Re: Important

So far this month there are quite a few things of importance to write about. We will see how far I get before I am interrupted. The first thing I would like to talk about is Wilms Tumor. One of my nieces was diagnosed with this type of cancer last week. It's a rare cancerous tumor that develops from immature kidney cells. It primarily develops in children from birth to about 6 or so. She is not quite three. She is at Children's Hospital now, she had a preliminary exam and they ran a bunch of tests to try and determine how far along the cancer was. The doctors figure that she has had the tumor for about a year, but that it is probably still encapsulated within the kidney tissue. That is good, in case you were wondering. It means that it likely has not spread to the surrounding tissue yet. They have her on a tentative surgery schedule for this next week, and they will remove the diseased kidney. One of my brothers also developed this same cancer when he was 6 months old, and the doctors removed his kidney as well. We are all very positive, all things considered. My father gave her a blessing the other night that had good things to say. They live out of town, and when they went to the hospital on Friday, if it was really bad they were going to schedule the surgery for that same day, or Saturday. But they determined that it was alright to wait for a little bit, so that is encouraging. The unfortunate part of putting off the surgery is that she is required to stay at the hospital until the surgery, and who wants to stay at the hospital for an undetermined amount of time. I know I don't. But she is a happy little girl, and I'm sure that their little family will make the best of it. On the bright side, I work in Seattle, and so I can go visit on my lunch breaks.
On a less serious not so distressing note, today we went and got our Christmas tree. We tried to get it last Saturday, but Rachel got out of work late (on her birthday) and the place was closed by the time we got there. It is a u-cut tree farm out in Hobart called Papa's Tree Farm. Kind of far from us, but it was fun. Racel doesn't like being cold, so cutting a tree down in the snow (it has snowed a little in the last day or two) was not the most fun for her, but I would like to make this a tradition. Anyway, we cut down a 7-foot Frasier Fir. It's a pretty nice looking tree, for a great price. I did make us look a little for it though. Rachel was going to choose the first tree she saw with a for sale sign on it so that she could get it over with and get out of the cold, but I wanted to make sure that we got a tree that we were both happy with. She ended up picking out the tree in the end. It is not a full and conical as the sheared trees that you get at the grocery stores, but that is fine by mee, cause it looks like a real tree that we went and cut down (since that is exactly what we did). I am very happy with it. Ok, I have been interrupted now. We put Noah's crib in here with the computer so that no one wakes him up by talking or whatever. So I have to get out now, since Rachel just out him down to sleep. Expect more tomorrow.