The to-do list

I am finally home. I left Anacortes before Thanksgiving to undergo 3 weeks of radiation to my jaw and my knee. This turned into my being away from "home" for over a month.

With all that has happened I was looking forward to coming home and relaxing....a cup of coffee, some TV, a long hot shower and days spent in my p.j's. What kind of fantasy land was I thinking I lived in?!

I came home to dishes in the sink, Christmas present chaos, unfinished laundry, suitcases to unpack, unpaid bills, papers to sign, kids to chauffeur, counters to clean and I think we are out of toilet paper.....again.

If you know me, you will chuckle at the picture above because I am ALWAYS writing everything I need to remember on my "palm" pilot...aka...the palm of my hand. You see, this way I can't leave it at home, or in the car, or loose it on the desk or in the abyss that is my purse.

With all that I have to do, I think I will actually need both palms in the next few days. So much for resting.....

God in the details

Room 254 bed 2....that is where I am right now..if you had asked me yesterday where I would be now I would have answered "home, in Anacortes". Well, I am not....again, serving as a fine example of life out of my control.

I arrived at my Dr.'s appointment yesterday as scheduled, and ended up having yet another blood transfusion today as NOT scheduled...the transfusion came with two eggs,scrambled, whole wheat toast and a single tall latte. (latte courtesy of super friend Traci, who is ALWAYS fabulous for providing coffee, magazines and some laughs.)

According to mom, who patiently sits with me, there is emerging color in my cheeks.

Yummy Yummy red blood cells, making me feel better. The Dr. thinks the combination of the radiation, new chemo, and rapid weight loss/dehydration...are the cause.
I think he is a smart man who knows whereof he speaks.

So in my out of control world my veins are gulping down healthy blood and I become more and more aware of God's amazing attention to the details.

Blowing it

Every day...more and more...I realize that I have no control...kids, health, life, people in my life, weather, finances, gas prices, untimely blemishes..."Do I have milk? Do I need milk?"

The beauty in this true story is that it although it is scary to admit that you have zero control....it sure takes the "Boy, I really blew it" out of life.

AAAhhhhhhccchoooooooooooooo! Bless me!

Christmas Eve

It was the night before Christmas and inside my house,
my kids high on sugar and not a word from my spouse.
Our stockings were still in the attic upstairs
everyone was too tired to get them down from up there.

Only half of the presents were wrapped thanks to me
I think the rest will be wrapped but we'll have to see.

In our "jammas" the parents took our pills plus 3 more,
one for sleeping, one for acid, one so that Chad wouldn't snore.

Despite all the pills I woke to a "beep". I became a bit angry as I really need sleep.
My daughter was up at 15 past 4:00,
making the dinner she should have had the night before.

Now awake with adrenaline I couldn't sleep, I began counting hay bales instead of the sheep.

I worried about cancer and then driver's ed. I wondered when I last washed the sheets on my bed.
I wondered and worried why it's taken so long, to cure cancer and everything else that is wrong.
And then I remembered that it was Christmas Eve,
and God was much bigger than this stupid disease.

So I rolled my self over which is no simple task, and I moved to the left and then I asked,

"I don't know what you are thinking, I don't know what's ahead," I paused to listen and then I said,
"Can I whisper to you what I want instead?" I closed my eyes softly and then turned my head...

"I want a gift that no other can possibly give...I want the cancer to go... I want to live."

Another year

It is hard for me to believe that another year has gone by. This time last year I was just coming off a radiation treatment...I was behind in my shopping..I didn't have all my Christmas cards mailed and Chad was asleep on the couch. Nothing has changed.
Well there is one thing that is different....last year we had snow...more snow than I have seen in the past 15 years at least.

I am a snow lover. I am sure that all of you who are reading this on East Coast are saying "What? Is this woman out of her mind?"
I am a snow lover because it makes everything look clean again....the world seems quiet....it turns ugly things uniquely beautiful....oh and around here is melts pretty much by bedtime.

I really thought that by this time there would be more differences than snow. Praying for a Christmas miracle and a little snow.

Overload

My cart is overloaded...I know I am not the only one. Cancer is HARD...life is HARD....heck, let's face it, doing anything without caffeine is hard.

Between the mouth sores, sore throat, chemo, head cold and radiation fatigue.... the FIGHT in me has taken a small hiatus. I think it went to Hawaii. God knows how much I like Hawaii so He was kind enough to send it there....cuz the truth of the matter is, that like this donkey, there is NOTHING I can do about my situation but hang out and wait.... oh, it's not the least bit comfortable but flailing around will just make it worse.

