Home Bitter-Sweet Home

So I flew back to Texas on Monday. Thank goodness my flights were uneventful. Roger and I had a great visit. Roger signed us up for a yacht trip through MWR at Walter Reed. We spent the day on a 49 ft luxury yacht. Talk about the life. There's no way I'd ever be able to or spend $572,000 on one of those, but man, what a life. The captain and crew from The Yacht Center were so nice. It was a lot of fun. I didn't know what to expect at first because yachts are defined differently by many people. My only knowledge of what a yacht was is from Puff Daddy and Jay-Z videos. Turns out the yacht we were on was a baby compared to theirs. After the cruise around Kent Island with a short detour to Annapolis, we were treated to an awesome lunch at a local seafood restaurant called The Jetty. It was truly unbelievable. We ate so much seafood. I was in heaven. What's so funny about that is Roger and I went to Annapolis the following week for three days and we ate so much seafood there, I was sick of seafood. We walked by a restaurant in Bethesda later that week that served crab and other seafood and I thought I was going to throw up from the smell. I couldn't believe I was sick of seafood. I love seafood. Proves the point, too much of a good thing...

So we went to Annapolis and had a great time. We toured the city, the Naval Academy and all the shops. Roger was exhausted after it was all over. We stayed at a bed and bagel on Main Street over a delly called Chick & Ruth's. You'll have to read about them to understand how unique they are. It was great and we highly recommend staying there. This place was way cool. The Saturday before we went to Annapolis, we had the honor of observing our friends Charles and Deborah get married in Warrenton, Va. Pastor John performed the ceremony and it was absolutely beautiful. One of the most personal and sweet ceremonies we've ever witnessed. The town of Warrenton is a quaint town with lots of history. It was really neat. The reception followed at a local country club which was a lot of fun. We had to leave early enough to make the hour and a half drive back to DC to make it to church the next morning before we left for Annapolis. Our friend Allison let us borrow her car while she was visiting family in Indiana. We wouldn't have been able to get away without her generosity. Thanks Allison. You rock!

We only had one week left together and poor Roger got progressively sicker. Turns out he had an upper respiratory infection. So he spent most nights of our last weekend hacking all night. We were both exhausted. And on Saturday we went swimming with John & Tamra to which Roger thought he jammed his ring finger while we tossed a football in the pool, but he actually fractured it. Poor thing, he was all messed up this weekend. A good friend of ours, Alev, gave Roger a photo safari she couldn't get to for Sunday afternoon and we didn't think he'd be able to focus a lens with his finger wrapped up like it was. But he was able to and we had a great experience in Georgetown learning how to take better pictures. It was really neat. I'll get Roger to post pictures from all these events soon. He'll be visiting his friend Ryan and his sister Marie this weekend at the community house. He's already feeling better and not coughing at all through the night now.

But as always, going home is bitter-sweet. Living at Walter Reed is not the most comfortable so although I love being with Roger and going through this experience with him, I really miss the comforts of home while I'm there. And although I look forward to going home to my nice big bed, my own private bathroom, etc., I sure wish Roger was coming back with me. Walking into an empty house all alone doesn't make those conveniences any better. I can't wait for Roger to be home. I really miss him.

The Final Word: DELIGHTED!!

Holly and I went to the Naval Hospital yesterday (Monday) and met with my Radiation/Oncologist and Neurosurgeon. My Rad/Onc went through the images with us from the past few MRIs and showed us how they look pretty similar and the shifts in the images can be attributed to how my head is positioned each time. Anyway, he spoke with several of the other Oncologists there and they all agreed there is nothing to be concerned with. We talked about a PET or MR Spect scan and he said that we should just do another MRI in three months as those scans won’t really help at this point. We then met with my Neurosurgeon and he expressed the same thoughts. So, all in all, we were happy with what we heard and went on our very merry way! Thanks again to all of you who have been praying for and supporting us. We are very blessed to have you in our lives.

Holly and I signed up to go Yachting tomorrow. We have no idea where or what kind. All we know is that we’re being picked up with some other people at 0800. I hope this isn’t one of those boats that we’re going to have to work on. But if it is, I guess it’ll be okay. We’re up for anything. The weather here has been very nice – dry and not too hot. We’ll let you know how it turns out tomorrow.