Today is the day after Christmas and I think it’s my favorite day of the year. All of the anticipation and anxiety associated with gift giving is over, and lo and behold, everyone seems happy with what they got. Everyone behaved yesterday and we all had a great, if haphazard dinner. I just couldn’t get it all together so we didn’t get food on the table until 7:30 which was just fine this year. Lots of wine was consumed and everyone was grateful that we were together.
Today is the day after so there’s a ton of leftovers and lots of desserts. The house is full of kids and it’s snowing like crazy out there. The girls are watching “Scarface” (“Say hello to my leetle friend”) and the boys are watching the game. I’m cleaning out closets (literally) and cooking snacks for the gang. I love this. I feel useful. And starting around Tuesday, I’ve been feeling better. I think the Tamoxifen is leveling out. And I guess I’m getting used to the expanders. I feel like a human being again and it’s a relief.
The kids bought me all sorts of back massager thingy’s from Brookstone, because my back has been killing me from this expansion process. So now I’m the proud owner of a lower-back seat massager, a neck massager and a portable upper body massager (not kidding, I must have really been complaining about my back ALOT!). They work remarkably well and I can just see myself next week, sitting in my chair working on my computer, with the chair massager going. It’s a beautiful thing.
I saw my BC surgeon on Christmas eve and she gave me wonderful news. The pathology report from the mastectomy showed that there was no evidence of any tumor left in my entire left breast (the one that had the 2 tumors). I had been worried that we never removed the tiny little one in the bottom quadrant and just went right to chemo. I was always a little worried that it could still be active, and throwing off cancer cells that might go off into other areas of my body, so the news that it was completely eradicated, is reassuring. She also said that it means that the chemotherapy was extremely effective in my case. She said that sometimes when women have larger size tumors (Stage 3 and beyond) and they’re afraid to operate until its smaller, they try to shrink them first with chemo. If the chemo is successful in shrinking the tumor (apparently not all tumors react that way to chemo) then the long term success rate for these women is better. So the fact that mine was decimated by the chemo is very encouraging for the future.
The boys are outside setting up for yet another basketball video. The minute it started snowing, Chris started talking about doing a snow/basketball video and they’re planning on doing shots from his bedroom into the hoop in the backyard. Should be hilarious, what with all the snow flying about. If I can figure out how, I’ll put his latest video up on here one of these days. My son, the movie director.
My only tip for today is to Go with the flow. Relax and enjoy your family. I know I’m gratefully enjoying mine. Much love and Merry Christmas, Claudia
I didn’t see this post ’til tonight, C–so glad you were able to take it somewhat easy and relax over Christmas. Sounds like it was a fun day. Stay toasty in this cold and snow! If you want me to teach you how to post a video let me know! xoxo
sue