Ultra Violet Irradiation

UVI has been around since the thirties so it's not a new concept, though we had never heard of it until recent months. It cleans the blood as it passes through an ultra violet light, which then attacks the other bad stuff in the blood. Mr D chose to do this after the chemo failed to make any difference to his tumor. Did it help? I don't know that we'll ever know other than there was a lot of debris in his blood.

Dr Godfrey and his assistant drawing six oz of blood, using an IV container.

 The blood passes through this flat piece which is placed under the light as it goes back into his body.

 As the container empties, it leaves these bubbles behind which will be a consistent pattern by the time the ten sessions are finished.

 Mr D waiting the ninety minutes it takes for the blood to drip back through the IV and back into his body.

This is a painless procedure other than the IV pricks. We felt it had as much value as the chemo treatments, especially in light of what we learned in this past week. The next step in this cancer journey is having surgery to remove the tumor in several weeks at Mercy Hospital, using the HYPEC method. Mr D is thrilled that finally someone is doing the surgery he had been asking for since July 2012.

I'll keep updating on this as it happens.

Family Fun at Christmas 2013

No, it's not Christmas 2013 but we do have our Christmas get-together the first Saturday after the New Year. I'm posting these late - but I like to record a few pictures from our time together.

First off: we had a white Christmas; not much but enough to look pretty!

 We also took family pictures and it.was.COLD!

All of our grandchildren except the oldest who had a basketball tournament.

All because of two people...

More family pictures at a later time.

 The girls spent a lot of the day coloring together.

These three are best buds and played in their own corner protected

 from any little hands that wanted to grab their animals...

We can't forget the cooks!

Oh, the meal was yummy!

Revised Church Attendance Board

This church attendance board was a too long on-going project but was finished in time to greet the 2013 New Year and I must say I'm very pleased with it. After asking for ideas on what to do with it, several suggested the chalkboard idea and I ran with that one.

- before -

The board needed some quite a bit of repair to make it nice enough for a chalkboard. Mr D repaired the split down the middle and I took it from there. The cracks were puttied and sanded several times until it was smooth enough to write on, then the fun began! I gave it two coats of primer and one coat of white before I spray painted it with the chalkboard paint.

I used a picture frame to frame the chalkboard area, painting it before gluing it on the board. It got another coat of paint and a light sanding to finish it off. It was hung New Year's Eve.

Now it's all set for the winter months! It's hung just inside the laundry room and before you step into the kitchen, welcoming everyone who walks through our doors.

And yes, I'm pleased with the results.

And to think I was going to just take the numbers and letters and let the board at the yard sale!