Happy Birthday, Grandpa!

Today is Grandpa Ladner's 81st birthday! He and Grandma came up to Provo from Mesa last week and Grandpa ended up in the hospital and had emergency surgery on Saturday. It was a little bit of a scary time until we knew what was going on with him. It is a bad news/good news thing. The bad news is that Grandpa has prostate cancer. The good news is that it hasn't spread to the lymph nodes or the bones.

Our Snowbird vacation extended to a few additional days in Provo. Abbie spent most of the time at Gramma Bramwell's house. Doug and I spent most of the time at the hospital, until Doug had to come home Sunday night. Monday Grandpa had a bone scan and that is when we received the good news that there is no cancer in the bones. This is Grandpa's "I'm-happy-there-is-no-cancer-in-the-bones" smile:


And this is Grandma's "Whew!-I'm-happy-there-is-no-cancer-in-the-bones" smile!


Monday afternoon I took Abbie over to the hospital to visit Grandpa. While we were there we played a modified version of "Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?" with Grandma, Grandpa and Janet, and determined that most of us aren't!


Grandpa has been through a lot the past week or so but he's doing so well now, so much better than this time a week ago. We're sooooo glad that in this "there are no accidents" world, they were here in Utah when all of this came to a head so that we could be with them and help a little. And we love you, Janet and Rick, for being able to keep them at your home for this post-op and recuperation time.


I asked Grandpa to show me his "bracelets" so I could take a picture of them, and he said "Sure!" and put his arm up in the air. This picture reminds me of the "power to the people" sign but with a loose fist. Considering what he has been through, this picture says to me, "I can still do this."

We love you, Grandpa! Happy-Happy birthday! Be strong and think happy thoughts and let your body heal. We'll see you in a few days!