Monday & Tuesday notes from Iowa City

Tuesday, April 27, 2010 – I am going to Post the notes Heidi sends to me about each day – Here is her review of Monday & Tuesday…

Things are going fine so far. We got to IA city yesterday around 2:30 so thought we’d have time to pick up his prescription at the pharmacy. Didn’t think we should do the valet parking since we didn’t know how long it might take at the pharmacy, so took us awhile to find parking and then decided we’d just go to radiation therapy first since the pharmacy is open until 8pm we had plenty of time. Turns out we spent more time waiting for his radiation treatment than we did at the pharmacy. He got in for treatment at 3:30, then we walked over to the pharmacy and were able to pick up the pills right away, we had called them in but they said it wouldn’t be ready until Tuesday so thought we might have to wait. Kellee felt pretty good last night – a little off – is how he describes it. He ate mac&cheese and a little later a sandwich too! This morning he felt pretty wiped out from the treatment so is sleeping now.

Tomorrow he has treatment at 8:30, CT scan at 9:30, and MRI at 10:30 wow he’s going to be really wiped out after all that! Don’t know yet if we’ll drive home or not. We decided even if we do – we’ll just keep the room so we don’t have to pack up and unpack again – which is quite an ordeal when you have computers, clothes, and food! It is only costing $33 so we both think it’s worth it. But we may just be staying too. We’ll make that decision after all the tests tomorrow.

Kellee ate some cereal this morning and I think I’ll make egg salad for lunch – I guess I better do that. I worked for a couple of hours this morning – checking emails and moving meetings. I’ll work a few more hours this afternoon if I can find enough to do – if not I can read Anna Karenina!

A Russian Award

Sunday, April 25, 2010 – Kory called us sometime back and told us he had won an award from the language department @ ISU.  Kory is in his second year of studying Russian. He was not sure what the award was for exactly, but he wanted to let us know. Since Heidi & I have now been parents for (t-cough) years, we have learned a thing or two about when one of our boys tells us something, it means even if he doesn’t come out and say so, if he is sharing it with us, it is important to him.  So we made plans to go to Ames.  We went to the 10:30 service @ TRC and then had Sunday dinner at Faithe’s with my dad and Kellee. Kerry had a senior picnic (or some kind of meal) @ CUI. Kellee gave us a report on how the morning went at The Bridge, which was very good. But he did say how getting up @ 6:00 am to get ready and then drive to Ottumwa, set-up, practice, do the service, tear-down and drive back to Pella by 12:30 made for a long morning and it wiped him out. He was looking forward to a nap after we ate.

We left around 2:30, (Heidi drove so I was able to snooze a bit on the way up, yeah!) When we got to Kory’s room, Heidi and Kory started to gather items he really wouldn’t need the rest of the school year so we could take them home with us and I started a bit of repair work.

The ceremony was held in the Memorial Union on the Iowa State campus @ 4:30 pm. Here is the official title of the event – “The Annual Awards Ceremony to Recognize Outstanding Students in The Department of World Languages and Cultures at Iowa State University.”  (Try saying that 10 times fast!)  Students were recognized for their achievement in the various languages taught at ISU. Kory was recognized as an outstanding student in Intermediate Russian, he received a nice book of Russian novellas (in Russian of course) and a certificate.

Kory receiving award

After the ceremony we took Kory out to eat, dropped him back off at his room and then left for Pella. Heidi called her sister and talked to her all the way to Pella. (How to girls do that?)

Other than being tired, Kellee said he really felt pretty good today. Tonight he even went to El Charro (a local Pella Mexican restaurant) and got a Burrito Loco to go and he said he ate it all! Chips and salsa were really a no go because the chips were a bit hard on the back of his throat.  Kellee left for the Bible study with some buddies around 8:45.

This week when Heidi is in Iowa City with Kellee, it will be the first time as we have traveled this journey, I will not be in Iowa City at the same time as Kellee, so the blog posts this week will be a joint effort between Heidi and myself.  Heidi will have the first hand knowledge and she will either do the blog posts or pass the information to me, we haven’t quite figured it all out yet. But we will do our best to keep the blog updated and to pass along any new developments and/or prayer requests.