Brenton

Well, I feel like I have put off writing about Brent as long as I could.  We have gotten a lot of phone calls and cards recently, and also a lot of questions.  I know people are wanting more information about Brent’s status, so it seems it will be easier to write it here so everyone can get information if they want it!

Back in April/May, Brent started having some numbness from his waistline down.  He went to the chiropractor and she did an x-ray, but said everything seemed fine and he should try some therapy for a while.  For some reason, that just didn’t sit right with us, and we set up an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon who specialized in the spine.  He ordered an MRI right away, then 6 more MRIs the next day.  He then referred us on to a neurosurgeon who might be able to help us more.  It was explained to us that Brent has a benign tumor growing inside his spinal cord.  We have seen neurosurgeons here in Greensboro, at Wake Forest Baptist, and at Duke (and have realized how amazingly lucky we are to live in NC with such good hospitals!).  They have all said that surgery is imminent, but it is kind of up to us when we want to go ahead with it.  They will have to cut through the healthy part (sensory nerves) of his cord in order to get to the tumor, and will then get as much of the tumor that is possible and safe. They say they use a monitor that will sound an alarm if they start to damage motor nerves, and will stop the surgery if that starts to happen.  This is good because they try to decrease motor damage as much as possible, but it also means that they might not be able to get it all out, and it might come back in the future.  There are obviously a lot of scary side effects of the procedure, but the doctors have said he should expect increased numbness and probably chronic pain, at best.  If we leave it, he could eventually become paralyzed.

We think surgery will be the route Brent will need to take, but have also started exploring other routes—things like demyelinating disease (MS and Devic’s disease), even though the surgeons are "99.9% sure it's a tumor".  The neurologist ordered a visual evoked potential, some blood work, and yet another MRI (of the brain this time).  Brent is having the MRI this Wednesday and we will hopefully know more about the neurologist’s opinions soon.

Why am I telling this now? We had lunch with some great friends the other day, and they said to us “Seriously, tell us if you need anything.  It’s easy to be too proud to ask for help.”  They were right.  We have kept this from a lot of people, mainly because we are still trying to figure everything out, but also because we don’t want people to “freak out” on our behalf.  But, we are now asking for everyone’s help. WE NEED YOUR PRAYERS.  Not just for Brent’s health, but also that we will know what path to take.  That we will be confident in the decisions we make.  That the doctors we encounter will have the knowledge we need.  That we may feel a little bit of peace in a whole lot of overwhelming circumstances.  THANK YOU IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR SINCERE PRAYERS. 

Dining Room Done!

So, this is not a super exciting update, but the fact that we have one more room completely DONE is just exciting! It's so nice to come in the house and not feel like it is a total disaster.  Here was the dining room the day we closed on the house:

So yellow-ey and gold-ey.  Mom had taken down a light fixture from her kitchen a few years ago and just randomly decided to hold on to it in case someone could use it in the future.  We are so glad she did! With a little light changeroo and some paint, the room looks a lot more updated and a lot less 1980's. Check it out:

I love the paint color and the way it brings out the molding and the floors.  We are in the process of painting the whole downstairs, so there will be more to see soon!

Let There Be Storage!

Mom, Mammaw and Aunt Sherrie came up on Wednesday to see the house.  Sherrie lives in California, so we don't get to see each other very often, but I could tell she was an avid reader of the blog! It was so fun to show her the things we have been doing to the house, and she already knew what the before and after looked like, and what all we had to do to get it to look that way! So fun.  Well, she generously gave us a little house warming gift that could not have come at a better time! My sister moved out of her apartment in Charlotte almost a year ago.  Because of that, we inherited some of her old furniture.  She had a great Ikea dresser that we now have in our bedroom and always had plans to get more of the set.  Here is where I have been keeping some my clothes for the last couple months: 

So luxurious! Brent and I made a trip to Ikea yesterday to get the matching chest of drawers.  It was on sale (my favorite!) and it was "eat for free weekend".  Can you really beat that?? Ikea is not my favorite place in the world... It's so busy and loud and a bit overwhelming, but when you really need something like this piece of furniture, you just can't beat it.

