Happy 38'th Birthday Tina Thobe Rudisill

Tina Thobe Rudisill--Not Quite Forty!

Oh, Lordy!

Tina, you were born on November 21, 1971 in Tipp City, Ohio. I made a special trip home from Frankfurt, Germany to see my newest niece! I thought you were adorable and had picked up all the Gariety genes from your Mother's side of the family tree. In this photo it is New Years Eve and my sister Mary has just talked me into babysitting you while she and Jerry attend a New Years Eve Party. I was a tad nervous about taking care of you but everything must have worked out OK because you are now 38! LOL! My time flies by!

Here you are with your Mom after ingesting a little water for a little baby burp.

Can you picture yourself this tiny? I bet not. You probably can't even remember your two sons, Brady and Tate being this tiny.

Here is my favorite picture of you.
It is the summer of 1973 and you are checking out the clover blossoms in Grandpa Gariety's clover field on what is now the Greg Gariety farm. You are really studying the clover to see if it is ready to be harvested.
Hmmmmmmmmmm......maybe you would have made a good farmer if you had not become a fourth grade teacher.

And I must show this photo of Grandpa Gariety checking the clover blossoms too.
Farming----it requires a lot of decision making and Grandpa almost always made great decisions about farming.

And here you are again Tina studying and studying that clover.

March 27, 1999
The day you became Mrs. Steve Rudisill

I like the fact that you invited all the students in your 1998-1999 class to attend the wedding at Precious Blood Catholic Church in Dayton,Ohio.

(I think that one little girl thought that she was the bride. LOL!)

I'll always remember this wedding for having the flower girl crawl down aisle with her flower basket. What a chuckle that gave the wedding guests.

So Happy Happy Birthday Tina!

Skywatch Friday = Bradford Pear Trees Turning Red

Skywatch Friday = Bradford Pear Trees Turning Red Against Blue Skies

This Was On Wednesday.

Today The Skies Are Grey and Very Wet.

Tomorrow The Skies Should Once More Be Blue and Dry.

Change, Change and More Change.

Now please go visit some more Skywatch Friday memes by clicking here:

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Jack Aidan Dressed For Travel

Our grandson heading down the road of life with his sunglasses and army camouflage shirt on.

Cancer Question #3

The third question most people ask me is how can they help me. I like most people I first responded by saying "Oh, everything is fine; I don't need your help at this time." Well, since I have joined the cancer support group I've learned that that is not the right response.

People don't know what you need but they do want to feel apart of your struggle so letting them help is not only a blessing for you but for them I'm learning. And you need to be specific and tell them what specific thing might be something nice that they can do for you. And allowing your friends to do something makes your friends and family feel very useful and supportive. So I'm slowly learning to graciously say, "Well, now that you have offered there is one small thing you could do for me if it is not too much trouble." (Now when was the last time I said that to anybody except Jack? Probably a million years ago.)

How am I learning to accept help graciously? By listening to these two wonderful ladies below.


Here's Joann Murchison who heads The Road to Recovery for both major hospitals in Prince William County, namely Potomac Hospital on the east side of the county and Prince William Hospital in Manassas on the west side of the county as well as for the Fauquier County Hospital in Warrenton, VA. Joann herself is no stranger to cancer. She was one of the main providers for her brother's wife who reached after many years her final stages with breast cancer.

One of the big events that Joann heads up is the annual Relay For Life each June at the Manassas Fair Grounds to celebrate the lives of those with cancer, those who provide help for cancer patients and to remember those who have died from cancer disease. The Relay For Life for 2010 will be June 5 and June 6. I'm planning to attend and to participate. Great timing since June 5 is my birthday and my chemo treatments should be finished by then.

Here's Robin who teaches the Cancer Support Class at Lake Manassas. She is a lupus survivor, a nurse and psychiatric hypnotist. She is so upbeat and she has a ton of info to pass on to each cancer patient about keeping well in mind and body. She concentrates her efforts on the whole patient and has speakers come to the support sessions to speak on the five sides of wellness: physical, emotional, social, spiritual and intellectual.

I like this print that I found on the wall of the center.

It sums up all the wonderful people I have discovered at this cancer center.

In closing I want to introduce you to one exceptional cancer patient who has inspired me this past week. This is Ashleigh. She is in her early forties although she looks like about 25 and she has been doing chemo for breast cancer. Ashleigh is married and has three children, a son who is a high school senior, another son who is in kindergarten and a daughter who is in middle school. When the chemo started to cause Ashleigh to lose her hair she asked her three kids to shave her head and they did so with love and compassion.

Ashleigh in this photo is grading language arts assignments. Yes, this strong woman is continuing to teach middle school language arts while fighting breast cancer. And she had gotten her students envolved in her cancer life. Each Friday they vote on the color wig they want her to wear the next week to class. Ashleigh says the students love this brown shoulder length wig but hate her blond wig. Go figure that one out.

Not all the patients are women. Here's a macho man who stopped by on the way to his job for a little infusion chemo. Debbie is the infusion nurse attending to his needs. Had to get a man in my story. LOL!

Cancer Question #2

The second question a lot of people are now asking me is what about cancer treatment? Are you doing any? Yes, I am and I am very lucky for this beautiful state of the art cancer center is just four short miles from my front door. It is the Lake Manassas Cancer Center at Lake Manassas Golf Club. (Tiger Woods played a big event there a couple of years ago.) I believe the building opened in 2001 to serve the growing population in the northeast triangle of Prince William County that is connected by James Madison Highway (#15,#29) to both Loudon County in the north and Fauquier County in the south.

