STILL waiting for an answer...

We took Friday, Nov. 1 off from work to go shop the after Halloween sales for some newer decorations.

We also did all of our errands, so that we'd have the weekend free.

While we were at the grocery store, my nurse called.

My case is finally under review with the other doctor who performs the techniques that are being considered for my situation.

My doctor and this other doctor discussed my case last week on a couple of occasions.

My nurse said that, unfortunately, one lesion is probably too close to the stomach for the radio frequency ablation.  HOWEVER, she did not say that the other one is not still a candidate for ablation.

In terms of the one that is close to the stomach, a technique called chemotherapy embolization is still a viable option (where they inject chemo directly into the tumor, so there are no side effects), and she mentioned a third possibility as well, but I was standing in a noisy grocery store, and really don't even remember what she called it.  I gathered that it is similar to ablation, but maybe uses a different kind of radiation, or a different approach.

I'm sure I'll find out more details soon.

The doctors are going to review my MRI again this coming week, and hopefully, we will finally be able to move forward with SOME kind of treatment.

The waiting has been horrible.

My doctor assured me that my daily dose of tamoxifen will keep the tumors from growing or spreading...... but I can't fully believe that, since the cancer re-appeared during months (years) of taking hormone blockers every day.

SO, anxiety is high.

I just want this over with.

In other news, we had a fun Halloween.  It was cold here (upper 30s), but not as cold as back home, and we finally had enough trick or treaters to give away all of our treats.  They were all delivered by cars creeping down the street in a parade.

After we turned off the lights, someone stole a plastic skull off of the porch, and then TRIED to steal the shrieking ghost, but it shrieked!!  HAHAHA!!  We were already in bed, so we got up, and took the ghost in.  Nothing else was messed with.

I hate that people have started to steal stuff off of our porch.  We had a cool metal dragon that someone took a few weeks ago.

Anyway, I dressed as a witch for work, in the costume that I wore for the dance studio photo shoot, and I kept that on for the evening to answer the door.  One little girl gasped, and said "You're a WITCH!"

*cackle*  WHY YES, yes, I am....

Yesterday was a relaxing day at home, doing chores at leisure, and I cooked a great meal for dinner.  We refreshed the hot tub last weekend, so yesterday involved the usual tweaking of chemistry to get the water settled in.

OKC water has "stuff" in it.... I am not sure if it's algae or what, but it's usually kind of icky at the beginning.  I got that sorted out yesterday, and we had a good soak last night.

Today, Sunday Funday, we are going to go check out a new park in town, and then go to the Day of the Dead Festival nearby.  I'm not sure why the festival wasn't yesterday, which was actually the Day of the Dead, a Mexican holiday.

The weather this weekend is picture perfect.

Of course, I woke up at 6:30 because it was light out, after the time change.  Sigh.  SO here I sit, blogging and sipping coffee.  I hope Dave doesn't sleep until 9 like he did yesterday.

That man can stay in bed for 12 hours..... I just can't do that unless I'm sick.

We also have a long weekend NEXT weekend, as my office closes for Veterans' Day, and I took my floating holiday on Friday.   

I am going to my new gynecologist on Monday, and am also hoping to get an eye appointment for either Friday or Monday.  I keep forgetting to call.

Maybe I will have a procedure to schedule soon, too.  I sure hope so.

Well....

My scans came back showing something that was not good, so I had to go for an MRI today.

The MRI confirmed that I have two tumors in my liver.  Tumors.  Cancer.

SO, at the end of the day, I went and saw my doctor.

Go look up Radio Frequency Ablation.

Unfortunately, it does NOT, in fact, mean that I will be able to pick up radio stations with my liver..... dang it.

This is the technique that my oncologist believes I am a perfect candidate for.

It kills the cancer with the direct application of microwave radiation.

This would be a "one and done" treatment. It's not like the radiation treatments that patients have to go to every day for a month or what have you.

The lesions are small enough, and there are only two, so this makes me a perfect candidate.

My team is sending the discs from this week's CT and MRI scans over to the doctors who do this procedure, for THEM to decide if I am as good a candidate for this treatment as my doctor thinks I am

SO NOW, we focus ALL of our energy on YES, and on GETTING IT DONE!

I feel SO encouraged! Thank you all for your love, prayers, hopes, and strength! I love you all!

It's bi-annual scan time....

or, at least, it's supposed to be on Monday.

When I went to the clinic the last time, the scans were scheduled, and I was given a print out of a calendar with the appointment on it. 

