First blog of the year... a little late in the game!

"How did a young girl like you wind up in a place like this?" Said the man sitting next to me during treatment yesterday.  I wanted to give him the Indian bobble head response (which in the Indian culture means you don't have an answer but don't want to be rude so you shake your head from side to side) but instead I shrugged my shoulders and smiled.  How did I end up here?  Guess I won't know the answer to that until I walk through those pearly white gates and meet Jesus.  God often puts unfortunate circumstances in our laps to bring us closer to Him.  That's how I look at it anyway and so far it's working.

Round 2 day one didn't start off well.  My nurse tried a new vein on my right hand and apparently it wasn't a good choice.  Intense pain and sweat was my immediate reaction.  Wanted to cry but I didn't.  So onto the left hand and pain is what I have been feeling ever since.  I can type fine but if I ever so gently touch a spot on the top of my hand I must be irritating a nerve ending or something and I send myself into a shock of pain. that lingers for a few minutes.  No bueno.  Gonna ask Dr. Chung for some pain killers.  Treatment flew by much faster.  Did 100mg every half hour vs 50 mg like last time.  That intial increase from 100 to 200 gave me a slight tightning in my chest and I could immediately taste the Rituxan in the back of my throat but it only last 30 seconds or so.  Other than that I have a great appetite.  Woke up at 4:30 in the morning wide awake and didn't fall back asleep til hubby left for work after 6:30.  Overslept and was awakened by my mother in law.  Thank God she came otherwise the two younger ones would have been uber late for school.  TGIF!  Going for my second dose of Bendamustine at 1:00 today.  Let's hope the veins cooperate.  Maybe I should go down a gallon of water to juice up the veins.

Holidays.  I realize that I never posted how our holidays were here in the Bueno household.  Truly blessed is an understatement.  We were able to give the kids a good Christmas, not that gifts are what Christmas is about but they're kids and don't quite fully understand that Jesus is the greatest gift that keeps on giving.  New years was awesome.  We brought in the new year at my favorite hangout with my husband, a few of his old friends and some of my best friends and seeeestesr, doing what we all do best- KARAOKE hahaha!  If you haven't seen the videos on my facebook page yet what are you waiting for, you will be throughourly entertained! The next day we celebrated my bestie's Jenny's birthday at her house surrounded by more of my bestest life long friends and family and food galore!  I thought getting on the scale was gonna be grim but to my surprise I actually lost a few!  Good times with good friends and family- we are blessed to have started the new year off this way.  Tuesday was my seeeester Brooke's birthday, yes lots of birthdays this month!  We had a great time at Tsukasa of Tokyo- love that place!  Friends, save your pennies cuz I think that's where I wanna go for my birthday next month!

Dummie me did something so dumb but God is good and problem was solved.  Here I am thinking how savvy I am when it comes to computers and technology but twice in one night I was stumped.  First of all I wiped out all 790 something songs off my iPod touch by accident.  I uploaded iTunes 10.1 to the new laptop and was distracted by the TV and accidently hit yes to restore the iPod.  Good one Mel.  Ok, not a big deal, just go to the other laptop and upload the songs on their you say?  Well two weeks ago I purchased an external hard drive to back up pictures and my entire iTunes library but somewhere along the lines I didn't save the music correctly.  Everything was gone.  Spent hours trying to recover it all through all the recommendation on the Apple support site and ended up begging Apple through email to let me re-download all my purchases.  To make a long story short Apple not only responded in a timely manner, they were kind enough to give me everything back!  Shocking huh?  Let's just say it's a lesson learned!  Then also on Monday I tried reconnecting the tv in our basement to the cable and normally that is not an issue for me but once again something wasn't working.  Well duh.  Because the cable box upstairs is a DVR and the one downstairs isn't, it didn't use component channel 1, just good old channel 3.  Boy did I feel dumb. **insert sheepish look here**

I started reading The Unusual Suspect by our friend Stephen Baldwin on the Kindle.  If you know me you know I am not much of a reader but when I do find a good book (i.e. The Shack) I can't put it down.  I am facinated how someone so deeply rooted in Hollywood could come to the conclusion that he is a sinner and that this life here on earth is temporary and that he too needed a savior.  Good stuff.  Read it if you haven't already.  Now if the rest of the Baldwin brothers could catch on....

Last night two of my besties did something very humbling that brings tears to my eyes as I type this.  They both went and got lime green tatoos which is the official ribbon color for lymphoma cancer.  Jeny got a purple start with the ribbon hanging from it along with music notes because music is my passion.  It looks beautiful!  Jenny got a treble clef in green on her wrist and the color is awesome!  Thank you guys, I don't know what else to say!   

Well I gotta get moving here. Gotta make up my bed, eat some grub and jump in the shower.  I'm sitting here on the couch watching Rachael Ray and I'm salavating!  But before I go I leave you all with a verse that has been my verse of the week.... from Romans 5:1-5

¹ Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we^[a] have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ² through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we^[b] boast in the hope of the glory of God. ³ Not only so, but we^[c] also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; ⁴ perseverance, character; and character, hope. ⁵ And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Tootles!  Stay thirsty my friends!  ;)