This is the area where Disney wanted to build a historical theme park but was defeated by the old time landed gentry of the region. Consequently Disney sold their land holdings to developers who got around the landed gentry's land restrictions by building golf course communities that put homeowners in close approximation with lots of open space for the golf courses to provide the needed open space. Why am I mentioning this? Because I think that without all our golf course communities including two very big ones restricted to people 55 and over we never would have seen this state of the art cancer center become a reality. Which just goes to prove that old adage that when one door slams shut another one opens up.

On chemo days I go thru this front entrance to an expansive lobby to wait my time to go back for infusion. On cancer support days I go to the side of the building to a conference room where I meet with other cancer patients in a I Can Cope session.

This is Debbie who was willing to take a moment and pose with me. She was my infusion nurse and was she ever greaaaaaaaaaaaaat! She was laughing, joking and smiling the whole long day. Never a complaint from her lips though she was pulling extra shifts that week for some other nurse who was off on a cruise. Debbie drives here from home in Vienna, Virginia and I also learned that she went to nursing school at West Virginia University in Morgantown.

There are lot of TVs for passing the time so each person has their own TV that they can hear through headphones.

This was one of my infusion bags----I think this one had the chemo Fludar which is light sensitive so it is shielded in a green plastic bag instead of a clear plastic bag.

That's the chair I used the very first day which was my longest session because they always start new patients very very slowly so they can monitor how a patient is going to react to the chemos. I reacted quite well so from now on my infusion sessions should thankfully be shorter. Out the window you can just glimpse just a bit of the the beautiful Lake Manassas Golf Course.

I call this my Kick Cancer's Butt Bag.

I got it from my two daughters who filled it with green tea, dark chocolate, magazines, cards, a handknitted red scarf to stay warm, a sporty black cap knitted with eyelash yarn, a Never Give Up Magnet for my fridge, etc. Of course, I added to the bag each day my lunch, my many books to read and my little "Jackie Bear" for good luck.

Here's my ipod filled with downloaded music for meditating. I can also do emails and check the web thru this little gizmo. A cancer blessing---grandma is getting updated and joining the 21'st century. LOL!

And here's the great memoir I read last week. I'll want to blog about this good read. I'll keep you in suspense awhile for this one. Tomorrow the third most asked cancer question that I'm getting.

Cancer Question # 1

Cancer Question #1

Whenever someone learns that I have been diagnosed with cancer, namely leukemia, the first question they usually ask me is how I discovered I had leukemia. Well, wouldn't you know it that on the day I "come out" on my blog is the same day that a controversy has erupted over when women should begin to get mammograms for breast cancer. The old thinking was start at age 40. The new thinking is start at age 50. Well, I'm long past 50 but I do think more people would be discovered earlier if we continued the tests starting at 40. I have a niece who had breast cancer just the other year and luckily the cancer was caught and treated early. But if women now wait till 50, there will be some who will not be so lucky. And in my cancer reading and research I'm learning that the earlier a person is diagnosed with breast cancer the more virulent the disease is.

So how did I learn that I had leukemia? Through my annual mammogram exam. In May of 2008 my mammogram and sonogram showed enlarged lymph nodes so I was scheduled for a sixth month follow up which I did right before Thanksgiving. I wasn't very concerned because I had been having some urinary tract infections and the health workers said that could be the reason for the enlarged lymph nodes. (Of course, frequent urinary tract infections are also a common side effect of leukemia because your immune system is depressed. So I guess what I am trying to emphasize is that mammograms are very important for more than one type of cancer. Get them early and keep getting them.

The mammogram indicated that I had a type of lymphoma and the biopsy in January confirmed this. And then a MRI test and blood work completed my diagnosis of leukemia.

Two Types of Leukemia:

Acute ****** Chronic

Two Main Types of Chronic Leukemia:

Myeloid (in blood but not nodes) ****** Lymphcytic ( in blood and lymph nodes)

**************

Joann's diagnosis: chronic lymphcytic leukemia

Tomorrow I write about the second most asked question I'm getting these days.

My World Tuesday = The New Cancer Gal On The Block

The weekend before Thanksgiving of 2008 I learned that I had a lymphoma and a biopsy in January confirmed Jack and my suspicions that it was leukemia. Further tests revealed that it is a type of slow growing leukemia known as Chronic Lymphcytic Leukemia which is very different from Acute Lymphcytic Leukemia. As I discussed with a friend recently chronic leukemia is good and acute leukemia is bad and she replied, "I get it now. Acute Leukemia is not cute."So for the past nine months Jack and I have been keeping this between ourselves and didn't even bother to tell our two daughters this life changing news. But when my "bad white cells" started rising this August I broke the news to my daughters, our extended families in Ohio and Missouri and to lots of neighbors and associates around Haymarket,VA. I'm glad that I have done so because I have gotten so much great support that I think it really has made a big difference in my outlook.


The latest news is that this past week I started a one week round of chemo for fighting the leukemia. Each month for six months I will do a week of chemo and then rest and watch the little bad white cells hopefully disappear. Of course, one consequence of chemo treatment is the possibility of losing your hair. To prepare for that I'm now sporting a short haircut and have a wig already waiting in my closet if I need it. In the meantime I have been reading up everything I can find on Leukemia and Cancer and have joined a great cancer support group at the Lake Manassas Cancer Center which is located on state route #29 not far from our house.

I have also discovered a lot of cancer blogs on the web. Many are just devoted to the person's fight against the disease. But I don't want to limit my blog to that. Leukemia is just one small part of my life. This week I will discuss it with you dear blog readers but after this week I will limit my cancer reports to maybe one or two a month.

Now look at this pretty floral bouquet complete with tiny stuffed bear. How precious. I got these last week from our good pals in Arizona, Jim and Nancy Freauff. Thanks guys!

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