Chemo Treat #3 Day 11

Good morning all,
Im sorry it's been so long since my last post. It was a pretty crazy week. Chemo treat # 3 has proven to be a little bit more challenging than those previous. The taste in my mouth actually got worse so I called my Chemo nurse on Tuesday and they called in a prescription for me. It is a mouth wash that I must swish and swallow. As you can imagine that has not been much fun. I ended up with small bumps all through my mouth and tongue and what felt like a mouth full of fur... This made it very difficult to eat which in turn made it hard to snap back quickly from the chemo this time. I stayed pretty weak up until Thursday. Felt some energy coming back on Thursday and by Friday felt good again. It is still amazing to me what a little food will do for the body. This mouth wash is pretty hard to get down and I must take it four times a day. I must admit I was quite the baby the first day I started taking it until I awoke the next morning with a sweet colorful note taped to my bottle of medicine. One hand drawn big colorful flower with a smiley face in the middle, green grass, a blue sky, a pink butterfly, a little lady bug and a yellow smiley face sun and a sweet note that said "Good morning sunshine, hoping you have a great day and that this icky mouthwash taste like chocolate ice cream. I love you...Courtney". I have to tell you ....that mouthwash doesn't taste too bad now...all I have to do is look at that sweet note from my daughter Courtney and it turns to chocolate ice cream. Words just cannot explain what my daughter Courtney means to me. She has grown into such an amazing inspiration... Wow.... everyone deserves to have at least one Courtney in their life.   Friday was a great day. We had a little celebration for boss's day(a gorilla in a pink tutu with a singing telegram for all of our managers) plus lots of food. Was able to taste and eat pretty good for the first time. Brian and I went to Bingo Friday night with Donna, Tanya, my sis Lori and my nephew Dillon.. we had so much fun. I was even able to yell Bingo... yes that's right I won!!! whoohoooo.. Brian won as well... I do love me some bingo. Got home around 1am as of course we love to sit around after bingo and talk..well I do.. poor Brian is forced to listen to the chatter..haha finally got into bed around 2am which is pretty late for me considering I don't make it up much past 9pm these days. Slept in until 8am on Saturday..that felt good. Got up and sat on the porch drinking my morning coffee. Called Momma and she told me Daddy was in Fernandina for the day at the car show so I decided to go see my Daddy for a bit. What a beautiful day.... my nephew Nicholas and his girl Eden came out and we all walked around and looked at the beautiful cars (my Dad's was the best of course). We then decided to get an ice cream (ok I wanted one) which tasted amazing..and for me that is such a blessing right now. We sat under a nice shady oak, ate our ice cream, talked and laughed and watched the people walk by. What an amazing day... and to top it all off my daddy's car was in the top 50 out of 240 cars for peoples choice... my daddy really does do some amazing things with his cars. I guess you could say that Saturday was something right out of heaven. Felt great and had a great time with my daddy and family. It is now Sunday morning and once again I am on the porch sipping coffee and  listening to the world wake...oh and one very loud bird... God really is amazing. I feel great and think the mouth wash is starting to work. I still feel the small bumps, but they seem to be going away slowly. For the most part I feel pretty good physically and emotionally. I cannot tell you what it means to have so many friends and family around me. They, along with God have carried me through. I must admit there are times when I feel weak and give this cancer more power than it deserves. These times are few and swift thanks to God, family and friends. I cannot imagine going through this alone and thank God each day that I don't have to. In the beginning when I started this journey I felt it best to keep friends and family at bay during the worst days of my treatments..only allowing Brian, Courtney and sometimes Momma to see me at my worst, but as time passes and we get these treatments behind us I realize that it is during these tough times that I need my friends and family the most. It is during these times that I must let go and let God, family and friends carry me through... If you know me well at all... you know that this is not an easy thing for me. Not because I don't trust them to carry me, but because in my heart I never want to be a burden to those I love so much. In my heart I felt that I was here to do the lifting...not them.. not even God... wow ...how mis-guided is that? I now realize that even the strong need to be carried and more importantly the weak need to lift... this is how we receive strength and wisdom..this is how we build character and become the wonderful beings that we are.. God is truly teaching me so much through all of this... I can only hope that I continue to be his sponge and soak up all there is to learn in this little time that we have.. I love you all very much and hope that your week is a blessed one.