Category Archives: Family

Happy Anniversary Mom And Dad (or Celebrating 32 Years Of Awesomeness)

Posted on August 7, 2014 | 1 comment

Today is my parents 32nd anniversary. It’s also my cousin Adam’s 32nd birthday (yes, he was born on my parents’ wedding day). But sorry Adam, the focus on today’s post will be on my parents (but I’ve included you a bit at the end!).

For my entire life and in all my memories, my parents have been happy. Of course, there have been some sad and stressful times, but those have always been from outside circumstances and not from issues between my parents.

The fact that my parents have always been happy is probably why I’m so picky when it comes to dating. I’ve seen what a successful relationship is like and I don’t want to settle for anything less.

So in honor of my parents’ anniversary, I went through the photos I have and found some of my favorite ones. Mom and Dad, I want you to understand the effort it took for me to find photos of just the two of you and not with other people or with a dog (seriously almost every photo I have of you both is with a dog!).

This picture is obviously from my parents’ wedding. I happen to have this one in my computer because I needed it for an anniversary present I made for my parents on their 25th anniversary (Mom and Dad, this blog post is your present this year. You know all about my lack of funds right now). I will never fit into my mom’s wedding dress (not only do I weigh more, I’m too tall), but my mom and I discussed randomly one time about me using parts of her wedding dress to incorporate into whatever wedding dress I buy when I eventually get married. So maybe one day, that dress will be part of my something old.

This photo is one that I took when my parents were about to go to the prom that my dad’s hospital throws every year. The background behind them is a fountain at my parents’ house, and I remember insisting on taking a photo of them before they left for the prom. Plus, there are very few times that my dad wears a tux, so I wanted photo evidence of it.

This photo is from my brother’s college graduation at USC. I used this photo along with their wedding photo in the anniversary present I made years ago. I just think it’s a nice photo of my parents.

Of the photos I was able to find of my parents by themselves and without a dog, a majority of them came from my brother and sister-in-law’s wedding (and our week in Maui). This photo was taken on our first day in Maui right after we got to our rental house. Of course after traveling, the first thing we wanted to do is relax by the pool.

This was from one of our neighborhood walks in Maui. I think it was a retaining wall from a house on the same street as our rental house. My parents have a friend who enjoys seeing hearts in nature, so my parents made me take this photo so they could share it with their friend. I also like how my mom is standing on a step so she looks the same height as my dad.

This might be my absolute favorite photo of my parents. This was from the wedding (and possibly after a few drinks). I don’t remember ever seeing my parents dance before (I don’t know where I would have). And they were being so silly and fun. And considering that this was taken right before my mom had to start chemo, it reminds me that even when things are going to be stormy ahead, there’s no reason not to fully enjoy life every second.

I hope you all enjoyed seeing these photos of my parents.

And just so my cousin Adam isn’t completely left out, this is my favorite photo of Adam with our cousin Stephanie’s son Dalton. This was at Thanksgiving in 2007.

So happy birthday Adam and happy anniversary Mom and Dad! I hope all of you have awesome and amazing days today!

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Posted in Celebrations, Family, Fun Stuff

Tagged anniversary, birthday, cousin, dad, Maui, mom, parents, Thanksgiving

Day Trip To San Diego (or Driving Disasters)

Posted on July 29, 2014 | 3 comments

This past Saturday I went down to San Diego to spend the day with my grandparents. I hadn’t seen them since Thanksgiving, so I was way overdue for a trip down there.

The drive from my house to my grandparents’ place usually takes exactly 2 hours from my door to their door. There’s always a little traffic, but I usually can time out my drives to be when there’s the least traffic.

My drive down was pretty bad. From my house until Disneyland I was going at full speed. Then all of a sudden, traffic was ridiculous. I averaged about 20-30mph for the rest of the drive. It took me 4 hours to get there, and once I did arrive I was pretty exhausted.

