My Thanksgiving 2015

Earlier this month I celebrated one year of being cancer-free. Yay! It's been a strange year of ups and downs, as life is wont to do. Ultimately, I am incredibly blessed and have much to be grateful for:

—I'm grateful for eyelashes and eyebrows. I'm grateful my bangs hang over my eyes. I never thought I'd say this, but I'm also grateful for arm hair and stomach hair and back hair. You never notice how important some things are until they're gone.

November 2014

February 2015

—I'm grateful I can breathe without chest pain. A month after my final chemo treatment, I lay in my bed and inhaled a great, long, marvelous breath and there was no pain! I breathed for several minutes, reveling in the complete comfort I felt. Breathing air. No tenderness. No restrictions. I was free!
(Bonus: I can wear normal bras again! The tightness of bras exacerbated my chest pain and since no bra in the market matched what I needed, I had to create a makeshift bra to wear during the chemo months.)

—I'm grateful I can run. And take long walks in the park. And go shopping without feeling like passing out (or vomiting).

Mom and I went to Disneyland in February! Super fun!

—I'm grateful I can carry a purse. (Although I've grown rather fond of the mini purse).

—I'm grateful I can chase and wrestle my nephews, and give them piggyback rides.

—I'm grateful that when I had to change insurance providers, I was able to continue with my regular oncologist's care.

—I'm grateful I finally, finally finished my MFA! Hurrah! Thank you to my kind and understanding professors—Hillary, Chip, and Amanda—for supporting me while writing my thesis. =)

—I'm grateful I survived a season of unemployment and eventually found a full-time job. (Update: A week after originally posting this, I received news that I was going to be laid off. Huh. Onward to new opportunities!)

—I am extra grateful to my friend Mack who took me on an epic expedition! This summer we went to New York, Ireland, Scotland, England, and France. Of all the historical sites and museums and plays we saw, my favorite aspect of the trip was having energy to visit everything! We walked an average of 10 miles each day (our record high was 17 miles). Among our more rigorous activities, we hiked to Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh, climbed 528 steps to the top of St. Paul's Cathedral in London, and ascended 704 stairs of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Considering during chemo I barely had enough energy to make a round trip from my bedroom to my kitchen, being able to hike and climb this summer was a blessing. Thank you, Mack! (Also, watching Jack Gleeson (a.k.a. King Joffrey) and his friends perform in Bears in Space at the Soho Theatre was astronomically delightful!)

Mack and Me atop Arthur's Seat, Edinburgh

We hiked from Arthur's Seat (left arrow) to Edinburgh Castle (right arrow) and obviously to the Ferris wheel.

July 31, 2014
Chemo Costume #6
Hermione Granger
(not Voldemort!)

July 31, 2015
Enjoying hot cocoa at The Elephant House,
where J.K. Rowling penned
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

St. Paul's Cathedral

Eiffel Tower

—I'm grateful for past experiences, present blessings, and future adventures!

Thank you to everyone—family, friends, neighbors, kindred spirits—who has supported me. I wish you the best with your endeavors!

Happy Thanksgiving!

My Gratitude

Thank you to everyone who helped me through this journey!

Thank you to the UC Davis medical staff and everyone who was a part of my diagnosis and especially my healing process.

Thank you to local businesses for donating art supplies, and for occasional discounts (this is by far from a regular occurrence, but when it happened it was a mini miracle!)

Thank you strangers for offering kind words and complimented my baldness, and for survivors sharing their stories with me.

Thank you friends and relatives for visiting me, sending gifts and cards and texts and emails, chatting and commiserating with me, "liking" my Facebook posts, and leaving words of encouragement through Facebook and blog post comments.

The biggest THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU goes to my family for taking me to every doctor and chemo appointment, crying with me, putting up with my shenanigans, running errands, babysitting me on chemo weekends, and supporting me emotionally, mentally, physically, and financially.

I honestly could not have gotten through this without everyone's love and support!

Hugs!

Our Service Project: Art Activity Kits for a Children's Hospital

Service always involves teamwork, and literally dozens of people contributed to this project. This post is dedicated to all of them.

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By throwing a three-hour henna party I needed to provide some kind of entertainment for my guests. Playing "Pin the Wig on the Cancer Patient" and "Chemo Side Effect Charades" seemed inappropriate, and watching the film adaptation of Wit (I love you Emma Thompson!) would have generated too many tears for a celebration.

Thus the idea of a service project was born. After some researching and brainstorming, a plan emerged to donate art activity kits to the UC Davis Children's Hospital in Sacramento.

Below is a slightly modified version of the letter I included when the kits were donated.

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Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Hello!

Before I explain what can be found in each art activity bag, I would like to explain how supplies were acquired, mostly to give credit to everyone who contributed.

