I’M DONE WITH CHEMO!!! I couldn’t be happier about that, either! I’m about 6 weeks out from my last treatment which was December 27. At this point, my tastes have all gotten back to normal. Food is SO delicious now that I can’t stop eating. 🙂 I feel like I’m finally my old self again. My energy level is back to what it was and my eyes have stopped watering all the time!!! I know that watering eyes don’t sound like a big deal, but after 2 months of looking like I was constantly crying; it has been a huge praise that they are not pouring anymore!

Now that chemo is done, I can safely say that it wasn’t as bad as I anticipated. I never got sick, I didn’t lose any of my nails, and I didn’t lose my eyelashes or my eyebrows! Not to say that chemo was fun, because it wasn’t and it totally sucked, but it wasn’t the nightmare that I had imagined in my mind. I had my days, plenty of them that I cried and didn’t want to do it anymore, but all in all it was manageable. I just wish that I hadn’t lost all my hair. That has definitely been the worst part of all of it for me.

About my hair…. I’m getting new growth and it’s exciting, but I’ll confess that I expected to have stubble all over my head at this point. Each day I’m checking my head and it’s ridiculous because it’s as productive as watching water boil… it’s just not happening. I’ve had several dreams about it where my hair just grows right out in front of me, but then I wake up. In case it’s not obvious, I’m really looking forward to having hair again and getting these scarves and hats off my head.

The next step from here is getting my final implants. I’m really excited about that. Surgery is February 11! I’ll be trading my footballs in for something much softer (or at least I hope much softer)! I’m still getting the Herceptin treatments, but now I go once every three weeks. Those treatments will continue until the first part of September, then I will be able to have my port removed. Last week was actually the first week since last summer that we haven’t been to at least one doctor appointment!!! That’s huge! I like feeling more normal and not like the “cancer patient”. 🙂

It’s great to have such loving and caring family and friends when something so crappy is going on in your life. Cancer has opened my eyes and hopefully changed me for the better. I would hate to think that I’ve gone thru all this and not grown at all. Each day really is a gift and none of us know what is next for our own life or anyone else’s. I really want to take time to enjoy each day and never pass an opportunity that I may not have again. I’ve already committed to Dan that I’ll rock climb this year and go on a zip line! Hopefully 2011 will be full of great things and hopefully cancer will never be in my life or body again. I’m trying each day to not let that thought (of cancer coming back) rule me.

–Holly Thompson