finding our "normal" for school days

Honestly that's impossible, but I'm really looking forward to this year and I want to start off with trying to make myself keep track, relish and enjoy it more.
We are starting our second year in My Fathers World curriculum, in 2nd grade for Butterfly (Adventures in US History) as well as Kindergarten for Ladybug.
Before you get upset, understand that the child has not stopped asking for "real school like -Butterfly- does" in almost a year! I am fully planning on not doing all of it and repeating it next year (and maybe the year after) until she really truly gets it and I feel is completely ready to move on.

So our day starts with COFFEE! for Daddy & Mommy anyway...
We really start with Breakfast & making Daddy's lunch and getting dressed.
School begins with K work, and as we are only 3 days in that is Creation and colors and a few letters. Butterfly is trying to do her own thing but is very interested in the activities for K, it's much more fun then the torture, I mean, multiple curriculums I/we tried with her.
We then have snack and stretching or recess.
While at the table we start Art then Maps for 2nd and then begin History. At some point Tweedle has started playing and soon Ladybug joins him while Butterfly and I try to finish school before lunch. Some days she finishes while they take a nap, then everyday she has quiet reading.

At this point I am still unpacking from our recent move during this time, but I hope to make this quiet time more useful soon as I would like to work on projects and get my sewing machine set up so I can do that during this time too.
After they wake up, they usually snack and play and we do chores and then get ready for dinner.
We are schooling year-round, so I'm not currently worried about how many days we get in each week since school around here doesn't start for another 3 weeks... wait only 3 weeks!! Time for me to get working on our notification letter!!

Past the 1 year mark!

Supposedly now, my chances of survival skyrocket...
I guess if I was listening to the doctors and only doing what they said, I might feel differently.
I don't.
I haven't.
See almost a year ago, just after my Anniversary and just before Mother's Day, I was in the Hospital having a double mastectomy to get rid of ALL my breast tissue from having stage 2, triple-negative Breast Cancer. Nothing was celebrated the way I wanted, but then our lives had been turned upside down the beginning of April when a lumpectomy (surgery to remove a lump) revealed cancer.
I already told you how I felt then.
I believe I already told you that the morning after my surgery, I was scared and confused but to hurt to be outraged, I was taken to have a bone scan and a liver scan without my permission. The surgeon had given us a choice of while I was in the hospital, or coming back a few weeks later.
We had agreed on waiting a few weeks.
The thoughts being many, but lets do one major crazy to my body at a time!!
So then imagine!
Before my husband could come back the next morning, being woken from a drug & pain induced sleep to be asked, "Ready now?" by someone you've never seen that doesn't answer any questions and apparently only knows the words "ready now?", "down", and "yes?" in English!!
Where are you taking me?? - "down, yes?"
Where's my husband? Why isn't he here? Where are we going?   -  "yes, down, yes?"
See?? It was scary!!
It was not a fun ride. It was bumpy and painful and scary. I got a shot that made me feel like my blood was freezing. Rode back to my room, got more pain meds. Slept. Twice more this happened, same guy, same wake up, same bumpy, painful, scary ride. Once to lay on a frozen metal bed covered by a thin sheet, to be jostled through a ring that made me hot and sweaty over and over. The other time to be on a plastic bed and have what looked like a large trailer come down at me like it was going to smash me into a paper doll.
No answers to my questions.
Then I got to go back to my room and my husband was there waiting for me. When he asked where I was, they had answered him so he told me and then the nurse explained it...
The kids came to visit me later that day. I cried when they left.
The next morning as I was getting ready to leave, the surgeon called. He apologized for not coming in to see me but he had come down with a flu or something...
He told me that all the test results came back clean.
He said if he had to put a number on it, well my chance of it coming back would be around 2-3%.
He, of course, reminded me that my chances would be cut in half with Chemo.

Yes, I would go from 2-3% down to 1-1.5%!! Great!!
Except that in the same Drs offices I had read that every woman walking this Earth has a 3-5% chance of getting Breast Cancer.
So he just told me my chances are safer than that woman down there, crossing the street, or that one in her car, or... well, you get my point.
Meanwhile, from those who have been through Chemo... they have to live a year after Chemo without a relapse before they get news like that. Many don't. Many have to do it again. Many eventually die from Chemo killing all the good in their body and something "minor" turns into something major and they "die from complications"... I think they die from Chemo.
You won't change my mind.

All that to say, that for those of you who know about me but still hold tighter to the medical field, I am still here!
I have reached the **magic** 1 year mark.
More importantly for me, I had my final (and another final accidental) surgery to remove the torture tissue expanders and replace them with my final size, silicone "foobies".
I am happy to be done, but still accepting where we had to stop for my final size.
Time to recover, recoup, and restart!!

2 months and my birthday...

