Moving forward from looking back on my life

Well, its 4:10am & I can’t sleep so I’ll start this week’s post…..

Oh! I know! I was going to tell about myself.. or, well, my old self.. like before my health went crazy & I started to sleep a lot & had no energy & I had to see doctors & get tests done every week & well.. all the stuff going on right now..

I was an extreme couponer, like the crazy ladies you saw on the show, only I’ve grown up in a family doing it so, it was never really a need “need” but more of a hobby if you will.. like something to do that helped myself, family, friends, & homeless living things of both two & four legs.. so, that is where the “ready for the Zombie Apocalypse” & the fact that my body kinda crapped out on energy from “the cancer bomb” comes from.. anywho, I had a stock pile.. I also forget that most people don’t have one in their house.. but really, everyone should!!! Okay, maybe not everyone.. but most everyone should! It turned out to be a good thing too, because when my energy dropped & I quit grocery shopping, we still had enough food & toilet paper to make it thru till my husband got his job back & could afford to just sale shop without all of my wonderful coupons to help (we made it almost three months!!! Go me..). I still have more cleaning supplies, air fresheners, & BBQ sauce then I know what to do with.. & an entire cupboard for just for coffee, peanut butter, & jelly…. I love PB&J’s & thankfully that stuff has a very long shelf life!

I had a subscription to the Sunday paper, then even after that was gone, I still got the Sunday paper from the store every week! Then I feel a month behind on clipping out coupons & looking at the sales adds.. so I quit getting the paper because I saw no point in wasting it.. I just didn’t have the energy to clip the coupons & find the sales & match up what coupons would double where to get whatever was free & all that jazz. I just wanted to curl up & sleep. Looking back now, I don’t really know how I didn’t find that very concerning, but then when all I really wanted to do was sleep, I suppose I wasn’t thinking about that..

 Lesson learned

Solution:

FAMILY & FRIENDS!!

If this ever happens again,

Please,

Be concerned!

Tell me!

I’ll be too sleepy to think of it myself!!

Thank you!

Moving on.

I really like staying in my old room. I have all of my art, strange stuff, & posters hanging from the ceiling & walls still. It has been very re inspiring to me. I used to paint, make things, decorate, & dress up. I’d been getting old & boring. Now I’m still old & boring, but I want to go back to school & work on my art & business goal so I can someday open my own tattoo shop! (quite possibly far, far away from here.. I hate this yuppie town of overpaid boring people.. or more interesting people just need to take over this town? I do love the Alden B. Dow house & all of our art history.. I’m just not really fond of the asshole people that want this to be like Stepford wives & shit) my room is very reflective of me. The bed looks like a small child might sleep in it. There is an overflowing pile of stuffed pigs at the foot of the bed. I have a sesame street comforter & a pink fairy pillowcase, when that’s in the wash I have an owl woodland set from Target that did, as a matter of fact, come from the children’s bedding section. There are a few throw pillows of Jack Skelington’s head & a random ghost.. I collect Halloween stuff, so there are bats hanging from the ceiling (from my “sweet 17” birthday/moving out celebration, random fact!) & in my blanket covered window.. There are over a hundred dried roses all together, everywhere you look you’ll see a bouquet of them! I find them prettier dead & preserved then alive. Everything has to die at some point, I think they help me remember that. I have pictures collages of my siblings, nephew, then boyfriend/now husband, & ME!! Almost every picture is with me or just of me, by myself. I kinda love myself, I get it from my dad, though lately I don’t want to look at my sad, bloated, foreign self. I’d rather just remember how I looked. Then, when I’m all better, admire the “new me” if you will. So it works out to be surrounded by all of my old pictures. My husband isn’t like me at all. He finds my taste in the strange & “abnormal” (god, I hate that term.. who gets to say what is normal?) rather, well, just that: strange & abnormal… but to me, this is normal! This is what I love. This is what I need to feel alive & inspired! Not sick, pale green walls, a high ceiling, & multiple uncovered windows to let in more light. No! That, to me, is awful!!!

In high school I took interior design. I really liked that class.. the teacher wasn’t fond of me.. I still have all of my stuff from the class in my art binder of random things I’ve drawn over the years. There are also clothing designs I made way back when too. Super hero sketches. More shredded hearts then mentally healthy (my favorite painting is of one of my shredded hearts, but I made it in middle school so I really need to hurry up & paint a new one.. it’s been ten years since I painted that one) & a few drawings of bats.

I really like bats. I feel they are misunderstood. Its more often you hear about a bird attacking someone for their food then you do about a bat trying to kill someone.. but people are more afraid of the bats.. also, Rabies, cats & dogs can get rabies too & so can people! So HA! Bats are fucking awesome. Female bats have been seen giving male bats a blow job during sex. Yeah! They like sex too! Bet you didn’t know that! A male dog will just hump whatever wherever! But people still like them!! Now, don’t get me wrong, I like dogs too, even after getting bit in the face by one, I still love dogs. Just not male dogs, but then, I’ve never been fond of male dogs, so really nothing has changed about my feelings towards dogs.

