lately

It’s been a while, but I want the world to know that I am alive and well. I considered for a moment deleting my blog, but then I decided that I need this blog to keep me sane. I’m going to give an update on our life, but then I’d like to no longer blog about cancer, unless anything new happens. Frankly, I’m over it…the whole cancer thing.

On February 22, I had a complete thyroidectomy to remove my cancerous thyroid. After surgery when we got the pathology report back we found out that it WAS papillary carcinoma, that it was 1.5 cm in size, and that it had not spread. yay! This was the best news I’d had in, well, all my life.

The next month I took a capsule dose of radioactive iodine to destroy any remaining microscopic thyroid cells that might be in my body. Since it was clear my thyroid cells were more prone to developing cancer, we wanted to eradicate any that were hanging out.

This was not the easiest decision for me to make. My endocrinologist really wanted me to do it. But he told me that some doctors would say I was cured after surgery, and that we didn’t need to go any further with treatment. He disagreed. He said that he wanted to ensure we destroyed any cells remaining. I knew, to keep my sanity, that I had to take the dosage of radioactive iodine. Otherwise, I would have always wondered, “Did we get everything? What if there are some cells left just waiting for the chance to start growing a tumor?” Yeah, I’m the type of person who thinks things like that. So yeah, I had to do it.

Let me just say that taking that pill was the most science fiction thing ever. A gloved nurse brought in a steel container, which he opened and sat down next to me with a glass of water. In the steel container was another sealed tube that had the capsule in it. He gave me a pair of gloves and said he would step out into the hall, and I was to open the container and dump the pill into my mouth. Do NOT touch it. It was navy blue, and for the brief moment it sat on my tongue, it tasted like a battery. You know, have you ever stuck your tongue to a battery? It was like that. I sat there in the room for 10 minutes, and then he came in with something he called a “cutie,” which was basically a Geiger counter, to test how radioactive I was. Wow. When I was suffieciently radioactive, he sent me home with instructions to stay at least six feet at all times from women and children, babies and animals, and to stay in a separate room from my husband, eat off of separate dishes, use a separate bathroom, and either throw my clothes away or hold them for a week and then wash them separately. I was to drink lots of water and pee a lot to get the radioactivity out of my body.

All the while, those dastardly cells would be ablating. I had heartburn. I was slightly nauseous. Two mornings I woke up with no voice. But after a week of seclusion and a full-body scan to make sure the radioactive iodine had done its job, I was free to live as normal.

I take Synthroid every morning to replace the hormones my thyroid produced. I feel fine, but I’m more tired than I was before. Tomorrow is my three-month checkup, and I’m hoping they say I need my dosage bumped up a bit. That would at least explain why I’m so tired and unable to concentrate.

Anyhow, I’m going to try and make this the last cancer-focused blog post, I promise. It just helps me to get it out there.

It’s all relative.

I had a moment of clarity the other day: hell truly is a relative term. My personal hell is another person’s walk in the park. I realize this, and I try to constantly remind myself that this situation could be much worse. I have a great prognosis, and if all goes as planned, I should be down for a brief period and then right back at it.

But still I find myself tossing around the “what ifs” constantly; what if I’d found it sooner, what if I hadn’t found it at all, what if the cancer comes back, what if it’s more aggressive than we think, what if, what if, what if…

A co-worker, four years into his battle with colon cancer, gave me some great advice the other day. He said, “Make sure you don’t borrow grief, Amanda.” Well said. I’ve got to remember to take it one step and one day at a time and not to fret over tomorrow and all the tomorrows after that.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” -Jeremiah 29:11

My hope is that once I kick the cancer to the curb, Keith and I can move on, be happy and live our lives fully. I love that man more and more every day. He has been amazing throughout this process, and I can’t even express how fortunate and blessed I feel to have him by my side.

I had the most wonderful weekend with friends and family. It was very full, very enjoyable and rejuvenating. Tomorrow, Keith and I meet the surgeon, whom I’ve heard only great things about. I’m certainly not excited about it, but I’m not apprehensive either. I’m ready. C’mon week, bring it!

 

The dreaded c-word

Hello dear blog readers:

Actually, most of you have probably fallen off since I so rarely blog anymore. Oh, well. To be honest, if this blog post isn’t read by a single soul, that would be ok. It’s more for me than for you.

So here goes: I have cancer. Yes, one of the worst things imaginable for many of us is growing in my body. Well, I hope it’s not really growing; I hope that it’s small and confined and very slow growing, like a tiny pearl of cancer.

