Today was the big day for us--meeting with the pancreatic surgeon and setting up a date for surgery.  I must say what he had to say was much different from what we expected to hear.  John and I always had the impression that the tumor was on the outside of the pancreas tail and would simply be removed with little effort through outpatient laparoscopic surgery.  Well, we had the laparoscopic part correct but nothing else.

Dr. Zuberi was in complete agreement that the tumor should be removed.  These tumors secrete things (I don't understand what) that can affect the liver and cause more problems or other illnesses.  He also said to be on the safe side, he would remove the spleen because it is so inter connected to the pancreas. That was a shock to hear.  Because his spleen is going to be removed, John has to have three vaccinations to build up his immune system before surgery.  He also has to have another pre-op physical.  All of this will be taken care of on Monday morning. These injections have to be no less than two weeks prior to surgery. The doctor told us John would be in the hospital 2-3 days for observation following surgery and then restricted to no lifting of anything heavy for 4 weeks. So, that is where everything stands at the moment.  We are both comfortable with what we were told today and have confidence we are headed in a good direction.

Our weather was beautiful today with blue skies and high temps reaching 55 degrees.  The snow piles are going down quickly and we are seeing more and more grass.  Tomorrow is back to Bemidji for me to get an injection at the Center for Pain Management.  Now that we know when John's surgery is scheduled, I need to get my back in shape to take over some of his daily jobs.

Nothing much happening around here except trying to recover from a sinus infection and a cold--sinus for John and cold for me.  It seems like all we have done for the last three days is blow our noses and restock on tissues.  The antibiotic that John got from the doctor last week has helped a little, but he is still suffering from a stuffy head and slight headache.  He was hoping the medicine would clear up his head before seeing the surgeon on Wednesday.  John is still hesitant to do anything until his sinus clears up.

On the bright side, our weather has been sunny with above freezing highs during the day.  Our gravel road is just about completely clear of snow--only one little section of ice due to pine trees shading the road.  Our driveway is clear from the house to the road, but the loop around the house is still clogged with deep drifts.  John still can't get to his truck or four wheeler.  The snow has dropped enough that we can see the outline of the pond on the west side of the big shop.

This afternoon we decided to get out of the house and visited son John and his family.  He is the track coach at the high school and with the track season underway, is pretty busy now.  Their first meet is this Tuesday (indoors at the college) so we hope to go and watch our grand daughter, Jenni, run the mile and half mile.  While at John's, he downloaded some movies on my laptop, so now we have something new to watch in the evenings.  Right now its been wall to wall basketball.  March Madness is John's favorite season of the year.

You can just see one of the bushes beside the walkway

starting to peek out of the drift.  This is one way

we can tell how much the snow has gone down.

 

Driveway is drying up very nicely.  Just a little more

melting and the snow melt will run away from the drive

 

Much easier for John to get to the woodshed and outdoor

furnace.  Seems so strange to see the grass

Yesterday was a big one for us as John had his appointment with the oncologist at the cancer center in Bimidji.  Matt went with us and I must say we entered the office expecting the worse and hoping for the best.  I think we got the best.  Our biggest worry was why John was referred to an oncologist instead of just going back to the doctor who ordered the endoscopic ultrasound test.  Dr. Friedell was very nice and explained everything in an easy to understand manner.  It seems the lesion (tumor) on the tail of the pancreas was so small it was difficult to get a good sample to biopsy.  The doctor said "I could tell you you have cancer, but there is nothing pathologically to back up that statement.  The same can be said for saying your are cancer free."  Dr. Friedell ordered another blood test and a 24 hour urine test in the hopes of learning something more definitive.  He then laid out a couple of options:  we could do nothing right now and followup later with more scans and possibly another biopsy, or just remove the small lesion now and be done with it whether it's cancerous or not.  If it is cancer, which he doubts, we have caught it unbelievably early and we can put this whole episode behind us.  John opted for the surgery and we have an appointment to see the surgeon next Wednesday.  Needless to say, we all feel like a great weight has been lifted.

Hard to believe, but this morning we were right back down to the clinic to see our primary physician.  John has been having horrible post nasal drip--we even went to the Walk In Clinic last week because he was feeling so sick.  He was prescribed an antibiotic which did absolutely nothing for him, so it was back to see his regular doctor today.  John told him there was no way he could undergo surgery until this post nasal thing gets under control.  The doctor prescribed a much stronger med that should work within three days--if this doesn't help, then it's back to the clinic again.

