New happenings in our valley!

#1 - we now have heavy rail access from Provo/Orem in to Salt Lake City.  Hooray!  FrontRunner is up and going.  We haven't ridden it yet, but look forward to taking the train to SLC.




#2 - we now have our own outlet mall at Traverse Mountain (at the point of the mountain between Provo and Salt Lake City)  Hooray!  An outlet mall closer to home. Check on the link to see the stores that are now open.

#3 - the I-15 corridor major upgrade finished in December 2012.  Hooray!  It is a major improvement and makes getting around so much easier.  It's lovely to have five or six lanes to drive in on the freeway instead of three.  I've got to hand it to the engineers of the freeway expansion.  They did an amazing job of widening a major freeway with very few closures and did the majority of it while the freeway remained open over three years.  We may have become impatient with the orange cones, delays and other nuisances, but it was worth it.  It's a great improvement for our valley!

I-15 CORE Construction Is Now Complete

The Utah County I-15 Corridor Expansion (I-15 CORE) is now complete. Construction on the project was finished in an unprecedented 35 months, making it the fastest billion-dollar public highway project ever built in the United States.
I-15 CORE reconstructed 24 miles of freeway from Lehi to Spanish Fork. The project widened the freeway by two lanes in each direction; replaced the original asphalt with new 40-year concrete pavement; extended the Express Lane from Lehi Main Street to Spanish Fork; and rebuilt or replaced 63 bridges and 10 freeway interchanges.
During construction, the I-15 CORE project achieved several notable milestones:

• Moved the Sam White Bridge — the longest two-span bridge to be moved by self-propelled modular transporters (SPMTs) in the Western Hemisphere — into place over I-15 in one night
• Constructed a new continuous flow intersection (CFI) — the first of its kind in Utah County — at University Parkway and Sandhill Road to reduce congestion at one of the busiest intersections in the county
• Constructed a new diverging diamond interchange (DDI) at 500 East in American Fork — the third DDI completed in Utah County
• Completed more than 90 percent of I-15 closures and restrictions during overnight hours to reduce inconvenience to the public
• Implemented lane splits to keep existing travel lanes open as much as possible while paving continued in the middle of the freeway
• Installed advanced traffic management system (ATMS) devices including 93 sensors, 36 cameras, 22 ramp meters and four permanent variable message signs to help UDOT engineers monitor traffic, respond to incidents and ensure the transportation system functions as efficiently as possible to keep traffic moving

Chemo # 6 - por fin!

 It's over!  December 5 was the day of my last harsh chemo treatments!  My sister Janet went with me to the chemo clinic and stayed with me the whole five hours while we saw Dr. Wallentine and I then received the two chemo drugs Taxotere & Carboplatin and the target therapy drug Herception, with the wonder  anti-nausea drug Aloxi, steroids and Benadryl mixed in for good measure before hand.  Rick came towards the end as well and saw me through this last leg of a very long journey.  Then is was home to rest and enjoy a few days while the anti-nausea drugs and steroids were working their magic at keeping me mostly nausea free.

Two days after treatment, I said goodbye to dear sister Janet who had stayed four and a half days and helped me in every way possible get my house ready for our family to come for Christmas and give me much needed moral support.  The rashes were starting to set in as she was leaving, but I couldn't thank her enough for taking time from her busy December to come and give us a hand up.  It was an act of love and service never to be forgotten. She and her family worked together to make our December a special time for our family and we love them all so much for all they did for us.

 After the anti-nausea drugs wore off, the nausea started to set in.  I went to the clinic two more times to get more fluids and to try and stay on top of the nausea with Aloxi.  It would work for a few days and then I'd be back feeling terrible again.  This went on for about three weeks.  It just gets a grip on you and won't let go.  It's impossible to eat much of anything.  Maybe some potatoes or pasta or about 15 gallons of chicken noodle soup eaten over the course of treatment.  Nothing looks good, tastes good, smells good, is good. I've lost 15 pounds since this all started.  Not a recommended diet plan to say the least.

I had a very bad time with rashes and swelling this time.  The rashes appeared on my hands each time and grew larger with each treatment, crawling up my arms, feet and completely taking over my knees for some reason.  It was hot to the touch and painful when put in water, but didn't itch.  When the redness receded, it left my skin brown like a very good sun tan.  It's weird now to have brown hands, feet and knees and have white skin everywhere else.  Weird. The swelling got really bad in my left leg and foot.  Dr. W. ordered a sonogram to rule out a blood clot in that leg.  There was none.  Apparently because I broke the femur of this leg when I was 20 it caused vascular difficulties that made my left foot swell and not my right.  At one point I was probably carrying about 5-10 extra pounds of fluid in that leg which made it very, very uncomfortable.

My fingernails started to lift off the nail bed.  They aren't attached at the top and I'll probably lose three or four on each hand.  First it would turn red under the nail, then white, then start to lift off. 
When I went back to the clinic on December 26 to get my three week dose of Herception (which will continue every three weeks for a year, ending in August) Dr. Wallentine told me that I had had every side effect it is possible to have over the course of treatment.  Great.  I'm too old to be made infertile by these devil drugs, but I'm sure I would have been had I been younger.  He also ordered an echo-cardiogram to make sure my heart isn't being damaged by the Herception.  So far so good. 

