Elf Wars

Here’s a funny story for you to enjoy…

We have a life-sized cardboard cut out of a person. It happens to be a character from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Furthermore, it happens to be an ELF character from Lord of the Rings. His name is Legolas! While it is an elf character, he is actually taller than most people…but the cardboard statue of him is probably just over 6 feet tall. Well, our dog Dobby hates the thing and whenever he’d see it in various rooms of our old house, he’d start barking insanely at it. Mostly, we know he’s afraid of it but we like to joke that since the character Dobby is also an elf from a different book series (Harry Potter), our Dobby must not like Legolas just because they are from different elf clans! Makes sense, right? So at our old house, we folded up Legolas and hid him away in a closet.

On a different note, we have put the cat food in the basement, now on a cardtable with boxes stacked so that the cats can get to it but the dogs cannot (hopefully). We also now have a hole in the basement door for the cats to get through and go use their potties or eat their food at their leisure. Unfortunately, Dobby and Scarlett have figured out how to squeeze themselves through said hole in the door!

We took one more precaution to keep Dobby out of the cat food down there by standing up the statue of Legolas just around the corner down there so that when you get to the bottom of the steps, you can see him. It totally freaks people out (including me!)when they go down there because he looks so life-like! (I put a sticky note on the outside of the basement door with a WARNING about it!)

Yesterday while I went for a short 10 minute walk outside, I let the dogs roam free in the house. When I got home, I saw Scarlett’s little snout sticking out of the hole from the other side of the door, looking terribly guilty. Yeah, she got caught. We didn’t think she had the nerve to sneak down there alone but apparently she does now! She got in trouble, was deemed "Bad Girl" for about 10 seconds and then life went back to normal.

But last night as we humans were chilling, doing our own things throughout the house, we suddenly heard Dobby frantically barking and then he came flying/stumbling out through the other side of the kitty hole in the basement door!

We figure Dobby realized that Scarlett got away with going through the hole yesterday, there must be something new and cool down there so he'd better go take a look/taste, too? He waited until we weren’t paying attention to them and he sneaked down there for the first time since we put up Legolas about two months ago! Boy was he surprised when he got to the bottom of those stairs! There was his arch nemesis right in front of him, in the dark of the basement, obviously ready to attack him!!!! Out of sheer terror, Dobby barked like crazy and got the hell out of the basement as fast as 'dogly'possible! He probably won’t be going down there again anytime soon! (The good news is he couldn’t get past Legolas so he never made it to the cat food afterall! Our plan worked!)


On a completely unrelated note, we now have a contract on our old/other house and are working through all that stuff that has to be done before closing time! Horray!!!!!!! We are so relieved because we were prepared to go six months with two mortgages and this here (February) is the sixth month! How perfect is that!? We won't be making very much off the sale of the house but at least we won't be losing much either, considering today's economy. So, again I say, HORRAY!!!!!!

Hope ya'll have a fantastic weekend!

I hope that didn’t bore you too much. It’s a funny story I thought you two could appreciate more than just about anyone else! :)

Listening to Stories

I used to use the library ALL THE TIME for books! It's just so much fun to search that catalog and walk those aisles full of so many books on so many topics!

When we lived in Fort Collins I discovered this quaint little used book store where I'd go buy a handful of books for like $10, take as long as I needed to read them and then return them for credit towards another handful of books! I always commented that it was like the library but without the time limit on checking out books!

Then we moved to Denver and started earning more money and I got used to splurging at Barnes and Noble or Borders or Amazon.com, buying whatever I wanted to read brand new. Actually, I found a used book store that was rather large here in Littleton. They were very well organized, brightly lit, and yet still comfy with a fat gray and white cat waddling around the store. But just as soon as I found the place, they up and moved to Downtown Littleton, apparently over on Mainstreet (the google map says it's in the back of some building that's right in front of The Melting Pot...I've tried hunting it twice and still can't seem to find it!). So I just remained content with the brand new books in the big chain stores again. But unless it's a really damn great book, I usually end up regretting actually spending so much on a book. This is especially true if I go through my long, time-consuming ritual of choosing the right book to buy before heading to the cash registers with it, only to take it home, crack it open and realize what an awful choice I had actually made by the time I got to page 20!

With all that said and done, plus...even though it's super relaxing and cozy to sit in bed and read my books, I always ALWAYS pass out rather quickly and end up dropping the book before saving my place...which causes even more headaches later, what with having to reread a page or two just to figure out where I had passed out!

