Making fun of others...that's always good clean fun!

If you are so inclined, follow in my footsteps and be rewarded by some true silliness.

Go visit http://www.printsngs.com/natgeo/search/?page=5&q=leopard&q=leopard

If the page is working right, Huzzah! View some beautiful photos of one of natures most graceful climbers and leapers.

If it's not, well....a trip through the gallery pages would have you admiring the many, divergent forms the leopard had been taking, until you reached perhaps MY favorite, in the top Left corner of page 5 where the partial caption warns us of a "snarling female leopard..."

OOOOOOOoooooohhhhh, this is the part where it really got funny, and I laughed so much that the puppies thought Mommy had finally lost it. (those few remaining bits left!)

Ahh, we all need a good giggle once in a while.
Someone at NatGeo needs to have a chat with their database folks. That's all I'm saying...

Summertime!

Yes, I am pleased to announce that summer has finally happened. Of course, in Gridley, summer arriving means an instant switch to 100°+ temps most days, but what the hell. Rumor has it we'll be switching back to rain again sometime next week, but that only makes perfect sense in this year's weather pattern, right?

Well, like the weather this year, I've been kind of confused lately... You know, the kind of confused where you lose track of all of the appointments you have in one week, taking kids to send them off to see their mother, going to chemo, getting a CT scan..... Yes, I did manage to entirely forget that I had a CT scan scheduled for this week.

I managed to remember in just barely enough time to have Lloyd pick up the contrast mix the afternoon before, but I didn't quite manage to put the news out to all of you folks out there that I was going in to have it done. Ooops.

It's a little late now, but yes, I had a scan on Thursday morning! The scan itself went perfectly well, nothing of any interest to report, as usual. Unfortunately, I don't see Dr. Mazj until July 6 to get the results. I'm definitely not expecting anything interesting - no surprises, nothing worrisome - but of course I will post the results as soon as I get them. I think I'll be less forgetful about that!!

That is actually also the only news I have to share, too. I'm recovering from the combination of chemo and barium (yick!), recovering my taste buds, thank god, getting back into yoga as best i can, and resting when my body tells me to rest.

That's what it's telling me to do right now....I'm exhausted. So, it's nap time. Many mea culpas on forgetting to tell you all about the scan!! You're all going to forgive me, right?!

I plead chemo-brain....

Happy Daddy's Day!!!

With luck, my own Daddy is probably still sleeping right now - as is my darling husband. What better way to celebrate Father's Day?! A good lie-in, as the Brits would say, followed by a good nap or three, maybe find a way for some BBQ and beer in there, and you've got a pretty damned good day, no?

Well, I think so. Oh, I almost forgot - hopefully someone is driving very fast cars in circles too. NOW Daddy's day will be complete!

I hope to get a chance to celebrate with Dad sometime soon. Today, alllllll the kids and I are going to load up into the car and go out to eat with my husband. Luckily, Father's Day falls before they have to leave for the East Coast this year so we can all do something together.

Also, I've got a couple of friends out there who are celebrating their very first Father's Day today - I hope it is incredibly special guys.

Maybe not a lot of words today, but a lot of sentiment behind the few words there are. At this point in my life, I do not know what I would do without my Daddy, I love it when he's able to come up to see me, whether we go out and find an adventure or just hang around the house -and I miss him terribly when he isn't free to come visit.

Happy Father's Day to my D.O.D.!! I miss you & I love you very much.

Pretty, pretty things!

Between the incredible flowers Auntie sent for my birthday, and my beautiful young lady - no longer a little girl - dressed up for her eighth grade graduation ceremony and dance, I have been surrounded by gorgeous things lately!

Getting her ready for all of the festivities surrounding graduation has kept me insanely busy the last week, and I apologize if I still haven't written a promised email (Mom, JKB, SDS) or responded to birthdays greetings. I swear, I'm working on it. I'm trying, at least, when I'm not falling asleep on my feet.

Thus, this blog entry will be ridiculously short. I don't have any medical news of huge import yet - tomorrow I should find out if I have enough white blood cells to get chemo this week as planned. I also have a CT scheduled this month, I believe on the 23rd. I'll post the reslts of both of those things as soon as I know 'em.

More info when I have it, I promise! And when I can keep my eyes open,,,,

Relay Day & So Much More!

Many of you know that my Relay for Life In The Rain And Wind And Mud is today, but I thought I'd fill you in on some other news while I try to wake up this early, ugly gray morning. Conner had to get up and out early for his SAT this morning, so I think some sort of sixth sense woke me up so I could fuss over him about sharpened pencils and granola bars.