Once we were finished with the doctoring, we headed to Culver's for some lunch and then ran several errands, did some banking, and then a little grocery shopping.  We were trying to kill time before my appointment with the Center for Pain Management.  My back pain has returned, so I now have an appointment for next week to get an injection to be followed up with another procedure in a week or so.  I need to be able to move around without pain so I can take care of John.  Hopefully all this medical stuff can get out of the way and we can concentrate on something other than our health.

Insurance adjuster came yesterday morning and we received a very good settlement for our porch.  Now we just have to wait for the snow piles to melt so we can attack that project. 

We have been a little busy over the last couple of days.  Saturday morning we left home around 10 a.m. and headed up to Northome, MN, which is a little over an hour and half north of us, where we were invited to celebrate our brother-in-law's 70th birthday.  We spent a nice afternoon visiting with some of his family and friends as well as eating a delicious meal.  While we were there, Sara phoned and invited us to come for pizza since the kids would be heading back to college on Sunday.  On the way back to Bagley we made a quick stop at Target and then home to drop off our purchases.  You can't leave anything in the car too long or it will freeze.  John and I had a fun evening with the kids visiting and playing a new card game.

On Sunday Matt stopped down with a huge jack he borrowed from his work and helped John jack up the porch roof.  They ran a beam across the top and braced it with several supports.  Hopefully, this will keep water from running in on the porch as the ice melts or if we should get some rain.  The claims adjuster from the insurance company is coming tomorrow morning to take a look at the damage and let us know what will be covered.

Our temperatures here in northern Minnesota are slowly but surely beginning to moderate during the day.  There is nothing below zero with daytime temps reaching into the 30's.  We are suppose to hit 50 degrees by the weekend.  We can tell our huge snow piles are slowing going down, but we have a couple on the driveway that are still pretty big.

The snow is so compacted that John was able to walk right up to the

roof of his shop and the rim of the basketball backboard.

I ask that you all remember us with prayer as tomorrow John has an appointment with 

oncologist in Bemidji. We are hoping to get a better understanding of what we will be dealing with and are hoping for good news.

With the temps above freezing the past couple of days the huge piles of snow around our house have definitely shrunk a little.  John felt ambitious yesterday afternoon and decided to open a path to the bird feeders hanging from the trees behind the house. We hadn't seen any birds since we've been home, so we thought we might be able to entice some back to our yard.  Sure enough, we had several different birds at the feeders today.

Last night a blizzard moved into the Dakotas and Minnesota; however, the worst of this storm stayed to the west of us, but by this afternoon we still got snow and strong winds. We have a screened in porch on the front of the house and last night the roof collapsed under the weight of about 14 inches of snow and ice. Sam came down this afternoon and helped John brace up the roof and then shoveled the heavy snow off the rest of the structure.  John used the snowblower to open the walkway to the porch and then the guys got it up on the deck and cleared more snow away.  Next on the agenda is figuring a way to put up more bracing and get the roof slanted so water will run away from the front of the house. Right now there is a big hole in the porch ceiling.  I've contacted the insurance company and a claims adjuster should be on the way soon.  Never a dull moment!

John and Sam headed off bright and early Monday morning to pick up our new snowblower.  Once they returned home and got it unloaded, John put chains on the tires and got it ready to go.  Our grandson Josh, who is also on spring break from college, volunteered to wield a snow shovel to break down some of the deep snow while John handled the blower.  They managed to reopen the paths to both shops.

Today the sun was shining with bright blue skies.  We were looking around outside when we heard a wonderful sound--water was rushing through our house's gutters.  THE SNOW WAS MELTING!!!  The driveway apron is clear of snow and we can see some driveway gravel and some green bush peaking through a mound of snow.  Bad news--big storm coming and expected to drop 6-8 inches of snow and possibly starting off as rain.  But at least the piles got a little smaller today.

 

Little bit of shrubbery peaking out.

Hopefully the bushes aren't crushed. 

 

Monday morning after weekend storm looking 

out from front window.  Snow is almost up to sill.

Frosty Monday morning,  There really is

beauty in the snow.

I didn't post anything for Saturday because there was absolutely nothing to say except that it snowed the entire day.  Our grandson, Sam, now home on his spring break from college, did manage to make his way down to our house for a visit.  We spent most of the day watching golf on TV and wishing we were in sunny Florida.

