Surprise!

There's so much to talk about when you don't post for a week.... First and foremost, there was a surprise birthday party for Linda on Saturday. Even though Linda said she didn't want to make a big deal of her birthday this year, Andrea decided her Mom was having a party. Andrea handled nearly everything, sending out the invitations, hiring the caterer, etc. Plus a big thanks to our next door neighbors, the Engers -- you'll see why in a minute. I also want to apologize to anyone who didn't get invited, or didn't get their invitation. Andrea tried very hard to scour Linda's address list in her email folder and checked with various friends, school teachers and neighbors for others. All told, she sent out over 150 "Evites" and there were almost 50 who didn't RSVP; we knew we must have had some bad addresses, but with that many invitations it was difficult to follow up. Nevertheless, we had over 100 people, including some cousins who drove from New York and St. Louis just for the party. In order to make it easier on Linda, we limited the time from 5 to 8pm this past Saturday. So if you didn't make it, don't feel bad; most people only got to talk to her for a few minutes each. And we captured the whole thing on video so we could share the surprise with everybody. (Click the play button above.)

The difficult part (for me, that is) was that before Andrea started planning the birthday party, the neighbors had decided to have a surprise Baby Shower for Andrea on the same day. So when Andrea told me we were going to plan Mom's party for that day, all I could say was, "Make it later in the afternoon." Andrea and Chris came in earlier in the week, and I watched as Linda and the neighbors conspired to arrange the baby shower, at the same time that Andrea and the neighbors were conspiring to make the final plans for the Linda's party. Of course, Andrea was sure the Engers wouldn't mind helping us by getting the drinks, arranging the coolers and getting additional patio furniture ready. What she didn't know was that they were also getting ready for having the baby shower at their house. To make matters worse, Andrea decided to go next door that morning to borrow a waffle iron, and poor Cindy Enger had to hide all the decorations and presents before Andrea showed up at their front door. (Andrea couldn't understand why we insisted she call first before going over.)
So a few hours and 10 more lies later, Andrea's baby shower finally came off nicely, as you can see.

The first thing the neighbors had to do of course was to take Andrea aside and tell her the shower would not interfere with the birthday party. Linda and Andrea got back home just in time for Linda to take a quick nap, while Andrea, Chris, Tony and Beth ran around the house, deck and yard straightening and cleaning up. At five o'clock, the doorbell rang, and Linda was expecting her niece and nephew, Mary Jane and David, who called to say they were stopping by. What she didn't know was there were 98 other people who showed up as well. So the second party of the day went off really well, and Linda seemed to have more energy on Saturday than she'd had in a long time, no doubt from all the positive spirits coming from everyone in attendance.

Linda's Torisel treatments continue once a week, and so far she seems to be tolerating them well. Of course, that was true after the first three weeks on Sutent also. One thing this drug doesn't do is prevent the tumors from causing fevers, so we've had to deal with that using round the clock Tylenol, and being very careful not to exceed the maximum recommended dose of 4 grams per day. I would have said it was working fine, but today (Monday) she's back up over 101 degrees. I'm hoping it improves when she wakes up later this afternoon.

Again, to all the people who took time from their Memorial Day holiday to help make this a special weekend not only for Linda but for Andrea too, thankyouthankyouthankyou. It helps to know we have so many friends who are with us on this journey.

Jim