Whiplash

 

Seriously? Now, I ask you... who is in charge of this!?

Snippets from school

 We celebrated Dr. Seuss all last week which culminated in a party on Friday with One Fish Two Fish snacks and Cat in the Hat fruit kebobs. My coworkers are the best! 

We've finished the Olympics and moved on to March Madness, but with books. Daily we've been reading two books to the kids and they have to vote on their favorite, We have brackets made of painters' tape up on the walls with photocopies of the covers of each book, so once it is full I'll get some photos for here. So far, the Sleep Book won over its competitor, Fox in Socks was in the running, and so was Marvin K Mooney. They won't all be Seuss books, but that's what we kicked it off with. 

We've had two Silly Socks days. One of the 3s came in with these socks, above, which are possibly the cutest socks I've ever seen in my life! It took him a minute to get them to hold hands, but he got it!

You can see my Mary Jane with Wonder Woman sock in the bottom left, but you can't see the cape on the back of it, alas.

 And the Olympics! BOY, did we have fun. I've never enjoyed the Winter Games more than this year. One of my coworkers made these bobsleds, above, and the skis, below, and we also had hockey games with pool noodles, ski jumps off the gym mats with pool noodle ski poles, a slalom course set up of hula hoops that the kids had to hop into from side to side on both feet, and on and on. They had a ball! We had so much gross motor time that we really saw a lot of confidence being built up, especially in kiddos we didn't expect to really get involved! It has been a very long winter of inside recess, so the chance to have something novel to try was a huge hit. 

Our kids even made "torches" from a toilet paper roll and red, orange, and yellow tissue paper, and then with that in one hand and a mini American flag in the other, got to parade through the lunchroom while the big kids chanted, "USA! USA! USA!" and the sound system played the Olympic theme. The 4s and 5s were thrilled. The 3s were dubious. All were adorable.  

The skis look a little worse for wear here, but the kids were absolutely delighted. I personally am sad that the Olympics are over and that we won't get to do it again for years! It was really neat to experience them for the first time throuigh these little kids who had no idea what the fuss was about and to then have them coming in each day asking, "what are the Olympics today?!"

Another random rundown

 So this will be a load of random, I'd planned to blog about the last of the teas from January but at this point I don't remember, so tough beans. Or tea leaves, I guess. They were mostly yummy and I've remembered to drink more tea this year than ever before, so it worked, I guess? Haha.

We are experiencing technical issues over here, as well. Thing One graciously lent me a portable keyboard for this post because my poor laptop, above, was baptized with apple juice and some of the keys are not sticky to the touch but are sticky underneath which results in a lot of frustration, random j's, and so forth. As you can see, the space bar is also missing, which makes things a little more challenging and renders moot most of what I learned in typing class with Mr. Hovis many moons ago. 

So., My phone is chock full of photos of my preK crowd but since I don't know who has permission to see them and who doesn't, I won't be sharing those visually. I need to clean out my phone storage for real, which reminds me of one of my most recent favorite preK quotes:

My nana caught an octopus FOR REAL.

Sounds like a children's book waiting to happen...

Weatherwise, we've gone from snow angels to throwing windows open and walks in the sunshine and the corresponding sinus headaches with the temps and pressure being all over the map. Most people I know are still dealing with a cough of some sort, or sinus congestion, or both. Why March feels the need to go from 20s to 70s and then back to the 40s and wet when we could all use weeks on end of 60s is beyond me, but I'm not in charge.

Arm-wise, I'm still playing phone tag with the big city folks about what they want to do to me next. There's been talk of involving a vascular department but I have zero ideas as to what that would actually entail other than thought bubbles containing, "stent?" "Removing a rib?" "Ballooning something back open?" Yeah, not getting all bent out of shape until we talk to the pros. I am against rib removal, though, for the record... and this is why you don't google things or talk to people who don't work in the spoecific department.

