I'm still here! Seems like an eternity since I've posted. End of May and June have been quite interesting to say the least! Couple of hospitalizations that were completely unexpected. I'm OK though! I do need to find a new doctor again because my ANA Count is in the high 3000's... not good at all. I used to be on Plaquenil to try to control the count. But Plaquenil made me so severely ill that I ended up living in the bathroom around the clock. That's how sick it made me. It got so bad that I couldn't throw up anything and apparently my body wanted to throw up. It was just horrible. So far nothing is keeping my count at bay. I'm just very worried what the next step may be. If I have to go back on chemo, I don't know how I will handle it. It's more than I can tolerate. I am finally showing a great growth of my hair and it's currently ugly at this time. It still spikes a little bit but not as much because it's a little longer. I'm hoping my hair will grow and stay that way for a good while. It really feels nice to just see a head of hair on me and not the spiked hair I'm known for everywhere I'm seen. I used to go to a lot of conferences (aromatherapy) and people who never knew me in person and met me for the first time said they never pictured me as one with the hairdo I had! Lots pictured me with a lot more hair and heavier. Heavier is something I could do very well without! The medications I'm on now (23 different medications)... have a role in my weight which is not good but truthfully so as long as I eat well I'm just fine. I used to be a real health nut but as my health went downhill, so did my quest for being a health nut. I just make sure we eat a very balanced meal and unfortunately it does include meat this time. We have been vegetarians for many years. Nicole was anemic for several years. None of us wanted a thing to do with meat. But after everything we have done to try to get Nicole back to being energetic... she was continuously anemic. Nicole was seen by a couple of holistic practitioners and 1 conventional doctor. One of the holistic doctor felt Nicole would do better if she went entirely vegan. I explained to the doctor that we were indeed vegan for about 14 months and Nicole was much more lethargic and unable to focus her energy on anything. She was constantly cold, always sleepy, etc. The doctor felt we weren't doing enough and wanted her to take more supplements and strip her of all dairy products (Organic which is the only thing we buy to this day)... he wanted to strip her of all wheat, whey products, and more. This was too radical for Nicole. She did not want to go vegan and for the rest of the family, we felt veganism was just much too radical of an approach for us. So we went back to vegetarianism where we incorporated dairy products and no poultry, meat, fish and anything that contained such, i.e., sauce with meat, worchestire sauce with anchovies, etc.
The other holistic physician did numerous tests on Nicole and found she should try incorporating some fish in her diet. We all weren't too sure about this because we were quite strict vegetarians at the time. Well, then the traditional doctor did blood work and found she was lacking some things that she would get naturally from meat, poultry and fish. So we ended up starting very slowly with poultry, beef and then fish... we have been eating meat, fish for a few years now and it has been quite a change for all of us. We do feel a lot more energized for eating such. We realize that vegetarianism just isn't for everyone. Then there's vegetarianism and veganism that is for some people. Regardless, we have the utmost respect for everyone all around. We have friends who eat only raw foods and have friends whose diet consists of only nuts and fruits. They don't like being called Fruitarians. They just like to eat only nuts and fruits and that doesn't bother us.
The only thing we miss is our Kosher kitchen. We used to have a kosher kitchen but now that we eat meat, etc it's no longer kosher.
As far as Nicole goes, she continues to suffer from anemia deficiency. She continues to take Iron supplements to this day and so far it doesn't do any good for her. She often cannot donate blood because she's so anemic. When she can donate, she's thrilled to no end. As a matter of fact, she went to donate blood not too long ago only to find out she cannot donate blood because she had a tattoo less than a year ago. If anyone has been tattooed they have to wait a year before they can donate blood. I never knew this. She was bummed when she learned of this.
Kiersten alternates between the two, eating meat and going vegetarian. She goes vegetarian anywhere from a real short period of time to a month but when she has that urge, she'll eat meat. Speaking of Kiersten, she just left about an hour ago with friends. They are all heading to Manchester, TN which I think is about 2.5 hours to 3 hours from us in Atlanta. They are all going to the Bonnaroo Fest. You can look this up at: http://www.bonnaroo.com/
They'll have a terrific time!

Next post is going to be entirely about my Fat Polka Dot Project book that I did and what I haven't been able to do and especially what I have completely forgot to do! Ugh... I am so forever thankful that Kiwi Ellen
reminded me about the Bead Journal. I cannot for the life of me believe I completely forgot about this project! I have got to find me some UltraSuede since it is precisely what I like to work on. If I can't find a source for US, then I'm going to use quilting fabric which is super nice and a heck of a lot nicer than what ordinary fabric stores provide. We'll see... but I have to decide real soon because July is just around the corner for me to start a new page. If you know of a source for UltraSuede please if you would, share it with me. I would be forever appreciative of that. Thanks so much!!! :-)

Be Happy! Life goes on & so do we all!!!