2 Down, 6 to Go!

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2011 11:34 AM, EDT

2 Down, 6 To Go!

I planned my college schedule around Days of Our Lives in Tuscaloosa, only to find out that it started half an hour later than it did in Montgomery. That was a HUGE disappointment in my land of new found freedom and independence. That was probably the only Semester I attended class in Tuscaloosa. I was taking English Literature, French, an Art class, and Calculus. I wanted to take English because I almost failed English in high school. If it wasn't for the Canterbury Tales, I probably wouldn't have made it through. Mrs. Sells was a tough cookie, and no one was coasting through that class...little did she know that English was my very own albatross, and that I would rather be in Theater class...studying to be on Days of Our Lives (which I later auditioned for). But Mrs. Sells had a larger impact on me than I was willing to admit. I signed up to take English Lit at Alabama because I had to. It was a prerequisite for any major, and I wanted to get the misery over with. As it turned out, I was the most complimented student in my class, and it was there that I realized that I was "there." I was a semester late, but I was "there." I wrote Mrs. Sells a Thank You note for pushing me, and I will never forget how much she taught me about symbolism, analogies, and metaphorical references. 

I'm sitting in Infusion Room 18, pumped full of steroids and nausea meds (and eating a handful of Gummy Bears!). It seems like just when I started feeling "normal" again after Round 1, it was time to start Round 2. I am grateful for the 3 "normal" days that I had. I was VERY PRODUCTIVE at work, and had a great few days with Nathan and the boys. Round 2 Chemo is ready to go, and I will be saying by the end of the day, "2 down, 6 to go!" Not so much looking forward to Sunday/Monday, but at least Monday is a holiday! Chemo won't be messing with my paycheck next week, so I guess that's one less thing to write about in my 2nd letter to Chemo.  

Mama and I are looking forward to a little R&R today, and of course, catching up on a little Days! You know, you only have to watch it every so often to get caught up! I mean, the Phoenix is still duplicating personalities, and the Bo-Hope-Carly love triangle has just resolved itself...again. Some things never change!...and you have to LOVE that about a good soap opera - even one that buries people alive, brings people back from the dead (over and over), and possess people! See? It really could be worse!

LOVE!

Bean

What's all the BUZZ about?

SUNDAY, JUNE 26, 2011 12:49 PM, EDT

What's all the BUZZ about?

When we were in Radiography school, a class mate Dan Call had this great handlebar mustache - and most likely still does. Nathan grows a full beard every Fall for hunting season (irregardless of whether or not he hunts that season, this is a rite of passage that sends us into a "discussion" year after year). One year during Radiography school, Nathan decided to shave the beard in stages, one of which included a Fu Manchu style get up, and another dedicated to Dan Call's signature handlebar 'stache. The pictures still get a good chuckle out of me. And this was the inspiration for my transitional hairstyles to baldness.

I want to dedicate this posting to a new friend of mine, who was introduced to me through several friends from high school via Facebook. Stephanie Walsh - My MOHAWK transition is dedicated to YOU, my dear! Congrats on your recent clean bill of health, and thank you for sharing your hopeful story of strength with me!

Nathan, Logan, Parker and I had a big, fun party last night! You'll have to take a peek at the Photos tab - CB will only let me post one picture. The idea of course was to make this fun...My hair still isn't falling out in clumps like they said it would ~11 days after my first treatment. But to be honest, I don't do well in areas of my life that are completely out of my control, and this was my way of retaining some of that.

First, I sprayed my hair bright PINK, which is of course my new favorite color. Unfortunately, this is a strict violation of dress code. And while I enjoyed it during the pink hair phase of my "hair party," I couldn't make it work without the green headband! Logan was not a fan of the pink hair! Parker, on the other hand, loved it!

And then came the fun stuff! Nathan shaved my head into a mohawk...something I admittedly have wanted to try as a child of the '80's. If I didn't have cancer, I never would have had the opportunity to try this. Again, dress code and health care occupations go hand in hand, and I can't really push the envelope because I have chosen the management career path. So while I seriously think I ROCKED this look (especially with Logan and Parker in their "Rockin' PINK for my Mom" t-shirts - thanks Tiff!), I had to move on to the next step.

Which brings me to the Sinead O'Connor (I know, poor reference) look. It's too bad my hair is going to fall out from here - I love having tiny little hairs! If it would tay like this, I may not even need a scarf! Logan likes to rub my "fuzzy" head, though it took him a while to warm up to it. And Parker just smiles at me like he thinks it's cool. Secretly, he is thinking, "My mommy ROCKS!"

