Proud of our Son-in-law

Hey everyone, check out this web site for Mark, our son-in-law.

http://pages.teamintraining.org/il/chitri09/mkaufman

Mark is in training to participate in the Chicago Triathlon for a second year as a member of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's (LLS) Team in Training. All of his teammates on Team In Training are raising funds to help stop leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma and myeloma from taking more lives.

Mark is running, biking and swimming in Ken's honor. Check his web site often to cheer him on as he trains. And every dollar that you can spare to help his fundraising is appreciated.

We are proud of you Mark, for attacking this again this year. Good luck. We Love You, Bev and Ken

Round Three

We are back at it again. Ken had his third round of chemo yesterday and he came home last night feeling pretty ill. We quick cooked dinner and took the meds and he made it thru the evening. But he was up again by 1:00 and feeling pretty pucky. I got up with him, gave him more meds, made jello and toast to keep stuff in his stomach and kept him company for the next three hours. Neither of us could sleep. It was depressing for both of us and we talked about it. He was doing so well and looked so good. This shocked us that in one day he could turn around and feel so sick again. He looks pretty pale again. But I just kept telling him that he will get to feeling good again just like he did last week. We only have 4 cycles to go thru. We only have to keep from catching colds or the flu for 12 more weeks. I hope he can stay strong and smart about being around people. They changed his meds. Some don't start till day 8, so we'll see how he does this round. They said that would help him thru the worst week next week. Let's hope so. Remember to pray for healing and strength and no infections.
Thanks for yoru continued support. Bev

Best Week Yet

Happy Memorial Day. We just finished our best week yet. Ken is feeling and looking great. For those of you that don't get to see him much, trust me. Ken is doing great. He worked every day this week. He was pretty tired when he got home and took a nap every afternoon, but who doesn't want a nap every afternoon? There were many people at work that made a point to tell me how good Ken looks and how well his attitude is and they are right. He has gained some weight and he has accepted his bald head (which I really like). He is doing some yard work this weekend, which he loves. He still has to be careful because of the 5 lb weight limit, but all in all, he is great.

The picture is Ken and our granddaughter, Norah. I think she is saying, "Grandpa, I have more hair than you!". Isn't she a doll? We went to her baptism 2 weeks ago and it was so fun to see her. Below is a picture of our whole family, together. It is always a miracle when we can get them all in one place.

I know the picture is small, but I can't figure out how to make it bigger on this page. So if you are family and you want this pic, I think you can right click and save it to your computer. Then you can see it better. For those of you that don't know all our beautiful children, they are from the left:

Bev's daughter Stephanie, she lives in Windsor; Ken's middle daughter Anna from New York City; Ken's youngest daughter Tessa from Steamboat Springs; Ken's oldest daughter Katy from Chicago; her daughter and our joyous granddaughter, Norah Grace; our son-in-law, Mark; Bev and Ken, happy grandparents; and our daughter-in-law, Sara who lives in Golden with Bev's son Jeff. And just a side note, thanks to my friend Carol Ann that helped me, we made Norah's baptism dress. It is made from the shawl from Katy's wedding dress. I beaded the baptism dress with the same beads that I beaded Katy's wedding dress 4 years ago.

So back to blog business, Ken has the 3rd round of RChop chemo on Tuesday. I'm actually going to brave it and let him go alone. I hear the center is really booked, so they will be very busy. I should go to help out, but he says he can manage. I want to save my time off work for doctors appointments and in case he gets sick and needs me at home. This will be the half way chemo. Three down and three to go. Keep praying for Ken's strength and his ability to stay away from harmful germs. He feels your prayers and is basking in your support.

