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IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

I spent the weekend just getting caught up with stuff. I spent most of last week in with Lara helping her out. I returned home Friday night around 7:00 and Dave and I went out for pizza. We hardly had time to eat as we got each other caught up on what was happening. I gave him an update on my week and he gave me an update on his.

Saturday morning, he got up early, hitched up the trailer and headed into Silverton to pick up the Kubota after Leslie and Jason had borrowed it. He also wanted to see the annual "Great Oregon Steam Up" exhibition in Brooks. He always enjoys going to that event and seeing all the steam engines on display. While he was loading up the tractor, Leslie wanted to show off her garden. She has wanted a raised bed garden ever since they moved to that place and we had some material left over after our deck renovation, so she was finally able to use that to build the beds. Anyway, after Dave loaded up the Kubota at Silverton, he headed for home. When he was almost home he had a blow out on one of the trailer tires and he was stuck without a jack to fix it. He had everything else - just no jack. He called to say he was going to be late and then he proceeded to go door-to-door along Highway 101 until a nice lady lent him her husband's jack. He was able to change the tire and return the jack in less than an hour from the blowout. In spite of having a second tire start to go flat after all that, he was able to limp home just about when he thought he would originally be there and supper was waiting on the table.

While he was gone to Silverton/Brooks, I headed up north to Warrenton to Costco and Home Depot. I picked up a few things I needed at Costco and a few more bags of bark dust at Home Depot so that I could finish my project. As I was heading home I spotted a sign advertising a sale of Escolonia bushes and decided to check that out. I want to plant a hedge of them in the front of the house where we had the cedar hedge removed. It looked like a great bargain and so when the trailer gets new tires, I will take another run up there. I was talking to a friend of mine and she can get these bushes wholesale and so I want to compare the two prices before I buy anything. We still have to finish to terracing and put in a retaining wall before I can plant anything, but if that's a good price, I may just get them in tubs and keep them until I'm ready to plant.

We headed for Tillamook on Tuesday so Dave could get new tires for the trailer ($450) and I had a follow-up doctor's appointment and a nail appointment. On the way home we stopped at our favorite Chinese restaurant and ate. My meal was so big I ended up bringing most of it home in a doggie bag. We made one more stop at Freddies to pick up a few things. Dave was with me and one of his biggest pet peeves is that while I am grocery shopping I tend to block the aisle with the shopping cart. He just doesn't understand the "rules" of the grocery store and it is something every woman does. We just learn to go around someone else's cart. Besides, it doesn't seem to bother anyone else but him!!

An update on Lara: Lara got her pathology report back from her lymph node biopsy and it wasn't at all what we expected. After her surgery, the doctor came out and told us that everything looked good, but that they were going to do a biopsy on the lymph nodes "just in case". That report showed that the cancer has spread to the lymph nodes and she will have to have further treatment. This news knocked the wind out of our sails and we were all devastated. I went with Greg and Leslie with Lara to her oncologist to listen to her options. She will have to have Chemotherapy treatments four times about 3 weeks apart. In addition, there's a new drug out called Herceptin which is a protein developed to kill her type of cancer cells and she will be on that treatment once a month for a year. She will have to postpone her second mastectomy and subsequent reconstruction surgery until after the Chemo treatments so it will be December before that surgery will take place. I am learning a lot about cancer and the treatments involved. She is lucky as this new drug was not available until just recently. But I still am devastated about all of this and if I could I would trade places with her in a heartbeat. She is continuing to be very positive but I know she is disappointed too. We will all be there for her as she battles this terrible disease.

As if all that wasn't bad enough, we got a call from Lara this week and she did something to her back and has been unable to move. So I came back in on Wednesday to help her out because the granddaughters were home and she just couldn't do anything. I helped with the kids, housework and ran some errands that she needed done. She ended up going to a doctor for an adjustment on her back and an X-ray, but even after getting her back aligned, it was her muscles that were making her suffer. By Thursday evening she was feeling a lot better and so I will head back to the coast today but will remain on call if she needs me. She has another series of appointments next week, so I'll be back in then to help out again.