in less than a month...

we will have the results. the results of my final pet scan post chemotherapy. i have one more treatment to go. then a pet scan. and then on 2.23.11 we will meet with my doctor to discuss the results. almost 6 months to the day from when this began. and its my mom's birthday that day too. so praying for good news. clearly.

this past treatment went well. one of my best. which really gives me the gusto i need for number 12. the last one.my sister took great care of ava and me. we could not have done it without her. i was telling her yesterday that i sorta forgot things i may or may not have said on thursday and friday. at the time i felt totally with it and completely coherent. but when i think back it gets a little blurry. its not like i forgot everything we said or did. because we did talk serious. in a good serious way. and i meant everything i said. its just a bit foggy. i had lots of drugs in my system. but either way it was nice to be with my older sister and talk about husbands, babies, clothes, our homes, friends, living in new places, and drinking lots of dunkin donuts.

on friday i took a bath. i lit candles. and things seemed really clear to me. i felt strong. i felt at peace. i felt a little nauseous. but mostly i felt more confident than i have in a while. about cancer and marriage and being a mom and friendships and what it all means. and mostly i still have no idea what it all means. but for a brief moment. in the midst of feeling a little sad. i was not angry or anxious. i sent this text to justin this...love. not the same person i was six months ago. i am so much stronger and more in love with jesus than ever. i would never take back cancer. not for a million dollars. jesus knew what thru this pain he was going to teach me more than i ever could have could have imagined. i think what i learned the most. well, the two things: trust and strength. i experienced maybe for the first time what it means to really trust God with my life. you have to. there was nothing else to put my hope in. and although we do not know my exact future yet in terms of cancer and if it does or does not still exist in my body. i learned how to trust. really trust when you do not know what is coming. or how hard cancer will be. or if i can do it. or how bad it will hurt. or what i will miss with ava. and how it will impact justin and my family. or my friends. and what it will mean for the rest of my life. but i learned that being anxious and worrying about something that i can not control is a waste of my time. am i still scared? yes a little. do i think about the what ifs? sure i do. but i know God is in this. all of it. the letters i get. the emails. the new friendships. the people we were meant to meet. that had i not gotten sick we may have had no reason for our lives to intertwine. i have never felt more loved in all my life than i have in the past six months. peoples true colors come out when you get cancer. sometimes good and sometimes not as good. but for me. for us. its been more than mostly good. its been real good. the biggest shocker though. is the strangers. the people who have never met me or my family and still take the time to write emails. read the blog. comment on the blog. send gifts. pray. and pray hard. its made all the difference. so thank you.

now strength. i had no idea. i literally had no idea i would actually be able to do this. but i did. i am doing it. i do not say that in a prideful way. i say that in a kind of...i am surprised way. i pretended to be strong back in august when everything was happening so quick and i was not even given a chance to think or process anything. i just kept moving. we just kept moving. i have said this a few times since getting sick, but i think its true. we are stronger than we think we are. really. we are. i promise. you might surprise yourself. i know i did. but i know that for me my strength did not come from within necessarily. i was too weak. too tired. too angry. too sick. too scared. but God is strong. He is the strongest. and He gave me the strength when i did not have any. and He used my husband. my sweet ava. my family. my friends. and so many people i have never met to bear this burden with me. i was not alone. we are not alone now. and i can feel it. i have been so encouraged lately by the flood of emails i have received. i read them. every single one and they have made all the difference. so thank you.

to justin. my dear husband. i am sorry you have had to endure this. i often have no idea what is going on in your head or your heart. as its sometimes to hard to talk about cancer and the fact that i have it. but thank you for sharing your heart a little on saturday night at rockbridge. thank you for representing our family when i couldn't. i have missed so much. and my heart is so ready to do life with you again outside of the river house.

we are almost done.

in bed.

this is where i spend a lot of time after chemo. my bed. its been nice this time that my sister is here because then i am not in bed alone. we can lay together and share our hearts and connect and do what sisters do. thanks to ava for taking four hour naps the past two days. i have not been nearly as sick as i have been in the past after chemo. thank goodness. just real real exhausted. ava is still sick and i hate it. she has the worst little cough and it breaks my heart. but at least she is sleeping okay. minus last night. she was up on and off from like 2-5am (i slept through it all). that is why allison here. so thank you. been thinking a lot about cancer and my heart and how much i have changed since getting sick. but i am too exhausted to write it all down. so that will come later. but we are okay. two sick girls. but one big sister taking care of it all.

