My big girl!

The Little One started Pre-K this past week, and I am so very thankful that she loves it! She was very nervous on the first day (as you can see from the pics) but she did great, and went in like a big girl! I took her to her class and she hung up her bookbag, walked in and said "Bye Mommy, Love you, see you soon" and that was it! I was more upset than she was, I think, but I adjusted well also and am so glad she has kids her age (and especially little girls) to play with. She seemed to enjoy it the first week and only had minor little spells of not wanting to go or not thinking it was fun.
The work she is bringing home is great, and she told my Dad when he asked if her work was hard at school "Uh, G-Daddy, you know it's just Pre-K!" like she is somehow above that level. That girl is so crazy & keeps us laughing all the time!
Here are some pics of my baby girl on the first day of school. I am honestly still trying to figure out how this day came so quickly. It seems like just yesterday she was a little baby and now she's almost 5...Wow! Time flies! :'-(

Can't you tell how nervous she was?

She is starting to look like such a "big girl" now and not my baby anymore!

You didn't think she would skip the diva pose, did you?

Walking in to her school!

Thank you Lord for a wonderful first week at school, I'm praying for many more!

Surgery Schmurgery!

This is going to be my new attitude...the doctor tells me they need to do surgery, I say "Sure, why not? It's what I do!"
I believe I mentioned a while back that the "girl doctor" found a really large cyst on one of my ovaries and decided it was imperative it be removed. Well, the ultrasound and CT Scan (that I got the bill for today...dear lord help me!) were about 3 weeks ago but the doctors seemed to think that I would know for certain if it burst on it's own because of it's size and I would be in massive pain.
Since that didn't happen, the surgery was continued last Monday. The Friday before was the pre-op appointments, and I was thinking it was a minor, no big deal surgery and then they started explaining that I could lose one or both of my ovaries when the cysts were removed if it was too difficult to cut around, or if they had attached to anything else, etc. I left thinking "Oh crap, what have I agreed to?"
Oh, let me not forget to tell you about the "bowel prep" I had to do before surgery all day Sunday which consisted of only clear liquids to drink and hard candy all day and then a bottle of Magnesium Citrate (major laxative action) in the evening...let's just say that was NOT a fun day. Period!
Anyway, Monday morning came and I went in for surgery. I had to wait for.e.ver. for the surgeon and I honestly thought my stomach was going to eat itself before they finally took me back at 12:45ish. After the surgery and I came to I asked my Mom how bad it was, just holding my breath for her to not say they took both my ovaries. She hesitantly tells me that the cysts seemed to have dissolved, everything looked completely normal!
I am SO incredibly thankful for that, don't get me wrong, things could've been SO very ugly, but I do wish the surgery wouldn't have happened. Well, now I have 2 new scars to add to my 'collection' I'm starting to look like a bad dissection job of a science experiment!
Anyway, the healing has been a little un-fun, but I know it would've been a lot worse if there was internal 'cutting' involved. Maybe, just maybe I won't have to do any more of that for a long time. Anesthesia takes weeks to get out of my system...or maybe that's just my excuse for being exhaustedly tired all the time!

Hair is a fantastic luxury!

My hair has finally come back enough to stop covering my head and not feel like I look a hot mess all the time! It took me a couple weeks to be fully comfortable with my short, short 'do, but I have learned to embrace it and I figure it's a symbol of a fresh start in more ways than one. I not only get a do-over with my hair and now have fine, never been colored or flat ironed or over processed hair, but I get a do-over with my life also. Let's hope I don't mess either one up!

Here's what I'm looking like these days, it's a little longer than it was in the last pic I posted because of the most wonderful hair product ever (well, if you need your hair to grow or thicken up), Nioxin. I use the shampoo, conditioner and a scalp activating spray daily and I'm telling you the stuff is fantastic! I'm going to get the vitamins also because I hear they work wonders for your hair, skin and nails, but I can't confirm that for sure yet.
Here I am, and here's a side view so you can see all my little curls. I haven't had curly hair in at least 5 years, but haven't had really curly hair since I was really young. I'm interested to see how it looks as it gets longer. Hopefully I won't have a curly afro, how hard will that be to grow out?! :-)

Now that my hair is curly, maybe people will stop asking us where the Little One gets her curls from. Bless her heart she gets asked that question ALL the time!

It's still a strange color if you ask me. It's an ash brown shade, but I guess it works since it seems to blend in with my grey hairs and doesn't make them stand out quite as much as they did with my old natural color, which was a lot darker. It would be nice if I didn't have to color it to hide the grey all the time, we'll see if that works out! I'm a bit of a chameleon when it comes to hair...well, I was when I had some ;-) I love to play with hairstyles and colors, maybe I'll have to tame that down with my new curly mane!

So, I say all that to tell you: YAY FOR HAIR!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE HAIR :)

Family Visit!