The girl at the desk said that I would receive a phone call to confirm the appointment, and to give me instructions on how long to fast, check in time, and so forth.

I went in to work the next day, and scheduled that morning off work for tomorrow.

The days went by, and I didn't even THINK about the fact that they never called to confirm until this past Friday afternoon.

So, I called the clinic, and they were closed!

I am connected to my nurse on FaceBook, so I messaged her, but she had been off with a sick child on Friday, and had no idea why I would not have been called at all.  Not even to be told not to come because of the insurance or something.

Be that all as it may, I will get up tomorrow, and skip breakfast, and get ready for WORK. 

Then, at 8 (the time I am due to be at work, if I am not scheduled to be off),  my nurse will get to the clinic and check the schedule to see if I am supposed to show up or not!

If I AM scheduled, then we will hop in the car and GO.  If I am NOT, then I will EAT something, and go to WORK.

This is causing me an inordinate amount of anxiety. 

I had nightmares about not knowing until 2 pm, which made me even later to work, and I could not get a call to go through to my boss.

Ugh.

This is a MAJOR screw up on the part of the clinic staff....and is totally unacceptable.  It's not like I am a lady of leisure, who can just come and go as THEY please.

Grumble.....

So, I am going to make bouef bourguignon for dinner, eat late, and hope for the best. 

IF I get my scans tomorrow, and IF they are stable/clear again, this will mark the end of 5 years of treatment. 

There may be a party or celebration of that come December, the anniversary of my diagnosis.

The weather here has finally turned cooler, and I am going to work on putting up some holiday decorations this afternoon. 

I hope you're enjoying your autumn!

Older dancers....cross post from faceplace.....

Every 6 months or so, I get to perform on stage.

The older I get, the more I wonder if I should still be doing this.

Conversely, the older I get, the more I know that I NEED to still be doing this....and if someone in the audience thinks I am ridiculous, then let them.

I AM ridiculous. I am not even supposed to BE HERE (cancer survivor against all odds)....so I am completely ridiculous!!

I keep hoping to get my nerve up to do a solo at one of these shows.
The one I did at the Shimmy Mob hafla in May went over pretty well. People were surprised that I could dance as well as I did, when left to my own devices!

Older dancers have a LOT to offer. Our life experience comes through in our dance, if you bother to pay attention.

No matter how bad we may be in other peoples' judgement, there's a LOT going on inside of a dancer who still dares to go on stage after the hair has turned grey, the joints hurt, and the body has started to sag....

Please, don't turn away, and don't judge us harshly. And, most importantly, please don't laugh at us because we are "old."
We older dancers deserve your respect, your attention, and your applause.

It takes a lot of courage for us to step into the light, when most everyone else taking the stage during the same show is young.

So, please open your minds and hearts, and watch us...... and give us a chance to show you what you have to look forward to.

There and back again....

Our trip to Illinois and Michigan was an action packed adventure, with intrigue and romance!

Well, maybe not so much intrigue, as way too much to do, and way too little time with my family and friends.

I got together with the friends who expressed interest in seeing me, and as for the others, well, there just wasn't time for me to reach out to them and make suggestions.

The coolest part was that I got to see my grade school best friend for the first time in 38 years.




The trip to the wedding was a fun caravan on Friday, with stops along the way at distilleries and breweries, and our GPS sent us a different way than everyone else, and we ended up in a traffic jam somewhere in Indiana for almost 2 hours.

But, we got to Michigan safely, and our Air BnB house was perfect for us.  We noticed that something was wrong with one of our tires, though, but had no time or opportunity to go get the tires replaced.

Dave kept saying he wasn't worried about it.  I kept worrying about it.

Friday night, we went to the party at a local roof top bar, and met everyone there, including the wedding party, and all of the families.

It was cool and very windy up there, and that's possibly how Dave managed to get a really bad cold, that hit him as we were headed back to Oklahoma.

The wedding day dawned beautifully, with clear skies, sunshine, and a high in the mid 70s.

The chapel was beautiful...



... and the ceremony was really cool.  They did this thing called a "letter box ceremony," where they put letters in the box that they wrote to each other, and sealed.   In the future, when they have a fight or other difficulty, they are to open the box and read the letters, to remember why they got married.

If they don't have any issues in the first 5 years, then, on their 5th anniversary, they are to open the box and read the letters.

I love this idea!



Instead of rice or bird seed, we all had little wands with ribbons in the wedding colors, and tiny bells on them.

When people were gathering for pictures at the chapel, I approached the photographer and asked who was to be included in the family pictures.