so it's been about 2 months since my last post...
I started getting antsy about being done and so I had 3 fills where we did 75cc on the left and 50, 50, & 25cc on the right. I have been in so much pain the last 3 1/2 weeks since the last one, I think it was too much too quick :(
Let me start over...
I had my 29th Birthday last week!! Yay!!
Except not, and it's not the "oh I'm getting older" problem, it's the "I really thought I would be done by now and I would have a reason to celebrate my last 20's birthday..."
I'm tired of asking friends for help like playdates, and, well, playdates is really the only thing I have asked for. It is still so hard somedays for me to get the kids out of the house because it still hurts so badly physically.
I have a few friends (one that has been amazing and came for 2 visits for a week each time from another state, "we love you A!!"), that said maybe this is God's way of showing you how to ask and accept help. Ok, then why has almost everyone within an hour of me practically forgotten about me?
Hubby has started a new job, one that seriously landed in his lap and hard as we tried to walk away from the amazing offer, they just kept upping the offer until we could no longer say no (on a time resraint, they needed him to start the following week!). He now works there Mon-Thurs leaving at 8am and coming home usually around 11pm. Our Studio project is also gaining momentum and he has been doing 10-14 hour days all weekend except sunday, we go to church as a family so he usually does 6-8 hour days so he can spend a little time with us...
Our goal is still for him to be able to go full time in the studio in the next year and with the way buisness is picking up, it looks like the dream could become a reality!
My parents have been huge supporters, they have their own lives and jobs. My dad works full time and is also what some would call a part time preacher/teacher as well as my personal researcher when he isn't researching and learning for himself or someone else. My mom works 2 almost full-time jobs outside her home but regularly goes into overtime working from home, while also learning and creating her own program and being in buisness for herself, and a Bible school teacher... this is ignoring her being my ear to vent to and most importantly our regular sitter for our kids, and at times our transportation when I hurt too much to drive, and our on-call "helper".

We are still Homeschooling. Butterfly is almost half-way done with 1st grade, beaming about her first "report card" and still chugging along getting 6-10 days done each week even though we regularly only do school 4 days a week!
Ladybug and Tweedle are learning and enjoying the many crafts and science experiments, as well as Ladybug learning her letters! We are planning to start Ladybug in Kindergarten (with a plan to do the lightwork one year and then full work the following year) when Butterfly starts 2nd!
It's been months since Doodle has come to visit, he got braces and is doing well in school even taking some advanced classes. We really enjoyed seeing him last weekend.

Oh and we got a new 2 month old puppy a few weeks ago... housebreaking is still rough but life is starting to feel normal with only 1 animal in the house.

I am falling behind. I am in a lot of pain. I am coming on my self-imposed deadlines with little to no progress to show for it... I'm starting to fight my depression again.. I'm struggling with seeing the next step, much less the way out.

The phone call was 6 1/2 months before my birthday... things moved quickly and we had a plan and things would be hard for 4-5 months then I was supposed to have weeks or months of normalacy between the harsh reminders that I am becoming a survivor... 3 months between surgeries is long enough to recover, have some "normal" time then do prep to get us through the next one.

I am trying to look forward even with the emergency surgery that has set me back, even with our current insuarance issues ( that should be cleared up next month?) and even through the daily pain.
I am trying to create vertical space in my home on a penny budget, so that we can have a home for everything so that I can find order in my home and that alone should help releave some stress.
We have joined a homeschool group and will start attending weekly group meetings in a few months.
I hope to find a few moms to understand and support/help me find a way to feel some control over this crazy time.
Homeschooling, with 2 toddlers, with Hubby working 10-14hrs/day - 7 days/week, trying to re-organize the house, all while becoming a breast cancer survivor... I know it can be done, I've heard of others who have done more.. I CAN do this, I just struggle with making and sticking to a plan.

Fill 4, & this week is full of bad news all around me...

So... I realized that waiting 3 weeks would mean my appointment would land on a day when my dear friend will be here. I can't wait to spend time with her and her family!! This will be the first time in almost 2 years that we will have all our kids together again (including each of our 1 yr olds!).
So I thought about it and felt more comfortable with getting a smaller fill but seeing the Dr sooner because my left side was still concerning me. I went back this past monday after waiting only 2 weeks...

I'm glad I did. The lower half of my left lump isn't doing so well... the skin is thinner than it should be and the Dr is concerned it might be dying. If that happens (there's a whole list of things I was cautioned about) then I need surgery to remove the lower half, they will pull the top down and attach it and I will have to start my fills all over on that side...
I'm concerned. At first I was bothered that after this concern was explained to me the Dr went ahead and wanted 25cc added to each side (this brings me to 300 on L and 325 on R and my goal is 500). My hubby calmed me down and re-explained that he was trying to make sure he had enough skin to pull down and reach the bottom if the worst happened... *sigh*


Now I'm stuck back to doing as little as possible with my left arm so I don't stretch the skin and cause it to burst (that just sounds scary!). We go back in 2 weeks to see how I'm doing, unless I start leaking or scabbing or something before that. If that happens I need to call immediately :(

In other news, the kids were starting to treat me "normally" again even without my "puff" pillows (fake boobs) in my shirt...
Lady bug has brought them to me a couple times and told me,"Here you need these a yook yike my mommy!" ... Tweedle carries them around when he finds them (I have 2 pairs), hugging and kissing them as gentle as he can be, seems they are his new lovies :(
Both littles have refused to come near me unless I have"puffs" in my bra and somedays that's really hard for me to swallow!
Now I have had enough fills that while still smallish, they do appear to be there again.

Then, the cat that used to be my husband's but stayed with Doodle and his mom after the divorce died this week and Doodle is taking it pretty hard. Amazing the cat was 17, but heartbroken for Doodle :'(

Finally, our Niece... (Hubby's 2nd sister died from this disease/syndrome when her daughters were babies, sadly both girls have it too and require surgeries every couple years to keep them alive) was fine a couple days ago and suddenly in the middle of the night was rushed to the hospital and underwent major heart surgery yesterday. Hubby's poor mom, not only did she go through this with her 3rd child, now she's raising the girls as her 5th & 6th kids, and goes through these scares and surgeries with them :(
She is an incredibly strong woman and mother and I can't imagine the daily stress she goes through making sure that she does everything she can to keep the girls alive and well.

So that's my week so far... Last week I was doing meals, dishes, and laundry... this week I'm back to "bedrest" with added worries about myself and my family near and far.
As I try to get ready for Butterfly's 6th Birthday Party this weekend!