Student Project

So we are off to Denver again today to get the dressing changed on Ken's arm. Hopefully we will be back. They can't keep Ken today. He is actually doing very well. This is his good week, so we will be working all week and happy to be back to normal.
I have told many of you that Ken has a student that did his final project in his web writing class on Ken. It was a group project and there were 4 of them that have been interviewing us over the last few weeks. The project turned out great and I am going to post it here for you to see. Here is the link.

http://simla.colostate.edu/~omjim/ken_devault/index.html

Enjoy and thanks to Stefanie Richardson: Editor, Omar Jimenez: Web Design, Josh Allen: Multimedia, and Ashley Lauwereins: Writer. We think you did a great job.

And the Winner is....

WOW... We are overwhelmed with all your support. This fund raiser was a smashing success. We can't thank you all enough for your generosity.

So at 7:45 this evening, I was finally finished cutting up all the little tickets. I put them in a large bag and we shook them up for 5 minutes. Ken did the big draw. Drum roll please... The winner is Eric Jeager, a good friend of my daughter Stephanie. In fact, I called my daughter right away and she just happened to be with Eric and his girlfriend, Kristin. They were in their new house which definitely needed a new TV. I can't believe Steph was with them when we drew their ticket. So, they immediately came over and we were able to take this picture. And just in case you are wondering, Eric was one of the first to buy tickets and he bought 6 of them. Thank you Eric, and we want to be invited to the house warming party since we already gave you the best house warming present. LOL

We need to give a special shout out to some people that helped us with this effort. First to Albert at Ultimate Electronics for giving us such a great deal on this TV. And then to Stephanie Eberl, Linda Carpenter, Monica Burke, Amy Crain and Terry Williamson for selling entries and collecting donations for us. And a huge shout out to the Bagel Place team and the rest of Ken's students in the Food Court for helping collect as well. We could not have imagined that everyone would have collected so many entries.

Thank you all again. We appreciate your support and feel so uplifted. God Bless you all....

How do you know what to do?

Decisions. Some are easy to make, some are not. Some take no time at all, some decide themselves over time and you don't even realize it. What's for dinner, usually an easy decision. Is this the girl for me to spend the rest of my life with, not so easy.
Medical decisions are falling into the not so easy category for me lately. After a great weekend spending time with my first granddaughter and other family members, Monday night proved to be a challenge. I stopped by the BIC at the U of C Cancer Pavilion for a simple dressing change of my PIC line. I noticed walking in that my legs were a little tired and I thought it was due to being in the car for a lot of time over the weekend. It felt like they needed to be stretched out by walking or something. Bev and I decided to stop at Super Target on the way out of town after the dressing change. By the time we were there walking, my legs really started to hurt and it was getting hard to walk. The pain moved from my legs to my hips and I could barely walk. Bev bought some Aleve and I walked painfully back out to the car. I took one Aleve. We started driving out of town but made one last stop at a store at 104th Ave. I couldn't get out of the car and took a second Aleve as the pain moved into the small of my back. At the hospital they always rate pain from 1-10 and I usually can handle a 3-4. This was defiantly a 5-6. I got scared. I asked Bev once she returned to the car to turn around and take me back to the ER of the U of C hospital. Talk about ER or Gray's Anatomy, this was a real ER with all kinds of people there for all kinds of reasons. We weren't in Fort Collins anymore. After two hours they finally got me into a room to see someone. After describing my pain, I realized the Aleve had taken effect and I didn't really hurt that much anymore. After waiting for four more hours, I was told they were going to admit me. I was shocked. They said I didn't have to, but they wanted me for "observation". Decision time. Do I go back into the hospital? After talking with the doc's some more who weren't sure why I had pain, Bev and I decided to do it. I waited in the emergency room until 3:15 in the morning to actually get a room. What a day ahead. I waited until noon to get three xrays and then until 6:15 at night to get an MRI. Of course since it was so late by then, no one could "read" the results so I was told I would have to wait overnight again. What a wasted day. And now I would have to wait until mid morning today to get out. Depressing. Well, the results came back and luckily my pain was from just getting old or the nulasta shot I got last Tuesday. Now I sit waiting for discharge. Two days again in the hospital, and I had been cured from Aleve. How do you decide these things? Better to be safe then sorry, but depressing sometimes. Looking forward to getting out of here soon!

