I met some women from around the U.S. and one from the UK (this was a pretty small group). We ranged in age from 30’s to 70’s. Some of the panelists have survived stage IV LMS for over a decade! They were giving advice to use newbies…the ones that are still shell-shocked and crying at the drop of a hat at their impending mortality that has been put under a microscope with this awful disease. I made some friends and we all commiserated our fates and then had some laughs together. We all agreed that we had been a bit apprehensive about this zoom meeting but ended up really having a good time and making friends. We are going to keep in touch. The LMS group on FB has 4000 + members, so we can be a micro group within the larger one, supporting each other. The many small blessings of COVID 19….these Zoom meetings never took place prior to this and it is a great way to meet and get together.

Thankfulness….well, I have a lot here. I am so thankful for getting in touch with some folks this week whom I normally don’t chat with. It is always great to catch up with friends and family! Kelly Rump sent me some beautiful flowers today! Kelly and I worked together at Academy International Elementary School in Colorado Springs about 100 years ago….okay, not 100 but almost 20! What a super special surprise! At the same time the flowers arrived, I got a box of the most wonderful pears from my Cali friend, Mei-Ling. Thank you both so much! It was such an unexpected surprise! Thanks to those who checked up on me during the week knowing it was the “icky week”. I am still getting tired more easily but I am starting to round the bend and feel better. I am going to go to the grocery store later tonight when it is mostly empty and stock up for the next week to 10 days on stuff to try some new recipes with. We have been eating frozen leftovers this week as I didn’t have the energy or stomach to do much cooking. Now I need to replenish the supply for the next icky week!