Round #5

Here we are having a party!  Chiara my sweet friend came and spent the day with me and we chatted and had lunch.  I am grateful to have her in my life!  She and I have been friends for years and I have always known she would bless my life in ways others couldn't!  She is such an example to me and has taught me so many things!  Thanks Kiki for taking time out of your busy life to hang out with me yesterday. Love you!                          
Then my two favorite men in the world came and joined us for a little while!  It is always fun to hang and chat with my dad and Mark.  They both crack me up!  We always have a few laughs with them around.  Chiara asked me if I prefer having people with me or if I would rather be alone and lay my head back and sleep.  I was quick to say I prefer having people there.  It makes me feel like it's more of a fun thing and helps me to forget I am sick for a moment.  I figure I have plenty of other times that I can sit and rest alone.  Being alone there, in that room full of nurses, IV bags, other people who are sick, etc. seems depressing to me. So thanks to all of you who have come and spent a few hours of your day with me!  It has helped this part of my journey seem a bit more bearable.  I can't wait for my final round.  My girls want to come and play games with me and help me ring the bell to celebrate that I am done! It should be a fun day!

As for today I am feeling like yesterday was chemo day!  It's such a big difference between how I feel the morning before I go in and the morning after.  I never get back to normal the day before I start chemo again but I certainly start to feel functional.  It is spring break for me right now and I knew if I wanted to get anything done I would have to do it Monday.  So I took down the curtains in my kitchen and washed them, washed the windows, cleaned out the fridge a little and wiped down a few walls in the kitchen.  That's it! Then I was tired and done.  So I guess this year that will be the extent of my spring cleaning!  Oh well. I am quickly learning there are more important things than a clean house.  A hard lesson for me to learn but a good one!  :)

Well, thanks for letting me ramble and share a little with you of what's going on!  I guess it is time for me to go and rest while I can.  Here's to hoping that you are having a great day and that you are finding "joy in your journey"!  Take care!
  

Pain in the butt! :)

What a day Mark and I had on Friday.  We left our home at about 8:30 am and didn't get back home until about 5:00 pm.  Many of you don't know (because it doesn't seem like the thing to share) but I have been bleeding so the doctors felt as though I should go in for a colonoscopy.  I went in Friday morning to have this procedure done.  They asked if they could put my IV in through my port and I agreed.  Usually when they access my port I have a numbing cream I use so it isn't as painful.  Well since I didn't think about them using my port  I hadn't put on my cream.  The nurse told me it wouldn't hurt any more than a needle prick so I agreed to let her use it.  Well, she lied!  It hurt like crazy and then the best part is she couldn't get it to work. She then told me they were going to have to put the IV in my arm.  I told her they can never get it to work in my arm and she would have to use my hand.  Well because I am just the patient, and apparently don't know anything, she opted to try my arm first.  After many painful pokes and digging around here is the result.

She then resorted to my hand and again was unable to find a vein she could use.  After a few more pokes and digging and ALOT of pain, she gave up.  My hand looks about as bad!  So now we are at a standstill. For better or worse I am not able to let them try in my right side due to the mastectomy and loss of lymph-nodes so they were not sure what they were going to do.  Another nurse came in turned off the lights and looked at my arms with an ultraviolet light.  She said she found another vein but it looked small and she wasn't confident she could get it to work.  I don't think she or I wanted to continue to torture me so she opted to not try again and decided to call down one of my nurses from the cancer center who works with my port all the time.  I was wishing one of us would have thought of that sooner.  Thankfully the cancer nurse had no problems accessing my port, just more pain, but we finally got my IV working.  I am not going to lie, it makes me nervous to think of what is going to happen when I no longer have a port.  My veins were tough to access before but now the chemo is really taking a toll on them.  :(
Silly me, I thought this procedure was going to be a quick one and I would have time to go home before I had my next appointment with the radiation oncologist.  Well I was wrong.  We finished up with 40 minutes until the next appointment.  Since I hadn't eaten in almost 48 hours we ran and got a quick bite to eat and headed to the next appointment in my sweat from my surgery and with my hospital band still on my arm. This appointment to me was just going to be a quick visit so he could tell me I didn't need radiation and I could check that off my list of things to do and doctors to visit with.  Well I am sad to say I was wrong.  I have had so many other doctors tell me that more than likely I wouldn't need radiation, and truthfully I don't want to have it, so I had led myself to believe I wouldn't be having it. Unfortunately,  I am wrong.  My doctor said he too felt I didn't need to have radiation at first but after deeper review of my file he feels as though it is necessary.  He is still going to take my case to be reviewed with his colleagues this week and get back to me but likely the verdict won't change.  Needless to say I was devastated!  I don't know why because everyone says it is easier than chemo but I just don't want to do it.  I guess maybe I am afraid of the long term side affects.  I am also getting tired.  I cried a little on Friday and felt sorry for myself.  Saturday I just pretended it wasn't true and was in a little denial and then came Sunday.  As I sat in Sacrament meeting Sunday I remembered that I needed to have a little more faith.  I am forgetting that Heavenly Father has a plan for me and if this is part of it then I need to buck up and just do it.  If I have lasting side affects then I will deal with them.  If I am tired then I just need to pray for more strength.  I forget at times that I am not in charge and that just because I don't want radiation doesn't mean that I don't need it.  I plan to continue to do my homework so I can make the best decision and I will continue to pray for comfort and inspiration but as for now I am just trying to be okay with what is happening.  So when you ask what you can do for me all I can say is pray for us.  Pray for my family that they can handle me being tired for a little longer.  Pray for us that we can learn something from this trail and that it will not all be in vain.  Pray that we can be strong and accept His will.  And lastly pray that each of us will become a little better, a little stronger and can use that strength to serve others during all of this.  This is my prayer!      

