A musing

I was at target today, shopping while Justin was attempting to get an eye exam. (That attempt failed, but that's a story for another day) I solidified a theory that I had been developing over the past couple of weeks. You see, I spend much of my time as the inmate...I mean, occupant of our condo. At first I chalked that up to my desire to convalesce and get better, and although that is part of the truth, it isn't the complete truth. When I go out, say to Target like today, people stare at me. Granted, I don't generally wear a hat or a scarf because its hot, so I definitely look odd. The thing is, it isn't particularly that I find the staring rude or offensive. To be perfectly honest, being bald makes people nicer with many people giving me smiles, nods, or a greeting. The problem with going out and the stares I receive is that it reminds me that I am different. It reminds me that my life is out of whack right now.

The same thing often happens when I talk or hang out with friends who are relatively in the same stage of life. Their lives aren't on hold like mine is, and I don't like to think about it. In fact, on Friday I go to take my last test in the series of tests that I take for my ordination. Imagine, I'll be sitting in a classroom with a bunch of other students, all of whom are bright eyed and bushy tailed with large lattes in hand, and there I will be. Bald, one day after treatment and right after getting a shot which can cause me bone pain, trying to take a test. Seems like I'm at a slight disadvantage, no? But this test is only offered once a year, so I have to take it.

On top of that, tomorrow I go for chemo. It feels like I've been doing this forever, but this is only my fourth treatment. I have to do this 8 more times after this and the thought makes me.....something. Not thrilled, that's for sure. A week or so after my treatment, I start to feel pretty good. I feel normal, healthy, ready to do stuff. Then, 5 days after I start to feel good I have to go and have poison pumped into me. I've only been at this for 2 months, and I have no idea how my mother did this for almost 3 years. Actually I know exactly how she did it. We do what we can to live.

Funny, though. I'm not depressed. I don't really feel too sorry for myself. I'm lucky. I have an illness which will most likely get cured. I have an amazing husband, and a great supportive family. I have friends and a church. I have hope that I am simply on hiatus, not down for the count. And besides, how awesome will I be when I rock that test with cancer? Seriously, I should get bonus points or something. Maybe I can ask my liaison about that.

Recovering

So, its 5 days out of the last chemo, and it definitely knocked me out. I slept so much on Saturday and Sunday. It sucks. I get chemo on a Thursday and it knocks me out pretty well until about Tuesday. Then, by the time I am feeling pretty decent, I have to lay low because of my counts. So, I get about 5 days every two weeks where I am both feeling up to and am allowed to do whatever I want. I can't believe I have to do this nine more times. I waffle between being incredibly grateful that there is a treatment and that I am doing so well with it, but I am resentful that I have over four more months of this. I feel so horrible that I am so ungrateful. The emotional part of dealing with cancer is as difficult at times as dealing with the side effects. Anyways, I'll probably be lying low for a while. I'll let you know if anything fun happens.

Is sleep blogging worse than drunk blogging?

They say that driving tired can be more dangerous than driving drunk, albeit both are are horrible. This leads me to the hypothesis that sleepy blogging is possibly more crazy than drunk blogging. To be fair, since I can't drink right now, this must remain an untested hypothesis; but I think that we can all agree that based on the last blog that sleepy/insomniac blogging is dangerous. Sigh.

I appreciate that my aunt Maria understood how a extrovert can be shy and retiring at times. Much empathy props, tia.

As my husband pointed out to me this afternoon, my last blog rambled a bit. But it was honest; probably more so than I would generally want to be on the internet, so I guess in a way it is good. Forgive me, friends, if I divulged too much.

