Doing drugs and other stuff

 Not much to report other than radiation has begun and I’ve been told I’m the perfect patient. It’s not hard when you climb onto the metal table and lay on your back with your arms above your head in the mold that’s been made for you and then stay still as the team wiggles you and adjusts you exactly where they want you. They say, “don’t help” or “can you scootch just a little towards the top of the table” and often, “my hands are freezing- I’m so sorry!”

Most surprising to me is how often my LEFT arm feels like it will fall asleep. My right one is my “compromised” one after surgeries and radiation and I expected that one to be all complainy. Yet another example of shows what I know…

So that’s all going smoothly so far. The word on the street is the first two weeks are generally fine and then fatigue sets in and I’ll get crispy later on. But my doc is proactive and has already put me on a steroid cream that he feels data supports using even this early, before any visible signs of damage. I’m alternating that one with another good one the nurses gave me, so I’m essentially rubbing lotion of some sort on at least three times a day and showering daily to get the old stuff off. My stickers look okay for the more part but there are a couple that are contemplating fleeing the scene….

As far as daily meds go, this is my usual pile these days. The two big ones are Caltrate, which on occasion try to kill me, while the beige one is a multivitamin. I take that multivitamin with iron MWF and then do adult gummy vitamins the other days. I can only do so many humongous ones a week. I should be doing four of the Caltrate daily but we will get there eventually. Some of the millions of scans I’ve had revealed osteopenia in my lower back, which is the level before osteoarthritis, hence the extra calcium. I love cheese and do a fair amount of yogurt so I’m hoping this will be enough in addition to keeping moving. The softgel pill is Vitamin D and the tiny one is an allergy pill which is either Claritin or Zyrtec depending on how the other one is working or not. The other round white one is my Tamoxifen 20mg that I will take as long as I still have ovaries. It is supposed to reduce the rate of cancer recurrence. I took it for five years and then stopped when I was supposed to and felt a lump the next month. That’s how this whole second round began. 

For those of you smart alecks out there, no, I do not also consume the pen- it’s just there to keep them from rolling off and to provide scale!

A bit premature… and a muffin

Let's start with the muffin. This quiet, unassuming, wrapped a little bit fancily, muffin. Looks chocolate, right? Yummy? 

Looks like a staring contest or the beginnings of a shakedown against my handsome hubby...

Anyway, this quiet little muffin was full of hazelnut! That's right, someone stuffed it full of Nutella and it was melty on the inside of the moist, fluffy cake with an almost crispy outside and ... I think I fell in love a little bit.

I like that it even looks like a swamp thing puppet of some kind if you use your imagination. 

 The premature part in the title of this post was I thought I had plenty of stickers and markings before? HAHAAAA, apparently I know nothing of how many is plenty because I got another round!

I even have markings in my armpit though the girls reassured me that no stickers would stay on in there so they wouldn't even try to stick any. 

The photo below has additional arrows edited on so that you can maybe see the line on my skin from the previous radiation. During photon radiation, they lay a bolus over your skin that is to be receiving treatment and its edges would have lined up with the line on my side there. My doctor explained it's the difference between the skin on the back of your finger versus the skin on the side of your fingers that you feel everything with. It looks like a faint sunburn. I wanted a pre-treatment photo so I could keep track of how crispy I get and how quickly. Morbid, perhaps, but if it helps give someone else an idea of what to expect down the road, then it'll have been worth it. 

All things considered, lookin' pretty good going in!

Connect the dots

 In addition to my radiation stickers, today I got skin marker dots all over my arms for PT measurements. All three measurement tests went well, showing that I am consistent and there’s no sign of lymphedema so far. Radiation can also cause it so we will continue to be on the lookout. Apparently it can strike most often in the first two years after surgery. I’m six months out so far, so thank you and please keep praying for good results!