Anyway dear readers, I made it through!!!!!  I'm still standing!!!!  I'm hopefully cancer free now and forever.  How could cancer survive this onslaught of poison that killed off every hair of my body (well except my eyebrows that somehow survived), killed my digestive system, altered my eye sight, changed my....well you get the idea.  See the chart above.
Through it all I'm grateful.  Grateful for family and dear friends who saw me through to the end.  To a husband who was by my side through thick and a lot of very, very thin experiences.  I'm grateful for prayer, priesthood blessings, temple prayer rolls and kind and thoughtful people who lifted our load.  I'm just grateful to be done and for what I learned through the process. More on that later.  Now on with LIFE!

The Santa artwork of Susan Comish

About a month ago I had the opportunity to go to the home of a artist named Susan Comish.  She belongs to a women's group that I attend every month and she invited us all to her home to see her Christmas paintings and specifically her Santa Claus original art pieces that she has hung all over her home.  They were BEAUTIFUL!!  She gave us all a copy of the print of Mr. and Mrs. Claus and I bought another one of just Santa.  I love them!  I BELIEVE in Santa and I love having her work in my home that captures the sparkle and magic of Santa.  Check out her web site here. 

Look at all her PRINTS and ORIGINALS and see how reasonable her prices are.   She is the QUEEN of painting Santa Claus and capturing the magic of Christmas!

Sister love

 My two oldest sisters Janet and Mary Ann came to town to help me get ready for Christmas!  I know my two younger sister would have come as well if they hadn't been working.  This is what they created in about one day of decorating.  I would have taken me days with my low energy to accomplish what they did in hours.  In fact I wasn't even sure if I was up to the task this year.  I love my international creche collection in the living room and my Santa collection in the family room.  My sisters saved the day and got us all ready for Christmas with cleaning, decorating, shopping, wrapping and just having a great time together while listening to Christmas music.  What a BOOST in every way possible before my 6th and last chemo treatment! 
This year my THOUGHTFUL and KIND nephew Dustin and his wife Daelynn cut us a fresh Christmas tree from the mountain near the home where I grew up in Idaho.  I haven't had a freshly cut tree since living in Idaho!  He brought it all the way to my doorstep and set it up ready to decorate!  It's the last picture.  Isn't it beautiful?  It is still so fresh and smells so good.  It's drinking about a quart of water a day and will probably last til Valentines day.  What a sweet, sweet surprise from a darling nephew!

I got these new pictures this year from the artist Susan Comish
 who is a wonderful artist and who paints a lot of Santa paintings.

Janet and her family gave us this wonderful map of the 50 states and we love it!

Thanks Dustin for this beautiful freshly cute Christmas tree.  WE LOVE IT!

Chemo #5

November 14.  My sis-in-law Margie went with me to the chemo clinic this go around.  She stay and chatted with me until Rick came towards the end to take me home.  It was so nice of her to come down all the way from Farmington and spend the day with me.  We had a great visit. It still takes about 5 hours with all the blood work, Dr. visit and then the 5 drips of drugs.  Colleen brought us dinner from Milagros.  Yummy food. The last "real meal" I would eat for about 10 days.  Still have my eyebrows and most of my eyelashes!

I got the Neulasta shot on Thursday which brings bone pain for about four days while the white blood cells are working hard to rebuild.  Dr. Wallentine decided to take a proactive approach this time and and have me return to the clinic on Friday and on Monday following treatment to get saline, steroids and anti-nausea drugs.  They helped so much and I think he will take that approach this last time.  My red and white blood cell counts weren't that good...boarderline...and he even considered postponing treatment for one week. Luckily he decided to forge ahead with my encouragement.  I want to get this over with! Each treatment is harder and it takes longer to recover.  It really beats down my body, but I try to concentrate on the fact that it is also beating down and killing the cancer.  Die, cancer die!
My sweet daughter Jordan came to town from Arizona on Thursday night to help me.  It was so nice to be with her for three days and she took such good care of us cooking, cleaning, raking 12 bags of leaves with Rick and providing loving service.  We even got out Friday pm to watch the last installment of Twilight.  It was so cheesy, but we've come this far, we had to finish off the series and we had some good laughs.  Her husband Jake was the main caretaker of their three little girls while she was gone and it was so good of him to encourage her to come and pay the way for her to fly!

 
Sunday we went out to Rick's parents home for their family Thanksgiving dinner with about 30 people. I rested while they went to church and did absolutely nothing to help out (no one would let me.)  We had a lovely dinner, baby shower for niece Catherine, family pictures and a large extended family gathering of Rick's dads side of the family for the annual pre-Thanksgivng pie party.  About 70 aunts, uncles and cousins attended at their ward building while I stayed at their home and rested.
 

 

Monday, November 19 I got anther IV of saline and anit-nausea drugs and was just barely up and about the next day when Rick and I drove to New Mexico for Thanksgiving with Claire and Rich.  I felt OK and made the trip fine.  Wednesday-Friday I was having more side effects and hardly ate any Thanksgiving dinner.  However, it was worth the trip since we got to see 5 of our 6 grandchildren.  What other activity would put a smile on my face and a spring in my step?? Jordan and Jake drove over from Phoenix and we had a lovely dinner sharing it with Rich's side of the family in his sister Elise's lovely home. 
Saturday the 24, the troups all headed to the BYU-New Mexico state football game in Las Cruses  while I stayed at Claire and Rich's home and watch three movies and rested.  All in all, it was a very fun Thanksgiving holiday and a WONDERFUL distraction from the side effects of chemo #5.  One more to go!

Colleen gave me this darling hat!  What do you think??