We put the whole thing together in about 1 hour and 45 min, but then... the piece on the front was warped and the drawers wouldn't slide in.... UUUGGGHHH! So, the patient husband I have took the time to take the WHOLE THING BACK APART and move the slats around so they would work.  Amazing.  I would have just made Ikea send me a new one! But it worked fabulously! Here is the same nook after:

Yay! So much better.  Thank you to Aunt Sherrie for making this dresser possible!

"ReNew"ing the Sink!

We had wonderful weather these past few days is Pawleys Island, SC.  I am so thankful that my work let me take a couple days to "get away from it all" with my husband. It was much needed and much appreciated! 

The first thing Brent and I wanted to do when we got home was to put the downstairs bathroom sink back in working order (especially since Mom, Mammaw, and Aunt Sherrie are coming for a visit on Wednesday!). 

I bought this "sink fixing stuff" at Home Depot about a month ago:

ReNew Refinishing Kit

The instructions were so complicated, I wanted to just return it and try something else.  The instruction booklet folded out to be poster-sized, and had all sorts of "wait one hour, then..", "wait 3 hours, then..", and "wait FIVE days, then..".  I didn't know when I was going to have the time to do all the steps, but since we decided we were going to leave town for a few days, Brent thought that would be a great time for it to sit and cure.

Here is what our poor downstairs sink looked like before, sans gold faucet:

 The sink and tile are actually in great shape, and replacing the whole thing is obviously not a real option. I tried CLR on the rusty part of the drain hole, but it didn't do anything.  So, we finally found the courage to try the ReNew.  After about 3 hours of mixing the hot can and the cold can and yadda yadda, I taped around the sink and prepared it for the first coat.

Doesn't it look like a sour face?? This was the hardest part- taping the hole under the sink!

Ready to go!

This is what it looked like after one coat:

And this is the sink all done!

After 2 coats and 5 days of curing.

We also changed out the faucet from the gold-genie-in-a-bottle look to the welcome-to-the-21st-century look.  Quite a huge improvement! The best part is, it only cost us $30.  We will see if it holds up over time, but I think it feels really strong! I mean, if you're going to have a mauve-tiled bathroom, it can at least be fresh and clean!

Sneak Peek

Brent and I have really been busy bees lately.  The kitchen isn't quite done yet-- we still need to seal the grout of the back splash, caulk around the tile, get a better curtain over the window and put some shelves in and such. Here is what we have done so far.

The first thing we did was fix the wall where the 4" laminate back splash was ripped off.  Brent mudded it (is that a technical term??) and then started tiling. Here he is in that process:

look at the beautiful wallpaper border and paint color we uncovered!! ah!

Sadly, we didn't have a wet saw for the tile, so a lot of the cuts are kinda sketchy.  I bought some ginormous outlet covers online to help hide the weird tiles around the outlets and switches-- they helped a lot! We then had the wonderful job of grouting the tile.  We went to the 'Deep and bought all the lovely tools, but quickly realized this was going to be a really dirty job... It was so hard to get the sanded grout to stay in the grout lines, that we eventually had to just slap on the grout with our hands... When we were finally done, it looked like a sandcastle had exploded in our kitchen.  We also had severely over-exfoliated hands for about 2 weeks.  We were never really happy with the grout color, even after it dried, but it will do for now.  All along the way, my motto has been: if I still don't like it in a year, I will do it again. 

We then had to tackle the awful, outdated, way-too-bright flourescent light over the peninsula.  When Brent took the light down, this is what was underneath:

Awesome!.....

He tried to put a support bar in for the new light inbetween the joists in the ceiling.  Standard length is around 16"-24". Ours, of course, is 13.5", so Brent had to find another way to do it.  He put in a junction box, then patched the hole and mudded over it.

I was really impressed, as this was his first time doing anything like this. The light really turned out well!

Here is the (not so) lovely kitchen the day we bought the house:

And here is where we are with it today:

(ignore the ugly curtain)

We're still trying to figure out where to put all of our stuff and how we want the kitchen organized, but thanks to my wonderful mother, the dining room has gone from this:

To a place where we can actually sit and eat! (Thanks, Mom!)