(Happy???) Birthday

OK, what a day, what a week!?!! My birthday was Wednesday, Nov 4 and I turned 49 this year. It was also the day that Spencer opened his mission call!

After my first week of chemotherapy, I had been a bit tired from that first week, having treatments every day. Finding veins each day was tough, so on Friday, Oct 30, I had a port put in to my chest to ease the daily treatment process. That wasn't too bad and proved to be a blessing. Halloween was spent recuperating from that, as well as trick-or-treating that night. Allison had made some delicious home-made chili and I probably, as usual, at too much (Interesting side note: I love that chili, and many people say that sometimes you never want to eat again what you ate during chemotherapy. I still crave it, but we've never taken the time or opportunity to make it since then, over 1 and 1/2 years later. Hmm.) Anyway, as we were going to bed, Allison was on the phone visiting with Winston when Caroline and Spencer came in quite serious and reported that the beta fish had died. We had gotten the little guy from a roommate of Caroline's and Stewart was thrilled with it. I was way too tired to do anything, so I instructed them to take it downstairs and so they did, having a 'moment of silence' to honor it. OK.

In the mail on Wednesday, Spencer's mission call arrived. He wanted to be ceremonial about it, so we drove up to Provo and went to Panda Express. Everybody ordered something they wanted for dinner. We then drove over to the Provo Temple and sat on the lawn just outside the temple grounds. That was when he opened his call and announced that he was going to the Thailand Bangkok Mission! What a neat surprise. He was very pleased and excited and nervous all in one. What a neat way to kick off my 50th year.

On Thursday, I was really feeling tired. I just laid on the sofa all day, sleeping and sitting and thinking and dozing and not doing anything. By the end of the day, I had actually felt quite rotten and exhausted.

By Friday, I felt a bit better, but was still exhausted. It was nice to have the week behind me. There were definitely some highs and lows and in looking back, it was probably the worst I felt that week, though there were other days, especially with my pulmonary embolism a month later, where my health was actually poorer.