Last week The Hubby's Aunt, Uncle, Brother and our little family all met their cousin's wife and 3 precious children at a restaurant in town. We had a nice time catching up, and the kids had a blast! After dinner the Aunt & Uncle wanted to take the kids to the Dollar Store and let them pick out a few things, and that was hilarious! It was the hardest decision for all of them, I couldn't believe it!

We so wish they could see each other more often and grow up being close. Their family lives near Orlando, and we don't get down there often and they have 3 little ones (and one on the way!) so needless to say they don't travel often either! They act like no time has passed when they do get together though, hopefully that will always be the case :)

Another fun visit!

Last weekend some friends that moved away recently came into town for the day and we were able to visit for a while. Our kids have so much fun together, and when we told the Little One who she was going to see we asked if she remembered them and she said "Yes, I think about them EVERY day!" She might be a little dramatic, I don't know, but they are too cute together!

He even told us that she was his girlfriend which she acted like was disgusting to her, but she loved every second of it :-)

They were born on the same day at the same hospital. The Little One thinks this is SO cool! Here they are this weekend:

Funny Faces :-P

And here they are on the day they were born: Yeah, my little one was a week late and hers was a few weeks early so they had a big size difference...and we were holding each other's babies in the pic in case you couldn't tell!

They have another little boy that's 2 who came also but he didn't want to pose for any pics. He's way too busy for that!

We were glad to be able to see them, hope to be able to spend a little more time together soon (and that I can get more pics)!

Georgia Tradition

If you live in or have visited Georgia much, you know about our "mountain" and all the fun stuff to do there. We take it very seriously, and a summer tradition around here is the Laser Show. The Little One had never been, and since she's not deathly afraid of fireworks anymore we decided to take her.

We went with some good friends of ours, and our girls had a blast together as always! We had a great time catching up and just enjoying a relaxing evening together!

The girls played in a little creek area to cool off a little

They danced to every word of every song before the show started!

Such a sweet family, we just love them :)

The show was great, and the fireworks after were a nice treat for us all, too!

Looking forward to lots more fireworks this weekend for the 4th!

Yet another scare

Last week I had another "You've got to be kidding me" scare. I have been having some cramping for the past month or so, sometimes it's bad other times it's not noticeable, so I didn't think much of it. Sunday morning, I was woken up at 6:00 am by awful, think I should go to the ER pain. It was hurting into my back and I had to lay in the fetal position to have any relief whatsoever. I tried to walk and thought I would pass out or throw up from the pain so I woke the Hubby up to tell him what my symptoms were "In case I die this is what you can tell the paramedics".
I was, needless to say, afraid. I called my primary care doctor and my girl doctor both on Monday morning to see what they would suggest. Both wanted to see me, so I had bloodwork done at my Primary care on Monday and they scheduled me with a Gastroenterologist (sp?) for a colonoscopy. On Tuesday the girl doc wanted to see me for an ultrasound to see if she could find the source of the pain. When the ultrasound was complete, she told me I had a "big, nasty cyst" that was 8 cm...basically the size of my entire right ovary. She thinks maybe I had another one that burst on Sunday AM and that was the cause of all the pain. Of course, with my history of cancer this was cause for concern, and I was immediately sent to another office for a CT scan to make sure it wasn't a tumor.
I was freaking out a bit needless to say, but honestly I think I was in denial. I mean, what are the chances that I could've grown a tumor during chemotherapy? That would be crazy, and terrible!
So for over 24 hours I tried to go on with life, hoping this nightmare wasn't about to kick into high gear again.
I finally got the call that the bloodwork was fine, and the CT scan showed no sign of cancer. It is apparently just a cyst. I was elated! Bad news is, the cyst still has to be removed (that appt. hasn't been scheduled yet so I don't know what to expect) but I'll take that any day over that nasty c-word!
The GI doctor still wants to do the Colonoscopy because of my cancer history and to make sure that another little issue I'm having that I won't share (just in case you're eating...trust me, you don't want to know) is just a minor issue and nothing to be concerned with. Apparently young breast cancer patients should be carefully screened for colon cancer as well. Yay for me! That is scheduled for the 29th. I'll let you kow how fun that one is!
Apparently I'm going to be known as a "lab rat" for the rest of my life and any issue will be treated as a major issue until cancer can be ruled out. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about early detection, but the fear that is ALWAYS there in my head is a bit intensified when a medical doctor becomes alarmed. So, that's my update. Good news so far, Thank you Lord!!!

Oh, I keep meaning to tell you that my body seems to have adjusted to the Tamoxifen (remember, the estrogen blocker that I have to take for 5 yrs) and I rarely have hot flashes anymore! I really thought I was going to lose my mind for a while, SO thankful the summer heat didn't bring hot flashes along with it!!! :)