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We Found the One
Posted on March 3, 2025 by Ching under Life.
Thank you to everyone who recommended looking at La-Z-Boy for recliners. We went there after breakfast this weekend at HomeGrown and actually found one that we both liked. I never really thought Brian and I would be purchasing a recliner at this stage in life. I have always associated recliners with grandparents and old people general. I have never thought of myself as “old” (except when I wake up in the morning and can barely move) but I guess we kind of fit that demographic now.
We had a recliner back in the day, when we lived at our old house. I think it might have come from either Brian’s parents or grandparents. I didn’t think people actually bought recliners. I always just assumed it was something that you got handed down to you from older relatives. I supposed when you are old and, there’s no one to hand one down to you, then you would theoretically buy one but I honestly didn’t think we were there at that stage of life yet.
The cats (we used to have three cats 20 years ago) and I spent quite a lot of time in that chair and I found it very comfortable but I never thought we would actually buy one. At least until much later in life and I didn’t think we were “that” old yet. Well, maybe Brian is. He is over 50 now after all. Although, I think the real catalyst was all the time he spent sitting (and napping) in a recliner during his cancer treatment. The comfy recliners at the cancer center have ruined him from sitting in a normal chair for good.
We looked online some and went to the Ashley showroom that is by our house one weekend. We didn’t really see anything we absolutely loved. Fast forward to this past Saturday. We found a loveseat recliner that checks all the boxes (and then some) and it didn’t cost $5,000 so, after some deliberation, we decided to go ahead and pull the trigger. Tell you what. Brian is sooo excited!
I am excited because it’s a loveseat without cup holders in the middle to keep us apart, so we can recline and snuggle up together. Stay tuned for pics for when it’s finally delivered!
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Winter 2025
Posted on February 19, 2025 by Ching under Life.
I’ve never been a huge fan of winter and that’s even more true this year. This is probably one of the more eventful winters we’ve had. Eventful in all ways — good and bad. Brian was diagnosed with cancer in fall and so he was in cancer treatment most of the winter. It’s not fun any other time and when the roads aren’t great, that makes it worse.
Christmas was pretty subdued this year. I didn’t even bother decorating. Brian was very weak and bringing the Christmas tree up from the basement (and decorating it) is a two-person job. I didn’t want to ask Brian to help me because of his physical condition, and I had no desire to do everything by myself, so we just went without our tree and Christmas decorations. It’s not the first time we’ve have not put up a Christmas tree (because it’s so much work) but it is the first time that we’ve gone completely without Christmas decorations. In other years, we will usually put all of wreaths and Christmas lights up and display all of our Christmas knickknacks even though we’re not putting up a Christmas tree.
Not having any decorations at all made for a less festive holiday but it was fine. Brian’s parents came up from Oklahoma and we spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day together. It was fine. All you really need is family. And, for me, as long as Brian and I are together, all is right in the world.
Brian and I were pretty much cooped up at home for most of the winter season. I went to work like normal but I also went with Brian to as many of his appointments as I could. I had cut back on a lot of extracurricular activities so I was home with him every night except on Wednesdays when I teach my Zumba class. Brian really likes it when we sit in front of the fire and I rub his feet and legs.
Anyway, my friend Cindy Egan invited me to play pickleball one night after work. After being cooped up at home for many weeks, Brian encouraged me to go. Honestly, it was a nice break from what had become our normal evening routine. We were only forecasted to get 1-3 inches of snow that night but it was actually much worse than expected. I ended up driving my car into a ditch on K96 on my way home. I had promised Brian I would only be gone for about two hours and I ended up being gone for much longer because I had to wait for a tow truck. You can watch the video I made of that little adventure here.
The 20-minute drive home turned out to be three hours that night but I was grateful that (a) I was able to get a tow truck to come, and (b) I eventually made it home safely. On the bright side, I took home food from Cindy that night and her mashed potatoes and meatballs were amazing. Brian couldn’t eat so I pretty much ate all of it. Our friends have been so wonderful throughout this journey. I had to ask them to stop giving us food because Brian couldn’t eat anyway and there was always way more food than I could eat by myself. But I am ever so grateful — for the food, the donations, the hugs, the thoughts, the prayers, everything.
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Not Your Typical Valentines Day
Posted on February 18, 2025 by Ching under Life.
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Brian’s followup appointment with Dr. Chris Dakhil happened to fall on Valentines Day. I went with him to it and also his IV hydration treatment immediately following. It’s not really how anyone would want to celebrate Valentines Day but it was a great day overall. He got his PICC line removed finally! He has recently started eating a little bit. He still heavily relies on his feeding tube but we are hoping that once he is mostly eating by mouth then he can get the feeding tube removed as well. We are both looking forward to that day. I think he is so ready to put all this behind him. |
One the feeding tube is out and it is safe to do so, we are celebrating with a couples massage. In the meantime, we are just taking it one step and day at a time.
