November 20

The tumor is now totally flat. It's just a dry, white spot on my neck. Yippee! Of course Dr. S thought he should give me something new to worry about last week and was talking about a new lump on my neck. Thankfully I had an appointment with Dr. M on Friday and he said it was nothing. It's just the way the skin graft healed and it has always looked like that. Dr. S saw me on Monday and agreed. I guess he went back and looked at some pictures he took and he just hadn't noticed how lumpy my neck is due to all of the scar tissue. Phew. As I commented to Kunkel though, I'd rather Dr. S be jumping at shadows than simply letting things slide. I'm happy to have him cause me a little needless worry if it means he's watching me that closely! I didn't realize it either but I've been feeling pretty hopeless because of the stupid tumor on my neck. Docs only gave me a 20-30% chance of survival, cancer came back a third time just a few short weeks after surgery to remove the second tumor. It all just seemed so doomy-gloomy. I kind of resigned myself to the fact that I would likely be dead this time next year. Now that the tumor has been made to disappear by concentrating the radiation on it, I suddenly wonder if maybe I'm going to survive this mess for a little longer after all. It definitely put a little bounce back into my step over the past week.

The Jevity 1.5 is in, the Jevity 1.2 is out. One of the doctors had a few cases of the 1.5 laying around too so she donated it to me so that I could start eating the higher calorie food immediately. This left me with 6.5 cases of the 1.2 which I then donated to another patient who was in need. Joanna said he wanted me address so that he could write me a thank you note. We decided it would be better if he simply passed it along through her. And for the first time on Tuesday, I weighed in the same as the week before! Joanna was very relieved. She's glad we finally halted the downward trend. Now we just need to get things to start moving up again. Baby doll and I drove to the Niagara Falls outlet mall this past weekend for a little retail therapy. I wanted to buy him a leather coat for Christmas. I hit my own favorite store, Bass, and for the first time I had to buy a size 0. And yeah, to all the women out there that just groaned, I'm pretty disgusted with myself as well. :-P

On Mondays I keep coming home all hyped up and buzzing around like a crazy woman. I finally asked Nurse Joan at chemo this past Monday what the heck they do to me that causes that. Turns out they give me steroids every week with my chemo and that's what gets me all jumped up. I can now totally understand why the athletes get hooked on this crap! Anyway, I asked her why I get steroids and I guess it's like taking Benadryl after you get stung by a bee. Supposedly it helps suppress any nasty side effects from the chemo that could happen. The other pill they hand off to me during chemo is a nausea med. I'm learning to love anything that helps with the nausea. I ran out of the good stuff last Friday and had to resort to my Ativan and my backup nausea med. Yeah, they just really don't quite cut it. I had a rough day on Sunday. I kept trying to call the refill in to Wegman's for the good stuff but the recording kept saying that it was too soon to refill. I finally mentioned it to one of the nurses. Turns out my insurance company felt that the last batch I got should have lasted me a month. Phbtttt. My team is now arguing with my insurance company and meanwhile the hospital gave me another huge batch of the good stuff for free. Thank goodness. I don't know what's in that stuff but it's like a miracle drug when it comes to getting rid of the queasiness!

Today I had my first official therapy appointment with Michelle. FINALLY. I'm once again feeling like I'm moving forward with my recovery instead of simply treading water. We did all sorts of tongue and lip exercises. She has me drinking apple juice and attempting to eat pudding. I have a whole sheet of exercises that I need to start doing 3x a day. It was a real pick-me-up today to finally start working on being able to eat and swallow again. Not sure when the speech part will get thrown into the mix but I'm happy to take baby steps for now.

A bunch of my FB friends have been posting things that they're thankful for every day this month. I didn't realize it was affecting me reading all of that thankfulness but for the past week now I've been noticing the small things that I'm grateful for. My heat for instance. I am so glad that I am financially able to set my thermostat at 73 degrees and still be able to afford to pay the utility bill every month. I love that my house is so warm and cozy and happy! Of course this also makes me realize that my thyroid medicine is likely to be adjusted again in a few weeks because I"m still having a tough time moderating my body temperature, but whatever. :-) The other thing I've been thankful for is my youth and flexibility. I've mentioned that in the shower I have to wear a stoma cover so that I don't drown myself. I also can't put myself directly under the spray because the collar of the cover doesn't seal well around my lumpy, scar tissue filled neck. Because of this, I have to lean way back with my body to wash my hair without being directly under the spray. I can't imagine being 80 years old and trying to do a back bend like that! My one season of yoga is definitely paying off in that respect!

