3700

 No, that's not an amount for a bill for any of my surgeries or chemo or insurance for driving Ori onto rocks, though good guesses all. That's the number of posts on this blog! Can you even believe it? It's like I have something to say... or something. Who'd have thought? (Nana, in the afterlife, is chuckling to herself and snarking, "anybody who ever met you! Are you kidding? All those times I had to separate you from Tammy at nap time because you wouldn't stop talking?!" Yes, well, there is that.

I'm sort of just checking in. I miraculously have zero doctors' appointments this week and am on the upswing after mostly a week of chemo crumminess. To say I'm not looking forward to next week's treatment is an understatement of epic proportions. However, it IS nice to know that I will sort of be feeling myself come Christmas, AND the AC part of chemo will be over with. Hooray! Merry Christmas to ME! As they used to say in karate, "LAST ONE, BEST ONE" though I'm not sure that quite applies here as the results are cumulative and I felt like... well, to quote our youngest, "dogwater" would be pretty applicable. I'm not sure if he means dog pee or the scum in their drinking water from their backwash because I'm afraid to ask, but either way, yeah, that kinda fits. To have the inside of your mouth feel sandblasted, to have the chemical roiling of your stomach, to feel like you've been dragged through solidifying cement with the accompanying pounding of your heart when all you've done is climb up a single set of stairs... I'd say dogwater fits. 

Yes, I am taking my anti nausea meds, though I could take more of them, though they come with their own side effects and I'd rather limit all that nonsense. Yes, I'm climbing back into bed (YAY, BED!) at every opportunity. I'm even feeling less guilty about it because my brain knows healing is hard work even though my spirit wants to Go Do Stuff. My Lisa says, "go back to bed for all of us who can't!" I figure I'm taking one for the team. Teehee. I should be drinking more, so if you talk to me, ask where I am water-wise and tell me to go take some sips. *Reaches for her glass of water whilst rolling her eyes* 

No, our Christmas tree isn't up yet, but our wreaths are, so that's progress. At this rate, once we get it up it might have to stick around until my birthday. Those of you who know us are asking, "how is that different from any other year?" Hush, you. 

For those of you asking about meals for us, bless your sweet hearts. As I was telling my friend the other day, food is tricky right now, though this week should be better. Dada is still doing no carbs, the kids are pretty much all carbs, and I am absolutely all over the map like a pregnant woman. I will have a sliced baby cucumber. Then an hour later maybe cheese and crackers. Then another hour after that perhaps a little bit of meat or some peanut butter toast. Last night I was eating single Cheerios out of the box, one after another, while I watched TV. For lunch, I plan to devour an entire head of butter lettuce* with veggies and cheese and croutons (Thing Three is at school so I'll only have to fend off Thing Two since Thing One doesn't emerge for awhile yet) and maybe a can of tuna on it and it is going to be DELICIOUS and then my mouth won't feel like I've licked a salty camel straight from the Sahara. 

*In a text from Dada, that came out "butthead" lettuce so we will be henceforth calling it that.

All in all, and my doc is in agreement with this, I'm doing well. It doesn't always FEEL like that, but as I'm also not praying to the porcelain god, I'll take it. I may look like a drunken sailor on land who is using the wall with one hand to stay stable, but I'm still moving, thank you, Jesus. Today I'm actually on my second load of laundry**, have swept the kitchen floor, made phone calls which I despise (who's with me- where are my "I'd rather die than talk on the phone" peeps?), renewed Pepe's license plate, got some mail ready to go out, and some other stuff. I'm hogging 2/3 of the couch with paperwork and have displaced Thing Two completely. I have a pile of Stuff on the floor in the Old Lady Room that I need to deal with, but we are getting there.