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The Trips You Don’t Plan On Taking
Posted on January 23, 2025 by Ching under Health, Life.
We had two exciting trips to the ER this week. About 10-15 years ago we made a few trips to the ER because of my health issues. This time it was Brian’s turn. Kansas Medical Center (KMC) is our “go to” ER hospital. My first experience with KMC was when I fainted while enjoying our anniversary dinner at YaYa’s in 2011. That’s where the ambulance took me. We’ve been going there ever since.
Now that I know it’s there, that’s where we go any time we have some kind of health emergency because it’s relatively close to our house and it’s on the East side (our preferred side of town).
Since Monday was a holiday, I took advantage of my day off to go with Brian to his IV hydration appointment. We had a nice leisurely day and we just hung out at home and watched a movie the rest of the afternoon. After watching Back In Action together, Brian decided he would go lay down in the bedroom because he was tired and not feeling great. Before he went to the bedroom, I asked him several times if we should call the doctor and ask for advice. He told me no and that he was just going to lay down and try to sleep it off. It was still early so I decided to watch Emilia Perez. About the time my movie is over, he comes back out and he’s still not feeling good. It’s around 8-ish so probably too late to call the doctor. I don’t know what to do so I suggest we go to the ER and get him checked out.
We arrived at the ER around 8:30 pm on Monday evening. He explained everything to the ER doctor (Rundell-Little). They do a CT scan of his abdomen and we had to wait a long time for the results. The tech who can read these leaves at 5 pm so they have to send it to another location for review. Depending on how busy the hospital is, it could take a while to get results back. Anyway, we finally got the results back and there was nothing wrong with his abdomen. Feeding tube area looked good. Doctor did note that he had stool that he needed to move (read: poop out) and that was likely causing the discomfort. While we were there waiting, Brian hacked up a bunch of mucus build up and expelling that stuff seemed to make him feel better. The congestion was probably contributing to the pain he was feeling so, not thinking anything more of it, we were released from the ER (with instructions for Brian to have a bowel movement) and got home around midnight.
Honestly, I don’t think I would have been as insistent about going to the ER if not for Brian’s blood clot that was diagnosed last week. He’s on Eliquis for it but blood clots can cause all sorts of problems including a stroke. I didn’t want to go to bed and wake up to something bad happening to Brian. He was in a lot of pain so he wasn’t going to be able to sleep either. We had to go to the ER to get a professional opinion. If anything, it gave me piece of mind that there was nothing seriously wrong with him so I could at least sleep easier (albeit not as long because we were up until midnight and I had work the next day).
Brian has been working from home a lot so he worked from home on Tuesday. I normally work in the office Tuesday through Thursday so I went to work as normal on Tuesday but checked on him throughout the day. On the way home I picked up some more Pedialyte for him because the doctor recommended he drink it instead of just plain water. I guess he still didn’t have a bowel movement on Tuesday. At this point it’s been over a month, nearly two, since his last poop.
Wednesday I go to work as normal. Called him around 10 am to make sure he was up and feeding and taking his medication. Here’s the how the rest of that morning went according to Brian. Around noon, he starts to get around because he was going to drop off a package for me at the post office. As he is leaving, he feels the urge to poop. So then he goes to the bathroom but he has been super constipated because of the chemo so he can’t poop. He tries for two hours and he didn’t call me because he didn’t want to bother me at work. Around 2-ish he sends me the following text: I’m sorry to bother. I’m in trouble.
I immediately call him to figure out what’s going on. He tells me he is in so much pain from trying to poop and he is cramping so bad that his right hand is in a fist and he cannot open it. He is afraid he is going to pass out. Not wanting an Elvis situation, I tell him I’m coming home to take him to the ER. I rush home and we make it to the ER around 2:45 pm. I contacted Sheila Hodson (my group exercise coordinator at the West YMCA) to tell her I put my 6:30 pm Zumba class on the sub board because I wasn’t sure how long we would be there. I tried to look for someone to sub and posted in the Zumba messenger chat but its too short notice and everyone teaches classes at different locations at the same time. Anyway, my thought was I did bring my Zumba clothes to work that day so I had them with me. Worst case scenario, I would drive from KMC to the West Y, teach my class, and then come back. If Brian got released before I got back, then he could get a ride home from his cousin Zach Hyatt who lives down the street. Sheila was super understanding and encouraged me to stay with Brian. She reassured me that, if we could not find a sub, we could just cancel class. I really appreciated it because, while I would have done it, that was a lot of driving back and forth from Andover to the West side of town. And, there’s no way I could have taught class last night because we did not get released until almost 9 pm.
At the ER, they did an x-ray of Brian’s stomach and confirmed fecal impaction. I have heard of this happening to people but have never experienced it personally. Well, we can now cross this off the list because I now have almost first hand knowledge of what this is like. Brian said many times, he felt like he was going to die. He felt so much pain every time he tried to poop and he had really bad cramping all over his body (including his legs and his right fist not wanting to open). The was no way he could move this stool without assistance.
