Birthday

So here's the short of it,
Birthday thoughts.

And here's the long

Today is my birthday.  I am so grateful that on my birthday there is a high possibility that I am finished with the Abraxane and Carboplatin treatments.  If yesterday and today are any indication, this last cycle the awful side effects will last less long.   The newer side effects are uncomfortable and very present, but not so debilitating.
The neuropathy in my feet and toes make walking a bit like the first time you walk barefoot over a rough surface in the spring.  One of my chemo sisters who is about 5 years out told me today that she still has residual effects from the foot neuropathy.  Apparently it is one of the things that can have a lingering effect. I'm still achy bone deep, but the ibuprofen is helping with that somewhat. My diarrhea for the last day and a half has been kind of a controlled variety.  Enough signal and time to get to a facility if I hurry real fast.  My mouth sores are almost gone, my gums aren't bleeding much at all.  The tiredness...now that's still very present.  I'm just so tired of being tired!  Hair - I don't even consider the hair loss a side effect at this point.

I had a great birthday present today.  I went in to work for a meeting with our friends from Facing History and Ourselves.  We were able to finalize plans to implement a pilot in several of our 8th grades for a program called Choices in Little Rock.  It's a program that I'm really excited about that helps students link history to their own moral choices in their world. Anyway, it was like a great birthday gift to see that coming together.

Today is the first birthday in my life without my Dad.  I had a beautiful card from Mom, but it was so strange to have a card that was not signed  Love Mother and Daddy.   I found a poem Dad wrote and put on the inside of one of my birthday cards a few years ago - I posted it on Emily and Gene's blog.  I know this will be the first of many of those year markers to experience without Dad.  I feel so blessed to have had him as a father and to have had him in our lives as long as we did.  And I feel incredibly blessed that we still have Mom.  She is an amazing woman and is a continued source of strength to all of us. I also feel so very lucky that she and Dad decided to move to Chattanooga 6 years ago.  So there she is, down the road and around the corner.  I can drive by on the way to work and see if she's up, if the light is on, or if she's decided to sleep in late.  We can call to check up and if we need her or she needs us, we are close by.  It is such a comfort that she is not still living 4 hours away!