So Very Blessed

I MADE IT! I made it through the isolation, through the glow-in-the-dark radioactivity, through the separation from my family, I am THROUGH!! For all intensive purposes I am DONE with Thyroid Cancer, and the horrible treatment. I have a full body scan on Feb 27th just to make sure there is no more cancer. (But if you ask my hot-dog surgeon he would tell you he got it all in my surgery!) So keeping my fingers crossed, but I am happy to say I'm DONE!

That being said, I have to take a moment to say THANK YOU to my most wonderful husband in the entire world! Without his love and support I would never have made it through all of this. Without knowing that he was at home taking care of my babies, it wouldn't have been as "easy" to be away. He was truly amazing through everything! I came home to a clean house, laundry done, kids had been bathed and in their routine! He only had to use the grandparents for Sunday morning - mid-day for some well deserved play time of paintball for a friends b-day. I was VERY IMPRESSED! He even learned a little about cooking and with a little supervision, made sloppy joes last night! (for those of you that are familiar with my hubby and his non-cooking habits, this is an event all on it's own!) He only fed them lunchables for dinner 1 time, and that was at Madison's request! In all our many years together, it is now that I see just how much I love him, and he loves me. It is complete and unconditional, he is my one true love! So at this Valentine's season I am so very thankful to have him in my life!

Austin is in LOVE just in time for Valentine's!!

What do you do when your little boy LOVES his 1st little "girlfriend"? Austin LOVES his friend Avery (A-VY, when Austin says it)! And I have to say she is the cutest little thing! Here they are eating pizza & fruit at the Superbowl/B-day party we went to last weekend! Austin walks around the house calling for AAAA-VVVVYYYY, as if she is going to come running to see him! When he is waking up on a school day and doesn't really want to get out of bed "Do you want to go see Avery?" works like a charm! And yesterday at school in the late afternoon when Miss Avery was not feeling well (small fever), she was laying down resting and he laid down beside her and petted her hair trying to make her all better! (he didn't pull it which is the LOVE he shows me & Maddie all the time!!)

Miss. Madison

Here is our little princess all dressed up in her new Valentine's Day gear for a day of FUN with Granny Bell!

To start your day off with a smile, here is a video of Madison singing her song about the planets. They are learning about OUTER SPACE at school right now and she is loving it! She is constantly getting in a rocket ship to fly into Outer Space to see the stars and the planets!

ENJOY!!

(And yes she is STANDING on Daddy for this performance!)

It's Official

I will "check in" for my RAI (radioactive iodine) treatment on Monday, Feb 9th at Plano Presby. I'll stay 3-4 days in isolation for the treatment. Today is my 1st day off of my thyroid meds, wish me luck! Since the premiss for the RAI treatment is that thyroid cancer is attracted to iodine, so anywhere there are still cancer cells it will soak up that RAI and kill the cancer. SO I have to go off the thyroid meds, so there are no traces of synthetic thyroid in my body for the RAI to waste it's magic powers on! But I'm told you pretty much "bottom out" so I'm not really looking forward to the next 2 weeks!

Bringing my camera in the office tomorrow, got some videos for you all to see! Much more FUN than me and all my medical drama! ;-)

Hope all is well and Happy Monday!
Love, Anna

It's been a while so I think I must...

It's been a while since I've blogged, no real reason really, just nothing blog-worthy going on right now.

Yesterday was one of those days, everybody has them, it was just BAD! I could not shake my bad mood all day! Today is shaping up to be a better day! I got to watch the inauguration of our 44th president via MSNBC.COM (had to fight the firewalls at the office to find a site that was "approved"). He is such an eloquent speaker, I enjoyed watching. This is probably the 1st election that I have even remotely been interested in. I'm just not that into politics. Nothing in particular really, I believe in giving my vote to the best man/woman candidate, not necessarily a "party" so to speak. And now I sit, with the rest of the country to see if this man can help us! Let's all hope & pray that he can! These past few weeks, as I have watched my friends and co-workers get laid off has been rough. It's hard to come to work every day not knowing what the day will bring, and who will be left standing when it is over. Luckily I have not been touched by this recession and am hoping that I continue to stay in a safe position.

On the cancer tip...I heard from the endocrinologist office this morning. Looks like I will go into the hospital in about 2 weeks for my Radioactive Iodine (RAI) treatment. I will stay in the hospital (in isolation no less) for 3-4 days. I'm now told that once I am released from the hospital I will still need to stay away from my family for another few days (not sure how long yet) to protect them from my glow-in-the-dark-radioactive-self! She was like "You can't share a bed with anyone, and no hugging or kissing", well how am I going to explain that to my loving children! Best to stay away, for their safety, but most definitely NOT my sanity! I do not do well being away from them, so this part will most definitely be DIFFICULT! We go sit down the with DR on Tuesday so I will know more details at that time. I'm hoping I'm allowed to bring stuff with me to the hospital b/c if I can have my IPOD/LAPTOP/CELL PHONE I will be a MUCH happier camper, even though I use the word "happy" very loosely in this situation. My next 2 weeks will be rough as I have to go off the thyroid meds I am currently taking, this will cause me to quote un-quote "bottom out". Everyone reacts differently so there is no way to know how much I will be affected. It apparently will make me very tired and moody (GREAT that's what I need with a 4yr old and a 17 month old!) To find comedy in all of this is hard, but I am trying. In fact on my 1st appt with this DR, when he asked me "So how long have you been feeling tired?" I was like "Are you serious? I have 2 children under the age of 4, I've been tired for well...4 yrs!" Who asks questions like that...SERIOUSLY!

Found another great site for Thyroid Cancer information...www.checkyourneck.com, other than having a really cute name, they have some great information!

I'll get off my soapbox now, I know you all have better things to do than read my whining. But I wanted to keep everyone in the loop on what's next in my world.