I need to stop slacking off

I'm seeing where my posts are few and far between. I'll do my best to update things a bit more frequently.

By the way, my hair is growing back! John says it looks blonde, but all I'm seeing is gray. I guess it has to grow out more before we know for sure!

Now that it's grown out a bit more, my hair looks exactly like the hair of the Cooking Channel's Guy Fieri. It is platinum white and stands straight up.

I'll be making an appointment soon with a hair salon to see if we can come up with a style that is a bit more appealing to look at.

The holidays are finally over, it's time to get back to things.

On October 3, I had brain surgery to remove the tumor from between my eyes. I was in the hospital overnight.

Again, I had to postpone the remainder of my Radiation treatments.

The surgery and aftermath didn't hurt as much as I thought it would, just a lingering mild migraine. My biggest problem is that I wasn't allowed to blow my nose or sneeze. I was so stuffed up, I couldn't drink and breathe at the same time.

About half way through my recovery period, I decided to put a waterbed in the guest room. I've had terrible back aches and remembered back to the 70's when waterbeds were all the rage, I thought a waterbed would help my backaches...and it did! I think waterbeds are long overdue for a comeback!

We got done filling it and was cleaning up. John was outside of the window, I was inside. Just as I picked up the hose, John grabbed his end and jerked it real hard. The hose whipped up and the nozzle clocked me right between the eyes exactly where I had the surgery - OUCH is the best way to describe the pain.

This little mishap extended my recovery period a couple of weeks.

I'm telling you, if it's not one thing, it's another.

My Oncologist found an anomaly in my lower jaw and we had to schedule another biopsy. The only way to get to the anomaly was to go through the outside of my jaw. I walked around for a bit with a hole in my face.

Thankfully, the biopsy came back negative. My Oncologist said we are definitely going to keep monitoring that spot for changes.

I was nearing the end of my Radiation treatments and the pain on my right side was getting worse by the day. The pain was from 2nd and 3rd degree radiation burns and blisters on nearly my entire right side of my chest and armpits.

And here we go with another pause in treatments until the blistering began to heal.

After my radiation treatments picked up again, I had another couple of weeks and after 4 delays, the treatments were finally over. What a huge sigh of relief although I was still in 20 shades of pain.

Even now, I'm still doing a bit of healing from these treatments.

After all of this, I had an appointment with my Oncologist. He said I've been through so much this past year and he was giving me the holidays off to rest up, recover and heal. Hallelujah!!!

This past year has been exhausting.

I was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer

I had a double mastectomy

I went through Chemotherapy

I had to postpone starting Radiation to have another biopsy, this time on my lower jaw

I finally started Radiation treatments

I had to temporarily stop Radiation treatments when I tested positive for Covid

I started Radiation again after testing negative for Covid

Again, I had to stop Radiation to have a brain tumor removed

I finally finished Radiation treatments with huge burns and blisters

We had a very quiet holiday season here. It was just a year earlier, I had a biopsy the day before Thanksgiving. I found out the biopsy came back positive for cancer the following week. Not a very positive start to the holidays.

We spent a lot of time during Christmas and New Year's reflecting back on the previous year realizing that there is the real possibility that this may be my last holiday season, but not dwelling on it.

I spent a lot of time thinking about my medical team. They are the best and I couldn't have done any of this without them.

In the past year, I've had well over 100 doctor appointments.

I wish to sincerely thank the following medical professionals for the care and understanding they have given me over this past year:

Primary Care Provider Jennifer Baker and staff from Clancy Medical Group. She saw the urgency in my condition and put all of the wheels in motion at high speed.

Oncologist Dr. Igor Medic and staff from Grossmont Cancer Center. He's always been right on top things, handling my situation very aggressively. I put my life in his hands and I'm very happy with him.

Oncology Surgeon Dr. Alvord and staff from the Pacific Coast Surgical Group.

Radiologist Dr. Volpp and his wonderful staff from the Palomar Radiation Center.

Neurosurgeon Dr. Udani, Sharp Healthcare.

Helen from Molina Insurance. A great gal with all of my respect for helping sort through the mounds of forms needed to be filled out and approved for the many procedures.

Plus all of the imaging, testing and other stuff I went through. My hats off to everyone who have made my cancer ordeal much easier to deal with.

So now that I'm feeling much better and only sleeping most of the time instead of all of the time, it's time to get back to medical stuff.

I started in again 2 weeks ago with Neurosurgeon Dr. Udani. I was sent for a PET Scan and Brain scan. My follow up appointment with him was last week. Thankfully, everything looks good, no tumors to be concerned with. He wants me back again in 6 months for more scans to make sure nothing has changed.

I told him that I only have about 15% of my sense of smell and taste and was wondering if that was due to the brain surgery, Chemo, Covid or something else. He was very direct about it. He said I have so many things going on right now, it's hard to say what's causing it.

I started weekly Physical Therapy treatments at Tri-City Hospital for my eyes and Vertigo. My eyes are giving me so much trouble. They are constantly watering and itching.

I have another appointment next month with my Oncologist. We're going to go through all of the tests again to make sure everything is looking good.

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