The journey begins. Day 1 of vacation from obligation :)

I am now relaxing on the train to Tacoma.  I'm on my way to visit a friend that I haven't seen in almost half a year, even though she only lives two hours away.  Crazy how busy life gets sometimes.  I can at least give her her Christmas present now :)

It feels so good to be going somewhere where I have no obligations at all.  14 days of NO doctors appointments, chemotherapy, nutritional IV's, blood draws, or any of the other daily chores and routines.  I really need a break like this.  My vacation began about two hours ago.  As the miles from my home in Portland grow larger and larger my stress begins to shed like the layers of an onion.  I wonder what I will find in the middle :)

My cat was already mad at me.  She was protesting yesterday by napping in my carryon all day preventing me from packing.  Clark (the dog) was extra concerned this morning blocking me from getting to my bag and even following me more closely than usual giving me the worried eyes.  We had a talk.

If you haven't gotten your mobile yet, my apologies for being so lazy...it will be there shortly after I return...

Again, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU so much for the generous gifts from my Amazon Wish List (my supplements).  You have no idea how much this helps! It took me about 2 hours to organize and pack my vitamins and supplements for 14 days.

I am about 48 hours from Cabo.  I cannot wait! My uncle Casey is the generous person who gave my aunt, my mom and myself his air miles to use for our flights and we even get to fly first class on the way there!  I have never even sat in first class before! What a treat! Then my aunt has a friend who let us use their timeshare so we got a great deal on our lodging as well.  Basically a pretty much free trip and nothing really can beat that :)  We are loading up suitcases with good organic food staples so we do not have to spend a ton of money on eating, PLUS we will most likely eat healthier this way too.  That doesn't mean that I am not going to be indulging in some seafood and fruit every chance I get.  I am quite interested to find out how good the local food is.

I have been in the greatest mood lately in anticipation of my vacation.  As I was busy packing up and doing chores yesterday the phone rang and it was the nurse practitioner from my "regular" doc's office calling to give me my pap smear results.  (They do it by phone and contact you to give you your results even if there is nothing to report and the results are normal. Very friendly clinic.)  Well, she got a serious tone in her voice and I KNEW she wasn't going to give me good news.  Instantly my life flashed before my eyes for the SECOND time in the last 14 months.  I instantly flew into a hot flash and my heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest and my vision was narrowing and getting all fuzzy and I had all these thoughts going through my head as she told me that "my results were not normal".
Ok, FREAK OUT! No, keep you composure, its nothing, FREAK, NO, breathe! Ok she said, they tested for all the CHPV, HPV etc and everything comes back negative, even pre-cancerous cells are not present etc. *IM STILL WORRYING AT THIS POINT* Then she starts to calm me down, I ask a ton of questions, and she offers me an explanation that I accepted reluctantly but with enough evidence she pretty much convinced me that it was wonky because of the chemotherapy and pharmaceuticals I am on.  I buy that.  Sounds good.  PHEW!!  The last thing I needed was to hear "hey, you now have ovarian cancer", especially the day before my vacation.  But anyone who has ever had cancer knows that your little (or big) demon follows you around all the time making you think that every little headache is brain cancer, or every rash is melanoma, etc.. so the worry never ends.  I don't think that it ever will.