At church today, a fellow member asked me if I donated my hair to Locks of Love...it was a slightly awkward moment, but she handled it beautifully. I explained a little bit about what I was going through, and she gave me a hug and said, "Good luck to you." Then she turned to Nathan and asked if he was shaving his for sympathy! He was a little caught off-guard. He said to me - "You know I will do that if you want me to, right?" Of course I know that...but I don't need that. Now is the perfect time to rock my individualism...and play around with some new make-up tricks!

XOXO

Celebrity Status

FRIDAY, JUNE 24, 2011 9:41 PM, EDT

Celebrity Status

Nathan and I were lying in bed the other night, and I went back to Caring Bridge to edit something I had posted minutes earlier. I came back into the bed room and proclaimed, “I have fans! In the ten minutes after I posted that journal entry in the cancer blog, over 15 people have looked at my site!”

Nathan: You know people can sign up for notifications when you post, right?

Me: Well, yeah, but I didn't know people were doing it! That’s cool!  

Nathan: That’s kind of creepy if you think about it.

I went to the bathroom, and returned to find Nathan looking at his iPhone. “So are you one of my creepy followers?”

Nathan: Yeah…I am.

I smiled. 16 fans, I thought…so cool.

I don’t know how many avid email-notification readers I have, but Caring Bridge does tell me that I average 1000 hits/week, which I think is pretty fun. So in my grandiose head, I figure at 1000 hits/week, I have to have a couple hundred people getting email notifications, which I think is AWESOME!  I’ve already said that this has been  therapeutic for me, but what I really appreciate is the sense of normalthat is has given us. Nathan hasn’t had to be a PR Rep for my disease status (which he never would have been comfortable with in any capacity), and Caring Bridge allows you a way to stay updated without feeling like you are intruding. And there’s nothing creepy about that!

Unfortunately with fans also come critics. I knew this would happen when I started the cancer blog, so I hope that I can handle it with grace and style. I have already asked Mama not to ask me to censor the blog again, and she has politely refrained from doing so. I appreciate this, because as much as she doesn’t care for the cursing in the earlier entries, it was certainly an honest reflection of my feelings at the time. Necessary? Probably not, but I’ve always been a bit of a potty mouth (okay, a BIG potty mouth). I simply like the English language…every last bit of it. And quite frankly, I have censored myself from dropping any f-bombs…and anyone who knows me over the last 15 years knows that ILOVE an appropriately inappropriate f-bomb. I mean, even Mama knows I love a good f-bomb. She was with me once driving from Wisconsin to Alabama in what appeared to be the most unfriendly of road trips EVER! We stopped at a truck stop and called Tiff from a pay phone…yeah, I don’t remember what year it was, but we clearly didn’t have a cell phone, or the battery died because I distinctly remember using the payphone – I remember the pay phone because while I was on it, this dirty old man dropped some change on the floor beside me so that he could look up my skirt. Mama thought it was funny, and I thought that was funny. Anyway, Tiff was like, “Where are y’all?” And I looked around until I found a sign, “We’re in Effingham.” Except Effingham came out like “F-ing-ham.” Mama and I laughed for the next few hours about F-ing-ham…sometimes that’s where I feel like cancer should go – F-ing-ham. The point of that, of course, is that although I have politely obliged Mama’s request to not use profanity so much in the cancer blog, I have never been a big fan of censorship…if the mood suits it, the potty mouth will come out in full force again.

Another one of my critics “good griefed” me for using theComic Sans font in one of my posts. Come on, now, it’s a font for crying out loud! You’re going to criticize my font choice? My rebuttal here is this: I choose a font style and color to suit my entry…it’s no less than an extra description of my mood. You who wore the mood ring in high school ought to identify with this need for self-expression. And furthermore, I encourage you (and you and you) to be more creative in the way of your font and color choices for your own guest book postings…How’s that for critique? :-)

Somewhere between fans and critics, I feel as though I’ve reached celebrity status. When you think of celebrities, you think of US magazine (don’t act like you don’t read it). And what do we see in US magazine? We see celebrities parading around in front of paparazzi with their swag. Swag is free stuff that celebrities get because they are viewed as highly influential. You see your favorite Kardashian walking around with the new Chloe bag or Prada sunglasses, and you just have to have them, right? And when you see the price tag in this economy, you find something comparable in appearance, right? That’s how swag-vertisements (I’m coining that phrase…clever, isn’t it?) work. The person who can afford it most gets it for free, uses their highly influential celebrity to make us want it, and we wait until it goes on sale at TJ Maxx to purchase it! But the truth of the matter is we will most likely never be privy to swag. We’ll have to work for our labels…or we get cancer. Cancer patients, like the Kardashians, get showered with swag!