** The second load is dog towels and blankets. Miss Honey, who will be at least 10ish years old this week, relieved herself on the hall rug before Thanksgiving and we didn't have time to deal with it other than baking soda and vacuum it before we travelled, so we lugged it outside where the weather could rain and snow on it to it's heart's delight. We brought it in a few days ago, still smelling of baking soda. The Idiot Bos decided to lick it in a bunch of places last evening while we were having dinner, then proceeded to barf on a different rug when his stomach realized it couldn't digest dog hair, dirt, and baking soda. Hence the load of towels. How he can manage to NOT throw up rat poison when he needs to but CAN vomit other stuff remains a mystery. Dumber than a box of rocks. Seriously. That's insulting to rocks. He's no smarter now than he was when we got him 7.5 years ago. Somebody save us. I am never picking out a dog again. And if Honey doesn't quit pooping on the deck, I am going to ask Santa not FOR a dog, but to kindly take both of ours!

So I'm off to make my salad. Have a wonderful hump day!

The part of the Pincushion will be played by…

 Yours truly, apparently.

*You may skip this post if you'd rather have my version of puppies and kittens, AKA graduation and vacation posts, instead of posts involving breast cancer. You're allowed. No hard feelings. I get it! Read on if you'd like. You're always welcome to stick around or to skip out.*

*Also, this one is lengthy. Grab a snack.*

So I finished my five years of Tamoxifen on Groundhog Day this year. I had a checkup later that month. My blood work and my physical exam were fine. Sometime after that, I felt a lump in what is left of my right side, near my armpit. I started running on the treadmill in April and know that sometimes your lymph nodes can get outta whack when you do hard exercise. Well, running is hard for me- I don't hit a good stride for what feels like forever, and the longest I've ever run continuously is about a mile and a half. Since I have two friends and had an uncle who have all done marathons, which I am NOT aspiring to by any means, a mile and a half feels puny. Still, I suppose that's from Camp Lambec to Peggy Gray Candies, so there's that. Go me!

Anyway, the running in addition to the good exam and consistently "perfect" blood draw numbers for the last five years had me keeping an eye on the lump. I told my oncologist at my May appointment. She felt it and said it warranted an ultrasound and, if needed, an ultrasound biopsy. 

I don't think there are a lot of words I more personally dread and despise than "biopsy." At this point my veins shrivel up immediately and try to hide. They don't even come out at "Olly olly oxen free!" They know better.

So the ultrasound tech is wonderful, supportive, a cancer survivor herself and a tremendous cheerleader for me. She's joined the same team of ladies who won my heart the first time I was in there for a mammogram. These ladies are some of the same team who got me through the initial biopsy, where I passed out, and then caught me when I passed out again after she finished my follow up mammogram. These ladies are angels, I'm telling you. They hugged me and told me they'd be praying for me. And that maybe it was scar tissue. Don't jump straight to the worst.

Bless them all. I'm so fond of them. Definitely following their callings. Thank you, ladies.

So the ultrasound results-viewing doc comes in to confirm that "it's suspicious looking and will need biopsied." Unfortunately, they don't do that in the same appointment. So I'm scheduled and my sweet ultrasound friend informs me that I will have a tremendous doctor and she will also be part of that team and they'll see me in 10 days. 

Ten days later, on Thing Three's birthday, our firstborn takes me to the appointment and I warn them that I'm a fainting risk. They coo over me and inform me that they won't let me pass out, tut tut. I smile and silently rue, "we'll see about that."  They took seven samples, saying it'd be more than enough to see what's going on in there, left their "we were here" clip for future imaging, and lo and behold I stayed awake the entire time. I'm telling you- angels. Walked out of there and everything! Amazing. I'd never have believed it.

So we go on vacation.

And I get a call saying the biopsy tested positive.

*insert choice words and/or tears of rage/frustration here*

(I sure did.)

