LIKE THIS!!
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| Seriously though, this is how I look in REAL life ;) |
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
Powerade, my new best friend
Powerade (or Gatorade) and I will so become best buddies. So over the weekend I got an infection, a mild one but it made me really sick. Temperature of 101.4, 98 bpm, nauseas, lots of pain and falling in and out of sleep. So we ended up in the emergency room Sunday night. They wanted to give me antibiotics through an IV along with pain medicine, nausea medicine and some fluid to hydrate me. The nurse tied a rubber band around my arm and was poking around with her finger trying to find a vein. I had told the doc that my veins don't cooperate very well. He told me the nurses there were really good at this stuff. So she tried the other arm too. Then went back to my left arm and started poking away, with the needle this time.
Now I'm not a needle phob, I don't like to watch, but I consider myself pretty tough, you kinda become that way after going through a couple pregnancies - you get used to needles, plus I've been poked a lot lately. So I could tell she was having a hard time and was chasing my vein all over then I felt her stick it in a little harder and oh my gosh, pain. PAIN! Shooting down my arm to my wrist (she was in my elbow pit). It felt like she burst a vein or something, I screamed and some profane words slipped out. I'm a pretty shy person and don't like a lot of attention drawn to me so for me to shout that out is really out of character, thus how much it hurt. The doc gave me a choice before if I wanted an IV or just the pill so I told the nurse I didn't want the IV any more, just the pill. And she was offended! HELLO! Anyone offended here should be me. She just kept saying she got it in and that I didn't want her to do it any more. (Well if she got it in why the heck did it hurt like that and why did she take it out?) I've had plenty IV's lately and they aren't supposed to feel that way.
The reason why they had such a hard time was because I was so dehydrated so my plan is to drink like a dozen powerades/gatorades a day leading up to my chemo treatments. I'm going to have powerade blood by the time I have to get stuck again.
They sent me home with an antibiotic which I threw up a couple hours later but this morning I feel much better. And my antibiotic hasn't come back up. Yay! :)
We are so grateful for Jeff's parents too, they watched the boys while we ran to urgent care and the ER last night. My house was a disaster and they even cleaned it while we were gone! Thank you guys so much!
So just for kicks and giggles I think I'll keep a tally on how many of these powerades I drink (they're 32oz) leading up to my first chemo and I'll let y'all know if it helped.
Now I'm not a needle phob, I don't like to watch, but I consider myself pretty tough, you kinda become that way after going through a couple pregnancies - you get used to needles, plus I've been poked a lot lately. So I could tell she was having a hard time and was chasing my vein all over then I felt her stick it in a little harder and oh my gosh, pain. PAIN! Shooting down my arm to my wrist (she was in my elbow pit). It felt like she burst a vein or something, I screamed and some profane words slipped out. I'm a pretty shy person and don't like a lot of attention drawn to me so for me to shout that out is really out of character, thus how much it hurt. The doc gave me a choice before if I wanted an IV or just the pill so I told the nurse I didn't want the IV any more, just the pill. And she was offended! HELLO! Anyone offended here should be me. She just kept saying she got it in and that I didn't want her to do it any more. (Well if she got it in why the heck did it hurt like that and why did she take it out?) I've had plenty IV's lately and they aren't supposed to feel that way.
The reason why they had such a hard time was because I was so dehydrated so my plan is to drink like a dozen powerades/gatorades a day leading up to my chemo treatments. I'm going to have powerade blood by the time I have to get stuck again.
They sent me home with an antibiotic which I threw up a couple hours later but this morning I feel much better. And my antibiotic hasn't come back up. Yay! :)
We are so grateful for Jeff's parents too, they watched the boys while we ran to urgent care and the ER last night. My house was a disaster and they even cleaned it while we were gone! Thank you guys so much!
So just for kicks and giggles I think I'll keep a tally on how many of these powerades I drink (they're 32oz) leading up to my first chemo and I'll let y'all know if it helped.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
The crazy life
Things are anything but normal around here. The kids have been going to daycare or my mom has been here taking care of us, which I'm totally grateful for, but it's taking it's toll on the boys. It may have to do with Magooly having to wake up so early in the mornings to go with dad to his babysitter's and not being a morning person.