As soon as I got to San Diego I picked up my grandpa to take him to the grocery store. That was a very easy and quick errand and we were back to my grandparents’ place within 30 minutes. Then I got to spend some nice quality time with my grandparents just chatting about anything.

We discussed my job situation, Tucker (who my grandparents haven’t met yet), politics, and lots of other random stuff. What I found most interesting was my grandpa talking about his time in WWII and the Korean War. I only learned recently that he was in WWII (it’s not something that’s ever really ever been discussed in my family) and I only learned on Saturday about my grandpa being a part of the Korean War. I know that my grandpa has been working on a book of all of his stories, and I really hope that he gets to finish it. There are so many things about him that I don’t know.

I also got to go to dinner with my grandparents. It was nice, but nothing too fancy. After dinner, it was time for me to drive home.

There was no traffic on the road when I started so I figured I’d be home in 2 hours.

Wrong.

After about 30 minutes of driving, my car chimed and in the dash it had a warning that said something like “Hot Engine Temperature”. I’ve had this warning once before and it went away after a minute of driving a little less aggressively. So I thought it might be the case again. Instead, after a few minutes of driving, the car chimed again and the warning now said “Stop Car Now”.

It’s never a good sign when your car says to stop. I pulled over to the shoulder of the freeway and then my car shut off by itself. The first thing I did was call my parents. I’m not sure what they could have done from a distance, but that’s my reaction when anything bad happens.

My dad told me to tell my car cool down for a minute and then to drive to an exit and get a tow back to LA. Fortunately, when my parents renewed my AAA membership they got me AAA Plus. That allowed me to get up to 100 miles of free towing (my old membership only had 5 miles of free towing).

When I called AAA, the guy who answered the phone knew exactly where I was from my description (it was an abandoned parking lot off of an exit near Camp Pendleton) so he could give the tow truck very clear directions for me.

Then I had to wait about 90 minutes for the truck to arrive. I tried to not be too upset or mad because I didn’t know what was wrong with my car but I was pretty sure I didn’t do anything to cause it. At least I had a nice view from the place I was waiting.

The tow truck finally arrived and I’ll admit that it was a little sad watching my car get put onto the tow bed.

2 hours riding in the tow truck later (which by the way I had the most awesome tow truck driver, Bob), I was home and my car was being unloaded.

I was able to drive my car into my driveway and when I did the warnings had all gone away. But I knew that there was something wrong with my car and I didn’t want to drive it until it was fixed.

Fortunately, I found a repair shop close to my house and open on Sunday! It’s called Fix Car Now and they have a couple of different locations. I took my car in Sunday at 8am and the shop gave me a ride back home so I didn’t have to wait there. At 9am I found out that the water pump cooling system for my hybrid motor (the electric motor, not the gas one) was broken. It’s a known issue for my car so they were able to get parts for it pretty easily.

It took until yesterday for them to finish my car, but I did get my car back and it’s running even better than before. My car had issues over the past few years switching from the gas engine to the electric engine. But now that my car was fixed, it’s switching as quickly as it did when I got it!

The lesson in all of this for me was to stay focused on positives and being grateful even when things seem to suck. I’ve owned my car since 2008 (I got it used) and besides having a dead battery once (the normal battery, not the hybrid one), this is the first problem I’ve ever had with this car. And since I’m not working yet, my parents were willing to help me the cost of this repair. And while I was sitting in the tow truck really mad about everything, I tried to find a really good positive about this situation. The one I came up with was technically the tow ride was saving me gas money since I didn’t drive my car home.

Even in the worst circumstances there’s always something positive you can focus on. Even if it’s something small or stupid, that’s what I need to think about and not all the negative things.

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Posted in Family, Tough Stuff, Travel

Tagged car, grandparents, gratitude, positivity, San Diego

Another Mom Update (or Almost All Done)

Posted on July 25, 2014 | 1 comment

While my mom has already finished all of her prescribed treatments for breast cancer, there are still a few things that still need to be done.

