Summer is just around the corner

This year, I get to have a summer. I am one of those girls that absolutely loves to go to the beach, lay out in a bikini and lay in the sun. I love to sit out on my deck and read, watching the sun set, or as it will be in a little longer, the sun rise. The roses from the pixies and roses picture (down below) are just starting to bloom the past few days. I remember that picture. My sister drove up to Seattle from Eugene to hold my hand because that was the day I was brave enough to cut my hair from shoulders length to the pixie cut. I needed support. She took a good pic of me. Vanity is starting to trickle back in waves of fierceness. I am really sick of my pudgy cheeks and want desperately to see my cheekbones again. I think I've lost tons of weight the past few weeks, now that the steroids are lessened.
Yesterday I took my longest walk that I've been able to take in a long while, I need to get in my car and actually drive it to see how many miles it is. It took me a few hours, I'm guessing 8 miles. I'm not sore at all today, and I want to do it all over again. Especially since I can't sleep and I could leave right now. But I am going to force myself to take it easy today, because yesterday on the walk my lungs, both of them were kind of burning towards the end of the walk. They felt fine after my walk, and even right now okay to breath in deeply. I am sure I am fine. I am so sick of this leash I have around me, that I've been forced to have around me. Okay, a more positive spin, I sure am thankful that I've learned to slow down a bit and listen to my body. I actually don't know if I learned to slow down, but I sure did learn the listen to my body bit.

I am getting very excited for my party this weekend, and to be around all my family and friends. I can't wait to hold my sisters hand, and kick her butt at some board game.

The taper begins

I was just sitting here on the coach, drinking my favorite black tea of the moment, Earl Grey, and was thinking, "What to write?" Its always more like, "Where to start?" Which the word start flashed across my damn eyes, and remembered, reluctantly that I have to start taking that anti-inflammatory pill for a year. Today. April, 3, 2009. You know what, I'm not going to do it. Fuck it. What if I take it for a year, and then stop, and then suddenly have another attack of it. Does that mean I will have to be on it forever. I don't want to be on a pill forever.
So, maybe if I don't take it today, or tomorrow,and have my Onc call me today, well..and I need to see my actual cardio, since I have not even seen him yet. I feel like a kid, scheming up a plan down a hidden and usused alley way, rubbing his (yes, I'd have to be a little boy for this kind of behaviour) hands together snickering of a fantastically absurd plan.

But, maybe its not absurd. So, since I haven't seen my actual cardio yet, I will. No rush to start taking a medicine.

Phew~ That was a close call. I almost just forced myself to go into the kitchen and ruin a perfect cup of tea with a memory of taking a pill.

Last night I took a 10mg of Predisone, instead of the 20mg. I'll see my Onc again on Monday, and will taper me if my lungs look good again. My chest X-Ray still showed fluid in there, but not that much.

Upside to technology

Wow! Swedish rocks! That's Swedish hospital for those of you that are out of towners. I just picked up the phone and ordered a huge meal. All I've eaten today was an egg on toast (of coarse.haha) and then I went to do the Bone scan. Which turned up AWESOME!!! Of coarse!! But back to the meal. So I went right after that to see my Onc and he was not so happy about what was happening. He said when I asked him how often this happens, and he said, "once in a career." So I am pretty sad about this. I have a considerable amount of water around my heart. So, they wheeled me on over to the main hospital and I sat here in my scrubbies and had tons of tests, and watched the clock click...for six hours before I saw the Cardiologist. I was begging for food. And finally I was given the okay.

It seems that when I first started talking to the cardiologist he wanted to do the tap right away, tonight he said. But then I asked if I'd be knocked out, and what the procedure is. He said no, i'd be awake, given a mild sedative so perhaps I wouldn't remember it. But I would need to lean forward so they could stick my lining of my heart sack with this needle and aspirate it. Well, from the look of horror I think he started back paddling and soon he story changed to just giving me an anti-inflammatory drug for a week and seeing how I respond. What it seems to me, is that what he said is that there is no way to find out if this is from a viral infection, if its from the taxotere, and then the other that my Onc has ruled out from cancer. So, its possible to find out by testing the fluid they pull out of its viral, but also this might not be able to come to a conclusion.