Meanwhile, I am still wearing The Reductor 23ish of 24 hours, including sleeping in it, getting stuck to my wool blanket because of the velcro, trying to put on/take off makeup and brush teeth when I'm not wearing it because it's hard to make my elbow bend to those angles while in the darn thing, and ain't nobody wants to see me do eyeliner left handed. It's been two and a half weeks of my 2-4 weeks, so we are getting there. 

I also graduated from my bag of foam chips to stuff into my bra to a small bag of beads. I find it completely ridiculous that I'm wearing a padded bra sans boobs, but the PT gal says that she does notice my scar tissue softening, so I guess it's working. I'm doing my exercises and my stretches and all the things, though I can't do them as often as recommended due to the limited mobility because of The Reductor. That's okay. I'll get there. Just keep chipping along. 

Thing One just teased me, "laundry basket emoji!" which is our shorthand for "Get your stuff outta the washer (or dryer)!" Must rescue the sheets. Be back in justasec...

Last week, we asked one of our brand new four-year-olds what his take was on the weather. He looked out the window and reported, "it's foggy... and rainy... and gross!" Spot on, my friend.

I texted Thing Three from the dentist and asked if he was doing okay. He replied, "i was kidnapped and im being waterboarded right now

it stings"

I can't even.

Thing Two informed us that the house shook and he wondered what was going on only to discover later that he'd been about 3 miles from the 2.9 earthquake Ohio had last week. I told my mother that it often feels like Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs anymore. Otherwise, he says he is doing fine and that he prefers snow covered roads because it helps fill in the potholes. Poor Pepe. I hope he can keep it together through all the spring thaws...

Overall, we are doing okay. Hanging in there like everybody else between high points and valleys. Take good care of you!

Happy birthday, Gramps!

 I dunno how old my Dad’s dad would be today, but I always find it funny that his birthday is the same as the amazing Dr. Seuss! Today our preK crowd will be wearing pajamas and we will be reading one of my all-time favorites, the Sleep Book. It’s Seuss week, so there are lots of Shenanigans planned and I’m sure there will be plenty of spontaneous, kid-originated Shenanigans as well!

I will be wearing my minion pajamas bottoms- yes, the ones from Despicable Me- and I will most likely still be wearing them to my PT appointment right after school. Last week we had a silly sock day so I got to wear my Wonder Woman socks- which have capes on them, by the way- to PT and the woman who works on me approved highly. I’m just here for comic relief.

Since it’s March and we will have St. Patty’s Day to celebrate soon, I bought our yearly Lucky Charms so there’s a happy teenage boy munching away this morning. Congrats, everyone, for making it through February!

Have a great day!

Check in

 Sorry for the radio silence. The weather finally broke from the awful cold and tons of snow, so I've been sneaking in time outside in the fresh air as often as possible. We've gone on a few walks, I picked up some winter-downed sticks and even cleaned up some of every dog owner's nightmare when the snow finally melts.

I've also worn my compression sleeve faithfully daily for months to little avail. My right arm is swollen and feels almost solid and when you press on it, you leave imprints. The next post is all about the next steps there, so I won't belabor the subject. It's tight clear up into my neck and I'm not seeing much relief despite all the various exercises I've been given to do. It is what it is right now.

School is going well. These are the first Olympics our three-, four- and five year olds have experienced, so we've been having a ton of fun adapting the Games for these young kids: 

-We used wheeled, square scooters with nap time mats folded on top of them for bobsleds. One kid would sit in the middle while a partner kid would push them across the gym.  

-They stood each foot on a paper plate and skidded around the gym as speed skaters.

-We stood gymnastics mats on edge to make huge hockey goals, gave the kids pool noodles and a ball, and they played hockey. 

-They stuffed red, yellow, and orange tissue paper into toilet paper rolls as their Olympic torches, and with torch in one hand and a small American flag in the other, toured the school while the bigger students chanted, "USA! USA! USA!" to our preschoolers' great delight for Opening Ceremonies.

It's been a ball. What a great activity for the dead of winter. Thank you so much, Olympians, for all your hard work and sheer grit and, if I'm honest, the complete insanity of some of your sports!