Mornings are not fun around here. Ben will end up being just like me, sleeping in until I have to be at school/seminary in like 15 minutes. And then he doesn't take a nap during the day so he usually crashes when he gets home at 5 and either sleeps all night, or like tonight, wakes up at 8 and is up until 10. Tomorrow will be hard for him too, thank goodness it's Friday!
So I have a question, what would you do in this situation? Your child, say your 22 month old sweetie pie, comes home from the babysitters with a huge BITE mark on his arm?!
Casel came home yesterday and I immediately saw a red mark on his arm. At a glance it looked like someone had blotted their lipstick on his arm. At closer look I saw tiny teeth marks and huge bruise in the middle. MY POOR BABY. He seemed his usual happy self though. Jeff said that another little boy had bit him when the sitter wasn't watching. He said she told him about it right away when he came to pick them up and that she was sorry and will watch "the biter" more closely next time. I guess this is his first incident and his mother said he bites at home but only his older siblings.
I asked Casey if he got bit and he showed me his wrist on the other arm for me to kiss, and it had a bruise as well. Then he bit himself there and showed it to me again, basically telling me the kid bit him there too! If it happens again I'm going to tell the sitter she better have that kid go somewhere else or we'll have to find other arrangements. Is that too harsh?
Casey's been very cranky lately too, they both are. He's constantly taking his shoes out of the shoe box and giving them to us to put them on him or he'll bring us pants and go to the door and say "bye" like he wants to leave! :( I think my kids are starting to realize that our house isn't as big or fun as the houses they've been visiting. Or as clean for that matter.
I know it's been 4 weeks since my surgery but I still can't lift more than 5lbs, or lift my hands above my head or use my chest muscles like at all. Typing even hurts. And I just had more surgery today so it will be awhile before we are back to normal. So don't judge my floors or pile of dishes in my sink. I do pick up easy stuff but I always regret it later.
I'm missing my routine and being able to wrestle on the floor with my littles and pick them up and squeeze them too me. I hate that they have to be so careful. That when I go in at night to comfort Monkey when he wakes up that now he doesn't even want me to touch him, he's just gotten so independent he can fall asleep on his own. (Well, at least he still likes me reading to him and singing him lullabies)
Today I went back in for more surgery from Dr. Sweetheart to remove more skin. Seriously, she's my all time favorite doc. The reason she had to remove more skin was because my tumor abutted the skin and she needed to make sure she got complete clear margins. It really wasn't all that bad except for the IV part. I have pretty small veins which makes getting IVs a, well, pain. I look like a druggy with track marks all down my left arm. And they won't use my right arm because I had lymph nodes taken out there (4). This makes me nervous because I will be having chemo through IV in my hands.
They finally got one in and knocked me out. This time they gave me a patch to wear behind my ear so I wouldn't get as sick afterward as I did last time. It's the same thing you wear if you get sea sick. It did help that I wasn't under as long this time too. Recovery from the anesthesia was much better. And faster. My surgery was at 7:30am and I was on my way home at 10:30 am. I was still really tired so I slept a lot today.
So about chemo. My previous visit to Dr. Awesome, (Monticelli), he said because of the stage I'm at and the type of cancer, stage 1 and benign indolent cancer, I probably wouldn't need chemo, but they had to wait for my oncatype dx test results before making that decision.
An Oncatype DX test, tests the genes found in your breast tissue and cancer to see the chance of recurrence. Imagine a graph broken up into 3 parts. The first section is 1-18 and if you land there you don't need chemo. Next is 19-31 and you should probably get chemo, then there's 32-100 and you need chemo if your score lands there. My score was 19. Just past the "don't need it" section. My doc said he recommends it but won't push it one me. After a long discussion we just feel that because we've been so aggressive with kicking cancer it would be a shame to not go all the way and leave the door open to the tiny possibility of it coming back. He said I got a B+ on my onca test. So I decided to just do chemo. The good news is that it will only be 4 treatments which is why I didn't get a port put in my chest and they'll just do it through my hands. And I guess the treatments are more mild than normal chemo, but I'll still loose my hair and maybe be tired. He said there's a small chance I'd get nausea from it with all the anti nausea drugs they'll load me up on. The chance of it coming back if I didn't do chemo and just took tamoxifen is 12%. With chemo it's about 9%. So I'll do chemo for a couple months, 6 weeks later take tamoxifen for about a year, then 3 months later try to get pregnant (assuming we decided to have another baby) and then after the baby is born go back on tamoxifen for another 4 years. My first chemo treatment will be February 28th.
