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This is Bev. Welcome back, or should I say, about time we got around to writing again.

We had a little break from this, but as of today, we are starting our 2nd half of this RCHOP chemo, so time to get back to writing and let you know what is happening.

Since last time....

Ken received chemo on Tuesday, May 26th. He had a rough first night, but we made it thru. That is where I left off. By Wed, he was plagued with the darn hiccups. He literally hiccuped till Sunday. No kidding. He hardly slept and on Friday night it was the worst. I timed them and he was sometimes hiccuping 20 times a minute, every 3 seconds. Poor guy. We took Aunt Lavon to a dinner theatre on Thursday night and poor Ken. Except for when he was eating, he hiccuped all the way thru. Luckily he wasn't very loud that night and we were sitting clear over to the side, so hopefully, the actors didn't notice. (If you haven't been to the Candlelight Theatre yet, you should check it out. Great place.) We received some medicine on Wed for Ken's hiccups, but it didn't help. So we have some stronger medicine for this round. Let's hope it helps. He has had the hiccups every time for the first few days.

The rest of the time, once the hiccups stopped, Ken felt great. He tired easily, but was able to work every day. He wore his mask the entire 2nd week and so far, so good. This third week, he helped me get ready for a garage sale that we had last Sat. Our subdivision was having their neighborhood garage sale and they put up signs and advertised in the paper. Two of our neighbors across the street said that they wanted to do their sale in Ken's honor as a fund raiser for us. So we thought we better jump in and do a sale as well.

So we printed signs with Ken's picture on it, telling his story and took them to the pool, the play ground, the entrances to the 'hood and posted them on our fences. Then I asked friends to help me put on a bake sale. Let's just say, it was a huge success. We had so much food. I sold angel food cakes, lemon bars, banana and zucchini breads, apple coffee cake, Panera bread coffee cake, spice muffins, brownies by the plate and individually, cupcakes and more. We sold coffee and pop and water too. We probably made $120 - $150 on the food.

Then, I sold about $200 in Cookie Lee Jewelry that was just sitting in my basement. Yeah. We sold a bed that Linda Carpenter had donated for $100, and a few other $50 items and a ton of little things. All in all, with the neighbors contribution and our sale, we made $1100.00. We were shocked and very excited. We were hoping to make half that. So thank you, thank you, thank you to all that helped. We had so many people that donated food, brought stuff to sell, came by and helped on Friday with setup. (Thank you Terry, Linda and Ed - I couldn't have gotten ready without your help.) We even had Linda Carpenter and Linda Caster come by and help at the sale. And Stephanie, our daughter was a big help too. We put out a donation jar that made about $70, and sold a few bracelets. All in all it was a great day.

Ken said he felt a little weird. He mostly sat in the garage and listened to people. I was on the driveway telling people more about his story and he just listened. I think it was a little hard for him to be in spotlight. He is so ready for this to be over. He just wants to be normal again. But I thought it was great. So many people came by to share their cancer stories. And I have never seen so much traffic. So again, thank you, to all of you that helped in any little way. We sure appreciate it. But most of all, thank you to our neighbors, Bob, Stephanie and Brett. I really didn't have the energy to do the sale. I was tired before I brought up the first box of stuff. But I can't thank them enough for the idea and the plan. It turned out to be such a success and we are so glad that we did it. (Super glad that it is over too. LOL)

So that brings us to today. We went to Denver today to get Ken's 4th round of Chemo. He was feeling pretty pucky when we got home tonight, so he is laying down and trying to get the nausea meds to work. Hopefully, this will pass and he will feel better soon. I have been hounding Ken to write in his blog. And I have a cousin to thank for putting me in my place. I had lunch with Jeff (my cousin) today and he mildly pointed out that no one expects Ken to feel like writing all the time. I did a double take. He was so right. Ken and I had some heart to heart talks this weekend. He has been feeling so much better now that his lung is fixed. He doesn't feel sick all the time. But he still has the 5 lb limit on lifting things and he still gets tired easily. And he has to be so careful not to be around people that are sick. So it is hard for him to keep going sometimes. He wants it to be OVER.

So I sorta think it has been hard for him to get in the mood to write. He is tired of dealing with it. He said that he is a starter. He loves to start new projects. But he doesn't always see them thru. He starts them and then trains his staff or someone else to carry it out. This is one time that he can't train someone else. He has to finish this. He has to walk the walk and finish the race. We only have 9 weeks left. Three first weeks of nausea and hiccups, three scary weeks of low immune system and three weeks of feeling better. He can do it. We can get thru this. We have so much support. We just have to keep going and encourage Ken to do it. He really is doing great.

Love to you all. Bev and Ken