Home sweet home :)

My apologies for not updating this in so long! However, as usual, things have been nothing short of crazy lately.  Let's see how I do catching this all up in a somewhat short nutshell. haha. Matt made it to Alaska, finally cleared out up there, and has made his way back home to Annapolis. Which means that starting next week he will officially begin work at Fort Meade (and I will be at home by myself all day...what to do..lol) Luckily for him, timing worked out that he was able to see a lot of his buddies return home from their deployment in Afgahnistan while he was up in Alaska. This was quite the blessing, not only to give him a break to re-charge, but it was also important to him to be able to see all of his guys home safely. Thank you again to Deidra and Burley for taking care of him for a few weeks. :)

While he was gone, of course I had to find something to do to entertain myself.  Fortunately for me, I was lucky enough to have lots of family come visit. Mom spent two weeks at our house helping me clean, organize, and decorate for Fall. Our house actually looks like our "home" now, more than just a house we are in. It's funny how something so simple can be such a huge comfort. As if that was not enough fun; dad, Nancy, Luke and one of his friends made the trip down for the weekend and we took a short jaunt over to the Eastern Shore, made it downtown for a great seafood dinner, and even saw some of the awesome boats downtown during The Boat Show.

Now with all of that good news- there has to be a few set backs I suppose. Mom had initially came to MD so she could take me to my treatment on Monday while Matt was gone. Well we woke up bright and early Monday and went to Baltimore, but apparently life had different plans for me that day. Unfortunately my blood work came back that day showing my levels were too low to receive treatment, I would have to take some medicine for a week and come back again and try the following Monday. As if that wasn't bad enough, the low levels also earned me a first class ticket for giving myself a shot every Thursday after I had treatments. Yuck! I've said it a million times, and probably a million more, I hate shots and anything to do with them.

 So that day I was pretty bummed out. (I know, you would think not having to get nasty medicine pumped into ya for a week would be a good thing- but I'm an odd duck and being pushed back a week on my overall goal was hard to handle). However, after a bit of moping and complaining to anyone and everyone around (hah) I sucked it up, and low and behold it turned out to be a good thing. It's kind of funny how sometimes our body knows what we need a bit more than we do! The week off was great! I finally felt "normal" again, no fatigue, no headaches, I was able to galivant all around Annapolis with mom for a few days and welcome my husband back home, feeling good. It's the small things these days that count. :) So Matt and I went back to Baltimore Monday for treatment #5, and it all went well. Bloodwork looked great again, the infusion at the hospital went well, and my nurse even showed up on time at the hospital, AND at home to take me off of my pump! (For those of you that hear me vent on a regular basis, you know this is an accomplishment! hahah) Even more good news, our insurance company cooperated with providing us the shot that I need to take the day following treatment, so we were able to bring it home with us and administer it at home, rather than driving back to Baltimore Thursday morning just for a quick shot. Huge relief! However, that was about all that the shot was good for. lol. It was NO fun giving the shot Thursday- and believe it or not, I didn't get a pretty colored bandaid OR a lollipop for being good during it. I think I need to discuss this with my nurse. lol. Luckily, there were no side effects from the shot so far though- great news!

Since I was feeling well- Matt and I decided to pack up and head to PA for the weekend. We have a meeting with Dr. McLaughlin in Pittsburgh Monday afternoon, (he is an awesome guy- if anybody ever needs to see an oncologist, I highly recommend him!) so we decided to make a long weekend trip out of it and see some family and friends while we are home.  So far it has been a wonderful trip- perfect timing to be back in PA, it has been absolutely breathtaking seeing all of the leaves changing colors. We have also had a chance to see most of the family so far, Matt has been terrorized by our 3 nieces for an entire night, and we even took a trip to Benezette today so I could show Matt the famous Elk herd our area is famous for.  There were so many elk out today, and even more people! We tried our best to snap a few pictures for you all to see.

I hope you all are getting to enjoy the beautiful fall weather just as much as we are. Thank you all so much for your thoughts, prayers and well wishes- please know that they are certainly working, we see that each and everyday through different blessings. Please keep them coming! The love and support from all of you is exactly what we need to keep fighting the fight. God Bless! :)

Meghan and Matt