Some REALLY wicked fun news is....I get to go see WICKED!!!! I read the book a couple years ago and I am just so excited to see the musical! I heard it's better than the book! Jodie, Kathi and I are going on May 1st!!! So I have that to look forward to, which is nice :)
That's our crazy life in a nutshell right now, sorry if I seem to have too many run on sentences or if this post is just jam packed with info, I'm still a little loopy from surgery I think and probably should go to bed.
I'll leave you with a silly video of the boys.
Mornings are not fun around here. Ben will end up being just like me, sleeping in until I have to be at school/seminary in like 15 minutes. And then he doesn't take a nap during the day so he usually crashes when he gets home at 5 and either sleeps all night, or like tonight, wakes up at 8 and is up until 10. Tomorrow will be hard for him too, thank goodness it's Friday!
So I have a question, what would you do in this situation? Your child, say your 22 month old sweetie pie, comes home from the babysitters with a huge BITE mark on his arm?!
Casel came home yesterday and I immediately saw a red mark on his arm. At a glance it looked like someone had blotted their lipstick on his arm. At closer look I saw tiny teeth marks and huge bruise in the middle. MY POOR BABY. He seemed his usual happy self though. Jeff said that another little boy had bit him when the sitter wasn't watching. He said she told him about it right away when he came to pick them up and that she was sorry and will watch "the biter" more closely next time. I guess this is his first incident and his mother said he bites at home but only his older siblings.
I asked Casey if he got bit and he showed me his wrist on the other arm for me to kiss, and it had a bruise as well. Then he bit himself there and showed it to me again, basically telling me the kid bit him there too! If it happens again I'm going to tell the sitter she better have that kid go somewhere else or we'll have to find other arrangements. Is that too harsh?
Casey's been very cranky lately too, they both are. He's constantly taking his shoes out of the shoe box and giving them to us to put them on him or he'll bring us pants and go to the door and say "bye" like he wants to leave! :( I think my kids are starting to realize that our house isn't as big or fun as the houses they've been visiting. Or as clean for that matter.
I know it's been 4 weeks since my surgery but I still can't lift more than 5lbs, or lift my hands above my head or use my chest muscles like at all. Typing even hurts. And I just had more surgery today so it will be awhile before we are back to normal. So don't judge my floors or pile of dishes in my sink. I do pick up easy stuff but I always regret it later.
I'm missing my routine and being able to wrestle on the floor with my littles and pick them up and squeeze them too me. I hate that they have to be so careful. That when I go in at night to comfort Monkey when he wakes up that now he doesn't even want me to touch him, he's just gotten so independent he can fall asleep on his own. (Well, at least he still likes me reading to him and singing him lullabies)
Today I went back in for more surgery from Dr. Sweetheart to remove more skin. Seriously, she's my all time favorite doc. The reason she had to remove more skin was because my tumor abutted the skin and she needed to make sure she got complete clear margins. It really wasn't all that bad except for the IV part. I have pretty small veins which makes getting IVs a, well, pain. I look like a druggy with track marks all down my left arm. And they won't use my right arm because I had lymph nodes taken out there (4). This makes me nervous because I will be having chemo through IV in my hands.
They finally got one in and knocked me out. This time they gave me a patch to wear behind my ear so I wouldn't get as sick afterward as I did last time. It's the same thing you wear if you get sea sick. It did help that I wasn't under as long this time too. Recovery from the anesthesia was much better. And faster. My surgery was at 7:30am and I was on my way home at 10:30 am. I was still really tired so I slept a lot today.
So about chemo. My previous visit to Dr. Awesome, (Monticelli), he said because of the stage I'm at and the type of cancer, stage 1 and benign indolent cancer, I probably wouldn't need chemo, but they had to wait for my oncatype dx test results before making that decision.
