Happy New Year!

The last five months have flown by since my first diagnosis. I can’t believe it is 2009. I hope you all had a great holiday and it was wonderful. Personally, my favorite gift was I am done with chemotherapy as of December 23rd. I was able to enjoy a beautiful Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with my family without major side affects. The picture here shows me with my mother-in-law, and dear friend, Eileen on Christmas morning.

I did not get the migraines this time, thank goodness, but I was physically ill the night/day after Christmas for hours and was in bed for three days. I will spare you any other details and just state I am overjoyed this portion of my treatment is over. I am now in the week where my white blood cell count is extremely low for a week and then it starts climbing back after next week and so will my hair (yippee!).

My next step is radiation, which does not affect my white blood cell count like chemo. Radiation starts two weeks from today, January 12, when my body is strong enough to start. I had my radiation “orientation” today. I will be having 34 radiation treatments, five days a week for seven weeks. It is only a 15-minute treatment but getting there and back is an hour out of the day and somewhat of a pain fitting it into our company’s busiest quarter of the year. All the doctor had to give me were the percentages today of how women with my exact type of cancer go from a 45% chance of cancer returning to a 4% chance of return if they do radiation…so I will try not to complain much on that hour out of my day for two months of my life. As far as getting healthy and strong I still can’t take a lot of my health regiment I was on before starting chemo until after I complete radiation. The doctor today discouraged me from taking antioxidants during radiation because it affects how the radiation kills the cancer. There are several side effects from radiation but I am hopeful and somewhat confident that they are nothing like chemo. One of radiation’s side effects is fatigue but I am not afraid of radiation like I was chemo and I believe I will get stronger and better from here on out. For more information on radiation and what I will be doing see the following website: http://www.breastcancer.org/treatment/radiation/

Thank you again to all of my family and friends for your special and beautiful Christmas/Holiday cards and gifts. Thank you also for supporting Keith and me through this crazy journey. God Bless you all and may 2009 be rich in love and health for you and your family. I will try to be better about updating my blog in 2009!

Happy Holidays!

The exciting news is our daughter Amber is pregnant and we are going to be Grandparents in July of 2009! They saw the baby and heart beat yesterday! What a blessing. Reporting on my health, my last chemo I had was December 2nd. It had been three and a half weeks since my last chemo and I was starting to feel stronger. My dear friend Danny Findley came over the night before my third chemo treatment and helped decorate our Christmas tree and get me in the holiday spirit. Besides a wonderful personality, Danny brought some of his classic wigs on loan to me (see pictures). I sported the “Britney” wig look for chemo the following day bringing a few laughs to the Rocky Mountain Cancer Center. I felt fairly good the day of and the day after my chemo treatment, all thungs considered. The night of December 4th and morning of December 5th I suffered a migraine headache though that had me physically sick for hours (a new ailment I had never experienced in my life). My doctor sent me to the hospital for a brain scan because these symptoms are not “normal” chemo reactions she stated. The scan showed my brain is fine…well at least cancer free. I still have what I call “chemo brain”. I am on the mend now contributing as much as possible daily towards our company and clients and getting stronger for my last chemo on December 23rd. Several family and friends asked why I don’t wait until after Christmas for my last treatment. I thought long and hard about this and decided I would rather be sick on Christmas day celebrating that I am done with the chemo portion of my treatment instead of anticipating having it the following day. My hope is to build my immune system as fast as possible to get me strong for my last leg of treatment…radiation starting in late January. I anticipate 2009 being a much brighter year in my family’s and my life but I am still witnessing many blessings in my life through all of this. Not only the continued love, support and special gifts from countless family and friends but also it was confirmed this past Friday that my mother is cancer free as of one year. She has been battling bladder cancer for more than two years. On a sad note, our dear friend Megan's father lost his battle with brain cancer. Our heart and prayers go out to Megan and her family. I will continue to encourage all my friends to support the fight against this disease.

I hope all of you have a great holiday season and again, thank you for your continued support and encouragement throughout my journey. I wish you health and happiness in the coming New Year and hope it is prosperous for all of us and that we see an end to these hard economic times for our country. God bless you all.