And, today is our SIXTH wedding anniversary, as you can see by the gorgeous burst of spring flowers that arrived yesterday afternoon! As I told Lloyd then, sometimes it doesn't feel at all like we've been married for six years, that our wedding was that long ago...and sometimes, it just feels like forever, not in the bad way, but in the way that it feels like there was just never a time when we weren't together.

Technically, the traditional anniversary gifts for a sixth are iron (traditional) or wood (modern) but I'm pretty happy with flowers all the way around!!

In other news.... I got booted out of chemo this week again because

------>(after several hours of sitting there while Helen tried to get blood from my port - both to do my labs with & because they always test; no blood return equals no meds going into the actual vein - pushing about a dozen syringes of saline thru, making my heart rather fluttery & unsure of just what in hell to do with all of this fluid & thus making me very lightheaded and faint as I lay there waiting for the lab tech to come puncture me in the arm to draw my labs, and for the syringe of CathFlow enzyme to go thru my port, ostensibly clearing it out for the chemo to get in, which didn't actualy work, we found out when it had marinated long enough and she STILL couldn't pull any blood out of it; meanwhile the lab results came back, and after all of that, they discovered)----->

I have severe neutropenia again

------>(this being the shortage of white blood cells; specifically the WBCs known as neutrophils, the "baby" whites which I guess are most important of all)----->

with an overall WBC count of 2.1 (3.2-10.6 =N) & a neutrophil count of 0.3 (1.5-6.5 =N), which is kinda sorta REALLY low. Kopeks. <-------LOLOLOL.
(I left that in for humor. I *typed* "oopsie" and that's what I got. That might be my new swear word. Kopeks!! I wonder what the hell it means...)

ANYWAY......
My oncologist and long-suffering nurses, who could very likely be seen at today's event, would if asked, probably have expressly forbidden me from attending large, publicly germ-ridden events, rain and mud or no rain and mud, but it honestly didn't occur to me to ask. It apparently didn't occur to them to bring it up. Kopeks again! Well, hell, how can it be worse than a house full of rotating teenagers?

Well, I probably should be asking the assorted spare teens (not to mention my own!!) to santize and mask up if necessary, and I should probably be carrying a few masks today, lest a stray oncologist catches sight of me, bundled in my "fight like a girl" long-sleeve tee, appropriate event tee of the hour (I think I have three), "fight like a girl" hoodie, rainproof jacket of some sort and giant rainbow'd golf umbrella. Come to think of it, I should be easy to spot. I'll be the one waddling down the track like like a pregnant goose.

A wet goose.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Kopeks: 1/100 of a Ruble. I knew I'd heard that word somewhere.

Relay, & the Bestest Friends Ever!

For those who still might not know, I'm participating in the American Cancer Society Relay for Life this coming weekend up in Paradise, where my cancer center is located. I'm placing the same blog entry here, and on my personal Relay for Life page, IF the goddamned thing ever lets me. Please excuse the duplication, if there is one, but I wanted to make sure I reached everyone out there. (their little blog app isn't quite working, like several other parts of their site....::sigh::...)

Anyway: Wowee guys!!  You have *really* stepped up to the plate.  I am overwhelmed with the support I'm getting for Relay. Then again, I shouldn't be, because you guys are here for me all the time, no matter what I need.

I just want to thank you all very sincerely for your donations to my Relay. As a cancer patient, you so often feel helpless. Powerless. I've said it myself, that cancer steals your dignity. Show up at the hospital, drop your pants, and drop your dignity at the door.

Well, thankfully, that's not always true, and lord knows the fantastic staff at FRH try their best to make sure it isn't like that, but it sure feels that way a lot of the time. Relay changes that feeling. It gives me something I can DO to fight back against this b'strd of a disease, for myself ands many others.

And for me, this fight has never really been about myself. I've always felt more worried about the impact on my family and friends than myself. And I'm a bit of a worrier, in case we've never met.  ;-)

Well, this feeling of empowerment is new and different, let me tell you! There is finally something real and tangible I can do to help prevent other families, other people's friends from going through this hell.

And it's not one bit ironic that the ACS slogan talks about creating a world with "more birthdays" when I've been saying for a year and a half now that I will be one rare woman who actually likes to grow older each year. It's even LESS ironic that our Relay takes place four days before my 40th birthday. ;-)  

I hope I can help many more people reach those milestones. Relay is something so simple - just walking a few laps around a track - and it can do so much. That is the most powerful feeling I've had since learning I had cancer.

Thank you all, so, so much, for being part of my Relay, my battle with cancer, and more than anything, my life.  I love you all very, very much!!