Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving 2024.  What a year it's been.  Time to reflect and be grateful for all of the things in my life.

I am grateful for the support of my family and friends.  My husband has been an amazing source of support (from the bottom of my heart, thank you).  He is a trooper who has put aside his retirement to take care of me.  He takes me to and from every appointment, takes notes, and reads books on cancer so I don't have to. He's also been there for the ugly too, so hopefully it balances out with the good.  

My girls have been so understanding and communicative and are totally fine that we aren't going on a fantastic trip at Christmas (Prague and Vienna).  I am grateful they are off at school and building their own lives and thriving.  I wouldn't want it any other way, but I'm so happy I have them with me this week and will have them home at Christmas.  

My friends have been caring, each in their own way; I have found this to be the most, dare I say, 'touching', part of this journey.  Everyone has their own way of letting you know they love you and that's something I never really noticed before.  Even when I was bedridden with a healing hamstring in the winter of 2023, something is different about how people react to a cancer diagnosis.  Some don't want to discuss it at all (which I find hard since it's invaded every facet of my life) and some don't want to discuss anything else (which is hard too because I want news from the 'outside world'.)  There's a balance in there that most find, and I love and appreciate the ways my friends have navigated this with me.

I am grateful for modern medicine, for first FINDING this tumor, excising it and doing the 'clean up' of any random cancer cells left over.  If I had not had that mammogram in July, goodness knows how this might have spiraled into something completely different.  Of course there are times that I'm angry at how unfair this is (life is) and how barbaric some of this seems, but under it all, I have access to the most amazing healthcare and am grateful for it.  These HER2+ drugs didn't even exist 10 years ago, and my 5 year survival rate with this tumor would have been 60%.  Now it's in the 90s%.  Who knows what the next 10 years of research and development will bring.

I find myself grateful for the smallest of things now.  A really good sunrise and/or sunset.  Any time spent with my girls, including online shopping together and just when the come into my bedroom and flop on my bed, telling me a story about this or that.  The leaves this fall, and that burning bush around the corner from our house in Maine - it was spectacular.  A really good London Fog Latte (decaf, of course).  The mocktail at Thistle and Leek that clears the metal taste briefly from my mouth and allows me to briefly taste food again.  Feeling good enough to walk the dog, especially if she wants to go on a 'toot'.  Making it to my 5:30 workout in Wellesley, when it's cold and dark and quiet and I'm in cancer treatment and yet I made it there.  Bootcamp in Maine, any day; I am so grateful for those people and their commitment to working out in all seasons and weather.  Going into chemo, oddly comforted that I will be completely taken care of while I'm there. 

I hope you have had a good day.  I have.  xo J

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