Weekend update...

Yikes, winter has returned to Ohio. I don't think we had any snow but it was really cold here today...hopefully it will be warmer as we get into the week. I hope all our C'ville friends made it home safe from Florida....wish we could have been there with you - can't wait to hear how much fun you had!! I could really use a trip to the beach right about now....just the idea of walking in the sand along the ocean sounds so good.

I am officially tired of being tired....I think I really did good resting this past week and I was expecting to feel much better by the weekend but I am still tired....I guess doing this type of surgery after chemo was harder on me than I anticipated...I am glad that I waited an extra few weeks after chemo to try to build up some strength...I think that was a good decision and I really did feel good during those weeks and had some good times.

I had a wonderful surprise visitor this weekend. My friend Nancy Cox called me on Saturday from the road. She and her 3 kids were on their way to southern Indiana to visit family so she wanted to see if they could stop for a visit. Nancy and I became friends when we worked together in Crawfordsville and we have not seen each other since 1999...she and her family moved to NY a few years ago but we have kept in touch. They were only here for a very short time but it was SO GREAT to see her and get to know her kids...we really appreciated them stopping by - it made my day!!!! (One of the pics above is from this weekend..the other pic is with my Mom before she left...we miss her!!)

Saturday evening was Strawberry Hill Dinner Club so Bret and I went to that and Tyler babysat Jillian. Speaking of Tyler....he has been a teenager for less than a month and has totally adopted the teenager attitude...I was about to whip his butt yesterday....doesn't want to do chores...doesn't want to babysit...well, Jillian didn't want him as a babysitter either so we left the house on a pleasant note...luckily, she fell asleep about five minutes after we left so it was fine. I can only hope we can make it thru these teenage years...as soon as we are done with him we can just start all over with Jillian....God give us strength!!!

I have decided that staying at home is giving me too much time on the computer. When I met with Dr. B. this last time he mentioned that he was still considering stopping my Herceptin treatments based on a trial done in Finland that women that were treated with Herceptin for 3 months did as well as women that were treated for one year. This was a very small group and since it was in Finland I cannot find anyone on line that has done this. The main concern with Herceptin treatment is that it can cause congestive heart failure so he is basically saying that he doesn't want to take the chance of this happening to me and since I have done so well and my body reacted to the chemo so well that we may just be "overtreating" me. I am not comfortable with stopping mainly because of my Oncotype score (risk of recurrence score) that came back 80 (30% chance of recurrence) out of 100. Thousands of people have taken this test and I cannot find anyone online that has scored higher than a 50. The highest score I have seen behind mine is 53...this is actually a man that lives in Canton, Ohio that was just diagnosed with breast cancer this year. He told me that his oncologist told him he had never seen a score that high and was VERY concerned. I am going to push the issue with Dr. B. when I see him later this month. I want to see if Genentech (the company that conducts this test) will show us a graph or something that shows how people have scored. If I am the person that has the highest score ever than I would think that they would be interested in following my case or doing more testing to see why mine came back so high (most of the scores that I have seen are between 8 and 23). Anyway, this has been my obsession the last few days and it is not good. I pray at night that I can just let this go and know that we have done everything possible to get rid of all the cancer....if there are any other cells floating around I am hoping that eating better and exercising will help my body fight them and keep them from settling somewhere like my liver or brain (where most breast cancers spread). So what am I going to do with my time...I can't seem to focus long enough to read books so I am thinking that I will try to get my kids pictures organized...I used to do a great job when we just had Tyler but now I am 5 years behind and every time I see those albums in the basement it makes me feel bad...Sounds like a good project.

It does seem a little easier as time moves on not to worry constantly about recurrence or dying too young. The last couple weeks have been hard with my online support group. We have had three women in their 30s lose their battle with this horrible disease and it just seems so unfair to see lives cut so short. There was a another woman that posted yesterday that she will probably be going into hospice this week because they have just run out of options to stop her cancer...it was so sad to read her post but she wanted to write something to all of us fighting this disease while she was still able to...she talked about how we all hope that we will see a cure for this in our lifetime but she knows now that this will not happen for her.....I just keep praying that I WILL see one in my lifetime so that people will stop losing their wifes, daughters, mommies, sisters and friends to this rotten disease. Now, I know you all are going to tell me to stop reading this stuff but there is so much positive news out there and good advice and it really has been a comfort to be able to correspond with other women that really do understand what I am feeling or thinking...

I did conquer yet another "fear" this weekend...I was always afraid to go out with a baseball cap on because I have read about so many women being called men or "sir" because you don't see any hair. I finally decided to try it out on Saturday. I took Tyler to the grocery store with me and I told him my "fear" as we walked in...he just rolled his eyes and said any man would be nuts to wear a peach shirt like mine...anyway we made it all thru the busy store and not one person called me "sir" so that was a relief (maybe the bright lipstick helped out a little also)....more options in headwear now - YEAH!

Have a good week and thanks for reading - love to all! (survey at the top being conducted by Bret....not my idea...)