Last Post April 25, 2010

Dearest supporters, friends, and family,

As I’m all well now, through treatments, and VERY appreciative of your happy, rainbow-colored thoughts and prayers, I have decided to stop posting to this blog and move on with happier pursuits, such as living my life fully.  Not that I wasn’t living my life during cancer treatments, but I’d say that is not my definition of living fully.  I do very much appreciate all of your INCREDIBLE support during the past nine months!!! Many people have told me that they’ve enjoyed reading what I had to say, and one friend at my Yahoo! party on the 17th even said, ‘Thank you for entertaining us this winter.” Wow, glad that someone was entertained by my journey!

I returned to teaching on April 12th and am having a lot of fun with my ELL kiddos, grades 3-5. They are a joy! Phil leaves for his teaching and research in Mexico on the 27th  and the boys and I will join him on June 7th for two months. That will be a wonderful adventure for all of us! If you are interested in any blogging I might do while in Mexico, jot a note here or send me an email and I’ll keep you posted of any wanderings we do.

I LOVE YOU!!!

Yahoo! Party

Goodbye Treatments! April 1, 2010

Goodbye Chemo, Goodbye Rads, Goodbye Cancer, ADIOS!

So good to be 100% done with all treatments! On with LIFE!!! Thank you for all of your love and support throughout the past eight months. I truly couldn’t have done it without all of you wonderful friends and family! Thank God and Bless YOU! Hope you have a joyous Easter season with loads of rebirth in your spirit.

Party April 17th dinnertime to celebrate the end of treatments, thank-you to my awesome supporters, and my belated 50th birthday. Can you come? If so, email or call me and I’ll get you the details. Let’s celebrate together!

Happy Easter!

Pretty Posies

Yippie ay oh Kaiyay!!!

0.9444444444444444% done! March 30, 2010

I’ve done 34/36 radiation treatments thus far, hooray! Just two more to go; party time!

We’re going to have a combination finishing treatment party/thank you for your support party/Janet turned 50 in the midst of all this drama dinner party on April 17th from 6-8. Phil’s jazz group likely to play, and good food. Come and check out my new ‘do. Give me a call if you can come and I’ll get you the specifics! (Gotta RSVP so we know how much food to have!) 970-641-5491. Let’s party!

Western Gunni Rainbow

Photo by April Theriault from Ojai, CA.

0.9166666666666667% done! March 29, 2010

Yay! Only three days left!!! Here’s what I’m looking at today; won’t be long before we get to grow these in the soil (well, maybe still 2 months, but in Gunni that is ‘soon’ in terms of gardening)!

Palm and Sunflowers

0.8888888888888889% done! March 26, 2010

Yep, only four more! Super excited about that.

Also excited that it’s the weekend and I get two days off of the zapping. My skin feels like leather (some of which is peeling). They are literally tanning my hide! If only this incredible, permanent tan were somewhere more interesting than a box under my arm…

So, true countdown to the end, hooray!

80.5% done as of today! March 23, 2010

Yay! Only 19.5% of the treatments left!

The electron ‘boost’ goes quickly; they no longer line up the equipment via lasers matching the three ‘tattoos’ (fancy, misleading name for what is essentially being stabbed with a pen containing  permanent ink). Instead, based on the data they got from the ultrasound, they made a mold of several alloys with an opening in the center that exactly matches the shape they draw on my skin. That mold is attached at the bottom of the radiation delivery machine. The technicians line up light shining through the mold to the exact shape of the ‘tumor bed’ and once aligned correctly they tell me to hold very still and then the electron rays are a much shorter duration than the photons were.

Interesting, this stuff, although I only understand a fraction of what is going on. I can think of a dozen different scientific topics I would have preferred studying this past year rather than chemo and radiation therapies, but I’ve at least tried to be open to learning as I’ve gone along. Not that I’m planning on changing my career from any of this, but it is interesting.

Woo-Hoo! Photons done forever!!! March 22, 2010

Yippee! Today I finished up the photon treatments to the whole breast; now just the ‘boost to the tumor bed’ to go. That will begin tomorrow: eight daily sessions of a different type of radiation to a more restricted section (4 1/2″ x 3  1/2″) that is a diamond around the surgery scar. It will receive daily doses of electron rays that are programmed to a particular depth that was determined by ultrasound.

77.77% done, Hooray!!!