HOME and other Good Things

As they say, nice to travel, nicer to get home! A week in "The World" is about enough for me - little country mouse as I am now. But a week with Mom wasn't enough! Here she is, hiding under the quilt i brought her:

The high point of the trip was the trip to UC San Diego Cancer Center - Good News!! Her cancer is all 100% estrogen sensitive, in other words, it is breast cancer, metastizied. The good part is, the doctors stopped her hormone replacements in January, and since that time her liver has shrunk 8 centimeters - nearly 4 inches. The cancer marker in her blood tests is down from 3300 to 600; incredible decrease. She feels 100% better, has gained 4 pounds, has no pain whatsoever and all in all everyone is a bit stunned, including her doctors. I'm willing to give credit to the withdrawal of the 'cancer-feeding' hormones since I have always believed that it plays a role in cancers, but equal time has to go to all the good people praying for her. We figured out that she had no fewer than 6 demoninations totalling probably 9 church congregations holding her up in prayer! Add family and friends and that's a pretty formidable force to be reckoned with. She is not cleared and they won't quite call it a remission, but considering that 2 months ago they were sure she would not live to new Years - it is a HUGE step in the right direction.

This is Mom with her little brother John all smiles the night we got the good news. (I don't know where this underline came from, and there's no tab to turn it off -- THANKS B'ger!
We all stayed with my Uncle John and Aunt Alice in Escondido in the middle of 20 acres of avacados! We had fresh avacados every meal - what riches! The entire property is on a hillside, and Mom felt so well that we went on several hikes around the orchards, gathering dropped avacados. She set the pace, and a mighty brisk one it was, too! Up and down hills like a kid - it was wonderful!



The morning I was to leave, Uncle John went to the orchard and picked a bunch of Large Greenies for me to take back - we made a lot of jokes about taking grenades on the plane. Guess what? You can't even make those jokes in your own home - I was called back to the luggage check-in to unlock my suitcase for inspection! All those avacados wrapped so carefully in my clothing..........But they were very green, and made it home just fine. Oh, and the limousine? THAT was a blast!! As it turned out, my connecting flight out of LA was delayed nearly 5 hours and by that time my uncle or step-father could have come to get me, but we didn't know that when the arrangements were made. I waited with the other passangers for that flight for many many hours, and we all talked a bit, etc. When we finally landed and poured into the terminal in Carlsbad, there was the uniformed driver, holding a sign with my name on it! Everyone looked around to see who had the driver waiting and that was funny and a bit embarressing, but it was sooo nice! The driver got my bag and opened the back door for me, and I had that whole huge backseat to myself, and there was water and sodas in the back bar of the car....it was quite an expirence. I could get used to that! Talk about getting spoiled! LOL -- limos are wasted on high-school kids. There will be more rides like that in my future I promise.
Now back to the real world, back to my chores and back to my quilting - today I'm going to cut more diamonds and start sewing them together. I managed to get on of the dolly quilts completely hand quilted, heavier than planned because I spent SO much time waiting, but it's fun - and wrinkly! OH well -- I also want to catch up on blog reading - I've got a lot to do!