we miss you babe. see you tomorrow.

ps. if you like to run or if you like nashville tn or if you just like our family. check out team libby. angie and sarah you are good good friends. thank you and we love you.

chemo number 11.

i feel strangely good this morning. not rushed at all. got everything ready for ava so my sister knows her schedule and everything. i even made myself coffee. took a long shower. it is not the usual anxiousness of running around trying to get everything together and not forgetting to take my medicine and put my numbing ointment on my port. i feel ready. it only took me this long to feel ready. ready for what is to come in about an hour or so. just when i am about to be done i finally get a little comfortable with this whole...getting chemotherapy thing. maybe you are never meant to get "used to" this. and that is good with me. chemo is simply a means to an end. we hate chemo. but we know i need it and know its what saved me. so secretly we like it. just not the actually going to chemo part.

please pray the i do not throw up all through treatment today. please pray i fall asleep. pray i am strong because i have been crying a little more lately about cancer. and i would rather not cry there.

ava has a double ear infection. nasty runny nose. which i told someone yesterday that because she is my daughter, my dear sweet ava. that even when she rubs her snot on me. i don't mind. i am sure that is gross to most of you. maybe if you are a mom you get it. or maybe i am not normal. either way. she has a bad cough too. pray she heals. please. both of us sick is hard. her being sick is so hard for me. especially when i can not care for her the way i want to. but my sister allison is here and i know she will love ava extra hard for me. but its still not me.

off we go. 

cancer is strange sometimes.

its so weird that one second i will feel totally fine and then the next second i am nauseous and too exhausted to drive. that's what happened today. i think i was on a little adrenaline high from this past weekend. seriously i think i was. because this morning our sweet friend dee came over with a meal and we chatted for a while. it was great. i felt alive. it was life giving. not draining. really. i totally felt normal. it had been a great morning with ava and she went down for her morning nap like a champ. even when i left for my doctors appointment i felt pretty good. but as soon as i walked into the waiting room i felt so gross. and usually that only happens during chemo days. but not today. it was bad. i sat in the waiting area and got so sad. sad that i was even there. i do not belong here. and i cried. i have only cried like twice at an appointment since this started. thats pretty good i think. and even when i went back to the treatment room to see my nurse and get my blood results i had to leave the room. just like i did on my first day in there. it was all just too much for me today. i kept thinking over and over...this place is not for me. i felt young because everyone getting chemo today was old. so much older than me. and i felt more out of place than i ever have. so i asked noura if i could wait in my doctors waiting area until my lab work came in and she said yes. and because she is so sweet she came out there with me and we talked about life and how our real friendship will begin once i am done with chemo. because right now the sight of her makes me sick. its not her fault. but she is the one putting poison inside my body every other thursday since august. and i dislike her and love her at the same time. and we laugh about it. i do love her more than i dislike her. my counts were low. not super low but low enough that i needed a shot. so i got my shot and was on my way. and the entire drive home i felt like my eye balls have never been heavier. but i made it. and i kept moving. in fear that if i stopped i would not be able to start up again. 


just when i am able to forget. even for a little bit the fact that i have cancer. it seems to creep right back. but soon it will be gone forever. and that is a very nice thought. two more to go. are you kidding me? did i just type TWO. i most certainly did. 


today was a long full day. and the house is a mess of half unpacked suitcases and loads of laundry to do. trying to get it all done before thursday. so tomorrow we got nothing. and that sounds nice. 


**a sweet book club in richmond, va is raising money for our family via an etsy website. check it out here.**

our little adventure.

about a month ago. well it really started back in august when my sister in law was in town right after we got the cancer diagnosis. i told her i was having a real hard time sleeping. so she decided to set me up with a little google reader and added some of her favorite blogs. something for me to read at 2am or 4am when my mind was racing. one of the blogs was enjoying the small things. a blog by kelle hampton. check it out. its big. and inspiring. begin with the birth story. needless to say i started reading it. loved it. and found joy in her writing, pictures, and her story. so when cancer was not that fun to talk about sara and i would text, chat, or email about kelle's blog posts and it began to be something we enjoyed to together although states away. so a month or so ago when kelle mentioned her daughter's upcoming birthday...sara texts me with...wouldn't it be fun to go to nella's party (kelle's daughter. who is ava's age). to which i respond...i will email her. and sara says...okay if you get us invited to this party i will fly us to there. so i decided to casually send kelle an email. and i did not tell sara or justin. in case i never heard back from her or whatever. well when i woke up the next morning at 7:30am there was an email from kelle. i was shocked. this women has thousands. maybe millions reading her blog. no joke. but she said come. with open arms she invited us. not knowing us. or whether or not we were crazy. she got us. she understood it. so we went. the floyds and the ryders flew to naples. to help celebrate nella. meet family. meet friends. share in it all. and man...did we share.

