One of the best

Thank you everyone for contributing to one of the best birthday's I have ever had. I don't think it quite tops the one year that my parents had a "carnival" in their backyard, that we helped put together by painting boxes to make games. My grandma was the clown, hehe. Anyway, it was up there though with that birthday. No clowns this year, thankfully! But I had an extended celebration from the lake house on saturday with family and a few close friends, then a barbeque with Doug's family Sunday evening. We got to spend some quality time with Doug's Aunt, Uncle and Cousin who all came up to see us Sunday as well. Today I got to spend time with my mother most of the day, as well as Ella. We ended the day with my parents, my sister and her family and Doug, Ella and I eating at Beach Bum's. This is a tame Chucky Cheese place. I had a great time, I felt like a child again and loved it!
Thank you to everyone who sent emails, cards, flowers, gifts, phone calls, anonymous Angel statues, etc. You all made me feel so loved today, and so blessed to have so many wonderful, amazing people in my life. Andrea, thank you for secretly spreading the word to so many that it was my birthday, I have the best sister, she is such a huge support of me and I love her so dearly!!!
Ugh, I can't thank you all enough. As you may have seen from one comment, I got to also dance a bit in the rain, Thank you brandi for that memory as well! It won't be forgotten. I also wore a lovely pink "princess" tiara that my niece, Libby, made for me. I felt like quite the princess today.
Well, I have my procedure, the endoscopic ultrasound, tomorrow at around 1:30-2pm. I have to be there at the hospital at 11:30am. I will be going under general anesthesia, I found out. I, thankfully, didn't have to do the in depth bowel prep for it (one good thing about having the ostomy, hehe). That way, I got to eat for my birthday, even though I didn't find this out until noonish, so I hadn't eaten all morning. I made up for lost time though for lunch and dinner. I will let you know what happens tomorrow and how things go. I should be coming home after the procedure pending no complications. Other news: I may be doing a study with my new chemo, I will know more in the next few days but then I should be able to get started on this new chemo in the next week. I am also probably going down to MD Anderson once again to see the oncologist and surgeon I saw when I was first diagnosed. I don't know if they will have anything to tell me but we figured we should go back and have them reevaluate everything just to see. So lots going on in the next few weeks. I will talk more about them at another time. I need to finish getting through my cards that I received in the mail today. I want to admire all my flowers. I also have to fill out all my health history and information for the packet they sent for my procedure tomorrow. Nothing like last minute. Anyway, thank you all again for all my well wishes. I have to admit part of the time this weekend, my mind would wonder to the thought that this may be my last birthday I celebrate. I tried to make the most of it and was able to be with a lot of loved ones and lived it fully! I hope that I can look back several years from now and think how silly that thought was but it is real, I have to be "real" with myself. I will leave you all again with a great quote that someone sent me for my birthday and I want to share it with all of you.... "Find ecstacy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough." by Emily Dickinson. I am off to go snuggle with my husband and my dog and look over my sleeping, darling daughter. I am the luckiest wife and mother alive. I am looking forward to my well deserved intentional nap tomorrow, ahhh that stuff is great when they put you under general anesthesia, night night shawndra, just don't say anything you'll regret before you are knocked out, hehe. shawndra