Everythings coming up Roses… so far

Don’t mind me if I seem to have quiet reservations when it comes to my Wife’s health or our son’s mental health for that matter. While not a Debbie Downer or a Doubting Thomas I am genuinely relieved that things are going smoothly and both my wife and son appear to be doing well….. I can’t help but wait with quiet reservation for the Hammer to fall…again.

For those that don’t know, our son had a large brain tumor and had surgery January 7th 2013 to remove it, the surgery was a success and other being partially blind in his right eye and left an emotional wreck he is doing just fine, he is now 13 years old and in grade 8, he loves school and is an almost straight A student.

February 28 ,2014 my wife was diagnosed with stage 4 (end stage) Lung Cancer,and for the last 8 months she has been in and out of the Cancer center receiving Chemo, we almost lost her back in early March,She is on a 2 month break from the Cancer center and doesn’t have to go back until November 25th for a CT-Scan.

So know you can understand why I have my quiet reservations, after 2 years of constant Hospitals and doctors, and almost losing the 2 people who mean more to me than my own life itself, I find it very difficult to be overly optimistic or to let my guard down,I watch over them like a hawk, I ask both of them how they are feeling and doing multiple times per day, every day.

But at the moment our son is doing so well he doesn’t require bi monthly appointments with his counsellor, he is holding his own quite well and seems happy and able to cope with life quite well.

My wife is also doing very well, she only uses her oxygen machine at night when she sleeps, she’s got good control of any pain with twice daily doses of both Morphine and Oxycodone, she is doing so well that she now can share our bed (first time in 8 months) and we are getting back some normalcy in our lives.

This is all great news, but I still can’t bring myself to relax and get complacent, I worry about every little cough or sneeze, I worry that our son will bring home some virus (cold or flu) and I will have to have him stay at a friends until he is better because my wife’s immune system is so severely compromised from all the Chemo, I worry about me getting sick and not being able to look after them or drive her to her many doctor appointments, the rule around this house is if you have a cough you can’t come in, if you have a sneeze you can’t come in, we ask that you wash your hands for at least 60 seconds with soap and water every time you use the washroom (surprisingly many folks don’t do this) and to use hand sanitizer before touching food or while working in the kitchen.

To say I am somewhat stressed would be an understatement, I keep a full tank of gas in the car and the doctors on speed dial. But despite this, I do enjoy spending quality time and conversing with my wife and our son, I stay positive and upbeat for them and listen with a smile as my wife talks about next year being a better year for us all.

So far everything seems to be coming up roses, and I would like for it to stay that way for awhile, I seriously need to decompress and relax a bit and be able to enjoy life being relatively normal for us at the moment.

I blog quite abit about many different things, some are light hearted some a tad more serious, and yes I’ll be posting more recipe’s again in the next little while, I blog for many reasons, one being it is my therapy, I’d go nucking futs if I couldn’t blog!! another reason is, I want the world to know about my wife and son (and I guess me) and how happy they make me and what a blessing each of them are to everyone they meet. I want the world to know that,yes, it is possible to find and marry your soul mate and to love someone more than life itself, it doesn’t just happen in fairy tales, it happens in real life too ,but unfortunately the outcome is not like the fairy tales, in real life the two lovers don’t always live happily ever after, no matter how hard they pray for it to be. I want the world to know that same sex couples can and do raise perfectly normal heterosexual children. I want the world to know that same sex marriages are not the end of heterosexual marriages and in fact have zero impact on them at all. There are lots more reasons that I blog,and if you stick around for the long haul those reasons will reveal themselves.

Anyway, that’s all for tonight folks, so remember :express your love often,never take tomorrow for granted,and be kind to others.

Butch
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Spring Flooding

This is our garden, under about 2 feet of water, all the snow we got this past winter has left our property a ruddy mess, its not just our garden that flooded but most of our property.

I have been busy pumping out the water but there really is no place to put it, the ditch out front is overflowing, the water I pump out of the yard is pretty much running down the road.
I am not the only one flooded almost everyone here in Pense has flooding to some degree and some are flooded worse than we are so the village held a huge sand bagging bee, in 8 hours we all together have bagged over 5000 bags, which are free for the taking by anyone who lives here.



