I have a New Year’s tradition…
I drive down the Las Vegas Strip on January 1st and make sure I’m wearing red underwear.
Okay, actually I don’t own any red underwear, so I wore magenta.
Close enough, yeah??
There’s an urban legend that if you wear red underwear on New Year’s Day, you’ll have lots of luck.
And I’m a sucker for anything lucky, so here goes. 🙂
OH MY GOD, YOU GUYS. IT WORKED!!!
I woke up, checked my bank account and…
No joke…
$600!
Okay, fine. That was the stimulus payment. 😂
Then I got another notification that my financial aid had come in too.
BOOM!
Money in my checking account. 🙊
And the final amazing thing?
I WON 15,000 STARBUCKS STARS!!!
Well…
Actually, I won them last year.
I was playing that Starbucks Starland game where every time you bought something, you got an entry into this virtual world and had to catch stars by waving your phone around like a crazy person.
Every single time I played, I thought:
THIS IS SO STUPID.
Why in the freaking hell am I trying to catch these stars???
I wasn’t even winning anything!
Mostly just raffle entries.
Whenever I got to choose a prize drawing, I always picked either the $500 gift card or the 15,000 Starbucks Stars.
And…
OMG I WON!!!!!!!!!!
I think I actually won back in September, but they said it could take a few months to get the prize.
And finally, my stars showed up…
ON MY LUCKY DAY.
Thank you, almost-red-underwear!
Last year, I spent most of the year feeling really lost and confused and not knowing what to do with myself.
I was still healing.
Still going to tons of doctor’s appointments.
Still getting treatment every 3 weeks.
Still dealing with side effects.
Still waiting for my hair to grow back.
Still…
Too many things to mention. 😬
After radiation, I started having pain in my right arm and shoulder. I think it started during my last five sessions or so. I noticed I could barely lift my right arm, but I dismissed it at first and thought it would eventually go away.
It got so bad that I couldn’t even…
TMI WARNING!!!
…wipe my bunghole. 💩
Like, I literally couldn’t twist to the right.
Just try it later and you’ll know what I’m talking about.
I also couldn’t put my clothes on or take them off properly.
More specifically, I couldn’t put on my bra. My arm just refused to work.
On a side note, I was telling my girlfriends about this and said:
“I can’t put my bra on! I have to bring it around to the front, fasten it, and then twist it back around.”
And most of them were like:
“That’s how I put my bra on.”
🙊
Wait…
HAVE I BEEN PUTTING MY BRA ON WRONG MY WHOLE ENTIRE LIFE???
Anyway…
Since my arm wasn’t working properly, I started physical therapy.
And it’s been helping A LOT.
I had no idea PT was such a thing!
Okay, back to my lost and confused story.
Because…
I HAVE BIG NEWS!!!!
I’m going back to school!
I never actually finished my degree at UCSC.
I was only one class and an exit exam away from graduating, so I got to walk and everything. I eventually took the remaining class at UCLA and then went back two years later to take the exit exam.
I never heard anything afterward, so I finally contacted the biology advising office.
They basically told me that even though I passed the exit exam, because I’d come back two years later, the graduation requirements had changed and I would need to take more classes in order to graduate.
Like…WTH!
I was like:
No.
My bio adviser told me this class would count!
Then they told me I’d have to appeal and do all these other things.
By then I was already working, so eventually I just thought:
Forget it. I don’t need my degree.
But it was always there…
In the back of my mind.
Then one day last year, I woke up and had an epiphany.
I thought:
You know what?
I’m going back to school.
And I want to study social services and eventually help other breast cancer patients navigate things like insurance.
So I applied to the University of North Texas.
And yes…
IT’S AN ACTUAL REAL LIVE SCHOOL! 😂
I’m just taking all of my classes online.
And…
I GOT IN!!!
GO MEAN GREEN!!!! 💚
I started classes in January!
I’ll talk more about school next time because I already have so many funny stories. 🙂
XOXO
