6 weeks and two days ago

6 weeks and two days ago…

See… I have been trying to write.

Well, I have been trying in my head really really hard and it all sounded perfectly fine… Somehow it just didn't quite make it onto the paper, or well, because we do live in the modern days, on my perfectly fine purple laptop…

Now I have so much to tell you that I don’t know where to start!

First: I missed you all very much!

Second: We got more news last Tuesday (six weeks ago), and yes my plan was to write this down all nice and fuzzy, reason being everything seems much harsher on paper… like, if you tell a person that is sitting across from you, you can tone things down with good facial expressions or smile even more bright when you deliver sad news. When you write things down you can smile a comforting smile but no one is there to see, and thus… much harsher…

Not that it is really bad, it could be worse, but it was not what we have been hoping for either.

So, here we go: rib, breast, spine, lung and liver area are still stable; this means nothing got bigger, and nothing got smaller. The spot in my small intestine got smaller, which is good news and this might indicate that the IL-2 is working, but the spot around the ovary got a bit bigger, so were back to square one, more or less.  Because the scans don’t really indicate what it is they are seeing (they just see something there that should not be and is bigger than a month ago) we need to do more testing next week.

New doctor, new procedures, new nurses, which I am sure are going to be wonderful (the doctors and nurses, I don’t know about the procedures…), but still it is a bit scary. We were hoping the IL-2 just would have done its job and made everything smaller (or made it disappear all together) but maybe it is just a bit slow and needs some more time.

And well, time is a bit of an issue

Not that I don’t have time, I have plenty (or so I like to think) but this “giving it time” thing is really stressful!!!  And thinking about being sick 24/7 doesn’t really make you feel better or makes you go back to work, writing, riding or relaxing…  So… it is even more stressful to be stressful.

Trying to be stress free is hard work.

But my sweet friend told me in a very stern voice yesterday, that I better get my act together and be a little selfish for a change, stop worrying about everything that I like to worry about and GET BETTER! She said; everybody would understand if I took a little break every now and then to fight this nasty fight because if I didn’t, they (as in my family and friends) would be a whole lot more upset if I didn’t take these little breaks and not be here not more because I wasn’t a bit more “selfish” and take the time to heal and kill some nasty cells…

Oh well…. that was a bit of a rambling thing, but I think you get the picture, right? Less stress, more cancer kicking in the butt and getting to meet lovely new people (nurses in this case)… hehe...

Today it has been over six weeks since I wrote this post above...

I had to go into surgery the next day after writing this.

They took out my left ovary.

We did new scans.

All the tumors grew since January.

The IL-2 did not work.

This Monday, and yes with this Monday I mean Monday the 5^th of March 2012 we are going to start with the new drug, recently approved by the FDA, Zelboraf.  And I am going to try my hardest to keep writing, just because I love it. Because I love life, and because I love you all. Yes this sounds a bit creepy, but it is meant well…

Third time is the charm, right?

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Three times is the Charm... Getting Married # 1

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Some people get married once
Some people get married twice
Some people get married three times to THE SAME guy… and yes this would be me…

How do you get married three times, well, it isn’t because I really wanted too but sometimes life throws you a little curve ball and you just have to go with it…

Bastiaan proposed to me in November of 2007. In a really nice restaurant in Fort Wayne, we had been together for over 6 years and he figured it was time, and so did I, so I said “YES!” (And we got a free dessert from the people sitting next to us in the restaurant which made it extra nice).

We set our date to be on July 5th 2008 so our family and friends would have enough time to come over and book a flight from the Netherlands, Canada or Australia. At that date we would have the party and our church wedding. Of course we just started milking on the 20th of November and everything was still very hectic, exciting and stressful but also an immense adventure and we were loving every moment of it!

Because Bastiaan’s visa was going to expire in February we needed too make sure he would be "safe" and we decided to get married in the Courthouse in Bluffton, just to get the paperwork done. Go to Holland make sure the visa’s were in order and then get “really” married in July. For us this “wedding” was a necessity. We would of preferred to have done it on the same day as our church wedding but if you have so many people coming from abroad you need to give them proper time to make arrangements and plan flights. Telling them in November you are going to get married in February is not enough time, we figured.

I do, # 1...
We were already flabbergasted when we went to the courthouse to get a marriage license. Question one; ‘Have you been married before?’, ‘ No…’. Question two; ‘Do you have any children?’, ‘No…’ Question three; ‘Do you have mental problems?' ‘HU? NO!!!’. Those questions plus the actual license cost us $9.00 which was shocking (Yes, the price as well as the questions)! They told us now that we had the license we should get our witnesses and we would be ready to go…

On January 18th it was COLD!!! As in we (Dutchies) are not used to this kinda weather! But because I wanted to make sure this was at least a little special, it was our wedding after all, I wore a skirt (never mind the fact that an hour before I was still running around in coveralls on the farm trying to get things in order and Bastiaan was working on fixing a tractor!) and Bastiaan got a nice new shirt and my mom & dad and brother were coming, all dressed up too after running around on the farm all morning. Because of the dairy start up we hadn’t really had the opportunity to meet a lot of new people who could stand in as our witnesses and so my parents were going to be our witnesses.

