Trying to keep it real ... and how hard it can be.

This post is a kind of ramble jumble of thought.

This is the first time in almost 8 years that I have been in my home, alone, with no kiddos to take care of!  Yes I miss them, but what I love is that I have a day full of that quite time that my brain needs to get organized!  And not only am I finally able to think clearly, and think ahead farther than 2 hours, I can be creative again!

I have been knitting and beading my head off.  My poor Etsy shop languished for MONTHS while we muddled through our crazy days, but I am so happy to announce that it is up and running again!  Check out the side tab to see what is new!  Yarn pots are coming soon!



One project in particular, is a beaded lace lampshade I am making for my LYS owner.  I am making it out of Crimson Cascade, Kid Seta Noir,  Right now, I only have 2 rows done, but I am liking the new cast on I tried out on this.  It is called the Frilled Cast On.  LOVE IT.

In the midst of all of this crafting fervor, I decided that it would not be a bad thing if I treated myself to a pair of shoes I had had my eye on for over a year.  I had been patiently waiting for them to go on sale, and lo-and behold, I came across them on major sale, online.  So I bought them.  Imagine my surprise when about 1.5 weeks later THIS arrived in the mail

A kitchen sponge, air mailed from China.  I was perplexed at first, and then I googled the Chinese address on the package, Xiaoya Yang, Xixiang Jiedao, Zhongwu Zonghedalo u4, Shenzhen Guangdong, China. Do NOT buy from SHOP-CORA Shoes. and came across a bunch of other people complaining that after making a purchase at Shop-Cora, and some other named on-line shops.  IT IS A SCAM!  I ham disputing this charge now through Paypal and I have filed a complaint to get my money back.   I have since purchased my shoes again, but with a RELIABLE online source.  

Now for a little grumbling.

Lately I have been dismayed with how far we have gotten away from "The Real".  "The Real" I refer to, are the simple discomforts of life.


for example:

When it is summer, it is hot outside ... get over it.
When it is winter, it is cold outside ... get over it.

I am sounding really judge-y here, and I really dont mean to come off this way, but I cannot tell you how my hackles rise when I hear someone complaining about how MISERABLE a cold is making them, or how their big toe just hurts soooo much ...(I think I have been watching too much Keeping up with the Kardashians) perhaps it is unfair of me, but after going through chemo and radiation, i have a WHOLE NEW PERSPECTIVE of what feeling bad, and feeling hopeless really is.

Ever since looking the grim reaper .in.the.face. I decided to start living more through intention, and less through habit.  bad habits, i believe, set up bad cycles in our lives, and within our bodies.  I believe that those bad cycles reach way out, beyond our bodies, into the world around us (garbage in garbage out); and also, at the same time, they reach far inside our bodies, all the way down to a cellular level (you are what you eat).

I am tired of hearing "oh how GOOD you are being" when I opt to pack my lunch, rather than imbibe on a Fast Food item.  They see it as "being kind of weird about fast food", I see it as the ONLY path to my own personal wellness, and the ONLY way to keep from repeating what I went through in 2009.

I listen to people complain about wanting to eat healthier, and how  they "always have a refrigerator full of fruits and veggies go bad because it is so hard, and takes too long to cut them...".  These same people whine and complain about being unhealthy and overweight, and get when given a choice between a bowl of fresh grapes, and a plate of box-mix cupcakes, they will dive in to the cup cakes, one after the other, and complain between bites how they "really should not be doing this...".

Take control of your OWN life, and you will be shaping the future of what you want for your self.

We have always tried hard to offer our kids healthy alternatives to junk food, and I love how my kids will gladly eat a container of fruits and veggies when it is offered to them.  Of course, they will choose a box of cheezits over anything, but that is where being mom comes in :-).





Scams, and grumbling aside, it has been a wonderful summer, and the fall is turning out to be gorgeous!

WTF? Really?!?

So today at the pool, while the boys were in swim class, I sat binding off the hem on a baby dress I am making for a friend. The dress lay splayed out across my lap. 

The following is a conversation that took place. I said nothing because I did not want the child to see me laugh at his father. 


kid: (excitedly pointing at me) LOOK daddy! LOOK at that! 
dad: (leaning over to look closer) why YES, look she is making a hat! 


REALLY!?!? Does the thing in that photo above look like a F'ing hat to you?


OH! OH! Wait, I see! Well i guess it DOES look like a hat. MY BAD!

Dye day

So at s'n'b the other day, S gave me some "Verboten Rice" to try. In my quest to try to eat low Glycemic Idex foods, she had been telling me about this grain. It sounded FAB. And not only is the grain supposed to taste great, the rinse-water, she told me, would really get my attention. Well, being  curious is how I roll,  so I took the bait.

The rice soaked over night. This morning I awoke to this

















The most gorgeous and unexpected color of rice water I have ever seen.  It was a kind of burgundy, purple, red wine color.

 CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!

I went in to the yarn vault and pulled out two skeins of vintage "Plantation Unger mercerized cotton".  "Why vintage cotton"? you ask?

1)  Why not?
2)  It will not felt up like wool if I need to heat the dye water.

I immediately grabbed "Dyes from American native Plants, a Practical Guide." a book borrowed two years ago from my other s'n'b'er K, and proceeded to do a quick search through mordants. In my brief perusal, is seemed that Potassium Hydrogen Tartrate (cream of tarter) seemed to be good for many pinks and purples, so I just went with it and made up a quick soak of a liter of water and a half a bottle of cream of tarter.  Scientific method went out the window when it came to measuring this stuff.  I DIDNT MEASURE ANYTHING.  You will find NO molar weights on here today.