Lo, I shall call you The Reductor

 

I had a CT scan yesterday which went pretty well as far as I could tell, and then I had a PT appt after that. My physical therapist moaned in dismay when I updated her on all the lymphedema happenings because she'd last seen me in November and the swelling hadn't really picked up yet then. 

So we got to work. I got a Reduction Kit. Its job, while it's worn 23 of 24 hours a day, is to more seriously squeeze my arm to help the fluid get where it needs to go. The compression sleeve I'd been wearing was more of a maintenance sleeve and we've gone past maintaining and into the realm of "let's reverse this process."

I now have in my possession two soft fabric sleeves with thumb holes. I slide into one of them and then add this velcro contraption over top. It has 8 separate sections to pull snugly over the 2 bands inside. She asked, "where can I number them so that they're unobtrusive?"

"Oh no. I work in a preschool. Number those suckers right on there and we will practice counting!"

I've only slept in it for one night at this point and I have to say that I got tangled in the covers a little bit less than I expected. Wardrobe might be a bit tricky for the month that I'm to wear it. Today I wore a tank top with a loose, drapey, poncho type sweater over it. Blouses are not going to work right now as they were already tight over the compression sleeve and this is substantially more bulky. 

I was resigned to wearing it forever, so I asked, "won't my skin get pretty wimpy if it never sees the sun and doesn't get out in the fresh air?" She was horrified and corrected me immediately, "oh! I'm SO sorry. This is only a 2-4 week thing, not a forever thing! We just need to reduce the fluid and get that skin soft again. This isn't the rest of your life!"

Whew.

Thankfully, it's still going to be wintry for awhile in Ohio, despite the 65 degrees it hit yesterday, so I'll be able to get away with tank tops and sweaters, I think. 

Today, the plastic surgery team meets to go over my CT results and my measurements and all that jazz to see where my lymph system or circulatory system is having trouble.  They had contrast in that IV yesterday and will hopefully be able to see "where the dam is spilling" or where things are compressed to the point they're draining ineffectively. I sure hope it showed something! Then they hope to come up with a plan for how to help me, including surgery if needed. They talked about how they'd most likely need to transfer skin from my back to the area that's been radiated twice so they have healthy tissue to work with as they clean up whatever is happening in there. I am not even going to try to speculate what that all involves, but I do know that removing lymph nodes from my belly (where they don't really do much) into my right arm is a possibility. Beyond that, I decided I'll just wait and see because someone on that panel may say, "hey, I read about XYZ so maybe you could try that with her!" No sense in getting stressed about it before any of it has to happen. 

Meanwhile, none of my three year olds today asked about my new sleeve, though I am sure the majority of my fours and fives tomorrow will give me the third degree! I plan to draw bugs which correspond to the numbers on the velcro panels- 9 fruit flies, 8 ants, etc. down to one large bug like a praying mantis or something. If I'm going to be in this thing, might as well make it fun. Good thing our Resident Artist is home to help as well!

As far as prayer requests go, I don't even know other than A) a good plan that bodes well for ideally no/few issues in the long term and B) that can be done between school and vacation, again ideally, and C) that everything is healed before our Christmas in July party so that I can be living life! Just DON'T pray for patience for me as I figure out how to finagle all of this stuff with my left hand because I'm right hand dominant, of course!  

Don't take your elbows for granted. It's all fun and games until you can't bend your arm...

A venting/processing post- *reader beware*

Here we are, into our 27th year of marriage, and life just keeps getting nuttier. 

I know it's been awhile since I've blogged. Sorry about that. 

I'm a little all over the place. 

And I haven't had lunch yet and it's almost 2:30.

Mentally, I feel like I have most of my marbles, thanks to my Lisa, who gave me a jar of them, haha! Now if my ducks would keep to their row and quit meandering about...

Emotionally, it was a hard week. I didn't sleep great for whatever reason, and one of the companies which supplies the meds I'll be on for years was being.... difficult?