A dear friend of mine told me about how she listens to everything in audiobook format. That way, she is able to listen to it (read "read the book") when she's doing mundane chores around the house, walking down the street to her son's school, driving in the car, waiting for an appointment...the times available to listen are endless! Somehow, much moreso than reading an actual paper book!

I'm having some trouble adapting to my Kindle lately because it's not paper...not something I can crack open and hold in my hands, on my lap, or smell the welcoming scent of the printed pages. As I learn to transition to the Kindle more, I want to try out audiobooks like my friend does!

Okay, you're probably thinking this is super boring because audiobooks have been around forever and maybe you listen to them all the time and maybe you think I'm way behind the times in this area. Truth be told, for a long time there, I thought listening to a book was just about as blasphemous as watching the movie instead of reading the pages! (Though my heart still aches whenever I mention a really good book to someone and they say, "Oh yeah! I saw (or 'heard of') that movie!" Guess what!? IT WAS A BOOK BEFORE IT WAS A MOVIE!) I bet I got that sort of snobbish belief via my mother who adored the English language in all its forms and functions. Yet, if I recall correctly, a couple of years before she passed away she started borrowing audiobooks on CD herself from the Bookmobile in Denver! HA!

So anyway, I have since changed my mind and want to listen to them because I have a lot of quiet time in the house on a daily basis, in which I don't really want to have the TV on (I detest commercials and if I have the TV on I want to WATCH it, not LISTEN to it). Which brings me to the second (or is it now the third?) section of this lengthy blog post...

I was out and about today (before it got really cold and started snowing) and I stopped by the library which is only 2 miles from our house! I hadn't been there in several months so I found that a lot has changed...and gotten better!

I jumped onto the Library Catalog computer, just like I always do and just searched for one of the books I am interested in reading soon (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). I saw they had definitely improved their search results and book-tracking system since the last time I used that well over a year ago! Then I came across an audiobook and ebook copy.

I clicked my way deeper into the abyss of finding out just how I can download an audiobook, what sorts of devices it would be compatible with and if I could do it from home.

I learned that they have a free software (I've forgotten the name right now) that must be downloaded to my home computer in order to download audiobooks (in fact, they don't allow them to be downloaded on site at the library anyway!). There was also a long list of compatible devices, on which I found not only my new iPod Classic but also my Droid phone!! (It'd be way too expensive to dload it to my phone cause of the data charges but it's still an awesome concept!)

I was so excited, I dare say I was giddy! For like an hour afterward I had one of those blazing balls of excitement in the pit of my stomach! (Which had to be put on pause while I met the exterminator at the Garnet house to investigate and take care of a nasty wasp nest issue! YUCK!) In fact, two hours later now and I still have that ball of excitement!

I knew downloading audiobooks at the library was possible. I just didn't know how or have any interest in doing so! Until now!

So that's why I got on my computer a half hour ago...to explore my library's audiobook selection, download that free software and get to listening to a book or two, or three........

What am I doing here? Writing time is over for now. Listening time has just begun!!!! :)

Ho Hum Day

Okay I'll admit it. This has been one of those boring days where I find myself just waiting...counting down the hours until Pete gets home. He has had so many 3-, 4- and even one 5-day weekends for the past month or so that I've gotten used to having him around a lot. This week is the first in a long while where he'll be working all five full days. Granted, last Friday when he was off we spent the day at the clinic getting my chemo refill but still...that's genuine time together.

I am always happiest when my Honey's around! When I say he completes me, I totally mean that. And the thing that gets me the most is that he enjoys being around me, too! I know, I know...you're saying, "of COURSE he likes being around you! You've been married for 6 1/2 years! DUHH!" But still. When I stop to think about it, I remember there was a time when I could not fathom anyone wanting to spend so much time with me as much as I'd like to spend with him! My Honey is the best.

So today was just a boring day. I didn't do very much. Not very PRODUCTIVE! But I've learned to accept not being PRODUCTIVE every single day. Some days I just physically am unable to do so and other days I just plain don't wanna! Fortunately, I have the ability to not, if I don't have to.

Pete says it's just fine if all I do in a single day is little things around the house, or nothing at all, really. I cleaned up the kitchen, cleaned out the sink, washed some dishes by hand, did a couple of loads of laundry (to finish it up), went through the mail, wrote a defensive note to our water company regarding our bill and an unjustified late charge they've tacked on to our bill, I looked up how to get rid of all the stupid gnats that are flying around in our house and then cut up some potato slices and placed them in all of the potted plants on the main level...okay so now that I've written that all out, it looks like I've done a lot more than I thought I did!