A telehealth call with my oncologist ensues. She says the next steps will be a brain MRI, a heart echo, and a PET scan to see if anything has spread. Then a surgery consult followed by surgery to get that area cleaned up. Then hormone therapy will be after that, but a consult with a radiation oncologist will help determine what else needs to happen- do my ovaries need to come out? What kind of hormone therapy will it be? Apparently you can only do Tamoxifen if you still have ovaries and you take something different if you don't. There are some other questions as well, but I think my brain might have fritzed at that point. I did retain that I can't have radiation again on that side because you can only do that once. Live and learn.

From vacation, I'm calling to set up the brain MRI, the heart echo, and the PET scan. Being on vacation actually worked in my favor as the PET scan van is only at my hospital on Fridays and they were already full until we could get back. Same with the surgical consult- that surgeon was on vacation and wouldn't be back until July. Perfect timing!

This past Monday morning, I head in for my brain MRI, which is first without and then with contrast. I choose to listen to oldies, which I clarify means 50's and 60's and not the 80's, which makes the nurse laugh. I try to not hum along and keep track of how many songs so I know when they'll pull me back out to add the contrast. I keep my eyes closed in these and that helps me not feel claustrophobic. But you don't go the whole way in for brain ones, so that also helps. The needle doesn't feel like it goes great, but it gets the job done, leaving a small bruise. Those ladies are cheerful and I'm in and out of there. I left from a different door and decided to walk around the hospital to my car. At some point the sidewalk runs out, so I kick off my shoes and roam through the grass barefoot, still wearing my hospital bracelet. Anyone watching from the windows probably thought I'd escaped. So far, so good. 

Monday afternoon is the heart echo. These are fun. No needles involved so I get to chill out on the bed as she glides her wand around while her other hand takes measurements and screen shots of my heart doing its thing. I like to watch the colors on the screen.

I get a call from my oncologist's office later in the week that both of those scans were clear and perfect. Brain and heart are great. Part of the reason behind the heart scan, I bet, is that I was on Herceptin for a year, which is not a chemo drug but is a hormone therapy drug which has the potential to do heart damage. My doc had me have heart echos during that year to make sure it wasn't affecting my heart adversely, so I wasn't expecting bad news this time either. Always nice to receive good news, though! Yippie!

Yesterday was the PET scan, first thing. That means that Thursday was a high protein, low/no carb/sugar diet, as much water as I could drink, no caffeine, no strenuous exercise, and so forth. You're also allowed to keep drinking water on the day of, which is so nice as it means your brain doesn't feel like it's the size of a raisin and you can actually think. So I go in sipping from my water bottle with nice, juicy veins. I thought. Silly me. As my Aunt Kay would say, "fool."

The PET scan van has two reclinable seats in one section and the machine is in the opposite end with a work station in between; today there's a male and female tech. I'm installed in my chair next to a tiny, smiling old woman in the next one, and I show the female tech my bruise from the MRI on Monday. She laughs and tells me that I'm still young and my veins tend to stay where they are; apparently once you get up there farther things tend to scoot around more. I guess we've all been warned, folks. Good times ahead. So she has me loose and relaxed and I swear to you I was not stressed about this test! I'd had one before, I was so excited to cross this off my list to get more answers, etc. I was good!

You can imagine my consternation when that needle wouldn't go in smoothly. She tried pulling it back out some, then a little more. I lamented that times like this are when I miss my port. She laughed and said since they're not nurses that they're not allowed to access ports anyway. Sweet Jiminy Christmas. Ports are God's gift. I ask if I can put my feet up on her stool and inform her that things are getting sparkly. She says sure, so my feet go up...

And I go out. Again, incredibly vivid dreaming and I wake up to... boxes up high on a shelf and two faces peering down at me that I can't immediately place and then... oh yeah, here we are. Stupid veins. Needles. Ugh. 

Female tech: "Um, have you ever seized before?"

Me: *sigh*

"Oh yes, it's happened before."

Male tech: "That wasn't a seizure. It was a vasovagal syncope..."

Me: "Yeah. I had the EEG and all that and everything was fine."

