Boxing Day

 Another Christmas is "in the bag," so to speak.

Our gathering on Christmas eve was very nice.  Once the conversation shifted away from Covid, of course.  As it turns out, two of our guests are borderline conspiracy theorists, and, while they have been taking the precautions, they also believe that Ivermectin is a safe and useful therapy, and that there's some kind of plot underlying all of this.

Anyway, the food was delicious, and having a few friends in my house for the first time since Christmas eve of  2019 really did my heart good.

Of course, we did not hear from any of Dave's family, but I got to spend time on the phone with mine.

We spent some time in the woods on Thursday morning, because both of our offices were closed Thursday and Friday.  

There are deer that live in two of the city parks we like to go to, and we had lovely encounters with several of them while walking on Thursday.  There were very few people at the park at that time, so the deer were not shy at all.  They are pretty used to people, too, which is a bit sad.

Then we went to Costco for cat food and toilet paper, and, though it was so busy that it was like walking into an ant hill, we were able to get in and out surprisingly quickly!  They had all of the registers open, and the lines, though very long, moved along very well.

Once home, by 11 am, we started really tidying up and cleaning the house.  

We had all day to do that, and we (mostly I) got SO much done!  Dave even finally got the weed whacker out, and mowed down the dead stuff in the front flower bed, which I had been asking him to do for weeks on end.

The front of the house looks like people live here, now, HAHA!

Friday was an easier day for me, as I worked hard on the house all day Thursday.  Dave saves all of his chores for the last possible minute, so he was the busy one on Friday...BUT, we did get it all done.

My main work on Friday was cooking, finishing the decorating I wanted to do, and setting the tables.  The dining room table, obviously, but I also set out cups, dessert plates, and spoons by the coffee maker in the kitchen, and set out a side board for the hot dishes, and the cognac.

Unfortunately, when we were tidying, a LOT of stuff was just moved to the guest room, and the door closed.  

However, we made a pact that, as we bring stuff back out of there (which we HAVE to do, because that is my office for work, and it's where I do my yoga, and my meditations, etc), we will go through it all, and make sure that what comes back out into our living space is needed.

If it's not, it gets recycled, thrown away, PUT away somewhere, or donated.  

Christmas day, which really is a "nothing day" for us (sure, we open our gifts, and have a traditional breakfast), was quiet and relaxed, and we started un-loading the guest room.  

Dave went through stacks and stacks of un-needed papers, mailings, and junk that he had set aside, and now the spots they were in are clean!  There is also a bag of items to be donated, and I found room to put a few things away.

Today, the 25th anniversary of my mother's death (she died some time in the night on Christmas, and my dad waited until 5 am to call us), I will put all of the decorations away, and we will put the tree back in it's bag in the back of the shed.

As part of my spiritual practice, I work with sending healing and light to my beloved dead.  Today, I will focus on doing that for my mom.

Dave will be going grocery shopping, and pet supply shopping, so, if we can get the guest room cleared out before he goes, I will do this work while the house is empty.

Back to work in the morning, but at least it's another short week, with both of our offices being closed on Friday, because January 1st is on the weekend.

Best wishes to my readers for a happy, healthy, safe, and fulfilling year in 2022!

Clear!

 Scan day was good!  In fact, the report indicates that the only issue in my liver, right now, is a dilated duct.

"No other lesions or masses are present."

I posed that the pains I had been having were possibly a gall stone, or something like that, and they (the Doc and my nurse) looked at the report again, and said maybe that was why the duct is dilated. 

Who knows?  Don't really care, because the pains are gone, and....at least for now...so is the cancer!

The word "remission" is not being used, however, and that's okay.  That's off my radar anyway.  I am just going to celebrate this news, and keep taking the meds I am on!

We got our tree up and decorated during the week, and some other decorations put out.  The cards have been mailed, and there are wrapped gifts under the tree.

Today, I will be making my Solstice feast a couple of days early, since I can't get off work on Tuesday.  

I did ask if I could work through lunch, and clock in early, to have an extra hour at the end of the day on Solstice, and permission was granted.  Gee, thanks.

I still have no idea why she refused to give me the day off.  It impacts literally NO ONE.

Hopefully, Solstice won't be an evening with raging winds, and we can have a fire in the chiminea, and wassail to celebrate with.

