Ice Storms & Power Ports

What a crazy crazy week this has been! I have lived on this earth for 33 years and have never seen anything like it. For those of you who read this blog and have LIVED this mess for the last 5 days, this post may be a little to fresh for you...sorry. You can skip on down to the part where I talk about cancer! Woohoo for you!

Monday started with a trip to Wal-Mart to "stock up" in case we FINALLY got the real deal. I say that because we get a lot of false alarms around here & I usually just laugh off the warnings. When we went to bed Monday night I was pretty sure our weather man had missed the train again.

When I woke up Tuesday morning I was glad to hear rain because I was scheduled to have my port placed at 3pm. Little did I know what rain and freezing temperatures can accomplish.... by 3pm things looked like this.

Beautiful yes, but oh so devastating! It was about this time I realized that things might be worse than I thought. The boys and I spent 25 terrible minutes bringing frozen chunks of wood in to dry by the fireplace. We were all soaked to the bone, but my boys were AWESOME! (You can see Cade was still wet in this picture)

Unlike most of our friends and family we still had electric at dinner time. Right after I bragged to Grandma and Jeanne that we still had lights... they went out. The boys were excited for about 30 minutes...until they realized that there is NOTHING to do without lights, tv, Wii, internet... we did fill out 5 minutes of our time by roasting smores in the fireplace! We all slept in the living room that night and I was up every hour stoking the fire. It was a VERY long VERY cold night!

Wednesday morning brought more devastation. It was like nothing I had ever seen. Below is a picture of the wretched tree that took out my cable, phone and internet service!

Around 8:30 Wednesday morning we were making ready to abandon ship when our lights came on and our 50 degree house began to heat up.

This is just one corner of our backyard the other 2 acres look just the same...

and this is the broken limb that hung out over our electrical line all week. I am so thankful it stayed there.
And then Thursday morning came. What a beautiful sight all that ice was in the light of the sun! And what a beautiful reminder that God never abandons us.

We did get a visit from Randy and Courtney on Wednesday. They needed to charge their phones and talk to someone. We were happy to have someone to talk to too!

All in all we got off easy. So many people are still without lights, heat and even water. Derek and Valerie were on their way over to spend the night with us when their lights came back on. Jeanne and Dennis are still without electric, but they did buy a generator and are home. My Grandma was only without lights for a little longer than we were, but so many others in our family are still waiting on a little relief!

UPDATE...I just talked to Trav. He & all his girls are home and warm. They had been staying with Steph's family, but they are home now.

On another note....

I had my port placed yesterday. I had just woke up when we got the call. "Have you had anything to eat or drink since midnight?" Thankfully my answer was no. I was just getting ready to make gravy, pancakes, bacon and eggs, so they caught me just in time. The surgery went well and except for some soreness and a scratchy throat from the ventilator, yesterday was pretty good. This morning however I woke up super stiff and pretty swollen. Since they decided to wait to do chemo till Wednesday I had to go in and have the port de-accessed (have the needle taken out). My nurse said I had a minor infection. Guess what...another drug! And surprise surprise, this one makes me sick to my stomach too!

PICTURE # 1 - is a picture of the port before it's placed under my skin. The great thing about this port, is that unlike most ports, this one is completely under the skin so I don't have to tape over or cover anything before I shower or swim. When the nurse is ready to access the port she will feel the bump for the little nubs and then put the needle in the center of those 3 nubs.

PICTURE #2 - is a real picture of my chest were the port was placed. You can almost make out the shape of the port in the bruise just under the big steri strip.

PICTURE #3 - this pic is just for dramatic effect. If nothing else makes you feel sorry for me...this should! Just kidding, but it is A LOT of drugs for one person.