The storm caused many cancellations and road closures.  We were snowed in until Matt was able to get down to our place and plow us out.  Even our gravel road was impassable until the plow came by.  One good thing about being stuck in the house is that you get to do some jobs you have been putting off.  We did get started on cleaning and organizing the basement--trying to make sure everything is off the floor in case water comes in with the spring melting.

With the stormy weekend, we weren't able to pick up our new snowblower, so Sam and John are heading to Bemidji bright and early tomorrow morning to pick it up.  John hopes to start clearing some of the snow away from the house so the basement won't flood.  As you can see from the photos below, we have mountains of snow.  One thing in our favor is we live on top of a hill and most of the water will run away from us.

 

Today's high temperature was almost 30 degrees.  What a difference from this past week's sub zero highs.  With the partial sunshine this afternoon, a little melting occurred on our driveway. It was just enough to raise our hopes,  but after hearing the weather forecast for the next two days, they were quickly dashed.  We are in a winter storm warning with heavy snowfall expected to start around noon tomorrow with a projection  of 6 more inches of snow.  On top of that, another big storm in forecast to arrive here the middle of next week.

When John heard the forecast, he decided we should purchase a snow blower now rather than waiting until next fall.  Following breakfast we headed off to Fleet Farm in Bemidji to look at what they had left in stock.  Fortunately they still had a few on hand and John was able to find the one he wanted.  He and Matt will go tomorrow or Sunday to pick it up--all depends on how this winter storm affects our area.  After hitting a couple of more stores, we headed out for home.  I spent time this afternoon getting the Sirius radio transferred over to the new car and reading the operating manual to figure out how to operate the many buttons and dials.  I think it's going to take awhile before for us to learn everything.

John spent most of yesterday recovering from his test.  He still has a little sore throat and some pain in his stomach, but that's to be expected after such a procedure.  The affects of the anesthesia are completely gone and he is feeling pretty good again.

Since we know we will be here in Minnesota for a good portion of the winter in the future, we decided we need an all wheel drive vehicle.  We have been looking at area dealerships and their inventories on the internet and yesterday we found a couple of cars that were exactly what we wanted.  I used the web site to contact the dealership and made an appointment to see several vehicles this morning.  The fellow we met with just deals with internet sales, so he had the car we were most interested in sitting out front and ready to test drive.  After some discussion about what was on the car and how different knobs and buttons operated, we took a ride.  John and I decided this was exactly what we wanted--it's a blue 2017 Ford Escape Titanium with a little over 13,000 miles.  Most important, it comes with the cold weather packaged--heated seats, front and back window defrosters, remote start, etc.  So tonight the new car gets the garage and the Chevy is sitting outside.  At least the temps are beginning to moderate at night.

                                                     Our new car snug and warm in garage

                        View of our deck from upstairs window.  Snow on porch about 1 food deep.

After much anticipation, the "Big Test" day finally arrived.  John was scheduled to check in at 11 a.m. so Matt arrived at 7:45 a.m. to drive us to Fargo.  We wanted to leave plenty of time to get there as we weren't sure what the road conditions would be like following yesterday's snow and wind.  Fortunately we only ran into a couple of icy spots and arrived about 40 minutes early.  It's normally about a 2 to 2 1/2 hour trip down to Fargo.

John got checked in and only waited about 25 minutes to be taken to a room where the usual medical stuff took place--medical questions, blood pressure, temp, start an IV, etc.  A little later the anesthesiologist came in to do his questions and ask if John had any trouble with anesthesia.  He told the doctor he has trouble with nausea and dizziness so they put a patch behind his left ear and gave him several different pills that were suppose to help with those two issues.  The surgeon then came in and explained what the test was going to entail and what they would hopefully learn from it.

Then the waiting began.  The nurse came back in and told us the procedure in front of John was taking much longer than anticipated, so the doctor was almost 2 hours late getting started with him.  While John was in the operating room, Matt and I headed off for something to eat.  This hospital is a brand new facility and offered many wonderful options for a meal.  Matt and I settled for freshly grilled Angus burgers and fries.  We sat and visited in the dining area for a while and then headed back up to the third floor waiting area. Finally they called and said John was back in his room and we could come back and sit with him.  In spite of all the preventive medicines to stem off the nausea and dizziness, they didn't work.  The worst thing was the dizziness.  I thought we were never going to get out of there--whenever John tried standing up he'd get very dizzy.  They tried some other meds through his IV and the dizziness began to subside enough that we were finally able to get John released.  I think we got back home around 8:30 p.m. tonight.  It has been a very long day.  