Anyway, tonight, there will be cornish hens, with roasted carrots and beets.  I may decide to roast the veggies first, and turn that into a soup course. I've made a spiced carrot soup for this feast before, and served everything in courses.  It's fun!

I will also be baking my wonderful, medieval style honey cakes.

There should be some of those left for Christmas Eve dessert, to add to the cookies our guests are bringing.

Both Dave and I have next Thursday and Friday off, since Christmas day is on the weekend.  That will give us a full day off to get the house cleaned up and in order for our first guests since Christmas Eve of 2019.

I've double checked with our three guests, and they are all still comfortable with joining together here to celebrate Heilige Nacht (Holy Night).  They're the friends who usually come, so it will be very nice. 

 Everyone is vaccinated, and it's going to be 72 degrees outside, so we can have the doors open.

On a sad note, one of my nephews (my brother's son) back home has tested positive for covid.  

He's not very sick, but he DID test positive, so he and his wife are out of the family gathering.  

They were to help my brother get the house ready, since my brother has had three surgeries in the last 12 months, to his back, and both arms/hands.

My sister's husband has offered to pitch in, so we shall see what happens.  My brother needs to get tested, though, since he and his son were together recently.

Ugh.

I am off to get the hens out to come to room temperature, and double check my honey cakes recipe. 

Have a lovely week, and a happy holiday, no matter what you celebrate.  Me?  I love them all!!  

Delayed

 Well, after being rescheduled twice now, my scans are TOMORROW.

The second delay was because the equipment was "down for repair."  Sigh.

In other news, I got that massage last Sunday, and ended up with severe vertigo.

This massage therapist works on the neck very differently from the way I did.  She does it while the client is face down, and she works upward on the whole neck, not just the BACK of the neck.  

There are vascular and lymphatic structures in the sides and toward the front of the neck, so in MY training and practice, the motion in those areas always went toward the heart.... as with the arms and legs.

I also worked on the client's neck after they turned onto their back, so that their sinuses could drain after lying face down.

Well, I figured out on Sunday why I always got a little bit of vertigo when I was on her table.  Only this time, it was not a little bit.  

It was probably exacerbated by the fact that I was already congested, and the wind was raging outside, so the air was full of multiple allergens from afar.

I sat up and instantly felt like the world was falling away from under me, and it did not pass. 

It took me quite a while to get dressed and make my way to the door of the massage room, and then she helped me to her couch, where I lay for two and a half hours, waiting for it to subside. 

Dave had gone and gotten some dramamine, which curbed the nausea a bit, but the vertigo would not go away.  

He eventually got me home, and I went straight to bed. The spinning gradually lessened, but did not completely go away.  That evening, I was very sick, which had never happened to me with vertigo before so this was, without a doubt, the worst case of it that I have ever had.

(The first time it happened, I was in my 30s, and had been to a salon for a facial.  The facial was relaxing and wonderful, but when I sat up, the world fell away and started spinning.  The girl had done lots of gentle strokes up the neck and around the face, ending all of them right in front of the ears... Yeah.)

That time, I was able to drive home eventually....but the lingering vertigo lasted for WEEKS afterward.  

In the intervening years, I have had to deal with mild cases of it intermittently (usually due to congestion in my ears caused by eating too much dairy), and lately have been having a little bit due to sinus and dairy food issues.  

It's been ages since I've had any vertigo at all, though, until recently. 

But this.... this was beyond anything I've ever experienced.

Anyway, I took some of my anti nausea medication from the oncologist, and finally got some sleep Sunday night, but was still feeling bad on Monday.

I worked for about 3 hours, then contacted my boss and told her I was ill.  I slept almost all afternoon.

All week, I have taken sudafed every 4 hours, and have been doing drainage self-massage on my neck and throat area, trying my level best to NOT move my head in such a way that causes a spin (including not washing my hair...yuck), and using sinus spray.

It has gradually gotten better, so yesterday, I tried a home therapy technique called the Epley Maneuver.  

It took me 2 hours to work up the courage, and I had Dave sit with me, and use the stopwatch on his phone to make sure I held the positions long enough.

The experience of vertigo during this maneuver was so intense that I screamed.  I thought for sure it would make me vomit again, but it did not.

