Been busy

A few samples of what we've been up to. Resting at home a lot, but we did do some picture-taking things and this week is more down to business.

Early Saturday afternoon we went to Glenwood, NM, about 60 miles west of Silver City, for the annual Dutch Oven Cook-off. Great family event ... didn't see any drinking, no second-hand smoke, good time for kids. Some folks gussied up their cooking set-up and there were some beautiful dishes produced!

That night we took in the Slide (Ireland) show at WNMU Fine Arts Center Theatre. Five lively young fellow from Ireland, who interacted well with the audience ... lots of clapping and cheering.

This morning we went back to the theater to see the same group interacting with hundreds of school kids. We are really impressed with the way the Mimbres Region Arts Council not only brings good groups like Slide (Ireland), but also adds an educational component to the visit. Visual arts and music are alive and well in Silver City! tv

Great way to begin Year Four!

We're still recovering from being away for a week, the stress of the medical stuff, the reunion with the varmints (cat yowling at 4:50 a.m.!) and so on. Taking it slowly.

Yesterday was our third wedding anniversary, celebrated quietly at home. In the long run, the most important event was the phone call Sandy received from the Mayo: They got it all!

There were no cancer cells found in the marginal tissues around the section that was removed. That, with the discovery at the time of surgery that there was no involvement of the lymph nodes, means NO follow-up surgery will be needed, no mastectomy!!! Great news, a great relief.

They also moved up and consolidated our follow-up visit, so we go back to Scottsdale on the 12th for appointments on the 13th. This will only be a 3-day trip, instead of the 4-day planned earlier. At that time, we should learn definitively about what follow-up treatment will be needed, radiation and/or chemo.

Plus, we got word that the pictures we submitted to the Mesa Verde Association a year ago have finally been approved and we will be providing our keepsake photo cards to them for sale at the Mesa Verde National Park outlets. Nice plus for FeVa Fotos!

The sun is finally coming up, after a night with temperatures that approached freezing and it should be a beautiful day. And we have tickets for the Slide (Ireland) music show at the WNMU Fine Arts Theater tonight. Should be lively and fun! Life is such a good thing! tv

Our third anniversary!

Just a few words to say how deeply joyous I (Tom) am to have been married three years today to the woman shown above (Sandy). Even on the eve of surgery for breast cancer, she was out with me on photo safaris, experiencing the joy of the world around us and the photo opportunities it presents.

She helps me see the roses we are surrounded by and enjoy them from all angles. She fills in the gaps my poor brain has, pointing out things I'd never see or think of. We delight in sharing the cooking, seeing what new, never-to-be-repeated dishes the leftovers prompt to whoever's in the kitchen. We share the joy of finding new eateries, watching kids in parades down Bullard Street and the everyday antics of the three beasts that live with us, plus the deer herd that comes around to trim the grass.

We've covered tens of thousands of miles together in the old Jeep tin can on wheels, always seeing new things to share and remember.

I'm looking forward to many thousands of miles more together, Sandy, along with many thousands of photos taken together ... and millions of hugs and kisses. I love you, and am so glad you're part of my life! Tom

Good news!

Sandy's lumpectomy went smoothly this morning and the surgeon said the lymph nodes show NO cancer! This is a great relief and bodes better for a quick recover. She will need to have radiation in about three weeks, but the chemo, which we had figured would surely be part of the picture, may not be necessary, depending on the analysis of what Dr. Wasif took out this morning. If so, we're ready, but that's a more positive outlook than we had been expecting. And the fact that it hasn't spread through the lymph system is wonderful!

Back to Silver City tomorrow; one day at a time. tv

Pre-op day

'Twas a windy day yesterday, with rain most of the way back from Tucson to Mesa. But, we got to see cousin Karen English and had a good visit to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum and we got back in time to dine at the nearbly Olive Garden before the lines started forming.

Today we get down to business. We have the morning off, so to speak, then an afternoon of tests and pre-op exams for Sandy at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale. Tomorrow is the big day, so no food after midnight. Fortunately, she reports to the Mayo Hospital in north Phoenix at 5:30 a.m. tomorrow, so she won't go hungry for long. That means we're getting up at about 4 a.m., though! (Don't forget Sandy's blog, "One Day at a Time, With Gratitude," at sfeutz.blogspot.com.)

