Happy New Year, Y'all!

Happy New Year!  The holiday season is over, and so is my chemo holiday.  This week I resumed my weekly Abraxane and monthly Zometa infusions.  It was great not having to think about my chemo treatments over the holidays.  Actually, I had high, high hopes of this period being a utopia of pre-chemo energy levels, healing fingernails, totally improved neuropathy symptoms, and just overall NOT feeling like a cancer patient.  Why I did this to myself, I don't know!  I did feel a little better.  My fingernail and toenail issues didn't improve, but they didn't worsen.  The numbness in my fingers didn't improve, but it didn't worsen either.  And my hair started to grow back, which was exciting.  I currently have a pretty full fuzz on my head (although Danny says that it is still thin -- even thinner than his!)  It's a huge improvement over the chemo fuzz (as I call it) that I have to shave periodically because it's so icky/ugly and sparse.  And I swear, in a couple of weeks I'd be ready to wear some mascara!  Whootwoot!  Eyelashes are growing in nicely.

Sounds great and all, but my excitement quickly faded to disappointment, as a realized that wait, this is just a chemo break.  I will start back up on January 7th, and all of these improvements will go away.  Wah, wah, wahhhhhhh!  I am thankful for the break, but reality sure is a bummer.

My family from Louisiana and Dallas visited over Christmas, then we took a trip to Louisiana 12/27-31.  We had quality visiting time with Dwayne & Lisa (my brother- and sister-in-law) who were excellent hosts, as usual.  We also spent lots of time with my parents and sister and ate some delicious home-fried shrimp ... yum!  I took the girls to the riverfront, Café du Monde & the French Market in New Orleans, and got to meet with a dear old high school friend whom I hadn't seen in a long time.  The guys went hunting -- David shot his first deer with the rifle my dad gave him for Christmas.  We had our fill of all our favorite foods and restaurants, and probably gained more than a few pounds in the process.  Overall it was a great Christmas!  Oh, except for the fact that we waited until the weekend before Christmas to get a tree, then it rained that whole weekend, so we decided to forgo getting the tree and decorating because it was only going to be for a couple of days since we knew we would be travelling just 2 days later.  I will never do that again!  Everyone was disappointed that there was no tree or decorations or stockings.  And that made me sad, although I must admit that I felt liberated (and also Scrooge-like) not having to take it all out, put it all up, then dread taking it all down and putting it all away again.  We actually had a "Christmas chair" where we piled all the gifts.  How sad is that!?  From now on, Christmas tree time is right after Thanksgiving!

And now, it's back to work at The Pink Ribbon Shop.  Lotsa goings-on here.  Will catch y'all up later.

Thanks for reading!