Another New Year

Here it is the end of of another calendar year.  I remember sitting down to reflect on the New Year last year.  I was still reeling from that insane phone call where the radiologist told me I had cancer and needed to find a surgeon and someone would call me later with more information.  Did I have any questions?  Only about a million!  By the end of the year, I'd had many more tests and learned a lot, but there were still a lot of unknowns.

And here I am sitting down again to think about all that has happened in 2015 and what might be coming in 2016.  Like I said last year, in the end it will be a year like any other, with ups and downs and joy and sadness and everything in between.

Things that happened in 2015, in no particular order...

• Fun times on Lake Coeur d'Alene and Lake Pend Oreille with family and friends
• Watching Bryce shoot hundreds (thousands?) of baskets
• 4 rounds of chemo, followed by 4 Neulasta shots, followed by a chemo haze
• Surgery (which besides the actual surgery entailed injecting my breast with blue dye and inserting a wire in it)
• Camping with the kids at Lucky Peak
• Claire doing awesome at swimming lessons
• Bryce refusing to participate in swimming lessons
• 33 radiation treatments
• Being part of the Lentil Family of the Year (thanks Dad!)
• Starting to take medication every day for the first time in my life
• Hot flashes... LOTS of hot flashes
• Acupuncture... which finally relieved the hot flashes (Amen!)
• Watching Claire play soccer, basketball and gymnastics
• Celebrating at Tara's wedding; the joy on Claire's face at getting to be her flower girl
• Practicing my spring dive and swimming the dark after Tara's wedding (Did I mention the pool wasn't heated?  Brrr!!)
• Delicious meals with Juan at Alavita and Bleubird
• Getting my hair all chopped off into a cute pixie cut in front of all my girlfriends...
• ... and then watching it all start to fall out and shaving my head a few weeks later
• Driving to Cheney with Dawn for Tara's bridal shower... realizing how much faster the drive goes with no children in the car
• Claire starting 2nd grade; Bryce starting pre-school
• WSU Homecoming with family and friends... and a Cougar Victory!
• Being overwhelmed and amazed by the generosity and kindness of family and friends and sometimes even strangers

Things I was exceptionally thankful for in 2015...

• Healthy kids and rest of my family
• Juan's job and a rather amazing health insurance plan
• Not feeling as sick as I expected during chemo, no weird reactions
• Meals, etc. from friends and family so I didn't have to think about cooking
• All the people who helped watch or entertain the kids (especially my parents who took them to Tekoa for over a week!)
• Doctors and nurses who are professional, kind, and trustworthy... and have a sense of humor, too
• A fun summer vacation
• People who went out of their way to say hello or let me know they were thinking of me
• My sisters-in-law who insisted on getting me help to clean my house during treatment
• Finishing all my treatment, being declared cancer-free/no evidence of disease, and knowing I've done everything I can to reduce the risk of a recurrence
• Finally letting Juan convince me to have Lasik.  Totally worth it!!!
• My kids, my family, & my friends!  Oh, and on occasion, Carlo (the cat) (when he's being nice and cuddly).

When I type up all those things 2015 doesn't seem like a bad year at all.  I feel blessed that I naturally focus on the positive things and the bad things seem to kind of fade away.  If this last year can have so many good things then how can 2016 not be even better?  Happy New Year!