Him: "Especially if it only happens in circumstances like this."

Her to him: "Will you try to access her veins?"

Him: "Sure." 

He's wonderful as well, shows me a picture of his dog, we laugh about rescue animals, he gets it in and tapes it in place even though it only takes a few moments for the blood draw and the dye to go in, gets me a cold washcloth and watches me like a hawk. I do go on to vomit, sorry if that's TMI, but it's mostly water as I hadn't eaten since before 8 the night before, I don't think. 

I don't remember if she tried in the back of my hand like I'd suggested before or after I passed out. I think before. He got it in the back of my hand. So now I have two pinholes inside my left elbow and two in the back of my left hand, because everything is to be done on my left, non-cancer side. Blood pressure cuffs, all that jazz. I try to be good about it.

The radioactive dye they inject works its way all through you- in my case I sat for about 50 minutes for it to complete its rounds- and then you get popped into a machine where you glide back and forth and the machine takes pictures for a few minutes. It makes me think of a kids' ride at an amusement park. You sliiiiiiiide in, stop, slide a little farther, slide back out fast, stop, stay put, sliiiiiide. Had to remind myself to hold still and not giggle. She said since I'm smallish that it would take about 12 minutes. If you read online it can take 20-40. She said they had a new camera. Hooray for progress. I wish there was a radioactive dye I could absorb through a patch or something, sheesh. Come on, people. Let's stop killing each other with weapons and start inventing better medical procedures, ideally stick-free!

So I do great during the test, I'm released and escorted back to the waiting room where I park my bum and sit like a sad sack whilst eyeing up the trash can on the opposite side of the room while I wait for my hubby to make it back. He'd been told I'd be about an hour and a half so he got some errands done instead of wasting away in the waiting room. Apparently the radiology lobby is a cell phone dead zone because my texts to him were going nowhere. He found me after a few minutes and I leaned on him as I made it out of there on my own two feet, though I confess to feeling like I'd been slapped around by ocean waves. You know how you still feel like you're being hit right after you get out? I didn't want to turn my head quickly and relied more on my peripheral vision. They had assured me that I'd feel normal with that dye, but holy cow, what is IN that stuff? 

On the drive home, which is only a few minutes, he made a quick stop into our local donut shop and I vomited again, haha. Such a lovely morning. It's all good- we keep fast food bags (and everything else) in the car so I was prepared. He got me home and I popped back into bed for a much needed nap and start over. 

The rest of the day was uneventful and we celebrated with pizza for dinner. Now I'm not so excited about my oncologist wanting to schedule me for a PET scan annually. Yeesh. Oh well. Good to go for another year, I hope! Supposedly results take about 24 hours so my oncologist's office should be letting me know early next week how that all worked out. Then all of those images from the three tests will head to the surgeon for the consult Monday after next. She will have all the intel she needs to decide how to tackle this next part.

 I'm optimistic about the surgery part- never my favorite thing, obviously, but I can't wait to get this lump out before anything gets ideas about taking up permanent residence. If the PET scan reveals that it is just a lymph node who decided to hang onto some previous bad stuff, then supposedly after surgery I'd once again be disease-free (yay!) and would just do the hormone therapy treatment, however much that entails. Maybe ovaries come out, maybe it's infusions, I have no idea. Not stressing over any of that yet. If it has spread from the lymph node, I feel like my blood draw numbers would have revealed something to that effect and we'd have had a heads up. Either way, my oncologist said, "there will be treatment, but it will be nothing like it was before. It will be nowhere near as difficult." 

