A bandage on his arm and a drink in his hand...

Ahhhh hello serious head cold. My ears are popping like crazy, I can't breathe. At least I have the best husband in the world. He stopped on his way home from hockey last night to get me some goodies for lunch today. He really knows how to take care of his sick/whiney wife! :) It's now time to blog for today :)

I don't have any updates on the bake sale or any of the other previously mentioned fundraisers as of right now, but I have some other news!
I got a call from my mom last night. We had our usual chit chat for a while and then she said something about a cut-athon. A cut a what?! I had NO clue what she was talking about, and said so. "Haven't you been on my Facebook? Didn't you see the comment from Nell?" Huh? I guess not. So I went to her wall while I was still on the phone with her. Scrolled down a bit, and seen all these comments that I somehow missed earlier in the day. One of those comments was a BIG one. It was from Aunt Nell (okay okay, she isn't MY aunt. But she's close enough and I'll always call her that, so oh well). She is an amazing hair stylist who is rather hard to get in to see, she's always so busy! She has known our story since the beginning, she's always in the loop. But the blog inspire her. She's going to have a cut-athon! She's going to pick a day and do hair cuts and the proceeds will go to our IVF fund!! Woohooo!! I'm so excited!! You all should be too, and should sign up when all the details are worked out. You will LOVE your hair. You will also love to chat with her while she's cutting away, she's hilarious! :)

With all of these fundraisers in the works, I can see why people hire professionals to keep it all organized. I'm so lucky that each of the fundraisers have all been brought up by different people and that there isn't one person trying to tackle it all! We are ready and willing to help with any and every fundraiser, and so many friends have offered to volunteer doing whatever they can that we should be able to move forward with all of the fundraisers without too much stress! :)

On a not-so-bright note, I have removed the Donate button from the blog. It will be back up shortly, but after I donated to myself yesterday, some kinks popped up. I am in the process of working those out with PayPal, but in the meantime I decided to remove the button. My donation is sitting in limbo at the moment, somewhere off in PayPal land. I can see it, but I can't claim it at the moment. Until I can claim my own money, I don't want the option there for others to donate. I will put the button back up as soon as I can, and will announce it loud and clear once it's working :)

I think that's about all the updates I've got today... so now it's time to go back in the past and dig up some memories! Today's entry shouldn't be as long as the other's so far...



So, the weekend was over. No more time to pretend this all wasn't happening. No more time to cry randomly. Time to get with the program. Face up to what life has handed us. And pray that is wasn't cancer!
We looked up a map online to see where the heck ths medical center was that we needed to go to. Danny couldn't eat that morning and we joked that this was a perfect diet plan for anyone trying to lose some weight. Get a tumor in your colon! With all the tests, scans and scopes you're BOUND to lose those extra pounds ;) Only kidding of course, I wouldn't wish this fiasco on anyone! And Danny didn't need to lose any weight anyway.
We get to the medical center and check in. This place was really a lot bigger than I was expecting. We filled out some paperwork in this small room that felt more like a closet. Across the desk, an employee took our insurance card, and scanned it in this nifty little contraption that I have since seen advertised on tv. Since this medical center is out-of-network for most insurance companies, they said they would work things out to where they would write off any charges from network something-or-other. It all kind of flew over my head and I assumed all of the information would be on the stack of paperwork she was handing over. More paperwork! Really, if they would just put all of this crap on a flash drive it would save a ton of trees...
We were then shuffled into yet another waiting room. This one wasn't very big but it was pretty full. There was a phone on a small table that was near us. It rang and we ignored it. Why would we answer some random phone?? It rang again a few minutes later and this time someone else waiting near the phone answered. Why was this person answering the hospital phone?? "Is someone here waiting for a ____ Smith." A couple on the other side of the room rushed over and got on the phone. What the heck? How weird...
A nurse came out a bit later "Daniel Crabb... Hi. So you're here for cancer markers and a CT. I'll take you back for the blood work. What flavor drink would you like? We've got chocolate and..." blah blah blah. Did she say cancer markers? What's a cancer marker? Does that mean he's got cancer? WHAT DOES SHE MEAN?!?! I wanted to ask but they were already walking off down the hall. Danny came back a few minutes later, with a bandage on his arm and a drink in his hand... a drink that smelled GROSS. I decided not to ask about the cancer markers. Chug chug chug that drink Danny...
After a while, Danny got called back for the CT. He came back and looked anxious. I asked if the people said anything after the scan was finished.
"Well one nurse or whatever asked about a spot and the other told her to mark it for the doctor. I have no idea what that means, but it can't be good..." I refused to believe that there could be anything on that CT scan that we didn't already know about. He had had a CT scan a whole four days before. NOTHING could've popped up on a CT scan in four days! I told him so. He agreed, and we were off to have lunch.
We were two days away from this huge surgery, and we still didn't have any results from the biopsy taken during Danny's colonscopy. I assumed we would get those answers soon. Definitely before surgery day.
I had taken off work that entire week. Monday's tests took a long time, and afterwards we spent time with Faith. Tuesday we spent the day enjoying each other's company. We did some running around. We tried to prepare for the following day. How do you really prepare for that? We had no clue, so we were just enjoying being together and not having anything we had to do. We packed a bag for Danny... slippers, pajama pants, socks, contact case and solution, what else what else. We basically just threw everything in a bag.
That afternoon we took the pups to our friends' house. Danny carried in their kennels, set them up. The dogs walked around, sniffing everything. They were happy and excited. I don't think they knew we were leaving. And why was I feeling so upset about walking away from them? It's not like they weren't coming back. It's not like they wouldn't be taken care of. It's not like they wouldn't LOVE being around other animals and our friends who were animal lovers. I guess this just made it official. This all was really happening. UGH!! We pulled out of their driveway and Danny laughed and told me not to cry... but guess what. I did! I missed the dogs already, and I didn't want any of this to be real. I wanted to drop them off for the first time in preparation for our honeymoon. Not in preparation for a huge surgery that may or may not involve cancer... UGH!!
We went home and Danny started his prep. It was just like for the colonoscopy but was a drink instead of a bottle full of pills. I was hoping this meant he wouldn't be so nauseous... Turns out the drink was even worse than the pills! He felt full, he felt sick to his stomach. He eventually went to sleep, and I just woke him up every 15 minutes to drink some more. It was another sleepless night, but this time for both of us, not just him. I couldn't sleep, couldn't get comfortable. My mind was going 90 miles an hour. What will tomorrow bring? What will they find? Is Dr Hyder as amazing as everyone is making him out to be? Will he get the entire tumor without taking too much of his colon? Wonder how the dogs are doing... I miss hearing them rustle around in their kennels and snoring loudly. Will we really be able to go on the cruise? Why didn't I pay extra for that DANG insurance?! I hate this I hate this I hate this.

The next day was the surgery... I will write about it tomorrow. Prepare for a long one!!
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