Living it up!

Happy New Year!

2011-12-31T16:39:00.001-05:00

2011 has just flown by. Thinking back on all the major events that have happened this year, its really no surprise. I can distinctly remember being in Monie's condo - I even remember exactly what I was wearing - sitting on the ottoman next to Silly saying how we couldn't believe it was already New Year's Eve. Here we are again and I feel the same way.

2011 was really a great year. I gained a few great (and one so-so) new family members. I made a pretty big career change. I moved out of my condo of 12 years and bought a town house. Monie and Rishi bought a house. Poppy was able to convince Mom to travel with him. Monie and Rach both got married. My baby finally arrived - ok, Nimbu's baby. But I still get to call her mine. I made a few new wonderful friends. Was able to travel a bit. I could go on - but overall it was a really good year.

Someone asked me today if I was going to make any New Year's Resolutions this year. I decided, No. I'm not. That's one thing that I feel like I do every year. I generally make the same resolution as I did the previous year. I start off well enough, but always bail on it within the first couple months of the year. 2012 warrants a change.

I've already set a few lofty goals for myself for 2012. The Rock-n-Roll Half-Marathon in March and the Half-Full Triathlon in October. I'm already registered for both. I created a training plan for the half marathon that I've been progressing really well on - in spite of getting the flu, bronchitis twice, and possibly a third time. I found a "Motivation Coach" to help me with my nutrition plan. And I've made it through the holidays without gaining any weight - in spite of getting sick again.

Why should I set some weight-loss goal? I don't see a point. I like what I'm doing. I like my training plan. I like my running buddies and find them to be so motivating that I've gone out and done the long runs that we had scheduled even if I was hacking up a lung or puffing on an inhaler every few minutes. Being able to say, "Yeah. I ran 5 miles this morning." Its a real sense of accomplishment. Finishing a really hard lower-body workout where I added another 50lbs to my leg press - Its a real sense of accomplishment.

I think its because I planned to do it and regardless of what else was going on - busy work schedule, being stressed out, being sick, whatever - I still went and did it. I think continuing down this path is going to make me happier than just going on a diet and dropping some weight. Don't get me wrong, I still want that to happen. But I'd rather it be a byproduct of my lifestyle change than being in a diet mentality.

I'm looking forward to 2012. Its going to be an exciting year. In addition to my races, I'll be celebrating my 5 year Cancerversary. Its a pretty big deal. Of course I'll have a party for that, but I think the best way to really celebrate it is to get back to truely enjoying an active lifestyle again.

Happy New Year! May 2012 be a happy and exciting year for you!

In need of a little "Pick me up"

2011-12-22T15:42:00.001-05:00

Its three days before Christmas and I feel a case of the "BLAH's" coming on. I'm sick ... again. If I'm not mistaken, I think I may have Bronchitis... again. Yes, that would be the third time in 3 months. I haven't made it to the gym all week because I've been feeling so crappy so I'm officially off of my training plan. I got a call from my Oncologist's office a couple of days ago saying I have elevated liver enzymes - if breast cancer spreads it goes to the B's and L's (brain, bones, liver, lungs) - so they are ordering a whole slew of scans - scheduled for the 29th and 30th. And things are work are a bit "Bleh" at the moment.

Suffice it to say, I'm in need of a little pick me up. I'm trying to come up with a few ideas to get out of the "BLAH's" and get back to being Sally Sunshine - or something closer to that side of the spectrum.

I've already tried retail therapy - as will be evidenced by the slew of Amazon boxes that will be arriving at my door in the next couple of days. It wasn't a lasting happy feeling.

I went to the gun range - it felt awesome while I was there. I'll probably try that one again. It didn't hurt that my instructor (and every one he showed my targets to) said I was a natural.

I forced the puppy to cuddle with me. Now I have scratch marks on my arm since she wasn't a fan.

I ate chocolate - BLEH.

I'm blogging... so-so. Feels good to say what's on my mind.

I slept 11 hours last night - thank you NyQuil and 1/2 a percocet.

I have a 4 day weekend coming up and would really like to enjoy it. Got any suggestions on what else to try to beat the BLAH's?

A few Christmas funnies... Since I can't end with the BLAHs...

Just before Christmas, an honest politician, a generous lawyer and Santa Claus all got into the lift elevator of the hotel. As the lift traveled from the 5th floor down to the ground level, one-by-one they noticed a $100 bill lying on the lift's floor. Which one picked up the $100 bill, and handed it in at reception? Santa of course, the other two don't actually exist!

How do you know Santa has to be a man? No woman is going to wear the same outfit year after year.

How can a snowman lose weight? He waits until it gets warmer!

And for the geeks.... http://xmasfun.com/stories/NightBeforeTechnical.asp

Lessons Learned – Hopefully for the last time!

2011-10-20T00:05:00.001-04:00

I sent this to Cancer to 5k and figured I'd post it on my blog as well...

You all can blame Holly for this one – since I know it's not exactly going to be short. But she asked for it! J

I have this habit of finding races that I get really excited about – several months out. Putting together a great, overly aggressive training plan, sticking to it for a couple of weeks, and then bailing on the whole thing because life gets in the way. But then deciding to do the race anyway because I – of course – am super woman and I can do these without any training – or back in the day when I was in shape, I could. And I'm deluded enough to think that I still can even though I'm severely out of shape now. That was the case with my last two races. One ended well. The other was a major disappointment – and the first race that I have ever attempted and not finished.

Let's start with the Half Full tri.

I put together a relay team months ago – as I had last year. This year Jenn decided to do the WHOLE thing on her own – because she *IS* super woman - so I found a few others who wanted to do a relay. Justin did the run and my brother in law did the bike. We were all soo prepared on race day.

Leading up to the race, I thought I had learned from the previous year – do NOT swim a race in a wetsuit that you ordered online and had delivered 2 days before when there was no time to get in the water to try it out before the race. For this year, I was going to swim in the wetsuit at least a few times to try and avoid that choking feeling that I had last year. Not to spoil the ending, but that didn't happen.

I put together a training plan that had me swimming twice a week in the couple of months leading up to the race – along with a few runs and cross training sessions each week – I did say that my plans were overly ambitious, right? Well, to jump to the end, I made it in the pool **once** before the race. I swam a mile, albeit quite slowly. But since I was able to make the distance, I figured I was ok. (Considering it was a week before the race) And yes. I do realize that swimming in a 20 yard indoor pool can not prepare you for an open water swim.

I also ended up with the flu and bronchitis 2 weeks before the race. I was a little nervous going to see my doctor the Thursday prior – she was going to check out my lungs and tell me if it was ok to do the race or not. I don't think I really shared that with too many people, because I had already mentally decided that she was going to say it was ok and I was going to do the race.

The day before, Justin and I drove out to Columbia for packet pickup. We met Rishi (my bro-in-law) there. Rishi was totally on track with his training as well – he had been on his bike twice this summer. After we finished walking around the expo and getting all our goodies, there was one last table before we walked out. They had a special running for folks to sign up for next year's race. $70 for either distance.

Yes, you guessed it. I'm registered for next year to do the half. But I am determined to go back to how I trained for my very first tri back in 2002. I started training 4 months before for a sprint. I was disciplined, dedicated, and stuck to my plan. It wasn't overly aggressive, it was doable and prepared me well! I'm hoping that by telling you folks that I've signed up, I'm going to get a little social pressure and prodding to keep up with my training. More on that later.

So race morning I was trying to figure out the best way to dress for the day. It was COLD!! Air temp was 42 when we started and the water temp was mid 60's. COLD!!! We made it to Centennial park when it was still dark. Made our way to transition to get squared away. Just enough time to eat a snack, go to the bathroom, body glide up, and get my wet suit on. (I did try it on the night before, and luckily it still fit!!) We found Jenn and Andrea and went down to the swim start.

After a little prodding from Jenn, Rishi, Justin, and Andrea – I asked if I could start in the survivor wave. Brain was really sweet about it. He said since we were a relay, I couldn't but he would make sure I could next year. – That won't be an issue, because I WILL be in the survivor wave next year… AND will have almost an hour head start!!

We watched Jenn start and then it was time for the relay wave. By this time my feet were completely frozen. When we took our first few steps in the water, it felt warm! I thought, this won't be too bad! Last time the cold really did me in.

I started swimming and about a minute or two into it – that's when the cold really hit me. I had to stop and tread water for a few seconds to try to get a decent breath. I was kicking myself for not having brought my inhaler down to the water so I could have taken a few puffs before starting. I calmed myself down and decided on 50 strokes and then pausing. I repeated that for a while and started worrying about not making the cut off – the swim cutoff was 50 minutes. I had done 47 in the pool. I still felt like my wetsuit was choking me, the cold was kicking my butt, I was psyching myself out mentally, but then I saw one person in a red cap (the wave before me) swimming right next to me. And I realized I wasn't last. That totally helped! I stayed with this guy for most of the swim and passed him close to the end. I had WAY too much negative talk going on in my head and it really made me realize that had I trained for this even half as much as I had planned, I would have had a lot more confidence and a lot less trying to psych myself out.

I did make it to the finish. I thought I did pretty horribly. I felt like I was really slow. I took too many pauses to try to catch my breath. I had to walk most of the way up to transition. And when I got there, all but 4 relay teams were already out on the bike. I've been dead last in a race before, but this felt worse. I think it was because I knew I could have done better if I had just done the training I was supposed to do.

My time ended up being 40 minutes – which shocked the hell out of me. I'm happy with the time, but I think I've learned my lesson on winging it.

The day turned out to be pretty great though! Rishi finished the bike in just over 4 hours – in spite of his chain popping several times. Justin rocked the run – he had been out till 4am the night before celebrating his birthday. I picked him up at 5am. And his pace for the half marathon was just around 7 minutes. Don't you just hate ppl like that? J I got to cheer for Jenn on the run – she looked like a rockstar!! And I ended up winning the raffle for the Half Full Tri Oakley's! How cool was that?

So on to the next weekend and another race I was ill prepared for. This one has a disappointing end.

I was looking forward to Army 10 miler since last year's race. My one goal was to finish the race feeling strong. I had started working my training plan and had worked up to the 6 mile run about 6 weeks before the race. The next day I had planned a 4 mile run – I died after 2 and really didn't run again after that. But again, I felt like I could still make it through the race. I modified my goal to just finish and beat the bridge. To beat the bridge, you have to maintain a 15 minute pace – something I knew I could do. I was a little iffy about being able to run much after 6ish miles, but the cutoff is right after the 5 mile mark so I knew I could still make the cut off.

Race morning things really weren't going according to plan. My sister forgot her race number at home – she thought she lost it on the metro. Rishi wasn't too keen on running since he had hurt his knee playing racquetball the day before and really hadn't trained much. So he gave her his race number and tried to go back and find her's – that's when they figured out she left it at home. I had registered a team of 8 – we were down to 5. I lost Monica on the metro – it was insane trying to get there. Lost my sister and Dad getting off the metro. I found Alex by the bag check and ran into Jenn, her Dad, and Justin. Our team was supposed to meet at the water table past security. It took Alex and I almost 30 minutes to finally get to the port-a-pot's so we were 25 minutes late to the meeting point and as expected, everyone else had already gone to the start line.

The race apparently started late. I didn't realize this. This matters because the bridge cutoff doesn't change so being in the last wave you now have less than 15 min/mile to get to the cutoff point. The first few miles I started off slow and easy. I hadn't run in weeks, so just needed to see how it felt. I was feeling pretty good and felt like I could pick up the pace after that so I did. Mile 1 – 14:33. Mile 2 – 15:12. Mile 3 – 14:52.

Mile 4 was apparently my best mile. I realized I was just on pace to make the cutoff so I wanted to pick it up a little to make sure I'd make it. Mile 4 – 13:24.

At this point I had to go to the bathroom again. I thought I was ok to make a pit stop – now I'm not really sure it would have mattered if I hadn't stopped. Mile 5 – including a rest room stop was 15:51.

I picked up the pace a little bit after this because I knew I was close to the cutoff point. I can't even explain how deflated I was when I got to the cutoff and saw that they were already redirecting people to the shorter route. Mile 6 – 14:20.

I think this is when I just gave up. I couldn't get out of my head. I was pissed off! This is when my feet, knees, hips, everything started hurting. I ended up walking a lot more than my 4/2 intervals. I just didn't care and couldn't stop being pissed off at myself. Mile 7 – 16:47. Mile 8 – 16:45. The total distance was 8.2 miles and my time was 2:06.

What did I learn from this?

1- I can't do a 10 miler without training for it – and probably shouldn't attempt one either.

2- If I had trained, I know my pace would have been at least a minute/minute and a half faster and I think that would have made all the difference. Not to mention I would have argued with the folks redirecting and insisted that I be allowed to finish since I was well within the pace I needed to be.

3- I need to pay attention to start times. If the race has a late start, I need to know that so I can adjust my expectations – vs getting pissed off and just giving up.

4- I did 8.2 miles and that is WAY more than I had done in the past few weeks. So even though I didn't finish, I should still be proud of what I *did* do.

So to continue with the insanity that is my nature… I signed up for my first half marathon in March. I think I've finally learned that I can't just wing races anymore. Whether it's a 5k, a 10 miler, or a triathlon. Maybe its age, maybe it's the fact that I'm no longer in shape, or maybe I'm just getting a little smarter. But I'm done doing races without any training. Don't get me wrong, I'm still me. I'm not saying that I'm going to pass on a race if I haven't totally stuck to my training plan. I'm just saying that I'm going to pass if I've done absolutely *NO* training – my body can't handle it and neither can my ego.

So here's to next year. I'm celebrating my 5 year Cancerversary by pushing my limits. The Half Marathon is the week of my birthday – I'm taking Holly's Birthday Celebration idea. And the Half Full tri is right around my 5 year bilat mastectomy anniversary – Am I doing this with Jenn? J (I love you!!) I *WILL* be training for my races. And I *WILL* finish both of them.

I need to vent

2011-08-29T13:27:00.001-04:00

I'm so frustrated today that I'm having a seriously hard time concentrating. So I'm going to vent, get it out, take a breath, so I can focus and get back to work.

So yesterday I was in cleaning mode. I was determined to get the first floor put together. No. I didn't succeed. I got derailed. I want to keep this short, so I'll just give you the highlights.

I found a large pile of unopened mail that I hadn't gotten to yet. No this is not unusual for me. When I finally got to the point of opening all the mail and sorting it, I found a letter from the DMV. I needed to provide proof that I was insured on July 13th, 2011. If I didn't provide that proof by August 24th, my license would be suspended. First of all, what kind of a stupid asinine request is that??? Do you know how many people drive without insurance? And what is so damn special about July 13th?? Do you care if I'm insured for the rest of the 364 days in the year? You can imagine how pissed at myself I was to have found this letter on August 28th - 4 days after I'd already been suspended. So I was up till 2am getting the info I needed from Geico so that I had it to call the DMV in the morning. (And yes, I also caught up on all my bills. Some I had no idea how much was due so I just sent a large payment so it was ontime and done for now.)

So after sleeping well after 2am, this is how I started my day... I woke up to people sending me requests to do things, they *had* to be done by 10 am, but no one was providing me the info I needed to do them or enough info for me to figure out who to go to in order to get it done. Chemo has decided it is fine for her to pee on the carpet even when I'm home, I've put out pee pads, and she has a damn doggie door. So she got yelled at and spanked this morning.

Just being in the super pissy mood that I was in, I ended up having one of those individual cups of Edy's ice cream for breakfast with cake icing. Not cake. Just the damn icing. I don't even LIKE icing!?!? I can't even take my meds because that isn't real food and I always end up getting nauseous and getting sick when I take my meds on an empty stomach.

I'm starting to calm down and venting is definitely helping. The work stuff is just getting resolved. I called the DMV. They are so sweet and allow me to do all this by phone. (sarcastic) Its not their fault that I didn't get their first notice of this (because it was my fault that I didn't file a change of address with them within 30 days of moving) and they can't waive the $145 reinstatement fee. So I provided them the policy number for my insurance (which they already had), paid the fee, and did a change of address. so this is now resolved. But does anyone else think this is just beyond stupid and ridiculous?!?!?

I got on the treadmill for 30 minutes and got even more pissed because I had to mostly walk instead of being able to run. That's what I get for not being regular with it.

So what else can I do to screw up my life a little more right now? Got any suggestions?

Time to Over-Share!

2011-08-16T23:04:00.002-04:00

Here's your chance to get to know WAY more about me than you ever wanted to! Ok, well maybe not your *only* chance since I love my soap-box and love to chronicle (some) aspects of my life as I have been doing for the past 4-5 years now.

Over-Share #1 –

Yes, there is a little bit of a cancer update. So I had a checkup with Dr. Wilkinson a week ago. Routine checkup, just part of the follow up procedures for the clinical trial that I finished last year. She said a couple of things that stuck with me. So I'm not sure where I had heard this, but I thought someone had told me that my tumor characteristics were known for recurring way down the line vs within 5 years. She said that is totally not true. So the 5 year mark is a HUGE milestone. I make it past that and my risk of recurrence seriously drops! Dunno how much it drops, and I honestly don't care. But it drops!! By A LOT!! Can we say I was a little happy hearing that and I'm already thinking about what I want to do to celebrate. And yes. In case you were wondering, a big party and some body-art is involved - it's in the design stage!

Over-Share #2 –

Part of that same appointment, but I can't lump BLEH news with happy news, so I had to separate it out. So as I knew, chemo could have thrown me into early menopause – but it didn't. But once I get there, which she says will be a lot sooner than most, we'll need to have the conversation about removing my ovaries since I have a random BRCA-2 mutation. And while she said it wasn't out of the question for me to have kids, apparently it's a huge risk. So good that it's not completely out of the question, but blah that it would be such a risk if I decided to go that route. So maybe the fact that I had decided a couple of years ago not to go there wasn't such a bad thing to have gotten my head around.

Over-Share #3 –

I'm trying to date again – albeit very unsuccessfully. I put up a profile on Match and can I just say, DATING SUCKS!!! If you ever get to the point of feeling really good about yourself and having a slightly decent ego – get on one of these dating sites. It will deflate it in 10 seconds flat. Maybe I need to get a few more dogs so I can be the "Crazy Dog Lady".

Over-Share #4 –

I'm having a reconstruction revision in a few months. I went back and forth about this – I'm not happy, but it's totally superficial to get it fixed, blah blah blah. Bottom line, I'm not happy. So I'm getting a revision. Wanna hear something funny? J My surgeon and I went to kindergarten together! Yeah, think about that one. I'm seriously amused about it, but very happy with my choice.

Ok. Well, I'm done over-sharing. Now I'll tell you about my house! My shoe shrine is nearly complete! I say nearly, because no shrine is complete without special lighting! But it houses 45 pairs of shoes. I know. You are thinking, "But Jess, what about your other 33 pairs?" I'm still deciding where their new homes will be – but no. Of course I'm not downsizing! That's just a dumb idea. I'm glad you weren't even thinking that. J

Well, this is long enough. I need to start getting ready for bed so that I can get up on time and get my run in tomorrow morning. Wish me luck on getting up on time and getting out the door! It's one of the things I need to work on - being consistent with my workouts and diet. One day I'll be great, the next just awful. It's a work in progress. So tomorrow, I'm hoping for great. I'm off to bed… a few thoughts to leave you with.

_______________

- What are the three words guaranteed to humiliate men everywhere? 'Hold my purse.'

- When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.

- Most people are only alive because it is illegal to shoot them.

- Some say the glass is half full, some say the glass is half empty. I say "Are you gonna drink that?"

So proud of myself!

2011-07-31T18:01:00.001-04:00

I'm seriously on a high today with what I've done! A few weeks ago I put together a training plan to keep me on track to be able to do Army 10 Miler in October. But this time feel good doing it, know I'm going to finish, and be able to enjoy it.

So today a 4 mile run was on the schedule. Monie and I did 4.11 this morning. Granted it was super slow. But this is my first week back to training so I'm ok with that!

After that I got to meet Baby Leo. Can we say, WHAT A CUITE?!?! He's time, adorable, and a squirmy little monkey! Very excited for Tara and Brian!

Next on the list was yet another trip to my fav store in the whole world - Home Depot! (No. Not DSW. Btw - yesterday I went to DSW and bought NOTHING!?!? Could you even imagine such a day would come?? I couldn't!) So I went to Home Depot to get a sprinkler so I could easily water my new lawn - aka the sod that I put down myself yesterday! I also needed to get tips on how to remove those three pieces of wood that they use to support a shelf in a closet. It needs to come down so that the shoe shrine can go up! Yesterday I just about gave up on being able to do it myself, today... SUCCESS!!! I'm waiting for my spackel to dry so that I can sand, paint, and put up my shelves! Oh, and I needed to shorten the tracks - metal. So I pulled out my hacksaw and cut them ALL-BY-MY-SELF!

I also re-seeded the backyard, but that's minor compared to everything else. I'm really getting into my new house! I love it! I'm no where near unpacked yet. But I'm slowly getting there. I have hat I need setup and usable, the rest will all come in time - I'm hoping within the next 2 weeks!

Well, I'm off to put on another coat of spackle and then give the piglet a MUCH needed bath. Can we say SMELLY little puppy? Oh, and in prep for bath time, I will put up a curtain rod and curtains in my guest bath. Getting stuff done is awesome! I'll post a picture of the completed shoe shrine when its done! Hope you are enjoying your weekend!

___

When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun.'

People who ask, "Can I ask you a question?" Didn't really give me a choice, did ya there, buddy?

Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted.

Those who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do.

My "Change" post revisited...

2011-06-17T19:13:00.001-04:00

A few weeks ago I had posted about some major life changes that were in the works. Well, I'm ready to share a couple of them.

Yes, you guessed it! I'm joining a convent and moving to Yemen. I leave on Monday. Its been nice knowng you all, Peace Out!

Ok. So maybe nothing *that* dramatic. One of the changes was work related. I was looking to change projects or if that wasn't working out, change jobs. I found a great opportunity within Accenture that I started this week. So this means no more flying to Columbus! (I'm pretty stoked about not having to get on a plane every week or every other week!) I'll be in Baltimore a few days a week and in VA a few days a week. Its a great opportunity and I'm excited about it!

Next on my adventure list - I'm going to Scotland and Spain next week! Scotland is a family trip - seriously looking forward to it! And then I'm going to jet off to Barcelona for a few days on my own. Now if I would just go make some hotel reservations, I'd be good to go! I'm really excited to blog about fun travel - ya know the reason I originally started blogging!

And probably the biggest change of all - I had to save the best for last! After almost 12 years in my condo, I'm moving. :) No, not somewhere as far as Yemen. But I'm headed all the way over to the other side of Falls Church! I may have mentioned to some of you that I had started looking at townhouses and was thinking about potentially making a move. Well, on Monday its becoming a reality! I settle on Monday morning and then move immediately afterwards.

While I'm so amazingly excited about this, its also a little bittersweet. I've lived in my condo longer than I've lived anywhere my whole life - including when I was growing up. I'm so ridiculously attached to this place, not to mention all the "stuff" I've accumulated, its hard packing and planning my move. But then I remember that my little piglet will be getting a yard and a doggie door and that makes it all better (not to mention the AWESOME kitchen and sweet-ass soaking tub that I'm getting)!

This is a good and exciting change! A seriously hectic week - yes, that means I move on Monday, work in B-more a few days, and leave on my trip Friday - definitely hectic, but super exciting!

So anyway, here's to new beginnings, adventure, and exciting changes!

Survivor Harbor 4 miler Race Report

2011-06-13T21:03:00.001-04:00

Like Colleen, I'd like to start off by saying CONGRATS to everyone who did the race on Sunday. I absolutely adore our group and find every one of you to be so inspirational ... from Alex - finishing first in his age group, to Jessica - the ROCKSTAR chic who was determined to do the race in spite of having a "little" thing like a liver transplant a couple of months ago. You all are... well, inspirational! And to all of the volunteers who come out for races and practices to give their time and support - you all are phenomenal people!!

And I'd like to give a special thanks to my AMAZING sherpas - Coach Bob and Monica! I would not have been able to SMOKE my goal if it wasn't for you guys! (And Coach Bob even learned a few things on Sunday - like which guys Monica and I found drool worthy and what the rating scale is. No worries if you forget, we'll give you a refresher next season!)

A little history from last year - as some of you read in my e-mails last week to Coach Bob - I was psyching myself out. Last year I had the same 3 races in 10 days schedule. I did great at both Race for the Cure and Capital Crescent. But then at Survivor Harbor - I died. I was doing the 4 miler with my (now) brother-in-law, Rishi. We started off jogging. About 6 or 7 minutes into the race I had to bail on my intervals and just walk. My knees were killing me, the heat was brutal, and I just couldn't do it. To say that I was pissed off would be an understatement. Which is why this year I had to prove to myself that I could do this race. So THANK YOU for pairing me up with my sherpas for Sunday!!

For once in the 4 years since I met Coach Bob, I followed his instructions EXACTLY. (Its just not something I do very well) He said no to the run on Thursday - so I relaxed. He said ONLY do 30 min of 3 min walk/2 min jog on Friday - so I did just that. He said to add some carbs into my diet - I added some whole grains and some fruit. **MAYBE** there is something to this whole listening to someone who has WAY more experience thing. :-) I may have to try that again. (I may be a slow learner, but eventually I get there!)

He also said that I should start out with the goal interval/pace that I had in mind and we'd reevaluate as the race went on if necessary. So I kept my goal of doing 4 and 2's and getting under a 14 minute pace.

I woke up a little late and wasn't completely ready when Monica knocked on my door at 4:45am. But we made it out the door a little bit before 5 to go pick up Justin. Had a pretty relaxing drive to Baltimore and made it there in plenty of time for packet pickup, bathroom breaks, chatting with the team, etc. I had a protein shake in the morning and a banana a little bit before race start. We all paired up in our runner/sherpa pairs and headed down to the start line.

The race start was SOO much better this year than last year! Whoever decided to get rid of the shuttle to that god awful parking lot where we started last time, is a genius! The race started on a slight up hill. Coach Bob and Monica reminded me to go easy with short and quick strides to get up the hill. I was out of breath by the time we got to the top, but slowed my breathing and finished the interval. The first few intervals felt really good. I felt like we were going at a good pace. I wasn't pushing it too much - whenever I was having a hard time talking and pointing out the wonderful eye candy along the route Coach Bob and Monica would get me to slow down a bit. It just felt good.

Initially I kept looking at my watch, but Coach Bob got me to break that habit. (Well, at least for the race.) We got to mile marker 1 and I REALLY wanted to know our time. I resisted asking, but Coach told me that we were well under my goal pace and I had plenty of time to play with. It was around here that we ran into Cindy and Phyllis. Cindy was running with Craig and Phyllis was running with Jenn. The three of us ended up leap frogging each other pretty much till the end of the race.

So this was kind of a big deal for me. In all the previous Cancer to 5k seasons, I've always been in a "pace group" by my self. Or you could say WAY behind everyone. This year I've really tried to get more consistent with my running, I think the weight loss is helping, and my time/pace is definitely improving. This was my first race where I got to be around other team members. That was a pretty amazing feeling.

So things were looking pretty good from mile 1 to mile 3. I brought my water bottle with me so I was able to keep drinking through out. They had cold wet towels somewhere near mile 2 - definitely helped because the sun was getting pretty fierce. Once we got to mile marker 3 I felt like I was about to start fading - and that's when Coach Bob said that they were going to start pushing me. We picked up the pace a little bit on both the run and walk intervals. I have to admit, if I was by myself for this race - this is when I'd start taking an extra minute walk and slowing the runs down. So now that I know I **can** push it even when I'm feeling like that... well, no excuses for next time! Plus Coach Bob assured me that he's never had a runner die from a race. :-P

The end of the race was pretty hard. I had to give my water bottle to Monica. I felt like I had no energy. I kept on thinking the finish was JUST around the next corner, but then there was always another turn. And then we finally saw that last one. Once it came into view my watch beeped signaling a walk interval. Coach Bob and Monica said - Nope! So we kept on running. They picked a few sets of runner not too far in front of us to pass. Every time we'd pass one of them I'd hear Monica say, "Smoked em!"

Another big deal for me - passing people! My sister can tell you how frustrated I got when we did the Komen 3 day and a woman pushing someone in a wheelchair passed me!! Talk about a MASSIVE ego killer. So passing people, well, it just gives me a serious thrill!