She said "Parents, grand parents, and siblings only."

I was crestfallen.  I had gotten 6 inches of my hair cut off, and had a new bob style done so that I would not look like a mop in the pictures. NOT TO MENTION, we came all the way from Oklahoma so I could be at this wedding.

SO... we left....*sad face*


The reception was held at a distillery.  The room was pretty cool, and the tables very pretty....



The favors were little bottles of house made spirits, and the theme was national parks  We were put at the Rocky Mountain National Park table, which was the only choice for our family.

There was also a table for the deceased grand parents and one great grand parent (my parents and grandma are on the right, and another pic of my parents on the far left in color)....




When my brother found us at the reception, he asked why we were not there for pictures at the chapel with the rest of the family.

I told him that the photographer had turned us away.   He insisted that it had been a dire mistake, and was not acceptable.

SO, the groom set up a shoot for us there at the reception hall.  He expressed that I had helped raise him (I lived next door to my brother and ex sister in law when John was born, and I babysat him on a weekly basis), and that I needed to be included, along with his Aunt Elsa.

This is NOT one of the official pictures, obviously.... this one was taken with my phone as we were setting up for the photographer...



It was a wonderful, happy day.



I even got up and danced a little at the reception. There was much merriment....the people downstairs at the distillery even complained about the loud party up above.  The staff said something to the effect of "that's what the party space is for. Deal with it..."

Unfortunately, we had to get up and leave in the morning, so we did not go to the after party.  We headed back to the BnB by ourselves.

Next morning, we were up and out by about 8:30, and our GPS told us we would get to our friends' place in central Missouri by about 5:30.

Perfect.

We got underway, and noticed that the GPS was not sending us back the way we came, and we ended up on rural two lane roads with no places to stop.

We pulled over, and Dave realized he had the device set up wrong, to avoid highways.  He re-set it, and we got back on the road.

When we got up to speed, though, that was when Dave decided to start worrying about the tire.

There was no way to tell which tire it was that had separated on the inside, so we would have to get them all replaced.  The danger of a blow out was imminent.

On Sunday morning, in rural Illinois.

It took 4 hours to find an open tire shop.  After several frustrations, long distance help from my friend Nancy, and a google search, we finally found a place and got to it an hour before it closed.

They charged us $750 for a set of 4 tires, balancing, and installation. We had just gotten paid on Friday, thank the Gods, because neither of us had a credit card with us.

We were absolutely starving, so we walked over to a fast food restaurant and had lunch at 3:30 while the tires were being installed.

When it was all done and over, we were still 5 hours away from our Missouri destination, and the GPS sent us across through Hannibal MO, instead of back to 44.

It was a harrowing, aggravating, and exhausting day.  Another reason Dave got sick, I think.

We arrived safely, though, and they fed us dinner at 10:30 pm.

Up and out the next morning, and the stupid GPS sent us the longest way possible back to Oklahoma.

What should have been a 4 hour drive was an 8 hour drive.

We weren't sure how to get back to route 44 from their rural home, so we trusted the GPS, and instead, it sent us out route 70 toward Kansas City, and then broke south.....  but we didn't know where it was going to take us, so we kept hoping it would lead us back to 44 eventually.

It didn't until we were back in Oklahoma.

NEVER again with that GPS!!  It's never failed us like that before.  There are better apps available for our phones.  We will use those from now on.

We rolled in at about 7:30, tired beyond reason, unloaded the car, and just had snacks for dinner, since there were no groceries in the house.

We WERE supposed to have been home by early afternoon, with time and energy to do grocery shopping.

Thank goodness, we had taken Tuesday off!!  We both woke up feeling ill, Dave more so than me, and we still had much to do.

Got the bills paid, and the errands done, Tuesday morning, and then rested the rest of the day.

I was able to move money from savings to our regular account, to replace some of the money spent on the tires, but it wiped out our savings, and didn't cover the full amount we'd spent on the tires.

Then, we got a bill for the plumbing work that was done a couple of months ago.... and the money that had been left aside to pay for it was gone!

A friend sent me $250 to help out.... I sent that to the plumber, and he is being merciful with us, after hearing the story.  He's letting us delay paying the rest of his bill until we can recover a little.

All in all, I am VERY glad that we were able to be at the wedding, and that I was able to see some friends, and of course, my family....

but that homeward trip was AWFUL, and it removed all of our "vacation buzz."

I went back to work depressed, frustrated, and worried about money, not feeling at all refreshed or restored, like I should have been.

