Happy Valentines Day!

Heart-felt Greetings, Family and Friends!

One of the benefits of spending this time of year in Oregon is seeing flowers on Valentines Day without having to go into a store.  It's been a lot of years since we spent a spring in Oregon, dating back to when Barry was in college in Corvallis in the mid-'70's.  We hope you have all had a wonderful day wherever you are!

It's becoming much easier to find our way around the hospital. We're wondering if that's a good thing, but at least we don't have to spend a lot of time searching for our appointments.  The first new appointment this week was to meet Dr. Weizer of the Integrated Medical Team.  It was nice to talk to someone who seems to take a personal interest in what we are going through.  We'll be working with him/them on side effects of both the radiation and hormone-blocking therapies.  He was happy to see that we're already well onto the diet thing and taking good care of ourselves.  

In fact, he had Anti-Cancer: a New Way of Life, a book we've become very attached to, in his office.  Like the author of the book, he is also a cancer survivor, who felt there is more to treating cancer than the purely technical surgery/chemo/radiation treatments, so went to med school and now treats people holistically.  He suggested several herbal supplements and has ordered blood work to rule out low Vitamin D and anemia.  I'll do labs after treatment tomorrow.  He has also suggested a few items to include in our diet which should prove to be very interesting, to say the least.  For example, I looked online last evening and was totally blown away by how many recipes there are for chicken livers.  The culinary adventures continue! 

Sunday evening our friend and neighbor from Petersburg, John Hoag, dropped by to visit.  That provided an opportunity to invite Erika, Brad and Rowan over for dinner.  It was their first social outing and Rowan was a little champ.  Our temporary home here has a natural gas barbecue, which I'm just getting used to.  I guess I shouldn't have experimented with a beer-can chicken.  Thankfully, everybody was a good sport about having "blackened chicken" for dinner.  At least the rice pilau was delicious, and the the inside of the chicken was amazingly tasty and tender.    

John asked to hold Rowan for a few moments.  We weren't quite sure if he was getting his grandpa fix, just wanted to be one of the first of our friends to have the privilege, or if he was trying to make his wife, Linda, jealous.  Rowan has a lot of growing to do to catch up with John.  

Brad and Erika are doing great and we think it was good for them to get out.  Rowan is still pretty little, but is now over his birth weight and growing over an ounce a day.


NEWS FLASH - It appears that we will be part- year neighbors of Erika and Brad.  We made an offer on a bank-owned townhouse about five short blocks from their house, and our offer was accepted today.  Subject to the results of the standard inspection, we could close within 10 days.  

For some time, we have been kicking around the idea of being able to spend more time in this area without having to stretch Erika and Brad's generous hospitality.  It has been a buyers' market, which is beginning to turn around.  We made an offer on a similar townhouse in November, but were unsuccessful.  We originally looked over a broader area until Erika told Kathy how nice it would be to put the baby in a stroller and walk over to Nana's house, limiting our search area.  The picture at the left says it all.  It is not our dream home, and will take some planning, time, and effort before it is move-in ready.  We think it will be a great jump-off place for our future adventures. 

Thanks so much for your friendship and support.  It helps us immensely to know that you are with us on our journey. 


Shalom,
     Barry and Kathy