HIPPO BIRDIES GALORE!!

Oh!  There are many wonderful birthdays to mention...

HIPPO BIRDIE TODAY TO DADDY!!!!

And a belated Hippo Birdie to my wonderful Auntie!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For being rather belated and behind on just about everything right this minute, you both deserve a full, complete, illustrati-a-palooza on my blog.  Yes, it's the highest honor I have the power to bestow.

I love you both very, very much!!!

And while we're mentioning them, happy yesterday birthday to Mike,happy day-before-yesterday birthday to Misty, and happy posthumous birthdays and love to Grandma Jackson and Grandpa Moyer.

***************************************

And about that earlier post?  He didn't get mad, freak out, or have a fit at me.  There is domestic bliss in the Irwin household today after all.

And a small puppy with farts that smell worse than the stench from the animal rendering plant just up Highway 99 from here, grandly featured on one of my favorite TV shows, the ever-tasteful "Dirty Jobs."  Much worse.  And she's sound asleep, so I'm not sure she'd go potty even if I took her outside.  I think she has to wake up first and realize that she has to go.  

PPPPP-UUUU

Oh!  She woke up!  Oh.  Nope, false alarm.

It is time for a break.

My darling husband doesn't know this yet, and he's going to have a fit, but I am taking a break from being a professional patient, for the rest of April.

Ok, yes, if something happens where I have an emergent condition, and I really need something; fine, I will seek the appropriate help immediately.

Otherwise, I am taking the rest of the month off to rest (instead of driving up the mountain every other day), get my sleep patterns back to normal (after getting up at odd hours with the little one), bond with my puppy, pull my weight in taking care of my puppy and starting to train her, not be so crabby around the house because I'm trying to do 12 things at once crammed into the little bit of free time I have after getting up early and driving up the mountain for something, and lots of other reasons, but the main and most important one--so that I don't have a complete and total breakdown and scream and yell because I'm tired and crabby and sick of going to doctors appointments and I need a break to be able to take care of this new little being in my household and still have some time left to be nice to the children AND read a book for a little while.  

Complete breakdown is not very far away at all...and I'm glad I recognized that before it happened.

Yeah, he's going to throw a fit.  A big one.  Today is likely not going to be a good day in my household, because we're probably going to have one of our once-a-year actual fights.  I usually refuse to fight about anything, because I think it's stupid, and I will still hold to that theory, but sometimes I have to stand up for myself a little more firmly, shall we say, than normal.

I'd like to think that he'll listen calmly to my very calm explanation of why I'm so close to having a complete nervous breakdown, but that won't happen, and the reason it won't is because he is so incredibly worried about me that it makes HIM nearly have a breakdown.  I realize that, and I have to always remember that's why he gets so upset and freaks out is just that he's trying very hard to take really good care of me, and he's done so much to make sure that I have the medical care that I need and everything else, I can't fault him for that at all.

But, this is it folks.  I've been a professional patient for 8 1/2 months now, and I've pretty much hit the wall.  I need a break.  I have shawls to knit, and brownies to bake, and a puppy to train, and I spend all my time going to, coming from, recovering from or preparing for the next medical appointment.  No more.

At least for the next two weeks, if not 3 or 4, until it's time for my dental care marathon in the end of May.  We'll see.

But at least two weeks.

And then...things changed...

Ok.  Things changed a tinsy bit last night.  And, being the good blogger of full disclosure, and since my puppy is asleep, I am filling you all in.  Puppy wakes up, and all bets are off, dude.

I'm sure we all remember the "incident" of Weds night/Thursday, with the high fevers and all?  It might or might not be connected to something bigger.

Since then, I've had random incidences of high fever.  I have also had random incidences of slight lymphedema-ish swelling, mainly in my genital and pubic area.

Friday morning, in the shower, logically enough, I discovered that my genital area was swollen.  REALLY seriously Frankenstein, scare me enough to actually call my husband to show him in terror swollen.  There was also swelling in the pubic area, the entire mons pubis and a little bit of the creases of my legs in the ilioinguinal area.  Swelling, but no pain in either place, no redness to speak of, nothing else really.  So, I put on my happy $90 pants to compress the area properly and went about my day.

Sometime later, in the afternoon, I discovered I had a low-grade fever, 100.2-ish.  Ok.  More Advil.

Bedtime came, and I discovered that the pants had done their job fabulously in the genital area, almost entirely de-swelling me there, but the higher mons area was still really swollen.  I got the BRILLIANT idea of turning the pants around backwards for the night, since the widest, biggest area of the compression foam was in the back--right where it makes the most sense if one is actually a bicyle rider using the pants for their intended purpose.  What a concept!  But even more shockingly, my brilliant idea worked.  Wearing the pants backward compressed things properly, and when I woke up, all was well.

Somewhere well into the evening yesterday, I looked down at my ankles and almost went into cardiac arrest.  I think they were roughly the size of telephone poles.  Or a little bigger.  My legs were swollen up, my feet, ankles, knees, thighs.........you get the point.

Legs up the wall yoga poses and lymphatic drainage massage had little effect.  I had measured around my ankle and a bit higher and kept checking it, but very little change.  Great.............

I must say, I *almost* broke my own cardinal rule......but I finally broke down and called the emergency number for the cancer center and Dr. Mazj told me very directly NOT to panic.  So I didn't panic.  Ok.

{Ok, I give up.  I gave it a good shot, but I can't stay awake any longer...continued tomorrow}

Tuesday now--I had to go to sleep.  When I nod off over the computer, it's never a good thing.

Anyway, I was deep into massive lymphedema land, where my entire lower body was filled with fluid, and it came on so suddenly, Dr. Mazj started automatically scheduling tests.

I was already supposed to go in yesterday for a pulmonary function test, as a result of the whatever-it-is in my lung, so I did that, then I went and got stitches pulled out of my jaw, stopped by the lymphedema clinic where my therapist was not in.  Shit.  Called her, got ahold of her down in Chico.  She was massively upset to hear that I had developed all of this, and so fast.  She advised me to stop the massage until we got the results of my tests from Dr. Mazj, just in case....because yes, of course the thing Dr. Mazj is worried about is a blood clot, and to keep working on compression using layers of tights, leggings, etc, to keep my swelling down.  

After I talked to Mary and got some great advice on how to proceed, and WHEN to panic, aka when to go to the ER, I felt much better, and then it was time to go back to the hospital.  I had to go pick up nasty barium contrast for the CT scan that I'll be having tomorrow to make sure that there is nothing nasty lurking in my pelvic or abdominal area.  Then I went upstairs and had a Doppler scan on my legs, which I found out is a sophisticated version of an ultrasound.

THEN I was finally done.  I headed home, with a quick stop at Walmart in Oroville to grab some more compression stuff for me, and Iams canned puppy food for the little monster here, and then I came home, propped my feet high in the air, and collapsed.  Oh, and chased Stella, walked Stella, played with Stella, fed Stella, chased Stella some more, took Stella potty, etc.  Since Anna had been at school all day for the first time since getting a puppy, she was feeling deprived of some puppy love time, I convinced her (with almost zero work!) that she needed to puppysit so I could watch "Chuck" on tv.  It got me a break to put my feet up and stay still for at least a little while anyway.

