Snuggles and Cuddles

Got to be the Grammy last night and had Liam over. He GRINDS his teeth in his sleep something awful. I mean GRINDS! I never heard a little kid do that. We sometimes talk about how hard it must be to be 3, going on 4, and evidently it has tension for the little guy.

The two cats are always a bit put out when I have a grandchild over. They are not quite sure where to sleep or what to do. Chelsea decided to abandon ship and she slept on the couch. Romeo started the evening on the couch but later braved the full bed. By about four this morning, everyone was in the bed. Two cats, a grandchild and a fat grammy are a full bed, lemme tell ya.

We all got together for a FANTASTIC breakfast this morning. It was yummy!

I worked on the school website for a while and have done some web research. I keep dreaming of a trip, maybe during spring break. So many places to go, so little time! (and money) I've been wanting to go to Ireland for a long time. It's a mysterious country with very foreign sounding (and spelling) names. I've done coordinated tours where you hop on the bus when the tell you and sleep where they tell you. I've also just gone to the country where I wanted to and based myself in a youth hostel and traveled wherever I wanted each day. I'd get up that day and figure out, "Where do I want to go today?" And then I'd go. Each have their place. But I think I want to research things so I can do the latter kind of trip, but at least know what my options are about tourism. After spending some time researching things, I now know I know nothing!

I also spent a considerable amount of time doing some reflection on a new website that will be coming on-line in the next month or two that is for survivors of cancer locally. I try to give good quality feedback to folks. I hope it's useful in this instance. I appreciate the opportunity to be in on the creative end of things.

This time last year I was recovering from my last chemo treatment. Jenn and Jewel and my friend Marianne came to help me celebrate the end of my chemo. I had kept my eyelashes and eyebrows all the way to this point, but after the last chemo I lost them. That was a little hard after losing so much in other ways. Today I have HAIR. The hair that grew back and bothered me the most: my nose hair! Who would have thought! I hadn't actually realized I didn't have hair there anymore, but when it grew back, I surely did! It grows back curly and it tickles the inside of your nose when you breathe. This was very irritating. I was bald as a billiard cube for a long time, but now have about 4 inches of hair. It's not very cooperative and doesn't yet lend itself to a real style, but I'm very happy to have every millimeter that I have. Another aspect to this is my fear. I am happy to say that I'm one year out from my last chemo and am NED. This is the acronym for No Evidence of Disease. They can't say you're cancer-free. They can say you're NED. This is a good thing with my kind of cancer. A lot of triple negative folks have their cancer return within the first year -- some almost immediately. I've read accounts of people who's disease returned within the one to three month period post treatment. That would have been devastating to me. So, I'm happy to have my petite red blood cells and be here and be relatively healthy! Yes, I still have some enduring concerns post treatment, but I'm here. I'm on this side of the dirt, not a part of it.

Yacked too much. Just happy to be here and happy to have hair, and happy to contemplate the many opportunities available to me. Life is good.