End of November

Well...today is the last day of the month. It seems like it has flown by. Especially this week.

I had Lexi's poetry presentation Monday and then lunch with mom. Tuesday I had Lexi's poetry presentation in the afternoon and then began Thanksgiving break:)

Wed., we went and got a tree with my dad and drove up to the cabin to leave it there. We stayed overnight and came back Thurs. am and then of course had all the day's activities, topping off with the annual Nertz card game with family friends. This year both our girls played. It was crazy. They are so grown up sometimes I can't believe they are mine....after all I am still 25...at least in many ways I still feel that way despite all of the things that have happened of late.

Anyway, the girls spent the night at my parents and Friday Ed and I got up and began the rearranging. It did go quite well, as everyone seems to be happy. Then the girls spent the night again on Friday at my parents so the dust and what not could all settle...plus the fact we had mountains of clean clothes on their beds but not sheets at that point!!!

Yesterday we got up and dealt with the clothes and beds and then cleaned the living room so we could set up for Christmas. We put up the tree and lights and then left the rest for the girls. Who we finally picked up after dinner, thanks mom and dad, you are amazing:) They came home and explored their rooms a bit and then showered and then decorated the tree and the rest of the living room. It looks amazing as you can see, I think they did a wonderful job.

And early this morning it snowed...just a dusting, but it was beautiful. I love snow btw and I even do snow dances during the winter because what's the point of it being cold and not having the pretty white stuff? But at this point today the snow has melted, altho we might get another dusting later...hooray.

One minor glitch......yesterday afternoon I kinda had an minor accident prone K moment....

We rearranged our furniture you know and I guess the dresser door wasn't completely shut tight and it opened when I shut another drawer and I turned fast and started going and kind of vaulted over it since it is only lower thigh high...and I landed all my weight on my right wrist.....kinda hurts.....its not broken but I worry a tad about all that weight and the impact on my wrist and elbow..cause that's how I hurt myself you know, joints not bones!

Anyway, hope you had a nice weekend.

May the Hope of the Season bless you-

Blog ya later-

K

Hair

Mine..of course...is soooo long now that it is beyond that fuzzy chick stage that it was in just a day ago!!!! I am not kidding. Literally overnight it is no longer fuzzy, and yet still super soft, but starting to lay down on my head and so has lost that down fluffiness.

It is weird, I was just getting used to the fuzzies!

However, when I showered yesterday it got wet and even spiky when it was...I am looking forward to that:)

I hope you all have had a wonderful holiday weekend so far. We have rearranged all of the bedrooms and the living room to get ready for Christmas. The girls are back in their own bedrooms and that will be very nice. Even nicer once we put loft beds in and they have that extra space as a reading/lounging space. The living room is ready for the tree and the girls to decorate the rest of it for the holidays. Talk at y'all soon.

Have a good one.
Blog ya later-
K

Revelations

That I am slowly getting back to normal.

I had to wash my hair!!!! and shave my legs!!!! and I have to admit it was kind of nice just to be back in the routine. Of course my hair is still super short and so very soft and fuzzy....I don't recall having felt anything like it. My girls never had hair this short so I never got to experience this kind of fuzziness on them. It is almost like the down on a baby chick, and waterproof like that as well...it is quite strange in the shower, hard to describe except that it feels as if it doesn't get wet even though it is.....

I had some other startling thoughts listening to a Madonna cd that I love from a few years ago that is just as applicable to my life now but in very different ways..was intriguing to learn.

And last but not least I came up with a few ideas for names for the book, I am still debating but Ed liked them so we'll see.

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving-

Blog ya later-
K

What a week!

Well...to begin with, I didn't have a sinus infection..just a plain 'ol yucky cold, so no antibiotics, however, I am sticking with the later date anyway! I started thinking....are you nuts K? Having surgery 3 weeks before Christmas? What on earth are you thinking? ...
And I realized I wasn't. I was still on the "It's Cancer so we have to move fast and kill it track".

It has taken well...exactly 47 days(at that point) to figure out and accept I didn't have to think like that. Especially about this.

I mean the surgery isn't supposed to be awful...in fact, I truly have no idea what to expect anymore, but regardless I won't be able to use my arms very much(much less than the mastectomies) for 2 weeks this time....and I kind of use them....especially the three weeks leading up to Christmas!!!!!! So this is indeed for the best and I am at peace with it completely.