First of all, my mom is still getting chemo every 3 weeks. This is not something that was part of her original treatment plan. But once my mom was diagnosed, she applied for a drug trial and got accepted. The drug trial is for this other chemo. She has 3 more treatments of it, so it feels like it’s almost done.

Since my mom tested negative for the BRCA mutation, that also eliminates a lot of things that we were prepared to have to go through. My mom is done working with the geneticist now and I only have a few things that the geneticist recommended for me to do. Mainly, I need to go get a mammogram this year, which I will do in the next month or two (I was waiting to see what potential job schedules could be like before scheduling a doctor’s appointment). But that’s pretty minimal. The reason for me to get a mammogram is to have a baseline one to compare future mammograms to, not to necessarily look for cancer (although I’m sure they will do that too).

Finally, my mom had to go through some medical tests to make sure that her body is free of cancer (or at least as far as they can tell it’s free of cancer).

First, a few weeks ago she had a CT where they checked her pelvis, chest, and abdomen. My mom told me that it might take a day or two to get the results from the test, but about an hour after the test my mom got a phone call saying that there are no signs of cancer in any area that they looked in. So that’s pretty awesome news!

And then last week my mom had a mammogram and MRI and both of those came back clean as well!

So besides the 3 remaining chemo treatments (and me getting a mammogram), the cancer journey is almost over. It’s been over a year since my mom was diagnosed and it feels like it flew by in an instant and has been going on for years at the same time.

I’m excited for my mom to be done with everything. For almost the entire time during this journey my mom has pretty much been able to do everything that she has always been able to do (she’s a rockstar that way). One of the last things to get her back to her “old” self is that she will be dyeing her hair back to blonde next week (when it grew back it came in brown). Once that’s done, even when she choses not to wear the wig, people who didn’t know what had happened will have no idea.

I’ll still blog occasional updates on things (and you all know that I’ll totally be blogging about my first mammogram), but it really feels like the journey is coming to an end. I’m so grateful that my mom has really kicked butt through all of this and that it looks like the end of this journey will really be the end.

1 Comment

Posted in Celebrations, Family, Health, Tough Stuff

Tagged breast cancer, chemo, journey, mammogram, mom

Santa Barbara Weekend (or Family and Friends Time)

Posted on July 22, 2014 | 3 comments

This past weekend, I was up in Santa Barbara (which if you aren’t familiar with the California geography is about 2 hours north of Los Angeles). My friend Rayshell was celebrating her 30th birthday and her parents offered to throw her a party. So the party was held at her parents’ place in Santa Barbara.

I’m sure at some point in my life I’ve been to Santa Barbara, but it must have been when I was little because I don’t remember ever going there. I know that I’ve never been there as an adult, so that’s at least 13 years.

I knew about the birthday party a few months in advance (Rayshell wanted everyone to have the chance to make hotel reservations if necessary). My sister-in-law’s parents live in Santa Barbara, so as soon as I knew that I would be up there, I texted them to see if they could meet up while I was there. My sister-in-law’s mom wasn’t sure if they would be in town while I was there, so she asked me to text closer to the date.

When I texted her again, she let me know that my brother and sister-in-law were going to be in Santa Barbara the same weekend. So I made plans with everyone to meet up with them for a little bit on Saturday before I went to the party.

I drove up by myself and got to my sister-in-law’s parents’ house in about 2 hours (traffic wasn’t my friend the entire way). It was so great to see everyone. I hadn’t seen my brother or my sister-in-law’s parents since Christmas and I hadn’t seen my sister-in-law since our NYC trip.

I was only able to stay there for about an hour, but it was a nice visit. My brother and sister-in-law are going on a trip to Africa next month. They are going to be going to Tanzania, which is where my family went when we went to Africa in 1997. So we were chatting about different things to prepare for the trip and memories that my brother and I have when we went there as kids.