It was a hell of a day.  As I told the kids, I got suffocated, hyperventilated, shut in a little plastic box and had blood drawn straight from an artery (pulmo tests); had things cut out of my mouth with sharp scissors (dentist); picked up some poison to drink (barium); and had strange things done to my leg arteries (Doppler).  It was a hell of a day...and I still have to go back for the CT scan & chest x-ray tomorrow and see Dr. Batin (the pulmonologist) on Thursday.

The GOOOOOOOOOOOD news, which reached home before I even did, is that I do not have any blood clots in my legs, according to the Doppler scan.  Yay!!

Ok.  

You are all now completely caught up, and no one (mother......) can accuse me of not keeping them updated, it just took me some time because I was too tired to type and kept passing out.  Minor detail.

Today, we get to take our beautiful puppy to the vet for her first exam.  She's had her first shots, so it's time for our well-puppy exam and scheduling her vaccines and spaying.

After that, it's resting time.  I desperately need some resting time, especially since the little one had me up at 6:30, and I went to bed after 1, when I finally put this thing down and gave up.  

I think it's time to wrap this multi-day post up and go zone out to some wildlife in Botswana for a while.

A virtual vacation....and WOW!

This is just a very short blurb to lead you all on an African Safari, thanks to Darcy.

http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=76714921477&h=jlBBa&u=wt4_F&ref=mf

This is a live webcam pointed at a watering hole in Botswana called Pete's Pond.  A few minutes ago, Darcy and I just watched a young bull elephant get his evening drink and dirt-bath at the watering hole before crashing off through the brush.  It's evening there now, and from my experience yesterday, what you see and hear after dark is a lot of bugs flying around, lots of little birds wandering around the shoreline, and random splashes in the distance that your imagination goes wild on, thinking of what might be making the splashes!

I just wanted to share that with you.  If the link above doesn't work for some reason (something facebook-related, for example!), you can go to National Geographic.com and search in the video section for Pete's Pond, Mashatu Game Reserve, Botswana.  I found it very easily that way.

That's all for today.  Nothing much has changed since yesterday.

{The section above was written on Saturday.}

NOW, it's Sunday, and of course it's Easter.

With all thanks to my friend Alex for the verbiage (those of you who know Alex will understand, and those who don't will be deeply offended, sorry), I wish everyone a *very* happy Zombie Baby Jesus Day.

All is well and happy here--the sun is shining, it is warm and gorgeous outside, my doggies are happy (Pea and Stella did some serious playing this morning, and Pea was having a ball!), my children are happy with their little bit of Easter joy, since everyone is too old for the bunny now, my darling husband was happy with his Easter basket I made him as a surprise, Conner had a great time on his camping trip, my baby girl is sound asleep on a doggie bed, and all is well.  Ahhhhhh........................  :-)

Attack of the wild puppy!

Where have I been the last week, you wonder? Well, we got a puppy. That kind of explains everything, doesn't it?

Stella is FIFTEEN POUNDS of half purebred Border Collie and half purebred Lab, and is every bit as energetic AND intelligent as those two breeds would suggest.

Her Daddy, Jake, apparently commands hefty stud fees normally, but his visit to Abby when she was in heat was a surprise, shall we say. My gorgeous little girl and her siblings were the result, and I got what I wanted--a mixed breed dog, med-large size (we hope!), of two breeds at the top of our "good breeds" list.

Not that there are "bad breeds" of dog out there, don't get me wrong--I mean, I'd love to own an Akita, or a Siberian Husky, but they are on our bad list because they tend to be very territorial, one-family, and do not do well with visitors or young kids. We'd love to adopt a rescued Greyhound, but they tend to chase and eat cats. Those are traits we do not want in a dog--so that's how we made the "good" and "bad" list.

She is, of course, a handful and a half, if not more!! She's exploring everything, getting into everything, chewing on everything---oh, god, she just discovered the doorstop that goes BOINGGGG, and after twanging it twice, barked at it--but anyway, she is gorgeous enough, and smart enough to make up for all the usual puppy-ness. She actually understands "sit" and even "lay down" most of the time.

{I'm on the "morning shift" right now, meaning that after the 6 am potty run, I stay up and deal with the ball of energy. Luckily, the house is big enough because she is small enough to provide ample space to run! Anyway, I take the morning and let Lloyd sleep in, and then I get a good nap in the afternoon in return. Today will be just a little different; I'll have her most of the day by myself while he takes Anna to Kaiser for her final Gardasil shot....Trevor will be here though, maybe I'll make him take a turn!}

She's actually so smart so much of the time that it surprises me when she gets in trouble. We've designated the kitchen and dining/family room has her play zone (supervised, of course) and I've got gates across so she can't get anywhere else. She still finds things....dishtowels are the latest "prize" but I'm learning to ignore it until she starts to get bored of it and then take it away with a firm "NO" of disapproval.

The Bible right now is "Puppies for Dummies." Laugh if you will, but the woman who wrote it seems to really know her stuff. Everything she's said to do really works. I'm reading and re-reading and sticky-note-ing and writing things down on index cards... I am so determined to do this right, after my experience with Dildo the Golden Retarded and having just read "Marley & Me," I'll stand on my head if I have to.

The good news is, I bet I won't have to. For one thing, this experience is different, because I have a husband to do it WITH me, and two out of three kids who want to help train her. That changes the entire equation. Thank god! And, you can look into this dog's eyes and see the intelligence. When you get her eye to eye, and talk, she's really paying attention to what you say, and I am pretty sure she already knows her name, and is starting to associate basic words like "potty" and "NO!" (our current favorite).

By now, you're wondering what the rest of our household thinks of Stella.

Well, the birds couldn't care less. I'm not sure they've noticed. It's just one more thing that crawls around on the floor, right? Gracie is most amused. Something to torment!!!!! The other cats....NOT amused. They've been pretty brave overall. Oz just came out of Stella's playpen, where he was scoping things out. Oliver has come very close to her, while she was sleeping of course, to check things out, but they're not interested in putting up with her when she's mobile and wanting to play with them. That's all she wants, is to play with someone.

Pea has behaved almost exactly as we expected. This is "her" puppy. She doesn't "fuss" over Stella, grooming her, as much as she did with Laci, the puppy we babysat for 2 weeks a couple of years ago. But she plays with her, to a degree, and lets Stella know, in a Mommy-dog kind of way, when it's gone too far. She's made sure Stella knows that SHE is alpha, and Stella always rolls over to give Pea her belly and submit. Pea watches over her, and the two of them regularly lay on the soft doggie beds in front of the fire here in the "family room" I've created in the dining room.

{in this house, this room was supposed to be the family room, but we turned it into a dining room. After we painted, I turned the table around, installed a rocker by the fire and some doggie beds, and now we can use half the room for dining and half for just relaxing in the rocker and communing with doggies.}

Sparky is not amused. No, not amused at all. As long as puppy stays far away from him, he's fine. Life goes on as usual. But...when puppy notices him, and wants to play, which is her number one goal in life, he turns on her and she turns tail and runs like a smart dog. We have to watch her and and try to keep her from bugging him.

Overall, aside from me being sick (explanation in a minute), a new puppy wreaking havoc in the house, 3:30 am and 6ish am potty times, aka lack of sleep, and the fact that it's raining on Conner's camping trip, all is well. We are happy, if exhausted.

