Extremely Long Absence

So much that has happened since I was last here.

I have continued to go to many rummage sales and yard sales searching for great deals. I've continued to sell on Ebay, half.com and my store different things at ecrater. I'm also swapping CD's DVD's and books at Swapacd, Swapadvd and paperbackswap. Having a great time and I'm still using coupons and getting the deals. However I've been doing alot of catch up on all my hobbies. In the spring of 2008 my father was diagnosed with Kidney cancer. It's one of the worse cancers around because by the time it's found it has spread somewhere else.

My fathers cancer story. He was complaining that his arm hurt for about a week in mid May of 2008. Then one day he was pushing a piece of equipment and his arm broke. The doctors said that the break was caused by the kidney cancer that moved into the arm. The outlook was grim. He was told 3 months. Well the work began to find a way out of this. First move was to go to UW Madison to see a specialist. They removed the 2 inches of bone that was affected by the cancer. The doctors and nurses at UW Madison are the greatest caring people. I have a special thank you for them!! As far as they were concerned the cancer in the arm was gone. Relief. However 2 1/2 weeks later he had the cancerous kidney removed. That surgery was more painful and hard on him then the arm surgery. However the surgery went great and there too the cancer was gone. However with kidney cancer once the cancer spreads from the kidney cells could be anywhere. Traditional Chemo is not effective on Renal cancer. So he wasn't out of the woods yet. But they said there wasn't anymore detectable cancer anywhere. So go and heal and enjoy life. Well his kidney removable healed perfectly and the arm healing took longer. By the 6 month check up for more cancer, his arm was useful to about 75% and the cancer tests came back clear. We all thought things were good and the Chemo alternative (Sutent) was working. However not more then a month after the 6 month check up he was having pain in the chest. More tests couldn't seem to find the problem. After 2 months of tests and hoping it wasn't cancer returning it was. Renal cancer of the lungs. This is the worst of the worst. Nothing they could do. The Doctors said 10 months well it was less then 2 months and my father passed away. So now we all who depended on my father for everything is now gone. Everything has changed. When something happens that is exciting (like an extremely great deal, he always loved a deal) or worrisome I want to pick up that phone and call him. Tell him about it and have him tell me how to deal with it or hear his joy about that great thing. My whole life has a hole in it, miss him endlessly. Every vacation and carshow we as a family would attend was with my parents. We still go to carshows and try to enjoy it, however there is something very missing in all of it.... and that's dad. My mom is doing well, but her days are filled with that same feeling of missing him. Her world revolved around dad and his cars. Now that's over and she has to find away to fill her days. I try to spend of time with her, but again when we were together it was spent around dad and his love of cars. She is doing as well as can be expected. Thinking back when we first found out about the cancer we were told 3 months and we had a year, I guess we were lucky. But I'm greedy and wanted more. My father was not ready for this to happen, he had so much more to do!!

This is the memorial bench we had made for my father at The Iola Carshow in July 2009







This was my dads favorite carshow.

I will try to keep up with this blog more often and not let it sit for a year or more. So check back on all my deals and interesting finds!!