Hello there! With a wandering attention span I just managed to wrap up two days of Advanced Excel training class (jealous much?) The good news... now I know how to create drop-down menus in Excel (again, jealous much?). The bad news... it was a Two. Day. Class. Functions and Pivot Tables and Arrays, oh my!

And now I'm headlong into developing a lecture on Social Contract Theory. Because after nine or so months of kicking major cancer ass, it seemed like a good idea to ease on back into grad school with a doctoral level class. Also, it seemed like a good idea to my university to take a handful of Masters candidates, throw in a few PhD candidates, shake 'em up in a Social Justice class and watch what happens. What could possibly go wrong, right?Well, so far so good anyway.

But all of that is really just to say there's my excuse for not blogging in a while. Not because I haven't been inundated with tons of fabulously exciting things to tell you about, but just because... well... I've been busy! And busy with non-cancer stuff. Which is pretty flippin' awesome.

Of course I can't speak too quickly, because tomorrow is a check up with the medical oncologist. Apparently this will be our quarterly routine from now until... I have no idea when actually. I'm guessing she'll want to take a peak at the echocardiogram I had done two weeks ago (another routine quarterly) and talk about how life on tamoxifen is treating me. I don't at all mind the pimples and hotflashes from tamoxifen - said no one ever.

Post-chemo haircut!

As you may or may not have guessed from this post's title... I had my first post-chemo haircut this weekend! Pretty exciting after only four months to have enough hair worth cutting. Sort of. So I walked into the salon with these pictures in hand.

Thank you Ginnifer, Michelle, Emma, and Anne for taking a little boy's haircut and making it look fabulous on grown women.

Natalia at Statements was wonderful and adorable. And adorably wonderful. We talked about her 180 lbs Great Dane - which I'm pretty sure is double her size - and his more petite 140 lbs litter mate. She mentioned I may not notice that much difference with this first cut...

...but I'd say she nailed it.

In other equally as exciting news, Rob and I finally got our flu shots! And according to the ACS and the CDC, so should you! At least if you want to come anywhere near me anyway. Here's what the ACS has to say about cancer and the flu...

"The CDC recommends that people who live with or care for a person at high risk for flu-related problems get the vaccine. This means that if you are being treated for cancer, your family members, caregivers, and children at home should get the flu shot, too."

Now while you're out searching for vaccines, I'll be right here finding other ways to procrastinate starting all the work I have due for class this week. Which is exactly why things like this exist on the internet...

Happy Sunday everyone!

Cutest. Blog. Ever.

Nothing much new or exciting to report here. The Spring semester starts tomorrow, so Rob and I spent the weekend in complete denial - by looking for flu shots (no such luck) and playing with our nephew. He and I are in competition over who can grow hair the fastest. I'm winning.

Would you believe this is only 9 lbs of baby?

Oh, and Moxie got a haircut.

 Babies and puppies, could this blog get any cuter? Make it a great week, everyone!

UPDATE 1/14/13:  Okay. So yesterday was my 4 month done-with-chemo-versary and you all totally let me forget it. Seriously, you're slipping. Try not to let it happen again.

How I spent my winter vacation

Cancer is so last year.

I really wish I could take credit for this packed-full-of-sass quote. Unfortunately I'm not nearly that clever. Though it does seem to be making its way around the internets, so why not help it on its merry way?

Here on this 3rd day of January, I had very good intentions of blogging a brilliantly reflective post highlighting all of the wacky cancer ass-kicking antics we on Team Cancer Sux have endured in 2012. And perhaps I still will... eventually. But not tonight. Instead...

How I Spent My Winter Vacation

by Katherine Warrick

Being a tireless employee of Uncle Sam (and all of his misguided children) is not without its perks. One of which was eleven uninterrupted days of vacation over the Christmas and New Year's holidays. As if those holidays weren't enough, throw my birthday and our wedding anniversary into the mix... now you've got a par-tay. 

But it wasn't all shiny wrapping paper and popping champagne bottles. How can you have that much time off without squeezing in a few doctors' appointments. Answer: you can't. So I got to spend Friday afternoon with my favorite peeps at the infusion center for my 11th round of Herceptin (only 6 more to go!) The Friday afternoon crew isn't quite the same as the Thursday-day crew, but they're starting to grow on me.

Earlier that day was my last appointment with the PT. That's right, a discharge from physical therapy is a pretty exciting way to end 2012. Range of motion is pretty darn close to normal - 165 degrees out of 180 - so I'll take that for the win! And now I'm rolling into 2013 armed (get it?) with a compression sleeve and lots of should strengthened exercises.

Apparently I'm working backwards here, so that brings us to my Thursday afternoon appointment with the plastic surgeon (Dr. M). Dr. M also had good news to help ring in the New Year. As enough time has passed since the final saline fill of my tissue expanders (he likes them to rest for 3 - 4 weeks) and we're not under-the-gun with starting radiation... he's cleared me for the next phase of reconstruction!

Oh! And I went for a very overdue eye exam to update my contacts. Did you know that cancer can improve your vision prescription? Strange, but true. 

And that's how I spent my winter vacation. 

The End.

So what does 2013 look like? It's starting with three whole weeks uninterrupted by doctors' appointments. I know, I'm beside myself at the thought of all that time I won't be spending sitting in a doctors' office. The next thing I'm in for is my 12th round of Herceptin and another echocardiogram (think I'll make those a double feature). And both Dr. F (medical oncologist) and Dr. B (surgical oncologist) will want to see me sometime next month. Because they miss me. Possibly. Or it could just be for a check-up. But I'm gonna go with they miss me.

What's on the to-do list in the mean time? 1) Make a decision for or against radiation, and stick with it. After a lot of reading, many long talks with radiation oncologists, and many even longer talks with Rob, right now I'm strongly leaning against it. But I'll save my really compelling Pros and Cons list for another post. 2) Schedule exchange surgery. It will be outpatient and, supposedly, a cake-walk compared to the mastectomy. Sounds like the perfect Spring Break activity, right? And speaking of spring break, 3) get back to grad school this spring after two long semesters off.

Have a great Thursday evening and - at the rate I've been posting lately - an awesome weekend!

You can say that again...

...'cause sometimes a little reminder doesn't hurt!