This is the entrance to our secret garden, it looks rather dismal right now, but once the water is pumped out and the area cleaned up it will once again be a cozy little hide away to sit on the bench swing and watch the birds and squirrels and breathe in the scents of wild flowers while shaded from the hot summer sun.



All things considered, the flooding aint so bad, this photo was taken exactly 1 month ago, when I was busy digging the RED DORF out of the snowbank to get it ready to sell, so when it comes to the flooding, it could be worse! it could always be 40 below and we could still have 6 feet of snow on the ground, so yep, Ill gladly take the warm weather and flood waters!

Our garden may be a little late getting planted this year as once the water is gone the ground still has to dry, but with some hard work, patience, and a positive attitude we will have a wonderful garden around the first of June. better late than never eh?

guess thats all for now, yall have a wonderful weekend.

Butch
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A walk too far Community Spirit

Last week was gruelling for my wife, surgery to repair an artery, then chemo 2 days later, she got home from the hospital Saturday tired and sick from the chemo, by Monday she was feeling better and wanted to go for a walk for the first time in 5 months.

So Monday afternoon we walked down to the post office (just 2 blocks from home) a walk that usually takes me around 3 minutes, took us 15, but we made it, from there she wanted to walk a little more so we walked another block to the little general store (the only store in the village) I bought her an iced tea and we walked home , (20 minutes from the store to our home).

That walk, her first in 5 months, was a little too much for my wife and she has been paying for it since, she is ever so tired and run down and has spent the last 2 days napping at various times throughout the day. I have gently told her that her next walk will only be to the end of the road and back, or perhaps over to our friends Wayne & Karen’s house for a visit and tea ( about a half a block walk) until she gets more strength back. She’s okay with that plan, she just doesn’t want to be house bound in the summer.

So our little family got another huge surprise from the community/village we live in, this Saturday they are holding the first annual Celebration of Life Day , they have organized quite a few events, a parade ( they even recruited a Cadet troop from Regina to come out and march), a vintage/muscle car car show and shine , a community BBQ, a slow pitch tourney, a small casino, beer gardens and silent auction, and a meet and greet as well as a few other events, all this is being done for my wife Pauline, to show community support and to help her celebrate life, all the proceeds are going to her.

To say that we are overwhelmed is a drastic understatement, I just found all this out yesterday, when I was talking to Dewy ( a neighbor) his son took over the family farm and donated a brand new swather for the silent auction ! I nearly passed out when I found this out.

So I have been coaxing my wife to get plenty of rest between now and Saturday as she has a spot on the town float to sit comfortably as the Queen for a day , she will be busy Saturday talking to folks and partaking in some events, the one she is most excited about is the car show, like me she loves cars, especially classic cars & trucks, and of course our son “Hammy” will be in the parade as there is a bicycle decorating party friday night for the parade saturday, I will get lots of photos and post them here on my blog(s) .

This little village continues to amaze us, 6 years ago we moved out here to start a new life away from the cities and the crime, we were unsure how we would be received as we are not your usual mainstream family, we were met with open arms and a welcome to our community potluck gathering and we were given the 50 cent tour of the village and school, someone had even hand drawn a map of the back roads (grids) showing where they went, whose farm was where and where the local dump was located ( I still got lost as the map wasn’t 100% accurate), we were the token lesbian couple and the village seemed to take a strange kinda pride in that fact.

Fast forward 6 years, we have become a big part of the community, volunteering our time and sometimes resources to what ever event pops up, letting weary travellers park their camper for a day or two on our property , sometimes even running power and water out to them, setting aside an old shed and a couple trees for the village kids to use as forts and build tree houses in ( at last count we have 5 tree houses in various stages of completion back there), my wife faithfully has taken part in a community cooking bee in the fall (harvest) where the ladies auxiliary cook and bake up a storm and take their goods out to the farmers around the clock at harvest time.

