Yippee! Yahoo! Hooray!

Just a little excited because . . . the scans looked great! Yahoo!

We will scan again in 4 months--sometime in early February. In the meantime, My ENT will look down my throat every 7 or 8 weeks to make sure he doesn't see anything odd in there. That would be bad. He has an even better view than the scans when it comes to looking in my throat . . and that is DEFINITELY where we do not want it to return (why? because we have REALLY treated it there already, and if it comes back in that spot it is not likely to be easy to cure) The scans though, check to make sure it isn't creeping into another lymph node or into my lungs, and if it is, the sooner we find that out, the more treatable and potentially curable it is! So, for today, great news! Dr. Kamerer, my ENT didn't see anything to alarm him last month and I will see him again in about 5 weeks. (This bodes well for our trip to Vegas in early November!)

Also, it looks like I will, in fact, be a witch, albeit a skinny one, again for Halloween--the surgery scars have healed so well that they are almost invisible---so, no bride of Frankenstein costume for me. I have had the feeding tube out for about 3 weeks now. The rules were that I had to maintain my weight for 3 weeks without pouring anything down it. Luckily, that didn't turn out to be too difficult! (Getting it out was a 23 second horror movie that my husband will have to share with you-I have not yet forgiven him for his part in it) My sense of taste is still terribly distorted which makes eating no fun at all. Still haven't found anything that actually tastes good so my weight has continued to slide down a little since the tube came out. Darn.

Everywhere I go, people tell my how great (i.e.thin) I look and that they love my hair in its more natural (darker ) color. This leads me to believe that before I had cancer and lost 26 pounds, most of you thought I was a big fat cow with bad hair. Fine. I can deal with that, however, a word to the wise. . . . don't say "you look great!" to sick people on days when they CLEARLY do not look great. We have mirrors. Also, we may be sick but we are not stupid. When you say, "You look great!" We hear one of three things : 1)"You look great for someone who has cancer." 2)"You look great for someone who might be dying." or my own personal favorite, 3) "Damn girl, you look a whole lot better than I thought you would!" The fact that you expected me to look worse doesn't negate the fact that I feel crappy and look worse than that. Just so you know.

I have felt mostly well in the month that I haven't written here. There are some issues with the musculature and nerves in my right shoulder and arm ( as a result of the surgery and the radiation) that we will continue to work through; taste, as I mentioned, is still a problem; I still need the pharmaceutical sleep aids, and, I have worn out the credit card shopping for new clothes (which is NOT good because my current job description no longer exists at Simonini and they are looking for a way to make it worthwhile for me to come back to work!) I have surprised myself by realizing that I DESPERATELY want to do this. I miss the company, the job, the people and the decorating ideas . . .we'll see.

That's all for today. I WILL continue to post here and I WILL write more often, really! Thank you for your continued love and support. Have a blessed day.