After my visit, I got back on the road to head to Rayshell’s parent’s house. It was only about 10 minutes from my sister-in-law’s parent’s house, so that was easy.

The party was in the backyard and they had hired a taco man to cater dinner. Technically, he was more than a taco man because you could also get a salad, a burrito, a quesadilla, or nachos. I opted for the beef nachos because they looked so amazing!

I totally made the right choice! My nachos were awesome!

I was sitting next to my friend Sarah Levin (who I refer to as the “other Levin” and she does the same to me) and it was so nice to get to catch up with her. She recently got engaged and will be getting married soon. So I got to see the ring and hear all of her incredible wedding plans.

And of course, Sarah and I wanted a picture with the birthday girl.

Not only is Rayshell in a Levin sandwich, Sarah and I are dressed alike (blue dresses, black sweaters). I thought it was pretty funny.

Also at the party, there was a magician. He reminded me of the magicians who perform the close-up magic show at The Magic Castle. There were some tricks that I’ve seen before, but there were also a bunch that I had never seen and I was amazed how they were done (I might have googled some of the tricks because I just couldn’t understand how he could have done it).

And one of the final tricks of the show was the magician juggling a machete, a bowling ball, and a torch lit on fire while balancing on a board that was on top of a plastic pipe.

I know you can’t see that he is balancing in the picture, but trust me, he was. And he was very close to the tree in the backyard so everyone was nervous that he would catch the tree on fire. But fortunately, everything was safe and not on fire at the end of the show.

After the magic show, there was some dessert and then people started to head out. Some people had to make the drive back to LA, some were headed to their hotels (or houses if they were locals), and some people headed out to the bars. I was very lucky that Rayshell’s parents said I could spend the night at their house. Hotels were very expensive (especially for a Saturday night in the summer). So while everyone else was leaving, I was helping with some cleanup.

And while putting away the leftover alcohol (which I didn’t have any of), I discovered the biggest tequila bottle I’ve ever seen!

It’s Costco brand but everyone said that it was great.

After cleaning up, everyone who was staying at Rayshell’s parents’ house just hung out outside for a while talking around one of the fire pits that they have.

It was a very relaxing way to end the evening. And before we knew it, it was 1am and we were all exhausted. I slept in the living room on the couch, and it was a perfect place to crash after a party (I can’t imagine trying to make the drive home after the party).

The next morning, we all had breakfast together and then I headed back to LA. Sarah needed a ride back so I drove her and that gave us even more time to catch up and just have fun talking.

It was such a perfect little mini-getaway! It felt like a vacation but I didn’t have to go that far.

Thank you so much to Rayshell’s parents for letting me stay at your house! You are both so generous and were amazing hosts! And Rayshell, even though I’ve wished you a happy birthday a couple of times by now. Happy Birthday again! I hope you had a great time at your party! I know I did!

3 Comments

Posted in Celebrations, Family, Food, Fun Stuff, Travel

Tagged birthday, birthday party, magic, Santa Barbara

Making The Most Of My Last Day In Tahoe (or Tucker Is A Lake Dog!)

Posted on June 26, 2014 | 1 comment

On my last day in Tahoe, I didn’t have to leave for the airport until after dinnertime, so I had a full day to have fun. So for the day, we decided to head to Donner Lake to enjoy some time on the water.

We went to the exact same beach that I went to last summer. But besides bringing the raft with us again, we also brought our 2 kayaks to the lake!

We decided that my mom and Kate would each take a kayak out and my dad, Tucker, and I would go in the raft. Tucker had been in the raft one other time the week before and he did ok then. But this time, he wouldn’t be with both my mom and dad so we were a little unsure of how he would do.

We got my mom and Kate in the kayaks and into the water first. Tucker watched from the shore and yelped a little that my mom was paddling away. He didn’t want to get into the water so he stayed on the very edge of the shore. Then I got into the raft and my dad picked Tucker up and placed him in with me. Then my dad got in and he took over the paddles (he’s way better at it than I am).

