And the CT was good!

There are no new nodules.

The nodules that there are have not grown at all since the last scan.

These are very, VERY, VERY good things!

I have a suspicion that I could not have had such a fantastic CT result today without all of you - and your kids, and your pets, custom running shirts, postcards, gifts, photos, email, text messages, bad jokes, good jokes, hand holding, holding me while I cry or while I just need holding, massages, rubbing my back, hats, scarves, thoughts, prayers, Eeyore, Dumbo, flowers, candy... and so many more things I can never think of them all.

So to all of you - my husband, children, father, brother, aunties, uncles, cousins, sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, brothers & sisters (ESPECIALLY sisters!!), by marriage and DECISION; and I was about to say *friends*...but the I realized there probably isn't anyone left who doesn't fit into one of those other categories...

SO, to all of you, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

All the medical details will be on the blog here, as soon as I can get my head around it.

Right now, I am very, very, very tired, and I need to go lay down for a good long time.

It's that day.

It's results day.

I got three calls from the cancer center yesterday - of course, my heart skipped a few beats with each glance at the caller ID screen.

First, it was my social worker/counselor, checking in on the scheduling of my infusion and dermatology workshop times next week. They'd somehow gotten reversed, so we fixed that.

Next, it was Shirley, one of our case manager nurses (kind of like the stage managers for our endless productions) responding to the message I left with the service asking for another hydration session this week. I don't know why I need so much hydration, because I drink just plenty, but I can always tell when I do, so better to get the good stuff via IV.

Next, it was Shirley again, with the scary call. This was the call where she put on her best calm "nursey" voice and asked if I could come in a bit early today; say, 1:30 instead of 2:00? so we could discuss my test results from the CT on Monday.

It's my theory that, if the results were positive, any number of things could have happened: She could have pulled Dr. Mazj over for a real quick "Hey, don't stress, it looks like the chemo is having some effect;" or said "Don't get all worried, nothing negative to report, he just wants to talk to you about where things are going;" or any number of things designed to inspire the patient to cease having massive panic attacks and/or convey that while the tumors may not have magically disapparated, there was plenty of room for optimism in some small form.

Hell, I'm not asking for anything outrageous - I just want to hear that the assault of poison is doing SOMEthing, aka keeping the little fuckers from growing anymore, even if its not shrinking noticeably. Definitive, measurable shrinkage would be reallllllly nice.......

For now, I take what I can get; I just need to get something positive to work with, please! The fact that cycle 1 made me violently ill wasn't any fun BUT it did make me feel like the chemo was doing something. Cycles 2 & 3 made me sick, but not anything like Cycle 1, which made me utterly paranoid that it wasn't working. Stupid, I know, but you have to admit there's some sort of third-grade type logic in there. Easter, May Day, pick a random pseudo-holiday and I'll be thrilled to have a "We got 'em on the run" kind of result as my holiday gift.

Now back to reality.

I don't really *expect" to hear that though.... Honestly. At this stage, I expect to hear something hopeful and encouraging, that gives us reason to keep on keeping on, that the barfing et al WILL be worth it in the end.....because that's what I need to hear right now.

And, of course, what I DO NOT need to hear, even with Auntie here, and my giant support team in place, are those two very stark, plain little words: "I'm sorry." They tend to echo.

Needless to say, I'm a little stressed out today. I need to spend special time picking out my outfit-- you know, something ultra comfy squishy and relaxing and just right for your average panic attack. Or something like that. Cross your fingers. Off we go!

CT Day

Well, I had my CT, with all the fun, games and adventure that entails.

Now we wait for the results.

Chemo time again!

Well, it's almost time again... tomorrow is chemo cycle 3 of 3 for our first salvo.

Tomorrow will be a pretty long day in the infusion lab, because I'm getting chemo, Ferrlecit (iron) infusion, AND a Procrit shot, which is supposed to stimulate red cell growth.

Friday, a Neulasta shot, to stimulate my white cells, and THEN...two weeks to go nuts stewing in my own juices waiting for the CT scan that will decide everything about my immediate future.

I'm going to assume that I'll be back on chemo pretty immediately after the CT scan, but it's just a matter of how much, when, how long...depending on how the little fuckers are responding to the treatment. Meanwhile, I'm a total ball of anxiety waiting to know. I just want to know that it's doing something. That's all.

I saw Andy Monday, and I saw Dr. Mazj yesterday & had my labs done. Aside from being anemic, despite the two Ferrlecit infusions I've had so far, and "malnourished," according to some other test, all my labs came back great. My white cells are rebounding beautifully, plenty high enough for chemo and anything else; my kidney function is perfect - everything in line where it should be. That is fantastic news, really.

Meanwhile, life lately has been the usual mix of doctor's appointments, tests and feeling pretty crappy, with some days of feeling fairly decent mixed in here and there for variety. I'm looking forward to Daddy coming up tonight so he can take me to chemo tomorrow and give Lloyd a day off. Lloyd and both boys have had massive cases of the latest flu virus going around, and feel like hell, so he can really use a day off! Or 5 or 10... Luckily, Auntie is coming back soon, and that helps everything.

Other than listing the latest doctor visits and such, I just haven't had a lot to say lately. I've been pretty depressed and anxious most of the time, and sleep far too much.

I also found out yesterday that I will very soon be bird-less for the first time in most of my adult life. :'-( My poor little Elvis BooBoo bird, who I never expected to live this long (he was really sickly as a baby) is failing. He's still very sweet, and is snuggling more than he had in a long time, but he's spending all his time on the bottom of the cage, fluffed up and looking sick. I know it's time...my poor little love is almost 14, and that's as old as most cockatiels get. I didn't need anything else to be sad about, but there you have it.

So, not a lot to say...but that's about everything that's going on around here.

I do want to add another big thanks to all my friends & family out there. I have the most fabulous support group there could ever be, and I get encouragement and strength from all of you every day, whether you're visiting, sending me notes, postcards, hats, scarves, or giant boxes of ginger candies. ;-)

I know I'm not keeping up with blogging enough, but it's been hard for me lately. I am going to try to do better - don't I always say that? ;-) But it's the least I can do for that you all do for me. I just want you to know, even if I don't always write back, I do really, really appreciate your effort in writing to me.

Thank you all for being with me. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I absolutely could not be doing this, going through this deeper, harder therapy without you.

...And I almost forgot to title this post!

