Serious Problem

Just an FYI, my laptop is in the apple hospital because it seems to have fried :(

Adventures in Moving

Horrah! Life is good! The crushing weight of my financial crisis has lifted. The fear and reality that we were going to be homeless in a month was difficult to get through. I had run out of options and was preparing for the worst. My financial situation was collapsing in on itself and my friend's barn was looking like the best option.

Flash forward a week later, now we have a townhouse to go to that I can afford! It is in a very artistically vibrant area and close to the boys schools. I am beyond excited. I will miss this big house and the wilderness that comes rambling through but I think where we are going is the right place for us. This place is more like a hiding out spot which is what I've been doing since my stem cell transplant. A friend of mine and I were calling this place, The Debt House. While chatting to another friend, she referred to it as, The Recovery House. That makes a lot more sense.

I wonder if I'll even remember this recovery house, considering how much time I've spent in a haze of medications and fatigue. Not much has happened here, which is exactly what I needed. Quiet and peace.

Moving is going to be hell, but it always is.

The Beginning

This is the beginning. Not the end.

This is the beginning.

Moving and Other Dramatic Change of Events

I guess I'm moving. Really, I knew either way I would be moving out of here.

It's crazy how life can turn on a dime and my dime has been turned more than I want to count. It's pretty much scuffed up at this point. Sometimes things slowly creep up on you and sometimes events are like a swift, blind punch to the face.

I went to my oncology and oncology/dental appointments last Thursday. The appointments went mostly as I had expected. The graft/vs/host has returned and my mouth is as uncomfortable as ever. My eyes have the GVH dryness, I'm having gut pains and my Dr is concerned about Ms Vagina again.

Ms Super Vagina had been given the thumbs up 3 months ago but problems in the mouth=problems "down there". Anyway, I giggled to my Dr that the mouth problems I can live with. The worst part is my lack of being able to wear lipstick, ha ha. We chatted about our sons (I have 3, she has 4) and I talked about how much my oldest (18) has been through with my illness etc. and how he's finally pulled himself out of his funk. The next day I found him with a black eye.

My onco-dentist said how mild graft/vs/host is a good thing because it keeps the leukemia away. Way to give a positive spin...Dr. So my medications are not being lowered, I repeat, NOT GOING TO BE LOWERED. That's okay. After this heavy duty of a cocktail of drugs for this amount of time, I'm probably completely preserved.

I did hear one thing that I didn't expect. My onc said, "We don't expect it to come back". My ears prick up. Excuse me? What? You don't expect my leukemia to come back?

My world is changing now. It looks so different suddenly. What's that I see?

I think that's my future.

Mild Cold -Day 4

This is the fourth day.

It's dark. It's lonely. It's cold. There is unrelenting torrential rain and floods. There are weird little bugs in my flour. I had to throw it out.

There are piles upon piles of Kleenex boxes tossed willy nilly about the room. The TV has been my constant companion, despite how I hate it, it's been there for me. Thanks Judge Judy.

There are unappreciative little smucks that I gave birth to about, but they won't bring me tea and noodles. Damned them. This must be that gnome incident coming back to bite me in the ass.

I had an actual invitation to go out on Friday but had to pass. Curse this Mild Cold of Death.

To top it all off...there was no milk for my tea this morning. I dropped to my knees and cursed the gods, then wept for forgiveness. This devastating set of events sent me into a spiralling mode of self pity and back under my covers....just like Gollum.

*This blog post is based on a true story. Some events may or may not have been added or embellished to invoke sympathy.

:(

I hereby decree, that anyone who has had cancer or any other sucky asshole health malady (yes, health conditions will now all be defined and referred to as assholes) shall no longer to be subject to any airborne or surface spread pathogens.

Unbelievable. I've done my time. I've suffered many ailments. Why don't we just add insult to injury with this half assed attempt to kill me (aka, a cold).

Freak Out Day Diffused

I scheduled Freak Day in because I was melting down and a close friend of mine said to give it 4 more days before I completely freak out. So, being that I'm the compulsive list maker, number cruncher type, I scheduled it on my calendar. It did help to put off my melt down so I could still remain a functioning entity. Brains tend to shut down when they are in panic mode.

My financial situation has been taking a downward slide for quite some time. I'm a wiz at living off of next to nothing and being creative to make ends meet but being unable to work for this length of time has taken it's toll. I told another long time friend of mine that my ship was sinking. She said, it's this ship that is sinking, not the better one around the corner.

I'm a firm believer that there is a solution to every problem, we just may not have found the right answer yet. I know it's hard to say that knowing I may not have a place to live in a few weeks, but I still know it's true. Keeping my sanity those few days longer has helped me be able to keep digging and exploring possibilities. I think things are looking up.

I will make it happen.

And I accept Lynne's (Autonomous Artisans) challenge for No Spend January! My next post is going to be about how I'm managing to do that. Bring it on!

Freak Out Day

I wrote a Freak Day post and then deleted it. It's really just more information than I'm willing to put up. Things with my health are fine and that will be confirmed by my appointments next week in Vancouver.

On the other hand, my financial situation has dried up and things are getting scary in the money dept. There have been a few rays of hope throughout the day, so as I said in my deleted post, everything always works out. This will too.

Fall seven times, stand up eight. -Japanese Proverb

Panic Day's Eve

I'll start by saying this, things always work out. Always.

I've been doing some preparations in apprehension of the big day tomorrow. I know it's a little early to be dipping into the festive mood but I guess it's all part of gearing up for the big shindig. So far I've panicked about my bloodwork results and spent the day googling info about lymphocytes absolute etc and what it means if it is a little high. There I found lovely scientific sentiments such as, my kind of cancer=poor prognosis. How lovely.

I took mini breaks from that by obsessing about old flames and what went wrong. I also mulled over what love means and tried to pinpoint why exactly people make life long unions. Oh joy.

I made calls to the Cancer Agency about my dental appointment to see if there would be a charge, just to find out I don't have a cleaning appointment and there are no others open that day (which coincides with my oncology day). It turns out I have an appointment with Dentist Oncologist Man, which is fine because I have been noticing changes in my mouth recently. These changes point to Graft/vs/Host having an unscheduled play date in my body. As long as it leaves my liver and vagina out of it, then fine. Oh, and also as long as they don't up my medications again, I guess I can deal.

I also made some other important calls and dug for other important information while nervously forgetting everything simultaneously. Finally I rounded all that out by hitting the picking at my nail polish, phase.

Yes, it seems I am truly prepped and ready for Freak Day.

Snow Day in Paradise

We went to my parents for Christmas and ended up snowed in for 5 days or so. Their house overlooks the ocean, so this is the ocean in snow.




There was some hell involved with snapping snow chains on Christmas Eve and accidentally driving down a logging road in our tiny car. Thankfully, death did not get us!

This is my back yard where the owls and deer hang out. To get the perspective, that is my summer table that was turned over by the wind. We rarely get snow here so this seems a little like fairy land. I love it here.