Happy Birthday to Me!

Today is my birthday and I'll cry if I want too!  No, really, I am feeling much better this week than I was before Christmas.  The "blues" are lifting.  I think the Holidays are hard for many of us!

I want to say that I am truly grateful to be here for my 51st birthday!  18 months ago, when I heard that I had cancer and it had already spread to my liver, I honestly thought I was a goner!  My Mom found out her cancer had metastasized to her liver and she was gone in 3 weeks.  It was not Carcinoid but colon (small intestine) cancer.  Of course, I went home and "googled" carcinoid and read that 74% of patients live five years (or something like that).  I can't really remember.  I now know that the odds are good that I will be here 10 years from now--I hope so.  I no longer "dread" growing old.  I embrace it!  I'm debating letting my hair go gray but it's long (for me) right now and starts looking terrible when I don't color it.  I wish there was a way to "highlight" it with gray.  I do have a stripe right in the front... might be an interesting look.

I do wish my family would all get along.  We do mostly but there have been a few changes in our family dynamics that have caused less get-together's and family dinners are now a challenge (they don't happen). Kids (nieces and nephews) are moving out-of-state, growing apart and well, just growing up!  I'm trying to look at it all as an opportunity for VACATIONS!  Looks like two of them will be living in California and hey, who doesn't love trips to Cali?  I do!

I plan on going to see my sister down South more.  I'm going to just pack up the dog and drive down on the weekends when I can. After all, she does have a pool!  Woot, woot!

Cancer-wise, nothing to report.  I still won't have my next scan until February.  I've debated moving it up to January as that will be six months but I don't think waiting another month will make a difference.  I'm hoping for stability and/or no major growth!  I know I've talked about this in an earlier post so won't go into it more here.  I have been having some lower back pain, which is most likely a side-effect of Sandostatin.  I know it is very normal to feel every ache and pain is cancer when you have cancer.  Oy!

I've made a few new friends through this blog and Facebook, Carcinoid patients who are newly diagnosed or facing new treatments and surgeries.  It is one of the "good" things of cancer--making new friends.  We have also lost several this past year, which is sad (and hard and scary).

2014 is just around the corner!  I'm hoping that it will be a good year for all!