Vacation

Here are a few pictures so far. The couple that I am standing with his my brother and sister in law, Chad and Marcella. The one where all of us are with Doris and Aubrey Haynie. I am so glad we were able to squeeze in our quick trip. Hey Dad. Aubrey kind of looks like you with his mustache. What do you think? LOL His is a little whiter though.

The ones in the pool are from today. Connor was too busy playing with a girl to have his picture taken. He is one little social bug and will make friends with anyone. LOL But they all seemed to have fun just being at the pool. I get some of him later.

Well I know we just got back from Myrtle Beach but we are now in Florida. It is really hot everyday in the 90's. We are having to try and cram all of all vacations in June and July because of my surgery on July 22. So they are not a lot of weeks to be able to do that in. But we are having a lot of fun so far.

Friday Night I was on TV. One of our local TV stations WJZY ran a short clip about my blog and the story of me having the fight of my life. Boy is that for sure. My mom and I had gone to a luncheon for Susan G. Komen and Molly, the news anchor, was the MC. Mom apparently gave her my blog site and she ran the story. The boys that it was really neat to see all of us on TV. She had shown a few that I posted on the blog. Anyway the story was mixed up a little. It said that I was from Indian Trail, that my husband had shaved his head for me, and that my kids took pictures with my wig. Partly true but not all. I obviously am not from Indian Trail, Shane did offer to shave his head but I couldn't see him being bald and after the boys cut their hair I didn't want all of us to look like we had cancer. The picture they showed was of my brother Dustin when I shaved his head. And the one of all my kids was when I was in Oregon and my cousins put on all of my wigs. LOL So Josh, Kenneth & Colton you are all famous in NC now. LOL Oh well it was a great thought and they put my link for my blog on their website. Cool HUH!!!

Last week was my last chemo treatment and I was feeling fine till about Wednesday night and my headaches and severe heartburn kicked in. I pretty much layed around all day Thursday and Friday and of course I was totally drained of any energy to do anything. The kids got out of school on Wednesday finally. But not good when Mommy doesn't feel good and Grandma has to watch them all. Friday night I got everyone packed but it took me forever because of my head and no energy.

We got up on Saturday and left around 8:00 am. Not to bad. On the way I was sharing a sucker with Caitlyn. Connor says, "Mom you have germs and will give them to Caitlyn." I told him, "I'm not sick so she will be fine." He says, "Mom you have cancer!" Thanks for reminding me Connor. What a kid. We arrived in Tampa around 5:30pm to our hotel for the night. We met some of Shane's family for dinner around 8pm. It was nice to be able to catch up with them.

The next morning we got up to head to Orlando to go to Animal Kingdom. Connor was in the shower and told Chandler, "Man it is hot as h@#$ in here. You know I mean like the hail that comes from the sky" Yeah right. I blessed him out. He heard it from a kid at school. Figures. Anyway I was about his age when I said the same word to my mom about "Where the h@#$ are we going?" I heard it from my Uncle Paul. She didn't spank me but I told Connor if I heard that again he would get a mouth full of soap and he was lucky I didn't make him eat the bar he had in his hand in the shower. Shane later told me he was about his age when he said the "D" word at school. Church school at that. He hit the tire swing and said, D@#$ But tried to tell them he said Wham!! Didn't work. LOL So I guess we all have our stories.

We spent Sunday at Animal Kingdom. I was not feeling good at all. Sick to my stomach. I don't know if I ate something the night before or if it was just the chemo flushing itself out of my system. Either way it sucked. I felt really weak & shaky. So I ended up having to sit in a wheelchair all day. The heat didn't help either. I just couldn't walk around feeling that way and in the heat of Florida & I was sure not going to let it ruin the day for everyone else. So I sat. I hated it. Everyone already looks at you with pity because I have no hair. It was too hot for a wig. And then to look so pale like death with no hair is even worse. But we made it and had lots of fun in spite of the wheelchair. I am so glad my mom was here. It would have made things a lot worse it she wasn't and really hard on Shane with riding rides and such.

Today we had a lazy day at the pools here at the timeshare we have. We are staying at the Fountains in Orlando and it is really nice. We were pleasantly surprised. The pools are great. Kiddy area and slides so the kids love it. I feel a whole lot better today. Still get tired easily, like just walking from the pool to the condo, where as before that would be nothing. But I just have to pace myself. Something I am not very good at but having to learn to do. We were getting ready to go to Downtown Disney for dinner and ice cream and I said something to the effect of, "Ok let me just do my hair!" My ever so observant son, Chandler says, "But Mom you don't have any hair!" Again my son, "Thanks for the reminder." GEEZ!!!! LOL Dinner was good we ate at a Irish Pub and had ice cream and the Gheridelli Chocolate place.

Now we are back at our "Condo" and everyone is tired, in bed and hopefully asleep. I getting there. I took two Tylenol PM so it is finally starting to kick in. Usually takes about an hour. So it there are a lot of crazy grammatical errors, you know why. Not totally my fault. Also not totally my fault is that I apparently thought I was OK to do Ebay. Not so. Don't do Ebay, selling especially when you have just had chemo. I had the wrong email address on the paypal, then I totally sent two customers each others stuff. They emailed me today to let me know, "Hey I got a monkey picture instead of a jacket." Wow. What a screw up! Hopefully they are understanding and one suggested she will ship it to the other if the other will ship it to her. I will just need to refund their shipping expenses. Man I really messed that one up.

Well I am going to go for now. I am starting to get a little sleepy now. Sorry it took so long to update my blog this week but I just wasn't feeling too good and then traveling. I hope you all have a pleasant week.

Lots of love,

Rachael Renea