My Trigger Baby

Last night I dreamed I gave birth to Trigger! I was in a hospital room and was having a baby. They told me to push and I was afraid it was going to hurt, but it didn't and also didn't take very long. Next thing I knew I delivered the (human) baby, and they handed it to me. I held it for a while but then was so tired from delivery that I handed it to Miles. Then it was suddenly Trigger and she jumped from his arms onto the floor and ran over to her food bowl. She started eating voraciously, and I thought "She's just a baby, she can't eat regular food!" so I fixed her a bowl of bran cereal with soy milk. She ate a little bit and stopped, so then I hand-fed her soggy bran flakes. It was nice to see her!

Beer Mouth

I am lonely. LOML has been gone since Saturday on tour, and won't be back for a couple days still. I'm counting the days! At least Nutsy is on my pillow and Dumb Joe is on my other side. Nutsy, I love you so much little girl! You've gained so much weight lately and it's such a good thing! And when I say "little girl," I don't mean like Trigger "little girl," but a different "little girl" reserved all for you, my little grandma. You're going to live for another 10 years, I just know it!

The cancer experience has been a lot of things. It's taught me a lot. It's made me very sad and very happy. Cancer has been sobering. Cancer has been enlightening. Cancer has brought me and Miles closer in ways I never could have dreamed of. Yet at the same time cancer has been a lonely experience. (No offense to Miles, I know he knows that I'm not talking relative to the two of us.) Tonight I had the opportunity to vent some disappointment to one of a few people I thought might have been interested in my well-beings over the last year (but wasn't). It didn't go well. I'm that much happier that I've moved on from earlier parts of my life. Perhaps people in my peer group are too young or scared to be confronted with a life-threatening disease that isn't theirs. Perhaps they're too preoccupied with their own ups and downs. Perhaps they don't know what to say so they don't say anything. Or perhaps they just don't care. In any event, I AM very grateful for the few friends of mine who do care - I love you so much, and thank you from the bottom of my heart for being there and being supportive.

Blah blah blah blah, I feel like I'm pooping from the mouth. Who cares?! Maybe it's the 64 oz of beer talking...

BEJEWELED BLITZ IS CURRENTLY OFFLINE

I love the smell of wood-burning stove. I also love sleeping with a big old retriever taking up 2/3 of my bed (with her butt right in my face). I love how Joseph protects me at night. I don't love the reason behind the protective urge. I love life. I love the way things are working out. I love how Nutsy's gaining weight. I love shopping for cool stuff and ending up below budget.

Here are a couple random PHOTOS. This is me and Dan back in August in Texas - we swapped haircuts for a day:


This is my 3-pronged alien port. It's gone now, and all that's left behind is the scar and some lumpy scar tissue. I kind of preferred the symmetrical 3-prong guy, but I guess I'm glad he's gone:

A Brief Return to Illness

I had a brief return to the land of the sick this week. I took an antibiotic (Bactrim) on Monday and within hours had an epiphany about what caused my ER trip back in July. I'm allergic to Sulfa drugs. I spent all Monday night, Tuesday and Wednesday in bed -- I couldn't stand because of constant muscle cramps in my calves. I am better now, and know better now!

I'm listening to the new Will Johnson/Jason Molina record and it's pretty good.

Things are pretty awesome right now. Looking up in many ways. I love my husband, I love my family, I love my kitties, I love my life. I love Bejeweled Blitz (thanks, Janeball).

On Being A Cat

Miles just asked me if I would want to be a cat, and I wasn't sure. Miles asked me what the things were that I wouldn't like if I were Nutsy. And I said:

"Getting frustrated because sometimes my owners don't understand what I'm saying ...

and being left alone at home a long time sometimes ...

and losing my sister."

And then Miles pointed out that those were all my human fears in a nutshell, and that made me LOL a whole lot and then cry a little. And I wanted to write it all down so Miles told me to write it in my blog, so here it is.

Missed My 1-Year Diagnosis Anniversary!

