I know it has been a while since I've posted, but I haven't really been inspired in a while. Today I saw some note thing on Facebook about 25 things you didn't know about me so I thought I would compose a list about 25 things that you might not have known about me since cancer.

1) I have a more or less constant ringing in my ears, so if you are talking to me I sometimes can't hear what you are saying. Sometimes I ask you to repeat what you said multiple times & sometimes I act like I heard you because I heard enough to get the gist.

2) I have horrible balance now. I seriously feel like I'm drunk though I have not been drinking.

3) I have short-term memory issues. I think this is Eryck's favorite side effect at times. We can have an argument and hours later I don't remember what it was about so I can't be angry anymore!

4) Don't say, that's ok you won't remember this anyway, that is when I do remember. (Adrya, I'm still upset about my welcome mat!)

5) I remember 3 words the Dr. told me to remember over a year ago (airplane, sandwich, & nickel) but I can't remember why I walked into a room.

6) All of my long-term memories are intact so I don't mind as much about the short term.

7) I have lists about EVERYTHING!!!! If it is not on my list, I won't remember it. If, God forbid, I were to lose my lists, it would feel like my world is ending. I currently have 3 lists on my desk.

8) I have other visual reminders throughout the house for things that I may forget. For example, I have a note on the fridge that I put up when I feed Joe so Eryck knows that I've done it. It is pointless to ask me, I won't remember if I did or not.

9) I sometimes check to see if the doors are locked multiple times because I get distracted and don't remember if I have checked or not or if they were or not.

10) I have to have take pills on my list and cross it off when done or I don't remember if I did or not.

11) I have found that I am better at remembering things that I see than that I hear. If Eryck writes down that he needs coffee creamer and I see it, I'm more likely to remember it when I am out than if he just says "I need coffee creamer" (This does not apply to a normal store run, I can guarantee you there are lists for that)

12) I forget to eat. especially lunch. I should probably start putting that on my list of things to do. I always forget to eat lunch. Breakfast is easy, I've always loved breakfast and it is shortly after I get up. Dinner is at a set time and it starts being cooked when we feed Joe (He is on a schedule with an alarm set). Lunch is not scheduled or on a list. It often gets forgotten until my body says "I'm out of energy get something NOW!"

13) I dislike eating in general now. I never thought I would say that statement. Food seriously annoys me. I don't like it. If I could, I would stop eating altogether. (Nothing to do with body issues, it is more of a food issue)

14) There is one kind of cereal I do like so breakfast is good, but it has to be that type and brand of cereal. It is a generic brand at Aldi and the name brand makes me sick. I could seriously eat this all day and be ok with it. It is ALWAYS my go to. I will brave the weather for it if I am out of it.

15) I can no longer eat any form of Cheerios. I think I got sick from them too many times that now my body automatically rejects them.

16) Same thing happens with cottage cheese. I only lost it once though so I don't know why.

17) I can't eat eggs. I think it is the same reason as the cheerios. Especially scrambled eggs. Now, even the smell makes me sick. I miss scrambled eggs. I can occasionally eat a deviled egg or plain hard boiled eggs. I have to be careful though, it is not always a good idea.

18) I can usually eat Macaroni Salad now. It took a while for that. I can not eat Potato Salad though. I can eat potatoes though so I don't understand that at all.

19) Did I mention, I hate eating? Lunch is the worst meal of the day. I HATE lunch! As previously mentioned that I often forget it so by the time I remember I have no desire to make anything so I usually have cereal. This makes me nervous because I worry about running out of cereal or milk before my grocery run. I can't handle not having the one cereal I can eat on hand. Even on the rare occasion I do remember, I often choose cereal anyway because nothing sounds good.

20) Sweets are a different story. I can eat sweets. I think one of the reasons I survived cancer was because of Susie Chaffin's brownies that she made me. I can eat sweets with no problem. It is real food that gives me issues.

21) I also really like pancakes. I love when we do breakfast for dinner! This does not include syrup. Syrup makes me sick (It always has), but now the smell does too.

