A worthy cause :)

Some of my husband's friends recently decided to start up a rec. league basketball team, and one of his good friends from High School had the wonderful, very sweet idea to try and raise money for breast cancer research by accepting donations for the Susan G. Komen foundation in my honor through their team. He set up the website and everything, and has been so thoughtful through the whole process. They had their first game last week, and won! There are some funny stories there about the game, but the end result was a win for the Motorboaters!
We're so thankful for this, and I thought I would share it with our friends/family that may not be around all the time so you can keep up with the progress as well. Here's the link to the website that he personalized for our family and their team: http://www.info-komen.org/site/TR?pg=fund&fr_id=1120&pxfid=124070 You should check it out and sign the guestbook, we obviously don't expect a donation from everyone at this time of year, especially, I just thought it was a cool thing to share!

So much for the weekend

I finally talked to my Doctor yesterday, and after giving her an earful that was much deserved, yet probably not appreciated, I was banished to my house for the weekend so I don't pick up any sick germs. Nice! I didn't have anything else to do the weekend before Christmas, right?!
Oh well, at least the shopping is done, I was planning to go to a Christmas party we have with some friends every year on Saturday, and I guess I'll have to send the family but sit this one out. :-(
I have to give myself Neupagen shots for 4 days then I'll have more bloodwork to see where I'm at. On the days the shot is given, I'm supposed to stay away from crowds (especially children). After those 4 days, we'll do more if I need to so I can make sure the wbc count is high enough to go to Tennessee to visit my in-laws for Christmas. Then on the 28th it's Chemo #5.

I'm gonna lose it!

I am SO frustrated right now I could just scream! My Oncologist has been giving me little clues lately that she's not on top of my care, and it's maddening, but up until now I've accepted it and tried to take it into my own hands, thinking "she's just busy, she undoubtedly has patients that need much more care than me right now so it's ok...blah blah blah". Well today did it!!!
I had a regular monthly check-up with her to just make sure everything was going ok on Monday, and she was way more interested in telling me stories and talking about family than actually talking about what I was there for...ya know, breast cancer, chemo, etc?!
On her way out the door I said "You know I haven't had bloodwork done since last Tuesday, that's almost a week, and even though my white blood cell count was very high then, with me you never know". She gets a confused look and says "Well, how do you feel?" I tell her that I feel great, but even when my wbc count bottoms out I feel pretty good. She says to go ahead and have blood drawn at her office and they will let me know the results.
On my way out I confirm with the receptionist that I need the results because if my count is low, I need to be able to avoid going out into public. She assures me that they understand and if for some reason I don't hear from them, "give it a couple of days and call us, don't worry about that".
Well, today is Thursday...3 days later, and I called a little while ago to check on the results MYSELF (like I should have to do that) and the nurse very casually informs me that my wbc count was 1.3 . "OK, so it was 1.3 on MONDAY!" I say and then ask what I need to do to get some Neupagen to build the wbc count up. She tries unsucessfully to call the Dr. and then comes back with no real instructions. REALLY GUYS?!
I am so very upset with them that I haven't yet decided what to do about it. I mean, why as the patient did I have to make that call, why as the patient did I have to suggest to the Dr. that she do bloodwork, and why haven't they called me back yet?
I have been out in public shopping and running around (along with the rest of America) all week, not thinking I had a problem at all. This is a critical issue for my health, and she doesn't seem to take it seriously in the least! If I were to God forbid get sick, I could end up hospitalized, and any infection that a normal person could take meds and get over could become life threatening for me.
I have already decided to switch Oncologists after my last 4 chemo treatments are over, because this is something I will have to be vigilant about for the rest of my life. I will have to have tests and screens for cancer off and on throughout my lifetime, and I need a doctor whose hands I trust my life. She has just proven to me, yet again, that it's not hers.
This greatly upsets me because I really felt that she was the right doctor for me from the beginning, and now all that is being questioned. I guess I'll just have to give it to God...again! This is something I struggle with daily, and I know it's part of what this experience is going to show me.
Sorry for the crazy lady rant, I just had to get it out and now I don't feel quite as ready to burst!

Crafts Galore!

I am so happy to announce that this year (unlike all others in my history of being responsible for my own gift buying) I am done shopping AND wrapping! This is so huge for me, I almost can't believe it myself. I guess having cancer and not knowing what my body would give me from day to day has done some good in forcing me to plan ahead this year & I'm happy I gave in!