I had a dog. Her name was Misty. She was hit & killed the morning after Valentine’s day last year. Just two weeks after I’d got bit in the face. & if anyone was wondering, I asked that the dog that bit me not get killed, & is alive to this day, because I would never want someone to ask for my dog to be killed. Not sure how Karma fucked that one up, but that’s life, & it sucks. I really miss my dog. The person that hit her didn’t even stop, just kept driving, like nothing happened. The only thing I’ve ever hit with my car was a deer & where I live, it happens far to often. But still, I stopped my fucking car & made my husband come make sure the poor thing wasn’t just laying there suffering!!! Then over the summer I spent three hours going door to door with a lost dog I saw running in the same spot on the road that I’d hit the deer (& stupid people honking at it, like the dog was supposed to understand what they meant with their horns.. people are fucking stupid. Dogs don’t drive cars.. they don’t understand what the damn horn is for..) Again, really not sure how Karma fucked that one up.. but since finding out I have cancer, I remembered something. Misty had cancer, she got this huge lump in her tongue & we had it cut out. She licked her stitches out & people were always freaked out by my dogs tongue.. They’d tell me “I think your dog bit its tongue, there’s a chunk missing”.. No shit, it’s not bleeding all over the place, obviously its healed, I’m fully aware she is missing some of her tongue, she had cancer.. but thanks none the less.

When I first found out about my cancer I remember thinking I’d like to just go die alone under the porch, like the good old family dog would.. Not bother anyone else with this.. let nature take its course & let everyone else keep living, unaware of what was wrong. Then I remembered Misty, not that I’d forgotten her in less than a freaking year! I mean I remembered that she’d had cancer before & that we’d found a new lump on her back leg, that we’d scheduled to have removed in just a few weeks. I think she knew I had cancer too, (dogs know that kinda shit, I know, odd that they know that kinda shit, but not what a car horn means..) so instead of bothering us with herself, she just went for a walk & stepped out in front of traffic. I know how it all went down since there was snow on the ground & I could literally retrace her last journey to the end of her life, but not figure out just why she’d done it.. It’s a shitty thought to have.

 I’d have rather spent thousands of dollars I didn’t have on getting her cancer taken care of & find out I also have to spend thousands of dollars I still don’t have on myself getting my cancer care, over her killing herself only to still find out that I have cancer. I really miss her. I sat out in the snow for a few hours with her that day I had the thought. She’s buried under her favorite tree in the back yard here. Maybe Karma didn’t have anything to do with her death. Maybe it was just Misty’s way of trying to look out for me, like the good old family dog she was. I really wish I didn’t have cancer. I often wonder how my doctors (yes, multiple doctors as in the one I’d had as a teen, then my new doctor I got as an “adult”) missed that large of a mass growing in my neck for that long… Maybe Misty wouldn’t have gone for her last walk. I fucking hate my doctor.. I hated her before all of this & I hate her even more now. & it wasn’t even her that got alarmed & came to the obvious conclusion of me needing to go get all the testing either, it was her nurse. Her nurse, that filled out my monthly charts when I came in.. She pulled my doctor aside & had to tell the fat bitch to address an obvious problem going on with me.

I need to change the subject since I’m getting to upset by that one. I’m looking forward to this all being just another bad memory. Over time, compressing it down until it’s forgotten. Well, not forgotten, I have to take thyroid medicine for the rest of my life, so obviously it will be a daily reminder of this all, but maybe like getting bit by the dog. Thinking back on it now, just a little over a year later I can’t remember the pain like it was. I know it hurt like fuck, but when I think about it, my face doesn’t hurt, just at the simple thought alone. I see the scar every day. Just under my left eye. I don’t mind it. It’s a part of my face now, nothing to hide or cry over. Just part of my life’s road map, of how I got this far. I have one on my neck now too, where my thyroid once was. It’s better off gone. It didn’t work right anyway (lol). So I guess I look forward to getting back to moving on with my life. Going back to school so I can open my kick ass tattoo shop, working on my sewing skills so I can make cute baby stuff, getting all my shit in order so when its “safe” for my husband & Me to try having kids again I’ll have accomplished a lot with my life & can be a stay at home crunchy mom, fighting for the planet & cloth diapering my home water birthed, breast fed babies. After all, Misty would tell you, I’m an awesome mom!

It is now 7:20am so with that I’ll simply say Good morning!

This Waiting game never ends

Well we’re waiting on my surgery (if you can tell time & have a calendar you should know from my last post that January 30^th has come & long gone.. I know, you’re getting ahead of me.. just slow down, I’m sorry, I’m going over that last six months in *hopefully* two blog posts, just keep reading & don’t rush me, it didn’t work for me when I tried to rush the Doctors either they still take their sweet time.. just let me type) I’ll tell you about what I was thinking, doing, & also a few things that I left out or mixed up in my last post.. Let’s back track first!