While that was soaking

I did some surfing and found this article on line. Right up my alley with it's chemistry and science geekiness.  The red pigment that comes out of the black rice, just like the red color that comes out of red cabbage, is an anthocyanin.

Located conveniently at the end of this article was located a bit of info that intrigued me.  The article states that -- The main problem found with using this kind of dye/pigment was that color color-fastness, and that they autor felt that "this could be overcome by dipping the untreated fabric in weak alkali such as aqueous ammonia and then in a mordant such as alum solution." ...  

I immediately poured all of the cream of tarter solution into a glass jar, rinsed the yarn , and proceeded to make a vinegar and water soln to soak the fiber in.  I realized after immersing the fiber that I had accidentally grabbed the VINEGAR and not the AMMONIA.  F .   We also did not have alum (an alkali), so I just used the cream of tarter (acidic) solution again.  So to stay consistent, i decided to keep it all acidic.  Oh well, the show must go on.  After soaking for about 1/2 an hour, I removed the yarn, squeezed it out, and placed it back into the cream of tarter solution to soak for another 1/2 hour.  I then squeezed out the yarn and placed it in to a sauce pan of the rice water.  It remained in the rice water over an hour (we had swimming class to go to).  When I got back, I turned the stove on low.  Thank goodness I did not use wool, because I futzed around a lot with this while it was in the saucepan, and wool would have felted up like one huge blob.

I think it "cooked" for about an hour, and then I took to pot outside and hung the yarn up to dry on the clothes line.

Now, for the color-fast test.

After the yarn had completely dried in the sun, and then I rinsed it several times in cold water.  In the above photo, the yarn is still damp, and the hues are nicely saturated (no pun intended).  A bit of the color DID wash out, but I am totally pleased with the results.  Above I did not mention, but I essentially "kettle dyed" it.  During the time the yarn was "cooking" in the pot, I reduced some of the pigmented water in a separate saucepan.  I reduced about 2 cups of the rice water down to about 1/4 cup, (it was super dark and concentrated) and I poured it over the exposed yarn in the pot.  I think this helped add a deeper tonal variation in the color.

Basically, the mordant/s I used this time were acidic (Cream of Tarter and Vinegar) ... next time, I am going to try alkali (Alum and Ammonia) and see if I get different hues and better or worse colorfastness.

One interesting thing I noticed was that there was a reaction between the wet yarn and the aluminum clips on the hangar.  Where it was clipped and touching the metal, I noted a light blue grey coloration....it would be interesting to add strips of foil to the next batch... Weave them in amongst the strands as it air dries.  Next time!  Next time for sure!

Still waiting on my Old Navy order.

One step at a time.

Yesterday as I was leaving Carle after yet another 3 month visit with the "parole officer",(thank you Jennifer Griffin for that awesomely accurate descriptor) I burst out the doors of that clinic feeling like some sort of super hero. As I made my way towards the free lot, I started remembering all of the times I walked this very sidewalk, not feeling anything like how I did at this moment. I lowered my head to kind of bring myself back to the here and now (trying hard to push away the there and then) and I was concentrating on just how delicious the warm sun and fresh breeze felt ... when I saw something blue flutter and roll its way next to the path. It was a ripped off and discarded hospital ID bracelet. I thought about picking it up to see whose name was on it, but I stopped short, suddenly wanting to protect this persons anonymity. It skittered away in a gust of wind;  just how I imagined the wearer did as soon as they were free of the thing. I could completely associate with this persons feeling of freedom. A grand explosion of "I am finally getting out of that place", a burst of freedom, and feelings, made waiting to find scissors NOT an option. Maybe they were in for some inane outpatient surgery ... or maybe they were just being released from the clinic after some sinister out-of-the-blue diagnosis, and some subsequent life altering (and hopefully life saving) surgery. In my minds eye that person threw open those doors (no matter how sore, sad, or solemn they were) and felt the same warm, magical spring breezes that steep the scenery with a fresh breath of  promise, and of renewed life and fresh beginnings. I see him/her lifting her face to the sun, drinking in the wind blown kisses and then suddenly noticing the the hospital bracelet on their arm. Hard and scratching against the skin. Each movement a reminder of why this trip to the free lot was even necessary in the first place. The super-human strength that is needed to tear one of those off can only be brought on by feelings such as this. A primal urge to flee the things that imprison, hurt, and scare... At one time I think I had to wear 4 of those bracelets, not a one of them stating "endless drip on the morphine please" or "GTFO". I remember that delicious feeling of freedom leaving that place after each chemo, and i remember the anxiety attacks i had as soon as i would see the place upon return visits. Almost three years of magical spring breezes have quelled those anxiety attacks and my fear of the place . . . But what has grown in its place is a deep appreciation of health, love, life, and the beauty that is to he had in this world -- things that we can enjoy only IF we take time to stop to see those things.

"the Parole Officer Man" said that he is pleased my body is behaving itself, and i am very close to a important milestone, and that my visits can now be decreased to every six months instead of every three.  Each forward step taken on the road to freedom gets you one step closer to your goal, and one step farther from what you are working on leaving behind.

Making up for lost time...

