Happy 2011!!!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanza/Festivus!!! My family & I celebrated Fiddlemas a few days before Christmas, here in Fiddletown. We started this tradition a couple years ago because my neice, Savannah, has to go to her dad's house by noon on Christmas, so Fiddlemas gives us a chance to spend a lot of time with her. This year we did a white elephant gift exchange with all the kids and had a lot of fun. The big hit was the bumble bee pillow pet that Mason opened, I stole from him, and Harley stole from me :) Luckily, Harley got me a bumble bee pillow pet for Christmas, so now we both have one! We celebrated Christmas day at my sister's family's house and had an awesome prime rib dinner, mmmmmm! We also had a Shrek marathon. We watched the first 2 movies because my dad hadn't seen any of them. He must have loved them because I don't think I've ever seen him sit for that long. It was a super fun/lazy/relaxing day.

In terms of my medical condition, not a whole heck of a lot has happened. I fell a couple times in the last couple weeks. I'm pretty unsteady on my feet and get off balance a lot. Being on blood thinners, they've told me to go to the hospital if I fall, but luckily neither fall was all that bad and I just ended up with some pretty ugly bruises. I was told that I didn't need to see a doctor.

I heard from my Kaiser oncologist that my blood test passed to get me enrolled in the second clinical trial that I described :) I'm still waiting to see if they can find the slides of my tumor from my biopsy way back in 2002. Apparently it is somewhere in storage at Kaiser Redwood City where the biopsy was done. They need to put a stain on the tumor cells to check for something (I'm not sure what, a certain protein or some other biology thing that I don't understand) to see if I can be enrolled in the first clinical trial. Apparently like 85% of tumors do have whatever it is, but I can't be in the trial until they have proof. So, in the meantime, we're just in waiting mode.

Last night, my mom & sister and I had a mother/daughters night out and spent the night at a hotel in Sacramento. We went out to dinner at the Melting Pot (fondue, OMG!!!) and, as usual, had an amazing dinner there! For dessert, we had white chocolate creme brulee fondue... holy moly, it was friggin amazing :) It's a chain, so I would recommend googling it, finding one close to you, and running at top speed to have an orgasmic meal that you won't forget. It's not cheap, so if money's a little tight these days, go to Taco Bell for dinner, but splurge for dessert there.

Planning on a nice, chill evening at my friends, Supriya & Jeremy's house with Erin to ring in the New Year. A good dinner, some music, some board games... just what the doctor ordered :) Not the crazy party of my good ol' college days, but who has the energy for that anymore? I like just hanging out with good friends these days.

Happy New Year!!!
XOXOXOXO,
Laurie :)