Present and Unaccounted for

Chemo is done for round 2 and only 8 more days of radiation.

I am so looking forward to the end of radiation. This driving hours every day for a 15 minute appointment is getting really, really tiring. Like not just "I'm kind of tired" it is like a bone deep exhausted. I feel really bad for mom since it can't be any better for her and she is the one doing the driving.

Course, at least part of my tired could be the chemo. This round is shaping up to be worse than the first. Not surprising, cumulative effect and all. I did have to have an extra injection to settle my stomach today in addition to the small barrage of pills. That was not fun. The small barrage has been up to a medium size barrage for the next few days as well.

Sleeping for longer than 2 hours at a time would also be ridiculously awesome.

This next part is a little ... TMI? Maybe? Probably. It is also mildly amusing in the sense that you are all totally allowed to point and laugh and go "Not me!"

( Most likely TMI )

Anyway, most irrelevant side trip done now.

I am still mostly good, if not completely comfortable and am now going back to napping.

If one more fat, greasy bald guy stares at me I am going to go all ass kicking psycho on them!

Seriously.

For the record, my lack of hair does not bother me. I am not hiding my head, I hate hats, always have, even more so now that they catch on the little bits of stubble I have left and snag and pull and rub at over sensitive skin. I still go shopping and make eye contact with people as they pass. I actually go out of my way to smile at the other women at the cancer clinic who have lost their hair. Especially the ones who are obviously self conscious about it. They are the ones who have a big hat on or a scarf not just wrapped around their head but in layers down around thier neck and draped over their shoulders. They duck away when you look in their direction and will not look up. I like that they stand up a little straighter when I smile, like maybe they are seeing that this bald thing is okay and they don't have to hide if they don't want to. I understand how they feel. That first pass over my head, as horrible as the little bit of hair I had left looked, was hard! I chickened out three times before I just took a deep breath and said "Screw it, it is only hair. It will grow back."

I am okay with the looks. I am okay with the glances. I understand it is not common for women to have a shaved head and I am okay with people taking a second glance before moving on. And that is all most do. Just a look and move on.

But these men, I am not sure men is the word, it is very juvenile behaviour. Let's call them beer-gut, balding, douche nuggets. You know the ones. The last time they did more than lift beer from arm of couch to face was sometime in middle school football and that was several decades ago. All they have left for hair is that little wreath at the back of their head which they are desperately trying to hang on to if for no other reason than to cover the glare of their greasy, unbathed scalp with a bad attempt at a comb over. Yeah, them.

These B-GBDN's don't just look. They stare until I am out of visual range again. And along with the stare comes the scowl. The condescending scowl one nose wrinkle away from an outright sneer. These guys piss me off.

It has been theorized they are jealous because I look better with no hair than they do with that sad little patch they are clinging too. I don't think that is what is really going on. The vibe is very much that I do not measure up to their standard of "beauty". That my lack of hair makes me somehow less than what a woman should be. It is unfortunate that they think their opinion matters to me. I do not need to quantify my self worth based on the opinions of others and certainly not the opinion of those who are obviously bogged down in binary stereotypes.

For now I have simply been arching a brow and staring back, but I can feel the snapping point coming. The day will come when my response is to laugh and say "Glad to not meet your approval. Saves me the time of having to shoot you down because, really, if you think you ever had a chance, hair or not, you are a sad, pathetic delusional little man. Emphasis on the little. A tiny brain is not the only tiny thing you are packing."

Unfortunately, I have the horrible suspicion they won't get it and I will be wasting my breath. It is still going to happen though on the off chance that someone else present will get it and might get a chuckle out of explaining it to them.

Which would be way easier if it wasn't for that pesky need for oxygen thing.

I have, somehow, in spite of my best efforts otherwise, developed a cold. No fever or other signs of infection so none of my team of medical professionals are worried. They would be worried if they were the ones dealing with my abdominal muscles right now.

The cold is getting better. The cough is not.

The cough just does not stop.

Ever.

It isn't even a productive cough. Not coughing anything up. Just coughing.