I almost forgot to post the picture of me wearing the AMAZING "Russian Princess" hat that Scout & Megan sent me during last year's chemo sessions. I never had an occasion to wear it then, but I finally did this year, when we took Josh & Cheryl to the Sierra Nevada brewery for lunch.

Anyway, just a quick entry to say that the dermatology seminar yesterday got cancelled, sadly, because the doctor was sick, so I'm rescheduled till the 31st.

Dr. Mazj stopped by to visit me during my Ferrlecit (iron supplement) infusion yesterday, and told me that the bumpies on my head are folliculitis, a chemo side effect. Of course they are. Of course.

I've been zonked out today, spending the day in bed, because every post-infusion day is pretty much a lost cause. I am so tired and so physically drained and out of it, all I can do is lay here, but at least I got some writing caught up on. A few more days of freedom to rest, then next week we see Andy, get labs done, Dr. Mazj, chemo.......but Daddy is coming to take me to chemo, and Dawn is coming after that, so I'm looking forward to the visits. :-)

Here's to a few uneventful quiet days ahead...

Shake, rattle and roll!

----I should mention that these blog posts often get started one day and finished several days later, thus making the timelines a bit muddy for the reader. I apologize for that...but hopefully it will still all make sense!----

.................................................................................
Awright, whoever's in charge needs to get their shit in gear. 7.3 or something in Japan, followed by 8.8 in Chile, not to even mention all the "bigger than 90% of normal earthquakes" aftershocks, tsunami warnings.........this is not business as usual--well, unless there's some sort of celestial bowling going on, BUT....

Regardless, I don't think duck-and-cover, as taught in elementary school, is going to work in these cases.

Very nerve-wracking! Sheesh!

Now, where were we?

Ah yes....Day 22 was running errands and getting ready for surgery day. We had it all in line to get the chores and miscellany done on Tues so that we could get up and out for surgery in the morning. Lloyd would take me to surgery, stay till I went in, and then head home to deal with dogs & kids. Dad & Cheryl would drive up to the hospital in order to bring me home from surgery.

But, as usual, life threw us a curve Tuesday night, in the form of a rather large & nasty kidney stone. Not my kidney, Lloyd's kidney!! This is a man who never asks for help, never takes advil unless he's got a near migraine - and then, he takes ONE advil. Anna came running to get me, and he swallowed the rather large, to say the least, dose of painkillers that I handed him without question. That's how I knew he was in serious trouble!

Change of plans time!!!

Unfortunately, as I've learned, the only thing you can do about those things is WAIT, and endure pain that's been described to me as far, far worse than childbirth. Luckily, Lloyd has a wife with a wee bit of medication to make the waiting a bit easier. Even luckier, I had Dad and Auntie coming and we were able to change plans a bit, so that they'd get up here early and Cheryl could go up the mtn with me for surgery and Dad could stay with Lloyd in case something changed and he needed to get to a hospital. I was NOT leaving him alone...

When Dad and Cheryl arrived in the morning, they brought me a big surprise. A 6ft tall surprise! Joshie!!!!! Right on! I haven't seen him since my wedding, but Josh and I grew up like siblings. Having him up here was a fantastic surprise, and made me feel even more confident.

Suddenly, there were competent adults everywhere!!! Whew!! Sometimes, you just need the cavalry to show up at the right time.

Dad stayed here as planned, Josh drove me up the mountain and Cheryl held my hand a lot, both literally and figuratively.

By the time I was home from surgery, the kidney stones seemed to have made their way to the bladder and settled down, meaning that Lloyd's major pain was over. (He actually passed the stone about a week later and it was HUGE by my standards...it was about the size of a large lentil. Bigger than a split pea, smaller than a fresh pea. Ow.)

Day 24, and we're back in the chemo lab. The infusion went very easily, thanks to my newly

installed port! Nothing much to report that night, except for some extreme-exhaustion-driven nodding off at odd moments and my favorite new bit of strangeness, which I call "speaking in tongues."

Explanation - I've always talked in my sleep. I've even held conversations in my sleep, as a number of relatives will attest. Lately, times when I've been exhausted beyond rational explanation, heavily medicated, and pumped full of chemo-poison on top of that, I seem to start talking from within a dream. I can sort of tell that I'm doing it sometimes, and it's strange because it's almost like seeing myself from the outside. I seem fully awake, and talk in a perfectly normal manner, 'cept for the teeny problem that what I'm saying is complete gibberish. Speaking in tongues. ;-P

The strangest thing is, even after getting my Neulasta shot on Friday, which gave me a pretty good wallop last time, overall I didn't have any miserable "tunnel" days this time. None! Sure, I felt icky, I was really tired all the time and had some barfing here and there, but nothing at all like last time was.

Hmm, I hope they remembered to add the chemo meds to the IV bag!! ;-)

Joshie had to go home on Sunday night, but Cheryl stayed until Wednesday, which was fantastic. I'm learning that getting her up here, all to myself, is the greatest! ;-) Muhahahahahaha!

But I cried when she left...even though I know she'll be back in a month.

She is the single greatest thing that happens to this household during all this cancer bullshit - she takes care of me, lets Lloyd take time off, days off if he wants, gives the kids lots of fussing over, cooks dinner that they all love, you name it.

I learned somewhere around the time she was leaving that I now need ANOTHER type of infusion, something called Ferrlecit, which is an iron supplement of some sort or another. Once per week, for 8 weeks. I guess we need to get my red cells moving too. Whatever!! They tell me when to show up, I sit down and they can infuse whatever they want.

Believe it or not, that's pretty much it. The last days of February faded away with very little fanfare. I have some sickness each day - I can count on at least one good puke, a big headache, and a lot of muscle & body aches, no matter what, with two or three additional little side effects thrown in there for fun...........but it's all survivable. I can deal.

Tomorrow, I'll be seeing the dermatologist who volunteers some time at the cancer center, at the Brighter Days program he runs, where we learn more about taking care of our fragile cancer-skin, he gives us amazing free samples, and talks to each of us in turn personally. I can't wait to have him look at this bizarre breakout I'm having on my scalp. It only figures that I shave my head and it looks like I'm a mutant with all these bumps on my scalp. Ah well.

Dermo seminar, then my iron infusion, and then I'm done for the week. Next week is chemo cycle 3, along with allllll kinds of other appointments. Should be a blast. ;-)

A wee bit behind...

