Family Time

I go and start a blog and I am already getting delinquent with it! I am sorry, I know many of you are counting on me to provide you with regular entertainment from my fascinating life. It breaks my heart to know that I may have let you down. I have a good excuse though. My parents were visiting this week so I have been busy touring San Diego with them and eating at wonderful places like Extraordinary Desserts. If you haven't ever been there, go! It is UH-MAAA-ZING!

It was so good to see my parents! Unless you stumbled across my blog by chance, you are probably aware that a year and a half ago, my dad was diagnosed with throat cancer. He went through a round of radiation which didn't work so they ended up removing his voice box and putting in an artificial one.

The first time I saw him after his diagnosis he was in the middle of radiation and was really sick! He was really not himself due to the effects of the treatment. It was good to be with my family at that time but also really difficult to see my dad go through that.

The second time I saw him was last September. He was MUCH better at that point but he had only been using his new voice box for about two weeks so talking took quite a bit of effort and he was still a bit fatigued from all the meds.

This time was awesome! My dad was completely back to normal. He looks totally healthy and talking seems to take very little effort compared to last time so he is joining in the conversation as much as he ever did. The artificial voice box is really cool, too. It doesn't sound robotic or anything. His voice is deeper and kind of gravely but other than that, pretty normal. And he just had a CT scan and is still cancer free after almost a year. If cancer comes back it most often does so in the first year so this is excellent news!

So all in all, it was a great week. I am really close to my family and miss seeing them on a regular basis. One day, we are all going to move to Colorado and set up "The Brown Family Commune" but until then I have to be content with once or twice a year.  This week was just what I needed to get me through until Christmas!