Things have been very busy and very emotional around here. We found out that my grandma's cancer is in the final stage of stage 4. Which is the last stage of the cancer. She is still very dizzy and some days does not even get out of bed. The cancer is at least the size of a grapefruit and is going to eventually rupture. From the way the nurse explained it she will be in such excruciating pain that they will have to drug her and she will be in a constant doped state of mind. Nothing is going to make her better at this point. The nurse was saying this could happen at any time and we are talking a matter of a month or so, if that, or if her heart takes her, since that is working at less than 25% capacity. I am trying my best to cope with this, I know the facts, I know that my grandma would be so much better off dying before the cancer ruptures and that she would be with my grandpa and with her son, but at the same time the selfish parts of me wants her HERE, without the pain and with us and with the kids but I just know that is not going to happen. That is just the really selfish part of me that wants to keep her.
The nurse told my grandma about everything and she took it well, I truly believe that she knew about it and was trying to spare her family. My aunts have been taking turns staying with my grandma so that she is not left alone at any time. At this point we have turned hospice house down since grandma does not feel that she needs it at this time and really does not even think that someone needs to be with her 24 hrs a day. But that is not going to happen since leaving her alone would not be good. I have been spending a lot of time with her and taking the kids with me to see her whenever possible.
The kids have had a great couple of weeks of school and we are into a good routine. Our oldest son is having issues adjusting and we have met with his teacher to try and straighten his problems out and it seems to work for a day and then he is back to his old ways. I wish I could strip part of his DNA out and make the lazies go away. He has a disrespect issue when it comes to the teacher and that seiously horrifies me since my children were not raised that way. The teacher is awesome and I really like her and she is all about tough love, which I really believe my son needs. My daughters are doing great in school. Both loving it and really embracing the new experience. My older daughter is a perfectionist and she actually came home with 1 F on a paper and all the rest were A's. She was bawling by the time she told me she got the F and we had to sign and return her paper to school. It truly was not all that tragic since it did not do anything to her overall grade. My younger daughter who I thought we would have problems with is a star student and is doing a great job at learning. There is a little boy that is picking on her and if the teacher does not do something soon about it I have a feeling my daughter is going to take things into her own hands and the little boy will be going down. She will only take so much crap from someone before she blows and when she does it is NOT pretty. That is one little girl that can hold her own and the wrath of her is not something to be taken lightly. So for the little boys sake I hope he knocks off his crap before my daughter sends him crying.
We went to my brothers first football game last Friday and it was a great game. They did not get totally creamed like everyone thought that they would. They did lose 29-20 but nothing like what everyone was thinking. This Friday is going to be a different story, I think, but we will be there cheering for him!! We still do not know what game my daughters will be cheerleading at but we will be there for our girls cheering them on!!! We are hoping it is not the game that where my brother plays my old high school. :o) That game is also my younger daughters birthday, but knowing my luck it will be. Which means my daughters will be cheering for my old high school and not for their uncle. Which he does not want! He likes when his nieces cheer for him.
Tonite is the night we sign my girls up for girl scouts too. *sigh* One thing after another! To think I thought I was going to have MORE time since my kids are in school, well it has turned out to be pretty much the opposite. I have had little time and the day does not seem to be long enough for me to get much done. Speaking of which, I have to make some pumpkin bread for my grandma and go and visit with her! Hope all is well out there in the world!!!

I have finally done it... enrolled my kiddos into public school!!! *sigh* It was one of the hardest things I have ever done and I hope in the end that it pays off!! We did it yesterday, yeah I know, nothing like waiting til the last minute! But hey it got done and we are excited for our kids, who are EXTREMELY happy about it. Our younger daughter will be going into Kindergarten and is very happy. Her teacher is super sweet and has a lot of years of experience so that is comforting to me. I just feel sorry for her if she ever catches a glimpse at the REAL child. Cuz it is not a pretty site!! Our other daughter is going to be in an eMINTS class, which means there is a computer for every 2 students and they will be spending a lot of time doing things with Excel and Powerpoint and learning on the computer instead of just books. They also have a website, digital camera, scanner, and a bunch of other up to date Electronic equipment. There is only 1 class in her grade that has this and she got lucky to get into that program. My oldest is also in an eMINTS class and the same goes for him. All the same stuff and from what the teacher says a LOT of creative work and thinking will be part of her class... so LOTS of READING, WRITING, and typing for the kiddo, which he HATES reading and WRITING so it will be a huge thing for him. All 3 of the teachers that they have are women and all of them seem to be exceptional.