It had been snowing almost all weekend, non-stop. Granted it was really tiny little flakes and it took a very long time to pile up just a couple of inches but it was bitter cold all weekend. Fortunately, today the sun is shining but it's still reeeeally cold out there. I like to walk on the newly-shoveled sidewalks on the sunnier post-snowstorm days like this, as long as it's not too freezing outside. Which it is today. Alas I am stuck indoors to walk on the treadmill. Ho hum.

Over the past two plus years of not working, I've learned how to manage my life in many different respects. I know that I start to get really depressed or at the very least a bit stir crazy if I don't leave the house for a couple hours every two or three days. Lately, though, I've made an effort to leave the house every single day, if only for a standard trip to the grocery store. As long as I get out among people, I'm A-OK! Tomorrow, I have a family-visitor coming to bring us a meal and catch up with us a little. And Friday I am going to a friend's house to make some more greeting cards with all my new scrapbooking stuff! Otherwise, this week is wide open and not too demanding (which is good considering my wavering energy levels the week after a chemo treatment).

Well, I suppose this post may be boring to you but I just wanted to get some of those thoughts out of my system! In about two hours my beloved will be home and we will make the most of a small trip to SuperTarget this evening! In the meantime, I will climb aboard the treadmill and walk for at least 30 minutes. Here I go! :)

It Just hit me!

HOLY CRAP!!!!

I just had a tumor removed from my liver...and found out the chemo is working on the others!!!!!

HORRAY!!!! Three down, one giant one to go!!!!

We're going to celebrate tomorrow after I sleep off the residual anesthetic! YEAH!!!!

That's What I Call a "Smooth Move"!!!!

Honey and I are currently sitting in my hospital room where I slept last night, impatiently waiting for whoever has the power to "write the orders" to discharge me!

The procedure went smoothly. Were there were once 4 tumors (on the underside of the left lobe of my liver) one year ago this month, 6 months later the docs only saw 3, or maybe 2 on the most recent (early December) CT scan. Yesterday when Dr. G saw me after the surgery he said there was ONLY ONE!!! Which means the chemo is working on those little, more managable tumors that popped up! He did the RFA on that one and then just a little bit on the tissue nearby where the other ones once were, just to be safe.

In addition to that one tumor removal, he also removed 1.5 liters of "fluid" that was surrounding the liver and general area. He has "sent the fluid off" to be tested for cancer in it but he seriously doubts that it does. So where did this fluid come from? Well, remember when I had the last chemoembo he also removed a liter of fluid. This time, he thinks that it's some excess fluid that slowly seeps out of my veins due to low albumin levels (the protien that secures the veins shut) which is, in turn, due to the chemotherapy. Such a domino effect! He said that if I feel like my abdomen is distended again, then it's probably full of fluid again and that I can just email him and he'll be happy to just go back in there to drain it. Sounds like a piece of cake and yet, when I stop to think... we are talking about my BODY here! Jeeez that's too weird!

The procedure took about an hour or so. The anesthesia was a trip! It was just as how remembered: one minute the anesth. nurse was starting to put the mask on my face in the operating room and the next minute, I woke up in Recovery!!! Seriously!

I've got a fat bottom lip. It looks like two large blisters or something but they don't feel like blisters. They just feel fat and sore. The anesthesia nurse briefly mentioned that something happened when she was removing the reperatory tube from my throat. Unfortunately, she blurted that out as soon as I woke up in recover and then she disappeared! She had used the word "burn" but WTF? I don't know how this happened! It'l get batter, I'm sure and I'll just put my Hello Kitty ice pack on them for a while. But I will be calling or emailing Dr. G to ask him what happened. It's not like we're gonna sue or anything over it. I just need to know what to tell people when they ask! LOL

I am not feeling pain. Well, when someone or I touches the puncture sites (through the sterile gauze) that hurts, of course. But I don't hurt anywhere else! Some kind of nurse or doctor or resident or whatever has come into my room about every 1 or 2 to ask me a series of questions, one of which is "do you feel any pain?" And I keep saying, "No." They keep asking. I think they're surprised that I'm feeling so well while I take up room here on the Oncology floor of the hospital!