I’d had the same job for two years (the one I was trying to save with the ADHD medicine, yeah, that job..) & was missing a fair amount of work with all the crazy shit going on in my personal life.. I’d decided to start a backup plan & make baby stuff from home to sell online.. I got some stuff to get it going then lost my job on December 1^st.. Then on December 10^th I was supposed to get my biopsy, only I got the day & date mixed up & found out two hours late on the 10^th that it was “today & not tomorrow” so I had to reschedule it.. I could have found out sooner, but it’s all in the past & really I see no point in focusing any extra thought on that fact simply because a small gap of 17 days wouldn’t have changed my final outcome.. on the up side of this I get to take legal action against my former place of work since they knew I was undergoing pre diagnostic testing & wasn’t doing so good, they should have offered me a medical leave, not all out canned me.. Whatever, their loss, my gain!

My CT scan: I’d just kinda mentioned it last time but after some thought, I think I should share about it so if anyone else has to go thru it then they will kinda know what to expect.. the guy tells me it will burn & feel like I peed my pants when the contrast dye goes in.. I think to myself “it can’t be that bad..” & it fucking is! That shit burns! & you really do feel like you’re peeing yourself! But then you also have the peace of mind that it is only a feeling & not really an action! & you can’t move to help deal with the burning.. you just have to lay there well you feel like you’re being burned thru your veins Just thought you should know too, because until I was told, there, on the spot! I’d never known that part before, so know you know too, if you ever have to get one done, & also you have to take out all of your metal so it doesn’t mess with the scan & get fuzzy in spots.. Also good to know before you get there..

Oh, & the quick edit from the last post, I was reminded that the nurse only told me as bland & un-informal as all get out that there were “a few very bad lymph nodes” on my scan & when I asked her for more info, she didn’t know because she was just running the message along from the doctor, thru her, to me.. Still not very helpful.. The shit that added to my nightmare that day was the pre surgery call you have to make.. They force you to face the fact that you might die in surgery.. well, ok, not force, but they ask you shit like, would you like any church, priest, rabbi, monk, saint, or Jesus himself be contacted OLNY IF NEEDED??? & you think “wholly shit, she is asking me if I want them to call my church if I die during this!!!!” or at least that is what I thought.. so I told the nice lady what church I used to go to, way back when I still believed in god, (& had just started going back to for the sake of wanting to make up with the big G for all the time I’d dismissed him just in case I did die) Next She asks if I have a will.. oh, shit.. I don’t.. So I ask her if I need one? She says it is not mandatory to have & can tell I’m freaking out in my head, even though I haven’t started freaking out, out loud.. then she asks if I have stuff set up like do not resuscitate or any of that & I tell her that I don’t care what it takes, they’re allowed to do whatever the fuck it takes to make sure I get thru this shit alive, they could jump on my chest if needed! She even laughed a little at that one.. good, I like having someone to laugh at my save my life at all cost joke, that would be why I made it (no really, you may laugh, it is healthy to laugh!) then we finish up the dyeing possibility Q&A & I call my best friend to laugh with me for a bit to help me cope but then we have to say our goodbyes & I’m left to my thoughts.. with nobody to laugh about my spread cancer news or scary fact I could die in surgery  jokes anymore.. & I feel scared!

I slept a lot over the next few weeks, not that I was tired, but because I didn’t like being awake & thinking about having cancer.. it was easier to ignore everything if I was sleeping, I could dream about anything! That window of time is honestly a foggy blur I’d been blocking out because that is how I was mainly coping, thru denial in the day & grieving alone with my tears well my loved ones lay sleeping & completely unaware at night. My sister came to see me at some point in there & she worked on my dreadlocks.. I am very thankful, even though I barely remember it. My husband had gotten his job back, my mom works full time, my friends all have kids, & my sister lives an hour away, so what time they spent on me means a lot, same with my aunts, other friends, & family that called, texted, or messaged me to keep positive thoughts.

My aunt Deb lives a few hours away & made plans to come see me the night before so she could just be there for me that night, see me off to surgery in the morning, & be there when I came to. The night before surgery, we talked about sewing machines, my life up till now, & stuff I have forgotten, but most importantly, we talked! That all helped me to keep forgetting just what I was about to go face before the sun even came up the next day.. Then she needed sleep & I needed to get ready get ready…

Then it hit me, like a truck on an ice slicked road, as I was taking out my body jewelry & getting ready to take a shower, that I was about to get cut open & taken apart

But just as I had the day I went in to get the news, I did my best to keep a straight face, even smile a little, & find hope that everything was going to be fine! When it was time to go, I put my overnight bag in the car since I’d be cashing at the “H hotel” if you will, for the night after my surgery.

Now shit gets real.. real hard to think about.. real scary.. real.. I really do have cancer. That kind of real.. where you don’t want to wrap your head around it, but you’d lose your mind if you didn’t except that it is, in fact, real since up till then I’d just cried or ignored it..