Because of the extra time on our hands, I have attempted some new crafts I found online. I love that the little one is old enough to think it's amazingly fun to make something, and I try to take advantage of it because I know before long she won't want to do ANYTHING with her Mommy! "Can we do a craft?" is something I hear often & if we have time, we usually do.

I have found some different ideas for Christmas crafts on different blogs I read, and these two just jumped out at me! Sara Mincy is a blogger that I enjoy reading because she has such a fun, colorful style that just makes you happy. I've even purchased one of her scripture prints from her etsy shop & I just love it! I found this idea for a christmas tree and we tweaked it a little, cause you know my girl needs a little "sparkle" on all her crafts! I loved it so much I decided to frame it & make it part of our Christmas decor. Now I'll have a forever reminder of the fun time we had making it when she was 4! :) Sorry the picture is so poor, I had to take a pic of it in the frame & couldn't escape the glare. The idea for these adorable tree ornaments came from Sara Mincy's blog too, but she got it from Jane and the Ducks, and I just had to try it. It was my first ever attempt at using Mod Podge, and I must say it's messy, but I'm hooked!

We're working on a few more "projects" that are top secret for some of our family members that will probably be getting them as gifts this year, but I wish I could post pics of the cuteness. Wouldn't want to ruin the surprise!

Much needed FUN!

This past weekend we headed up to North Carolina to visit some of our best friends at their new home. They just moved into a 100 year old home that I'm slightly obsessed with...I LOVE old houses, and theirs is just perfect, I'm so happy for them! We took our kids to a Christmas parade not too far from them, and were so glad we did, it started snowing on our way there, and it was just beautiful! It snowed throughout the parade, and the kids loved it (well, so did the mommies)!

We then pushed our luck and tried to do a little shopping with 3 kids running on VERY little sleep and that was a cluster to say the least! We did, however buy some adorable boots, and although the fellow shoppers in the store probably wanted to kill us, we considered it a successful shopping trip!
Later that evening was the SEC Championship game, and let me just say...Roll Tide!!!

On Sunday we headed back home & it was a little sad for all of us, but especially our girls. They are so close, and it was a sad tearful goodbye for them :(

Our friends also have this really old barn across the street from their house that I couldn't wait to get pictures of. I finally did on the way out of town, so they're not as good as I would've liked, but at least the itch was scratched. My hubby knew I would've been upset about it for a while if I didn't get to at least snap a few pics, so he practically pushed me out of the car on the way home to "Take some pictures of the barn!" He knows me too well!
It was so nice to spend a relaxing weekend with friends (and their precious family) that was mostly cancer-free...other than the scare of my wig blowing off a few times from the crazy wind. How awful would that be?! We haven't had time to just sit and catch up in a long time, and it was really good medicine for all of us I think.

Thanks guys for being such good hosts, and putting up with our family for the weekend, we love y'all!

Big girl hair cut!

Although this was her third haircut, it was the first one where she decided what she wanted, and was really excited about the result!
Our sweet friend cuts our hair, and she knows how much my little one likes her hair "flatted" or straight. She decided to flat it first so we could see the true length since her hair is SO very curly! I couldn't believe my eyes when she was done...look how long it was!



It's still fairly thin, so we decided to cut it just below her shoulders, and then she layered it a little so the curls will fall nicely. She LOVED the straight look she had for 24 hours, but she's really liking the shorter curls, too. I'm not sure why she wanted it short, but she insisted, and it's very cute if I do say so myself :)

Such a slacker!

I just realized today how long it had been since I made a blog post! I've been so caught up in getting everything decorated and keeping it somewhat clean...who am I kidding? That I've totally neglected my blog!

Well, this past Monday was Chemo #4. Nothing spectacular to report other than I'm half way through, and that was the last of the "bad" drugs, so maybe it will be better for the last 4!

We took advantage of the extra week I had between treatments last time to put up the Christmas trees, and even got the outside of the house decorated some because I just love me some Christmas lights!!! I say we, but what I mean is ME...Yep, no help whatsoever from the hubby! Whatever, I'll just make him do the least fun un-decorating part! ;)

Here's a pic of the little one with her tree. She loves having her own ornaments on her tree and takes the ornament placement very seriously!

My mother-in-law was so nice and gave us one of her 'skinny trees' this year, so we didn't even get the monster tree we usually have out of the attic.

We also went to a Christmas parade in our town last week and it was really cute! We had a good time and they even had snow blowers with fake snow to add to the experience for the kids. It was really fun for them! Only in a hick southern town would you have more floats pulled by tractors than by actual cars...it was too funny!