"Take pride in how far you've come and have faith in how far you can go."

1 to go

We're almost through another week as we look towards my LAST chemo treatment. It was a pretty quiet week of rest. Monday and Tuesday have been my toughest days throughout the week of recovery and this week was no different. I think I slept for almost 20 straight hours and then I woke up Wednesday feeling not bad and Thursday feeling even better. I was very nauseous Tuesday and didn't get on top of my medicine and it caught up with me. Luckily, after 24 hrs it subsided.
One of the toughest parts this week has been dealing with my finger and toe nails. I had hoped I wouldn't lose them from the chemo but it's not looking good. They are very sore. Some days I haven't even been able to put on my shoes. Luckily the damn snow is almost gone and I can get out my flip flops.
Over the past couple of weeks, have spent some time with some lovely ladies who were willing to share their words of wisdom and opinions with me regarding their mastectomies and reconstruction surgeries. Reading books is of course helpful, but it doesn't beat the first hand knowledge gained from talking to women who've been through this in the same health care system. So kind of them to share their experience with me so that I can make the most informed decisions for myself in the days ahead.

Can't lie. I'm pretty pumped to walk into chemo treatment Friday and leave feeling confident that I will never be back.
(I do have to go back every three weeks to receive Herceptin intravenously for a year, but never back for chemo.) I will miss my Friday routines of chats with the fantastic nurses and the focused sit down time with my husband but we will all give that up knowing the chemo has done its job and my body and my head are ready for phase 2 of our plan we set out 6 months ago.

Before phase 2 can begin, a few tests and discussions to be had between myself, my oncologist, and my surgeon, Dr. Suzanne Meiers, in the next week. I had my MUGA this week (heart test), and next week will have a CT to check there is no cancer spread to my organs, discuss immediate reconstruction and a bilateral surgery with Dr. Meiers, and hopefully get the go ahead from Dr. Kakamanu that we are ready to go and everything is where we hoped it would be at this point.

Thanks to everyone for their messages and pats on the back. We are almost there, we are almost half-way finished!!