No Need For The Chemo Blues....

because no chemo for me this week! And for great reasons! All of my counts were beautiful. My hemoglobin was 10.8 and my platelet count was 118,000! Can you imagine my excitement!?! I'm still smiling from ear to ear. Such great motivation to keep working hard- I'm (with my great friend J.C.- I can't really take any of the credit) kicking this canSer's butt! I wanted to surprise T with the great news so I drove straight to the air station after leaving the c. center. When I pulled up to the building he works in, he was actually walking out to go to lunch. I started honking the horn and the look on his face was priceless. He looked so confused. He got into the car and asked if I was done with chemo already. I handed him the print out of my counts and told him no chemo for me! He was so ecstatic!

I have a scan scheduled for tomorrow and I won't know the results until Wednesday- such a long time to wait. And it's always hard to see the report. Seeing- YOU HAVE CANCER- in writing is hard. Of course signs of improvement make it better.

Thank you for all your prayers and positive healing energy. They are working!

Here's to HEALING!

Spring is here! Daffodils. March 2008.

Yet Another Round

Tomorrow starts yet another round of chemo. I shouldn't complain- the doc let me push it back a week since we were in IN. Even with that said, it's not something I will ever look forward to. Wait- I shouldn't say that. When I was really sick and hurting, it was the only thing that stopped the pain even if it was just temporary. And I looked forward to that. Usually I start on a Monday which I totally prefer. I scheduled it for Wednesday because we weren't sure what day we would be back in town. My mood is different before chemo. I try really hard to fight it- the blues before chemo. And the chemo blues.

Here's a random picture from our trip home- it totally makes me laugh and I need that. :)

T and Daddy, Bud's Bar. March 2008.

Home Again

T and I arrived back in SC late Friday night. It feels good to be back in our own house. Although it feels a little empty already- I'm not really sure why. The trip went well. It was so great to get to spend more time with the family. We also got to explore Fishers a little more and made us both more excited about calling it home. We narrowed down our house search to five but still have to wait for this one to rent before we can do anything. We are trying not to get too attached to one just in case it isn't available anymore when we are. T definitely has his favorite and I'm starting to like it more and more. It's been on the market for awhile now. Hopefully it will stay there until we can make an offer. It's an older home and needs a lot of updating- much like this one did when we bought it.

Saturday we went to the Old Sheldon Church Ruins with Penny and Colin. A place we've been wanting to explore. It's absolutely beautiful. If you live in the area and haven't seen it yet- do so. Today Jack and Jan are visiting- lots of relaxing and enjoying each others company. T is working on one of his many projects. I start chemo on Wednesday. We weren't sure what day we would be back so I'm starting it a little later in the week than usual. I'm going to go in tomorrow to make sure I don't need anything (blood/platelets) beforehand. I pray I don't- especially after last time. So not fun.

I've been reading Eckhart Tolle's book A New Earth (and listening to it on CD with T). Wow. Love it. I haven't had a chance yet to listen to the podcast from Oprah's online class since we were away- really looking forward to that. It's very dense material and will take a lot of rereading and listening. If you've read it or are in the process you will know what I'm talking about. We also watched Into The Wild tonight (based on a true story and also a book)- loved it too. Took away a lot of things from it.....'Happiness is only real when shared'- one of the many.

Old Sheldon Church Ruins, SC. March 2008.

Here's to a great week!

House Hunting

House hunting is going well- long. We've spent the last three days looking and will continue tomorrow. We finally have a top five. Now T and I just need to agree on one. And find renters for our house in Beaufort. All of this time and effort is worth it- worth being close to family again.

She's still cute even when she's crying. Elliot March 2008.

FYI

T's grandfather passed away on Tuesday. We left for Chicago on Wednesday for the services which were Thursday and Friday. We are now in IN- starting the house hunting tomorrow. Just a quick update to let y'all know what was going on here. More from the road later.

Save The Drama

Elliot's Feet February 2008- On our way to the beach.