I feel like here is where I relay the story about when my younger brother went off to summer camp. Bart Simpson had kind of wowed us all with popularizing, "that sucks, man!" We weren't supposed to say it when we were home. But my brother's counselor announced, "we will not be saying that... we will instead say, "that is less than desirable" when we want to say, "that sucks."

I can't tell you how often I've said "this is less than desirable" this week, along with tears of rage and frustration, and "why can't things and people just DO THEIR JOBS?!"

Physically, oh boy. Do you really want to know?

In November, I noticed my right arm was feeling tighter than it had been. I had a PT appointment in which they took measurements, but they usually take three and could only take two that day because one of their measuring machines was down. Apparently everyone's were, as they'd just been updated and then all decided they weren't working. Nothing like that ever happens to any devices anywhere, right? Ha.

I'd been operating for a few months, I think, on the "wear your compression sleeve for heavy household chores and exercise." And I did. But now I felt like I was needing to wear it daily. For those of you who don't know what that feeling is, the best I can describe it is that it feels as though I'm leaning my elbow into the padding of a communion rail or confession/kneeler pad that some churches flip down from the pew ahead of yours. There's fluid buildup so my arm feels squishy yet tight to the touch at the same time. It's weird. One of the lymphedema signs I was to watch out for was indents that didn't disappear quickly. 

So my measurement numbers were a LITTLE up that day in November, I've stretched out my second compression sleeve because I faithfully wore my first one all summer as required (with much grumbling, you can believe; my tanlines were "less than desirable!")

I start local PT next week and see the big city PT crew again in two weeks. But I'm getting ahead of the story.

Yesterday, I drove to the big city for a meeting with the plastic surgeon who was part of my team who did the pLVB procedure which is a bypass where they route the severed lymph vessels straight into veins to help with drainage. The hope was that the procedure would prevent what we are seeing now. 

So, when your plastics doc looks at your body with a grimace and sighs, "oh God, that's horrible," then a lot of things go through my mind.

In no particular order:

YAY! It's not my imagination!

Good, that's a real reaction and now we can talk about it.

Hmm, it must be worse than I thought. 

Maybe he can help with my neck, too. 

There were other things, but what's rattling around my head in that moment is less important than what started being discussed.

I'd seen my oncologist the previous day and she had only good things to say. Numbers were excellent. I'm cancer-free. These appointments for everything will start to dwindle down as I start living my life as someone who is cancer-free! Yippie!

So the plastics doc and his PA start brainstorming right away. She's typing madly, coordinating teams to figure out what tests need done, starting with a CT scan, to see where things are breaking down. Their immediate feeling is that there's so much damaged tissue near my armpit between being radiated twice and scar tissue/cording that there's the possibility of a vascular issue in that area. Maybe the lymph vessels are backed up because a vein can't drain. They want to start testing to see what's what.

The PA mentioned injecting dye into my hand to then see how it is pulled back up by the veins so that they could find where the dam is broken, so to speak. I think that's a neat idea! They started tossing out procedure ideas including taking healthy, unradiated tissue from my back and transplanting it near my armpit because they will need healthy tissue to work with. There will also be wraps, pumps, other compression garments, etc, to trial to see what will fit my life. 

They're going to discuss me at their next panel which they hold once a month, like the tumor board where THEY used to talk about me, and we've already arranged the CT scan for the day before the panel so they'll have all the recent numbers for their meeting. Another PT appointment will also be that day, so they can't get any fresher measurements than that!

I told that sweet man of mine that I refuse to get fussed about all this before their hold their meeting. Someone on that panel might interject with a "hey! I just saw a study on ______ and what if we tried _____!?" The PA said she has an idea involving several steps that normally don't go together so she was processing how to enter them into the system to get the teams to work together when there isn't a set protocol yet, so to speak.

Was any of that the news I wanted? No. Is it less than desirable? Yes. Is it my life now? Yes. It'll be a chronic thing to be managed from here on out. 

