November 14

Dr. S is VERY happy with how my tumor is looking. He said that since it's no longer red and angry, it means there's not a lot of blood in that one spot which decreases the chances of the skin deteriorating and breaking open. This is a relief since getting me healed back up from any kind of boo-boo is quite a project nowadays. I cut my finger peeling shrimp a couple of weeks ago and the darned cut is STILL not healed. And I already complained about my fingers cracking from the dry, winter air. Sammy sent me the wax bath to help combat it which I was really good about using for all of a week and then stopped again. So my hands are quite a hot looking mess at the moment. I just paused in typing this, went downstairs, and plugged in the wax bath. I really need to start giving my hands some TLC. Anyway, the tumor is also starting to flatten out. Hopefully I see Dr. S tomorrow or Monday and he can tell me what's what as far as what to expect with this thing. Will it eventually just shrink down to nothing and disappear?

So last Thursday the radiation machine was broken. They sent me off to my nausea appointment while they tried to figure out what was going on with the machine. I ended up agreeing to get re-hydrated because Nurse Deb PROMISED to have me out in time, unlike stupid nurse Mary. So, I was hooked up to an IV for 4 hours and given some steroids. By the time I was done the radiation machine was still down so I ended up skipping radiation for the day.

I was back home with 10 minutes to spare before Kit arrived to whisk me off to the races. OMG. What a blast! That place is HUGE! I heard a commercial for it on the radio the other day and they said there's over 1500 slot machines in that place. I believe it! It goes on forever! So, they give you a $10 free voucher to start you off and off we went. I was on quite the streak. I managed to get all the way up to $188 on my $10 they gave me. This is on the penny slots, mind you. We tried a couple of nickel slots too but we stayed away from all of the more expensive ones. And of course I didn't quit on the high note of $188, I was having too much fun, but I DID end up walking out of there with $150 in my pocket. Woo hoo! Kit wasn't having very much luck. She was down $45 of her own money when it was getting close to the time we had to leave. We sat down at one more set of machines and my luck finally rubbed off on her. I think she ended up hitting the machine for ~$80-90! So she walked out of there with money in her pocket and her head held high too! It was a good day. Of course I didn't feel like I had gotten to see nearly as many of the machines as I had wanted to see so I snuck back down there the following day as well. I lost $85 in the few hours that I spent puttering around that place. That'll teach me. Ha! I now want to go back some time with baby doll. I think he'd get a kick hanging out for a few hours. It's fun to run around and see what different gimmicks the different machines have. There was one machine that I sat down at where I ended up winning 46 free spins. 46! That's a lot! You'd think with that many spins I would be racking up some serious cash!! Yeah, no. By the end of the 46 spins I had won $10.35. Sheesh. Okay, enough with the gambling, moving on to..........oh, poker night. More gambling. ;-)

Friday night was poker with the guys. For the first time ever, I did not have fun at poker. I thought it was just me because I was feeling a little under the weather that night but without me even saying anything, when baby doll and I got home, he commented that he didn't have nearly as much fun that night as he usually does when we play at my house. I don't think it was the location though. I think it's because JT and I fell down on the job. Normally I'm keeping track of the table and verbally nudging people when things stall and basically I try to keep the game moving. Well, without a voice, it was kind of impossible to do that! JT usually backs me up too and helps with keeping things moving along but he brought his girlfriend with him and he was totally distracted by her so he was less that useless in keeping those yahoos in line. I'm going to have to try to fix it. I went ahead and spent the $100 on that Verbally Text to Speech program that I've been using. I've been using the free version to test it out. The paid version is much nicer. Next poker game I'm going to have that program set up with the volume jacked up and I'll be once again giving verbal cues to players to see if I can keep moving things along. I don't want to lose poker as a fun pastime! That would SO suck!

Okay back to medical stuff. On top of rehydrating me and giving me steroids to help with the nausea, they also gave me a prescription for my BFF, Ativan. I thought it was an anti-anxiety med but I guess it's useful for nausea as well. So I've been using it as a backup here and there. Seems to be working although it might also be what's been zonking me out so bad lately. I went to bed at 7:00 last night. Didn't get up until 7:00 this morning. Buzzed out to radiation, buzzed back, tossed stuff in the crock pot for beef stew (Jamie's coming for dinner tonight!) and then went right back to bed for another couple of hours. Sheesh.

Joanna, the nutritionist, and I are still messing with my food. She put me on that high cal stuff last week which ended up causing SEVERE nausea. So it's out. Yesterday we started trying Jevity 1.5, I'm currently on Jevity 1.2. All seems to be going well. This is good because Jevity 1.5 will add an extra 500 calories into my diet every day which is a pound a week. Fingers crossed that we found a workable solution.

Turns out I don't need to put a new oven on my personal wishlist. Baby doll wants to buy me one for Christmas. Why? Because he's the best boyfriend ever, that's why. :-) We were out appliance shopping this past weekend and found one that we both love. We'll be going back again this weekend to pull the trigger on the purchase. I also want a new fridge. I found one at Sears that I've fallen madly in love with. It's more expensive than the oven though! And it's not even that fancy. I don't want an ice cube maker or anything fancy like that. I simply want a bigger fridge. The one I currently have was the smallest, cheapest one that I could find when I first moved into my house. Time for an upgrade.

That's all the excitement happening over here. Tomorrow I get to see Dr. M again who I haven't seen in a while. Oh! Which reminds me. I ate 1/2 cup of vanilla ice cream via my mouth the other night!! Granted I had to be laying down to do it and it tasted like crap but I was super happy to get the extra calories! And just the motion of eating some food like a somewhat regular person does me a world of mental good. :-)