Help me to Know It. Fight It. End It.

This blog has fallen to the wayside what with moving, the holidays, HAVING A BABY, settling in our house, and returning to work. I hope to get back into it as I think we are finally finding our groove but I'm going to skip all the updates for now because this is WAY more important.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I owned an iPhone, iPhone is made by Apple, Steve Jobs was the CEO of Apple, and Steve Jobs died of pancreatic cancer.

This was my six-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon relationship with pancreatic cancer.  Distant. Removed. Little did I or anyone else in my family know in late January 2012 we were about to become really familiar with this scary, deadly, and usually silent form of cancer.

I knew my Dad hadn’t been feeling well over the holidays. He complained of some back pain and of fatigue but chalked it up to being worn down and a probable kidney stone.  My Mom called late one night and said she was taking Dad to the Emergency Room because he was having a lot of back pain related to the kidney stone they thought he had. I woke up in a panic in the middle of the night. I knew something was very wrong. When my Dad called me in the morning he told me that they found cancer in his liver. Lots and lots of cancer. The next few days were a whirlwind of tests, hospitalizations, biopsies, more tests, surgeries, and even more tests. They determined Dad had stage IV pancreatic cancer. It had spread from the pancreas to the lymph nodes and had run rampant in his liver. His blood work for pancreatic cancer markers was so high it was unmeasurable. They offered little hope, less than a  year with chemotherapy, but they offered to help us fight.

So it began. Chemotherapy three days a week, every other week for months on end. With each month the tumors shrank and his blood markers went down. In July of 2012 he reached the maximum number of chemotherapy treatments they recommend and went on a break... but his progress continued. The tumors were gone by fall and his blood markers were in the “normal” range.

It’s been over TWO years since we started this fight. Since then Dad has ran a half marathon, seen his first grandchild’s birth, been awarded with 25 years of service at his job, celebrated his 30^th wedding anniversary, and much more. Help us spread the good news that hope is an option for those with pancreatic cancer. Help us to reach more milestones. Help us Know it. Fight It. End It.  

(Last year at PurpleStrides)

I'm leading a team of friends and family at PurpleStride Washington DC on June 14th at Freedom Plaza. Please consider joining our team by visiting our website at http://purplestride.kintera.org/dc/purpleout (use code EarlyReg2014 for $10 off your registration) or making a donation to my personal page at http://purplestride.kintera.org/dc/brookepowell. 

dust yourself off and try again...

I've been holding off on posting for some time about the house because, well, things just haven been a bit of a mess. After we got our permits in mid/late June we thought it would be smooth sailing but we were very wrong. The builder did not begin to pour the foundation for almost another month putting us even further behind on time AND when the foundation was poured it was poured wrong.

See that large window in the middle? Yeah, its not supposed to be there. Not only that but the foundation is missing two smaller windows and the walkout basement. Whoops?!?! The builder assured us it was an easy fix. Several weeks later it still hadn't been corrected and in fact, they and had continued to frame in the wrong window and installed a window well.

Our concerns about the house were growing exponentially. Getting in contact with the sales agent took an act of Congress and when we were able to reach her we heard the same things over and over "I'm not sure. I'll have to get back you", "I will have to discuss that with ______", "I've been really busy so I'm not sure about _____" or "I've been out of the office so I'll have to check with ______". We tried to get contact information for her superiors with no luck and felt totally out of the loop with the plan for moving forward. The straw that broke the camel's back was when we heard about the lumber delays. The lumber wouldn't be arriving until August 15th at the earliest and it would take ninety days from the start of framing for the finished project. Then we would have to wait for the appraisal and closing before being able to move.

All this was quickly adding up to my worst nightmare... having to move with a newborn baby.... while still recovering from the delivery.... in the middle of winter. Thanks, no thanks. I may or may not have cried for the better part of a day while we tortured ourselves over whether to walk away. I'm just going to blame pregnancy hormones.  In the end we felt the best thing for our growing family was to start looking for a new house as soon as possible.

When we tell most people that we walked they want to know if we lost our earnest money, or deposit, and the answer is.... unfortunately, yes. Parts of the contract supported DR Horton's position that they should keep the earnest money and we felt parts supported us. In the result of dispute like this our contract stated we would have to go to arbitration to settle it. But if we went to arbitration we wouldn't be released from the contract to start looking at other houses until the issue was settled. And well, ain't nobody got time for that.

We officially forfeited our money and withdrew the offer on the house this week. Instead of viewing it as six months and thousands of dollars wasted we've decided to view it as divine intervention and an opportunity to find the home we are supposed to be in. Not going to lie, I'm kind of excited to start looking again. 

Life is about to get CUH-RAZY....

Since our last update about the house we have been waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting some more for permits.

We were starting to sweat bullets as we have other pressing deadlines that the house greatly effects. I know our builder had little control over the permit process but we needed a housing solution and couldn't afford to wait much longer. It got so bad that we told them if permits were not approved by July 1st we would have to walk away. Yeah, bad. But no sooner than the words were out of our mouth did our permits get APPROVED!

And for the best update of all, the reason we were sweating bullets, is this guy....

bowtie in utero.

We can't wait for this little squish to come. I know all moms say this but he is the cutest darn thing ever. At every ultrasound we've had he always has his hands up by his head or in his mouth at some point. He even had hiccups at this last ultrasound.

kicking away

sweetest profile

grover

Our "youngest child", Grover, is having surgery tomorrow morning to remove a suspected mast cell tumor from his leg. It is likely malignant but we are hoping that we caught it early. Please keep our boy, and this anxious mom and dad, in your thoughts and prayers.