How Much MORE!!!

So how much more are you going to throw at us???? Isn't there something about not getting more than you can handle? I think we are way past that....

The latest, Ken's mom fell last night and broke her left hip. She is in Medical Center of the Rockies, MCR, in Loveland and is doing well. They did surgery on her last night at 11:30 pm to replace her hip. Ken was with her till 3 in the morning and is back with her now. We are going to check into rehab centers for her this morning. She will be in the hospital probably thru the weekend and then move her to a center. She is a relatively heathly lady, so let's hope she recovers ok.

Ken seems to be doing fine. No nausea. yeah. This is giving him something else to deal with. Wish he didn't have to, but he is doing well. I may call on some friends or relatives to help take care of Ken's mom over the weekend. I hate leaving her, but I still want to go to the Springs to see Norah get baptised. I will know more later today about what she will need.

I can't believe this, but it is just something else we will deal with and get thru. Thank you all for praying for us. Add Elaine, or Muzz as we call her, to your prayer lists. We are thankful that it was a clean break and the surgery was successful.

Have a great day. Bev and Ken

Promised Picture

Wow, doesn't he look great? Shiny and slick. We have been so busy lately, we haven't had time to write. That is a good thing, right? So let me catch you up...

Last week, Ken worked everyday for a short time. He felt great but tired easily. We went to the Oncologist on Thurs and they said he was doing great. We had a pretty good weekend, but Ken was really depressed about his hair. It just kept coming out, so he was pretty sad. He finally snapped out of it Sunday afternoon and we were able to get some yard work done. Ken actually mowed the yard wearing his mask. He felt good about being able to do it.

We went to Denver on Monday and Ken got his 2nd round of chemo. Josh, the student that is doing the story on Ken came with us and filmed much of it. We are looking forward to seeing what these students come up with as they tell Ken's story. Ken has a bunch of pills to take and he had to go to Denver on Tuesday to get a $3000 shot. So far, he still feels good. He hasn't gotten sick, and hopefully he won't this time. He is taking 2 anti-nausea drugs.

So here is a side story about us. Tuesday is our anniversary. Ken and I were married 20 years ago on May 5th. On Monday, after chemo in Denver, we drove by the church we were married in. It is over 120 years old, so we stopped and went in to check it out. It hadn't changed much. Then, when we got back to Ft Collins, we went out to dinner with my parents. Of course, we went to Taco Bell. It is our normal pre-anniversary place. You see, we met in Taco Bell 23 years ago. We actually had our rehearsal dinner in the same Taco Bell that we met in. This might seem strange to most of you, but we only had our 5 kids stand up with us in the wedding, so the rehearsal was only our kids, my parents and the minister and his wife. We put bows on the tables and had a private/public party. It was fun to go again last night, but it was a different Taco Bell.

On Tuesday, our daughter, Stephanie, came over and cooked dinner for us. Since we went to Hawaii for our honeymoon, she made a hawaiian chicken, Coconut Pinapple Chicken to be exact. And she made a pina-colada sorbet for dessert. It was wonderful. We even dressed in lei's. See picture. She gave us a really cool picture frame that she had made with quotes from all 7 of our kids. It is so cool. All the kids helped. We love it. During dinner, Steph asked us to share honeymoon memories. Ken and I told lots of stories, and we remembered when we went back to Hawaii for our 1st anniversary. Ken got the hiccups on that trip and had them non-stop for 5 days. No kidding, he was miserable. What is funny (not really) is that right after we were talking about it, Ken got the hiccups again. He had them until he fell asleep last night. Poor guy. It hurts to have the hiccups for 3 hours. Hope they don't come back today...

We are going to have to shave Ken's head today... enough said... He is freaking out, but I will post pictures later. I think he is going to look sexy...