Hello winter!

Dude! All of a sudden it is COOOOOOOLD around here!

Leaving for the dentist this morning marked our first time scraping frost and ice off the car before we could go anywhere. Everything on our side of the street was white and gorgeous, covered in frost.

Not too many updates of any importance...

Thanksgiving was nice, with Dad and Chris up. Chris helped me cook, and that was a very welcome thing. We cooked, we ate, and we even took a trip out to an indian casino. It was nice to get out of the house a little bit, but it did wear me out. Even with all Chris' help, I still managed to over-do it, and landed myself in bed for a couple of days afterward. Ah well.

The Venofer infusions I was getting (iron) weren't working out too well - I was getting ridiculous headaches and even vomited blood once - so we stopped those until I see the doctor again.

In a couple of weeks, I'm going to see a gastro doc to try and figure out WHY I was vomiting blood, and why my scans are still showing slight intestinal obstructions. That doubtlessly means a colonoscopy or endoscopy or both. I'm looking forward to those OH SO MUCH, as I'm sure you can imagine.

December marks my last Taxol chemo treatment, which might be great or might be....bleh. In January we're going to switch to a drug called Topotecan, which will be infusions every week, 3 weeks on and 1 week off. We're going to be very, very tired, but there is a chance that the Taxol I've been getting all this time hasn't been doing a thing, since I have had growth in the tumors, slow as it's been. Maybe the new drug will stop the growth entirely; maybe it will do nothing.

I've got to give it a shot though, because any growth is bad growth, as far as I'm concerned!

Until then, it's all about getting ready for the holidays. Pea was less than enthused about her photo session for our annual strange Christmas card, but that's ok. You'll all get to see the final results soon enough.

And now, it's bedtime...

More soon. Happy Winter everyone!!

Ahh, the joy of chemo...

NOT.

Well, I've had two Venofer treatments, my labs and my visit with Roni, Dr. Mazj's physician's assistant. Two days down, one to go... THIS WEEK. As of yesterday, when the rest of my Venofer treatments were worked out, I'm so over-scheduled, I'm not sure how either Lloyd or I are going to take it. It's going to be a lot like the days when we were doing radiation and chemo at the same time and heading up the mountain five days a week.

Next week isn't bad at all, yet. I have the remainder of my root canal treatment to finish on Monday, with a trek up the mountain on Tuesday for Venofer. That will let me have a little bit of a break after chemo, and still have time to get in all oif my Thanksgiving shopping, prep and cooking without being too pressed for time. I usually try to prep as much in advance as I can, but Chris has been drafted as my sous-chef for the holiday so I've got my back covered this year.

After my holiday break, it's one hell of a week. Monday, six fillings; Tuesday, Venofer; Wednesday, Andy; Thursday & Friday, Venofer. Urgh!!

The following week is almost as bad - Monday, Venofer; Tuesday, three fillings; Wednesday, Venofer; Friday, Venofer. At least I've got Thursday off that week.

The week after that, we're back at chemo week, so it's an exact copy of this week, with the doctor's visit, chemo and Neulasta on top of three Venofer infusions.

I'm getting tired just reading this, and having trouble figuring out where in all of that I'm going to do Chrismas shopping, wrapping and all the other holiday tasks. I'm having the sudden (very sudden!) realization that I'm going to have to cut back on what I plan to do, and make really damned good use of the little time I do have!! Hello Mr. Anxiety Attack!

I just got up for my every-ten-minute potty break, and now I'm REALLY depressed. The shower is overrun by ants - still. We started treating last night, choosing to put a bait disk in there, so they might kill some back at the nest, instead of just spraying it. This morning, we'll have to spray, but it does look like the bait disk has had booming business overnight. This is only day....er, 10? 12? Longer? in our ongoing battle to reclaim the house from the ants. The kitchen and pantry have been under constant attack, with side flanks hitting all three bathroom. This could put an even bigger damper on any holiday baking I try to do!!!

