A little update on life and living.

 I'm still down with the coughing and chest congestion after nearly 2 weeks but I do seem to be coughing less and finally getting some sleep.  This came a week after I had a nearly 2 week battle with a virus.  I don't know whether the 2 cycles of chemo have weakened my immune system so much that I seem to be getting sick every other week but enough is enough.   My goal for 2026 is to improve my health from where it is now and have a better year than I have had since 2020. 

I don't want to blame everything in the Chemo because we all know I haven't been the healthiest person since I got sick in 2020 right around the time Covid 19 hit.  I was hospitalized several times and it would be 18 months later that I finally began to feel better for awhile. 

I wasn't in the best of health when I had the 1st round of Chemo and wound up in the hospital about 10 days after. It was determined it may not be chemo related after 6 days I was diagnosed with an ulcer, after treatment has been healed.

The A-Fib is being treated by my new cardiologist with a medication to lower my heart rate which should make it more pleasant for me to get in my daily walking again once this bug is gone. I don't know why the former cardiologist didn't put me on the meds to lower the heart rate but only gave me blood thinners to prevent a stroke. 

I needed all the tools I could use to make it through the Chemo treatments, unfortunately I stopped them after the 2nd cycle because my body felt as if it was dying inside and I just couldn't bounce back. My quality of life was no existent so for me it was stop the chemo, which may or may not actually prevent the ovarian cancer from coming back. So why poison my body with chemicals that may not work.  Instead I choose to live my life as best as I can and enjoy the time I have ahead of  me. If I could just stop getting sick.  I got the Flu shot a month later than I normally would so that could be a part of it.

I'm still battling the neuropathy in my hands, had to tweak the medication a little because of rapid weight gain (10 pounds in a week). Pain in my joints especially legs and hips which makes walking a challenge.  The dose I am taking now dulls the pain in my hands but doesn't stop the pain.  I am able to hold a needle and thread which brings me great joy.

I'm working on a little goddess project in felt which I will post more about in a future post.  My stitching isn't as fine as I would like but I'm happy to be stitching anything.

I have been tossing about a few words for my word of the year and have chosen ENDURE for 2026. 

To endure something means to continue to exist or hold up against a difficult, unpleasant, or painful situation without yielding or giving up. I am going to make some radical changes to my life in the upcoming weeks going into the new year and I will have to Endure them all if I hope to achieve my goal of improved overall health in 2026.