The one with Tiffany's big adventure continued, a few Jay updates, I was published!!!, and a pic screaming for your comment....

Well, Tiffany's parents just left, and it was good seeing them. I am now about to leave to go to a Children and poverty seminar that our church is hosting, and I am sure it will be educational, and something that I might not want to talk about but something that needs to be discussed...and how we can help this horrid problem here in our country and in the world. I am extreamly tired, and we have a full week ahead of us this week and next week is just as big....but more on that later. Right now, I will just let you read Sheila's previous emails and give you something to comment about, heh.....

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Jay Updates in order withy a later personal update after them all.....

Wednesday Feb. 23rd, '05:

Jay is in the hospital for a 24 hours observation.

He started having severe pain in his shoulder (he has had some pain for a long time but never to this degree) last night. We told the Dr. in short stay today and he ordered MRIs. They think they have found something near the brachial plexus and are calling in a radiation oncology consult for tomorrow morning. The Dr. thinks the cancer maybe forming a tumor there. The neurologist came to see him this evening and feels the same way. They are going to try do the radiation tomorrow if it is warranted. He got platelets again today and some potassium.

The Dr. rounding today made me feel better about the low counts because he said that the methotrexate can seep out of the CNS and into the rest of system and effect the bone marrow especially with the amount he has been receiving. It's good to know his counts are an effect of the chemo and not the cancer. Another Doctor told us it wouldn't effect the counts but this one is the oldest Dr. in the practice and he was 100% sure that's what it is.

Last night Jay woke up at about 2:00 AM and asked me what I wanted from Mystery Taco. He also told me that he is a spy and that his partner looks like Lucy Lu. He told me I'm a spy too but I don't work in the same place as him. Today he reached out his hand to hand me something (of course there was nothing in his hand) and he told me, I want you to have this $20. There were a couple of other things he said that were hard to follow. He drifts in and out of this quasi sleep mode often.

He just said to me while laying in bed - hey, this is my commercial, and the TV is not on. He does love that Dr. Pepper commercial with the catchy jingle where the people in the back ground start whistling. When he gets grumpy I bring the commercial and it puts him in a good mood so at least he was hallucinating happy thoughts about Dr. Pepper.

There is no further word on the transplant yet.

Take care everyone.

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Thursday Feb. 24th, '05

Jay had is first radiation treatment today. All went well.

On the way home, while sitting at a red light in Wilkinsburg, we got rear ended. A lady hit one car that then hit another, that then hit another, that hit us.
Lucky for us, there was no damage but the guy behind us messed up his car and called the police so we had to wait for them to show up. When I got home we had about 4 inches of snow on the driveway (well at least it looked like 4 inches)

Jay didn't do much hallucinating today.

No further word on the transplant.

Good night everyone,
Sheila

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DG's Update on Jay:

Well, I talked to Sheila Saturday and Jay had a headache, but it was good Sheila told me, because she thought the reason his head hurt so bad was 1) there was a cold front moving through and Sheila had a head ache too (BTW: I think I had one too from when it came through here a few days ago) but Sheila seemed to think that Jay mainly had a head ache because he stayed up until 1:00 a.m. Friday night/Sat. morning playing games with his friends!!!!! I was so glad to hear that he felt good enough to do that, but I also know my brother is good at over doing it in the guise of......"I might as well live it up"! So needless to say we were all happy that he felt good enough to do that, and were sorry that his head hurt, but happy that he had a good time the night before. Sheila said that they are waiting now for the insurance company to approve the hone marrow transplant and then I will get the call, heh. She said that they would love to do the transplant right now, but if they did and the insurance did not approve it the way it is submitted from the Dr. the Sheila and ay are stuck with a VERY large hospital procedure! .....we all wait. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers and please know Jay, Sheila, Mom, Dad, Aunt, brother, sister-in-laws, etc....all appreciate your love and prayers for Jay!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Tiffany's big adventure continued.......

