Hey!  Long time no talk!  Hope all is well.

Me?  Huh?  How am I doing?

Mostly ok.  Mostly.

What’s been going on?

Well, we’ve been enjoying the summer.  The boys have had a couple of camps.  We’ve been swimming a lot.  We’ve watched some movies.  The boys have played a great deal of Minecraft.  And I let them.  Although I have figured out a trick.  If I want them to be outside, i don’t give them a choice. For instance, if I want to go to the pool, I just pack up the swim bag and put it in the car and when I pick them up from wherever they are, i just drive them to the pool.  It’s good to have choices sometimes but when you’d rather sit in front of a computer for 48 hours with no sunlight, Mom has to step in.

Oh and this happened:

Isn’t he a doll?

His name is Kevin.  Originally, his name was Slater but no one liked that name.  Then for about 5 minutes, we called him Shadow but that didn’t fit.  And then the boys said let’s call him Kevin.  And my husband said something about not wanting to name the cat after one of my ex boy friends.  And then we sent a picture to my sister who immediately responded with, “You should name him Kevin.” Which was weird because we hadn’t told her we were considering the name.  And the next thing we knew, we were all calling him Kevin.  Who cares about ex boyfriends from twenty years ago anyway?!  Am I right?  Ex boyfriends don’t get to monopolize a name!

KEVIN!!!!

We’re taking it back!

He was so itty bitty back then.  He was just 6 weeks old.  Now he is 4 months old and he is still as adorable and fun as ever.

I missed owning a cat.

The dog was not happy about him at first but now she is somewhat fond of him and they play together.  Kevin kind of took over which was unexpected but really kind of funny.

What else?

We went to an awesome camp for children with limb differences called Camp Winning Hands.  I didn’t get to go last year because of being sick and bald and nauseated and everything.  The boys came back from it last summer without much to say so I went in this summer with no expectations but it was awesome!  There was good food, excellent entertainment, fun activities for both of my boys and lots of great people to meet.  The camp was staffed with professional people from the medical field (not the prosthetic field which is good) and the volunteers were all young adults and adults with limb differences themselves.

Why were we there?  Oh!  If you didn’t know, my youngest son was born with a limb difference.  He was born missing his left hand and part of his left forearm.  He also was born with open wounds on his face and on his leg.  It was a very scary time for our family.  We were told that it was unsure because of the leg wound, if he would ever walk.

But he walked and can do everything, every other kid does.  He even taught himself how to do monkey bars!

I once had a blog when he was little that talked about our life together.  It was actually kind of popular for a bit.  But blogging is weird.  People can over-step boundaries and think they know you when they don’t.  And people who know you can get weird about blogging.  It got weird.  Eventually, I got tired of feeling strange blogging about my kids so I shut it down.  But I missed it.

And there are times when having a blog is good.  Because I have stories to tell about the jerks sweet little darlings that harass my kid sometimes.  Like at the end of the school-year.  My son’s soccer team came in second place in a tournament and on Monday morning after, some kid on another team who goes to my son’s school came up to him and said, “You only won because you got lucky…you no-armed kid!!!”

What?!

Really?!

Yes.  The kid said that to my kid.

I pointed out that the kid was inaccurate considering the fact that my son actually does indeed have two arms.

“Yeah Mom, I know!” my son replied, “I told the same thing to my teacher and she said to ignore the kid because he was just a sore loser.  At least I think she said sore loser.  All I heard her say was ‘loser” but I don’t think teachers are allowed to say stuff like that about other kids.”

I think this particular story is a perfect blogging opportunity.  Nine years.  Nine years we’ve had a kid who happens to have a limb difference and he is still getting stuff like this said to him.  It boggles my mind, the stupid stuff people have said to my kid just because of a silly thing like missing a hand.  And once you get to know him, you can see pretty quickly that there is so much more to my kid than the hand he never had.  And I love how the teacher didn’t make a big deal out of it.  Just chalked it up to another kid being a sore loser.

Good stuff.

Anyway, Camp Winning Hands is a great place for my kid because he gets to be around other kids just like him and he gets to see older kids with the exact same limb difference doing well and sharing their life.

And the food is good.

And did I mention, it was free?

Here is a video about the place:

So we did that.

There have been swimming lessons and play dates and barbeques.  It’s been a nice summer.

Things are pretty ok in Cancerland too.  My breathing has improved though it is still not perfect.  I am slowly losing weight by watching my food intake (cupcakes make you fat, yo!) and exercise on the My Fitness Pal app.

It’s really helpful to track what you eat.

Food.  It’s such a cunning thing.  It it meant to nourish you and keep you healthy but that warm fuzzy feeling food gives you can well…make you fat.  I’ve been complaining about my weight gain during chemo but the truth is, if I eat smart, which means avoiding dairy and carbs (including cupcakes) and eat lots of fruits and veg  and lean protein, the weight slowly goes away.  Duh!  But it’s hard when you are stressed about…life.  It’s hard to always make good choices.

I’ve been walking a lot.  Unfortunately, I fell on my face 2 weeks ago while walking the dog.  I had her leash in one hand and I had my phone in the other because I was listening to an Audiobook. I tripped and tried to catch myself but the dog just kept pulling me forward and eventually, I hit my head really hard on the sidewalk.  I ended up with a bump on my head, a black eye, two skinned knees and a scraped elbow.

It was an epic fall.  Epic.  I wish someone had gotten it on video.  *SMACK*  I just laid there on the sidewalk moaning at first while the dog licked me.  Then this guy got out of his car to check to see if I was alright.  Bless him!  By then I had found my phone and was calling my husband.  My head was bleeding a little and my eyelid was swollen shut.  It was an amazing experience.  One I would not like to repeat.

Here is my eye about 4 days after the fall:

What else?  Oh, I got a baseline ultrasound of my lady parts because Tamoxifen has been known to increase the risk of ovarian and uterine cancer.  I got the results yesterday and they weren’t horrible.  But I have a cyst on one ovary that they want to recheck.  And it’s a little scary.  But we won’t really know anything until I get the recheck in 6-10 weeks and we will go from there.

I kind of wanted to cry when I got the result of the weird cyst but really, there is nothing for me to do about it other than wait for the recheck.  Worry is a wasted emotion.  Having cancer taught me that.  Worry isn’t going to change anything and it might make everything worse.

We’ve had some bumps along the way this summer but we are together and we are happy and life is good.

I promise to write more tomorrow.