I felt a small lump in my neck near my thyroid. I originally panicked, then chilled out and took it to be a swollen gland. I was feeling a bit under the weather, so surely I could just be coming down with a cold. I medicated, I felt better, the lump was still there. I asked my lady doctor about it when I went in for my annual appointment. She said it should be checked out by my general doc. The next day I made an appointment.

Tests came and went. Dye in the veins, trips through the easy bake ct scan machine, ultrasounds, and finally, biopsy. I got the results on Thursday that I have papillary carcinoma (thyroid cancer).

My doctor says it’s very treatable, and although thyroid cancer isn’t common, it’s the most common type of them all. The survival rate even at 20 years is near 100 percent. We’ll just take that lobe of the thyroid right out, and I’ll be on thyroid medication to replace the hormones for the rest of my life.

Right now, I don’t want to know what the implications of not having a thyroid are. I’ve heard lots of things. I’ve heard that it takes a while to get the meds just right. Right now, I just have to be positive and take it one step and one day at a time.

I wake up and the first thing I think of is cancer. The word knocks around in my head like an uninvited guest. I think of it in the morning, at lunch, at work, in the car, in the shower, on the couch, walking the dogs, making dinner and then at night when I try to go to sleep. Should I wake up in the middle of the night, it won’t let me go back to sleep. But when I do fall back to sleep, I dream of flowers coming up, and of spring. I’m so beyond nightmares.

Physically, I feel great. I haven’t for a moment felt bad. That’s the tricky part. If I hadn’t felt the lump, I never would have known. I look in the mirror and think, “How can I be sick? I look normal. I don’t look sick, do I?” No, I don’t. And I don’t feel sick. I just am.

The hardest thing for me is telling my friends and family. I will forever remember the moment I had to tell my husband…him waiting on the line as I stumbled out the words we’d so hoped not to hear. My mother as I listened to her try to keep her tears held until we got off the phone. Friends that just can’t believe this is happening to someone so close to them. I feel bad for these people more than for myself. I can only imagine what it’s like to be told someone you love dearly has cancer. I’ve never been in that boat, only in this one.

I am strong though, and this is not a threatening form of cancer. I will kick it, and I will move on. And I will live every single day for all it’s worth. That is a promise.

Try again tomorrow

This is a phrase my co-worker, Amber, and I say several times a week, usually when we’ve had less than productive days. Let me characterize this entire week, and last as well, as “unproductive.” This is the longest period of “un-productivity” at work I believe I’ve ever suffered. I’m a writer, and I can barely string together a sentence. Even scraping together this blog post is wearing me down. But I may have an answer…or an excuse. Mercury, my friends, has been in retrograde for the past few weeks, and it will be until Sunday, September 12. According to Astrologycom.com, here are some physical symptoms of Mercury in retrograde:

“Mercury rules thinking and perception, processing and disseminating information and all means of communication, commerce, education and transportation. By extension, Mercury rules people who work in these areas, especially those who work with their minds or their wits: writers and orators, consultants, commentators and critics, gossips and spin doctors, salespeople, teachers, travelers, tricksters and thieves.

Mercury retrograde gives rise to personal misunderstandings; flawed, disrupted, or delayed communications, negotiations and trade; glitches and breakdowns with phones, computers, cars, buses, and trains. And all of these problems usually arise because some crucial piece of information, or component, has gone astray or awry.

It is not exactly wise to make important decisions while Mercury is retrograde, since it is likely that such decisions will be clouded by misinformation, poor communication and careless thinking. Mercury is all about mental clarity and the power of the mind, so when Mercury is retrograde these intellectual characteristics tend to be less acute than usual, as the critical faculties are dimmed.”

There you have it, people. I’m just relieved I can put some reasoning behind my lack of focus, even if it might be hogwash. I’ll just blame it on the stars.

Moving on…

I recently purchased this lovely necklace from Super Duper Things Etsy shop. I love it, and I am anxiously awaiting its arrival. Do you love it like I do?

Hello again.

I’m sorry for the seriously long blogging vacation. Life just took over, and something had to give. Turns out, it was blogging I had to put on the back burner. Anyhow, here’s what’s happened in the 6 months or so since I last blogged.

Keith and I got married on June 20, 2010, on Folly Beach in South Carolina. It looked something like this:

These aren’t our professional photos, which were wonderful, but a photo taken by my friend, Kristie. But here is a photo of my flowers, taken by Karson Photography:

I loved this bouquet of peonies, ranunculus and lisianthus, created by Tiger Lily Florist in Charleston.

