Wings win game one of the finals!

WOO HOO!!!!!!!!

Red Wings win game one of the Stanley Cup finals!

3 more wins to earn the Cup!

a Red Wings moment of beauty

Darren Helm, with his speed and puck handling ability, will someday be one of the deadliest players in the NHL. Great little player, who has been brought up from the minors the last two years in the playoffs to cover for injuries, and who deserves a spot in the regular season lineup as soon as one is available. (I could see him replacing Maltby or Draper on the checking line when one of them retires, for example).

an amusing moment from Franzen

An amusing moment from Wings/Blackhawks game four.

With all of the injuries (especially Datsyuk and Lidstrom) I am afraid that the Wings will have a world of trouble beating the red hot Penguins in the finals.

nice morning

I lay in bed for a while after dawn this morning, in that border land between sleep and wakefulness. Dan's sleeping warmth was next to me. A steady and gentle rain drummed on the roof. I felt so safe and warm, in a cocoon of comfort. It was one of those moments when you are filled with joy just to be alive.

finally the results are in!

All twelve of Dan's biopsy samples came back clean and cancer free. They now think that he has inflammation of the prostate, which is why it is enlarged and his PSA blood levels are high.

Thank God.

and still waiting!

Still no word on the biopsy results! It will be two full weeks tomorrow!

In the meantime, I have been feeling increasingly tired the last week or so, to the point where all I have energy for is going to work (the dirty laundry pile in my room is nearly as tall as I am) and sure enough, the blood test they pulled last Friday came back with my thyroid levels too low, and they will be increasing my synthroid dose. Hopefully I will be feeling better soon.

At least the Wings have a commanding 2-0 lead in the Western Conference finals against the Blackhawks.

still waiting...

Still have not heard the results for Dan's biopsy. It should have been 3-5 days according to all of the medical articles I googled. It is now over a week, and this is getting old very quickly.

At least the Red Wings are still playing and keeping my mind off of more serious issues. They won their game seven against the Duckies, and won their first game in the Western Conference finals against the Blackhawks. I missed being able to watch both games due to work. Let's go Red Wings!

waiting for the biopsy results

Waiting...waiting...dreading...hoping.

In the meantime, both the Tigers AND the Red Wings lost tonight. Bah. Humbug. Now the Wings will have to play a seventh game in their series against Anaheim - and ANYTHING can happen in a game seven. You can end up losing the series on a bad bounce of the puck or a bad call from an official. I hate game sevens.

the biopsy

We got up early and Dan and I drove to Livonia. Why Livonia? Why, when we are long time University of Michigan health care system patients and live a few miles from Ann Arbor did we have to drive to Livonia? That is a darned good question, and one I would like to have answered. Surely they must do prostate biopsies at the University of Michigan Hospital or the adjacent Taubman outpatient facility? Or even the east Ann Arbor center where I had my colonoscopy? So why did we have to drive to Livonia in the Detroit suburbs?

But anyway we got there, and they took Dan on back. I waited in the waiting area, and did not realize how long he had been back there until I finished the book I took with me in my purse, and noticed how far along the morning had gotten...

Turns out they did the procedure, and took the samples. And then Dan's blood pressure plunged and he tried to pass out on them while still on the examination table.

They eventually realized I would be worried sick, and came to get me to sit with him. He was dehydrated, and they gave him lots of water to drink, and he had not eaten yet that day, so they gave him some food to eat. All of that seemed to help, and his blood pressure came back up to a more normal level, and they finally let him leave.

We went to the nearby Panera Bread for some lunch. I thought soup and some lemonade would further help him, and they did seem to.

We got home and he climbed into bed and stayed there for the rest of the day while I ran errands and Bill kept an eye on him.

Today the poor man was driving us crazy with his grouchiness and constant demands. He is moving very stiffly like he has a baseball bat stuffed up where the sun does not shine (and they do go in to get biopsy samples via the man's rear end), and seems to be in a lot of pain, so the grouchiness is perfectly understandable. Hopefully he will feel a bit better, and move a little more easily, tomorrow.

He is not supposed to lift anything heavier than ten pounds for a week. That leaves out both cats (they both weigh more than ten pounds), some bags of groceries, laundry, etc. etc. I do not know how he will work next week, but he says he will find a way...

Wings win! work week over! biopsy in the morning!

The work week is over! YAY!!! Tomorrow a friend might come over, and we will exchange yard plants. I will give him some raspberry vines, and in return get some crane's bill geraniums from his yard.

The Wings won game four in their second round series against the Ducks. The series is now tied 2-2, with two of the three remaining games to be played in Detroit. We have a chance! YAY!!!

Poor Dan has his biopsy in the morning. He is not happy, to say the least. Apparently they do a biopsy of a man's prostate via his butt, and let's just leave it at that.

And, of course, there is anxiety over the biopsy for other, more obvious, reasons.

trilliums

The trilliums are blooming in the patch of woods behind the house. Lots of May apples as well. The daffodils and tulips and spring flowering trees and bushes are all blooming like mad. Beauty lives in my yard!

I went to the library this morning and met Dan for lunch. Always good to see him during the week, when we work opposite shifts.

