Meta-versary

 As a survivor of metastatic breast cancer, I am what's called a "metavivor."

Today marks the beginning of my 8th year of survival, as on this day, in 2015, I sat, utterly terrified, in the chemo chair for the first time.

I'd heard so many stories of people who were not able to tolerate chemo...I knew a few of them personally...or who actually ended up hospitalized, or even died, from their first treatment.

But, here I am, stepping into a new year, which is 6 years past the average survival limit for stage 4.

I am, however, far from average.....

In other news, Arya kitty never came back.  She is probably dead, under the house across the street.

Her companion, Luke, now our eldest feral, has been coming around for his meals, though.  I hope he is staying in our shelters, instead of going under that house where her body, most likely, is.

It breaks my heart to think about that.

We do our best for them, though.  On some levels, I think they know this.

We had another extreme cold snap, with 50 mile per hour winds, and deep cold.  The great part is that a friend sent us a heated cat shelter just in time!

We set it up on the back patio, and Silver has started to use it.  She was in there when the wind was cold and raging yesterday.

The weather should be more moderate today and tomorrow, though.  I am off work tomorrow for Martin Luther King Jr. day, but Dave has to work.  

We might try to get out to a park this afternoon, after being stuck inside since Friday evening, with that cold wind going on outside.  You know that I get cabin fever if I can't get outside!

With this three day weekend, I have been cooking, and will do more tonight and tomorrow.  There will be lots of delicious left overs for the coming week!

The covid numbers continue to astonish us, and keep us locked down.  14,403 new cases, state wide,  yesterday. No numbers released today, yet.

Keep in mind that Oklahoma has a population of 3.9M.    Of course, the most populace county is the one we live in, so the numbers here are the highest.

The schools closed Friday, due to illness across the spectrum....kids, teachers, and other staff.  Just saw this morning that this will continue through the coming week.  Parents are suddenly caught in the middle again, after return to work mandates have come down from employers over the past several months.

Speaking of that, with the high covid numbers, I emailed my boss and asked about how to proceed to get a medical exemption for return to work, which was originally scheduled for a week from tomorrow, at the new building.

She said that the return to the office has now been delayed to February 8th, and that I would be allowed to stay at home until the numbers go down sufficiently.

I am thinking I will still make the one trip a week, to pick up and drop off work, at the new building, but I won't be required to stay there to work.

This gave me a tremendous sense of relief. However, I do hope that they will extend the deadline further, for everyone's safety.

Dave's office has officially removed their return to the office date from the calendar, and has extended work from home for his entire team indefinitely.

You'd think that the ambulance company would do the same.

Anyway, I have a 10:00am zoom appointment this morning, so I had better get going.

Have a good week, and stay safe and well. 

Locking down

 This past week, the covid numbers in Oklahoma jumped from 32 per 100 thousand, to 103 per 100 thousand.

Positive test rate more than doubled, from 13.2% to 31.9%.

SO. We are back to having our groceries and pet supplies delivered, whenever possible. 

We DID go out and run a couple of errands Friday evening and Saturday (and people are not wearing masks, in general), to stock up on some things, but, for the most part, we will not be going out in public, or hanging out with friends, any time soon.

The weather was brutally cold for a couple of days this past week, and this weekend is unpleasantly chilly and, of course, windy.  

I miss my hot tub!!!  But, I hate getting out there when there's high wind.  

It's not likely we will even go out walking anywhere today with this cold wind, but I am going stir crazy, so we'll see.  I do have ear muffs and a parka now!

But, then, there's also the heel tendon pain, and the hip pain, that have started up again, thanks to the hormone blockers.  

It's not been bad, just annoying, and keeping me from taking walks on break time during work for a couple of weeks.

It's also been a month of no dance classes, due to the studio having the floors re-done, and our usual winter break.

Anyway, and sadly, the deep cold we had this past week seems to have been the last straw for one of our older feral cats.  

She wasn't doing great leading up to the cold snap, but now she's clearly suffering from some kind of system failure.  

These poor cats have such a hard life.  We do what we can for them, and they know that our yard is one of their safe spots, where they can get food, water, "scritches and pets," and shelter... but it's still a hard life.

This poor girl has lost so much weight, and has visible signs of illness. She's eating voraciously, and drinking water, but is suddenly so very frail. She can barely walk.

We hope that she will just go to sleep in one of the shelters, so that we can see to her burial.  We'd much prefer that, to her dying under someone else's house, or in their garage, and ending up in a trash can.  

She is the one we call Arya.  She's our huntress... the one who leaves us gifts (rodents, birds), to thank us for our hospitality and love.

Fans of  'Game of Thrones' will recognize the name, and understand the reference.  She's our Murder Kitten, who taught little Silver how to hunt, after Silver's mom abandoned her in our yard.

Yesterday, Silver was cuddled up with Arya in one of our shelters, keeping her warm.  Dave and I sobbed in each other's arms after feeding her and watching her struggle to move.  We do grow to love them, as they love us, in the only way they can.

New neighbors have moved in next door.  So far, we have not met them, or even seen them.

We don't have much of anything to do today.  Our house is still pretty clean from Christmas, and we did most of our regular weekly chores yesterday.  

I'm not even going to cook anything today because we already have a fridge full of left overs from cooking projects yesterday, and earlier in the week. 

So, there will be plenty of time to do yoga (which I desperately need, with so little exercise happening lately)...and maybe I can have some quiet, spiritual time as well.  

I'd like to try to do that every Sunday, because it really helps my overall attitude, and Sundays are when I am most likely to have the time and headspace to actually "check in."

It's been working out well for the past few weeks.

Dave has an errand to run (we're out of one of the chemicals we need for the hot tub), and then he will go out to the shelters-- to see if Arya has passed.  We have not seen her yet this morning.

I think I will start my day with a nice, hot bath.  Soaking in hot water really does help my aches, and if I do yoga right after I get out, it's easier.

I have my monthly injection, and bi monthly port flush, tomorrow afternoon.

Wishing you a safe, healthy week.

Welcome 2022

 We've had another quiet New Year celebration at Dragons' Roost.

It was really an un-remarkable week between holidays, other than there was a zoom meeting on Thursday afternoon, during which they announced that my office will return to in - person work, at the new building (that is 45 minutes away), on January 24th. 

In the midst of a covid surge.

Yay.

Of course, we are hoping that sense will win out again, and that we will get another delay.

Dave's company delayed their return to the office already, but they didn't just spend millions on a newly- renovated building that now needs to be filled with people.

Dave still doesn't have a definitive answer about if he will be forced to return to work in the office or not.  Given the fact that the only difference for him has been that he now sits at home instead of in a building full of people, (because his entire department is officed in Tulsa), there's no logical reason for him to have to go back to the OKC office.

Anyway, I guess time will tell.

I DID have a dream last night that they gave me a promotion -- and an OFFICE.  HA..HAHAHAHAHAHA.

Due to the covid surge, we are returning to having our groceries and pet supplies delivered, and will not be going out anywhere, unless it's good enough weather to take walks.  

We did our errands on Thursday evening, and there were so few masks on people that it was mind boggling.  

The level of selfishness, willful ignorance, and disregard for others in this area is mind boggling.  It's just the Okie way, I guess.

We have no plans for today, as it is deeply cold outside.  We narrowly escaped a New Year's ice storm, and got a tiny dusting of snow before the temperature dropped into the low teens with sub zero wind chills.

It should get above freezing today, though, so the deep cold will only have lasted for about 24 hours.

I am jealous of my friends and family back home, who were predicted to get a New Year's Day snow storm.  

Hoping that we all have a year of good health, prosperity, safety, and love in 2022!

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!