new pic

the hair's growin' back

Off Week

ok. I'm off this week. There are lots of things on the to-do list including getting a letter out to the insurance company and figuring out new insurance issues. Barak's Haverford insurance offers a higher premium, lower copayment plan that we might be eligible for a rebate with if we can prove that the difference between the premium we're paying now, and the new one is more than our monthly out-of-pocket expenses. Yeah, I don't understand it either.

On brighter news, we went to the Phillies game on Saturday. They played the Nationals, and won. In doing so they won the division title and are off to the playoffs for the second year in a row! Hurray!

Mel guilted me into this post!

Hi all!

Back from the last treatment of round 7. I can't believe it's been over 6 months since the diagnosis and starting treatment. Wow how time flies! I passed my blood test and got the full dosage. I had a little bit of a sinus headache, so my nurse today, Jane, gave me my Benedryl first. Yeah! Nothing better than a nap at 9:45am!

This round was physically much easier than all the previous. Emotionally, I had a hard time. Unfortunately, my gap insurance co is still not paying anything out to the hospital or Devlin's office for my treatment. He had to bring it up to me on the first day of this cycle. It was awkward and I felt horrible. I stayed in bed the following day. On Friday I tried to convince myself to get out of the house and keep moving forward. This could have been a major set back after working so hard to avoid how I had been coping with all of this initially (Spending the first 4 months hunkered down in the house and digging myself into a rut).

In other news, I started my sewing class last night. It was so much fun. There are 12 other young ladies (all from mid 20s to mid 30s). My table decided that we should sneak wine into the class. I told them if we got caught, I would take the fall. Who would punish a cancer patient. We made teeny tiny pillows to practice straight lines. One of these days I will have to find the USB cord to my camera and post pics of my work.

On good news, I'm still getting plenty of PMS pimples so we know my ovaries are still working!

Round 7 Kick-Off

I started round 7 today. The plan is the same -- take the WBC shots after sessions 1, 2 & 3. So today I got Taxol (chemo), Avastin (biological warfare drug), and the Neupogen shot.

So far, so good. B and I had to go to a meeting about benefits (they're changing up the health insurance plans) immediately after chemo. I felt good throughout the meeting. Then I went grocery shopping and came home to put my feet up.

I'll be home all day tomorrow waiting for the facilities peps to finish up some of the work on the apt they were supposed to do before we moved in. Hopefully they will get everything we want done in the next couple of weeks.

Some Pics

After (end of April 08)


Before (beg of April 08)

Another great outlet

I've been posting a lot on the bulletin boards at www.youngsurvival.org -- home to the Young Survival Coalition. Unlike other websites, I haven't been asked to leave because I'm too young or I don't have kids. (Yeah, really, some BC women are still women.) I was even asked to join a group of 20 something women on a "special" board. OOHHH!
Alrighty then. I'm off to keep working on Caroline's scarf. The report from Lima is that she's cold.

Travelin' Woman

I finished the last two weeks of my sixth round of chemo in style by going to Vineeta's wedding and Cape Cod. August 23rd Vineeta became Mrs. Patel in fitting style. There was the prayer service on Friday with 100 of her closests, nearest and dearest friends and family (Indian buffet lunch served to Barak's delight). Then on Saturday morning, she did us all proud by stunning all 200+ guests in her beautiful red sari. She had her signature smile painted on her face the entire 2 hour ceremony. During the evening reception she looked equally as radiant and I had a wonderful time with some old college chums! I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to last to almost 1 am!

We came back on Monday the 25th, went to chemo on Wednesday and on Thursday got in the car for an 8 hour ride to Massachusetts. Barak had his annual Poli Sci meeting and I stayed with Sybil and crew in Plymouth. I'm shocked at how big the kids are getting. So smart and independent.