I want it out. And I don't want it to affect my range of motion, which is probably why she's sending me to a surgical expert who can clean it out really well. I can feel it not just when I touch it, but when I'm in certain positions or when something like a vertical underwire on a swimsuit puts pressure on it, things like that. I want it gone and I want to recover and move on. I'm stronger this time around than I was for the initial diagnosis six years ago. We started walking a few miles most days during covid and then this year I started running, so I'm definitely in better and more intentional shape than I was. That's going to count in my favor during recovery, I think. I love my team. They always have my back and they treat me like someone they'd enjoy going out to breakfast with. I'm in great hands. My family and my tribe know what's going on and have my back. Will I miss my ovaries? Nope. My main concern is that I'm right handed and if they have to  take much more muscle out of that side I don't want it to affect anything. "I am not left-handed," as they say in the Princess Bride. Me neither, buddy.  My lesser concern is that I don't want too many lymph nodes messed with or removed as I don't want to run the risk of acquiring lymphedema. I got stuff to do! 

Along with that, I'm mostly aggravated. With a lot of life, there's something to blame. And I know blame isn't helpful, but it IS nice to be able to point to something as a cause. "That guy was drunk and therefore caused that accident." With this, at least before I have all the imaging and so forth, the best guess is that a lymph node held onto cells it should have let go. How they made it through chemo and surgery when I had clean margins and then radiation is beyond me. But then my brain whispers, "does that mean it's back instead of never being really gone?" And I tell my brain to shut it.  And I remind it about my "perfect" numbers. And it settles. And life goes on in this amazing world with my incredible overlapping circles of friends and family. I know whose I am and who's got me. I am unbelievably blessed. 

I will keep you posted. In the meantime, we will play the waiting game once again, checking things off the list as they happen, celebrating over good news and making a plan to deal with any less than desirable news. The plan is to enjoy the summer! That goes for you, too: do what you love!

Not a sympathy pitch, I swear!

 I had the most Monday-est Monday I can ever recall having yesterday. What was to be a normal, run of the mill checkup with my oncologist turned into a day of much more excitement that I had anticipated.

The short version is that everything is fine. My blood counts were all "perfect." Nothing to see here, folks, move along.

The unabridged version is a bit more graphic involving bodily fluids and sharp, pointy objects. You may choose to stop reading here and rest assured that I'm fine. (*cough* Hinrew, ahem.)

Still curious? As they say on the Knight Bus in Harry Potter, "it's gonna be a bumpy ride!"

I drove myself to my doctor's office and sat down to have my blood drawn. I knew this was coming; they do this first so they can run the numbers so that the doc will have them to go over with you before you leave. I'd already drank at least 32 ounces of water and a mug and a half of tea before I arrived for my 10:30 appointment. I'd also had a lot of water the night before as I'd ridden my bike for about 15 minutes and drank a good bit of water before bed. 

Well, the nurse tried to stick me the first time and said my vein blew. It happens. I know this. (When I was delivering Damon they tried at least 4 and maybe 5 different places to get an IV going. It may have been more. I lost count as I was a little distracted by contractions.)  She apologized and tried again. She got it that time and got the blood she needed. However, sometime during that draw, I told her I was getting a little sparkly and was going to put my head back against the wall. I did that and apparently passed right out anyway. I remember dreaming vividly and then woke up with one of the guys who works there propping my feet up against his legs and my nurse was holding my hand. I may have even wet myself at this point. Either way, I passed out again and this time I for sure peed my pants AND vomited AND the nurse told me when I woke up that I had also seized. This has never happened to me before. I somehow managed to not swallow or vomit my gum, which was a lifesaver afterwards. Yech. They said I was out 15-20 seconds and that I was alert as soon as I came to. I do remember dreaming again the second time, as well. 

I begin, naturally, with apologizing. The nurses are so darling. They brought me fresh pants and helped me change and kept their eagles' eyes on me while I waited for poor Dada to come collect me and my things and take me to the hospital for further evaluation, leaving one car behind. I cannot state enough how much I despise making more work for people, and the fact that they had to mop and change and all that drives me crazy, even though my nurse said her second pair of pants for the day was much more comfy than her first. I know it's an occupational hazard and that it won't be the first or last time they have to experience it, but goodness, I still hate that they had to go through it. Guess everyone needs a little excitement on a Monday, right? Ugh. Insert many, many eye rolls here.