22) I'm scared of losing my Social Security. I had to renew the papers before Christmas (Great Christmas gift) and I still haven't heard back. I wouldn't mind going back to work, but I don't think I can yet. I haven't thought of a single job that I could do successfully right now.

23) Most of my day consists of puttering around the house and doing things to try and get back to the way I was before I got sick or at least cope with the way things are now. I am trying to perfect my list system so I can deal with the memory thing. I'm trying to learn new things so I can learn how to remember things. I am also trying work on my balance.

24) This list was both easier and harder to make than I thought it would be.

25) I forgot to eat so I need to go have breakfast now that it is almost lunchtime.  Yet another reason lunch bothers me.

Got the News

Thank you to everyone that reads this post and has been sending your prayers. After a very anxious week we got the news from the doctor at 9:30 this morning. Much earlier than expected. After all of the waiting we found out that I"M STILL IN REMISSION!!!! Needless to say, I am very excited!! Now I don't have to worry till July!

Still in Remission?

Greetings all!!

I realize that it has been a little over a year since I posted so I guess I wasn't very good at keeping things updated. I do apologize for that and I will try and do another quick catch up.

I made it the whole way through chemo and successfully beat my brain tumor!! YEAH!!!!

On the same day that I got the news, we found out that mom has breast cancer. I mean literally... the same day. Boo!! She has since had surgery and is currently finishing up chemo treatments (she only has 2 left!!) then she has a month off before starting radiation.

I have been taking care of mom and trying to improve on myself. Cancer had left me weak and that isn't a word I ever want to use to describe myself. Therefore, I am trying to do what I can to change that fact. While I am still not "normal," I have made vast improvements over where I was at the end of cancer treatments. For example, I can now:

• Get around without a wheel chair
• Drive a car
• Go to the store by myself
• Clean most of the house
• Do most of the cooking (still don't like it though!)
• Stand up from the floor
• Change my clothes while standing (unless I'm wearing socks)
• Put most shoes on without sitting (especially in flip flop weather)
• Walk at a decent pace
• Walk a decent distance (no marathons in my immediate future, but I can walk a mile at a moderate pace)

And I improve a little bit everyday. I am walking and being more active in general and that is helping my overall well being. It is to the point that I am starting to feel like being a "normal" person again might just happen.

There is just one problem. Up until today all of my MRI's have confirmed that my cancer is gone and I am in remission. Today, I had a follow-up MRI and there was an anomaly. The radiologist stated that my MRI was clear and that I am still in remission. My oncologist does not quite agree.

Looking at the MRI there is a very slight change in the size of my tumor/scar tissue. It is a very small difference and while I am not trained to read an MRI, I did have trouble seeing the difference between today and last October. It is quite possible that this change is due to the MRI machine itself. I used a different machine than I have in the past and this one has a stronger magnet. That may account for the slight change. This machine was more powerful, felt different when I was getting it, and it reprogrammed my shunt (which past MRI's haven't done). This change is like looking at a TV show in SD then the same thing in HD. It is mostly the same but it is still different. Because of this, he is unsure if my tumor is growing or if it is just the difference I described above. My doctor is a wonderful and thorough doctor and would like to get more opinions on the subject. As a result, he is taking it to the tumor board on Monday to review it. If they agree with the radiologist, then I will just follow-up in July like they normally would and all is right with the world (at least for the next 3 months). If they agree that there has been a slight change, then I will need to go in for a PET scan to get more information.

Needless to say, I'm a bit worried. Please keep me in your prayers as this is weighing heavily on my mind. I have a feeling that I am not going to get much sleep waiting for the decision this week. I must admit that I was hoping he would just come in and say that I was still in remission. I feared that he would say that I wasn't. I never thought that he wouldn't be sure one way or the other. It doesn't help that this week I was having dreams that my test would say that my cancer was back and I would end up doing radiation at the same time as mom. While the doctor specifically said "no that won't happen" I still just have this feeling and I don't like it.