I attended a class this week, compliments of the American Cancer Society and the National Cosmetology Association, called Look Good…Feel Better. This is a free make-up class. Now, I think that I am the last person who needs a make-up class. I take pretty good care of my skin, and I’ve always been asked to apply make-up to other people. In high school, it was a running joke within the Sisterhood that I learned a new make-up trick when “I read it in a magazine.” It was kind of my catch-phrase. To be honest, Mama has always applied gorgeous eye make-up, and I learned most of what I know by watching her (and not just about make-up). And when I went to college in T-town, I would do other people’s eyes all the time. So to be honest, I could have taught this Look Good…Feel Better course, and the instructor even said that in the class! But I was more interested in keeping my classmate Doris in stitches. She might be my biggest fan! The class was fun…a nice little lunch break. But what I loved most about it? I walked away with a $300 swag bag of new Chanel make-up, Avon moisturizers, Mary Kay cleansers, Estee Lauder and Clinique products! These companies have paired with the ACS and NCA to send cancer patients home with a swag bag that makes them feel better about their looks during treatment! Super cool!

And that’s not all the swag that cancer patients are eligible for! There’s a whole world of swag out there that you wouldn’t know about unless you had to…As it turns out, there is A LOT of charity related to cancer that isn’t related to medical research. Through the American Cancer Society, I am eligible to get a free wig. I wasn’t planning to get a wig, but I am a sucker for free stuff. And the more I think about it, the more I think there might be a time where I would feel more comfortable with a head full of hair. When my niece Liv found out that I have cancer, she asked Jayme,” Does that mean Bean gets to wear a wig? She should go with crimson.” I’ve always been a fan of crimson (ROLL TIDE ROLL!), so I’m thinking Liv may be right…and I could always use a little extra sass!

There are companies who charter free private flights for cancer patients to get to their cross-country treatments. So for people like me who are traveling to MD Anderson for a 2nd opinion for my funky-tumor in July, there are options that don’t involve flying on a crowded airplane at the time that I am least able to fight infection. And options that allow me to focus my finances toward my medical care as opposed to multiple flights.    

Cleaning for a Reason is a not for profit organization that accepts applications for 4 monthly house cleanings for patients currently in treatment. As a 32 year old mother of 2 children under 3, I am thinking that this swag best suits my needs!

There are several breast cancer walks that I have participated in. I’ve walked in honor of Granny, who is a Survivor. I always considered it to be an honor to walk for her, and now I have a unique opportunity…I have an opportunity to give back. One of my team members at Jewish Hospital Medical Center South (shout out to Amber Cruise) has become Team Captain and created TEAM BEAN in my honor.  I’m a team – WHAT AN HONOR! Anyone in the Louisville area can participate by walking in the Making Strides for Breast Cancer walk on Sunday, October 23, 2011. That will be one month after my chemo treatments end, and the Sunday prior to my surgery. I plan to walk my heart out that day because it will be the last exercise I will get before I am introduced to Shelby and Yvette…after which I will be in recovery for about 2 months or more. If you’d like to donate to a great cause, or if you’d like to walk with us, please join TEAM BEAN at http://makingstrides.acsevents.org/site/TR/?team_id=978477&pg=team&fr_id=36122 . The t-shirt will say TEAM BEAN across the back! So cool! 

Since D-Day, I have recruited fans and critics, scored some swag, inspired a line of t-shirts (get your own Support Bean clothing and accessories atwww.cafepress.com/SupportourBean ), and inspired a fundraiser team. I am pretty sure that secures my celebrity status! It’s really a damn shame that Oprah’s show ended! I could have inspired so many people!

Alabama Rain

TUESDAY, JUNE 21, 2011 8:55 PM, EDT

Alabama Rain

The first time I met Nathan was in a small classroom in Radiography school. I, destined to be an over-achiever in my new-found direction, was sitting on the front row in the required uniform of white scrubs and white athletic shoes. I found out the hard way that this dress code was not strictly enforced, and I was only one of a handful who took it seriously on Day 1...and nary a day after. We were all new to "xray school," but the other 15 students had an edge over me - I had migrated to Wisconsin just 4 months earlier. My outright intent was to help Mama find a house...my silent intent was to find my purpose. I needed to feel like I was making a difference. I needed to feel like I was doing something great. Mama suggested Radiography - when I found that I could help people while blending art and science, I was intrigued. I always felt that it would be a stepping stone, but to what I didn't know.  At any rate, there I was on the front row, ready to over-achieve. 