On the medical front, dun dun duh.... life is strange. I had another night like I've had twice before now (I think twice). It was sort of like the night before I had to go to the cancer center in emergency mode, after I'd missed all my pills for a day. But this time, I hadn't missed all my pills, at all. And, I hadn't felt like I was getting a cold or flu, like I did that time. This time, I went to bed a totally normal person, and woke up somewhere after 1am with massive diarrhea and chills so severe that I knew I had a fever. Took temp, and yes, it was quite a significant fever, and no, I'm not going to tell any of you what it was.

Repeat that scenario several times, with my fever decreasing a little each time, and that's what my night was like. In some of the later wake-up times, I started noticing that my lungs hurt. A lot, almost like pneumonia. Eventually, I got something of a cough, but not often. And a headache to end all headaches.............you know, the "hit by a truck" kind.

I spent a large part of the day in bed, trying to recover, headache, still dizzy, very shaky all over, seeing double, not able to walk straight, and utterly exhausted, until the time came where Lloyd had to cover for me on driving Anna and her friends to the movies for her much-belated birthday party. I set up the cake and utensils on the table for them, dragged Stella's playpen upstairs, and managed to fashion things so she was contained on my side of the bed and the bathroom so I could go back to bed. She's paper trained, thank god, and THANK YOU MARY, so I was able to crash out.

Eventually, my fever went down to 99.2, which is within the no biggie range. Today, I'm 99.5. My lungs still hurt like hell when I breathe, REALLY hurt when I breathe deep, but don't feel congested at all. I'm still headachy, still kind of dizzy and shaky, but otherwise doing alright. The diarrhea is an entirely separate issue. I saw Andy on Tuesday and he set me up with 4 separate sets of stool sample/culture kits, which is just a JOY, I tell you. But, at least Andy is being exceptionally proactive, as usual, testing me for parasites, a specific bacterial problem, and some other stuff I don't remember, so he can hopefully rule all of them out, and diagnose me with post-radiation colitis, which he can then treat.

And yes, Andy needs to know about this last incident. He knows about the previous, but not in great detail, because I went to the cancer center for treatment, since it was a weekday and therefore I was going to the cancer center ANYway! This one was just bizarre...but that's what Andy's good at. I've tried doing some research myself, and I can't figure out for the life of me anything it could be. He has a magic little handheld device that can figure out anything, apparently. The irony is that I just saw him Tuesday, when we started addressing my massive diarrhea problems, but this hadn't happened yet, and I was honestly too sick to call him yesterday. So, since he's not in the office today, I'm going to write him up a very detailed description of everything that's gone on, and fax it over to him. He loves figuring out difficult problems, so this one should be a kick for him, right?? Lungs and an astronomical fever. Hmm.

Ahh, my little blog entry for the day has taken me almost 5 hours to write! thanks to the obvious interruptions of puppy, illness, and a DH in a really horrible mood. So, I think I'll close now and get back to my puppysitting. God only knows when or if I'll get a shower today, but that's ok. Trevor's the only here to see me, and he doesn't care what I look like.

GOOD dental news!!

Things on the dental front improved yesterday!

I went in for my day-after-extraction check up, and by that time, everyone in the office knew what was going down with the stupid MediCal funding and what they could and could not do for the patients.

So, after making sure that I was fine- sore, but fine- Heidi the Wonderful took me to the front desk, sat down with the receptionist/front office person at the computer, and had her find me 9 appointments before the cut off dates.

I will be seeing a LOT of Dr. Ahn and Heidi during the last weeks of May and the first week of June. I will not be getting any of the appliances I need, the crowns, bridges, castles, moats, whatever the hell, but I WILL be getting just about every single thing I need done to make my mouth HEALTHY. Lots of extracting, building up, fillings and other things I didn't even understand as Heidi was telling the front office person how to enter the appointments in the computer. All I know is she says we're going to be able to get everything important. And, if there's something we can't get to, I now have a list of other dentists who take MediCal, who might be able to get me in for a little bit more before the deadline.

As I said in an email yesterday, I am so grateful and happy I could just cry. I can't believe I might be able to eat like a normal person and not have mouth pain and infections all the time. At some point, we are undoubtedly going to have to get the crowns and all that, but at least we'll have gotten the medical side of it all fixed.

As I sit here right this minute, I can't even imagine NOT having dental pain, because my jaw still aches so much from the massive excavation exercise on Thursday. Monday, I go back to get the root tips of the other tooth taken out, and supposedly have my sutures removed, but I think part of that may be unnecessary...I just pulled a suture off my tongue... It fell out all on its own, so what can I do? I guess it was ready to go.

Dental good news is good news indeed. Thrilling!

In other (good?) news, we have made the major decision that it is time to add to our family. Yup, we need a baby......the four footed, clumsy, adorable puppy kind of baby. We want to get one while Pea is still young enough to LIKE puppies as much as she does, and mother it like she's done with puppies we've babysat. We don't want to wait until she's older and doesn't want one around anymore, AND we positively have to do it in the spring. I will never get a puppy in the fall or winter again--3 am potty runs in the pouring rain and mud all over the house, NUH UH. Spring it is. If we find the right puppy this spring, wonderful, if not, we have to wait until next year.

We are going to go look at our first candidate this evening. She's a Border Collie/Lab mix. Mom's the Border, Dad is the purebred Lab from next door. We've also agreed we will only get a female dog. Females are a bit better with kids and other animals and have less aggressive tendencies......hopefully..... We'll see. We all know how I am around puppies............my brain melts. PUPPIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But, I swear, I will be an adult, and we will not bring home the first dog we see unless she's the right dog. I'm going to do all the puppy temperment tests from the "Puppies for Dummies" book and everything. Last time, I picked my puppy because he was the one who crawled into my arms and wrapped his front paws around my arm and stared up at me adoringly. Look how THAT turned out... So this time, I will do puppy tests, dorky as it will look.

It's a very big undertaking. I need to sit the kids down and make sure they understand just what kind of an undertaking we're talking about. Right now, we have the perfect dogs, and we're all spoiled rotten. I'm nervous as hell about bringing in a baby, with all it entails. I'm not sure I'm 100% ready, but I'm not sure I ever will be. At least it will give me something to do every day, right?!

I will never be bored again.................................

So much for the dentist!

Let's all say a nice goodbye to Dr. Ahn, and his wonderful staff. From what I saw yesterday, none of them are going to have jobs much longer.

When I got there yesterday, none of them knew much more about the whole mess than I did, and then all of a sudden they were all having a meeting about it.

Things are still pretty up in the air it seems, but it's very likely that my appointment on Monday will be my last. He dug out the monster molar on the lower left, which was a very miserable, nasty experience, deep into the jaw bone to get all the decayed root bits.

He was going to excavate the root tips of another tooth that fell out some years ago after mondo abscesses, but said he changed his mind and is going to do it Mon when I come to get sutures out. That is a good thing, but still a bit nerve-wracking if Monday is my last appt.

When I was leaving, the assistant said something about "it looks like they're shutting us down." Now, what I heard was July, but she made it sound like NOW.