And, whoever plans layout for our local newspaper should be given a lesson in compassion. The obits belong somewhere appropriate, likejj behind the last page of the classifieds, not on the page before the comics. Seeing familiar faces of two women, one young and one older, who request donations to the Feather River Hospital Cancer Center and Hospice didn't help out my anxiety or depression much at all.

It's going to be an interesting month ahead. It's time now to go hit the catalogs and work on some Christmas shopping.

SO, no one's going to be shocked when I don't post very often, now, are they?!

Ok, I'm back

Well, I hadn't felt much like writing when lost Boo, but I'm back.

More specifically, I'm in the cancer center infusion room, waiting my turn for one of the very busy, overloaded fantastic nurses to come and puncture me, and then set me up with my infusions for the day. I'm supposed to be getting a red cell booster infusion each of the next three days, along with chemo tomorrow, and Neulasta shot on Friday, so this should be interesting. I think I've had this drug before, but I can't really remember what it was like or if I had a reaction to it or not, so I have no idea what to expect.

I guess we'll see, won't we?

Along with being kind of generally depressed after losing my birdie, I've also had some generally miserable days in the recent past. I had one day ( I can't remember which day for the life of me) where I woke up with a migraine so bad that I spent the entire day, early morning till night, alternating between sleeping and sitting on the bathroom floor barfing my guts out. I couldn't keep anything down, my anti-nausea meds did zilch for me - including the suppositories - and nothing would touch the pain. It was truly the worst thing I have experienced in a very long time. Actually, I've got more than a little bit of a sinus-y headache going now, but I'm crossing my fingers. And my port hurts, damn it. It just randomly hurts sometimes, but this is the first time its hurt while it's been accessed (meaning while its punctured while I'm up here getting an infusion) so I'm a little surprised.

There really hasn't been a lot going on to write about, truthfully. One exciting thing- I got the results of my bone scan: NO metastatic disease in the bone! Whoo-hoo!! That is the one thing that mattered. It did show some sinus problems - not shocking AT ALL!

Otherwise' I've been getting my dental work done, bit by bit, and had sort of a double root canal yesterday. I say sort of because they weren't able to fully finish it in the time we had. I was having a weird day yesrday, where I kept falling asleep constantly, and I slept through the whole thing! I'm not complaining, but it's weird.

I am complaining about this growing headache I have...its making it hard for me to see to type this, so I think I'm going to sign off and try again tomorrow during chemo. I know this isn't the greatest or most exciting entry, but I know that all of you will live. I shared the bone scan result, and that was the important thing.

I'm going to take a nap. More later!

Milestones

I just noticed, as I went to write this entry, that this is post number 301 on this blog. I never imagined I'd have 300 things to say to anyone!

But, I do have a sad milestone to report today too. After more than 14 years, 11(?) homes and four companions, my poor little Elvis Booboo left me sometime in the night.

He was wanting tons of love and affection yesterday, and now I think he was saying goodbye. I said goodnight to him and turned on his warmie-pad, and Lloyd found him there in the bottom of the cage today, still nestled near his heating pad.

It's been a rough day, but I wrapped him up in a cloth and we took him to the vet and at least I was able to hold him for that last ride. He'll be coming back to us soon. You may think that sounds silly, for a bird, but I think anyone who sticks with me for fourteen years has earned some respect.

He was my friend, honestly, and the house is going to seem far too quiet and still without him.
RIP Boobird.

Very much spoooooooky-like-ness-ing

And as usual, Halloween was once again THE premier holiday for the Irwin household. The way we do Halloween makes most people's Christmas celebration and decoration efforts look pretty anemic, if I do say so myself.

It is very much a whole-family holiday. Lloyd and the kids decorate the hell out of the yard in advance, and top it off as it's getting dark that night. (light-up ICE CUBES, anyone?! Yes, we still have a good number that worked, and this is year seven!!!).