In other news I am feeling good..still a smidge stuffy but that is all. And...
my eyebrows are completely back. A bit weird as they were VERY full and I didn't want to do anything to early but I just couldn't stand it any more and had to shape them some this week. The funniest part is the fact that not a one of them has any sun lightening and.....they are very dark. Darker even than my hair! Which is also coming back...I have the shortest of crew cuts:)

We are spending the day recuperating from last night's PJ party for the scouts. Lexi got to spend the night, Belle did not...thankfully:D So I did not have to for one last year, next year will be my turn:) But none the less it has been a very teary morning and so we are settling in for a day of movies, games and crafts...and maybe bit of baking to warm up the house!

Hope you all are having a nice weekend too.

Blog ya later-
K

Changes

This happened all the time when I was first diagnosed...I would blog about the next step and then everything would change!

It is no different this time. The funny thing is I actually waited several days to blog about the surgery thinking that if I did that it would be set in stone and I wouldn't have to worry about any changes....I was wrong!!!!

All last week the flu/cold has gone around my house and I took care of the sickies....and of course Sat. I woke up with it myself! Unfortunately I think I have a touch of a sinus infection too or maybe just a worse version as it is in my chest and I have been coughing and wheezing. So here's the deal...I can't have been on antibiotics for 14 days before surgery...and the z-pac my Dr. prescribes is a 14 day course and looking at the calendar and doing the math that puts us right at the week before Christmas to have the surgery...and that will just not work!

So it would appear that I will be having surgery in Jan....hopefully the 8th. That will not necessarily change all that much...may push back the rest of the timetable, but I have decided that I am in no hurry as I have the rest of my long long looooooong life ahead of me to enjoy the boobs:)

Hope you all are well.

Blog ya later-
K

Masterpiece

The human body.

It is an amazing masterpiece. Really.

ok...yes..it is a masterpiece that is perfect at the beginning and continually gets worse as time goes on. But, during the journey, it is an amazing creation that continually defies the odds.

How do I prove this you might ask.....

look at my eyes and see the eyelashes growing back!!!!

I complain and wa la....it changes!


And about that body..well..this body, mine, specifically...I now have a timetable for the perky new boobs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It seems like so long ago that I started that mantra for myself as a way of coping and looking at the silver lining(LOL...the silver lining of cancer...that should be an oxymoron!) Anyway it would now appear that in the end it will be almost exactly a year from when I was diagnosed to when I will have my finished new boobs!

Starting Dec. 4th with the surgery to put in the expander implant. This will be more painful than the mastectomy the doctor said since she will move the muscle. I am not looking forward to that part except for the fact that I don't directly use those muscles to do basics like walk.....however I will again have the drains.....yuck....sigh...not a favorite part either.

Then 2-3 weeks after the surgery I can start the filling up process! That can take 6-10 weeks she guessed....but basically it will depend on me and how I can endure the stretching/pain and how fast I want to go. But if it takes 10 weeks that puts me at the beginning of March to be done with that.

Then we wait. We let them....settle! Well that and make sure that is truly what I want and then 3 months later we do the surgery to put in the actual implant.

And of course the recovery from that which should be minimal she said and then I am done!!!!!!!

Seems a long way off. But so does Dec. 4th...and then at other times it seems scarily close!


That sounded a bit weird that of all the stuff this surgery is more scary than the others. I don't have a solid explanation. Its just a feeling...maybe its because my mind has finally come out of the shock it was in all summer! Regardless I am doing it and I know it will be fine.

But before that I have to rearrange the girls rooms, finish the Christmas shopping, do a GS PJ party and oh yes..Thanksgiving..which mom will cook(hint hint..j/k, she always does and it is wonderful). So, I should probably quit my whining and go finish the swaps for the PJ party while I can:)

Blog ya later-
K

It's funny...

how the simplest things can be life altering.

I wear contacts. Some of you may not have even realized that just because I never wear my glasses so you may not know. I have worn contacts since I was twelve and it is just a habit to put them in, I truly do not think about it anymore. In fact I don't even use a mirror to do it. I do however count on something I took for granted until recently...my eyelashes!!!!

I actually, truly, absolutely need them. Without them it is practically impossible to put my contacts in! I hate wearing glasses, because I hate to lose my peripheral vision. It drives me nuts to have the sides of my eyes be blurry..... but this morning it took me forever, ok just a few minutes...but multiple tries ,to get my contacts in and it was all due to the fact that I have no eyelashes to hold onto to hold my eyes open and even though I have been doing this for 24 years(!!!!!!!) the inborn reflex to close ones eyes as something is coming toward it is still alive!