So after we called our family PA (not Dr. actually) and they told us they could not get Tiffany into the office until the afternoon of the next day...we decided to call on our the nurses from my church to ask what she thought and if we would need to go to the emergency room. After tiffany talked to her for a short time it was the nurses opinion that we head out to the ER. off we went....now I have been to the ER before (actually many times...being a Pastor) and I knew that we would need to bring a book...so I we both grabbed our books and drove straight there. Tiffany went in and I let her off at the door so she could go check-in and then I could park. When I go into the waiting room there was Tiffany with her sweet smile face hiding the horrible pain beneath that I know she had. I sat beside her holding her while I started watching all the people around us.....the room was filled primarily with babies and children that were sick or hurting, and it looked like they had been there for quite some time....several hours we found out later....well, after 3 hours of waiting Tiffany's name was called and we went into a small prep room for questions and then they put us into another waiting room (a different room but packed with people this time) and we waited....then they called our name and we thought to our selves....finally here we go to see the Dr........nope......they took us to the insurance person to make sure we could pay for what ever we were getting done....(I am very scared about what kind of bill we are going to get with this one) then back out the the second waiting room. Well, by this time I had to leave to go to the church to go to a meeting that we had.....now normally I would have skipped the meeting, but this was the first meeting that we had had since the resignation of the chair, and I was the chair...so I thought it would be short and sweet and then I could get out of there and back to Tiffany.....besides Tiffany had her cell and could get a hold of me anytime she needed too.....(I still felt bad, but I went) Well, the meeting lasted an hour and I ran back to the ER...to find out that Tiffany had gotten back to an ER room, but they had taken her to get a Ultrasound, and so I sat once again and waited this time by myself waiting for my wife....They wheeled her back in and by this time they had put a car accident person (not too bad) in a bed out in the hall (yes they were so swamped that people were in the hall being treated) well, they came back and the Dr. decided to do another exam this time making sure Tiffany did not have something wrong with a pregnancy (we had be AI ( Artificially Inseminated two weeks before) (They found out that she was not pregnant :( ........) But even after al that and another Dr. coming in to see her they decided that there was nothing to really do and discharged her only to tell her to come back the next day and make sure the blood work was OK.
Yeah that is right I said, "the next day"..... So the next day we both went back to the same ER....waited, and waited, and waited, and then we waited....up until the point that they finally had us wait some more! It was OK this time, because this time we got to see a lot more cool injuries, like a chief who cut his wrist from Maria's (which we liked so much we went to eat there after this visit, heh heh) and all kinds of stuff, but the same basic stuff happened...and all the time we tried to tell them to find the same Dr. we had last night and tell her we were back and all we needed to do was do the urine sample and the blood test and be on our way (Tiffany's pain that day had gone down from a 9 to a 3) but they would not listen and just told us that we had to wait again and again and again.... Well, they finally got her in a bed that was in the hall and asked her to pee in a cup and give it back to them. Tiffany was so worried about a blood sample, because her veins are so small that it is hard for anyone to be able to draw blood from her.... and luck her they decided to not make her have to do a blood test and the urine was just fine!!! So that was great news....even though we had to wait a total of 15 hours over the course of 2 days to find that info out...but the great thing was while we were waiting for the second day's urine test there was this lady in one of the ER rooms that was streaming like a wild mountain lion! I mean you would not believe how this young lady was screaming....all the nurses and Dr.'s would look at each other and exchange bewildered stares and slight smiles..... I mean it was crazy how this lady was screaming! Then I noticed that one of the nurses said that she got out.....and we all knew that that meant this wild lady was on the loose....well out of no where a male nurse tackled this woman and three others grabbed her and as three people led her back to the room she was in one of the nurses grabbed her hair and the lady screaming, "Pull my hair harder, pull it!!!!"....."OK", I said to Tiffany..."Looks like someone needs to approve a sedative!"
We decided right then that going to the ER was way better than any movie date night, heh. (probably will cost a lot more, but still better) heh heh

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amazing news!!!!!!

I was reading one of my favorite magazines on Saturday and then I read a wonderful letter to the editor!!! As I was reading the letter I thought to myself..."Wow I think I have read this before"....and ten I read who wrote it....heh I could not believe it, but they published my article!!!! I have had my name in this magazine before with small quotes here and there, but this time it was smack dab in the front and my entire letter was there! bad grammer and all...heh..... So I thought I would let yall know about this and then show it off to your friends/family that you know that guy who wrote that letter, he, the magazine is in the book stands right now and thought I would let you support the magazine and buying it and framing it, he...so maybe not that crazy about it, but still fun......just in case if you don't want to go find it on the news stands or Borders/Barnes and Nobles...then you can read it here:

DVD Etc. The issue is Jan/Feb 2005 Vol.4 #1 and the scripture on the spine is John 8:12....yep you heard me right scripture...the Editor is a Christian and is not ashamed to say it and tell his readers that all the time....the crazy thing is I found out that he actually started out in the magazine industry with my favorite magazine for the Turbo Grafx 16 Video Game system.... oh man I loved that system, and still love it today...If I could just fine one, heh....especially if it had the CD attachment and the greatest RPG game called" Y's Book I and II"...the first home video game RPG on a CD with actually cartoon graphics on the disc! I even dreamed about this game with I was a kid, heh. Ok back on track my letter to the editor is on page 17, and my name is Grady Hollums) still amazing, and I talked about The Passion Of The Christ is anyone cares.... have a fun read...but you better hurry to read it I am sure the magazine will be taken off the shelves soon for the next month's issue.

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"As Pepe swallowed he wished he could remember the universal sign for choking"

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See through toaster

and

a creative Idea of the new Xbox coming out this year!

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Ok Well I need to get some rest...so love yall, take care, and please leave your funny comments for the new picture......KUTPs!!!!!!!!!!!!!