Giant graveyard on the lawn, check; anything that can be draped in black fabric or covered in glow sticks, IS, check; spooks created from cheesecloth, discarded net curtains, check. Boys with voice-changers, tiny hidden mp3 player speakers, faceless masks and red glowing eyes hiding in the bushes with bags full of cans full of pennies...check, check check!!!

I had some great half-formed ideas for giant spiders out of the bottom ring of a papasan chair and how to best use my wheelchair, but alas they were too late for this year.

So, we had to settle for the two-

or three- hundred other things we did....

Anna was feeling pretty bummed over the whole thought of being too old to go trick or treating, and a the last weeks and days counted down to the holiday, I caved. First I said to invite her two best friends over, just to run around outside or whatever. Then I gave in on the trick or treating too. What the fuck, she's only young once, right? Young enough to still go, but also old enough that I was able to let her and Christa go out for a while on their own.

Let me clarify though: We checked the Megan's law site. She was given a precise set of streets she was allowed to be on and no further. They were nicely visible thanks to many glowsticks (& Christa's shiny white patent knee-high platform go-go boots!) There was a curfew, they knew not to consider eating a single thing they collected AND I had her on walkie-talkie the whole time.

Freedom on a very short leash. ;->

But, because of all those things and knowing our housing tract-neighborhood, I was able to feel very, very comfortable letting her have her freedom, and the two girls had an absolute blast-plus. Maybe next year she won't want to do it again, but I've alre

ady decided to let her. Like I said, she's only going to be this age once.

The boys, once they aged out of the door-to-door thing, made up their own routine for the holiday. They both have big black shroud kind of things with those hood masks that make you look like you're faceless. Under that, at least one of them had glowing red eyes, which look eerie as all hell.

They take turns sitting in a black draped chair, with black draping covering their feet and such, and play statue, candy bucket between the feet. For younger kids (the ones brave enough to come all the way up the walk!!), they just give out the candy. For the tiny ones with pink wings, I often have to intervene and bring the candy down to the sidewalk, that's HOW good they are!!

While one is in the chair, the other is somewhere in the bushes with a bag full of soda cans, with a handful of pennies thrown in for better noisemaking.

Older kids, see, are fair game...... Muhahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!
You should hear the screams!! Oh, it is glorious! Teenage girls are the best prey - of course. They do such a great job that our house is now widely known in Gridley as THAT HOUSE - "you know, that one house with the guys who don't move?!"

I was across the street talking to Jamie at one point and when I looked back across at our house, we had a LINE. A LINE!! All the way down the walkway to the driveway, with screams emanating from the porch. I wanted a camera so badly right then.

As for me, I decided to really go for it myself, costume-wise. As I told Jamie, not to be morbid, but, I have no idea how many Halloweens I have to feel up and perky enough to do it, so I didn't want to miss it. My costume was very deceptively simple, but I got masses of compliments!

I was a Christmas tree!!

The idea was stolen from a long-ago coworker, but the execution was all mine, with prop styling by the Dollar Tree store. My main tree-part was a giantly fluffy green square dance petticoat with ornaments, battery powered LED lights, ornaments, etc. Other than fixing the lights in place and putting my "hat" ( garland wreath with a giant gold star) together, the rest was basically draping things artistically.

I was actually surprised at how much attention I got. Then again, I was the only brightly lit neon green Christmas tree running around in the dark.

I got tons of compliments from kids and adults both, but I also had one rather clueless family where the father wanted me to *dance* for him - what the fuck?! Do people just randomly ask other adults to dance on the sidewalk for them on Halloween in his world?! His horrid children kept sticking out bare hands at me saying "trick or treat!" over and over and then trying to remove and take my ornaments.

I'm going to be generous and assume that this was their first Halloween since sneaking across the border...... Ok, that was terrible of me but I was getting seriously grossed out by these people TOUCHING ME!! Yuck.

I should have thrown pumpkin guts at them.

But, aside from being groped by one nasty family, the rest of the night was a complete blast. All the kids were exhausted from the hard work hiding, scaring and walking, and we were exhausted from supervising the general chaos.

The boys are already plotting next year.......