Port surgery, chemo, and visitors of the coolest kind have me more than a little behind. S'ok, I'll get it done as soon as I can!

I'm in the nasty days of chemo recovery, and I feel like hell, but Auntie is here, so poor Lloyd isn't stuck with me all by himself.

More soon, but till then, my friend Darcy kicks ass!

I feel like a chihuahua...

...Mostly hairless, rather helpless, so therefore I just get pissy and bad-tempered & snap at people a lot.

Day 17- After my consult with the port surgeon, my next doctor-y thing was to head out to see Andy. That's always a pretty drive out the back roads, and worth the wait involved, to talk to him and Lorrie. It's a doctor visit and a shrink session all at once! Well, at least I come out feeling like it was, because talking to him makes me calmer and gives me a lot to think about.

Day 18- Friday, and yoga time! Ahhhh...... I sat down with Lisa, and explained to her everything that was going on with me physically, so that she could design a practice for that afternoon that fit my immediate needs. We did entirely restorative poses, combined with her working my head, neck and shoulders in some cranio-sacral massage sort of ways, and damned if she didn't get rid of almost all the achies in my neck! The only bad part was that the entire session was over in less than 2 minutes! Ok, it only felt that way, but STILL. I think I was just so deep under (meditating), which I usually am when I'm at her studio, that it was like falling asleep, while the time just whizzed by.

Regardless, Lisa is a HUGE help in managing this beast of a disease - as much as my doctors in many, many respects. I saw her for some private sessions before my very first surgery, to help with pain management and such, and the effects she's had on me are profound. Her role in my cancer fight can't be overstated. I know not everyone fully understands what kinds of things yoga can do; and I know not everyone really "believes" in it, which is fine, but I've learned so much that I am fully confident in saying that it is a VERY powerful TOOL. If I could see her twice a week, I would, and I would probably be a far, far healthier, happier person for it.

As it is, I'm going to be able to do an other 90 minute session like this one before my 3rd & final chemo cycle of this set (before we CT and see what these boogers are doing, and start ANOTHER set of chemo cycles) thanks to a far-too-generous Christmas gift from my father in law (Thanks Pop!!! I love you!). RGD & EJD, thank you again for this one. You guys rock, and I love YOU very much too.

Day 19-20 Sleepover! I got to have a friend come over to play! Dawn came up from the Bay Area Saturday afternoon for a fantastic visit. We didn't do anything special, just had pizza and watched a movie and talked (which was the important part); then got up and went out to brunch and talked some more. Actually, the really important part is that she was here, because my hair was falling out in handfuls, and I REALLY needed one of my friends here for that. Talk about lucky timing!

It is, of course, nothing against my darling husband, but I just needed a friend of the female kind. Poor Lloyd is about as frazzled with my hair loss as I am, but Dawn was able to tell me truthfully when she thought it was time to go for it and shave it all off. Sitting in a restaurant trying to discreetly collect the piles of long hairs gathering on my scarf and shirt and lap was both horrifying and disgusting at the same time!

The best part was just having a friend up to talk to. I swear, I want to have a slumber party, as if I'm 10 again. Maybe I can rent a hotel suite in the Bay Area and shove all the furniture around... Anyway, thank you Dawn, just for being here, and being here to *tell me* what I needed to know. It's fantastic having another cancer survivor to talk to, who I know won't pull any punches, and will tell me the truth.

That said, I better not hear about one more of you getting cancer. NO.

So day 20 ended with my dh and I in the bathroom, hacking with scissors, and then shaving with clippers until I was bald but for my bangs. I thought I'd leave those for a while, to hang out of the hats - but as soon as I got in the shower, they started coming out by the handful, so off then went too.

At least showering is a really fast job now! No shampoo OR conditioner!!

Whether or not bald is beautiful in your book is totally subjective...my head is totally lumpy and scaly from my stupid psoriasis patches...but bald is very definitely COLD!!! It will be nicer once all the stubble falls out & it's smooth, but at least stubble doesn't fall out in giant fluffy waves on the front of your sweater!

Today is day 21. Somehow, it seems like I've been living with this; this label of being "terminal" for 20 days now. It still seems surreal and incomprehensible.

Today, I go in for labs, and pray with all I've got that I have enough happy little neutrophils, the particular white blood cells I need, that they're able to go ahead and chemo me into submission again this week. The biggest fear I have right now is that I WON'T have enough, but I should. Should. Should. Better!!

After I give them blood, we'll go off and entertain ourselves in Paradise for a while and then go see Dr. Mazj so he can tell me what my white count and stats are.

Tomorrow is my "day off" this week, so I can figure out what I need to finish up and get ready before chemo; Weds is my port installation surgery (Hey, Pauline says after I get the port, I'll set off metal detectors! How cool is that?!); Thursday is chemo & Friday is Neulasta. I should be able to do some updates during that time, but I fully expect Sat-Mon or Tues will be full-on misery, deep in the chemo tunnel, where it kills my eyes to even look for the light at the end.

As always, stay tuned, and--

A special note to some of my newer readers: Thanks guys. Having you out there, far-flung, busy adults, taking the time to read the ramblings of someone you knew once upon a time makes me feel good, like I'm really doing something worthwhile. There is a special place in my heart for all of you. For all my readers and friends, really. I never thought I'd be a blogger, because I never had anything interesting to say, or that anyone else would want to read. As I've said, be careful what you ask for.

Much, much post-Valentine's love to you all,

Steph

Playing catch-up

One of my "cancer resolutions" is to be realistic about what I can and can not get done. If I'm realistic, I'm never going to finish writing a nice thoughtful catch-up entry, detailing the horrible days after chemo and all that.

If I wait until I try to do that, it'll be chemo day again, and my "daily diary" concept will be shot all to hell.

So, lets try this: I'll give a general overview of the days from then to now, and then we'll move on and pretend the last couple weeks weren't accidentally skipped. Deal?

Deal...Day 6 was Sunday, and wasn't any fun at all. It was Grammy night, and I missed the show, damn it. I know that I had a headache the night before and I have absolutely no recollection of the early part of the day; and I mean none at all. I just know I spent the evening curled in bed with cold-packs on my head and eyes, leaping up at random intervals to barf. Day 7: ibid

Day 8: Lots of headache still, and I was still bedridden and very thoroughly miserable, but I didn't barf! Yay! I even ate eventually.

