Best News Ever!

I have been so worried about my stupid tumor marker numbers, its like a nagging voice that is always in the back of my head.

So when Dr. Wu called me and told me that my number have gone down, I cried tears of happiness and I honestly felt a weight come off my shoulders.
He said he was so happy and as soon as the numbers came in he called! 

The only thing that has changed is my oils that I have been taking religiously,
coincidence?
I think not!

I thought I would be funny and text Kyle, all it said was
Dr. Wu called......

He had a little break down and called me upset cause he was sure it was bad news.
When I told him, he told me to never do that again to him, he didn't think it was as funny as I did!
He is still mad at me, 2 days later! 

Sometimes I forget that he is the one that wakes me up at night when my crying in my sleep wakes him up,
He is the one that has had to take care of me when I couldnt make it up out of my chair,
He's had to be the mom and dad,
Hes had to wonder about life without me,
He's had to be strong, when I couldnt be.
We have been through things that I would never wish on any couple, but we are stronger for it.

I get down in the dumps, cause honestly cancer and everything that goes with it SUCKS BALLS.
But ive got eyelashes and almost eyebrows and little chemo fuzz hair
and I feel like a human again, I make dinner, I clean house, I leave the house, I get out of my chair, I have energy!
So everything is alright, everything will be just fine, and this to shall pass.

If you look really close and kinda squint your eyes, you can see HAIR!!!!!

blahhhh.......

I wrote this last week, this is 1 reason why I havent posted in awhile.....

So, I'm on one this week...
I am tired.
I'm pissed that I am flat again, not only am I bald, I get to have no boobs for a wedding.
Facebook posts make me want to throw my computer against the wall,
I feel like I don't have anyone who wants to listen to me be all negative and my "man life sucks somedays" spill i have going on, but man life sucks somedays!
Since I can feel the negativity and meanness, I have tried to stay away from my phone and humans this week, just in case I take something you say or the mean way you look at me, wrong.

I cant seem to more forward as much as I would love to.
Its like I cant get it out of my mind,
Do I still have cancer?
Is it somewhere else, or everywhere?
Am I "thinking" more cancer into my body?
Is that new pain cancer?
Am I ever going to be able to move forward?
Why cant I stop thining about cancer?
Why cant I gt in a happier mood?

Blahhhhhh..........

But life goes on, kids want you to watch them do weird things and so you have to pretend to be happy and get over the shitty hand you've been dealt and just get over it.

I go back in to the doctor on Monday for some more blood test and then I will start radiation 2 weeks after that.


Fast forward to now......
I took a little trip to California with my dad and got to see Jerrica and her family from Friday to Saturday. It was a so wonderful to get to hug them all, I miss my sisters so bad. The only bad thing about the whole trip was that it kicked my butt, I still dont have much energy so I spent Sunday sleeping!

Monday was doctor day and I took Grace in with me. It was just blood and talking.

My tumor marker test is still high, that worries him.
So if when I go back in September they havent went down I will have a PET scan, so hopefully they go down alittle.
I told Dr. Wu I still get tired easy and he said I had to give myself some time to recuperate and also the tamoxifen could be making me tired to.
I asked "so does that mean I can use that as an excuse to get out of anything", and he said "yes, for the next 10 years I have a get out of anything pass!"  
I could have started radiation this Thursday but I decided to wait and go to Utah for my favorite holiday!
So I start on the 28th, 5 days a week for 4 weeks, a total of 20 treatments.

Grace and I did some school shopping, she loves to shop and so we shopped till I dropped!

I have heard people say that they have had a hard time adjusting after treatment,
I thought I would be different,
I thought I would be relived to not go to the doctor every other week for blood test and
I thought I would love not having poison pumped through my body. 
But when you are going and doing something to kill/keep the cancer away, your doing something.
Now I feel like I am doing nothing, is it going to come back?

Every pain I have, every headache I get, I wonder "is this it?"
I know it is so stupid and worthless to worry about it, but I cant get it out of my head lately.

I have never been able to see myself with grown children and grandkids,
I have never been able to imagine myself old and grey,
Or retired with Kyle,
And that scared me, is that Gods way of preparing me or is that just me not wanting to get old?

Even though I am sad, I actually have alot of good things and I am happy most of the time!
The best thing is, I have lots of thick eyelashes growing, my bottom eyelashes are looking great, I am starting to get some eyebrows back, and my head hair is getting thicker and longer! My head hair is pretty light, like almost grey, I will be pretty pissed if it all comes in grey, but I have hair so I am not going to complain if it keeps growing fast like it is! 

I have made myself some all natural salve for when I start radiation, I hope it will help keep my skin healthy.
I also hope I find some peace, if not it might be time for some anti anxiety pills so I can start to sleep again.

radiation

Today I went in to get ready for radiation.
The first step was to deflate my temporary boobs.
I went into the office a big C and came out a very small, very deformed A. 
It was a bummer.
Jackie, the PA who deflated me said she wanted to cry for me, but it wont be long and they will look good again.
I have been thinking of some positives, the biggest one is I will be able to sleep on my stomach for the next 3 months!!! And the expander are so uncomfortable, so a little break from them will be fine.
Those are the only two I can think of, and i've thought hard......!

I got my radiation "tattoos" today, they are just 3 little freckle like blue dots, one in the middle of my chest and then one on each side of my body. They are there so that they can line you up in the exact spot every time.
I told kyle I was just going to get 3 little flower tattoos where the dots were! 
The nurse told me that I shouldn't shave or wear deodorant while having radiation, poor kyle!!
I dont know when I start yet, hopefully next Monday, but doctor time is very slow. I should know in a few day though and then we can make a better plan!

