THUMBS UP!

Ok. This is the best week. Crazy......yes. Wonderful......yes. Exciting......another yes.
Today I saw my oncologist Dr. Klein. (Did I say how much I love her? Oh, yes.  I already have probably more than once). I trust her totally with my life. She is witty, kind, she cares for me. I feel it. Sense it. Everyone in her office couldn't be more loving. All of them women, which I didn't know when I went there, but they are the best.
Today in visiting with her, my port, Lucy, (St. Lucia) was flushed out since I don't use it with taking my chemo in pill form.  It has to be flushed out every 6 weeks.  It actually had been two months.  My blood tests were wonderful.  Everything looked good.  I was so happy. Dr. Klein said I still look healthy. She talked to me about my hair quite awhile.  She is happy about how it is coming back.  She said most times it comes in gray or white and color comes after awhile more of growing.  She also says the hair usually grows very slow taking chemo. That is the truth!!!!! It is still so short. Hardly any on top.  Mostly on the back and sides. Today was great hearing good news.

This week, our kitchen is being rebuilt.  He will start Thursday. Countertops Friday. And I am ecstatic! I constantly daydream about how it will all come together.

Kim has vacation soon and I can't wait to go to a warm climate and just forget all my concerns and worries for the past 10 months and just get to be normal for awhile. I told that to Dr, Klein, and she said, "you are normal". I told her I have a new normal these days. My new world of normal. I am reminded of it every time I look in the mirror.  That's one reason I want my hair to come back so I don't see the "no hair" look each day.

I talked to Dr. Klein about feeling like my face is aging rapidly. She laughed and said I am not. She sees no difference, and why I think that is because most women when they look in the mirror, they adjust their hair, or something to do with their hair. When you have no hair, your whole face is bare with nothing to hide it and lines on your face are more noticeable because of no hair for your eyes to go to.  It made sense and made me feel better.  She always seems to have an answer for everything. It is comforting.  Life is crazy and exciting! I love it. Thank you for wanting to read my blog. Over 13,000 hits! And it's only me!!!!  So humbled!!!!

My Aging Body and growing hair

I saw my oncologist almost two months ago.  It was the longest time in between visits that I have had thus far.  Today is Thursday, and I will see her Tuesday.  I am assuming everything will go fine.  I haven't had particularly anything awful happen.  Just the same stuff.  Very tender tongue, bottoms of feet and very tender palms.  I seem to be aging off the scale fast, on my face.  It is happening other places also, but my face visually ages weekly.  That has been disheartening, but Kim keeps telling me he doesn't notice nor does he care.  I told him after several more months I will look like his mom, not his wife.  

My hair is probably about two inches or just under, and curly, and the orange has washed out.  I am getting it colored next week before our vacation so I have noticeable hair.  I won't color it myself, as you saw in a previous post, it didn't take for some reason. 

Can't wait to find out about my blood tests.  They have always been pretty good.  I am planning on it being the same. It was so nice to have had a two month break. More to tell next week.

My Kitchen

Last spring, around March or April, we got serious about remodeling our kitchen.  We had some money saved and after 39 years, it was the kitchen's turn to be remodeled.  I was so excited because, essentially it is 'my' room in the house.  I know where I put things, and I mostly am the one in there. I was so excited to pick out our cabinets, countertops, colors of paint, etc.  We had talked with the cabinet builder and had set the date to install cabinets, the first or second week of June.  I had picked out my appliances and everything.  I had waited a long time for this and it was finally going to happen.

 

 

The first week of May, was when my cancer symptoms surfaced and I was diagnosed with liver cancer. At the time, we had no choice but to cancel our kitchen plans.  I was in and out of hospitals, surgeries, all kinds of hospital tests, and chemotherapy.  Week by week our money saved for the kitchen, depleted.  Kim said he didn't want the kitchen anyway, if I wasn't going to be in it.  At the time, we had been told I had just one year to live.

 

In the fall, I talked to Kim about the kitchen again, and he was less than enthusiastic about it.  He said he had enough on his mind with all that was happening, and he couldn't take on anything else right now.  Besides, our money was now half of what we had saved.  I was sick inside.  It was my fault the money had to be spent, so I should just accept that I would never get my new kitchen.

 

Then Kim came up with an idea of not doing it like we had planned, but do a modest remodeling, by only replacing cabinets, and no walls taken out.  It would save on replacing flooring, and not much mess, and MUCH less expensive.  I knew that this was better than nothing, so I accepted the fact that my kitchen would not be opened up with the wall between the table and cabinets gone.

 

The next thing I knew, after Christmas, he talked to me more about it, and if we didn't do this and that, less expensive appliances and so forth, maybe we could proceed ahead.  I was so excited I couldn't sleep.

 

With the help of some very kind and thoughtful neighbors, who offered to help us with the remodeling project with all the things Kim and I have no idea how to do, (electrical things, canned lighting, refinishing walls, etc.) they were willing to give of their time to help us make this project a reality, and we got to take out the wall!!! Woo hoo!!

 

This past two weeks has been quite the project thus far, and we are way down the ladder still from being finished. But as we have learned with all of our remodeling projects through 39 years, "you have to make a huge mess to have a beautiful outcome". 

 

 



 These two pictures are the same wall. Goodbye wallpaper, and everything else on the wall.

 

These next two pictures are the wall we are taking out, to open the room up.

 

 

And this is my kitchen pictures. These cabinets are metal and our house is the house Kim grew up in.  It was built just after World War II.  This kitchen is from 1949.  I am so happy to wave goodbye to them!!!!

 

 

This pretty much sums up what it looks like now.  The stove is still there so we can cook and Kim left  the sink intact until we "have" to remove it.

The room is so open now.  My dream is coming true! I can't wait to see the completed project.  Hopefully in a month.  Until then, our kitchen is in the living room. I am so happy my cancer did not stop this project.  Whether I am here many more years, or less, it needed to be replaced, and thanks to some friends and neighbors sharing their time, it is becoming a reality!!!  I love my life!

Curly eyelashes!

I noticed yesterday that my eye lashes are growing back....and they are curly!  I have always had the straightest eyelashes and had to use an eye lash curler.  I tried to put a little mascara on the lashes coming back.  I couldn't see them before because they are colorless.  When I tried the mascara is when I saw they were coming in curly!  I have a big smile! Yay!