Well crap.

One of my holiday gifts from Dave was an appointment to get a new tattoo.

We got up, and ate and ventured out into the horrible wintry weather for my appointment, only to sit there and wait for a half hour and finally be told that the artist wasn't going to make it in because of the weather.

I really wanted 3 weeks before chemo starts again for it to heal.  Oh well.  I got it rescheduled for next Saturday.

The other big part of my gift was a massage appointment, though, and that did NOT get canceled because of the bad weather yesterday.

It was lovely to finally get a massage after a full year.  The last time I went was right before I was diagnosed.

Hopefully, I can go again soon.

We had a very nice holiday week last week, with Solstice on Monday, and a nice fire in the fire pit.  Some day, I will take time off for winter solstice.

Then, Christmas eve was great, with friends and Dave's son joining us.  Dinner turned out perfectly, and we had a fun time playing Cards Against Humanity.

Christmas day, we went to a matinee showing of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens."  Loved it.  Went and visited Dave's dad briefly, then home to make Christmas dinner (sauerbraten that had been marinating for 2 days, spaetzle, and spinach souflee).

The huge storm started yesterday.  Dave got groceries while I stayed home and put away all of the holiday decorations.

It was 64 when we got up in the morning, and it was dark and rainy all day   The wind kept getting stronger, and colder, and there was flooding here and there.

Then, overnight, it went down into the 30s, and the rain has now turned to slush, sleet, and freezing rain.  The wind is brutal.

It's supposed to stay cold today, and the precipitation is supposed to keep coming, and if it changes to snow, we could have 6 inches of snow by mid day tomorrow.

That probably means that I won't have to be at work until 10.  I hope, anyway.

Meantime, we are home, and safe, and hoping the power stays on.

I am off to make some hot tea.  Hope my readers are enjoying Sunday.

Just another Sunday

It's nice to not really have anything much to blog about!

The errands are done, the holiday groceries are procured, and the cleaning has commenced.

It's a gloomy, windy day, but there is no sign of winter.  It's going to be in the 60s today.

I have managed to see all of the holiday programming that I want to see every year, and the greeting cards are starting to accumulate.

The only thing that's wrong with this holiday season is the morale at work.

I had typed out lots of details here, but decided not to share all of it.

Suffice to say, we're used to being treated pretty well at the holidays.

There were no bonuses, but we were given a couple of nice, fun parties, one of which had awesome prizes, such as my coffee maker, and the two days off I won.

This year, we are being punished for the inappropriate actions of some of our co workers who have all since been fired...months ago.

(they thought "dirty Santa" meant DIRTY Santa at last year's luncheon)

The Tulsa office gets to have their parties, and our office gets absolutely nothing at all.

No expression of gratitude and appreciation for a year of hard work.

So, yeah, it's unpleasant to hear all of the grumbling, and to feel grumbly myself.

I was doing sort of okay with it, but it started to bother me at the end of last week, when some stuff happened that just made it all worse.

There was a showing of blatant and overwhelming favoritism, with people leaving work in the afternoon to go party together, and then lying about it....and then with some taking off work Friday to go to the Tulsa office for THEIR party.

The rest of us had to stay at our desks and work while they all went off and partied on the clock.

Yeah.
Nasty.

Anyway....aside from the annoying low morale at work, everything's going well.

I just keep trying to focus on the good stuff that happened at work this year, like people pitching in and helping me out so much.

I am clearly not one of the favorites, but I am extremely grateful that I didn't have to go unpaid, and I didn't have to leave my job because of my  treatment process.

That helps.

Wrapping and packing and decking the halls

I have the gifts ready to wrap and get shipped out tomorrow.

The tree is up, and Dave actually helped to trim it this year (it's only the second year we've had an almost full sized Yuletide tree).

Thinking back on things....last week marked the one year anniversary of my first biopsies, and first round of incredibly bad news.

Little did I know that the news would get far worse before it was over, in stages.

First, there was the MRI and the second biopsy, and discovery of a different kind of cancer in the left breast.

Then, after the first of the year, there was the PET scan that revealed metastases.

Ugh.

At least there was the little ray of good news when the genetic test was negative.

Here, a year later, I still feel acute anxiety when I think about it all, even though, at this point on the calendar, and at this point in the process, I have nothing left to fear.

It's been a rough road, and I am pretty sure my adrenal glands, which were already "iffy," have gotten the workout of their lives.

But really?  The worst of it is over.

Almost all of the cancer is gone (or possibly all of it, we're not sure), and the breast tissue where it all came from is gone, so if I ever do get another cancer diagnosis, it will have to come from somewhere else.

If I ever do get another cancer diagnosis, I will have been through it all already, and, while it will be stressful and scary, nothing about it will be "new."

But from here on out, I am going to choose to have faith that none of that will ever happen.

I'll die of old age, comfy in my bed, way off in the future some time.

And right now, the only thing that matters is finding the packing tape, an appropriately sized box, and getting that box taped up.

Hope this Sunday, gentle reader, is pleasant for you as well.

Preparing for the holidays

Now that we know the news is good, I am able to relax a little and enjoy the holiday season.

The website where I used to get my ham has been absorbed by another website, and the price has been raised, so I found a ham on Amazon.

We will be placing that order this week.  It's still crazy expensive, to my way of thinking.... $71 for a freaking ham.

But other websites (including the one mentioned above) have them for $90-140.

I got the holiday cards addressed yesterday, and have composed a letter to insert into those that are going to people who are either not on social media, or who, for whatever reason, need an old school update on what has gone on this past year.

I needed to wait until we got scan results, but now the mailing will be done this coming week.

Today, I'd like to get the floors swept and mopped, and maybe put up some decorations, but the afternoon is going to involve meeting friends for a beer to celebrate my good news, so I am not sure time will allow for those tasks

I have some modest gifts picked out for my sister and brother in law, and need to get something figured out for my brother pretty quickly so that we can get that package shipped next week some time.

I also have to think about what to get for Dave.

It's all good!

OH, and I forgot to mention that the trip to the physical therapy clinic was really aggravating.

We sat there and waited and waited, and no one ever came out for me.  It turned out that the front desk staff had me mixed up with someone else, and they didn't even know I was there, even even though I signed in when I arrived.

Then, the therapist only took measurements and insisted that I had to come back.

SO I have TWO more appointments scheduled for before the end of the year. What a pain in the butt. It's not exactly in a convenient location for us, and I have to save my time off to go to chemo, so the time that I need to go to therapy, I will have to make up by skipping lunches and so on.

And the sleeve I am supposed to get is probably not covered by insurance.

Insurance will pay for fake strap on boobs, but not for something that is medically necessary.

Weird. Dave is working on getting them to approve it, and my lymphedma is not that bad, so I am not being "damaged" by having to continue to wait to get a sleeve.

Midweek blog post in case anyone is waiting for news....

"What do you want?  Good news or bad news?"

That was how my doctor started the "reveal" of today's scans.

Dave said he knew right away that it was good news, or the doc wouldn't have presented it that way.

I, however, was so full of anxiety and fear that I wasn't sure until he said "Great, because good news is what I have."

To sum up, the bone metastases have resolved and are turning to scar tissue.

The lymph metastases in the breast bone and clavicle area are completely gone.

The liver metastases are 90% gone.  All that is left is about a dime sized lesion in the liver, the nature of which is uncertain.

SO, since liver biopsying and liver surgery is a special kind of difficult, according to the doc, we will resume chemotherapy in January for 3 treatments (actually it turns out to be 9 because we will do the same protocol that we did at the end here recently where each treatment is broken into 3 weekly sessions with a week off in between).

We are winning.