Logan graduates

Today was a milestone day for my great nephew, Logan James.  He graduated pre-school.  It was in the school yard of his Tiny Tots school.  When the kids came out (wearing construction paper graduation caps) they played an Andreas Bocelli song, "Time to Say Goodbye",  that made all of us cry (well at least me, my sister, and Melissa).  The kids sang a bunch of songs, and were just so cute.  Congratulations, Logan, you are so smart.  Good luck in Kindergarten!

with mommy and daddy

with aunt margaret

with grandma

with me

with grandma and grandpa Brander

breast cancer

Wanna know about cancer?  Mine, at least?  It didn't phase me.  I was diagnosed with it, and didn't really feel any sense of shock.  Thought I was in denial for a while, but I wasn't.  It was just another passage in my life, albeit a tough one.
After my double mastectomy, I looked down at where my breasts used to be, and saw the scars, and thought, okay, there are scars... just like my mother had lots of scars.  I wasn't afraid of scars.  The plastic surgeons nurse had told me not to look in the mirror for four days.  Did she think I would pass out or something?  It was no big shock.  I knew what I was facing, and I looked it straight in the eye without flinching.
The chemotherapy was a tough time.  Wanting to sleep twenty hours a day, and popping percocets the rest of the time to ward off the bodily aches and pains.  By the time you felt well, it was time for the next chemo treatment.  Losing my hair wasn't fun, but that too was an experience.  I got a new wig and felt like a new person in it, to tell you the truth.  It was fun to play around with it.  By the time I was getting sick of it, my hair had grown in an inch or so, so that's how I go around now... with a virtual buzz cut.  I'm loving it, it's very liberating.      And then there was Radiation.  A hassle because I had to be there five days a week for seven weeks.  But the treatments were easy and fast, with the most competent team of professionals, and it wasn't until my last week that I experienced the radiation burns, which really didn't hurt, and were healed quickly with Silverdine ointment.
Now it's almost time for my reconstruction surgery.  I haven't called my plastic surgeon to set anything up, because I just need some time to decompress after the last eight months of being "a cancer patient".

I am happy to say I'm a survivor.

the quiet time

It is 3am, and I'm wide awake. A side effect of having more than my normal amount of coffee today.  I used to be fairly addicted to coffee, drinking a pot (10 cups) a day, but now I drink maybe 2 cups.  Today I drank about four.

The air is cool and fresh tonight.  So thankful for that.

I have a new camera... a Nikon D800.  It's a top of the line model, and a full frame camera, with a huge 36.something mega pixels.  You can take photos in a FX format or a DX format.  I got it with a prime 50mm lens, 1.4, which I'm happy to have... haven't had a prime lens since my old film days.
The thing is, though, that I haven't been out with the camera yet.  I'm kind of intimidated by it.  Have got to get my feet wet with it, though, and I hope soon.

I've stopped wearing my wig (as you can see in a pic of me in the last post).  Got so tired of it, and  now that it's getting warmer, I certainly don't want anything covering my head.  I am even liking my Annie Lennox look... something very liberating about it.

 Hard to believe that nine months have gone by since I was first diagnosed with cancer.  The days seemed to disappear, really.  But I remember being sooo tired most of the time during those chemo days.  Geez.

Now I just have to find out when my "exchange" surgery is... when they exchange the expanders for the breast implants, and you get  your foobs (fake boobs). That's major surgery again, and will be glad to get past that, because it will the the sort of end of a long hard road.  I got through it okay with a little help from my family and friends.

Sometimes I feel guilty staying up so late.  I don't know why.  I can almost hear my mother calling "I hope you shut that light soon", as I stay up late in my room, the light peeking out from  under the door... enough to assault her senses at such hours.

Today I should not feel guilty at all.  I kicked cancer's butt, and I deserve to do whatever I like for a while.  If I want to sleep into the afternoon tomorrow, so be it.

Oh wow, I started reading over my novel tonight, with a critical eye!  Yikes, am I ever going to have to do some serious rewriting.  There is quite a bit of "telling" in the book, when I should be showing.  That alone will be a tremendous task.  If I do that, it may even be a good novel.