Radiation Week #2 Done & Counting Down to Cookie Day!

Hello friends and family!

I have now gone to radiation 5 days a week for two weeks. 10 treatments down 23 to go. I still am not experiencing any discomfort. In a two week period I will have seen 4 doctors (my Medical Oncologist, my Surgeon, my Primary Care Physician and the Radiation Oncologist). This has become fairly routine and I am looking forward to the day when I can go a whole month without a doctor's appointment. All the doctors say I am doing well and very pleased with my progress. Needless to say Laura and Leslie have been real troopers and well behaved except for one appointment last week when they got into a pillow fight in the doctor's office and hit the doctor! Oh the insanity of it all. Fortunately the doctor has kids and a great sense of humor.
I can laugh about it now although I didn't then.

It is funny what becomes routine. My kids usually sleep in their clothes for the next day to help us get off early enough in the morning. They looked at me strangely Friday night when I said they could put on their nightgowns to sleep in since we didn't have a treatment the next day. We usually eat cereal out of the bag in the car for breakfast so today I made a point of fixing a big, sit down breakfast of bacon and eggs for them.

Thursday has become an exciting day of the week for the girls because it is cookie day at the treatment center. They have all sorts of cookies...peanut butter, chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, macadamia nut. There is one elderly couple we run into every morning. The husband has cancer. You should have seen the smile on his face when he told my girls about cookie day. It is amazing to see what a difference even the smallest, thoughtful gesture can make. Now every weekday my girls are counting down to the next cookie day.

It may sound strange to say it but "counting down to the next cookie day" has become a sort of philosopy of mine I adopted early on in my diagnosis and has served me well ever since. I think if you are fighting something awful like cancer it helps you to always have something coming up that week to look forward to. For me it might be a getting together with family, a date night with Randy, a Mom's Night Out with friends, our coop, playdate with other kids or many different things. But it always helped me get through the day, even the stinky ones.

Tuesday night at the young breast cancer survivor's meeting I met a girl who was just diagnosed. She was starting her chemo treatment the very next day. She was obviously nervous. She said she would have rejected doing the chemo altogether if it wasn't for her family. She asked for some advice from us. It told her how I lived a full life on chemo, that she'd get through it. But the most important advice I gave her was that you should always have something to look forward to. That has made the biggest difference for us. Laura and Leslie are battling cancer too and for them it is cookie day. Thank goodness for cookie day! Hope you have your equivalent to cookie day to look forward to. Lots of love,

Kerry