As you can see, I need a lot of prayer. Please pray not only for things to go well, but for me to fully give this worry to God and not be miserable about it for the next week while I obviously can't do anything about it.

Thank you all!

Catch Up

Greetings all!

Sorry it has been so long since I have posted. I realize now that my desire to "catch up" with my blog posts is the very thing that is keeping me from blogging at all. Therefore I will do a quick catch up so that I can be current.

After daddy's birthday, we had a very nice Christmas. We had family over for dinner and unwrapped presents. It was very nice and I greatly enjoyed the festivities.

Next came our visit to Mo'town. We were supposed to go around Christmas, but my PCP decided to be a jerk. I'm not really going to get into it (if you want the story I will tell you sometime), but he caused our trip to be delayed until New Year. (Needless to say we have a new PCP now) We had a very nice trip and enjoyed visiting with Eryck's mom and sister. We had a wonderful time and I'm looking forward to getting healthy so it can be repeated.

In January, I had my port put in. For those of you that do not know what it is, it is this handy device that was placed in my chest on the right side just below the collar bone. It makes it so that the doctors can draw blood or give me medicine without worrying about sticking me with a needle every time. While I did not enjoy first getting it placed, it has definitely made things drastically easier. I have come to love it.

I had a meeting with the oncology doctor around this time. We found out that, to use the doctor's words, my tumor "shrank dramatically." I'm so excited!!! I could even tell it shrank and I can't read an MRI. Please pray that things continue to go that way.

January also began my chemo treatments. I go in on a Wednesday to the cancer center and I'm admitted to Shadyside hospital. On Wednesday, I receive my first dose of chemo and it lasts 6 hours. This isn't too bad and I usually sleep through it. It is an IV and goes through my port. Then on Thursday and Friday I take the other of my chemo drugs. This drug also goes through my port, but it only takes an hour per session. I'm usually ok with my treatments themselves, but get sick afterwards. As I just had another treatment, please pray that this doesn't happen again. I have been hospitalized for fever both times and February was REALLY bad and I had a cold on top of everything. It has postponed my treatments to where I do not get done until July now. We are hoping and praying that nothing else goes wrong.

I hope everyone feels caught up now and I will try to post more frequently my daily journey though I must admit is quite boring in comparison, or at least I hope so :)

Kendra's Visit and Daddy's Birthday

As I mentioned before, Kendra & family surprised me by arriving in town and being at the house when we arrived home from radiation. I was excited to see my sister, nieces, & nephew. They came into town to see my dad for his 70th birthday.

On December 14th we celebrated daddy's 70th birthday. Kendra went out with dad during the day while the munchkins hung out with Granny, Eryck, & I. We had a lot of fun with the kids. While they were out, they picked Andrew up from the airport so we really had the whole family. It was really nice to see everyone. That evening, we had a nice dinner for dad. Uncle Butch came over to add to the family circle and mom made a fabulous dinner.

We spent the rest of the weekend enjoying each other's company. It is better explained in the pictures below. I also enjoyed having a nice conversation  with my brother-in-law about my health and what was to come. Now as promised, here are the pictures.

 

The Birthday Boy enjoying his birthday present.

Kendra looking up some information.

 

 



 

Nellie relaxing.

 

John Carlos and I reading. I'm not sure which of us loved it more.

 

Another picture of us reading a joke book.

 

I let Gracie try on my new hair. These are her from the front (above) and back (below).

 

After this, it became known as my Tina Turner wig.

 

Anna finished eating so she could spend more time baking with Granny.

 

Andrew taking turns playing cards with Anna and John.

 

John playing video games with Uncle Eryck.

 

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end as a waved goodbye from the door.



Update on Radiation

There was something I forgot to say about radiation so I thought I would state it here.

After I finished my last session of radiation, I had to sit in the waiting room for a little bit when I was waiting to see the doctor. I showed Eryck the pictures from the last post. While I was talking to him about my experience, the other people in the waiting room started asking me questions too! The radiation people also brought my mask out and gave it to me. I explained to Eryck and those around me what I went through and how radiation felt. Those in the waiting room were very glad that I shared. They said things like "My husband is claustrophobic, no wonder he gets soooo worked up!" It made me very glad that I was able to help people understand what their loved ones were going through. It was also nice to see the look on their faces that showed that they understood, I haven't seen that since I was teaching.