Day 9: Didn't feel good, had a severe headache, but didn't feel like total death.

Day 10: Stiiiiilllll got a headache........

Days 11-14 were pretty unremarkable. I've not had a day where I feel "good," per se, but at this point, "unremarkable" isn't a bad thing.

Day 15: Phone appointment with the hospital nutritionist who is trying to help me find food that will a) help me stay alive, b) keep me nourished during chemo and c) hopefully not get barfed right back up.

Now we're current! Yay! Whew!

Day 16, today, was my consultation appointment with the surgeon who's going to put in my port next week. It was a pretty straightforward appointment. He did the usual vital taking, stethoscope-wielding exam, which I will never understand. I guess they need to see kind of what your overall health and fitness is like before they slice you open.

What he'll be installing is one of these little boogers. This little joy of the medical device world allows me to get chemo'd without the nurses having to try and find a vein to run an IV each time. Yes, it's painful, and it's not any fun, and by the end of my chemo period last time, my veins were PISSED.

So, this time, we get a tiny incision to slip this neato little medical device inside my chest where it will get anchored and allow the chemo infusion to be delivered more or less directly, through a big fat central vein.

Less pain and faster infusion time - hell yes! So, a minor surgery, and off we go.

The best news of all is that my dear Auntie is coming to spoil me rotten for a week and help me get through those really, really rough days after chemo, and that in itself makes me feel better.

Tomorrow, I'm off to see Andy, and then Friday, FRIDAY! I've got an appointment with my yoga teacher, Lisa, for an hour and a half of heaven.

Yay, I caught up!

That means I get to go to sleep now. More gory doctor and cancer details tomorrow...

This is what a port actually looks like. The whole thing resides under our skin and the long "string" looking part is the catheter threaded down into the vein. Looks like fun, huh?

A daily diary

INCREDIBLY excitable and happy addendum at bottom, please read!

So, I've been thinking. Well, I've been thinking a LOT, which is not surprising. Way back when I started this blog, I really had no idea what the future would hold. At the time, I never imagined THIS, but I did really plan on trying to make it a daily recording of what it was *really* like for me to go through my fight with cancer, warts and all.

It never quite evolved as far as I thought it would, but I think it's time to try and change that. There is probably someone, somewhere out there who is looking down the barrel of a cancer diagnosis, procrastinating on their yearly Pap tests, or wondering if they should get their daughter a Gardasil vaccination.

This is not to say that it will be elegant or eloquent; at times it may be little more than a day number and a few words. At times it is going to be very ugly, very unpleasant or very graphically T-M-I.

But it will be honest.

There is only one thing I need to ask you all to do. I need everyone who reads this regularly, or even ONCE, to sign up to "follow" the blog. I believe you can follow it anonymously; alternately, sign up as "Lurker12" or something. The point of having followers is basically find-ability. The more followers, as I understand it, the higher it would show up in Blogger searches for blogs about being 38 and fighting cancer.

So, please, sign up for me?

To catch things up to where we are now, I'm going to work on a very brief description of each day up till now, starting with Day 1, January 26, which is the day my heart stopped for a few minutes.

Day 1: Diagnosis day. This is the day everything changed, forever.

Day 2: The scramble...to get ready to enter chemo again, at a dramatically different level than before, to get all those chickens back in a row, and to try and start telling everyone who matters in my life what this horrible thing is that has just happened.

Day 3: My first combo-chemo infusion; a nice long day at the lab, with Aimee providing some nice company. Just like old times! ;-)

Day 4: Dad & Chris up to visit; they drove me up the mountain for my Neulasta shot and some IV hydration, and then home for some tacos and lots of conversation deep in the wee morning hours.

Day 5: Took Dad & Chris out searching the backroads for some of our cool local birdies, and were rewarded with a Bald Eagle, a couple groups of Sandhill Cranes, lots of hawks and lots of assorted ducks, geese & swans. Back down south a bit for a loop around the Sutter Buttes, our little local mtn range and a trip to In'n'Out in Yuba City and then back home. Nap for me and a drive back home for Dad & Chris. I don't think I did much that evening, at least not that I recall.

Ok, that takes us through the first Saturday. Day 6 is when life got ugly, so I'll pick up the catching up post there.

Later.

I need a nap.

---------------

But first! An addendum...or two, to be precise.

1. Some of those very dear people I'm surrounded with have been coming forward with gifts and cash to help me do and enjoy whatever I might want. How wonderful is that?

I just couldn't think of something!!

Now I have, and it's brilliant!!! la-di-da-di-da-da-da

My yoga teacher, Lisa, is a certified massage therapist, in addition to her yoga & wellness credentials AND being an American Medical Association-accredited registered nurse. Put all that together, and she can work with me on both restorative and "fitness" yoga; "repair work" yoga, as I call it; meditation for help in pain control and getting through the worst days, AND give me nummy, nummy massages!

Yay!!

I wonder if she'd come live with me.....

I'm still not sure what the cost on this combo-service will be, but I do know that I'll be able to afford one session with her for each cycle remaining in this first set of chemo treatments.

Can you tell that I'm a little excited about this? And, I have my "extra-Auntie" (who shall remain anonymous) to thank for putting the idea in my head. Huge thanks to RGD & EJD all over again!!! I love you very, very much. (And I remember your full *real* names, too, lol)

2. I would like to ask for some comments on this post please - and in those comments, the names of some of your favorite kids' books. Ones you loved or still do, your kids love now, you name it. The more the merrier. If you have comments about the books, why you love it, great, if not, take a really quick sec, throw me a name of two, and off.

I'd really appreciate it!!

M a s s a g e s . . . . . .

The long-overdue, hardest post ever

This post is far late in coming, but I think you'll all forgive me. It's also going to be fairly short, and to the point, but I think you'll all forgive me that too.

On January 26, I was told that I had been diagnosed with Stage 4 metastatic cervical cancer, which had appeared in the form of small nodules in my lungs. The nodules were observed on my routine quarterly CT scan and biopsied viva needle aspiration of my lungs.

It is more than likely that the cancer cells traveled through the lymphatic system before my cancer surgery in September of 2008, when my pelvic lymph nodes were removed. The tiny nodules in my lungs appeared as early as March of 2009 on CT scans, but were so tiny and scattered in my lungs that it was physically impossible to get a biopsy sample using any procedure available. I was sent for a complete pulmonary function test and many x-rays. In the end, the pulmonologist who read the results said that if they were his lungs, he would not worry about these little specks for even a minute.