For the past week, I have been waging a war on dust.  I always just considered dust to be a part of life.  I could take it or leave it, and well, when it would get really bad, I would then take care of it.  I have a rainbow vacuum, so I just assumed that this magical dirt killing machine would rid my life of all mal dust forms and extra effort was just not needed.  Then I got sick, and all things that did not directly with dealing with that took a back shelf.  So for just about a year, things really did not get cleaned around here...at all.  My husband tried as best as he could, but there is only so much on person can do.  And if you are a mom, you know what i mean when i say, some things only mom knows how to do really right.  I think the house got vacuumed Twice in that year.  On top of this you are told all of the horror stories of how important it is to stay away from sources of dust and dirt while on chemo etc., so there was legitimate REASON to not vacuum of dust heavily.  The past year has been centered around my trying to make up for lost time, in my life, and in my house.

Well, I came across a dust atrocity last week that completely freaked me out.  I decided to vacuum the mattresses, including a down mattress ...  Omg, the moment the vacuum touched the down mattress, I felt my throat fill with stining dust which, as i learned, was probably all dust mite feces.  Omg.  And this is with a water vac that is supposed to catch, like 99 percent of air junk!  I mean there must have been such a high concentration of dust that it overwhelmed the water... Well, now have a raging sinus infection a week later.  Until I am able to rid this house of its copious amounts of dust, I have decided to add a heap filter to my vac.  I would love to be able to afford an e-series vac, but until then, this will have to do!  So this is how I did it.

The first retrofit worked well, but it was a total bitch to move the vac between tigh spaces, like between the sofa and coffee table...and through DOORWAYS.  I worked well, but needed Improvement.  I was concerned that the Horse Power needed to force air throught the bag properly was mores than what my vac proveded, and this would just cause the air to preferentially find a way out through a crack, rather than through the filter medium.  So I decided to look for a HEPA filter that was designed for lower HP motors.  I found this upright vac filter, more approrpiate Horse Power, for about 16 bucks.  It was less than 1 cm too small to form am airtight seal, so silicon to the rescue!

Aside from going all ape on the dust, I have also become obsessed with doing my nails again.  During the year that I try my hardest to forget, I could not do my nails because 1) I had heard that your nails could possibly come all the way off during Taxol .... That freaked me out and I wanted to be able to see it coming.  2). Because the oxygen meter would not work through nail polish, and they would take it off.  F that.

Apparently it is a new discovery with the nail beauty world that a person can achieve different effects with their nails by layering different colors ... I Been doing this since the mid 80's, you know, back when it was considered freaky to wear colors other than rose blush, and nude...

I have always gotten compliments on my nails, I used to be a terrible nail biter, and my nails were quite soft growing up, but once I started keeping the painted, I stopped biting them, and they started getting stronger.

I would like to start documenting my nail exploits, and all of the wacky things I do to. Not only get neat colors, but the disasters as well, as there have been a lot!  I will also show my different techniques to get my nail color to last,

Lately, I have been inspired by how every single thing has such an amazing life force.  I try so hard to let every little thing have it's chance at living.  From the stray seed I might find in a pomegranate, to a sprig of lemon grass that I am trying to water root on the window sill.

I have been feeling enormous pressure lately (from myself of course) to get things done, and keep up with everything.  To not get behind at any cost.  And in doing this, I feel like I am constantly trying to get up on top of the wave to ride it, I look around to enjoy the view, and then the wave crashes down, taking me with it, and then leaves me washed up on the shore, with sand covering my body, and leaving a mess of junk on the beach.  I need to learn how to achieve balance.  This constantly scrambling up to attain a five second breather to enjoy the vista, only to be dashed down into chaos again really makes me feel as though nothing is achievable.

Puttin' my money where my mouth is ...

So I invested in 10 lbs of locally grown, organic blueberries! Not only do blueberries contain nutrients that may shrink Breast Cancer tumors, but Triple Negative Cancers to boot!

http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/news/ci_14939840

I don't have a tumor to shrink, but why not eat things that attack cancer cells? I have been trying to go as organic as I possibly can (being in Flatlandia, it AIN'T easy), and these blueberries are DECADENT! It was wonderful having the 10 lb box next to me in the car, because I just munched on handful after handful as I drove around town doing my errands.

I find it so frustrating that here we live in one of the most productive agricultural regions of the US, and all you see for miles and miles is corn and soybeans, grown for animal feed and oils. And those two oils are major components of all of the prepackaged crap food that is plaguing this country. Those two oils are SO not good for you! Yet, these are the crops that are subsidized to be grown. Here we are in some of the most fertile soils in this country, and it is almost impossible to find organic produce, and once you do find it, you pay through the nose for it, because well, it is the only thing to be had, and there is no real competition.

What we here in Flatlandia would do for a Trader Joe's or Whole Food's!

So the new thing going on around here is that our appliances are dropping dead left and right. We have been fighting the washer for 2 months now ... the thing has been eating capacitors like candy. It was only a matter of time before the transmission blew. AND that happened the other night WHILE MY CLOTHES WERE WASHING. Everyone in this house BUT me, gets nice clean clothes on a regular basis ... but my clothes, just pile up until I have a free moment to do them -- which means once in a blue moon. Well, that blue moon rose last weekend, and I will be damned if that was not the night that Mister Wash-a-lot decided to up and die. I am not tied to this washer, as it is only 6 years old ... but that is my problem with this whole ordeal ... THE WASHER JUST TURNED SIX YEARS OLD! I think that over the past 6 years, we have fixed it at least 6 times ... and you know what? I am sick of it. Perhaps I would be less annoyed if this would not have happened right before we were to go on vacation ...

