My hair

Good Morning. I read Dion's past posts and I realize that we need to communicate more (I think we communicate fine...I think she had a lot on her mind (rightly so) and every time I asked for details, I got different facts...I am glad this week is past us, as I write this I can tell you it is nice to have Valerie back to normal...well OK normal is a subjective term, but you know what I mean :-)...Dion). I had a 90% chance of the cancer coming back if I had only done the surgery. I opted to do Radiation and Chemo, so that dropped that % of it coming back. I do not know what that % is because I am too afraid to ask. Dr. Barstis did a whole bunch of blood work on me last week and he said that everything looked good. So I am really believing that the PET scan will be Negative. So, no I do NOT have a 90% chance of it being somewhere else in my body TODAY. I am hoping that I have .05% chance of it being in my body today, but I really don't know the % because...like I said before...I am to afraid to ask. Sometimes not knowing everything is OK. Wish me luck....VAL

15 Minutes of misery, that is all that is allowed! :-) OK, you will likely read my post below and say "wow, they are not doing good". Here it is about an hour after that post, and both our feelings have changed. I am going to leave it, as I want to remember my hard times (I must have re-wrote that post seven times trying to make it not so negative).

We just finished reading an article that a neighbor suggested we read about Heather Warrick (another cancer survivor that Valerie actually did some articles with). Heather has been living with stage-four cancer for over 10 years, and has had seven recurrences. You have got to remember this thing can (and will) be beat!

Happy Monday!

Well Monday is a big day, and then again it is just another Monday! Valerie is scheduled to have her first full body PET scan since the completion of all her treatment. As she said below, she took this back in June when they first diagnosed her with Cancer, other than the tumors in her breasts and lymph nodes, it was negative in the rest of her body. This time we are hoping (praying, believing, demanding, wishing) that it comes back negative again. Bottom line, they are looking for Cancer "seeds" or "little ones that got away" that could be in other parts of her body. We expect to have results by Thursday. Last week she met with Dr. Barstis (I missed this appointment so not sure she heard this right) and he said there was a 90% chance that the test will come back positive....ummm that does not seem like a very good percentage, so I am going to believe she heard it wrong, and wait for Thursday's results.

We've talked alot about this upcoming test. You would think we could get over it, realize it will be what it will be, easier said than done. Sorry I have not posted in awhile, guess it was my way of dealing with this. Trying to make it a "non-event", issue resolved, time to move on! But deep down it eats at me, I know I can't fix it, I can't see it, I can't cure it and it really pisses me off.

Geez that was a bummer of a post....sorry, we are upbeat that Thursday will be better than Monday!

Valerie enjoying Irish coffee while we watch the kids snowboard

I am feeling better today!!! Love you all!!! VAL

I will have surgery on March 5th. This will either be the removal of the ovaries or a whole hysterectomy. I am leaning towards removing all of it because it would be one less thing I would have to worry about. Just thought you would like to know.

I am also having a full body PET scan on Monday, Feb. 26. This will tell me if the cancer has spread to other parts of my body. I had a PET scan last June and it was negative, so I am hoping for the same results. I forget how long it takes them to get the test results back, but I am sure by Friday, March 2 I will know. I will be getting PET scans every 3 months for awhile.

Today is not a good day. It sucks. I went to a bossom Buddie meeting last night to give support to other breast cancer survivors and learn how to read my pathology report. To make a long story short I was able to "stage" my Cancer. I am a Stage IIIc. This is the stage RIGHT BEFORE stage IV. It caught me by surprise because my oncologist said that I was a stage IIc or IIIa. For some reason it makes a difference to me. I know that I would not do anything different, but I just began to feel like normal. I just began to feel my life returning to me. I didn't think about cancer every minute of everyday. Now I feel like I am back at the beginning all over again. I am sad. I know I will get over this because nothing has really changed, but I wish I didn't find out. Knowledge is not always power. I think not knowing sometimes is OK. I liked believing that I was a stage IIc. Even though Stage IIc is not good...it was better that stage IIIc. Love you all and send me prayers today. P.S. I felt so sad that I actually let the dog sleep in my bed last night. She made me feel better :)

Leave it to me to mess up the blog. I swear I don't know what I did. All I know is that if you click on the little box that is in the blank picture frame, it will actually pull up the picture. I don't know...I just keep trying (Dion here...I can tell you what she did, and I have told her too, but does it really matter? Nope, it is fixed....and it will happen again! :-) Enjoy it while it works!)

Well, life does go on. As you can see, Dion and I are not updating the blog every 2 seconds because we are busy with life (Dion here again, I think it can also be said too busy to keep fixing this thing! Sorry to anyone I ticked off by not taking the time to fix it...it won't happen again!). Dion has been super busy at work and I have been busy with the kids. Our son had his 6th birthday party on Saturday. It was themed "Star Wars". I made Dion dress up like Darth Vader and he played light sabers with 8 little boys, it was really cute. Dion and the dad's then played baseball with the boys using the "light saber" as a bat. It was a fun kids party (Dad here, and FUN for me too!).

Boobs...well not much to talk about, (Just when I thought it was safe to read the blog again...whamo! I thought we were talking about kids birthday parties? Some days I don't get her, but I still love her! Since we are here, couldn't that statement have ended right there? Nope...read on...) they are hard. I hug people and they say "ouch". I am looking forward to the day that I can replace the expanders with something softer. Dr. Watson told me that they are hard because he over expanded them. I swear I am not that big. But he compared the expanders to a super full water balloon. I am just glad that that this is not the finished product. I mean they look great and perky, but not to soft. I will keep you posted on when that surgery will be...it should be in about 2-5 months. I will talk to my ovary doctor (Dr. Barstis) tomorrow and keep you posted.

Love you all. Val