October 6 was my 1-year diagnosis anniversary - it slipped by for a day or two before I realized! Yay, what a good sign of how I'm moving on from cancer! Things have been going pretty well. The stomach issues are 95% resolved, and I'm back to eating almost everything (NOM!). Really only what remains are hot flashes and fatigue. Oh, and my period has yet to come back, I hope my menopause is not permanent. The fatigue is really bad right now, especially since I'm back to work F/T. After I get home, I've been going to sleep sometimes at 10 pm, sometimes at 7 pm, etc. It should get better with time though...

Miles & I also had our 1st wedding anniversary! We went to Ruth Chris, which was obviously awesome!! I'm so fortunate to have an insanely wonderful husband, who's been attached to my hip before, throughout, and after this whole crazy cancer ordeal. He makes me stronger, and he makes me a better person. I love you so much, darling!!

Therapy has been eye-opening in a good way. I'm acknowledging anxiety and panic that I've had for years and have tried to ignore. I'm eager to learn ways to move forward and eliminate them from my life.

Nutsy and Joseph are doing well. They had their annual checkup recently. Joseph pooped in the carrier -- of course. But TWICE!! I gave him his annual bath, which was kind of fun. He gives up and lets me wash him without a fight. Then once he's dry, his fur is softer than ever! I miss Trigger so much, I can't believe it's been 9 months. Her passing has helped me realize that with grief... you do move on, and life does go on, and the more time passes the easier it is to remember all the good things without getting too sad. No need to cling to a suffering you can't change...

Coming Around

As I sit here multi-tabling these funny little superturbo pushfold 10bb tournies, I probably shouldn't be distracting myself with writing this blog post or thinking about five gratitudes ... but, well, I am. :) Five gratitudes instantly come to mind.
I am...
1. grateful that my stomach is coming around.
2. grateful that my body is coming around.
3. grateful that my husband is the best. (Question: Which husband is the best husband?)
4. grateful that my dentist made me smile a lot today.
5. grateful my awesome parents are coming soon.

I started working full-time again this week. I had two cavities filled yesterday and my teeth cleaned today. I like how clean teeth feel after a good polishing. I made an appointment with a therapist next week. I've never done therapy, so that should be interesting. I watched the stairs door shut behind me when I left work today instead of rushing out. I remembered to breathe when I started to get irritated today, and my annoyance melted away. I am liking mindful Teresa. Or rather, I should say - there is a happiness.

My Body The Turtle

In a lot of ways, my body has been slowly, slowly healing. I still have body aches and back/shoulder pains, but they don't prevent me from sleeping anymore. And I still have hot flashes, but they don't always wake me up at 6 am anymore. My biggest nemesis, my stomach, is nowhere near fixed yet. I miraculously had a few days break in the pain. I got so excited to eat that I overdid it. I need to nurture my poor tummy like a fragile flower, and instead I ate Arby's and pizza. Now it's back to hurting again daily. I'm so tired of it, so tired of eating rice and soup. So tired of being confined to the house or at least close by so I can come home and crawl in bed with my heating pad. I'm also so frustrated with the gastroenterologist. He has not called me with the CT-abdomen results, and it was 3 weeks ago!!! I found out from an unrelated doctor that the scan was fine. I guess the ugly truth is that most doctors simply don't care about you, as long as they make money and avoid lawsuits.

One doctor/medical group that does care is Dr. Singh at One Medical Group. Finally, I have found someone/someplace that cares. Too bad they don't have an oncologist...

I've been so tired of being cooped up at and around the house. Today we went to watch the sun rise at Mt. Tam. Then we stopped to take a walk on the beach until my stomach ruined the lovely morning. But we saw this dude!!!!!!!!!!!


He was with a bunch of other dude friends!


He came over to me on the beach and I pet him. Then he whipped around, put his front paws in the water and barked at the ocean. He was so awesome. I love him!

My hair is growing! It's already weird to look at my bald pictures and remember I was completely bald for 6+ months. I really love my hair right now, I think I'll stick with the shaved head for a while. Hah, along with my new head of hair, I've also been blessed with some unwanted facial hair! I think it's the fact that I'm still in menopause and my hormones are all messed up, combined with the fact that all this new hair on my body has never been bleached by the sun. It's not my favorite. But I'll take a mustache over cancer any day!