We agreed with Bastiaan’s parents and my little sister that we would put them on speaker phone when it was time to do the ceremony so they would listen to us say our 'I do’s'. We did not want them to feel left out, but we also didn’t want them to travel two times, after all the June wedding was going to be our “official” wedding, and we rater had them there at that time!

So on this cold day we went to the Bluffton Courthouse and which was another SHOCKER where out of the courthouse and married for the very first time WITHIN 15 (if it lasted that long) MINUTES!

Before Bastiaan and I knew what was going on we were officially married! The only thing I really remember was the major saying those things that we only hear on TV or in the movies, now for real right in front of us which was pretty amazing! And naturally my new husband being very sweet and handsome!

After we got out off the courthouse we went to the Mexican restaurant to celebrate and got a great lunch, after that it was pretty much back to business as usual…

Soon after our “Court Wedding” Bastiaan and I picked the venue and the church and met with the priest, picked what we wanted to eat and who we would love to have at our special day and THAT was pretty much the extend of what he wanted and needed to do… (Being a boy and planning weddings apparently doesn’t go together…).

Me and a friend on the other hand decided on getting organized and we got a Marta Steward planning guide (haha, yep) and the next months we were extremely busy getting everything done and ready. In the beginning of April 2008 the first wedding invitations went to our 200 guests all over the world…

On April 15th I got a phone call.
‘Sorry, but you got cancer…’.
Within 5 minutes our whole world as we knew it changed.

Four weeks after getting “the news”, being true several surgeries and debating different types off chemo, we canceled the wedding...

Together we decided to fight this beast first, make sure we were healthy and yes then we would get married, for Real. But at that time we really did not know or realize how bad it was going to be...

Next Thursday I’ll tell you about us getting married for the second time, without us really realizing what exactly was happening!


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How to end up with my perfect guy...

There is no such thing as the perfect guy, right??? WRONG!

This past Monday I told you about our Bar in School (Bar 6-) and this cute guy that walked in while I was doing my weekly shift of bartending…. Yes, on a weeknight...

Bastiaan, was his name.

I figured this was a good, solid name and I quickly checked his hands (pretty important for a farmer) and checked his teeth (pretty important for a farm girl). They were both fine so we started chatting.

He just came back from Australia where he spent 8 months working at a cotton farm a sheep farm and doing some backpacking. That sounded like music to my ears because I already had traveled 3 times to The States, once to Canada, several times to Sicily (all by myself!) so I was pretty content with the fact that I found somebody who traveled (by himself) too and wasn't afraid to see the world.

We talked a hole in the night. Of course I was too busy talking to notice the time and D finally told me, “Hey Leo, shouldn’t you close the bar?” Oh yeah, close the bar... Bastiaan helped us close the bar (which included cleaning the whole place, clean the toilets and the outside so the next morning “normal” students could go to school) without finding left overs from the previous night and we did this same thing the next night and the next…

Although I told him the second night, “You have to know, when I grow up, I’m gonna live in The States!”, that didn’t scare him off. He just laughed and asked if maybe I wanted to come to Australia instead.

“NO WAY!” … Yes, yes determined stubborn is something that some people would label me with…

On our 4th night he walked me back to my car. We also had dorms on the school property and the first year they recommend you staying in the dorms (to get adjusted to the life, as in, don’t drink and drive but just crawl home...) but because I was already in my third year I “upgraded” my bottom into a real student house (in the suburbs of the town). Bastiaan had his room in the dorm (after all he was brand spanking new), but I had to drive to my house every evening. 

While walking "home"/to my car from the Bar listening to a Belgium band, Lasgo with their hit song Something, Bastiaan kissed me! And yes this was one of our OPENING SONGS at our wedding (our THIRD wedding, but I’ll tell you all about that later) and yes he is about 1.5 years younger but he also knew how to take charge... hehe…

The music was great, the weather was great, the evening went really well and I was in the best company a girl could wish for. When I got home I woke up all my roommates and told them we had kissed! Of course they were very happy for me and asked me what my plan was next. I hadn’t been in a serious relationship for a while and I told them, "we would see where it would lead us". To D I said, “I don’t know, he is awfully young, maybe it will last 3 months and then something else will come along for him”…

This year we are together 10 years with LOTS of ups and downs; as in: break up’s, get together’s, emigration to a different part of the world, battling cancer, starting a large dairy together with MY mom, dad and brother, leaving his family for me, leaving his friends for me and try to find new friends, putting his dreams away on a shelf so i can chase my crazy American Dream, going true a truly awful time financially and mentally with our dairy so soon after we started up, learning to love cows while actually he is a crop farmer and no, crop farmers are not dairy farmers..., hoping that one day he can become a daddy, that is if my body and mind  is ready to have little ones... and oh, did I mention BATTLING cancer with me…?

I really KNOW i found my perfect match. He’s quiet, I’m blabbing all the time, he’s understanding, I’m wondering AND worrying about everything everywhere, he thinks things true, I’m a spur of the moment kindda girl, he’s perfect , I’m far from….


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Wordless Wednesday...

Yep... That's me...

And yes, that is a BIG cat!
And yes, those are pig poopies!

Have a fantastic Wednesday, do some bloghopping and don't forget about my love story  here at Four Leaf Clover Tales tomorrow (Thursday)!


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