I'm so glad that my blogging days have started to slow down! It means that life is good! Having a blog sure saved a lot of time repeating the same story over and over and over again though! A lot of the time I felt so horrible I wasn't even capable of even telling it once!

Joe and I had another busy weekend. It was awesome though! On Friday night I met up with some college friends at Duke's in Green Lake for dinner. It was SO good to see them! After that I drove back from Seattle to meet Joe at his parents house. We spent the rest of the weekend relaxing, biking (everyone is getting into biking now!), I went shopping, had a big fire on Saturday night and celebrated Srey's birthday. We didn't get home until around 11:30 Sunday night, so I was pretty exhausted Monday. And all weekend for the most part. I took a nap on Sunday afternoon. I get so tired sometimes I can't even function. I turn into a total zombie. I used to blame chemo, now I blame radiation.

Speaking of radiation, I'm almost done. YAY! My leg is pretty swollen right now, but the doctor doesn't seem to think it's anything to be worried about. I've been walking 3 miles a day...and biking a lot....so hopefully it's just from using it so much. It went from not moving for months to lots of sudden activity! I see Dr. Nichols (my cancer doc) next Wednesday, so hopefully he'll say it's nothing to be worried about.

It's going to be another busy weekend, but busy weekends are my favorite. I hate not having weekend plans! I always have to have things to look forward to! I blame that on my mom, because my sister is the same way! Saturday we're having a garage sale at my house. My neighborhood is having one so we decided to participate. We don't really have anything to sell though. Hahaha, we just like to sit outside and people watch. If you have anything you want to sell, bring it over on Saturday!

Sunday is the LIVESTRONG 5K in Portland. There are 13 of us doing it as of today. If you want to sign up, let me know and I'll tell you how! I didn't realize it was $50 per person. After I found that out I felt guilty asking people to sign up. So don't feel obligated! You do get a free t-shirt though! A $50 t-shirt! Actually, I know the money is going for a great cause. LIVESTRONG has helped me a lot throughout all of this, so I know it will be put to good use!

Next cancer check-up is July 2. Hopefully I only get good news!

P.S. My hair is starting to grow back a little bit! It's like this weird peach-fuzzy stuff. Looks like I'll be wearing a wig for a lot longer!

I ♥ camping!

This past weekend a group of nine of us went camping at Fort Stevens. I'd been wanting to go there for awhile, I have such great memories of camping there growing up, but since it's by reservation only, it's really hard to get in. A few weeks ago I checked to see if by chance there were some open sites and there were! So we loaded up everything on Friday after work and went. It was so much fun! I don't know what it is about camping, but I love everything about it! Joe and I roughed it and were in a tent, but that's one of the best parts!

As we were crossing the bridge on our way back into town yesterday, Louis and Ann, some of our friends from college, called and they were passing through Longview on their way home to Seattle from Cannon Beach so we got to see them. It was so good to see them! Even though we reeked like campfire and were pretty grungy looking, I'm glad we were able to meet up with them. And I got to see Ann's ring. It's gorgeous! I'm so happy for them!

As far as my health goes, I started my third week of radiation today. It's going good, except it's making me really tired. I'm usually in bed by 7:30 (tonight is a late night for me!) and it's a struggle to wake up in the morning for work. Going through chemo is starting to feel like a dream now. People ask me about it and it doesn't seem real. It feels like it was so long ago. I'm so happy that chapter of my life is over with! I think I might be starting to get sick now though. My throat is killing me and I've been coughing a lot. Hopefully it's just allergies. Or perhaps it's from being so busy over the weekend. It doesn't take much to wear me out!

Thanks again to all of you for your support. I know I've said this a million times, but it means so much! I couldn't have gotten through this without all of you!

I just had to share this picture. Subie loves to sleep with us, usually right between us. He is definitely the King of the house! And he knows it! I never thought we could love and spoil a cat so much! I didn't even really like cats until he came along!

LIVESTRONG Challenge

Hey everyone! I mentioned this before, but on June 29, I'm doing the LIVESTRONG Challenge in Portland. It's a 5K walk, run or there's also a bike ride. Since I'm still going through treatment, I'm doing the 5K walk.

I formed a team called 5K for Katie. I thought that would be easy for everyone to find on the website when registering.

To register go to this site: http://portland08.livestrong.org/faf/home/default.asp?ievent=262626&lis=1&kntae262626=A2766E1E910444E3AF545936864F5018&login=t

It's pretty self explanatory after you get to the site. After you click on join a team (unless you don't want to be on my team!), you can join an existing team and there will be a drop down and you'll see 5K for Katie near the top.

