Fr. Tony Update: VERY EXCITING NEWS...
Jeanne and the Arc...
Chicsy: Project finished...
Fr. Tony Update: VERY EXCITING NEWS...
We're very excited to announce that Tony's lab work came back extremely well! Dr. Craig is pleased as peaches, as are we! You may recall, anemia was a serious problem when this all began. Passing of protein in the urine was also an issue, and an indicator of something gone wrong. The other important factor is the IgM level. Well, Tony's not anemic, and he's not passing proteins, and the IgM level is still up, but expected to decrease over time, since the Rituxan takes a while to do its magic. The IgM level can be up as a result of increased numbers of dead cells dying off. (I think I have that right) All in all the reports are good, and it looks like we might just have this cancer beast contained.
Tony will undergo another month long round of the Rituxan chemo, beginning Feb. 20th.... then we wait and see. I presume the goal would be to get to a point where Tony would only have to undergo a maintenance round of chemo, once a year. As you might recall, Waldenstrom's Macroglobulinemia is not curable. It must be "managed", and kept in check.
To celebrate the good news, Tony went and got a cold, and an ear ache! hrumph.
Yesterday we checked in with the dermatologist, and we highly suspect his basal cell cancer (that was treated and removed last year) is coming back. We'll know more in a few weeks. If it is coming back, it looks like Tony will undergo a minor surgery to remove the cancer, and have a skin graft put in place to cover the unsightly large hole/spot on the end of his nose. Darn, and I was sure I'd get that nose pierced, if they dug any further into his nose!
While we were with Dr. Hardy, I had my annual spot check done, and ended up having a few spots frozen on my face. OUCH!!! Having grown up in sunny south Florida, under the old rule of "send your kids outside to soak up some vitamin D", and the luck of inheriting my pasty white German skin, I have also inherited the gift for getting skin cancer. So, all you pasty whites out there, USE YOUR SUNCREEN, and put on a hat!
Some of you (especially son Mark+) will be pleased to know the doc has prescribed and evaluation and physio therapy for the ole parson. YAY. So, we'll be joining HealthWorks. I've been meaning to do this for about a year, to try and help fight this ever increasing battle with the matabolism of a snail, and ever increasing fluff.
Tony's blog gets recognized, yet again:
This morning we discovered that a very popular Anglican blogger has added Tony's most recent blog entry to his site. If you've yet to subscribe to Tony's blog, below is a bit of his latest entry...
The Reverend Anthony FM Clavier
February 7th, 2007
It looks very much to me that those who want to harshly discipline TEC and those who are unlikely to want to do much more than give us a slap on the wrist are evenly divided. That leaves about six Provinces whose primate may go one way or the other, but probably wouldn’t support the blustering of the Archbishop of Nigeria. Indeed it is not at all clear that the Global South leaders are as pleased with +Peter Nigeria as they once were. Those who have set up shop in the United States are equally liable to receive a purple hued boot in their archiepiscopal posteriors. Whats sauce for the goose…
Read more by clicking here. While you're there, remember you can subscribe to Tony's blog, then you'll receive an email with his latest blog entries.
Jeanne and the Arc:
Snow, Snow, Snow, Bitterly cold temperatures and BUSTED PIPES! Our annual busting of the pipes happened yesterday. Fortunately our Jeanne was at the church when it happened, but ohhhhh, did she have her hands full till help arrived. Not only were all the choir robes getting their annual soaking, but the burst was such that Tony's vestments also got soaked. OY! Fortunately, we were able to reach a handful of folks to go over and help, but there's still a lot of clean-up to do.
I guess the second time around is a "charm" as they say, and the pipe has now been insulated. Me thinks we'll find somewhere else to hang the expensive vestments, just in case! In the meantime, all the wet vestments had to be taken to the dry cleaners. We hope and pray they'll be able to clean them, and undo the dye bleeding that had already begun to spread. Some of his vestments are over 100 years old, and the lot of them are worth quite a pretty penny.
Interestingly, as we were arriving home from taking all the vestments to the dry cleaners, we couldn't get onto our street because a water main had broken... NO water at the house. grin
CHICSY UPDATE
Chicsy: Felted Market Bag Finished
I finally got the beast finished and felted. See Below. If you can't tell how big it is, you could probably fit a watermelon in it!
I bought a couple pair of Denim shorts at the thrift store, and voila....
To see a larger version of the images, simply click on the picture.
Time for some shut-eye. Stay warm y'all. PitterPat