Am I furious that yet again a summer will go by where I'll most likely be told to stay out of water while I heal and protect myself from the sun? You bet! However, I have a goal to be healthy for Christmas in July and my 50.5 party so already I'm looking forward to fun things and recovery milestones. 

Yes, there was some piratey talk, and there will most likely be more. But even in this, I can see His faithfulness to me. It was the first time I've driven myself to and from the big city, and I made it both ways safely. In February. 

The kids at home had dentist appointments right after school and then Thing Three had pep band to get to straight from there. They made all their destinations on time and safely and eventually all of us were home again. Even my sweet hubby made it from out of town, parked RIGHT beside me for my appointment, and caravanned home.

I sleep in a bed off the ground without mosquito nets in a room designated for sleeping without our children and with zero livestock accompanying us. How many blessings is that right there? I flip a switch and a light shines. I open a cold box and there's food inside. Miracles abound. Every single day. 

Sometimes your meds even show up when you need them. That's a post for another day.

Will this be hard and frustrating? Yeah, probably. Will I cry some more and have hard days? Most definitely. Is this how I pictured my body looking for the rest of my life? Not even close. 

But I do still have two arms that work for hugs. 

I'm cancer free. 

I'm better than a survivor.

I'm a victor.

 

Ridiculous

One of the many reasons I decided to forgo having reconstructive surgery after my first round of breast cancer was that I could then get away with not wearing bras. 

So naturally, my physical therapy folks after this second round handed me a bag of soft foam pieces that I am supposed to wear inside a sports bra when I work out. The thinking is that it will help break up that scar tissue as it compresses up against it.

Are you even kidding me? I got rid of boobs, yet I still need to wear a bra.... and PAD IT!?

#Ridiculous

#AreYouKiddingMe

#WhatAmIInJuniorHigh

The moral of the story is don't get cancer. Not only is it the gift that keeps on giving, you end up firmly entrenched in the Realm of Utter Ridiculousness!

 

Taking to the Street

Sorry to anyone who assumed from the title that I had anything to say about protesting anything. I was referring to Sesame Street. Let me explain.

I have two hats featuring Sesame Street characters. One is a green one with Oscar the Grouch's face on it. I used to only wear it when I was running outside in cool weather- yes, actually running- but as that happened zero times in 2025 and hasn't yet this year, I've taken to wearing it just because it's winter and being cold makes me crabby. I figured I better give people fair warning when they see me coming. I started off the cold season wearing my blue Cookie Monster hat that has tassels hanging down which frame my face. Now I'm kind of grabbing whichever one is handy on the way out the door.

So, my school friends, who have been giggling at my hats for months now, decided to run with it as a theme. Look at my birthday loot!

I am fairly certain that my adult friends enjoy that I actually wear this stuff even more than my preK crew does! The kids, however, are huge fans of my ginormous Cookie Monster water bottle. Now I have zero excuses for not staying hydrated!

Thanks for all my birthday well wishes and gifts!

 

And so it goes

 I still don't really want to talk about this and it might be because, as a bestie said recently, "I really just hate thinking about all of this stuff and putting in words makes it real."

I so get that.

However, or nevertheless, whether I talk about it or not isn't going to change the fact that I have lymphedema. That's just a scary word that means my lymph system isn't draining super efficiently and so I'm taking on fluid. It's only in my right arm down to midway between my elbow and wrist but that is aggravating because it is DESPITE:

-wearing the compression sleeve this summer, even on vacation.

-staying active

-doing my stretching and physical therapy exercises

-sleeping with it elevated

-still wearing my SECOND compression sleeve daily

Wah. I just want to wallow a bit, but then I remember that hey, my arm still works (mostly) and I can get the mobility back (I hope) and probably if I stop doing what I'm doing it'll get worse so staying busy and fighting through yoga is what I'll do until I'm told otherwise.

I knew but had forgotten that the main lymphedema risk window is up to two years out from surgery and since my lymph node removal surgery was last fall, I'm well within that range. I just had hoped- like I'd hoped the surgeon wouldn't HAVE to take them out in the first place- that lymphedema wouldn't happen to me, but here we are. 