I only took one photo last night (the one below) because I felt so bad for him. He was writhing in pain.
First the nurse gave him an enema and let it sit for 30-40 minutes to see if it would trigger some pooping action. Brian tried but only expelled the enema liquid and no poop. A little bit later, she have him a bigger enema — 1 whole liter of soapy water solution. She let that sit for a while and then had Brian try to poop again. Once again, Brian expelled the enema liquid but no poop. In the meantime, it smelled god-awful in that exam room. I was like, “Are you sure there is no poop coming out because it sure smells like it?”
Anyway, since the enemas were not working, the nurse decided it was time to go “digital” — yes, friends, she was going to dig it out of him. OMG. I cannot imagine. She was probably wondering how she got the short straw and hoping that she had called in sick to work that day. She was a good sport thought. At one point, we rang for her and another nurse came. We thought she gave up and ran away but she was just busy with other patients. The doc on duty (Tucker) did warn us that they are a very busy emergency room.
Nurse Shawna came back to check on us and asked Brian why he didn’t want X (I can’t remember the other nurse’s name) to do “the thing” (read: dig the poop out of his ass). Brian was like, “She has big fingers.” I could not stop laughing. As tiny as nurse Shawna’s fingers are, it was still super painful for Brian. He screamed every time. She would get some of it out before he couldn’t take anymore and they’d have to take a break. She would leave, come back, and they would try again. This pattern repeated 2-3 times and she would get little bits out each time. And then around 7 pm, I had to go home and take care of Saki. She had not been fed as we’d been at the ER since 3 pm that afternoon.
When I returned, it was pretty much done. Brian said I missed the most horrible and gross parts. They gave him another enema (third time’s the charm) while I was gone. I guess whatever the nurse was doing loosened it up enough to where the enema actually worked. Shit was gushing out of him. The nurse asked him if he wanted to move to the toilet but he couldn’t stop it. She could barely keep up with replacing one poop pad after another. It sounded disgusting and I’m glad I wasn’t in the room for that part. By the time I got back, they had him mostly cleaned up. He said his stomach was feeling burbly. I encouraged him to try and poop before we leave. I really didn’t want him feeling like has to poop on the drive home or, worse, poop in the car. This last attempt was a success. He managed to poop the rest of the nearly two months worth of shit in his colon out. I could tell that he felt better after that. Imagine having two months worth of poop in your belly. I actually think he’s down to 130 pounds after. It was a crap ton – literally.
We were discharged at 8:40 pm and home by 9-ish. I helped him get in the shower – he needed it! Anyway, we are going to have to stay on top of this poop thing, in additional to all the other things. This whole cancer journey has been quite a ride. For the first time ever we actually completely tapped out our HSA account. As in, there’s no more money in it. Not sure if it will have been replenished in time for when these ER bills come due but we will cross that bridge when we get there. I’m just really grateful that Brian is okay and we are finally past this poop thing.
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December Round Up
Posted on January 18, 2025 by Ching under Things to Do.
December is one of my favorite times of the year because of all the fun, festive holiday pop-ups. There’s also lots of activities to do. Wild Light at Sedgwick County Zoo is something that starts in October so it’s not technically a December event but it is a fun, seasonal activity that we look forward to each year. The last couple of years we have gone with Kendra Wicks and Colby Fugit. We always enjoy looking at the new displays with them.
Similar to Wild Lights at the zoo, Illuminations at Botanica is something that we also enjoy doing. Brian didn’t have enough energy to go this year so I went with Colby and Grant and Susie Ternes. (NOTE: Grant isn’t pictured below because he took our photo.)
Here are some highlights from my favorite holiday pop-ups.
At Chicken N Pickle’s Holiday Hideaway with Susie
Jingle at Public at the Brickyard
Sippin’ Santa at Dockum
Miracle on Mosley Street at River City Brewing Co.
Susie and Colby organized a holiday pop-up pub crawl with Cindy Egan, Molly Sager and Nicole Mathis while Molly and Nicole were in town for Ryan Kellenbarger’s benefit tournament for ICT SOS. It was so fun hanging out with the ladies and experiencing the wonderful holiday pop-ups with them.
Speaking of Ryan’s charity tournament for ICT SOS, he had it at Tap N Paddles. It was their first tournament at the facility which just opened in November. The tournament had an amazing turnout.
Cindy had her annual Christmas party which was super fun. We also had a pickleball party and white elephant at the Pickle Club. While the month of December had some fun events and activities, this was also the month that Brian really started struggling with eating. He quit joining Chris and me for lunches. Despite this, I did manage to get him out for an outing.
Final outing until things started to get really tough. Hoping we have finally turned the corner, though. Until next time!
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