Yesterday I wore a dress I love. It's lavender, and once I put on my dress, my wig, and my watch, I thought, I need a bracelet. I used to wear bracelets every day, and I love them, and I have a large collection of different types. I opened my jewelry box to find one I could wear, and saw one that had dark blue and purple stones, and thought, "where did that come from?" Something about it made me think of my sister, but I didn't have any concrete memory of when I got the bracelet, or why. I put it on, because it went with my dress, and when Brent got home, asked him if he remembered when I got it. Well, of course he didn't.

Today I asked my mom if she knew anything about it. (Coincidentally, my present-of-the-day from my mom yesterday was a bracelet.) She said, "Didn't your sister make you a bracelet?" I said, "Yes, but that's not it." My sister made me a bracelet that has a repeat of the Aztec symbol for "warrior" when I first got sick. So, today I called my sister, and asked her if she gave me a bracelet, and she said, "The Aztec one?" I said no, and described the one I meant, and she said, "Yeah, that sounds kind of familiar." I asked if it was for my birthday, and she thinks it was a Christmas present. So I told her thank you for the bracelet, which she thought was really funny.

Then she and I spent over an hour on the phone, laughing at different cases from "The People's Court," and researching how much of "The Man in the Iron Mask" is fiction.

My nieces' new game is for the older one to crawl around the room, saying "You can't get me!" and the baby chases her, and they both giggle. This is apparently worth many hours of entertainment. I think it sounds like the cutest thing in the entire universe.

Look at me, with the two posts in one day!

I got my CT results today: No more cancer in my lymph nodes or the paratracheal region. "The mass" has shrunk from 3.5 centimeters to 2 centimeters. I don't have to go in for chemo on Monday, because my doctor is going to a lung cancer conference on Tuesday, and he's going to "present the case," and then all the smart lung cancer experts will decide all together what to do next. Surgery isn't an option because of the first surgery (once they've superglued your lung to your chest cavity, there's no going back), but radiation might be an option, or else just more chemo.

So, yay! Next week I won't be sick, and the fact that I'm a dingbat who signed myself up to take a class during the week after chemo no longer matters. I can just take the class as a normal person. My wig should be here by then, so I can be completely in disguise.

Ooh. Today I also learned that I should add "The Electoral College" to the list of things that make my dad rant and rave for 20 minutes.

I need two of me today. One to sleep.

Last night, I went to bed at a pretty decent time- 11 or so. I was reading, but knew I needed to try and get some sleep. My back hurt, too, so I thought I'd take some Vicodin and kill two birds with one stone. I took them, picked up my book, and figured I'd read until they kicked in. A little after midnight, I turned off my light. A little after 2, I decided I really wasn't going to fall asleep, and realized I was hungry, so I took my book downstairs, fixed something to eat, and read some more. Probably some time after 3, I fell asleep on the couch. (I am so glad we have a comfortable couch.)

I woke up just after 7, and all I could think about was garbage. For two weeks in a row, Brent has forgotten to put the garbage out at the curb, so it's crammed full, plus there was still trash in the house. So, I got up, put on shoes, and went outside to move the trash to the curb before the truck came by (last week, they came at 7:30. Today, 10:42). Then, I debated going back to sleep, but I heard Brent up and around upstairs, and decided I'd stay awake to talk to him. I had a hard time listening, though, so maybe sleep would have been a better idea.

My sister called to ask me a Bogie & Bacall question, and it took me a minute to realize she meant the movie stars, and not my cats. (Anne: What was their first movie together? Was it "To Have and Have Not?" My thoughts: They haven't been in any movies. What is she talking abou- Oh, them! Me: Yeah, that was their first movie together.) While talking to her, I realized that I was so tired I wanted to throw up, but thought maybe food would help. I made cranberry-orange muffins, and eating them did help, but I'm still really tired. I have a lot I need to do, though. Brent asked me to finish the laundry he started, so that he can pack tonight, and I need to turn the sewing room back into a guest room, since his mom is coming tomorrow. Then there are dishes to do, and I have an appointment to get my latest CT scan results in three hours. So, while I'm still contemplating a nap, I think instead I'll try and get things done, and then take a nap after I get home from the doctor's.

