Thanks for being my friend

Apparently having friends and a strong network improves my survival percentages according to a story that was in the New York Times. After counting on my fingers and some of my toes I figure I have more than the 10 friends needed to improve my survival chances over those without a support network, so Thank You all for all your support. I do feel blessed to have the friends, colleagues, family I have and that so many people have been so great during this process.

I'm feeling pretty good - had a good check up with my oncologist and even stayed out past 9:00 on Friday, so things are going pretty well. Thursday, I had a day of medical appointments - oncologist, pre-surgery registration, blood-work and an ultrasound to make sure they can find the tumor on the day of surgery. Besides going from building to building it all went well. My oncologist was great - didn't think any of the remnants of my side effects was troubling, she gave me the number to call to set up an appointment with the radiologists at GW and sent me on my way with some hugs from her and my case manager and a refill prescription for ativan. (I have not taken my anti-anxiety crutch for probably the last week but I'm guessing next week it will be useful to have.)

The pre-surgery appt went fine. They drew blood and I got to have an EKG - my heart is fine after chemo. It is slightly disturbing to get checked for things I hadn't really focussed on as something chemo might mess up (they did check my heart before chemo started). I am happy all seems normal. I also seem to be walking enough for them to feel like things are okay and I didn't need another heart test. This was due to the fact that I am pretty sure I can walk up 2 flights of steps without getting out of breath, though I haven't confirmed this yet. The ultrasound also went well and they can use the ultrasound to place the wire the day of surgery. This was good news as using the ultrasound is easier than if they had to try and insert the wire using the mri. I'm not sure how they place a wire or marker while I am in the mri machine, it seems like it would require someone getting under the machine and I'm not sure how putting wire works while in a machine that heats up metal. But maybe it is plastic wire.

Otherwise life has been good if pretty warm here in DC. I went to a fundraiser Friday night and even walked back and forth - (about a half mile) and walked back from lunch one day this weeked which was probably over a mile. I'm excited at the idea of walking to and/or from work on a regular basis even if I haven't done it on a consistent basis, yet. (It might seem odd to be able to walk in one direction but I figure I can drive one day, walk home and leave my car parked by work and walk in the following day.) Yes the point is to set easily reachable goals. I also hope to finish off three papers this week but that seems much less attainable than the walking a mile a day. :)

Anyway - I hope you all had a good weekend and week.

Kim