Flora and fauna

Two years ago we had a mourning dove we named Heather decide that the gutter outside the boys. bedroom would be a perfect nesting spot. She and her mate, Hrothgar or Herbert or something, raised one chick. We didn't see or hear anybody return last year, but this year Heather is back or maybe the chick wanted to raise a family in the same spot:

We hope they survive whatever weather is thrown our way. It IS a more sheltered corner of the house and it's to the side of the drainspout, so in theory all should be well!

These goofball dogs keep pulling stuffing out of their bed despite me spraying it all with that bitter tasting deterrent. Then she sticks her head right up against it. She was sound asleep and kicking with her tongue out.

The first of the Virginia Springbeauty flowers, above, and one of the more unfortunate crayfish mentioned in the next post. Found this... skeleton? Exoskeleton? Whoever it was got smashed in the driveway and just looked like a clump of dead leaves in the predawn dark at the bus stop until I leaned closer and realized, "well, someone had an unhappy end when someone else turned around in our driveway or we left home..."

There are two types of creatures, I think- those who are solar powered like Bos and myself, and my Welsh husband. We "sun" very differently...

 

Timber

 And once again I managed to load the photos exactly backwards. I'm going to blame chemo brain for the rest of my life! *sigh* Okay, audience participation time. Scroll down to the bottom and work your way back up here. =)

Thing Three is now taller than me so that gives some scale as to how big that root section is. We keep hoping Bosley will enter the underneath section and that the tree will magically stand up again, but no such luck... yet.

However, our basement stayed dry (thank you, sump pump) and our roof seems intact. Definitely blessed to add intact house and cars despite trees crashing down and figuring out logistics to deal with that mess. Thank you to those of you who've reached out to check on us. We're all good! Please pray hard for and help others who were not so fortunate. It seems like the more I read the news, the more I wonder how insurance companies still want to be in business at all between the fires and floods! Stay safe out there, people. We aren't even halfway through April! 

Darn near full ditches and the arrested fall of the pine tree.

Dada's 30th birthday present also toppled over and that is one heavy sucker so it gives me a very good idea of how hard the wind was blowing. It has been righted but not yet used, so here's hoping it still works. If not, you know what Dada will be getting for his 50th birthday...

Along with the buckets of rain, we got the wind. Miraculously, our party lights survived and didn't get smashed to the ground by falling branches. Nor did our playhouse get squished when a big pine tree decided enough was enough and toppled over, taking my clothesline with it, only to be sort of arrested by a locust tree...

Sorry the screen got in the way, but look way out towards the far trees on the horizon. Those are all fields up to the trees, and you can see all that shining water. There's not supposed to be a lake there! We've had geese and ducks wading in fields all week.

These woods out back edge our property line and you can see the low, pond-ish area in there. Last year we dug out some small trenches to help get the water to drain from the perpetual puddle in the woods to the drainage ditch. We had just cleaned out those trenches the weekend before all this rain hit, so it was immensely gratifying to see them running full!

The kids generally call this right side The Leak because on the other side of the treeline is our neighbors' pond and the whole area is low enough that we get water laying there forever as well as the lobster-looking crayfish and their mud towers. However, it's not usually that deep OR anywhere near that bad on the left side of the driveway...

We had tons of rain during those storms that were dumping water all over the central US. Welcome to mud season, for sure. Some of these photos were taken from upstairs windows to get better vantage points. I don't remember seeing water pretty much from the fire pit to the garden before...

A victory and a plan

*Viewer discretion advised- not all photos may be appropriate for all viewers*

Sorry to those of you who've been so patiently waiting for proof that I'm still alive and that chemo is done. YES! 

It is finished. 

I rang the bell. 

I hugged the nurses. 

I don't have to go back until June.

