The evil stepmother rides again!

Well, as I predicted a while back, the blog is pretty blah these days, because I don't have any dramatic new medical weirdness to report.  That in itself is wonderful; lord knows I don't need any more medical weirdness; but it doesn't make for very interesting reading.

So, where are we these days?  We're in almost the exact middle of the busiest three weeks of my entire year, and as it would happen, ALSO in the exact middle of my dental marathon.

School's out next week, which means that school time is mainly cleaning up and goofing off.  That's all fine and dandy, but when you've got an 8th grader who's graduating, you've also got about a million activities tied into it all to keep you busy.  Dances, trips, graduation practice, awards assemblies, you name it, all leading up to the actual graduation.

Take all of that, and mix in voting, vet appointments, guests, tub repair dude, science projects, doctor's appointments, visiting grandma, yoga and my dental marathon, add water and stir.  Sounds like fun, huh?

Next year, thank the gods, we have NO one graduating from anything.  They'll be finishing up 7th, 9th and 10th, so we get a break before we then have several years of people graduating again.

Trevor will, of course, be a valedictorian, just like Conner was before him.  Unlike Conner before him though, I really don't feel that Trevor should be.  That's a pretty bold, controversial statement for me to make, but this is *MY* blog, and therefore is entirely my opinions, take 'em or leave 'em.

While Trevor will be graduating with the proper GPA to earn valedictory status, I personally don't think that GPA alone should be the deciding factor.  I think that the valedictorian(s) should be someone who represents the best of the class in all ways--and that is why they are chosen to get up and speak for the entire graduating class at the ceremonies.  That person or persons should have the moral character to represent their class and have earned their GPA the right way.  I guess that's the best I can do of explaining it abstractly...

But to put it another way, I don't think that someone who hit another student in class and was suspended for a day and received 20 demerits but worked off 10 of them working after school and then later got an F at the quarter in reading for not turning in a single book report all quarter because he was too addicted to his computer games to bother doing his homework but then made up all the missed work and was given *full credit* for it really DESERVES that honor above and alongside people who have honestly worked for it.

I just don't, and if you don't agree with me, that's your prerogative, but like I said, it's my blog.

Needless to say, my very strong feelings in that area make this graduation much less of a proud moment than it should be, and the actions of others make it far less of a happy one than it should be.  Frankly, I'd rather skip the whole damned thing, since it's turned into one of those things where I'm reminded quite clearly that I am merely the stepmother, here to do a job, required to prep for and show up at the graduation, but given no part of it to enjoy.  

Specifically, the shirt that I picked out for Trevor to wear, a nice looking cream colored, non-geeky, cream-on-cream embroidered with Hawaiian motifs, cool, flowing shirt, was deemed unacceptable by his grandmother, and she replaced it with a long-sleeved ugly-ass thing that

 he's going to roast in during the 90-degree + ceremony and dance afterwards.  

But, because SHE is his grandmother, he IS to wear the shirt she bought him and the tie sent by his mother.  I am merely the stepmother, and my contributions and opinions and efforts to do something nice for him are entirely worthless.  I can't wait to see what kind of crap they pull when it's Anna's turn.

Then again, they probably won't do anything--It's worth mentioning that beloved Mommy and Grandma felt no need to do anything of the sort for Conner's graduation last year.  Trevor is almost always the only one who gets special treatments.

And it's worth mentioning again that while I VERY rarely vent about family issues, and almost never talk about the kids' disciplinary problems, this IS my blog, and if you don't like what you're reading, don't read it.  I'm kind of disgusted about this stuff right now, in case you can't tell.

And, it's about time to get ready to head out to today's dental torture session.  I'm never quite sure what they're going to be doing to me each day.  I just show up and sit down and hope for

lots of novocaine.  Yesterday was pretty intensely painful and miserable but that's ok.  I'll put up with anything to get this stuff done!!  

Thank god for yoga tomorrow.  That is my only real obligation for the day, thank god.  I'm doing another private lesson with Lisa to get me back into the space and ready to go to regular 

classes starting next week.  I think that will be a huge help mentally and physically.  The weekend is pretty well empty, and I'm thinking of spending it in bed.  We'll see.  Off to try and tackle the world...even if all I can do is try!

Stella, it is MUCH too early to be up!!

5:41 is not an hour seen by normal people.  I don't even think the early birds have left their nests yet.  Oh, but STELLA...........my darling puppy-girl is racing in circles around the dining room table with her "Wiggly Giggly" ball and trying to fit in crawl spaces that she USED to fit in.  You've grown baby dog!

Meanwhile...Mommy fell asleep over the computer in her rocking chair.  Stella decided that would be a fine time to start eating the kitty's scratcher.  Oliver will be devastated and traumatized if I don't find another one, like, immediately.

I've been wondering the last few days, based on Miss Puppy's behavior, if it was time to start worrying about teething......I'm guessing that it is!

Thank GOD puppy training classes start today.  Muhahahahahaha!!!!  Stella has yet to fully learn that Mommy ALWAYS wins in the long run.