On one hand, I'm glad to have that molar dealt with; on the other, before, I could at least chew somewhat on that side. The molar on the right is an even smaller piece, because more chunks have fallen off of it. Now, I lost that piece to chew on, and now I'm not going to get my bridge or whatever he was talking about to replace it, and I'm kind of in a worse position than I was before. Better infection-wise, but not so good eating-wise. It's exceptionally depressing, actually. I am sick to death with dealing with my teeth, and constantly having to switch dentists depending on my situation, just to fix whatever is the immediate crisis. I thought I was actually going to get to stick with this guy for a while and get some problems solved.

Oh well.........I have to go in today to get a "check up" on the extraction from yesterday. It seems pretty silly, driving an hour each way so that he can look inside my mouth and say "yup, looks fine" and send me home. Maybe I can con him into doing some fillings while I'm there, or a root canal or two.

Yeah, right.

Rotten things...literally.

So, remember my pretty terrariums of babys tears? They're kind of black and rotty. Hmm. Either babys tears don't like being terrariumed (since the ones in the teacup planter on the counter are growing bountiously) or I did something wrong. Or a good helping of "both." My final terrarium experiment has a variety of asparagus fern in it, the really wispy kind, and so far it shows no sign of major trauma. We shall see...

My other houseplant work has been paying off quite nicely. All of the pothos cuttings from my poor tangled up pothos are already showing signs of root shoots in the water I've got them in, and everybody's getting their turn at getting dusted and leaves cleaned, new top layers of soil, repotting and general fluffing as needed. I swear, they're perkier than they were before.

I've got one more big tangled mess of pothos that needs work--it's got shoots 4 feet long that only have leaves at the tip. Those are the ones I'm mercilessly cutting back and using the cuttings to propagate new plants from. The older plant gets a kick in the ass and starts filling out once those long runners are gone, so everyone wins. This last one is going to take some seriously patient work to untangle and figure out what to clip, so I've saved it for last. Maybe that's what I'll do before I go to the dentist.

Oh, and the pink polka dot plant is even blooming which is astounding, considering I had no idea that they bloomed!

Wanna know what else is rotten? Our state budget.

Just as I'm getting started on all this dental work, since chemo did a big number on my already delicate teeth, and have a HUGE treatment plan and all kinds of stuff to get done, and I'm thrilled to death..........we find out that it SEEMS our new state budget is going to eliminate all dental coverage for all MediCal patients period forever. Isn't that charming?

We're not sure exactly when this takes effect. One source we heard said July. So, can I please book dental appointments on every M, W & F from here till then? The scariest thing in the world is the idea that we might get halfway through some major treatment that requires a second half, like putting in a crown or a plate, and then get funding pulled, leaving me with half a whatever in my mouth.

Needless to say, after all the crap I've been through, I really, truly AM boundlessly grateful for all the help I've been able to get, but I am still depressed about this. Very. It finally seemed like I was going to get my mouth pieced back together and the rug is getting pulled out. I still have to do some more research and learn some more about this.....what I know so far is sketchy, but I'll post updates as I get them.

Today, anyway, we start the first major procedure. The lower left way-back molar has been falling apart, with chunks breaking out of my head, since chemo ended, along with having a nice big infection (now cured) and bleeding violently every time I brush. Say goodbye to that puppy!

What's interesting is that I have no idea what to expect. I've had a tooth pulled before, once, and I've had my wisdom teeth out. The tooth that was pulled was rotten, and really, really wanted to come out, so it was nothing. The wisdom teeth were impacted and required general anesthesia to dig out. I'm guessing this will have to be somewhere in between, right?

The dentist has me scheduled to extract today, with a check up tomorrow, and suture removal on Monday. So.......just how massive a operation is this going to be? I really have no idea! I'm generally not nervous about dental work, but it feels kind of weird going in with absolutely no clue what's going to be done to me and how major it's going to be. Hmm.

And, in other news, our kids Spring Break is next week. The big, major news about that is that Conner is going camping, Sunday to Sunday. Camping. Conner. Hmm. Do I need to say anything else? Let's suffice to say I believe it will be a learning experience for him. Trevor may explode without anyone to bug for an entire week.

Otherwise, things are quiet. I am reading a lot, knitting a little, and generally trying to get into the groove of my recovery plan. The plan seems to have organically evolved into this: On days without appointments, I get up when my body says to get up, spend some time with my coffee and Facebook, get dressed and functional, do a little yoga stretching, play with a plant or two, and generally keep myself occupied until it's time for my 3:00 nap. A little walking, a little house cleaning or something--light activities. Nap for a couple hours, get up, eat something (hopefully) and then settle in for tv and more reading and knitting. It's not an exciting existance, but does seem to be working. That's usually how about 4 days of the week go, and the other 3, we go out and run errands or something, unless I have doctor's appts, in which case, everything changes. But you get the point.

Right now, I'm working on stretching some every day so that I can HOPEFULLY get myself up to Chico for an actual yoga class on Weds. That is my goal...cross your fingers for me that I make it. I think if I get up there once, it'll turn on the endorphin stream that will keep me going back several times a week. I'm not finding myself knocked out flat near as often anymore--you know, those days where even fiddling with houseplants is too much for me. It's becoming pretty rare, so I figure I'm doing something right....right?

The next couple of days are going to be anyone's guess though. After Dr. Ahn (our nice new dentist) does what he does to my mouth, I could end up out for the count for a couple days. Any injury to any part of me these days takes a major toll on my system as a whole, so I'm not sure what to expect.

Stay tuned...

Ah, Sunday...

Ahh, Sunday... the day in which children do chores, and I watch them. I've got this parenting thing down pat.

I myself haven't been up to too many chores lately. I've been getting better at listening to what my body wants along the recovery path, but the last few days, all it's wanted is rest. There's been significant pain lately, right along the incision line and just above and below it, with lots of swelling in the pubic area. Some sort of nerve endings are working on something in there, and it's not any fun at all while they do it. I've been napping almost every day (much to the delight of two gray kittycats), not pushing myself too far while still being somewhat up and active most of the day, and yet still have days like this where all I feel like doing is going back to bed for a month. It's really frustrating and discouraging.

It feels like I've made precisely zero progress sometimes...

And yet, as usual, I don't LOOK sick. Right? Right.

Then again, the way today is going, I might not have to worry, because we might blow away to Oz. The winds we get up here at this end of the state boggle my mind. And this is just a windy day in the spring--it's nothing at all compared to the winds we get during some of the winter storms. I feel pretty sorry for the organizers of Kite Day up in Chico today. Aimee kindly invited us to join her over there this afternoon, but our plans at home intervened. I'm afraid that if the winds in Chico are anything like they are here, all the kites are either going to snap in the wind, or tangle into one giant ball in the sky. Brings on an interesting mental picture don't it?

Let's see, I've been doing lots of my indoor gardening, fussing with houseplants, lately. I genuinely love being in a house full of plants, so it's a rewarding new hobby. I'm reading up, learning what the ones I already have are and finding interesting new ones. It's also brought back funky memories of plants we had when I was a kid and Mom did lots of indoor gardening, back in the days BC--before cats. Finding Gracie-proof places to put plants has turned into a fun game for both me and Gracie. As much as I want to kill her when she gets into them, it's actually pretty funny watching her try to figure out how to get to them. The wheels turning in her head are quite visible.

