Support Amanda

I don't have the words that could thank all of you. I really wish I could have been there last night. Having all of you at the benefit brought tears to my eyes. You have given me so much more strength and I can’t thank you enough. You all have supported my family in ways we could never have imagined. One year from now will be huge milestone in my fight. I hope to have a big one year old birthday party to celebrate my first year and all of the support everyone has given us. By then the doctors say I should be back to normal and be off most of my medications. Of course I will see you all before then. 

The Doc's say the road will be a little rocky but we are counting up in days now. In time I am only going to get better.
Love ya so much and appreciate your support more than I can say,

Amanda

So here's what's going on medically...

My short time at home flew by way too fast. I had days when I felt good and days when I was just happy to lay on the couch listing to the girls play with each other. Life almost felt normal again, until I looked in the mirror and realized I had no hair. (I miss my hair) It's stupid but I can't wait to look in the mirror again and see me. The girls and I had a lot of snuggle-bug time. Even now I can close my eyes and feel them with me.

Coming back was extremely hard. I put on my strongest face around others, but ended up crying under the covers when I was alone. They didn't wait to start taking my body down with chemo. In full body radiation they had me sit on a chair table thingy. They taped my feet to the table and taped my hands to my knees to help protect my lungs from the radiation. Then had to sit as still as I could in the bright room listening to buzzes and beeps for 15 min, twice a day for four days. This left me completely drained, but on the bright side radiation gives you a healthy glowing tan, even though the pj’s. I have been doing my best to keep a smile on face. Cancer’s been kicking my butt, but the doctors have given me a bat to fight back, and now I’m ready to finally kick cancers butt right back.  


After all of this my heart is swollen and has fluid around it, the technical term is acute pericarditis.  This is not really common, but I'm special and get to do all the fun stuff!  It is treated with prednisone for 10 days.  I should start feeling better in 3 days! It causes a sharp stabbing pain whenever I move. I had five cardiologists listening to my heart and doing tests this morning. One guy was really excited because he is going to be a cardiologist and he really wanted to hear the abnormal sound it makes. It's funny sometimes what people get excited about. He wants to come back and check again. I told him that was fine and his eyes lit up like a little boy with an ice cream cone. I guess there are only so many hearts that make a weird noise. It turns out that the answer is easy if you know what you’re looking for. The Doc's are giving me a steroid that should help the swelling and it will be normal in about ten days. The best thing they did was put me on fentanyl, so I can push my button stopping the pain and putting a smile back on my face.