Look at you your 82

Mom turned 82 on August 7. Her cousin Eunice died on August 7th as well. Not a happy birthday event but Eunice had been sick for a long time. We didn't have mom's party until Sunday because that is our family party day. We had a mum's for mom party. Uncle Ed called and told me he wanted to get a mum for mom, then Marian wanted to, then John ...... Mom ended up with alot of mum's. She's going to plant them in her boxes for fall and then we will move them to the ground.
The picture above was fun. Mom didn't want to blow out her candles so I asked the kids to help. The minute the candles were lit they blew them out. No waiting for happy birthday or anything. We lit them again, sang and then they blew them out. They were so funny each one of them had a toy cell phone or camera and while we were singing they were all snapping pictures. They are children of technology.

Lynn, Wendy and the kids were at Park City this weekend. Chase jumped in a hot tub and chipped his permanent front tooth. When I told him I wanted to take a picture of his tooth Harrison came over and wanted a picture of his too. He just had surgery to remove his front teeth. (He has too many teeth) Then Jackson came over to show off his lack of teeth. Funny bunch of snaggle toothed children.

Sean was showing AJ and Steve some moves on the basketball court.

Don's little sister Darci has been fighting Melanoma for awhile now. It's been a roller coaster, it's bad, it's not so bad, it's good, it's not so good.... Cancer is nasty that way. She went to Mayo clinic in Chicago last week and she's going to start a new treatment that involves taking TMZ pills daily and twice a month 90 minute IV treatments of Avastin. It's a new drug trial We are hoping to see some positive results. One of the up sides of the treatment is that the research thus far shows that people receiving the treatment have a better quality of life receiving this treatment them some of the others. Some make you so sick you can't function. Darci is hoping she feels well enough to continue to teach this school year. Heck, she's been running two miles around the lake I can't imagine why she can't teach.

I'm amazed that with all the research done on cancer there are still so many lives affected by it. When I teach my CNA class the first day students always tell me something "different" about themselves. In this last class I had three students who had cancer. One of them is 19 and has had lymphoma since she was 14. She had a bone marrow transplant and was in remission but now it's back. She seems to be doing good though. She met a guy in class and they had their first date Friday night. Another girl is 20 and has had melanoma for a couple of years. I didn't get her whole story. The last one was in her 50's and has had cancer three different times. Good grief. She's a fighter. This was just one class of students. It's crazy. There is light at the top of the Huntsman Cancer Institute and John Huntsman Sr said it will stay on until they find a cure for cancer. Well, I wish they would hurry the heck up. Everyone think positive thoughts for Darci Don and I are thinking about her and her family alot. Catherine put Darci's name on the temple prayer role so now she has all the Mormon's praying for her in addition to all of Makinaw Illinois.

The midwife and I put in IUD's at the homeless clinic today. I now go around once a week to places where homeless women can be found such as homeless shelters, drug and alcohol addiction shelters, half way houses, domestic violence shelters, viaducts, river banks and talk to women about their birth control options. I particularly promote the IUD because it works for 7+ years and requires no follow up on the woman's part. At the clinic we put in two IUDs and they were both women I had gone out and "found." It made me so happy I could cry. They were both addicts, just out of jail with children they did not have custody. One was 21 and the other 23. Now they have 7 years to get their lives together. If they don't get their lives together that is 7 years of children that won't be born and end up in our foster care system. It was just so incredibly positive. My goal is to get IUDs for 100 women in the next 18 months. Can you imagine how many potential children would be born in 7 years to 100 homeless women who have already had children taken by the state. Hopefully the grant money for the IUD doesn't run out! I am just amazed at how powerless these women are. They don't want to have babies they just don't think they have any control over their fertility.

Funny story from the clinic. One patient says to another patient "I know you from somewhere, I just can't remember where." The other patient says "I used to sell dope in Pioneer Park." The first patient says, "Nah, that's not it,I never bought dope there."

Oh one more funny story. I was standing up against the nurses station and a homeless guy walks past me and says "nice ass!" I turned around and looked at him, I was going to say "nice teeth" but he didn't have any. I was happy he said "nice" and not "BIG."