The second I opened my mouth, my thick Southern accent filled the room. For the first time since I moved to Wisconsin, someone laughed at me...andnot because I was funny. It wasn't even a sweet, "what a cute accent" kind of laughter...it was like a "who the heck does this girl think she is?" kind of laughter! I swiftly turned around to see who was so rudely laughing at me...seriously, he was stilllaughing...and mocking me. And there I was, glowing in my white scrubs on the front row, looking back at the guy in the back row, cap on backwards, non-compliant with the dress code Nate.

Nathan and I were friends long before we started dating...a whole month or so. And we kept it from everyone in class so that we could keep the drama to a minimum...for at least 6 months. To be honest, I never thought we'd make it past 1st Semester. But the next Summer, as we approached a year, we decided to take a trip down to the beach. We drove my Altima down to Birmingham, spent the night with Tiff, then had breakfast with Granny and the Willies on the way down to Gulf Shores. I will never forget Nathan's face the first time he saw the Gulf. He had never been outside of the Midwest at that point, and he was hooked. And who wouldn't be - God gave Alabama beaches that are to die for. After a couple of days of exceptional seafood (shout out to the Gulf Shores Steamer and Sea and Suds!), we jumped in the car and drove to New Orleans. I have always loved NOLA, and this trip was really fun! The last night of our trip was spent in T-town with Anna, Mere and Katie. But the real trip started the next day.

Anyone who lives in Alabama knows how a Summer rain can make driving conditions hazardous rather quickly. Oil and water don't allow for friction, and this is especially true of Alabama roads in the rain. I woke up to Nathan stopping the car on I-65N, which is disturbing anyway. But to see a car at a dead stop in front of us through a downpour of rain was terrifying. After asking Nathan what was going on, I told him to go around the car. He turned the wheel, foot on the break, checked the rear view mirror, and said calmly, "Oh, shit!" We missed the car in front of us, but only because Nathan had already prepped to go around them. But when the car behind us hit us going 65 miles an hour, we were shoved over onto the side of the road. We looked at each other...my neck hurt - the impact flung my head into the headrest behind me. We got out of the car to check on the couple who hit us - an elderly couple. They were fortunate. Airbags deployed, and they were ambulating. We went back to the car to move items from the trunk to the back seat...I remember the argument clearly. Heaven forbid our souvenirs get wet! I had those souvenirs picked out before we even left Wisconsin! The axel was off the car, and we thought our biggest worry was how we would get back to Wisconsin. 

And then we heard it - a noise that I will never forget. Car tires screeching across a wet Alabama interstate. I looked up, and in slow motion behind Nathan was a car spinning towards us. Nathan saw it, too. He turned to me and said, "They're going to hit us." I said, "I know. I love you." And with that, the spinning car hit the Altima, pushing it forward, then caught the mud and spun the other way. It missed Nathan, hit the Altima again between Nathan and myself, and then spun again. The car hit me in the back of the knees, and I flew feet-first a few feet, Matrix-style. When I hit the ground, all I could think of was waking up with X-rays in a trauma bay, and I did not want to be naked in a hospital that day. I heard Nathan yell, "Tell me she's alive!" And I thought, "Oh my goodness, he thinks I'm dead! I've got to get up!" And I did. And he caught me.

I knew that day I would marry Nathan Frey...and if we could make it through that, we could make it through anything. I told him that day that we were meant to do great things together...and here we are...doing them

Letter to Chemo

MONDAY, JUNE 20, 2011 8:33 PM, EDT

Letter to Chemo

Dear Chemo,

We met Wednesday. I was the comfortably dressed patient in Room 15. My Mama was with me - she's kind of a rock star. I get my strength from her, and from the other estrogen-clad ladies who share my blood. We are strong. We came into Room 15, laughing that we were moving in. I pulled from my bag of tricks an ornate gold picture frame that holds my Caring Bridge profile pic - a portrait of my family that was taken two short weeks before I met you. A time that we will forever refer to as, "before cancer." The picture hosts honest smiles and happiness that cannot be unbroken. It is my focal point for treatment. It is my life...in a photograph.

