Wednesday, June 12, 2013

A Little Update...



Hi, Everyone.  How long has it been since I've blogged?  Guessing a little longer than usual as I'm starting to get a few emails that read, "Just wondering how you are."

Well, back in the old days (upon diagnosis), I would live and breathe by my tumor marker numbers.  Now, not so much.  As long as my doctors know what they are and I feel pretty good, that's good enough for me.  And, I'm now learning, they're not always that reliable anyway.  A cat scan trumps blood work any day.   With that said, my Mother's Day card read, "Congratulations!  Your CA125 was 1/2 of what it was last month!!!"  My husband had called my doctor behind my back to find out my latest blood work.  Sneaky guy.  Then I found out this week that they dropped another 50%.  Let's hope those blood tests are a little reliable, huh?!

I think I just had my 10th or 11th weekly treatment (you do lose count after awhile) and I am still shaving my legs.  And I still have my eyelashes and my eyebrows (hallelujiah!)  Which means, yes you guessed it, I believe I shaved my head a little too soon!  All the signs were there like before (hair falling out like cotton candy, follicles hurting).  So my girlfriend shaved it for me.  I did think about cutting it really short, but feared I would really like it, and then I would be really sad when it did fall out.  But my hair is not falling out!   One of the girls who attended our His Flower Girls class last month is an accomplished photographer.  She asked if she could take my portrait.  Of course, when she showed up, I was wearing my wig (which I love by the way) and my pink paisley bucket hat.  She looked at me and said, "You know I don't want to shoot you with any of that on."  Of course not.  So off it went as we headed into the backyard.  She showed me a photo of a model she had recently shot and told me to strike the same pose.   I was a tad bit uncomfortable, but hey, she did drive all the way from Malibu to shoot me out of the kindness of her heart.   She emailed me the photo that night, and with all of the photo-shopping, wrinkle elimination, soft lighting (the works!) she infused into that photo, I didn't look half bad.  I will never frame it, but I would love to see it on the back of a book jacket one day.  :)

I also met a new cancer buddy.  We actually schedule our Monday morning treatments together.  Never done that before.  But I fell in love with the guy instantly (along with his wife).  His name is John and we had a great lunch yesterday getting to know each other.  He's actually coming to our "can't do cancer without God" monthly group this Friday.  All us girls and John.  Can't wait.
  
OK, enough cancer talk.   Want to know what this crazy family did two weekends ago?  We got an imposter!  We have been missing Creamy like crazy and we found an imposter all the way  in Palm Springs.  How could we resist this face:

(bad photo quality, came off of my son's phone)

She's three years old and her name was Deseo something-something (a very long name as she was supposed to breed future generations of the Tonkinese line).    Well, one week in this house, and her new name is now Smeow.  Yes, you read that right.  (The S stands for "silky", "sweet" and "soft" all combined, and the meow comes from the worst sounding meow you've ever heard when she finds herself alone).   Hence, Smeow.

She's been here 10 days and is now laying downstairs on the couch with us instead of up on our bed with eyeballs as big as sunflowers.  Which means she's finally making friends with the other two cats in the house and this guy:


(Accidentally "stole" the paper plate the cats eat their dinner off of and then told on himself.)

So with a few animals hanging around this house and a body that feels good most of the week, we head into the summer grateful for every ounce of every day.  (Well, I do anyway.  My kids?  Probably a different story!) 

So here's to a wonderful summer.  Don't let it go by faster than it should.  Stop and smell those gorgeous roses.  Get those toes in the sand (oh, I didn't say that did I?!) and start your day with the One who adores you.

xoxo