Check in

 Sorry for the radio silence. The weather finally broke from the awful cold and tons of snow, so I've been sneaking in time outside in the fresh air as often as possible. We've gone on a few walks, I picked up some winter-downed sticks and even cleaned up some of every dog owner's nightmare when the snow finally melts.

I've also worn my compression sleeve faithfully daily for months to little avail. My right arm is swollen and feels almost solid and when you press on it, you leave imprints. The next post is all about the next steps there, so I won't belabor the subject. It's tight clear up into my neck and I'm not seeing much relief despite all the various exercises I've been given to do. It is what it is right now.

School is going well. These are the first Olympics our three-, four- and five year olds have experienced, so we've been having a ton of fun adapting the Games for these young kids: 

-We used wheeled, square scooters with nap time mats folded on top of them for bobsleds. One kid would sit in the middle while a partner kid would push them across the gym.  

-They stood each foot on a paper plate and skidded around the gym as speed skaters.

-We stood gymnastics mats on edge to make huge hockey goals, gave the kids pool noodles and a ball, and they played hockey. 

-They stuffed red, yellow, and orange tissue paper into toilet paper rolls as their Olympic torches, and with torch in one hand and a small American flag in the other, toured the school while the bigger students chanted, "USA! USA! USA!" to our preschoolers' great delight for Opening Ceremonies.

It's been a ball. What a great activity for the dead of winter. Thank you so much, Olympians, for all your hard work and sheer grit and, if I'm honest, the complete insanity of some of your sports!

And so it goes

 I still don't really want to talk about this and it might be because, as a bestie said recently, "I really just hate thinking about all of this stuff and putting in words makes it real."

I so get that.

However, or nevertheless, whether I talk about it or not isn't going to change the fact that I have lymphedema. That's just a scary word that means my lymph system isn't draining super efficiently and so I'm taking on fluid. It's only in my right arm down to midway between my elbow and wrist but that is aggravating because it is DESPITE:

-wearing the compression sleeve this summer, even on vacation.

-staying active

-doing my stretching and physical therapy exercises

-sleeping with it elevated

-still wearing my SECOND compression sleeve daily

Wah. I just want to wallow a bit, but then I remember that hey, my arm still works (mostly) and I can get the mobility back (I hope) and probably if I stop doing what I'm doing it'll get worse so staying busy and fighting through yoga is what I'll do until I'm told otherwise.

I knew but had forgotten that the main lymphedema risk window is up to two years out from surgery and since my lymph node removal surgery was last fall, I'm well within that range. I just had hoped- like I'd hoped the surgeon wouldn't HAVE to take them out in the first place- that lymphedema wouldn't happen to me, but here we are. 

It's not painful per se but it is frustrating that my right arm looks like a sausage and that I can't reach equally far with both arms and that it's exacerbating my right neck/shoulder tightness. I can still do an impressive amount of flexibility, but I can tell how much range of motion I've lost and it makes me furious. 

I don't know if the two months of no lifting/exercising while I recovered from the complete hysterectomy is what set me back or if it is simply that I'm in that two year window or if it's because of the radiation treatment for the second time. I suppose it could be the trifecta of all of that, and perhaps more I'm not thinking of. It stinks that it's my right arm, which is naturally my dominant arm. Of course it would be my "good" arm! Ugh. 

Whatever. I have two arms and two legs that work so I'm going to shut it and move on. If that means I have to go shopping because I can't fit a lot of my sleeves over my swollen arm and compression sleeve, then so be it. If it means I'll need friends and family to right my sleeves and seams when I get where I'm going, then that's what'll happen. If I get my arms stuck in a shirt over my head, well, I guess I'll cry and then laugh and then figure it out. 

Otherwise, and I hate to speak it into the universe but here goes, I'm on my 6th month of my 3 year meds and so far so good. I'm luckily avoiding school germs thus far, so here's hoping that continues! Drink lots of water, wash your hands, and stay warm, my friends!

Wherein I discover that I'm no more organized in 2026 than before...

Here we are, a little over a week into 2026, and you've clearly discerned that one of my New Year's resolutions was NOT daily blogging, haha. I hope you all had terrific, fun-filled, peaceful, enjoyable holidays and have started off the year on the right foot. I have begun a jigsaw puzzle that we received for Christmas, but it is on the poker table in the basement and I'm rarely down there so I keep forgetting to work on it. Need to read more books and assemble more puzzles this year and play fewer games on my phone...