Before the procedure, the nurse put a scopolimene patch behind my ear to combat any potentil nausea and other symptom that I've since forgotten. Good thing she warned me before hand that it can make a person see double or blurry-eyed cause that's how I've been since last night! I can't read my book, I can barely read the room service menu, and I can't play my DS! Typing this blog is even a challenge since every letter I type I see double! The vision issue is subsiding, slowly but surely, cause now I can actually make out words if I stare at them long enough. LOL Talk about WEIRD!

Well, back to waiting with Honey for my discharge papers so we can get the heck outta here!

(not painful but very tired...and can't wait to get home to our Furry Kids and our own comfy bed!) Talk more to ya soon!

Not so General

I am scared of general anesthesia. I am always afraid that I won't come out of it. I don't know why. Sometimes our fears are illogical, right? Well this here's one of those kinds. I am scared that I won't come out of the anesthesia and even though the surgery itsself may turn out to be a smooth and easy success, it will be the stupid anesthesia that gets me.

Okay, so tell me that the possibility of that happening is very slim. I'll buy that.

But then I am still afraid of general anesthesia because I absolutely detest the after-effects for the day or two or three following the surgery. Constipation I can deal with...I'm a pro at managing that by now. But that deep, dark, irrational depression that comes from the leftovers of the anesthesia drugs in my system is unbearable. When I know I should be happy that he's actually going in there to finally REMOVE some tumors, I may just end up depressed and feeling helpless afterwards anyway. Then again, maybe anticipating so much as I am now will help me combat and avoid that depression. I've informed Pete about it and asked him to make sure I'm pushing fluids like crazy just to flush the anesthesia out of my body in the days following the procedure.

What I don't get is for the three chemoembolizations I've had done, I was "consciously sedated." They kept pushing more sleepy-time drugs into me per my requests. I figured as long as I was coherent enough to ask for more then I definitely needed more. The first time I didn't know I could ask for more so I just lay there silent and still, kinda loopy in the head, but then I could actually feel Dr. G poking around in my liver and it was a strange and uncomfortable feeling: sort of an achy-pain. So now Dr. G says that tomorrow's RFA procedure is "much less invasive than the chemoembo." He says he's just going to make two or three little slits in my abdomen (my entire torso is already full of scars leftover from many previous "little slits" - for biopsies, port placements and removals and replacements, etc. so what's two or three more!?) then go in with what looks like a needle but actually has a sort of claw device on its tip, and I guess this claw or tip or maybe some other tool will provide the radio frequency burning component of the surgery which I think will loosen the little nasties so that he can use the claw to remove them from my liver. After he's removed the lil' nasties, he can go back in and "burn" away any leftover cancerous tissue.

Yuck.

Well, when it's explained to me that way, then I know I really don't want to be anywhere near awake to feel/hear/sense any of that. Another plus for anesthesia is that wonderful feeling you get: they tell you to count to ten or whatever, you get to 5 and you're OUT like a light. A second or two later (or so it feels!) you're awake and it's all over, leaving you with these thoughts: Wait what just happened? Where did I go? Did they do it? Is it over? Where am I? This isn't the operating room I was just in a second ago! How'd I get to post-op so quickly? OMG did I snore!? Did I drool!? How's my hair??!?! LOL

I remember when that first happened to me when I got my wisdom teeth removed several years ago. I was in my mid-teens and it was in early high school I believe. My dad took me. We went into this kind of large exam room with one of those dentist's chairs in the middle of the room. I sat in it and they hooked up the arm band to monitor my blood pressure and then stuck that clippy thing on my forefinger to keep an eye on my pulse, too. Now, my dad's technique in helping me feel better or at the very least, to distract me, is to tease me and make me laugh! I remember we were messing with the pulse machine while the dentist and nurses were out of the room. He'd tickle me, I'd laugh hysterically and then we'd get all excited as the pulse meter would go up and start beeping rapidly! Immeditately after that, Dad would say, "Okay now think of something sad," and he'd make sympathetic sounds like, "awww" and "it's okay little girl..." while I tried my best to focus on something really very sad.....all this just so we could watch the pulse machine drop as low as we could make it. Then we'd repeat all of this until the dentist returned and we'd explain to him what an awesome game we had just invented! Needless to say, he was not impressed.

So the doc or anesthesiologist hooks me up to the O2 mask and asks me to count backwards from 10. After each number I'd say, I'd hear my Dad from somewhere in the room blurting out other random numbers just to mess me up and get me off track from my counting! I'd say "ten" then giggle, "nine" HAHAHAH, "eight..." and I was out.

What I believed was really only 2 seconds later, I was awake in the same room, and felt compelled to ask my dad, "What happened? Couldn't they get in there to do it? Why am I awake so soon?" That's when he told me it had been an hour and a half since I fell asleep and all four (well, mostly) of my wisdom teeth were out. Weeeeeeeiiiiirrrrd!

I suppose I'll just think of that fun time with my Dad as I approach the knock out drugs. And I do feel comforted by knowing that the anesthesiologist's job is to just stand there next to me and monitor all of my "numbers" that indicate how well i'm breathing, hear beating, etc. he controls the drugs...a little more a little less. That's good to know that that's his only job. I will try very hard to forget about my second chemoembo when I was consciously sedated and right in the middle of everything, the anesthesiology nurse who was monitoring me up and left because it was time for his lunch break! Of course, someone came to relieve him but still...I knew all of this was going on and I didn't feel comfortable with it one bit! After that I've tried to avoid scheduling such procedures or surgeries around the noon to one o'clock hours! Jeeeesh!

Good news! I may not have to stay overnight in the hospital afterall! Dr. G originally thought that we couldn't get in for the procedure until late afternoon but as it turns out the procedure is starting at 10:30am...an hour or two long (I think?)...say a couple hours in post-op and I should be done around 3 or 4 at the latest. We'll just have to wait and see. Pete and I are both packing overnight bags and we've asked his parents to come "water the dogs" in our long absence tomorrow just in case.

Okay I'm not feeling quite as afraid anymore. I just therapized myself! Now what the heck am I gonna talk about with my therapist this afternoon?! LOl

P.S. As you may have noticed, I've been getting a lot of spam comments on recent posts. Therefore, I chose to turn on the "word verification" function on my blog. So, from now on, when you leave a comment, you'll enter your name and info as usual but there will be one more step where you will need to look at an image of a word and type the word you see in a box. If you have trouble distinguishing some of the letters in the word, you should be able to click on a little image of a speaker that will sound out the word for you. This will prevent much (if not ALL!) of the spam comments on this blog! If you have trouble with this new step, email me and I'll help ya out!

FYI RFA ASAP

This Thursday, February 11, I'm going in (finally) for the Radio Frequency Ablation (RFA) procedure. That's the one I told you about a while back where Dr. G is going to "berry pick" the small tumors (either 2 or 3) off of the bottom of the right lobe of my liver. It's supposedly less invasive than the chemoembo but I will be under general anesthesia for it. I'll be staying the night for observation - from the anesthesia, but mostly because he's burning and cutting into my liver, a rather sensitive organ, so he wants to make sure I'm close by while it does its initial healing.

Pete's taking off work Thursday and Friday and of course he'll be staying with me at the hospital as long as I get on the Oncology floor or at least some room with a sofa again.

I'll be home Friday. Dr. G says it takes just a couple of days of recovery so hopefully I'll be back on my feet by Monday.

I fear general anesthesia and especially dislike the after effects the day or so afterwards (like I really need to be MORE depressed!). I've warned Pete about it and I'm going to look up ways to manage those after effects so hopefully I can keep them to a minimum.

Wish me luck Thursday morning! (I check in at 9, procedure's at 10:30ish and it's a couple of hours long I think.)

One More Time

Thank you, Auntie Carolyn, for participating in the Confetti Conspiracy of 2010!
;) Ya'll are so very thoughtful!

It Happened Again!

Remember that other dear friend I mentioned near the end of yesterday's post who likes to adorn her birthday cards to me with lots of fun confetti?? Well, naturally, she struck again!

Last night, we picked up Saturday's mail on our way out to dinner with some family and there was her envelope. It didn't sound rattley like Betsy's card did so I figured it was safe!

I sliced the envelope open, gently pulled out the card, opened it up and WHAMMO!!! A few dozen ballo0n-shaped and "Happy Birthday"-shaped confetti's poured into my lap! It was hilarious!

So thanks to you, too, Jane, for brightening up my birthday mail!

And thanks to everyone else who sent me messages, phone calls, Facebook comments, snail mail cards and general good thoughts for my birthday today! It means the world to me that so many of you do care! And I am just thankful to be able to thrive through yet another birthday! (Shouldn't we all be???) Horray!