All the time. Not even sleeping. Just coughing. The best part (sarcasm) is how none of the usual barrage of cold medications are helping. Not even to lessen the frequency of the cough.

I'm tired. My muscles are protesting the amount of movement required to breathe and still ...coughing.

I have handed my sister my bank card and the keys to Mom's van (Mom also having developed this cold and the cough that will not stop) and sent her to talk to my pharmacist. She is to return with something to stop this damn cough or kill me. One or the other. I am not terribly picky at the moment.

Assuming she is successful at stopping the cough and not the killing part, I will be back with those updates I was supposed to have days ago.

I feel like shit.

See, not all good mood all the time (and I know there have been some who wondered).

I had a moment earlier today where I seriously questioned if all of this was worth it. For a moment more, the answer was no.

Every muscle in my upper body feels bruised. Let me correct that. Every muscle, most of my skin and a good portion of my bones feel bruised. My throat is swollen and irritated. Drinking water kind of feels like I am in the middle of a wicked case of strep.

My stomach is now my mortal enemy alternating between "FOOD! NOW! Or I will hurt you!" and "OMG you put food in me! You must PAY!" Mr. Lumpy is angry and for the first time ever very painful and I am TIRED. But rarely enough to actually sleep.

So.

Yeah.

Not all good and the bad actually sucks worse than even I could have imagined.

Faced with the choice of ever doing this again, in all honesty, I don't know if I would choose to do it again.

I know I should have checked over EVERYTHING about every prescription I was given. I should have done more than just read the fact sheets the pharmacy gave me about them. I should have waited until my usual pharmacist was working to pick them up, because she would have caught it well before I was sitting here last night trying to sort my way through the half set gelatine fog that has been my brain for the past few days trying to remember when I last took my "as needed" anti-nausea medication. And I REALLY should have done it the moment I started getting the feeling that my medical oncologist didn't actually know what Chiari was when she told me that I got dizzy all the time because I was tired.

I know better and I didn't do it anyway.

So, for anyone else that may, at some point, decide to take complete leave of their senses and do what I did, I would like to just leave this friendly reminder to TRIPLE CHECK EVERYTHING. You know, so you too don't end up sitting before your computer with a pharmacology database open, blinking back and forth between your screen and the fact sheets you got from the pharmacy and saying "Oh my fuck! I am going to strangle that old bitty before she even gets a chance to retire at the end of the month!"

My medical oncologist prescribed me an anti-psychotic.

It can also be used, and is apparently quite effective, to prevent nausea, except, if for some reason, something else is going on, like your spinal fluid doesn't circulate properly and the medication just kind of sits there, overdosing your brain and causing more nausea ... you know, like what happens when you have Chiari Malformation.

I think I can manage to not strangle my medical oncologist before she retires at the end of the month. I did not take the "as needed" pill last night, for which she should probably be very grateful. I can almost  think clearly this morning and thus a homicidal rage does not sound like quite such a fun idea today. We will be having words though, and the first words will probably be, "If you haven't thought of it before now, I would suggest you start thinking that today would be a really good day to make your last day, because if I have to see you again, knowing you didn't read a damn thing any other doctor wrote for you to read and didn't even bother to look up what Chiari Malformation is you will no longer have that nifty retirement fund you are planning to use. I will have it when the medical board finds out about your extreme negligence."

I would probably not even be that harsh with her, the woman is beyond old, except I know, for certain she has letters from my GP, Neurologist AND Neurosurgeon that all, in varying ways and worded much more politely, say "Do not fuck with this patients brain chemistry! EVER!"

Well, round one anyway. Still 3 more rounds to go. My bestest stabby friend is gone for a few weeks though. This is a huge plus for me. A huge minus for today is the lack of sleep from yesterday. I did go pick up the other pills though (well, Mom did. Thank you mommy!) ... and a borrowed blood pressure monitor because I have a family history (3 of 4 in my immediate family who have taken it so far) who have the side effect of dangerously low blood pressure from taking these pills. The funny is it is just dimenhydrinate (brand name Gravol) which is not even prescription and ridiculously common.

