The Taber Family Blog

Wyatt with muzzle flash

I’m lagging on updates these days, but there really isn’t much of a change day to day lately. I’m feeling better all the time, can eat pretty much what I want (gently though) and am back to work 3 days a week now. I still have a bit of the facial rash left and acne seems to crop up from time to time, but I really can’t complain after some of the other things I’ve been through.

Anyway, I forgot to blog about this last weekend, but the kids and I had a great time over at the local shooting range here in Vacaville. The idea came from Wyatt and I thought it would be fun to go shoot at some targets once again too. However this time when we talked about it, the girls became very excited about coming along and doing some shooting too. The reality of shooting a real pistol is quite a bit different than video games and TV, so I thought about it for a bit and decided that after a right gun safety review with all the kids once again, they would be well prepared for some target practice.

Grant with muzzle flash

After the gun safety class put on by yours truly, we headed over to the shooting range and we were almost there, when Elizabeth decided after some deep thought that this wasn’t really something we wanted to do, so she and Denise elected to go shopping instead. Lauren was a rock and said she would stay the course. Once at the shooting range, we rented our ear and eye protection and and were assigned a lane in the range. At this point you can clearly hear the loud explosions coming from deep inside the range and I could see Lauren was starting to get nervous, but still determined to join in.

I always forget how loud guns are when they are fired in close proximity. It never fails to remind me how silly TV and movies are that show people firing guns and not grimacing from the ear pain. Even with ear protection the loud blasts will always get your attention. So we set up our targets and took turns with my little .40 cal Glock pistol. The boys did great and drilled their targets very well.

Lauren is ready!

When it came time for Lauren’s turn, she decided she wasn’t quite ready and urged us to keep going. However after a few turns went by, I assured Lauren that I would be right behind her and wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her. Hearing this, she decided she would try shooting, as long as I was right behind her and even holding/bracing her hands. Easy enough. Lauren stepped up and fired off two rounds right into the target. I was so proud and I could tell she was proud of herself too for overcoming her fears.

I had my follow up appointment with Dr. Woolf today to go over the results of my Pet-CT scans from last Friday. The first thing he said to me when he entered my room was “your images were completely clear.” Man, that is some good news to hear right off the bat. Thrilled is what I’m feeling right now. I knew in my heart that would be the result, but hearing it from him and after having the images reviewed by other experts as well, gives me such a feeling of relief.

He examined me pretty thoroughly, including the camera up my nose and down my throat, poking me and prodding the site of the tumor and feeling my neck all around. He said I still had some swelling in my throat and near the tumor site, but I already knew that based on the effort it takes to swallow. But the swelling will subside as the weeks roll by.

After the appointment, Denise and I had a brief celebration lunch at Favela’s in Fairfield and I had the quesadillas. They were awesome! And for the rest of the day, back to work.

I had my first Pet-CT scan on Friday at Northbay in Fairfield and I’m anxious for the results. The scan took about 2 1/2 hours, but most of that was preparation, including having the radioactive sugar injection and waiting for an hour while it made its way through my body. Sitting in the “quiet” room for an hour, resting comfortably. After the that I was placed on the scanner for about 30 minutes.

Example Pet-CT Scan - NOT MINE

The way this particular scan works is based on the fact that cancer cells feed on sugar (glucose), so when the radioactive sugar is coursing through my body, the Pet-CT scan will expose where high concentrations of sugar are located. There are normal places in your body where sugar concentrates, such as the brain, kidneys and bladder, but in cancer cases, seeing other places “lighting up” is not typically a good sign.

After the scan was complete I asked the technicians if they could tell me what the results were, and although I knew what the answer would be, I still thought I’d ask. Since they’re not my doctor, they can’t discuss the results with me, but I could take a peek at the images on the computer. I took a quick look at several images, including those of my head and I couldn’t see anything lighting up anywhere in the images. I’m very hopeful about what I saw, but the final say will be up to my doctor this week when I meet him on the 17th. Needless to say I was very encouraged that my treatment was successful!

