I love my birthday. It is my favorite holiday of the year. I have always loved my birthday but I think my obsession with my birthday started the year I turned 16. I had two bands play at my birthday party and so of course flyers were made and a little party turned into 500 people. Kids were EVERYWHERE and it was hilarious that as I was walking through my own house, I was getting all kinds of annoyed looks since I was trying to get closer to the band. Uh, hello?! This is MY house and MY birthday! You are here for me!
At some point in the night, someone jumped on top of someone else's car hood somewhere in my neighborhood and the 12 year old girl that was babysitting her siblings thought it was a gunshot and called the police. We had 5 cop cars, a k9 AND the helicopter show up to my party. The helicopter was saying "You have 5 minutes to evacuate.. You have 4 minutes to evacuate or we are writing you a ticket ...." It was fabulous. I would LOVE to talk to a cop that had been there that night.
So anyhow, I'm all about my birthday. I love the texts and phone calls. I love the special treatment from my kids and husband. And truth be told, I LOVE the Facebook birthday wishes. I love that it is name after name of people that I care about and fun memories associated with each person. I wait until the end of the day and take it all in. I just love it.
Why am I telling you this? Because my birthday is coming up and I'm trying to milk it for all it's worth.
JUST KIDDING!
Ok so I emailed someone at MD trying to figure out a surgery date. My oncologist had said first week in September but my surgeon's nurse practitioner said they don't do surgery until at least 6 weeks after radiation is completed since radiation can continue to shrink the tumor up to 3 months after you receive your last treatment. So that would put my surgery no sooner than September 17th. We have to have the surgery on a Wednesday since that is the only day the gynecologist oncologist (hysterectomy) and the surgical oncologist (tumor removal and bag maker) share in common. The nurse also said September 24th would work as well.
I had a decision to make. Be in the hospital for my 32nd birthday or be in the hospital for my 13th wedding anniversary.
What do you think I chose?! Haha!
Tentative surgery date is Wednesday, September 24th at 8 a.m.
Also, I should probably mention that I have stopped crying. Haha. I'm doing fine. I have known from day 1 that I was going to have to have a bag - I just didn't know exactly what it looked like. And it was way worse than I could have imagined. And seeing the stoma - put me over the edge! I am vain - I don't want my body looking like that. Judge me all you want but I doubt you would want your body looking like that either. I've calmed down, and seriously, how adorable is my husband? Gosh I love that man. Anyway, I'm working on accepting this next step but I'm doing good. xoxoxoxo
Just think about this : you've made it through radiation. Check mark. Now you have surgery. Once that is done, another check mark. Then it will be the Chemo ( right ? ) Once that is done, another check mark. And before you know it, we'll be having a " TEAM ASHLEY : CANCER FREEEEE " party ! And we'll arrange to have the cops called. We'll make it just like your 16th birthday party . . which sounded super wild. Love it ! Why wasn't I invited to that shin dig ; ) Oh that's right, we didn't know each other yet. We really should have though : ) I bet we were both super fun 16 year olds ! I love you Ashley and as always, I am rooting for you and praying for you. And hello, Mrs Popular ! You have a super fun party coming up with TONS AND TONS AND TONS of people ! Just for YOU ! That's how amazing you are : )
ReplyDeleteI second everything that Kami just stated!!! Whats even funnier is that I had a "fun" party on my 16th birthday that the cops came to to break it up!! Not as dramatic, thankfully, oh and no bands, you were W-A-Y cooler!!! lol!!!! I seriously can not wait to see y'all on Monday...I still can not believe we have not seen our most favorite friends ever...as of yet...p.s I love being the annoying one to write our or sing the "Happy Birthday" song anytime it is for someone I am close too, cause I just LOVE birthdays as well!! Miss you guys...hang in there hot stuff!!! You are my HERO...ALL jokes aside, by the way...
ReplyDeleteI love you Jamie ! Let's plan a girls night before your surgery Ashley. Or maybe Jamie and I can come over and hang out on once you're home recovering. We'll make your recovery fun fun FUN Ashley : )
DeleteSo sorry your surgery has to be on your special day. Dang it! Thank you for writing this blog. I love to know what's going on. Your sweet husbands words the other day were beyond amazing. We pray for you every day. We sure love you sweet Ashley! Oh and Coy was a cop at your party and I pretended to be his partner. I almost got in a fight but the kids got scared of the crazy lady and sped away. Yikes! Keep fighting! So proud of how you are handling this huge trial.
ReplyDeleteOh I totally remember that you were both there!! I just meant, I think it would be funny to talk to a cop that responded that night - they were probably all amped up thinking they were going to a shots fired call and instead it was some little Mormon girl's 16th birthday party with no alcohol or anything like that - just a ton of people listening to some teenage bands! It just cracks me up to even think of what the radio traffic was like. And we even had Coy there - an off duty police officer!! All our bases were covered.... almost ;)
DeleteThank you for the love and prayers and thank you for supporting my parents through all of this. It's been a pretty wild ride so far! Love ya!!