And then there was the finish line. We definitely picked up the pace a little for that last stretch across the mats! I was out of breath and felt like I was going to puke - but I didn't. :) But it was all worth it when I saw our time. 53:27 I had to beat 56 minutes to beat my 14 min goal pace. Jenn and Craig said the course was actually 4.17 miles and their average paces were 12:59 and 13:10 so that means that I was just under a 13 minute pace. Can we say that I SMOKED my goal? :)

My goal for October was going to be a sub 13 minute pace. I may have to change that to a sub 12 or maybe even 11 min pace!! I'll see where I am when the time comes.

All in all - I had a FABULOUS day!! A big CONGRATS and THANK YOU to all my awesome team mates and my fellow volunteers!! And an extra special one to Monica and Coach Bob!!

Looking forward to seeing you all at the social runs! :)

Bread!! I have missed you!!!

2011-06-08T21:09:00.001-04:00

So I finally realized - after a friendly reminder about why I had no energy for my runs - that I can't be on a practically no carb diet when I'm trying to run races. I just don't have the energy. The diet plan that I'm doing offers an "Alternative" program that allows a little big of good carbs for ppl who are exercising.

I switched to it today! Pure Bliss!!

Bread,
you rise
from flour,
water
and fire.
Dense or light,
flattened or round.
How simple
you are, bread,
and how profound!

(No. I dind't write that. That's an excerpt from Pablo Neruda's Ode to Bread) But its so appropriate. If I were poetic enough, I'd write a love poem to bread. Toasted, drizzled with olive oil. Topped with juicy beefsteak tomatoes and a light dusting of parmasean cheese. Mmmmm....

Now I get to have fruit. Can I say that I LOVE the alternative program? I haven't had bread and fruit in about 3 months. I can't wait to indulge in a sweet and juicy bowl of cherries. I think the time to do that is now...

Its all about the cancer sports!

2011-05-29T20:42:00.001-04:00

First of all, what an amazing weekend! And the best part is that it isn't even over yet. I still have one more day!

This is a slightly crazy time of year for the cancer sports. Its our annual Learn to Row weekend for my rowing team (WeCanRow DC) and its the weekend before our target race for my running team (Cancer to 5k). What a great and exciting time of year!

Learn to Row was pretty fabulous! I got to meet an amazing new group of women. I actually felt like I could help out and know what I was doing rather than being a total newbie. I loved reconnecting with the returning ladies who I haven't seen since last year. I got a pretty major tan, a slight sun burn, and I'm dehydrated in spite of drinking over 5L of water today - but I just had a WONDERFUL day. It felt amazing to get back on the water again. We ended up needing all of the volunteers to row today so we could take out 3 shells - a mix of novices and volunteers in each. I hadn't been on the water since last summer when I had to stop going to the weekend rowing program. Today made me realize that I need to go back! In spite of not having rowed in a year, it really felt great to be out there! And I think I did all right!

On Saturday morning I had a great run with Erika and Colleen! I get to run with Erika at the Capital Crescent 5k next Sunday. I'm excited!!! First of all, it will be great to run with her! Holly is coming back to be here for race day!! And I finally get to make the official transition (in my mind) from a Cancer to 5k participant to a volunteer!!!

LOL! But I'm not beyond accepting support for Survivor Harbor the following weekend. I'm doing the 4 miler. Jenn and Colleen are planning of having a Sherpa for me - totally needed! I need to run that course vs having to walk the whole thing like I had to do last year. I know! Lots going on!

So its kind of been an action packed week and the week to come will be as well! Last week I interviewed for a role on a different project. Its not like anything I've directly done before, but I think I could do it well and learn a lot! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'm a better fit for the role than the other person/people they spoke with! (Either way, I'll find out the week of the 6th.) Then we had the Learn to Row this weekend. Next weekend is DC Race for the Cure on Saturday, Cancer to 5k's target race - Capital Crescent on Sunday. A couple of exciting appointments for me on 6/6 - part of the changes that fall into the "to be shared later" category. And Survivor Harbor the following weekend.

This has the makings of a pretty fabulous summer! Just need to get a couple of things sorted out and I'll be a happy camper!

A few thought provoking thoughts...

Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on the list.

The early bird might get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

If I agreed with you we'd both be wrong.

Change

2011-05-25T00:22:00.001-04:00

Its time for change. Change is refreshing. Its necessary. Its stressful and nerve wracking, but its happy and exhilarating at the same time.

I have a lot of change coming in my life - a lot of it will be major life-altering change for me. I'm not ready to share the details quite yet. But I have to say, I'm scared s*#!-less. I'm sure I'll get to the point of being giddy and excited soon, but right now I'm stressed and frustrated. I hate being in limbo, I hate uncertainty. I want to know that everything is going to work out the way that I'm hoping it will. I want to skip the messy bits.

I know, I know. Knowing everything that's coming takes the excitement out of life. Blah Blah Blah. But not knowing if things will work out or how they will work out is driving me nuts.

I'll be sure to let you know about some of those major life-altering changes once they get sorted out. But for now, I'll share some of the other changes in my life.

- I'm changing my blog.

Coach Bob mentioned at practice on Saturday that I hadn't blogged in several months. I've been feeling like if I don't have a cancer update, there's no point in blogging. My blog morphed from a travel-log to a cancer-log. Dr. Hetelekidis told me some time ago (while I was in the middle of radiation and having a particularly bad self pity party) that right then if my life was a book, cancer would have been the title. Eventually, it would become a chapter. Some time later, a paragraph. And eventually, just a foot note. I think its become a relatively small chapter now. I just had my 4th Cancerversary and do you know what I spent the day focusing on? The moron who gave me non-existent highlights. Finding a place to get a facial. Getting my list of errands done. Getting a run in. It wasn't intentional. I wasn't actively trying *not* to think about it. It was just an enjoyable day off. Back to my blog. I enjoy blogging. I like having my soap box. So I'm taking it back. My blog is back to being about me living my life.

- I'm changing the things about me that I'm not happy with.

As any of you who have recently tried to go out to dinner with me can attest to, I'm seriously annoying. Even more so than I was before. *smile* I'm a woman on a mission - and a seriously restrictive diet. I'm excited about how I'm doing (aside from the occasional pity party induced slip up) and I'm excited to stick with it. This is not something that I'm going to be changing anytime soon. (ie. getting off my diet) I'm not happy with how unhealthy I've become, so I'm changing it. There are a few other things that I'm also not happy with, so I've put the wheels in motion to change them as well. (The details fall under the category of stuff that I'm not sharing yet.)

Argh! Those are the only 2 changes that I can share right now. LOL! I know, I'm a tease. But I promise to share the rest as soon as I can. Keep your fingers crossed for me and hope that they turn out the way I'm hoping they turn out - or better! Regardless, once they are sorted - one way or another - I'll share.

A few thoughts I liked ...

"Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending."

"Every time I find the meaning of life, they change it"

"Change is inevitable - except from a vending machine."

"To change one's life, start immediately, do it flamboyantly, no exceptions."

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-25T00:56:00.000-05:00

I have no idea what it is about Christmas, but it just makes me happy. Kind of like when the leaves turn colors in the fall. Thinking about planning my Thanksgiving dinner. My puppy climbing onto my lap to snuggle - without me forcing her to. And my birthday month. All things that are just happy and put a smile on my face.

I was looking at my Christmas tree a few days ago and it looked sad - no presents under it. Now, so not the case! Presents under it and all around it. Its a happy little tree! (And its pink!)

Yes, I know it seems like I'm just babbling right now. But something you may or may not have noticed, the last several months, whenever I've posted it has been because I was unhappy, something was pissing me off, or I just needed to rant about something. I've thought about posting quite a few times in the past month or so - but all of them were moments when I was in a negative or pissy mood. I think its fine to use my blog for both happy and not so happy posts, but can we say ... balance?

So even though Thanksgiving is past and this is a pretty Thanksgiving-y thing, I'm going to share a few things from this year that have made me really happy.

- I finished Army 10 miler. (So many caveats to add, but I won't. I did the whole race and I'm pretty damn proud of my finisher medal!)

- Karim's last set of scans showed a positive result!!

- Monie and I took our very first (and I don't think last) vacation - just the two of us.

- As you may or may not know, I've had 2 fires in my condo in the last couple of weeks. No one was hurt and there was no real damage - other than to the appliance that died.

- At the beginning of the year, I had VERY optimistically set a goal to run a 10 miler and do a 1 mile swim. I did both of them this year.

- I finished the Neratinib clinical trial ... and for the past 3 weeks, I've been medicine free!! (aside from the occasional Advil for a headache or tooth ache. :-P)

There are plenty more. But I just wanted to share a few. Just wanted to say that while there are plenty of things that suck and are complaint worthy, there are many more things to be happy about.

Have a Merry Christmas! :)

Self pity

2010-09-27T01:05:00.001-04:00

What poison is to food, self-pity is to life.

It's odd that you can get so anesthetized by your own pain or your own problem that you don't quite fully share the hell of someone close to you.

I'm working on getting out of a self pity mood. I'm in one. And I know it's completely selfish – or at least it feels completely selfish. I feel like it's selfish for me to sit here and talk about how things happening to people in my world are affecting me. It's obviously affecting them *much* more than me – yet I'm the one sitting here feeling like I can't handle any more of this.

I think it's just a fact of life that bad things happen to good people – but enough is enough! Take sickness for example. Have you ever heard someone say, "He/She is a really crappy person. They deserved to get sick." I definitely haven't. It's always happening to someone who's a good person. Someone who doesn't deserve it.

If someone gets in an accident with a drunk driver – it's always the innocent victim that dies or gets maimed. The drunk guy usually walks away without a scratch.

I feel like the people in my world – good, wonderful people – are just getting a seriously sucky deal. And I'm tired of it! When does my world start seeing the sunshine and rainbows – or whatever you think of that goes along with happy stuff? If life is supposed to be balanced, then where's the positive side of the balance? When do we get to see that side?

I'm having a really tough time trying to express what I want to say tonight. I think it's because I'm just pissed. I'm sick and tired of one bad thing happening after another. And on top of all that, I feel like a selfish whiney ungrateful brat for being the one who is venting about it all.

I know that I have no right to be in a self pity mood when the ppl who are dealing with the "crap" are dealing with it in such a positive way. I'm in awe of their ability to stay positive and genuinely feel that way. I just wish that I could get back to actually trying to be happy – rather than plastering a fake smile on my face and trying to "fake it till I make it" – or until the next crisis hits that get me completely unraveled and devoid of any positivity.

Yes I know this is a totally negative post. Its just where I am right now. Pissed. Confused. Angry. Sad. Guilty. One day I'll learn to deal with "life" better. Today is not that day.

But still… that damn Sally Sunshine in me still needs to end with something funny. Actual advertisements:

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Tickle-Me-Elmo, still in box, comes with its own 1988 Ford Mustang, 5L, Auto, Excellent condition $6800.

The Sunday Night Blahs...

2010-08-22T20:19:00.001-04:00

Its Sunday evening and I'm in the process of getting ready to go to Ohio tomorrow morning. Can't say Sunday nights are something I look forward to. But then again, I really don't know anyone who does look forward to them. (Does this mean that something about me just may be normal?? Shocker!)

So what am I feeling a little blah about today? (other than having to travel?)

- I still haven't gotten into a rhythm with my nutrtion and exercise while I travel. I've gained a little weight - 6.5 lbs. Its frustrating that I had a schedule down when I was in town. And I'm using the travel as an excuse for not having figured one out yet.

- The person I was venting about in my last post was actually fired. There was another incident of inappropriateness involving this person, me and another woman I work with. We did make a formal complaint and found out that the individual was already scheduled to be let go. A little disconcerting. But the reason its on my blah list is that I've been asked to write up a statement for this person's file. I've been procrastinating on this one since Thursday. I know I have to do it, I just don't want to.

- I'm getting back into the weekly tests and dr appts again. I had to see my primary care Dr. this past week because of a few non-normal things that were going on. I'm adding to my med list. Had blood work done and have orders for some more tests at FFX Radiology. Not to mention the Echo and EKG I already have scheduled for next Friday. I know this stuff is just a fact of my life, but it sucks. I know. I know. Suck it up and deal with it. But this is my stage to complain and whine when I feel like it, so I'm going to. I was feeling pretty good for a while there because my Dr. appts seemed to be getting more and more spread out. But the next few weeks, there is something going on each week. Like the last minute appt last week, the tests next week, the follow-up with my Oncologist for my trial the following week, and then another reconstruction step the following week, then follow-ups for that, and then we'll be at the point for my next set of scans. This stuff is just never ending. (or so it seems because I'm feeling BLAH and I'm dwelling on it.)

- Last week I found out about someone recurring and someone passing.

So, what am I going to do to get out of this funk? Well, I tried shoe shopping. It did put me on a high for a little bit - but it didn't last. Hopefully, when my next batch comes in, the high will last a little longer since I'm pretty sure I'm keeping all of those. And I'm returning one of the pairs that I bought in my first binge. What else am I going to try?

- I'm going to put together an exercise plan for this week so I can get myself back on track.

- I'm going to start planning that vacation I keep saying I need to take, but haven't booked yet.

- I'm going to make a list of the things that I really want right now and prioritize which one(s) I'm going to tackle first - and then figure out what steps I need to take to get there.

- And I'm staring back on happy pills because I can already feel myself starting to get back into a long-term funk and I can't handle another one of those.

Let's start with that. And see how it goes.

Ok. I better go have some dinner and then get cracking with my to-do list for tonight. Wouldn't it be nice to get to bed ontime tonight too? :) Here's hoping!

Have a good week!

A little creeped out...

2010-08-10T21:47:00.001-04:00

I've had a pretty annoying day. I think its relatively safe to say that work isn't very fun these days. Its frustrating and annoying. I just love how unresponsive people are. How I need to ask for things 17 times before someone will bother to respond and say I need a few weeks to get that for you because I don't have the 30 seconds it would take to do it right now. And when I finally get a response, its incomplete and frustrating to try and track down the rest of the request.

Safe to say, this is a pretty frustrating environment.

So my enjoyment or reprieve each day is to drink lots and lots of yummy hazelnut coffee. There is this nice coffee shop close to my office - I don't even have to walk outside to get there. The people are nice and friendly - or most of them are. The coffee is reasonably priced. And its just a great 12 minute break from my frustrating day.

Today I went to go get my coffee. I had to go by myself because my coffee buddy had a meeting to attend. The security guard - who always addresses me by my first name - started chatting with me. I thought nothing of it. I'm pretty friendly and will generally talk to anyone. After chatting for a little bit, I was having a hard time ending the conversation and walking away. It felt a tiny bit creepy. Then I asked him his name. He showed me his badge. I can't even tell you how creeped out I was. I recognized the name as some random person who had tried to friend me on facebook 3-4 weeks ago. I declined because I had no clue who it was.

Does this strike you as being odd? Inappropriate?? Creepy??? Stalkerish???? I was PISSED!! I don't have a choice but to share my name with these people since they have to check my badge when I go in and out of our building area. But is that fair for him/them to be able to use my personal information like that???

The next two times that I had to leave the building and walk through security, I felt so ridiculously uncomfortable. I don't know if he does this with all the people he "meets" this way, a few, or if I'm being singled out. I know he doesn't address my co-workers, even the female ones by their first names. And I know for damned sure that I'm not going to be friendly or talk to the security guards again.

Isn't it sad that even if you want to be friendly - just to be friendly, you can't because of people like this?

Why am I still awake?

2010-07-12T01:22:00.001-04:00

Its after 1am on Sunday night... I have to be up at 5am to catch my flight to Columbus. Not to mention, I was supposed to have finished a presentation for tomorrow. Its half way done.

I can't sleep. I'm in a reflective mood - and need to get out of it so I *can* sleep.

Stuff running through my mind tonight ...
- Trying to figure out the cause of my serious lack of motivation and getting off track with what I've been doing for the past several months. What causes ppl (me) to self sabotage their (my) efforts and how can they (I) stop?
- UGH! I need to find a date for a work thing in a few weeks.
- What are the dating rules now? Is it ok for me to e-mail after a date to say I had a good time or am I supposed to wait for him? Is it true that if a guy is interested he'll find a way to make things happen?
- And a conversation I had with a friend last week about her father being sick, and another I had with a friend about her mother. - I don't think I need to say any more about those.

Anyway, add to those thinking about the presentation I needed to finish and everything going on this week at work and I guess its no wonder that my mind is in overdrive. Now if only I could find the "OFF" button...

Happy 4th of July...

2010-07-04T16:22:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the radio silence the past few months. Its definitely been interesting. So a few things that have changed in the Life of Jess..
- After years of getting to work locally, I'm traveling again. I'm in Columbus, OH every week from Monday to Thursday for the foreseeable future. The project work is actually really interesting - I'm learning a lot. But the travel, I could do without. I hate leaving Chemo Puppy every week - even though she's getting spoiled by her Grandparents while I'm out.
- Since I didn't post since the ab pain mystery - it turned out to be a Kidney Stone. My Neuro took me off the headache meds and I haven't had a problem since. (Yeah!)
- I just hit my next milestone with getting back in shape. Its going much more slowly than I had hoped... I really need to get recommitted to it! =) I have a few short term goals that I really need to hit!
- My knee issues are something called Patellar-Femoral syndrome... aka Runner's Knee. According to the Ortho I saw a few weeks ago, I just need a little Physical Therapy and I'll be able to run again. So these days I'm just walking, biking, swimming, and doing the elliptical. But he said there is no reason I won't be able to do ATM in October.

I think that's about it for the major changes in my life. But I really think I'm in need of a few more... I'm sure you can guess what they are.

What else can I share...
I'm really not sure why I decided to post today. Perhaps just in need of babbling to Cyberspace? But *what* I want to babble about is still a mystery.

So here's something that I am having a hard time wrapping my head around... This coming Tuesday (7/6) I'm celebrating my 10th anniversary of being with Accenture. Its kind of mind blowing considering how I ended up here. I was at PwC, jumped to Appnet for 8 months, then to Walcoff for a month. Quit - meaning literally walked out - after a month. Got an offer from Accenture a week later and took it so that I didn't have to continue job searching. I figured I'd be here for a few years. But never imagined 10 years later - I'd still be here. This is, by far, my longest "relationship". Interesting, huh?

Anyway... I'm really not sure what I'm trying to say about this. So I'm going to stop. Hope you are enjoying your 4th of July!

It’s not cancer, so eF it!

2010-04-29T11:59:00.001-04:00

This past week I've been going through a battery of tests again because I was having some serious abdominal pain – no, not stomach pain. Yes, there is a difference. It got so bad this weekend that I had to call the oncall Doctor at my oncologists office to get pain meds and spent a majority of the weekend and part of Monday on Vicoden.

So we went through the blood tests – normal except I'm ridiculously anemic.

They are testing for a parasite because of something they saw in some test a few weeks ago. They think I may have picked it up in Mexico in November. I submitted that sample the other day – fun test. Really.

And I had a chest/abdominal/pelvic CT scan yesterday - which surprisingly enough, I got the results of yesterday – they were clean. (Definitely glad to hear that!) The area where the pain is - is where my kidney, liver, and all that stuff is. Need I say more? (in spite of a normal liver function test, I still needed the all clear from the CT.)

So I was going to go with the Kidney stone theory. Its simple. It's the most benign of all the other things it could be. And I figure since it's not cancer, eF IT! (Ok, not really. I still want to know what it is. )

I had a neuro follow up this morning. (I was getting massive headaches and taking way too much ibuprofen so they put me on a medication called topamax.) Guess what a not completely uncommon side effect is of topamax. It can cause kidney stones. So we're doing tests to confirm. If it is a kidney stone, then he'll switch my meds. If not, we'll keep looking. But either way, it's not cancer so I get to get back to my life.

I need to learn how to deal with stress ...

2010-03-16T00:27:00.001-04:00

Today has been a slightly stressful day. Its Monday - need I say more? Well, yeah. I do need to. This was more than just a BLAH Monday.

I woke up late. (What else is new?)
I basically avoided dealing with the conversation I had with my career counselor on Friday. (JT will tell you that avoidance is a pattern with me.)
I was 27 minutes late for an appointment with my oncologist. (What else is new?)
And I was a complete mess when I got there. I was being unusually emotional. And this was just a routine study follow up.

I mentioned the headaches and other symptoms that I've been having. (Congratulations to me. Now I'm pretty sure I'm not on the placebo.) All the symptoms are typical with the Neratinib except the headaches. (Is anyone else feeling a little deja vou-ish?)

As expected, Dr. Wilkinson came into check me out since the headaches are not usually caused by the study med. And AS EXPECTED she wanted me to get a brain MRI. (I'm not kidding here. This IS exactly what I was expecting her to do.) This is standard for me now. I have a persistent cough - first check for lung mets. I have a chronic headache - first check for brain mets.

So can anyone tell me why I was bawling the entire way to work after getting my MRI orders?

The rational side of me 100% expected this. I put a plan in place. I scheduled the test for Wednesday night. I arranged for a ride to and from the office. I made sure I had Ativan on hand. Yes, the MRI is super scary. And I am extremely claustrophobic. I totally freaked out during the last one - in spite of taking a half an Ativan beforehand. But I know that. So I will take a whole one before heading over there and have a half with me - just in case. I also know that we are all fully expecting the scans to show nothing. They just need to be done for that .0000001% chance that I have a brain tumor. I'd have a better shot at winning the lottery. (Mental note. If I do have a tumor, must buy lottery ticket.)

I think it was the combination of work stress, the conversation I had on Friday stress, I'm PMS'ing, and this was the icing on the cake. I'm really not all that proud of how I handled it. I could have done a lot better. (But hindsight is 20-20, right?) I spent an hour with JT bawling and complaining and having a total self pity party. Then I came home and was a little piggy while I squeezed/hugged/harassed/tortured my poor innocent little puppy - who won't sleep with me now because she's too scared of being hugged to death. I watched some crap tv. Soaked in a hot bath to relax a little. Read Charles's book. Blogged. And now I'm going to go to sleep.

The things that should have been different are - no need to have been a piggy. Or if I was gong to be one, replace the fudgesicles with a baked apple or some veggies. I was supposed to have done another 40 min on the treadmill/bike (I only had time for 30 min this morning). That would have been a great way to work out my irritation, stress, whatever. The rest I think was fine.

Like I said before - I'm a work in progress. I guess I can look at it and see that this is a lot better than I handled it last time. (I did mention deja vou, right? I had a brain MRI for this same thing a little over a year ago.) Specifically, there was no crap pizza ordered. No greasy fried foods. No 5 guys. No milk shakes. So yeah. Maybe I am breaking a few of my old patterns. We'll have to keep watching to see if they stay broken.

Anyway. I need to go to bed. I have to get my full 70 minutes done in the morning and make it to work on time.

So yeah... I'm having some more tests done because I've had daily headaches for about a month now and I'm taking 600-1200mg of ibuprofen daily. So it needs to be checked out. And since my docs are cautious... they are going to take a look at everything - no matter how slim a chance it may be. I'll probably have another freak out closer to Wed night. I'll either deal with it or make you all deal with it. =) But its going to be fine. (Since I have a big bottle of Ativan!)

Good night!

"As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to access the building using individual security cards. Pictures will be taken next Wednesday, and employees will receive their cards in two weeks."
(Microsoft Corp. in Redmond WA)

"What I need is an exact list of specific unknown problems we might encounter."
(Lykes Lines Shipping)

"E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or data. It should be used only for company business."
(Accounting manager, Electric Boat Company)

"This project is so important we can't let things that are more important interfere with it."
(Advertising/Marketing manager, United Parcel Service)

"Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the schedule."
(Plant Manager, Delco Corporation)

Happy Birthday to Me!

2010-03-10T23:55:00.001-05:00

After some major radio silence, I'm sitting here wanting to write but really not knowing what to say. I guess I'll start with a mini update on what's new in the life of Jess!

First of all, just to clarify... the "mood" I was in after my last post was definitely not depressed. I was actually feeling optimistic and (I don't want to say enlightened, because that is seriously not the case) realizing a lot about myself. But the point is that I was optimistic. Definitely not depressed.

Tonight. I'm not depressed. Not terribly happy either. I think I'm just stressed, uncertain, and a tiny bit defeatist.

Rewind back to my previous post. I had just finished that Navy proposal, taken some time off, and was looking for my next gig. I'm working for Marriott now. Definitely a different environment. I've met a bunch of people with whom I really enjoy working. And a few I really could leave. :) I'm not about to go into too much detail on that... The schedule is great. I'm working 40 hour weeks! I know! Seriously shocking. I almost don't know what to do with myself. Today - this week in general - has been pretty stressful. For part of it, I see a light at the end of the tunnel. For the other... I cheated on my diet and had Almond m&m's. (For those who have been around me lately and know how strict I've been, that's pretty major.)

I'm working on how to deal with the stress. I'll figure it out.

On to the other super major life change. Not sure if you remember, but I said that I was doing something new and was going to keep it to myself. Well, I'm ready to share. Through a series of events - which I'm happy to share if you are really interested - I met a man named Charles Platkin. And he is helping me figure out how to change my life. I now have my own treadmill and exercise bike - which I use daily! (I believe I've missed once since I've started) I'm working on changing what I'm eating and how I'm eating. And before getting stressed out this week and going back to my old habits, I had lost 12 lbs in just about a month. Now I'm at 10 lbs. Nothing to sneeze at. But I still have a lot of work to do and a lot to learn.

What can I say? I'm a work in progress and constantly evolving in lots of different ways.

Sorry! I can't help but get a little philosophical today. :) In about 5 minutes, I'll be 34. And just like I do around New Year's, May 17th, and my bithday - I get a little reflective. I've been thinking a lot about where I am in my life, what I'm happy about, what I'm not happy about, what I'd like to change, and how I'm going to do that. Its late and its all still pretty jumbled up in my head, so I'm not going to try to share it right now. But as you know, I will when I'm ready to.

So anyway... Happy Birthday to me! And here's to lots more! :)

A little bit of introspection...

2010-01-29T01:27:00.001-05:00

I've been in a hermit-y but introspective place this past month. I decided I was going to get back out there and get back to really living my life rather than just existing based on a pretty direct conversation I had on New Year's, I'm pretty disappointed to say that I haven't. Don't get me wrong, I'm in NO way giving up on it. I'm just having a hard time getting there. (And you know that conversation needed to happen and was long overdue, so Thank You.)

Over the holidays I was working on a proposal. It was submitted on the 13th or so of Jan. We were already working long hours but for the week and a half before submission, we were at the office till midnight every weekday and put in 10+ hours in the office on the weekend days. Basically, life sucked. I took about a week off after we submitted to recoup. And then spent last week/this week looking for a project. While its great to be at home, not have to get up early and go to the office, its seriously stressful. But over the past 2 weeks - having all this time on my hands and being a hermit, has given me a lot of time to think and do some self reflection/evaluation. Here's what I've been thinking about...

- First of all JT had me do an exercise where I wrote down 25 reasons why I may be self sabotaging myself from accomplishing the goals that I've been setting. A lot of my reasons ended up being repeats, but here's what I came up with:
- Fear of failure
- Fear of success
- Fear of rejection
- Fear of the unknown
- What if it isn't enough?
- Not sure I know how to be successful anymore
- Laziness
- Don't know what I want
- Being successful means taking a risk - status quo means no risk
- Its safer not to do anything
- I won't have an "excuse" anymore
- I'd lose the "drama" in my life and I don't know how to operate w/o it anymore
- I don't know if I'm worth the effort
- Lack of discipline/willpower
- Lack of confidence that I can do it

Reading through that honestly sounds like a pity party for one. But that's what I came up with. After we discussed the list, she asked me which ones I felt were valid reasons. I said none. So basically, I'm sabotaging myself for reasons that even *I* don't believe are valid. Can anyone tell me what's wrong with this picture?

- Something I've known about myself for a long time - Dad and I have had PLENTY of conversations about this one - is that I'm probably the World's Greatest Planner. I'm serious. My plans could win awards. But I just can't seem to follow them. I proved this again the past two weeks.

- I thought that it would be ideal to find a project/job where I'd be working from home. Bad idea! I'm already enough of a hermit and homebody. Whether I like it or not, I need to get out of the house everyday. Its so easy to climb back into my introverted shell when I don't need to interact with anyone for a few days. It gets me back to feeling depressed, lonely, and just horrible.