Drugs Bad

Last night Brent gave me 75mg of Benadryl to help me sleep. It must have worked, because I didn't wake up when he came to bed, but then I had a hard time getting up this morning. Then when I got to the doctors' office, they gave me more Benadryl in my pre-drugs, because I have hay-fever. So I've been kind of groggy all day.

Then, she switched the order of my drugs, and I learned that Taxol is the one that tastes bad. And that I'll be able to taste for the next 4 or 5 days. It's ucky. It's also the one that causes the pain and the hair loss. I just hope it's also kicking the ass of a certain tumor I have. I go in for a scan after my next chemo, so the second week of April. They also gave me a different anti-nausea drug, and it's a liquid. I'm sure it tastes wonderful.

We had a very nice weekend, though. Friday was our 6th anniversary, and we went to Sacramento. When we got there, I was surprised at how much warmer it was on that side of the mountains. We stayed in a B&B "on the grid," which is an older section of Sacramento. There were flowers in bloom all over the neighborhood, and it smelled wonderful. My dad called me while we were walking from the car to the inn (marking the second time he has called me while I was walking down a sidewalk in California), and I mentioned that it smelled like Billings in the summertime, and while we were discussing whether I was smelling mock orange or real orange blossoms, I saw the mock orange bush in someone's yard. Then he told me a story about picking fruit off the trees at both the temple and the motel in Arizona. I apparently missed my family's citrus crime spree on my wedding day.

The real reason we went to Sacramento was for a "Once More With Feeling" sing-along. It was a lot of fun. A couple of people came in costume, including a girl who dressed as Drusilla, which makes no sense, as she's not even in the episode. But she was with the guy dressed as Spike, so it' probably a costume combination they've done before. The air conditioning in the museum wasn't working, so the only person who was comfortable was the girl dressed as Anya (for those who don't watch Buffy, Anya does her big musical number in her underwear). I saw a couple of people I think I recognized, but I wasn't positive. I'm actually really bad at recognizing faces, so it's not uncommon for me to see someone who looks kind of familiar and to wonder if I really know them, or if they just look like other people. It makes celebrity sightings next to impossible for me. "Who is that guy? Is he in my chemistry class? Oh, no, he's Steve Young."

Home!!

I'm home! Last night the doctor decided that there was no reason to keep me in the hospital any longer, and decided to send me home in the morning. I still have to be on oxygen for a while, but I can do that at home. The people should be here sometime in the next half hour to get that all set up, but in the meantime I have my temporary tank.

It's so nice and quiet here! I have already taken a nap, and while I'm not allowed to shower yet, I think this afternoon I might shampoo my hair. Growing up, the only shower was in our basement, where it was very cold, so we often just shampooed our hair in the kitchen sink, so I'm an expert.

Our school is doing all sorts of interesting things in order to "improve instruction," including grouping us into groups called "Critical Friends Groups," or CFGs. We meet every two weeks, and while some CFGs hate each other, hate the whole process, and feel like it's a big waste of time, our CFG really likes each other, and most of us feel like it's the only meeting we look forward to. We're not getting much done as far as the protocols and things that we're supposed to be doing, but we do a little, and I just enjoy them. This morning, the scheduled meeting was for the CFGs to meet, and mine met in my hospital room. We were missing one person, but it was a lot of fun to see everyone. They brought me flowers, and we just talked for a while. Some of them had wanted to surprise me, but I'm glad that a couple of them rethought it and gave me a call. Otherwise, I don't know if it would have been a pleasant surprise. This way I could make sure I was awake, had combed my hair, had warned the nurse that eight people were coming to see me, etc. Everyone hugged me, including Sergeant Major Blackburn, which surprised me.