Anna, one of the radiation techs, keeps telling me that I need to hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. She said that it will help greatly with the fatigue that I've been feeling. I finally bought some Gatorade at Wegman's this week and have been syringing a bottle each evening. I have to say, I definitely do feel quite a bit more alert after sucking down 16 oz of that stuff!

I think that's about it for the health stuff other than the fact that my ear has started aching again pretty badly this week. Not sure if it's the weather or what. I'll give it another week and if it persists, I'll have to mention it to my team. <sigh>

So, some fun stuff. Baby doll and I went back to buy my oven and it was no longer on sale! WTH?? It was only 3 days after we had looked at it the first time. The chickie said things go on sale every Monday and Wednesday so she wrote down the model number of the one I want and I'm checking the website every Mon and Wed to see when it goes back on sale. It's a $200 difference for crying out loud! Today I also decided to check the Sears website for the fridge I'm interested in. I fell out of my chair! In the store, the fridge was $960, online it shows that it's $1189 and that's on sale! Holy crap. I don't need a fridge that bad. I think I am now going to focus on the flat screen for my living room instead. Last Thursday Mr. Jamie came over for dinner. Since I had a bunch of muscle in the house I had him and baby doll reconfigure my sectional couch. I then moved a bunch of stuff around and I am now ready for the TV to be installed. I just have to go purchase the sucker. Maybe baby doll will take me to Best Buy this weekend. I also want to join either BJ's or Sam's club. Maybe he'll take me to do that too.....

I am so impressed with the group of friends that I have, they are simply inspiring and it blows my mind. Most recently on the inspiration list are Kunkel and Justin. Kunkel has always dreamed of being on a TV game show. She heard that Wheel of Fortune had some caravan in Syracuse a few months back where you could go and play some mock games and win goofy prizes like mugs and t-shirts. She went. She ended up qualifying to be on the actual TV show. She was off to CA just a few short weeks ago and her show will air on January 8th. I can't wait to see her on TV!! She's not allowed to tell anyone what the outcome of the game was so I have no idea if she's now a millionaire or not. Actually, even if she won some money, they don't give it to the players until 3-4 months after their show airs. So she won't be a millionaire until April or May. But how cool is that?? To have a dream of being on a game show and then simply making it happen?!? I'm totally in awe of that woman.

Meanwhile, my buddy Justin is huge into shooting. He travels all over the place shooting in tournaments, makes his own bullets, owns like 96 guns or some crazy number like that. At one of his shooting matches a few months back he actually qualified to travel to Spain to compete for a spot in the Olympics. How freakin' impressive is that?? He went, he didn't make it into the Olympics. I guess this so tickled him though that he told me last week that he quit his job at QED. His last day is 12/20. He's going to spend the next two years doing nothing but training to qualify for the Olympics. Say what?? I asked him how he's going to support himself. I guess he's just been socking away money for years now and can easily take two years off from work and not sweat it. Can you imagine?? So, he and his girlfriend are moving to Colorado Springs. I almost cried when he told me. I'm going to miss him fiercely but I am also so excited for him to pursue a dream.

Let's see, what else is on the horizon in the life of Q. Speaking of which, Baby doll and I are going to see a play this Friday called Avenue Q. I guess it's a naughty version of Sesame Street? I was warned that there's puppet on puppet sex. This should be interesting. LMAO!!

I also need to get a hold of Kit. I haven't seen her in a couple of weeks now! We need to go see a movie or something. I'm especially thinking of her today because on a whim, baby doll and I have decided to head over to the casino and have a little fun gambling tonight. She really did create a monster by taking me to that place! So with that, I'm out of here. Wish me luck on the slots!