Clean...

I saw my doctor today and got the good news that I was hoping for... my CT scan came back...

CLEAN

I can't even describe the relief that I feel that have another good scan. It's so stressful to do these follow up appointments... knowing what's in store if the scan isn't clean.

My doctor said that my lymph nodes are even smaller than they were at my last scan, which was 5 months ago. So even not being on chemo they are still shrinking. Less that 1 cm which is what we want!

Lately...

Puzzles at the library...

:: Work is going pretty good but it's really hard too. It totally depends on which doctor I'm scheduled to work with. If it's a nice, easy going doctor then it's a good day. If it's a rude, stressed out doctor that yells at me all day... then it's pretty awful. I've had a good mix of both... I just don't work well when I'm totally on edge from being yelled at all day. Then I make more stupid mistakes on my charts and it's just no good. I think that I'm starting to get the hang of it though.

:: I live for my days off ;). I'm trying really hard to make the most of my days off and get all the things done that I want to do. The hard part with that is that I get so exhausted from work that I just want to crash on my days off. I'm almost 6 months out of chemo though so I hope that I am able to handle a little more in a few weeks here.

:: I'm over feeling guilty for leaving Tru all the time for work. There is not much I can do about that and so I'm not going to waste my time I have with him feeling bad. I just try to make sure that our time together is really quality time and we do lots of fun things together.

:: Tru loves going to the library. We make sure to go every week and when I get home from work at night we lay in his bed and read his books together. This is my favorite part of the day.

:: I really miss having long hair. I find myself daydreaming about having long hair again. What it would feel like to run my hands through it, to brush it, to ring it out after a shower. Ya... I really miss it.

:: Trent had his last day of work last week. He stayed on at his job and worked the graveyard shift until I was a little more settled in my job and we had our new health insurance stuff figured out. He takes such good care of us. I'm grateful he was willing to do that, even though it meant only getting about 4 hours of sleep a day. I'm glad that he was able to quit so he could focus just on school right now. We were with his company for over three years, he started a few months before Tru was born. We will both miss a lot of the great people that he worked with there.

I think that's about it for now. I think that my posting on this blog is going to become pretty sparse! We'll see how it goes. We are all just trying to settle into this new lifestyle and schedule that we have.

Small update...

Here is just a little update on what's going on around here since I'm not blogging much these days...

- My computer is still in the shop. The hard drive died... sob sob. I'm hoping that by next week it will be back home. My wonderful and generous SIL Anjie is letting me use her old lap top so that I can keep up with all my tree orders for Mother's Day. She has totally saved me, I'm so grateful for her!

- I had a Pet Scan on Monday and will see my doctor on Thursday, May 6th to go over the results. So no new cancer news until then. My mom came down for a whole 24 hours, just so she could play with Tru while I sat in my bedroom and read books, magazines, and napped. Isn't that nice? It's so hard to not touch Tru after one of these scans, he is such a mama's boy and a cuddle bug, so I really appreciate her coming to help me!

- This is going to be Trent's last week of night classes EVER (hopefully? fingers crossed). He's been going to work at 6 AM and getting home around 9:30 PM for the last month, and it's killing all of us. Tru just cries because he misses Trent and doesn't see him at all for days. I miss having a husband and someone else to entertain Tru. So we will all be happy when finals are over this week.

- My hair is growing in, it's so soft and fuzzy. I can't stop feeling my fuzzy head. I'm excited, I hope that it grows fast. My eyelashes are filling in too but they are super short, and my eyebrows are starting to come back. About 2 1/2 weeks after my last treatment everything started coming in, so it happened pretty quick. Also, I went from popping pills all day long for one thing or another to taking no medication at all other than vitamins (well, and you know, the no baby making pill). The only real side affect I'm still feeling from chemo is getting worn out really easy. I can do one big thing a day (like cook a big meal and do the dishes afterwards) and then I'm done, totally out of it.

- I have 25 lbs to loose... annoying. I hate that non of my clothes fit, so Monday I'm going to start really working out everyday. I've been walking with my pregnant friend, and she leaves me in the dust, that's how out of shape I am! So I'm going to start on Monday and work out everyday. Everything that I have read online says that exercise helps speed up the recovery time from chemo so I'm all for that. I'm still pretty exhausted all the time, but I think if I sit around waiting for my energy to come back it will never happen. I'll be careful though and if it feels like too much I will take a break for a few days.

There you go! I hope that you all have a great weekend!

Cancer update - 4 treatments down...

I thought I'd do a little update here... I've done 4 treatments now. I hate it. I really hate doing chemo. I'm trying to be a good sport, and I know that in a few days life will get a little better but man it's just so hard to feel so crummy!!! But here's the latest on what's going on with me...