The kayaks are pretty easy to maneuver, so my mom and Kate were off and going around the lake. My dad refers to the raft as a bathtub so we paddled away from the shore and pretty much just floated out there.

But I have to say that Tucker seemed to really love it!

And yes, he’s wearing Dante’s old life vest.

Tucker spent his time in the raft people and dog watching and then just leaning back on either my dad or I and enjoying the sunshine. But his favorite thing to do was to lick the water off of the paddles.

You can tell from that photo how giant his ears are! And you can tell that he’s a bit of a redhead too!

When my dad and I got back to shore, there were a few other families with their dogs near where we set up our stuff. The dogs were jumping in the water and swimming and Tucker was mesmerized by that. We thought that maybe if he watched other dogs swim, he would try it too.

The owner of the other dog wanted to help us get Tucker to swim, so she kept throwing toys into the lake for him to get. But again, he refused to swim. He got very close, but when he realized that he couldn’t put his foot onto the ground, he backed up. But even without swimming, Tucker had so much fun.

My mom and Kate kayaked back to the shore then and my mom wanted to see if Tucker could kayak with her. So my dad got into the lake with Tucker and got him on the back of the kayak. My mom paddled in the shallow area incase Tucker fell off, but it turns out he has amazing balance and managed to stay on!

We spent a good few hours at the lake, and eventually it was time to head back to the condo. Kate and I wanted to watch the World Cup game and my mom was going to make a nice early dinner.

Around 6pm, Kate got into her car to make the drive back to the Bay Area and my mom, dad, Tucker, and I got into the car to do a little walking around before I had to get to the Reno airport.

It was a gorgeous evening at Lake Tahoe and I was sad that my vacation was coming to an end.

At about 7pm, we got back into the car for the drive to Reno. Airport security only took me 5 minutes from the time I was dropped off, so I spent a lot of time looking at all the tempting ways I could spend my money in the Reno airport.

I managed to keep all my money in my wallet and just read my book while waiting for my delayed flight home.

I’m so glad that I was able to do this trip to Tahoe this summer. Even though I got to go last summer as well, I haven’t been able to go up as often as I’d like. I talked to my parents about me going up this winter since it’s been a few years since I’ve been up in the snow. Hopefully we can make that happen.

I’ll see my parents again in about 2 months when they come to LA. We are all going to a show at the Hollywood Bowl together. And I’ll see Tucker again at Thanksgiving. There’s a small chance I might be visiting my sister-in-law at the end of the summer when my brother is working out of the country, so I might get to see everyone then as well.

But for now, I’m just grateful that I got to spend a nice long weekend with my family (and chosen family as is the case with Kate).

1 Comment

Posted in Family, Fun Stuff, Travel

Tagged dog, Lake Tahoe, rafting, trip, vacation, water

Long Lake And The Best Caesar Salad In The World (or The First Day Of Adventure In Tahoe)

Posted on June 25, 2014 | Comments Off

While this trip to Tahoe was a relaxing trip, we still went on little adventures each day. On our first full day there, we did a little hike (although my parents called it a walk) to Long Lake.

This is a hike I’ve never done before and my parents warned me that the first part of it is extremely steep (going down at the beginning and going up when you are coming back). I figured that I could do it, even though I knew I’d need to take some breaks. Besides my usual hip issues, I also had to deal with being at altitude. This seems to affect me a lot. I’m not sure if that’s a weight related issue or the fact that I never spent too much time in the mountains so I never acclimate to it.

The drive to the start of the hike was a bit off-road, so that was a fun little adventure. Tucker was sitting in the back with Kate and I and he had a few moments where he fell off the seat. He decided to sit on the floor after that.

The first part of the hike was crazy steep and I took at least twice as long as everyone else to get down, but I did it and I didn’t fall. The rest of the hike (which was about a mile) was up and down and there were a lot of rocky sections. I was careful and managed to not lose my footing at all.