January 30^th

I’m sorry

I don’t remember that day

Okay, I do & I’ll tell you

But I wish I didn’t have to remember that day

Or at least just forget that morning

But I can’t

My aunt. Husband, & I said a prayer for a good surgery & everything to go well, for me to be brave & nothing go wrong.. my mom had to drop my little brother off to school but she’d taken that day, & all the way till next week off of work & would be there before I went in to surgery. They called me back to get ready, my husband came with me.. The lady asked the same questions they’d asked me over the phone all over again.. I hate how they do that.. I’m sick of telling them everything over & over & over again & again & again.. then she told me I’d get my gown, mesh panties made for a giant, & ugly grip sock, get dressed, my mom & aunt could came back & wait with me, then she would place my IV...

I got dressed & sat there waiting for her to come in with my loved ones by her side.. but then she came in alone.. & placed my IV.. & I figured it was no big deal, she’d just go get them next.. then her & my husband.. my stupid husband.. talked about giving me something for the stress, to, you know, help calm me down… then this guy comes in & tells me he is here to drug me.. okay, cool, just make sure the next line of people you bring in here has my mom & aunt in there.. He give me the drugs & I start to feel heavy, my mind gets cloudy.. but that is ok since my husband is right here by my side.. he’s got my back.. or so I thought..

The man & lady that had both put shit in me, well my family sits waiting to see me off, come in & tell me that IT’S TIME!! They’re here to take me off to be cut open.. & the mental clouds part in my mind! I lost it! I started freaking out about seeing my mom & aunt.. & my stupid fucking husband is trying to hold me down.. Then the fucking guy with the evil, head clouding, body weighting drugs gives me another dose! & I’m screaming now! I don’t need more drugs, I just need my family, but the second syringe has been pushed into my veins.. All I want is people I can trust, to stop anyone from drugging me up even more.. & my wonderful husband goes running, literally RUNNING to get my mom & aunt well the mad house goes on in my room.. Then the three people I love & have wanted by my side the whole time are there! Only I’m so worked up about the trauma I’ve just been put thru that it isn’t peaceful & nice.. It’s depressing & scary, that this might be how they have to remember me for the rest of their lives..

I forgive my husband to a point. He works in a hospital. That is his job, holding down the crazy people well they unwillingly get medicine.. he just went about it in a very non Husband way when I needed him to stay in husband mode, not work mode.. He still laughs about everything, but I must just except it & move on, like I did well writing this.

Then it really is show time. they wheeled me off thru the doors & into the room where they gas you with the mask & tell you count back from ten!

ten….

nine…..

eight………

sevennnn……………..

I’m sorry, but I have no clue what happens now & for the next 6 hours.. just that my family waited, my husband paced the floors & wouldn’t eat, then ran off to find the surgeon as soon as my number switched from surgery to recovery, leaving mom & aunt to try finding him, mid conversation with the surgeon & later unwilling to tell me what the hell I’d just been thru. Also, they made a trip to the gift shop! I know because they gave me a card, candy, flowers, & a ring (I love jewelry!) then kinda filled me in on everything I’ve just told you, also they showed me a picture of my thyroid!

God willing I figure it out, here is the picture!

Okay, on a side note, I did get my surgery report so I do know what happened well I was under a bit better but we aren’t there yet so slow down! Lets enjoy my battle scar & awesome painkillers! I’ll tell you that part when I get to it!

I remember starting to come to, being wheeled to my room, moved from the operating recovery bed to the adjusting bed in my room, & pushing the buttons to move it before the nurse could even tell me how since laying down really hurt.. I remember it made me feel like Darth Vader, when they turn the table upright at the end of the movie.. I think my family came in right around then.. I was apparently really white & looked dead when they first saw me. I made my husband come help me adjust the bed more (& hand over my nose rings so I could quickly put them back in..), & the nice student nurse find me more pillows to put around my neck & shoulders. Oh, yeah, & I was STIFF! I couldn’t turn my head left. My face, chin, & chest were numb.. & something was wrong with my feet. They hurt, like they’d fallen asleep, died, got stabbed with pins & needles from hell, & went into a coma on my legs!! But I’d just woke up after surgery so I didn’t think to address anything. Just lay stiff, in my comfortably adjusted bed, well my mom, aunt, husband, & hospital staff talked around me. Wait, no, to me, or, well, more at me, that’s a better description.. well they all talked at me & I did my best to understand words.. not that I didn’t understand words, but the meanings of what they were telling me since I was in no mental or physical state to deal with anything, let alone hear what I had going on.. I remember saying that as long as my husband or mom understood then we were good since I was way to groggy.