I have to keep telling myself radiation is just more insurance that I will have many more healthy years in front of me.

I am in the "grey" area of radiation and the decision was ultimately up to me to do it or not.
The doctor did let me know of some concerns and why he would push for me to have it done.

My young age is one of the biggest concerns. 

When having my mastectomy she got a very thin margin, meaning I could have some microscopic cancers cells left and that could turn into cancer in my chest wall. 

I also have a type of cancer that has a high re-occurrence rate.   

And he explained the survival rate with and without radiation and the re-occurrence rate drops with radiation.

I, in good conscious, couldn't say no, mostly for the girls.
Who would teach them how to make real lasagna and that Italian sausage should only be served with onions peppers and stewed tomatoes!

I had a week of sleepless nights in Marysvale to think about it, and I have been thinking that I haven't been at peace like I thought I would be after chemo.
I've felt like it just isn't over.
Maybe that was preparing me for radiation.
Maybe after my 4 weeks of radiation, I will feel more at peace. 

I am mostly bummed that radiation kinda ruins the girls summer, when mom has to go to Vegas everyday we don't get to do our normal everyday fun summer stuff, but hopefully when they are older they can look back and understand.

I drove myself in today, it was nice to just be alone in the car listening to my music way to loud.
Awhile ago a friend told me about the song "fight like a girl" by Bombshel, I downloaded it and only listen to it when I know I wont cry.
Today it came on and I cried, it was a very long day today.
But I thought this describes my feeling perfectly.

I'll hold my head high
I'll never let this define
The light in my eyes
Love myself, give it hell
I'll take on this world
Yes, I'll stand and be strong
No I'll never give up
I will conquer with love
And I'll fight like a girl

I am still fighting, but I feel like I am almost to the end, the hard chemo part is over.
I am feeling better and better and even can say I really do feel good most days!
I also have lots of eyelashes growing, a few eyebrows, and my head hair is getting alittle longer, but not as fast as I hoped it would come in!
Hairless and boobless for only a little bit longer, and then we can start to put this year behind us.

4th of July

We loved the 4th of July fireworks at Brian Head so we decided that we would ride up the mountain and spend the day!
Nancy, Penn, Kaden, Laura, the girls, Luke and Sierra all met us up there and we made hobo dinners and played all afternoon!
It was freezing when we got there, like 50's, freezing!!!! But it did warm up alittle through the day!
The girls ran around and got so dirty!
The fireworks didn't disappoint this year either, they were really good and next year we will go over earlier and look at all the booths and watch them from a little closer!

Monroe Mountain

Our favorite place to go while we are in Utah is Monroe Mountain! So since we didnt know if we would make it up again this summer we knew we had to go up for the day!
We stopped at our favorite picnic spot and had a little picnic then rode over to barney and back down over the mountain!!
We seen lots of deer and even some elk!!!

There were some fish jumping but as soon as we threw the pole in, a big rain storm came. It never fails when we are fishing at barney it rains, I love it!!

The girls were running around building a "hut" when I hear Grace say,"Holy cow, look at this! I want to take this home and put it on the wall."
I turn around and see her holding an elk leg, what in the world has Kyle done to my children!!

Alaynna loves her daddy!!!

This is where I want my ashes spread, I feel such peace when we are there, it really is the prettiest place!

Can you tell who is who in this picture?!

swimming and fishing

When we went to gather rocks, the girls thought it would be fun to get there feet wet, but they soon realized that Utah water is freezing!!!!!

 
We heard the fishing was great out at the reservoir so we tried to fish a few times, but we didnt catch anything but bugs!!  
We fished for awhile then went to get into the 4 runner to go back to the trailer and it was covered in mayflys, 1000's of them, no lie!
On our way back, we shot rabbits with my new gun, the girls loved it!!

We tried again the next night and didnt catch anything again, I am pretty sure Kyle is bad fishing luck cause he even went by himself the next morning and still didnt catch anything!!!

Marysvale!

We worked so hard in Marysvale!

We got our rock retention wall almost all done, the fire pit dug out, all the sprinklers in, and the grass area all level!! Next time we get down there we will put some seed down! 

We made alot of trips up the mountain to get all of the big rocks, I didnt get a picture of it all done, but man it looks so nice, I cant wait to have a little grass down and not just have a dirt patch! 

Fish Lake

After finding out that our summer would be alot of me driving to Vegas, we decided we better make this Marysvale worth it and do all the stuff we like to do while in Utah!
Fish Lake is a must, so after a quick stop at Sandys for a good Utah Dr. Pepper and Arbys for lunch we went up the mountain!

 After getting some popcorn and worms at the lodge, we went down to our lucky spot to catch some perch! Kyle dropped one load of stuff and went to grab a few more things up at the truck. As he got out of sight, Alaynna started screaming and the other two were right behind her. When I turned around to see what was the problem I seen a snake go right by them and up under the rocks!

I laughed and laughed, the girls cried and wouldn't go near the rocks the whole time we were there, and Kyle knew exactly what happened before he even got back down to us!! 

The girls like the popcorn more than they like to actually fish! As soon as Kyle gets one pole out, the other one is stuck or the girls want to real it in! I just sit back and read and watch him work! 

We usually do so good with catching perch, but this time we didnt even get a bite! 
We always have fun when we are at Fish Lake, even when we dont catch anything!!

Before we went back to the trailer, we stopped at Home Depot and got the rest of the sprinkler parts we needed so Kyle could work!