JAMs Jams. Pure. Real. Fresh.

Yesterday I had a major accomplishment - I walked a whole mile!  Yes, yes, yes.  I know it seems silly to celebrate one simple mile, but I am.  I could barely make it half a mile 2 weeks ago.  And I did it in 20 minutes which was pretty exciting to me considering it was (relatively speaking) hilly.  The course I have been walking has been totally flat so this felt like big mountains to me. My left leg is very swollen today as a result & my knee is hurting a bit but nothing I can't live with.  Couple more mile walks & I can sign back up for the YMCA.  Hooray. We have received a lot of sweet notes and comments about Cedar's passing.  We appreciate each & every one.  Our neighbors gave us a book called Dog Heaven that we read last night together.  We are getting thru it as a family.  Meanwhile Jessie is in loving her "soft" new life - this is her last night.  We have managed, so far, to keep the notion o...

Yesterday we said goodbye to our beloved companion of 15 1/2 years - our dalmatian Cedar.  It was a sad day for all of us, but in true Musgrove fashion we bonded together & brought smiles to each others' faces with stories of Cedar. I have to think right now she is up in Heaven with my Mom - who was always her buddy from the first time they met.  And she is reunited with her "brother" Willy. Meanwhile we are showering Jessie with our love.

By all accounts, patience is not my strong suit!  But definitely required to recover from the hell that has been our last 9 months.  Yes, I'm already frustrated that I'm not back to 100%.  I know, thats absurd, but it is what it is.  So I started thinking about patience & I found some quotes that might help any of you who, like me, are impatient to the core... This one is particularly appropriate, but really if you follow it to the extreme will you ever get anything accomplished??? “Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.” ― A.A. Milne , Winnie-the-Pooh   So, since that one left me feeling kind of like, what the hell, don't worry about anything, I went naturally to the opposite extreme.  This one I really like because it does make me feel powerful - not lazy. Maybe thats why I'm impatient - waiting or being patient feels like laziness to me. “Patience is power. Patience is not an absence of action; rather it is "tim...

This post is for my friend Wanda & her team at the Doubletree Starbucks!  Thanks for always having a smile, a genuine concern for how i'm doing, and a nice big cold iced coffee for me.  You guys make me happy every day!  Today is Emilia's twelfth birthday.  Seems impossible that 12 years ago we got our first little bundle of joy, but it has been an amazing 12 years.  I told her this morning that she is an awesome human being.  She is smart, beautiful, athletic, caring, loving - everything a parent could ask for and more.  She does LOVE to pick on her little sister but she wouldn't be human if she didn't.  I'm excited to give her SCUBA lessons for her birthday - something we will do together - just her & I.  She's having some friends sleep over tonight - they are going to the movies alone for the first time.  Will post pics this weekend of her little party. I'm doing fine - I think I may have gotten my skin glue wet this morni...

One more step towards a return to a normal cancer-free life is behind me.  Yesterday I had my port removed - this was the device they put in my chest back in February that all my chemo & most of my blood transfusions went thru.  Basically a little button under the skin in my chest with wires into my heart & other big veins that delivered the drugs faster to my main circulatory system.  It was very painful to have it put in but once that wore off, the port was a useful tool for a chemo patient.  It always felt foreign, stuck up thru my skin & I could feel the wires in my veins which was a little weird. I'm glad to have it gone.  The procedure to remove the port was done in the angiogram lab like the installation was.  Basically there is a small radiology procedure area at Vanderbilt.  You get a "cell" as I call it where they put you into a hospital gown, put you in a bed, start an IV, do the "Pre Op" stuff like asking a bazillion que...

