Hello, my friends....
I know that so many of you have been wondering how we're doing over here at the McVey ranch. Many of you have left comments here, and sent sweet messages via email, on instagram and twitter....some of you have even sent cards in the mail! You've been checking on us, wondering how I'm feeling, how Bart's doing and I know so many of you have continued praying for us. Thank you so much for all of that! I'm so sorry to have kept you hanging for so long!
I have wonderful news regarding Bartley. As many of you may remember, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer earlier this year and had surgery to remove his prostate. It's now been four months since his surgery and he had his first PSA test post-surgery not long ago and I'm thrilled to report that he is CANCER FREE!!! Praise the Lord!! We are over-joyed and are thanking God for pouring out His blessings on us!!! We're just so grateful.
As for me, part of why I've put off sharing any news for so long, is because I don't have a lot of news to share yet. Because we're still in the "trial and error" phase with trying various medicines to help with my issues, I don't always feel well. But I can tell you that sometimes I DO feel well, which is another HUGE answer to prayer!!! After a couple years of almost never feeling good at all, to finally have ANY days feeling great, is a huge relief!!! So again, we're counting our blessings!
The latest is that the doctors at Mayo are still handling my care and every week or so, we're in touch trying various meds to hopefully get me to permanently feeling better. For now, one of the things they're having me take is antibiotics to kill off some of the excess bacteria in my gut. However, you can only take them for 10 days at a time and then you have to rotate to a new one, partly because that's just the nature of antibiotics, and partly becuase some of them can cause nerve damage. Blurg! So the result has been that I take one for 10 days and maybe I feel awesome and then I take another one for 10 days and maybe it doesn't really help at all! Needless to say, it's been pretty up and down for the last 6 weeks or so. ;)
Another twist in all of this that has recently popped up is that some of my blood work came back showing that there might also be a problem with my immune system, which could be contributing to my intestine issues. Let me just interject here, that one of the specialists I saw at Mayo, called me 6 weeks after we were there (and the doctor called on a Sunday, no less!) to say that some of my blood work had come back with these weird results. Once again, I'm so impressed with the level of care we're still getting from Mayo Clinic! She could have just let it go, but here we are 6 weeks later, and as test results come in, she's still looking at my file and recommending treatment options!
Aaaanyway.....another option for us to consider now, is IV treatments that are basically a type of blood transfusion. We're waiting for some more info from a neurologist at Mayo hopefully this week, as to whether I'd be a good candidate for this treatment or not, and once we hear back, we can make our decision. But as we wait, we're praying for wisdom to know if this is something we should pursue. We'd appreciate your prayers in this too! A 6-week course of blood transfusions sounds like a way bigger deal than antibiotics (ha!) and of course, bring with it, their own set of risks.
Even though we may not have things completely figured out with my treatment just yet, I'm just so grateful to be feeling so much better, than I was even 6 weeks ago. I may not feel good all the time, but to feel good ANY of the time, is just such a huge blessing!! God is GOOD and He has blessed us abundantly!
OH, and I can't forget to mention another HUGE blessing......FOOD!!! Haha. I have been able to eat any and all types of food again, with no food restrictions!! Food was never the problem, it was my wonky system! So being able to eat foods that, in some cases, I haven't had for a couple of years, has just been so fun! It's like Christmas! Every other day, we think of another food item or another restaurant that we haven't had in forever, that we can finally have again! So much fun! For both of us, really, because this has all totally affected Bart too! It's nice for him to also be able to enjoy some things we'd been missing out on. Thank you, God, for the gift of FOOD!! ;) (I will not take this for granted in the future!)
On top of all of this health stuff we've been dealing with, we've just been insanely BUSY!! It's been crazy around here and it will continue to be super busy at least for another couple of weeks! Here's the short list of what's been going on and what is to come....we had a wedding and a death in our extended family all in the same weekend, and we had a gender reveal party to find out what my sister, Grace's, baby #2 is -- it's a GIRL!!!! She's due in March (on our anniversary!) and we're elated!! Benji is gonna have a little sister!!
My sister, Diann, and her hubby are having baby #6 tomorrow (!!!) so I'll be road-tripping with my Mom to meet our newest NEPHEW (!!!) and then the other 5 littles are coming to stay with my parents, sis & bil (Grace & Chris), and us!! Our two littlest nieces (ages 1 & 2) are coming to stay with Bart & I for close to a week and I can't wait! Then, my brother is getting married in 9 days (!!!) and THEN, 3 days after my brother's wedding is my huge yearly stamp deadline with Papertrey! Bananas, I tell ya. Absolutely bananas!! Haha. BUT, lots of good stuff!
Soooo......I hope all that gives you a little insight as to why I've been so quiet lately. ;)
Hopefully, come November, things will settle down a little around here! And in the meantime, you can follow me on instagram or twitter to keep up with all of these events as they unfold, if you'd like! There will be baby pictures!! Haha!
Hope you have a wonderful day, and thanks so much for sharing in my life. I truly appreciate you!
much love,
P.S. The top photo is of just some of the colors that are bursting forth in our yard these days!! Those leaves are from "Blaze", our Autumn Blaze Maple, that we planted a few years back. And the bottom photo is of the newest baby blanket I made -- this one for our new nephew coming tomorrow! I can't wait for my sister to see it.....she doesn't know I made it! (I love surprises!) She loves purple so I wanted to work some purple into the blanket, but still make it baby boy appropriate. It kinda reminds me of Charlie Brown! Haha. (And also, I kinda want to make another slightly bigger one for our family room! It looks like it belongs with that chair!!) ;)
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