An Oncatype DX test, tests the genes found in your breast tissue and cancer to see the chance of recurrence. Imagine a graph broken up into 3 parts. The first section is 1-18 and if you land there you don't need chemo. Next is 19-31 and you should probably get chemo, then there's 32-100 and you need chemo if your score lands there. My score was 19. Just past the "don't need it" section. My doc said he recommends it but won't push it one me. After a long discussion we just feel that because we've been so aggressive with kicking cancer it would be a shame to not go all the way and leave the door open to the tiny possibility of it coming back. He said I got a B+ on my onca test. So I decided to just do chemo. The good news is that it will only be 4 treatments which is why I didn't get a port put in my chest and they'll just do it through my hands. And I guess the treatments are more mild than normal chemo, but I'll still loose my hair and maybe be tired. He said there's a small chance I'd get nausea from it with all the anti nausea drugs they'll load me up on. The chance of it coming back if I didn't do chemo and just took tamoxifen is 12%. With chemo it's about 9%. So I'll do chemo for a couple months, 6 weeks later take tamoxifen for about a year, then 3 months later try to get pregnant (assuming we decided to have another baby) and then after the baby is born go back on tamoxifen for another 4 years. My first chemo treatment will be February 28th.
Some REALLY wicked fun news is....I get to go see WICKED!!!! I read the book a couple years ago and I am just so excited to see the musical! I heard it's better than the book! Jodie, Kathi and I are going on May 1st!!! So I have that to look forward to, which is nice :)
That's our crazy life in a nutshell right now, sorry if I seem to have too many run on sentences or if this post is just jam packed with info, I'm still a little loopy from surgery I think and probably should go to bed.
I'll leave you with a silly video of the boys.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Valentines Day
I hate Valentines Day. So does Jeff. But we hate it for different reasons.
Jeff- because it's just another holiday that companies use to get more money from you and tell you you need to buy all these things to tell your loved one you love them.
Me- because I feel bad for wanting to feel special on a day when every one else is.
I did get my V-Day gift early. I don't care if I don't get flowers or chocolates, although that would be nice, as long as love is proclaimed to me. Which it was, 2 days ago.
My Valentines day gift was Jeff going to work at 5am on his day off and working 10 hours outside in the cold, flagging, then coming home and telling ME to go take a nap while he watched the kids and cleaned the house.
Now that, ladies, is romance.
We did make Valentines day special. My mom watched the boys while Jeff and I went out to dinner. We went to Sam City, a Vietnamese/Thai restaurant. Then we walked around Target and bought ourselves a valentines day gift of 2011 Grammy songs CD and a Symphony bar we shared. Then we drove around and listened to the CD, came home and watched the rest of the Bachelor.
As long as I get to spend Valentines Day with my sweetheart and we DON'T get into it about the idea of Valentines Day, then I think it was a success.
Jeff- because it's just another holiday that companies use to get more money from you and tell you you need to buy all these things to tell your loved one you love them.
Me- because I feel bad for wanting to feel special on a day when every one else is.
I did get my V-Day gift early. I don't care if I don't get flowers or chocolates, although that would be nice, as long as love is proclaimed to me. Which it was, 2 days ago.
My Valentines day gift was Jeff going to work at 5am on his day off and working 10 hours outside in the cold, flagging, then coming home and telling ME to go take a nap while he watched the kids and cleaned the house.
Now that, ladies, is romance.
We did make Valentines day special. My mom watched the boys while Jeff and I went out to dinner. We went to Sam City, a Vietnamese/Thai restaurant. Then we walked around Target and bought ourselves a valentines day gift of 2011 Grammy songs CD and a Symphony bar we shared. Then we drove around and listened to the CD, came home and watched the rest of the Bachelor.
As long as I get to spend Valentines Day with my sweetheart and we DON'T get into it about the idea of Valentines Day, then I think it was a success.
Monday, February 14, 2011
I love us
Jeff's not big on cards, who can really blame him. They cost $5 and they get lost or thrown out on accident. So the next best thing, a virtual one. Thanks Halmark. In all seriousness though, this is exactly how I feel. If I bought a card it would have said this.
