I made it home from my final (yipee!) surgery in California. Surgery went well. Aside from the anesthesia, which didn't sit well with my stomach, I couldn't complain about much. I feel very fortunate that if I needed this type of surgery, I was able to go and get it in a world-renowned spot with a top-notch surgeon. Compared to everything else I have been through this year, it seemed fairly easy. I'm still recovering and have lots of black and blue marks. I still need to take another 3 weeks before I can begin to exercise again. Still, I'm feeling an overwhelming feeling of gratitude to be done with all things I know of that were my treatment plan. From the moment of my diagnosis, I was planning what things were part of the overall treatment plan, and this was the final biggie. At this point, I'd down to my daily medication, a shot once every three months, and quarterly visits to the doctor. Praise God!

I saw my oncologist today and everything looked good. Again, praise God! Next month I will have my first mammogram since all this started, accompanied by a breast MRI. They'll be looking at things as closely as possible. I'm hoping for rousing pictures of nothing by breast tissue to celebrate with right before leaving for Greece!

I returned from sunny California just in time for a wallop of a Spring dump of snow. This picture from the local newspaper will let you get a sense of just how big of a storm we're getting -- and with only 5 weeks left til "summer" vacation starts and school ends. It just keeps coming down! Good thing my well-intentioned plans to take off the snow tires prior to leaving for surgery were waylaid. Guess we can't quite call winter done and gone in Alaska.

Christopher seems to be doing well with recovery from his own surgery last week. His palsy, which was causing the left side of his face to be frozen, has improved SUBSTANTIALLY. I wouldn't say it is completely cured but I feel like it's probably at least 90%. That is amazingly quick for this type of thing. Usual episodes of palsy last months. In my mind, it's a good assurance that we did the right thing with getting the tubes in his ear.

The kids have been happy to see me, but man are they tired. I guess we all are. It was a long week all around. Christopher always seems to leave his grumpiest of moods for me. All of his teachers tell me this is good -- that means I'm his safe place where he can let it all out. Can't say I was feeling so lucky late yesterday afternoon, though. We'll be emphasizing some early bedtimes this week.

Wish me luck as I start adding in the final things back to "normal" life. Namely, I'm thinking of work. There's an RFP that just came out that I've been talking with folks about since returning from surgery. Some think that the project is tailor-made for me and that I should bid it. I want to make sure it won't get in the way of our trip and summer fun. That said, I am feeling ready to add work back into my life. I may have missed the deadline while away to respond to the bid. We'll see. I guess today I'll just rejoice in the fact that I feel strong and ready to add that back into my life.