It ENDS!!!!

So, for those of you who haven't been counting (and you know who you are... ha ha)... tomorrow marks my final trip to chemotherapy. HOORAY!!! I am still dreading the week of misery that follows, but it's hard to put into words the relief that I feel knowing that I am finished with this phase of my treatment. Sometimes it is difficult to believe that it has "only" been four months... it feels like a year! I can say, without reservation, that I have gained a whole new understanding of empathy. I am finding that there are so many around me who are dealing with tragic situations of their own and it has been so good for me to spend a lot of my free mental time praying for and thinking about each of you. I praise the Lord - continually - for the perspective afforded me through cancer and struggle. I think that too often in the past I had a moment of, "oh, that's too bad" and then moved right along with my own life. It is much easier for me to now put myself in someone else's shoes and to imagine the moment-by-moment struggle that they are engaged in.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with soooo much to be thankful for! Grandpa & Grandma Hawn joined us for a fantastic feast (and I have eaten more than I ever needed to over the past week and a half... which, I'm not sure if I'm thankful for or not... ha ha Just another lesson in, "be careful what you wish for"!) and lots of Wii, shopping and visiting. Everyone stayed relatively healthy (the kids and I have been battling colds for several weeks now, but it is nothing that we can't handle) and all the food turned out wonderful! (it was a good practice run for Christmas, Scott)

I think that we are starting to really feel the stress build-up of about 7 months of 24 hours a day cancer. It comes out in all of our relationships even though we like to think that we are dealing with it well (me, especially!). Please keep this in your prayers as we embark on a new phase of the journey. I'm thinking that I will start radiation in early January and that will be 5 days a week for 6 1/2 weeks. yikes... Fortunately, it sounds like the treatment time itself will be brief, but envisioning the daily disruption of the overall package is ugly for me. It's hard enough to get everyone where they belong (and I'm acting like I actually do that when right now it is Grandma, Tara and Jennifer who are pretty well shuttling my kids all over Butler County... THANK YOU ladies!!!) without trying to fit in a run to Passavant every day. Which... by the way, is also something to be thankful for. At least I don't have to be running to Magee every day (that is 20 minutes away with free parking a couple of townships over vs. running downtown and paying for parking every day - for you non-locals). So... there is a sunny side to everything I suppose.

Overall, we are mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically beaten down. It seems that "survival mode" only gets you so far before the wheels start to fall off... I'm tired of walking this path and goodness knows that Darin and our families are exhausted. I'm hopeful that I will recover quickly from this round and that the next month will be a respite for all of us from what we have been through. Unfortunately there is no true vacation from cancer, especially with more treatment on the horizon, but even a little bit of extended normalcy would go a long way in helping us to reestablish regular routines and communications. Sometimes it is so hard for me to see beyond what I am dealing with and in that my worst fears are realized... I become very self-focused. I don't want to be that way at all... in fact, the less I focus on myself the better! However, sometimes the "constantness" of it all (severe hot flashes, random pains - side effects of the Nulasta??, ugliness - baldness, patchy eyelashes, swollen, rheumy eyes, surgical scars, etc. etc., stomach upset, tongue crap, and on and on and on) just overwhelms me to the point that it takes all of my concentration just to function in a normal way. I hate what this whole experience has done to me and I'm thankful at the same time. Weird, eh? If you can't tell, we continue to need your prayers and are so grateful for the fact that you have never let up on us. One more to go... I can't wait until it is over!

#42 in my "1001 things to be thankful for" book (thank Em!):

that the words "i love you" never get old