2. We had a reception a month later at the home of our friends, Terry and Kailey. My friend, Amber, designed our invitations, which looked like this:

We couldn’t afford to rent a photo booth, but my talented friend, Waynette, offered to take the photos for free. They looked like this:

And this:

And this:

Those are just a few of my favorites. That photo booth was the best idea I had, even though Keith was unsure about it at first. Trust me, it was a hit.

With the wedding and reception down, we picked up where we left off working on our house. And…we got a new dog. Her name is Maddie, and she looks like this:

We saw her at PetSmart, and a sign on her kennel said it was her “last day.” She would be going back to the animal control organization where she’d be put to sleep. We just had to get her. And we’re so glad we did. Although she was a bit hyper and needy at first, she and Jackson get along swimmingly. Lola, however, doesn’t care for her. We’re not surprised.

Dumpster bike

Well, hello there! I fell off the blogging wagon again. my apologies. February has been one of those packed months. My freelance jobs are picking up, the wedding planning is picking up, the house continues to get dirtier, the dog constantly requires more petting, the cat more cuddling and the Keith more snuggling. But alas, there are no more hours in my day! Sometimes I feel like I work just as hard on the weekends to do all the things I didn’t have time to do during the week. But it’s happy work, and I am truly enjoying life.

One of the new blogs I’m really enjoying these days is Frugan Living. This chick, who lives in faraway Manhattan, literally dumpster dives for almost everything she has, eats, sells, etc. I’m fascinated with her and her blog. She unearths perfectly sealed packages of one-day-expired cereals, pastas, cans of non-perishables, unopened gadgets, and more on a regular basis. She sifts through college dorm dumpsters for textbooks and then sells them on amazon. The packrat and junk collector within me is intrigued.

In college, I told roommates and friends tales of my “dumpster bike,” a rusty blue banana seat bike with clouds printed on it that my dad brought home for me from the dumpster. The handles were the bent back, crooked variety. I don’t know what they’re really called, but they weren’t straight. The bike was very similar to the photo I posted, except blue and a bit clunkier. But it didn’t matter. Dumpster bike was a fine bike that lasted another five or more years after it was cast-off. And because of it’s large frame, my cousin was able to stand on the back while holding onto my shoulders while we drove the short distance to my great Aunt Fanny Lee’s house. True story.

Anyhow, the amazing thing about Frugan Living’s dumpster dives is seeing photos of all this perfectly good stuff she saves from the landfill. We are a culture of wasters, and this truly brings it to light. These items could go to a homeless shelter, a non-profit food rescue organization…a million other places where it would be used and appreciated. 

Hmmm…

Farewell, sweet weekend.

Dear spring:

Could you please hurry and get here and grace me with your sweet smells, green grass and pretty flowers?

affectionately yours,

Amanda

So we had our first real snow/ice of the year. It fell upon the earth Thursday night and now on Sunday night it has mostly melted. Thank the Lord. I’m not really a snow person because I hate to be cold, and I seem to always be cold. The inclement weather was pretty for a day though, and it did get me out of work on Friday. Jackson loved it too. We took him on a walk, and he couldn’t contain his excitement. It was interesting trying to walk a dog that pulls so hard down iced and snowy hills. Thankfully, neither Keith nor myself had a wipeout. But there were a few close calls.

Saturday was spent in its entirety at home since the roads were so bad. We did venture out with friends Saturday night to get dinner, discovering when we arrived that the restaurant was closed. But don’t worry; we found dinner only a block away. Thank you, Japanese hibachi. Oh, and we saw Kris Allen’s folks there eating as well. I wouldn’t have recognized them, but my friends did. We tried not to stare. At least not to stare and be obvious.

Today by far was the most successful day of the weekend. After getting up late, we spent most of it finishing up the baseboards and quarter round in our house. Keith then put down a couple of the t-molds. I simply can’t express how excited I am to have the moldings down between the tile and wood. It just makes the floors, which have looked a bit unfinished for months, finally look complete. He did an awesome job, and I’m ecstatic. NO more dealing with the baseboards in the house. You just have no idea how many steps are involved in those. It’s insane! Anyhow, everyone have a happy week!

love is a battlefield.

Here’s to you, Pat Benatar or Jordin Sparks. You got it right. It has been brought to my attention (by Keith) that in my last blog post I basically said I didn’t love our family’s new addition. This was not the sentiment I wished to convey. Rather, I just wanted the world to know that loving a new dog like I love our Lola is going to be a process. Obviously. The events surrounding Jackson’s first vet trip landed me in a severe state of annoyance and anger. But just to set the record straight, I do still love him. I’m just working on loving him more.