- I'm like my Mom. (Mom, please don't have a heart attack) My Mom needs to have a routine. Something that she has to do each day. Kind of like an externally dictated schedule. So do I. Being at home for over 2 weeks I find myself going for days without even showering or getting out of my pajamas, being an insomniac - either not being able to sleep till 4/5 am or not being able to sleep at all, or I'll sleep till 2 in the afternoon. There is a new permanent dent in my sofa b/c I sit on it all day. With all this time in the house you'd think that my house would be tidy or at least the dishes would be done. Nope. All over the kitchen right now. I'm already out of bowls and silverware. I need to have to be somewhere every day. To have to go to bed by a certain time, get up and get dressed by a certain time, be out of the house most of the day. Making a schedule for myself just isn't good enough.

- Careerwise - I don't know what I want to do. I've talked to a lot of you about wanting to go back to school for Nursing or do a PA program. I don't know if I grabbed onto the Nursing/PA option because it was constantly in my face - the wonderful nurses and PA's I've had, and I just needed a way out of what I'm doing now - proposals with insane schedules, no work-life balance, putting in crazy hours to get negative feedback, having to basically find a new "job" (project) every other month. Or is it because I'm really passionate about being a Nurse or PA. I honestly don't know. But I know that I really don't want to go back to school full time right now. I don't want to have to skimp and save every penny and not do anything fun because I'm trying not to take out a huge loan to go to school. Maybe I am passionate about it. Maybe I do really want to go into health care. Maybe I really do want to go back to school full time. But I'm not going to jump into doing it just because I'm desperate to get out of my status quo - aka Proposal Hell. I don't know how to go about doing this, but I need to figure out what I want to do with my life.

- I'm insane. (Stop laughing and I'll explain.) If you take the definition of insanity to be "doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result", then I'm insane. This year I set some of the same goals that I set every year. And I started to go about "achieving" then the same way I do every year. January isn't over and I've already fallen flat on my face. Don't take this as I'm going to quit. I'm not. But I've finally realized that its complete insanity to expect to accomplish what I want to accomplish by doing the same thing that I've always done and failed. I need a new approach or strategy. I think I've found one. I hope I have. I'm not going to share too much about it right now because honestly, I don't want to have to deal with the eye-rolling, "here we go again", or whatever. Its not productive and I don't need it. So I'll keep this (mostly) to myself for now.

I think I could keep going for a few hours with this post, but seeing that its already after 1am, I need to get to bed so that I don't stay up all night and feel like crap tomorrow or sleep till 2pm. I know my last few posts have been on the negative side. Maybe this is a good thing. I know Dr. Falcao said from the beginning that I wasn't dealing with my feelings and I'm hearing that again from JT about quite a few things. So maybe this is good. JT says I need to open up more, be honest about what I'm thinking and feeling. Maybe this is a start.

But since I can't end on a negative note... here's something funny - *IF* you made it this far!
A man absolutely hated his wife's cat and decided to get rid of him one day by driving him 20 blocks from his home and leaving him at the park.

As he was getting home, the cat was walking up the driveway.

The next day he decided to drive the cat 40 blocks away. He put the beast out and headed home.

Driving back up his driveway, there was the cat!

He kept taking the cat further and further and the cat would always beat him home. At last he decided to drive a few miles away, turn right, then left, past the bridge, then right again and another right until he reached what he thought was a safe distance from his home and left the cat there.

Hours later the man calls home to his wife:
"Jen, is the cat there?"
"Yes," the wife answers, "why do you ask?"
Frustrated, the man answered, "Put that son of a bitch on the phone, I'm lost! and need directions!"

Deep Thoughts - by Jess Datta (not Jack Handey)

2009-12-27T00:47:00.001-05:00

As the light changed from red to green to yellow and back to red again, I sat there thinking about life. Was it nothing more than a bunch of honking and yelling? Sometimes it seemed that way.

Ok that isn't really by me. Its by Jack. But I thought it was a good one to start with. *smile* There's a lot that's been rattling around in my mind these days so I'll just start babbling and see where this goes.

I just came back from Thiru's house in Columbia. Who is Thiru? He's a friend from Woodbridge Elementary School! How's that for a blast from the past? He has a get together each year around the holidays for friends from grade school. I'm sure his invite list has grown since Facebook made it soo much easier to connect with ppl. I wasn't able to go last year, but I'm really glad I went this year. I had a great time talking to ppl I haven't seen in almost 20 years. It was a serious blast from the past - but so great to see how well everyone is doing!

So all in all, I've had a p (excuse the interruption while I try to prevent an adorable little puppy from sitting on my keyboard) ... so all in all I've had a pretty good holiday. I've had to work a lot more than I had hoped to - and at the same time probably not as much as I needed to - but I had fun too. I went and saw the water skiing Santa on Christmas Eve with Liz and went to Midnight Mass in Rockville. Christmas Day, I had brunch with Mom, Dad, and Monie and then dinner at Rishi's place with Monie, Monty, Silly, Karim, Nimbu, and Ajay. Today was mostly a work day and then I went to the party this evening. Tomorrow, again mostly a work day but, we are having our annual Kent Hall reunion lunch. (Me, Val, Danielle, and Carrie get together every year around the holidays.)

So maybe its the fact that its around the Holidays, I went to midnight mass on Christmas Eve, and I've had more than a few conversations with my shrink about this -but I've been thinking about my spirituality a lot these days. Or maybe its more accurate to say my lack of spirituality or belief. I'm really not sure when this shift happened, but I know there was a time when I felt like I was reasonably spiritual. But I really don't think I am any more. JT - my shrink, so I don't have to keep saying "my shrink" - told me that from her perspective she thinks that dealing with death is a lot harder to do when you don't have religious or spiritual beliefs. Makes sense to me. But I'm not really sure how to go about dealing with my 'crisis of faith '. I doubt I'll ever be super religious - and I really don't think I need to be. But being agnostic - I think that's where I might be right now - probably isn't the best place to be. JT suggested a few books for me to read that she thought might be helpful in making me think and help me figure out what it is that I believe in. I added them to the pile on my bed side table. Hopefully this won't be another one of those todo's that keeps getting pushed down further on the list.

Shawn's memorial service was last week, on Monday. I planned to go. I took the time off of work. I made sure I had all the logistical info. And I did everything I could to minimize those last minute excuses that I knew I'd come up with. But apparently I came up with more. I found the lamest reasons not to go. So I didn't go. I've spent two whole sessions with JT talking about this. About why I can't go to funerals. I don't seem to have a problem going to the funeral of someone who has lived a full life and passed away at an older age. Don't get me wrong, those aren't easy by any means. Death isn't easy to deal with no matter what. But I can't seem to go to the funeral of a 'cancer friend'. She thinks its because it hits too close to home and its my way of not dealing with their death. Its like if I don't actually see it - I just hear about it - in a convoluted way its easier to imagine it didn't happen. Same reason why closed casket funerals are 'easier' than open ones. I know that my friends dying will never get easier to deal with. I could wish and pray that all of them will be fine. But the sad truth is that there is a high probability that not all of them will. Maybe this makes me immature or deluded, but that isn't something that I can deal with. Nor is dealing with my mortality.

I know that the real way to honor and remember them would be to celebrate their lives. And the memorial services/funerals are more about celebrating their lives than just grieving. But I still can't seem to go to them. I've thought about Shawn a lot this week. And have been a 'lurker' on his Facebook page reading comments people have posted after his memorial service. Something that made me laugh - Shawn is a huge Seinfeld fan, so first of all Happy belated Festivus! So Shawn's e-mail address is 'amvandelay' and the name was generally set to "Art Vandelay". I was looking at that one day (a few months ago) and got really confused. Why is Shawn using this guy "Art's" e-mail address? I finally got it after I googled "Art Vandelay". Doh!

I think I better stop my rambling and go to bed. I took an ambien a little bit ago and its starting to kick in. I do have some more random thoughts to share, but those will have to wait for another time. As will my reflecting on this year, next year, resolutions, and all that good stuff. But before I go, a few Deep Thoughts from Jack Handy ...

- The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face.

- I believe in making the world safe for our children, but not our children's children, because I don't think children should be having sex.
- If you ever catch on fire, try to avoid seeing yourself in the mirror, because I bet that's what REALLY throws you into a panic.
- Whenever I see an old lady slip and fall on a wet sidewalk, my first instinct is to laugh. But then I think, what if I was an ant and she fell on me. Then it wouldn't seem quite so funny.
- Instead of having "answers" on a math test, they should just call them "impressions," and if you got a different "impression," so what, can't we all be brothers?
- Maybe in order to understand mankind we have to look at that word itself. MANKIND. Basically, it's made up of two separate words "mank" and "ind." What do these words mean? It's a mystery and so is mankind.
- I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it.

Merry Christmas!

Shawn Felty

2009-12-14T01:17:00.001-05:00

On December 13, 2009 at 4:30 pm, Shawn Felty passed peacefully surrounded by family and close friends. He was loved by many, with nearly 100 teammates, fellow actors, colleagues, cancer survivors, cancer fighters, Colondar models and friends visiting him over the last few days. For two years he battled this disease with incredible strength and extraordinary grace and he was inspiration to all who knew him. The world lost an amazing man today, but he left behind a perfect example of perseverance, fortitude and friendship.

From Coach Bob -

The world is a much poorer place tonight.
http://allittakesisguts.blogspot.com/

I've never met anyone quite like Shawn before, and may never again. He was like a teenager in love - head over heels, moon and the stars, waaaaay above cloud nine in love with life. Continuously, over the top optimistic and excited to do anything (and everything).

I am glad to have known him.

Coach Bob.

Shawn - You are in my thoughts and prayers and you will truely be missed.

A personal lesson to me. Don't put off until tomorrow... I've been thinking about Shawn quite a bit since I heard he was in the hospital. I kept thinking, I'll go visit him in the next few days. I thought the same thing today.

Day 1

2009-12-07T17:39:00.000-05:00

So I'm not certain, but either I'm having a delayed reaction to something I ate on the trip, bad Mexico water, traveling, or my lunch from Trader Joe's... or I'm in the Neratinib group and I'm already experiencing some of the GI side-effects that they listed.

If it continues for the next few days then I'll probably know for sure.

A Happy Sunday Night...

2009-12-06T22:44:00.001-05:00

I'm in a really good mood today - in spite of the fact that its a Sunday night and I have to go to work tomorrow. It's just a happy day. I just got back from Cozumel a little while ago. SUCH a great trip! Me, Monie, Rishi, and Monty went. 5 days 4 nights. It was actually the perfect length. I'll write more about the trip later - or I'll just post a link to the album after Monie posts her pictures. As usual, she took a ton of them! =) But we all had a great time! I enjoyed all of it - except for the early part of today. I had my second hangover in about 3 years today. I had a GREAT time last night! But this morning, I was really hurting. And then add to that a super choppy ferry ride back to the main land - I got sick twice on the ferry. But in my defense, even if I wasn't hung over - it was so rough, I still would have gotten sick. But anyway...

So about my last post... I was in a bit of a pity party mood. And no, the 3rd bad thing never happened. Because the first two realy weren't that bad. Getting pulled over, yeah, not the most fun thing. But I didn't get a ticket. I had a super nice cop, who was really understanding of my having an awful day, and he cut me a break. Locking my keys in the car... Well, I could have had to spend $130 on having BWM unlock the car, $140 on a rental car to get to Baltimore (go on my trip, and then have someone drive me back to VA after the trip with my spare key) - but Brian and I were able to fish my keys out of the sunroof vent with 2 wire hangers. It was a seriously amusing day! So those two really weren't so bad.

What I'm trying to say is - feel free to ignore my mini pity party. :)

The only thing that isn't making my totally happy tonight is the fact that I'm a little nervous about tomorrow. (I start the Neratinib trial tomorrow.) But the thing is that I have absolutely no control over which group I'll be in - the group getting Neratinib or the group getting the placebo. So there isn't anything for me to be nervous about. A large part of me REALLY wants to be in the Neratinib group - for obvious reasons. The drug is benefitting ppl who have active tumors. So it would probably help me avoid them! (Duh!) But there is a small part of me that is hoping to be in the placebo group. After spending a good part of today feeling pretty crappy and getting sick or feeling like I'm going to be sick - I'm just not sure if I want to be feeling like that for a whole year. (I know there are plenty of other meds I can get to counteract the side effects, but that just means more chemicals being pumped in my body to screw up things that are working.)

Actually at this point, I think I may even be 50-50 on this. I really don't know which way I want it to go. The weird part is that I feel like I'd be disappointed (rather than relieved or content) either way. Does that make any sense? (Not to me either!)

Anyway... Back to focusing on the things that *are* making me happy. A great vacation! Getting to sleep with Chemo Puppy tonight! Hearing from a friend who is overseas! Getting packages in the mail! and Sleeping in my own bed tonight!

---------------

A guy is driving around the back woods of Montana and he sees a sign in front of a broken down shanty-style house: 'Talking Dog For Sale ' He rings the bell and the owner appears and tells him the dog is in the backyard. The guy goes into the backyard and sees a nice looking Labrador retriever sitting there.

'You talk?' he asks.

'Yep,' the Lab replies.

After the guy recovers from the shock of hearing a dog talk, he says 'So, what's your story?'

The Lab looks up and says, 'Well, I discovered that I could talk when I was pretty young. I wanted to help the government, so I told the CIA. In no time at all they had me jetting from country to country, sitting in rooms with spies and world leaders, because no one figured a dog would be eavesdropping.'
'I was one of their most valuable spies for eight years running. But the jetting around really tired me out, and I knew I wasn't getting any younger so I decided to settle down. I signed up for a job at the airport to do some undercover security, wandering near suspicious characters and listening in. I uncovered some incredible dealings and was awarded a batch of medals.' 'I got married, had a mess of puppies, and now I'm just retired.'

The guy is amazed. He goes back in and asks the owner what he wants for the dog.

'Ten dollars,' the guy says.

'Ten dollars? This dog is amazing! Why on earth are you selling him so cheap?'

'Because he's a liar. He never did any of that shit.'

Waiting for the 3rd major thing to go wrong...

2009-12-01T10:53:00.001-05:00

Since they always come in threes.

1- Getting pulled over.

2- I just locked my F'ing keys in my car.

3- ????

A crappy day...

2009-11-30T20:22:00.001-05:00

I've had a pretty crappy day today and I'm in a pretty crappy mood. Go figure.

I'll keep this short since I'm really not in the mood to post, but I feel like venting, but I don't feel like talking about it. Does that make any sense at all? No? Not to me either.

So this morning kinda sucked. I slept horribly last night and had to get up at 6 to make it to Fairfax Radiology by 7:30 so I could get my ekg, chest x-ray, and another blood draw. The ekg was fine. The actual ekg only took 2 minutes. The waiting took about a half hour or so. And then the x-ray, she took me back right away, but then I had to wait over a half hour after changing. Idiotic, in my mind. Once that was done, I went over to my oncologist's office for another blood draw. They drew labs last week but forgot to test for some things that they needed for the study. Pretty irritating.

So I spent over 2 hours doing all that this morning and then finally headed over to work. Work kinda sucked for a few reasons. The SE I'm working with didn't know that I'm going on vacation Wed - Sun this week. He found out when he was asking to schedule a meeting with me on Wed morning. I felt like a real ass because I thought he knew. I know I spoke to a few other ppl on the team about it, brought it up before I rolled on, and put it in the project calendar, but maybe I forgot to tell him? I talked to him about it later - because I felt like I acted like whiny brat when he said he didn't know about it - he said he didn't have an issue with it as long as we had a plan to get my section done, even if that involved getting other ppl on board to write parts of it. So basically he was really nice about it and I felt like more of an ass for some reason.

So later, I met with him and another guy I'm working with to go over my section. We're talking through it and several times I'm trying to articulate something and I can't think of how to say it or even how to describe it. I felt like a complete and total idiot. I can't even tell you how frustrating it is feeling like I'm 50% dumber than I used to be. It completely freaking sucks!!

We only made it half way through my section and called it a night. I headed out b/c I was supposed to see my shrink. On the way she texted me to see if I could switch to tuesday or wed instead. It works better for me not to have to go tonight because I still need to pack and I have some work to do before tomorrow. But it totally upset me too.

So I'm driving home having a semi-bawling fit. Traffic sucks. The beltway was completely jammed up. So I took the back roads to Gallows and then home. On Gallows, I wasn't thinking. The traffic was backed up. I could see where I wanted to turn about a half mile ahead. So I just went in the median and drove up there to make the turn. If I was even using half a brain, I would have realized how completely idiotic that was. Surprise, Surprise.. I got pulled over. The cop was really nice - his wife is a childhood cancer survivor and a recent breast cancer survivor. He noticed my plates and asked about them. He also asked if I was crying because I got pulled over. I said no, I'd started that when I left work and had just had a crappy day. He was like, good - that doesn't work to get out of a ticket. He asked me why I had a crappy day. It made me even more frustrated that I couldn't think of how to explain that. I know I was babbling about the hours at the doctor's offices this morning. But have no clue what else I said. It just pissed me off even more.

He was really nice and gave me a written warning. I didn't even have my current registration in the car. I had the renewal paper so it had the info on it that my registration was current. But the registration I had in the car expired in March 08. I totally feel like I'm getting dumber and more idiotic by the second.

So I'm just irritated and pissy right now. I'm sure there are much worse things that could happen to make someone have a bad day. And someone always has it worse than me. Blah blah blah. I don't really care. I'm just irritated and pissed off.

USPSTF - US Preventative Services Task Force, What are you smoking?

2009-11-18T01:43:00.003-05:00

According to the USPSTF, my cancer should have been discovered when they were doing my autopsy. Which would probably have been at the age of 31 or 32 because they recommend against teaching women how to do breast self exams. I'm not even going to begin to count the women I personally know who would also fall into that group. Obviously, women who are not in the 'target' age range aren't going to have to worry about breast cancer mortality. So USPSTF decided that they don't need to know how to examine themselves or get screened. (Want to take a look at the "In Memoriam" boards for any breast cancer group and see how many women under the age of 50 or even 40 are dying of breast cancer?)

I don't get up in arms about too many cancer causes, but this one is really hitting a nerve.

To the USPSTF, a few questions for you.

1- When its a recorded fact that younger women have a significantly higher mortality rate from breast cancer, why are you against taking preventative measures? No one is asking for routine mamogram screenings to be done for teenagers, women in their 20's or 30's - even though all three of these groups are seeing a higher rate in breast cancer diagnosis. But why are you taking it away from the 40 year olds? And what is your rationale in recommending against breast self exams?

2- What moron made the decision that even though "screenings definitely reduce breast cancer mortality", they are not beneficial to women age 40 to 49 because "they can also result in psychological harm, unnecessary tests and biopsies due to overdiagnosis and false-positive results"?

Maybe I missed something here, but you think its better to worry about the extra testing and stress RATHER THAN SCREENING FOR THE SECOND LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH AMONG US WOMEN?? (Breast Cancer took the lives of 40,480 women in 2008)

And wouldn't it make logical sense that women in their 50's had fewer false positives because they already had baseline studies done in their 40's? Where as the women in their 40's have just started getting screened, so all abnormalities would be looked into - increasing the rate of false positives. Wonder how much the rate of false positives will increase for women in their 50's since screening will just be staring at that point.

3- You discourage against teaching how to do Breast Self Exams. According to the definition of their rating process, the "harm outweighs the benefit". How can knowing your body be harmful to anyone? How can recognizing differences or changes in your body be harmful? Are you smoking crack?

4- How much are the insurance companies paying you? You are recommending women delay screening for an entire decade in the day and age where girls reach puberty years earlier than we did, when the rate of women being diagnosed with breast cancer in their teens, 20's, and 30's is dramatically on the rise. And get screened every two years! Who is this benefiting? So I ask again, how much are the insurance companies paying you?

5- Is this what we have to look forward to with socialized medicine? Substandard health care in the wealthiest and most powerful nation?

6- With the billions of dollars poured into breast cancer research, the one factor that all research agencies are stressing is early detection. How can you detect something if you are not looking for it? No one is advocating all women should be hypochondriacs. But teaching women how to do self breast exams and starting mamograms at 40 seems pretty basic to me - and to the millions of women who are outraged by your recommendations.

"The USPSTF reasoned that the additional benefit gained by starting screening at age 40 years rather than at age 50 years is small, and that moderate harms from screening remain at any age. This leads to the C recommendation. The USPSTF notes that a "C" grade is a recommendation against routine screening of women aged 40 to 49 years."

Let me translate that statement - Women in your 40's living in the US, we don't need you. So, stop any preventative measures to protect you from the 2nd largest killer of US women.

Well, at least I don't have to worry about this ridiculous recommendation effecting me. Luckily, I was diagnosed at 31 so I can get all the screenings and self breast exam lessons I want.

-----------------------
Note (to piss me off even further about this):
The USPSTF is supposed to be the leading independent panel of private-sector experts in prevention and primary care. Notice there are NO oncologists or breast health experts on their panel. http://www.ahrq.gov/clinic/uspstfab.htm

Insomnia... its baaack!

2009-11-16T02:24:00.001-05:00

Its now 2am and I'm wide awake. I wanted to get to bed early tonight since I didn't finish editing the proposal section I wanted to have done by tomorrow - yes, I was working a bit this weekend. That obviously isn't happening.

Since its been a while since I've posted, I thought I might as well do that.

A lot has been going on lately. I'm having a little bit of a struggle with getting out of my "hermitude". Its something I'm working on with my shrink and taking steps on in my personal life. But I have to tell you, some of it is so much harder than you would think. There have been a few events that I've gone to in the past few weeks - I hate to say, but I really didn't want to go to them. I wanted to be there for the friend(s) that they were for, but the thought of having to be social in a group setting like that just scared the crap out of me and made me nervous as hell. I went to them, and I survivied. But it definitely wasn't a comfortable experience. How can it be when I let myself get so used to - and comfortable with - being a hermit. Its a work in progress. I'll get there.

On the work front. I'm working a bit more than I'd like. But on the flip side, I actually feel like I'm being challenged and I'm enjoying - for the most part - what I'm doing. While this is a great thing, I'm still not chargeable. Another work in progress.

On the medical front... I just had my first full physical since early 2007. I found that amusing. Seriously amusing. I'm at a doctor's office at least several times a month, yet I hadn't had a physical in about 2 1/2 years. Just amusing. I had one last week. I'm sure everything is fine, but I'd like for it to stay that way, hence the physical. I'm now on the 6 month follow up plan with Dr. Grace. I have my 1 year follow up with Dr. H this week. And I had my follow up with Dr. Wilkinson a week or so ago. When I was there, she told me about a clinical trial that she thought would be good for me. Its to hopefully find a new indication for an already FDA approved drug. So even though its a clinical trial, its already been tested on homans quite a bit. I spoke to Dr. Griffiths about it to get her opinion. She said that since I had some major risk factors in my cancer, she thinks I should take advantage of any new technology that's out there. So the trial is a randomized double blind study with half the people getting a drug called Neratinib (currently used to keep Her2+ mets in control) and the other half getting a placebo. They want to see if Neratinib - like Herceptin - could help reduce the risk of recurrence or mets for Her2+ cancers.

I have an appointment tomorrow morning to do the consent paperwork. I'll do all the initial testing in the next few weeks, and then start the drug on the 9th of December. There are a whole bunch of side-effects associated with the drug, so they wanted to wait until after Thanksgiving and my vacation to start me on it. Makes sense. Definitely wouldn't want to ruin a holiday or vacation with med side-effects. The side effects are: diarrhea, dehydration, anorexia, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, rash, abdominal pains, elevated liver function tests, and like Herceptin - it can effect my heart. So while these really don't sound like fun at all - its still worth taking if it could reduce my risk of recurrence. For me it keeps coming back to that stupid number of positive nodes after chemo. 10. Its just a scary number when 2 - 3 is considered high. So in my mind, a trial is worth it. Now I just need to hope that I'm going to get into the Neratinib group vs the placeabo group. They don't tell who is in which group until the end of the 5 year study, but I think it will be pretty obvious based on if I have side effects or not. LOL! This is the first time I've ever been hoping that I'll have side-effects from a medication. Crazy, huh?

Anyway, I'm going to try to get to sleep. Hope you enjoyed your weekend and I'll write more later.

***

"Just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to, doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have."

Ralph and Edna were both patients in a mental hospital.

One day while they were walking past the hospital swimming pool, Ralph suddenly jumped into the deep end.

He sank to the bottom of the pool and stayed there.

Edna promptly jumped in to save him. She swam to the bottom and pulled him out. When the Head Nurse Director became aware of Edna's heroic act, she immediately ordered her to be discharged from the hospital, as she now considered her to be mentally stable.

She went to tell Edna the news, and she said, ''Edna, I have good news and bad news. The good news is you're being discharged, since you were able to rationally respond to a crisis by jumping in and saving the life of the person you love... I have concluded that your act displays sound mindedness.

The bad news is, Ralph hung himself in the bathroom with his bathrobe belt right after you saved him. I am so sorry, but he's dead.''

Edna instantly replied, ''He didn't hang himself, I put him there to dry. How soon can I go home?''

Happy Diwali!

2009-10-18T00:48:00.002-04:00

So we've had a pretty fun Diwali. How about you? It was definitely an interesting day following a really interesting week. I'll rewind and start with the highlights of my week.

First of all, I was so excited last week when I was posting from somewhere in the air between Dallas and BWI that I forgot to send out my notification e-mail. So even my most dedicated follower (ahem - Monie) didn't know that I had posted. Sorry! I was too caught up in the excitement of being in the air and being able to talk to ppl who weren't. So I made it back from my trip to AZ. Wasn't excited about going back to work because of the really great (sarcasm) project that I was on.

Oh, before I get into that... The race we were training for for Cancer to 5k was last weekend. We did the 5k at the Baltimore running festival. In spite of not having been at practice for the last few weeks, I felt really great! I even had an extra burst of energy for the last 1/2 mile or so. Just felt really great to finishi it! And I had two GREAT sherpas - Arnetta and Thomas! =) The only thing that didn't go all that well was my plan for getting picked up after the race. I thought I was being ultra efficient by asking Mom to drop me off in the morning - no issues about trying to park. But we didn't fix a meeting place for afterwards. So after the race, I called Mom to pick me up. I was waiting at some random street corner in Baltimore city - not in the greatest neighborhood. So while I'm trying to give Mom directions on how to get to where I am - by using my super cool iPhone and its GPS - my cell phone battery dies. =) So I'm sitting at this street corner for probably over an hour and a half while Mom is trying to follow the last directions I gave her - not an easy task when half the streets are closed off because of the Baltimore Marathon. While I'm sitting there, I asked some random guy walking by if I could use his phone since mine died. He was nice enough to say yes. I called Mom and she was practically in tears because she was on the street I told her I was waiting on but had no idea if she needed to continue down it or go the other way. So this guy asks if I want him to give Mom directions - he was from Baltimore city and knew the area pretty well. Guess where Mom was? Not even a half a block from where I was sitting! =)

Ok so back to my work drama... =) Tuesday, right before I was about to head out to go meet my career counselor for my annual review and to see if she knew of a non-politically incorrect way to bail on the project, my Sr. Manager pulled me aside to chat. He told me that the role he had envisioned for me and the direction he had envisioned for the Tech Team were changing. Another Sr. Manager (someone who had been on the project before and is at a higher level than I am) had been brought on to do what he had originally brought me on to do. So that left him with no budget for me. Apparently, higher ups had requested this other guy be in this position. I almost felt bad for the huge idiotic grin plastered on my face while he was apologizing for this change.

So I had a really fun annual review. I couldn't have been happier with the day. I did have a few too many glasses of wine that night and ended up - literally - butting heads with a dog. =) Pretty funny story! Wednesday - I turned my laptop into tech support to undo all the awful things my project had done to configure my laptop for their network. Thursday/Friday - I sent out e-mails looking for a new project. I have a few leads. One that I'm kind of hoping for.

The one that I'm hoping for is actually right off of the same metro stop as the last one was. But from the way the guy described it, I think it would be a great fit for me. I'll hear back from that one early next week. But I'm still following a few other leads as well.

Last night Monie and I had a bonding night. Something we haven't done in a really long time. Lots of laughing and gossiping ... and surprise surprise - no fighting! =) Go us! We went out for pizza - I was really craving pizza last night. And had root beer floats. And then she showed me all her Egypt pictures! LOL! My Daddy is REALLY cute!! =)

And that brings me up to today...
I went to see Dr. Andy this morning - my back was seriously killing me all week. He thinks that I've lost muscle tone in my back. I was thinking about this on the way home from seeing him and it kinda makes sense. I have been so busy focusing on chest, arms, and shoulders lately - since that's where I have all my scars/incisions - but completely ignored my back. Needless to say, in addition to my adjustments, I'll be adding in some back exercises.