I usually hire a couple young teens every summer to work at my lawn& yard maintenance business, and can be found in my work shop with a couple kids teaching them the basics of woodworking/construction 101 or what not, so it’s not like we keep to ourselves out here, we are blessed to live in a small community that accepts us as we are flaws and all, I can’t imagine living anywhere else , and the support we have from the community really drives home the sense of belonging .

guess that’s all for now, remember to express your love often, don’t take tomorrow for granted and be kind to others , Peace

Butch
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from far far out in left field again

Okay so umm Ive developed an unusual habit of watching the clothes get sloshed around by the agitator in the washing machine, so lets just back up a moment and say that I, Butch, blew up my wifes washing machine by accident *sigh* this happened almost a month ago, what happened was I got tinkering with the machine and thought hmmm I can increase the pump velocity thereby making it drain faster... so I did and it did, I had that piddly pump draining at around 20 gpm where as the stock drained around 5gpm , I was pleased with myself, it served no real purpose and didnt help the laundry chores go any faster, but still I was pleased with myself,

well things worked well for a few days, then ummm BANG! what happened next was simply EPIC!! the piddly little impeller inside the pump sheared off at such a high velocity that it not only blew apart the pump but also the hoses from the wash tub to the pump before embedding itself in the floor, okay THAT was pretty freakin AWESOME in my books, but my wife didnt see it that way! she was so mad at me she was speechless and just glared at me while the sparks flew and the water pooled at her feet.

Now fast forward to the present, I replaced her old washing machine, and it was old, at least 15 years old, so I bought a heavy duty C6 model, not brand new but a 4 year old with a ground up rebuild, it only cost me $100 and came with a 3 months parts warranty, my wifey is happy and that makes me a happy Butch as I can finally come out of the dog house.



as you can plainly see its a used washer, but dang it works great, its not that old just 4 years, and it can handle anything, as I discovered you can put a weeks worth of laundry for 3 people in one big load! I be liking it, and my wife has yet to use it because I have volunteered to become the laundry taker carer of person, and heres where it gets a bit weird, its the agitator, it doesnt just go back and forth like the old washer! this one is a 2 parter!! the bottom half goes back and forth while the top half goes in a jerky continual motion in 1 direction.... counter clockwise, and for some reason unbeknownst to me it fascinates me! to the point where it has become my personal obsession to stand there with the lid up and watch it as it sucks the clothes down under the water.



it is just a washing machine, but I am obsessed with watching that agitator for reasons I cant explain, my wife and kidlet think I have finally gone nuts! maybe theyre right and I have, but everyone has got very clean clothes and the laundry hamper is always empty!


well Im off to.... you guessed it, run a load of laundry

Butch


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Cancer Treatments Alternatives and my Wife life in general so far

So I took my wife to the Cancer Centre today for her check up, the Oncologist did a routine check up on her and is amazed that she is doing so well, in fact he said it is a Bloody Miracle that not only is she alive, but is doing so well! I discussed the use of Curcumin (Turmeric extract) as a cancer treatment as well as Hemp oil, The oncologist said by law he can’t recommend the use of these 2 compounds, but off the record he said that both are good for killing cancer cells and shrinking tumours,but I didn’t hear it from him.

Then it was off to our Family Doctor for prescription refills, he had read today’s oncology report and he too said my wife is experiencing a Miraculous Recovery!!……… That word…. Recovery!! dare I believe? …. I am cautiously optimistic and will remain so until I see the results of the CT Scan that happens at the end of January, her next appointment with the Oncologist happens February 11th, but we will know the results of the CT Scan long before that through our family doctor….we shall see.

I found a supplier of Hemp Oil, Old Fashioned Foods carries it in both liquid and capsule form, I am headed there today or tomorrow to pick up a good supply for my wife, I am also in the process of growing some Cannabis plants for her, there are multiple ways to use the Cannabis for cancer, she can eat it, take the buds (the part people usually smoke) and dry them then sprinkle them into salads and other foods, she can juice the leaves along with kale,celery,and other leafy greens or berries and make a smoothie , or I can convert some of the plants into oil, put the oil into capsules and she can then take the oil in pill form a couple times per day.

Cannabis/Hemp has very good cancer fighting and killing properties, if you are interested and have some extra time Google this guy : Rick Simpson , he wrote an article (possibly a book) called Running from the Cure, this guy had cancer and used Cannabis/Hemp to cure himself, he is the Governments and Medical worlds worst enemy as instead of railing against Cannabis and Hemp use he speaks out for it, and explains why the big Pharmaceutical Companies don’t want you to know about the medical applications for Cannabis and Hemp, it not only helps Cancer Patients, but also MS patients, and may help against Alzheimer’s .