Our meeting was short, chemo...shorter than I expected. You did not wear me out right away like I anticipated. I told Mama that if I feel that good after our next meeting, I am going to work afterwards. And this is what I plan to do, God willing.  Thursday, Friday and Saturday passed without event. Steroids kept me strong and hungry - who needs a Sugar Free Red Bull when there are steroids?! The nausea was manageable, certainly reminiscent of the 35 weeks of nausea that I had while pregnant with Parker...oh, and heartburn. I thought when I decided never to get pregnant again, I had seen the last of you, but somehow you sneaked back into my life. And yet, all of these things manageable. Is it possible that I could be one of those people who gets through all of this and thinks, "Cancer? Yeah, that wasn't so bad."

And then came Sunday. Now Chemo, let's have a little heart to heart. I am of the mind that there are two things you don't mess with - people's money and people's children. You, my dear friend, have crossed the line. You are taking away days at work, and therefore you are dipping into my vacation fund. For all intents and purposes, I'll forgive this offense. But you have stolen 24 precious hours from me that I cannot get back...hours that I otherwise would have been able to spend with my beautiful boys. I will charge you for those hours, and I will be ready to collect with surmountable interest when all of this is said and done. You rendered me useless while my 5 1/2 month old rolled over and over again on the floor, laughing. You did not allow me to pick my head off the pillow when my 2 1/2 year old told me that he loved me "better than the whole world."  What's that you say? I see and hear these things every day, so what is all the fuss about? These moments just every day life - but that every day life is more precious to me now than when I took that family photograph a month ago...and every minute counts. How dare you put a price on every day life? 

So this is what we're going to do, Chemo. We're going to make a deal. You get 7, count them, 7 more of these days over the next 15 weeks...and not a minute more. Enjoy them for all they are worth. Because to me, they are worth all the days to follow...days of laughter, baseball games, sunshine, hugs, "I love yous" and everyday life...and you don't want to mess with that.

Sincerely,

Bean

P.S. I wasn't really a fan of Monday, either.

Synergy

THURSDAY, JUNE 16, 2011 7:07 PM, EDT

Synergy

Okay, so I have laughed more since I was diagnosed with cancer than maybe I ever have before. I have laughed out of fear, laughed out of pure happiness with my husband and children, and laughed at so many responses that I have gotten from this Journal, which I will forever refer to as "the cancer blog." Some of your Guestbook posts have brought tears to my eyes, and I love that in the last few weeks I have been called an "inspiration," an "idol" (I take that like an American Idol, not an idol of the golden cow variety), and a "talented writer." These are some of the most humbling and overall flooring compliments that I could ever receive. Your comments and prayers continue to inspire me and ignite my words, so as it turns out we are inspiring one another! How's that for synergy?

Synergy is a funny thing...According to the American Heritage Dictionary, synergy is defined as "the interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects." I first learned about synergistic relationships when working in research with Dr. Fred Lee, Jr. He said that a multi-disciplinary team (in our case a pretty brilliant Engineer, a pretty brilliant MD/PhD then-student, a very knowledgeable Vet Tech, and myself - the girl who was in the right place at the right time, all under the guidance of amazingly brilliant Radiologist, and a couple of amazingly brilliant Engineers - all of us foodies, and all of usfriends) was the perfect example of synergy - individually, we could only do so much, but together, we were doing incredible things...like curing liver cancer...yeah, that's pretty amazing stuff. And the research that we did was also synergistic - one probe could only do so much, but when you could send energy through 3 of them simultaneously, they worked in synergy to treat larger tumors in a smaller period of time. If this isn't stimulating to you, you're just not ready for modern medicine! It's really pretty cool!

That's what I was doing in Wisconsin all those years...or for at least a few of them...doing my part to cure cancer. Ironic? Not so much. It's not like it was breast cancer. But it wasrewarding...in soooo many ways. I am published in medical journals, which at any stage in a CT Technologist's career is a reward in and of itself; I traveled to DC, New Orleans, Chicago, and Como, Italy - I know I already mentioned that, but it is worth mentioning again, and I have mantras!...Fred Lee, Jr. gave me many words of wisdom. He probably didn't expect me to take them on as full-on mantras! He once told me with a staged generalization that there were three kinds of people in the world: 1) There is the person who builds himself up by building only himself up; 2) There is the person who build's himself up by knocking others down; 3) and there is the person who builds himself up by building others up around him. That was the moment that I decided to put my best foot forward and make a move towards management. I loved my position in research, but I wanted to grow others. My quest for management, which Nathan has supported me in whole-heartedly began in Reno, Nevada (which people there pronounce ne va' da...with a short "a." Not to be mistaken for ne vah' da, with an "ah" sound. That drove my Southern roots crazy! I would have pronounced it with an "ah" my whole life if I hadn't moved there...and been promptly corrected!

