Hello Everyone! It's been awhile since I have posted anything, sorry about that! Things have been busy and hectic for me the last few weeks, although I honestly couldn't tell you what I have been doing! I'll just blame it on the chemo brain. I can't believe that it is already Grey Cup weekend, almost American Thanksgiving, almost time for Black Friday and then of course almost time to decorate for Christmas! I always wait until December 1st to decorate. When I was little my mom used to wait to put up the tree until after my birthday had passed, so that I wouldn't feel like the family had forgotten about my birthday. I don't really remember caring all that much but apparently I did! Also, it's almost time for my last chemo treatment! This coming Wednesday I will have my sixth and final chemo treatment. I honestly cannot believe how quickly the time went. It seems like not so long ago I was starting my first treatment and thinking that the end of November seems so far away!

A lot of you have been asking for updates on what is next - wondering what the plan is for after chemo is done. We had a follow up appointment with one of the oncologists at the hospital on Monday last week. They seem happy with how I am responding to the treatments and have scheduled what they call a completion appointment for about 3 weeks after my last treatment. They will do one more blood test just to check all of my levels, and then we'll go through all of the details of how I need to live my life. Essentially, we'll go through what I need to watch for, who I need to call in specific situations, and when I need to go back for more blood tests. From the sounds of it they aren't going to do any scans, they are only going to do blood tests on a regular basis and watch my CA125 levels to make sure they stay low. They don't want to do any scans that would expose me to unnecessary radiation at my age, so for now just blood tests.

Obviously I am looking forward to being done, to getting back to a normal life, or whatever will be my new normal. My birthday this year is only two weeks after my last treatment, so while I will be excited to celebrate that everything is over, I won't really be able to do much celebrating outside the walls of my house! Chris is pretty strict about where I go and what I do in that second week since my immune system is low. So for now I look forward to Wednesday and the last time I need to sit in one of those chairs for 6 hours - and I look forward to ringing the bell at the end of the day and hearing the celebratory cheers! Then maybe I will celebrate by picking up a DQ cake on the way home. The bell is something that my dear friend Kelli told me about - apparently it has become a tradition to ring the bell after a last treatment, the survivor bell. I have mixed feelings - I know that there are many people that will not get to ring that bell, and that makes me sad. However, I am going to ring that bell loud and proud to celebrate the fact that I made it through 6 intense cycles of pretty heavy duty drugs. Then I'm going to ring it that one extra time to honor Leslie who REALLY wanted to ring that bell. Don't worry, I'll post a picture of me with that bell, or maybe a video if you're really lucky!

With that short update, I leave you with a picture of Ryker participating in Movember and supporting the cause to raise money for research for men's cancers!