Everyone keeps saying, well what are you going to do with all that FREE time and how are you going to do without them, HOW EXCITING for you... well lemme tell ya, EXCITING is not the word I am thinking when it comes to 3 of my 4 kiddos leaving. NERVOUS is a LOT more like it!! Yes, I know that there are a lot of parents that do this, but you know what, I did enjoy teaching my kids and having them here and it really is not all that exciting for me, more like NERVE RACKING!!! Of course I will still have the youngest home with me, but still, it wont be the same!! Tomorrow is their first day of school. I will have to blog how I did, and how THEY did on their first day to school.
Tonight hubby and I have tickets to the baseball game!!! One of their vendors gave my hubbies office tickets and since he knew the vendor he got a couple of the tickets. They are great 1st baseline tickets, I think 5 rows back from the dugout. I am really excited!!! It will be our first time to the new stadium. Of course school starts tomorrow, but my mom is going to be the ones watching them so I think that everything will be fine with the kids.
Saturday we are FINALLY going to have a scrapbooking day. Its been quite a while since we have been able to have one so it will be exciting to finally have another one. Not sure what I am going to scrapbook yet, but I am sure I will figure something out! I am thinking V's stay in the hospital, but I am not positive yet. Ok, well I have to get the kids ready to go and take their school supplies up to school since there is so much of it.
On another note, my grandma is still not doing too good, she seems to be getting a little bit stronger each day but it is a really slow process. I saw her for a few minutes last night and she was weak and was slurring her words pretty bad. But it was 8:30 when I saw her so I am sure that the fact that it was so late in the evening did not help out. OK, well kids are going wild, better go tame them!

I have been really bad at posting lately. I really do not have much of an excuse other than I just have not wanted to post. We have decided to put the kids into public school for the first time so I have been getting all their paperwork together, physicals done and just general stuff. School starts this Thursday for our school district so it will be interesting to go from 4 kids down to 1. All the kids have a clean bill of health. My youngest is 75% in his height and in his weight. He is a good solid boy! The doctor says he is perfectly proportioned so not worried about his weight since he is not chubby. My oldest is 25% in his height and 50% in his weight. I am hoping that he will have a good growth spurt and grow into the chubbiness he has seemed to have gotten. The doctor is not worried about it and says he is still a good healthy weight so I guess I will not worry about it right now. The girls are both on the skinny side but V is gaining weight like she should be. She lost a lot while she was in the hospital and has been gaining a couple pounds a month since then.
My grandma is still not doing good. She is really weak and gets dizzy really easily. She sleeps a lot of her time away lately. I call her everyday to check on her and generally end up talking to one of my aunts since grandma is normally sleeping when I call. She is eating a little more than she has been and seems to be improving a little at a time.
Hubby finally got back from his business trip on Thursday night at 10:30 so I was able to go spend some time with my grandma over the weekend. Hubby was supposed to be there til Friday and was going to try and come home Wednesday but something got screwed up with his ticket and they were going to charge him to change his flight. So he was just going to stay til Friday but because of everything that happened with the terrorist plot being foiled and the airline delays being so long they decided to just keep their rental car and come back on Thursday night. In the time it would have taken them to get through everything at the airport and the flight they could have been home by driving, so that's what they did.
Friday I ended up sick, throwing up and just feeling horrible so I spent the day in bed. I am not sure if it was a bug or stress of everything getting to me or a combination of both. I am thinking probably a combination of both. Being a single mother for 4 days and having my grandma as sick as she is really took a toll on me. I was up a lot of Friday night with bad stomach cramps and throwing up again so I slept quite a bit on Saturday and finally felt good enough that evening to go visit with my grandma. I stayed away from her and because she is on a lot of antibiotics already am hoping that she is safe in case I had any kind of infection.
Saturday was also my brothers 18th birthday. I cannot believe that my baby brother is 18, it just amazes me!! He had a rather shitty birthday. Back in January he and his friends were caught by some undercover cops with alcohol and were told that they would be in touch. Well time went by and he expected to get a MIP ( minor in possession) ticket but never did. Then out of the blue on Saturday 2 cops show up at my parents to arrest him for this charge from way back when. So now he has to go to court next month. But when hubby and I were talking to him last night he was never read his miranda rights. They cuffed him, took him to jail, and booked him but was never told his miranda rights. So I am sure that will affect all of this some how.
Sunday I spent more time with my grandma and then hubby, kids and I took my brother out to dinner for his birthday. That is just about the extent of my life. I have more to post, but will wait since I am still pissy about it. Greed is a horrible thing, that is all I will say at the moment!

