Most people go on vacation during spring break, whether it's to somewhere warm, close, faraway, or to go see family. Well i went to go see family and it was faraway. I have relatives that live down in Lumberton, Mississippi, they live on a farm. We usually go down every year during spring break, we have been going for about ten years now.
This year my brother and I got to bring friends so I brought Robby and my brother brought his friend Kyle. The trip down was okay everyone slept while kyle and I listened to our ipods. We stopped at a hotel where we swam for a good two hours, until eleven at night. The next day we headed out with my grandparents and cousins, who were already at the hotel when we got there. About five o'clock that night we got to our destination, Lumberton, Mississippi.
My aunt and uncle have owned this farm for about fifteen years now and they have had a variation of animals from llamas, to peacocks, to just your ordinary farm animals. They have a beautiful house, though don't judge it from the outside. Inside is a very nice modern farm house. Included with the farm is a pond that is usually stacked with fish but with the frequent floods most of them went over the spillway.
We went to the Gulf one day, it's about an hour away from their house. The water was pretty warm and it was low tide so you would think that there would be a lot of shells, but there wasn't. We walked up and down the beach for a while then my brother and his friend thought that it would be fun to feed the seagulls. That was a blast. There were about twenty seagulls, we fed them cheese its. After that we went to eat at a crappy restaurant. When we got done we went to some of Kyle's friends house that he has in Gulf Port. When we were done there we went back to a fulfilling dinner.
The next day, St. Patrick's Day, we went to New Orleans. We walked around for most of the day and went to the French Quarter. There were some really odd people there. We went to eat at the Hard Rock Cafe for lunch. After that we went to go get gifts. On our way to the car we got stopped by some people, who were defiantly high on something, they asked us for fifty cents for a hotel room. They were really crazy and called us some bad names but we made it home.
On our last day we just hung out at their house. Robby, My mom, and I went to Dirt Cheap, it's a place where they get name brand things that might have been in a store that had a fire or flood and they sell them really cheap. When we got back they had made a house out of wood for us to burn later that night. We went fishing for the rest of the day. Between Robby and I we caught six fish, I caught five of them. That night we burned the fire and sat around and talked. My brother and Kyle slept out by the fire that night. The next morning we got up and had breakfast and got all of our things together and said goodbye to everyone and headed home.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Monday, March 1, 2010
Cancer
Most people know someone who has been affected by cancer. I know I have. There are a kinds of cancer also ranging in severity. Some are treatable some are not. People get cancer get rid of it then it never comes back but for others it might come back again and maybe three times. The thing a bout cancer it that it can affect anybody, from a perfectly healthy five year old to a sickly fifty-five year old. You never know when it will happen. It could happen as you're sitting at home or when you're on vacation and unfortunately it happened to us on the way back from Vegas.
My grandpa got colon cancer just a few years ago which raised concerns for the rest of the family. When you find out that someone in your family has cancer it is very hard to believe. After you have time to think about it then you have to start planning for what is going to happen in just some short years down the road. Since my grandpa got it at around sixty-five has kids would have to start getting check for it around the age of fifty-five. Usually you get check ten years before your parents or other relatives got it. Well for us it came ten years earlier than expected.
I have previously posted my vacation to Las Vegas, the thing I didn't tell you is that by the end of that trip we had spent a good ten to fifteen hours in a hospital. The day before we left my dad was having some trouble "going". We didn't think much of it because we had eaten some food that we weren't really used to. So then the next day we set out for home. Along the way we were having to stop about every ten minutes so that my dad could try to use the restroom. When the pain became too unbearable we stopped at the Denver hospital. We ended staying there for about ten hours, it helped that there was a Harry Potter marathon going on out in the lobby. They ended up releasing him and told us that it was a bad infection and if the pain doesn't go away by the time we got home he would have to go back to the doctor. This is day two of not "going".
We stayed at a hotel near the hospital that night just in case. He got sick that night, let me tell you he never gets sick. We finally went to bed and got up early the next morning to head home. On the way there we would stop every ten to fifteen minutes to see if anything had changed but the pain just kept getting worse and worse. We finally made it home after fly 90 miles down the road. We spend the rest of the day trying to make my dad comfortable. The next day my mom and dad go to the doctor and about twenty minutes later after explaining over and over again that he hadn't "gone" in four days, they sent him to the hospital. Later that day my brother and I go down there to see him, he seems pretty comfortable but still in pain. HE gets moved to a different room snd shortly after my grandma takes my brother and I home because I have soccer that night.
