Pass it along....................

http://www.hasanyonetoldyou.com/

LMAO!!!  Today my hubby:
   Sat on my glasses and broke them
   Sat on a box of my chocolates and squished them
   Sat on my purse and crunched up my book

He's dangerous!!! LOL

Update: Upon having the CT and seeing the amount of fluid, it was decided that I didn't need the aspiration!!  I'm healing very slowly but I'm healing just the same.  YAY  Tomorrow I see the oncologist and he'll decide whether I need more chemotherapy or not and what to do about the Gall Bladder cancer. I might just be released to go back to work shortly!

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Having a CT guided, needle biopsy today.

Please wish me luck!

Thanks

I want....................

To be cancer free... so I can give my children the reassurance that I'll be around for them
To be healthy...so I can regain my life for my husband and children
Money...so I can support my children and put a roof over their heads and pay my bills and eat
Food...so that I can have more than one meal a day, I'm hungry
My own place with:
   Bedrooms for the kids so they don't have to sleep on the floor anymore
   A backyard so I can have my doggy back
   My own bedroom so I can scream in ecstacy and cry in pain in private
   Enough space to walk around in so I don't feel imprisoned
   Enough bathrooms to accomodate all 7 of us
   In a nice area so I don't have to be afraid....

I want................

My pets back...I miss them
My truck taken care of financially...so I don't have to live in fear of reposession anymore
My children back so they're in a home they know they're loved in
A job for my husband...so he can feel good about himself again

I'm thankful for...

The friends who've given wholeheartedly and compassionately
A roof over my head
The airmattress I sleep on
The food I DO have
My coworkers who haven't forgotten me
YOU!!

I ask in need and I give in thankfulness

As my will so mote it be!!

People, mostly friends are funny creatures. You can go months or years without seeing them and then when they think you might be dying, they all of a sudden clear their schedule for you; jump over hurdles that were too big too keep them from returning even your instant messages and phone calls. That's where grace comes into play and I've chosen just to go with it. Life is too short for bitterness and hurt and I spend a lot of time making these friends feel better. Putting on make-up so I look like the person I used to be, laughing at jokes when I'm physically not in too much pain and planning future get-togethers with them to reassure them that I'll still be around in the next few months. It's important to me that these people feel good about our friendship whether the end comes tomorrow or 60 years from now.

Family is just as strange and unpredictable although not so easy to placate. This year for my birthday my father came up from Arizona and my brother down from Santa Rosa. My father wanted to come in October when I had my initial surgery but I told him not to. What was he going to do, stand around wringing his hands by my bedside while I lay there legally stoned? Wouldn't have done either of us any good. We don't see each other often enough for him to have seen the good side of me when I was in good health. I didn't want him to come and see me in pain and poor health and have that memory to take back with him when he went back to Arizona. What a horrible existence for a parent. My brother wasn't able to make it down before now due to his own family and financial struggles. When we found out about the additional Gall Bladder cancer and both wanted to come for my birthday, I told them to come. We had a really good time. Well, most of us did. No matter what the occassion, my mother has to make it all about herself (and this wasn't her birthday) and so she didn't enjoy the festivities as much. My birthday was right after Easter and so we had an egg hunt with my nieces and nephew and a great BBQ that my brother put together, we went to the beach and let the kids play in the warm sand and water and on my birthday we went to a local park. My son, daughter, brother and his wife spent the morning of my birthday racking their brains as to my favorite things to bbq, flavor of cake, potato chips and all. Apparently my mother didn't participate in the planning.