Things have gone from bad to worse. My grandma is not doing good and going downhill fast. The doctor did a CT scan of her head and chest and found a mass in her lung. He wanted to do a biopsy and she agreed til the day of the test and the doctor wanted her to sign a form saying that there is a possiblity that the procedure could collapse her lung and if that happened that they would crack her chest open and put a tube in her lung. Well, at that point she declined it and so we are not sure what the mass is but we are assuming it is cancer. The doctor wanted the family to talk her into treatment that she has refused repeatedly and none of us can do it. She has made her wishes abundantly clear that she does not want the treatment, that she does not care if she lives or dies. How can anyone fight with that? I wish to God I could fight her cancer and make it go away and keep her. But I understand her reasoning behind it and cannot blame her for wanting to be with her husband and son. She is in pain every day. She lives with it on a daily basis and does not even take pain medicine so that she can do her daily routine.
She spent 5 and a half days in the hospital. She ended up with pneumonia to top it off and ended up being on antibotics while she was there. She had a hematoma (?), which is a bruise on the brain from her fall. She was so very weak while in the hospital. The doctor has sent her home on Hospice care and a home health care nurse has been coming out a couple times a week to check on her. All in all it is a matter of time. She got home on Sunday and has yet to get back to her self and has been getting a little worse. She is very weak and not eating. My aunts have been taking turns staying with her and taking care of her.
It hurts like hell knowing she has given up and is letting the cancer eat her away. The thought of losing my grandma is killing me. I lost my grandpa 16 months ago and even though it is getting easier it still hurts. There are some days I feel so alone and helpless. Tonight being one of those times. Talking to my aunt tonight and hearing in her voice the fact that my grandma is not going to make it and then fighting with my husband who is in Chicago really just compounded all of it for me. I am just alone. End of posting for me. Hope everyone elses life is just peachy...

Things have been relatively quiet around here. It has been too hot outside for the kids so they have been staying inside driving each other and me crazy. Friday night I got out of the house and went out Scrapbook shopping with Leah and Deanna. We had a quick dinner and stopped at Maggie Moo's for desert. It was a great evening out shopping. My brother, his friends Shawn and Justin were at the house playing on the XBox when I got back so I managed to actually scrapbook a few pages :o)
Saturday hubby and the guys decided to go play. They went go-carting and some other stuff just to have a fun day. So I had kid duty for the day. The kids and I vegged since it was still so hot and then went to my parents to have dinner with my mom. Sunday was typical of spending it with grandma. She is looking more and more thin. The cancer is eating all that she has and is withering her away. She wears really baggy clothes to hide just how much she has lost but you can always tell by hugging her and it feels like hugging bones. We had a great time with her and she loves to spend the time with all of us as we do with her.
On Monday night we decided to do some running around and wanted to treat grandma to dinner so we stopped by the house and we found that she had bought a rocking chair and tried moving it into the house herself and had passed out and falled off 3 steps and hit her head. She had a bump on the back of her head the size of an egg and refused to let us take her to the emergency room. I called both my aunt and my dad to see what we could do for her. My aunt was out buying a new car and could not make it so my dad came over and we tried again to convince her to go to the hospital and she refused. I ended up spending the night with her and my aunt came over first thing in the morning. She had not improved at all and had gotten really dizzy, my aunt was able to convince her to go to the hospital and they spent all day there. Waited 3 hours to get back to a room and another hour in the room before anyone got to her. They did an EKG, XRays, and a CT Scan and a bunch of bloodwork. Xray showed that she bruised her lung from the fall, bloodwork all came back ok and not sure about the EKG or the CT Scan. They kept her overnight and by the time I had left her at 9 pm they still did not have a room ready for her. Have I mentioned how much I HATE the hospital she went to???? I really, really HATE the hospital she went to!!!!
I have yet to get an update this morning. But am assuming all is ok since no one has called. Hubby had to go out of town for the day unexpectedly to fire a few people that were doing something wrong so I pick him up later tonite and wont make it to see her today. Which really sucks but hopefully she will be home today at some point and I will see her tomorrow.
My mom has been doing traditional Korean dancing for the past couple of years and tomorrow they have a dance at Boeing so I will be going with her to that. Unfortunately her group will not be dancing but the lady that teaches them will do the dancing instead since they are not quite ready to perform the newest dance they are learning. I have seen her dance in the past and its really neat to watch what they do. They have traditional Korean dresses and they put their hair up in the traditional way and dance for people. They have been to many functions over the years and really enjoy what they do. The new dance they are learning is a drum dance and is just awesome to see. We went to see Korean dancers from Korea a couple of years back and it was just exceptional. Hopefully my mom and her group of friends will be just as good and they will get it together soon and perform it soon! That is the extent of my life. Nothing exciting, just busy as usual.