I remember when my surgeon came in to see me & said he was glad to see I was “awake, responsive, & alert” (hahahaha.. ah, I so was not alert & I was barely responsive, but it’s funny to me none the less). I remember he shook my husband’s hand & I got confused because he didn’t shake my hand.. he always did at the start & end of every one of my appointments I’d had.. then after some thought (ok, maybe a lot of thought, time was of foreign knowledge to me) I remembered I was not only stiff but had tubes sticking out of my hand & arm so I really was in no shape to even try shaking hands..

I remember them bringing me medicine, of what kind, I don’t know. I had my family posting, texting, & calling to pass along that I was alive & well since I was in no shape to do so myself. So & so told me so & so says such & such & love me lots. At some point my mom had to go get my brother from school & my aunt had to go home too.. (I totally do not remember anyone leaving or coming back). But they brought me my mail. I received a care pack from my aunt Cindy. She sent me tea, apple sauce, puddin’, coupons, a hot/cold pack, a 2 pack of fuzzy grip socks, a magazine, a Sudoku book (I have no clue how to do Sudoku, but it’s the thought that counts), & a book titled after what I’d told my family I had: “THE C-WORD” by Lisa Lynch. It was her story of her cancer journey. It took my breath away..

Quick flashback/update: When I told my family & closest friends the positive test results, I simply told them about my “lumps & bumps”. My husband pointed out to me that they needed to know what I was telling them, so I sent out a fallow up message that said something like “& just to be clear, it is “the c word”, but we don’t use that because “lumps & bumps” aren’t as scary!”. They all agreed, “Lumps & Bumps” sound better than cancer (now you get the “lumpsandbumpssoundbetter”). & in this book Lisa Lynch did kinda the same thing only she called it “the bullshit” instead of “the c word”. I’d started reading it after I got home & decided to go on her blog in hopes of seeing her living out the happy life she’d wanted to, but had to put on hold & wrote about in the book, only to find that “the c word” was back, in her brain & bones.. then I most recently found out that she passed away last Monday, the 11^th. She was the inspiration for my blog, in the hospital. Because I wanted to share my thoughts & feelings on all of this from my point of view, like she’d done. I was very sad to find out she’d passed away. She was & still is an amazing inspiration. Also, her book is very good, I highly recommend it!

Ok, back on track.. where was I? I think it was dinner time. Room service is awesome!!! I got eggs, mashed potatoes, & soy milk then only ate three bites before I hurt to bad & needed more pain killers.. I asked the nurse for painkillers, she said okay, then disappeared for a few hours (I’m not just saying this, she really did disappear, & left me waiting for almost three hours, my mom watched the clock) I’d started to cry.. bad move.. that was the most painful cry of my life!! Don’t cry if you’ve just had your neck taken apart all the way around, down your chest, & up under your jaw.. it hurts really bad, then add the pain from lack of painkillers, & you get pure awful, like you want to die cry! My mom voiced that she was upset the nurse vanished & my husband stepped out quickly to find someone & make them drug me. This time I was totally okay with that!! The nurse reappeared & gave my something for pain in my IV- that fucking BURNED & made me cry even more! I really wish I’d gotten that nurse’s name, she’s a cunt. The student nurse was really nice though!

I went to sleep for a bit, got woken up at shift change to meet my night nurse (she was nice) & get more drugs, then passed back out. I had to wake up for a second in the middle of the night to take more medicine & quickly passed back out again.

I woke up for the day just as the kitchen opened. I love breakfast! I ordered PANCAKES!!!! Along with eggs, mashed potatoes, & soy milk.. the lady taking my order laughed & told me she’d never had anyone ask for that combo together ever before.. but I’m just unique like that, & wanted a combo of stuff I knew I could eat.. I love pancakes (if you couldn’t tell from my excitement) & with the help of my awesome morning painkillers I ate everything with no problem!! I messed around on the free internet for a bit, & my mom got there for the day. Then the nice student nurse & everyone else started bugging me about walking around.. I did not want to.. I was stiff.. but they wouldn’t leave me alone until I did so I made a quick jog, on my tippy toes since my feet still hurt, holding my IV poll & sexy hospital gown the whole way! (Now would be a good time to mention I had brought my own PJ shorts & had on a bra already too. Oh! & my rainbow monster fuzzy slippers!!! They make me smile!!) After two or three laps, & a quick weight check, I got back in bed & went back to sleep.. yep.. that jog kicked my ass!

Nurse cunt woke me up to give me more pain pills, an IV injection, change the IV fluid bag, take my temperature, & blood pressure then do what she did best & disappeared for most of the day. I didn’t mind, the student nurse was nice & checked in on me, finding nurse cunt if I needed something she couldn’t get me, or her supervisor if nurse cunt just didn’t show up to help..

My surgeon stopped in to see me in the around lunch time (I don’t remember what I got, but I think it was pancakes & mashed potatoes.) & see how I was feeling. I told him about my feet hurting & how I still felt like shit, also that I was really hot (I was down to just my bra & PJ shorts by then), & asked if there was any way to make to room cooler, but everyone else said they were freezing in my room. So we decided to play it safe & have me stay a second night. Later, a caseworker from the hospital came to tell me about some assistance program I qualified for to help with the hospital bills, since I’d lost my job coming into all of this & what have you. Cool.

