2024 was a travel drought year. It was year full of good things but we just had so much going on we couldn’t afford the time or the money to do one of the typical trips we usually do. To catch you up, we bought a fixer upper house August of 2023. 3 weeks after we closed, we had a trip to Spain that we had planned with friends months earlier. Since we got back from that trip, it has been non stop house projects.
- Consolidated and replaced 16 windows that were rotting and inoperable
- Replaced rotting siding
- Replaced and expanded the concrete driveway
- Light bathroom tiling work
- New outlets and light switches in the house
- New stove and vent hood
- Installed drain tile
- Removed 3 layers of wallpaper and painted the ceiling/walls
And the list goes on. Check out my highlighted stories on my instagram for specifics
Here are some before and after pics of our Millennial gray house
I’m really grateful for all the help my dad’s been giving us, honestly wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near this close without his seemingly boundless amount of “dad knowledge” when it came to fixing things around here. There is still a ton of work left to do but at this point we’ve covered all the must-dos and are transitioning to nice-to-haves.
While doing the house projects, we were also going through a fertility journey as well. It was clear with my test results coming out of chemo that the only way we’d be able to have biological kids would be to do IVF. I am SO thankful that I work for a generous company that covers the first $20k of fertility treatment.
Joanna did about 6 weeks of medication and then went in to do egg harvesting. I offered to help her with the injections but she injects needles into people’s mouths for a living so she probably would trust herself more than me. The procedure was a really great success, 13 eggs were harvest and put on ice towards the end of November. Anything in the double digits is really good as it increases the likelihood of a successful fertilization and implantation process.
My urologist recommended that I no do any research on the Micro TESE procedure ahead of time as it’s just never wise to go down a google rabbit hole of worst case scenarios. I did ask the surgeon how bad the pain will be. She said it’ll be the worst cramping I’ll ever feel in my life. I asked how it compares with period cramps. She said from personal experience as a woman, period cramps are worse 😀 .
We arrived to the Mayo clinic the week before Christmas, they gave me some sleepy juice and I passed out on the operating table. To keep details high level, I woke up an hour into the procedure feeling…pressure while they were doing their thing. I think the whole surgery took about 2 hours to complete. I attempted to get up and off the surgical table myself and immediately felt cramps shoot up my abdomen, my face went pale, and I needed to lay back down. The nurses called for a wheelchair and gave me a hard time saying that most guys walk out of here no problem. I would say that I now probably have a closer, more personal idea on what women go through to have kids compared to other men. Enjoy the pic of me trying not to look super uncomfortable
My urologist called within an hour of us leaving the clinic saying that initial observations under the microscope of the tissue samples they harvested showed no signs of sperm. A few more hours later, they confirmed the results.
Neither of us were super surprised by the news especially when my oncologist prepared me years ago saying that about 30% of men’s reproductive system don’t return after doing cancer treatment. Even though it was the expected result, we still needed to take some time to mourn the loss of having the option to raise our own biological kids.
This is the part where you say “but there’s always adoption!” and I’ll sarcastically say “yep I’ll just walk into the closest Kids-R-Us and pick up a fresh new Asian baby. ” There are estimates of about 30 willing couples to adopt a single infant. We have some friends who have been on the adoption list for at least 5 years. Each year that passes you have to start the paperwork all over again and they are about $50k in admin fees. We didn’t want to sign up for the headache and heartache that many loving couples patiently put up with to open their home to a kid in need. We also didn’t want to do a donor because of (gestures broadly at everything) and we’re not dying to be parents of a human baby either. We welcome more dog babies though.
My conclusion over the last year is that God’s put us on a unique path that a lot of people don’t get to walk. I think I’m just open to hearing how He wants to use us to further his kingdom and better the community around us with the time and resources we’ve been blessed with. And to go to Japan a ton more times.
One other update to add about my cancer journey is that I was admitted to the ER for heart attack symptoms on November 5th 2024…yep election night. I knew ahead of time that I’d be on my phone looking at election results for hours so I had already taken the following day off. I didn’t go to bed until 2am when it was clear that Kamala lost the election. When I laid down, I felt a really heavy pressure on my chest, couldn’t make a fist with my left hand, and my shoulders tensed up really bad. I decided to wake Joanna up to tell her what was going and we decided it was best to take it seriously by not ignoring it. Got to the hospital at 3am and they had me do blood tests, xray, and ECG. Within an hour of arriving to the hospital, my symptoms subsided and I felt stupid coming in for what seemed now like an anxiety attack. I was given the OK to go home at 6am but the results of my ECG returned a few days later saying there were “abnormalities”. I wasn’t sure if this was a result of my tumor removal surgery which increased my resting heartrate to +80bpm so I called my oncologist to give him a heads up. He said it’s nothing urgent but I should come down to Mayo to see the cardiologist. My appointment was scheduled for mid February where they hooked a bunch of stuff up to me and I had to run on a treadmill for as long as I could at a very step incline.
The results showed that my heart was healthy, however Mayo has found strong correlations between people who go through cancer treatment and an increased risk for heart disease. It’s such a strong connection that they’ve actually created a new department to study this. I told the cardiologist that I kind of felt dumb making this a big deal and he assured me that I took an appropriate level of seriousness with my symptoms and encouraged me to keep a line of communication if I feel similarly in the future.
Going forward I’ll be taking a statin which is used to lower cholesterol but has shown indications of reducing risks for heart attack and stroke in cancer patients. Kind of lame but the medication is free with my insurance (go America) and the benefits far outweigh the risks of being on it.
That’s it for life updates. See this is why I need to travel overseas on a regular basis, so these updates on the first blog post don’t seem so long!
Joanna and I are heading to Japan for my 4th and her 3rd time. We had friends interested in doing a group trip around this time of year and I found an incredible delta miles deal of 64k round trip direct flight from MSP to Tokyo that I couldn’t pass up. Unfortunately they weren’t able to make it in the end, but we weren’t going to let that prevent us from going ourselves. There will ALWAYS be a next time for us.
We are flying into Tokyo for a few days, taking an overnight ferry into Kyushu the southwestern most of Japan’s main islands and bumming around there for a bit before heading back to Tokyo to wrap up the trip.
Coincidentally, it is Dentist Appreciation Day on the day we are set to leave. I can’t of a better way to appreciate my dentist than to take her on a vacation that she helped pay for.
Oh my sweet Andrew! Thank you so much for sending this to me. You have such a fantastic way of re-creating a past happening, and making the future happenings sound so exciting. Can’t wait for the next “chapter.” Pictures of food are ALWAYS appreciated! Lol. Yum!! Safe travels. Big hugs to you both. 🥰
Whoa whoa! That Nov bit put me on edge. I hope the news cycle is gentle and you’re safe from all this. Cringing as I type that.
How come my dentist is not getting me to Tokyo? Rude.
Yah i got a new therapist because my old one was pushing conspiracies on me and wanted to talk about politics for 45 min of the time I pay him. The new one is politically agnostic and I’ve cut out the MPR listening by 90%