I've also, despite my hope and precautions, ended up with lymphedema, but that it not a story for today. We'll get there eventually. Right now, I'm just... I don't even know. But while I'm thinking about it, for whoever is taking notes, petite medium shirts aren't working. Some mediums also aren't working at all. I very much resemble a preschooler insisting on dressing myself, including getting arms stuck up over my head, because between the compression sleeve and the swelling in my arm sleeves are giving me fits. Please don't shop for me. It's going to be a case of me having to try stuff on to see what works. =/ Gah. Bah. Humbug!
 

On a better note, especially for those of you afraid to break a New Year's resolution, I have boldly gone there already. I possess a ridiculous amount of tea, including fun ones shared between my amazing sisters-in-law, below:

I decided I would have a cup of tea each day in 2026 since I have plenty. 

January 6, I forgot. 

So, you know, not even a week into the resolution. You're welcome. 

So far this is my run down:

Day 1- I admit, I was a little apprehensive to read "green tea, roasted buckwheat, and almond". However, it was delightful! I was not expecting to enjoy it.

Day 2- Grand Jasmin Chun Feng- green tea with jasmine flowers. Here's the thing. Had I not read it, I wouldn't have been consumed with giggles and probably would have liked it more, BUT because my Grammy had a jasmine air freshener in her tiny bathroom that my brother and I loved to hear "pssssst" when we pushed the button, my brain had a problem with the juxtaposition of that scent being in tea I was drinking. I let Dada try it and he thought it was fine, but I noticed he also didn't finish it.

Day 3- Detox- that word kinda scared me so I was apprehensive again but then I read, "rooibos, honeybush, moringa, and mango" and even though I don't know what honeybush or moringa are, I do like rooibos tea. This was no exception. Delicious! Bring on the detox!

Day 4- blend of Assam and Yunnan black teas, which was fine. Nothing stand-out-ish, but good.

Day 5- lemongrass, ginger, and carrot- didn't really expect much from this one but was pleasantly surprised about the delightful lightness of it!

Biggest letdown of the week was Day 6- long jing, "delicate and vegetal green tea". Probably fine if you're a green tea fan. I think vegetal was the right word and this one didn't get finished. I'm trying to drink them all straight and undoctored and this one didn't feel like much would improve it to where it wouldn't taste like honey or whatever versus the green tea taste itself.

Day 7- "blue mountain"- black tea, strawberry and flowers. Yum! Yes, please! Made up for the Day 6 even though I drank both of these on Day 7 to catch back up. 

Should probably mention I'm working my way through an Advent tea calendar that didn't get opened at Advent so I'm kicking off the new year with it before I work my way through all the other stuff I have. I'm also drinking all of these as hot teas, in case anyone wondered.

I don't know what today's will be, so I'll let you know later!

Have a wonderful week!

"And DON'T underestimate the importance of BODY LANGUAGE, ha!"

 The title is from Ursula in Disney's "The Little Mermaid"- the old animated one I grew up with- and it doesn't quite fit this post but it's close enough for government work. It's too hot and I'm too sleepy to fight with it for a better one. "GETMO; Good Enough To Move On," as Craig Groeschel says at the Global Leadership Conference.

I got a good look at myself in the mirror the other day and had to just laugh ruefully. This is not how I pictured my middle aged body would look. I do remember telling Dada decades ago that I wanted to be "pleasantly plump" and I guess what I had in mind was Mrs. Weasley from the Harry Potter series, though it was way before there was a Harry Potter. I think I desired that because nobody in my entire family was ever plump and I thought it was cute. We are a family of beans. String ones, generally. 

At any rate, since I don't have boobs, the first thing I see when I look down is my stomach. For someone who wanted to be plump, it's still a bit disconcerting. Not the lack of boobs- I'm fine with that- but the amount of belly. Welcome to middle age. 

Added to that, my right arm has been in a compression sleeve for almost two months and therefore looks like a fish belly. While I KNOW tan is actually sun damage, I have always felt healthier with a tan and I am *insert your favorite synonym for "mad" here* that cancer has ruined yet another summer for me and I'm feeling a bit sorry for myself. My sweet radiation doc begged me to not burn because of the radiation I underwent, and that all looks... nontraditional... because half of my chest is "tan" from the radiation and that's the half I'm supposed to keep protected, under a rash guard, with SPF 50 on the parts that might be exposed. The other half is meh tan for mid-July in a normal year, but I have to keep telling myself that it's not been a normal year. And then my white right arm and hand with tan fingers. Gah. Ridiculous.

