Presenting Elphaba and her Flying Monkey

What a cute monkey face!

Hey, I look kinda pretty in this one!

Of course you had to see the stockings!

I know this is fuzzy but I liked it anyway.

And here's a little glimpse of my bald head in contrast with the green skin.

Gotta love Dressupween!

The ghost of Halloween past

Where it all began: Richard asked if I'd help him with his costume. I said Yes. He asked if I'd be his Princess Leia. I said No. Then after 3 weeks of helping him with his costume, I changed my mind. And the rest, is history...

I'm including a picture just of Richard each year. He's so delightful - I love this man!

Han Solo and Princess Leia from Star Wars

Buzz Lightyear and Jessie from Toy Story.

Belle and Gaston from Beauty and the Beast.

The big bad wolf and little red riding hood. We kinda "called it in" this year. Don't even have a picture of the 2 of us together (but if you had one, we'd love a copy!!)

Shrek and Fiona

Hellboy and Liz Sherman

What does 2010 have in store?!

Dressupween

Oh what a lovely holiday where EVERYONE gets to dress up! And how fun it is for me and my honey. This is our 7th Dressupween together.

This year I'll post our past Dressupween costumes along with this years Dressupween costumes.

Oooo, I bet you can't wait...!

Post Script

If anyone asked, these would be my personal tips about cyberknife radiation.

1. Having eye holes poked in your mask is vital. (You miss really cool stuff AND I felt like I was suffocating otherwise.)

2. I thought it would be really nice to have a book on cd specifically for radiation. That way me and my technician would be able to listen to it. Doesn’t that sound so nice and thoughtful…? Didn’t really work; with all the noises you miss out on some of what’s going on in your book and you don’t always have the same technician and they can’t hear everything and are focused on your treatment anyway. (Music cds or iPod – totally the way to go.)

3. I started really getting tired the second week. The fifth week was RIDICULOUS how tired I was! It was everything I could do to get up for work (at my computer at home) and get myself to radiation. Not much else. Ate a lot of fast food, skipped a lot of activities I would have liked to be a part of. They say you can still be a part of normal life, but for me – that was not an option.

4. For me the hair loss wasn’t super noticeable until the fifth week. And even more noticeable the week after! 14 days later, the patches are still as smooth as if I’d waxed them. I’ll keep you posted to how that pans out.

5. Being positive is the best way to get through it! Of course, everyone has those days when it feels like life isn’t fair and you’re so done with having a brain tumor and how can you possibly get through it - those days a really good cry does WONDERS. I’ve had days (notice the plural) that I just want to be done (oh I so just want this to be done, why isn’t this done?!) and I don’t understand why it’s happening to me (shouldn’t it be happening to someone who’s chronically mean?!); then I remember that Heavenly Father knows me and what I can get through. We were sent here to be tried and this is definitely one of those “trial” things. It reminds me of my most favorite quote that has helped me through this all. It’s from Neal A Maxwell. "One's life. . . cannot be both faith-filled and stress-free. . . Therefore, how can you and I really expect to glide naively through life, as if to say, "Lord, give me experience, but not grief, not sorrow, not pain, not opposition, not betrayal, and certainly not to be forsaken. Keep from me, Lord, all those experiences which made Thee what Thou art! Then let me come and dwell with Thee and fully share Thy joy!” Real faith. . . is required to endure this necessary but painful developmental process." (So have faith and be positive!)

6. I think it’s probably normal to feel a little depressed after your treatment is over. I’ve felt so far removed from most of my friends (work, church, walking buddies) then when my “hospital” friends aren’t there to fill in the gaps… it’s HARD. As things get back to normal, I imagine life will get back to normal too. I’ve kept in contact with my hospital friends through email. And I made a special effort to call a friend and go do something random – that helped a lot!

The aftermath

Well, my time with Roli is over. (I'm still crying myself to sleep...)

I'm still super "fatigued" from the radiation. I was grateful to Dr. Choe who I saw on Friday. He validated me and said it was normal for me to feel fatigue and that the next few days would get worse but it would all be better within a few weeks.

(So much better than a couple weeks ago when a different random doctor told me that when you look at what radiation actually does to the body, it makes no sense that people get so fatigued. Ya know what? Even if it's just "psychological", the radiation on my BRAIN makes me tired and super duper sick to my stomach. And since you've never had brain radiation from a cyberknife, I don't really want to hear what the "medical books" have to tell you! Besides that, I was also told that no one could tell what kind of side effects I've have because its my brain. Maybe my brain gets tired and nauseated! So there.)