Just as we start to scrimmage my grandma comes back to pick me up to go see my dad, they had decided to go ahead and do surgery. We get there just in time to see him before he went into surgery. We waited out in the lobby for about two and half hours. Finally the doctor comes out to tell us the news. What we had thought was just bad infection or a blocked intestine turned into colon cancer that had spread to his lymph nodes. We all just sat there for a minute to take it all in. My mom was the first to cry.
When my dad got out of recovery we went up and saw him, my mom was the one to tell him. He was shocked but too tired to think of it at the time. They ended up cutting out a foot of his colon and he had to have a colosomy for six months along with chemo and radiation and a reversal surgery. He took the chemo and radiation really well. He only got sick a couple of times. Finally last week on tuesday he had his surgery.
The surgery went well thought it almost didn't happen. His colon was a little shorter than expected so they had to pull and tug and move some things around to get it fixed but they got it done. He is in more pain then last time and it seems like it will last longer too. The doctors did say that since the colon was so short that he might have future problems. For now he is happy to be home where he has more places to sit and more things to do.
If you have any history of cancer in your family, doesn't matter what kind it is, get checked for it about ten years before that family member had it. If you have any unusual pains get them checked out because the littlest thing out of place could mean something a whole lot bigger, better to catch it sooner than later.
My grandpa got colon cancer just a few years ago which raised concerns for the rest of the family. When you find out that someone in your family has cancer it is very hard to believe. After you have time to think about it then you have to start planning for what is going to happen in just some short years down the road. Since my grandpa got it at around sixty-five has kids would have to start getting check for it around the age of fifty-five. Usually you get check ten years before your parents or other relatives got it. Well for us it came ten years earlier than expected.
I have previously posted my vacation to Las Vegas, the thing I didn't tell you is that by the end of that trip we had spent a good ten to fifteen hours in a hospital. The day before we left my dad was having some trouble "going". We didn't think much of it because we had eaten some food that we weren't really used to. So then the next day we set out for home. Along the way we were having to stop about every ten minutes so that my dad could try to use the restroom. When the pain became too unbearable we stopped at the Denver hospital. We ended staying there for about ten hours, it helped that there was a Harry Potter marathon going on out in the lobby. They ended up releasing him and told us that it was a bad infection and if the pain doesn't go away by the time we got home he would have to go back to the doctor. This is day two of not "going".
We stayed at a hotel near the hospital that night just in case. He got sick that night, let me tell you he never gets sick. We finally went to bed and got up early the next morning to head home. On the way there we would stop every ten to fifteen minutes to see if anything had changed but the pain just kept getting worse and worse. We finally made it home after fly 90 miles down the road. We spend the rest of the day trying to make my dad comfortable. The next day my mom and dad go to the doctor and about twenty minutes later after explaining over and over again that he hadn't "gone" in four days, they sent him to the hospital. Later that day my brother and I go down there to see him, he seems pretty comfortable but still in pain. HE gets moved to a different room snd shortly after my grandma takes my brother and I home because I have soccer that night.
Just as we start to scrimmage my grandma comes back to pick me up to go see my dad, they had decided to go ahead and do surgery. We get there just in time to see him before he went into surgery. We waited out in the lobby for about two and half hours. Finally the doctor comes out to tell us the news. What we had thought was just bad infection or a blocked intestine turned into colon cancer that had spread to his lymph nodes. We all just sat there for a minute to take it all in. My mom was the first to cry.
When my dad got out of recovery we went up and saw him, my mom was the one to tell him. He was shocked but too tired to think of it at the time. They ended up cutting out a foot of his colon and he had to have a colosomy for six months along with chemo and radiation and a reversal surgery. He took the chemo and radiation really well. He only got sick a couple of times. Finally last week on tuesday he had his surgery.
The surgery went well thought it almost didn't happen. His colon was a little shorter than expected so they had to pull and tug and move some things around to get it fixed but they got it done. He is in more pain then last time and it seems like it will last longer too. The doctors did say that since the colon was so short that he might have future problems. For now he is happy to be home where he has more places to sit and more things to do.
If you have any history of cancer in your family, doesn't matter what kind it is, get checked for it about ten years before that family member had it. If you have any unusual pains get them checked out because the littlest thing out of place could mean something a whole lot bigger, better to catch it sooner than later.
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