The men made a trip to Las Vegas to make memories. In the past they went there for the Mountain West Conference, but that was during Duella's funeral and before the diagnosis. They went to the Body Works exhibit, a car show and a baseball game - and of course, good places to eat. Dennis described a tender scene of four grown men crying at the airport.

The next week, Justin (with Dennis) drove Paul and family to Salt lake to fly home.

Friday was the third chemo. We went on a walk with Aimee, David, Molly and Sara. It was beautiful. The cottonwood trees shed so much cotton that it looked like snow...a lot of snow. They have been so good to us.

At chemo, they had a potluck lunch and invited all the patients.We ate grilled burgers, chips, fruit and chips before Dennis got too sick. The last chemo was so bad that Dennis thought he was going to die. His blood potassium had been low and that caused cramping, tetanus and hiccups. Justin and Paul told him not to take his diuretic and to eat lots of foods with potassium. This time, chemo went much better. He is tired and sick but without the tetanus.

I feel bad when he apologizes for getting sick and inconveniencing me. It's not an inconvenience. He is the love of my life. With tears in his eyes and breaking voice, he thanks me for marrying him. I am the lucky one and he is my treasure.

When Dennis gets his IV chemo, they give him a med with platinum in it. It gives him a lot of static electricity and it discharges when someone comes close, giving quite a shock. He is more sick this round. Tonight he said he won't do more than six treatments. It makes him too sick. We went to a local Mexican restaurant. Last round at this time, the food sat well and was good. This time he can't taste and everything feels greasy. Kenneth, a former boss, made arrangements with the hostess to pay for our meal. That was one of the many kindnesses shown to us.

I can't imagine constant nausea and trying to eat and drink. Chemo affects the taste of everything, so it's difficult to find food that tastes ok and won't make him sicker. We've tried some of his favorite foods but often he can't tolerate them. Diana H. Gave him some good ideas. Cinnamon bears and cracked pepper Triscuts seem to work best some says.

He's supposed to drink two Ensure a day, so we have 2+cases from COSTCO and most of them are still there. Paul and Justin keep cooking favorites like carne asada, Pork lettuce wraps, teriyaki steak, Italian food and all kinds of recipes they've gathered over the years. Anything Dennis eats at a restaurant has to be fresh cooked and he can't have salad bar.

I know he's feeling very sick, but I know how important it is to make memories with our kids and grand kids.

This weekend, Paul, Kyla, Justin and Dennis were singing around the piano.  Paul and Dennis took it as a challenge to make Justin sing “Tiny Hands” and he usually cries his way through it. He made it without too many tears. Dennis, however, could not get through “Brothers” and really broke down when he sang, “I am ready for the grave”. It was a tender but sad moment.

Dennis has been more ill with chemo than the last time. When he can stand to do something, they have been putting together puzzles. That was kind of difficult when Justin’s family was here for the weekend because Christian kept destroying the puzzle. They finished a Thomas Kinkead puzzle Wednesday night late but it was missing two pieces. They played music that they grew up on while working on the puzzle, like the Carpenters, Dan Fogleberg, Chicago, and many more from that era and years to follow. There are so many memories that those songs bring back (Leader of the Band, etc.) I hope to have many more moments like this.

Dennis has a tetanus-type reaction to the chemo this time where muscles would contract and he couldn’t straighten out limbs or open his eyes. It also turned his face bright red yesterday. He’s a lot more nauseous. Paul’s three girls have had a virus (RSV is the one going around this area right now) and we’ve tried to be careful around Dennis. Kyla has had her hands full with sick kids and now just Alexis is sick, which means Kyla gets very little sleep.  I’ve got it now so I have to keep  a distance from Dennis.

Justin and Paul have been showing each other their new culinary creations, so it’s been a gourmet meal nearly every night. To name a few:  Stuffed shells with marinara, lettuce wraps, fettucine with fresh basil cream sauce, chili and cornbread (yummy), teriyaki steak, prime rib, BBQ ribs, carne asada and then Chinese egg rolls tonight. I’ve gained a few pounds and desperately need to lose them. However, Dennis has held his weight steady while he lost about 8 pounds the first week after the last chemo.

Kyla was up past 11 PM last night doing dinner dishes. While my sons are good cooks, it takes about two hours to clean up the kitchen afterward.
I am blessed to have these loved ones around me.