The coffee went really well last Tuesday- so great to see everyone. The food was great and well worth all of the effort put into making it.

I ended up having to get platelets on Wednesday morning. My cbc right after the blood transfusion on Tuesday showed I had only 1,000- not so good. I have a huge bruise on my arm from my shot I got that day. And a huge one of my ankle- not sure what that one is from. Blood normally contains 150,000 to 350,000 per microliter (µl) of platelets. If this value should drop much below 50,000/µl, (I had 1,000) there is a danger of uncontrolled bleeding. This is because of the essential role that platelets have in blood clotting. It really puts this whole needing platelets thing into perspective. I NEED them. They are vital to my survival. Just like blood transfusions are. I've had about five platelet transfusions in the past. They are much shorter than blood transfusions and don't have as many possible side effects. The nurse was starting the transfusion while telling me a story about a guy who had an allergic reaction to the platelets about two weeks ago. This is not supposed to happen. They believe it was from the preservative they mix with the platelets. I get really anxious about transfusions- who am I kidding- I get anxious just walking into the canSer center- and didn't like him telling me this story. I don't need any help being worried thank you very much. I was about done with the first bag and thought I felt a little itchy but tacked it up to being paranoid. The pump beeped signaling the first bag was finished and the nurse came in to shut it off and get the second bag. While she was hanging the bag I looked at the underside of my arm and saw little red dots! It wasn't in my head! I WAS having an allergic reaction. (It makes me nervous just typing this.) The little red bumps turned into an all-over-rash. My arms were covered, my stomach, legs, neck and even around my eyes. They shot me up with benadryl which I totally hate because it makes me feel loopy and out of control- having anxiety and feeling out of control= not a good thing. I called T so he could be there to help calm me down. I was shaking like a leaf. I was worried I wasn't going to be able to get platelets again, I was worried about the next time I have to get platelets- what if this happens.....they did a cbc and my platelet count had gone up to 55,000 so they didn't have to give me the second bag. It felt so good to walk out of there and on my way home. They believe it was from the preservative and are going to check with the blood bank and see if they are doing anything different. I don't even want to think about the next time I need them. That drama was enough to last me ten years. I don't like it when things don't go as planned.

The week with Michael, Heather and Elliot was wonderful. It rained the last two days they were here so we didn't get to do as much as we wanted to- a lot relaxing and just hanging out. They left early Saturday morning which turned out to be a beautiful day. It seems to rain everytime Heather is in town. I can't believe they've come and gone already. Elliot is just the cutest. I could hold her for days. Loved getting to spend time with her. It's going to be so nice living so close to them.

We are leaving for house hunting in IN next Wednesday for a week. I moved my chemo back a week and will start when we return. We have decided to narrow our search down to just the Fishers (northern suburb of Indianapolis) area. We were looking at houses further South which are closer to the hospital and T's work but the area isn't as nice. We still have a few in that area we really like we might see while we are there. Narrowing the search has made it so much easier. Our long-term plan is to buy a house in all the places we get stationed and then rent them out once we move allowing us to build equity for retirement. Everytime I think about moving it makes me anxious. I'm super excited to be close to family and friends but nervous about the change. I'm an anxious person anyway so change is hard. I love Beaufort and the South. I love our house. I'm really going to miss it here. I'm really going to miss all of my friends here.....hopefully we will be back in three years.

I finally got my new laptop last week. It's a little smaller than the one before but is faster. I'm grateful for it. I've been working hard on getting all of my pictures organized. I'm going to do a better job at that this year. I take so many and love doing it. But I want to get them off of my computer and into scrapbook books. I have lots of ideas for minibooks- I want to do one of the neighborhood we live in now, one of my daily routines, one about our move.....keeping the pictures organized is going to be key. I've set up a 2008 folder on my computer and then under that each month. Under each month is another folder containing the pictures of that specific event/thing/day of pictures....it's a work in progress. Might have to tweak it a little.