My hair is coming back pretty well and it looks like even my eyelashes and eyebrows have decided to show up this time. However, I have started one new med and will be starting a second, and hair thinning/loss is a possible side effect. If this goes to Round Three, I don't plan on ever growing hair back out again. I like it short and fuzzy. Makes me happy and boy, does it streamline your morning routine and your Walmart receipt!

*I forgot to mention all my small incisions still glue covered and healing from last week's hysterectomy. Added to all my other scars, you could draw some funky constellations on my body!

To add insult to injury, every time I go outside I swear I get another bug bite. Mosquitoes I can handle. It's the chiggers! My heavens. It's not just me- the New York Times has an article on them and the comments section is full of misery loves company as well as tips for relief. For those of you who live where there aren't chiggers, and those areas seem to be shrinking due to climate change, count your blessings. I think the only reason poison ivy is worse is because you can spread that around whereas the bites stay put. Chiggers like to get you in the worst possible spots- along bra and underwear lines, armpits, in the folds of back fat, along your groin, not gonna lie- I even have two in my buttcrack. Talk about hitting below the belt! My poor mother did some weeding when she visited and ended up with 24 bites herself. I'm so sorry. They itch for about three weeks and the jury seems to think that it's best to not scratch them open due to histamines and less chance of secondary infection.

So there's no red, white and blue here, just fading black and blue bruises from my IVs, pink from the insect bites, and a depressing lack of tan! In the meant to be comforting words of my radiation doc, "not for forever, just for this summer." *sigh* Whatever you say, Doc.

Oh yeah, I have a blog!

 Summer proves both delightful and challenging for me, and for the same reason: the lack of routine. During the school year, my alarm is set for 5:15 and I'm good about getting up when it goes off. Most of that time it's dark because we live in Ohio. I enjoy the quiet, laugh to myself about having to share the single bathroom with three other people in the house where I grew up and delight that I don't have to do that here, and then I get both my quiet devotional time and my 15 minutes of yoga in before other people start rolling out of bed. While it's early, I crave that time and that quiet because afterwards it's anything goes! I might be called in to sub, a kid could miss the bus and would need a ride, someone else might need dropped off at class elsewhere, errands might need run, and so forth. Just life. Nothing seemingly stellar or amazing, but if I don't get that quiet stuff done first, all day long I feel behind and slightly aggravated that I "threw off my groove," to quote one of our family's favorite movies, "The Emperor's New Groove". In summer, there's no need to get up early because there's no bus to catch or school to help out, so I don't set an alarm. Consequently, I wake up all over the place timewise and it's been making me crabby because I feel like half the day is gone and I've accomplished nothing. I guess that's why our identity isn't supposed to be tied up in our occupation or what we do to make money. We are human beings, not human doings. 

Our weather systems have just been parking and idling and playing havoc with allergies, sinuses, headaches, and I don't just mean me. It hasn't really cooled down at night so we haven't opened windows to air out the house and it hasn't rained enough to matter for what feels like weeks. The predicted rain seems to continue to not materialize despite my weather app showing more rain clouds than not. The poor dogs are SO hot, Honey especially. I've tried opening windows first thing, but as first thing isn't as early as it would be 9 months of the year, I got a faceful of "soup" (humidity) so the window got shut pretty fast. I know it won't last forever, and I despise being cold, so I'm trying to not let it get to me, but it irritates me to be boiling outside and then freezing inside because of the AC. Yes, I know it's a #FirstWorldProblem and there are people with actual hardships out there, but as my blog is free therapy, I may as well get my money's worth. Wait...

I've been telling Dada that this summer of 2025 is my Summer of Pout. Not much is looking like I expected it to look by this point in the year. I assumed (ha, there's my first problem) that with the end of the stereotypical cancer treatment that I'd get to go on my merry way, maybe with some new longterm meds, but otherwise unscathed. 

Fool.

I didn't count on my right arm measurements landing me in a compression sleeve during tank top season. I didn't anticipate wearing a rash guard on vacation and not soaking up every available sunbeam to help get me through Ohio winters (because that's seriously how my brain works- I am solar powered!) I also didn't foresee having the rest of my lady parts being evicted and starting menopause for real, having already been in chemically induced menopause from chemo. Twice. And because the eviction is surgical and not magical, that means no baths or getting in any bodies of water for swimming for the rest of the summer, essentially, as our pool closes when school starts. I wasn't allowed in until my radiation blasted skin healed and now I won't be allowed back in. Another #FirstWorldProblem, but definitely a contributor to the Summer of Pout. I don't even get in a lot of the time normally, but now it's the "I can't" factor.

