Family Time

Noah and Alex putting on the lights for me!!!

We have to have the stocking picture!

And an embarrased Santa kitty!

Christmas morning!!!

We had such a lovely Christmas with two of my three sons!! We also had Christmas dinner with nearby friends and made music, sang, drummed, fiddled and danced! Noah and another guest, both violinists, played a waltz duet by Jay Unger which Gary and I danced to at our wedding 21 years ago and we danced to it again that night! It was a wonderful time! We have been enjoying our week of reprieve here while I am recovered from the liver problems and feeling so much better and before my surgery.

I hope everyone has a healthy and happy New Year filled with joy and laughter!!!

xo

Update

Hi All! First of all I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year!!! I have throughly enjoyed meeting and interacting with the people who read and respond to my blog! This was a new venture for me and while I thought it was going to be about weaving, it has turned out to be so much more. I have gained a lot of support from all of you and I just want you to know how much you matter to me!!!!!!!

I am traveling to Sloan Kettering in NYC on January 4 and spending the 5th (my Noah's 19th birthday) enduring tests at the hospital. On the 6th I will have the Whipple procedure and we hope to stop this cancer from spreading. Right now the cancer is confined to the pancreas and has not affected any lymph nodes or invaded any other organ as far as they can tell. So I'm hopeful and determined. Hopefully we can afford to take my sons down for the time I will be in the hospital and they will get to see some of the city with all the Christmas decorations and window shop and visit with me as I get stronger. I will be in the hospital they say for at least 7 days and then we are travelling to Keene, NH to drop me at my Mom's. I have sisters nearby who will help and I will probably stay there a week or so just resting.

I hope to use my sister Meg's laptop to keep my blog updated for any who are interested!! And I will be closing my Etsy store for the duration.

Thank you all for your caring comments and all that healthy energy and healing coming my way! It means the world to me!!
xo

More Surgery

Hi All! And many thanks for all your wonderful and warm comments. We had one successful surgery to fix the valve on my liver to my pancreas and the itching has improved a lot and I'm eating a little more and sleeping a lot better. The bad news is the reason the valve collapsed is a cancerous tumor on my pancreas. Right now they have staged it at a 1 with no other involvement though they warn us that they can't know until they are really in there--not just with a scope. So we are looking into Sloan Kettering in NYC for what is called the Whipple procedure but nothing has been scheduled yet. My Adam is looking into flights from Hawaii but we do not have a date yet. I'm taking my boys with me to the city when we go and I think there is a network of people in Manhattan who put people up connected with the Cancer Society. So on to the next adventure of life here in the North Country!!

xo

Surgery

Well, I haven't been able to post very much for the past month or so because I have been ill. It seems that my liver is leaking bile into my body because the valve leading to the gallbladder is full of "sludge" (technical term). So after more than a month of intense itching and nauseousness I have surgery in Vermont Friday afternoon to put in a stent I guess to widen the valve so it can be flushed out. Phew. Finally. And Gary is bringing me and one of my wonderful sisters is an RN and will meet us in Burlington, VT and stay with us throughout the surgery and after. This is done on an outpatient basis so we will get a motel room and spend the night before driving the three hours back to Potsdam. All I can say is it can't come soon enough.

xo Cait