Happening FAST!!

It's Simchat Torah, so we went to services early. Simchat Torah is always fun at Mishkan Torah, but today it seemed especially delightful. And it's one of two holidays when it's appropriate to drink shots of whiskey during the service and snack on cookies and crackers the whole time. Why wouldn't you love that? I put back two shots of whiskey and felt quite happy with myself.

During and after services, though, next week's schedule quickly fell into place. Here's what I'm doing:
Monday: 8:30 a.m. Echo cardiogram at the Diagnostic Imaging center at St. Agnes Hospital. I'll be done around 9:30, then I'm heading straight to the hair salon in Laurel that does free haircuts if you donate long hair to Locks of Love. I'm taking my camera! Mark said he'll cry while he takes pictures of me as my long hair is cut off and a pixie cut emerges. I never had a pixie cut before, so it might be fun to try it out for a few weeks. I bet it's easy to take care of. Mark has always loved my hair. It was down to my waist when we met in 1973, and I've kept it pretty long most of this time. The few times that I tried shorter hair, and I don't mean anything as short as I'm going to get on Monday, he never liked it. I always ended up growing it back out. Driving home from shul in the car, he spent a lot of time stroking my hair and feeling sad about it's loss. It will come back, of course, but it's going to be a long time before it's grown out this far again. Monday night I'll post pictures of my new hair do.

Tuesday: 9:45 a.m. I report to St. Agnes outpatient surgical center. The port will be installed under general anaesthesia at 11:45 a.m. in a thirty minute procedure. After I get out of recovery, I have to go directly back to the oncologist for another meeting. I think a pre-op blood draw and possibly a flu shot (if I can't find a way to get one somewhere else before then) will be part of that visit.

Wednesday: 8 a.m. This is IT. I will be in the chair having my first chemotherapy treatment on Wednesday. 8 cycles, two weeks apart, will have me getting my last treatment on January 12 with a follow up appointment on January 26.

After that we will be free to leave Maryland. WOW!! We have a wedding in New York to attend on January 29 before heading to Florida. I'll have about two weeks to schedule a few preliminary appointments with a radiologist down there before going on the cruise from February 14 to March 5. The 36 radiation treatments will be done somewhere in the Orlando area beginning shortly after we return from the cruise. I should finally be done all treatments by the beginning of May, except for taking the oral meds. I'm sure there will be multiple follow-ups, mammograms, MRIs, and bloodwork over the years as they follow my case, but the hard parts will all be over by the beginning of May. That's definitely something to look forward to. I can then go about my "normal" life! I hope I remember what that is by then. LOL Of course, there is Evey and Eric's wedding to look forward to, also.

Later this afternoon we are moving to my brother's house in Catonsville for the weekend. He and his wife are on a mini-vacation, so Mark and I are taking care of their two Australian cattle dogs, Sydney and Roux. We love those dogs. They are GOOD dogs! They are NOT like OUR cattle dog Casey!! Ha Ha!! Everyone who knew Casey will understand exactly what I'm saying here.

Anyway, we are not sure whether or not we will have access to our computers during that time, so it's possible that I will not be online again until Sunday night when we get back to Cindy's house. If you don't see any blog or Facebook postings between now and then, you'll know why.