Since its Diwali - and you can't lie on Diwali - Mommy totally surprised us! We told her to meet us at the Mandhir at noon. So we could do that before going to our Diwali lunch. But we totally expected her to show up at 12:30. So that's what we planned for. But Mom completely shocked us by geting there way before we did!! (Sorry Mommy!!) So the three of us went in and 'matha taked' and then were going to head over to Bethesda for lunch. Mom was going to ride with me and Monie was going to drive Mom's car.

Mom's car wouldn't start. =) So we all got in mine and decided we'd come back and call AAA after we had lunch. On the way to Bethesda, Mom got a call saying that there was a leak in the ceiling at the store. (I know, great beginning, right? =P) She gives some instructions on who to call and what to do and we continue on our way. She figured she'd go there in the evening and see what was going on.

So we meet Rishi, his parents, Monty, and his Mom at a Indian restaurant in Bethesda. We had a great time at lunch! Food was good. Conversation was good. Company was good. And then Rishi mentioned something about putting money in the parking meter. OOOOPS! Guess who forgot to even read the sign to see when the meters were in effect? Yeah, that would be me. I went outside to see if I was in luck... obviously not the case seeing how our day was going! =P I already had a ticket on my car. I figured no point in paying extra for parking by feeding the meter now since I'd already be paying $35 for the ticket.

So anyway. We finished our lunch. Monie called AAA since it generally takes forever for them to come. The three of us headed back to the Mandhir to wait. Mom figured since we were there, she might as well just try and start the car. =) It starts right up! She turned it off, restarted it. Drove a bit, turned it off, no issues at all! =) (Monie said that we were just supposed to spend the extra time together. I think I agree!) Since I was craving it and had spotted a Starbucks on our way, we decided to grab a cup of coffee and then head out.

LOL! I honestly don't know the last time the three of us have spent THIS much time just sitting and gabbing! Our 'quick cup of coffee' turned into a several hour bonding session. (Something else I really enjoyed today!) After we finished chatting, Mom headed back home to switch out cars and then head off. And Monie and I headed back to VA. Traffic kinda sucked on the way back and I was feeling horrible for being a neglectful puppy mom, but Rishi Uncle came over and played with Chemo Puppy, took her out, and gave her a snack. So when we got home the baby was happy vs desperate to go out.

I played with my piglet for a bit while Monie packed up her stuff. Then we headed over to Rishi's place and hung out with Anu, Jitin, Ayana, Yuvan, Monty, Rishi, Aunty and Uncle. We got completely sucked into this desi movie - New York. It was definitely better than Krish, but probably not anywhere near my list of recommendations. =)

And that's about it for my week/day. Tomorrow - I'm hoping to be all super productive and get some stuff done around the house. And I'm really hoping I can see two of my rowing/crew teammates. (One just had a bilat-mastectomy. The other just lit up on a PET.) Both are absolutely amazing women! And so much fun to be around. =)

Ok well this just turned into a novel so I'm going to end it and call it a night. Happy Diwali and hope you are enjoying your weekend! =)
----------------

- When I die, I want to go peacefully like my Grandfather did, in his sleep -- not screaming, like the passengers in his car.
- The average woman would rather have beauty than brains, because the average man can see better than he can think.
- Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.
- A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.
- What do you mean my Birth Certificate EXPIRED?
- I have opinions of my own -- strong opinons -- But I don't always agree with them. - G. W. Bush

How cool is this...

2009-10-06T18:21:00.001-04:00

So I'm on my way back from Arizona. I just had an awesome week visiting Tracy, Paul, and baby Samantha. Ofcourse I took a ton of pictures of Samantha - aka Squeak (as her Mom call her) and Doe (as her Dad calls her). She is just sooo damn cute!! I'll post pictures of her later this week.

LOL! So I did get a tiny glimpse into Mommy-hood. I took night duty one night so Trace could get a decent night of sleep. LOL! And I FINALLY understood why she called her Squeak! Samantha kept squeaking ALL NIGHT!! I think I got about 2 hours of sleep total that night. But it was just really cute!! So I had Squeak in the bed with me... sleeping in her Boppy. And Hokie joined us and cuddled up under the covers with me. But he got irritated and left since I kept getting up - had to change Squeak, make her bottles, etc - trying to figure out how to get her to stop squeaking.

So when I was trying to make her another bottle at 8 in the morning, Trace woke up and took her. Squeak had this evil little grin on her face like she knew she had just kept me up all night - and ofcourse hse stopped squeaking. Oh, and as soon as Mommy came out, she passed out and stopped squeaking! =P

So anyway... I had a great trip! I was a major baby hog!

I also got to see Paul's brother Joe and his wife Shelly. I met them at the wedding last year. Joe and Shelly live in this amazing house in Tucson. Trace, Squeak, and I went up there on Monday night so that it would be easier to get to the airport this morning. We hung out with Shelly and their 5 adorable dogs last night - and a few bottles of wine! And with Joe this morning.

Hmmm.... what else to share...

Work is ... work. I'm trying to have a better outlook about it. But at times that is a little difficult. But I am seriously amused that I totally outlasted my predecessor! Apparently, this chic was staffed in my role - before I agreed to take it - she came in one day, got the lay of the land, and never came back! When my manager called her to ask if she was coming in the next day, she said no. She had already talked to HR and had herself rolled off the project. Does that give you an idea of how frustrating of an environment this project is? *sigh* hindsight is 20-20. Next time I'll make sure I do much more research before accepting a role.

Cest la vie.

Anyway... that is about it from me. I'm headed home. Monie and Dad are having an amazing time in Egypt. And Mom is having a great time spoiling my Chemo Puppy.

Oh, How am I posting if I'm *headed* home, you ask. Duh! Haven't you heard of in-flight wi-fi? ;-) How freaking cool is it that I'm flying ... we are somewhere between Dallas and Baltimore right now... and I'm online?? =) Pretty damn cool if you ask me!

Its Friday!

2009-09-18T13:21:00.004-04:00

Happy Friday everyone! This has been an interesting week for me. Well, an interesting couple of weeks. Let me try to update you on all that's been going on. I started a new project last week and am still trying to settle in. Its definitely a lot of hours, an interesting team, and a lot of disorganization. I'm still trying to figure out what my role is and what I'm supposed to be doing. Basically, work continues to be frustrating and I'm just not in the mood to vent about the details. Just that it's a huge source of frustration for me right now.

As you may have read… I called Dr. Wilkinson last Wed to find out the results of my scans. It was litterally a 30 second conversation with one of their office staff. But she was really sweet to tell me real quick that everything was ok! Rather than making me wait for the doctor or PA to give me a call back about it. I really appreciate people like that.

Little Miss Chemo isn't adjusting to my new hours very well. She started peeing and pooping on the carpet everyday in spite of getting a mid-day walk. So now she's being crated every day. She's not happy about it, but she needs to learn that its not ok to do those kinds of things. Plus I think its better that she be crated while I'm in AZ meeting Samantha and she's staying with Nimbu and Ajay for a week.

I've started getting out of the workout thing again. Not completely, but I'm not doing all that I planned on doing. Its just hard to get up at 5am to go to the gym when I don't get to bed ontime. And I generally get home from work around 8pm or later so I'm too tired to go after work. LOL! Something else that has me realizing that the consulting lifestyle just isn't for me anymore. That being said, I'd love to find a steady hour services role where I could work a reasonable schedule and not have to sacrifice the things that are really important to me. Wouldn't we all like that?

What else is going on… well, The Cancer to 5k race in coming up in 3 weeks. I'm no where near where I wanted to be for it. I'm still going to do it… but I just wish I was further along with my training and conditioning for it. One day…

I have a new personal project that I'm planning on starting this weekend. I'm pretty excited about it. Once I get a little further along with it, then I'll share what its all about. =) Till then, you can e-mail me and ask if you are super curious! 

What else can I share?

So now that I'm commuting on the metro, I've been listening to eBooks on the way to and from work. The other day I just finished listening to Randy Pausch's Last Lecture book. It has a lot of what he talked about in his Last Lecture at CMU, plus much more. I was pretty blown away by it. When I first downloaded it, I thought it was going to be pretty depressing and morbid and all that. But it was completely the opposite! Just some amazing, but simple, life lessons. Simple things that just make a whole lot of sense. Yeah, the fact that he was suffering from terminal cancer made me think that maybe I shouldn't be listening to this. But, I'd really recommend the book or the audio book to anyone! Seriously, read it or listen to it if you can. You'll be glad you did!

Today, since I had already finished listening to the Last Lecture book, I sat there for 25 minutes staring at this woman as she put on her makeup. I was just fascinated! I think that its too much when I have to use 5 products in the morning. This woman put on at least 14! All while riding on the metro! The car swaying, the jerky stops, all the people bumping into her. She was able to do it all flawlessly! I just found it absolutely fascinating! I think I take all of 2 minutes to do my makeup. I couldn't imagine a process that required at least 25. =)

Another person who has made me think quite a bit these days is a friend of mine from rowing. She was just diagnosed with her *3rd* Breast Cancer last week. In spite of hearing that news, she was still at rowing practice with a smile on her face! What an amazingly strong woman! Seriously inspiring! Thank God her tumor is tiny! So she won't need to go through chemo again. But she will be having a bilateral Mastectomy. So she's going to have some challenges ahead of her, but she's got an amazing attitude! And she'll be back to rowing and being active again next season!

Ok, well that is all I have to say right now. I'm determined to have a good Friday! I *AM* going to leave work at a reasonable time today! I'm going to go see a chick flick with a friend. And I'm going to enjoy my weekend! (Even though I'll probably be providing remote support this weekend) If you see my Mom, don't forget to wish her a Happy Birthday tomorrow! She's going to be *sl3&@sc!#~+nq years old tomorrow! =)

CLEAN.... THEY ARE CLEAN!!!!

2009-09-09T11:58:00.001-04:00

Just called the oncologists office! I was going nuts waiting!

Just got confirmation that MY SCANS ARE CLEAN!!!!!!!!!

More later! Have a great day!

A bit of a BLAH day...

2009-08-27T21:25:00.001-04:00

Last I posted I was getting ready to start the proposal with that team in Texas. As expected, its a little crazy. I worked pretty late all last week, both days this past weekend, and this week has been pretty intense too. I have another deadline for tomorrow night. So I think once I get that submitted, then I'm good for the weekend. I just need a little bit of down time.

Today has just been frustrating. I can't seem to figure out how to say what I need to convey in my section. I have soo much information, I have no idea how to get it all in there - or at least all the stuff that I think is useful and should be mentioned.

I almost kept working past 5 today, but then I was like... what am I doing? I'm getting back into the same pattern as I was in before. I was supposed to stop at 5 today so that I could go to rowing. I skipped all my other evening activities this week because I had calls and was trying to get work done. But I had decided that today I WAS going to go to rowing. So I made it there. It was our first time rowing with the intermediates and on the Potomac. (I missed last week but apparently that was the orientation)

But even rowing didn't feel good today. Either I was rushing up the slide, or I wasn't gripping the oar right, or I wasn't driving with my legs, or I was squaring too late, or I wasn't leaning back enough, or I was catching before the stroke was, or my shoulders were coming up too high. I just couldn't get it together today. Don't get me wrong, it was great to get out there and all that... but I just felt like I was having a completely off day.

Add to that a few other things not going well at work... I'm starting to stress about needing to find a good chargeable role after this proposal ... I'm totally off of my healthy eating plan and workout schedule - well not totally. I'm not eating crap, but I'm not eating what I planned. And I'm not getting to the gym every day either. And I have my 6 month scans next week. I think its just getting to be a bit much right now.

Anyway... I just got back home a little bit ago. My dinner is cooking in the oven... I need to shower and eat. And then see if I get get any more writing done for my section. And my poor neglected puppy needs some attention too. Its just a BLAH day.

I'm so not in the mood to find something funny to end with. But I think I probably need it more than you do tonight.

· Always forgive your enemies - Nothing annoys them more.

· If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?

· I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.

· For Sale: Parachute. Only used once, never opened, small stain.

· Join The Army, Visit exotic places, meet strange people, then kill them.

· Evening news is where they begin with 'Good evening', and then proceed to tell you why it isn't.

· Death is hereditary.

· Never argue with a fool. People might not know the difference.

Its Saturday Night...

2009-08-16T00:16:00.001-04:00

And for once... in a really long time... I didn't spend the entire evening at home. WOW! I know! Shocking, isn't it? Could it be that I might be inching out of hermitude? Maybe... just a tiny bit. I'm not ready to completely un-hermitize myself.

So Shawnie - one of my neighbors and a friend - is moving to NYC to go to grad school. So another neighbor planned a dinner for those of us who know her. We went to this Mexican place less than a mile from here. The food was yummy! I had tacos - I know. Not something I usually crave. And a Brazillian Mojito - really yummy. The service was great. And I had a good time.

Then we all went to walk our dogs. We went around the fence and into the Raytheon parkinglot - a normal walking route for ppl in the neighborhood AND Raytheon employees. And this Rent-A-Cop comes over to us to tell us we are private property. We said, we live here. He went away for a few minutes and then came back to give us our "Last and Final warning to get off the property." I think I was just itching for a confrontation so I told him that as long as Raytheon employees trespassed on our private property and walked the lake, we could be here walking the parking lot. He went away after that. We took our time leaving - I just really wanted to see what he was going to do about it. I mean really... 4 menacing ppl like us with our dogs walking around a parking lot with NO signs indicating we can't be there. Whatever guy!

So on to my drama from last week. I told you about our division going away, right? Well, so as soon as we got out of that meeting I started sending out e-mails to ppl I know trying to get staffed. First response was from someone I worked with a few years ago to work on a proposal. I told him I was happy to help, but I knew I'd start getting pressure from HR to get chargeable again. He talked to HR and said that they agreed that once I find a chargeable role, I give him 2 weeks and I can transition out. I also told him that I'd finish at Navy on the 21st. So then between Monday and Thursday, I ended up finding one chargeable role where they wanted me right away and one high potential. So I let everyone know and said I wouldn't be able to work on the proposal. That started this whole messy stressful drama. The end result was that I was told that I HAD to pass up the chargeable role(s) and take the proposal.

Definitely surprising to me. Its the first time in 9 years I've been given the direction that client billable work isn't the number one priority. So I'm starting on the proposal on Monday. The team will be out of town, but since I can't travel, I'm going to be working from home. Its going to be crazy hours, but the silver lining is that at least I don't have to travel. I'm just hoping that I'll be able to get on a billable role quickly after the proposal. But if not, I won't have any problem throwing it back in HR's face that they made me give up billable work so now they have to deal with it if it takes a bit to find something else.

Anyway.. Its midnight. I'm tired. I'm on a mission to get my house cleaned and my office setup before Monday. I've gotten a good bit done today, but have a LOT more to do tomorrow. Oh, and my poor baby is getting tortured tomorrow. She has an appointment to get a bath tomorrow at 10. She really needs one... and I can't wait to have a puppy who isn't shedding like crazy - even if its just for 2-3 days!

Good Night! Hope you are having a great weekend! Enjoy....

Bob was in trouble. He forgot his wedding anniversary. His wife was really pissed.

She told him "Tomorrow morning, I expect to find a gift in the driveway that goes from 0 to 200 in 6 seconds AND IT BETTER BE THERE !!"

The next morning he got up early and left for work. When his wife woke up, she looked out the window and sure enough there was a box gift-wrapped in the middle of the driveway.

Confused, the wife put on her robe and ran out to the driveway, brought the box back in the house.

She opened it and found a brand new bathroom scale.

Bob has been missing since Friday.

I spoke too soon....

2009-08-13T11:22:00.001-04:00

Its a drama filled Thursday.

An Update...

2009-08-13T10:58:00.001-04:00

My project issues will be over by COB tomorrow. I'll have a decision on where I'm going. I'll post more then!

But, I HAD to share this! Its an article from "The Onion". Enjoy!

Lance Armstrong Inspires Thousands To Come In Third To Cancer

PARIS—Cancer survivor Lance Armstrong's inspirational third-place Tour de France finish has motivated thousands of patients battling cancer to eventually finish third to their life-threatening disease.

"For years now, Lance has worked tirelessly to portray his life and his racing career as a symbol of inspiration for cancer patients everywhere, and now he's succeeded beyond his wildest dreams," said Nathan Frist, director of the Stanford Cancer Center, where the entire oncology ward watched Armstrong's third-place Tour de France finish and proudly raised their hands to display the blue "Do Not Resuscitate" medical bracelets they wore to support Armstrong's effort. "By tomorrow, this place will be almost empty."
Armstrong's third place finish, coupled with his relentless endeavors to raise awareness of himself as a cancer survivor and role model, have taken him almost overnight from one survivor among many to a living symbol of a man who only lets two things beat him. To many cancer patients seeking guidance and inspiration, he has become the new bronze standard.

"Lance Armstrong has never missed a chance to stand up and tell cancer patients everywhere to follow his example, and seeing him there on the bottom step of the podium sent us all a powerful message," 42-year-old Brian Goodwood, who was diagnosed with colon cancer last year, said Sunday. "If third is the best he can do, then I know Lance would want me to do it too."

Goodwood succumbed to a combination of cancer and complications from chemotherapy Tuesday morning.

Armstrong has won seven previous Tours de France, all while making every effort to equate those performances to triumphing over cancer. However, his 2009 effort—preceded by a Nike-sponsored promotional campaign making it clear that Armstrong had made a career comeback specifically for those with cancer—sent a new message as Armstrong struggled through the three-week, 1,500 mile competition. While he refused to give up, Armstrong finished in third behind Andy Schleck and more than five minutes behind winner Alberto Contador, facts that were not lost on those he insisted upon inspiring.

"I love Lance, and I'm gonna finish third just like he did!" said Karen Monaghan, a 6-year-old patient at the Texas Cancer Center recently diagnosed with lymph node cancer and calcifications in her lung tissue, holding up three fingers to symbolize the inspiration she drew from Armstrong.

"We're all gonna come in third to cancer!" the children of New York City's St. Vincent's Cancer Center exclaimed in unison while videotaping a message they will send Armstrong to show him he was making a difference and to thank him for his third-place effort.

St. Vincent's, which is widely regarded as the city's third-best hospital for cancer treatment, has announced that it will dedicate an entirely new oncology wing to help cancer patients better deal with their struggles. Hospital administrators said they will appoint a white-ribbon panel of experts to help them design and staff the new wing, where defeating cancer will be the tertiary goal.

"My wife loved Lance. He lifted her spirits when she was diagnosed. Susan hung on his every word.... She couldn't wait to watch him in his comeback Tour, and I've never seen her more moved than when he finished," said St. Vincent's Board of Directors chairman Gary James. "I'm really going to miss her."

Despite having inspired people around the globe, a visibly moved Armstrong held a press conference Wednesday morning to thank his fans and supporters and to explain that he may have sent the wrong message with his third-place finish and his starring role in a endless cancer-themed promotional campaign.

"Please, I beg you, if you have cancer, please realize that while I may have more or less set myself up as a heroic personification of the struggle against cancer, well.... This is hard for me to say, but I think a lot of cancer patients out there can do better than I just did," Armstrong said. "I mean, I wanted to win."

Not the best start to a week… but there is still hope…

2009-08-10T10:44:00.001-04:00

I came into work this morning and was told we are having a team meeting. The Commander leading our division told us that due to the reorganization that's taking place, our group will no longer exist in 2 weeks. Great Monday, huh? So I get to re-start that painful process of trying to find a chargeable project.

If I'm completely, brutally honest – you all know I wasn't crazy about my role here – I'm more upset about losing my workout buddy and workout schedule than the role going away. Just being honest.

The other thing that happened to 'taint' my week already was lunch yesterday. So I know I said I was done with dating for a while, maybe NOW I'm done with it? Who knows. But anyway, I met this guy online. Chatted/e-mailed for a few days and then we decided to meet for lunch on Sunday. Great conversation. Great sense of humor. Smart. Well-read. Etc, etc, etc. Basically the best first date I've had in quite a while.

The not so great side is that, even if it makes me a horrible person, I just don't think I can get over the fact that he's blind.

Here's hoping that my week gets a little better, and you have a good one too.

It’s a SLOW Tuesday…

2009-08-04T13:56:00.001-04:00

I'm in a great mood today. I think it has to do with the fact that I had a really good workout yesterday at lunch and then went for a 10 mile bike ride with Rishi after work. AND THEN when I got on the scale this morning it was 1.5 lbs less than what it was yesterday! WOOHOO! Yeah for small victories! So that has me in a good enough mood that not having anything to do today at work isn't bothering me. What can I say, it's a slow day. Plus they took my work laptop to re-image it since it was blue screening a few times a day. Can't wait for that to get fixed. It was a little annoying!

So what can I tell you about… I haven't been to my Georgetown group in a few months because of rowing – both are on Wed nights. But I had dinner with Liz, Asha, and Jeanne last week. It was really good to see them! Definitely a fun night. Carrie had to bail because of a hellacious day at the hospital, but I got to catch up with her this past weekend over lunch. We are going to try to do a monthly dinner just so we get to see each other and we have a few fun things that we may try to plan before the end of the summer.

A woman I work with told me about another group that meets MUCH closer to my house – she's also a survivor. So I've been meaning to go to one of their meetings and see what that group is like. While I LOVE the Georgetown group, it's just not the same anymore. The last few times I went – it was just different. I think it's probably because so many new ppl have joined that the group dynamics and feel just changed – as it should. A few of us were talking about how helpful it would be to have a post- treatment group. Just getting together for dinner kind of takes care of that. If someone has something they need to talk about, they can do that. If not, we can just gossip about what's going on in our lives – basically getting on with them. Anyway… I think the dinners are more of what I need right now than actually going to group and listening to newly diagnosed women talk about that stuff. I know that sounds seriously selfish – while I'd love to be able to help someone out who is just starting this process, I think I need to do what's going to help me out right now.

What else can I share today? I think I'm doing pretty well on sticking with my new eating plan and workout schedule. I may be over doing it a bit, but I need the jump start! Chemo went to the vet on Saturday and Devinder said she is perfectly fine! I was just being a paranoid Mom and needed to hear that. My house is still a total mess – I'm hoping I'll get it done by the end of the weekend. I went out on an AWFUL date this weekend – I'm officially back into hermitude. Work is work. And I'm in a pretty great mood today.

So… even though this wasn't a ranting and negative post, I figure you can still use something funny. Have a great Tuesday!

- Cab drivers are living proof that practice does not make perfect.

- What's the use of happiness? It can't buy you money.

- Those people who tell me that I'm going to hell while they are going to heaven somehow make me very glad that we're going to separate destinations.

- I was going to buy a copy of "The Power of Positive Thinking", and then I thought: What the hell good would that do?

- All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.

Rainy Thursday Night...

2009-07-23T23:28:00.001-04:00

I've had a half irritatingly annoying day and half a great day. Since I like to end on a high note, I'll save the happy stuff for the end.

Well, before I get into my day, I know I've written about this before, but its been on my mind - so I'll talk about it again. Sending out that notification e-mail when I post. I seriously appreciate all of you reading my blog and keeping up with me over the past 2 years, but part of me feels like you must be thinking, "enough already". How do I get off this spam list without being insensitive or rude? Honestly, I truly appreciate each and every one of you keeping up with my life. But, please don't feel bad if you don't feel like reading every time I post. Seriously, not a big deal. I think I'll send out a notification e-mail this time, ask for ppl to respond back IF they want to get an e-mail when I post, and that will be that.

On to my day... I started on a new project a few weeks ago. I'm sure its just the fact that I'm being given WAY too much time to get acclimated and the fact that there isn't a ton of stuff to do there. But, I'm bored. And the things that I've gotten involved in, I can't get too involved in b/c some ppl seem a little territorial. Add to that some other seriously frustrating things that I don't think would be right to go into too much detail about - and it isn't the happiest place around. I'm hoping that things will get better. I really am trying to be patient and give it a chance. Its just a totally different pace than the projects that I'm used to.

Actually, I really need to stop complaining about it. I decided that my priority was a steady 40hr schedule. I didn't want the insane delivery schedule project. So that's what I got. Maybe its a little slower than that, but still. I'm headed out by 5pm every day. Major perk. And its only been a few weeks. I'm going to give it 2 months. I think that is more than enough time for me to get in the swing of things. If things still aren't happening then I'll have another talk with my PM to see if we can change them or change my situation.

Geez! its really hard to vent when you can't be specific about stuff!

But I did find something happy over there. So the Commander that we work for was telling me about the Pentagon Athletic Center that is right across the street. And Contractors are allowed to use it too - we have to pay, but its very reasonable. So I checked it out. Pretty decent. So randomly I posted something online to see if anyone else in the area was interested in a lunchtime workout buddy - I got a few responses. Ironically enough the one I responded back to was someone from Acn on another project in the same building! So today was day one! It was great and pretty motivating! We met up at noon. Did some cardio, weights, and abs. It was so much more entertaining having someone to talk to rather than just listening to my iPod. Showered, dressed and I made it back to the office a little after 1. We are going to do a Mon, Wed, Fri schedule! Working out with a good looking guy is great motivation! I highly recommend it! =) Not to mention a great way to break up the work day.

So what else to tell you? The lymphedema is better now. $300 later - I have a sleeve and a glove. (Did I mention that insurance doesn't cover those and they need to be replaced every 6 months? Thanks again, cancer!) I have to wear them when I workout, row, do anything strenuous. I can handle that. The flu is gone - just have a nasty cough left... but its almost gone too!

Tomorrow is Friday. So it CAN'T be a BLAH day! I'm meeting my gym buddy to workout again during lunch. Chemo and I are going to go chill at Nimbu and Ajay's place in the evening. (Or I'll chill and Chemo will be a spaz.) And its Friday! So its going to be a happier day!!

Since I vented a lot... here's something funny to leave ya with...

A consultant is someone who takes a subject you understand and makes it sound confusing.
Everyone has a photographic memory. Some don't have film.
I just got lost in thought. It was unfamiliar territory.
Despite the cost of living, have you noticed how it remains so popular?
It is said that if you line up all the cars in the world end to end, someone would be stupid enough to try and pass them.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
An optimist is someone who falls off the Empire State Building, and after 50 floors says, 'So far so good!

Lymphedema... YUCK!

2009-07-14T16:20:00.001-04:00

Last week was pretty interesting – to say the least. I’ll start with the weekend, I told you that I was flipping my bedroom and study – the transition is STILL in process. I just haven’t had the energy to finish it. But just to clarify, I did not lift anything heavy. Even then, my hand started swelling up. On Monday I started calling my new Onc. I got an appointment to see her PA on Tuesday. She confirmed that I have a mild case of Lymphedema. (Oh, Joy.) And then Thursday I came down with the flu. Friday and Sat were spent on Cindy’s son’s wedding – inspite of feeling awful. Sunday and Monday – on the couch.

So back to Tuesday – it was a little funny. I was running around Crystal City and the Pentagon getting badges and my CAC card and all that fun stuff – basically chasing after the two guys I work with. Both tall and fast walkers. Needless to say, my feet were killing me. I was wearing a sleeveless dress with a cardigan sweater and a pair of heels. Luckily, I had brought a pair of flip flops so I put those on. And it was super hot to the sweater went in my purse. After the doctor’s appointment, I went to Reston for a celebratory dinner for the proposal I was working on. When I got there, I realized that I had accidentally dumped an entire cup of tea in my purse (my really cute, new Coach knock off) – and soaked everything inside in. Including my sweater.

So I’m about to go to this dinner – me and like 12 SE’s. I can’t wear my pumps because my feet are hurting and swollen. No sweater – b/c its soaked in tea. And I grabbed a purse from Target – bright lavender colored. So… flip-flops, bright lavender purse, sleeveless dress… I totally looked like I was going to the beach. I felt pretty ridiculous walking into the dinner like that, but it was either that – or not go. I’m glad I went because I had a great time! I just thought it was seriously funny!

So anyway… Tuesday I found out about the Lymphedema. I had to call 6 hospitals before I found one I could get in to the physical therapy dept without waiting a month. I had the appointment on Friday morning. Mick – my therapist seems really nice and very competent. He is going to teach me how to do the drainage massages so I can keep the fluid out of my arm. I also have to wear a compression sleeve and glove for a while – NOT happy about that. I’ll probably have it by the end of the week. It’s a very mild case right now, but everyone says its better to get it taken care of now so it doesn’t become a big issue down the road.