So I didn't.

I should have.

I skipped one routine CT cycle because I had to have the surgery in November to repair the vaginal prolapse problem I was having - at the time, the nodules still hadn't multiplied, migrated or grown in any way, so postponing the scan was no biggie at all.

My next CT was the one on January 11, where the nodules were observed to have multiplied and grown. Even so, they were still so small, and so diffused through the lungs that it was very hard for the radiologist to get a biopsy sample. The biopsy was done January 19 and I was told of the results on January 26.

If I chose not to commence treatment of this metastasis, I would have a clinical survival prognosis of 1 year to live. With aggressive treatment, I am likely to have yearS. There is no way to know how many. I began chemo on January 28.

The treatment protocol for this will be 3 cycles of chemotherapy, with each cycle taking 21 days, using a combination of Taxol and Carboplatin; with a Neulasta chaser to help my white blood cells rebound. After each set of 3 cycles, a CT scan will be done to determine how the cancer is reacting to the treatment.

And then we do it again.

And maybe again, and again, and again, and again, and again...........

Lather, rinse, repeat, 'cept this time will quite notably sans hair.

Beyond that, I don't know much of anything.

The one thing we have going in our favor in this is these nodules seem to be very slow-growing, so we may be able to eradicate the fuckers. We may get to a point when there is only one more stubborn one, and they can go in and remove it surgically. Everything is up in the air.

One day at a time, as they say.

All I know is that I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that I see the date January 26 come around a LOT more times. It's kind of a 2nd birthday for me, of I suspect it's a lot like people who have kicked a drug or alcohol addiction feel about the day they got sober. A celebration of another year still kickin'.

So, the chemo process is started, and it's ugly. These higher-dose/double-dose chemo doses pack one hell of a wallop, and the Neulasta shot, for the white blood cells, has some gnarly side effects TOO, but now that I've suffered through the first round, I know what I can prepare for. Knowledge is power, right?

I know that all of this isn't really happy news....to any of us...... But you can not suddenly start walking on eggshells around me, trying to ignore the 9998lb lime-green elephant in the room. It's here, it's not going anywhere, and it's going to get poked and prodded along the line.

I am still me. I still have a pretty rude, crude, sick, black, morbid sense of humor. I will probably make lots of jokes about dying. I'm allowed. So are you.

You are also allowed to ask me as many and whatever questions you might have. You'll probably have some.

I don't know how many days I have left, but I know how I refuse to waste them - mentally, physically or emotionally.

I admit that I am horrible about talking on the phone, because I just don't *like* it all that much anymore, but I loooooove text messaging (I *might* still be 8 years old somewhere in there), I love talking via email, Facebook & Twitter, and even that good old-fashioned snail mail of cards and letters.

I love hearing what's up in other people's lives more than you can imagine!

I will promise to try my very best to give at least a tiny answer to each! (all communiques accompanied by flowers & See's Soft Centers (nut-fee) candy will of course be given priority......) ;-P

In fact, I'm going to make an effort in between barfing and sleeping to try and have a one-to-one conversation with every one of my Facebook friends (even if it's over by email) and the 2 or 3 other friends or family members I have who aren't on Facebook.

There you have it. You, my friends, are also my family, my personal support network, my rocks, shoulders and ears when I need them, and a hugely important part of my life. Thank you, thank you, thank you for being around.

Change of surgical venue!

Just one quick change, but a very good one, in my opinion - Instead of going to Enloe hospital in Chico, where I had my hysterectomy almost 2 years ago, I will be having this gnarly biopsy at Feather River Hospital up in Paradise, where my Cancer Center is. This is really what I wanted all along, *because* my Cancer Center is there, with all the doctors and nurses who were there through chemo and radiation with me. It's my comfort zone.

Instead of arriving at 8 for a 10:00 procedure on Tuesday morning, I will be arriving at about 6 for an 8:00 procedure. Early morning, but it gets me home earlier, back to my own bed.

So, I'm very pleased with this change, I will have Dr. Mazj within screaming distance, and I'll feel much more comfortable with the entire thing. Every tiny bit helps.

Thanks, everyone, for your support.

My friend JC summed it up quite nicely, I think: "Be annoyed at yet another necessary medical procedure, this time to confirm you're OK." Amen to that!!

Major news

First of all: DON'T PANIC! But..

Some time ago, I think shortly after chemo, one of my CT scans found some tiny, unidentified nodules in my lungs. At the time, I saw a pulmonologist, Dr. Batin, and after chest x-rays and a pulmonary function test, he decided I was fine. They were so tiny that they couldn't be biopsied, and Dr. Batin told me that if it were HIS lungs, he wouldn't waste a minute worrying about it. So I didn't.

I just had a CT on Monday, and my Medical Oncologist (chemo) Dr. Mazj called me this morning to tell me that unfortunately the nodules have multiplied and grown.

There are enough of them, and they are large enough now to merit a biopsy in everyone's opinion.

The odds of them being cancer are small. That's the important thing

to remember. Small...but it's there. It's far more likely (according to Dr. Mazj) that they will be some sort of inflammatory disease or something else that I can't remember.

Tuesday morning, the 19th, I'll be going to Enloe hospital here in Chico at 8:15 for a CT-guided lung biopsy.

Apparently I will NOT be under general, I just found out, but will be awake, with sedation and local anesthetic, having a needle through my chest wall guided into the lung by CT and a needle aspiration biopsy to remove enough cells to put under a microscope.

The procedure will start at 10 and take maybe a half hour. I'll then spend about 1-2 hours in recovery and having a chest x-ray to make sure all is well before they let me leave. I'm then to be in bed-rest-recovery mode for a couple of days.

It's all rather sudden and I'm not even sure what I need to do to prepare!

And yes, I'm scared. :o(

But, I will get through it, just like I always do, and the support I get from all of you is a big part of that.

Thank you, and I love you all. Stay tuned for the updates!

Long time, no blog!!

Wow, it has been a long time since I wrote anything here. The Christmas season was kind of a strange one around here this year. Many random things to report, maybe in some sort of order. Maybe not.

