Hullo out there!

I have been so busy I can't believe it has been a month and a half. I have 948 (granted, most junk, but I still need to sort) emails in my hotmail box and about 60 in gmail, and tons in FB, so I am SO SO SO SO SO sorry for not being better at communicating when all of you, especially when it is all of you who lift me up and keep me going when I am so fricking tired and frustrated and ugly looking/feeling.

Quick update on everything:

School: Swamped. Two sciences with labs and an online (basically, teach yourself) statistics was a lot to take on during a semester with radiation, chemo, and a job (yes! I got one, more on that later). Still getting As in everything, planning on summer school, and looking forward to more self-enrichment!

Job: I am now working at a company called PhotoStat which copies medical records for various clinics and hospitals. I am working 20 hours a week. I hope that as soon as I get back from Hawaii I will be able to dip my feet into their sales team too! I am also going to work for the US census. They need Spanish speakers and it pays almost $20 an hour. I can do it in the evenings and on weekends, so it is totally flexible. So hopefully I can start paying all the medical bills that are rolling in. If you ever get cancer, try to keep all the fun and exciting chemo and surgery within a calendar year so you can hit your out-of-pocket just once, not twice. Paying 20% of everything like radiation and chemo sucks!

Health: Luis and I got a scare last week when the Khanny baby called with my PET scan results and I was told that there was something on my lung. Eeek! He said it could be radiation damage, but they needed at CT scan. Scared the poop out of me, but it ended up being pneumonic inflammation (lots of fluid in my lung), so in addition to 3rd degree burns my radiation treatment also f'ed up my lungs. It will get better, but radiation damage to vital organs is not on many people's "Thing to Experience" List.

Now this is the BIG health news: My last chemo treatment is going to be next week Wednesday!!!!!!!!!!!! I am going to get my hair back! My nails back! My periods back (I can't believe I am WISHING for that one, girls, but I am!!)!!!

Now, for the next two years every two weeks I will have monoclonal antibody treatmens of Herceptin and and angiogenesis inhibitor Avastin, which almost as bad as chemo because your body doesn't heal and blood randomly gushes out your nose in the most horrible places (romantic dinners with your husband, while you are holding children with both hands, after eating hot foods, etc), BUT it isn't chemotherapy.

Okay, it is after 4am and I have a HUGE bio test manana, but i wanted to say hi, tell you all I am so sorry for being out of contact, and come next month, I am going to be much better at responding at emails. Love you all. Life is wonderful. Thank you for being there for me even when it seems I have disappeared into the ether.