October 12

My mini vacay to Niagara Falls was fantastic!! It turns out I DID have something on my bucket list. I've been to the Falls a dozen times now and it's always to see the Falls. Yes, they're wondrous, a true miracle of nature, a sight to behold, blah, blah, blah. What I have always wanted to do was to run around and take part in all the silly commercial crap that they have going on, on the Canadian side of the Falls. And my babydoll helped make this dream come true this past week. We went in 3 different haunted houses, two mazes, Ripleys, a 4D theater, a 6D theater, we spent hours in the midway playing whack a mole, and skiball and Deal or No Deal, we played 3 round of putt putt, and rode the skywheel twice. It was fabulous! I had such an absolute blast!!

We also went to a bar and I had four, yes four, alcoholic beverages. I gotta tell you, I barely caught a buzz. I think the Roxicet has me spoiled. Who needs alcohol when you can take prescription pain meds? Meanwhile babydoll had two beers, and two drinks in an effort to keep up with me. He got a little silly. And man, can that man snore!

On the bright side, now that I survived putting alcohol in my PEG, I've been experimenting with milkshakes, and iced coffees, and all sorts of stuff. I came back from Canada 3 pounds heavier! Yay!

Okay, so back to the medical stuff. The port placement sucked. I had no idea that they run a catheter from the port to the vein right above your heart! I had a mini meltdown in the office! Nobody mentioned poking anything into my heart, for crying out loud! Ah well, I eventually calmed down again. People get these things put in every day and it turns out while I thought it was my decision to have the thing places, it's actually kind of mandatory. The chemo treatment burns the heck out of your veins and permanently damages them. So, it's done. The nice nurse Connie held my hand through most of the procedure. WE weren't very far into things when I let it be known that I needed to have my hand held. She moved her monitor so that she could work with her right hand and hold my hand with her left. It was very sweet of her.

I got back home and did not have time for a nap before I was back at Strong getting my new Silence of the Lambs face mask made and a CT contrast scan done. Dr. S and resident Mike stopped by to say 'hi'. Dr. S introduced himself to Scott and then sat down next to him and asked if he had any questions about what was going on. Dr. S commented that he was surprised that I had shown up to my first appointment alone. What can I say? I've already done the radiation thing. Resident Mike gave me the low down on all the awfulness of having radiation done a second time. What more is there? Dr. S also checked the red angry bump on the side of my neck. It's bigger. Dr. M said that one of the margins on the tumor that was so small was because it was right up against the skin of my neck so they couldn't go any farther than the skin. I'm wondering if that was on the right side of my neck where this lovely, large, red bump is now growing. Hopefully, as Dr. M said, the radiation will take care of it.

Chemo and radiation start on 10/21. Next week is jam packed with all sorts of appointments. On Monday I have a 1:30 to get the port site checked to make sure it went okay. At 2:30 I meed with Dr, Kim to talk about the chemo. And at some point during the day I have to buzz over to Clinton and donate blood so that Dr. K can check my thyroid levels and discuss with me on Friday.

Meanwhile I have a new bane to my existence. Her name is Cindy and she's Dr. S's secretary. She keeps making these random appointments for me! First she tried scheduling me for the mask fitting at the same time as the port placement. I guess she called and tried to get my port placement appointment bumped so that her mask appointment would work. Thankfully the port placement people told her to stick it where the sun don't shine. Now she called babydoll's cell phone at 4:00 yesterday as we were driving home from the Falls. She said Dr. S wants me to get checked out by a dentist before treatments start, after all (last time I talked to him he wasn't sure this was going to be necessary). So, she scheduled me for a Wed. appt. with their hospital dentist. A) She scheduled it for the same exact time that Dr. S wants me to go get a hearing test done before treatments start. B) I have no desire to see their dentist. I'd rather call my own dentist to see if they can get me in some time next week. Although my availability is hugely limited. Anyway, this Cindy chick gets all sniffy because first of all I don't have my calendar in front of me to let her know if the appt she set up works or not and then when I said I'd prefer to see my own dentist, the temperature on the phone dropped a good 10 degrees! Whatever. She can go play god with some other patient.

So, that's about it on the medical front. Yesterday I woke up and my right eye was half swollen shut. I couldn't put my contacts in or my makeup on. Not sure what's up with that. It's gone down most of the way as of today. Maybe allergies? Today I'm headed to a birthday party for a 3 year old. I was up until 3:00 AM this morning making meatballs, chocolate caramel pies, and some stupid turkey cookies. OMG. Those things were a pain in the ass. There isn't even any cooking involved either. They're simply assembly with a little creative flair. And seeing as how I have zero creativity, they came out pretty sloppy looking. Hopefully my kick ass meatballs make up for it. :-)