On a current note, I'm watching the Superbowl and the commercials suck except the Clydesdale horses, that was a tear jerker. Best thing we've seen tonight (game included!)

Radiation

Sorry that it has been so long since I have posted. It has been far too long and I would like to get current.

As was started in my last post, I began radiation treatments at the end of October. The first one was really bad and I ended up hospitalized, thankfully they got better after that. At first my treatments were a little difficult though they were considered the easy ones. Due to the swelling in my head from surgery, the mask that was made did not fit. They actually had to tape it down. I did find that I had received some good advice from someone at my church who had experienced a similar situation, at least she had to wear the mask too. It helped to take a nerve pill before I went in and to have your mind occupied elsewhere. It really helped you to make it through.

Not too long into the treatments, we got further test results back. We found out that I did not have exclusively the type of tumor that we thought that I had. This was very good and kind of bad news all at once. The bad news was that my treatments would be more difficult and would have to include my spine as well. The good news is, the prognosis is considerably better. I could potentially have a lot more time ahead of me. My tumor is actually a mix of 2 types and therefore more rare than anything they had previously thought. In the end though, we ended up agreeing to the more difficult course of action that gave the better prognosis. As a result, I had another MRI done and we had to make a new mask. I will include pictures of the new mask below. Radiation ended up not being so bad. There were days, like the making of the new mask, or when they needed to take x-rays that I hated, but overall it wasn't horrible. They even rearranged the schedule so that we could have Thanksgiving off.

Thanksgiving ended up being really nice. We had my Mom, Dad, Eryck, Grandma, Uncle Butch, Lisa, Eric, Chandler, Chase, Tatum, and even Eryck's mom Erin for the holiday. Mom made a fabulous meal and we all had a good time visiting. The kids even enjoyed going for a ride in Uncle Kenny's bucket truck. It was a very nice day. I really enjoyed getting to see everyone. I didn't like that I had to take a nap time out, but everyone was very understanding and the day went off very well. I was sad to see everyone go, but knew that they must.

That Monday, we resumed what became my regular radiation schedule. We would check in upstairs at JRoc (That is what they call radiation, not sure why). The ladies there were very nice. They always greeted me by name. It reminded me a lot of the theme song to cheers:

Sometimes you want to go

Where everybody knows your name,
and they're always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see,
our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows
Your name

You wanna go where people know,
people are all the same,
You wanna go where everybody knows
your name.

I really liked conversing with them a lot. Then after Eryck parked the truck we would head downstairs where we would ask for Stephanie. She (or one of the other wonderful nurses such as Mary) would give me my premeds. Once my medicine had been taken care of, I would head into radiation. This would last about 30 minutes. I think Eryck eventually read every magazine they had in the waiting room, even the girlie ones. :)

Mom did take me to some of my appointments. On one in particular, we got several pieces of good news: I did not need a blood transfusion, radiation was going to end a week early, and the wig center at the Hillman was going to donate a wig to me. They felt that no one should be without hair on Christmas and since only one would fit me, if I wanted they would give it to me free of charge. I couldn't believe it and even started crying. They gave me a $400 wig for free (after of course they received some help on the cost by charity organizations). I am continually amazed at people's generosity. As a result of how good everyone had been to me, my mom was wonderful and made cookies for the 2 ladies that enabled me to get the wig.

My time of radiation was drawing to a close. It ended on December 13, 2012, the day before daddy's birthday. Mom was nice enough to make cookies for everyone there too, she even got a marriage proposal from one of the ladies up front they were so good. :) It was sad to say goodbye to everyone, but I am glad that radiation is over. We even had a plesant surprise when we arrived home on that last day, my sister and her kids had come for a visit!! That will be my next post. Below are the pictures taken of me on my last day of radiation. Enjoy!