Day Eleven

Evening - trying to post a little earlier (?!?) than the last two nights :)

Not too much exercise to report beyond Scrappy Doo walking today.. had good intentions of doing some arm work, but work got in the way this evening... oh well.. will catch up with it tomorrow. Tomorrow night is also going to be Week 2, Day 2 on the C25K plan (Couch to 5K to my new readers).

I found some awesome forearm and bicep workouts on http://www.bodybuilding.com. (Don't worry, I'm not going to go all Arnold Schwarzenegger on you now!). It looks like a really cool resource, and I'm going to dig through it in a little more detail in the coming days.

I had a couple of really positive responses to my post yesterday about living a thankful life.. glad that it hit home with a few of you.. I think it can only improve our everyday outlook to look on the positive side of things... as they say "you get more bees with honey than vinegar" ... not sure what the heck that means, since I doubt bees would really enjoy their own work that much.. but hey, you never know..  But you get the idea :)

So tonight's topic is life AFTER cancer.. and to start off the discussion, here's a quote from Lance Armstrong (an inspiration to me, and many other people, and the founder of Livestrong)

“Birthdays don't really matter much anymore ... for me, I sort of have a new birthday and that's October 2nd, the day I was diagnosed, ... the day we all sort of look to and mark these milestones by one year, two year, five year, 10 year. Hopefully, I have a 50 year.” - Lance Armstrong

It's strange, but I totally understand what he means here... and I'm sure so do many other survivors. Your birthday is always treated as an important day... but your diagnosis day? It's an interesting angle to look at life from.. they day you found out that you had cancer... I've never really celebrated the diagnosis day.. but believe me I remember when it comes around.. it was July 7th, 2007.. and my last day of chemo treatments.. October 5th.. a few days before my actual Birthday on the 8th.

I was in such a weakened state at the end of chemo that I required blood transfusions and hospitalization. And let's not forget about my diabetes (another word I don't honor with a capitalization!) going haywire due to the intense steroids in the chemo treatments. It was in the hospital that I first was approved for the use of my insulin pump. (A VERY important, life-changing step. So I've never looked at it as a day to celebrate, because I wasn't feeling up to par.. but I can assure you that every year a few days after my annual MRI/Catscan combo when I get the results that I smile a little smile, give a 'Thank You' and am grateful at my Second Chance.

I remember sitting in the waiting area of the Nevada Cancer Center along with many, many other sick cancer patients.. sometimes talking with them or their families, sometimes listening... KNOWING that I was LUCKY to have the type of cancer I had.. because some of those people wouldn't be back the next week or next month.. or at all. And it's not because they missed their appointments. They lost their battle with this horrible disease. So, yes - I understand being thankful.. and I understand being celebratory to enjoy another year cancer-free.

I mention this because not only are we coming up on my diagnosis date, but as fate would have it, we're coming up on my MRI/Catscan date too.. I'm going in next Friday morning for my scans.. and of course will post some photos of the process.. and the results when they come in.. Maybe that's TMI (too much information) for some.. but I'm doing this to share, and help others be informed.. so I'm happy to do it.

That's it for tonight... thanks as always for following my story.. and be sure to tune in tomorrow for our C25K results and some new photos. Hope you had a wonderful day!

-Pittle out.