Light Beams

Today is New Years Eve. It's been a long, long year. Stress does not suit me well.
Mom's doing ok. She's growing back her hair. A couple nails are ready to fall off from the herceptin injections, and her heart output is lower. I guess unless it gets lower than 50%, it's ok. Still makes me nervous.
2010 better be better. I can't take this anymore. I love her and want to keep her around for a long time comin'.

I don't really write on here that much because the stressful part of all this is pretty much done. I still worry about re-occurrence, but I can't focus on that solely. Mom's hair is getting "longer" by the day it seems. It's still VERY short, but there's finally something to brush through! It's much softer to use my toddler son's brush so I let her borrow it. Her scalp needs stimulating, but it's still sensitive. These days she doesn't walk around with her head covered. She's feeling better about herself, I guess. We're going to have company soon and I doubt she's going to wander around here without at least something on. The herceptin shots still give her a "down" day, but she's managing. They changed the chemistry of it so let's hope it's still effective!

There's been a lot to be thankful for this year. Most of all, having mom here with us.
Her hair is slowly growing back and it's almost 1/2 an inch. It's coming back very dark.
Funny thing - my son is 18 months old and has had gramma in the house since he was 3 weeks old. Gramma always has had hair. Recently she's been having tons of different kinds of hats on her head instead. I think he's getting used to Gramma wearing stuff on her head or her head changing colors because the other day Gramma walked out into the living room where he was with nothing on her head. (She usually tries to cover up for his sake - not to "scare" him.) He didn't even notice. That made a huge statement to Gramma - you are NOT your hair.

We had the celebration party for mom! What a neat time for her. She didn't think it was such a big thing at first, but then when everyone else kept saying what a huge deal it was, I think she finally admitted that she HAD done a big thing! Here are some pictures to show the day!

Friday (Tomorrow) is her last day of radiation! HURRAY! We're baking her a cake and hanging a "Congratulations" banner in front of the house! She is trying to "downplay" it, but it IS a huge deal! She gets to ring a bell in celebration right there in the hospital... that's cool. I'm going to try to get a picture of it. :)

Mom's well into the count down. I don't know how many days left - I think only 6.
Anyway, as of Thursday, they changed the direction of the radiation rays. This time they go right into her surgical site where the cancer was. She says it doesn't hurt when they do it, but about 2-4 hours later it feels like someone is ripping her insides out. She told them and they were pleased because that's "how it's supposed to feel". Oh great, then YOU do it.
Anyway, we're really going to have something to be thankful for this year at Thanksgiving time. She's still got to do the herceptin shots once every three weeks, and then be wary for 4 more years after that, but it's changed us - in a good way. We appreciate each other more every day. The acute stress of her going through all this has subsided somewhat, but I still wish she didn't have to deal with it at all. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad she found it and caught it early, but why did she have to get it at all? Questions to ask God I guess.

She's only got 12 radiation sessions left. She's tired of it. I'm tired of it.
She said she used to be angry, but now she's just tired of going to the hospital every day.
I've been going with her most days and I'm tired too.
I tried to put myself in her position. I mean, really put myself in her shoes. It's one thing to go there every day and be able to wander about and do what I want to do, but if I had to have some procedure or undress everyday, I think I'd be very angry.
Anyway, she is almost finished and we should have a huge party!
She'll still have the shots to do once every three weeks, but she'll not have to go to the hospital every single stinking day!