WOW what a month!

So here we are in March and boy does it march in and out quickly. There have been so many things that have happened, let's play catch up.
It's Birthday time for the Layne family. We have 3 nieces and 3nephews birthday's, Andy's father's, 2 friends, and oh yeah our beautiful daughters. That's a lot of birthday cake!
Shaeli and Caity both have turned another year older and I just can't understand how it is possible that I can have a 17 and 15 year old. I mean I'm like...what...twenty something?
Oh, wait. I'm like almost fff...never mind. The point is our baby girls are closer to being an adult than a kindergartner. I seriously could cry. The song from fiddler on the roof comes to mind, and it goes something like...
(hem, hem, clearing the throat)
"Where is the little girl I carried? Where is the little boy at play? I don't remember growing older, when did they?"
(sigh)
Oh well life continues. So anywho, they chose different things for their birthday cake. Caity wanted ice cream cake. Something Andy doesn't like and love to loudly complain about. Shaeli chose cheesecake. So, we made the cheesecake and bought the ice cream cake. They were DELICIOUS! Oh my heck I think I gained like 10 pounds over 2 days.

It was also junior prom!
 Shaeli looked gorgeous. She wore a sparkly silver and black dress. She even let me put makeup on her. I shouldn't have done it, she looks too pretty and grown up with it on. I will have Andy put pics up later. I don't know how and I don't have the time for visuals.

Speaking of time. Andy is healing well from surgery. He still is a pain in the bottom, but he is doing well. He told me the other day that he is feeling more optimistic and hopeful for the future.This is huge. Andy has battled a lot of pain in the last couple of years and we really have not been given a great timeline to live on, so when Andy is this hopeful we are all more optimistic and happy.

I know I am forgetting to tell you something I just can't remember right now.  Some people call it a senior moment, I call it too much going on in life to stop and remember it. So, I hope that all is well with you, and our prayers are for you always.

tired is my middle name

Well looking back at the last few weeks made me feel, well exhausted. I truly feel that my name should be tired. I know, I know everyone is busy and tired. It doesn't help that we had daylight savings time. I love having sunlight at 7 o'clock at night, but the change kicked my butt. Oh, sorry and pardon my french. I should say kicked my backside.

Today Andy had his surgery. Hurray!!! We were there at 12:45 for pre-op and around 1:45 he went into surgery. He did really well. It only took 3 hours for surgery and another 3 hours in recovery. That went better than we all (doctors included) thought it would. He had no complications. What a good baby.
I have to share a little insight that came to me today while in the waiting room. This lovely lady asked me if the doctors told me a time to expect the surgery to take. I said,  "yeah around 3 hours." She said that I looked a little too comfy sitting in the chair and asked if I had waited for my husband before with something like this. I said not only have I waited for my husband through other surgery's, I have gotten to where I rate the hospitals on their waiting rooms. It goes a little like this:

 rated on a scale of 1-5    5 being- best           1 being- needed to be shut down

Huntsman Cancer & Research        4 star
LDS Hospital (old)                          1 star
LDS Hospital (new)                         3 star
McKay Dee Hospital                       3 star
Nevada Cancer Institute                   2 star
Logan Regional                               3 star
Tremonton Hospital                         3 star
Primary Children's Hospital              4 star
University of Utah Hospital             2.5 to 3 star (depending on which area)
Brigham City Hospital                     2.5 star

Okay. I see a problem don't you and this is where the insight came into play.

I really have been in way TOO many hospital waiting/ recovery/overnight/ Dr. office  rooms. I am hoping that after this Andy is able to get into a healthy physical shape and it helps to ward off illness and continued hospital/ specialist visits.
Oh, by the way. Andy did his three month scans at UofU and met with our favorite specialist, Dr. Grossman. The update goes as this:
The tumor in the lower lobe in the right lung has not changed since the last scans in December. Although the SUV levels are increased it does not show a dramatic change. That means that Andy has no new tumors and the one itsy one has not changed enough to alarm the docs. So, he doesn't have scans for FOUR months. That is one month longer than normal. That is a good thing. It all comes down to Andy's cancer is fairly stable and the doctors are happy with that and so are we.