smoking foxes rule!

2007-04-30T17:50:00.001-07:00

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!

2007-04-25T16:03:00.001-07:00

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.

2007-04-25T10:49:00.001-07:00

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

2007-03-19T15:59:00.001-07:00

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!!

2007-01-10T12:56:00.000-08:00

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

2007-01-04T22:40:00.000-08:00

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!

2006-12-26T07:59:00.000-08:00

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

2006-12-22T16:43:00.000-08:00

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?

Ow, ow ow

2006-10-29T17:20:00.000-08:00

Friday I had acupuncture. Therefore, I now have an acupuncturist. And, my acupuncturist said I have blood stagnation, and general dampness in my systems. Ok. I do believe there is a certain amount of merit to Chinese medicine, so I'm trying not to be skeptical, as I'm sure skepticism itself will keep the treatments from being successful.

However, in addition to the treatments, he suggested that I cut flour and all sweeteners out of my diet. Now, that means my morning can of Pepsi. So, I didn't drink any yesterday, and I didn't have one this morning. And my head did not like it. I know the headache is from caffeine withdrawal. I know that being addicted to caffeine is not a good thing. But I also do not enjoy headaches, therefore I plan to return to the morning Pepsi, but cut out most other sweeteners and flour, as long as it's not too inconvenient. And I'm going to make a conscious effort to drink more water, because I know I don't drink enough. Not nearly enough.

In completely unrelated other news, I watched Flash Gordon this morning. It's perhaps one of the most ridiculously cheesy movies ever made, and I love every single second of it. I watched it so many times as a kid that the lines, the vocal inflections, and the music are just familiar to me. It made me very happy.

2006-09-10T17:01:00.000-07:00

Our school is trying a new "school within a school" design. There are a lot of benefits to it, as I've discovered with my sophomores, because the sophomore teachers in House B have all the same kids, so we're able to compare notes. It's nice to hear that TJ isn't just obnoxious in my class, or what works with Chris, or that I'm not the only one worried about Rebecca. But, the downside of the small school design is that every House needs a certain number of math, science, English, and social studies teachers, which cuts down on the number of class periods when we're able to teach electives. As a result, we don't have many electives. So, this afternoon when kids from our rival high school's Auto Shop class (I live in the rival school zone) came knocking on doors, trying to raise the money to buy the project car for their class, I gladly gave them $5. Not a huge donation, but better than nothing, and I'm just glad that they get to have electives. I firmly believe that electives are where you get to practice your skills from the core classes in a practical setting, as well as being something kids enjoy, which gives them a reason to come to school. So, I think cutting the electives is a mistake. But, I'm not the boss.

Surrounded by Words

2006-08-04T14:31:00.000-07:00

On the coffee table in front of me is a stack of magazines. Well, ten stacks. Due to my compulsive nature, they're sorted so that each magazine has its own pile, which I'm certain to arrange chronologically any time now. I have a tendency to subscribe to magazines but not read them, so I've let most of the subscriptions lapse. I would feel guilty about recycling them without reading them, as though I'm discarding potential knowledge, and wasting the money as well as the opportunity.

On the kitchen table are all the boxes of school books and files I brought home with me. They desperately need to be sorted, and I very much don't want to do it. I know that diving into it will be giving into the fact that school starts again in only a few weeks, and I am not ready for summer to be over yet. I know that getting into the files will make me excited for the school year, but I'm not ready to get excited about that yet. I want more weeks of sleeping in, spending the day in my pajamas, enjoying our home, and being completely in charge of whether I do anything or nothing at all. I know I'm incredibly lucky to have a career that allows me to do this for two months each year, but I also am incredibly ambitious about what I want to accomplish each vacation, and I get nowhere near those goals each year.

New Photos

2006-07-18T09:55:00.000-07:00

I've added some albums to my Yahoo Photos. The new albums are "Summer 2006 housework," "Fourth of July 2006," and "Winter photos 2005-2006." Of course, you're welcome to browse the other albums as well.

On the Road Again

2006-07-16T20:40:00.000-07:00

I decided today to go to Billings next weekend. One of my friends is going to be there for another week and a half, and I want to see her before she moves back to the east coast. Plus, I still haven't met my adorable niece in person, and I want to do that.

It's a long drive- just over 1000 miles each way. Even with gas prices the way they are, it's still much cheaper to drive, so all I'm giving up is time and comfort. But when I think of my friend Charisse's bumpy journeys across the "roads" of Afghanistan, I don't think I'll have much to complain about in my air conditioned, comfortable car. I am going to need audiobooks, though.

Flowers don't belong in the attic

2006-07-14T16:27:00.000-07:00

I worked soooo hard this morning. Yesterday I bought several flowering plants, and this morning I planted most of them. When we took out the trees in our front yard to which Brent is allergic, we had a flowerbox put in, which was filled with gorgeous, almost black soil, but nothing else. This morning I put in three rosebushes: one pale pink, one red, and one yellow, along with two daylilies and two diplodena, which is apparently a tropical plant, so I doubt it will survive the winter. It has beautiful bright pink flowers, though, so I'll just enjoy it this year. Then I planted two coral impatiens next to the garage. I still have a lot of empty spaces, so I think I'll go get some more flats of petunias, because I love them. Right now most of the flowers are pink, red, and purple, but maybe I should get petunias in a riot of colors to fill in everywhere.

