Happy New Year everyone!
I know that we haven't posted an update on the blog recently, so I thought I would post here tonight as I sit back and start recovering from the massive amounts of FOOD the holidays always seem to bring with it! :) I also wanted to give you an update of what has been going on with Doug and I, and how Doug is doing with chemo so far.
Fun stuff first! Doug and I are doing great! We are enjoying our time together as a "newly engaged couple" and are looking forward to starting the wedding planning in the next week or so. we have a lot to do, lucky that I have such a great mom who is going to help us with everything! We had a nice low-key New Years Eve with dinner and watching the ball drop at home, and then we had a great day together today since I didn't have to work. We started out with a huge homemade breakfast and decided we were going to "do nothing" all day, although we actually ended up doing a lot! Which brings me to the pictures below. well, first a bit of background. When Doug moved in to the condo with me in glastonbury where we live currently, I told him that the finished portion of our basement was his to do with what he wanted. He could get a pool table (although it wouldn't fit) or make it a game room or whatever he wanted. So he brought in a bar that had belonged to his parents and decided he was going to have a "man room" with the bar, big couches, tv, and lots and lots of sports pictures on the wall. Over the summer we did some work on it but we were, understandably, preoccupied with everything that was going to happen in the fall. So for Christmas this year I bought him a picture from the 1986 World Series (which, for all of you non-baseball folks the Mets won--for all of you sports fans out there it is the signed mookie wilson picture). He loved it and it reignited our desire to really make the room nice. So today in our travels Doug decided that he wanted a specific street sign for the Giants, and when we got to the sports memorobelia store, he also saw something else that caught his eye-- a picture from the superbowl last year where Osi Umenyura knocked Tom Brady down....(a great moment--sorry Pats fans!) that was signed and framed for a pretty good price. Well, he decided to buy the picture, and ended up getting a suprise huge discount--like 30% I think it was!- even better! So below you can see the two walls that Doug has gotten done (with my help---he's the supervisor and i'm really the manual labor.....hammering and nailing and everything. and trust me, with mr. anal-retentive-this-side-is-3/4-of-a-millimeter-higher-than-the-other it is not always an easy or a short task! I joke I joke.....he'll even admit it though!). The first picture is of his Mets wall, and the second is of his Giants wall!
Here is a picture of Doug's "golfers wall" including a couple of Phil Mickelson and of course John Daly, complete with mullet:
And of course, here is the picture that Doug can't wait to hang up---his favorite singer in the whole wide world, Ryan Cabrera. Doug thinks that Ryan is very rugged and manly and aspires to have the same haircut. You can tell by Doug's smile how excited he is about it.
So this is a great project for Doug to work on while he's stuck at home! The room looks great and he can't wait to show his friends when its all done--he's already decided that he wants to have everyone over for a party in the basement :).
As far as how Doug is doing health-wise, he is as we speak in the middle of his fourth round of chemotherapy---1/3 done!! It has been rough on him as the treatment and regimen he is on is very aggressive. don't get us wrong, aggressive is a good thing! But it hasn't been easy--chemo is tough on anyone who has to go through it. Luckily Doug is on 14 day cycles, so he usually has a week where he feels yuck and then a week he feels good. We're still working with Dr. Hegde and his crew to try to get his medicines right so that he doesn't feel bad more than he has to, but we're not quite there yet. But, as always, he's being very tough and very brave. UCONN has a great team of nurses that take care of him when he goes in for his treatments, and he's definitely a favorite of theirs (can you blame them?). Its a sad place though, the treatment room is always busy and there are a lot of people there who are very very sick, so its a very tough place to have to spend several hours. But as always, Doug keeps up his great spirits and always keeps those nurses on their toes! As Doug--who as I always maintain is much wiser than I am--always says, he's giving up a few months in order to exchange that for 50 years. And that lucky boy is stuck with me for the whole time!! :-) hahahaha.
I hope that everyone has a very happy and HEALTHY new year! Please keep our fellow PMP families in your thoughts and prayers, as the new year starts off there are so many people continuing their journey with this disease, as well as several people just at the beginning. It gets harder as you get to know other people, even just via the interet message boards, and get to know their struggles and successes.
In the meantime, Doug and I are going to keep our eyes out for other secret sales (Doug just declared from the couch that 2009 is our year, since it started out with such a great find!), we're going to look forward to starting to plan our wedding, and take some time to relax after the craziness of the holidays. I hope this post finds everyone well, and we hope to see everyone soon!
love,
Lindsey
