Merry Christmas

It's sort of ironic that this Christmas, which should have focused on celebrating health and end of hard treatments, was spent being sick and around sick people. Yet, having a normal cold, not having my fever spike, being able to get away for a few days--even though that's how we all got sick-- actually means I am getting back to normal. And it feels good.

Last night as I was sitting in church, surrounded by my sweet kids with Walt and his mom behind us, I thanked God that we were there. Ben wasn't feeling well, so he leaned his head on my shoulder as we sang Silent Night and listened to the sweet flute choir. At the end of the service, our new worship director sang a beautiful rendition of Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas. As the song ended, Ben looked up at me and asked, "Are those tear from your plugs or real tears?"

I smiled at his question and said, "Real tears, Ben." And I was proud of them, too! 

After the service, we went to Boston's for Christmas Eve dinner. They had a drawing and our table won the free dinners! We left our waitress a big tip and headed home to open up Christmas Eve  pajama presents. Ben seemed to feel a bit better after getting a little food in him, but Becca started feeling worse. This morning Nathan woke up with a sore throat and fever. Walt also has a low-grade fever and cough. My throat began to hurt this morning and by late afternoon I was feeling chilled. I took my temperature and it was 100 degrees. I forgot to ask Dr. Kohn if I was in danger of infection when I saw her on Thursday, but since she isn't running blood tests on me right now, I have to think that she believes my blood counts have improved. Nonetheless, having a fever can be worrisome, so Walt and I prayed that it wouldn't get any higher. I took Tylenol before dinner and other than a stuffy nose and feeling very tired, I am doing okay. I'm praying that it's a normal cold that I'll recover from in the next couple of days and can chalk it up to life as usual.

I switched my Friday doctor's appointment and Herceptin to Thursday so we could get away to Chelan for a few days. Although the clinic was extremely busy, they were able to squeeze me in. If I couldn't have made that switch, we wouldn't have gone. It was our family's first getaway since my cancer diagnosis in April. We met two other families there and had a blast. When we walked in on Friday, though, we were greeted by really sick people. I had thoughts of turning around or even isolating ourselves in the other condo away from the germs. Yet, smart or not, we wanted to enjoy hanging out with our friends, share meals and play games. I think it was worth it, but I'll let you know when this sickness runs its course through our family. Tomorrow I don't have anything to do, so I'll watch movies and read books. Sounds pretty fun actually.

Here's wishing you all a very merry Christmas!