Off to mainline some caffeine and do some picking up around here so I stay conscious.                                          

Reality B I T E S

I wasn't really thinking about cancer today.  I was thinking about puppies and yarn and dentist visits, but cancer decided to rear its ugly-ass head anyway.

When I was very first getting started at the cancer center, with the radiation and chemo, I met a very sweet lady named Eloise.  She was the first other patient to approach me and talk to me and give me advice.  She was just so sweet, always happy, outgoing, bubbly, laughing.  We swapped hats, talked a lot, and gave lots of hugs.  I didn't really know her at all, except from the cancer center, in passing, but she always gave me a hug.

Well, I sort of accidentally read the obits for maybe the first time since we've lived up here, since logically enough, we don't really know anyone who might be in there, and found out that Eloise died.

Reality check.  Reality bites.  

Part of me is sad and depressed, but part of me also knows that at least in public, Eloise never was either one of those things.  And that, my friends, is fucking amazing.

Here's to Eloise.  Hugs all around.

HOW long?

Good lord, I've managed to not post anything in a full week?!  How did I manage that??  Geez, where are we......I could have SWORN I posted some things since then, but if I did, where in hell did I post them at?  Hmm.

Ok, since Thursday...let's see if I can manage a quick recap of some highlights.  I got my hair done.  Yay for a great stylist who's making this grow-out process a little easier on me!

Last Saturday, we actually left the children for quite a long time and went down to Dixon, about an hour and a half, and saw my old stomping partners, the guys from Silvertone & their lead singer, that Chris Isaak guy.  

Great show, even if it apparently does take a village to get me in! Huge thanks to Pauline for putting it all together.  Having absolutely zero idea what the venue was going to be like, how crowded it would be, etc, I was very afraid of just buying tickets and showing up and finding out I had to stand for a really long time or something--something, anything that my bod just physically couldn't take-- so I begged for some help.  

As it turned out, what I needed was for the entire staff of the Dixon May Fair to attend a training seminar...we're going from entrance to box office to venue box office and everyone just sends us somewhere else with some variation on "we don't have a guest list," "what do you mean a 'band guest list'?" and utterly baffled looks.  Of course, all the traipsing around trying to do this is, ironically, exactly the kind of physical exertion I had been trying to avoid in the first place, and the whole "I'm on the list" protocol is very foreign to Lloyd.  

He's not used to the waiting, the 

confusion and the rent-a-thug security who peg you as some desperate groupie in the first 5 seconds and therefore treat you like crap from that point after.

Just in the nick of time though, I recognized Sheryl, CI's manager and was able to grab her and bother her to bother our friendly neighborhood tour manager.  Way too much bother! I hated having to bug everyone incessantly, but thanks to everyone's hard work, we got in, we saw a great show, and Lloyd had fun, which was the goal.

Sunday, I recovered from Saturday...

Most of the last week I got to be sick and feel crappy as hell and sleep a lot trying to get well.  I had another one of those weird incidents where I ran hugely high fevers for a couple days, while feeling dizzy, having double or triple vision, if I could focus at all, and generally feeling horrible.  And then, over time, it went away.  

No idea what is going on with that, but it's about the third time it's happened.  I called Andy, Lorrie called me back, and we had long conversations trying to figure it out.  We're working on it.

I've also had some really monsterous bouts of neuropathy to work through, and all the usual suspects in terms of my side effects and daily bs.

My quest to see a neurologist has been a tad derailed, but luckily, I don't need one quite so much right now.  I seem to have gotten past most of the weirdo neuro symptoms and MAY even be able to KNIT for extended periods!  I guess that's a great thing, because the neurologist can't fit me in until the end of August.  August!  As weirdly transient as my symptoms are, there's no way to know if I'd even need a neurologist in August.

Who knows.  I'm tired of having weird things wrong.  So far today I feel pretty crappy, just generally flu-y.  I'm pretty convinced I have a sinus infection at the end of all of this, so I'm just taking it easy, or at least trying to.  Right now I'm having a mental war between laying still and reading magazines and baking hyper-nutri-fied oatmeal cookie bars.  I don't get much food in me, so I figured that might help get my protein and iron levels up, those being the highest priority.  Andy read my labs from March and was quite unhappy with me...... VERY unhappy.  He sent me off for more labs, and I hit a personal milestone-- NINE tubes of blood.  NINE!   

The only other significant report is Oz.  He's actually doing pretty well right now, which kind of confused us, so we took him back to the vet to have his blook levels rechecked, and find out what we should be looking for in terms of making sure he wasn't suffering at all.  

Of course, his kidney enzymes were still very elevated, but nowhere near as badly as before.  His BUN level before was 202; this time it's 59.  Normal is 15-34.  Creatine before was 9.9; now is 7.8, normal is 0.8-2.3.  So, while he is still not going to make it through this in the end, he seems to have decided to stick around a lot longer than I expected.  The sq hydration that we're doing, the tuna and wet cat food, everything else, seems to be doing him some serious good, and he's up and around, using the scratching post, acting pretty damned good.  He lost more weight, so he's like a skeleton with fur, but he's doing ok, which means I'm doing ok.  As long as he's not in any pain or discomfort, like losing control of his bodily functions, then we're good.