I'd rather not do the needle thing. It sounds traumatic.

So I just ate this huge meal, and then the nurse came in and said, "eat some more." I guess the med's their about to give me can mess up my stomach. So they want lots of food in there like you would IBproferan. I am going to sleep here tonight and wait for my Onc to get me out of here tomorrow morning.
Luckily D brought me my computer. He doesn't like hospitals at all, and was pretty squirmish until he left. I have become immune to this whole thing.

I feel sad and shocked and overwhelmed about this whole thing though. I almost start to cry and then I don't. Our house closed today in the midst of all this. I have been pretty stressed out with it. The buyers lender was a nightmare and so it was not a smooth closing.

So, I guess I get to go home and if I have any sudden light headedness, more pain in my chest, ect..then I am to call him again. I want to get out of here. The smells and cleaners remind me of getting chemo and make me sick.
I am off to watch TV and listen to my roomate snore. I wish this wasn't true, but I like hospital food. I know its gross. But I do love it

***

I just read this and I know it is all over the place and may not make sense. Its just how I feel right now.

Nails of death

Not sure, and hope I never do know for sure what a dead body smells like. But I now have seven, count them 7 nails that are falling off and two of them smell like death. Talking on my phone is hard to do as they are close to my nose and make me sick. I am almost ready to start wearing latex gloves when I eat are touch food. In fact, I think I will. I know the air is good for them. Twice a day I soak them in epson salt for ten minutes and it just cleans out the skin deeper and deeper under the nail beds. The nails that stink have a disgusting red liquid that comes out from under them. Last week my doc wasn't concerned this week he said, "looks like you have a little infection." He prescribed an anitbiotic that is disgusting. I am supposed to take it four times a day for seven days. I took it at 9 and then I have been on a kick for the rest of the day of deciding I knew better than the doc and that I wasn't going to take them. I tried flushing under the nail with tea tree oil (which is very smelly usually) and lavender oil, both good at anti-bacterial stuff. But they didn't even come near taking away the death smell. Coudln't even smell the yummy lavender.
As I am writing this I can oh, so little smell my fingers and I know I am being ridiculous. I even tried calling my Onc, but the office is closed. I just don't want to take another freakin' pill, don't want to take something that hurts my stomach and makes me have heart burn, doesn't want to take a med that I have to take on an empty stomach, I don't want to take another fucking pill. But I am being dumb, I am risking a bigger infection sense my counts are low, and I took another fucking pill. Fuck. Fuck the stench.
The little sister in me that loved, and I mean loved to terrorize my siblings whenever it was my turn to do so, keeps trying or suggesting D, "just smell them." (okay, if you're going to read any further, you must pinkie swear me that you're not going to tell D). And the (I'm laughing) even naughtier sibling in me, that is surely pushing my luck, (more naughty laughter) when he sleeps (more naughty laughter) puts my hands close to his face. Oh, its so bad. I know. I have this evil side of me, and it is just wanting to share with him. This whole cancer thing is not sexy. Nothing about it is sexy. And trying to get my husband to smell my disgusting fingers is not sexy. So why do it to him. Because he is also my brother at times. He is my father at times. He is everything to me at different times. And sometimes I like to scratch him with my toe nails when he is relaxing just to hear him squeal. I don't know. Call me a turd. Its fun.
Tomorrow I have a CT scan to check my lungs. I hope something shows up. Maybe my ( ugh. that pill is starting to make my throat taste gross) lungs have some weird thing going on just from the chemo. I just don't want it to not show anything, because something is happening. I am not a hyperchondriac. They hurt.