One Year Ago....

12 months
2 surgeries
3 procedures
8 chemotherapy treatments
Countless shots, needle sticks, pills and doctors appointments.

And where am I a year later?
I'm here.
Sitting in my living room.
With my husband and my kids.
I'm alive.
I'm cancer free.
And I'm thankful for all this last year brought me.

Some days were harder than others. Some still are. And some still will be.
But with each new day I know I am a fighter.

I am stronger.

I am a survivor.

Funny hair story; many of you have seen my hair as it's growing back and that it is crazy curly and totally mousy gray. I've been using some of my mad closet hairstylist skills and coloring it. I just have to use the root touch-up stuff cause my hair is only about an inch long. So, I come home from work one morning with the intention of putting the color on, wait 15 min, rinse, go to bed. Well, I popped an Ambien, which I sometimes use to help me sleep, and know that I have about 30 minutes before it kicks in and causes me to act like the equivalent of a staggering drunk. Well....I got a little sidetracked reading mail, messing with the dogs, making Parker breakfast, and getting Ethan dressed, that by the time I got in the bathroom and got all the color on my hair, I was literally a staggering, stuttering, slurring drunk. There was no way I could stay up 15 more minutes to wait to rinse the color out. So I grabbed a towel, wrapped it around my head and went to bed. I awoke 4 hours later hearing my husband in the shower, and couldn't figure out why the blankets were over my head and I couldn't see. Ummm, not blankets, the towel was all discombobulated around my head! I flew out of bed and into the bathroom fully expecting that if I had any hair left on my head, it was now going to be completely fried, and probably yellow. Thank goodness it wasn't, just a way lighter shade of reddish brown than I had expected! Lesson learned-the Ambien bottle should read "this drug may impair the ability to drive, operate machinery, AND color hair properly"

I've been sporting some cute new headbands to help keep the curly under control, and I was thinking I may have gone a bit far the other day until a little 9 year old girl told me she loved my sparkly headband.
40 year old women can still rock a sparkly headband, yes we can.
Ok, 41.
Ok, ok, just shy of 42.