The last week of radiation was the hardest for me. Every day on the table I'd spend time thinking about what fun shenanigans I could be a part of, but at home it was pretty hard - just being sick to my stomach and not having much energy. My head started hurting a lot. Super annoying.

I showed you my bald spot (that I didn't notice), right? Well, on Sunday I discovered the bald spot is even bigger!! I was in the bathroom and went out to get my camera. When I got out in the hallway, Tally (who we lovingly call our dog-ter) staggered toward me. I was so confused. Then she collapsed in my lap and had a minute+ long seizure. Holy cow! It was so upsetting to me. I just cried and cried and cried. I thought, "Please don't let me finish my brain tumor treatments and take Tally. Please. Molly & Tally are my kids. Please don't let Tally die." It just seemed so unfair. It wasn't until later when Richard reminded me that death is an okay thing, that I realized that it is okay. Much peace came from this.

We took her to the animal ER and they diagnosed her with idiopathic epilepsy. No medicine until she has another seizure. (Goodness, seizures are really disturbing.) So she's okay, we just have to keep an eye on her.

And I had a reminder that life isn't always what we want. We have to be able to accept things - really hard things. (Apparently, I didn't learn this from having a brain tumor. Gee, am I'm slow or what?!)

And just because you may be curious, here are the pics (taken much much later) of my even bigger bald spot.

Just a few more weeks, then (cross your fingers) back to normal.

T minus 1... BLAST OFF!

Today was my 25th treatment of cyberknife radiation. Hooray, I graduated... or something... It was truly a bittersweet experience. I'm so grateful that it's over and I'll miss my UTSW friends sooo much.

So we got done and crazy antics ensued. I'm pretty sure they've never had a patient like me before. Anthony showed me the photo attached to my file (I've got the faux hawk going on). He said he was looking through the files & thought 'now that's a patient to meet!' I asked if he was disappointed. He said "not one single day." Awww, thanks Anthony.

This first video is so you can see Roli in action. It's a recording of him changing collimators. Be sure to listen closely to his sounds.

The second video is in tribute to how trendy Roli will become. Please notice he's wearing his favorite zip-up hoodie. This song just seemed appropriate - I mean after all Roli DEFINITELY is the Troy Bolton of CyberKnives. (Just keep in mind there was only one take.)

The third video is my own little "love song" to Roli. I went through my dress up clothes and found scrubs. How could I go with anything else?! The wig also seemed appropriate. Roli - I'm really going to mis you!

This last video is Stella! How could I not include a video of Stella?!

Good-bye my dear friends!

T minus 3 - I spoke too soon!!

I knew that the minute I told you that there was no hair problems, I'd notice a hair problem. Seriously... a huge bald spot. My husband was like "how do you have a huge bald spot and not notice it?" First off, I'm not very observant. Second off, for some reason I thought it was part of where my scar is at. Luckily it's not noticable when my hair is down.


See - hair is down, no bald spot.


Hair is up - huge bald spot!

This is how the bald spot makes me feel. Kinda sad. (And super dorky that I didn't notice it until today!!)

Can I just say that being exhausted is getting old?! I don't know about you, but I get physically ill when I'm so exhausted. I feel like I need to throw up & my head aches like crazy! And it's really hard to sleep when you feel like throwing up & your head aches like crazy. I'm taking the last few days of this week off from work so I can function.

Today on the table my head felt like it was hot and about ready to explode. I don't know if I was in a weird position or what cuz it felt okay afterward but I sure was pleading for Roli to be done

The only thing keeping me going is my crazy antics I'm planning for Friday.... Roli and I are going out with a bang!

And happy 21st birthday to my awesome little bro Brad!

T minus 5 & 4 - Hair today, gone tomorrow??

I bet you are wondering how my hair is doing after day 22...


Shaved again?! Nope, that was after surgery #2...

A pronounced C branded in my head?! Nope, that was after surgery # 3

A super cool faux hawk?! Nah, that was an awfully cool intermediate do though.

Dyed purple?! No, although I think my head might actually be healed enough that I could wear my wigs now. (And I'm not going to lie, this is much cuter than my real hair is right now.)

I guess hair coming out in clumps was not meant to be! I really didn't lose much at all. I mostly still hate my hair, but at least you can't see the scar (and my apologies to the girl that suggested I use the scar as a part... I totally made fun of your dumb suggestion in my head... and yet, now I'm using the scar as a part... who knew that it would be better than making it look like a comb over...)