One of the things that I have laughed about over the last few weeks is that BF Nicole, the boys' fairy Godmother "CoCo." called me the other day. She was giggling, as if she shouldn't even branch into the story she was about to tell me...but Nicole knows that we're pretty low drama. To date we've never gotten into so much as an argument, and I don't plan to start now! So this is how the conversation went through her silly giggles:

Bean: Spit it out!

CoCo (giggling): How long have I known you?

Bean: 10 years...what are you laughing about??

CoCo (still giggling): And how long would you say we've been classified as best friends?

Bean (didn't even have to think about it): 6 years.

CoCo (still gigging): That's what I thought! So I looked at your Caring Bridge, and I was reading your Guest Book, and I am thinking, "How do I not know any of these people?" Seriously Bean! You have a lot of support! Who are all of these people?!

Bean (now both giggling hysterically): Are you surprised that I have friends?! I have lived in 4 states in 32 years, and I had 22 years of friends before I met you!

So funny...I guess sometimes I forget how many places I have lived, and how many connections I have made in each place. I have been fortunate to make very close friends in each state, be involved in Church and communities, work with wonderful people, and make connections through my family! Now that's love synergy at its best!

So for those of you who'd like an actual health update, I had my first chemo appointment yesterday. I woke up sliding my hand on my pillow, looking for stray hair. There were 3. 3 total stray hairs. That was, to say, a little disappointing. I was kind of hoping for a mass exodus. But no. I got 3 stray hairs. I guess I figure I've spent my last 32 years trying to get this hair to do something - perms, dye, perms, highlights, bangs, dye, long, short, highlights, fringe - you name it, I've tried it! I really hope that it will be liberating for me to let it go! I hope that I embrace it like I imagine I will! I have promised someone that when it starts really falling out, I am going to shave it into a mohawk and dedicate my post to her that day...so look for some fun pics! And I'd like to give a HUGE thanks to my cousin and friend Mary Katherine, who sent me my first and only Hermes scarf this weekend! What an outstanding gift for a self-proclaimed materialistic girl! I love you MKat, and I always have! I will wear it proudly, and there will be many pics to come!

I went into the local Wig Shoppe last Friday with Mama. The lady who runs the place is so very sweet, and if she's reading this - I LOVE YOUR SHOP! And I promise you didn't offend me! I clearly have a sense of humor (albeit dark and twisted at times). 

Wig Shoppe Lady: Can I help you, hun? 

SIDE NOTE - Normally I would get sassy and say, "Yes, but I'm not your hun," but clearly this lady is from New Orleans, because she meant every inch of that drawn butter, two syllable "hun."

Me: Well, I think I just want to look at your scarves. I am newly diagnosed with breast cancer, and I think I am going to rock my baldness.

Wig Shoppe Lady: Oh, you know what, you have the face for it...super skinny people never look cute bald, but I bet you can really pull that off!

Me: Thanks...(fake smile, turn to Mama with raised eye brow and signature crinkle forehead)...I think (fake smile).

Love her anyway!

I am feeling great aside from the disappointing hair loss. I am loaded with steroids called Decadron that make me want to go buy a fresh coat of paint for my living room. Let me just tell you that Prednisone has nothing on Decadron in the way of energy! And I'm feeling "Decadron-chic," which is my new term for a little puffy (so I bet I'll look even better bald). But other than that, I had the most productive day at work since my diagnosis (D-Day). This should last for the duration of the steroids - 3 days...and then we shall see how I truly react to chemo. But until then, I'll enjoy the synergy of the chemo, the Decadron, the nausea meds, and the prayers coming my way from all over the country!

Mama has gone home to sell her house, so please pray for continued safe travels (and for a speedy sale). Nathan's parents are coming in tomorrow, so please pray for safe travels for them as well...and patience as I come down from Decadron-chic to Decadron-crash, because that's when I will likely be at my worst through this process, and when I will need the most help...and please say a prayer for my husband, who has been so endearing through this so far...I don't give him half the credit or praise that he deserves for his strength...I have all the respect in the world for you...for this, and for so much more.