There are many things I have come to love and admire about Dennis during our 38 years of marriage, but I grew to love and appreciate him even more after seeing his tender love and care for his mother during her last few years. The ladies at the Villa (independent living facility where Duella lived when we moved her back here) stopped me one day to say, “We were just taking about your husband. He’s not like a son. He’s more like a daughter. We all have sons and they don’t treat us as good as he treats his mom. He treats her more like our daughters treat us”.   (What a compliment to him).

This second round of chemo has been very hard on him. He looks much older and looks very tired. He has such a good attitude. It breaks my heart to see him like this. If only I could bear more of his burden. He’s worried about me and he can see the sadness on my face that I can’t hide and he notices that I quietly contemplate a lot. I try to be strong for him. It’s too much for me. I have to put it all in the Lord’s hands. I cannot do this without his help.

I’m not mad at God. I don’t believe that God does bad things to good people. That would be evil and God’s not evil. We chose mortality and with mortality comes good and bad, joy and suffering. That’s all part of the deal. Without it we would be obedient little robots with no capacity for feeling or compassion. When we suffer, we learn compassion for others and we learn to love and serve others. Sometimes God sends healing miracles. Even when he withholds healing miracles, if we pay attention, we will see many other miracles of his love around us. He has a great plan and I trust in his plan. It doesn’t make it easy, but he is there and sends others to be there to hold me up when my legs want to collapse from under me and gives me breath when I feel I can’t take another breath. I can’t bear to think of him suffering or to live without him for any great length of time. My life with him has been amazing and full of happiness. I pictured growing old with him, serving an LDS mission with him, watching our grandchildren grow up with him. I am strong and I will be ok.

When Dennis’ mom died, his family grew in love and appreciation for one another. Perhaps this trial will help all of us show more love and appreciation to our loved ones around us. We tend to take things for granted but a loved one can be gone in a moment (one breath away, one heart beat away). I have been given this gift of time to show more love to him and to show my love through serving him. I hope I can use the time wisely.

A week after seeing Dr Kim, surgery was scheduled. We stayed with Aimee and David Sunday night. They had ordered a memory foam wedge pillow for Dennis and he slept the best he had in months on the wedge.

They didn't take him into surgery until 4:30PM. De and Aimee waited with me. We got many phone calls from family. When Dr Kim came to talk to me, I knew it was bad news. You want your surgeon to come out with a smile on their face. That means things went well and they are proud of their accomplishment. He was not smiling. The lymph node was ok, but the appendix was eaten through with cancer. There was cancer all over surfaces of the stomach, messentery, liver, pericardium, etc. they took the appendix, one tumor and a sample by the cecum.

DKR had been having vague symptoms since October. They got much worse after Christmas and into the next year. He thought he had ulcers due to the stress of taking care of his mom or that he had a hiatal hernia. For the last 6 weeks before going to the doctor, he slept in a chair. He felt full all the time and felt the food was coming up.

Two weeks after Duella died, DKR had his scopes. The next day we got the terrible news, stomach cancer, adenocarcinoma with a signet ring cell component. We were very hopeful as the gastroenterologist said that the tumor was very small, so small he missed it the first time. Dr Pedersen and Dr Hughes called DKR at home expressing their optimism and trying to figure out how Dennis came to have an endoscopy at such an early stage. Dr Kim, the cancer surgeon, painted another picture saying this cancer tended to line the organs in a form called linitis plastica and told us this form of cancer is uncurable at present and is very aggressive.

The ct scan didn't look bad, according to the female radiologist, but there was thickening at the cecum. The PET CT was negative.

Dr Kim had DKR get immunizations for the flu, meningitis and pneumonia. During the physical, he felt an enlarged axillary lymph node and noted things didn't feel right at the cecum. The plan was to take out the lymph node first. If it was cancer, surgery wouldn't help. If it was clear, the next step was surgery by laparoscopy to look for tumor spread. If that was clear, he would remove the stomach.

We went to a local home show where they demo'd adjustable beds. I'm not one who would buy something like that, but the thought of DKR without a stomach made me think he would do better with a bed like that. They sell for$8000 plus tax, delivery, mattress pads, , pillows, and set up. They wanted $5300 but when DKR said that was very expensive, he dropped it to $4800.