The Snow Family

I'd like to introduce Stella...my new wig! Here she is from the front.... And the side...  And the back. She's kind of fun and sassy. When I brought her home, I invited Roger and the kids to vote on a name for her.  Suggestions included the following....Wiggy McWig Face, Wiggity Wiggity Whack, and LaFonda. Obviously, all of these suggestions came from Roger and the kids loved them.  Needless to say, I took back my invitation to vote on a name and named her myself.   Stella has been waiting for her moment of glory.  Sadly for her, but lucky for me, my hair is coming out much slower than anticipated!  I started losing it at the end of week 2, just like I was told I would.  However, it didn't all come out at once.  I lose it in large clumps for a couple of days a treatment and then the loss slows down for the rest of the week. While I've lost a lot, I also started with a whole lot of hair!  I'm guessing I have about 30-40% of wha...

Week 2 has been much nicer than the first week...much of that is because I only got Taxol this week, rather than the two medications.  I only got really nauseous once and, while I'm still quite tired and taking lots of naps, the fatigue isn't as bone deep as it was last week.  I did have one day of extreme soreness in all of my muscles.  I felt like my body was one big bruise and it hurt to touch anywhere. That is one side effect of the Taxol and it mostly disappeared after one day. For those that have requested, here is a picture of my port.  It is just under my skin, under the collarbone of the left shoulder.  You'll see that there are three raised dots.  When I receive my infusions, the needle is placed in the middle of those raised dots. This makes the infusion a simple process and allows the medications to go straight into one of my veins. I went to a support group meeting today with my girls and it was a fun time.  One of the things th...

Now that I am sufficiently healed from my surgery, I get to start my 6 months of Chemotherapy. Apparently there are lots of chemo medicines...a little fact that I didn't know.  I will be using Taxol and Carboplatin with the following schedule:  Week 1 - Taxol and Carbo combined; Weeks 2 & 3 - Taxol only; Week 4 - Off! I do expect to lose my hair somewhere between day 14-17.  A sweet friend who just finished chemotherapy for breast cancer threw me a hat/scarf party to help prepare for that.  It was such a great time to talk with friends and learn ways to cover my soon-to-be bald head!  I'm surprisingly ok with losing my hair. Of course, I haven't seen my bald head yet, so I imagine that might change.  The good news is that I'll be nice and cool this summer and, for the first time, I will get to experiment with hair styles of all lengths this fall! I just finished my first infusion on Thursday, March 23. I was more nervous for chemo than I was for my ...

As soon as my mom learned of my diagnosis, she booked a flight and was here the very next morning.  That meant that she and my dad drove most of the night to get to the airport so that she could fly out and be in SLC by 8 AM that morning.  What a blessing to have her with me!  She was truly my rock.  I was still processing my diagnosis and trying to come to terms with it.  I'm sure she was, too, but she was strong and optimistic the whole time she was with me. My doctor referred me to one of the best surgeons in the state of Utah.  However, it would be a week before I would have a consult with him.  We decided to use that week to get a lot done around the house and to have some fun.  While I finished a few projects for work, my mom tackled my house. She painted my room, hall, bathroom, kitchen, and living room in that first week.  She also set out to make my room look pretty.  If I was going to have to spend a lot of time in it, it was...

The bummer about Ovarian Cancer is that it has no symptoms...or at least, it doesn't have symptoms that are easy to recognize.  I have known for a few years that something wasn't right.  In fact, I went to three different doctors over the last 3-4 years to express just that, but it was hard to put a finger on exactly what was wrong.  I was more tired than I should be. Mainly, my stomach kept getting bigger, despite eating well and exercising regularly.  Every time I mentioned this to a doctor they simply told me to exercise more and eat better.  It was frustrating, but what did I know?  I simply chalked it up to my lack of a thyroid and brushed it off. At the beginning of the year, my stomach began to grow even more.  It got to the point that my stomach actually hurt when I bent over to tie my shoes.  I thought I had finally gotten so fat that I couldn't tie my shoes. So I tried to work out harder, but I was so tired!  I continued to play v...

We got a double-dose of Goodman fun this summer when we met my family in Yellowstone this summer for our first ever Goodman Family Reunion. My parents and all of my siblings, with the exception of my brother who is on a mission, got to come. It was a bit of a shock for the Missouri clan. They were in the middle of a record-setting heat wave when they came out and they went from nasty hot weather to cold, rainy weather in 24 hours. Still, it was better than the heat and we had a lot of fun. Even Rebecca and Nathan, whose van bit the dust on the drive out, managed to have a good time. This is my favorite picture. My two favorite guys in front of an incredible view. It doesn't even look real...but it is! The kids asked to go back to the "stinky pots" for several weeks afterwards. It would appear that we rarely clean our kids' faces. In front of Old Faithful. We got there just in time and didn't have to wait more than a couple of minutes. Aunt Christy planned ...

I am way behind on posting here. I'm going to try to do a little bit every day to catch up. We'll start with our Missouri trip in June. The kids and I got to stay with my parents for 2 weeks in June while Roger taught at a training in Nebraska. We missed having him there, but managed to have a good time, anyway! The kids' favorite things to do were fish in Grandma and Grandpa's pond, feed the horses in the barn, and of course, ride the horses. Keira thought she was something else. She kept asking Grandpa to let go so she could ride the horse by herself. Grandpa's pond is stocked full of fish. The kids were catching something on nearly every cast....even when the pole was simply a stick, string, and hook. I peeked out the window just in time to see that Keira and Ryder had gone out by themselves and had caught a fish. They had no idea what to do with it when they caught it, but were sure excited, anyway.