Every Moment

Last week I was kind of having a hard time. I was feeling grumpy and frustrated. Sunday I finally realized that I had forgotten all the advice and things that have kept me so upbeat and happy this whole time. The one thing that has helped me the most by far, is to live in the moment. The past is over and can't be changed, the future isn't here yet. All we have is right now. I had been really focusing on and thinking about my last ever treatment and it was starting to make me unhappy with the present. As soon as I was reminded of that, my day got better and I was much happier.

Who knows why I am standing so awkwardly

I have had a great week this week. Treatment on New Year's Eve went well and it was really short! We got there at 8 and I was done by 10:40. They are never that fast! It was nice. And now I have ONE TREATMENT LEFT!!!! Holy smokes it's so great! I am really looking forward to it :) But, I am enjoying the time I have before then too. Here is the plan for the future though. My last chemotherapy treatment is Monday the 7th. After that I will still be going to the Huntsman Center every 3 weeks on Monday for my maintenance drug, Avastin, starting on the 14th (so I won't have a Monday off between my last chemo treatment and the Avastin treatment). But luckily Avastin is only a 30 minute IV and I don't have to get any yucky pre-drugs like stupid Benadryl and Dexamethasone and I don't have to get blood labs every time. So I won't have to spend all day at the hospital anymore! On January 16th I have a PET scan and I meet with the doctors on the 23rd to discuss the results. Then I'm going to have a real true party.

New Year's Eve was really fun. I got to have my "Basically End of Chemo" party with my family and some friends. We played Bunko which is a fun dice game and had pizza. Then I got out my cake and everybody sang congratulations to me on my request. And I blew out candles so I could make a wish. Cesia made us all poppers filled with confetti and candy and cool things.

This is Kaila. She is from Australia! My mother-in-law met her at the store before Christmas and invited her and her sister over for dinner last Sunday because Ashlynn is going to Australia on her mission. Then I invited them over for New Year's. She's really cool.

My grandpa is the coolest.

My adorable cousins; showing off our rings we got in our poppers

I have to tell the cool story about my cake. A lady contacted me a few weeks ago and told me that she reads my blog and saw that I really wanted an Eleanor's gluten free cake to celebrate my chemo graduation. So she called Eleanor's and made arrangements with them to give me a cake. How amazing is that? People are so incredible. I have been so astonished and humbled at the love and support people have given to me. People who don't even know me, like this lady. Thank you thank you thank you! The cake was DELICIOUS! Seriously yummy. Even my gluten free haters liked it. And it really made me feel special to have a chemo grad cake :) I know its dumb but I wanted to make a big deal of me finishing chemo because it  is a big deal! After my treatment on Monday I will have had 18 weeks of chemo treatments. That is a lot! It is definitely something to celebrate. And when I am declared "No Evidence of Disease" (NED) I will have an even bigger party.

Yesterday I tried running again. This time on the dreadmill, I mean treadmill. It was fun and good to exercise. I really need to be more active, I feel much better when I am. I just am now so slow and so out of shape it is hard! But I now know how the rest of the world feels when they are trying to start running, so now I can have more understanding and compassion. One of my goals for this new year is to be able to run a sub-20 minute 5k again by the end of the year. Looking at my pace from yesterday that is going to be one tough goal to get haha.

Well, here's to a new year! A new beginning, a new chapter in my life.