Oh, and after some delays, I finally get my dental treatment started on Thursday. First the icky molar in the back gets extracted, then Friday is a post-op of a sort, and Monday I get the stitches removed. I've never had something like that take three visits before, but ok. It's just a lot of driving up to Paradise, but I already committed to that, so it's alright.

Oh yes, we are unfortuately dealing with one other medical problem in the house besides mine. My gorgeous baby girl dog is having a foot problem. We THINK it's an osteoarthritic-aging thing, where she's just getting stiff and sore. She's really favoring one front foot, and limping like crazy, BUT, of course it doesn't really prevent her from doing anything she really wants to do. If it did, then I'd be worried, but she goes and goes just like normal. What concerns me is how she'll sit and pant as if in pain afterward, and favor that paw. So, she's now on special (read: EXPENSIVE) doggie food for joints and a doggie version of motrin for the inflammation and pain, and we're hoping that after a period of time on both of those, she'll show some distinct improvement. It's the waiting that's driving me buggy. I want her better NOW. Well, it all just means that she's even more spoiled than she was before. I see Doggy Steps in my future. Anything for my girl.

I think that's about it from our windy part of the world. I guess I've stalled long enough, and I certainly don't have anything else interesting to say. I need to find the energy to drag myself up to the shower so then I can drag myself back downstairs to find something to do. It will probably involve yarn. It's been far too long since I did any serious knitting, and I'm working on getting my fingers nimbled back up. Off I go.

PS: Movie review-- Bolt is funny. Quite funny. The hamster in Bolt is funnier than shit. Seriously. Rhino is my new hero.

Am I gonna get voted off the island?

Ok, I just wanted to let everyone know that I'm working on my "survivorship plan" and finding out that it's a lot of work!

I am using everyone's suggestions to try and figure out what I need and what my body wants, and learning as I go along.

Most importantly, Lloyd and I have started a notebook keeping track of things like how much I'm sleeping and how I feel each day; how much of the day is active, "up" time, how much exercise, when we're out of the house, how I feel afterward and how much of my day is rest time. And, there is rest, and there is Rest. We have decided, for the purposes of this exercise, that real Rest time, whether I actually fall asleep or not, is defined as time when I am laying down, not doing ANYthing else, like reading, computer-ing, watching tv--just quiet, laying down, resting and hopefully sleeping.

After only a few days of keeping the notebook, we've observed that 3 hours of being up and active, whether it's here or out shopping, is about my limit. And, each day around 3pm is when I start crashing and need to go to bed and do my real Resting, even if I've been sitting all day long. My Resting generally lasts about 3 hours too, I just get up when I really feel ready to get up.

So, progress is being made. I have a couple of great books on cancer survivorship that I'm reading and using to help formulate my plan, such as it is. Mistakes are being made, lessons are being learned, but we're getting there.

Yesterday, I was up and active doing some of my nice indoor gardening for a couple hours, and it felt great, and when it stopped feeling great, I put away my toys and retreated to my rocker. I am having fun filling my house with plants (beauty AND oxygen!) and even put a plant in each boy's room. It is satisfying my spring fever gardening urges, just as I'd hoped, and is entirely frog free. Ha! Take that frogs. I've made a couple terrariums and I think I'm tired of them now. It was a short phase. I'm just planting things now.

That's about all...right now I am in my rocker by the fire, with two doggies on their smooshy beds, and two kitties going batshit with a furry mousie, going to read my survivorship book. Life is good.

I think my brain is on vacation.

No, seriously. I stare at things, and I know I should understand them on some level, and I get nothing. I think the very low level of oxygen reaching my brain may have something to do with this. Not only am I still having the previously mentioned lung (ok, I swear I just typed "lunch" instead of "lung") problems, but my nose is running like a faucet and refuses to become unclogged. This is one of those days where my body hates me.

So, where are we today? So far, in our jammies, in front of the fire, watching a child vacuum, while two dogs look baffled (in that special way that only dogs can) as to why their nice, soft, marshmallow-y doggie beds are up on top of the dining room table.

Ok, now we are back in front of the fire after a short break, no longer in jammies, with smooshy doggie beds returned to their proper place in front of mommy's rocker and a dog installed on each bed. Life is as it should be, no?

So, the evil disease of whatever sort it was that attacked me in the night went away *almost* as quickly as it appeared. It was pretty bizarre. I got violently ill somewhere around maybe 1 am(?) and stayed that way until around 1-2pm the next day, when I started seeing little glimpses of humanity. Those little bits grew, and by about 4, I managed a shower, to drink a significant amount of liquid (I'd gotten in tiny sips just to take some pills) and between those things the last piece of fever that was hanging on lost its grip. It went from 100.1 at one reading pre-shower to 98.8 at the first reading post-shower and liquid. It was all uphill from there, I slept straight through the night, and was up and out for my 10 am appointment with the radiation oncologist just like a normal person.

Dr. Barclay, the radiation oncologist, was quite pleased with everything he saw, so that checkup went fine. There's really nothing to report, because, it was all just about what I knew--the pain I have is from the radiation and it's totally normal, and luckily I have good pain meds, so yay.

The appointment after that, with the pulmonologist, was somewhat less straightforward, and kind of bizarre, really. First of all, I don't like him. He's arrogant, and comes off as an ass. Not making any brownie points there, that's for sure. Dr. Batin really could not figure out from my CT readings why in the world I was sitting in his office and seemed at first rather in a hurry to remove me. After the first couple minutes though, he seemed to almost visibly rachet down a notch or two, come back to earth, and start treating me like a patient. It was, at least to me, literally a visible change.

Perhaps (AHA!) our dear Dr. Batin read the word C A N C E R in my file, and realized suddenly that he should treat me like a real patient, and not merely an interruption. Your guess is as good as mine, but next thing you know, many questions were asked, some generalized poking, prodding and stethoscoping was done, and I was being sent off for so many blood tests that the phlebotomist had to call and have him translate his handwriting and it took SIX tubes of blood to perform them all. I am to have a chest xray in two weeks, 2-3 days prior to my next appointment with him.

Now, I've got some experience with illegible handwriting, but this guy takes the cake. Wow. But, from what I can determine on my own, from questions he asked and blood work he ordered, he seems to be doing some tests for lupus. That's been a recurring theme in my medical care for a little while now, not shockingly--fibromyalgia, family history, etc, I'm a prime candidate. He's also (according to the phlebotomist) testing me for aspergillosis, which could definitely explain that weird little blob in my lung. It's a mold-thing, we all inhale millions of spores every day, but those with compromised immune systems can develop infection from it. Sounds logical, so I guess we'll see.

That was Thursday. Friday was dentist time; time to extract that monster-ugly hunk of molar in the back that gives me so much trouble. I showed up for my appointment, and found out that Dr. Mazj's office had JUST sent over the authorization form that they'd had since Monday, and on the form, had specified that I must pre-medicate before every dental procedure with 4 Keflex. SO, since I had not known this, and had not pre-medicated, there was to be no extraction. Needless to say, I was not pleased. For one thing, if Dr. Mazj had sent the form over on time.............. OR, if Dr. Mazj's office had called and told me this, I HAVE Keflex at home and I could have done it. Grr.....