For one, my grandmother passed away early in the morning on Christmas Eve. We

expected it to happen, but that didn't make it any easier. I wasn't as close to her as I would have liked, mainly because of the distance between us, so the loss was not as big for me as it was for my father and brother, but we went ahead with our Christmas plans all the same. Dad & Chris drove up that afternoon, and we all had a nice, low-key time.

I think it was the best thing for all of us. We had a nice big dinner on Christmas Eve that made us lots of leftovers to munch on, did the traditional present-fest in the morning followed by a giant omelet in the morning, and then we each just crashed into our own piece of the couch.

Daddy was able to curl up in the recliner and nurse his flu (as if he did

n't have enough to deal with!) and nap when he wanted, Chris took a bike out and explored the lovely city of Gridley, we watched bad tv and grazed on cookies and cake and generally vegged out together. I really, really wanted Dad here with me during that time, and I'm really glad he was.

The funeral was held on New Year's Eve, but of course I wasn't able to go. By that time, not only did I have all of my usual health shit, but I'd caught Dad's flu and taken it to the next level, and I was SICK. In bed for 6 days kind of sick. It was horrible.

I'm feeling so much better now that I'm damn near giddy!

Let's see, what else...Somewhere in there, I found out I was going to be a great-grandmother again. Another girl, of course. I think that's all that the younger generations of the Irwin family produce! We'll be up to 5 granddaughters and 3 great-granddaughters and one lonely grandson.

Stella came home from puppy boot camp. She did incredibly well there, but transferring that learning to behaving at home is turning into quite a task. On the lawn at the kennel, she does everything she's supposed to, on and off leash. Home? HA! She's testing us...But I think we'll get there as soon as she realizes who is an authority figure. That would be all of us, and she's pretty fuzzy on that so far.

Today, I saw Dr. Davis for my 2nd follow up and was told I'm healing perfectly. WOW! Isn't that one a bit different in my life? I'm scheduled for a CT

on Monday and have an appointment with Dr. Mazj coming up as well as my monthly visit with Andy, so by the end of January we should have a pretty good picture of how my overall health and post op are going.

The only thing I got dinged on was carrying heavy loads. I'm not supposed to lift anything over 10 lbs for another month still-- the little cooler bag of Gatorade I carry upstairs every night is 13lbs. Oops. Lloyd's stuck lugging all my stuff around for a while longer. After the next month, I'm restricted to 30 lbs.

So...........I think that's about it. I have to confess that I'm sitting here looking at my Christmas present (the main reason that I haven't been blogging or been on Facebook) and it's calling me away from the computer again. ;-)

My darling husband got me an Amazon Kindle, and it is now superglued to my hands most of the day. I love this thing! I've finished 3 books just since Christmas, and that's with not reading anywhere near enough to keep me satisfied. It's comfortable to hold, easy to read, and so much like a book that I find myself flicking at the top right corner, as if trying to turn a page. This has got to be one of the best presents ever. Ever!

Sooooo....I'm gonna go read now. =)

Almost ho ho ho time!

Well folks, it's almost here, whether we want it or not!!

Some years, I'm panicked about Christmas because I haven't finished my shopping, don't know what to get someone, didn't do as much baking - something like that.

Some years, I feel like I haven't done anything right, haven't decorated everything that doesn't move (and a couple that DO move) and I stress out feeling like everyone is going to be upset at me for not doing it right.

This year, I'm not stressed over A N Y T H I N G, which is friggin' amazing!

I don't know how it happened..... I somehow just decided that close enough was good enough on my decorating, not every single thing has to be out every single year. No one will die if I don't make 17 varieties of cookies & candies. The people who get gift cards from us instead of physical presents will not be horribly insulted. I don't need to spend days going through magazines and cookbooks trying to plan the Christmas dinner menu. Everything will be fine, and everyone will have a happy, merry Christmas all the same.

This is a really startling thing, coming from me!

I'm actually trying to follow my doctor's advice to take it easy - I'm only six weeks out of surgery and still healing from that, not to mention that I'm still recovering from chemo & radiation AND having massive fibro flares and near-migraine level headaches and I'm TIRED. Massive exhaustion kind of tired, the kind where I was way too close to dozing off several times driving home from the doctor yesterday. My new habit of falling asleep instantly at random times is more than a bit scary. I zonked out yesterday sitting on a stool at the kitchen counter rolling cookie dough into balls.

I'm getting a reasonable amount of sleep at night, but still so tired during the day that I slept for almost 5 hours when I took a nap. I figured that the bit where I almost fell off the stool was a hint that I needed a nap.

SO, I'm trying to take things really slow, and get my biorhythms back where they belong so I can function normally again. Lots of rest and minimal stress has been officially prescribed, and I am (for once, ha ha) going to try and take them seriously & hope that it helps my never-ending all-over body pain at least a little bit.

At this point, I'll take whatever I can get!! I'm really, really miserable right now, and not enjoying it one bit. Sadly, the gift wrapping, cookie baking, dinner cooking, etc. has to be done right about now so that we're ready for the big day on Friday, A N D our darling Stella girl comes home on Saturday, which means dragging all her things back out and finding places to hide all of the no-nos.

And on Sunday... I will rest, LOL.

Happy Hanukkah!

Merry Christmas!

Feliz Navidad!

Joyeux Noel!

Happy Kwanza!

Season's Greetings!

and the warmest of Hippo Holidays from me!!!

Thank you - all of you - for being out there, reading this, and giving me so much more support than I could ever have imagined.

Whooo, baby, it's cold outside!

Or, "Watching lame Californians try to figure out how to cope with cold weather;" or

"My children are going to freeze to death on the way to school because they can not read English," or

"Global warming my sweet patootie!!," or

any one of any number of other nice subtitles I could think up!

Yes ladies and gents, it's friggin' cold out there. It is 11:31 am, and it has reached a lovely high of 35 degrees thus far.

I have tried very, very hard to warn my children of the risks of things like going to school with wet hair when it is 20 out. I have typed in clear, large-font English that the boys need to wear BOTH layers of their two-layer winter coats. None of this appears to affect their behavior at all. I'm deeply puzzled by this. Am I missing something, or is it called "teenage boys," and therefore unavoidable?

Anna seems to be doing better, thank goodness, since she has the least body mass to help keep her warm. Lloyd reports that she almost forgot her gloves this morning, but was otherwise well prepared.