we have great husbands. they willingly took off work. watched the kids so we could hang out with kelle, meet her friends, and go to isle of capri although it was a little cold and mostly just a girl thing. they helped make this entire weekend possible. as soon as we received the email from kelle justin said...we have to go. i have not seen you this excited about something in a while. we need to go. and we will make it happen. and we did.

it was a great combination of our family sharing an unexpected wintertime vacation together and sharing in the festivities of the weekend with kelle, her family, and her dear dear friends. we shared a hotel suite with the floyds. that was a little crazy with ava and jack and isabella running around. but we laughed. and we laughed hard. ate good food. and just spent time together. it was so nice. and i did not feel sick at all. writing that made me cry. i like not feeling sick. i like that the only thing that reminded me i had cancer this weekend was my hat. and meeting new people where in turn i shared our cancer story a few times. and i felt loved. and strong. and it was good.

thanks for a really special weekend.

 isle of capri 

naples.

we are on vacation. all is well. more than well. enjoy the sunshine and our family. no chemo until next thursday. enjoying a break from feeling sick. ava is doing better too.

my heart.

i feel a little broken today. mostly because i finished this book yesterday and oddly enough watched an interview on nightline with michelle williams about heath ledgers death (weird i know. as they are celebrities). the book is called the middle place. its about a women who is married and has two young daughters. its her journey of breast cancer. and in the middle of her own diagnosis, her father is diagnosed with cancer as well. although it was sad in parts. it did help me begin to process cancer. and what is means and what is does not mean. and that its okay to feel the way i do because someone else with cancer has felt that way too. and in the interview how everything in life can change in a mere instant. not something i recommend obsessing about as it could cripple your life. and the joy in it. to live in such fear. so its not that it made me scared. it reminded me that its true. and part of me is beginning to mourn the loss of the past five months. for what i thought they would look like. and feel like. and what would happen. and how it looked terribly different than i ever imagined. and as you know. if you read this blog. i am joyful. i trust God. i know He is using our cancer. but at the same time i think its okay and normal and possibly therapeutic to feel sad. and angry. and to really begin to talk about the parts of my heart that hold lots of pain. and simply deep deep sadness over cancer and what it does to you and how it changes you. forever. that this morning for example. life with no cancer would mean ava would eat her banana nut cheerios in her highchair. justin would make coffee. and we could talk in the kitchen about what we had going on today. and if ava slept through the night...

and all that is true but this conversation was added. today justin said...i think its time. time to shave your head. to which i respond...what? really? you think? why? i mean i am almost done? to which he says...babe, you told me to tell you when it was time. to which i say...i hate you (but i don't really. and i told him that after i said it). to which he said...do you really want to wait until you only have three hairs left? i laugh. because that is funny...but maybe i do. we go back and forth. i even try my wig on for the first time. i hate it. he says i look beautiful and that i would no matter what. to which i say...thank you. but come on i hope i look better with hair. and because i am in denial and will continue to be i say...babe, everyone tells me it looks good and they are surprised i still even have some hair (but as i type this i am thinking...possibly everyone who has said this is lying). so he says...okay. don't shave it then. so we/i opt out of shaving for today and instead use my trusty old hats.

what is interesting to me is that last night before bed. for the first time in a while. like a while while. i took out my handheld mirror and checked the back of my head out in the mirror. since i do not check it out that often i was a bit shocked at what i saw. wow. getting pretty thin. but put the mirror away and went to bed. and then we had the conversation we had this morning.

so that is was what our conversation over breakfast looked like. and its fine. because life never turns out exactly the way we thought or imagined. at least not every detail. and that is okay. life is hard sometimes. but for today. or maybe the past week or so i starting to process cancer a bit more. maybe something that is impossible to do right in the middle of it all. i do not think you can really. and what i feel in my soul is so hard to articulate. because its bigger than just sadness or anger. its beginning to realize that in many ways i am not who i was before. but also still very much the same. can the two exist? i think so. and i sometimes think i am supposed to come to some conclusion or answer about it all. all that is going on inside my heart and head. but i know i don't. not yet at least. and maybe not ever. it will simply be a new chapter in my life. one that i did not think i would ever need to include. but i do.