Fall Break Vacay

My children (now only the younger 2) get 2 weeks off for Fall Break which is usually the last week of October and first week of November. We decided in early August that since I would be finished with radiation in early October that we would take a Disney Cruise with our family and pull Josh out of school for that week and Faith off of her job to spend that time together celebrating and relaxing.

However, things did not go as planned. My insurance company felt that the life saving radiation I was prescribed to receive was not needed and was denied multiple times all of which we fought as hard as we could with my radiation oncologist. When I was finally approved for radiation we knew that I would finish too late to go on the cruise. So with saddened hearts we let our kids know that the cruise was not possible, but we still wanted them to do something fun. Sean found cheap flights up to Washington where my brother lives, so we decided to spend a few days with him. On November 1st, at 6am we flew out of Los Angeles. Now this was the day after Halloween and we had to leave our house at 2am in order to make it to the airport in time...which is why we got our tickets for so cheap. Only $70 per person for a round trip ticket on Spirit Airlines. Once we landed my brother Tyler picked us up and the fast, fun trip started!!

Since my brother and I are both bald right now, the first thing we did was a bald selfie together!! I must admit, my brother is seriously my best friend. There is no one who knows me better and I think it's because of our childhood as we both experienced the same things growing up,

First stop off the plane was Starbucks and not just any old Starbucks, but the first one ever built!!

 It was fairly crowded and many came to take photos. There was another one in view from this one if you wanted to get in and out, but this was something on our bucket list, so we did it!

They said they don't have room for all the fancy new machines, so they still make it the old fashioned way by hand, which was really cool to watch.

Two boys excited for hot chocolate. When Josh started Middle School, I took him to starbucks a few times to get real coffee, so that's what he had. Although he doesn't care for the taste of coffee, the sweetened blended drinks are what he gets.

 Watching them make coffee the old fashioned way. It was really neat.

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Had to take pictures of all the signs outside and inside!!

After Starbucks we walked to Pike's Market to see "fish fly, " which we did, but I didn't get a photo of that!

My kids enjoyed it, but not so much the smell. They were more excited to have their cousins join them!!

Fish and crab...everything seafood was at this market, but we didn't buy any of it!

My brother, Tyler, and I at the landmark pig at one entrance of Pike's Place and then the cousins took a photo there, just my 4 and then my family. Lots of photos and wild kids, so we moved onto something we thought they'd enjoy.....

 

we moved onto the underground gum wall. It was artsy and nasty all at the same time. We had to say don't touch several times, in fact!!

Faith had gum, so she put her's on the wall and marked in with a K for our last name!!

The gum wall didn't last long, so we moved onto the The Great Wheel of Seattle. I love Ferris Wheels (and Bridges), so this was awesome for me and something we didn't do the past few times in Seattle (because of the cost).

We could only have 8 in one car and there were 10 of us total, so my hubby and I got a very peaceful ride together. 

So I got several photos of them, a few selfies and the view!

The view was amazing!!

And then we were off to see another site, but this was only us girls. The men and kids went home. And we wanted to see the very first Nordstrom's, but it was impossible to park, so we drove around several times and I hopped out to get some close up photos, hoping one would say the original, but none did. I did do a little quick googling and saw that an Swedish immigrant opened it with a local Seattle shoemaker. It's a great story if you ever want to Google it.

 Seattle is such a fun town and we enjoyed seeing an actual season with colored leaves, as we don't get that much here in San Diego. And the last photo on this page sums up what I think of Seattle in a cute hippie flowered car with colorful fall leaves on the ground around it!

Sorry for all the new posts....had to transfer my CarePages onto here.

Again, so sorry if you got a ton of new posts in your email. My hope is that by transferring them all in one day (and before midnight eastern time), they will all be on the same email. CarePages is shutting down tomorrow and I wanted to save my posts. It was pretty emotional reading through them at times and funny at other times when I realized how naive we were in the beginning, Although it's not something I ever thought I'd be educated on, I now know way more than I ever wanted. I'm hoping that tomorrow I can make my end of chemo/radiation post with photos. Chemo ended on 10/22 and radiation on 10/26!

It's so rad to be finished with Radiation and Chemo

Welp, rads (radiation) ended yesterday and chemo ended last Sunday (10/22/17)!! I was so excited to finish and had my 7pm appointment so that those who wanted to be there but work could go after work, but then I was called in the morning and asked to go in to see my doctor. I am happy that I did because some of my favorite techs were working during the day and wouldn't be there at night for me to get a photo with.

 I had such a great team working on me. The women totally understood how it felt when I would remove my hair piece (a head band at first that progressed into a wig) to get my head radiated, and I cried several times only to get an understanding hug. 

 This guy above was with me on day one and for the first couple of weeks, then he was moved to another machine and would be on my machine at random times.

 This is my friend Clay and he met me there during the day as he works at the hospital and wouldn't be around for my ringing of the bell. He's in a local commercial for the hospital and I thought it was funny when the nurse said he looked familiar and he responded that he worked at the hospital and then she said " you're the guy in the commercials."

 After radiation I showed off my mask to everyone who came to see me ring the bell and then I rang the bell. Followed by lots of photos!!

 My family and favorite supporters with me ringing the bell.

 Lots of friends and my uncle came to see me ring the bell, some more amazing supporters!

 Then a quick picture with the two techs who were with me on my last radiation. The man, Phil, on the left was there from the beginning, my very first day. The gal on the right started about two weeks into my treatment as she was moved to my machine. She was the one I cried to the most when my hair started falling out and she would just hug me. It's funny how much a hug can make someone feel so much better.

And then to check another thing off my bucket list, my Uncle Charlie let me ride on the back of his Harley to the ice cream shop where we stopped to get my kids a treat as a way to celebrate!!

 Once home all of my kids got a ride around our culde-sac

 Zach was so excited to ride, probably the most excited out of all my kiddos

 Ben and Josh took a ride

 And finally Faith took a ride.

 I must admit that I wasn't going to allow my kids to ride it because I always thought motorcycles were scary and dangerous. On my ride home, I was shocked at how safe I felt, so I knew my kids would be fine riding around our culde-sac!

 Cutie pies Ben (above) and Josh (below) try on the helmet I wore.

 Then, Sean, Ben, and Zach took turns sitting on the bike alone. I think Sean would be in Heaven if he had a bike, although I don't think his mom would ever let him. I would, but that is only recently (post diagnosis) as I am now under the mind frame that life is short and needs to be lived to it's fullest.

I am so grateful that this part of my journey is over! It was long and had many challenges, mostly the timing of my appointments coinciding with traffic, my being very tired (usually going to bed around 7pm or as soon as I got home from radiation).