Christmas Lights

Hi Friends,
Many thanks to Linda (Julie's sister) and her partner Tamra for sending a photo of some *really* fancy lights at the Parliament Buildings. Fantastic.
If you have any lights to share, please send along a photo.
Yesterday I went to my pre-op clinic. Catherine was not allowed to attend and we wondered why. As it turns out, there were a number of older women there who needed translators, so it was a space issue. One woman spoke no English at all and was trying hard to keep up with the simultaneous translation. She had a very trying few hours, and I really felt for her. Then there was Winnie, a senior Chinese woman who had been to this rodeo before - 1 chemo and two surgeries, and back for her third. When I asked her how she was handling another surgery she just smiled and waved her hand as if to say "been here, done this before." Each one of of the patients (6 in total) was having a different procedure (one was a lumpectomy, the rest were mastectomies, some with no lymph involvement, some with lymph dissection, some with a sentinel node biopsy on the other side just to be sure there isn't also cancer there). I was the only one getting the full procedure - a double with lymph dissection next to Tito and sentinel node biopsy next to blanket. My surgery will be about three hours long.
But I'm going to try and put that procedure out of my head for the time being and just enjoy the holidays and the feeling of not being in chemo. Surgery will come when it comes and we will be ready for it.
As part of the clinic, we were visited by physiotherapists (I got more squeegee balls, but no rope), a dietitian, and a social worker. The social worker talked about the importance of support and being able to reach out. She was an older woman who didn't know about the power of blogs, so I'm going to share with her more of my experience in case that might be of help to new patients. She was very impressed with my tremendous support network, and I think this blog can model for her what's possible during treatment and recovery.
Much love,
Kip