Debt...I'll never get out

I was going through and adding up all the money spent OOP on things IF and cancer related to deduct from our 2009 taxes. I have insurance for the cancer stuff and the IF stuff this year was very minimal compared to the year prior. How am I ever supposed to get out of debt when I spent close to $10,000 OOP in 2009 for co-pays, ER, chemo, scans, etc? In 2008 we deducted close to $25,000 OOP. I do the flex spending but we can only do $2500/year and with my health crap that's gone by March.

Honestly, even with insurance you're screwed.

Vent over.

Healing

Surgery went great and the doctor was able to get the tumor out via lap so the healing should be very similar to last year. I opted for a mid-body epidural and OMG it was the best thing ever. I had NO pain whatsoever while it was in and I was recovering in the hospital. I am now home and the epidural has since worn off but I am doing well and keeping on top of the pain meds and taking Ad.vil in between. I am doing so well that I don't think I am going to need to 2 months off work like I originally thought but I am going to wait and see.

Thanks for all the positive thoughts and prayers.

Surgery is coming...

Friday is my latest surgery. I am getting kinda nervous for this one because I think it's going to be bigger than last year. My Dad comes into town tomorrow and he's going to be in shock coming from the south to CO where the high tomorrow will be 23 degrees and 1-3 inches of snow by evening!

I appreciate all your thoughts and prayers and I undergo the latest surgery.
For those of you that follow my cancer blog, it will be updated several times on Friday and then when I feel up to it I will update how I'm doing later in the weekend.

We're Back

DH and I had a great time...here are a few pics.

Wine Tasting in N.apa

Hope you all had a great Christmas!!

Save your Receipts

I think I have finally gotten the $400 bill from the RE's office taken care of but not until I made LOTS of phone calls. I keep all my receipts for everything medical, mainly to write them off for taxes, but a note to everyone out there...SAVE ALL YOUR MEDICAL RECEIPTS and fight anything you aren't sure of. I would've paid $400 that I didn't owe if I hadn't checked into it.

Another Surgery

On January 8th I will be having another surgery to remove the latest tumor in my chest. This one is pretty scary. It appears to be attached to aorta and they won't know how serious the surgery will need to be until they get in there. Good thing is that I changed health insurance companies so I don't have to fight with K.aiser to go to the best doctors, they are now covered. The tumor seems to be dead from the chemo but there's again no way to be sure until they take it out.

In other news, my good friend just told me she was pregnant today. She is 12 weeks and her and her DH were separated less than a year ago...it was a "we weren't NOT trying" baby but they are happy to be pregnant. I am OK with it and knew it was coming but uggh.

Monday my DH and I are headed to San Fransisco for a much deserved and anticipated vacation...we're SOOOOO excited!

It was nice while it lasted

It has been six months.
I knew there was a chance but all the Dr's said it wasn't likely.

In case you haven't guessed, AF showed up this morning. Let me just say that shocked is not an adequate description of how I was feeling when I saw that. Because of the chemo, I have not had a period since June. I would say that is one of the biggest pluses of chemo. My oncologist and everything online said that if you stop menstruating it's not very likely to come back. They did say that I was young so it was more likely with me. I honestly didn't think it would happen though because my reproductive system sucks as it is. Guess I am one of the lucky ones:)

In other news, my hair is growing back quickly and I think pretty soon I won't need to wear a hat or scarf anymore.

Our trip to San Fransisco is coming up soon and I couldn't be more excited. It will be me and my DH for 5 days in San Fran over the Christmas holiday...YAY!!