I requested donations from over a dozen local businesses near me. Any donation—no matter how small—would be appreciated. Most informed me to contact corporate headquarters; a few, however, took my letter and pursued the matter themselves.

The first to respond was my local Walmart Neighborhood Market. A few months ago they sponsored a fundraiser for the UCD Children’s Hospital and they were happy to help out again. They donated a large gift bag of supplies.

Another to respond was Raley’s/Bel Air. They provided a gift card, which turned into a grocery bag’s worth of supplies.

All of the rest of the supplies come from the employees and managers of Save Mart Supermarkets. When I spoke to the manager in charge of community service at my local Save Mart, he was inspired by the cause to donate to the children’s hospital. He reached out to his employees and asked if they would be willing to contribute. They did! When I went to pick up supplies he grabbed a shopping cart and said, “Let’s go shopping!” Four filled grocery bags later, I was speechless. A few days later he called me again and said he had more supplies. He contacted a few other managers in the area (including his district manager) and they were also eager to contribute. Wow and wow! This time an entire shopping cart was filled with countless bags! The donations from Save Mart did not come from corporate headquarters, but rather from the generous employees and managers who all wanted to help out.

My friends and relatives assembled the kits during a little shindig I hosted. A few of these guests also contributed art supplies.

Each bag contains a combination of the following:
  o   Coloring book, activity book, or sketchpad
  o   Set of coloring utensils: crayons, markers, pencils, and/or watercolors
  o   One or two: highlighter, pen, pencil, and/or glitter glue stick

A few of the bags also contain:
  o   foam shapes, mini art activity (e.g. painting a ceramic train or plastic “stained glass," stickers, mini sketch pads, and/or book of Sudoku puzzles, crosswords, or word searches

The larger grocery bags contain construction paper, printer paper, leftover supplies, and items that seemed best supervised or distributed by an adult (e.g. beads, glue sticks, scissors, window markers).

I hope the supplies help out and bring a little bit of sunshine to the kids. =)

Cheers!

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The children's hospital was immensely grateful for the donation! The art therapist mentioned that they go through supplies very quickly. My mom, sister, and I were offered a tour of one of the units. The kids were super sweet! Several of them were in the playroom engaged in art activities. One girl showed us her cupcake wrapper flower and a boy had colorful tissue paper "stained glass" hanging from his IV pole. 

For all those who donated and helped assemble art kits, we can assure you the kids will benefit from your kindness. =)

UPDATE: Staples also donated a gift card, which became gel pens and coloring pencils.

We assembled approx. fifty mini-bags and had
four large grocery bags of other art supplies.

With Hannah, the UCD Child Life Art Therapist.

Credits

Thank you to Walmart and Raley's/Bel Air for their donations!

A HUGE THANKS to the employees and managers of Save Mart Supermarkets!

Thank you to my henna guests for organizing the art activity kits, and to my sister for hosting the party at her house.

Extra thanks to my mom for driving me around to pick up donations and grub for the party.

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If you haven't already, check out my "Donate to Others" page at the top of this blog to continue the tradition of giving.

My Henna Party: A Chemo Hair Loss Celebration

You are cordially invited to a

Chemo Hair Loss Celebration and Henna Party!

Date: Saturday, July 12, 2014

Henna body art is temporary (1–3 weeks) and has long-standing tradition in various cultures around the world. One recent trend is helping cancer patients cope with hair loss.

As you know, chemotherapy has left Amanda balder than an eagle. 

Nope. Still not bald bald yet. My stubborn hairs insist on growing.
So I visited a barber before the celebration and got the shortest hair cut of my life.

She would love to celebrate this new experience by getting a henna crown and she wants you to join her!

Scroll to end of post for final henna crown pictures.

No, no, no, you don’t have to shave your hair and get a crown. Unless you want to.

Amanda would love to have a small gathering with the women in her life, including family and friends. She has contacted a local henna artist who can provide the body art, which can be painted on the hands, feet, or anywhere else of your choosing. 

Best party moment: against all odds, my mom got henna art!

Musical brilliance!

Christine sporting her fine floral art

Chelsea's delightful design

Carrie's spiffy hearts

Stephanie's dazzling dreamcatcher

Judi's fun-tastic flowers

Michelle's double dose of henna

Jennifer's dainty anklet

Marina, our exceptionally talented and dedicated henna artist.
Four straight hours of henna painting!
She also gave us an amazingly generous deal.
Click here to learn more about her work:
http://marinafacepainting.com

Even if you don’t want henna, please come and celebrate anyway!

And Amanda will think of some activities to do while people wait for henna. Most likely service oriented*.

This is only a fraction of the guests who came.
We were so busy celebrating we forgot to take more photos.

Thank you for celebrating with me!

*P.S. A separate post about the service project is now available!