September 27

I decided yesterday that being tethered to my house was not helping my crumbling emotional state so I've officially declared myself okay to drive. And with that, I was buzzing around like a crazy woman for over 4 hours yesterday. Here's what I accomplished:

I went to the Asian market over on West Henrietta and picked up some more sushi rice. I like it better than the white rice that you can buy at Wegman's, I don't know why. It's probably the same crap but hey, if it makes my brain happy to buy rice from Korea then so be it.

Then, since I was in the area, I figured I would stop off at Strong to pick up those 2 prescriptions that Jo Ann said she called in 2 days ago. Yeah, right. According to the pharmacy, there was nothing in the system for me. So, I marched down the hall to see Jo Ann and get the scoop. I guess Strong needs a week to process scripts!! How crazy is that! She called the pharmacy and asked them to expedite since I was there. I walked back to the pharmacy and they were still clueless so I said screw it, I'll just grab them next Wednesday when I'm there for the chemo/radiation appointments. The only med that I'm concerned about is the thyroid one and I have plenty of that. All the rest of the meds are basically just vitamins b/c they're trying to beef up my health. So, I paid $3 for parking for no apparent reason. Stupid hospital.

Next on the list was dropping off a donation of clothing at the Goodwill on Clinton. And then since I was so virtuously donating a bunch of stuff, I stopped at the VOA and dropped $90 on some new thrift store clothes. Because hey, I was running out of things to wear, you know. ;-P

Then I stopped off at my hair salon. I made an appointment to get a trim with Jen at 10:00 on Saturday morning. The guy at the desk was awesome! He immediately verified my e-mail address instead of my phone number. Some people just get it. Which reminds me, I was talking to G on Wednesday in the living room and he had his speaking volume turned up pretty loud. I didn't even have to say anything to him, he suddenly stopped mid-sentence and said "why am I yelling at you, it's not like you're deaf!". LMAO!

Then I started trundling down Culver headed towards home when I saw the early bird special sign in front of Culver Auto for snow plowing service. YES! I've been waiting for that darned sign! So, I popped in there. "Talked" to the dude. He asked me if my trach was permanent. I said yes. It turns out he had a trach for 10 years due to some severe sleep apnea. Which was funny because when Kit and I were in the waiting room on Friday, the kid sitting across from me struck up a conversation with me about my trach. He wanted to know what it was like. He said that he was in the middle of making a decision about getting one due to his severe sleep apnea. I had no idea that that was a fix for that type of thing and in less than a week I meet two people who had it for that reason! Anyway, snow plow dude is going to swing by my house and then e-mail me a quote. He said if I pay him up front before the end of October then the early bird special will save me ~$30 off the normal price. I asked him what the normal price is and I think he said it was around $220. So, less than $200 for unlimited plowing sounds good to me!! He said that he starts his run at 3 AM and it's usually a 3 hour run so being plowed out by 7 AM is no problem. He said that he can't make that same guarantee for day time plowing due to traffic and whatnot. Also, he said no more than 2 trips are made during a 24 hour period. All of it made sense to me and I liked him so as soon as I get the quote, I'm going to buzz down and sign up. Phew! Glad I finally got that taken care of.

Then I hit Wegman's for the third time in a week. I wanted to stock up on some canned stuff and I needed some ingredients for the mexican rollups I"m making for the big Sunday night social outing test. I love Wegman's but man, my wallet really hates it.

So that was my big day out and about. I'm going to be out and about again today but hopefully not for as long. I made babydoll some Aztec salsa last night (it came out super yummy) but the recipe made a TON of it so I want to drop off the leftovers at QED for my peeps. And while I'm there I want to make copies of the insurance paperwork that I'm sending in so that babydoll and I can get a refund on our cruise and flights.

Part of my road rash was bleeding again this morning so I'm back to a small bandage. There's just one little stubborn spot that doesn't seem to want to scab over.

Since I'm not nothing but skin and bones, I stopped wearing a bra since the surgeries. I just wear tank tops under all of my clothes. It keeps things covered and adds some warmth to whatever I'm wearing.

There's been some scabbing around my stoma. Some of it I've been able to remove, some of it I haven't. I can't tell what's normal skin and what's part of the skin graft so I'm afraid to start picking at it. Meanwhile, from what I read, I think it's important to not let scabbing happen around the stoma. That's what starts closing it up which would be a rather large problem. I'm going to ask Dr. M about it next Thursday when I see him. I hate having to constantly verify if I'm doing things right or wrong but since there doesn't seem to be any training on being a laryngectomy, I'm constantly having to wing things, and research Youtube videos, and whatnot.

There's still a small infected spot on my neck. Last time I checked it though it's slightly smaller than a quarter so it's definitely shrinking. I still have 3 more days on antibiotics (I've been on them for a month straight now!) so hopefully it will be cleared up by then. I think the hole from my throat finally closed up too because I haven't been leaking very much at all for the past handful of days. It's so nice to not have to tape a bandage to my chest to catch disgusting goop drips before they ruin my shirts.

I've also noticed that I'm coughing a lot less. Before I would have a coughing fit every half hour. Now I cough every couple of hours. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not though. I mentioned that I'm using the mister quite a lot less than what I was told to use it so now I'm worried that I'm drying out my lungs and they're shriveling up into useless little baggies. Either that or I really was way too swampy down there and now that I let things dry up a little I'm at a normal stage for lary's. Who the hell knows?!?

Okay, those are the updates for now. I have to figure out what I'm going to do with my hair at my Saturday appointment. Just trim it and continue to wear it up? Get it cut short so that I can start wearing hats and not have to worry about sucking it into my stoma? Decisions, decisions....