I was a little out of breath when we finally make it to the lake, but it was totally worth it!

We brought a little picnic lunch to enjoy on the rocky beach there so we set up a little area for us and enjoyed the amazing view.

There were some other people there and most of them also had dogs with them, so Tucker was running around greeting everyone and trying to get all the dogs to play with him. We don’t know if Tucker can really swim yet, so my mom got into the lake and tried to make him swim by throwing sticks for him to retrieve.

Tucker got in the water and he did put his face in, but he refused to swim. If a stick went out too far, he would just watch it and hope that it would come back to him.

After spending a nice relaxing time at the lake, it was time for us to do the hike back. For some reason, I got extremely light-headed and my vision started to get blurry as soon as we starting walking again. I have no idea what happened (maybe dehydration?) but I took it slow and it seemed to get a bit better.

After the hike, we spent a little time at the hot tub in the condo complex before getting ready to go out to dinner.

I had requested to go to Cottonwood because it really is one of my favorite restaurants in Tahoe. My family has been going there for as long as I can remember, so it truly is a Tahoe tradition for me.

We enjoyed a nice dinner which included the best caesar salad ever. We get this salad every time and it’s so yummy and garlicky!

And as it says in the Cottonwood menu, the salad is traditionally eaten with your fingers (they are full leaves of lettuce so it’s easy to pick up). I absolutely love it!

I didn’t really get any pictures of the rest of the meal. I was too busy enjoying time with everyone.

After dinner, we just hung out at the condo and watched some tv and read. It was such a perfect first day in Tahoe and it got me ready to have a day on the lake the next day!

Comments Off on Long Lake And The Best Caesar Salad In The World (or The First Day Of Adventure In Tahoe)

Posted in Family, Food, Fun Stuff, Travel

Tagged dinner, hiking, Lake Tahoe

A Plane Ride And A Mini Road Trip (or My Adventure To Get To Lake Tahoe)

Posted on June 24, 2014 | Comments Off

I got to go see my parents and puppy this past weekend in Lake Tahoe. My parents own a place near Truckee (I went there last summer as well). I grew up going to Tahoe every winter to ski and most summers to hike and enjoy the mountains.

Even though I went to Tahoe last summer, I haven’t gone as often as I’d like. This is because it’s not the closest place for me to go and my parents are pretty busy people. There are times where I have to make sure they set aside a certain weekend for me so they don’t invite friends of theirs up there.

My parents had invited me as well as my friend Kate to come up and she and I both set aside the time in our calendars. I know I’ve said it before, but Kate is like a sister to me, so having her come to Tahoe is more like a family hangout.

As a kid, we pretty much always drove to Tahoe (it’s about 4 hours from where I grew up). I flew a couple of times when I was in high school and couldn’t go on vacation as early as the rest of my family. And since moving to LA, I’ve pretty much only flown up there unless I’m combining a trip to Tahoe to a trip home to the Bay Area.

But for some reason, Southwest (who I pretty much always fly when I’m flying between Northern and Southern CA) stopped doing lots of non-stop flights from LA to Reno. There’s only a couple a day now when there used to be at least 6 or 7 options. And I didn’t want to have to have a layover in Vegas or Utah.

So my parents suggested that I fly into the Bay Area and Kate could come and get me. Then Kate and I could do the drive together (my parents were in Tahoe a few days before we went, so they couldn’t drive me).

That actually worked out pretty well! I got a flight from LA to Oakland and then Kate came to pick me up after she was done with work (which was pretty much the same time that I landed). Then she and I drove for about 3.5 hours to get to Tahoe.

It was a really fun mini road trip. We caught up on each other’s lives (she’s got a new job and she’s living in a new city). We shared crazy stories that have happened lately. We discussed the World Cup (we are both following the games, but she’s following them a bit better than I am).