The day after Easter, I showed up at my mother's house where my brother was staying and my mother was very cold to me. I hadn't done anything wrong to the best of my knowledge, but with my mother you just never know. We got all of our gear and headed out to the beach to give my nephew a place to run. That night we went out to dinner with my father when he got into town and then headed back to our room when dinner was done. The day of my birthday, we headed back down to Mom's for the BBQ. I went into her room where she was dressing and she was stone cold to me. I left in a hurry, not sure what was up. Throughout the day at the party she was ok, not exactly pleasant but ok. I had to take the chips away from her at one point as she sat there eating them all. I went to grab a handful and 3/4 of the bag was already gone. I nonchalantly rolled up the bag after I was done and placed them in the grocery bag they'd been brought in. I'm sure I didn't score points there, but oh well.

When my party was over, Doug and I asked if we could stay the night at her house as I had to be back early in the morning for another scan. She sighed and said ok. My brother was staying in her room, she'd given up her bed and had taken the guest room. As soon as he heard we were staying, he offered up my mother's room to me. She just pursed her lips. I told him no, that the air mattress would be fine and told him I would set it up in the living room away from the draft in the family room. My mother, when she heard that, had an absolute fit. She wanted me to sleep in the family room even after I brought up that it was cold and drafty in there and I at least needed to be warm (I'm still recovering from both major surgeries). I asked her what the problem with sleeping in the living room was and she said she didn't want her furniture moved!!!!

This is where I'm convinced that my mother would have eaten her young at birth if she thought she could have gotten away with it!! She informed me that I was a guest in her house and that I would sleep where she told me to sleep and then she stomped off. She had the audacity to offer me a nightgown or more blankets before she went to bed. It meant more to her to be in control of where her daughter slept and to make sure her precious furniture wasn't moved and make it all about her than it did to make sure her daughter who's recovering from two major bouts with cancer was comfortable and healthy for the night. Go fucking figure! I'm sorry, if it was my daughter, she'd have had MY bed!! She only offered the nightgown and blankets because she was in the control to do so.......and which is why I turned both down. 

I would have gotten up and left at that moment but we didn't have enough gas to go back home and come back in the morning. I ended up sleeping on the living room floor, sans the mattress. I may have cut off my nose to spite my face when it came to the blankets and nightgown but at that point I didn't want a single thing from her. I haven't spoken to her since.

Once when we were at my mom's, she burst into tears and told Doug that he didn't know how it felt to have a child with cancer. Which was incorrect as Clinton had a brain tumor at the age of 7, but he didn't get into it with her, he let her have her melodromatic party. When he told me about it later, he told me he was convinced that the tears were because it was all about her and had nothing to do with me. Poor mama has the sick daughter, not poor daughter who's fighting the disease that's eating her body. I wasn't sure I believed him as a daughter never wants to believe that her mother could be that cold-hearted, despite the life-long proof. Sure as shit, when I told her the recent scans were mostly clear, she didn't even hug me. When I told Doug, he said, "why should she, you've just stolen her thunder and it's not about her anymore." 

You know, despite 43 years of disappointment, hurt, pain, anger and bitterness, why am I slapped in the face yet again with the fact that my mother is cruel, selfish, stingy and cold. You'd think I'd get it by now?!?!

I don't like political debate. I don't feel I'm well enough informed to state my opinion on something I don't know ALL the facts about. I feel very uncomfortable and usually refrain from comment or disengage myself from the conversation alltogether. My husband, on the otherhand, loves it and will raise his soapbox 10 stories high to let you know how he feels about a certain subject. Now marriage is a 50-50 give and take and more in some areas. After extreme coersion on his half and out of fairness to give and take (afterall you'll NEVER find me in the kitchen) I took this survey at THIS website to satisfy his curiosity.

I must say I was very surprised at the results. I meshed most highly with Hilary Clinton who I never would have voted for otherwise. Obama came in second and is who I had planned on voting for. The following candidates are in order of how my viewpoints meshed with their alleged proposals.

Huckabee
Paul
Romney
Gravel
McCain (who scares the shit out of me. All we need is a prisoner of war who has a flashback in the middle of a crisis and screws the whole country. Too much of  loose cannon in my opinion.)

