@WomenOfHistory: Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself. -Lucille Ball

6 to go, 5 to go

Made it through 2 treatments in 6 days! The Allan Blair clinic was closed Friday because of the Easter long weekend so they scheduled me in a day early. I have felt pretty darn good, the rest of my family is a different story. All of the Kaufmann boys suffered the last week with fevers and colds. I was able to take care of them for the most part, although Loni was pretty much left on his own. I was a little scared to go too close to him with the germs flying everywhere. Thanks to the help of my dad and Deb we had a nice Easter weekend considering most of us were under the weather at some point.

I'm spending lots of my free time reading about side effects of my treatment, and preparing myself for upcoming surgery. Still not sure if I'll do a double mastectomy and/or reconstruction. So much to learn and understand. The info can be so overwhelming. And also frightening. Some days I wished I didn't know what I know. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss. The long term side effects of some of the drugs I'm taking to battle this tumour don't seem all that positive- but there's really not a lot of choice - has to be done. My doctor doesn't recommend a bilateral mastectomy but most women look at me as if I'm crazy for not doing it. Reconstruction seems to add so much more time and pain to this whole experience, it's difficult to decide if its worth it? So much to learn. So much to take in. So many facts, opinions, and personal experiences to sort through and decide what is best for myself and my family in the long term. I'm so thankful things are going well but it gets frustrating putting your life on hold. I'd like to get through this as efficiently as possible so we can put it behind us and carry on with all of the experiences we have yet to be apart of together. I'm determined for us to get back to "normal". I know our new "normal" may look slightly different, but I'm committed to keeping some of it the same. I'm so appreciative of all the help I get so I can continue to meet my girlfriends for supper, go to the gym, volunteer... But it still isn't with the same energy I can do these things so I look forward to the day when I feel like my old self, maybe even a better self. A new me to carry on with all the things I love to do for myself but mostly for my family and friends.