Happy Half Century

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2. So, I turned 50. I went to see my grandma on my birthday. And I cried like a baby. I told her the truth about everything. That I'm scared they won't get all of the cancer. That I'm tired of going to treatment every single day. That it's just not fair. She agreed with everything I said, like she always has. She hugged me. She cried. She told me she loves me. It was all that I needed. 
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4. I also went to see my Mom on my birthday. I thought about how she might have felt 50 years ago when she gave birth to her first baby. I can relate to her more than I ever have, now that this vicious disease has attacked me too. Dang, but I miss her. 

I also got to see most of my grandbabies over my birthday weekend. Feeding Kendricks an ice cream cone was one of the cutest things ever. I love the ice cream on his nose :) 

It was Fathers Day on my birthday, and I got to see my Dad and all of my siblings except Ted. We don't do this often enough. 

We went to Wendover, and Ken bought me this necklace from a Native American selling jewelry at the rest stop on the Bonneville Salt Flats. It has significance for me because my people call themselves #tinastribe. You can see the rashes on my skin from the radiation. 

I grew up 90 miles from here, and I had never actually stepped onto the salt flats until now. It was crazy cool. Your feet get covered in salt as if you are on the beach getting covered in sand. 

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It's not officially summer until I've had my first strawberry acai refresher from Starbucks. This one didn't even last long enough to get a good photo.

On Friday, all of my sisters and my niece Brooklyn surprised me and showed up at the hospital before my radiation treatment. They threw me a birthday party right there in the waiting room. I loved the cookies Tami made,, "Before" and "After" mastectomy cookies. Love it! 

I took Riken to my radiation appointment and everyone told me what a pretty little girl he is. Yeah, we get that a lot. He IS pretty. 

Tyler and Kieonah know me so well :) 

Simply Radiant

I will be having 28 rounds of radiation treatments. Today is Day #8. I couldn't do it without these people. Tami and Brooklyn come to Provo on Fridays and we eat in the hospital cafeteria. We laugh so hard. We call ourselves the #Core4. It helps. 

I also wear a different pair of novelty socks each day. 

8 days down. 28 to go. 

Light at the end of Limbo

This is our life now. Doctor appointments so often that this seems like a fashion choice and Ken just plays on his phone. My sister is so amazing to check on me like every day and see how I am emotionally and physically, but for the most part, life has to go back to normal for everyone but me and Ken. We live this stupid cancer thing every day. Ugh. 

Radiation starts the day after tomorrow. Yay! 

His boss is being so cool. He said Ken can leave every day at 2:00 to take me to my appointments. I really just want to get these treatments done so that our lives can go back to normal too. 

We did have a little fun this week though. 

Last weekend was my niece Kylie's baby shower. It was so good to see my family, and Kylie is the cutest pregnant mom ever. 

New baby!!!! Ken's daughter Jenny had a sweet little baby boy named Cooper James and he is already known as CJ. He fell asleep on my chest! I had been so worried about that. 

I  planted flowers in pots for the porch. Last year, I was in the trailer in Richfield all summer, and Ken wasn't exactly the most dedicated flower hydrator. lol. 

It was the Scandinavian festival here in Ephraim. We always go over on Fridays and have lunch. It gets too crowded and crazy on Saturday, so the locals hit the booths on Friday. 

Limbo Land

I'm living in limbo land. I know I need radiation but no chemotherapy. YAY for the no chemo part. But I don't know exactly WHEN I'll start radiation. 

And I get feeling better each day, which is super nice. 

But once radiation starts, I will get feeling super yucky again. I will go every day Monday-Friday for 5 1/2 weeks. 28 rounds of radiation. If you google it, you only see the very worst pictures of radiation burns and permanent skin damage. But what choice do you have, really? I had a grade 1 tumor with a teeny tiny little bit of cancer in the sentinel node that was removed. So maybe that was all the cancer that I had. And maybe it wasn't. So radiation. I had a test called a Mammaprint which is supposed to tell you how mean your tumor was. If it was a mean tumor, that was growing rapidly and likely to have moved beyond the lymph nodes, I would have needed chemo. But my Mammaprint came back as "low risk" so I just do radiation. Sometime. When my temporary expanders are full enough for eventual reconstruction. The drains are out, but the doctor acted like it was too soon to take them out. I was getting less than 25 ccs of fluid out of each drain each day, and that is when they take them out. But she seemed hesitant to do it. She warned me that the temporary breasts may fill up with fluid and I would need to call the surgeon  immediately if that seemed to be happening so he can use an ultrasound and manually drain the breasts. So like every time I feel a tiny bit weird, I think my breasts are full of fluid because my drains came out too early, I'm going to get some massive infection and the incisions will open up like an earthquake. I definitely went back to work too soon. I went back two weeks after my double mastectomy, with the drains still in place. I had staff meeting, a really tough court case, and I was supposed to do a supervised visit with the mom of the really tough court case. Fortunately, Val came through and did the supervised visit for me, so I was able to go home after court. I've had a lot of doctor appointments, so I'm not back full-time, but that first day was rough. Today was great. I wasn't tired, I got a lot done. I've found that if I drink lots of water each day, walk as much as I can, and force myself to stop for breaks and lunch, I do pretty well. Pre-cancer, I worked 12 hour days and never stopped for lunch. I lived on caffeine. I never socialized with my colleagues. Now I sit with them in the breakroom and eat a healthy lunch. It's good for my psyche and my body. 

 The best part of having cancer is that you get to see how much people really love you. I've had so many visitors since all of this started. These pictures barely put a dent in it. I love my people so much <3 p="">