Oh, and I got the flu or something on Thursday, so that royally sucked. I felt bad b/c I was supposed to be helping at Cindy’s son’s wedding this weekend, I went, but wasn’t able to do as much b/c I felt so awful. But oddly enough, all the ibuprofen I was taking to get my fever down also reduced the swelling in my hand. I called Mick and he said that I still had to get the sleeve and do the therapy. I tried.

So I think that’s about it. I was pretty pissed last week when I found out about the Lymphedema and all. And then even madder once I got sick. But I’m on the mend. And at least its mild vs major swelling like some ppl I’ve seen.

Oh, and I’m a spoiled brat. I’m at work and my Mom just called. She’s going to come over to my place tonight and make me some kichadi (I made some yesterday but I was so out of it I forgot to add salt and I burn it.) and she’s going to cut up fruits for me and make me some more ginger and honey for my throat. =) I’m spoiled and I love it!

Bittersweet Sigh of Relief

2009-07-05T23:12:00.001-04:00

Its Sunday night and I've had a pretty stressful weekend. As usual I'm behind on my school work, I picked the worst timing for re-arranging the house again, and I'm starting a new project tomorrow.

I was on the phone with Monie telling her what a crappy week I'm going to have. I have to take 5 exams by Wednesday, I'm not really learning anything for my classes, I'm just trying to do the minimum and get by, I'm a little nervous about the new project, and then I have Cindy's son's wedding this Friday and Saturday.

I was telling her that I'm just so not in the mindframe to study right now. And obviously I'm resisting it since I refuse to keep up with the classes and keep stressing myself out with these massive deadlines. Kind of funny because when I first told Mom, Dad, and Monie that I wanted to go back to school I didn't get the response I had expected from them. I thought they would all say, "Yeah, go for it. That's a great idea!". Instead, I got a lot of hmmm and "are you sure you want to do this right now?" I was pretty annoyed at the time, but now I see what they were saying.

Dad said that instead of going to school right now, I should take it easy and relax. I brushed it off and said I didn't need to. I was ready to get started with my exciting new career. Hindsight is 20-20. But they were right. Its no secret that the past few years have been a little stressful for me. Lets start with work being insane and working crazy hours, add to that the crap with Maheep and the wedding, then being depressed and working myself like crazy for a year - a moment to try to start catching my breath with the leave of absence Dad talked me into taking - and then, "Here, have some cancer", a few surgeries, my life feeling like its completely out of control, a bit of depression... and now. Finally feeling like I can try to start getting it back together, and I add in school. I agree with Dad, Mom, and Monie. Instead of trying to do school right now, I need a moment to catch my breath, relax, de-stress, and just enjoy life for a few.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not giving up on Nursing or the career change or going back to school in general. As of now, I still want to go in that direction. But right now is just not the time for me to do it. Right now is the time for me to take a moment to see that life is good and just enjoy that feeling. When I'm ready to focus on school and ready to enjoy the learning process, I'll go back. But tonight, I sent my professor a note asking her to withdraw me from both my classes.

I am feeling a little guilty - wasted money, giving up when the going gets tough, not following through, etc. But the massive sigh of relief that I'm feeling completely out weighs any guilt!

Tomorrow, I'm going to start my new project - and NOT have to stress about how I'm going to fit in time to read all my chapters and take 5 exams by Wednesday. Instead, I can just enjoy getting acclimated to my new project, having dinner with Mom and Dad tomorrow night, a celebratory dinner for the proposal I was working on Tuesday night, rowing on Wed, dinner with Veena on Thursday, the wedding next weekend... AND Shawnie helping me re-organize my chaos now that I've moved back into the Master Bedroom. (How long did you bet I'd last in the smaller bedroom using the hall bathroom?)

So, just to say it (so you can have it in writing) Dad, Mom, and Monie were right and I should have listened to them. (Be sure to save this since I may not ever admit it again!)
______
I have to add this in... My neice WON the National Debating Championship!! And is quoted in the Sun! (http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/howard/bal-ho.debate05jul05,0,6818357.story )

Helen

2009-06-27T17:25:00.001-04:00

I've met so many amazing and inspiring people in the past 2 years. But it just sucks that the odds are that not all of these people - myself included - will be here long term. I know that is a seriously negative and defeatist attitude. And I know that I'm not properly honoring the memory of the friends that I've lost by thinking this way right now, but isn't that just a cold hard fact? I just want to yell and scream that it ISN'T fair when I hear of someone who didn't make it. Especially someone so young.

A young girl, early 20's, still in college. Just a beautiful person - inside and out. A gorgeous face and an incredible smile. An amazingly positive girl with a cute and bubbly personality. I do feel lucky that I had the opportunity to meet her and get to know her a bit. But I'm so sad that she's no longer here, she won't get the chance to live out her dreams, and experience all that life has to offer.

Helen passed away last night. She had just gotten settled in her new hospice center on Thursday so to have her gone so quickly is a bit shocking and very sad.

A quote from Holly's e-mail.... Helen has moved on, beyond the struggle, beyond the fight - on her own terms - down a new path. Next run or walk you take, take a moment and remember our teammate Helen and smile and give your finish everything you've got - show the world how you LiveSTRONG! Helen would want it that way.

Sending out all my love to Helen and her family.

Its Break Time!

2009-06-14T14:22:00.003-04:00

I've been meaning to post for a week or so but just keep putting it off. So now that I'm in the middle of an all day study and work day... figure I'll use my break time to post. First of all, Yes. I know. I procrastinated again. Yes, I know. I said I wouldn't do that again. Yes, I know. Its stupid and I need to get with the program. Since I know all of that, no need for the lectures.

Before I go on with my babble... If you didn't realize that the photo in the prev blog was a link to an album... Its a link to an album. I got *2* pieces of artwork... not just the one. ;-)

Both my classes were granted an extension on the first deadline by Prof. Miller. I have her for both A&P1 and 2. So I have to take exam 1 for both classes tomorrow. It still makes me pretty behind, but if I get my act together now, I can catchup and not have a hellacious rest of the summer. I'm getting on it.

The update with work. I'm working on a proposal now. Its pretty interesting stuff, but the schedule -as usual - is crazy. We were supposed to have a review COB tomorrow. It got moved to noon. And now its at 8am. So I have to have all of my stuff in decent condition and posted by 7:30 am tomorrow morning. Kind of messes with my study schedule. But I'll get it done. I think I might go out to Reston late tonight to have it all printed and posted, so then I can go do my exams in the AM and be back to work in the afternoon after they have reviewed and will be ready to address comments. I think that might be the best POA. I interviewed with another client for a role on Friday. I hope I get it. I'm up against ppl from 2 other firms. I'll find out by mid next week. If that doesn't pan out, then I'll look at "Going Postal" again. If that doesn't pan out, I have an Air Force thing that they are interested in considering me for, and if that doesn't work out, then I'll talk to the guy who contacted me about an Army thing. So what that means is that HOPEFULLY, I'll be switching from BD work to client work by the end of the month. Especially since the BD work/proposal schedule is already gettin nuts and I sooo don't have the energy for it. Oh and I'm going back to 100% starting 6/16. I figure it will help my chances of getting a chargeable role.

So last week... I told you all I was going to see a new oncologist. Dr. Mary Wilkinson. I really liked her! Great personality. We connected. She seems to really know her stuff, so I'm pretty happy. i'm definitely going to miss Dr. Griffiths and St. Agnes. But I think its impt to start moving my stuff over here so that I can handle appointments with out having to take a whole day for them. So a few things we spoke about... She did some blood work... I'm Vitamin D defficient. Lots of studies showing that decreased Vitamin D levels are linked with increased cancer and recurrence rates. She started me on Vitamin D therapy and we'll re-check after I finish the course of meds. She also explained something that I sort of knew before, but it didn't really register to me before.

So we all knew that getting to 5 years out is a pretty big deal. And its an awesome sign for me. But I never knew some of the details behind it. She explained that cancers that are hormone negative (ER/PR-... estrogen/progesterone -) and her2+ (like mine) have a much greater chance of recurring 3-4 years after the initial cancer. BUT they have a REALLY low chance of coming back say 10/15 years out. So this 5 year milestone is seriously huge!! Basically once I get to that, I can pretty confidently say, "Na na naaa naaaaa... Na na naaa naaaaa... hey hey hey.. GOOD BYE!!!" Needless to say, my 5 year anniversary is going to be a big blowout party! Be sure to put it on your calendars now!!! The Saturday after May 18, 2012! Feel free to send me ideas for my party! Yes, I'm odd and I plan parties 3 years in advance! Deal with it. =)

So something kind of funny... Jeanne... a girl in my support group. Planned a spa night for a bunch of us. I had a great time. We had our spa treatments and then practically closed down the restaurant! So at one point Carrie and I went to the restroom. We were talking about oncologists ... she was in a stall and I was waiting. I said that I switched oncologists to Dr. Wilkinson in Falls Church. A voice from another stall pipes up... "Mary Wilkinson? She's my oncologist too!" Kind of funny! We met another Breast Cancer survivor in the bathroom. Ofcourse we compared port scars and all that stuff! I was seriously amused!

Hmmm... other than that... I had my first We Can Row practice on Wed. We didn't go on the water because there was too much lightening, but we did some stretching and erg machine work. I hope we can go on the water this Wed. Okie... I think I'm done for now. I just finished reading the intro to A&P and the Chemical Basis of Life. Now I'm on to Lymphatic System, Digestive, then back to Cells. That should give me a decent base for the exams tomorrow. Wish me luck!

And since I'm at a coffee shop in Arlington studying today, I thought I'd share what my hardcore-ghetto neighborhood is like... Peace out!

Arlington... The Real Ghetto

Sunday night insomnia...

2009-06-01T01:26:00.004-04:00

Deja vu... right? I'm back to being an insomniac. Last night I barely slept. We were in NJ and according to Monie, every few minutes I'd flop around like a fish and wake her up, she'd try to get me to settle down so she could go back to sleep, and then I'd do it again. It was a pretty restless night. Lesson learned! If I'm spending the night anywhere but my bed, take my Ambien with me! Oh and Chemo puppy is not having the same prob tonight... she's passed out! =) Shawnie - my neighbor - babysat for her today/yesterday. They went on a 2 1/2 hour walk so the baby is POOPED! She gives me an irritated look every few minutes as I keep moving around to try to get comfy. Well, at least one of us is sleeping well tonight!

But anyway... lots to share. So this weekend we went to NJ for Mohit and Sonia's Sangeet. I had a really good time. I'm hoping to be able to go to the wedding - but still trying to see if I can work that out. It was just really nice seeing all of them after a long time! Something funny I have to mention... So Dad and Jain Uncle were talking. Jain Uncle told Dad that there was a woman at the party who was an 8-9 year Stage IV survivor. He pointed out a woman in a white-ish sari. So Dad comes over to me and asks if I want to meet a Stage IV Breast Cancer survivor. I was a little hesitant because it was a party and not everyone is as open about all this stuff as I am. But part of me did want to meet her. Dad pointed her out and I walked over. THANK GOD I went by myself (w/o Monie and Dad), pulled her aside and quietly asked her... "I'm so sorry if this is completely inappropriate, but I heard you are a Breast Cancer survivor. Is that true?" "Me? No! It must be another Auntie."

DOH!!!

A not so great part about this weekend... I saw pictures of me... can we say YUCK? We were dancing for a good bit of the night... I could barely make it through a song without getting completely winded. That really sucked too! And then the whole stress about what to wear... I hate that part about going places... I get all stressed out about it because 90% of what's in my closet no longer fits. I know. I know. I've been complaining about this for quite some time now and I need to just get up and do something about it. Can we say - SO MUCH easier said than done? I've been talking to Dr. Erdwins about this, about why I'm not doing these things that I want and seriously need to do. We haven't really gotten too deep into it yet. But I'll let you know once I get some insight into it. But anyway... inspite of these things... I had a good time!

What else is going on? I just read an e-mail from Tracy/Ethel. Tigger, one of her cats, passed away this weekend. I'm sure I don't need to explain how I feel about that. It makes me think about my baby and I can't even handle the thought of it.

On another depressing note... I have yet another 'mysterious' thing broken in my body. I can't remember if I mentioned that like a month or month and a half ago I was having constant dizziness, nausea, feeling like I was going to pass out feelings. Well, it went from constant to intermitten. And then a little over a week ago, the nausea came back with a vengeance. Feeling nauseated every day REALLY sucks. I mentioned it to Dr. Andy (my chiro) he suggested trying ginger. So now I'm drinking ginger water, ginger tea, ginger ale, ginger beer. I eat ginger in everything! And then snack on ginger chews. Oh, and I just had a cup of hot milk with ginger in it. I'm starting to get just a little ginger'ed out.

So the ginger works for a bit, but then the nausea comes back. So Friday I went back to the doc. She didn't have a clue what to tell me. We did some more basic blood work to see if anything changed. I'm seeing my new oncologist **IN VA** on Friday so I can get the "it's definitely NOT cancer" flag. And then she said we might try out an ENT. (And before you ask... No! I'm not pregnant!) At this point I really don't care what it is. I just want it GONE! These random little things that mysteriously creep up are ANNOYING!

Hmmm... what else? I'm joining a rowing club. I went to a rowing workshop Memorial Day weekend. It's a Breast Cancer group... I had such a great time that I'm signing up for their 10 week novice program starting this month. And I think I might just be getting exhausted enough to fall asleep so I'm going to try to do that. But before I do, I have a few funnies for you and some pictures of the presents that I got myself for my 2nd Cancerversary. =) (Yes, the smile means that it isn't anything like what you may have expected I would have gotten for myself. So you may want to check those out! =P)

- I don't suffer from insanity; I enjoy every minute of it.
- Some people are alive only because it's illegal to kill them.
- I used to have a handle on life, but it broke.
- Don't take life too seriously; No one gets out alive.
- God must love stupid people; He made so many.
- Procrastinate Now!
- I Have a Degree in Liberal Arts; Do You Want Fries With That?
- I smile because I don't know what the hell is going on.

My 2nd Cancerversary Presents to Myself

Happy (Be-lated) 2 year Cancerversary to me!!

2009-05-21T10:21:00.001-04:00

I celebrated 2 years of survivor-ship on Monday. Don't laugh but, time sure flies by when you are having fun! =P

I kind of really mean that. These past 2 years have just gone by in a blur! I honestly can't believe its been *2* WHOLE years since I was on my amazing trip. Since I was back in HIHT. And since I was sitting with the Pathologist in India having her tell me that there is "suspected malignancy". To which I respond... "Suspected? That's not so bad! It means you guys aren't sure." LOL! And then she looked at me as if I was totally nuts.

I had a small party on Monday night. Thank You to everyone who was able to come! And Thank You to everyone else who sent Happy Thoughts my way! And Thanks for all my awesome presents!

So... what else is going on with me? Well, I got myself a few really great Cancerversary presents. I'll decide when I want to share those! I'm back on the bench at work. Not the greatest thing, but hopefully I'll find an actual project soon instead of jumping to another proposal. I just signed up for classes again this summer. I think I said a few weeks/months ago that I wasn't going to do that... I changed my mind. Cest la vie! I told Dr. Singh that I can no longer see him until the insurance mess is resolved. I'm back with Dr. Erdwins. I'm going to a Learn to Row workshop this weekend - its a Breast Cancer thing. And I've been pretty decent with keeping up with my walking every day!

I've decided that the next baby step in my 'get healthy' plan will be to increase the amt of water I'm drinking. So I'm going to start working on that today. I need to get up to 2.5L/day. I'll slowly work up to it over the course of a week. I know I keep saying that I need to do this... well instead of just talking about it and making unrealistic plans.. I'm going to take it slowly and do it one step at a time.

Oh and I've decided that, even thought I absolutely love Dr. Griffiths, I need to find an oncologist in my area. I was having another random issue a few weeks ago and one of the first things they wanted me to do was to go get the 'all clear' from my Oncologist. I told them I would, but I didn't. When I need to go to Baltimore for an appointment, I have to take an entire day off of work to do it. Its totally ok if its just once or twice a year. But I don't see it going that way. Whatever happens, they are going to want me to get checked out by my onc. So I decided to make it easier on myself... I need to find someone local. =( Kind of sucks... but it will make things so much easier on me.

Okie... I don't know what else to babble about... Hope you are having a great week. Here's my funny for the day... or a few of them...
A couple is lying in bed. The man says, "I am going to make you the happiest woman in the world" The woman says, "I'll miss you."
A reporter was interviewing a 104 year-old woman: "And what do you think is the best thing about being 104?" She simply replied, "No peer pressure."
"I told my wife that a man is like a fine wine... I always get better with age. The next day, she locked me in the wine cellar."
When I was young I used to pray for a bike, then I realized that God doesn't work that way, so I stole a bike and prayed for forgiveness.

In need of something cheerful or optimistic...

2009-05-15T00:25:00.001-04:00

DISCLAIMER: If you watch Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, or Ugly Betty and are not up to date with the episodes. Don't read this. I WILL spoil it for you.

So I get that things aren't really happy these days... The economy isn't doing well. Every time I date to flip across a news channel they are talking about the increase in unemployment, how bad the recession is, another company having a flat quarter, the market continuing to go down, more foreclosures, etc etc etc. I get it. Its a pretty depressing time. So wouldn't you think that the ppl over in TV land would take this into account and maybe liven up their shows a little? I mean seriously... I watched Ugly Betty and Grey's Anatomy tonight. Not much positivity there at all! Well, Daniel and Molly do get married after she calls off the wedding they were planning because it was going to take too long to plan and chances were that she'd be dead by the time the wedding came along. So for one brief second there is something happy - in spite of Elena leaving Ignacio - and then they end the stupid show with Molly passed out on the bathroom floor as Daniel is packing for their honeymoon.

So after that barrel of happiness, I watched the season finale of Grey's Anatomy. SO all season we've been hearing about how Izzy was leaving the show. And then lately I heard that Izzy was going to stay, but George was going to leave. And what happens... well among other things like Bailey getting an ultimatun from her husband that she can either take the Peds fellowship or stay married so she decides she is going to get divorced and stay in general surgery... Torez has to cut off this guy's healthy leg... they freaking kill off BOTH George and Izzy! Izzy signed a DNR before going into surgery which they ignored and tried to recusitate her anyway... but she still died after all their efforts. And George got creamed by a bus. He pushed a girl out of the way and got hit himself. So they are operating on and working on 'John Doe' and then finally he spells out '007' in Meredith's hand and she realizes that its him. So the day before he's supposed to deploy to Iraq - because he joined the army - he gets killed by a bus.

I haven't seen Private Practice in a few weeks so I don't know if the story has continued beyond this - obviously my flakey DVR isn't a priority these days - but Violet was pretty close to giving birth. One of her psychotic patients who had a miscariage believes Violet stole her baby so she gave her some sort of drug to paralyze her and now the psycho chic is about to cut the baby out of her. Violet knows she's going to die but can't do a thing about it. Oh, and this is JUST after she told Pete that she loves him and wants to be with him.

DOn't you just love that? One split second of something happy going on and then something has to come crashing down on it. It just makes you feel so optimistic... NOT!!

So I think I'm going to be avoiding tv for a while. I've actually been pretty happy lately. And if all it does is depress me, then what's the point of watching it? Might as well just put on a movie instead - one with a happy ending since I'm in need of those.

Now that I'm done conplaining about TV and the economy... something good... Dr. Erdwins is back from her trip. I had an appointment with her today. I'm switching back to her. I just can't deal with paying all that $$ out of pocket to Dr. Singh and then having such a hard time getting it back from Insurance. Plus I really like her! I'm hoping I get to see Dr. Andy tomorrow - my Chiro. My back has been killing me for way too long now and I just need to get it taken care of. Cindy is having her yard sale on Saturday... so I'm going to do that on Saturday. My house has been pretty stagnant lately. But this weekend I'll find the time to get that final push done. The big stuff is done... now its just the small stuff. I'm excited about Monday! LOL! but I have to share this..

Here is my funny for this post. An actual true story. An example of how completely idioticly stupid some people can be.

So remember some time back when I was complaining about a woman I ran into while walking Chemo. She asked me if I was worried that naming Chemo 'Chemo' was foreshadowing what's to come for her. Surprisingly enough I had enough restraint NOT to punch her in the face. I just chalked it up to her being THE most ignorant person in the world.

She just got knocked down to the second most ignorant person. THE most ignorant person asked me why I would want to celebrate my Cancerversary. Isn't that just asking for it to come back? How do you respond to that? "Why YES! That's the point exactly! I miss being bald and sick sooooo much that I am inviting my cancer back with open arms!" How freaking stupid! I guess I can accurately say that anyone with half a brain would know that I'm celebrating 2 years of survivorship! But since she only had a quarter of a brain.... she just didn't know any better. Cest la vie!

Anyway... My ambien is starting to kick in. I haven't slept well in a few days. Figured I was due for a good night of sleep. So have a good night and drop me a note if you will be able to stop by on Monday for my Cancerversary party. =)

OMG! She's ALIVE!

2009-05-05T19:09:00.001-04:00

Sorry for the couple months of silence. No real reason for not blogging. I'd think about wanting to post, think through what I wanted to post, but then for some reason - I could never get myself to actually sit down at the computer to post. I just didn't want to. Don't ask... I have no clue why.

But anyway, I'm posting today! So Happy Rainy Cinco de Mayo, everyone!

Hmmm... So where shall I start with my update for today? Well, right now I'm sitting at a Starbucks in Fair Lakes waiting to meet Melissa for dinner. I haven't seen her in months, so looking forward to this. Other than that my day has been pretty decent. I worked from home this morning on the proposal effort that I'm on, had a meeting in Rosslyn for my old project, worked some more from home, came out here, saw that there was a massage place running a special for first time customers - its called 'Jus Massage'. If you go, ask for Tony!! - so I got an amazing and much needed massage, now I'm sipping a cup of coffee and waiting for Melissa.

So last I posted, I mentioned that I had a personal 'project' I was working on. Well, I'm just about ready for the 'reveal' so I might as well tell you all about it. I met this woman on CL - Cindy - who helped me de-clutter and organize my house. After she finished, the home remodeling pretty much took on a life of its own. And basically I'm in the middle of my own personal version of 'Home makeover -Extreme edition'. For anyone who has seen the way my house usually is... Sorry! I mean WAS... you will truely be able to appreciate the difference.

For those like Monie and Ethel who have had the priviledge of cleaning it, returning some time later to find it in even worse shape, cleaning it again, repeat... I think, you will be pretty blown away! Once I'm just about done or before the 18th, I'll post pictures of my 'new' place!

Oh before I forget... About the 18th... The 18th is my 2 year Cancerversary. I'm taking the day off to celebrate. I think its momentous enough to need a whole day celebration! I'll start off my day at Lombardi at a Look Good Feel Better session - that is being televised for Fox News! (Spotlight, please!) Then I have a few things planned. And in the evening, I'm having a small and informal party at my house! (DUal purpose actually. One to celebrate and Two to show off all that I've done!)

So, I'm not being formal about invites for my party at all! I do realize that it is a Monday night so it may be difficult for some folks to make it. If you can't make it, no worries, just send lots of happy thoughts my way!

If you can make it, Please come!! I'd love for you to be there to celebrate with me! Just send me an e-mail by the 13th to let me know if you will be there so I can plan for food and drinks. =)

Hmmm... what else...

Well, I've been de-hermity these days. While I was focused on the house I was bailing on plans left and right. But now I'm being much more social. Even dating a little bit. And surprise surprise - for those who are keeping track of my meds - I am no longer on Welbutrin or Zoloft. (WOOHOO!!) I did start back on a baby dose on an SSRI type of drug (I stopped both Zoloft and Welbutrin cold turkey - NOT the proper way to stop taking those. I had some weird side effects, so Beth put me on this so we could taper me properly. In about 2 weeks, I'll be off of this too!) Is that awesome or what??

Still on Syntheroid, but its the lowest dose available so I'm ok with that for now. But eventually, I'll find my way off of that as well.

We are doing the DC Race for the Cure this year. If you are interested, here's the link to the team page:

http://globalrace.info-komen.org/site/TR/GlobalRaceForTheCure/GlobalRace?team_id=106440&pg=team&fr_id=1140&s_tafId=18760

I'm sure there's been other stuff that's happened over the past few months. I'm just drawing a blank right now and can't really think of what else to share right now. I guess that means I should just leave it for the next time I post.

DUH!! I just went to my *15* year high school reunion this weekend! I ended up having a great time! I almost bailed on it that day, but now I'm really glad I went. =)

And for those of you who have been asking what's going on with me, why I haven't been posting, and if I was ok, etc... Thank You for checking up on me! And Thanks for asking me to post! And sorry for being silent for so long!

So here's my funny for today...

A local United Way office realized that the organization had never received a donation from the town's most successful lawyer. The person in charge of contributions called him to persuade him to contribute.

"Our research shows that out of a yearly income of at least $500,000, you give not a penny to charity. Wouldn't you like to give back to the community in some way?"

The lawyer mulled this over for a moment and replied, "First, did your research also show that my mother is dying after a long illness, and has medical bills that are several times her annual income?"

Embarrassed, the United Way rep mumbled, "Um ... no."

The lawyer interrupts, "or that my brother, a disabled veteran, is blind and confined to a wheelchair?"

The stricken United Way rep began to stammer out an apology, but was interrupted again.

"or that my sister's husband died in a traffic accident," the lawyer's voice rising in indignation, "leaving her penniless with three children?!"

The humiliated United Way rep, completely beaten, said simply, "I had no idea..."

On a roll, the lawyer cut him off once again, "So if I don't give any money to them, why should I give any to you?"

My last surgery is DONE!!!

2009-03-19T23:22:00.001-04:00

I'm sitting at Mom and Dad's sitting on ice packs! Very fun! So let me share a few things going on these days...

I'm still on the bench and looking for a project. I found out that instead of the 2-4 day recovery period I thought I'd have, its supposed to be more like a week since they had to do both sides. No pain in the chest area, just difficulty walking because of where they took the skin grafts from. (In case I didn't say it earlier - and sorry if this is TMI - but today Dr. Grace was going to take skin grafts from my groin area and make nipples.) Since I have no nerve sensation in the chest area skin - no pain there even though he had to cut the area a bit to attach the grafts. In the groin area... 2 pretty decent sized incisions. Those are seriously OUCH!! So anyway, I'm on another Short Term leave. I go back to work on the 30th.

Apparently I'm pretty predictable. As usual, I was running late to the hospital. I was supposed to be there at 12:30 after dropping Chemo off at Mom and Dad's and picking Dad up. Instead, I had to ask Nonu to drop Dad off at the hospital so he could take Chemo home and I wouldn't be more than 15 min late. Monie said she should have bet that I was going to end up doing that. But in my defense, and something unexpected, before leaving my place I finished almost all of my laundry, folded and put it away - except socks and the clothes to be hung up. Changed the sheets on my bed, vaccumed my room and the floors, loaded the dishwasher, and tidied up a tiny bit. Figure if I'm going to be lying around for a week, I'd be less stressed looking at less of a mess.

Something else unexpected... I thought we'd be doing IV sedation, but Dr. Grace opted for General Anesthesia instead since he was going to be cutting into 4 different areas. He wanted me to be pain free during the procedure. After I came to, one of the nurses was asking me if I had already started taking classes towards my nursing degree. I was surprised and asked how she knew about it! She said I had told her in the OR. Now I'm wondering what other tid bits I shared with them!

Yesterday I went and saw Dr. Griffiths for my 3 month checkup. She said everything was looking good! I also saw my chemo nurses - Cheryl, Jo, Kathy, Cathy, Gail, Kim, Kim, and Robin; Kevin, Lois, Kristin, Della, and a few other folks. Then I met Cindy - a new friend - for lunch. When I got home, I found a dribble of dried peanut butter about 3/4 of an inch on the side of my chin. COMPLETELY noticable! LOL! Monie said that everyone was telling her how good I looked! Apparently Peanut Butter suits me! I just can't believe no one told me! =)

What else... its kind of a surreal feeling that the LAST step of this 'adventure' is DONE! I know this sounds weird, but it made me feel better knowing that there was one more thing left. Dr. Singh said I was using it as a crutch - that's why I scheduled it instead of putting it off for a few more months. Now its done. And I get to move beyond this. Put it all in the past. Probably easier said than done, but its the next thing for me to work on. So step one in that is a 'project' my new friend Cindy is helping me with next Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. In order to make sure I don't jinx myself, I'll share the details after the project is complete.

Okie... I'll wrap this up. Its past 11 and I'm still totally wide awake. Possibly because I took a 4 hour nap today!