By the time we got to Tahoe, it was dark so we pretty much just went inside to hang out with my parents and dog (who is more than double the size he was when I saw him in February).

While making my trip take almost 5 hours instead of 1 is a little crazy, it was totally worth it to get some hangout time with such a good friend. Plus, if that’s what I had to do to get to Tahoe, I’m fine with that.

I’ve got some fun pictures from the weekend coming up in my next two posts, so make sure you check those out when I post them!

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Posted in Family, Fun Stuff, Travel

Tagged flying, Lake Tahoe, road trip, vacation

500 Posts! (or A Reason To Celebrate!)

Posted on June 13, 2014 | 6 comments

Today’s post is about a lot of good things that have happened lately.

First of all, like the title of this post says, this is my 500th post on Finding My Inner Bombshell! That’s so bonkers to me! I write 5 days a week so that means I’ve been writing for 100 weeks. So yes, that also means that my 2 year anniversary of the blog is coming up soon as well.

I’m still in shock how this blog really has become an important part of my life. When I started, I hoped I’d be able to keep it going. Now when I’m not writing on the weekends, I feel like something is missing. I’ve made new friends because of the blog and I’ve become closer to old friends because of my honesty here. It’s just awesome.

The next part of my awesome news is that my mom got her BRCA test results back and she doesn’t have the gene mutation! When my mom texted me with the news, I cried in relief. This is a weight lifted off my shoulders (and I’m sure the rest of my family feels this way). When I talked to my mom that day, she said that getting these results have allowed her to relax and she can go on and enjoy life. And for me, it means that while I still have a higher risk of getting breast cancer in my life because my mom had it, it’s not nearly as high of a risk if I had had the gene mutation.

I’m still going to be monitored much closer and I’ve already talked with my gynecologist about setting up a mammogram appointment after I see her (I’m sure I’ll be writing about that appointment when it happens because I’m still crazy nervous about it).

The third, and technically, final good news is that I’m finally starting to get back on track with losing weight. I’ve lost about 10% of what I had gained recently. It’s not a lot, but it’s totally a start. I’m working on my eating and I’ve been working out again. My journey is still going to be a long one, but I’m happy to be moving in the right direction again.

And in other celebratory things (but not technically good news), today is my friend Kate’s birthday! I’ll be seeing her next week, so we’ll get to celebrate her birthday then, but I wanted to acknowledge how amazing of a friend she is. She was the first person I talked to when my mom was diagnosed with cancer. She kept the news a secret for a while until my mom was ready to go public with the news. And she was there to listen to me whenever I was freaking out or having a tough time. Not many friends would or could do that and I’m so insanely grateful that she was willing to be there for me.

So to recap: yay for 500 posts, yay for my mom not having the BRCA gene, yay for me losing some weight, and happy birthday to Kate!

I love how my life has become so wonderful and positive!

6 Comments

Posted in Celebrations, Family, Fitness, Food, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

Tagged anniversary, birthday, blogging, breast cancer, cancer, mom, weight loss, workout

A Phone Call Can Change My Future (or Making Plans)

Posted on June 9, 2014 | 4 comments

A few weeks ago, my mom did her genetic testing for the breast cancer gene mutation. This Wednesday, my mom gets a phone call and will find out the result.

My family has been very open about discussing what either a positive or negative result means for everyone in the family. And I’ve talked about it a lot with my mom.

She has her own ideas of what she wants to do in both cases (and it’s not my place to discuss what she wants to do until she tells me I can share it). And I’ve had to make my own plans.

Since I’m all about honesty here, I figured I would share my plans openly. While I really do believe that my mom will test negative for the gene mutation, everything I’ve read has said to be prepared for the worst case scenario.

