A week in Review...

I took some time to grab some photos off my camera from the past week and thought I'd share some highlights with you...it's been a good week!!

Dec 21st - 5:30 am So...here I am waving goodbye to the boob! We're just about to leave for St Mary's Hospital to get the cancer out! What a great Christmas present for me!! About eight hours after we left home, we were back and I was set up for recovery! Today I feel pretty good. Roberta (the nurse) comes today to check me out. I was hoping she might remove the drains today, but I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen...still too much fluid. Oh well...they'll come out when they're ready!

Dec 23rd - Evening
The best hockey tournament of the year happens over Christmas - the World Juniors!! On the 23rd (which also happened to be Matt's birthday), Team Canada played a pre-tournament game against Finland at the Aud here in Kitchener. Team Canada won (5-2), and it was great that Matt, Alex and Brock (sporting my Team Canada Jersey!!) got to go to the game. Thanks so much for coming and hanging out with me Kelly so the boys could go cheer on Team Canada! Happy Birthday, Matt!!

Dec 24th - Christmas Eve
When your sister is an art major at University, sometimes by virtue of sibling law you have to be the "subject" for her masterpieces. So, with profound patience and compliance, Alex sat for over an hour on Christmas Eve while Lauren created a mask of his face. Thank goodness she remembered to create breathing holes for his nose!! The mold turned out great and now Lauren just has to figure out what she is going to do with it....

Dec 25 - Christmas morning
We had a wonderful, slow, easy Christmas morning. I was the first one up...and then waited almost two hours before everyone else was awake!! We opened our stockings and than our presents and it was wonderful taking our time and watching each other unwrap the mysteries in the paper!! We had our traditional Christmas breakfast (crepes a la Matt) and played a game of Funglish (new game for Christmas) before heading to New Hamburg. It was the BEST!! I was spoiled rotten by this beauty family that embraces me so tightly!!

Dec 25th - Christmas Dinner
I was happy I felt pretty good on Christmas Day and could join Matt, Alex and Lauren at the Austin family Christmas dinner in New Hamburg. Hosted by Granny and Grandpa (aka Beth & Bill), we were joined by Matt's brother and family (Peter, Leslie, Kathryn and Joel) and good family friend, Jeannie. Beth had dinner ready early and I stayed for a couple of hours and then Matt brought me home. Matt, Lauren and Alex stayed for dessert and a little more fun (so good to live so close!!). Thanks Tammy for coming over and hanging out with me for a couple of hours after I got home so Matt and the kids could hang out longer! As an aside, I want to tell you about the beautiful gift I got from Kathryn & Joel. They made each of us very cool bookmarks and chose the beads very carefully for each person. I got very emotional when I read what Kathryn wrote on my package (so she had to read it out for me). It said "I chose these beads for you because you are a brave cancer survivor. Good Job!" Kathryn is nine. And she touched my heart.

It has been an eventful week...and I am feeling good and maybe a little anxious to get going with the rest of the treatment plan. I know, I have to finish healing from surgery (first step...get these darn drains out)...and of course, I'm a little anxious to find out what the pathology report shows from my surgery. Besides those small details, I truly feel the world is a bright beautiful place...the sun is shining and my Mom is arriving for a visit today!! Life is good!

xoxoxoxoxoxo

PS - One more piece of good news...the creepy mustache (or in his words - cowboy mustache) that Matt has been sporting for the past three weeks is now gone! See...life is REALLY good!!