Needless to say, Friday did not leave me a happy person. A rather totally UNhappy person, really. Now I have to wait over a week and a half for that extraction, which is going to take an unheard-of 3 visits--1 to pull, a check up the next day and stitches pulled a couple days later. To get all the stuff done that I need done, I am indeed going to be living at the clinic in Paradise for the next year and a half. It's worth it..........but boy, am I going to be tired.........

Today, I'm trying to rest. It's not working ALL that well, for the usual reasons, but I am trying.

A day of rest...sorta...

Ok, this wasn't the day of rest I'd envisioned. With Dr. and dentist appointments every other day of this week, I'd planned that today was going to be my resting and relaxing; knitting and spinning; reading and writing day. Sounded good, huh?

You know what they say about the best laid plans....

I guess the good side is, I got LOTS of sleep and bed rest. Lots and lots and lots. The bad side was, well.....I woke up maybe a half house after to going to sleep, projectile vomiting. Mondo fevers-as high as 104.3-and sweats (by this morning, my skin was covered in fine salt!), massive body aches and pains in different places, diarrhea, you name it. It wasn't until somewhere after 3:30 or4 that I was able to get up and STAY up long enough to take a shower, crawl downstairs to get a couple things. Now, THAT wore me flat out for hours.

I'm used to feeling like I've been beaten, but this pain was new. If it would have stayed on the lower right, where it's been a lot of the time, I was going to make Lloyd take me to the ER for an appendix check-in. Luckily (ha ha), it moved all over the place and felt far less appendix-ish and my fever was going down, slowly, but surely. I wasn't able to drink liquids last night, so it wasn't until after I took my shower this afternoon and drank some water that I was able to get my temp down into a normal range.

So, after sleeping nearly all day-I think I've been "up," but still active-ish, so I'm drained enough to head to bed.

Happy Shamrock Day!

Happy, happy St. Paddy's Day to everyone. For some reason, every time I think of the word "shamrock" I think of Shamrock Shakes and Grimace in a leprechaun outfit. Some sort of childhood trauma, I'm sure.

First, before I do anything else, a couple of notes:

• I am compiling all the suggestions and information from all your great notes on my recovery plan, and will share what I've come up with once I've got it all kind of put together.
• If I start doing macrame, I will shoot myself, so do not worry, dear auntie.

Just wanted to mention those before I got sidetracked!

Ok, onward. Yesterday was the one-month-post visit with Dr. Mazj, or as it turned out, Roni, his PA. It was actually a very productive, very helpful visit. I'll try and share everything we discussed and sorted out, but it won't be in any sort of order, so you'll have to pardon me if it's rather disorganized!

• I'm cleared to start yoga classes (YAY!!!) as long as I stick with the "Gentle Level 1" and "Gentle & Restorative" classes at first, and as my pain dictates.


• I can start taking my mountains of supplements and vitamins again, which, while I F***ing hate taking all the pills (more than you will ever know my friends...) they might help me on the road to recovery


• My weight gain is, sadly, normal, and most likely radiation's fault. I'm supposed to talk to the radiation oncologist about it on Thursday. It's most likely because of all the liquid I'm retaining, which would make some sense. I've gained somewhere between 5-10 lbs, which fluctuates from day to day, and it's all come on in less than 3 weeks time.


• Now, before you say it Mother...........I did not need to gain this weight, and it NEEDS to go away. See, I went into surgery back in Sept somewhere between 135 and 140 lbs, which was too heavy, and anyone who saw me last August would tell you that was true. After surgery, I dropped all the way down as far as 115, which was too skinny, and anyone who saw me would agree. For a lot of months, my fight was to stay "on the right side of 120" as I put it, meaning above 120, preferably around 125. 125 puts my BMI at the PRECISE right place, and that's what I care about, not the weight number, the BMI number. At 125, I feel good, my clothes fit properly, and my BMI is 22.9. "Normal" is 18.5-24.9. Now, I'm floating between 130 and 137, which puts my BMI at 24.7 (that's calculated at a weight of 135) which is borderline "obese" according to the BMI calculators, and borderline unhealthy in general. I had gotten to a good place, and now I'm in a bad one again!!! In theory, it will go away over time...but I am certainly not happy at all. Pants I wore 2-3 weeks ago are binding around the waist now!
• We spent lots of time talking about my pain and swelling, which are once again...normal.


• They drew blood (I KNEW I wouldn't make it out of there without at least one needle-stick...) for a CBC panel, which came out "great" according to the nurse who called me this morning. I didn't ask what the results were, because I don't know what the scale on that one means anyway. What it means to me is that I'm cleared to have my dental work done Friday, which is what matters to me right now.


• We talked lots about nutrition, and the fact that mine totally sucks right now, and ways to try and correct that....... ways to actually get some food or food-like substances into my body. Apparently, I have to get more food of some sort in me. Blurgh.


• And, of course, we talked lots and lots about my recovery plan and how to get one going. She says it's actually called a survivorship plan and gave me a nice fat booklet from the National Cancer Institute on life after treatment. I haven't finished reading it, but so far it seems it will help. The corresponding booklets for chemo and radiation were great, very helpful, so hopefully this one will be as good. As I mentioned above, I'm compiling everyone's advice, and I will share when I've got it figured out.


• CT scan results came back--so far, so good. There is nothing on them that looks like cancer, which is what we're aiming for. Strangely enough, there does seem to be a lung infection brewing (weirdest part of that is that I had no idea they were scanning as high as my lungs!) so Dr. Mazj is sending me to a pulmonologist, to make sure that whatever it is gets taken care of immediately and aggressively. Funny, I have been having some odd coughing and chest tightening starting lately and getting progressively (but verrrrry slowwwwwly) worse. I just figured it was asthma, but it might be a viral infection, so they want to make sure I'm watched carefully. My immune system still can't take any major illnesses!

So! After all of this, I had a little family meeting with the kids at dinner last night to talk about my recovery and rest needs. It's hard right now for them to understand, because I don't "look sick" to them, so it doesn't make sense that I have to lay around and do nothing for some period of time. And, it's harder than hell for me to tell them no when they come and ask for something. It'll be something simple, like "I can't find the tylenol" in the kitchen cabinet, and I get up for 2 minutes and find it for them. Problem is, that scenario will get repeated about 8 times and I'm perpetually up-down-up-down. Hopefully our talk last night will help, both on their side and on mine, because my own guilt at not helping them or taking so much time for myself is part of the overall problem. I have to work on that part in my own head.

That, perhaps, is the biggest, hardest, most confusing, frustrating, maddening part of the entire equation right now.........................................

The central theme of every bit of advice and direction I get on how to structure my recovery period is to listen to my own body and not do any more than I can handle, stay within my own limits, let my own body dictate the amount of activity I do, listen to my body, listen to my body, listen to my body, and listen to my body.

I am apparently either stone deaf when it comes to listening to my damned body, or it's not saying a hell of a lot!!! Or speaking Esperanto. No matter what, my stupid body isn't telling me what I need to know in definite terms, like "sit down and rest for at least 3-4 hours every day." All it says is "I'm tired," or "Ouch." Obviously, I have some work to do in that area, and so far I haven't found anyone who can really guide me on it.


