The Blanding Bugle

Volume 21 Issue 9

September 2012

Slow Down

June and July were jammed packed with adventure after adventure so the month of August was tame in comparison. Well, only slightly.

First you will see some great shots of Doreen and Jessie (with some friends) at one of their favorite summer time events: The Dirty Dash. This is a "race" to benefit the LLS (Doreen's cancer) and is just down right fun. Supposedly you are running a 5K race where they put lots of obstacles in your way: mudpits, water slides, cargo nets, huge pools of cold water, etc.  This year Jessie decided to join Doreen on the "big kid" run. (She didn't want to race in the Piglet race.) As you can see they had a BLAST!

They also spent a weekend with Grandma Blanding in Ridgefield just relaxing, having fun and playing with Grandma's new puppies. Doreen wishes she would have taken pictures.

Soccer practice started for Jessie. Mike, Matt and Jason went white water rafting (they didn't take pictures and I have to wait to get them). They say they had a blast--one of the best High Adventures.

We went out to birthday dinners. Mike turned 17, Matt turned 15 and Jessie turned 12.

Steve kept working long hours and Doreen laid around the house doing nothing. Literally for a whole week while she waited for a PETScan!

She has to have a special diet before the scan and do nothing for 24 hours prior to the scan. "No strenuous activity" the paper says.  She started this diet FOUR times and got to about dinner time (when she was going to then fast until after the scan the next morning) but the phone rang each time telling her the machine was broken.  UGH! Finally she went to a different location--Issaquah--for the scan!

This scan was is her annual "let's see if you are still in remission" scan. 

Then the call came and she was to see her doctor. Doctor Kraemer didn't like what he saw and wanted a biopsy of a mass in her chest. After a week of consulting with doctors, surgeons and who knows who else, it was decided that it couldn't be a simple needle biopsy but an "open her up and take a sample" surgery. She had a 2 inch incision along the base of her neck and they took a few ounces of tissue.

She then spent another week just laying around healing waiting for the call.  The call came Friday of Labor Day weekend and it was NOTHING!!! The biopsy was CLEAN!

So our slow months are still full of excitement and adventure.