All of these things make me happy, and keep my mind off of Dan's impending biopsy on Friday morning.

Also keeping my mind off of the hockey game last night, and the terrible call which disallowed the game tieing goal for the red Wings with only a couple of minutes left in the game. I usually do not complain about officiating - as I tell my kids, in the long run you will get as many bad calls in your favor as against you, and things even out. But man, that was a horrible call. Wings are now down 2-1 in their series.

Must go to work soon. Only two nights left this week...then comes the biopsy, which I am dreading.

we've finally caught up with New York,,,

...spring wise anyway. It has taken a good week, and we are no where nearly as warm as Eric and Christy's wedding weekend, but at last we have our tulips and flowering trees in their full glory.

the days since we got home

Dan and I both picked up a bit of a bug sometime somewhere on our trip. We have both been coughing and sneezing and having muscle aches, and I have been running a low grade fever off and on and have had some light diarrhea almost every day. Nothing serious, and no one has had to go to the doctor, and the kids have not caught it from us - but it has been enough to slow us down somewhat. Neither of us is a spring chicken anymore, and we have both been having health issues over the last few months (well, in my case more like the last few years).

I do not think that it helped that New York was in the high eighties and sunny all weekend, and back home in Michigan it has been mostly rainy and in the forties/fifties since we got back. Quite a change and shock to our systems, LOL.

Nonetheless, I am very happy that we went, and am glad my health was good enough to allow me to go. Yes, I had to take a lot of naps over the course of the weekend - but at least I could go. And being able to be at the wedding was a cause for joy.

On Friday I had to run a bunch of errands. On Saturday Bill and I planted some cold crop vegetables (onions, shallots, garlic, etc). and some flowers like pansies who like cold weather. We did a bunch of yard work as well.

Then we relaxed and watched the Tigers and the Kentucky Derby on TV.

Dan made burritos for dinner. I had requested Mexican food, since that would be our last dinner together before Cinco de Mayo (given that he works days and I work afternoons).

I really did not want to go to work today, as I do not feel 100%, but forced myself to go in. Luckily, it has been quiet. While I was at work the Red Wings lost their round two game two in triple overtime at Joe Louis. I am really afraid that they lost the Stanley Cup with that game.

At least Verlander seems to be pulling out of his season plus funk - with two great starts in a row. It would have been three great starts, but three games ago he had a really bad one inning meltdown. It is great to see him going - the Tigers will not do much unless both he and Galarraga have solid seasons.

wedding weekend day four

Last Monday we drove home. To save time we ate the continental breakfast at the motel, and did not stop except for gasoline and bathroom breaks. We had thought to stop at a Panera bread in Ohio along the turnpike for lunch, but decided to just bull through to home.

When we got to our home town, we stopped off at the Kroger for groceries and picked up a couple of pizzas for dinner. We then ate dinner and watched the Tigers game on TV with the kids.

Pennsylvania is still a beautiful state to drive through, and we were very lucky in that we still had great weather for the drive home. All four days of the weekend were hot and sunny.

Just a joy of a weekend. Seeing good people get married is always a cause for happiness. It was a true celebration of life and love and all sorts of the best things in life.

wedding weekend day three

This was the day of the wedding!

Dan and I got up early and walked down the hill to the diner to eat breakfast. I had something sinfully delicious - M&M pancakes. YUM.

Then I took yet another nap as Dan did some work on the laptop (he packed Bill's). After a while I woke up and got dressed in a blouse and skirt for the wedding. Dan dragged his feet a bit because he was in the middle of something, and we got out of the hotel room only a half hour before the ceremony, which was to be held at noon.

Now, half an hour should have been plenty of time to get from Newburgh to Montgomery, but we ended up waiting at one traffic light alone for twenty minutes. The hotel was around the corner from this convention center, and they were having some sort of huge motorcycle thing there, so great big groups of bikers were out and about, and plenty of car traffic, as well. Once we finally got by all of that, it was only five minutes until the wedding.

And then Dan got stopped by a police officer for speeding just outside of Montgomery.

Aye yi yi.

The cop let us go with a warning, once we explained the circumstances, and Eric called just as we were turning into the arboretum, as they were holding up the wedding for us. (blush).

The arboretum was gorgeous and glorious. The tulips - thousands of them in every color and color combination that tulips come in - were in full bloom - as were the trees, daffodils, and other spring flowers. Bees were buzzing around and butterflies were flitting around. it was sunny and hot - just a perfect spring day for Eric and Christy on their wedding day.

The ceremony was simple and meaningful, out in the garden under the sun, surrounded by those tulips and the blossom scented air.

The reception hall was a little class room building in the middle of the gardens. Eric and Christy again went with simple and classy, and they had enough food - good food! - to feed an army.

It was one of the most enjoyable weddings I have ever attended. but then again, Eric and Christy are both very laid back and good people, and their wedding reflected that.

After the reception, Dan and I went for a drive on country roads, just because it was such a lovely afternoon. We drove through a little town called Goshen, through those state parks that form a greenbelt north of New York City, and by West Point. It was all very beautiful.

Then another nap. Yes, I really am pathetic!

We did not want dinner after the huge spread of food at the reception, so we just went out for a dessert that night.

Then early bed, for the long drive home.