A sunny Sunday

Today, for the first time in months, it was gloriously sunny outside. Beautiful! The three of us (with Tessa in the jogging stroller) walked to Starbucks, and then down to Lincoln Park to give Tessa some play time (4.7 miles round trip). We ran into friends at Lincoln Park, and Tessa loved playing and climbing on the play structures, but even more I think that she loved going down to the beach. Ryan gave Tessa some lessons on how to throw rocks into the water, and Tessa and I hunted for seashells together. The sky was blue, there were lots of people, we all got exercise (Tessa walked some of the way), and it was just a great way to spend a morning. If it's sunny tomorrow, I might just do a repeat of the experience because it really felt good.

Now, Artie & Anna are over, and the girls are playing while Ryan & Artie watch the Seahawks (Go Hawks!) in the Superbowl. I put out football foods - chips, salsa & guacamole; BBQ potato chips; beer....and then I heated up some Trader Joe's mini-quiche, crabcakes, and spanokopita. I have looked up the Weight Watchers point values for all of these items, and I must say that I may never eat another potato chip again! Some things (chocolate, bread, cheese, a good steak, pasta) are worth spending lots of points, but for me, potato chips just aren't that thing. I had 3 before I looked up the points and all I can say is thank goodness I didn't eat more!

My thoughts these days drift more and more to diet and exercise, and much less to cancer. I'm tired of cancer. It's taken so much of my energy that I just don't want to deal with it any more. Of course, I am dealing with it, on a daily basis. I still dream about it sometimes, and every time I get out of a chair I feel like a 100 year old arthritic woman because of the joint pain in my legs...and my chest is getting more and more sore and red, so I live with that minute to minute, too. But I don't think about cancer all the time like I did for months, and sometimes an hour passes without me thinking of it.

Anyway, back to diet and exercise...I am a woman possessed! I am just so tired of the downfalls of my body that it feels incredible to whip myself into shape. Every time I stay within my points range I'm proud of myself; I make good eating decisions most of the time because it's important to me. I love walking (though I wish I had more time for it), and I love that my body is registering these changes. I think that the changes are starting to show on the outside (thank heavens I'm back in my pants again....now I can't wait for them to be too big!) but on the inside, I feel like a different person. I don't feel like I'm on a diet, I feel like I'm on a lifestyle change. I really think that I am going to hit my diet & fitness goals, and that in doing so I will have the figure (except breasts!) that I desire. I feel more energetic than I have in ages (though I can't remember the me before cancer any more...what was that like?) and I'm soaking it up.

In the evenings, I am more and more tired. The other night, I got a bad night's sleep and not enough sleep, and the next day felt like a good chemo day (and if you've read this blog then you understand that even a good chemo day is a bad day). I will have to be careful not to lose sleep like that, because I hated how it made me feel.

I am thinking more and more about what the next steps of treatment should be. I am resigned to the idea of another mastectomy in the near future...I feel that I simply need to get it over with. I also think that I'm ready to commit to removing my ovaries, and maybe doing a complete hysterectomy. I'm saddened more than I can say to think that those operations will knock the wind out of my newly-filled sails again, but I try not to focus on that, and instead to just think about the here and now and how to keep my energy with diet & exercise.

Believe it or not, something that I've thought about in terms of diet is that if I'm in the hospital for surgeries, how will I stay on Weight Watchers? I know, that's crazy, and if I'm having operations then WW is the least of my concerns, but it's something I've wondered about. (It's much easier to wonder how to keep losing weight than it is to wonder how the surgeries will feel, or if the cancer is going to recur.)

That's all from me for now - cheers.
Love,
Kristina