Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Another Finish Line

I'm a little over three months out from my last round of chemo now, which means I'm also supposed to be due for my every-three-months PET/CT scan to make sure things are still clean. That's been postponed a few weeks because of my surgery last week. According to my oncologist, if we scanned me now, the surgery site would light up like a Christmas tree because my cells are working so hard at repairing the tissue there. We certainly don't want any false positives, so I can hold off on chewing my nails down to the quick for another few weeks.

In the meantime, here's the status of my hair, which honestly doesn't look all that different to me than the photos I posted of it a month ago. Do you guys see a difference? And, yeah, yeah, I know I need a better photographer. I'll admit I'm not very good at self-portraits. Vogue will not be knocking down my door to grace their cover anytime soon. And I'm fine with that.



Difference or not, I've started going au naturel, at least for walks around our new neighborhood, which happens to be exactly the kind of neighborhood I always dreamed of, a place where Quinn rides his tricycle up and down every single driveway as we make our way around the block -- and the people are overwhelmingly happy to meet us, to introduce themselves, to welcome us into our new home. 

We are settling in, figuring out which light switches control which lights, slowly picking out new furniture that works with our existing things, and unpacking the last of our boxes (which is a seemingly endless process with a two year old around). 

And it turns out our next-door neighbor is also a breast cancer survivor and a mom to a couple of boys a few years older than Quinn. She finished up treatment very similar to mine just over a year ago. It continues to astound me how common this disease is. She is also a personal trainer, which might be exactly what I need in the coming months.

I haven't really been able to work out these past three months, since I broke my arm just three days after I finished chemo and just as I was recovering from that, I had my swap-out surgery; last week, my recovery time for that got pushed back another six weeks. My ass is going to be the shape of our couch soon. Don't laugh. I'm serious. Be happy I'm not posting pictures of that every month.

This has been a very long-winded way of letting you know I've signed up again for the Avon Walk, this time in San Francisco at the end of September. (Also, I have no idea what's going on with the fonts on my participant page, so apologies about that.) I have the five hottest months in Phoenix to train for this trek, but if I did it while on chemo last year, I'm fairly certain I can find a way to make it to the finish line this year. As of now, I've managed to walk the 1/2 mile loop around our neighborhood almost every day this week. Athlete extraordinaire over here, let me tell you. Watch out, San Francisco.

3 comments:

  1. The hair is growing in very evenly, it seems - that's great. Enjoy your walking and good luck with Avon!

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    1. Your photos are great. No photo can capture your movements and your voice. They are a huge part of who you are. Hang in there, photographer!

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