I can do this!

Yes I can!

See you all on a day called Friday!

Just get me through this!

Surgery is scheduled for this Friday. The hospital will call Thursday evening to tell me what time to be at the hospital. No food or drink after midnight.
They will do a lumpectomy and send it to be tested. I will get those results in a week. If the margins around the cancer are clear, I heal for five weeks then start radiation. If the margins are not clear then another lumpectomy occurs. Repeat testing, clear-radiation, not clear-a lumpectomy or mastectomy.
The stage can be changed and then I might need chemo also. It is all definately out of my control. Even if all goes smoothly I am sure that down the road I will have scares - sure that the cancer has returned. I assume I will be monitored very closely for the next five years, but actually I want to be closely monitored for the rest of my life! I can see that I will be getting through this for the rest of my life.

Trains and Tea

 

TRAINS

 

THEN TEA!

The important things to teach your son!

Perseverence

My man has it. He completed the JFK Johnson Rehabilitation Institute Computer Applications Training program and was recognized at their graduation ceremony. He also gave the only student speech and did it well. Caroline and I attended and we were very proud of him. It was obvious that he was well liked and respected by the students and the instructors.

 

 

Warrior

Doug called me upstairs. I went and he handed me this pinkish bundle of fabric. "This should have arrived yesterday, I wanted you to have it to wear to breakfast today with Mary Ogiba. But it came today." I opened it up and it was a beautiful scarf and I realized that it was for breast cancer. Doug made a donation to Warriors In Pink powered by Ford (fordcares.com). I love it. I appreciate his effort and his actions were the words that he could not speak.

My surgery is scheduled for Friday, November 30,2012. It was delayed two weeks because of the damage and power outage left by Hurricane Sandy.

I wore my new scarf to Doug's graduation from The JFK Johnson Rehabilitation Institute Computer Applications Training program this evening.

Wine-ing



Everybody deserves a little wine sometime! Doing it with good friends - all the better.

Pat Rex, Angela Cooper and Barbara Base. We just bought our nifty wine glass holders.

We wined all day. Last year I froze and ended up buying countless cups of hot chocolate.  This year we walked around without coats. It was a cloudless, blue sky day.

We paid for the special safari tour where we would sample the best of the best wines and feed the giraffes, but due to Hurricane Sandy and the following snowstorm, it was too dangerous for the giraffes to walk. Instead, they refunded the safari fee and we went for the birds.
 

 

HALLOWEeeeeeeen?

Yes, a delayed Halloween and we had to go to Pennsylvania to celebrate it. Emilie, Matt and Samantha invited me to go trick-or-treating with them and Kamryn, Kellen, Tim and Robyn. We left my house around 3:30pm on Saturday, November 3 and arrived at Tim's house in Easton around 5pm. Tim and Kamryn were out getting pizza. Kamryn had no idea that we were coming, so Samantha jumped out to surprise her. Kamryn screamed and then got very excited. Kellen, did not get close to anyone and just stood there looking at all of us. We quickly ate the delicious pizza and then it was time to get dressed. The weather was very chilly, so layers were needed.

 

 

 

 

 

Samantha was a beautiful purple butterfy. Kamryn was a sweet Little Red Riding Hood and Kellen was THE BIG BAD WOLF!

Grandma's Special Trick-or-Treaters!

What The.....

All hell has broken out on the East Coast! Hurricane Sandy made a direct landfall somewhere between Cape May and Atlantic City and wiped out power through out the state of New Jersey. We lost power around 8:30pm Monday night October 29th. and got it back Tuesday morning around 3am, eight days later. I went and picked Pop up on Wednesday October 31 (Halloween) before he turned into a POP-sicle from the lack of heat, electricity and telephone. My sister Chris, out in Stockton still has no power as of today. The Jersey Shore is destroyed! Many homes are just gone, not to be found.
We survived! We had a generator hooked up and we had our wood burning stove. We lit our gas stove with matches and cooked simple things on the stove. We had enough time to stockpile water, gas and the essentials: m&m's,chocolate chip cookies, soda, cheddar puffs and some food. Every time the generator came on I charged my cell phone and my camera battery- definately essentials!