Also, high protein diet yet again to prep stores for healing after surgery, and no alcohol. Why do I only want it when I can't have it? 95% of the time I'd take ice cream over a fun drink, yet here we are again needing to abstain medically. Yes, I KNOW it's actually a poison and isn't good for anybody anyway, but I have a six pack of those fun, colorful Smirnoffs and I just want one. Grrr. *sigh*  #FirstWorldProblems!

With the lady parts eviction comes the "no driving" mandate until I feel better and am off any heavy painkillers, which I don't even want to start taking, so of course that's when band practices start up. Would you believe that there are already SCHOOL SUPPLIES in stores?! I don't want to talk about it. I want to kick something. Like a box of school supplies or something. It is not even the middle of July!

Now that I sound like a total Debbie Downer or Negative Nancy, let's pivot to the blessings. 

We had a lovely vacation in OBX again and there will be post(s) about the ocean and all that. We got quality time with my brother who hadn't joined us there the past few years. The sweet old man dog at the beach house is still alive and kicking and will still smile over his shoulder at you when you give him butt scratches. The young pup will play until she drops and was also happy to see us. We missed my aunt who was traveling on her own adventures at the same time, but enjoyed all the talks and time with my wise uncle who gives fantastic hugs. My great aunt, who will be 96 at the end of this month, is also holding her own and we had a few hilarious visits with her. I want to be back there already.

We have gone to the pool a handful of times and I've gotten in once to float along the lazy river. In my rash guard. But hey, I got to get in! Maybe next year will be better. 

Thing Three had his annual Dr Jon appt and he's doing really well. All our kids are string beans, so he weighed in at 113# and 5'8 and 3/4". He's freshly 15 and is all limbs and feet. He's changed so much just in the year since Thing Two's graduation that my brother thought he WAS Thing Two when he first saw him. Completely cracked me up.

Thing Two has been improving with the driving practices. Still unsure about what this fall holds for him school and workwise. Sometimes life is TBD!

Thing One has met an online friend in real life, which is always an adventure, and they've been hanging out a good bit. I know a lot of art is happening! 

I'm thankful that my arm measurements were trending back down closer to my normal and that I never made it into the actual red zone for lymphedema. I'm back in the green, but just by a hair, so the recommendation was to keep the compression sleeve on and do some exercises. The sleeve in summer is a right pain in the butt, but I do know that it's to help and not frustrate me. I'm trying to get back into my yoga and quiet time routine because downward dog and child's pose and so forth are exactly the stretches recommended. Two birds, one stone, etc.

I'm thankful we have a home. It's easy to take for granted until you see footage of Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan or the floods in Texas or whatever the next disaster is that rolls in. Trying to be thankful when things are going like they do everyday, not just when something big happens. Or doesn't!

I'm grateful for my "elite of husbands" and the time he's taken to haul me around to all these appointments. He has every right to be crabby as they're cramping our style, but he cheerfully escorts me around and I don't know what I'd do without him. Love you, babe.

I'm excited to have breakfast with some girlfriends on Monday morning. That should be a thing. Everyone should get breakfast with their friends on a Monday morning! I bet attitude and productivity would improve across the board.

I'll try to not let it be a month before I blog again. We are doing well. Thanks for checking in! If you want something to pray for, please ask for the surgery to go textbook smoothly with no complications, no infections, etc. We appreciate it. I'll keep you posted.

I'll end with a joke Thing Three told me:

What's the difference between a snow man and a snow woman?

Last one, best one. *Skip if you're not into skin photos*

*Viewer discretion is advised. Material may not be suitable for sensitive viewers.*

I'm stickerless! WooHOOO! And I got to sleep in my own bed last night, but that is another post entirely. The TL;DR verson is that proton radiation did not take place here in our town, so Dada and I have been leaving on Monday mornings and returning Friday evenings for the past 6 weeks. 

But yesterday was "last one, best one" and now I'm done!

Lighting always being interesting, here are shots of my skin and what 28 sessions of proton radiation looks like. Yes, my armpit is almost black inside and sloughing off dark pieces of skin, which is as disgusting as it sounds, haha.

Already missing plenty of stickers but the team claimed they had what was necessary:

And now sticker free! Now if I could just get rid of the compression sleeve... Alas. I'm being good and wearing it every day and removing it at night like I'm supposed to. 

 There will be a lengthy post next week about all the Shenanigans we got up to whilst we were out of town. I promise that will be a much more fun post, but feel free to toss a handful of confetti on my behalf somewhere you don't have to clean! Woohooo! All done with rads! Thanks for all the prayers, texts, snacks, support and love!