I think that I did too much today. Especially when you consider that I only got 4-5 hours sleep last night. I got up, fixed Justin breakfast, and took him to work. Then, I came home, showered, answered my face book messages, and went to get my shot. Since after the first chemo my white blood cells didn't respond as well as we wanted, from now on I have to get a shot the day after each treatment. Luckily, I have enough arm fat that it doesn't hurt too bad. Can you believe it? I am actually grateful for arm fat. After I got my shot, I went to Pasadena and picked up a prescription and a bathing suit. Again, more evidence that I definitely did not get enough sleep last night. Poor judgment. I picked up my friend Marcus for lunch, and went to visit my friend Jess at the salon. I got my head buzzed, went shopping at crate and barrel, got ice cream at 21 flavors (my favorite!!!), picked up Marcus again, and brought him to Simi. Then I made dinner and collapsed. Whew. I'm exhausted. So, its fair to say that I possibly did too much. And now I'm very very sleepy......wait.......and.....I'm blogging. Crap. Apparently I didn't learn from my past mistakes. As my dear pappy likes to say, you can buy 'em books and send them to school..... Better stop now. I think I am moving into my cat phase of treatment, when my schedule reverses itself. Instead of sleeping 8 hours and being awake for 16 hours in the day, I sleep for 16 hours and am awake for about 8. Yea! Ok. Seriously. Time to stop now.

This is why insomnia is bad

I just signed up for facebook, and actually invited people I haven't talked to in YEARS to be my friends. I have resisted doing this for YEARS. I have avoided people I used to know for YEARS. I discovered in therapy that I tended to do this because of a stress/anxiety overload. Of course, when you lose two grandparents and a mother in three years, graduate from college, move 1500 miles away from home, go through a traumatic breakup of a church, etc....etc...all over a period of a couple of years, it can apparently cause one to hide out. So, that's what I did. After I left college, and even more so after I moved to California to go to Fuller, I slowly pushed people out of my life and sealed up the door. I didn't want anyone to know where I was or what I was doing. I wanted to disappear. I had my handsome husband inside the walls, and for a while his company alone was OK. Don't get me wrong....I went to class and talked to people and stuff....but I made no effort to make any friends beyond a basic acquaintance. But no man (nor woman) is an island, and eventually I got lonely. Considering that I easily test an ENTP(F) on a Meyers-Briggs test, one can understand why I eventually was forced to seek society. So, with some grief therapy, I eventually got better about hiding away. I still am not the best at returning phone calls nor emails....but I try much harder. It's hard to try and explain to my old friends why I ignored them for so long. Its hard to explain that I just couldn't handle friends. I was expending so much emotional energy with my grief, school, work, and husband, that I just couldn't handle authentic relationship with anyone else. So I didn't. I know it was horrible and not what a friend should do. It really hurts me to know that I hurt some of my friends when I shut them down, and I hope they forgive me for it. I don't make excuses for it, but I was surviving.

And now, of course I have cancer. One thing about cancer...its really hard to go it alone. I actually really don't want to. It makes you want to connect, both with people you love and people you used to be close to. But a burnt bridge is hard to rebuild. Especially from one end alone.

Enough. Enough musing and writing....its about as dangerous as signing up for facebook.

This is why insomnia is bad. This is why joining facebook is bad. This is why contacting people who probably couldn't care less about you is bad bad bad.

But what the heck. Supposedly big risks can result in big payoffs. Geez....being emotionally open on the internet....I'm Presbyterian for goodness sake. I must really be sick.

Is it a sign that we go to OZ?

Justin and I have been talking, and we figure that since we are currently living on the West Coast, it makes sense that the next big trip we take should probably be westward as opposed to eastward. And I just found out that a cousin of mine is about to move to Australia. Plus, our friends Aaron and Fabi are living currently in Melbourne. Is it a sign? Is the land of OZ calling to us? It very well may be. I always have wanted to go there anyways. I went out on a couple of dates with an Australian once. He was nice and very funny. In fact, all the Australians I have ever met have been pretty darn nice, which seems to bode well for a visit. My favorite part of my date with him was when I asked him if Foster's was truly Australian for beer. Apparently, no. According to him, Foster's is Australian for piss. Hmmmm.... He was very adamant about it too. Oh well. Have to think about it, won't I?

It's a go

First of all, I want to wish my Aunt Janet and my cousin Christopher a very Happy Birthday! Chris is a navy medic who is currently in Iraq, so I'm guessing its not his best birthday ever...but luckily he's coming home soon, and I know we are all looking forward to it, especially his mom, dad, sister and girlfriend.