So tonight, hubby is staying home with the boys so I can go hang out in Laundromat Heaven for several hours .... Because of the dead washer, I will be sitting in a laundromat tonight, washing our FIVE GARBAGE BAGS OF CLOTHES ... Two are wet and starting to mildew ... and as I sit there I will be thinking about my girlfriends maxin' and relaxin' at a girl's night dinner! :-( At first I thought I was going to have SIX bags of laundry, but I decided that I could cram the contents of that sixth bag into two other bags and call that "an extra large load" for one of those huge front loaders to do.

Tomorrow, the "fixit dude" is supposed to come to DIAGNOSE the problem (and not FIX it, because well, you know, that would just make sense to fix it at the same time....!), and if what he sees to fix is over $25 (we think the transmission is blown this time), we (hubby) is going to have to run out and go buy a washer that we saw that was marked down over 50%. It is one of those top of the line front loaders, and it was originally about $1000, they have it marked down to like, $400! I never thought that we would EVER have the chance nor money to get a really nice front loader, and it is not like we have $400 bucks just laying around to spend ... but there are only so many weeks that I am willing to go to the laundromat, and there are just so many times that we are going to pour money into a P.O.S. (piece of SHIT) washing machine to fix it.

SO not only do I miss a night out with my girls, I get to sit for several hours with Flatlandia's Finest Residents, AND we get to drop about $500 the night before we leave for vacation! I guess the positive way to look at the is that same wind that blew the transmission up in the old machine, also blew open the door of a new front loader....

Important Side note: I have no bias what-so-ever towards people who have to use laundromats. In fact, I grew up not having a washer and dryer in my home, and my mom and I went to the laundromat every week. Just smelling the intermingled soap smells, and sounds of the washers and dryers in different cycles sends me to a very happy, relaxed place of my childhood. All I am saying is that the particular user clientele of a 24-hour laundromat varies dramatically during the day -- the people you find between the hours of 8am and 3 pm are completely different than those you find using the facilities between the hours of 8 and 11 pm. I'm just sayin'.

I will be sure to take my camera and cell phone.

OH, and Big Boy had a 102 fever last night.

seriously, we are totally ROCKING this week in style, aren't we?

And all I wanted was one of those goat cheese tapas with the girls tonight!

As for my continued treatments, I am still on the hook to start Radiation ... they just have not called me to tell me when yet.

How funky is your Chicken?

It has been a very VERY long time since I last posted. On one hand, it seems as though my world has kind of halted in it's tracks ... but in reality, it hasn't. Life does go on, but it will NOT allow it to go on without me. The past few months have been an intensive cocooning kind of phase for me. LOTS of introspection ... lots and lots of it. I go into these "cocoons" each time a life changing events happens to me.

During this cocoon time, I have been reading and researching, and listening to others, and I have learned a lot. A LOT. For the past 2 months I have been re-learning how to look at food, and nutrients, and exercise. I say "re-learning" because dude, I was pretty damned healthy before all of this happened. Lived a fairly vegetarian lifestyle, exercised, kept active, and this shit still caught up with me. Since I have already been through the months of "why me", I decided to think "why not me" and started taking apart my lifestyle bit by bit. What I learned was this...

1) toxins -- toxic people and toxic foods, out of my life. I have endured and ignored a certain constant toxicity level for many years. I may have ignored it in my mind, but my physical being, my body, and my brain were still subject to it. Stress, and negativity do a lot of damage to a body. Couple that with the toxins in the food I was inadvertently consuming ... ugh ... Organic meats, and severing all toxic relationships ... I will be holding no more toxic relationships with either anymore

2) balance -- balance in my emotional life, and nutritional life. I now plan what I eat every single day to keep my omega 3s and 6's in balance. I read somewhere that the typical American diet is WAY unbalanced when it comes to the types (qualities) of fats we consume. The omega 3's are sometimes 40 times lower than the omega 6's, and this leads to and perpetuates inflammation. Chronic inflammation leads to a host of diseases, including cancer. I am also thinking about taking up meditation. I need to quell the sore spots left by the toxic burns.

3) sugars -- the body can make the sugars it needs from the break down of the fats and etc we consume. When we constantly consume too much sugar (from refined flours, sugars etc) we spike our insulin, and push our bodies toward insulin resistance -- when cancer is active and growing rapidly, it feeds on these excess sugars in our bloodstream. Contrasts used in MRI's etc. are sugar (sucrose based) because areas of increased cellular activity take up the sugar more readily than the slower growing surrounding tissue. I now keep track of my daily Glycemic Load and keep it under 100.

4) Fats -- a recent study showed that people with my kind of cancer (the perfect trifecta, triple negative (borrowed from Jennifer)) showed that people who keep their total fat intake to 20% of their daily calories reduced recurrence by 40% or so. Additional exercise reduced it a further 45% ... 20% is NOT easy. Matter of fact, I have to aim for 15%, and then realistically, I will hit 20%.

These are changes that I can easily adapt to my life that will not only make my body a healthier body, but it all will make my life better for the future. I will on a daily basis be a healthier, happier, more balanced person after all of this.

As for knitting ...