And we made him a cute valentine card with a banana on the front and a monkey inside that actually talks (learned how to cut it so the mouth pops out and moves in first grade!) he says "we're just bananas about you". AND we made it made it to his desk at work! Must mean he really likes it cuz nothing is on his desk. It is spic and span. You'd think that no one worked there. Just another reason I love my quirky husband. Love you babe (yes, BABE, and not pal) thanks for taking good care of this family.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Hoping for a lovely Valentines Day
"Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without words, and never stops at all."
| Emily Dickinson I came across a blog I follow that was doing a give away for some awesome leather arm bands that said stuff like "Be Brave" and other inspirational words. To enter you had to leave a comment about what you were being brave about. I think to have hope you have to be brave. Reading what everyone was being brave about really helped me see how blessed I am. I hope for them and anyone else that needs hope or to be brave, that their burdens are lighter I pray that He will help them be brave and they will feel HIs love and peace. So I'm not doing any kind of giveaway, but I thought it would be nice for us all to share what we are being brave about. With Valentine's day coming up it would help us to remember to "be kind, everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle" - Plato. Tomorrow we find out if I have to have chemo or not. So my hope is, of course, that I do not. So, what are you hoping for, or being brave about? |
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Units of Time
With the boys in daycare now I'm begining to feel a bit like Will in the movie About a Boy
" I find the key is to think of a day as units of time, each unit consisting of no more than thirty minutes. Full hours can be a little bit intimidating and most activities take about half an hour. Taking a bath: one unit, watching countdown: one unit, web-based research: two units, exercising: three units, having my hair carefully disheveled: four units. It's amazing how the day fills up, and I often wonder, to be absolutely honest, if I'd ever have time for a job; how do people cram them in? "
What fills my units of time?
Morning talk shows -1 unit
Lara Croft Tomb Raider, apparently today that took 4 units
The Bachelor on Hulu- 4 units
googling spoilers about the bachelor- 1 unit (I know, so bad! Sorry)
a Percocet induced coma - 4-5 units
facebook, family fued-2 units
One perk of taking Percocet is dreaming of being in a romantic movie with Ryan Reynolds. This must be why people become addicted to narcotics. Then again it does give you some horrific nightmares too, so never mind.
Just to clear up any misconception, I'm still pretty limited to what I can do so that's why the kiddos are in daycare. I hate it. It feels so weird to rely on someone else to care for my children.
I'm still sleeping in my recliner-uhg, yuck. Still taking pain meds although not as much. Still not changing any poopy diapers!!!!
" I find the key is to think of a day as units of time, each unit consisting of no more than thirty minutes. Full hours can be a little bit intimidating and most activities take about half an hour. Taking a bath: one unit, watching countdown: one unit, web-based research: two units, exercising: three units, having my hair carefully disheveled: four units. It's amazing how the day fills up, and I often wonder, to be absolutely honest, if I'd ever have time for a job; how do people cram them in? "
What fills my units of time?
Morning talk shows -1 unit
Lara Croft Tomb Raider, apparently today that took 4 units
The Bachelor on Hulu- 4 units
googling spoilers about the bachelor- 1 unit (I know, so bad! Sorry)
a Percocet induced coma - 4-5 units
facebook, family fued-2 units
One perk of taking Percocet is dreaming of being in a romantic movie with Ryan Reynolds. This must be why people become addicted to narcotics. Then again it does give you some horrific nightmares too, so never mind.
Just to clear up any misconception, I'm still pretty limited to what I can do so that's why the kiddos are in daycare. I hate it. It feels so weird to rely on someone else to care for my children.
I'm still sleeping in my recliner-uhg, yuck. Still taking pain meds although not as much. Still not changing any poopy diapers!!!!
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| My new bed. |
Friday, February 4, 2011
Magooly continued
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| A budding John Travolta |
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| or a monkey |
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| could be a Jim Carrey |
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| His break dancing pose |
Oh! And by the way you probably noticed we chopped off his hippie do. He looks a little more clean cut and actually I think a little younger which absolutely fine by me.
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