First of all, no matter what the results are, I’m going to start being monitored much more carefully for breast cancer now. I’ve got a much higher risk of getting it now since my mom had it. My mom’s doctors believe that I will probably have to get my first mammogram this year when I go in for my annual exam. I always schedule my annual exam to be around my birthday (harder to forget to schedule it that way), so I need to talk to my gynecologist about whether or not she wants me to have a mammogram soon and if she’d like me to do it before I see her. I’m a little nervous to get a mammogram since I’ve never had one and I’ve heard that they are pretty unpleasant. Also, I’m a little worried that this isn’t going to be enough monitoring because my mom’s cancer wasn’t found on a mammogram.

If my mom tests positive for the gene mutation, I’ve already made the decision that I want to be tested immediately. I don’t see any reason not to know. If I’m positive, I can make plans that help reduce my risk. If I test negative, I will still have to always be monitored more than most people, but I won’t have to take as extreme of measures.

And those extreme measures do include having double mastectomy. I know that if I do test positive for the gene mutation, I will eventually take this step. I won’t do it until I have kids (whenever that ends up being), but to me, not taking this step is just asking to be a ticking time bomb. I know that many people who do test positive don’t want to do this or have to go through such a tough surgery, but in my mind, if I don’t I will be paranoid all the time. I would also probably have my ovaries removed (since that cancer is normally not detected until it’s very advanced), but again, I wouldn’t do anything until after I have kids.

I have told a couple of friends my plans as well and I think that talking openly and honestly about it has made it all seem less scary. I really am prepared for the worst case now. But every time my mom and I have talked about this on the phone, we both agree that the chances of her testing positive are so slim that we both feel pretty confident that it will be negative.

If any of you have gone through this, I’d really appreciate any advice you can give me. My family is still going through the unknown here and I like hearing the advice and stories of people who have gone through this. Hearing other’s stories has helped me make my plan and feel confident that what I’ve decided will be the right choice for me.

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Posted in Family, Health, Tough Stuff

Tagged breast cancer, cancer

Small World (or Always Speak Positively)

Posted on May 19, 2014 | Comments Off

This post is both a funny story and a lesson that my mom taught me when I was little.

To start with the lesson, my mom has always said that you should only speak positive and nice things about people. You never know who knows someone.

And here’s the story that reminded me of that lesson.

I was working in the office of my bosses for my recruiting job on Friday. I only work in the office about once every other week helping my bosses (who are husband and wife) organize their files. Also right now, I’m helping them pack things up as they are moving into an office building (instead of the home office that they have now). It’s not tough work at all, so a lot of the time I’m chatting with either John (my main boss) or Kris (his wife).

This past Friday I was helping Kris throw out old paperwork that they didn’t need to transfer when they move to the new office. Some of the paperwork was for the country club that they belong to. I recognized the name of the country club as a place that my second cousin, Wendy, mentioned when I was over at her house for Passover.

I mentioned to John and Kris that I thought my second cousin might belong to the same country club as they do. They asked me what my cousin’s name is and I told them. Both John and Kris had a look of shock on their faces and I asked them if they knew my second cousin.

Turns out, John dated Wendy in college and he and Kris are responsible for introducing her to her husband! They are very very close friends!

After the shock wore off, we all started to laugh. What were the chances of this?!? I showed them the picture from Passover and they told me that they were supposed to be at that Passover dinner, but they ended up having to be somewhere else.

Of course, I thought my cousin Wendy would get a kick out of hearing this story, so John sent her an email. She thought it was pretty funny as well. After I was done with work, I sent her an email myself.

And I also thought my mom would find the story awesome as well. So I gave her a call and relayed the whole thing to her. And of course, the first thing she said to me was to remind me of the lesson about always saying nice things about others.

I might not always say only nice things about people, but I do try hard to do so. And things like my bosses knowing my second cousin (and a lot of my other extended family members as well) remind me of how important it is to try even harder to never burn bridges or gossip about others.

It’s so true that it’s a small world and things will get back to people even if you don’t think people know each other.

Comments Off on Small World (or Always Speak Positively)

Posted in Family, Fun Stuff, Work

Tagged family, job, positivity

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