Now what we were told by the doctor.  The tumor grew another mm over the past six weeks and is now 8 mm in size.  They took four different cell samples for biopsy and we should learn the results from Fargo in about a week.  The doctor said they will also ask for a second opinion and send samples to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN.  The doctor said he looked at all the other organs and everything else looked good.  This growth (tumor) is so very small that if it is cancer, it has been caught at an extremely early stage.  However, at this point the doctor just isn't sure whether it is cancerous or not, but whatever it turns out to be, it can be easily dealt with.  So now we are in a wait and see pattern but both of us feel very good about what we learned today.  Thanks so much to everyone for all the prayers and support you've shown us.

Today it was the same old thing--temps below zero but with snow and very strong winds.  We had wind chill advisories all day.  John bundled up and ventued out to put wood in the stove and walked to the mailbox for our mail.  That was the extent of outdoor activites.  With strong winds from the west, our driveway and paths to the shop filled back up.  Matt came down this evening and plowed the driveway out again.  We need to be out bright and early tomorrow morning to head off to Fargo for John's test. After the driveway was open again, our grand daughter, Hanna, was able to stop in for a visit before heading back to school. Matt also stopped inside for a quick bite and to get warmed up.  Another big storm is expected this weekend.  Not sure if it will hit or miss us.  These storms have to come to an end sometime, hopefully.

It was another bitterly cold day.  There was a wind chill advisory in effect for most of the day, so we just stayed inside and kept nice and warm. Wood heat is wonderful. We still had boxes and crates sitting around waiting to be unpacked, so we did manage to get a few more of them emptied out.  John spent some time assembling the desk we brought home and got his wood carving area all set up. We are slowly bringing order back to the house.

Our son John invited us up to their place for supper and games this evening.  It was fun visiting with the kids and catching up on what everyone has been doing over the last four months.  Following supper we taught them a new card game -- Red 3.  

I just want to let you all know that I can read your comments.  They come into my email account.  I am still working out some of the bugs and trying to figure out the new setup for this blog site.  Also, want to let you know that I probably won't write something every day as not much happens when you're stuck inside and surrounded by mounds of snow. 

 

Sunny But Still Cold

After being home for four days, it's still a little unsettling seeing such huge piles of snow around the house.  The only paths open at this time are to the wood stove, woodshed, and John's shop.  Our driveway is open enough to get the car in and out and make it to the mailbox.  The sun was shining all day with bright blue skies, but clear skies usually means colder temps and that's just what we had today.  The high was about 1 degree above zero.  It's suppose to drop way down tonight with dangerous wind chills into Sunday.  When it's like that, we just stay hunkered down in our toasty warm house.

Since no outdoor activities were on the agenda for today, John and I managed to get some more unpacking accomplished.  Since we bought home extra items this time, it's taking a little longer than usual to find a place for everything and get all the boxes and crates emptied. 

A look at next week's weather forecast calls for daytime temps to be much better with daytime highs above zero.  Maybe we're going to turn the corner on this winter weather.  We just need good weather on Tuesday as we head off to Fargo for John's next test.  Hopefully after that we will have a better idea of what we are facing and what treatment is needed.  Please keep us in your prayers.

We have been home from Texas a little less than three days and still can't get over all the snow piled up around our house.  Yesterday the temps moderated a little with a high of 17 degrees above zero.  That felt rather nice after being below zero since we got home. Since it was so "warm" we went to Bemidji for groceries and John's pre-op physical for next Tuesday's test in Fargo.  As we drove down the highway and around town, it was plain to see that we aren't the only place with huge piles of snow.  Must say, spring is going to be rather interesting this year.

As most of you know, I have been having knee trouble for most of the winter.  Today I had an appointment with an orthopedic doctor to get a second opinion about my knee and possibly another cortisone injection.  After much discussion about my last MRI, the news was the same as I had received from the doctor in Texas.  If the injections don't last, I will need knee replacement surgery.  I got an injection this morning, and right now, my knee feels much better.  So for now that is the course of action I will take.

This evening Matt and Sara brought pizza down for supper and Matt used his snowblower to open a path to John's shop and to the larger buildings over the hill.  It was great to see the kids again and catch up on what has been happening with everyone while we were gone.