So, Kendall, EB & I went to Nordstrom yesterday & we bought an "I Beat Cancer's Ass Watch".  Its so incredible - I'm totally in love with it!!!  I'm a watch sucker anyway - a bad habit I picked up from my husband!  I wanted something with a leather band & we all totally fell in love with this silver snakeskin band.  Almost makes all those hours in the chemo room worth it. Maryann also sent me this amazing tanzanite ring.  I just have to include a picture of it too.  The color is stunning - I cannot wait to wear it.  Right now I just keep opening the box & looking at it in amazement. More good news, my dad has finally gotten to the bottom of all his health challenges & should be headed home from the hospital today or tomorrow.  I think he's been in there for 2 weeks & he has had several procedures in that timeframe.  If you are inclined to prayer, please pray for him to have a safe & uneventful homecoming, ...

Thursday is a blur in my mind.  I know Kendall & I saw Dr Keedy & I know she told us the scans were clear, we could get the port out, my counts suck, its okay to do scuba diving, fine to start very slowly exercising & to see her again in 3 months.  Beyond that I'm not sure what happened that day.  I will be honest, I cried for a couple hours after I left the doctor's office.  I don't know why - I haven't cried much on this journey - a couple times when I got really frustrated at not being able to do what I want.  I guess it kind of all hit me on Thursday - now that its sort of over - at least the urgency & immediacy is over.  There is still the chance the cancer can come back of course, but I am not thinking about that right now. So, Thursday was an emotional blur.  I didn't make it back to work after the doctor as I had intended but Kendall & I did make it to a dinner with many of my colleagues that evening.  It was so nice ...

Scans are clear! The surgery site is still healing & that will take a while. My counts are pretty low but they will come up over time. The port is coming out on Wednesday! More soon.

Wanted to share the pictures from last Friday!! Kendall & I in the "Chemo Room".  Have you any idea how much I hope I never ever sit in one of those recliners again? The EMPTY!!! last bag of chemo Cookies, party invitations & goodie bags for the Infusion Center staff Some of the spread that the girls put together for the nurses.  There was also Julie's Evil Addictive Popcorn but it cannot be photographed! My & my peeps - Lorraine & Amber - would not have made it thru this without these 2. And without Julie B.  One of the most amazing friends and moms I know. Lorraine, me & Jennifer (who spent Friday with me on the last day! - another great friend) being silly with the cookies. The people who made it happen.  Kelly (a patient care tech), Chrissy (the nurse who found out she was pregnant just when I started chemo & who is naming her baby girl Amelia!), Lindsey (one of the funnest nurses), Mark (who was...

Guess I'm feeling a little grouchy  & a touch sarcastic today. I'm entitled right?  It's hard to know you're done but still feel like a bag of chemotherapy!  So I thought maybe I'd tell you some of the worst things about chemo, lest anyone ever tell you "it's not that bad"...  Hah. My favorite - gaining weight. Seriously?  Sometimes a week without eating & still possible to gain weight?  Seems like a cruel joke that only people who are already struggling to maintain a scrawny 125 lbs actually LOSE weight on chemotherapy drugs.  Those of us who fight like hell to maintain our weight can easily gain 40 pounds in 9 months.  Shoot, I gained less when I was pregnant! The crazy rabid 4 eyed 8 legged monster that lives in my abdomen. Boy do the drugs make him mad so that he claws & contorts to try to escape from my body leaving breathtaking stomach cramps & profuse sweating as his calling cards. Im not sure he really wants to escape b...

Chemo is over!  I'm no longer a cancer patient!  It ended in glorious style with a great party for the nurses organized by Amber & Julie & supported by several others. And the nurses gave me a shirt that says "infused with hope" that they all signed. Pictures next week I promise. For now we are going to relax & take a few deep breaths. Remember where it started?  The PET scanner! I received some very sage advice today that my mind thinks its all done but my body will need a couple weeks to recover just like any chemo round. It doesn't know it's done!  So I will try to keep that in mind & not expect to be back to normal on Monday!  Or back to spin class on Tuesday!  You guys did a good job remaining me to take it easy recently.  may need a few more of those reminders over the next several weeks.   Part of me is expecting the recovery to be the most difficult phase of the process because I am so impatient. Tomorrow I have to ...

