Father's Day

We had a wonderful weekend camping at Mohican. We were even able to get a canoe trip in between storms on Friday. We made record time paddling like fools to make sure we missed the storms. Of course, there was no one there to pick us up. They showed up eventually. We also got to take Connor out for his first hike. It was wonderful. Connor is definetely a camper. I will get some pictures up once we get them. Leslie is my personal photographer.

Dad and Dorothy came up to the camp site on Father's Day. I was glad they could make it to see the camper. We had a great visit. We were able to make foil dinners. I grew up on these things in the summer. They are still pretty good for the amount of effort you put into them.


Neal surprised me on Sunday with some new license plates. I had mentioned to him that I wanted to get some. They are great, he even personalized them. I guess I will have to watch my road rage now that I am more easily identified on the road.


We leave for Jamaica in a week. We are ready for a vacation! We have another booked weekend ahead of us first with another 5k, Joey and Kristin's wedding (sure to produce some great photos) and a meeting for the Transplant Games.

GOOD NEWS

I had my appointment with Dr. Pohar my oncologist today. The preliminary results are good. No cysts or growths. He said I will need to see him every 6 months for the next few years. Then after that once a year for the rest of my life. I may have to have my cat scan ed in a few years. I am fine with that. Michele and I were very happy. I would have given her a kiss but she has one hell of a nasty zit near her lips. PUKE!!!!!!

UPDATE: DOCTOR CALLED AND I AM ALL GOOD.

Busy Days

Neal and I have been doing a lot. Neal has taken up tennis as his new sport. Unfortunately I am not very good. Last weekend we headed up to Cleveland to see DJ's, Neal's nephew, graduate high school. We are very proud of him! We managed to get up to Elyria early to have a Schmity Burger. It is the best burger in town.

Oh yeah, I almost left out the most exciting part. A bird dropped a present on my lip. I asked Neal to clean it off and he smeared it everywhere. It was gross. Luckily we do not have a picture of this!


This weekend Neal had to work all day Saturday. I headed up to Cleveland with Mom and Mike to go to Dawn's wedding reception. Dawn is my oldest friend. We grew up on the same street and I feel like a part of her family. Dawn provided me with a lot of cell phone support during the last couple of years. I think my "other" family is starting to believe Neal is my pretend husband since he can never make any events. We are going to be visiting with Dawn and Brian in Pittsburgh in July. Neal will be there for sure. Congrats to Dawn and Brian! We are looking forward to getting to know Brian better in July.



Sunday, Neal and I headed to Cleveland to see his Uncle Greg. Uncle Greg had open heart surgery on Monday and is doing great. The noises at the hospital brought back a lot of bad memories, however it was nice that Neal was not the patient. Uncle Greg had one of his valves replaced with a cow valve. It really is amazing what doctors can do. I am not sure I understand how they do not all have a god complex.

We have a busy week planned and a camping trip set for next weekend. As you can see Neal is putting a lot of miles on our cars and on our legs. Neal's follow up with the oncologist is on Tuesday, so please think good thoughts. We will post after the appointment.

Quiz

I got something this morning that 99.9% of college students will never get. What did I get? Answer to follow tomorrow morning.


I want people to answer on the blog.

Blue Iris. ha.

No the answer is A FREE T-SHIRT WITHOUT HAVING TO SIGN UP FOR A CREDIT CARD.

Memorial Day Weekend

We had quite the busy weekend. Saturday we went up to Cleveland for a family wedding. We stayed with my dad overnight in Akron. Congrats to Amy and Bill! We had a good visit. There was an old school photo booth at the wedding. It was a great addition to any event. Here are our shots.

Neal must really be pumping it up at the gym. He was able to pick me up for a photo!

Sunday we did some yardwork and cooked out at Mom and Mike's. Neal got the Mustang cleaned up so we could ride in style.

Monday morning rolled around too quickly. We did the 5k and Neal far exceeded his original goal. According to us, we finished in 57 minutes and 13 seconds. He did a great job and it is quite an accomplishment with all he has been through. Ryan joined us for the 5k as well along with Cheryl and some of her friends and family. It is pretty amazing given what these two guys have gone through that they were both out there running. Apparently we are so good looking, news channel 4 had to put us on. Here is the clip....

We all plan to sign up for more throughout the summer and shave our time. After the race we had a cookout at Ryan and Leslie's. We have determined that I am not only bad at tennis, but equally as bad at badminton. Neal wanted me to mention that him and Patty were the ones to beat.

Team McKoth in print

That is us on the bottom right. This is from a flier mailed out by the National Kidney Foundation. It is a pdf file copied to a bmp file so the resolution is lame. If you click on it you can get a better look at it. But we are right below Josh Cribs. Not bad!!!!

Notes from the other half...

Life is great. Neal and I are filling our days with so much. Saturday we spent 5 hours learning about the organization Donate Life. The organization is funded by the government, so we will not be hitting everyone up for money! The presentation was very well done and we are hoping to donate our time to the organization. Ryan and Leslie also attended. There were probably 20 people at the meeting. All but one of them were personally touched by organ donation. It was wonderful to hear others stories and to share ours. I of course was the cry baby in our group. I spent a lot of the meeting thinking to myself. The things that constantly loom in my head are:

1) Images of Neal at particular stages of 2007 that continue to give me nightmares. I am hoping that today's meeting provided some type of closure or something that will help me to forget that year. I am afraid the decisions I had to make and the thoughts I had at particular points will haunt me forever. When I have these horrible thoughts I try to twist them around instead of remembering the day for the bad thing that happened, I try to picture the large group of family and friends that were around to support us. I know I need to leave these ghosts in the past, it is just not that easy. Thankfully Neal does not remember much.

2) How can we ever repay Ryan and Leslie? It seems as though every wonderful day we have I am thinking of them. We do not have enough money to buy them what they truly deserve. After introducing myself at today's meeting I thought, wait I want another turn. I want people to know how Ryan and Leslie were there for us not just at the time of the donation, but they helped us get through the difficult times when Neal was in the hospital. I knew whatever I asked they would do in a heartbeat, no questions asked. How much Neal being sick impacted them. How they had their first child, yet were still willing to have Ryan go through a major operation and be laid up on sets. What "gift" is sufficient?

3) Why would you not be an organ donor? You are dead, you do not need your organs. I read a t-shirt once that said "Don't Take Your Organs to Heaven...Heaven Knows We Need Them Here". Sadly we found out only 50% of Ohioans are organ donors and of those only about 1% pass in a way that allows organ donation to occur. http://www.lifelineofohio.org/


We are happily married (at least I am!) and we are not letting time pass us by. I hope we continue to do this for the rest of our lives. I hope others learn to do this for the rest of their lives. The "NEW" Neal is better than ever! We continue to train for the 5k and are hoping to do more. Lifeline is having a race in July. I am unsure if we will all be in it or not because they need volunteers. http://www.lifelineofohio.org/news/dashfordonation.aspx

As a side note, after the 5 hour meeting Neal and Stacy played tennis for over an hour and then Neal cut the grass. Afterwards we had Mom, Mike, Stacy and Chris over for dinner. A year ago, Neal could barely walk a lap in the hospital. It truly is a miracle!