Lots of Catching Up to Do

I haven't blogged in a long time and have lots of catching up to do.

School Stuff
Last post I mentioned my first chemistry A. Well, I had another test last week and after taking a vacation day on Wednesday to study, I got a 96% on what should have been the hardest test yet. I was very excited and now because of getting to drop my lowest score and the rest of the grading, I should be able to get an A in the class as long as I get a mid to high B on the final.

Speaking of the final...It is scheduled for June 6, which I was supposed to be going to Finland for work and was going to have to schedule a make-up later. Last week, I finally got an answer out of work and becuase of cost, they aren't letting us go, so no trip and luckily for me, I can now take my test as planned.

Cancer Stuff
I want to thank Jacki for her nice comments about me on The Cancer Blog. Sometimes I feel like I'm just muddling through, but it always is nice to have other people say such nice things about you.

I've been taking the tamoxifen for about 3 weeks now and so far don't notice any side effects. That's good. I'll just keep taking it for a while and hope it's doing it's job.

In about 2 weeks, I have an appointment for consultation at the Cancer Genetics center. They'll take about an hour to create a family pedigree and go over my cancer risk. If everyone agrees, this is the first step to having the genetic testing done for the BRCA1 & BRCA2 genes. My biggest fear about the genetic testing is that after seeing my lack of family history, that they won't want to do the testing. I want to do it regardless. While they were both smokers, both of my paternal grandparents died from lung cancer and while there doesn't appear to be a connection between lung and breast cancer, I'd still like to know. Plus, because of my age, my Oncologist, Dr. Y, has been throwing around the idea of prophylactic surgery to remove my ovaries, and that's a decision that would be easier made if I knew if I was at an increased risk of developing Ovarian Cancer. Maybe my desire is enough to get it done. I guess I'll find out in a couple of weeks.

Life in General Stuff
I wanted to give you lots of pictures from our last two weekends, but I'm having a "Memory Card Error" and can't seem to retrieve them from my camera right now. I'll keep working on it though. Let's see...

Last weekend, we drove to Lafayette on Friday night to go to my friend Jamie's wedding. Well, technically Jamie is the cousin/sister of two of my best friends, but that makes her a friend by relation. Pictures are at Danialle's site. It was beautiful and we had a good time, despite the fact that Grace didn't get to nap on Saturday and was all screwed up on her schedule.

This week was a little crazy at work. Tuesday, I went golfing all afternoon. I got a little sun and did reasonably well. I think I could really like golfing if I had a chance to do it more often. Wednesday, I took the day off. In the morning I had to take Eric to drop his car off for some minor repair and then take him to work and Grace to daycare. I spent the morning studying, and then had a Herceptin appointment in the afternoon. Friday was an early close day, so I didn't feel like I got all that much accomplished at the office.

This weekend was also very nice. Friday afternoon I came home and did 11, yes that's right, 11 loads of laundry! Friday night Eric and I watched X-Men 1 & 2 in anticipation of possibly going to the movies this weekend. Saturday, I finished up the packing, took Grace to gymnastics, and then we went to Ava's 1st birthday party. It was fun and Ava really liked her cake! After the party we came home, loaded the car and headed to Indiana. We got to Grandma's just after 8 p.m. We put Grace down in a pack-n-play, until around 10:30 when we headed over to my cousin Karey's house to sleep. Sunday, we went to church with my Grandparent's, had lunch at Pizza Hut, stopped by Wal-Mart so Grandpa (my Dad) could buy Grace a bubble gun, and then went to Grandma's. Grace took a very short nap while we were making the food for a cookout. My cousin Kevin, had a graduation open house in the early afternoon. He was the Valedictorian and played both baseball and basketball. I'm so impressed! We then had a cookout and all hung out until around 7:30 p.m. Then we went back to Karey's and finally got to put Grace to bed. She was a terror this weekend. I think the change in schedule really throws her off, so she was tired and surrounded by lots of people she didn't know. She wouldn't hardly let me leave her side. Sunday night, Eric, my Dad, and Jeremy decided to go to a 10:00 showing of X-Men 3, but Mom and I were tired and decided to stay back with the cousins. We started watching Big Momma's House 2, but I couldn't even make it through that one.

Today, we got up and hit the road around 9 a.m. Grace is still napping and since she's been asleep about 2 1/2 hours, I'm thinking I should get her up, so she'll go to bed tonight.

One last thing... I also started doing the Weight Watcher's program on my own this week. Meaning, I'm following the plans but not planning on going to any meetings. I'll weigh-in in the morning, but I think I lost 3 pounds this week. Yeah! Only 20 more to go. I think this could work though. It's flexible enough, so that if you want to eat something that you wouldn't consider healthy, you can, you just have to count it and make adjustments to the rest of your meals that day. Or there is also a surplus of points for the week that you can dip into if you go over on a particular day, or you can save up for a "free day." For example, I saved most of mine for the cookout yesterday. Yum!

Ok, really, I'm going to go check on the baby!