My mom left to get my brother from school, my husband’s dad & niece came to see me, also his sister’s boyfriend (since he works at the hospital).. I just played on the computer well they were there since I was pretty drugged up & attempting to interact with people wasn’t really very interesting to me (sorry I ignored you guys..).

At some point the student nurse came in with her teacher supervisor lady & they emptied my gross drain bulb thing I’d repined to my bra (lol, sexy!) oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I had this rubber tube sticking out of my neck, they’d placed when they were sewing me up “in surgery” that had a little rubber bulb on the end for gross shit to run into.. There was a cap on it & it popped open at one point that day because nurse cunt never emptied it & it was full.. That was scary to me.. I didn’t know what to do but thankfully my husband did.. I was just freaked out that I’d somehow get an air bubble or some shit in my neck from it.. you think some strange shit on painkillers.. what can I say..?

My sister came to see me & brought my favorite person in the world!!! My 2 year old nephew, Xandyr!!! She also gave me jelly beans! Xandyr was good, he liked playing with the buttons on the bed to move it up & down.. till My husband did it, then Xandyr wanted to get off the bed.. Damn husband.. Xandyr decided he was over the visit soon after & they headed out.

I had turkey, mashed potatoes, & soy milk for dinner. Was drugged for the night, & went to sleep until they came & did the midnight wake up to check everything. I had a temperature, so they gave me stuff for that along with the other medicine, then let me go back to sleep.

Second morning went kinda like the first, only I was more than willing to get out of bed & run around the hospital floor since I’d spent almost all of the day before in bed. Nurse cunt was still my day nurse *uhg* but then so was student nurse! So it was ok.. my IV had gotten twisted in my hand & hurt me, & when I asked nurse cunt to take it out, she gave me more burning pain killers thru it before taking it out.. she really was a cunt. I started packing my things & getting ready to go home!! my surgeon stopped in to see me around lunch again & was happy to see I felt better & wanted to leave. After he’d gone, the student nurse & her teacher came in to remove my drain..

If you’ve ever had to have 2 inches of tube pulled out of you, I feel your pain.. that shit is gross & painful! You feel it coming all the way out.. & my surgeon had put it in there really nice.. to the point of making it difficult to remove.. they had to play with it a bit to get the stitches holding it in, out.. thank god I was on drugs.. they told me “take a deep breath.. now exhale”. I don’t think I took a big enough breath.. she was still pulling it out when I’d finished the exhale. It was nice to not have it pinned to me anymore! I was tube free!! So I decided to take a shower! (or at least try) it was pretty pitiful. I just stood there, it hurt too much to really wash so I just rinsed off really & got dressed to go home!!

When it was time to finish getting ready to go, nurse cunt came in to tell me about my medication I’d need & the do’s & don’ts of it.. like that I can’t take it with soy.. uh, ok.. I’ve been taking it with soy milk right in front of you the whole time.. My husband & mom pointed out to her everything she’d been doing wrong but she didn’t really want to talk about how she’d been fucking up my medicine, so she just handed over the papers, & did her normal disappearing act.. Though she did walk in as I was having a going home panic attack & I got to yell at her for a second.. that made it kinda worth putting up with her.. & we headed out! I said good bye to my nice student nurse & her teacher as we left, pointedly ignored nurse cunt like she’d been doing to me the whole time I was there, & went to get my prescriptions filled!

I have to say, I looked like shit still & even the old people at the store, on the little power chair cart things look at me with pitty.. my feet still hurt & walking in shoes was awful! When I’d been bit by the dog the pharmacy rushed my stuff so I didn’t have to wait, but this time they just took their sweet time.. fuck dude.. the dog bit hurt less! But none the less, we had to kill an hour.. & I hobbled my ass around to store, glaring at any old person on a power chair that gave me the sad look, like “damn girl, you need to sit down, why you walking?” one man even turned around because he’d taken the last one at the door.. I was honestly pretty bummed, the one time I could use one & they were all in gone.. damn old people..  my husband offered to push me in the cart & I really thought about it, but decided it would hurt too much to climb in.. I also thought to myself I was stupid to have not made them give me another dose of painkillers before I’d left the hospital.. finally my script was filled & we could go!

My mom had set up the pull out bed in the living room for my aunt Deb when she’d stayed the night so I just plopped down there & set up camp. Since hubby had to go back to work, I was staying with my mom. I asked if someone would make me a grilled cheese.. & nobody would.. It made me miss room service.. a lot.. I even tried to pull the cancer card.. but neither my mom nor husband would cook for me.. but it worked on my little brother, so it was worth it! Though he didn’t make me a grilled cheese, but he made me something, so I can’t complain! I usually hurt a lot at night so I heavily drugged myself & prepared for my first night sleeping at home!

