Easter, Vitamin D, and More Wedding Photos

I hope everyone had a super Easter weekend! I stuck very close to home. In fact, I didn't leave the house ... well, except to enjoy some sunshine in the backyard ... until Sunday afternoon when Kevin and I ran out to get a few groceries. I still hadn't unpacked from New York so I got that and many other chores done. Plus I slept. And slept. I needed to do that. We followed Luke's lacrosse game on Saturday. They lost against Denver, a team ranked among the top 5 nationally and the top ranked team in their conference. Luke got a goal. Actually he says he got two but the refs called him "in the crease" for the second one, which Luke disagrees with. Bellarmine has one more game to finish their season and then Luke finishes finals and enjoys some Kentucky Derby fun before he flies to Victoria to try out for a Junior A box lacrosse team in a couple of weeks.

I heard back from my doctor about some test results. He had correctly diagnosed the basal cell carcinoma on my back. But, he assured me, even though it's that awful "C" word, it's not the killing kind. It's gone now and I don't need to worry about it. It's not related to my breast cancer. Good news. All my other test results were normal. Normal is good.

I had my Vitamin D levels tested and I'm at 142 nMol/L and that's with my taking 6,000 international units per day for about a year. I thought it would be higher. The doctor from the Inspire Health Clinic in Vancouver recommended that everyone should aim for a Vitamin D blood level of 125 to 175 nMol/L so I'm going to increase my daily Vitamin D3 intake to 8,000 per day to see if I can raise it a little higher. I want to be at "optimal", not just within the recommended range, which is pretty broad. People metabolize Vitamin D levels at different rates so while someone can test at optimal by taking 2,o00 IU per day, someone else taking much more might have lower levels.

So ... my message to you is "GET YOUR VITAMIN D LEVELS CHECKED"! I'm still not at optimal after taking 6,000 IU per day though I've almost doubled where I was at (72 nMol/L) when I first had my Vitamin D blood levels tested after I finished chemo.

In case you're not aware, there is much recent research into Vitamin D and low levels in people have been linked to various cancers (including breast cancer), multiple sclerosis, autoimmune disorders, and more. It's certainly worth asking your doctor about and asking to have your Vitamin D levels tested.

I have just a few more wedding photos to share.

Here are Kevin and Kevin. Kevin Kaschl was helping John with the DJing for the dance. He and John wear matching splashy shirts when they DJ. They must have done a great DJing job because the dance floor was always busy.

Josh and Noelene had asked Kevin to be their master of ceremonies and he did an awesome job if I do say so myself! He engaged the bride and groom in a fun little game during the dance where he would ask them questions after which they would have to hold up the appropriate shoe to indicate "Josh" or "Noelene" in response. He asked them questions such as "Who is the better pilot?" and "Who was the first to say 'I love you'?". It was very cute.

Speaking of cute, this is a photo of Noelene's sister, Stephanie and her son, Tai-hei (I'm not entirely sure I've spelled it correctly), who live in Japan. I think everyone was completely charmed by Tai-he and he made everyone there want to have a baby! He is SOME CUTE!!