At some point during all of this, by beautiful boxes of roving arrived from the Mill. I have not yet had the energy or inspiration to touch it. That makes me sad. I cannot wait to be back to my old self again. Knitting kind of fell to the way-side as well. I did finish my grandmothers sweater, and it was gorgeous. My Etsy shop has been doing well, and I need to sit down and make up some new markers, and earrings ... but once again, I have been feeling totally uninspired. I know a lot of this comes from the toll that the chemo is taking on my brain and body. Since I have only one more treatment, I will let this blah feeling sit here for one more week, but after that, I will be throwing open the windows and letting this chemical fog blow out!

Friday will be my last Taxol treatment. Then, a few weeks after that, my port will be removed possibly along with my ovaries. Then, a few weeks after that, radiation will start. The only thing out of that gory list I am looking forward to is removal of my port. I am so thankful to have had it, but I am even MORE grateful to see it go.

3 years ago today ...

you were born, my sweet baby boy. You came so fast, and effortlessly .... I never thought of you as my last baby. In light of current events, you are, and always will maintain your rank as "the baby" of the family. You were such a "hold me" baby. You would just sleep so soundly as people held you .. but put you down :-) and you'd get SO upset. Oh you were so cuddly. And you had the most beautiful head! Must have been the fast delivery ;-) You have grown up so much in the past year ... you are still so cuddly and sweet, and you get sweeter every single day. You are going to be such a neat person as you grow up!

I love you so much, my sweet boy. Thank you for choosing me to be your mommy!

CRTL+Z

Please follow this link after reading the following events of this morning ....

The hubby and I had a similar thing happen this morning ...

Except OURS revolved around him standing in the driveway, with a bogged down snow blower and a partially shredded bag of trash (diapers included) that had been tossed off-offhandedly into the driveway, rather than carried the additional 8 feet to the garbage can ....

He actually told me that he stood there, and was angry for a moment because he did not know who to blame ...

hmmmm, let's see ....

Really? Blame? Really? Could blame be justly applied here? Maybe I am being unfair?

Let's be fair, shall we?

Let's think....

Maybe it was because of ....

ME -- because I asked him "hon, can you please take out the garbage and the compost bin?"

or well, maybe, it was because of ....

HIM -- because it was waaaay too much expectation to assume that TWO things could get done simultaneously ... let's see ... let's "man think" for a moment shall we? ... "I cannot believe that she asked me to do TWO things. Not ONE ... but TWO. (Insert various groans, whines, and squeaks) ... Well, I could dump the compost bin right here by the back door because it is so hard to walk out back and dump it in the pile ... but drat, she might notice it if I dumped it all right here in the driveway. Oh! OH! But OH! I can take the compost out back and dump it, and I can throw the bag over there and get it some other time because it would SAVE SO MUCH TIME if I did not have to walk the bag over to the can!" Picture garbage bag being dropped in the driveway, 6 feet from back door, and 8 feet from the garbage can. Because it was dropped in the driveway, this erases it's need to be dealt with at all, right? Right?

Next ... picture it snowing all night long.

hmmmm, had it only had not snowed, covering up his thus-ly erased from the universe, full garbage bag.

So obviously, in the end, it was all my fault, because I asked him to do TWO things instead of, hmmm, ZERO?

Poor sweet child

Okay ... I just have to say it. I don't know what is going on in Decatur, but it seems as though a large percentage of the folks smoke Crack while generating their baby names ...
Deonee Dayquowun Angel. Good lord.

If I hear KLG, or Hoda (or anyone for that matter) say "Who dat" one more time ....

Winter Again. Can't say I really mind it really.

:: okay, so the weather dude is hyperventilating about the "almost 4 inches of snow we got", and now EVERYTHING is closed down here today. Then he pops up the snow total graphic, and it shows 2.8 inches of snow for here and surrounding areas. You know, I am all for rounding ... but when did rounding 2.8 to 4.0 become an acceptable part of data collection?

A wonderful friend of mine sent me a card, wishing not only that I get better soon, but she also wishes towards my Dr. Looking like McSteamy ...

my reply ...

My Dr. is so the opposite of being McSteamy, that he should just be called Sir Frozen Sands.

He's a good Dr., he's just not a good LOOKING Dr.

Too bad, because a little bit of eye-candy along this shitty route in my journey would be MUCH appreciated at this point. Considering I am getting sexier and sexier, day by day, perhaps it would be best if he were blind...

I will be finding out Wednesday what my chemo regimen is going to be. Fun fun, I find that out a hour or so before the surgery to put in my port.

Since I am BRCA1+, we are going to have to do a oomph. sometime after chemo is over. The nurse called today to let me know that the sono showed my ovaries are clear (thank GOD because I could not have taken one single grain more of bad news), BUT, she said "yup, the only thing that we saw were the little eggs in the right ovary ... so thank goodness nothing else."

I know this is good news ... and I am deeply happy, and appreciative of it.

Although I know I will have to have them removed to significantly decrease my risk for Ovarian cancer, the whole "ovary removal issue" is still really sore spot to me. Cancer, the gift that just keeps on giving...

F'ing Cancer.

must change mind frame .... ADD SOME KNITTING CONTENT ....

okay, well I have been working on these languishing stripey socks now for way too long. I really like the socks, and how they are turning out (I like the first sock striping colors better than the second, actually...) but, morphine brain made it hard for me to correctly execute a k1, p1 round. It was sad. I vividly remember laying there in my hospital bed, listening to my bunk mates, Denny and family squabble, and I was having to CONCENTRATE on the k1, p1.