4th of July in Vacaville

I love 3 day weekends! I get caught up on things around the house, things around the yard and on holidays like this one, we get to spend time with friends and watch the local fireworks. Except for the constant wind everyday, this has been a great weekend so far, and today we’re going to have our July “5th” back yard BBQ and hopefully do some swimming too. Not too sure about that because it’s ridiculously windy today and a bit on the chilly side outside (so far today).

Last night we all piled into the suburban and drove over to the Costco parking lot (one of the highest places in town) to watch the fireworks. Well I guess last year hundreds of people left tons of tailgater garbage strewn around the parking lot, that this year they closed it off entirely. So most folks ended up parking on the street or on the hill nearby, like us! We had a pretty good view of the event albeit a bit far away. It was nice.

Earlier today we drove to Walnut Creek and did some shopping and on our way home we stopped at Chevy’s in Pleasant Hill. I know, it’s a chain and often a roll of the dice as to the quality of the food, but we were very pleased with how clean the place was, how nice the staff was and how good the food was too. I had the fajitas that Denise and I shared and I was able to eat them pretty well. I also had my first Margarita of the year. I was worried about the possible sting, but it didn’t sting at all and tasted great. Now if only wine were as nice to my mouth, I’d be a very happy boy.

Well, it’s been a while since I posted and I should write something to keep everyone up to date. Probably the main reason I’ve been late on this blog, is that Internet access in France is spotty, so getting a reliable connect to the tools I use in the U.S. was frustrating at times. We get so used to how nicely the Internet works here in the U.S., but forget to think that from Europe, all access to sites in the U.S. has to route through network connections under the Atlantic Ocean, so there is dreadful lag at times. For instance, I was never able to browse to My Yahoo news portal page from France. The site would never come up at all. And Facebook rarely worked at all. Anyway, back here in the U.S., the Internet works great again and I’m back to normal.

Denise and I had a wonderful time in Brussels and Paris over the past two weeks. The weather stayed nice the entire time, except for the very last day in Paris when it started to sprinkle very lightly. While in Belgium and France, we elected to do most of the touristy type of things, like seeing the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Notre Dame and the D-Day beaches in Normandy, but we also really loved the change of culture too. The French are in a rush for nothing! Events like eating lunch or dinner could and should take hours in France and Belgium. Nobody is in a hurry. We really enjoyed that. One thing that was particularly interesting is that people eat at specific times, and if you miss the meal, you’ll find all the restaurants closed up tight until dinner time (after 6pm). And we also noticed that nearly everyone we saw didn’t sit down for dinner until after 9pm, and a lot of people would arrive for dinner after 11pm. They eat (and drink and socialize) late into the night. Very cool.

So my challenge was finding things I could eat while in Europe. I have recently begun eating soft things, so I had to make sure wherever we went to eat, they had something on the menu I was familiar with and could eat. This really wasn’t much of a problem, because once I became familiar with a handful of French words, I was typically able to find something to eat, like fried or scrambled eggs, or an omlette. I fell in love with a sandwich called the “Madame”. It’s basically a piece of toast with layers of ham, cheese and topped with a fried egg. Easy to eat, tasted great and almost every place knew how to make them.

I was able to keep my calories up pretty well while we were there, which is good because we did a lot of walking and stair climbing all over Paris.

Some of our highlights were:

1. Walking around in the old town area of Brussels and eating a real Belgian waffle.
2. Enjoying real Belgian beer!
3. Riding the high speed train from Brussels to Paris. Super fast!
4. Seeing the Sienne River for the first time.
5. Attending a full Sunday mass in French at the Notre Dame Cathedral of Paris.
6. Walking up the Eiffel Tower at night.
7. Standing underneath the Arc De Triomphe and walking the Champs-Elysees.
8. Standing next to the Venus De Milo and paintings by DaVinci in the Louvre.
9. Walking and biking through the never ending gardens at the Palace at Versailles.
10. Standing in the surf at Omaha Beach and looking out from Pointe Du Hoc.
11. Reflecting at the American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer near Omaha Beach.
12. Visiting the Bayeux Cathedral and seeing the Bayeux Tapestry.
13. Walking up Montmarte and seeing a panoramic view of all of Paris.

Photos of our trip can be seen here: