Happy Birthday, Doctors and Shopping

-

We arrived in Santa Rosa on the 24th of September and the same day I went for an Ultrasound to get ready for my proposed surgery.
On the 25th I turned 65 years old and I celebrated all day long and went to lunch with my forwarding agents Sue and Gene Beckstead and Major.  They then dropped us off and Major and I had a pedicure.  For dinner we met up with family—10 of us—and enjoyed a beautiful steak dinner at one of my favorite places, Cattlemen's.  We came back to sister Sylvia’s house for cake, ice cream and presents!
On the 27th for lunch we met up with Amanda.  She was a Chidamoyo alumni for 2003 and 2005 and then moved to Santa Rosa to become a nurse and now works at Kaiser Hospital in Santa Rosa.  We hadn't seen her in years so it was great to get to meet up with her!

 On the 27th we went to Dr. Stephanie Huang’s office to get our ears clean and then out to dinner with her husband and twins, Lucas and Julian (all Chidamoyo alumni) Jeff Scharfen (Chidamoyo alumni) and his wife Dr. Cindy joined us for a wonderful Chinese dinner.  We kept celebrating my birthday!
On the 28th we enjoyed seeing great-nephew, Maximo McCarty (10 years old) play his little league game and win.
On Sunday the 29th Major and I spoke at my home church, Sebastopol Christian Church, for their 2 services sharing our work at Chidamoyo.  After second church they had a birthday party in the parking lot of the church for me.  They BBQed hotdogs and hamburgers and had 3 birthday cakes!  What fun it has been to celebrate this one! They invited several alumni from Chidamoyo!
Major and I have been busy shopping and helping the US economy in between doctors appointments, lab work and procedures.  We have been spending time going to lunch and dinner and seeing many friends.  It has been a great time to catch up with old friends, many alumni from Chidamoyo.
Yesterday I went to Stanford Medical (2 hours south of here center to see a specialist urologist.  He has referred me to see a Urogynecologist at Stanford for another evaluation later this month and then they will decide about surgery.  So, I have some time I can plan until I am tied down with further treatment.
I have been feeling well and enjoying being away from the stress of Zimbabwe.  We are hearing a lot of news from Zimbabwe and we are concerned and praying hard for improvement.  Doctors have been on strike throughout the country for a few weeks, which has brought more work to Chidamoyo.
Major is here until the 30th of October and he hopes to get to Kentucky to see his daughter before he leaves.  He is enjoying all the food and shopping!


Birthday lunch with Gene and Sue Beckstead

Birthday Pedicures

Family dinner for breakfast


Singing cowboys--Marc, nephew and Major


Amanda (Chidamoyo Alumni x 2), Major and Kathy


Great-nephew Maximo preaching

Lauren--Chidamoyo Alumni from Nashville

Cindy Cullen (Chidamoyo Alumni x2)

Kathy and great nephew, Maximo


Kathy blowing out candle

Dr. Huang family and Jeff and Cindy


Major and Great nephew Alec enjoying ice cream slush


Dr. Megan Fitzpatrick and Major



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Unpacking cintainer, interviewing a new doctor

-
Image
It has been busy this week unpacking the container that arrived recently.  We have been unloading it a truck load at a time and bringing it up to the hospital to unload.  Carolyn Mereki has been helping to unload and sort and then she delivers it to the different departments. We are really happy with a lot of good supplies that we are unpacking to use at the hospital. We are putting the barrels and boxes in the hallway outside my office and opening them when we have time.  It is always fun to see what we get! On Friday this week we traveled to Kadoma (1 hour south of Harare), about 4 1/2 hour drive for us.  We met up with Mashoko administration to interview 6 people for jobs at Chidamoyo and Mashoko as doctors.  We have tentatively made decisions, but have another 2 people to interview--so please pray with us that we choose the right doctor. The doctor strike continues since 1 March.  No settlement and government hospitals only doing emergencies so we can't really refer o
Read more
-
Image
 I stopped chemo in mid-February and the oncologist tried a period of Immunotherapy by itself to see if it would work.  In March I started to produce a lot of abdominal fluid (ascities) and had to go to the hospital every 2 weeks and then every week to be tapped to remove the fluid.  They got off up to 8.8 liters a time which gave me a few days relief before it would come back.  It made it hard to breathe without laying on my sides and I couldn't really eat without pain. So, I was in bed a lot of the time. They decided I needed to start Chemo again with the Immunotherapy.  My Oncologist said it was not time to give up yet!  He said the chemo helped before to shrink the tumor a bit so they felt if I could shrink it again I wouldn't have to go for tapping.  I was all for that. He did remind me there is no cure only remission and that I have months not years to live but he felt there were other drugs to try if these don't work.  I am usually not in pain so I am so thankful for
Read more

Happy Boxing Day

-
Image
Our Christmas dinner theme was Hawaiian Retro Christmas--so we had dress 1950's Hawaii. Michael, Major's son decided to add some tummy to his costume to look like his Dad! Enjoy these pictures!
Read more