The Princess and the Pea



I'm no princess, but I have always had sensitive skin. Which means no junk jewellery. Yup, I'm an expensive little arm charm. Nuthin but pure gold for this kitten.

The one exception is watches. Because I can't afford a watch with a pure gold backing - and I'm not even sure they make em in the first place - I wear little kid watches, the kind with plastic backs, or straps that go behind the watch so that none of the metal touches my wrist. No, varathane coating or clear nail polish doesn't work; tried that.

Even if they're pure gold, I can't wear stud earrings. I have to wear hoop ones or shepherd hooks, so that there is constant airflow through my piercings. Plastic cushions don't help.

And so, my beloved new Italian charm bracelet has betrayed me....caused me to break out in painful, itchy, red little contact dermatitis blisters. I thought I was protected by it being stainless steel. Maybe it's only coated. All I know is, I feel the pea through all twenty mattresses. Again.

And I still have more charms comin in the mail.

Nuts.

Mad Science



After church today, Curtis and I did some grocery shopping, which necessitated a purging of our long-neglected and bulging refrigerator. Let me just say it's a good thing I'm not as queasy as I have been lately, because the new life forms that I unveiled were ghastly to the point of surreal. Liquids had gone solid, smooth-surfaced foods had gone fuzzy, some substances appeared to move on their own so I flushed them quickly before they could attempt to claim a place in our family.

The only thing in my whole life that I ever failed was grade 12 chemistry, but I'm willing to bet that if I entered what used to be black olives into the Canada-Wide Science Fair today, I would get an honourary gold medal. My once-upon-a-time coconut milk might have, if I hadn't been so afraid of it, proven to be a new cure for the Asian flu.

Apparently, when you lose your appetite, you tend to neglect those numerous mysterious plastic containers buried in your fridge. And they get even.

Maybe it's time I rethought the concept of leftovers....

A Call From Dr C



My oncologist called me last night, to tell me that Pfizer will not allow me to continue on the study if I take the trial drug every second day....However, he plans to fill in some paperwork so that I can acquire the Sutent through an Access program. He just doesn't feel that I can withstand the drug on a daily basis, yet he feels there is still a good chance that it could do good in fighting my cancer. So hopefully, I will receive a call for a consultation and labs for some time next week so that I can resume treatment on my own terms. He promised to call my pharmacy for a refill of anti-nausea meds as well as some steroidal cream for my tender hiney.

When I see him I will be happy to tell him that I am keeping small amounts of light foods down, which is a tremendous relief. I will also inform him that I was very dizzy most of yesterday, which was unnerving; and that my lung has gotten slushy, causing me to cough a lot, especially at night. I am hoping this is only temporary and not a function of one of the lung tumors having increased in size.

I can't begin to imagine what it must be like to be in Dr C's line of work, or that of the support staff with whom he sees patients every day. So much bad news, so much death. They must know they are there, not primarily to cure (although that is, of course, always the hope), but to ease the time that critically ill people have left. It's so obvious from their compassion and kindness, that cancercare requires a very special breed of person.

I'm grateful. Cancer is such an awful thing, yet it has encircled me with the very best of people. When a volunteer hands me a cookie, when Debbie the receptionist greets me with a big warm smile and a "hello, Ellen," when my nurse Pat gives me a hug, when Dr C pats and squeezes my arm, I feel their love, and it is nourishing.

And it helps me to do do more than merely survive....It helps me to live.

Charming Things



My friend Kim gave me one of these Italian charm bracelets (along with a beautiful kitty cat throw) for Christmas, and I just love it. The style really appeals to me, and I've had lots of fun browsing through the endless number of charms available on eBay. She started me off with eleven charms well suited to my interests, personality and career. Some of them are dangly, which I particularly like. Today in the mail I received the first one I bought for myself, a graphic of a saxophone and some musical notes. I'm gonna hafta wait for Curtis to come home and put it on, because these little things have must surely been designed by the Devil to make me spit fire and think unsavoury thoughts. I may have mentioned before that patience is not a virtue that I possess. Luckily, Curtis was blessed with endless amounts of it, despite his thick fingers.

Any day now I should receive a pretty graphic of a windmill, a Jesus fish, a sign that reads, "Living, Not Just Surviving," and an angel. I'm shopping for a charm depicting my PT Cruiser, that doesn't cost a king's ransom.

Also in the mail today (don't you just love packages in the mail?): two more music books and disks for saxophone play; so Curtis will have more songs to practise. I'm hoping that he will lull himself to sleep, as he has been restless the past few nights, worrying about me. Please ask the Sandman to pay Curtis an extra visit so that he can get the rest he needs.

My niece, Sharon, is gifted with the purest, most beautiful singing voice, and, on his blog, Herman has kindly posted a video of her singing a song she wrote and performed for the wedding of a couple of friends. Give yourself a real treat and visit Herman's blog to listen to Sharon.

Update: I see now that Sharon has the video posted on her own blog, too, so you can click on her link to have a listen, and leave her a comment.

I am back on my anti-nausea meds, something I avoid because it takes so long for the morons who work at our insurance company to do their jobs and reimburse us for their high cost. (They send me letters requesting documentation I have already sent them, then "find" the paperwork while I am on the phone telling them so. Duhhhh.) Today is the second day I have managed to keep down some light food (Rice Krispies are my friends). It's a baby step in the right direction, and I'm very determined to stop worrying my husband so badly, so that he can sleep at night.

