A couple added details...

Okay...its 3 in the morning and I cant sleep so I figured that I would continue where I left off last time...

I believe at this point I have given a VERY BRIEF summary of the past 2 years leaving out alot of the little things that we go through each and every day with mom. Back to 2 years ago prior to Mom finding out that she had cancer, she was cleaning 2-3 houses a day 5-6 days a week! CRAZY I KNOW! I cant even imagine cleaning one house once a week! hahaha. When she found out she had cancer and had to have surgery and be out of work for a couple months, she was not a happy camper...AT ALL! :( If anyone knows my mom, which most of you do...she constantly is doing something or going somewhere! So being out of work drove her insane. The first few weeks werent too bad because she was sooo sore and couldnt do anything or move much. Luckily grandma (my moms mom) came and stayed with us to help out around the house and make sure mom was following doctors orders and not doing anything. YEA RIGHT! My mom listen to what doctors tell her?!?! NOT! Anyways...having grandma around was a HUGE help especially with all 3 of us kids being in school...I mean...I still didnt have to do laundry, dishes were always done, home cooked meals EVERY night, pancakes at 1 in the morning :), the list goes on. :) In the meantime though, Mom started getting back to her usual self which means she was sick of having people around stuck up her @$$ (yes i said it because thats exactly how she would put it...haha), including GRANDMA! Oh the fun listening to a daughter complain about the things her mother does...haha. Dishes in the wrong place, cooking something wrong, doing the laundry wrong, stuff on the table, blah blah blah blah blah! haha Okay...well some of us appreciated Grandma being here! ;) Just kidding...i know mom did too even though she b*tched so much.

After the big surgery, mom was obviously stuck in the house not able to do much for a while so she learned how to crochet....this is when BIG YELLER was introduced to my life! :) Mom decided to start out by making me a yellow baby blanket....or so we all thought. haha. Mom worked on this blanket everyday for what seemed like hours a day. Finally I asked her how big she was going to make it and i grabbed the blanket and asked if that was going to be the length or width....she said width. Mind you...at this point it was probably 8-10 ft long! haha. Well...Big Yeller was eventually finished and its not even close to a baby blanket. It is a blanket big enough to fit an entire family underneath. I wish i was kidding but im NOT! haha To give you an idea of the size....we have a couch in our family room and across the room is a love seat...if you are sitting on the couch, you can share the blanket with someone sitting on the loveseat! :) But thats ok...its still my favorite blanket (even though it weighs about 15 pounds and I cant really take it much of anywhere because its soooo big!) Since Big Yeller, she has made a couple more blankets, scarves, and is currently working on my red and white striped Bradley blanket! :) Hopefully it doesnt turn out quite as big as Big Yeller! ;)

After getting past the few initial weeks of recovery after the big surgery, mom was still not able to go back to work cleaning houses, BUT she was able to do one of her all-time favorite things. GO GROCERY SHOPPING! Wow! I have never seen a woman, or person for that matter, go to the grocery store sooo many times in their life! My mother finds a way to go to AT LEAST one grocery store a day. I wish I was joking but im not. Having grandma here with us didnt help either. haha I honestly think these two women went to the grocery store more in a month than i have my entire life. The woman has gift cards for every grocery store in town. The cashiers probably know her on a first-name basis. Who knows...they are probably friends and know about each others lives! The only bonus to her going to the grocery store soooo much is that there is usually PLENTY of food around! (which is great for a fat kid like me who eats 24/7!) :)

Well finally after a couple months or so, mom was back out of the house and cleaning other peoples houses. But it was all different now. :( Before the cancer...Mom would get up at 5, full of energy, clean her houses, come home and make dinner, watch her shows, and we could talk and hang out for a while. Not anymore...Mom would still get up somewhat early...not as early as before...maybe like 630 or 7 now, clean houses, come home and MAYBE make dinner once or twice a week, and go to sleep. Her energy level was down the drain. Moms bedtime was now 7 or 8 if we were lucky. Some nights earlier. But can you blame her??? The woman was working non-stop just after going through cancer and having her insides all cut out of her! In addition to her energy level, the woman was and is now eating more pills than a 95 year old woman. For a while, her pills in the morning were enough to fill her up as a meal. YES, that many! Anytime she wants to eat for the rest of her life, she has to take pills. No more digesting her food on her own. :( Want some crackers, eat a pill. Want some fruit, eat a couple pills. Want a salad, eat 4 pills. Want Schooners, eat 6-8 pills!! Haha. That was before...now she is consuming twice the amount of pills that she was before. I believe just the other day she came home with her monthly supply of these pills. Wanna guess how many?!?! 600-800 pills! RIDICULOUS! Can you even imagine consuming that many pills EACH month? Plus food! Oh and while we are speaking of the lovely pills...theres NOTHING better than going out to eat with mom, getting to the restaurant, ordering your food, and realizing that mom has NO pills and cant eat with you! :( Its happened one too many times, so now us kids carry around moms pills with us! JUST INCASE!

BUT, other than the ridiculous amount of pills mom takes each day now, her energy level being gone (now she is ready for bed at 5-6 on weeknights, sometimes at 2 on the weekends), and constantly being sore and exhausted, not much has changed. She is still SAME OLD MOM. :) Still calls us kids our lovely names, still complains about everything, still cusses like a sailor, still likes to have fun with us kids, still enjoying going to the grocery store ALL the time, still finds a way to make us all laugh, still goes out and about, and still loves us all to pieces! :) :) :)

So...I think this gives you a little insight onto how some things have changed in our lives due to the cancer, but shes not letting it slow her down much. NO WAY!