Around 4 am I woke up in pain, like I’d been hit by a car type pain, & woke my mom up for more pillows.. she said it was ok to wake her up, I asked her later if it was ok to have done, & she laughed about it.. I really didn’t want to inconvenience anyone with my needs..

For breakfast she made me pancakes (not as good as the hospital but don’t tell her, because I’ll take free food even if it’s not that good, & as long as I don’t have to make it) & I drugged myself for the day! I mostly slept the day away & had alarms set for medication times. I did my pre evening painkillers routine & even made myself a grilled cheese! Well making it I was roaring like a dinosaur (I like painkillers, they make cooking really fun!). My little brother came RUNNING into the kitchen to save me because apparently my dinosaur sounded like it was in major pain & he thought I needed saved.. it was pretty funny, definitely something I’ll never forget!

My mom described me as “the bride of Frankenstein” because I was still all stiff, my left foot still hurt so I was walking lopsided, & still had bandages on my neck & shoulder.. Taking a real shower for the first time was awful! I even had to have my mom come in & help me wash.. It was a fucking work out just to take a “quick shower”! I felt like someone had kicked my ass, I even cried in there from how stressfully difficult it was to wash myself. It made me feel like shit, I’m 22.. 22 year olds don’t need their mom to help them take a shower.. but then when it was all over & I was clean, back in bed, I felt way better! Being clean is always a good feeling! By the end of the first week I was pretty annoyed that I still hurt, was stiff, & couldn’t walk right (thanks to my left foot). Though showering was not as bad & I could do it all by myself again!

Now I should mention something not fun that I was never told.. pooping.. it’s awful! It hurt to go.. the term “shitting bricks” would be the best description for how it felt.. nobody told me I should take stool softeners with all of the pain killers & calcium, but I’ll be nice & tell you, so you don’t have to find out, quite literally, the hard way!

Around the week & a half point was when I was in less pain & could almost walk like a normal person again! My sister came to see me too, & got me lunch! She put it best when she said people probably thought I was to fragile to leave the house.. so she decided to help set me free for the day! It was fun!

On Valentine’s Day I had my after surgery fallow up appointment, with the surgeon, to get my full surgery report. He informed me that he for sure did not get everything in the surgery but not to worry.. & by now, I really didn’t worry, just felt annoyed that I still had so much shit left on my to do list.. that really just meant I had even more waiting to go before I could go back to a normal “healthy” life..

My husband & I went out to see a play that night! It was a lot of fun! My thyroid medicine was making me feel like a person! I had energy & could almost walk right again! In the next few weeks, I had to meet with endocranolagest about my lack of thyroid, need of lifelong medication, upcoming scans/tests, & where they also told me I had to take major precautions against getting pregnant (everyone was telling me this.. it still doesn’t make it any better) they also talked to me about how I’d have to get off my temporary thyroid medicine in a few weeks & told me how much life would suck without any thyroid medication. But I just decided to forget about everything & just enjoy the time I had feeling well! It was awesome! But I still had a down day when I had to look into birth control.

I’d gone off my birth control in April since I was married & we were trying to start our little family. I’d gotten pregnant but lost it & really wanted to get back to trying again, then found out about the cancer so it sadly had to take a back seat, as I’ve been told over & over again, for the next two years.. I kept thinking how unfair it was. I shouldn’t have to be looking for birth control.. I should be trying for a family! But I have to be safe & not get pregnant right now. So fucking unfair. My body had let me down in such a hard way, I can’t even tell you how upsetting it is.

When it came time to get off my medication in preparation for my next treatment I felt moody but that was about it. Until I got a kidney infection (last week, that would be why I’m a week behind..) then I felt like I was dying! But antibiotics are awesome & my kidneys are fine. So now we’re all up to date on shit & you know what’s been going on up till now!

Today I’m getting my full body scan to see just what we’re working with, since they only scanned my neck before only to see the lumps & bumps went on past what they’d looked at. So now we’re as always, BACK TO WAITING!!!

Waiting on the pharmacy to get my birth control in order, waiting on my scans to come back & have them tell me just where & what we’re dealing with, waiting on an official date for my radiation capsule treatment, & waiting to get back on thyroid medication!

I sure hope I don’t get cancer from all these X-rays & radiation exposure.. ;)

(p.s. I dont have time to figure out the pictures before I get shoved into a tube. sorry)

How did I end up here again?

