Happy late thanksgiving!!

I have had a fantastic Thanksgiving weekend but I could not celebrate properly until today. My husband will tell you I am a paranoid woman but when it comes down to cancer I personally think you have to be, just need to learn how to deal with the anxiety better.

The story is...back in July when I was doing all my test I had an MRI that showed cysts in my liver, the PET scan did not show any cancer activity so all doctors decided that it was nothing to worry about. However it has been on the back of my mind all this time considering that liver is a weak area in my family. I have been mentioning to my Oncologist since October that I wanted to have it checked again and she said OK but maybe next year after you finish radiation but I am a stubborn one and wanted to have it now... so she agreed to do it so I could have peace of mind.

I went two weeks ago to do another MRI and a Muga scan. The Muga scan is a nuclear scan of your heart to see if your heart has been damaged by the chemo. The MRI was to check my liver only. Marcela come with me and I really appreciate that she spent all afternoon at the hospital waiting for me around. Muga scan was quick an easy and as I had done it before I knew what to expect, I have to get use to it as I will be having that scan every 2 or 3 months from now on as Herceptin could also affect the heart. The MRI was another story...I arrive there and a young technician come to pick me up, I had my IV on from the Muga scan so he only had to get me ready on the machine. He asked me if I had any metal on my body and I said...yes, chemo port and breast expander. He said.....that is OK we can do it.. So he put me in the MRI machine which I manage to get him to agree to put my feet first as I hate that machine. After 5 minutes he come to the room and he said...."there is metal on your body", and I said..."yes, chemo port and breast expander", and he said..."that is OK". So there we went again into the machine for another 5 min and then another girl come in the room and ask me: " have you got a chemo port?", and I said :" yes". Well after about 25 min the supervisor come to the room and he asked me: " have you got breast expander", and I said "yes" and he said..." you should have told us before", and I look at him and said..." you are joking right?. I have been saying that since I arrived". Well...they could not do the MRI as the metal on my breast expander was interfering with the images so I can not have an MRI until I get final implants.

I talked to Dr Chen after the MRI incident and she sent me last week to do a CT scan of the liver. The scan is super fast and less intimidating than MRI, only issue is the dye they inject you through IV at the end of the scan for about two minutes that gives you a large heat through your body that makes your heart go a bit faster than normal, but it is a quick scan so it is not that bad. Now with my luck it was waiting time again until after thanksgiving as my doctor was taking a long Thanksgiving vacation and was not going to be at the office. What is it with me and the waiting results on a long weekend?.

Well, I got the results today and the cyst are still there but have not changed in size and the radiologist confirmed that they are hemangioma which is a tangle of blood vessels that are not cancerous. Also Dr Chen told me that if they were a cancerous tumor they would have changed with the chemo treatment and the fact that they are the same confirms the diagnosis from the radiologist. I AM SO RELIEF!!!, I have been struggling sleeping for the past week, have had nightmares about the results and really having a hard time. The Muga scan was also perfectly fine and the chemo has not affected my heart one bit which is fantastic.

Now going back to my Thanksgiving weekend which was great!. On Thursday Alberto run the San Jose turkey trot early in the morning and Ethan run it with the kids later on that morning. We then went home to get ready to go to Lorraine's house for thanksgiving where we started having appetizers at 2 pm and we literally did not stop eating until 6 pm. That night both of her girls wanted to come for sleepover so we left her house with 3 kids, they were so cute the 3 of them sleeping in Ethan's room and he was really happy to have his friends in his house.

I love Thanksgiving as is the only holidays that is not religion, race or any other diferentiation. It is a great holiday to recap and give thanks for everything that has happen to us during the year. I had so much to give thanks for even if you would think I could be upset about the fact that I had Cancer. But I am thankful that it was located, that was treated, that my treatment has been on truck , that I am doing great. But specially I had many people to give thanks to, to all my friends and family but specially to my husband Alberto for having that unconditional support 24/7.

The rest of the weekend was busy, first we bought the biggest Christmas tree and we started Christmas decorations. In the US the preassure starts on Thanksgiving when everyone starts getting Christmas decorations out and it is tradittion to have it ready then. It is really hard to convince a 4 year old that we will wait two more weeks to start the decorations....Alberto has issues to get the tree through the front door as it is almost 3 metres high!. The tree was so big that I did not have enough decorations to put on it so had to go shopping again to get more ornaments...!. Alberto put the outside lights and we are almost ready for Christmas!. Alberto and Ethan went to Rosario's birthday party but I stayed behind to help Maite do the photo shot to Lorraine's family. On Saturday night we also went to my friend Laurie's for dinner and we had a great time on her brand new kitchen.

Now is time to get ready for my parents who are coming only in 2 weeks!!. I am starting radiation tomorrow as well and we are going to Tahoe for a short weekend on Friday. So feeling great, looking forward for everything happening in the next weeks and looking forward to have the best Christmas ever!!, I am going to enjoy all preparations and present shopping like never!!!.