Round #4

Yeah!  I am on the downhill slide!  I just completed round four last week and I'm doing pretty good.  It was another fun day with one of my favorite people.  Ashley and I just hung out, chatted, watched a movie and chilled.  Some days I think chemo days are better than other days since all the other days I have to go to work! Yuck!  Okay so the actual being poisoned isn't that great but hangin' with those I love is!

Thanks Ash for a fun day!  Here is how we feel about "girls just wanna' have fun'!  

  Here's how we feel about cancer!

Sorry!

I have been chastised by many of you that I have not been keeping up on my blog.  I am sorry!  I guess for me I think my life is the same old boring life as before, I just live it with cancer.  I still get up in the morning, get ready, make lunches, get the girls off to school and the babysitters and head into work.  I work a full day, come home, sometimes make dinner (mostly my fantastic husband makes dinner with occasional meals from sweet neighbors and friends), help with homework, get the kids to bed, sometimes do a few house chores and clean a little and then crash!  So you see when I don't write is is because I assume no one cares about all of that.  I guess what I forget is that you don't really care about all of that but what you are hoping for is for me to share how I am feeling.  So today I will tell you how I feel.

I feel a little anxious today.  Tomorrow is round #4 and I don't want to go.  Don't get me wrong I haven't really wanted to go to any of them.  Before I had more of the attitude of let's just go and get through this so we can move on to the next phase.  I guess tonight I am just wanting to be done!  I think round #3 took a little bit more of a toll on me and came with ALOT more side effects.  Those of you who see me probably don't think I have seemed much different but I am just good at hiding it!  :)   I guess I shouldn't say that.   It is not that I am hiding it I just feel that life goes on and I still need to work and accomplish things so why worry and talk about and fuss over all the negative.  So I just don't, but it is getting harder to stay positive.  I think about how many new negative things came with round #3 and I dread what will come with round #4.  I am tired and feeling a bit overwhelmed.  This is when I hear my sweet husbands voice in my head and he reminds me it will all be fine and that I am strong and I can handle all of this.  "Don't head down that road," he says.  And he is right.  So now that I have shared a little insight to my soul I will stop worrying and give myself my pep talk and get ready for tomorrow.  These are the moments I remember that I am trying to hard to do this on my own.  Oh, don't get me wrong, I have let others help with meals and tending and words of encouragement but at the end of the day I am not letting my Heavenly Father carry me a little.  I know that I have the strength to handle what comes my way but I let fear and doubt creep in and wear me down. Sometimes I think I am tired because I am not letting Him give me the peace that I need.  I forget He is there waiting for me to be humble enough to come to Him.  So in more ways than one I am sorry tonight!

So here's to a new day.  May I choose to remember that "together we can do hard things!", I am loved, I have the support of the best family and friends, I have a job (yes to those of you have heard about my job being terminated for the upcoming year it is true.  I have however, already applied for a new job, interviewed, and been accepted.  Yeah!  Yes it has been a stressful week and a half.), and most importantly I am alive and dealing with a challenge that is much easier than a great number of people out there.  So I will stop feeling anxious and I will say it again and again... I can handle this one!  Bring it on!  I am strong enough to deal with all of this and grateful that it is not worse!  Thanks for loving me and listening to me ramble.  See if you ever ask for me to share insights into my soul again!  LOL  Have a great night and know I am fine and I am praying each of you as you are dealing with your own trials will be more humble than I am and let your Heavenly Father love you through them!  :)  

  

Family fun???

Am I the only person who dreads family pictures?  So I know you all are amazed that we have never had a family picture taken.  I only have one picture of my family growing up and it makes me sad, so you would think I would make more of an effort to have family pictures taken with my kids.  I also am the person who loves photography and pictures so you think I would have them hanging all over my house.  So you ask why do I not have one family picture?  I have three words as to why not... Brooklyn, Payton, Callie!  Brooklyn and Payton are good now but as little girls I couldn't even get a picture at home let alone a professional picture.  They were both a bawling mess every time they saw a camera and ornery as they come.  Now they are so good about it but we have "Crazy Callie" as we lovingly call her.  One word that describes her is BUSY!!! After spending the morning doing this dreaded task I am again reminded why we are picture-less.  My sweet three year old was crazy as always, however, thanks to a special and patient lady we now have family pictures.  Yeah!  I have only seen two of them so far but they are good.  We might actually have gotten a few that will be cute!  Thank you Shawna for a fun morning and for being so patient in capturing some great pics of the family.  You are a saint!!  :) 

I've been hacked!

Any of you who know me well know I would never advertise my own event on my blog.  So you ask how did it get there?  Well, I have been hacked!  Remember that sweet friend of mine who in my first blog I told you was so great and helped get me set up to blog?  Well she not only set up my blog page but she has access to my blog and passwords.   So I get on today and there it is!  And because I am so "blog illiterate" I don't know how to take it off!  All I can say is it is a good thing I still love her!  

Round #3

A super fun afternoon with Amber!  I love that she loves me enough to spend the rest of the week playing catch up and being stressed out so that she can spend the afternoon with me getting poisoned.  That is true love!

Today they chose to not let me see if I would have a reaction to the chemo and just started me off on Benedryl.  So poor Amber got to spend the afternoon with the sleepy version of me.  We did have a good chat despite the drugs and we were able to have a good time!  Thanks Amber for being there!!  Love you!