Blue Room...You Saw Me Standing Alone...

Ha, okay, sorry, no more singing made up lyrics to country songs. We are back in Gonzales. We made it back this evening and it really isn't as bad here as I was expecting. West Baton Rouge had some intense tree damage but for the most part, Gonzales just looks like places normally do after a hurricane...lots of branches down along with a few trees and there are some blue roofs as well, but not that many. I went to the grocery store and it was pretty bare so I had to pick and choose what I could to make some meals. I didn't buy too much though because we are watching Ike, and if we have to evacuate I don't want to have to mess with cleaning out the fridge before we go. The grocery store was pretty busy as well, when I pulled up there was a line outside (it had cleared up by the time I got to the door) and when I left there was a line that had formed again - they were only letting so many people in at a time. 

I looked at the pictures I posted of my tongue, and I realized why everyone was so confused by them...I took them with my computer and for some reason, the pictures reversed themselves. My flap is actually on the right side (but it looks like my left in the picture) and the scar is on my left arm (although it looks like my right). Does that clear things up a little? 

Tomorrow I have a doctor's appointment with Dr. Fields and I'm going to beg and cry to have my feeding tube taken out! I'll let you know how it goes. 

Okay, now some pictures of everything we did in Tulsa! 

Our blue bedroom...

The entertainment stand that Warner and Todd built

The entertainment stand and the messy living room. I had to take everything off the old gigantic entertainment stand so next trip up I will have to find somewhere to put everything. You can see Ruekie in the bottom right of the picture...

Jackson and Girlfriend!

Shauna and Todd, Jackson's parents if you couldn't see the resemblance. They are also the wonderful people that are keeping an eye on our house while we are gone and our cookout buddies when we are in town.

Jackson! This is after we promised him a cookie. 

Woo Pig Sooie...More Proof That I Actually Graduated!

On Sunday we went to the University of Arkansas after church. We ate lunch with a group of friends from Cabot that we haven't seen for a while. Then at the U of A we went and saw my name in the Senior Walk! Woohoo...here are some pictures!

These kids went to lunch with us 

and walked around campus after with us.

On campus

Me by my name in the walk!

Again by my name!

They spelled it right!

I Am Stealing Shauna and Todd's Internet

Lainie is the recipient of the "Best Double Take Award" on Sunday at church. We were all standing around talking to Chris and Marie and a few other people and Lainie walked in and just looked at us and walked on by. Marie made some sort of comment and Lainie gave a quick response and kept walking. THEN, she finally realized, after looking at us a few times, that she hadn't seen us in a long time and that was kind of a big deal. We got a lot of double takes on Sunday. It's great. People just say hi like it's no big deal and then it clicks and you get a really excited HI! It was really good to see everyone and we enjoyed getting to spend time catching up with you all! 

Warner has finished the entertainment center, with the help of Todd from down the street. It turned out really well and we will move it into the house tomorrow. Today Warner and I went to the aquarium because I was starting to fall asleep on the couch while we were watching Return of the King. So, that's about it, here are some pictures from our vacation so far. 

The boys working on the entertainment center!

The dogs joined in

Sharks at the aquarium

Jellyfish!

Me petting a shark, I also got to pet the stingrays

Baby Jellyfish

Stingrays and sharks!

Happy Birthday Charlie - Here's Another Hurricane To Make It More Exciting!

I love storms. I love lightning and thunder and hail and everything about severe storms. I even like the threat of tornadoes. The possibility of some danger and some excitement - DRAMA. I love hurricanes, maybe because I grew up outside of New Orleans. I still to this day, when storms threaten the coast, get that excited feeling in my gut, and I find myself looking up school closures. It's that same feeling I got when I was still in school and would wake up and turn on the tv to the school board channel to see if school was closed that day. It was a big deal. And the schools where I grew up are closed until Wednesday - at least. I care, and I'm not even in school there, I haven't been in five years. Hurricane days became snow days when I went to college, except people don't freak out about snow in Arkansas like they do about hurricanes in Louisiana, and school rarely closed.

With Gustav off the coast, I find myself wanting to pick up my cell phone and call Dr. Pou and ask her a million questions - but that would totally be abusing my cell phone privileges. I want to know what she's thinking, if she's freaking out, is she on call at the hospital for this storm, is she packing up and leaving?? I want to know these things, but it's none of my business. I'll just have to wait until some newspaper interviews her since she's almost synonymous with Katrina and Gustav is being compared to Katrina.