So off to the hospital I go with my knight in shining armor. We get all checked in, I pee in a cup, I tell my story and he fills in details and then they want to get more blood and an IV in for fluids. The sweet nurse examines my arm for a few minutes and decides to attempt a stick in the back of my left hand. That vein blew. Rather than stick me again, she asks around for who on duty knows how to do an ultrasound IV, which was new to me. Lo and behold a guy who spent 8 years in the Marines comes in with his cart and listens to my story and confidently informs me that he'll find a "big, honkin' vein" and go from there. I tell him that they're not cooperating well today and he says we'll make it behave. So he scrolls his ultrasound around and decides on the inner side of my left bicep. I thought it would hurt more, so I asked, "is it in already?" and he sounded a little less confident when he answered, "not quite yet." It did hurt a little more but he did get it in and then he taped the bejeezus out of it so it wouldn't go anywhere. During the sticking and for a few minutes afterward, my heart rate plummeted to 39. Dada said I was in the red there for awhile. My sweet nurse came back in and said, "I figured by the numbers he was trying to stick you. Poor thing, you really don't like getting poked, do you?" She tilted my bed so that my head was lower than my feet for awhile. They're all so good at this game. 

They got their blood and a bag of fluids going. It's been awhile since chemo, so I'd forgotten how cold you can get when room temperature or chilled bags of fluid are entering you. I was shivering and sweet Dada asked for a blanket for me. I had an EKG where they stick 10 stickers all over you and the plugs go to the stickers and then, in a blink of an eye, it's over and she's unplugging me and unstickerizing me as I tell her that Damon likes to slyly sneak stickers from bananas onto my back as he hugs me.

They also wanted a chest Xray and a head CT so a radiology tech wheeled me through the maze of halls as we chatted about does she get her 10,000 recommended steps and she says most days, but it depends on the day. I sadly informed her that I probably wouldn't be getting mine that day.

Everything looked good there, so back to my ER room and they did one of those blood pressure tests where you're laying down, then sitting, then standing, and all those numbers corresponded within where they should be. 

The doctor came in and listened to my story, especially my concern that while I've passed out because of needles before, I'd never peed or vomited or seized. He reassured me that any of those things can happen when someone is unconscious, including defectating, which I'm thanking my lucky stars was something I can leave out of the mix, and he says that it might not have been a seizure, per say. He wanted me to schedule an EEG just to make sure epilepsy can be ruled out. Great. Another first for me. And a follow up appointment with a neurologist. Yay, yet another first! He said that all the tests looked good and showed no areas of concern and suggested that maybe it was just low volume of my blood and he told me to hydrate. That part still doesn't make sense to me as I specifically drank extra ahead of time knowing I'd be getting stuck. Oh well.

This afternoon is my follow up appointment with my family doctor who was kept in the loop and next Monday I meet with the neurologist. 

So, the point of all that is to tell you two things: one, I am fine, and two, if you ever feel like you're having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day like Alexander, ask yourself if you've peed yourself and vomited and played pincushion all in the same morning. I'm thinking of changing all my social media account user names to Not I, Cacti! #NotICacti has a nice ring to it.

I'm fortunate that my mental health is at a place where I could come home, have a good cry in the shower as I peeled off all the bandaids from the sticks, and realize that yes, while it certainly ranked up there as the most craptastic day I've had in a very long time, it was just a day and they'll look better going forward. I had my man by my side, excellent and caring medical professionals all day long, the kids here at home were already in their groove of online learning so (at least theoretically) they didn't need me every minute, and all results were positive. Overall, blessed beyond measure. So I had to wash a load of clothes- that happens just about every day anyway. 

