Hi -- Me Again!

Hi! It's me again. And I'm alive, I am ALIVE!! And finally feeling well enough to write in my blog again. Yippee!!

It has been a rough few days to say the least. All of the awful pain that I was dreading leading up to surgery actually came true -- I wish that I could say it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but unfortunately that is not the case. On Thursday before my surgery I went for a great 3+ mile run with Pete and today I can barely walk down to the end of the hallway and back, and when I say "walk" what I really mean is hobble along about the speed of a caterpillar. I ended up with about 5 different incision sites on my abdomen and man, oh, man do they hurt! But it's all worth it. I am sure that by now you have read the blog that Pete posted with the results from my surgery, and it all turned out exactly as we hoped and prayed. I can rest in peace that the main tumor is finally out of my body and hopefully the chemo later will sweep up any and all remaining straggler cancer cells. And then I can finally put this chapter of my life behind me forever!

So for now I just envision myself climbing up this next section of my mountain...I am in the middle of the hardest part right now, but I am confident that the climb will get easier the higher I go. And I can clearly see to the top of my mountain, where all of my friends and family are cheering me on...the group has gotten so much bigger, as more and more friends join the group to lend their love and support, and so the cheers and shouts of encouraging words are almost deafening, but at the same time, it's music to my ears. It's music which provides a rhythmic pulse for my climbing. It's music which warms my heart on the cold nights here in the hospital. I am climbing with all my strength and soon I will back on the top of my mountain and I will embrace each and every one of you and thank you for all the love you have given me during this challenging climb. I could not have done this without you!!