Here's my funny for tonight - a few funny sayings:

- If I go any faster I'll burn out my hamster!

- Next mood swing: five minutes

- Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to hide the bodies of the people I had to kill because they pissed me off.

- With proper diet, rest, and exercise a healthy body will last a lifetime.

- Of course I'm listening to you; don't you see me yawning?

- It's all right to be stupid, but you're making a career out of it.

- Don't let your mind wander. It's not stong enough to be allowed out on its own.

I'm 33.... ICK! That sounds OLD!!!

2009-03-13T15:26:00.001-04:00

So I turned 33 on Wednesday. Happy Birthday to Me! It was kind of a good birthday - except my lazy ass friends bailed on cleaning my house! *sigh* I know! How rude of them! =P

Not that its a good thing, but I'm currently unstaffed. But to get to spend your birthday week at home relaxing and playing with the puppy, Kind of nice!

So, what else is going on - other than my being in a pensive mood? Something kind of funny. So for the last two sessions I had with my shrink, he was really unnerved. I thought it was really funny! It was so bad that he's been pacing around the room. So usually when I went in to see him - I was generally "Boo Hoo! So sad" Jess. These last two, I've been happy, in a good mood, and pretty upbeat - even though there are lots of things going on at the moment that aren't the greatest. But I'm still doing ok with all of it. He's getting a little more comfortable as he tries to figure out what brought on the change... but he's still perplexed about where it came from. Which, of course, amuses me to no end!

For those of you keeping track of my meds... we took me off of leagalized speed (aka ritalin) (YEAH!) AND dropped my Zoloft dose. I've been missing meds left and right and am still doing fine. So I asked if we could cut back the dosage a bit. Oh! AND amazingly enough, I haven't taken sleping pills in a while now! YEAH for small victories!

Two people I'd like to ask you to keep in your thoughts... one friend is just about to start her second 'cancer-venture' and another just had a bilateral mastectomy yesterday. Both of them have SUCH an amazing attitude about it all!

On the happy side... Both Jeans and Ethel are preggers!! Jeannie is having her second daughter! And Ethel is selfishly only having ONE rug-rat! *sigh* If she was having twins, I called dibs on one of em. =) I can't wait to see their kids!

And that's about all I feel like witing about at the moment. I'm going out with a few ppl tonight for dinner and bowling to continue the birthday celebration week. *sigh* And the shrink said that I really need to work on not being such a hermit most of the time. =( I'll work on it though...

Anyway... here's my funny of the day... Have a great weekend! And I'll talk to you later!
-----------------

This is supposed to be the transcript of an actual radio conversation between a US naval ship and Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland in October 1995. The Radio conversation was released by the Chief of Naval Operations on Oct. 10, 1995.

- Please change your direction 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision.

- Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to South to avoid a collision.

- This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.

- No. I say again, you divert YOUR course.

- THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER ENTERPRISE, WE ARE A LARGE WARSHIP OF THE US NAVY. DIVERT YOUR COURSE NOW!

- This is a lighthouse. Your call.

Happy Clean PET scan Day!

2009-03-02T15:18:00.001-05:00

WOOOHOO!!! I'm on a conference call right now, but Dr. H called in during so I flipped over for a few minutes...

Jessy's got another CLEAN scan!!! =)

Massive sigh of relief since - not a clue why - but I just had a bad icky feeling about this one. So now on to 6 months of BLISS! =)

Hope you have as good of a day as I'm having! =)

Clean PET... Clean PET... WOOOHOOO I have a Clean PET!!! =)

Here's something to hopefuly make you laugh.....

Two blind pilots both are wearing dark glasses, one is using a guide dog, and the other is tapping his way along the aisle with a cane.

Nervous laughter spreads through the cabin, but the men enter the cockpit, the door closes, and the engines start up. The passengers begin glancing nervously around, searching for some sign that this is just a little practical joke. None is forthcoming.

The plane moves faster and faster down the runway and the people sitting in the window seats realize they're headed straight for the water at the edge of the airport. As it begins to look as though the plane will plough in to the water, panicked screams fill the cabin. At that moment, the plane lifts smoothly into the air. The passengers relax and laugh a little sheepishly, and soon all retreat into t heir magazines, secure in the knowledge that the pl ane is in good hands.

In the cockpit, one of the blind pilots turns to the other and says,"ya know, Bob, one of these days, they're gonna scream too late and we're all gonna die."

My new favorite place to go...

2009-02-28T17:58:00.001-05:00

I have fallen in love with Bear Rock Cafe! Free wi-fi... nice people... never super crowded... I never get kicked out... what more could you ask for? Oh and yeah, they have good food and great coffee!

So anyway... I seem to come here a lot lately (ever since Karim introduced me to the place) to study or do work on my work from home days. I've finally realized that actually working from home with an adorable little puppy to distract me is not very productive. Cuz, DUH!!!, anyone in their right mind would want to play with the puppy instead. And yes, I know she is 'technically' no longer a puppy. But I go with Monie's definition - Puppy=cute, Dog=Non-cute.

What shall I babble about today? I finally saw Slumdog Millionaire - it was a really awesome movie. But I have to say, the cheezy non-dance dance number at the end was not the best way to end the movie. I know all desi movies need to have a dance number... but if you are going to do one, then throw some nice dance moves in there!

I also had my PET scan on Friday. I'm trying to keep myself super busy so I'm not fixating on waiting for the results. But lets face it, its pretty hard to get that out of my mind. Just a few more days of agonizing, then I'll have the results. At the latest should be by COB Tuesday. Kind of great that I have group on Wednesday night and then see my shrink on Thursday.

I know I've been raving about my awesome insurance so far, but I have to say I'm not so happy with them these days. So far this year I've spent over $2000 on shrink bills - they don't bill insurance directly but they are in-network. So United healthcare should be reimbursing me 100% for these visits since I've already met all my deductibles. So far they denied one claim and the rest are 'In Process'. I will be calling them on Monday to find out what is going on. And sadly, I'm not going to schedule another appointment with my shrink until I get the reimbursement stuff figured out. Its a lot of $$ out of my pocket and I definitely didn't budget for it nor can I afford it if I'm not getting reimbursed. I sooo can't wait till Dr. Erdwins gets back. Her rates are more reasonable and she bills insurance directly.

What else? Can't think of anything else to tell you other than my next (and final) reconstruction surgery is scheduled for March 19th. I'm definitely looking forward to being done!! Anyway... I'm going to head home because obviously I'm no longer being productive. Have a good weekend and I'll let you know once I get the results.

My Starbucks Cup...

2009-02-23T11:46:00.001-05:00

I was an insomniac again. Fell asleep sometime after 3:30. Was up at 8. So needless to say, I'm soooo tired! I just went down to get some Starbucks to help me stay awake today and was really amused at what was written on my cup.

The Way I See It #295

Can we laugh at cancer? Is it funny to lose your breasts? Am I crazy to have humor when I lose my hair? Should I ignore the giggles while receiving chemo? What if I nudge someone and sneak a smile, even though I have no eyebrows? Is it inappropriate? Don't be offended, it beats waxing!

Made me laugh, so I wanted to share. And I scheduled my PET scan for Friday morning.

Thursday night babbling...

2009-02-19T21:29:00.001-05:00

I guess I go through phases with the blogging - and these days I must be in a pretty 'expressive' phase. Today was an interesting day. I was supposed to have an appointment with Dr. Grace in B-more and I had decided that I was going to go ahead and schedule my final surgery. I think talking to my new shrink is making me realize that I'm putting off too many things... I'll do this after I am BLAH... He says its a protection mechanism. Plus a lot of other stuff about not feeling deserving and all that. I think he's right.

So I'm going to stop with the excuses and putting things off for lame reasons.

But anyway... as usual, I was running late and traffic was a mess. I called to tell them I'd be late. Dr. Grace had to be out of the office by 11 (my appt was at 10:15) so we rescheduled for next week - middle of the day so I don't have to deal with rush hour traffic.

But anyway... that just kind of put me in a pensive mood thinking about all the things I put off. So when I was taking a break for lunch, I took Chemo to the dog park. I keep telling her I'm going to take her but we barely make it there once a week. She had sooo much fun there! She still prefers to watch and sniff, but every now and then she would go run around with the other dogs. I had a bag of treats with me, so I was pretty popular and got to play with all the little puppies! =) Chemo is definitely the prissy dog at the dog park, but she was growling, running, and playing with the rest of them.

I also ran into Ed there. He was with his dog Zoe - really cute! I met him a few years ago when I thought I was all into triathlons and he was coaching a tri team. Its a really great program, but I totally admit that I wasn't committed/dedicated to it. He worked for a consulting firm, but dreamed of doing this full time. Now he is. I guess seeing other ppl going through that mid-30's career change - and being happy - makes me feel like I'm doing the right thing.

What else can I tell you? Well, I feel like a bit of a nerd - but a happy nerd! I know I totally procrastinated and I'm soooo not doing that again! But It turned out ok! =) I got a 8/8 on quiz 1; a 7.5/8 on quiz 2; a 10/10 on the assignment; and an 86/100 on the exam - which is an A with the curve. =) What the hell... I am DEFINITELY happy with that!!! =)

Hmmm... what else... for those of you interested in the crazy meds I'm on... for a while there Dr. Singh put me on trazadone to help me sleep since I'm kind of an insomniac lately. But that totally didn't work for me b/c I'd take it in the evening, fall asleep about 5-6 hours later, and then be dead to the world for 8-9 hours waking up at 11 or noon. Not really a workable solution! So I dropped that and am taking tylenol PM when I need to - same sedative as in benedryl. (One issue at a time... its not insomnia's turn yet) Then the whole 'kick in the butt' that I needed. I have to admit, it was a little chemically enhanced. But whatever! It worked go me moving and the plan is for me to stay on it for another 2 weeks and then he'll start weening me off of it. So seriously - no lectures for this one. I know its basically legalized speed - aka ritalin. And you already know about the zoloft, welbutrin, and synthroid - my thyroid levels are still not normal inspite of the synthroid. But we are going to wait a year and then re-check.

Oh and for those of you who missed the PET scan post, I am getting the scan. Dr. H said if it were her, she'd want them too. So I'm not going to feel like I'm being a hypochondriac. Yes, the day/night before the scan, the day of, and then till I get the results - royally suck! But I really like the 5-6 months afterwards where I feel 'safe'.

Ok, enough babbling for now! Tomorrow is Monie's Birthday! She is turning 34!!!! *sigh* kids grow up so fast, don't they? So if you see her tomorrow - even if she is a stress ball - make sure you make a funny face at her and say Happy Birthday!

BTW - the flat tire story I posted a few posts ago was a funny story that Ethel sent me. (I think 10-12 ppl wrote to me asking what the officer said about my 'flashers'! =P)

And today's funny is also from Ethel! Enjoy!

Why Men Don't Write Advice Columns

Dear Walter,

I hope you can help me here. The other day, I set off for work leaving my husband in the house watching the TV as usual. I hadn't driven more than a mile down the road when the engine conked out and the car shuddered to a halt. I walked back home to get my husband's help. When I got home I couldn't believe my eyes. He was in our bedroom with the neighbor girl.

I am 32, my husband is 34, and the neighbor girl is 22. We have been married for ten years. When I confronted him, he broke down and admitted that they had been having an affair for the past six months. I told him to stop or I would leave him. He was let go from his job six months ago and he says he has been feeling increasingly depressed and worthless. I love him very much, but ever since I gave him the ultimatum he has become increasingly distant. He won't go to counseling and I'm afraid I can't get through to him anymore. Can you please help?
Sincerely,
Sheila

-----*-----*-----*-----*-----*

Dear Sheila:

A car stalling after being driven a short distance can be caused by a variety of faults with the engine. Start by checking that there is no debris in the fuel line. If it is clear, check the vacuum pipes and hoses on the intake manifold and also check all grounding wires. If none of these approaches solves the problem, it could be that the fuel pump itself is faulty, causing low delivery pressure to the carburetor float chamber. I hope this helps.
- Walter

Something that is seriously amusing me today...

2009-02-18T14:34:00.001-05:00

So... I'm into this new thing of wearing skirts and dresses to work. So this morning, as usual, I was super tired and in a rush. I put on my grey sweater dress, tights, and boots. And I left. Now I'm pretty sure you guys won't have a clue what the problem is with that... but some of you ladies might.

Can we say static??

So ALL day everywhere I go... if I walk, my dress starts to ride up b/c I forgot to put on a slip. Can we say SLIGHTLY embaressing when you are walking down the hall infront of an SE you just met? So around lunch time, I had brought my lunch but I ran out thinking DUH! there is a VS in the town center, they will have a slip.

Nope! Apparently VS carries anything but. Ann Taylor doesn't have them, J. Crew, Gap, Chicos, Talbots, etc. don't either! I went to every women's clothing store here... NONE of them carry a freaking slip. I'm guessing that this is sooo much funnier in person! Too bad I don't have cell reception, or I'd take a picture of how ridiculous this looks and post it.

Anyway... it was making me laugh, so I thought I'd share. =)

My decision...

2009-02-13T14:12:00.001-05:00

That was pretty quick. Thank You to everyone who responded. I appreciate it. To be completely honest, I had already made my decision but I wanted to her what others would think or think they would do in this situation. I know its hard to put yourself in anyone's shoes and really understand how they are feeling and how certain situations effect them. But thanks for trying.

The part I didn't mention (intentionally) was that after Dr. H told me the details of her conversation with the Med Oncologist, she told me that it was my decision whether or not I wanted to have the scans. My immediate response was, YES I want them. Her response was, "If it were me, I'd want them too."

I guess I wanted to see what you all think you would do. See if I'm not thinking rationally about this or if I'm being too hypochondriac-al. But I don't think I am. As many of you said, I think I'm going to continue getting them twice a year and when *I'm* ready, then I'll think about going to once a year. I'm just not confident enough in anyone to be able to detect subtle symptoms (I had none except that massive lump) if the case of a recurrence. I honestly put more faith in a scan that is going to look through my body - perhaps find some false positives, perhaps have to get a few extra biopsies - and show if there are any tumors there. I just don't understand how the most brilliant doctors in the world could make an early stage diagnosis w/o several symptoms telling them to check for cancer.

Does that make sense?

I am in NO way saying that I don't have faith in my doctors. I'm just saying that if I'm going to have another cancer similar to the this one, I'd be scared that it too would be caught late stage and perhaps the second time I wouldn't be so lucky. I'm not being a pessimist or constantly thinking negatively or even about cancer. I just want to be able to have that amazingly exhilarating sigh of relief when I get a clean scan. Makes me feel confident that I'm going to be ok.

Make sense? For those of you who think I'm dwelling too much in the past and not looking forward (and for the rest of you), I have something exciting to share. I've gone back to school part time. (Granted I have been procrastinating, but I'm getting back on track) I'm taking pre-requisites to join an 'Accelerated Nursing as a second degree' program. My target is to go full time next fall. Get my BSN, work for a year. And then go back for a graduate degree to be a Nurse Practitioner. (Exciting, huh?) =)

So please know that I'm still making plans for the future and moving ahead with my life. I'm in no way stuck in the 'cancer phase'. I think I told you all this before. Dr. H shared it with me (form a collegue who had cancer). She said that during treatment and for a while after, if your life was a book, 'Cancer' would be the title. Eventually, it will be come a chapter, and after some more time, a sentence, and then a footnote. Before I know I was in the 'Cancer' is the title of the book of my life phase. But I really think I'm moving on to the Cancer being a chapter. (Haven't fully transitioned, but I'm very steadily getting there!)

Ok... enough of my babbling and insightful thoughts and BACK to studying Anatomy and Physiology! =)

What's your opinion?

2009-02-12T17:48:00.001-05:00

There is definitely a lot going on with me these days - which I will post about later. But today I have something on my mind and I'd like to get anyone who chooses to reply's opinion on.

So its that time of year again - PET scan time. On Monday I called Dr. H to ask her to mail me the orders. She called me back today so we could chat about it. I'm going to try to objectively give both sides of this - not sure if I'll really be able to be objective about it, but I'll try.

She told me that she had spoken with a Medical Oncologist - the equivalent of Dr. Griffiths in my world - about the latest trends in Breast Cancer follow up treatment and screening. The oncologist she spoke to had the same opinion as Dr. Griffiths - that annual or bi-annual screenings don't really help in any way. There have been studies done on this showing no improvement in survival rates - granted none on Breast Cancer survivors and none with the high number of positive nodes that I had.

The medical oncologist said he did not see a need for the bi-annual PET scans.

My thoughts for having them is that, from the research I've done, I have a higher risk of recurrence because I had 10 positive nodes. I didn't find the original lump till it was pretty far along, if there was a recurrence how would it be detected before it was totally out of hand?

I'll leave it at that. So my question is this:
If you were me, would you want to go through the agony of 2 PET scans a year - trust me the stress and the actual process of the scan is not fun - just to be able to have that sigh of relief and that you are ok, or would you go with the medical oncologist and say it isn't necessary so no need to do it?

If you have an opinion, either post a comment or send me an e-mail. Thanks!

Snow Day

2009-01-27T15:51:00.001-05:00

Happy Snow Day! Chemo and I just came back from taking a walk. It was absolutely THE cutest thing I've ever seen! She was more excited than Monie and I used to get when we would play in the snow as kids. She had to go sniff EVERYTHING, HAD to walk in every bit of fresh snow she could find, and was wagging her tail so much and so hard that I thought it might fall off! =)

So anyway, It's been a while. I've been wanting to post, but just wasn't sure what to talk about even though there's actually quite a bit to talk about. Hmmm... so where should I start? Well, I rolled off of the DoS project that I was on and am looking for something new right now. I'm being proposed for this role that seems sooo perfect for me - but I just have to be available when we win the work (end of Feb) so I can start on it (beginning of March). 5 year role. The guy who I'd be reporting to, he's been on the account for 3 years and said the work life balance is awesome! He generally works 40 hr weeks. And the role description is pretty interesting too.

Tracy, Tara and I went on a cruise a few weeks ago. LOTS of fun! Granted the weather could have been a bit warmer and I won't go on NCL again, but I got to relax and that's soooo what I needed. Oddly enough, I hardly took any pictures. Tara took a bunch, so I'll post a link to her album after she puts up her picts.

Dr. Erdwins is on a 4 month 'study afloat' type of thing. So I found a new shrink for the interim. I had a hard time deciding what demographic I wanted, I picked a youngish Indian guy. Don't know if I can really explain the choice but maybe I'll try. So women - the older ones (other than Dr. Erdwins) seem too judgemental and that is pretty annoying. Younger women... when they empathize with me I sometimes want to slap them - not the best thing to do to your shrink. Men - Older... don't think I can relate. Younger... no thoughts about them. But then the Indian thing because I constantly felt like I had to explain and defend my family when I was seeing Tom. So I'm trying this out. I saw him last week and I go again tomorrow. He's actually a psychiatrist who also does psychotherapy... so maybe I can just go one place and have both the therapy and the meds taken care of. We'll see how it goes. But no offense to this guy - so far he seems great - but I'm going back to Dr. Erdwins when she gets back.

What else... Well, I had a mini flu last week. Really wasn't fun. But I'm sooo thankful I had my flu shot or it probably would have been worse.

I have to post some picts of Chemo. I bought her these really cute sweaters, and Dad bought her this really cute coat - so now she's all bundled up when she goes outside. Especially on a day like today. All the neighbors laugh at me b/c my puppy is so dressed up and their's have nothing on. (At least my baby is warm!)

Hmmm... So I have a few other super happy and exciting things going on at the moment. But I can't share them just yet. =) (I know... such a tease, right?) But as soon as I can, I'll share them with you. =)

The last few days a bunch of things came to mind that I thought I should post about and now that I am, I can't think of any of them. Oh well. I guess this is it for now. Happy Snow Day and here is a story Ethel sent me that had me rolling!

-------------------

Yesterday I had a flat tire on the interstate. So I eased my car over to the shoulder of the road, carefully got out of the car and opened the trunk.

I took out 2 cardboard men, unfolded them and stood them at the rear of my car facing oncoming traffic. They look so lifelike you wouldn't believe! They are in trench coats, exposing their nude bodies to the approaching drivers.

I started to change my tire, and to my surprise, cars started slowing down looking at my lifelike men. And of course,
traffic started backing up. Everybody was tooting their horns and waving like crazy. It wasn't long before a state trooper pulled up behind me.

He got out of his car and started walking towards me. I could tell he was not a happy camper!

"What's going on here?"

"My car has a flat tire," I said calmly.

"Well, what the hell are those obscene cardboard men doing here by the road?"

I couldn't believe that he didn't know. So I told him, "Hello-o-o-o-o-o, those are my emergency flashers!"

Happy New Year!

2009-01-03T00:31:00.001-05:00

Lots has happened since I last posted. I'm not even sure where to begin. I guess the headaches... still there. Still suck. And still no clue what's causing them. Even though Dr. Erdwins really thinks it could be stress related. Definitely something to think about and would be great to figure out what I can do to de-stress.

Christmas was nice. Monie worked on Christmas day, so we celebrated on the 26th. Chemo puppy didn't get any presents yet. I'm going to get her a new bed when I get a chance to go to the store and buy her one. But her massi and grandparents didn't get her anything. Not even for her Birthday. I agree, not very nice!

I got pretty pissed at Chemo on Christmas. I had taken out the tibetan thanka paintings that I got in Nepal. I was going to frame them and give the ones I got for Mom/Dad and Monie to them for CHristmas. I had also gotten 2 for me. Guess what the piglet did? She ATE one of the paintings. It was just about a $200 meal. I hope it tasted good!

New Year's was good too. Ajay bhaiya had to cancel his thing b/c Maria bhabhi was pretty sick. Monie put together a last minute thing so a few of us went over there. It was chill and fun.

I worked part of New Year's day and then went to the mandhir with Mom and Dad. it was something I definitely wanted to do on the first, so I'm glad that I got to.

What else can I babble about? I hired a dog walker for Chemo. Not exactly the cheapest thing in the world, but at least I'm not as stressed about her not being able to go out to pee and walk in the afternoon if I'm going to be working. Chemo really likes her, so that is a good thing too! I finally got tired of making keys for everyone and their mother to get into my house. I think there were probably 10-12 keys floating around out there. I got an electronic keypad lock. Now you punch in a 4 digit code, and that's all you need. I can activate and disable codes as nessary so its not like I'd have to get a key back from someone. I just setup a temporary code and then kill it when they no longer need access.

What else? I have a pretty major delima that I'm trying to work through. And it involves a seriously major change in my life. I don't want to discuss it here until I make a decision about which way I want to go. I want it to be my decision and not influenced by everyone's opinion. I thought I was pretty set and had 90% decided which way I was going to go. And then something came up today that totally derailed that. Now I'm completely at a loss about what I want to do. Hmmm... I guess that could be another argument for the headaches being stress related.

Anyway... I better go to sleep. I have to go to work tomorrow. My piece of the proposal is almost done so only a few more days of the crazy schedule. And (THANK GOD) that means only a few more days of dealing with someone who makes the thought of pulling my fingernails out seem like a party compared to working with him.

And I know last year I got all pensive around New Year's. This year I've just been so busy the last few weeks that it didn't really seem like xmas and new year's. Maybe the week after next - when I'm chilling on the deck of my cruise ship in the carribean - it will hit me that its a new year! And if not, I'll just enjoy my week of relaxing in the sun! =)

The party never stops!

2008-12-23T13:34:00.001-05:00

Hello everyone! Its Christmas Eve Eve! I saw my shrink yesterday and I'm trying to 'let things go' rather than get frustrated about them. I'm doing very well with that, can you tell? I'm so excited that I get to go see the spine and pain doctor today. And after that, I get to have a neck MRI - just like the brain MRI, only funner! And tomorrow morning, the dentist! I know, the party never stops over here! And no, I'm sorry but you aren't invited. Its really exclusive - secret handshake, butt bump, the works.

I spent over an hour at CVS this morning waiting to get my Ativan since the MRI's are no fun without them - but I completely enjoyed my time waiting by the pharmacy getting hit in the ankles every 2 minutes by grumpy little old ladies in their walkers. What a wonderful start to my day!

(Is the sarcasm evident? Or am I doing a good job to mask it?)

Another pity party

2008-12-22T00:49:00.001-05:00

I'm exhausted. But before I go to sleep, I needed to vent a little bit. (Yes, I'm still in a pissy mood)

In order to not make this a novel, I'll just do bullets.
- I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired! I still have that annoying ass headache. But now I'm taking 1000mg of Tylenol + 600mg of ibuprofen together for it. It relieves the headache for a bit, but now I'm getting that stomach issue I had a few years ago - the thing where they thought I was going to get an ulcer if I didn't lay off the coffee and the Advil. Yes, very fun.
- So I know nothing can beat last week where I had 5 Dr appts in 24 hours, but I have 4 more this week. Including ANOTHER MRI. Can't I just get a WEEK without having to see a single doctor? Is that really too much to ask?
- I'm just at the point where I can't handle anymore. I mean really, when they hell do I get a break from all this crap?
- And I'm sick of smiling! I know you all told me that I should be honest about how I'm feeling and share and all that. But everyone feels so much better when I'm smiling. Then its like 'she's ok'. But if I'm in my 'life is crap' mood, then everyone is all worried and upset by it. I'm not saying that you shouldn't be, just that if I KNOW everyone feels better when I'm smiling and laughing, then its kind of like its easier to put on that face instead of being however I'm actually feeling. Does that make any sense at all?
- I'm sick of my life being all about medical crap. I bounce from one doctor to the next. Its just about all I think about. Its what drives or dictates my schedule. And its ANNOYING the hell out of me!

Anyway... I'm exhausted. Oh and I started the thyroid meds. Hopefully that will help me get some energy back so I won't be exhausted all day every day. Its such a great cycle. So I'm exhausted plus I'm taking all the headache meds which don't make me drowsey but I'm sure help me feel a little tired. So then I have coffee... the combo of that plus the meds makes my stomach hurt. So I can stop taking the meds and deal with the constant headache which make me want to rip my eyelashes out or I can take the meds and deal with the chance of messing something up there. I have such a fun life!

Oh and I was kind of amused about this the other day. There is a joke... like a top 10 list of how you know your a cancer patient. One of the things on the list is that you use your insurance card more than your credit card. So last week I realized that in spite of being a shop-a-holic (on a retail therapy binge) I still use my insurance card more than my credit card.

Anyway... I'm done with the pity party for one tonight. I need to figure out a way to get out of this massive funk! I'm going to sleep.

Things that are pissing me off today...

2008-12-17T22:26:00.006-05:00

I've had a semi frustrating day today. I kept a decent attitude about it all till the end of it. Then it was just overwhelming and I couldn't deal with it. I guess I've just had enough and can't really deal with any more right now. So here is my list of things that are pissing me off today...
- 5 Doctor's appointments in 24 hours - I mean really?!?!
- A massive headache going on a month now and still no clue as to what it is.
- Feeling like a serious slacker.
- Not having a 'normal' life with the 'normal' concerns of a 'normal' 32 year old.
- I bought toys for a *7* year old boy going through chemo. I'm 32 and I'm having a hard time dealing. He's 7!!! He should be playing in the mud, riding his bike, or playing with bugs or something! NOT in the hospital fighting cancer.
- Constantly hot flashing. I'm 32... NOT supposed to be there yet.
- Insecure people - more specifically insecure men. I don't think there is a bigger turn-off for me than a man who is totally insecure. I mean really, you might as well just be a needy chic.
- People who have no qualms about taking advantage of their friends.
- Not being able to stick with the exercise and eating healthy plan.
- People who say they are going to do something but never follow through.
- The only things that seem to make me feel good these days are shopping and junk food.
- Stupid people.
- Insincere people - do you honestly think that ppl fall for your crap?
- Feeling like I'm being insincere because I'm smiling and laughing because I know it makes ppl feel better to see me that way even though I'm not feeling like that at all.
- Not getting a break from medical crap - I just want a few months without having to see ANY doctors! No more stuff in me breaking!
- Just being tired and frustrated of dealing with all this crap.

I think that about does it. I skipped my work holiday party tonight because I was just so frustrated after dealing with going from one appt to the next and feeling like I hadn't accomplished anything. Then dealing with traffic and being late and ARGH!!! I just wanted to go home and sit on my couch all night - which is pretty much what I've done. Now I'm going to go to bed early so I can get to my neuro consult on time tomorrow morning. Isn't my life fun?

The sun is out again...