Brain Metastatis Scare

The weekend after my last post I was really sick. My migraine developed a new symptom: every time I moved my eyes around I had a flash of white light and pain in my head. I also had a fever of 102 with chills. On Monday I called my GP for an appointment but they told me to go to the ER instead. I spent 7 hours at the ER. They put me on IV fluids and gave me morphine for the head pain. The ER doctor told us he was afraid it could be a breast cancer recurrence in my brain, and he didn't want me to leave til I had a brain MRI. He also went on to say that if it was brain mets, they would check me into the hospital that night. Miles and I spent the next few hours waiting and thinking there was a good chance I now had Stage IV cancer... that was a lot of fun. But I finally got the MRI and it was normal!!!!!! The ER sent me home with a prescription for Percocet and that was that.

Difficulties

It's 4:40 am and I'm up because I had a caffeine-induced panic attack and couldn't sleep. I took Excedrin+caffeine twice today for a migraine, and didn't consider beforehand that I'm 15 pounds lighter and haven't drank caffeine in months. It obliterated my migraine pain, but made me terribly dizzy and made me freak out.

I've had a difficult many weeks. My abdominal pain started on June 9. It's July 15 and I've had no relief. I've seen my oncologist twice, two GPs, a gastroenterologist, an acupuncturist, and a naturopath. I've done all kinds of tests: blood test, urine test, abdominal ultrasound, an endo/colonoscopy, and right now I'm finishing up poo samples so they can test for parasites. It's been suggested that the pain is anything from gastritis to excess bile to gallbladder disease to post-chemo damage to hypersensitivity reaction. Every doctor has their own opinion, and every doctor says something different. Through trial and error, I've finally found some relatively nutritious things that my stomach can hack, and I limit myself to those things. I'm gonna start some vitamins and supplements suggested by the naturopath to help build up my digestive system. Crossing my fingers...

The last few weeks were full of disappointment with doctors and feelings of being neglected. It culminated this week in a cancer scare...

I've wanted to switch oncologists for a while, especially being post-treatment and now depending on follow-up care for the rest of my life. My current oncologist gives me no guidance at all. For example, when he referred me to a GI doctor for my abdominal pain, he literally said "I'm happy to wash my hands of this..." [insert hand-wiping motion here].

I recently got copies of my records from his office. I saw a letter in my file from my 2nd opinion oncologist to my 2nd opinion surgeon. In the letter from 7 months ago she wrote: "Of note, the bilateral MRI of October 2, 2008, showed a right sided lesion of 1.3 x 2 x 1.8 cm ... an MRI suggesting an unclear abnormality on the right side which will require further follow up ... The right breast should be followed by MRI and mammogram in 3 to 6 months by her local physician."

What!!!! No one ever mentioned something abnormal on my right side, and I haven't had any follow-up!

The puzzling thing was she mentioned my October 2nd MRI ... yet, my MRI was on October 16th. I immediately hoped she'd made an error, but it seemed weird that she mentioned the abnormality multiple times in the letter.

I contacted my onc who didn't even know I'd had an MRI. My surgeon was supposed to have forwarded my whole file. So I contacted my surgeon, and though he told me early on that he reviewed my MRI images with his radiology department, my file didn't have any report or printouts confirming the right side was clean. He was also supposed to have received the original MRI report, but never followed up. So my onc called the hospital and they couldn't find my MRI in their system! Aaauugggh!!

To make a long story short... both my surgeon and onc finally got my original MRI report and confirmed my right side was clean. The 1.3 x 2 x 1.8 cm lesion the dumb other onc mentioned in the letter was the size of my left cancer. She must have been high when she dictated the letter talking all about my left side cancer and the right side abnormality.

Thank goodness I was on the side of her error that didn't affect my treatment. But it makes me wonder what other mistakes she's made that may have caused someone real grief, rather than just this awesome stress-induced migraine.