That was the hot pink/orange stripe section of the sock. I do not recommend knitting on Morphine. I have now turned the heel, and I am in the home stretch on the foot. I will try to make way on it tonight. I really want to be done with my thinking knitting projects when i start Chemo, because chemo brain is not supposed to be fun. I am going to try to start spinning up the copious amounts of fiber I have, over the next few months.

the gift that just keeps giving

Since I am BRCA1+, the nurse called today to let me know that the sono showed my ovaries are clear (thank GOD because I could not have taken one single grain more of bad news), BUT, she said "yup, the only thing that we saw were the little eggs in there, so thank goodness nothing else."

Now I know this is good news ... but this lady does not know that I am a 39 year old mom who, up to the day before I found my lump, was thinking BABY at 40, NOT CANCER at 40. Although I know I will have to have them removed to significantly decrease my risk for Ovarian cancer, the whole "ovary removal issue" is still really sore spot to me. Cancer, the gift that just keeps on giving...

I fell like I have been drafted into a war that i have no interest in participating in.

At all.

Now, i am going to HAVE TO FIGHT, in order to stay alive.

THEY will arm me with the weapons,
and that ammunition will work, or not work.

Some of it is up to me ... a lot of it is up to how the enemy will react to it all.

I feel like a soldier standing next to the ship about to cast off to who knows where.
Weighted down with only my thin camos, and a backpack, and memories of those I have left behind, because ultimately, i am in this alone.

There are too many babies in this line with me too.

Those babies should not have to fight in this war too.

There are old people too, but they look at me with eyes that sadly say, "yah I am here too, but I am armed with wisdom and peace gained only from seeing a lot of what crap life can shoot you.."

Then there is me.

I just don't belong here.
and there are too many, just like me, who are here.

I feel like once i set foot on that ship, I might not ever be able to set foot on this shore again.

Once i leave and start this battle, I will be leaving this particular of my life behind.

No matter how hard i fight, and no matter if I win

when and if I get off this ship again,
my life will never be the same again.

I have spent practically the entire day sitting on the sofa.
not wanting to move.

Tears occasionally sliding down my cheeks and soaking into the pillow i lay back on.
My little big bot has sat here with me too.
Curled up and keeping my feet warm.

Dying is NOT an option.
It just isn't.

Pill Popping Pests....

I hope that this message reaches you in good health, and in the midst of enjoying the warm tidings of the Holiday Season.

I have been wanting to updates all has been going on here, but each week has brought with it more Dr. visits, and more waiting.

We have been through a lot of, "Well, NEXT week we will know more about “X ...". Then, the next week they tell you "X", but then you need to wait because all that hinges on finding out"Y", and well you cannot find out about "Y" until the week after that....

The stress and waiting game with this is simply exhausting.

Because I want to try to keep people somewhat current, I am going to send you what I have at the moment...

My bilateral mastectomy was Dec. 2nd, I was fortunate that I got to stay 2 days in the hospital. Apparently some folks go home the next day. Yeah, WHATEVER. I would have tried it stay and additional day, but my roommate was insane, and her uncle (Denny) was wasted on some sort of pills. I learned his name, and of his particular predilection for popping pain pills as he and his post-op niece, were playing cards, and shouting at each other over their oh-so-annoyingly-jaunty, LOUD, and never ending, ring tones. I decided it was time for me to go when Uncle Denny kept stumbling through the room at all hours of the night, using the privacy curtain at the foot of my bed as some kind of suspended crutch. He would shuffle into the room, and grasp onto it to steady himself an kind of glide-walk across the room -- dragging the whole length of the curtain to the end of it’s track, leaving the whole length of the curtain gathered up at the end of it’s track RIGHT. IN. FRONT. OF. MY. TV. One would think that if he were that high, that he would have had the capability to just float right on through ... had I not been snapped up on Morphine, and scratching at myself like a drug-addict myself, I would have asked him to fix the curtain. I decided it best to stay to myself, punch that Morphine button and call the nurse to fix my curtain again.

I will be having out-patient surgery on December 23rd, to have a main-line port put in. Hopefully, I will not run into my pill popping pal again.

My chemotherapy treatments will start Thursday, Jan 6th. We will be meeting with the Oncologist next week, and at that time we will be deciding between two chemotherapy's (FEC or AC/T); the longest of which will involve about 20 weeks of treatment. We do not yet know the weekly frequencies of the treatments, nor the names of all of the wonderful anti-nausea drugs that I am going to be taking during that time frame. This we will know in the next few weeks.

Something I learned over the past 2 weeks?
1) Morphine makes it almost IMPOSSIBLE to pee and it makes you itch like you would not believe.
2) Going straight from Morphine to High doses of Vicodin effectively STOPS your bowels in their tracks.
3) Pain killers totally remove your short term memory.

Oh, and did I tell you that pain killers totally remove your short term memory?

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!

Beaver Caps.

F'ing ovary sono today.

It will be the 3rd appointment out of the 4 I had today.

Was at the hospital form 9 to 3 pm.

The Trans-vag sono ... it SUCKED.

Seems like he payed a LOT more attention to the right ovary, than the left.

This does NOTHING for my peace of mind.

Yet another STRYKER bed was waiting for me there too,

And for some reason they had the words "Beaver Caps" written on the dry-write board in the exam room ... I was going to ask ... but then the gravity of the reason of why I am there, hits me, and silences me. The gravity of it all hits me square in my chest, and knocks every single positive funny thought and feeling out of me.

Beaver Caps ... could they be hair nets for the crotchtal region?

Not nice to drop bombs on folks who are already living day to day.

My Bilateral mastectomy (12/2).