2008-12-13T00:14:00.001-05:00

So from my post last night, I'm guessing most of you could tell I wasn't having a good time. I really wasn't.

I took a hot bath last night, an ativan, and went to sleep.

Woke up this morning. Tried to dial in to a call but all I could here was my name over and over and over and over again. Gave up after a few tries. Then it was pretty much time to go for the MRI. I called Mom and Nonu last night to ask if they could pick me up since I'd need to take ativan in order to deal with the scan. Did I mention I'm seriously claustrophobic?

I popped an ativan when I got there. Started worrying when it hadn't kicked in by the time I was putting the gown on. So I took another 1/2 pill. Laid down on the machine... he put a line in to do a blood draw and to inject the contrast dye. And then they put me in the tube and started the scan... I think by then the meds kicked in - if they hadn't, I probably would have been screaming and fighting to get out of the machine. But I was really relaxed. No issues at all!

When I got up off the table, then I could seriously feel all of it. LOL! Guess I didn't need that extra 1/2 tab. I was happy as a clam and just so chill and relaxed coming out of there. Mom and Nonu were there. We dropped my car off at my place then went to lunch and did a bit of shopping. After they left, I took a nap with Chemo.

Beth called and woke me up with I was snoozing! It was around 7/7:30 - way beyond her office hours. But since she got my report, she wanted to call me so I wouldn't be freaking out/obsessing all weekend! The MRI was CLEAN!!! =) I think they even found a few brain cells in there too! But that was a major major relief!!! I still need to see Dr. Griffiths next week and Beth wants me to make an appt with a neurological group next week. SO we'll still keep working on it and see what can be done about it.

Rishi made chicken biryani tonight. Nimbu and Ajay came over too. We put up my Christmas tree, a few decorations, and now I even have a few presents under the tree! =) I did go with the pink tree again this year, but who cares! Its not a BC thing at all! I just LOVE pink! =)

Anyway... I better get to bed. I'm pooped! (but HAPPY!!!) Clean scans can put a huge grin on anyone's face!! Especially mine!! (So Monie, if you read this... you better get back on the beach with your Kindle and have a kick ass time!!!) And now I'm going to go to sleep!

Thanks Mom and Nonu for coming out here today!
Congrats Tami and Jamie - they are getting married tomorrow (Sat!)

No light at the end of the tunnel...

2008-12-11T15:38:00.002-05:00

So apparently, when I was sending out my update message from my last post, I sent it to my blog instead of to the list. Sorry!

Apologies for another negative post... I'd love to be positive again, but need something positive to happen to help me get there.

So I posted before about my whole headache saga, right? Basically I'd been having it for a few weeks. They tried me on several allergy meds - thinking it was a sinus problem. None of that worked. Tried prescription strength headache meds - no relief. Apparently Wellbutrin is commonly used for headaches but even though I'm on it it isn't helping. Beth did another set of labs earlier this week. SHe was checking for me 'sed rate' and thyroid. Thyroid is borderline - she said we'll deal with that one after the headache issue is resolved.

This morning she called me and said the sed rate was still elevated and I would need to have a temporal artery biopsy. (Needless to say I was a bit freaked out) They scheduled my consult with the surgeon for 1:30 today and said they'd be able to schedule me for the procedure for Monday at Inova Fairfax. (Yes, Its a hospital surgical procedure!)

I went to see the surgeon. He walks in the room and re-checks the chart to make sure he has the right patient. He said there is no way I could have temporal arteritis. He has never seen it in anyone near my age. Geneally effects ppl over 50. Hmmm.. where else have I heard that I'm too young for this disease? I told him that's the same thing ppl told me about the Breast Cancer and that turned out to be advanced stage. He said that he thought I should get an MRI (a CT wouldn't show as much details as an MRI would), make an appt with my oncologist, possibly see a rheumatologist and if they both think its necessary, then he'll do the biopsy.

I was totally happy after hearing that... I don't need to go in for another surgical procedure! Definitely a good thing. Then I realized what he was trying to say. He had asked me if I had any lymph node involvement (I had 10 positive nodes after chemo and surgery), he wants me to get an MRI and see my oncologist because he thinks there is a much higher chance that I could have brain mets instead of this temporal thing.

Does this stuff ever end?!?!?! I can't even tell you what I'm feeling right now. Part of me is just laughing at how freaking insane this is. Part of me can't stop bawling. I'm just FRUSTRATED!!! I'm just starting to get back into things... I went to work *3* days in a row!!! I'm trying to get back into life! And then BAM! Something else breaks!

So the details... They scheduled a Brain MRI for tomorrow at 11:30. I have an appointment with Dr. Griffiths on Wednesday. And then we'll see what happens after that. Oh joy! More waiting and stressing and freaking out. Can't wait.

Another thing... if you do decide to respond to this post, send me an e-mail/text, or call here are some guidelines:
- DO NOT say "I'm sorry" or anything to do with "having a positive attitude" - I swear to god if I hear that right now I'm going to b*!#@ slap whoever says it to me.
- DO NOT say "try not to think about it" - are you serious??? would YOU be able to NOT think about it if you were me??
- "You'll be fine" or any type of religious thing... Just don't! please!
- You can send me funny jokes, tell me about something idiotic you did, or just not talk about this at all.

Sorry if that is rude, but I'd rather say it now than slap you later.

Blog Update

2008-12-06T18:28:00.003-05:00

Hi -
I've updated my blog.

Jess

--
Living it up! - http://jess-livingitup.blogspot.com

Pity party for 1

2008-12-06T18:28:00.001-05:00

Why am I in a 'I'm having a pity party' mood, you ask. I have absolutely no clue. I've actually had a really nice day. I went to Monique's house and hung out with Monique, Jane, Monie, and Gabby. Just got home, took Chemo for a walk, going to take a short nap, and then go to Silly's Birthday dinner.

Chemo seems to have forgiven me for leaving her at home all day - granted she just killed another toy - but at least she's happy again.

Maybe its because I had such a weird week?

Monday the surgery went well. So that shouldn't have gotten me down. Tuesday, I hung out at Mom and Dad's all day and then came home. Wed, I had a few appointments and rested. Also went to group, had a chance to chat with Mercedes and Joanne, and it was a great session. Thursday, I had my follow up with Dr. Grace - he said everything looked good AND I could take a real shower again, and I had the head CT. Friday, I chilled at home for a bit and got lots of things done in the afternoon.

But I also went on a bit of a shopping binge yesterday. I usually do that when I'm BLAH, but I didn't really realize that I was BLAH.

The only thing unresolved is my annoying headache and I'm going back to see Beth on Tuesday to get some more blood testing so she can figure out what it might be. I can admit now, that until the CT lady told me that the neurologist had seen my scan and said I definitely don't need a contrast scan (translation: it's not a tumor), I was kind of freaking out. And Beth kinda helped freak me out a bit by saying that with whatever levels of whatever she saw in my bloodwork this could require a brain biopsy? That still isn't off the table, but at least I know that it definitely isn't mets. Granted, I'm going to make them try absolutely everything before letting them do a brain biopsy! I can't spare any of the few brain cells that I have left.

Its snowing a bit too today. Really pretty to look at and our walk was really nice. I'm not crazy about having to go drive in it though. No clue why, but I've kind of become a scardy cat. A week or so ago, I was driving to Baltimore and it was really foggy - I was going about 45mph on 95. How odd is that? I'm usually pushing 85/90 on there. I'm constantly scared I'm going to fall again while walking Chemo - especially when its wet out. I'm scared I'm going to drop the leash and Chemo will run around like a crazy puppy and get hurt. Obviously scared of the whole mets thing. (sorry. translation: mets = metastisis or the cancer coming back and spreading) Seriously insecure - in work, with my friends, with guys, etc.

So anyway... no clue why I'm having a pity party today. Just REALLY want to get out of it.

And since I can't end with this BLAHness...
When I came home from Mom and Dad's on Tuesday night, Mom gave me a grocery bag with a bunch of fruit and a loaf of bread in it. I put it on the ottoman next to the door. Wed morning, I had an appt with Dr. Andy. I was gone for less than an hour. When I got home, Chemo was at the door giving me her 'I'm so cute and innocent' face. As soon as I picked up the grocery bag to see what was [still] in it, she went into crouchy pose with her tail between her legs. The fruit was still there, the loaf of bread was gone. I found the remains of it in the second bedroom. The piglet ate the ENTIRE thing - except for 2 slices! She's been pretty low energy and grouchy the past few days, guess that's what you get for eating something that's just about the same size as you are.

Bedtime ramblings...

2008-12-03T00:39:00.001-05:00

Its after 12:30 and I'm completely surprised that I'm not asleep. I was soo tired earlier this evening. If case you are wondering... I took my last percocet around 8am this morning (Tuesday) so I was perfectly to drive back to VA at 8pm. I figured 12 hours was enough to get it out of my system. Plus, I had only had one.

So, Chemo and I are back Home. I got spoiled for 2 days which was really nice. Chemo got spoiled too. Lots of long walks for her and a lot more space for her to run around.

I'm really hoping that I made the right decision with having this surgery and I'm seriously praying that I look somewhat symmetrical now. I don't want to be self conscious about it all the time.

So I have a pretty packed week ahead of me. Tomorrow I have a chiro appt in the morning. Dr. Andy is amazing and whatever he has been doing was at least temporarily relieving my headaches. So I'm taking MUCH less medication for it. Then I'm going to see Dr. Erdwins in the afternoon. Have loads to talk to her about. Then I have to be at G-Town at 5pm to meet with Joanne and Mercedes and then have group at 5:30. It's going to be a busy day for me!

Thursday isn't going to be much better. In the morning I have to go have my follow up with Dr. Grace. Hopefully he will tell me I can take a regualr shower! (At least when I came home I was able to pull the shower head down and take a half shower and then wash my hair - not allowed to get the surgical area wet.) And I'm hoping I can get cleared to get back in the gym - even doing just a little bit of stuff will be good! And in the afternoon I have my head CT.

It was kinda funny! I was all nervous calling to schedule the head CT. This guy at Fairfax radiology answers the phone. I tell him I need to schedule a head CT. He says,"We all need to get one of those for living in Northern Virginia!" LOL! Usually the ppl who do the scheduling sound so completely bored and BLAH! This guy was upbeat and funny as hell! Totally killed my nerves about the scan. And he said it is really open so no need to take an Adivan before - I'm claustraphobic and start freaking out in some of those machines.

Hmmm... what else can I share? Can't think of anything at the moment. Hope you are having a great start to your week and I'll write more later!

My funny thing for this post:

I walked into a Mickey D's with a buy-one-get-one-free coupon For a sandwich. I handed it to the girl and she looked over at a little Chalkboard that said "buy one-get one free." "They're already buy-one- get-one-free", she said, "so I guess they're both free" She handed me my free sandwiches and I walked out the door.

One day I was walking down the beach with some friends when one Of them shouted, "Look at that dead bird!" Someone looked up at the Sky and said, "Where ?"

While looking at a house, my brother asked the real estate agent which direction was north because, he explained, he didn't want the sun waking him up every morning. She asked, "Does the sun rise in the north?" When my brother explained that the sun rises in the east, and has for sometime, she shook her head and said, "Oh I don't keep up with that stuff."

Surgery is no longer a big deal...

2008-12-01T21:24:00.001-05:00

I spoke to a few ppl last night and the comment I kept on hearing was that I sounded remarkably relaxed and at ease for someone having surgery the next day. This was #5. No clue how I wouldn't get used to it after having this many in such a short timeframe.

Everything went well. I absolutely adore Dr. Grace! =) As usual, I had to leave him a message about what he would be operating on. This time it said, "Can I be 18 again?" It seriously amuses me to do that and I've done it before each surgery I've had with Dr. Grace. Recovery wasn't too bad. We were out of the hospital a little before noon - had arrived a little before 6:30. I spent the rest of the day in the brown lazy boy chair. I was hoping I wouldn't need to many percocets today, but I'm taking 2 at each time and I'm still in a bit of pain. Not excruciating, but it still hurts.

What else? I talk too much after anesthisia. Monie and I stopped by to get some movies on the way home. We watched Baby Momma, Made of Honor, and started watching In Bruges - very dark humor, but I LOVED this movie! Dr. Grace said he didn't want me driving till Wed. I'm going to evaluate tues evening and if I'm feeling ok, then I might head back to va on tuesday night. If not, I'll head back Wed morning.

Wed I am seeing Dr. Erdwins and I also have group in the evening. I'm looking forward to going this time - possibly because I'm looking for an opportunity to stand up for myself and not be 100% concerned with people pleasing. Something I'm proud of myself for doing.

Well, I can't think of anything else to write about tonight, so I'm going to sign off since I'm getting sooooo sleepy! Good Night!

Third time is the charm...

2008-12-01T01:08:00.001-05:00

For those of you who didn't know, I joined a cancer support group/running group called Cancer to 5k (ct5k) at the end of last summer while I was going through Chemo. Ct5k is a 12 week training program to run a 5k. That was the first season of ct5k. I didn't make it to the race because I had my double mastectomy 2 days before the race and was still in the hospital the day of. Season 2... I broke my ankle half way through and had to drop out. This fall was my 3rd season and I made it to the race! =)

We did the Turkey Trot in Centreville on Thanksgiving morning. Zina was going to be my lead pacer but she was out of commission with an awful bug. So Rachel stepped in and did the pacing. Monica and Amy were my two Sherpas. I had a great time doing the race. We alternated 2 min on and 2 min off. Rachel kept chatting with me so I didn't even notice the time going by, my achy feet, getting super tired, etc. Monie and Amy joined in the chatting after a bit and the 4 of us had a really great time. Thank you very much ladies!!! =)

Now I'm totally wanting to sign up for another one so I can work my way up to doing a 10k at 8 and 2. (8 min jog/2 min walk) I did the Jingle Bell 10k in 06 doing 8 and 2's and felt great at the end. I'd like to get back there! (Yes, I know... slowly but surely.) Another happy thing... I've dropped another few lbs and hit my first goal. I'm pretty excited about that. Yes, I know I have a long way to go... but every little bit helps!

What else? I had a great Thanksgiving! We definitely missed being at Bony bhaiya's place this year so we didn't get to see everyone. But did a small thing at my place so we didn't have to do lots of driving after the run. Karim, his mom, Anu, Jitin, Ayana, Yuvan, Monie, and Mom were all there. Anu said I was being the Thanksgiving Nazi - I wouldn't let anyone make any of the main dishes because I wanted them the way *I* like them! But everyone enjoyed the food, so I guess my being the Thanksgiving Nazi wasn't such a bad thing.

The rest of my weekend was pretty good. I definitely enjoyed it and got to relax quite a bit.

I'm actually seriously tired right now but also a little bit of an insomniac. I'm really blase about tomorrow so no clue why I'm being an insomniac. I have another surgery tomorrow morning. Nothing major. I'm just not happy wit how "unsymmetrical" my reconstruction is, so Dr. Grace is going to try something else to see if they can be more "symmetrical". He thinks they look pretty good considering one side is radiated and the other is not, but I really want them to "match" a little more.

Its outpatient surgery but I have to get general anesthesia. No new scars - he is going to go in through an old one. I know I'll be out of it on Monday, but I'm planning on heading back to VA sometime on Tuesday afternoon. Hopefully, I won't need any drains. And that is about all I can think of to tell you.

I'm going to try to go to sleep now. Monie is going to wake me up at 5:30 am. ICK! No clue why I signed up for the early slot. I'm in Monie's old room - internet connectivity. Chemo is in my room. I heard a few things fall, so I'm guessing she is being a little mischevious again. Anyway, Good Night and I'll post tomorrow after I get back to Mom and Dad's.

Its almost Thanksgiving!

2008-11-25T22:12:00.001-05:00

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday! I love love love Thanksgiving Dinner and I love cooking it - that way I get everything the way I like it... Because it is all about me afterall. =) But I was also thinking that its supposed to be a holiday where you give thanks for what you have and I guess I never really did that.

So I thought I'd do it here... A little caveat - this is not a complete list, just a few things that I can think of right now.
I'm thankful for:
- My family and friends - I couldn't have asked for better, more supportive people in my life.
- Chemo - I honestly don't believe a better baby exists.
- My amazing team of doctors and nurses
- Accenture - I know I haven't been pulling my weight but they have been amazing about it.
- My health! I'm finally getting back to being happy! I'm motivated to eat healthy and go to the gym. (Not to mention a clean scan!)
- The fact that I have a job, I'm not financially stressed, and I have a wonderful place to live.
- The ppl I'm talking to who may become my gym buddies - I soooo need one to help keep me on track. So I'm being thankful for it now so I get a good one.
- McCain - for losing the election. THANK YOU! I was scared I'd lose my health insurance if his plan went into action.
- My neighbor for helping me carry in my groceries.
- The fact that I'm out of my 'boo hoo I'm so sad' 'poor me' state of mind.
- My online friend who is constantly giving me an ego boost and making me feel good about myself.
- Meds... while I don't want to be on them for long, right now they are making a world of difference! (And Dr. Sethi said it isn't unrealistic for me to be off of them within a year.)
- Realizing that I have the power to decide what I want and don't want in my life.
- The fact that I'm finally starting to take chances and do things that I want to do because life is too short and too uncertain.

There are honestly too many things to be thankful for. The way I'm feeling right now, I hope I can keep that. I feel so fortunate to have today and to be able to do things that make me happy. No one knows what's going to happen tomorrow the only thing we can take for granted is right now.

I know I'm being all deep today. Its been in the making for a few days now. I've obviously spent quite a bit of time just thinking and reflecting. Not to be all mushy, but I hope you all can find at least a few things to recognize to be thankful for.

And since I feel the need to end with something funny instead of the pensive mood I'm in just from re-reading this....

Ode to Thanksgiving

May your stuffing be tasty
May your turkey plump,
May your potatoes and gravy
Have nary a lump.
May your yams be delicious
And your pies take the prize,
And may your Thanksgiving dinner
Stay off your thighs!

Chemo is on Puppy crack...

2008-11-21T00:43:00.002-05:00

So my worries about there being something wrong with Chemo are totally gone. You should have seen her tonight when I was walking her. It was like she was on speed or something. She was wagging her tail so hard, her entire body was wagging. Very very cute!

What else is going on? Well I said that my week long headache went away after Dr. Bradley told me to take Sudafed. I spoke too soon. It came back a day later with a vengeance and is still here. I went back to the doc office today to see if they could do anything else for it. They gave me allegra - still going with the assumption that its allergies. I'm supposed to go back and see Beth on Wednesday. If its not gone then they are going to do an MRI or CT scan. How wonderfully fun. So looking forward to it.

But luckily, they still cleared me for surgery on 12/1.

I saw Dr. Erdwins yesterday and she made me realize that I've been censoring what I post on my blog. I've been too worried about people pleasing to post what I'm really thinking or feeling sometimes. Like after last group. I was so worked up and infuriated by a comment made by a member of the group. But even though it is still bothering me a month later, I censored and never mentioned it. The point of my blog is to give me a place to vent and say whatever I want to say. So if I'm censoring or feel like I need to censor, then what's the point?

So the reason I skipped group this month was because I was so frustrated after last month's group. A woman in the group made a comment that its a month later, and I'm still pissed about it. I had to delete what I had originally posted in order to respect the confidentiality of the group. I apologize for posting anything on here that I should not have, but not for how I was feeling.

Definitely feels good to be able to say what I'm thinking/feeling. So I've decided that I'll go to group in December. If I'm feeling frustrated after that session, then I'm going to stop going. I'll find some other form of support. But there is no point in continuing to go somewhere that frustrates me. I'm there by choice, so I can leave by choice.

Well, I'm about to go to bed. I'm getting my eyes checked tomorrow. Figured that with this non-stop headache, might not be a bad idea to explore some other possible reasons for it. Especially since I'd really love to stop taking all these unnecessary pills.

So to end with something positive... I had a really nice dinner with a new friend tonight. =)

I'm broken again...

2008-11-15T13:08:00.003-05:00

What else is new? I'm seriously frustrated with this stuff. I need to stop breaking!!!

So yesterday I had an appt for my flu shot and pre-op physical. Beth wasn't available, so I saw Dr. Bradley. REALLY nice. So me, being me, I go in there with a list of questions for her. The first one was I'd been having a pretty severe headache for over a week that just wouldn't go away no matter how much tyloneol I took. Along with the headache there was dizziness, nausea, ringing in my ears. From looking in my ears, she said that it was most probably an allergy and I was congested in my sinuses (but not in my nose or lungs). Since nothing else was working, I listened to her and took sudafed yesterday, benedryl last night. And Viola! Headache, nausea, ringing in my ears GONE! A little dizziness remains, but I'm guessing that will go away in a day or so.

But ofcourse you know what I was thinking before I went in there, right? I can't wait till I stop going there everytime I break.

Second on the list was my knee. It started hurting the day before. Right above the patella. She said its probably tendonitis. So I'm icing, taking ibuprofen, resting, bracing, and elevating it. Seriously annoyed about this one because I JUST got myself back in the gym and the Ct5k race is in less than 2 weeks. This is my 3rd time through the program. I'm NOT not doing the race this year. And I'll be seriously pissed if I have to walk the whole thing.

One thing she couldn't help with but is going to check my blood to see if it gives her any clues, is my nails. They are so brittle and peeling these days. The slightest pressure will make them tear, usually low enough to make it seriously hurt. Just not used to this because I used to have strong nails. I think its a deficiency in my diet - going to research that one - she is going to check my blood to see if she gets any clues from that.

Oh, and I finally got measured for my lymphadema sleeve yesterday. I'm really not looking forward to wearing it. It was sooo tight! The woman at the store was helping me try a few on, and it took a lot of effort - on her part - to get them on my arm. So if we had such a hard tim with 2 ppl doing it, how am I supposed to be able to do this myself?

I think that's all that is broken with me right now. What else can I tell you?

I saw the new James Bond last night. Definitely worth seeing in the theater. But, personally, I'll never go see another BIG movie on opening night again. We had to get to the mall more than 2 hours before the show. We were already in line - to get into the theater - at 8:30 for a 9:55 show. And just had to sit there till they let us in at 9:30ish. But if you don't get there super early, then you will get a crappy seat. We definitely had great seats. But just the hassle of opening night... not worth it in my opinion.

So this is kinda funny... I thought Chemo was really sick and took her to the vet on Thursday. Devinder did all these tests and said nothing was wrong with her. I figured out that she was mimicing me! She sees me sitting on the couch all day infront of the computer, so she sits on the couch all day and sleeps. But if I get up every so often and play with her toys then she starts jumping around too. Kinda amusing... she learned how to be lazy from her mom!

Another thing... I had DVR'd Wednesday's Oprah. She did a show on de-cluttering your house. So Peter Walsh is going around the country with a team and de-cluttering people's houses. I wrote in for the DC one asking if they can do mine. I hope you all will write in and tell them I'm in need of an intervention!

Okie... I better send this. My battery is about to die. Why am I on battery power? Because I'm sitting in my hammock (with my leg up on a makeshift ottoman) with my laptop. =)

Happy 2nd Birthday, Frankie!! I'm so sorry I'm not at your party today!
--
Living it up! - http://jess-livingitup.blogspot.com

Its 5am...

2008-11-13T06:20:00.001-05:00

I should be sound asleep for 2 more hours. Yet, I'm awake and can't fall asleep. I tried for about a half hour then I just gave up and went to the livingroom. I was trying not to disturb Chemo, but she woke up anyway and followed me out here. Not that big a deal because she's asleep on a pillow cuddling with me. So anyway... I will tell you about my day yesterday.

I've actually been in a pretty good mood lately, but yesterday I was just having a BLAH day. I also went to see Dr. Grace and Lisa - I absolutely love them! When I got there Lisa and I talked till Dr. Grace got back to the office. And then he spent some time just chatting with me too. I got to vent and cry a little about what was bugging me (self image stuff, guys, life in general) and they just made me feel a whole lot better. Dr. Grace gave me a hug and said that not all guys were jerks like the ones I've met recently. I'm sure there are nice ones out there. I wouldn't mind meeting one to restore the faith.

Anyway, after that I drove back to VA to see Dr. Erdwins. Oh yeah, I forgot. I know I kept going back and forth about this, but now I am having surgery on 12/1. Not the one we were planning on doing, but something to help make me more ... symmetrical. My appt with Dr. Erdwins was good as usual. She gave me an article to read - it related to what we discussed last time. I haven't read it yet... maybe I'll do that since I'm already up.

After that, I was supposed to go home and walk Chemo and then head to Georgetown for group. But for the first time since I joined this group, I just didn't want to go. Last time I was so frustrated after group, whereas before I always felt better when I left. The time before that wasn't great either. I know it was helping me for a while and there are no other young women's cancer groups. So I'm guessing if I want a group, this is my only choice. Yesterday was going to be its last chance. If I felt better then I'd continue going, if not then I'd find something else that was helpful. But since I was already in a BLAH mood, I didn't want to go there and get more aggravated.

Today, I was going to go into the office after a long time. I asked Evan to schedule a face to face meeting with me to help me out with that. But I'm not going. There is something wrong with Chemo and I'm taking the day off so I can take her to the vet. Maybe I'm just being one of those over protective mother's, but pretty much all week, she hasn't been her self. Instead of playing for a while then napping... just going back and forth with that all day, she just sleeps the entire day. If I'm in the kitchen, I make a lot of noise like shaking a bag or whatever. Before if she heard even the sound of something that had to do with food, she was in the kitchen begging for it. These days she won't even lift her head to see what's going on. It may not sound like much, but she's a whole different puppy - and not in a good way. Instead of stressing about it till Saturday, I'm going to get her checked out today. I'm hoping its something completely minor that I'm just blowing out of proportion. But ofcourse what's running through my mind is this AWFUL comment this stupid women made months ago. She said maybe Chemo's name was foreshadowing what was to come for her. What kind of an IDIOT says that?!?!?

Anyway... I'll stop before I get all worked up again. Trying to think of something positive to leave you with. How about something Dr. Grace said...

"Every day is a good day. Some are just better than others."

Not sure how I feel about this...

2008-11-10T13:36:00.001-05:00

Remember when we couldn't get flu shots because there was only a limited supply and they wanted to give it to the elderly, small children, and high risk patients first? I was always irritated that I wasn't able to get one and had to deal with being sick for a week instead.

I just called Vienna Family Medicine to schedule an appt with my doctor and get a flu shot. The woman asked me if I was high risk. I asked what the definition of high risk was. She said it was anyone with a chronic long term illness. I told her I was diagnosed with breast cancer last year, does that mean I'm high risk. She laughed and said, yes you definitely qualify.

While I'm glad I can get a flu shot. I'm not sure how I feel about being labeled as 'high risk'.

I feel like a real idiot right now...

2008-11-07T18:44:00.001-05:00

I had posted something when I was ranting about 2 hours ago... And just took it down. I thought that the guys who installed my windows had taken the canister that I keep my gift cards and cash presents in. (About $400 worth) I wrote to the guy who was handling my contract. He forwarded my message to the owners and VPs and said they would handle the situation. I left a angry voice mail message for the customer service VP. Ranted to Dad on the phone and then to Anu and then to Nimbu. And then I looked some more and found it.

But in my defense, it was in a spot I NEVER would have put it. The only conclusion I can come to is that it got in their way and they moved it - not took it.

I felt like a real ass writing back to them and leaving voice mail messages. Seriously embaressing!

But on the bright side... at least I don't have to totally lose my faith in humanity now. (And my trust in good contractors!)

The latest stuff going on with me ...

2008-11-05T22:52:00.006-05:00

Where do I start today? I went to see Dr. Erdwins today. She is really sweet. She called me this morning to remind me about my appt. Monie called me too. And I had set an alarm. I'll get to the point where I'm not forgetting the appts soon. So I was seriously bouncing off the walls today. Last week Dr. Sethi upped my dosage since what I was on was doing nothing... LOL! Now I think it might be a bit too much. I got about 4 hours of sleep last night and I'm still going strong. I've been on overdrive all day today. VERY different from the past few weeks. Definitely not complaining!!! But I'm seeing Dr. Sethi on Friday. She can decide then if we need to come down a bit.

So back to Dr. Erdwins. It was really funny/interesting how our discussion went today. So I mentioned that BC (before cancer) I was a type A person. Obsessed with work. Always focused on the target/goal/end result. But not as concerned with the journey or steps to get there. It was almost funny how while she was telling me that I need to learn to be in the Now instead of focusing on the end - in my head, I was trying to make a plan on how to reach that goal. Its going to be a long process... but I'll get there. This isn't a new concept. Dad's been trying to teach me this since I was little (a principle from Gita) and Dr. G tried as well when I was at HIHT. If you haven't noticed, it hasn't stuck yet. But one day...