There were lots of photo opportunities at ASDM; it's beautifully laid out. Just a few were the business end of a barn owl, a sepia maze of cholla needles and a rather grumpy-looking male Anna's hummingbird, displaying his iridescent fringe. tv

Went to (and going to) the zoo, the zoo ...

So, moving through the days till we do pre-ops on Tuesday and surgery on Wednesday, we've kept the room in Mesa ... a bit of a drive to the Mayos, but an excellent rate, good accommodations, close to a variety of good restaurants (McD to Outback and Red Lobster) and adjacent to the Superstition Springs Mall. And reservations are scarce in that area, a combination of spring training and spring break has motels packed. Restaurants typically have half-hour waits at 6 p.m.

Saturday we did the Phoenix Zoo. All day long. And it was a zoo! Families everywhere, having fun on spring break. The temperature was pretty comfortable, but these oldsters were pooped by the time we got back to our motel room. Faced with a half-hour wait at Olive Garden, we delighted in huge root beer floats at Baskin Robbins and slept the sleep of the ... frazzled.

Sunday morning we passed meeting with Friends at Tempe Quaker Meeting, then went to visit and have lunch with our Durango Friends, Bob and Nancy Dolphin, who winter at Friendship Village. They have wonderful buffet lunches there! Afterward, I felt like that fat prairie dog in the sun.

Then we joined 589, 365 other cars on I-10, heading for Tucson. We stopped briefly for our first Trader Joe's experience, then went on to my brother- and sister-in-law's place in NE Tucson. Sherrie gave us a tour of her latest encaustic art projects and we went to SE Tucson to dine with Mike and Beth and Abby and Karen. The oldsters were dead to the world by 9 again!

The tractor picture is just to show how old I am. The idea of tractors as playgrounds is a new one to me ... they were work implements when I was a kid!

The Sumatran tiger was clearly the star of our photo safari ... gorgeous! And we considered ourselves lucky to see the two koalas before they went home at the end of the month ... but they sleep most of the time!

Today we're heading for the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum in SW Tucson and then back to Mesa and our motel room, probably to once again sleep the sleep of the frazzled. During the day, we should be pinning down our schedule for Tuesday and Wednesday.

More when we know it. tv

Been there, done that!

No pics today, just update. Go to Sandy's blog for the inside story: sfeutz.blogspot.com.

You'll see this there, as well as here:

Dear All,

Without getting too Rumsfeldian, I'll just say it's a relief to have the fog of uncertainty parted at least a little and have the way ahead clearer.

We did our initial Mayo thing yesterday afternoon. Everyone was wonderfully gracious, helpful and on the same team, which is reassuring in itself. The key contact was, of course, the surgical oncologist (or is he an oncological surgeon?) Dr. Nabil Wasif. Pleasant, easy-to-understand and very good at laying out the situation. The initial meeting led to a hurry-up mammogram, which we were then able to discuss with him about an hour later and lay out what will happen next.

The point of the mammogram was to clear up his questions about what else may be in there besides the marginal cancer at the 6 o'clock and 9 o'clock margins of the sample removed in Silver City. Yesterday's views shows that there is calcification at each end of that sample that needs to be addressed, too. There is also the question of checking the nearby "sentinel lymph nodes" to see if there is any indication of the cancer spreading.

So, we are on track for Sandy to have a lumpectomy at the Mayo Hospital in Phoenix sometime Wednesday. Some preliminary steps will have to be taken the day before at the Scottsdale Clinic; we're also not sure of the timing on that. We're to be called Monday with the exact schedule. That leaves us a little uncertain as to how to play the next few days, but we've pretty much decided to stay in AZ, rather than trekking back and forth to Silver City. We came prepared to stay into next week and we'd rather be closer than five hours away. Today will be zoo day!

I think Dr. Wasif was very good about laying out options and risks. While this is not something there can be guarantees about, he was very clear that Sandy's chances are very good ... the lumpectomy has a good chance of taking care of the problem, and it leaves mastectomy as a fallback procedure if necessary. As I understand it, the lumpectomy will have to be followed by both radiation treatment and chemotherapy, but he was confident that both of those can be handled at the Cancer Center in Silver City.

In the end, both of us are glad we came to the Mayo and reassured that Sandy is in good hands!