So for you homeschooling moms, the spelling/vocabulary word for today is "hiatus"...please spell it, then use it in a sentence today....

For everyone else....God knows what we need.....just relax...no fair eye-rolling.

Defeated

I woke up this morning with very little fight in me. Pondering this. I sure don't like how it feels.

TLBOP

I have a very dear friend here in Anacortes. She is amazing, along with her husband and kids...and I don't say that lightly.
Every once in a while she calls and reads to me from The Little Book of Prayers to offer me encouragement.

During one of those phone calls we started to chuckle about how different the prayers would be if she wrote her own version of TLBOP. We are both going through some difficult, painful, baffling, confusing times right now.

She decided that her prayers would be a little less elegant. For example, here are some exerps from pages 1-5:
1.WHAT?
2.HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO DO THAT?
3.NO NO NO NO, THAT WASN'T WHAT I ASKED FOR
4.I HAVE DONE THAT ALREADY! I DON'T WANT TO DO IT AGAIN.
5.THIS IS RIDICULOUS...AKA...THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING.

I borrowed a prayer out of the newly revised version yesterday as my tongue burned and all the skin on the inside of my cheek began to peel off like a blister, and I couldn't eat or drink anything. Then just for fun I woke up with a very sore throat!
Page 5 works for me.

The bell rings for round 4...DING!

Yesterday was hard. I spent the morning driving from Anacortes to the hospital in freezing temperatures...I think we had a high temp of 22*.....(don't think I can't hear all of you saying "22* that's nothing...it was -2* at my house)well, this is my blog and I can be cold at 22* if I want.

My first appointment of the day was with an Orthopedic Surgeon. He was reviewing the myriad of x-rays I had last week to decide whether or not to put pins in my arms and legs...Thankfully he didn't think it was a good idea, but on the not so thankful side was the amount of times he repeated, "Your disease is very advanced." "Look here, it's even in these tiny bones, you don't see that often." "Wow...there is a lot of disease there."

So on top of the burning tongue, radiation fatigue, insurance problems, super dry skin,freezing temperatures and the fact they didn't validate, I sat in the lobby too exhausted to even cry. I began a war with myself. I fought with myself through the rest of the day and into the night. Where does the trust go on super awful days? How do you keep fighting when everything is sucking the life out of you?

By the morning I decided I can't be the one doing the fighting. I need to be the one resting....resting in what I know is true. Oh I will take my crappy medicine, and endure the crappy side effects..because that's all part of it.But I am going to let someone much stronger than me do the fighting.

Now, back to the lobby. As I sat there hunched over and void of energy, super mom took out her cell phone, called the insurance company and within 5 minutes I had my chemo medicine authorized at a cost of $35 a month. Yea super mom. The battle rages on but now it's more affordable...(gotta find a silver lining somewhere!)

Side effects

The side effects of the radiation to my jaw have now begun. The inside of my mouth feels like a MacDonald's lawsuit except that I didn't have any coffee at MacDonald's.
It just burns.

Realizing that sometimes life is better through pharmaceuticals, I will be stopping by Walgreens today to pick up something for the raging inferno that is now my mouth.

Expect the unexpected

DRY mouth, otherwise known as xerostomia. Not once in my life did I ever think I would have to know about it, much less experience it. Well, maybe I did experience it once in Mr Berg's class where I had to give an oral report that was not close to being done because I decided to go to the basketball game instead.
Either way I never expected to know anything about it, or that there was such a thing as "numb chin syndrome" or what words like "aromatase inhibitors" meant or that veins have valves.
(Home school moms, are you taking notes?) I didn't know you could start shrinking at age 44 or that hair doesn't grow back lush and beautiful after radiation.
I also didn't know you could make such good friends in such a short period of time, that pain draws people together and that there are people who laugh WITH you not AT you when your wig falls off.

Everybody sing.....

Here is a little song I wrote this morning as I was getting ready. I thought in honor of Christmas I could borrow the tune from "Oh Christmas Tree"

No estrogen no estrogen
oh how I loathe no estrogen
No estrogen no estrogen
oh how I loathe no estrogen
My skin is dry as sand you see
my lips are cracking as we speak
No estrogen no estrogen
oh how I loathe no estrogen