Well, right now my body is saying "I'm tired," so I'm going to listen to it before it's time for my hair appointment at 2:00. Here's the ultimate in totally unintentional irony--I had no real concept of what day it was going to be when I made my hair appointment. Amber said Tuesday, I said sure. So, I'm going to the salon to get the green streaks REMOVED on St. Patrick's Day. That really is kind of funny...

Off to rest for a while.

Merry Sunday!

This, right here---> is the happy place.

I'm fond of corners. I have four corners of the house that I claim for myself now, in one way or another. This is the happy, quiet, resting, rocking by the fire, doing yoga and reading corner.

The very front corner near the front window is where the giant antique desk full of craft supplies and the sewing cabinet are.

The back corner of the living room is where my spot on the couch is, and all my knitting and tv watching occurs.

The little corner that was supposed to be the "breakfast nook" in the kitchen is where my desk is, where the computer lives when I'm not carrying it around the house, and where my calendar is, making it one of the most important places in the house. Mission control!

I was taking photos of things, so I thought I'd show off what I've been doing, and how I've rearranged the dining room so that it can be half dining room and half family room in front of the fire. Ahhh..... I've been in a good mood today.

So, why am I in such a good mood today? I mean, I'm not complaining about it, but there is sure as hell NO good reason for it. I'm having massive neuropathy pain in that pesky ilioinguinal inner thigh & genital area and my right hand, which keeps going to sleep on me too, severe, severe, severe pain in my lower-lower abdomen, pelvic area & back. Really bad. Like, some of the shooting pains in my back in the last few minutes have made me stop, double over and contemplate my toes.

Unfortunately all of the pain issues are probably related to the yoga workout I did this morning, which felt amazingly good at the time. I felt really strong physically, really good & focused mentally, did a gentle, easy stretching routine, did NOT push myself any farther than my body could handle...you know, all the stuff I was supposed to do.

This is like the 4th or 5th day in a row I've managed to get down o the floor and do something, even if it was 5 minutes of stretching my legs. ANYthing helps, everything counts, right?

Sunday is chore-day in our household, which means there has been much cleaning and vacuuming and everything looks nice and pretty now. We all know that a clean house is very soothing for me...I'm weird that way.

Yesterday, Anna and I went out shopping and got most of the stuff I need to start making terrariums. We found cool jars and containers, cool rocks and sea glass for the bottom, moss, all kinds of stuff. We are missing one rather necessary component--plants! It seems that Gridley is rather anti-houseplant. Outdoor plants galore, but no indoor. I did find baby tears, which, according to the magazine article, are useable in terraria. So, I did buy those, and I'm going to experiment with one starter jar, to see if I can make it work, before I go hunting for more houseplants. It should work...we shall see. I started the jar before I sat down here to eat and blog and finished it after.

(Yes, look Mom, I ate! It was horribly bad for me, but I ate.)

I actually ended up making two terraria, and planting a big clump of baby tears in one of my favorite planters which desperately needed something interesting in it.

Terrarium 1 is the jar with the gasket. It's the one I meant to make, and I stuck a little angel figurine in there just because I had space and it needed something. I didn't know what, but something.

Ooh, now the excruciating crampy shooting pain is in the front! Don't worry, it's on *both* sides and all the way across, so it's not my appendix, I promise.

There's terrarium 1 --->

There's terrarium 2, down there below.

I guess we'll see how they behave and how well they live before I go out and stock up on teeny tiny houseplants to make more. Well, I do have one more container I REALLY wanna use, so I'll probably at least get plants for it so I don't just have an empty jar sitting around.

Now, I am absolute, definitely done for the day. Oh, man am I done. This pain is getting to be a bit much to ignore, so I think it's time to lay down and read magazines. It might be intestinal obstruction kind of pain, I think. Definitely time to lay down anyway.

But, it has been a very merry Sunday, with lots of prettiness in the form of jars filled with rocks, moss and soil.

Yep, I know I'm weird.

Spring fever...and a conundrum.

I have quite a conundrum, and I need to solicit input from my panel of experts. (That would be you.)

I also have some other catching up to do, so let's do that first.

Ok, first off, it really sucks to have spring fever, brought on by several gorgeous, temperate days in a row, which makes me want to garden something CRAZY, but I can't!!! I can't go out and spend a bunch of money on a truckful of plants, plant them, and then refuse to ever touch them again because I'm terrified of the frogs hiding in them. That's just not right, on many levels. I think I've found a solution....more on that in a bit.

General health update is, I have a horrible headache, I feel like I'm going to barf, and of course, once again, I have diarrhea. However, my weight has somehow managed to suddenly bounce back up about 10 lbs from where I was a few weeks ago, which is bizarre, because I don't eat, I barf a lot, and I have diarrhea a lot. Figure that out. Well, I see either Dr. Mazj or Roni (the PA) tomorrow for my 1 month post-chemo checkup, so we'll see what's what. I see the radiation oncologist Thursday, and back to the dentist Friday.

I saw the dentist yesterday to take a look at my mess of a mouth and get me started on some treatment. I think I have found heaven. Dr. Mazj referred me to the dental clinic over at the Feather River Hospital giant clinic center, which takes MediCal. Since I have dental damage along with all my other damage from chemo, it's covered by my BCCTP plan. Now, apparently, other clinics who work with MediCal have to get permission from MediCal to do certain things dentally, and are highly restricted on what they can do. Apparently, this clinic, because they have special status as a "rural health clinic" have some sort of federal mandate and according to the dental assistant, they don't have to ask MediCal for permission; they just do what they need to and it gets covered. Ok....I'm good with that....

Yesterday, I got a very thorough exam, and a treatment plan was worked up for all my future dental work. It appears I will be once again spending a lot of time in Paradise. It appears that we will be doing major work to almost every single tooth in my mouth, including partial denture plates, crowns, bridges, fillings, root canals and god knows what else. It also appears, from what the treatment plan I signed said, that the cost to me on this will be $0.00. Well, that's what it said. I am, of course, waiting to hear the "but..." in this situation, but that's what it said.

I am simultaneously exhilarated and scared they'll suddenly hit me with the "but..." If they don't, I would be happy to spend 2 or 3 days a week in Paradise at the dental clinic. The one drawback they have is that MediCal restricts them to doing no more than one procedure at a time, so I can't go and get 2 or 3 fillings at once, that would take 2 or 3 visits, but I can live with that. It's worth it. The dental clinic is also so high-tech, state of the art GORGEOUS that I love it.

SO, Friday I will get the infected back left molar extracted. Next, we'll be extracting the back right molar, which is threatening to get infected. Both of these are really only a piece of molar, since they were broken to start with, and since chemo, chunks have been cracking off of them. After that, who knows what next. I told the dentist, I will just show up and sit down and be quiet, and they can do whatever they need to do. I will drive to Paradise for the next two years if that's what needs to be done.

I think that covers the updates....now for the conundrum.

This will undoubtedly sound exceptionally stupid, but the dilemma (boiled down to its simplest components) is trying to figure out how to get all healed, recovered, "better," or whatever you want to call it.

Now, what I really want is a doctor to tell me to get up each morning and do A, B & C for 34 days and then do X, Y & Z for 63 days and then I will be all better. Lacking that, I need to figure it out for myself and I need input from others. Extra brains!