Anyway that was somewhat frustrating this am...but now I am enjoying a quiet fall morning. Hope you are too and...did y'all see the snow up north..or not so north for some of you but....hmmmmm...snow....Yay:)

Blog ya later-
K

Mostly Randomness

Firstly....I now have very few eyelashes left! The eyebrows are coming in quite strong. In fact, I think I'm going to have to pluck them even! But the eyelashes are getting very spotty. My upper lash on the right eye has about 10 left and they are all at the outer corner so it is very strange! Fortunately they too are growing back already and there is a short fringe coming in.
And while on the topic of hairs growing back...I am getting a nice fuzzy top to my head these days too! I am hoping that by Christmas it will be filled out enough and maybe a tad longer so I can go everywhere w/out my hat. There are still a few patchy spots but it is definitely coming along:)

Secondly, for the entire month of Oct I received an envelope everyday with no return address and mine printed on a label and inside were 4 pieces to a puzzle! I have been pondering every day who could be sending it...it has been driving all of us crazy actually. We had our suspicions about who it might be but we weren't ever sure. Yesterday I received a card and inside was the last piece to the puzzle and a name finally. It was such a wonderful and kind gift and it gave me something to look forward to every day:) However, a word of warning before you do this for someone...consider wrapping the puzzle pieces or something because they caught on the machines at the post office a lot and unfortunately they completely lost one set of four pieces. The USPS was nice enough to notice it had been opened and lost whatever had been in it and stamp "contents lost"....wasn't that helpful of them?......but it was very cool and a very neat idea too.

Third..I exercised for the first time today....and by that I mean I did my ballet and floor routines that I have been doing for years but not since May....ummm...I'm a bit sore! Not overly as I did not push myself, only do doing 2 sets of reps instead of 3-5 for each exercise and I must say...it is a good sore. I feel much better about me right this second than I have in a while. Ok that sounded quite depressing....I don't want you all to worry, that wasn't what I meant. I mean it was.....but not in the I have been depressed sort of way. If anything I think I have been readjusting mostly. It was as if I was starting to take back some control again. I won that battle. I can now retire to my camp tent, drink a bit of brandy, and then meet with my staff to find out how to best circle the wagons and keep that from ever escalating into all out war but in no hurry as we routed the enemy.

Lastly.......and this is totally random, one of those thoughts that popped into my mind late at night and I have been debating whether or not to share it but ...what the hay...it's actually a legitimate thought....

If it were warm enough....could I legally go without my shirt in public? Not that I would...but....I don't technically have the parts that make it indecent anymore do I? Something I might have done to protest having gotten cancer and that law(I'm guessing) when I was younger, but not anymore, the girls would never forgive me. I am considering bra burning in celebration of everything.....but it hasn't been cold enough consistently yet.

Ok...I think that was it for my brain dump tonight.

Blog ya later-
K

Rock On

And by that I mean so many things. And I will go in reverse of how they have happened chronologically to explain them to you all:)

The girls and I took this day of them already being off to go see HSM3!!! Woohoo....ok, it was ....ok. Not the worst flick I've ever been to but certainly not the best either. However, we ended up meeting a couple of other families at the theater as a few other moms, dads and a grandma had the same idea:) We all sat together and not a spoiler but...a warning.........I cried, as did the two other moms. It was a bitter sweet type of Disney nostalgia that is perfect in these overly explicit times for my girls and every kid out there.

Before that we voted.

I always vote though. I was able to vote in my senior year of high school and I did...but, I have no idea what for specifically, but I know I did. And I have been taking the girls with me ever since they were born. They came with me again today, and they were wonderful. We talked about lots of things...not politics, as we had already made up our minds. I consider it a wonderful privilege to live in a country where we can vote and it makes a difference even. I try and teach and show my girls that by voting. I hope you exercised your privileged right as well.

Lexi has been a bit sick but was able to enjoy her most excellent last volleyball game of the season on Sat. The girls really played their hearts out all season and they all improved. Next year will be fun and we can't wait.

Halloween was great. Lexi went as a gypsy with a friend and Belle went as Hermoine from HP with her BFF. Ed ran the girls around and I sat out in the driveway with my mom and a fire(in our fire pit) and gave out candy. It was a beautiful evening and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

All of those things were varying degrees of cool and so they rocked in different ways.

Anyway....tomorrow will be a very different day.

Blog ya later-
K