Curcumin (turmeric extract) also does much the same as Cannabis and Hemp for Cancer Patients, it too kills cancer cells and helps promote healthy cells, I have also been reading about changing the PH balance in your body, a half teaspoon of baking soda in an 8oz glass of water twice a day is supposed to alter your PH which apparently Cancer doesn’t like and it is supposed to stop cancer from spreading and may even begin to kill the cancer cells….. Now I haven’t fully researched baking soda and the whole business of changing your PH balance so don’t take this blog as Gospel, it is just something I have stumbled across and thought worth mentioning, please by all means look it up and do some homework on it as well.

One of my goals is to find what works for my wife, then start a new page/blog dedicated to alternatives in the fight against Cancer, but before I can even begin to think of doing such thing, I’d better be DAMN SURE that I have my FACTS straight and HAVE living PROOF that it works, I am never going to start a page/blog that gives false hope to people.

I will state though that the benefits of Cannabis,Hemp and Curcumin (turmeric extract) are very well documented and the proof is getting harder and harder for the medical world to refute. So there IS something there, but again, do your research and homework, I do NOT advocate ignoring conventional Cancer treatments nor do I advocate ignoring the medical world, I would say to try Cannabis/hemp oil and Curcumin in combination with what ever treatments your doctor advises, or after exhausting all other medical avenues, I would NEVER just rely on one method in the fight against cancer.

Chemo saved my wife’s life, that is a FACT, it brought her back from the brink of death…literally, so even though Chemo is hard on your body, has major side effects (physically ill, hair loss,compromises the immune system and can cause major depression) I still advocate it’s use, the benefits of it far outweigh the negatives, it can and does slow the cancer, it can and does kill cancer cells and shrinks tumours, it does save lives and extend life,and sometimes can kill the cancer altogether, of course it depends on the type of cancer and the person.

My wife went through 8 rounds of very aggressive Chemo over the course of 8 months, 8 rounds is really pushing the proverbial envelope, most times the doctors will stop after 6 rounds as more than 6 can often do more harm than good, and sometimes be LETHAL to the person receiving the treatment, but with my wife they pushed it to 8 as the Chemo was shrinking the tumours in her lungs, when they reached number 8 the tumours just wouldn’t shrink anymore so they ceased the treatments.

She was sent home on a 2 month break and to recover from such massive doses of Chemo, it was at that moment where I began seriously researching alternative treatments, I knew about Cannabis/Hemp and it’s healing properties, but knowing about it is not enough, I had to research it more and be sure I had the facts as not knowing can do more harm than good, it is also when I stumbled across Curcumin as a treatment as well and began to do research into it’s use. Also I came across a little bit of information that stated that there was a substance in Celery that had anti Cancer properties , I had always thought that Celery was mostly just made up of water, but hey it’s worth a try right? And celery never killed anyone and makes a good snack, it’s healthy too, did you know that you burn more calories eating a celery stalk than what is in the celery itself? … me either!

There is also a very controversial supplement commonly called B-17 (Laetrile/Amygdalin) that supposedly has cancer fighting properties, my Mother In-law insists that her brother cured his bladder cancer with it, and I have heard that in Mexico they use it in liquid form at hospitals on cancer patients, but as I said, I have just heard about it, it’s all hear say to me and unsubstantiated, but my Mother in law sends a couple bottles every so often so my wife takes them , is it helping? … I don’t know, but it isn’t doing her any harm either, you can also use apricot seeds the same way as they contain the same ingredients as the B-17… I have done a little research on B-17 but there is not a lot out there on it.

I can’t say definitively if any of the alternative treatments (the B-17,Curcumin, or Celery and very shortly the Hemp Oil) is doing anything or helping my wife, but know this, the Doctors are perplexed as they can’t figure out why she is still alive, and why she continues to improve, and how is it she has almost a normal life again. We (my wife and I ) also contribute the power of prayer and positive energies people around the world have been sending to her as being a major factor in the life she has now, I am quite sure that it is helping a great deal.

Anyway, I will stop here so I can go to the city and get my wife some Hemp Oil, I hope this entry has provided information and leads to help others in their struggles with Cancer, I don’t know how to drop links into Open Office yet, but until I do, Google is just a mouse click away for you to look up some of the alternatives I’ve mentioned here in this blog.

Remember folks, express your love often,never take tomorrow for granted and be kind to others

Butch
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