I'm still here

Hello, friends, I am still here. I haven't blogged for a while because, well, I just haven't been feeling great. I feel like I am on a roller coaster all the time. Here's how it goes. I get chemo (usually on Fridays) and feel great that day (all the drugs probably help). I usually feel really good the following day. And then it all falls apart for a few days. I start to feel better and have a couple normal days, and then it is back to chemo. This is really starting to wear on me. My bad days are getting worse as the Taxol builds up. I hate it. There are so many things I want to do but cannot. I have five treatments left. Five weeks. I'm so close to being done but the end sometimes seems so far away.

I try to remind myself that things could be worse. It could be so much worse. I haven't had any neuropathy yet. My fingernails haven't turned black and fallen off. I still have some eyelashes and eyebrows. I found my cancer early. I am alive. I have a friend who lost a family member to cancer just over a month after a stage four diagnosis. I am so blessed. And yet sometimes it is so hard to see it.

I continue to be thankful for the times when people let me know they are thinking about me. I was having a bad day yesterday. Like, really bad. But then in the mail came a really encouraging card and beautiful necklace from a wonderful friend I haven't seen in years. What a difference that made. So, Bonnie, thank you!

In other news, my hair is growing like mad. Every morning when I wake up I think I have more fuzz. It is kind of starting to look like a bit of a mess. I looked better with a totally bald head. But I embrace the fuzz and the hair that will follow. I can't wait to have hair again. I still look at women with their hair and long eyelashes and resent them just a little bit.

This week I will have what I anticipate is my last tissue expander fill, which is kind of exciting. I never mind going to the plastic surgeon's office; they are all nice and the filling process is really easy. In the end I'll have had over 20 ounces of saline put into each of my expanders. That's a lot of fluid going into a place where there wasn't any space before. But it is all for a good cause; in the end, my new boobs will be amazing!

That's it from here! I hope everybody had an amazing Christmas (yep, that's when we celebrate the birth of Christ!).