See, the problem is, I am supposed to rest and recuperate. But how much? For how many hours each day? I am supposed to get a little exercise. How much, how often, and how do I gradually ramp it up? (I have to ask the doc if I'm cleared to start yoga classes.) I need to figure out how to get past the guilt trips where I feel like I'm supposed to be doing something productive every minute of the day. But, I need to do something productive sometimes...right?

When you get sick, you get a treatment plan. Now I need the opposite of that. I need a recuperation plan. I have to do enough resting and recovering so that I actually get well, and I'm not sure how to go about that, or how often I should get up and out of the house and pretend to be a normal person without wearing myself out way, way too much and setting myself back.

So, input is needed. Please!!! Email me or comment here, I'm really interested in what everyone thinks I should try to do.

Today, I think I'm going to test out my gardening solution. That will be my "active" part of the day. I'm going to attempt to get my gardening fix from houseplants, and attempting to make a terrarium. I have vague, very faint memories of having one with Mom when I was a kid at one point. Or am I imagining that? But, it seems like a good idea. I can have the whole "fussing" thing that's kind of like spending time out making a garden (and I can do it outside when the weather cooperates) and make little houseplant terrariums. I saw an article in Real Simple magazine and got hooked. I've always like planting in odd containers, so this appeals to me. I guess we'll see if it satisfies my spring fever urges.

The things I am going to do outside this year are simple. We've decided we have to forgo the finch feeders this season, because the seed price has about quadrupled, and we just can't afford it. So, I'm going to just rake up the rock in that corner and plant a ton of sunflowers all over the place. Gorgeous flowers; eventual bird food! I've also got a really pretty trellis that had morning glory until the freeze killed it, so I'm going to clean that off, and plant some nasturtium seeds beneath it and see what happens. Nasturtium seeds tend to grow in what seems like air sometimes, so I should have to do too much work to rough up the ground under the rock for that. Both of those are plant it and leave it kind of projects, so no frog guilt!

Ok...I think I have updated all that needed to be updated, and rambled enough for one day. Please send input!!! I'm off to eat something squooshy and horribly bad for me.

Nothing terribly interesting...

Just sort of plodding along...it's all about still getting life back together, and getting started on my first round of check ups.

I had my 1-month-post-chemo CT scan this week. I made the trek up the mountain & showed up for it yesterday, only to discover that someone, somewhere along the line, was supposed to have given me a bunch of barium contrast solution to drink and told me to do things like fast before the test....and no one had. So, they corrected THAT problem, posthaste, rescheduled me for today and sent me away with lots of nasty stuff to drink.

Now, I'm fighting off something of some sort......some type of sniffly, congested head kind of thing that has to go away before Friday. Friday, I have an appointment with Feather River's dental department to try and take care of some of this massive damage happening in my mouth. Apparently, the chemo took its toll on my teeth as much as it did on everything else, and I've got a definite abscess going on at least one side.

Monday, I go see Dr. Mazj for a post-chemo check up, and later that week, a radiation check up. Just having to get up and be somewhere is exceptionally disturbing! It's hard mentally because it feels like getting up and going to radiation or chemo again.

Physically, I'm very, very tired. Very tired. Figure in the part where I'm fighting off a cold or something, and you've got the whole picture.

I go sleep now.

Getting all my chickens in a row....

Just a quick note to let everyone know that things are generally fine, I'm just behind on blogging while I try to get my chickens in a row around here. Organization is a wonderful thing, when one can manage to GET organized!

So, more to come later, when I'm awake and not heeding the strange urge to clean something or organize something.

And someone go get my rain back! I was promised there'd be more thundershowers. I'm getting pissed off here.

Icky-sicky, bitch & moan

Ok, this is hard to read on here, but try, it's worth it! Thanks to Clint for the illness-related humor. It's oh-so-fitting!

Yup, I still feel like crap, so I'm going to bitch about it. Well, at least a little. After a little time spinning some of the yummy-soft camel fiber I got for Christmas, I finally gave up and became horizontal and stayed that way.

Unfortuately, this meant lots of sleeping, a fair bit of barfing, intestinal gymnastics, and the definite onset of something respiritory. That last bit hasn't developed itself fully yet, but it's coming....I can tell with every breath.

And my mouth hurts. Like, my stomach insists I eat only dry cereal and bread-y things like toast, but eating things like that is excruciating because they have sharp-ish edges. My chemo-related mouth sores and soreness seem to be kicking in, finally. I guess it's going to be time to see a dentist about that fun and games, 'cause I have enough trouble with eating as it IS.

So, thanks to all of my ickiness, I missed the big boy's big birthday dinner at Buca di Beppo last night with his Grandma. I was more than a little bummed about that.... but I was so zonked, I don't even remember them leaving, woke up around 7 to feed some hyper dogs, and was in and out of consciousness until everyone got home around 10.

What worries me is all the sleeping. All I want to do is sleep, and I'm starting to have mouth problems. My history tells me that this is a really bad combination! Every time I've ended up wtih a really bad tooth abscess, it's been preceeded by some number of days worth of unexplained exhaustion. So, I guess we'll see.

In other news...there isn't much news. I finally have a valance over in the dining room window, which makes me happy. I've found that the rocking chair-glider thing that I have never been fond of --looks-wise, not comfort-wise, it's very comfortable-- is very nice for spinning. If I put a pillow behind my back, it puts me in just the right position to work the wheel without stressing out my back and neck muscles. Right on.

So, now that we're able to use half of the dining room as a family room, and I've grown fond of spinning in the rocker in front of the fire, my DH let me go ahead and order replacement cushions for it. When those come, I will LOVE the rocking chair. Right now, the cushions are this horrid pink and purple floral with green, which doesn't make a lot of sense....I mean, these are the glider chairs that are issued to every pregnant woman in America, by federal law (you know it's true!) but pink and purple flowers would not have been MY first choice when having a baby boy. Maybe I'm just weird that way...

But pink and purple flowers do not excite me, nor to they look real good in my pumpkin colored dining room. Sadly, the replacement cushions are going to take eight weeks to arrive. Eight freakin' weeks!!! We chose a slightly offbeat, but hopefully gorgeous fabric in golds and creams, with rather subtle honeybees flying around in the swirls. I know, sounds weird, but it looks neat. Again, these chairs are made for nurseries, not family rooms, so we had to work with what was available. I also found a slipcover for a pillow that has stripes of both the scarlet of the valance and the gold from the chair-cushions-to-be. It all works. In eight weeks or so, I'll take pictures of my finally-complete dining/family room.

I guess that's about it... I'm going to spend the rest of today much like yesterday, laying around and feeling cancerous and sick from head to toe. My poor darling husband has to go out in this rain and drive all the way out to Citrus Heights (Sacramento-ish) to pick up the big boy from his overnight visit with Grandma. That's a good 4 hours out of the day...no small chunk! I don't envy him having to be out on the road, but at least this storm is just a nice, steady rain. No raging wind gusts or anything violent, just rain. Rain is good. We need lots and lots more, so bring it on!

I'm going to go attempt to knit, nurse my headache and attempt to not cough. If I don't cough, I can't get a respiritory infection, right? It's denial at its finest.....