Now that my right arm does not go numb right away with using the mouse.

Last night, the bomb was dropped on me (non-chalantly might I add) that I was triple negative. It was wedged in there with the brush-off statement of "well, since those ovaries are going to have to come out" ... bubbling out of the 8-9 month pregnant genetic counselor. She must have forgotten she is talking to a 39 year old mom of a 2 and 4 year old, and did I mention that the biggest thing on my mind when i found this lump last month was "so IF I do get pregnant in the next month or so, I can still have the baby by the end of next summer, and so what if I will be 40...". Baby at 40 was the biggest thing on my mind ... not BIG FAT FUCKING NASTY AGGRESSIVE CANCER at 40.

F this.

I am scared beyond words, because we have no family nearby to help with the kids...dunno how we are going to do that yet ... but I really need to keep my HEAD in the right place so I can focus on getting better.

My tumor was apparently 5mm from the chest wall, and they "said" clear margin of 5mm. The oncologist is going to discuss with the Rad. Guy whether or not radiation will be needed ... seems like Oncology man is possibly thinking not? At this point, I will not mind if the Radiation Guy decides to recommend it, because this might be my one chance to catch any stray cells. Only one node, the sentinel node, was affected. they removed 11 more nodes and none showed and cancer ... can i just trust that? I dunno.

I will be calling my Breast Cancer Center today or tomorrow and asking them why I have not been hooked up with the dietitian they speak of ... I found out yesterday I currently weigh 113. I loose weight like mad under stress...

Where is my mind?

Sitting there in the pre-op "cell", waiting for the nurse to bring in another bed. I guess since they know I am going to be in that bed a awhile, they are going to get me a more "comfortable" one. Whatever comfortable would be, as it is a hospital bed, for God's sake.

She wheels it in ...

It has STRYKER emblazoned across the base.
the first thing that came to my mind? Jeffry Stryker.

WTF? Thanks a lot, undergrad roomies :-) I hear your voices in my head goofily going "Jeeefffrrrrrrry Stryyyyykeeerrrrrrr says hiiiiiiiiiiii..."

I tell the nurse I have never had an IV before. She blinks at me, looks at my charts and says, "you have two children?". Had them naturally ... the last one took 20 minutes .... she blinks, and says that she is not going to let a student do my IV, as she does not want it to be bad for me, she wants it to be done well...

I am so happy for this.

She does it well, she used lidocane injection first, and I hardly feel a thing.
I want to hung her afterward, because this might be the last time that something like that is done with compassion.

and another

my surgery is slated for December 2nd. I was dx with IDC a couple of weeks ago. It sounds like there are two lumps, close together ... and side by side, the whole affected area is a little over 4cm. No oconotype yet, nor have I been told a stage or anything (is that weird?). Perhaps they are waiting until after surgery to determine all of that? i have heard that sometimes the whole mass is not necessarily cancerous, sometimes only internal portions of the mass... I have had an MRI that showed one possible swelled lymph node (~1cm), but no other body involvement (yet? That whisper terrifies me). Also had a chest x-ray, showed "nothing".

Because of a strong family history, and this size of the mass, I am going to have a mastectomy ... and maybe a bilateral if my BRCA tests come back positive. I am a mental mess. I have had nothing but aches and pains since the diagnosis, and every time a different Dr. goes to feel on my arm-pit lymph nodes, they seem to ache for days after. The new annoying "pain" is that my lower-mid back has been aching, and I swear I feel like I am ovulating (no periods though because I have Mirena IUD, which is coming out Monday). I slept on a heating pad last night because I was thinking that perhaps this is all tension that is making my back hurt. I am so scared that there is something growing on my kidneys, or ovaries, but at the same time, I feel like an ass if I call up the Dr.'s office because what can they do really? Would a urinalysis really show them anything useful? My operation is going to be in one week, and the next 2 days are holidays ... Seriously ... mention a body part, and concern, and I swear it will ache. Wouldn't it be good for them to know if there is something else growing somewhere else? Or is it best to get this first operation out of the way, then move on to the CT/PET scans to determine if there was any spread?

I am rambling, i know.

I am just so scared.

I cannot believe how fast this thing appeared out of no-where.

Scared senceless

Nov.6 -- Last Friday, I found a painful lump in my breast. Got a mammo that day.

Nov. 11 -- Tuesday morning i had a core biopsy done.

Nov. 13 -- Thursday morning, the results came back positive for Breast Cancer. IDC.

Nov 18 -- Tomorrow, I am scheduled for an MRI, and Friday I learn more about what we are dealing with. Took the BRCA1/2 genetic test yesterday.

By Friday we will know for sure what we are dealing with, surgery is slated for December 2nd.

I am 39, and my babies are only 4 and 2.5 years old.

They have estimated "It" is probably about 2 cm ...

I am scared beyond senseless.

I spend my days trying to hold it all together as I spin haphazardly through my "5 stages of grief".

I went through Rage yesterday. Depression again today.

Every single ache and pain I feel makes me freak out even more because I think "oh God, why is my back hurting? Has the Cancer spread there? And was that a twinge I just felt in my "ovary region"?.

I know I am not sleeping well at night, and our mattress totally sucks, both attributing to all of my stressed out aches and pains ...

I know I am rambling ... but as I sit here trembling, with tears streaming, i know, or I am hoping, that maybe someone out there knows how I am feeling.