The biggest inconvenience, and it is just that, is that I'm not supposed to drive until after the EEG just so they're sure I'm not epileptic. That makes things a little more difficult but also isn't earth shattering or long lasting. Another inconvenience will be that I have three extra appointments versus the one I'd have had yesterday if everything had gone as expected. I should have remembered- it's 2020; why would anything go as expected? I'm winking, you just can't see me.

The perk of seeing my doc today is that I can hopefully also get my flu shot, haha! Win! Always a silver lining. 

To borrow from Stephen King

Oh boy, where do I even begin? Maybe I should mention how someone always gets sick before our annual Christmas party, and I debate, "should we cancel, or not cancel? Cancel or not?" This year I was thrown for a loop. Nobody got sick! Amazing! Rejoice! I LIKE this having a Christmas party in the summer weather and fewer viruses and not competing with shopping and...

Let me tell you about this week. Dada's been in Maryland since Monday. He got home last night, but still. Two mornings ago, Liam bounces out of bed and I go to see if Carrie is also awake. She is. She tells me that she threw up three times in her dreams. I ask if she also threw up in real life. She informs me, "yes. In my curtains."

It's been that kind of week.

Yes, you read that right. That previous night, I'd turned off the A/C finally and opened up the house. Since the curtain rods in the kids' rooms both had been "helped" off the wall more than once, I've given up and used push pins to hang sheets up as curtains. Since I opened the window in their room, I'd draped the sheets over the headboard of Liam's bottom bunk. She'd vomited over the end of her headboard and the curtains caught it nicely before it hit the floor. Not a huge deal. Simply unpin the push pins, shake out the excess into the trash, and wash, dry, and rehang. She went back to bed until 10 AM which is about unheard of for her.

She had a fever of 101.1 which was gone the next day and today she is her completely usual spirited self. Her curtains are fresh and clean.

Today is sheet day. Fridays I usually wash all our sheets. The kids love to help. This morning Liam was the pokey one and didn't get me his sheets until about 10 AM. Mine were already done and back on the bed at that point. (It helped that they just did the washer & dryer this time... I prefer to hang them outside, but our party tent is in the way of my clothesline space. Dada is secretly rejoicing over this.) At any rate, the kids' beds are re-made and I have her on the couch downstairs with me while he's on the top bunk for his break. About an hour into break I hear a THUMP. Carrie rolls over, looks at me and says, "what's that?" I say, more than a little bit aggravated-ly, "that's what it sounds like when you guys crash around upstairs!"

Then I hear this pitiful, near-tears voice claim, "Mama, I pooped!"

Here's where the title comes in. If you've read a fairly serious amount of Stephen King, you've probably more than once come across something like this:

Mainers have an expression for when something goes wrong, stops working, or goes to hell. They like to say, "the damn thing shit the bed," and everyone knows what they mean.

That's roughly translated by me. Since I've never been to New England and don't know anyone from Maine, I can't say for sure, but if it works for Stephen King, it's good enough for me. I've always thought it was a funny saying. I've secretly always wanted to hear someone use it in context. Sometimes I wish real life was fiction. I'd love to be an Elf in Middle Earth, but that's another story altogether...

I've SEEN the damn thing shit the bed, and it ain't pretty. I had a talk with myself last night about that verse in the Bible where you give thanks in all circumstances, so while I was cleaning the carpet and the sheets and the ladder to the bunk bed and the mattress cover and the boy, I was thankful for my washer and dryer, thankful for this sweet baby who looked all the world like he was listening when I told him he needed a nap so I could clean up a mess, and mostly thankful that I'd had the boy poop last night before bed or dear God, what a mess I WOULD have had. The one I DID have was quite enough, thanks very much.

So now when someone says they've had a shitty day, I will completely be able to empathize. I don't know how nurses do it. You nurses have all my admiration, and for reasons more than that.

So no, nobody was sick before the Christmas party, but this week of recovery from said Christmas party has been unexpected, to say the least. Oh, there's my washer beeping at me.