I got chemo today! That's exciting because it means my counts are good. In addition, I had enough energy to play an hour of raquetball with my husband and his buddies.

I have one complaint. I thought one was supposed to lose weight when one was on cancer. Yeah. I gained 3 lbs these past 2 weeks. Of course, it is that time of the month, but come on. Oh well...I guess if I don't have the rest of the side effects, I shouldn't be bitter about not losing weight. Sigh. Guess I'll have to keep working at it the old fashioned way.

Seriously though, I am really focused on including lots of fruits and vegetables into our diet. We are really lucky living here in California because we get the best produce here. And I honestly love cooking for my husband, and he's a good eater.
Life is relatively good....and I am so grateful

I hate cleaning

Some of you know me better than others, so I think before continuing with this blog I ought to disclose some things about myself. I am neither a very good organizer, nor and extremely tidy person. I have many talents, but organization is not one of them. Yet, since I am here in the house so much it would be absolutely absurd if I didn't keep it moderately clean. So, with great effort, I have been working on cleaning and organizing the condo. I spent most of Monday working on the kitchen. Did you know, its way easier if you do dishes every day as opposed to every week? Now, I am working on my closet. Part of the problem is that I wait so long to clean or organize that by the time I get around to it the problem is so massive that I get overwhelmed and I quit. Actually, that's the story of my life. I have a tendency to put off and procrastinate on things until the problem is gigantic. I do this with school, cleaning, mail, answering the phone......the list goes on and on. Part of my growth in the past year has been learning to face things headlong. It really isn't easier to bury ones head in the sand. Luckily, I didn't do this with the lump I found. Thank goodness.

It's interesting what you learn about yourself when you are left to your own devices. It seems that it is much more difficult to manage ones time when they have nothing to do than when they have tons of stuff to do. However, I am starting to get the hang of things. I find that if I let myself sleep as much as I need, I am much more industrious in my waking hours. Hopefully the next time I blog, I'll have a clean, organized living room and closet.

Tomorrow is a new chemo. I am praying that my counts are high enough tomorrow to take treatment, and that I react well to the treatment. I am remaining optimistic. Is there any other way to be? Hope to have good news for you tomorrow!

Did you miss me?

Well, I guess it is unlikely that anyone is still reading my blog given that I haven't written in three weeks. Lots of stuff has happened, so I will try and catch everyone up with the latest details.

I suppose part of the reason I haven't written lately is because I've been in Dallas with my family. But mostly it was because I was kind of depressed. Three weeks ago, when I went into my scheduled treatment, I got held from taking the chemo because my counts were too low. This was unexpected, but not a disaster. Yet, in full disclosure, it brought up fears which I didn't really want to face. When you start treatment, you sort of take on this go and get 'em kind of attitude. You tell everyone, and they echo back to you, that you are going to beat this thing. So facing setbacks is difficult. The odds are that I will beat this thing, but the truth is that no one knows the future. There is no set outcome, and I have to take things one day at a time. Talking about uncertainty tends to make people uncomfortable, but I think that most patients who are facing serious illness need to talk about it. I think that anyone who faces a disease which could be terminal, has to face all the possible outcomes. That doesn't mean that I'm being negative, but it means that I know its a reality.

Upbeat enough for you? I thought so. Good news is that last Thursday my counts were fine and I was able to take treatment. From now on, every Friday after treatment I will go in and take a shot to stimulate my white blood cells. Unfortunate side effects include bone pain, but its controllable.

My spirits are relatively good. I sleep a lot, almost like a cat. I shaved my head, and if I must say so myself, I have a relatively normal shaped head. And since I have yet to lose my eyebrows and eyelashes, I don't look so bad. Growing up as a chubby child, I often heard the complement, "You have such a pretty face." And now that's finally paying off. Yes! So, enjoy the first bald pic, and please keep reading. No matter what happens, I promise I won't stay away so long from now on.