The Rosa Chronicles: The Ups, the Downs, and the Wardrobe Changes

I have not written in a while. In fact, it has been more than a month since the last time I wrote! But it has been a very busy month, with many activities, a lot of achievements, changes, and new plans for the upcoming months. A month without writing is a long time, so this is going to be a multi-part blog, with the first installment being posted today. Here's Part I: Hawaii - Wonderful vacation! Andrew, the girls and I went on vacation to Hawaii, and what a great experience it was! We stayed in Oahu, and spent 9 wonderful days there. We had a couple of activities scheduled, like visiting the Polynesian Cultural Center   where we took part of the Ali'i Luau, which included visits to villages of the Islands Nations of Polynesia (Tonga, Tahiti, Marquesas, Hawaii, Fiji, Aotearoa, and Samoa), Hula lessons, a canoe pageant , and of course, a delicious dinner, followed by a fantastic show, Ha - Breath of Life .  My Bear and I at the Ali'i Luau We also went snorkeling, wh...

I knew it when I saw the name on my phone screen. "Rosa? This is Dr. Nance." Before she continued, I said "They found something." "Yes," she said. "The mammogram shows something on your right breast. You need to come in for more tests." Wait, what? Did she just said "right breast"?  "That is weird," I told Dr. Nance, trying to keep my composure, "because I found something on my left breast, but nothing on the right one." A couple of days before my scheduled annual mammogram, I was doing a self-examination and found a lump by my left armpit. I asked Andrew to check it out; since I have been working out and doing weights, I thought perhaps it was a muscle; but there was definitively something in there. I was glad my appointment was scheduled for the following Saturday. "What is next," I asked. Dr. Nance said that I had to go in for more diagnostic tests and that she was going to include both both ...