My apologies, I thought I had posted on this page as well after the benefit, but I apparently did not. Blame it on the foggy radiation brain.
I am so incredibly overwhelmed with gratitude and love. Thank you isn't enough for how deeply I appreciate every person who donated items for the auction, stopped by, had a spaghetti dinner, donated cash, or bid on auction items. In this one afternoon alone (between the auction, dinner, merch, and the supportnow page) yall have paid ALL of my outstanding medical bills!! I hope you can all recognize the immense impact you had on mine and Kevin's lives with that. We will never forget how much our friends, family, community members, and strangers lifted us up in this situation. We love you all so much Of course, the battle isn't over. I'm only 19 radiation treatments in (out of 30) and they're definitely starting to take their toll. I have endless creams, lotions, gels, sprays, patches to try and ease my skin discomfort. I'm resting to try to ease the fatigue. Eating is just something I have to force myself to do. -Speaking of finances - did you know that EACH radiation treatment bills out at FIFTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS!?! I'm getting 30 of them... the cost of my radiation treatment alone is damn near HALF A MILLION DOLLARS.
And we know that there will be future surgeries as well to fine tune the reconstruction. Anything above the current bills will be put aside to help us cover next year's out of pocket expenses (my plastic surgeon won't touch me for quite awhile, wanting my body to heal and see how radiation is going to impact my reconstructed right belly boob). It's frustrating that despite it being "covered" by insurance we'll still take on almost $10,000 of cost per year. I haven't yet decided if I'm going to take Tamoxifen after radiation. It only takes my chance of recurrence from 8% to 4% and I'm not sure that it's worth the horrible toll it'll likely take on my body. HOWEVER, I am filling it monthly right now because it's fully covered right now and if I can stockpile it now, why not?
I'm still in relatively good spirits, largely due to my incredible husband and daughter. Though I must admit I am frustrated that we're FINALLY getting a summer in Minnesota with regular temps in the 90s for weeks on end and I can't even be outside in the sun doing summer activities to enjoy it. This would have been a perfect year to have the pool set up. But instead I work all day inside, leave to do my radiation treatment, come home exhausted, watch some tv and go to bed. It could be quite depressing if I let it...
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