Another trip around the sun

A year ago I was getting ready for a week-long trip to celebrate turning 60. The trip was great, and I had such expectations for a fun year filled with new adventures! While it all started out that way, life took a big detour in April when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. On the plus side, I’m still here and ready to celebrate turning 61!

Still, it’s been a year full of new experiences: surgery, staph infection, chemotherapy, hospital stay, low potassium level, hair loss, infusion treatments, and so many more. Three treatments in for the infusions, though, and things are looking up. I’m slowly getting back to exercising, my brain is working through some of chemo fog, and best of all my hair is coming back! Too soon to tell what it will look like, but I have discarded head coverings at this point except when it’s chilly. My eyebrows and eyelashes are coming back, too, so that’s good. The most aggravating side effect right now is just fatigue. I understand that will likely hang on for a year or more, so doing my best to adjust and do as much as I can, when I can.

Speaking of which, had a great pre-birthday weekend! My friend, Nikki, came to visit, and we mostly giggled and acted like 16-year old girls, so it was a good time for us and random people standing near us when we were shopping. The best thing we saw was a sign at the Sharkheads, home of the Big Pink Shark, that said “Surely not everyone was kung fu fighting.” Hahahahhaa! We read that and laughed out loud for a good five minutes and kept laughing about it all night. We are easily amused.

As I head into this next year, I’m continuing my plan to do something new every month. Only this year I hope those “new” experiences aren’t mostly related to health care issues. If weather and energy levels cooperated, November’s experience will be a visit to an alpaca farm with a couple of friends. We all have November birthdays close together, so it should be fun way to celebrate!

I also plan to spend this coming year focusing on getting healthier and enjoying life. Words cannot express my gratitude for all the love and support and encouragement from my family and friends since the diagnosis. A mammogram in September showed no signs of cancer — as expected — but the treatments continue to make sure it stays that way. I am incredibly lucky that we found the cancer so early and to have had such wonderful health care providers. The situation could have been very different had I waited another six months or a year for that original mammogram.

Most of all, I thank God for granting me peace throughout this whole process. On the drive home the day of the diagnosis, that was my prayer: Lord, please grant me peace throughout this process. I am such a worry wart, and could have so easily driven myself crazy with all this. That prayer was answered almost immediately, and I really have been able to get through this with a minimum of worry. Not that it was easy, and not that I would wish this experience on anyone. But oh, it could have been so very much worse.

Thank you God, and thank you for letting me have another year of new experiences!