Some of our neighbors-- not so much. Apparently, some of the dorks at the mouth of the court (because all of us here at the end of the court are wonderful, aren't we?!) thought it would be a great idea to hose off their icy cars this morning. While their windows didn't all crack, lucky them, all the water they used to wash them off ran into the street, where it instantly froze, making a curb-to-curb ice slick. Brilliant!!

If our little part of the valley would hurry the hell up and get some precipitation, we'd have snow. But nooooo, the one cold snap of the decade or two where it's cold enough, and we don't have any moisture. So sad. Everyone else has snow. Snow would perhaps even convince me to leave the house. We're *that* close to a white Christmas! I've told Lloyd we should get up at about 4 am when everything is covered in heavy frost, turn on all the outside and window Christmas lights, and take pictures.

Ah well...right now, I'm nestled all snug in my bed, not because I really am that lazy, but because for the last 24+ hours, my body seems to have this annoying habit of barfing every so often. I'll be find for a long time, and then out of no where...... GAK! Hrm. I don't know what's up with this, but it's sure making it rough to get any food at all in me. So, even though I woke up at nearly 10 (ah, such a rough life, I know), I'm still nursing my first morning Dr. Pepper, fighting the random waves of nausea, making sure I'm really, really ready to leave the security of having the bathroom so close by before I head downstairs to face the day.

We finally got our Christmas tree on Saturday, after a week of false starts. Costco was offering 7-8 foot Noble firs for the unheard-of price of $41.99, and they were supposed to be in on the first. Then the second. Then maybe 5pm on the second...and so on. So, finally, we went to get ours on the fifth, to find out that A) it's a damn good thing we did, 'cause there weren't enough trees to last the weekend, and B) bringing the whole family for a tree-picking adventure was pretty pointless, because Costco's trade-off for the dirt cheap price on the tree is that you pretty much have zero choice in what your tree will look like. They've got one or two of them unbound for display, but the rest of the trees are wrapped up tight in twine, and about the only choice you get is, uh, this one or that one. It's all a big surprise when you get the tree home!

We did luck out-- it's a beautiful tree, about seven and a half feet, perfectly shaped. I guess I just have to trust the Costco elves to know their stuff. It's all installed in the stand, waiting patiently downstairs for me to start the oh-so-crucial first steps of putting the lights on. After I do the hard part, I can turn over most of the decorating to Head Elf Anna. Then again, we still have to finish decorating the rest of the house too...and cards to address...and gifts to buy...and wrap...and...and...and.........

I guess I should get out of bed now, huh? I still feel rather gak-y but the tree ain't gonna light itself. It's up to 37 outside, which is supposed to be close to the high for the day, so this is about as good as it's gonna get.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!

A day of thankfulness, and learning a big, big lesson

Oh, I'm so far behind in updating this blog! I started writing right after Thanksgiving and am just now ready to post, so forgive me!

I have to say, I had a very nice, pleasant Thanksgiving, despite some very last minute changes in plans. It was warm and comfortable, surrounded by some of the people I love the most, with good food and good conversation. I have an awful lot to be thankful for.

And, over the last couple of days, I've learned a HUGE lesson about myself and life in general. I'm too nice. And it ends now!

Obviously, I need to explain.

The original plans for Thanksgiving around here were this: The three kids would get dropped off at Grandma's house (this would be their mother's mother) for two days of Thanksgiving fun, and Lloyd and I would enjoy our quiet time by doing absolutely nothing, like we've done the past couple of years, or, we might go to one of the many Indian casinos to be found around here and check out the buffet, play a few nickel slots and generally goof off.

Things changed at the absolute last-est last minute, approximately 10 or 12 seconds before

Lloyd and the kids were supposed to be getting in the car and leaving, when my baby girl was feeling so horrible, physically AND mentally, that I was not even remotely capable of making her get in the car and go. No way, no how. She needed to stay home, with me, and so she did. Lloyd accepted this pretty well, and I figured her Grandma would understand, given the extraordinary circumstances.

I called Grandma after Lloyd left, explained, and she took it pretty well, despite being disappointed.

I hadn't planned on cooking, but I had the

materials, luckily, so I pulled it together at the last minute. I couldn't have one of the kids home and not cook Thanksgiving dinner. The three of us had a very nice little dinner on our own. It's nice for Anna to have the two of us to herself once in a great while too. Quiet, pleasant and relaxing.

Now, here's the problem. Later, after I'd been off the phone with Grandma for a while, I realized that something that she said had really, really hurt my feelings. Then I found out that she told Lloyd something else that really hurt my feelings. What isn't important-- all that matters is that I realized that someone I thought of as a friend maybe didn't think of me as anything at all. Hmm.

Still--after 5 years of trying. I also found out that the ex, otherwise known at Mommy The Great and Wonderful, while thinking of me when I had surgery and sending flowers, was still upset with me. She kept thanking me for "taking such good care of her kids," as if I'm a nanny or something--when I considered them "our" kids these days, after I've been raising them for over 5 years - almost a year and a half longer than SHE raised Anna, by the way. I brought it up, she agreed that "our" was more appropriate now, and all was fine--until I found out that she's mad that I consider them "our" kids.

So, after all these years of trying, I've FINALLY realized what an unwinnable battle this is!

I hereby renounce all my efforts to try and make nice with people who don't want to be nice and who don't care about me at all. So there.

That was easy, right?! Yeah, we'll see how it goes in practice.

Since then, I've been alternating days of pre-holiday activity, shopping, decorating and all the usual fun with days of sitting very, very still and letting my back and hips rest after all the shopping and such.

It's going to be a pretty quiet Christmas for us, in that we won't have our usual houseful of company. I'm hoping Daddy and Chris will come, but they'll be about it. I'm part bummed and part ok with it all, because I'm just so tired that a quiet, mellow Christmas will be great. Each year since we've been married, we've hosted the family in whatever form, so it'll definitely be a change for us!!

How ever things work out, I'll be happy with it. I'm actually feeling pretty festive this year, maybe because I think I've got all the surgery behind me now, and I'm FINALLY on the road to recovery. That is definitely something to celebrate!!

I hope everyone else is finding things to be merry about too...2010 has got to be a better year for all of us, or else.

And for your entertainment...our Thanksgiving pumpkin Pi pie-- pi squared...but round. This was not my idea...I have strange children.

First post-op check-up!

Well, I went to see Dr. Davis this week, and he says that all is well with the results of my surgery. All my inside parts are tucked back inside where they belong, and the weakened parts of me have been reinforced with a Goretex mesh lining so that nothing can start escaping again.

