Photo Hunters - Hanging

No problem with the Photo Hunters challenge this week. Once I read the topic, my mind immediately thought of this picture of #1Son that I captured on the 4th of July. Took this photo without even knowing how handy it would be for this week's Hunt.
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Photo Hunt - Hanging

#1Son just hanging around - wow, I love this guy.


More "hanging" stuff here.

Blog-Hop Door Prize Winners

Many thanks to Karen and Robin for throwing a great party. I had so much fun meeting new friends, sampling new party food, winning cool door prizes. And the BlogHop party attenders didn't have to worry about the flight home or post- party pounds.

The random number generator did it's magic and selected the two winners for my party door prizes.

The winners are...

Rebecca at Ramblings by Reba

Vinca at Pervanche Bleue

These ladies have been notified.

Thanks to everyone who came to my party. Make sure you're having friends over when you make my dip or you might find you eat it all yourself.

Hope you'll come back and visit.

Photo Hunters - What IS that?

A little late joining The Hunt this week - couldn't find my camera!

Should be a fun Photo Hunters day. We are searching for a photo of something that makes you ask, "what IS that?" Can't wait to see what everyone chose. I'm always amazed at the talent and eye of the Photo Hunters I visit each Saturday.

Today I'm going with two photos that fit the theme.

Photo Hunt - What IS that?

It's not just the angle, they really are pretty big. Good thing my son doesn't have any trouble swallowing large pills. My second son, Joe Cool, has Benign Rolandic Epilepsy of Childhood. These babies are the medicine that he takes to control his seizures which vary from very mild all the way up to Tonic-Clonic. Lucky, he won't have to take these forever. He most likely outgrown this condition in a few years. For now, I'm very grateful for the pills in this bottle.

Now for something fun.



This is a picture into a bag of berbere. Berbere is wonderful stuff and is a key ingredient in Ethiopian cooking. It's very spicy and delicious and my Ethiopian kids love it (and so do I!) When I opened the bag to take the picture the same thing happened to me that always happens when I smell berbere - my mind rushes back to Ethiopia and all the memories of our short time there come flooding back to my mind. Just a whiff and I'm transported. I hope it will always be this way.

Stop by TNChick's for more photos.

Blog-Hop!!

To console the many who are not currently enjoying themselves at the BlogHer conference in California, Karen and Robin have thrown together a fun little BlogHop. What a blast!

So, welcome. Come on in! Take a look around.

What's a party without refreshments? So have a virtual soda (diet available of course) or some sweet tea. And please, sample some of this dip. It's yummy.

Robin suggested that we keep these posts brief so that everyone has time to get around to a lot of parties. Read My 100 for a quick look at who I am. Come back soon and take the ride through Our Adoption Story. It's been quite the adventure.

Thanks again to our wonderful hostesses, Karen and Robin. You can stop by Robin's blog,Pensieve for links to other "places to party."

I'll let you go. I know you have other places to visit. Thanks for coming by. Hope you come by again soon.

Oh and before I forget, please leave me a comment say, "hi!" I'd love to know that you stopped by so I'm giving away a couple of door prizes. (I love door prizes!) One lucky visitor will receive - a $5 gift card to Starbucks and another visitor will receive a $5 iTunes giftcard. All you have to do to win is leave me a comment (just one comment.) On Sunday evening I'll randomly select two winners from this post's comments (even from my regular visitors - so go ahead and comment.)

All Clean!

Well, after waiting all the live long day to get the results of my sentinel lymph node biopsy, I finally talked to my surgeon's nurse at 4:57PM. The good news is that the biopsy was clean of cancer and so were the margins from the portion of my ear that was removed!! So I'm good!

Now I just need to get down to the business of letting my ear and neck heal and being very careful not to get melanoma again. (since that is more likely now.)


Thank you all for your prayers and well wishes!

Boy am I ever glad that's over! Whew!

Their first 4th

Happy Birthday America!!

Today "The Littles" are celebrating their very first 4th of July. We'll take them to our hometown parade and then picnic in the park later. And then tonight after dark we'll enjoy the fireworks.

And as a family we'll talk about how blessed we are to live in such an amazing country.

No news and I won't be getting any

Heard from my surgeon's office that the pathology report on my biopsy isn't ready and won't be available until Monday. So, we'll be waiting through the holiday weekend to know. Bummer.

Back among the living

Before

I am alive and back among the land of the living. Thank you for your prayers.

Monday was a long day...a L-O-N-G day.

We arrived at the hospital around 7AM as we had be instructed. After I checked in, I met with my pre-op nurse and changed into my "fetching" gown. Then they sent me over to Nuclear Medicine so they could locate the lymph nodes that needed to be removed for testing. This special x-ray took over an hour to do because once the special dye was injected in my ear (ouch!) then x-rays were taken every ten minutes to see where the dye traveled. The process worked just as it needed to and the lymph nodes in my neck where identified as the sentinel nodes.

I missed my 10:30AM surgery time because spent 20 minutes laying on a stretcher outside Nuc. Med. waiting to be wheeled back to pre-op. So, I waited with Pastormac for the next available time. We met with my surgeon who made the "official" mark (which was huge) on my ear. The nurse put my IV in and the anesthesiologist explained to us what she had planned.

Then around 12:30PM it was finally time to go. The anesthesiologist gave me a dose of "good stuff" (her words) to relax me and it took all of about 30 seconds to put my lights out. I barely had time to kiss Pastormac before I was unconscious.

I'm told the surgery went well. My surgeon was able to get a good sample of lymph nodes and he was also able to take the larger portion of my ear without having to use a skin graft. I tried to wake up near the end and so required another dose of anesthesia before it was through. This made it extremely hard for me to wake up afterwards and a process that normally takes about 40 minutes took two hours. And I felt pretty yucky when I finally did wake up. The post-op nurse called it "anesthesia hang-over" and boy did I have it bad! Nausea, & disorientation. I was finally released at 6PM and we came home so I could go to bed. We arrived home around 7PM. It felt good to be home.

I spent the rest of Monday night and most of the day on Tuesday laying in bed still getting over the anesthesia and recovering from the surgery. Luckily I did not experience very much pain.

Today (Wednesday) I've felt mostly like myself again although it doesn't take much to make me feel run down. We were allowed to remove the bandages and "check the damage." I have quite a bit of numbness through my ear and neck area. The incision on my neck is about an 1.5 inches and my neck is pretty bruised and sore. My ear - ugh; it's going to take some getting used to. I'll be happy when the swelling goes down and all the stitches come out because right now I think it looks pretty bad. I'm reassured by my family that my ear doesn't look as bad as I think. Today was just a really sad day for me.

Hopefully by tomorrow we will get word about whether there was cancer found in the lymph node samples. For now I'm meditating on 2 Corinthians 4.


After