It’s not easy though when I wake up at 5 a.m. to discover that he’s somehow turned on the outside water faucet and it’s spewing water at full speed onto our patio. By the time Keith got out to turn it off, the water was already standing several inches deep on the patio. Ah, such is life with the new mutt…

In other news, I found this little gem at Drug Emporium the other day. It’s a goatee shaving template. Because everyone needs one of those, right? There was even a very informative instructional video playing demonstrating the power of the goatee template. According to the package, the template:

• creates the perfect goatee
• adjustable for any size face
• cuts goatee grooming time

There it is folks. Laugh yourselves silly.

no, no. bad dog.

I loved the new dog…until today. Today, I have had it. It was his first trip to the vet, and I had to take him myself because Keith had to work. I thought it would be fairly easy. Before Keith left for work, he helped me load him up. Jackson was reluctant to get in the car because I guess he’s scared that we might be taking him back to the shelter. Understandable. The ride there was just fine. He lounged across the back seat and didn’t try to get up front, didn’t get in my face, etc. He was just being such a good dog.

But once we got to the vet it was a different story. He first refused to get out of the car, and made it quite impossible for me to get him out. He spread out all his legs and somehow seemed to make himself heavier. I did successfully heft him out of the back seat, but not without trouble. And then I couldn’t get my purse because he kept pulling back and I was afraid he would slip out of the harness. (subtle foreshadowing here…) I left my purse, took him in and they shut him in an exam room so that I could retrieve my purse and his shelter paperwork.

When we opened the door to the exam room, the nurse said, “whoops, looks like someone’s had an accident.” The poor nurse then proceeded to clean Jackson’s giant pile of poo and puddle of urine off the floor. It smelled nice in there for sure. The vet walked in and said, “wow, that’s a healthy stool.” I wanted to DIE! Seriously, please tell me someone else has been embarrassed by their dog at the vet!

So the exam went along ok. Jackson kept jumping on the vet, who seemed to have a short fuse for jumping. It probably didn’t help that he kept jumping and putting his big paws all over the countertops, almost knocking over specimens of some sort in the process. Needless to say, he was a bit out of control. I finally calmed him down enough to hear the entire spill about heart worms, which was just terrible. Even thiough Jackson tested negative for heartworms in November, it takes six months for them to incubate and show up on a test. So…if he was stung by an infected mosquito in in July or August, it wouldn’t show on the test. Basically, just because he tested negative in November doesn’t mean he’s actually negative. We’ll start the heartworm preventative, but we’ll have to have him tested again in July to make sure. Great.

So after paying $130 for the visit, plus the preventative, I gathered my dog and started the dreaded trip back to the car. I knew this would be rough. I had the keys in my car door and was just going to toss my purse in the front seat, scoop him up and put him in the car. However,when I tried to get the door open, he backed his head out of the harness before I could stop him. He then just stepped out of the harness and bolted…thankfully not toward the highway. There are some houses behind the vet’s office, and he made a run for those. I took off after him, and let me tell you, he was running as hard as he could. It was like a bad movie, and I’m sure the people who saw me tear through their yard following my crazy dog got a great kick out of it. I kept saying, “Jackson, Jackson, Jackson, Jaaaccckkksssooon! He would not stop for anything. And just like in the movies, I crouched down to get him to come to me, he sped past, I tried to reach out and grab him and I fell flat on my face. FLAT on my face. I decided to just lay there and act like I was crying, and to be honest, I wasn’t far from it. This got his attention, and he got close enough that I could grab him. I carried this heavy, 53-pound dog back to the car, and I swear we were a pretty good distance away. Once we got near the car, he started squirming. But I managed to man-handle him into the vehicle, where I sat and panted for 20 minutes. Keith is taking him on the next vet trip. For today, and maybe even for the weekend, I am done with him. He can sit in the backyard and howl.

Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda.

Found these fantastic chairs at The Salvation Army months ago (pre-house purchasing) and passed them up. Now I’m lamenting their exclusion from my scantly-furnished bedroom. I could have bought them for $50, reupholstered them and sat and read in them for years to come, perhaps the rest of my life. Oh well. Surely there are other chairs like these floating around out there somewhere, right? Ok, that’s all for today. I just wanted to share my regret over having not bought them. No more whining. Good day.