I can hear that my babies are up and awake form their naps, but here I hide because I am afraid to go up there, where they will see the tears and terror in my eyes, and again ask me "What is wrong mommy? Why do you cry?".

Circular weather ... Partly cloudy, with intermittant showers and storms.

At least the depression has gone to being intermittent for now. It is more off than on. I can handle that. After a day full of appointments yesterday, I am a little glad to have today off. I made it well into our third appointment (and hour and a half maybe?) before breaking down and completely falling apart. Today, I at least lasted until we had gotten back in the car after our trip to the hardware store.

"No Mister Lowe's worker, I am not crying because I am upset that you don't have any 20 AMP, 3 pole light-switches in stock..."

I think we have appointments every day this week, except for Monday.

MRI is Thursday, results Friday.

Surgery slated (penciled) for December 2nd.

I just want to know what it is that we are up against.

I heard one single cricket cautiously chirping in the cold, as I stood outside of the car, yesterday afternoon.

An eerie silence...

Immersed in a vast, cold, and sleepy fog of the days after the mammograms and manipulations. The intense fear of Cancer was shouting at me then, and I could barely hold it together enough to take a god-damned breath. 5 days ago.

Three days later ... right after the biopsy, an eerie silence, and peacefulness entered my life. But was I still hearing the whisper of Cancer Crickets? That was two days ago.

Today I found out that this eerie silence was truly The Calm, before the Great Storm.

Here I am. Go ahead and try to ignore me.

Those ghostly, shadowy figures on the sonogram. Everything positioned just right, so that the one being “sonoed” can’t really see what is being imaged.

I craned my head around just enough, and I saw it. It. BEEP! Longitudinal view of It. BEEP! Transverse view. BEEP! moving across now to the one tip. BEEP! Now tracing along It’s axis to the other tip. BEEP! Now back to the middle and trace side to side to get It’s girth. BEEP! BEEP!

With each image that is captured (the beeps), they are collecting information to get dimension, and It’s mass. I see her activate the cursor on the final image and change the white numbers to something like 3cm x 4cm ..... my mind kind of shut off at that point.

The phantom pains after the manipulations, seemed it wake It up. It seemed to be poking me back. Like, “here I am ... you found me and decided to mess with me, so HERE I AM. Had you just let me sleep, then I could have just gone on being quiet.” Kept me from sleeping the first two nights. Most of the pain I think was in my mind ... but still.

From the woman who never wins ANYTHING.

To the woman who has mysteriously won something this month too.

I am starting to get a little worried here. Seriously. When I say I usually win NOTHING I mean Nothing at ALL. Now, just in case someone jumps out of the woodwork here, and points to my past and screams "LIAR!", I will clarify my statement and say that yes, I did once win something by calling my local radio station. What I won, way back then, from 92-X FM back home, was a cassette tape of Was (not was). Oh, you say you don't remember who Was (not was) was? Really? You mean you are not hip (OLD) enough to remember this song? Uum, yes ... I was 17, and yes, I /we used to jump up and do the dance along with it too...

Now, I know that there are plenty of BETTER clips of that song out there, but the thing i LOVED about it is that it caught the cheesy "Friday Night Videos" intro that we all thought was SOOOO COOOL back then! I would get in trouble for dancing all over my room and singing at 1 in the morning to the videos. We had MTV on the CABLE in the basement, but I was scared to be in the basement by myself after dark, and well, MTV was reserved for watching when I had sleep overs and such. Anyone remember the push-button cable boxes with the 200 ft of cord?

Yet, I digress. Back to how I don't win anything, ever.

So last night my husband comes home and announces that the Apple Store here in town is having a raffle, and they are raffling off a brand new MacBook Pro. And I sez "that would REALLY freak me out and make my day cuz I REALLY wants one of those...". So on the car ride over to the Apple store, I am looking at the flyer at all of the cool stuff they are raffling off, and I realize that I don't even know what half of the cool techno gadgetry even IS. There is a Blue Microphone Eyeball (huh?), and a M-Audio Torq (what what?), and something cool sounding called a Flip Pure Digital Ultra. So I tell my husband that this "Ultra Pure Flip thingie sounds really neat", and even though I don't know what it is, perhaps it would be neat to win one because then I actually have the opportunity to learn what it is and how to use it....

So we get there, and sign up for the raffle drawings.

I won the Flip Pure Digital Ultra!

I freaked OUT.
Totally, FREAKED out.
OMG I am in LOVE!

Hooooo-leeeeeee COW!

Growing up where I did, and when I did ... 4-H was a BIG thing when I was in school. LOTS of people in my school were in 4-H, and we used to go to the Fair (mostly the County Fair ) to go see the things they entered. When they really hit it big, they were going to the State Fair. Thing is, I was NEVER really "allowed" into that echelon of 4-H'ers, and competition goers, because, well, i did not live on a farm. I didn't have bunnies, guinea pigs, or cows or horses to show. I had a couple of gerbils ... meh...not so exciting of a show animal.

Well, earlier this year I went upstairs and was digging around looking for something I never DID find, but I came across the Feather and Fan Shawl I completed last fall. I love that shawl. Suddenly I felt kind of sad for it, all folded up in it's little bag. I felt that it needed to be seen, not forever preserved. So, I decided to enter it in a competition. I thought it was pretty, but would others?

I guess so!

YEY!

First Place: Best of Knitted or Crocheted Women's garments
First Place: Knitted garment other than a sweater
Best over all of Division 3
Second: in Division 1B (Adult Garment)
I am so happy!