I had a blog way back when MySpace was around for three years, like 5+ years ago, but I'd post about fun shit like moving to Canada or what body part I was thinking of getting pierced next.. I may never let another needle touch me again by the time this is all over.. anywho.. we'll get this all started up & going!
Last year, January 22nd to be exact, I got bit in the face by a dog & landed my bleeding, pretty little face in the ER with ugly, makeup streaked, snot & blood drenched rags holding my open face shut.. I received stitches & had to go to doctor appointments & surgeon appointments non stop for the next 6 months to monitor everything & make sure I wouldn't hate my face I guess.. (I'm cool with my scars, they're a road map of my life). during this time I decided, for whatever unintelligent or as I see now really intelligent reason, to get on medication for my worsening ADD.. I had a lot (hahaha.. I laugh at that now..) on my mind from the dog bite & was getting in trouble at my job for not doing what I was told due to forgetting everything in my crazy jumbled up mind.. we'll skip the stupid testing & get to me on my ADHD medicine.. I went in to see my doctor to do a "are the meds working?" checkup & my resting heart rate was 140 average beats per minute.. I don't speak doctor & didn't know what was wrong with that.. I mean, I'd been a little light headed & felt like I'd run a marathon by the end of work.. but still, I had focus , was doing everything right, & best of all, my boss was happy with my performs, what on earth could be wrong? doctor made me go off my new, amazing, life improving ADHD medicine & told me to come back in a week & see where my rate was at..
Next week I came in with my head held high & thoughts of getting back on my ADHD, ready to get my doctors okay to get back on them! average beats per minute: 120.. shit.. she informed me I'd have to get a blood test done "JUST TO BE SAFE" & see if something was going on.. *sigh*
FF: I go in to get my blood test results! well, bad news.. something is wrong with my thyroid count (again, I don't speak doctor) & I have to get yet ANOTHER blood test to double check.. *grr*
I'll skip the small shit & get to the next part.. I had to be on a 24 hour heart monitor to make sure it wasn't my heart, it wasn't.. then the ultrasounds & scans.. oh the ultrasound.. I had one, then had to take a radiation contrast capsule & get put in a big machine.. then the biopsy was up next..
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....oh the fucking ultrasound.. that stupid machine that showed across the surgeons face before he'd even cut me just what I had..
I went in on December 27th for a simple fucking biopsy & had my head still held hing that it was no big deal, that I'd just have to get some easy thing done then I could go back to my normal ass life.. *sigh* if only
Surgeon comes in, enplanes what he'll be doing to me & tells me he'll have a feel & take a peek at what he has to biopsy with the ultrasound then just a little snip & I could rest easy knowing it was nothing! (dear doctor, YOU FUCKING LIED TO ME!! love Christina) he felt my neck & had a different doctor come in to feel it too, weird but whatever, okay.. then he has me lay down for the god damned ultrasound & looks at the thyroid.. & I can see on his face, hear in his voice, feel in his changed touch.. something bad.. very bad.. is flashing on the screen back from inside my neck.. & my husband.. oh god.. my husband.. he works in a hospitle.. he knows what he is looking at too.. I feel like a kid again.. nobody tells me anything.. but unlike being a kid.. I know the ugly side of life.. I know what the possibility are.. STOP THINKING!! STOP THINKING!! nobody has said the word... we're just looking at a few lumps & bumps.. nothing else.. come back, clear that thought from my head.. then the biopsy was next but they decided to take an extra one of my lymph nodes too because something didn't look right with them.. no big thing.. right?
the 28th.. I get a voice mail from the office saying the results had come back & they'd found something concerning so I have an appointment to come in for the results on the 3rd..

my world stopped & I knew with out them saying the words, all over again, from that fucking ultrasound

for my friend's & family's sake I once again put the thought to the back of my head, where I'd go over it again & again in privet, with my positive thinking husband sleeping next to me.. I just stuck with the same term as before, telling them the latest news of my unimportant lumps & bumps, well I came to terms with knowing before anyone said the word that I, at 22 years of age, have cancer
my mom forced me to let her come with me on the 3rd & I finally gave just so I wouldn't be the one that had to tell her.. I'd be lieing if I said I too didn't play with the delusion that it wasn't, couldn't be cancer.. but I'd also been coming to terms with what I was there to be told & damn skippy I was right.. I held a straight face thru it all.. my moms horrified askings, the doctor informing me I'll have to get another scan just to look at my neck & that I'll have surgery to remove my thyroid, forcing me to rely on medicine for the rest of my life, & that he'd be dissecting my neck to clean out "all" the lymph nodes (dear doctor, YOU FUCKING LIED AGAIN! love Christina) & all the way up to the nurses window to scheduled my scan & surgery.. then I got light headed & felt like I was going to vomit so I sat on the floor, next to the two old, over weight ladies, there for their hypothyroid issues.. I remember thinking how odd I must look next to them.. 22, slim, full of life & just been told I do for sure have cancer.. we decided to have my neck scan done the next day & the surgery on the 30th.
my scan went quick, I'm a pro at all of the doctor shit by now, & I was back to waiting.. days went by, then weeks & I still hadn't gotten the call about what my scans showed.. then I did & it was so/so.. the infected lymph nodes went well past the scan & I had one fused onto my major artery in there so it be a long surgery but to stay positive.. as passed along by the nurse.. thanks.. bitch.. I could imagine her on the other end, like I'm just another person with an under active or overactive thyroid & she hadn't just added to my nightmare..
back to the waiting..