( Rambling about different outlooks and a few pics of different stuff I saw today. )

Because I just realized I hadn't set that up over here and I have been posting links to other places where chances are people will not have DW accounts.

Sorry about that.

Usual rules apply: Specifically, don't be an asshat.

So, I screwed up in linking yesterday. Apologies to anyone who watched the not as cool video I linked yesterday.


THIS is the cool video.

I will spare you most of the events of today because I am trying very hard to forget them myself. Suffice it to say there were many boxes of tissues being used all around me and one lady who ceases to have biology on weekends. (I'm not joking! She said so!)

I did get most of the "Not beavers with Pringles" (pic that started his obsession with beavers who have pringles is here and might make that all make more sense. I doubt it! This is Mathew we are talking about.)  finished today though so uber bonus there! And my new bestest stabby friend is now in my left arm. My right arm seems to have suffered a vampire attack at some point over night and was, apparently, completely without blood today. That was fun!

*edit* Okay, I lied. You do get pics.

The Rat-brat asked if I happened to notice the shapes of the radiation beams today. Now that she knows how it works she does think it is kind of cool, and I did notice!

So I drew her some pictures ... on post-its .... and then stuck them in the appropriate spots .... and then took pics ... and made notes with my tablet ...

Right, so keep in mind I can neither wear my glasses nor move my head so these are as best as I could make out.

( Some of these are probably weird ... even for me. )

*edit again* My child is now completely embrassased and mumbling about "putting boob-it notes online ... oh-em-ge! Why must I be related to her? Why!!!???"

Parental trauma quota for the day exceeded! Go me!

Because I haven't actually pimped this out yet, just sort of stuck it in another post.

Holiday Love Meme at allthingsimlish!

What are you waiting for? Go! Put your name down so I (and others) can come along and anonymously tell you why you are awesome!

It is a war, I swear, but before I go into that particular rant:

The Holiday Love Meme is back at allthingsimlish!

No, I have not put my name down yet, I am not sure I am going to. It is just really awesome to go through and read the nice things everyone has to say about the members of the sims community. Plus, I find a bunch of new simmers that way as well.

Now to the glasses issue.

I have needed glasses for a while mostly for reading, painting, wirework ... seeing anything closer than 3 feet in front of my face. It wasn't too bad and simple magnifying readers worked fine for me. Then, for like the last year I was starting to notice my arm just was not long enough anymore to read labels or newspapers ... or see which cat it was I was holding ... so I went to the optometrist a few weeks ago and got my first shiny prescription lenses. They are driving me crazy!

Let me backtrack a bit here.

You know how people look at your computer over your shoulder when you are showing them something? You know how they point and touch the screen? Yeah, not my screen they don't. Touching my screen gets your fingers slapped. Then you get handed a cleaning cloth and cleaner and told to fix it and if you ever touch my screen again I will remove the offending finger because if there is a fingerprint on my monitor I will not be able to see anything BUT that print. It creates a blurry little fuzzy spot and my eyes are forever trying to make it come into focus and not blurry and then it hurts my head and just no! No fingerprints on my monitor.

So, imagine what happens when those same fuzzy little blurry spots are on the glasses that are supposed to be helping me see. And they are usually my own finger prints! I don't notice touching them, in fact I would guarantee that I have not touched the lenses, but the prints end up there just the same. Worse still, I can not believe the amount of just crap that will collect on lenses. Seriously? Where do all these specks and flecks and general film come from? And OMG, eyelash smudges are the hardest thing to see through. *sob*

My child wanders around with glasses so smudged you can barely make out her eyes behind them. Everyone else doesn't seem to mind the occasional smudge or fleck. They all tell me you get used to it and you only really notice when you really clean them and things look clear again. So now I am thinking I am just a freak.

I think I spend more time cleaning my glasses and getting laughed at for it than I do actually looking through them. I can't be the only one who does this. Someone tell me I am not the only one who does this.