Bogie is very glad to have me home. He is really mad at Brent, apparently having decided that Brent took me away. Unfortunately, he may have gotten the message that sinking his claws into Brent's leg is effective, because he did that, and later, Brent brought me home. Cat logic is sometimes a little faulty.

In niece news, this morning I talked to Celi on the phone, and she told me that she "ate Pops, and spilled juice on couch, and shirt, and pants, and socks." Fortunately, I had already heard from my sister that they had learned not to drink juice on the couch today, so the story made sense. Anne filled in for me that "pops" are Corn Pops.

Hospitals and Shopping

That's my life.
Brent's step-mom, a nurse practitioner, was here helping out, and she insisted that I not spend all my time in bed, but that I keep myself busy, moving around, staying as active as possible. In her world, that means shopping. I bought six pairs of shoes this week. And various other items of clothing, but as usual, I keep gravitating towards the shoes. Plus I did some online shopping, ordering myself some pajamas and other comfy clothes for the next few months of my life. Also, there is a t-shirt that says "Sarcasm: It beats killing people," because that's funny.

In the past week, I've met with my oncologist Tuesday, had an MRI yesterday on my brain (which is "normal," according to medical science), and met with my surgeon today. He surprised me with a "you are scheduled for surgery tomorrow" letter, which means that I will report to the hospital at 1pm tomorrow afternoon, at which point they will knock me out, cut little holes in my side, drain out the fluid, put in a camera to look around, biopsy everything they find, and put in medicine to keep the fluid from coming back a third time. The pressure from the fluid collapsing my lung is really painful, so I'm looking forward to that part. And to the nice long nap. However, he said I'll probably be in the hospital for 5 days to a week, which sucks. The hospital is boring. I'm taking a better book this time, though. Our book club is reading "Nicholas Nickleby," and I'm just not getting into it. It requires more concentration than I can muster. So I think I'll skip book club this month. I don't like Dickens anyway.

And now, I must finish lesson plans. Then I can turn my job over to other people to worry about.

No panicking!

I'm in the hospital. Not where I would have preferred to spend Christmas, but I also am glad to find out what's wrong with me, and that they're fixing it. I have pneumonia, which made my mother freak out when she heard the news about James Brown, but just to remind everyone- I'm not 73. I'm on antibiotics, I had a lot of fluid drained out of my right lung, and there's a mass in my lung that they need to check out, but no one was in the pathology lab yesterday to check out the tissue sample.

I spent all day yesterday watching a marathon of "Top Chef," which is our new favorite show (Brent watched most of it with me), and then in the evening discovered that the hospital has wireless internet, which made me incredibly happy- the best Christmas present I could have asked for, as the internet is my connection to most of my friends. It was like I got all of you, wrapped up in a shiny silver package!

Today, along with more IV antibiotics, and playing on the internet, I'm planning to take a shower.

Ok fine, but I also need to clean the bathrooms

I've been nudged to update my blog. Ironically, by a someone who hasn't updated since the last time I did...hint, hint, nudge.... In my defense, I do update my LJ, because it's just one "click" to do that.

Today was the last day of school before the break. I think I would have preferred a snow day, but that thin coating of ice out there this morning wasn't enough to do anything except make it difficult to scrape the windows. At about 10:45, I was convinced that the day was never going to end. My students were working on projects today, which meant I didn't have to do much besides remind them that they had __ minutes left until their projects were due, and then walk around the room to make sure they were staying on task. Fourth period was the worst. Most of them hadn't done their homework, so they weren't ready to finish their projects today, and seemed to think it was completely irrational of me to expect them to actually do their work. I'm silly that way, I guess.

We're headed to Arizona for Christmas, and we leave after Sacrament meeting on Sunday. So that means that in the next 40 hours, I need to clean the entire house, do many many loads of laundry, and pack. I'm thinking that means I get to relax sometime on.....Tuesday?