The last night ever to sleep with my port accessed?  Certainly that appears to be the case! With the help of some amazing family & friends, I find myself on the eve of my final treatment. I can honestly say this is not a place I ever expected to find myself. First I never in a million years thought I'd get a cancer that required 42 chemo treatments (a number even the nurses & now my oncologist admit is flabbergasting). Then when our world was rocked with a sarcoma diagnosis in January, chemo was iffy at best - it sounded like we wouldn't have to do it. Then came the surgery & the pathology with a much more dire outcome than we had thought.  The change in diagnosis to Ewings Sarcoma pretty much turned our world upside down as we realized chemo was an absolute must & that it wasn't just any chemo. It was the chemo from hell marathon. At that point I never thought I'd find myself on the eve of the final day because it seemed like it would never end! B...

Wow, only 2 more times to get hooked up to those poisons.  Unbelievable.  The question of the week seems to be what happens next.  I've given this some thought on the personal level (will get to that in a minute) but on the medical level its pretty straightforward. First I will have 3 scans on Monday - a routine mammogram (its been 6 months since the debacle with trying to biopsy 2 spots found on breast MRI that weren't there), a CT scan of the chest and an MRI of the pelvis.  The chest CT is to look for new masses that could appear in my chest.  The pelvis MRI will cover the left groin area where the original tumor was.  These are the 2 most likely places for recurrence/metastases so they will be checked every 3 months for 2 years.  The breast mammogram will be annually with the breast MRI in between.  About once a year they will do a PET scan to make sure there are no new bone masses since Ewing's is typically a bone cancer.  And once a y...

Yep 2 down, 3 to go this week. It's a grind for sure but the end is near. It's helped a ton to have friends with me this week. Yesterday Bob (my work husband) came & so did my friend Angie which was wonderful. We chatted and laughed and time went pretty fast. Last night I felt a little better than Monday night. I Ate a little dinner & stayed up til almost 8!! Hoping for a repeat of that today. I can tell my blood counts are starting to drop already though. I wouldn't be surprised if Dr Keedy makes me get one last transfusion next week. They also think I have yet another asymptomatic UTi so I will probably get more antibiotics. Feels like I've been on them non stop! I'm getting chauffeured to chemo today by Roger. What a treat! Hope it goes fast again. I will keep you updated! Hump day baby!

Yesterday went quickly & it was great to have Christine there to keep me company. I felt pretty crappy last night, me & my Ativan were in bed by 6.30! I did sleep well though so this morning I'm better - even made breakfast for the family & ate a bagel! My heart is heavy this morning. My dad is in the hospital down in Naples. He hasn't been feeling well for some time & has an infection in his toe that is evidently spreading. As a diabetic it's hard For him to heal in his extremities. So he & Maryann will meet with the doctors today I think & decide what needs to be done. I'd ask that you keep him in your thoughts and prayers please. It's very hard for me, frankly, right now to reach out & be involved in his care & decisions. I feel like I have all I can handle (maybe even a tad more) on my hands here. Even though treatments are ending I still need to survive 4 more brutal etopocide & ifosfamide treatments, get thru scans next w...

been a long time since i've posted any photo therapy.  as i sit here balancing the checking account, i'm trying not to think about tomorrow.  while in some sick ways i'm looking forward to it - because it is the last time and because we have come so far, i still get that nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach thinking about chemo.  one of my nurses told me she saw an ex-patient in the mall a year or two after their treatment & the patient ran to the trash can & vomited just at the sight of the nurse. yes, it is that powerful the associations we have with things, places and people! so with some happy thoughts i figured i would include some photo therapy today...  i have been in a reminiscing mood this afternoon so i went back thru some old pictures.  i thought you might enjoy seeing a walk down memory lane.  i got sick of trying to get blogger to keep them in order, so they aren't!  sorry about that! Kendall & I at his West Poin...