I know it's been one and half years since my last post!! We have been BUSY!! I continued with the Avastin Clinical trial receiving an infusion of Avastin every three weeks until July 5, 2012! During that year I spent a lot of time at the gym, rebuilding my strength and spending quality time with family and friends. On April 5, 2012 we were blessed with our first grandchild, Matilda (Jennifer and Kyle) We visited her in Boston in May and immediately fell in love!!
Three days after my last infusion July 5th, we flew to Europe. We spent ten days in Croatia for the wedding of Chelsea's childhood friend, Adrianna Marin.
Our two months in France with our friends, Janis & Tom Henderson, included several bike trips on our tandem, and a week running around in Germany including a couple days with our old friend Ingrid Aestal and her children, Jenny & Kevin, hiking in Garmisch and celebrating where John and I met and fell in love over 20 years ago!
We returned Sept 5th for my 6 ms. CT scan and again it was CLEAR!! Now we were ready to begin our training for the Grand Canyon, which we did in October with the support of our cruising friends, Colleen and Bill Bouchard and my son Ryan. We completed the Rim to Rim to Rim, hiking a total of 42 miles over a weekend (21 miles South to North Rim, two overnight rest and return 21 miles North to South Rim)
This was definitely a check off the old bucket list!!!
We were blessed with our second grandchild, Felix, on Dec. 9, 2012 (Jonathan and Emily)
Now we have one of each!!
We celebrated Christmas with our kids, Ryan, Chelsea, Jenn (Kyle) and Matilda here in our little condo--it was busting at the seams but so fun to be together for Matilda's First Christmas!
Dec. 28th I had my chemo power port removed at El Camino Hospital. It was a personal choice as I wanted to be able to travel without having to have the port flushed every three weeks.
January 8, 2013 we flew to Tampa, Florida and on Jan 9th, we bought our l/y Don't Look Back (that's land yacht) a 2007 40' Tiffin Phaeton RV and her 'toad' a 2009 Honda CRV to begin our next adventure, land cruising!! We are blessed to have such great friends, Al & Gayla Arnold, who stored our new l/y in their driveway in St. Petersburg so we could fly home to pack!!!!
We spent the next three weeks packing, organizing, and moving Chelsea into our condo. We flew to Tampa on Jan 31st with our load!!
The first week of February was spent provisioning our rig with our "must haves"and enjoying time with the Arnold's. We departed St. Pete's on Feb 10 for our first voyage! We drove to Punta Gorda where we parked in the cul-de-sac of our friends, Steve & Judi Ferguson(our first buddy boat when we crossed to the Bahamas in 2008), and spent four days biking, eating, and catching up!
Next stop was Pine Island, Ft. Myers, Fl. We stayed in our first KOA campground, biking around the area and driving to Ft. Myers Beach for lunch with old cruising buddies, Sally & Conrad s/v It's About Time, Kathie & Charlie s/v My Time Too and Lee s/v Sporting Lee! It was so fun to reminisce about the fun times we had in Vero Beach and the Bahamas!
Next stop Aztec RV Resort, Margate (Ft Lauderdale) What a beautiful resort, complete with two pools, tennis, pickleball courts, horseshoes, full service gym with trainer, and all Class A rigs. A large French Canadian community and a great American English Group(AEG) fill the Resort. Each site is large and fully equipped.
We made two trips to Miami to see cruising friends. Lunch with Jane and Roger s/v Sereno 55 at a local Cuban Restaurant was a real treat!
Our next visit was brunch at the Greenstreet Cafe in Coconut Grove with Dorene and George s/v Delicia. So fun to catch up with both couples!
It was very exciting to tune in the TV to the show "Criminal Minds" on Feb 20th and see my son, Ryan Caltagirone on the episode titled "Broken"!! So proud of him!
Feb 28th we put the rig in a storage area of the resort so we could fly back to Calif. for my 6 mos. CT scan, my 59th birthday, my daughter Chelsea's 30th birthday and the wedding of our good friend, David Lind. Chelsea's friends threw her a surprise party on a Cable Car in SF complete with bar and we were lucky to be invited! The theme was 1980's so it was fun to see the different outfits!
What a fabulous week with all these celebrations!!!
Which brings us to present! Unfortunately, my CT scan came back with the growth of two small tumors in the same area of my Ovarian cancer two years ago. After a long consult with my GYN Oncologist, Dr. Dwight Chen, I will have surgery tomorrow March 18th at 11:00am at El Camino Hospital in Mt. View. Dr. Chen will do an exploratory laparatomy, opening my original incision, removing the tumors and perimeters and doing debridement. If there is any bowel involvement, he will do a resection. I will probably be in the hospital for a week, then depending on the results, possibly chemo again. Needless to say, we were disappointed with the news, but our spirits are high and we are determined to meet this challenge head on so we can hurry up and get back to our 'Next Adventure' in the RV in Florida!! I have the best family, friends and greatest husband and I know I am a very lucky girl. Thank you all for the prayers, love, calls, dinners, and show of support to me and my family. Keep me in your prayers and I'll look forward to posting I am Cancer Free again real soon!
