November-27-2008

Happy Thanksgiving and almost Christmas!

I hope all of you are enjoying the beautiful fall colors and have enjoyed family and great food! I unfortunately am writing you from work because Thanksgiving is one of my holidays this year, so I look forward to this weekend when my family has our Thanksgiving (AND when Virginia Tech and UVA play each other in football ...big state rivalry! Teddy and I went to UVA and Ben went to Tech...GO HOOS!)

I just realized that I never wrote to say how my last surgery went, so I figure that now is better than never! I had reconstructive surgery on September 12^th to replace my expander with an implant and everything went amazingly! I was pretty anxious because my first surgery experience wasn't the most pleasant. This time around I asked for no narcotics, and recovered in less than two weeks by only using Ibuprofen and a muscle relaxer to sleep! No more surgeries!!! (Hopefully)

I absolutely love my job as a NICU nurse. I have experienced so many amazing things since I started in April and my hospital has been extremely supportive of me! Witnessing birth and taking care of such fragile little things is so rewarding and exciting. I am definitely in the right profession!

In October, since it was Breast Cancer Awareness month, I really enjoyed sharing my story to others. I have also attended some "awareness parties" at stores and at my hospital. It is frustrating that I was diagnosed at such a young age, but I am really proud of everything I have accomplished and love to share with others. I am so grateful to God, my family, Ben, and my friends for helping me get through such an unexpected life changing time in my life! I can't believe it has been a year as of Sept 6^th that I was diagnosed. Time flies! Now I am healthy and cancer free!!!

Now that I am done with treatment (hopefully for good!), I wont be writing updates as often. I would love to continue hearing from all of you because I honestly couldn't have finished this year without the prayers, love, and encouraging words from family, friends, and complete strangers! Thank you for giving me wings and lifting me up during the hardest experience in my life, thus far. I am extremely blessed to have all of you!

I will still be updating my website with news, recent pictures, and thank yous regularly. I also plan on eventually maybe writing a book and becoming more proactive about telling others about breast cancer. I hope to teach others about the new method of treatment I endured and spread awareness to the world (and hopefully inspire some people on the way!)

May all of you have a wonderful holiday season! Hopefully any news I write from now will be nothing but joyous. Happy Thanksgiving and an early Merry Christmas!

Jami