No more of pretending to be a rooster when I'm there with Thing One:

No more sucking down ice chips and holding bags or gloves of ice for an hour whilst wearing my compression socks:

No more hard drugs straight into my bloodstream, haha. I've been sent along the treatment road to the next thing, which will be proton radiation starting in a few weeks, every day during business weeks for the new, temporary normal of 28 days unless the machine decides to take a break, need maintenance or otherwise be uncooperative. I've already had my CT scan appointment for rads treatment planning purposes and the team stickered me up accordingly because I'll be matched to precise specs for the machine I'll be on each time. Somehow the stickers are supposed to stay on for weeks and I'm not to scrub them off. Every tiny itch I have makes me stop and think, "is that a sticker I'm scratching?" Doubly entertaining as I have an adhesive allergy but so far *knocks wood* so good, doing okay.

                                                  

It was the highlight of my appointment yesterday (my surgical follow up from September) when she asked how I was doing and I got to flash her from the nicest hospital gown I've ever worn while telling her: 

                    "I got all fancy for you!" 

She felt me up (that's part of her job) and declared me to be doing very well and that she wanted to see me again in 6 months after everything is done. I think the visit lasted 7 minutes total, but to be fair, I'd scheduled it thinking I'd already be there for radiation because I'd mistakenly assumed I'd have started already. Kind of on me- I got incorrect intel. What can you do? 

Next up will be a check in with PT to make sure I'm not developing lymphedema, which will also be a potential side effect from radiation- all kinds of good times around here- and a check in with my plastic surgeon for my 6 month follow up. In my case it's been 7 but again that's on me for scheduling the best I could with the info I had at the time. Then I have the "dry run" rads appt and it's off to the races.

Some things to pray about if you'd like: 

* that I don't develop lymphedema in my right arm or my chest

* that my brachial nerve isn't damaged by the radiation as that could lead to weakness in my right (dominant) side

* that I don't end up with any rib fractures as again everything gets exposed to the radiation and the risk for that increases. This will be my second kind of radiation and  another month of doses so my risk will be higher than other patients'.

* that the skin burns won't be too bad. Last time it didn't get bad until very close to the end, but again, I'm already compromised on that side from the previous rounds so my skin most likely will break down faster this time. I'm stocking up on the good lotion already and have been told to up my protein going in so I have plenty of stores to heal from. Why do I never get to store up on carbs? *sigh* 

I'll try to do better about keeping you posted, and I intend to blog more tomorrow, especially the storm damage photos. No worries, our home is fine, safe, snug, but we lost some trees so I have photos to share. All is well!

No cartoons were harmed in the taking of this photo

 And any resemblance to South Park's Kenny is purely coincidental.

It's COLD out there! We object. It's time for flowers!

Further proof I did not marry my father

For fans of "Days of Thunder", think Robert Duvall showing Tom Cruise the difference in the tire treads post-laps.

"His way. My way."

 

Welcome, Midna

 Because I drove Ori onto the rocks, which should be #OriOnTheRocks or something, we had to get a new-to-us vehicle. Welcome, Midna, a 2010 Honda Accord. Since our clan has 3 cousins born in 2010, we figure it's a good vintage year. Thing Two and Triskal, our late Newfie, and Pepe the Pilot are/were all 2005 models, haha, and we've had great luck with those. 

Midna is a character in Twilight Princess, a video game in the Legend of Zelda franchise, for those of you who were somehow unaware of Thing One's oldest obsession. 

Cadaver, do you even have a license?! Hmm. At this rate, you might have yours before Thing Two gets his...

Um.. RIP?

Mother, you can just skip this one and keep scrolling because otherwise I will HEAR you facepalm.

We cleaned out the pantry. I have no idea what it was in its past life, but I hope it had a good one. Thing One asked the internet what it thought the contents used to be and the consensus was sourdough starter, which I know isn't right as we named ours Maurice and kept him in the fridge. 

"I don't know what it USED to be, but suddenly my cinnamon bagel looks a lot less appetizing..." - Thing One

Lest any of you are procrastinating on spring cleaning, let this be your reminder to get started, haha!