The guy from the rental company came out today to walk through the house and go over the management agreement. I pray we find great renters- someone who will love and take care of our house. He was really impressed with all the work we have done to it. He kept saying how beautiful it was. Makes me so very proud of T.

I Married A Cowboy

T's cowboy hat February 2008

Thank you Thomas for all your help getting ready for the upcoming events. You're the greatest.

I'm getting a blood transfussion tomorrow. My counts really weren't that low but since I've been feeling like I've been standing on my head the last 4 days- I guess I could use the boost. My laptop is still not fixed- HP is actually going to send us a brand new one since it's taking so long to fix the old one- so I'm not sure what I'm going to do for 5 hours. Surfing the net sure can burn time. I've got my bags packed with lots of movies, books and magazines. I'm keeping my eye on the prize though- spending the week with my sister, brother-in-law and baby ELLIOT!

The Book

For Valentine's Day I made Thomas alittle book- once again inspired by the super creative Ali Edwards.

Cover- my 1st attempt at embroidering.

Inside cover. Text says 'Thank you for being in my life.'

2nd page. A picture of us from Chirstmas.

3rd page. Letter to Thomas expressing my undying love. :)

I am the.... LUCKIEST.

Lyrics to Luckiest by Ben Folds Five.

Another letter from me telling T how great he is. :)

The end.

It turned out really well and T LOVED it. It made him teary eyed. :) He surprised me with a new bike! You can see a picture of it on my 365 Flickr page to the right. I heart her. She's pink and even has a basket on the front. So cute.

It's been busy around here.....with T's birthday and V-day and then on Tuesday I'm hosting the Wives' Coffee. Super excited to get together with the girls. I'm making some yummy treats! My sister Heather is coming into town that night as well with her husband and little baby Elliot! I can't wait to spend the week with them. I need to get the house cleaned and a trip to the grocery store made. T is in Columbia this weekend which doesn't help. I need his assistance. :) The next week I have chemo and then the 1st week in March we are headed back to IN for more house hunting. We also need to get this house on the rental market very soon. Time is just flying by. It's going to be moving day (end of April) before we know it. The closer it gets, the more stressed I become. And the more I don't want to move. I am really looking forward to being close to family but just realizing how much I love it here in SC. I know I won't want to leave IN after our 3 years are up there. I just don't like change. I want to be there already- in the perfect house, in the perfect location and settled.

I've been feeling well. I think it's about time for a transfussion though. The last time I had one was before Christmas which is just absolutely amazing. I was getting one about every two weeks. My head has been hurting and last night I was a milimeter away from a migraine. I had to take morphine and benedryl per the doctor's orders to sleep it off. I feel like I've been standing on my head....other than that- I'm great! :)

On a sad note, my uncle passed away from his battle with cancer on Wednesday night. He has lived in Texas for the past several years so I haven't seen him in awhile but was super close to him when I was little. He gave me my nickname of Cat when I was 3 months old. My momma still calls me that. He also taught me how to tie my shoes- with two bows. I was struggling with the one bow around the tree thing so he taught me the easier way with two bows. It's still my preferred method of shoe tying. We did talk on the phone a couple times- trading similar stories of our journey with this f****** disease. Pardon my language- I'm just really sick and tired of dealing with it and it taking lives. I know he's in a better place now- done with suffering and hurting.

I've been keeping up with the picture-a-day thing so I hope you've been checking it out (click on the pictures to the right). I'm so proud of myself! :) It's been really funny and I'm looking forward to having a whole year of my life recorded.

I'm off to have a piece of DQ ice cream cake from T's birthday. As you can see, the healthy eating things continues to be a struggle. Ice cream cake is so worth it though.

BTW- why isn't spell check working on blogger? Anyone else having problems with it? I apologize for any spelling errors- it's for sure not my strong point.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY THOMAS!

Today is Thomas' 28th birthday! He took the day off of work so we could spend it together doing whatever he would like. He just opened up his gift/v-day gift- a GPS system. He's been wanting one for awhile now and it's really going to be useful in Indy.