BUT, I DID get to the beach for about 15 minutes on the wedding day, and took a minute long video of the waves, and a seagull walking along the water's edge. 

If I watch that video, and look at the pictures from the wedding, it does help a lot!

Welcome September

It seems that the intense heat of summer is over with, just as September begins.

We've also had so  much rain again that we have not been able to get out and mow.  Dave will do it tomorrow, taking advantage of a few days with no rain, and a holiday.

We had a storm last week that was so terrifying that now I know why the cats freak out when it thunders.

This storm was just like the one in April of 2017.
That was the one that happened while we were away, trying to celebrate my 55th birthday in a luxury cabin in the woods (unlike our more rustic cabin that we rent every Thanksgiving).

That one, in April of 2017, tore down all of those trees in our back yard, and ripped the power service off of the back of the house, sending the riser flying 70 feet away from the house like a missile.

That one, in 2017, left us without power for a week, and cost us all of our refrigerated/frozen food, and over $5,000.00 out of our pocket in clean up and electrical repairs.

The insurance paid $1200.00.... equal to their deductible.  We had to borrow against Dave's dad's trust (with full approval, of course) to come up with the $5K.

Anyway, on Thursday night, about a mile from our house, they clocked the straight line winds at 95 miles per hour.

Our windows were literally rattling, the house was shaking, and branches came down all around our neighborhood. We still have one dangling out of the pecan tree over our cable and electrical lines.  Dave has a tool on order at Lowe's to try to reach up there and get it down without taking the lines down, too

The city will not help us, because the tree is on our property.

If we didn't have a new roof already, the old one would have been destroyed, shingles all over the neighborhood.

Power was knocked out far and wide, whole sections of town are still dark, businesses closed, and some of the traffic lights still don't work yet.

There was massive flooding, as 2 inches of rain fell in about 45 minutes.

It was epic!

There was only one tornado, though, that caused very little damage way up north of us.  The rest were straight line winds.

We are very grateful that our power stayed on, and that the pecan tree is still standing.

Dave saw his new psychiatrist this past Monday for the first time.  He likes him.  They will be changing his anti depressant, and decreasing his anti anxiety dosage.

The anti anxiety medication causes him to have tremors and to jump while he's sleeping.  I really hope that goes away.

Dave is continuing to go to a talk therapist, as well, and I can really tell the difference in him.

He's actually reading a book now!

This is a big deal, because he's not usually able to follow through with anything he starts.  He picks something up and never finishes is.

Like that instrument he bought himself for his 60th birthday.  He sold his bass guitar and his ukelele, which he never followed through with, to have the money for this unique instrument.

It's been sitting in a box ever since.

Maybe this winter, he will take it out, and watch videos, and learn how to play it.

This past week, I also went to my oncologist's new office.

This was his original goal when he moved out of the practice that was taken over by the huge hospital system, but the building wasn't ready yet, so he had to go to an interim location for 8 months.

Now he is back in a facility that has a phlebotomy lab, an imaging center, and radiation therapy all in one place.

I won't have to go to three different places anymore!

It will be time for scans again in October.  If they come back clear again, I am going to ask if I can get this port taken out.  I am SO tired of having to have it flushed every other month, and the last time I had it flushed, something weird happened (I think the needle came out of it or something, after she had pushed the needle through my skin), and I jumped and yelped....  It was pretty awful.

Maybe he can make it medically necessary... say there's something wrong with it,  and it that has to come out.... so the procedure will be paid for by insurance.

We are preparing to go to Illinois and Michigan soon.  My nephew is getting married in Michigan (no idea why they did that to their families, making everyone spend money to find lodgings out of state).

The hotel where they got a block of rooms is SUPER expensive.  It would have worked out to about $150 per person per night, for just a place to sleep, so I booked an Air BnB for us, my sister and brother in law, their kids, and their son's girlfriend.

It's costing us each $32 a night.  THAT is manageable!

Plus, we have a whole house, not just a room to sleep in, so we can buy groceries and eat in, which is also much less expensive than having to eat all meals out.

We will be in Illinois for 4 days, and Michigan for 2 days, and we will leave from Michigan to head back home on the morning after the wedding.  We will return to work on the Wednesday after.

I had to ask for special permission to use more than 5 vacation days at a time.

Also this week, I went and got my long hair chopped off.  I wanted to NOT look like a mop in the wedding pictures.

She cut off 6 inches of length, and added layering.  However, she did NOT cut the top, straight layer enough, so it covers all of the waves, and I will STILL have to pin it back.