It's my brother's birthday today, and the poor guy has to worry about another hurricane instead of enjoying his birthday! The anniversary of Katrina was yesterday, and his birthday is today - crazy. I told him he should just move his birthday to another day so he could actually go out and celebrate or do something with friends instead of packing up all his stuff and getting out of town (but I guess that could be fun depending on where you evacuate to).

We are enjoying being in Tulsa. I miss our house here and I especially miss our bed (it's pretty much amazing) - I've slept soooo good the past two nights. Warner decided to start working on our new entertainment center and we went and bought the wood and picked out the stain for it today at Lowes. This afternoon Warner stained the wood and it's sitting in our garage stinking it up right now! We figured we may have an extra day or so up here while we are waiting for Gustav to clear out, so we figured we would have some time to get a project done!

Yesterday we had a cookout with Shauna and Todd and Jackson. Todd cooked burgers on the grill and they were really good! I was quite impressed that Jackson remembered me a little bit(he's two) but the other day when we went down to visit he walked in and yelled "Girlfriend!" because they have always called me his girlfriend! He's talking like crazy and is becoming more independent - it's crazy! Tomorrow we are going to Siloam and Fayetteville for church and to see some friends. I'm excited, it's been a while since we have been up here!

Okay, that's what I've got for now. It's almost bed time because we will be up early in the morning!

Hit The Road Jack

We are waking up bright and early (before the butt-crack of dawn) and heading up to Tulsa to go spend the weekend at our house and just to get away for a little bit. Six whole days without doctors and hospitals and scopes. I won't know what to do with myself! HA! I'll sleep and hopefully not have to think about cancer at all. So, here are some pictures that we took with my mac tonight (they aren't the best quality, but you know you want to see pictures of me!).

Goofing off...I need a haircut

More goofing...we don't do serious pictures very well

My beautiful smile...

if I can see what I'm doing I can make it almost normal looking

AND you can see the outline of my chin again!

Still a little popeye - ish

but definitely better than it was, 

but I have to be able to see what I'm doing or else it looks CRAZY

Yeah, I don't know

Arm Scar!!!

Unfortunately I couldn't turn my arm enough to get a good picture.

And last but not least...MY TONGUE!

haha, you know you're excited to finally see a picture of it!

I kind of have crazy eyes in this picture...HAHA

And to answer some questions, yes I have saliva still, but it's slightly different than it was and it gets slimy at night which is gross to wake up to, but I don't gag anymore. I put the marinara on the breadsticks to make them easier to swallow (being able to eat marinara is a big deal because the tomato used to burn my tongue). Just like I put lots of ketchup on my french fries now. I can taste sweet stuff somewhat now, it's a little different. I won't be going out and buying a snowball any time soon, but I do drink sweet tea or juice and I can taste the sugar in yogurt and stuff now. However, since the return of my sweet taste buds has come the weird taste of water. Almost has a sour sweet taste...and it's bottled water and tap water. I drink a lot of juice so that may have something to do with it, but who knows - it's just weird. Oh well, have a good Labor Day weekend!

Tennis On TV - Not Nearly As Fun As Actually Playing

And hello! Not much is going on in the Bradley household at the moment. I am watching the US Open and waiting for my brother to show up to hang out today and the dogs are sleeping. We are going out to lunch and then to Whole Foods. After that I am going to pack for our trip to Tulsa! Not that I really need to pack much - we have a house full of stuff waiting for us to show up - but I do have to figure out what I am going to bring from the apartment to leave at the house (we have tons of stuff here at the apartment just taking up space). 

I had my last speech therapy appointment yesterday - she said I was too much of a slacker and she never wanted to see me again - no really, she said I was doing really well and basically it's up to me if I want to improve anymore because she's told me everything to do - she just wants me to check in and say hi whenever I'm down the hall with Dr. Pou. She was impressed that I'm eating pretty much everything - I had Raisin Caines last night (fried chicken fingers - I ate about three (with the sauce), some french fries - WITH ketchup! and a quarter of a piece of Texas Toast - have I mentioned how much I love bread???). I've also had Olive Garden a good bit - I can eat the salad with the salad dressing and I can eat a breadstick if it has marinara on it. Today Charlie and I are going to Qdoba - it's a burrito bar (I'll get one without the tortilla) so hopefully it isn't too spicy, but I think I'm okay with spice for the most part - I guess we will find out soon enough. Let's see, I'm also eating oatmeal, lots of fish, pasta, I bought cookies to try on our road trip, I can drink juice without watering it down now, some soup (though not as much as I was eating at first), and baked potatoes (there's more stuff, but that is all the main stuff I guess). So, basically I'm trying everything. I do get these little water blisters that show up at the back of my throat on my soft palate when I eat something that irritates my throat, but they go away after a little bit. 

