I am definitely not going to get the blogger of the year award. I am so sorry I am not better at updating this thing. But here goes a rather brief recap of life after chemo.
I think last time we spoke (haha) I was having my estate sale. The sale was huge success I pretty much sold everything I owned and I am now going through the much more fun process of buying all new stuff. Shopping and decorating the new place takes up a lot of my free time these days and I am feeling fantastic so that helps too.
After I got completely out of the old house and into the new place I had surgery. The surgery was way easier than I had expected. I had the surgery on Friday and I was back at work on Tuesday afternoon. The surgeons report was good she removed the lump and was able to get "clear margins". That's a cancer term for...she got all the cancer out :) She also removed four lymph nodes. We didn't know when we went into the surgery how many nodes she would have to remove. Once in the operating room they injected a dye into the area. The dye supposedly showed them where the cancer was spreading. The dye took her to four different nodes so she took all of them out. The nodes were sent to the lab for testing and only two of them tested positive for cancer. So surgery was a success!
Three weeks after surgery I started radiation. The treatment plan is 36 rounds of radiation today I will go in for my 25th treatment only 10 more after today. I go to radiation everyday Mon-Fri and it has really been a breeze. I can hardly even tell that they are doing anything. The last two weeks are usually when the burning and pain sets in so I am just sitting tight to see how bad it is going to be, But I think since I survived chemo this is nothing.
I am feeling really great these days my hair is starting to grow back which is very exciting. It is not growing back fast enough for me though. I think it may have stage fright because I sit and stare it all the time. About a month ago I started "Operation Hair Growth" I have bought herbal drops I rub on my head, all sorts of vitamins I am taking and I use some special biotene shampoo. I don't know if any of it is actually helping but it makes me feel like I am doing something to encourage it.
So now you are all up to date on this cancer journey. I am very excited to get through with the radiation but it also kind of concerns me because that is when the waiting starts. Just waiting for the next scan to see if it has come back. The past 7 and a half months have been spent fighting the cancer and now I try to get back to normal, whatever that is, and pray the cancer doesn't return. The thing that I can remind myself every day is I went through all of this once and it was rough but if I have to do it all over again I can and I will. Let's hope I don't have to but I do find some sort of internal peace with that thought.