I basically knew what was going to be done-- Dr. Pisani drew a little diagram for me. Dr. Davis is high-tech! To explain why I was having really strong pain in a particular area, where I hadn't had pain before, he pulled out his iPhone and zipped through some apps until he found the one with an interactive, full-color cross-section diagram that shows all the mesh attachment points. Way cool.

So basically, I'm healing well, and right on schedule. Two of my little bitty incisions have spots that don't seem to want to close, but that's not unusual for me. The other three are doing great, although they "pull" inside in some very uncomfortable ways. Very. Now that the incision pain has gone away, I'm starting to feel that patch that he sewed into my sacral spine, and it's very painful, but I guess that's to be expected right now, huh?

That's about it-- there isn't a whole lot to report, just that I'm healing well. I'm starting to spend more time downstairs, and going up and down the stairs is a bitch after the muscle aches set in, but it's good for me.

Onward, right? So far, so good.

March! 2 3 4. . .

So, do you remember the old thing that parents used to tell their kids--that if they didn't behave, they'd get sent to military school? Weeellll.... after much deliberation, we've sent our youngest to boot camp. Daddy is dropping her off right now.

It wasn't an easy decision to make, on many levels, but I'm convinced it was the right one. She's just reached that teenage-age where she's trying to assert herself, and it's not going over well. She's constantly trying to lord over Sparky, and it's all Pea can do to keep her under control and remain dominant. We won't even talk about the poor kitties.

The incidents recently with other dogs have been a major fact, of course. She tries to eat every strange dog she meets. She even sort-of tried to eat a kid on Halloween, but the vet says these things are very normal right now, and that the Halloween thing was definitely just fear and being overwhelmed by all the activity and strangers around her. She IS still a puppy, after all. But, I guess when they get this age, they're starting to try and make their place in the "pack," and basically become a massive pain in the ass!! At 76lbs of pure muscle, she's not exactly easy to handle, especially for me.

SOooo...boot camp. Stella will be a guest at High Test Kennels for the next 6 weeks. Six weeks!! Yikes. It sounds very scary, and is immensely hard for *us,* but the results are all but guaranteed-- full obedience training, all the standard commands you'd expect, including off-leash training, which is the biggie that I want, because I think that can be the biggest safety training you can ask for--knowing that she'll come back when I call her to keep her out of harms way. We will have to go out there and work with her in her training two or three times during the six weeks, but if we want to just go visit for a little while on other occasions, we can certainly do that.

I was very happy to find out that her sleeping quarters will be indoors, in her own run, with a raised sleeping platform in one corner, heated at night. We were able to take her own bedding and even her sleeping crate, just so she doesn't forget all her crate training, and so she had the familiarity and smells of her own "stuff."

As kind of an added bonus, after her stay, we're welcome to bring her back to play on their property, which is huge and has streams or ponds or something that the dogs can play in--majorly cool-- and just tons of space to run and run and run, safely. Now THAT is what Stella needs!!

In addition to running a boarding school/boot camp, the owners of the kennels are also Lab breeders. If you can follow this--our neighbor Jason's dog Ben's father (dog) who belonged to Jason's father (person) came from their kennel.

We've all gotten so used to her giant galumphing presence around here, it's going to be very strange without her. I have to confess that I'm a bit relieved that she'll be going through her training away during the exact time that I'll be putting up a Christmas tree... I'm sure she'll be a lot more restrained in trying to chew on the tree or wag-off the ornaments after training!! I hope. Depending on how things go, she might or might not be home for Christmas Day.

I am convinced that after the first couple of nights of being very confused, she'll actually have a ball there. She just loves learning things, doing tricks, being incessantly *busy* at all times. I've told Lloyd before that she is just too smart, and too great of a dog to "waste" by not training her right and letting her become a total wild thing. Intensive training will be right up her alley.

Ok, enough typing. I've had just about enough typing and sitting up for a while! Cross your fingers and toes that this goes well, because if it does, I'm going to have the best dog in the world--well, 2nd best. The Peadog still always wins. ;-)

I'm baaaaaack..........

Yup, I'm back! Dr. McCutie Pisani and his friend DaVinci the magical surgery robot with at least 4 arms did a masterful job of tidying up my insides and rigging things into place with guy wires or something.

Surgery went well, and the hotel stay, despite no private room, was as pleasant as any could be. So, it was basically miserable, but that was nobody's fault except MY body's fault!! I had some wonderful visitors who were able to take some time to come see me, even if our visits were unconventional-- Thanks for driving me to Dad's house Dawn & Jeff!!

I'm very sad about the people I wasn't able to see, but it was a pretty unpleasant trip to the bay area with little free time. I will have to go down, get a nice size room, and invited everyone over for a party!

So, I am recovering well, with an assortment of fuzzy four-footed companions at all times, and a very helpful little two-footed one who helps me out with anything I need and then keeps me company to boot!

My poor, long-suffering, darling husband is taking wonderful care of me, keeping the cooler at my bedside stocked with all the important things in life, like Diet Dr. Pepper, G2, and Lunchables, my new meal-in-a-box standard meal. Not the gross kinds like pizza or tacos; the good, old kind with just meat, cheese & crackers.

All in all, I am doing well, trying to get through my mandated week to 10 days of serious rest, walking circles around the room for exercise, taking my naps.

Sadly, what I'm not doing is being on the computer. Did my adorable doctor implant a Luddite transformer or something while they were in there?? I just have no interest in it at all--blogging, facebook, email, anything... I'm sure I'll get back to it soon, but for now, I just have to apologize and promise I'll be back!

I promise I'll be back!

It's naptime now, yay! If you want to find me, send a text, 'k?

I'll see you soon..........................................

XOXOXO,

~S

Off to see the wizard...again!

HOSPITAL TIME!!

Gee, does that sound familiar?

Well, here we go! I'm almost entirely packed, and therefore almost ready to tackle the last bit of organizing I have to do here at home, and then we're off.

Tons of anxiety.

Lots of stress.

Manic packing and racing around from one thing to another in a lovely ADD manner.

Too much luggage.

Too much shit I MUST take!

Husband who worries too much.

Too many things at home that are being left undone...which makes more stress.

But...................too little time to do anything else.

Time to zip the zippers, hop in the shower, and get out of here, quick like a

bunny. Wish me luck.