I have to wait about two and a half more weeks to have my feeding tube taken out. Mell (my speech therapist) said they usually wait about a month (once you stop using it) to make sure you can keep your weight up without it. So far I've only lost 3 pounds and I think that was at the beginning when I first stopped using the tube and I wasn't able to eat that well. I'm pretty sure I'm holding steady now. We are going to ask Dr. Fields about having it taken out at my appointment next week (maybe I'll put the weight back on over the weekend in Tulsa). 

I have four more weeks of physical therapy (or maybe less if I improve too fast!). Hopefully I'll be going back to work soon - I need something to do other than watch tv all day long! It drives me crazy to just sit around (granted, I sit at a desk all day at work so I guess it's not much different). 

Okay, that's all I've got for now and Charlie should be here soon (good thing, because I'm getting hungry, that oatmeal I ate 30 minutes ago didn't last very long!). 

Here's A Post So I Don't Get In Any More Trouble

I'm getting in trouble for not posting often enough!!!!! Not much has gone down this week. It was actually pretty uneventful until today. I started back to physical therapy on Tuesday and after this week I only have two more left - but never fear, I am going to get six more weeks - they just have to get Dr. Pou to write the prescription and I'm golden. I decided I needed more "sessions" because my neck muscles are super tight from the radiation and the two I have left are not going to make much of difference. 

So today I had my CT scan and I guess we'll find out the results in a few days. My stomach has really been bothering me since the end of last week where my PEG tube is, so they wanted to check it out. I had to drink the Barium stuff (but I got out of drinking as much as I was supposed to because I whined about being on a feeding pump for 3 months and how my stomach was really small). I still had to have an IV of the contrast when I got in there for the scan which was fine - I've been stuck so many times it doesn't phase me very much - plus, this girl was REALLY good at putting in IVs. I think she should be my own personal IV sticker. So, that was that - a little more radioactivity added to my body and we were done.

After my CT scan Warner and I went to lunch because I was STARVING (I hadn't eaten since 7:30 that morning, I couldn't eat after 8, and it was 2:00 when I was done!) So, we went to Jason's Deli and I got a baked potato and ate a little less than half of it, with lots of sour cream. YUM! Then we rushed back to Gonzales because I had physical therapy at 3:30.

I went to PT and it was basically like it usually was, I worked out and got my neck stretched - which kiiiiiiiills me because my muscles are so tight. After PT I decided Gap needed visiting and I picked up some clothes because they were having a decent sale (40% off). Then I headed home for dinner (leftover catfish that my mom made). Warner and I went to Best Buy with Lance and Michelle this evening to pick up a couple movies that were on sale and now we are about to crash - except the fur kids are hyped up. Ruekie is chewing on a bone and Edgar is plotting how he can get the bone away from him (except he's a little too obvious with his maneuvers so Ruekie is having none of it...Edgar lacks the brains in the family). 

I'm eating pretty good and the more I eat the better I feel but it's hard to get a lot of calories from a home cooked meal - eating out is definitely a better way to add up the calories. I have to watch what I eat though because some things still irritate my throat and I get these little blister like things that pop up - but it's manageable. 

Warner's been working a shut down this week. He's gotten up at like 5:30 every morning this week and has gotten home at midnight every night (except last night he got home at 10 and tonight he got home at his usual time). So the poor guy is absolutely exhausted. 

Oh! I didn't take a nap today, I've only done that one other day since treatment ended, so maybe if I stay active, I do better!!!! 

In other news, we are going to Tulsa for Labor Day weekend so that will be a much needed vacation! We are leaving on Thursday and we'll drive back on Tuesday. There will probably be a trip to Siloam that weekend at some point as well. 

So that's all I've got.