January Blues



Sorry I haven't been posting lately. I have nothing to tell, really, except that I don't feel well and have been lyin around in bed all week, with the exception of Wednesday, when I visited my mom for her 91st birthday. It wasn't much of a visit, since the nursing home failed to inform us that the residents were being taken out for lunch, and we waited in her room for more than two hours before she returned. Mom needed to be washed and changed, so my brother and sister-in-law and I quickly gave her her gifts and then headed out to fight the traffic on the way home. She continues on her downward mental spiral, confused and disoriented about who and where she is most of the time. It becomes increasingly difficult to have a normal conversation with her, and I find the attempts to do so, exhausting.

The one bright spot this past week has been Curtis' acquisition of a vintage alto saxophone. I am impressed with how well Curtis can still play after so many years, and I delight in hearing him practise in the basement during the evenings. It has a beautifully calming tone, and the cats sit and gaze at the instrument while their master tickles its keys. His rendition of "When a Man Loves a Woman" made me wriggle with delight in my jammies.

Curtis bought a higher quality router for our internet connection, so we may be offline for a while while he figures out its installation. I have no idea what that entails because I am really dumb when it comes to computers.

I appreciate the emails of concern that I have received, and regret having caused you any worry. I am trying hard to find nourishment that will help me to rebuild my strength so that I can resume treatment.

Ice Fishing



Visiting small-town Manitoba makes Curtis and me long to live there; and if it weren't for my health issues, I believe we would have taken steps to bring it to fruition by now. Yesterday we spent the day in Lac du Bonnet, a bustling lakeside town with lots of amenities and attractions. We stayed overnight in a large hotel room with a fully equipped kitchenette and a balcony with a view of the lake. The bitter cold only encouraged the townsfolk to turn out for hockey games and other activities at the youth centre, the legion, the bowling alley, and the community centres. Both sides of the downtown streets were filled with cars, all of them running to keep warm with no fear of theft.

Following the directions of our Four Seasons Adventures guide, we drove our truck off the public boat launch and onto the lake (a new experience for both of us), over to the ice fishing shack that had been rented for us. Thick smoke billowed out of its chimney, and, true to form, it was toasty warm inside. Our artificial rigs yielded no results, so after a couple of hours we went to Subway and filled up on sandwiches and then bought some frozen bait. Before long, we began to get nibbles and tugs, although we never did succeed in pulling a fish out of the ice. As we fished, we heard the busy drone of snowmobilers, and watched one guy erect an ice fishing shack, and another fellow create a large hockey rink on the lake. After several hours, the fish stopped biting, and it was clear there was some trick to this kind of fishing that we haven't mastered yet. I felt myself tire as it began to grown dark outside, so we went and checked in to our room, showered, and joined our friends/hosts Marina and Louise for drinks and dinner.

This morning we regretted not having checked out our room more thoroughly on Saturday; if we had, we would have bought breakfast fixins and had Marina and Louise over for eats. We did decide that, if we ever wanted to rent a boat and go fishing for a summer weekend, we would love to stay in that hotel room where the rates and kitchen facilities would afford a reasonable stay.


I pinched these two photos from the slide show on Curtis' blog, where he tells his version of our weekend adventure.

What fun it would be to reside in a small community with so much to do and such an active, healthy lifestyle to lead.

I Could Use a Hug



I spent 3 hours at CancerCare today, mostly waiting, mostly for nothing. My scans are fairly inconclusive, although they at least don't show anything alarming: a couple of tumors, one in my lung, and one in my pancreas, are a wee bit bigger, but nothing much has changed. I haven't bounced back enough to Dr C's liking, and he says I seem rather depressed. He says it's not surprising, given that I've felt pretty crummy for a couple of months.

Pfizer hasn't gotten back to the clinic as to whether or not they will allow me to continue the study, takin the drug every second day. My nurse will try to get an answer tomorrow; if they say no, I can continue on the drug off-study; Dr C and I aren't ready to give up on it yet. But he wants me to get a little stronger first.

I didn't lose any more weight but I didn't gain any, either. I weigh exactly what I did 3 weeks ago after my 16 pound loss. At least I'm not dehydrated any more; the delicious apple peach juice we discovered at Wal-Mart has been a big help there.

The scary thing I had an oncological resident look at, turned out to be some harmless menopause-related thing, and she gave me a pap smear for good measure. Everything looked tickety-boo there, which was a big relief. If there's one thing I don't need, it's any more ugly surprises croppin up.

It's bitter bitter cold, and I'm glad to be home in my warm little house. Curtis is bringin KFC sandwiches home for dinner, which should last me the next couple of days.

Three Years Ago Today



Three years ago today, Curtis and I renewed our wedding vows at Holy Trinity Church, in front of our friends and my family.

I was so healthy. We thought that the Monster had been vanquished forever. We couldn't have known, then, how it would return with malice and mercilessness to ravage and waste.

And still, these have been the happiest three years of my life.

Says something, doesn't it?

This has pretty well been the story of my life this past week. Go ahead and laugh, make ASSinine jokes, but I can tell you, I have had PILES of pain the last couple of days. It's been a real BUMmer, and has totally CRAMPed my style, for sure, although I have my friends BEHIND me (and my ENEMAS, too). I've had to show some real INTESTINAL fortitude to get through this one. Okay, your turn to get CHEEKY and have some pun in my comments.....

I felt so crummy, I totally forgot to go get my lung ct-scan done at 10:00 pm last night, so I've been rescheduled until Thursday afternoon.

I've begun the long, tedious undecorating process, but it's going very slowly due to my low energy level. I miss my tree already.

I haven't been feeling well the past few days, but I'm on the mend. We ended the year with a heavy snowfall; luckily Curtis cleared the driveway with our snowblower yesterday, because it's darn cold today. We plan to spend the first day of 2007, hibernating.

Best wishes to everyone for a happy, healthy New Year.