We are off to downtown to visit T's favorite old bookstore. And then homemade pizza tonight at his request and DQ ice cream cake with friends- a tradition we do every year. So yummy!

Happy birthday love.

It's Here.....

Chemo week that is. For the next 3 days. Pretty much the whole week is taken over by all those chemicals doing their thing. If you call or email and I don't get back to you right away- I will- after the chemo funk is on it's marry way.

I hope y'all had a wonderful weekend. Mine was nice and relaxing. Tom's dad and stepmom came down- it was great to have the company. We went downtown to the waterfront park yesterday for a few hours to soak up the sun. Loved it. Need to do it more often.

Once A Month!

After the holidays were over it was back to chemo. I got to take a mini-vaca and skipped one round, 6 weeks without chemo. It was oh so lovely! I had a transfusion the week before I left to make sure my counts stayed up while T and I were in Indiana. When I left, my hemoglobin was 11 and my platelets were 124,000! (less than the normal range but much higher than my normal counts) Once we returned from Indiana I had my counts rechecked to make sure I didn't need another transfusion before chemo. And the great news is- I didn't!! My counts were the same- both were still high! That means the chemo is destroying my blood and platelets and not the cancer cells in my bone marrow! My bone marrow is working- it's fighting back! (When I was diagnosed, the cancer had spread to my bone marrow making it stage 4 or metastatic carcinoid syndrome). Dr. Chahin decided to move chemo to every 4 weeks instead of every 3! Once a month! A whole extra week of freedom! I will still need transfusions in between rounds. (I actually had to get a bag of platelets yesterday- they were down to 4,000. And my hemoglobin was down to 7.4 but I'm going to wait till next week to get that transfusion since chemo isn't until the week after. I want to make sure my counts stay high for that.) I feel so blessed- God is to thank for this great news. He is working His wonderful power in me and I am forever grateful to Him. Our God is an awesome God!

Also, my momma is back at home and recovering well. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers.

My Momma.....

UPDATE:

The surgery went well and my momma is recovering. She is having a hard time keeping things down but the doctor thinks it is a side effect of the new blood pressure medicine they switched her to. She should get to go home tomorrow if all goes well! Thank you all for your prayers! :)

My momma has been in and out of the hospital the last couple weeks due to what her and the doctors thought was horrible acid reflux- which has been an ongoing problem for some time now. She would have chest pains, her esophagus would burn, she was throwing up....a lot of it stress induced. She had an upper GI scheduled for tomorrow but ended up back in the ER on Sunday. Yesterday they did the upper GI to discover her esophagus was not damaged as original thought. The doctor then had an ultrasound done on her gallbladder to find she has gallstones. Today she is going to have her gallbladder removed. I am so glad to know what the problem is. She has been in a lot of pain and discomfort. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers today as she undergoes surgery and pray for a speedy recovery.

Momma holding Elliot Family Christmas 07

365

This year I decided to do a 365 Project- taking a picture a day. A way to remember 2008. To remember now. Every day of it. If this is something that interests you, it's not too late to start. Start today. You can search groups on Flickr for inspiration. Ali Edwards was my inspiration who is doing a self portrait a day. I've added a link to my 365 album to the right.

Happy picture taking!

Oh So Exicting!

See those TARGET! gift cards below- yup, I know who illustrated those- sure do- I know her personally- she's my friend and WAY talented SISTER-IN-LAW!!! So cool. And so proud. You rock P! Here's the one in stores now.....and the one below that was out for Christmas which I totally forgot to blog about.

Experimenting

Trying some new looks here at To The Moon....not in love with this one but not bad.

The weekend is going well- nice and relaxing. I've decluttered our desk which is something I've wanted to do for some time now. It feels good. I've got a few other things I would like to tackle before the weekend comes to an end. T has been busy doing things around the house. Our friend Dan is in town from New York for the next few days. I like having house guests. It makes me feel loved. :)

And a very

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BEAUTIFUL BIG SISTER KIM!

Wish we were there to celebrate with you.