A lot of you have said you don't know if you could walk that far, but it's only 3.1 miles! And just think, since I still kinda walk with a limp, I will be walking pretty slow, so you can walk with me...it's not a race!

Let me know if you have any questions!

False alarm

After stressing all weekend that I had something else horribly wrong with me, we found out today it's nothing to be worried about. The doctor explained at my appointment that he saw an unusual looking line in my femur, so that's why I had to have more scans Friday night. They needed to see how far up it went and also compare it to the other leg. Luckily, the left leg had the same line so everything is fine....apparently it's just the way my body is. If it hadn't showed up on the left side, something would've been wrong. I was kind of upset that I had to go in for more scans without much explanation, but he said when they see something unusual, they always assume the worst. So I guess it's better to be paranoid than to just brush things off, and I'm thankful that he was looking out for me!

Today was my first radiation and everything went well. Compared to chemo, it's going to be a piece of cake! I've been having a little bit of pain in my leg, but I think it might just be from being active again. Hopefully the radiation will take the pain away though!

Alright, that's all. Just wanted to let everyone know my scan was actually fine. Thank goodness! Joe has to go back to work for an hour or so, so I'm going to bed. Nothing like crawling into bed when it's still light out. Apparently my energy is still on vacation. I'm exhausted!

Scared

Everybody please pray/cross your fingers for me. I thought we were through with all of this, but I have a bad feeling we might not be. I JUST got home from Portland and had a message from St. Johns to call because Dr. Kim wants another MRI. I called them and I have to go in tonight at 9. I asked what the deal is and the guy said that they want to scan my hip and get both sides. He said that if the other side looks like my right side, everything is fine, but if it's different, something is wrong. I feel like I'm going to have a panic attack. And even worse, there was another message from Dr. Kim, but being that it's 8:15, I can't get ahold of him now until Monday. Please, please, PLEASE let this MRI be normal. Please let my left side look the same as whatever Dr. Kim is worried about. I'm feeling almost back to normal, I can't imagine having to go through everything again.

Before I got home, I was feeling pretty good about life. My appointment with Dr. Hayden went very well. He said I'm doing a great job at growing the bone in my femur (maybe that's why I've been so tired!?) and the scans today compared to the last time I saw him look so much better. The bone looks almost normal again. Last time it looked like it had a big hole in it!

Alright, time to go get ready for my MRI. Not looking forward to spending my Friday night with an IV in my arm and getting an MRI for over an hour. :(

Today I had my radiation planning. They had me lay on the table and they took x-rays, marked my leg where they'll be doing the radiation and took measurements of everything. I have to be in the exact position that I was in today every day when I go for radiation. I start on Monday at 3:50. I'll have to go everyday at that time for (hopefully only) 4 weeks. Should be interesting!

Yesterday I had an MRI. It was HORRIBLE! I ended up being in the tube for about 2 1/2 hours. They did the first series of pictures then they decided they needed more and then they had to pull me out and put an IV in for contrast shots. I didn't think I was going to be able to lay there. It was only supposed to be 40 minutes, but because they decided they needed more pictures, it ended up taking so much longer. Hopefully that's the last MRI I'll have to have! The dictation still hadn't been done for it when I went to my radiation planning appointment this morning. Hopefully the idiot who read my first MRI wont be reading this one! I still get mad just thinking about the fact that my first MRI was read wrong. If my pain had gone away, I would've been totally misdiagnosed! And being that my cancer is pretty fast-moving, who knows where it would've spread to. If anyone in Longview reading this ever has to have any type of imaging done, let me know and I'll tell you who read mine so you can request that he not read yours! :)

Tomorrow is my last appointment of the week. It's at OHSU with the orthopedic oncologist. I saw him after I fell and he wanted to see me again to take more x-rays and see how the fracture looks. I'm hoping that 1) he says I can do the 5K LIVESTRONG walk, 2) he OKs me to start using it more--like for exercising and 3) he gives me the OK to wear heels again. :)

Besides being really tired still, I'm feeling pretty good. The impetigo is even starting to go away! Thank goodness! I think that's been one of the most annoying things I've had to deal with throughout all of this!

The only thing I'm worried about right now is the fact that I've been having night sweats really bad. This was one of the things they always asked me right after I was diagnosed--it's a symptom/sign of lymphoma, but at the time, I hadn't experienced anything like that. I don't know why I would be now, but it scares me. Another thing is the fact that Dr. Kim looked at the MRI from yesterday and said he can still see the tumor. I thought it would be gone after all of the chemo. He said the difference between the first MRI and this one is like night and day, but still....I want it all gone. :(