HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

Well I celebrated my 32nd birthday on Monday. I love having my birthday on Veterans’ Day. It always guaranteed me a day off of school or work and it made me feel really cool growing up. Birthdays take on a different feeling as you get older though. I think it hits around some time in your 30’s. It doesn’t have to be right when you turn 30 – but somewhere in that decade you start to realize you’re old. Anyway, I had a really nice 32nd birthday. I wasn’t in the hospital – so that’s a major plus right there. On Sunday, Dave and the kids took me shopping at Fashion Show Mall and I added to my Lululemon collection. On Monday, I was treated to my bone marrow biopsy that I worked myself up about – and rightfully so. It HURT. But I came home from the biopsy to homemade lasagna, chocolate cupcakes that the kids helped make and a house full of pink streamers and balloons (Barbie & Spongebob balloons.) Did I mention the 2 ziplock bags full of individually wrapped painted rocks from our backyard? Thank you Ava. They are now a filler in the bottom of one of my vases and I actually need more painted rocks! I need to get that girl back to work!

The good news of the week came on Thursday. I got the results back from my biopsy. I tend to hesitate when I say that I am going in for tests or about when the test results come back because even though the doctor tells me one thing, it always seems to end up changing. Fighting leukemia (or I suspect any type of cancer or other disease), never has a set treatment plan. There’s an “idea” of what the plan is going to look like, but it rarely turns out exactly as one would expect. So, the bottom line is that Dr. Shopick (my oncologist) believes that I am in remission (she didn’t see any blasts (leukemia cells) on the slides from the biopsy. I still have to go for 4 more rounds of maintenance chemo. As of now, (remember this can always change), I am free to stay at home the next 2 weeks (I better not get any fevers or catch a cold). Then my doc wants to admit me back into the hospital the beginning of December. This chemo will last 5 days long (24 hours) and after the 5 days, I should be able to go home and relax for the next 3 weeks before they hit me again with more poison. Luckily, we can do all the chemo at Camp Summerliin (I miss them there) and I won’t have to go out of state. If I needed a bone marrow transplant (which my brother Braydon agreed to be a donor early on), then I would have to go to UCLA for that. Of course I would do what is best for me, but its really great I can stay in Las Vegas to get treatment. Anyway, its very hard to get into a routine or commit to much in regular life because I know I will be out of commission in 2 weeks and I’m not so sure exactly when I will get out of the hospital.

Late Friday and Saturday nights used to be filled with drinking, clubs, concerts, performances, fights…Yes, I was that girl. We always got lucky and we would find out secret musical guests, be handed free football tickets (let’s face it, Sorry UNLV you aren’t that exciting to watch – check out a Big 10 school and I will enjoy watching that), seeing 1D (One Direction for any of you living under a rock) and almost front row tickets and a meet with Justin Beiber…

Lilly & Ava at 1D

And….Ava got a special mesage from Carlos and James from Big Time Rush (BTR). This kid is SO lucky that she has been able to go to all these cool events and meet her idols from tv shows- something that didn’t cross my mind when I was 6. (She bettter remember all of this when she turns 16 and wants a new car.) I think I went to my first concert in like my shopmore or junior year of highschool – that’s about 15 years ago or more – and I certainly didn’t have any meet and greets!

Other exciting news in the life of a leukemia survivor (who is not completely out of the woods yet) was that I volunteered at Ava’s school today. I helped out Mr. G. (Ava’s teacher) with stapling, cutting out lamenates and I did some grading of papers. I haven’t gottem sick from the germs of 20 1st graders yet. Let’s hope it stays that way.

I came home from school still feeling like I have energy. (First day without a nap). I started cleaning/organizing/donation. Its hard because stuff is just stacked placed and I need to get it all sorted and get rid of the stuff that we really don’t need anything. It’ll get done!

So if I am quiet the next few days, it means I am cleaning, organizing or throwing more crap away.