Unfortunately, I felt like crap the rest of the day, with a headache, and a feeling of lightheadedness, and vague nausea.  Not a fun way to spend a Saturday.

BUT... after one more REALLY intense, but very brief spin (when I bent down to do something about 2 hours after doing the maneuver), I didn't get any more spins.  Not even when I laid down to go to sleep last night.

My hope is that it's over, and that the Epley Maneuver WORKED, because doing it once was so horrible that I vowed never to do it again, HAHA!

However, now that I know it works, AND I know what to expect, having done it before, I will keep it in my arsenal for any future issues.

In the meantime, I have chatted with the massage therapist, and she never even thought about NOT pushing the circulation and lymph TOWARD the ears without then reversing the movement with strokes back down toward the lymphatic structures in the upper chest that drain the head and neck.  

I mean...really???  She went to massage school, right?  Ugh.

So, she learned something, and I am now considering NEVER going to her again.  Not sure yet.

I kind of have a lot of anxiety now about getting a massage again in general.....this was really the most horrific episode of my life.  It might take a while before I feel comfortable again.

In other news, Dave and I went to a thrift store yesterday, and found some Corelle plates and bowls to put in the cabin camping box.  Now, the only thing we need to complete it is some silverware!  \

Not much else is going on.  I'm hoping to get some holiday decorating started today, and a friend is coming by later.

If there is any big news from the scans, I will write another post to give an update before next Sunday.

Have a good week!

December means....

 ....my scans are next week.

I'm actually feeling a bit hopeful and excited about them, this time....even though I have been having random pains in the liver/gallbladder area.

When those pains happened years ago, Doc said it was probably just "sludge in the gallbladder," and it just went away eventually. 

I chatted with my nurse a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, and she checked with Doc, and they were not alarmed, due to the fact that the pains are random, and fleeting.  

If it were something more serious, I guess there would probably be constant discomfort.  Most of the time, I don't even think about it, because it's not happening.

I just hope I don't end up needing gallbladder surgery or some craziness.  

This past week was REALLY long, after our cabin retreat...but the good part was that my boss, and several of my wo workers, were off for most of the week.

Yeah, I can only get ONE day off at Thanksgiving, and NO days off in December (except for my scans), but they can take multiple days...at both holidays.... what the hell ever.  I have no recourse, and just have to tolerate it. Dead. Horse...I know... sorry.... It still makes me mad.

Anyway, so many people being off actually made my week easier.  No pressure from the boss's scrutiny, and no ability to do parts of my job that rely on others.... so I just took it easy and logged the hours.

Yesterday, Dave and I went to the Chef's Store on the south side of town, and got a few inexpensive utensils to add to our cabin camping box.  Now, the only household items we will need to pack when we go (which we might start doing at different parks, at different times of year, to check them out), will be the pots/pans, dishes, and silverware.   Everything else will be pre-packed in the cabin camping kit!

SO, yesterday we got:  spatula, whisk, cutting board, can opener, basting brush, cork screw, and chef knife!

Also, this past week, my brother generously sent us another of the little, boneless Virginia hams for our Christmas Eve holiday.

They're totally not the same at the whole ham, but there is seriously no way I can afford a $200.00, 13 - 15 pound whole ham anymore!  

The price of the whole hams has SKYROCKETED, and with only 3 people coming over anymore (due to Eric and his wife being completely estranged), it's just not worth the cost and effort, and the waste!  We would end up throwing away SO much ham!

BUT these little boneless ones have the same flavor, and are the real thing, which is SO important to my family. 

Last year was so hard, being isolated, and trying to just visit on zoom.   This year, I have invited the usual three friends.

We are all vaccinated, and have our boosters, and have been being careful for almost two years.

There will be a Christmas Eve gathering around my table, and my heart is happy.

Errands and getting lunch out took us LITERALLY all day yesterday.  There was so much traffic, and the places that we stopped at were all crowded and busy.

As a result, we didn't get all of the things we wanted to do around the house accomplished, so that will be happening today.

AND, I am getting my first massage since July!  I need it SO much.  My therapist is also fully vaxxed and boosted, and wears a mask.

Happy December, have a good week, and I will post about the scan results IF I get them before next weekend!