December 28

Okay, I have a few updates.

I had an appointment with Dr. Kim, the chemo doc, last Monday. He just wanted to do one last set of blood work to make sure that I made it through the chemo treatments okay. He said everything looks good except my thyroid levels. I told him that my PCP and I are working to find the right dose of meds to get that under control.

Speaking of which, Dr. Kranz went ahead and bumped my dose from 175 back up to 200 because she said my levels are still somewhat low. I now need to stay on this dose for 8 weeks and then we'll re-check.

Anyway, back to Dr. Kim. He asked me if I wanted my port taken out and I said "hell, yes!". He looked a bit surprised. I told him it was going to look awful when I wear my bikini this July. That made him laugh. He then said that people normally choose to leave them in for a while because if the cancer comes back, it will need to get placed again. <<Oh, well when you put it THAT way....>>. He then said a second placement would be even trickier on me since they can only use the right side of my chest. And he said they have to place it somewhere different the second time because all of the veins they used this time would be compromised. <<OOOOH, I didn't think of that either....>>. So I told him to feel free to leave it in as long as he wanted to after all. Getting this thing put in the first time was traumatic enough. I can live with an alien bump sticking out of my chest for a good long time. He said we should at least leave it in until after the PET scan in 3 months.

So, I'm now done with him. No more appointments as far as I know.

I then had an appointment with Dr. Miller yesterday to get the speech prosthesis put in place. It wasn't nearly as bad as he made it out to be. It hurt a little but nothing too awful. And I think it was the tools that he was using, touching the side of my stoma that hurt, not the actual insertion itself. After he got the thing installed he plugged up my stoma and told me to say 'hello'. I got all excited for a brief second thinking I would talk. Yeah, no. Nothing happened. He said it's because of the temporary plastic tube that Dr. V sewed onto the back of my tongue. He said I wasn't going to be able to speak until it got removed. So, he is now working on scheduling me a surgery appointment so that he can take it out of there. He's hoping to get me in before I go back to work on 1/13. I mentioned that I hadn't heard about the Botox appointment yet either. He said that that particular department is notorious for not following up with appointments like they're supposed to. He said that he'd call them again and light a fire under their ass.

Meanwhile, I complained to him about the uptick in my aspirating. He said the speech prosthesis is now plugging the hole that was leaking saliva so that problem should go away. Oh boy, was he right! I was actually able to sleep last night laying down flat on my back AND I could roll over onto my side and I didn't choke. It was heaven! Best night of sleep I've gotten in weeks!

I also told him that a new hole has opened up on the outside of my neck 3-4 days ago and is dripping saliva down the front of my shirts. I had to start wrapping my neck in bandages again. I hate when I take a step backwards in my healing! He took a look and confirmed that a hole has opened up right under my chin. He's baffled as to why it suddenly decided to do that. On top of that, he said it's also infected. So as soon as I'm done posting this, I'm off to Wegman's to pick up a prescription for antibiotics. <sigh>

So that was all the excitement with Dr. Miller. He's scheduling surgery for me, scheduling Botox for me, and I see him for another checkup appointment on 1/10.

That's all the news on the health side of things. On the fun side of things.........


My crazy dreams did come true! At least as far as adopting the two new furballs. All day long yesterday all you heard was the scampering of little feet as Ethan, Sterling, and Itty all chased each other all over the house. I was so happy I teared up a little. Itty has wanted somebody to play with for so long it's not even funny and now he suddenly has two new friends who LOVE playing with him. Taking in those two is the best decision I've made in a very long time.

Christmas was wonderful. I was very spoiled this year and received a lot of kitchen stuff which I was really happy about. Baby doll and his daughter, Jessica, came over early Christmas afternoon and we did our gift exchange. Then we headed to his niece's house to do the family gift exchange. It totally hadn't occurred to me that we were going to the house where I've brought a baked good every time I've shown up at the door until Christmas morning. So I donned the new, gorgeous apron that Sam, Mark, and the kids got me for Christmas and hit the kitchen. I then went a little crazy. I made Nanaimo bars, peanut butter bars, and frosted brownies. I also made pecan pie bars but they weren't cool enough to cut by the time we were ready to go so they got left behind.

Jessica ended up making me a necklace for Christmas, much to my surprise. I thought that was very cool. I bought her some stuff. I had let her open one of her gifts early, when she was over to make gingerbread houses. I had bought her this box with a 3D tiger on the front of it and I filled it with a bunch of little treasures like a bottle of perfume, a $15 iTunes card, some crazy colored pencils, some stickers, etc. On Christmas I gave her a hoodie, the Nightmare Before Christmas blu-ray, and a silky pajama shorts set. There was a little bit of lace around the legs so it had a slightly sexy vibe to it but nothing too racy for a 14 year old, at least in my mind. When we dropped her back at home later that night she immediately went upstairs and put the pajamas on and modeled them for us. I think they were a hit. ;-)

That was about it for Christmas excitement. My friend Ted stopped by the other day and handed off three shoe boxes already filled with personal hygiene items. That was a huge help in my goal to have 25 shoe boxes filled, to donate to charity next Christmas. At this rate I might even exceed my goal! My friend Luke stopped over to say 'hi'. I haven't seen him in months so it was good to catch up. He even hung out long enough to meet baby doll when he got home from work. Baby doll will eventually meet everyone in my life. It's just taking a while. JBB bought her plane tickets and is coming to spend Martin Luther King weekend with me. THAT's going to be a blast! And Sammy is supposed to be zeroing in on a date to come see me soon too. OH! And my friend Andy is looking at his schedule to see if he can fly in from Idaho some time in February to visit me. Which would be perfect timing. JT is supposed to be moving west by the end of February so if I can pull together one last poker game where both JT and Andy can attend, that would be the bomb!! You want to talk about a blowout bash....that poker game is going to be epic!

Baby doll and I went to see American Hustle last night. It was good. It moved a little slow in some places. I found myself dozing off a few times. That's probably because of those darned reclining seats they have in the theater now. Baby doll and I haven't been getting out much lately because he's been putting in some really long hours at work and I've been feeling under the weather more often than not lately. I told him that has to change. We need to start getting out more often before we fall into some stay at home rut. We celebrate our one year anniversary next Saturday. I think we're going to go bowling to celebrate. I suck at bowling. It should be an amusing outing. :-)

Okay, I'm off to get some antibiotics working in my system. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and that you're all staying safe and warm through the holiday season. XXOO!