March 4

Well, things aren't much better. I'm thinking about taking a break from my blog after this post so that I'm not continually bringing everyone down.

Last night I wet the bed. Yeah. I have no effin' idea why. I was dreaming that I lived next door to Danny Devito and Rhea Pearlman. We were having morning coffee. I suddenly realized I had to start getting ready for the day. I ran across the yard to my own house and decided that I had to use the bathroom really quick before I did anything else and lo and behold, I started to wet the bed. Woke me up but the damage was done. How mortifying to have to wake the love of your life up in the wee (ha ha) hours of the morning to change the sheets on your bed because you've had an accident. My life sucks. My boyfriend, on the other hand, is the best thing that's ever happened to me.

I also lost my job this week. I received the official letter from QED on Saturday that as of this Saturday, I am unemployed. That's going to be a fun mess to wade through. Baby doll has an appointment set up for me at 1:30 today to talk to Fidelity about my 401K and find out what needs to happen with it. It's also on my list this week to apply for disability through social security. Baby doll has started researching lawyers, just in case. I'm told you usually get turned down the first time you apply, then you get a lawyer, and you fight it. Baby doll said that in his reading, some of the ways to definitely get approved are to lose your voice, and/or have cancer reoccur after radiation treatment. I tick both those boxes so hopefully I won't need a lawyer. The website says it takes 3-5 months to process a disability claim so I need to get my butt moving on that this week.

I guess HR will be sending me some info on COBRA so that I can extend my insurance coverage. It sounds like I'm covered to the end of this month by the company and then I'm done. I have no idea how much COBRA is going to cost. Definitely not something that's in my budget. I wonder how you qualify for Medicaid/Medicare? I'm going to know more about this type of crap than I ever wanted to by the time I'm done, I'm sure. 

I talked to the docs about how freakin' depressed I am. Asked about anti-depressants. I have an appointment on Thursday at 1:00 with a palliative care team. I had to Google it. I guess it's like hospice but without the death sentence involved. A team of doctors who try to figure out how to give you the best quality of life they possible can. I'm still trying to figure out what threw this god awful switch inside of me. I just don't seem to give a crap any more. All I can think is that if I off myself now, life would be a lot simpler. Baby doll can find homes for the animals, sell off the house, he and Sam can make sure my ashes are buried somewhere out of the way and everyone can simply move on. Just 6 months ago I was thinking that so long as I can cook, play on my Wii, read a book, and snuggle with a cat, my life is a wonderful place to be. Those thoughts aren't doing it for me any more. Maybe I didn't realize how tedious the day to day living sitch would be. I avoid taking showers. I only take one every 3-4 days because it's such a pain in the freakin' ass. I used to love showering! It used to be so refreshing, getting all clean, and feeling good. Do you know how much concentration it takes to stay involved in a story line in a book? A LOT. More than I seem to own, actually. Do you know how many TV commercials revolve around people eating?? Like every other commercial involves food!! I don't even like chocolate but there's a commercial of this hot chick snapping her teeth into the little caramel filled Giardelli square that makes me SOOOO hungry. I want to eat SOOOOO bad.

I actually tried eating some chocolate frosting this past Sunday because of that commercial. I scraped some onto my teeth inside my mouth. Yeah, couldn't really taste it. Hell, I don't think my sweet taste buds had come back to life yet before I went through round two of radiation so that doesn't surprise me. I then tried washing it down with some water. Well, water came pouring out of the hole in my neck where the screw is sticking through and ran right into my stoma, choking me. What fun!

I really need this thing on my neck to heal. I was supposed to be meeting with Dr. M this Friday but it got bumped until next Friday. I want to know if these HBO treatments are doing anything or if we're going to have to do another skin graft. As far as I'm concerned, this hole in my neck is my number one priority right now. It needs to be gone.

Dr. S gave me a little life priority list when I saw him last Friday. He said there are three things I should be concentrating on right now. 1. My HBO treatments. 2. Pain management. 3. Nutrition.

I got in trouble with Joanna, my nutritionist, last week. Because of the vomiting and withdrawal symptoms, my weight dropped back down to 108. I had been doing so good at holding it at 116 too! She also prescribed some packets of stuff called Juven. I need to mix up and "eat" two of these a day. They supposedly also help with wounds that won't heal. She said the wound in my neck might be a little too severe for the Juven to really do any good but if my insurance covers it, we might as well try it. So, I've been on that stuff since last Friday. Every morning I get everything out of the medical cupboard that I need to "consume" for the day and I put it on the kitchen table. That way, at a glance, I can see what I still need to get into my body at any point during the day. I've also gone back to doing some gravity feeds. I spend so much time on the couch napping and syringing two cans of food sometimes makes me a bit nauseous, so I simply fill the gravity bag, plug in, and 'eat' while I nap. It's been working out pretty well and I've been great about eating (6) cans of food and (2) Juven packets every day since last Friday. This is on top of all of my meds, my thyroid pills (which I have to take on an empty stomach, separate from everything else), and my Miralax. There's a lot of crap being siphoned into this body to keep it running. Did I mention what a pain in the ass daily living is?

Okay, I have to go to my HBO. I just wanted to do a quick pop in to let you know my latest horror. Hopefully wetting the bed was a one time thing. If anyone has any happy thoughts that might cheer me up, can you send them my way? Nothing I can think of is helping, AT ALL. I'm now hoping that I can hold out for the warmer weather. If I can just keep myself alive until the tulips start coming up, maybe things will be okay. I have no idea why I would think this to be true but I'm going to hang onto it until it's proved to be untrue.