Another thing I did today was call Dr. Grace and cancel my surgery in December. I'm just not ready for another one - even if it is totally minor. He said that there is no rush. I can take as long as I like to schedule it. I'm thinking maybe 6 months or a year. Then I'll see if I'm ready.

And even though I'm not ready for large social gatherings... I think I'm ready for smaller things. I was kind of surprised at myself when I didn't think twice about scheduling something. Definitely progress. Maybe in a few months I'll be out of my hermit phase! =) Something to strive for.

What else can I babble about? I have a bunch of adorable pictures of Chemo. (BTW - the photos in my posts are generally links to albums. So click on them if you want to see the albums.)

WOOHOO! Go Obama!

Insomnia... again... but this time not a pissy one...

2008-10-27T02:49:00.017-04:00

So usually when I'm an insomniac it makes me pissy and its usually after I've had a particularly bad or depressing day. Not the case today.

I woke up this morning at 8:45 - not by choice. Only because Jitin Ahuja is an IDIOT and doesn't realize that single people without children do NOT wake up that early on a Sunday morning. =) (He's going to respond by saying either, "No one cares" or "Get a job") I cuddled with my piglet for a while and then got out of bed WITHOUT tripping over crap and clothes. I made a cup of tea in my CLEAN kitchen and then sat on my deck in my hammock enjoying the beautiful morning. (Yes, I know what you are thinking. Giver her a week and it will be back to chaos.) Chemo was out there too working on her tan. Then I got dressed and went to meet Monie, Monique and Jane for lunch. Monique and Jane were like our first friends when we lived on Rawlings Well Rd. We have pictures of us playing together back when we were in diapers. It was so great to reconnect and reminisce.

When I got home I realized it wasn't the smartest decision to leave Chemo alone with all the garbage bags. After cleaning up, I took Chemo out to play for a while and then took a book out to the hammock to read for a while. So relaxing...

Saturday... Monie, Mom, and Dad came over for a "Cleaning Party"! Basically they came over and helped me clean ALL day. I have pictures... Its pretty amazing what we accomplished in just one day! I kept getting frustrated and overwhelmed. Monie kept telling me what to do giving me small tasks. And it took me over 10 trips to take all the trash out... not to mention the car load of stuff they took that I was getting rid of. Did I mention how awesome my family is? Not to belittle what we did, but inspite of over 10 large bags of trash and their car FULL of stuff to donate, I still have too much stuff.

So this sounds like a great weekend, right? Surprisingly enough... I had a really crappy week leading up to it. Not a clue why. Monie mentioned it might be because I just hit my 1 year anniversary of my mastectomy. Maybe that was it. Maybe it was something else. I really don't know. But right now I'm feeling kind of optimistic. Maybe it has something to do with finally starting to get the chaos that is my house under control. Just feels like that maybe I can do the same with my life.

Hmmm... Maybe.... Vote for me! And then again ... maybe not! =)

But then again... I AM a celebrity...

So its been a great weekend. I'm hoping that this week will be better than last week. Now I think I better try harder to go to sleep because Chemo is giving me dirty looks and has really sleepy eyes. G'Night!

And I'm on an upswing for the moment ...

2008-10-17T11:02:00.001-04:00

Did I mention that I feel practically bipolar? Yesterday I felt like pure crap. Even cuddling on the couch with Chemo didn't help. Tyler - my personal trainer - put me through a hellish workout and amazingly enough that helped me feel a bit better. And I've lost 2.5 lbs so far. I know it isn't much, but its a start.

But now... I'm totally on an upswing and I need to share why! Last month at group Elizabeth told us that they had found lumps in both breasts during an MRI. She was going to have them biopsied. Needless to say, I think the entire group was scared s*!$-less at the thought of one of us recurring. But today, she got the call saying that the lumps on both sides are BENIGN!!!

No need to wear my "Life is Crap" t-shirt today. This just makes me feel like good things can happen.

Random Thoughts at 2:45 am

2008-10-16T02:44:00.001-04:00

Its been such a long time since I posted that I don't even know where to start. I'll just ramble for a while, I guess. First of all, if you can't tell by the timestamp, I'm being an insomniac again. Seems pretty normal these days. Still seriously annoying. Chemo, on the other hand, is sleeping peacefully wrapped in my blanket on my bed.

So as most of you already know, Monie and I did the Breast Cancer 3-Day. She did the whole 60 miles and I did about 35. Not bad for me at all. I almost bailed on it. The night before I was in a really pissy mood and just wanted to be a hermit all weekend. I'm glad I didn't - at least I made it off of my couch. But it really wasn't the inspirational, life-changing event that everyone said it would be. Maybe it was just the hermit-y mood I was in or that I spent a majority of the event walking by myself. But it just wasn't that great of an experience.

I've been spending a lot of time on the couch watching tv. I'm one of the few ppl who is totally caught up on all their DVR'd shows. Pretty sad, huh? I think I watch so much tv so I can get into the lives of the characters instead of having to deal with my own life. I got that from Dr. Erdwins - who I haven't seen in a while because I have no idea how, but I missed my appt last week and then just haven't picked up the phone to apologize and reschedule. Yes, I know that's pretty dumb.

What else? I want a baby puppy. Yesterday I saw a 9 week old beagle and fell in love again. And this morning I saw 6 week old little furry puppies. The one that I was drooling over, I picked her up and was cuddling her. She was squirming. So as I went to put her down, I dropped her. I felt like such a mean mean person! She was yelping this itty bitty yelp and ran away from me. That really didn't feel good.

And before you think, hmmm maybe the meds aren't really working, we added a new one and upped the dosage of both of them last week. Hopefully they should kick in soon and I'm supposed to get energy and motivation. I'm still waiting for that to happen.

Ok.. I know this is a pretty depressing post. It just hasn't been the greatest month. I'm annoyed that I can't sleep tonight - especially when I need to go into the office tomorrow. I've been pretty hermit-y. I'm trying to make myself do 1 social thing a week and even that is hard to do. What else can I complain about? LOL!

Someone threw up pepto bismal all over every store and just everything. I'm sure its somehow wrong or whatever that I'm so anti Breast Cancer Awareness month... I'm not against the awareness part of it. People need to know to do self exams and all that. But the commercialism is just sickening. Everywhere you go they are selling things that "support breast cancer". Just can't get away from it. Maybe it is a good idea to hibernate till October is over.

So something interesting or insiteful that my radiation oncologist told me... A friend of hers is a psychiatrist and a breast cancer survivor. She said that after diagnosis, treatment, and the months following ... if your life was a book, then "Cancer" would be the title. After some time passes, "Cancer" is just a chapter. And eventually, a footnote. Right now I'm still in the Cancer is the title phase - if you hadn't already guessed. I can't wait to move on to the chapter phase. LOL! Or at least to a phase where I'm in a better mood.

Ok... have to end on a funny note.

An engineer was crossing a road one day when a frog called out to him, "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess."
He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket.
The frog spoke up again and said, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will stay with you for one week."
The engineer took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it, and returned it to the pocket.
The frog then cried out, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I'll stay with you and do anything you want."
Again the engineer took the frog out, smiled at it, and put it back into his pocket.
Finally, the frog asked, "What is the matter? I've told you I'm a beautiful princess, that I'll stay with you for a week and do anything you want. Why won't you kiss me?"
The engineer said, "Look, I'm an engineer. I don't have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog, now that's cool."

WOOHOO!!!!

2008-09-09T12:05:00.001-04:00

So I haven't been sleeping much for the past few days. I'm guessing at SOME point I'll get used to waiting for scan results and they won't freak me out as much as they do right now. But WHATEVER.... Just got a message from Dr. Hetelekidis saying that my PET scan was TOTALLY NORMAL!!!!! WOOOHOOO!!!! =)

Don't even bother trying to tell me to wipe off the goofy grin I'll have plastered on my face for the next few days! =)

I LOVE CLEAN SCANS!!!! Don't you? =P

Things that are pissing me off at the moment ...

2008-09-05T20:58:00.001-04:00

Yes... I do realize that this could be a long list right now. But I'll just mention a few.

So I had my PET scan today. It pisses me off that I get so paranoid about them and literally can not sleep at all the night before. Yes, its kind of a big thing, but its something I'm going to have to do forever - and I'm not ok with going without - so I need to get used to them, right?

Next... Having a PET scan on a FRIDAY is pissing me off. I KNOW its going to be clean. But still... having to wait a few extra days to hear that... SUCKS!

The fact that I was even worried about wheather or not my insurance was going to cover my scan... really pissed me off. I think I'm definitely deserving of these wonderfully fun scans.

Feeling BLAH again inspite of my new friend, zoloft. (I think this has more to do with not sleeping and the PET than anything else)

And lastly... I have the "Stand up to Cancer" thing on and I have no idea why... but its pissing me off! Some of the ppl speaking are just totally reading from the teleprompters and sound so monotone. I hate hearing the negative stats... especially the Breast Cancer ones. I hate that there are hardly any studies that are geared towards young adults. Lots of research for young children and the post menopausal aged men and women... but nothing for ppl in their late teens, 20's, 30's.

I guess this thing is a great way to build awareness and all that... but maybe I'm not the right audience for it today... I'm feeling BLAH and I'm waiting for the results of a PET scan. Hmmmm... I think I'm going to put on Superbad or something else equally stupidly funny. OMG... I just heard them talk about a father who's 4 year old son died. And said that all his son wanted was to be 5. I am so not the right audience for this show.

Anyway... I need to end on a positive note... Here is a story that had me rolling on the floor laughing...

In 1986, Peter Davies was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from Northwestern University.

On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed, so Peter approached it very carefully.

He got down on one knee, inspected the elephant¢s foot, and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it. As carefully and as gently as he could, Peter worked the wood out with his knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot. The elephant turned to face the man, and with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense moments. Peter stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned, and walked away. Peter never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.

Twenty years later, Peter was walking through the Chicago Zoo with his teenaged son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Peter and his son Cameron were standing. The large bull elephant stared at Peter, lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man.

Remembering the encounter in 1986, Peter could not help wondering if this was the same elephant. Peter summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing, and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Peter legs and slammed him against the railing, killing him instantly.

Probably wasn't the same elephant.

This is for all of my friends who send me those heart-warming bullshit stories.

Insomnia strikes again...

2008-09-05T05:41:00.001-04:00

Its been a while since I've had one of my insomniac nights. I think around 3:30 I gave up and decided to just get up. Chemo, on the other hand, is buried in my bed snoring. Its pretty cute. So... what's going on with me...

I am off of my Zoloft high. I was bouncing off the walls the past few days but looks like its calmed down. Today wasn't the best day. I crated Chemo since she's been peeing on the floor everytime I leave and that just made me feel awful. When I came home and let her out she gave this really horrible sounding yelp that made me even sadder.

As for why I can't sleep tonight... Well, I have a PET scan today ... in less than 5 hours. Not that I'm going to know anything today, but I guess I'm just thinking too much about it anyway. I did get a call from the testing center a few days ago asking me to call them back for something. So of course I'm thinking stuff like my insurance coverage didn't come through or they are refusing the test for some stupid reason like the dumb insurance woman said last time... she said that since I no longer had breasts, she didn't think insurance would cover a scan for breast cancer. It could just be that they wanted to verify my address or something. But I got the message after 5pm Thurs so I didn't get to call and find out what was up. Guess I'll find out today.

What else can I babble about... I'm a little distracted at the moment watching the Mighty Ducks. Yes, I know. Really dumb movie. But there isn't much else on at 5am.

So I got my port out on Tuesday. It was THE coolest surgery experience ever. I got local instead of IV sedation. So I was awake the whole time. I actually got to walk in and out of the OR. Dr. Falcao made all the nurses tell me jokes and the whole thing was pretty fun. He told me what he was doing as he was doing it... there was a screen up so I couldn't see anything. But the whole experience was pretty cool.

Anyway... I'm going to go find something else to do to entertain myself. Chemo just woke up. She'll come play with me. =)

I'm de-hermitizing...

2008-09-02T01:42:00.001-04:00

So after a week of screening pretty much all my calls, missing appointments, refusing to leave the house unless I absolutely had to, not seeing anyone (unless I had to), and (the one thing I'm pretty embarrassed about but feel the need to admit) not showering and staying in my pajamas for 4 days I think I'm finally out of my depressed hermit mode. Dr. Erdwins - my new shrink - told me that she now thinks I'm moderately depressed vs mildly depressed and really encouraged me to go back on the Zoloft. But this time, really give it a chance. So I did.

I have no idea if the meds kicked in over the weekend or if its just psychosomatic and I just THINK they kicked in... whatever it is, I feel so much better. I'm being social. I'm actually getting up and getting dressed in the morning. I'm not shutting myself up in the house. When we spoke I'm not sure if it was her analogy or mine... but the analogy was that either I can continue to self-medicate how I'm feeling with crap food (like I've been doing... delivery has been my friend) or I can try to medicate with a pill/chemical. At least with option 2 I am getting moving again. Yes, I know there are side effects to these things. And even though I'm anti-meds that are not absolutely necessary, I think the side effects of staying depressed on the couch are worse.

So... I'm giving this a try for a few months and then I'll work with someone to get off of them as soon as I can. I appreciate all the anit-med, lets find an alternate solution opinions out there... but this is the way I've decided to go for now. When I'm ready to re-evaluate, I'll let you know.

So anyway... I think it was Saturday afternoon when I finally started getting out of this 'funk'. I had brunch with Veena... and I have to share part of our conversation. She told me that I need to accept what's going on with me instead of fighting it. So if I'm feeling crappy... I tell myself, its ok to feel crappy right now rather than beating myself up for feeling crappy. Because basically, till I accept it, I'm not going to be able to move on from it. I thought that was really good advise. Thought it was appropriate to everyone so I wanted to share it. A few other highlights of the weekend, I got to see Usha Auntie, Jain Uncle and Rachna. And had a chaat party at Mamaji and Mamiji's place.

Sunday morning I called Aunt Jean - I haven't seen her in about 2 years now. And asked her if she was up for some company that afternoon. It was so great seeing her. Dad and I went up to PA for a few hrs to visit. She's now 94 years old and looks AMAZING! I mean yeah, her sight is going and so is her hearing. But she is still as active as she can be and enjoying life as much as she can. What an amazing role model.

So needless to say, I had a great weekend. And I have a pretty intense week coming up. Probably not the best timing (just this week) for this, but as of tomorrow I'm working 90% instead of 50%. Reason I say it isn't the best timing is that this week is full of appointments. But after that, I'm good to go. The appointments I have this week are... tomorrow I'm having my port removed. I have to be at St. Agnes at noon and my procedure is at 1pm. (Yes, it is a hospital surgery) I'm opting for local anesthisia instead of IV sedation b/c last time that stuff made me sick. So lets see how well I do on the local. And then Friday I have my next PET/CT. (The scan that checks your body to see if there are any clumps of cancer cells left.) As much as I can say I'm going to be chill about it, I'm sure I'll be freaking out after the scan on Friday till I get the results - even though I KNOW that its going to be a clean scan. =) (Can you believe its already been 6 months since the last one? Time has certainly been flying!)

Well.... I'm off to bed. Or to try to get some sleep. I need to be up at a decent time tomorrow to get some work done in the am and then head to the hospital. So goodnight! And I'll let you know how it feels to be port-less tomorrow!

DUH!

2008-08-26T16:30:00.001-04:00

So I went to see Dr. Falcao today and thought my port was coming out. Not really thinking that I'm going to the office and taking my port out does require a bit of surgery and where would they do something like that in the office since any kind of surgery requires a sterile environment. So today was just a consultation with Dr. Falcao BEFORE scheduling the procedure at St. Agnes. I was really siked thinking it was going to be out but kinda makes sense... when they put it in I was under IV sedation and all that so they can't just rip it out like they did the drains - which is kind of what I was thinking it would be like.

So anyway... St. Agnes will call to schedule the procedure. This time I'm opting for local anesthesia - so I'll be awake for the whole thing - instead of the IV sedation. But then I'll be able to drive after and won't have the icky anesthesia after effects that I had the last time. Dr. Falcao said that the local anesthesia will burn pretty badly, but I can totally handle it. And there will be a drape so I won't be watching as they cut into my chest.

So another thing... all my nurses suggested leaving the port in for a while to 'see'. But I just can't do it. Why plan for a recurrance? Just doesn't make sense to me. Worst case scenario - I need a port again. Its easy enough to put one in. But I'm planning to NOT need one ever again so there is NO POINT in keeping it in.

And my positive thing for today... Since the last few posts were primarily negative figure I need to go back to ending with a positive thought... I stopped at the grocery store on the way home and stocked up on all the healthy things I'm supposed to be eating per the plan Danielle and I made for me. And I AM going to the gym tonight.

Blahness continues ...

2008-08-25T23:25:00.000-04:00

I just got another random e-mail and comments on my blog. I've been getting these for a while now and honestly, they are more than a little annoying. I do realize that this is a public blog. But posting comments about the "rumors bharat soni is starting about me at work" is really lame especially since I don't know anyone named bharat nor do I work with one nor are there rumors circulating about me at work.

The latest two comments that I just deleted:

- Don't worry Jess-I am sure no one believes the rumor-it will die down by itself,don't be upset he is a creep nobody cares what he says-your girls

- I'm am a member of the Tiger Pool group and I was there when he told everyone about you-Hold your head up,don't let people think it's all true,you have been through enough

And last night I got an e-mail from "Friends Of Jessie friendsof.jessie@yahoo.com" asking "Have you read the comments on your recent blog entries?" I replied asking who they were, but no one replied. No surprise there.

This a$$ is right... I have been through enough. And I really don't need some a$$hole posting about rumors beng started about me. So you can take your lame comments and ........ So sorry to the legit anonymous commenters, but I've just changed my settings to only allow registered users to post comments. All you have to do is register with a valid e-mail addy and you can comment. This way I can spam the hell out of whoever this is if they decide to post again. If you are reading this - how pathetic are you and how pathetic is your life that you have to post crap like that about me? I think I've been through enough, don't you?

Anyway... If you couldn't tell, I'm in "a mood" again. I had a really good weekend. Nimbu's wedding was really nice and she seemed really happy. She and Ajay are leaving tomorrow to go to Cancun for their honeymoon. Tomorrow I'm also getting my port out so that should be a happy thing. So no idea why I'm BLAH again. Atleast I was mostly non-BLAH for the weekend. I danced a lot at the reception and was REALLY feeling it yesterday and today. Hopefully tomorrow should be better. I saw picts from the wedding and reception... the ones of me were seriously AWFUL. Not that I expected them to be ok even, but still I didn't think they would be THAT bad. I know I know... get over it or get to the gym. I'm working on it. One day... I'll let you know when it finally happens. Anyway... I don't feel like writing much more tonight. I'll post again tomorrow and let you know how the port removal goes.

Getting out of my funk...

2008-08-21T01:41:00.000-04:00

So I've gotten pretty deep into this funk/rut/BLAHNESS over the last couple of weeks. Just couldn't find a way out of it. Like so many people warned me... finishing treatment is in a way harder than being in treatment - emotionally. I totally thought, "that may have been the case for you, but I can't wait to get back into life." So not the case. I thought I was going to jump right back in, but I haven't been able to so far. This week, for some reason, has been particularly hard. There is enough going on that I should be completely excited and happy about... but I'm not there yet. I'm trying to be. And I will get there. Just not there yet.

Friday, I was interviewed as a part of a marketing campaign for St. Agnes Cancer Center. They are going to use the videos on a website and some sound bites as a radio commercial. Today I did a photo shoot. These will be for a booklet given to newly diagnosed women, billboards, and print ads. Pretty exciting, right? The whole time I was thinking, "Why the hell am I doing this when I look THIS hideous?" Before going today - or last night - I tried on everything in my closet that wasn't black and was a solid color. NOTHING fits or looks even half way decent. So I had to go shopping again. I know I used to be a shopaholic in a previous life and I used to enjoy it. Now I HATE it with a pasion. I won't even tell you what size I had to buy, but its an all time high for me. And I wonder why I'm depressed...

And this after going to a Cancer Nutrition Symposium where every study shows how women who are overweight or obses have a much higher recurrence and mortality rate than those maintaining a healthy body weight. Yes I know, I've said this before. What I still don't get is why I continue to gain weight when I KNOW this. I know I'm depressed. I debated putting myself back on Zoloft - I still have the prescription from when Dr. Griffiths gave it to me a few months ago. I actually took one today after deciding that I was going to go back on it since I really need the help getting out of this funk. Then I spoke to Jen - the makeup artist from the photoshoot - and her thoughts were not to get back on it since my depression is situational not just from a chemical imbalance. Makes sense to me. But I still need help. So for now I'm going to try to get myself out of this. If I'm still in it a month from now, I go back to Dr. Griffiths and get some happy pills. Fair?

So yesterday Danielle - my HHC - and I made a schedule for me and a meal plan. This goes into effect on Monday. I really need it. I think having structure and routine in my life will help. I also need help staying on it. I know that dropping some weight, feeling productive, and getting things that I want/need to do done will make me feel better. So I'm going to try to get out of my funk that way.

Today after the photo shoot, I went to the mall... again. I know, it seems like I live there these days. Its about to stop. I just needed to have a few things that actually fit me right now... not that I'll be able to wear after I drop 10 lbs. Anyway... that was a little depressing. But whatever. Then I went to dinner with Mom, Dad, and Monie and had a really great time. I think we must have been at the restaurant for about 3 hours or so just chatting away and having a good time. It definitely put me in a better mood.

And now... or the next 3-4 days... I get to forget about all of that icky stuff and have fun with Nimbu at her wedding this weekend. I'm in Baltimore tonight and heading to Philly tomorrow. And sorry for not updating you all sooner, but my license is un-suspended. Do you really thing I'd drive to Philly on a suspended license with my luck? Not a chance!

So a few more happy thoughts to share... I'm getting my port out on Tuesday morning the 26th. Its done during an office visit and I'm planning to go to work afterwards. And Dr. H mailed me the orders for my next PET scan. So that will be a happy thing getting a clean scan again. And I think my nails are just about dry so I can go to sleep! If not... I'll do them again tomorrow! Good night.

Still in a funk...

2008-08-15T01:32:00.001-04:00

So I was hoping I'd write a few days later - after the 6th - and say how great I was feeling and all that. Soo not the case. I've been in a funk ever since and it just got deeper. To rewind a little... The 6th was great, I had group that night - which was good. We went out to dinner afterwards to celebrate - that was great too. Saturday a bunch of us took Nimbu out for one last girl's night while she's still single. And then Sunday we did a puja and preeti bhoj for me - which was also really nice. I'll post pictures one of these days. (Thank you to everyone who came to that!)

So with all this great stuff going on, I'm not sure how I could stay in a funk... but I am. Like I told Mary on Wednesday, I really need to get out of this pity party for one.

Let me tell you about today... So yesterday I finally went through my huge bag of mail. And guess what I found? Lots of bills that are overdue. Surprise Surprise. And a notice from the DMV. Again... Surprise Surprise. I'm sure you can guess the result... yes, my license is suspended AGAIN! But I'm sure you couldn't guess why. Remember the Rav4 that I was driving for part of last year? The one that was sold in December? Well, I never told the DMV that I sold it. (Didn't know that I needed to) So I got a notice saying that my license and the tag will be suspended since there is no insurance on the vehicle. Stupid me, I thought since we are in the electronic age, they would be notified that I sold the car. So that made my crappy mood today even crappier. (It started off crappy because I had to get a tooth drilled for 2 hours this morning - which even the best dentist can't make fun. But I really like my new dentist and just found out he's leaving the practice and wouldn't say where he's going.)

So anyway... I'm feeling BLAH and now I'm going to take Chemo out to pee and then go to sleep.

No more....

2008-08-07T00:59:00.005-04:00

No more Chemotherapy
No more Herceptin
No more Decadron
No more Steroids
No more bi-weekly sessions at the hospital
No more port
No more people/doctors/nurses constantly checking up on me
No more family being super nice to me
No more making excuses to myself for everything I NEED to be doing but I'm NOT
Basically, Hell year is officially over!

As Bethany said to me today at group, "Starting tomorrow, its a whole new world."

Its tomorrow. I'm off the incredible high that I've been on all night - all day actually. Well, I lost it a while back. Sometime on my drive home from dinner after group. I met up with Karim, that usually cheers me up. But today it just didn't. Asha said to ride the high and happy train as long as I can! The feeling of no longer being in treatment will hit at some point. I'm not going to sit around and wait for it. And I don't think this is my final crash. Its just a mini-downer. I'll be happy again tomorrow.

I think looking at the pictures and watching the video of me ringing the bell depressed me even more. I don't think I've ever looked THIS bad. Yes, I know I need to cut myself a little slack since I've just been fighting cancer for the last 14 months, I've been on Steroids, I've been depressed, I've been sedentary, and I've been doing a bit of emotional eating.

Anyway... I don't know how to say I'm feeling right now. All I can say is that its pretty freaking surreal. I'll post more in a few days when I can wrap my head around this. For now, I feel like if I don't stop thinking my head is going to explode. So I'm going to take a percoset - I can't let the steroids keep me up all night tonight. Just couldn't handle that much time with my mind racing - and then I'm going to go to sleep.

So the zip file Monie sent me with her pictures was corrupted. (If I forget to ask, please bring me a CD on Saturday. Thanks!) I posted some of Dad's pictures (on picasa) and the ringing the bell video (on youtube). Picasa has a 100mb file limit so the video didn't fit. I'll post Monie's over the weekend.

Since I can't leave you on such a BLAH note... here is a personal example of "Stupid things that people say"... I was having a conversation with a guy on Friday. I was wearing my "Hey Cancer, you picked the wrong B*^@h!" t-shirt. He commented, and I said that I have cancer. He says,"Oh, I have allergies."

And about the puja on Sunday. Many of you have not checked the evite, it may be sitting in your junk folder. So I'm posting the details here. Hope its not too late notice and you can still come.

Host:	Jess Datta
Location:	Hindu Temple 10001 Riggs Road, Adelphi, MD 20783
When:	Sunday, August 10, 5:00PM
Phone:	571 594 9025
This next milestone is a big one. August 6th marks the *END* of my treatment! As all of you know, this has been a pretty long and tough year for me and my family. Instead of (just) having a completely 'inappropriate' party to celebrate, I wanted to do something a little different. Something a little religious. We are going to have a special puja (prayer) for me followed by preeti bhoj (food provided by my family and served to the community as a sacrament) at the Hindu Temple. I would love for you to join me in celebrating the end of treatment and praying for good health in the future. The puja will start at 5pm and dinner will be served afterwards. If you aren't able to make it for this, no worries! I'll be celebrating this one at least a few times in various ways! So try to join me for one of those. If I forgot to put someone on the evite, please add them. And lastly, if you think you will be able to make it, please RSVP so we have an approx headcount for the food. Thanks! See you on the 10th! Jess

The big day is HERE!!!

2008-08-06T00:24:00.001-04:00

And its totally like deja vous! So this past October when I was finishing my A/C and Taxol treatments... I got sick and had to push my end date by a day. Not THAT big a deal.. but still, it was annoying. So tomorrow is my last Herceptin... so its the END of treatment!!! And I have been feeling like crap all day today. I have a sore throat, runny nose, headache, blah blah blah! How fun is this?

So anyway... I'm trying to get siked up about tomorrow. Don't get me wrong, I'm really excited about being done!!! But its just a little hard to get siked up when you feel totally BLAH!!

Anyway... I'm going to keep this short... I need to get to bed. I think I might even suck it up and take a little cold medicine. So for anyone who will be near St. Agnes around noon, you should come by and watch me ring the bell. This time its for real! WOOHOO!

And if I missed you when I sent the evite for Sunday, I'm sorry... We are doing a puja at 5 at the Temple and then a preeti bhoj after their regular program. So if you can come by, try to! http://www.evite.com/pages/invite/viewInvite.jsp?inviteId=IUJTCYQTUJQUEZNZZXSP

Okie... I can't think straight right now. I have to go walk Chemo - who basically UN-housebroke herself - and then get to bed! If I remember to take my laptop tomorrow, maybe I'll write to you wonderful folks while I'm getting my LAST drip!

OH! And THANKS Coach Bob! I changed my surgery to December 1st so that I can FINALLY do the Cancer to 5k Race in the fall! LOL! for some reason I seem to always have surgery around those races!