- I had another pulmonary test done. My lungs are just fine, there was no change from the test I had done before I started chemo so that's good news.
- I had another PET scan on Friday, I'll get the results on Thursday from my doc. I'm really really hoping for good news, but at the same time trying not to get my hopes up too much.
- The port is working great. No more dead arms!!! The only bad thing with the port is that I can taste the meds as they are going through me... it's horrible. I can still taste them now. The worst taste in the world. It made me really sick while I was getting chemo on Thursday and the only thing that saved me from tossing my cookies (ya right... there were no cookies...) was a queasy pop. Seriously!!! I'm going to buy these in bulk because that may be what actually gets me through this.
- My feet have started to go numb and tingly. This is due to nerve damage from the chemo. Not cool. It doesn't hurt, but it might get worse before it gets better and my nurse said that they wont do anything about it unless it gets to the point where I'm having trouble walking (What!!) She said that all they can do is back off on the chemo drugs but since I have a form of cancer that is curable they are willing to beat me up a little bit to get that cure. So I'm hoping and praying that nice spring days running outside are in my future...
- I DIDN'T GET THRUSH THIS TIME!!! Wahoo!!!!! I started my thrush meds a few days before I usually get symptoms and it worked! I'm pretty excited about that.
- Our health insurance is changing at the beginning of the year... which means I have to go to a different cancer center with a different doctor. Big pain... so the next few weeks I'm going to be working on getting everything situated with that.

That's about it for now. I'm trying to get the energy up to set up my Christmas decorations. Hopefully they will be up by the end of the week!

20 weeks...

Well folks... I'm officially halfway there. Halfway to the unknown is what it really feels like. When I was pregnant with Tru I focused so much on the pregnancy and getting through that I felt like when he was actually born and here I was hit in the head with a 4x4. I didn't have a clue what to do with a baby!!! I'm trying to not be as blindsided this time. I'm trying to prepare myself for the sleepless nights, tons of diapers, and everything else that comes with a newborn (and a toddler)... halfway there.

I have so many random thoughts going through my mind right now... here is a little of what's going on over here...

- I had another ultra sound yesterday. From what the ultra sound tech could see, there was no sign of the tear or hemorrhage anymore. There is still a little bit of stuff in there that will either reabsorb or come out, but this is such great news!!! I'm so glad that it's pretty much over. I still need to be careful, the doctor says that my risk of pre-term labor or the placenta detaching early is increased because of this problem so they are going to do an ultra sound every month until the baby is born just to keep an eye on things.

-I really like my doctor. I'm so glad that I switched and picked this new doctor and didn't go back to the one I had with Tru. Something I like about his office is that he has a lot of medical students doing their OB rotations there. So when he comes into talk to me he says the normal stuff and then he turns to the student and explains it in more depth. I really like that. Yesterday's visit was interesting. He asked how I was doing, how it all was going... then he turned to the student and said, "This girl has had a pretty impressive hemorrhage. I usually only see them that severe about once or twice a year." I thought that was interesting because he has always told me that this was pretty common, that it happens and not to worry too much about it. But I felt really dumb that I kept calling him and coming in week after week freaking out. I don't feel so dumb now about freaking out since he explained it as "pretty impressive."

- I really wish that I was one of those girls who had a cute little basketball tummy and still looked cute... it's not going to happen. I'm coming to terms with the fact that I'm getting enormous and there isn't much I can do about it. I'm eating healthy (oatmeal for breakfast, sandwich for lunch... very sensible.) I can't exercise, so that's kind of tossed out the window. I've already gained 20 lbs... yikes! My goal is to not get as big as I was with Tru, but in reality, the goal is to have a healthy baby. So if that means gaining another 40+ lbs, I'll deal with it later...

- I've been nesting like crazy!!! Nesting, spring fever, whatever you want to call it, it's hit me hard. I'm doing as much as I possibly can without over doing it. I'm mainly working on organizing everything in my house and trying to get the boys room put together. Last night I got new shelving put up in the spare bedroom closet for food storage. Next is painting the dresser for the boys... then their room...

- My car still stinks. It's changed from a rotten milk smell to a mildew smell. It's gross. I think that we got the milk taken care of but now all the other stuff we put on there is smelling. I'm very close to just ripping out the carpet, but I don't want to do that because the car is only a year old!!!!!

- I'm getting tired of hearing about the swine flu... Did you know that about 800 people a week die from the regular flu. Not the swine flu, but the regular old flu!!! Half a million people in the world this year will die from the flu! It's good to be precautious, and it has been a wake up call to me to get more serious about food storage... but come on!

- Our next door neighbor died a week ago. She was an older lady with cancer, I don't think that she had any kids or had been married before. She had a few cats... they were her kids. We tried to get to know her, but it was hard because we were very different and that was obvious from the beginning. We had her over for Christmas Eve dinner and I was really worried about how it would go, but it was a really nice evening. She brought us some wine... it's still sitting on our counter. I guess I wont feel bad about throwing it out now and her seeing it in the dumpster. She taught at the college and liked to call Tru a "male primate." Pretty sure I've never had anyone else call my little boy that before. I feel bad that she didn't really have any family.

Well, that's it for now...