I asked her to cut it short, but she refused, and said she would rather blend it to try to give a good overall shape.

I get that, that part works, but I want my waves to be wavy, not buried under heavy, straight hair.

OH well...its really cute, other than that!  I just wish I were allowed to dye it lavender, or opal (lavender, teal, pink, etc).  Stupid rules at work.

Tomorrow, since none of us in class are out of town, we are having our usual Monday dance class, but we are having it at 4 instead of 7:30.  It's nice to have the freedom to do that, and we need the practice before our performance at the end of the month.

Today, we are meeting a friend for brunch.  Seems like every time I tell Dave that we need to curtail our spending, he wants to go to brunch.... sigh....

SO, that being said, I am off to the shower.  Have a nice holiday weekend!

Last weekly post

Just as I suspected, I received no comments here, so I am going to assume that there really is only one person who reads this, and I am going to stop posting weekly.

This past week was interesting.

I started feeling sick on Sunday night, and ended up calling in to work (for the first time in a year and a half) due to an intestinal issue (I won't go into detail).

When I got to work on Tuesday, I heard that three others had dealt with similar issues starting on Friday night and going through the weekend.  Another co worker was off Tuesday for the same reason.

We had our annual performance reviews (the first time we have actually had them in about 3 years).  After hearing glowing words about my superior work ethic, I found out that they want me to start answering phones on top of everything else that I do.

My late boss, despite the issues between us, always said that I had too much to do to answer phones.  Now she's gone, and they are going to train me.

I always said I'd quit if they made me answer phones.

Gawd, how I dread it.  I reacted to seeing it in my review, and the supervisor said "Does that give you anxiety?"

I said "Yes, yes, it does."  She said that I am the only person in the billing office who doesn't provide back up on phones or front desk.

That's true, but there is a reason for that.  I CAN'T work the front desk, because I am the double check person for payments that come in, and I don't answer phones because my work is largely concentration-intensive.

I provide "back up" in that I reconcile all of the work done by the payment posters, and give them back their mistakes to correct.  How am I supposed to do that, and be interrupted by phone calls?

I listen to the call center people taking calls all day every day, and the people who call are generally angry and rude.   This is why I do NOT work customer service, and never have.

Now, I no longer have a choice.

But...I need to stay through this year, due to time off that I want to take to go to my nephew's wedding, and to take our annual cabin camping trip.

On Friday, Dave had to go to Tulsa for the first part of a corporate-wide class on "emotional maturity."  He dreaded that as much as I dread working phones.  It requires being in a group of people he doesn't know, or doesn't like, and talking.

He's anti social, and a misanthope, and this is his worst nightmare.

He was home by 2:30, though, and went and had a couple of beers while I finished my work day.  As we were driving home, he started to feel bad.

As it turned out, he had the intestinal issue that I had dealt with at the beginning of the week, and he was up much of Friday night.  He felt better by noon, but was feeling pretty exhausted.

We were supposed to go to our friends' Swiss National Day party last night, but we did not go.

Because he had felt bad Friday, we didn't go out and do our errands like we usually do, and because there was nothing in the house to make dinner, and we usually grab something out on errand night, we ordered some salads delivered from Jason's Deli, and ate at home.

Then, yesterday, I got up and out and did the errands myself.  This is a source of anxiety for me, and it was good for me to do it.

I took care of everything myself when I lived back home, before and after my divorce, but I have become overly dependent on Dave going with since moving here TEN years ago.

The times that I have gone by myself have felt like little triumphs, and yesterday was no different.

Today, Eric's friend Rickey is going to help Dave go get a new TV for Pop and install it in his room.  His current TV was our old TV from when I first moved down here, and it is starting to fail.

Since watching TV is basically all Pop does, he needs a good one.

This is one reason we still have a credit card for Pop's account.

While they're gone, I will get my weekly chores done, and hopefully practice dance.  I missed class on Monday, and we have a show coming up at the end of September.

Speaking of Eric, he and his girlfriend, and some other friends, are on vacation in Italy, and Eric proposed.  She said yes!

Looks like I will finally have to meet his mom.  IF he invites her... which he may not do.  Don't know.

It's been a lovely morning here, after a couple of days of clouds that lowered our temperature.  No rain, unfortunately.  Everything is turning brown.  Unfortunately, it will be back up in the 100s again by the end of the week.

My sister and brother in law got back safely from the UK on Monday night.  Hopefully, I will get to talk to her today and hear all about it.