I didn't go into the rights and wrongs and debate the different bills here for a reason; I'm still uncomfortable discussing political viewpoints that I'm not 100% sure I know everything about but I will think a bit more closely about who I vote for and I'm still not certain I want Clinton in office..........yeah, I know some of you girls want to stone me after that but I have my reasons. There was only a 4% difference between Clinton and Obama in my survey results, I may stick with him.............who knows.

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Doug's only comment upon reading this, "You wouldn't SERIOUSLY vote for Hilary Clinton would you?"..............another reason I usually keep my political viewpoints to myself!

YAY GOOD NEWS!!

My scans came back showing no new evidence of cancer. Docs say it was a hard scan to read as all my incisions (my tummy looks like Frankenstein) show on the scans, but they discounted those areas and my liver, lungs and pancreas which were the main areas of concern, show up being clear. YAY!!  Thank you Goddess!!

I've been in extreme pain from the Gall Bladder surgery and I wasn't saying a whole lot cuz I thought it was normal. The scans also show that in the GB site that there may be a "subtle leak or incomplete closure" which would explain the pain. I've an appointment on Monday with the surgeon to look over the scan report and decide what to do. My doc says I may have to go in for more surgery but at least I have an answer and will be able to move on shortly.

I have one more chemo treatment to go through next Friday and then in 3 weeks I'll meet with my doctor and he may or may not decide to do more chemo, we'll go from there. So I still have some more rough water to go through but at least there's a light at the end of the tunnel! YAY!!

Thank you all for your thoughts, prayers, energy and continued support!

AND.........today was like Christmas for me. First I got the good news from the doctor and then when I was checking out, I was handed a bouquet of Daffodils. Every year as a cancer survivor, I would buy myself a bouquet of these at work when the American Cancer Society would sell them. I was kinda bummed this year because I thought that I was going to miss them, but nope the Gods saw that I got them this year as well. I see this as a confirmation that I'm a continued survivor....then when I collected my mail this afternoon, there was a box of Sees chocolates from my late husband's mother for my birthday. It truly was a much needed, wonderful day!

Had my scans today. Thank goodness that's over. The waiting game is killing me. I'll find out the results on Thursday at 11:30. It felt wierd to be injected with something that was radioactive and then told to stay away from people for at least 4 hours after the procedure. Made me feel sort of like a pariah.

My brother is coming down this weekend to spend Easter and my birthday with me. This is one of those times I'm really sorry I don't have my own place. We're at the mercy of my mother and she makes EVERYTHING out to be about herself. She called once this morning and that fulfilled her quota. I stopped answering her calls after that!

Tonight we celebrated the Full Moon and Ostara even though it was a bit early for both. It was a really nice ritual and felt good to concentrate on something concretely positive for awhile.

Doug's ex and the mother of his oldest sent me a huge basket of tulips and a get well soon card. That was so sweet of her!

Our snakes seem to be doing much better. We changed the substrate and that helped alot.

In reading over this, it helps to see that I've had some really nice things happen today even though it was a long exhausting day. It's nice to see that!

Blessings and love to all of you!

March 10, 2008

Sorry, been away for forever. Not much good news so I wasn't posting. Thank you for hanging in there with me if you're still around to read this.

Found more cancer in my Gall Bladder. Am having PET/CT scans tomorrow and will review results on Thursday morning with the doctor. Doc says GB cancer is uncommon and was most likely spread from my liver. Scans will cover liver, lungs and pancreas as well as all others. If one or two spots, can do surgery, if more than a few spots, is considered inoperable and will do heavy duty chemo. Wish me luck.

After hearing about the new cancer, Doug and I went ahead and got married. It's been the highlight of the last week for me. I can't put into words how happy he makes me!

Love and Blessings to all of you and a Happy St. Patricks Day!!

Still feel like shit, but on the positive side.......................

Doug and I are getting married on Christmas Eve this year in Kansas in the moonlight in the snow!

Chloe and I after Chemo today. She knows when I need lots of cuddles!!