Kim & her daughter Abby, holding Elliot (Heahter's new baby) Family Christmas 2007

So Much More

......it's understanding, compassion, acceptance, forgiveness, appreciation, authentic, gratitude, harmony, passion, honesty, intimacy, love, respect, trust....thank you Thomas for being such an amazing husband.

Currently Reading.....

You Can Heal Your Life by Louise L. Hay.

We are 100% responsible for all of your experiences.

Every thought we think is creating our future.

The point of power is always in the present moment.

It's only a thought, and a thought can be changed.

Releasing resentment will dissolve even cancer.

When we really love ourselves, everything else in our life works.

Self-approval and self-acceptance in the now are the key to positive changes.

We create every so called "illness" in our body.

I have the power of my own mind to use in any way I choose.

Every moment in life is new beginning.

Here's to healing in 2008....

Home

It feels good to be back in South Carolina. We arrived this afternoon and have been busy unpacking, doing laundry and catching up on things. The trip home was wonderful- lots of great memories. It made me even more excited to be moving back there in 4 months. We took tons of pictures and hopefully will get them up soon. The wireless connection is not working on my laptop and will have to be sent in to be fixed and our desktop is a little slow so it might take me awhile to get them up. I don't know what I'm going to do without it! :(

The appointment with my new oncologist went really well. I really like the center and the nurses that I met were great- so sweet. The house hunting went well. We spent two days and looked at 22 houses. We found several that we like and one that I really like. We aren't ready just yet to place an offer. If that house is still on the market in about a month when we are ready then we will mostly likely purchase that one. If not, we still have 1o days of house hunting leave to look again. It's exhausting but so exciting at the same time.

Tom goes back to work tomorrow and I plan to take down the Christmas decorations and work on decluttering the house. We've got lots of projects to do before the big move. We need to get information out about renting this house. If anyone is looking for a way cute house in Beaufort, SC to rent- let me know. :)

(The view from my sister Kim's house yesterday right before we left Indiana. So pretty.)

Indiana

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas! T and I have been in Indiana for the last couple days...lots of driving to see all the family. Tomorrow I have an appointment with a potential new oncologist in Indianapolis and then we are going to do a little house hunting. Saturday we have my family Christmas- the last one out of the four. The trip has been so wonderful so far- busy but wonderful. It makes me really excited to be closer to family in a few short months. I've taken lots of pictures and will post them soon. xoxo

Christmas Cookies

I LOVE to bake and Christmas gives me a great excuse to do so. I wanted to send a few friends that live out of state a little homemade "sweet treat"- my sister Heather says that word and it makes me smile :) and found the recipe below on Becky Higgins' website. The picture of her cookies looked so good and oh so festive so I whipped up a batch with a little variation. Instead of using candy cane crumbles, I used Hershey Candy Cane Kisses- I didn't even know there was such a thing but when I couldn't find candy cane crumbles at the grocery store I decided these would work perfect.

Candy Cane Kisses Cookies

3/4 c. butter

1 1/2 c. brown sugar

2 T. water

2 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 1/2 c. flour

1/2 t. salt

1 1/4 t. baking soda

2 eggs

Bag of Hershey's Candy Cane Kisses

Directions:

Melt butter, brown sugar, and water in saucepan over medium heat until melted. Add chocolate chips, stirring until melted. Cool 10 minutes. Put chocolate mixture into mixing bowl and beat in eggs. Add flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix together and chill for about 45 minutes. Once chilled, roll into balls and flatten slightly. Place on parchment lined cookie sheet and back at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Once out of oven, place Kisses on each cookie and place back in oven for another minute. As soon as you remove them, swirl chocolate on top of each cookie and allow to cool completely. Makes approximately 5 dozen (I think- I didn't count but it made a lot...I did smaller cookies)

I also made Snickerdoodles which is one of my favorites! They remind me of my sister Kim. They are one of her favorites too and she made them for me when she was her visiting last summer when I was really sick....one of those special times in your life you won't forget.