I still have raspberries and a butterfly bush to plant in the backyard, but it was hot, I was tired, and the soil in the backyard is really heavy and hard to work with. I think I'll tackle it tomorrow, after the sprinklers have softened it up a bit.

Kaboom!

2006-07-05T17:57:00.000-07:00

It's been a lovely 4th of July weekend, which we spent in a small town. Small town America is really the only place to fully appreciate this holiday. We were in Eager, Arizona, where Brent's aunt and uncle live. We arrived Monday night, then spent Tuesday involved in all the festivities. We watched a great parade- with floats both fancy and simple. I would post photos, except that I forgot the cable for my camera.

We next went to a barbecue that was a fundraiser for one of the local Boy Scout troops- barbecued shredded beef sandwiches, coleslaw, baked beans, homemade cake, lemonade, and since it's Arizona, sopapillas.

Our next destination was the airport, where we helped set up for the fireworks show. This is a huge event, with thousands of dollars worth of fireworks. We sorted the different sized shells into cans, and set them up at different firing stations. The larger shells were in stations that were half-buried underground, and that have to be fired electronically. We helped wire all of those together, then had a training session.

After a family barbecue (6 of Brent's 17 aunts/uncles and their families were there), we went back to the airport, suited up in coveralls and hoods, and began the show. We had one last safety lecture, including the instructions that if anyone were to get hurt, the show was over. I was assigned to guard the can of 3-inch shells, which meant that when the people who were loading shells came up, I had to open the lid so they could get shells out, but the rest of the time keep it closed so that no flying embers or sparks got in the can. When the show started, it was just amazing. There is no way to describe what it's like to watch a fireworks show from directly underneath. There's also no way to describe how disconcerting it is to have explosives going off, about 20 yards behind you, and that while you know you're probably safe, there are no guarantees. I thought of my best friend, who is a combat veteran, and how he would never be able to do this, because he's been in a real battle, in which the explosions are meant to hurt him, and that this almost minimizes how serious that situation is.

Almost. After about 15 minutes of firing, we had a "low break." This is when a firework explodes closer to the ground that it's supposed to. We'd had one earlier, that had only gone about 50 feet up. The pressure from that blast was amazing, but it wasn't a big deal. The second one, though, was. This was one of the 6-inch shells, which is the largest size that are allowed to be set off by hand. It exploded inside the steel pipe, and apparently landed between the 6-inch shells station and ours. The concussion from that blast felt like someone shoved me, and I was at least 15 yards away from it. There were five or six people who were closer, though. Most of them just got hit by the blast, but two of them got peppered with pieces of shell and gunpowder. And one of those was also hit by something- maybe a piece of the wooden rack that holds the pipes, and had a huge gash in his leg. We immediately ended the hand-firing part of the show, and they set of the electical finale rounds, which were at the other side of the field. They brought an ambulance out for the two guys who were hurt, and that was the end of the show.

There were a lot of us who were really shaken. Safety is a top priority for this crew, and while everyone on the crew is volunteers, most of them have been doing it for a long time, and those of us who were new were kept far away from lighting or loading shells. It was still scary to see someone get hurt, and while he'll be fine, there's always the chance that it could have been much worse.

This morning, while we were leaving town, we overheard some people in the grocery store complaining that the show had only been 15 minutes long. I wanted to tell them that someone on our crew had been hurt, and to explain that it was our policy, but I just didn't feel it was my place to try and straighten out the gossip. I'm sorry people are disappointed that the show was short, but I'm grateful that Mark is going to be ok, and that the person who ran back to the family area only had to tell Mark's wife that he was going to the hospital for stitches, not that it was anything worse.

So, do I plan to do it again next year? Absolutely. But I'll always be aware of how real it is that while they're in the shape of pretty stars and flowers, they're still explosives.

So, anyway

2006-07-02T12:48:00.000-07:00

I'm sure the last thing this universe needs is for someone who already has a blog to have another one, but here you go. My entire purpose for this is that while I have a livejournal, I have a couple of friends with blogs here, and I can't comment without one of my own. I tried to find a way to link the two, but instead discovered that there's a whole hornets' nest of hatred between the blogspot and lj communities. Frankly, I don't get that, but whatever.

So, about me. I teach school, so I'm currently off for the summer, and I've spent the last three weeks ignoring the pile of work I need to do before the next school year. I also have a new classroom to organize, but I'm pretending that doesn't exist, also. In addition, I'm married, with two cats, and no kids. We're working on having kids, but so far that's been really unsuccessful, and tremendously discouraging.

What else.....I saw Superman yesterday, and enjoyed it, although I missed the "pause" feature of watching a movie at home, but I think I chose to go to the bathroom during a less-than-crucial part of the film, so it's probably all right. I love movies in general, and our dvd collection could probably only be described as "totally out of control." It's probably only rivaled by our book collection and my shoes.