Treatment

William 9 Comments

As many of you know, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year. The diagnosis occurred before I started the blog and while many of you inquired about her health in e-mails and phone calls, I have never discussed it in a post. I asked my mother to send me an e-mail about her treatment so that I could post it to the site and she could tell everyone in her own words about the progress she has made.

Hi William,
I was diagnosed with breast cancer on April 13, 2006. Chemotherapy started May 1. I finished chemotherapy on August 7. I have been on immunotherapy for one month and have 11 months to go. I will be having several weeks of radiation sometimes during the immunotherapy. When radiation starts, it will be 5 days a week. My chemotherapy was once every two weeks. My current treatments are once a week. I’m hoping the oncologist will change my treatments to once every 3 weeks soon. This will mean that I will get 3 times the Herceptin that I’m getting now but only once every three weeks. The toxins should be out of my system in 4-5 months. I look forward to seeing all of my side effects from the chemotherapy disappear. I have been very fortunate not to have had severe side effects and I have been very blessed to have so many caring family members and friends supporting me through this.

Love,
Mom”

Thank you to all my friends and family for your continued support. As my mother’s treatments continue, I will post updates on her progress to the blog.

I have a dress!

Kyllan 5 Comments

As you have already read in previous posts, my parents and William’s parents were in Dallas last week and it seems everyone thoroughly enjoyed their time here despite the triple digit heat each day and me running the moms all over town.  We made great progress on the wedding plans.  I now have a dress!  I am not sure how many dresses I tried on, but I would say close to 50 at the different bridal shops we visited.  This includes several dresses I tried on just for fun… no serious interest.  I seemed to have disapointed the salespersons at the bridal shops who were waiting for the “wow” factor from me, but despite what people may say… I liked the dress I chose from the beginning.  I had to think about it for a few days just to make sure it was indeed “the dress”, but I am very excited about the decision (Actually… I think my mom was more excited than I was).  My measurements have been taken, the dress is ordered, and I have been asked  by the stylist not to gain or lose any weight between now and September 8, 2006… we will see how that goes.  My thoughts are I will probably lose 10lbs since I am on my fitness kick right now and then gain them back later next year when I find excuses not to work out. 

After 5 cake tastings, we also settled on a bakery for the cakes and I even found a design for the groom’s cake that William gave the thumbs up to (those of you who know William well know this is not an easy task)! 

We are still undecided on a florist, but we have a bit more time to make decisions for that.  The major items are out of the way…bride, groom, ceremony location, reception location, photographer, cake and dress.  With a little bit over a year left, I think we are in good shape.   

I am not sure who won the golf tournament my dad and William’s dad had going each day, but I think there was some fierce competition on the course.  It was good to see the Brown & Cody families come together and it appears there are already plans for another gathering, so that is great news. 

So the planning continues as we approach the 12 month mark.  Make sure you are saving your pennies!  I think everyone will be in for a great celebration next September. 

The Tour

William 3 Comments

While in Dallas our parents toured the construction on the new house. My dad used the video capture mode on his camera to record a brief tour. You can check it out below. My parents flew out today. Kyllan’s Parent leave tomorrow. I’ll let make kyllan post and tell everyone about all of the wedding details they planned this past week.

2 more days to go!

Kyllan 2 Comments

As I mentioned on a previous post, my mom and William’s mom are in town this week and have been accompanying me on the visits to the wedding vendors.  We have seen lots of good vendors so far…. I already have a few dresses I really like (although according to the stylists at the bridal salons, I am not giving them the “wow” factor), we have tasted many wonderful cakes and visited a few florists.  It appears that we will be able to begin making some decisions as early as tomorrow!  I still have several on the list for tomorrow and Friday, but we have made great progress!  So… that’s the update so far.  I will post this weekend to let you know what choices I made.  

Changes

William 8 Comments

I may be making some changes to the site. Please let me know what you think of the look and if everything is working properly.

EDIT: I am having some issues. One feature, Kyllan didn’t even know we had on the last template, the other can’t be seen in Internet Explorer. (I use firefox, so should you…) Both issues deal with site navigation. You use to be able to click on the header at any time to return to the front page. Now you have to use the “home” link at the top of the image. In firefox there is extra text in the header, that I don’t want, that functions as a link. I can’t seem to fix one issue without breaking the other. (Issue fixed. I’ll save the other issue for later.) Kyllan and Kim N. gave the update a thumbs up. Let me know what you think… Back to firefox. I set most of my links to open new windows (pop). In firefox this opens a new tab in the current window. As Kyllan reminded me earlier today, most people don’t use firefox. In the future, would you prefer I make links open in your current window? Am I wasting my time even posting links? (Tab browsing is great. It allows users to open mutiple web pages inside of one window while web surfing. IE 7 will also feature tab browsing. The beta is now available, but if you didn’t know that, you probably not interested in using a beta. The beta for media player 11 is also available…

Chris

William 3 Comments

Yesterday my department had our hurricane preparedness meeting. It appears we had good timing because tropical storm Chris appears to be heading towards the gulf. We are not getting nervous or anything, but lets just say we are keeping an eye out. People here aren’t ready for another hurricane. If you haven’t already herd me say it, I can’t wait to get out of this city.

In other news… Well, I don’t really have any other news. The first mover stopped by to get an estimate for the move to Denver. Kim N. uploaded some more pictures to her flickr account. The Jacksonville Jaguars started training camp. (Kim P., did you see that Joe Paterno says he is going to coach for ten more years?!?)

Gearing up for a week of wedding planning!

Kyllan 2 Comments

Well… the countdown continues…. and the hardcore wedding planning is about to kick in.  My parents and William’s parents will be in town this weekend and next week.  I have taken all of next week off work so that my mom, William’s mom, and I can visit wedding vendors until we collapse (just kidding).  I don’t know if the moms know what they are getting themselves into.  I can be quite indecisive at times, so when it came to narrowing down the vendors, I did the best I could, but I still ended up with about 20 different appointments while they are here.  This will include tasting wedding cakes, talking with florists and for the first time ever…. I will try on wedding dresses, which I am sure will feel very strange.  We will also look at possible rehearsal dinner sites, and let William’s parents see the reception site.  So… things are finally start falling into place, which would be nice because that we mean we would have the majority of the wedding planned a year in advance.  I will try to keep everyone posted on how things go. 

In the meantime… progress continues on the house.  I have posted new pictures of the cabinets that went in today!  I was very pleased with how they look.  I will say that the pictures do not do the cabinets justice.  The color is actually a bit darker than the photos make them appear, but it will have to do for now.  This phase is very exciting because when you pick out colors and finishes at the design center, you still don’t quite know what it will look like in the house, so to see the choices come to life is great!  I am very anxious about the paint since you don’t know the true color until it is on the wall and it dries, but I am sure it will turn out fine.  The paint should be done by the end of the week, so I will post more photos then.  You can always check to see new photos on my flickr page.  The link to my flickr account is on the sidebar on the right side of the page.