December 13, 2008

12 days until Christmas!

I am still holding up pretty good for my counts being so low. I notice as the day runs its course so goes my energy levels. Typically by the end of the night I am usually moving around like an old woman with osteoporosis. I often ponder what my life is going to be like when I get done with all of the Chemo treatments. Is it the Chemo, is it the Cancer or is it a little of both that is wearing my body down so much. When this is all over am I going to wake up one day & be "normal again" Me & normal have never been in the same sentence so I guess that is a bad analogy. Call it Chemo Brain but I was looking at my Labs the other day & I did not realize it but on my last post it was my 100th day fighting this cancer. WOHOO! When I was first diagnosed with the Leukemia the outlook was very grim, they have since looked at my cytogenetics & given me a 50 to 60% chance of 5 year survivability, which may not sound good to some but for the type of Leukemia I have this is a very good prognosis. Marc is not happy with this, I call it a crap shoot & break it down to it's a fifty fifty shot, I would take that bet in Vegas...

I have noticed that I am starting to get more followers to the Blog & the site hits are nearing 5,000 & I did not start counting those until I was about a month into my cancer treatment. I want to thank all of you for walking down this path with us & being so positive & supportive. There have been more good days than bad & the bad days don't seem so bad knowing that I am not going through this alone.

Marc got a message from Coach Gibson yesterday, his wife Jenifer works for ACCOR, all of the employees there gave our family a very nice gift for Christmas. I also want to thank Alice Chapin for her donation as well.

I have been trying to keep up with the news everyday you hear more & more people are being laid off & everyday life in general is becoming more strained for most families. It is really getting ugly out there & I have a feeling it is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. It is times like these that everyone sick or healthy needs to have a strong support system in place. The outpouring of support has not only been for me but for Marc & the kids as well. This is so important to them. I think in times like this it is not uncommon to have a tendency to focus so much on the person who is ill that the rest of the family can easily become a part of the shadow. You all have been so wonderful & positive keeping me motivated in this fight & always asking about the kids & Marc, they have good days & bad days to. I just want everyone to know that your prayers & support are helping them get through this as well.

Brandon had another wrestling meet against Jonathan Alder last Thursday night. He wrestled 160 again & pinned the first kid real fast his second match he won in overtime 12 to 10. Paige has a Basketball game against Fairbanks that she is cheering at today, Katie's Grandma Jill came & picked her up for the weekend, Brandon is going to Columbus for Chipolte with friends & Zack is stuck with us. Misty has been sick for about a week so she has pretty much been staying in her room.

Marc & I pretty much have all our Christmas shopping done. This is a huge relief. Normally Christmas sneaks up on us & we put it off until the last minute & hit all the stores in a mad dash. This year I had the time but I just did not have the energy to go out plus my counts have been to unreliable to be around crowds of people. In the past Marc & I, have always dotted to an excess on the kids & in all honesty we are probably guilty of materializing Christmas too much for them. As much as we both love Christmas somewhere along the lines we got away from the true meaning of it. So this year we downsized tremendously what we are getting for the kids. We sat down & talked to our 3 teenagers about it, I know they were bummed a little by their facial expressions but they said they understood. I think many families this year are facing the same predicament in one form or another. Don't get me wrong our kids are going to have a good Christmas, we set a budget this year that was a bit smaller than usual & the big difference being we actually stuck to it for once. Zack still believes in Santa Clause so we have really been having fun with that this year! (I am trying to get Marc to dress up like Santa, but he is not taking the bait).

Marc is not typically with me when I write these, he is usually at work & reads them when he gets home. I find this comical for some reason. When he is here & I am updating this I always ask him if he has anything to add, his answer is usually nope. It's not that he has nothing to add, he is just more of a private person. I know one of these days he is going to throw me off & say yeah.