It's not painful per se but it is frustrating that my right arm looks like a sausage and that I can't reach equally far with both arms and that it's exacerbating my right neck/shoulder tightness. I can still do an impressive amount of flexibility, but I can tell how much range of motion I've lost and it makes me furious. 

I don't know if the two months of no lifting/exercising while I recovered from the complete hysterectomy is what set me back or if it is simply that I'm in that two year window or if it's because of the radiation treatment for the second time. I suppose it could be the trifecta of all of that, and perhaps more I'm not thinking of. It stinks that it's my right arm, which is naturally my dominant arm. Of course it would be my "good" arm! Ugh. 

Whatever. I have two arms and two legs that work so I'm going to shut it and move on. If that means I have to go shopping because I can't fit a lot of my sleeves over my swollen arm and compression sleeve, then so be it. If it means I'll need friends and family to right my sleeves and seams when I get where I'm going, then that's what'll happen. If I get my arms stuck in a shirt over my head, well, I guess I'll cry and then laugh and then figure it out. 

Otherwise, and I hate to speak it into the universe but here goes, I'm on my 6th month of my 3 year meds and so far so good. I'm luckily avoiding school germs thus far, so here's hoping that continues! Drink lots of water, wash your hands, and stay warm, my friends!

Teas, continued

This one was last Thursday, so Day 8- Genmaicha Yama- "green tea and roasted rice." Not gonna lie; I did not have high hopes for this one. It tasted like green tea and smelled like cooked rice. Nuff said. I guess truth in advertising DOES exist!

As you have perhaps guessed, Day 9 was delightful. So much so that a friend joined me for tea. However, I did not swim in HIS drink. Oh well. Upon fishing out my unfortunate fruit fly friend, I finished my passionflower, valerian and chamomille tea. It was quite pleasant!

Day 10 was oolong, flowers, and lemon and I enjoyed it so much that I made a second cup. It's called Dreamy Tea by The Des Songes and you can check all of these out here if you're interested. I'll also confess to forgetting to have Day 10 ON Day 10 so I had it on Day 11.

Day 11 Hmm, my teabag scribble says "11 on 12" so I must have pushed this one back a day also. Oh, that's right. I thought about it before bed and didn't want to try it then. It was Jardin tropical so that translates to "tropical garden" and contained "exotic fruits." It smelled amazing and I'll probably make a second cup of that at some point. Tasted good too!

Day 12 was Earl Grey so I channeled my inner Captain Jean-Luc Picard and murmured, "tea, Earl Grey, hot" to nobody in particular, twice, and was relieved that it tasted less of bergamot than it smelled. It's not my favorite scent and I was a little alarmed at how strongly scented it was, but it settled down and was a cozy mug of tea.

Day 13 was another double cupper. It's Hammam Tea which was a green tea with flowers including roses and red fruit. So pretty in my mug and delightful to drink so I did it again.

I'm drinking Day 14 right now- China Yunnan "Pu erh Imperial" on my teabag I guess translates to Imperial tea of some kind. The tag says, "dark tea ideal after a meal" so I'm enjoying it now that I've had my lunch. It reminds me of the Celestial Seasonings Morning Thunder black tea I have, "with energizing roasted mate" though that e should have an accent mark on it and I don't know how to add that. It's not thick but it FEELS dense like it could almost be a broth if it tried a little harder. 

What are YOU drinking to stay cozy? 

 

He did what?!

Wait just a minute, how'd Thing One get in there? This is supposed to be an update on Thing Two!

Thing Two has moved further East for the semester, at least, and has begun welding school in earnest, which has been going well so far as most of it has been safety videos in addition to learning how to drive in city traffic. The combination of welding + living with family who have a well instead of city water has led to a huge change..... all of his hairs got cut! Send him good vibes for learning everything and protection from Pepe the 2005 Pilot turning into a Flintstone vehicle that runs by using your own feet...

 I'll leave you with the before and after photos.