I think I've covered everything...and I'm tired of writing, so I quit.  Man, that teaches me to not miss an entire week of updating this thing!!!!!!!  

I hope everyone is enjoying this gorgeous, gorgeous weekend.

Pond = crack

I admit it, I'm addicted.  I am a hopeless pondophile.  That's P-O-N-D, and not P-E-D, people.  I will sit and watch the African chickens (also known as Guinea fowl, for those of you who need translation) scurry about and look for jackals and giraffes.  I never knew jackals were so gorgeous.  I guess I just assumed that they were sort of gnarly looking, like all the other canids in Africa.  We saw a HUGE pack of African wild dogs prowling around the other night, and they are just about the ugliest things I've ever seen.  They look like they were put together out of spare parts, like patchwork.

Nighttime brings the hyaenas, and lately, HUGE herds of elephants.  The kids are gettng used to me shouting "Giraffe!!" or something at random moments.

Thanks Darce.

Anyway, it was pointed out to me that I haven't posted an Oz update lately, and I should.  

Ok, Oz is fine.  

He's still got terminal acute kidney failure, but he's fine.  Weird, yes?  Ever since we moved the food and water up here, started the subcutaneous hydration, and bought him THE nastiest smelling and looking wet food (Lloyd hit it on the nose when he said it looked like there were cut up worms in it) he's been acting a lot like his old self.  He uses the scratcher, eats, drinks, goes downstairs to potty, scarfs kitty treats, snuggles with me AND wants to play games at 1 am.  

We're taking Stella to the vet on Monday to get her last shots, and I'm going to have to ask the vet what to look for that his kidneys are really going on him, and it's "time."  He's acting so much like his old self, minus a few pounds, I'm not sure what will tell me.  He sleeps snuggled up with me when I nap and has even taken to staying on the bed with us for the night.  Used to be, he'd cuddle with Lloyd while we watched the news and as soon as Lloyd would turn on his side and zonk out, Oz was off on mysterious kitty business for the rest of the night.

So, the weird answer is, he's fine, and I have no idea!  We'll see what the vet has to say.

As for my health, I have a sinus headache from HELL!  My hands are still a mess, but thank god I see Andy tomorrow.  I've actually gotten used to not having sensation...it's like learning to type all over again, but at least I'm learning.  It's probably actually not a good thing that I'm used to it though!  The cancer center was supposed to be hooking me up with a neurologist, but I haven't heard from them yet.  I'd guess I'd better bug them.  

The lymphedema has largely resolved, save my my pubic area.  It doesn't seem there's going to be a resolution there, and that it may require professional treatment and lots of it.  The tissue is already in the early stages of fibrosis, which is when the tissue starts getting thick, spongy and hard and may be completely irreversible.  All I know is it's damn uncomfortable and painful.

Lots and lots of neuropathy, in my feet, which also have some deep cracks starting again, and inguinal area of course the hands, on top of everything else that is going on there. AND, what I think might be going on there is some for of evil arthritis, because I'm starting to feel it in my knees, hips and all kinds of other joints, which are getting swelly and painful.  Creeeaaaak, groan...

And did I mention puppy-induced sleep deprivation?  

Time to fix some of *that* problem now, and see what Andy can figure out tomorrow about any of the rest.

It had to be fluff.

My hands are cooperating today, so we get an entry! Yay!

It's funny how two seemingly unrelated things can combine to make a royal pain in my ass.  Case in point....

Thing 1: Since knitting seems to drive my poor hands batty, I got the great idea that I might be able to do some spinning, since the hand movements used entirely different.  A majority of the hard work of spinning is in the feet and ankles, while the hands mainly guide the puffs of fiber through the machine.  Ok.  Nice rainly day, maybe I'll try spinning.

Thing 2: My puppy is obsessed.  I think all puppies get obsessed with something, be it chewing on shoes or eating plants or something.  Mine goes for dust bunnies and Sparky-fluff--the yellow stuff from his toy that lands all over the house.  Outdoor cobweb/dust/plant fiber puffs blowing by?  Yum!  So, has anyone guessed what really sends her over the moon?

Yup, the one activity that I think I can do involves fluffy puffs of fluffy puffy camel or wool fiber fluff that my darling puppy is determined to get her paws on at all costs.

This is really, really not fair.

But in other news, I called the cancer center about this hand bullshit and they're making me an appointment with a neurologist.  Oh, goodie.  A neurologist is an "ologist" I haven't had yet.  With any luck, he will do something for all this pain.  The hand is pissed now, so away I go.  Cross your fingers for me--I can't cross mine anymore!

Since I can't type much...

Since I can't type much...I give you gratuitous cute puppy pictures!

Since I can't type much...I give you gratuitous cute puppy pictures!