The Big C

How’s everybody handling Covid?  How about the riots?  How about the murder bees? 

Just when you think things can’t get worse....haha....they do!

I found out last week that I have breast cancer...again!  It’s in the other breast and it’s a more aggressive than the last one I had 10 years ago.  (I KNOW!  10 years doesn’t seem possible!) I’ll have to have chemo and surgery and radiation...oh my!

So, that’s fun!

No, it’s not really.

I know I’m joking around but honestly I’m scared.  I already had a ct scan to see if it’s anywhere else in my body and I’ll have a breast mri sometime this week.  Breast mri will be me, laying stomach down in a machine.  I’m freaking out.  MRI’s scare the crap out of me and last time I had a regular one I had a panic attack and couldn’t do it.  So...there’s that.

I want to say...”the worst part is” but there are so many worst parts that I can’t really say that.  BUT, one of the really crappy parts is Covid.  I will have to go through most of these atrocities by myself without my support team.  I went from feeling very concerned about Covid to being petrified that I’ll get it.  Doctors said for me to not even go to the store....stay home!!!  Which, of course we all are doing, but I did go to the store a few times and a few weekends ago we went out of town and although we were careful...what the hell is careful anymore?  I would like a plastic bubble placed around me at all times, please.  Plus, now Bossman is going to have to do all that for me and if he gets it, I’m screwed even more!

The cherry on the top of this shit sundae is my beloved cat of 14 years decided to get very sick last night.  Why does crap always happen on the weekends?  So 1500 dollars later and we are hoping we don’t have to put her down yet.

So as you can see, 2020 has not been kind to me.  But Bossman is being so sweet and completely supportive and understand.  He’s being my biggest cheerleader.  I will survive this but it’s going to be a hell of a ride.  

So, I would like a platform that is easy to use to update my progress for friends and family.  I’ve announced it on facebook but I don’t want to sully my facebook of pics of me bald!  Do any of you have ideas on a platform I can use?  Maybe I should make a new facebook page for all the cancer updates.  I don’t know.  I guess I’ll figure it out as I go.

I will update here when I can.  I have a feeling I’ll have a lot more to write about now.  I guess we will see!

Send good thoughts and prayers!

grace

P.S.

Girls, get your mammo!!!!!!!  I went for my yearly mammo and that is how they found it.  It is small so they said had I waited it would have been much worse!  GO GET YOUR MAMMOGRAMS!

Death and chaos

I wrote this post about a week and a half ago.  It’s long and rambling...a lot like my life right now.  This year, but mostly this month has been hell.  I hope 2020 will get better.  I hope!

I had every intention of blogging about TTWD.  I promise, I did!  But then the last couple of weeks happened and it felt like life sort of fell apart around me.

Bossmans parents have been going downhill very quickly.  His mother, she’s been a bit of a nut job since I met her, 30 plus years ago.  But the last couple of years she has been slowly having bits of dementia.  She hates all docs, so that’s not an option, but we can see it.

His father has had heart problems since 2000.  He got a pacemaker in Dec. of 2017.  Then, about April, they said one of the leads was off and needed to be fixed.  But because his mother hates docs, she didn’t want him to go, and he didn’t.  There is more to the story, including conspiracy theories, but I don’t have time to get into all the that.  Needless to say, without getting the pacemaker fixed, he started having problems.  In June, he had to go on disability.  At 72, he should have probably retired but nobody blamed him for not wanting to be home with HER, all day.  So, going on disability was super hard for him.  But he was having a hard time walking and it was time.  In the beginning of August, he ended up in the hospital.  We thought he would get his pacemaker fixed, finally, and mother would have nothing to say about it.  But sadly, his kidneys were in bad shape because he was taking diuretics for fluid buildup.  Because his kidneys were bad, they couldn’t fix the pacemaker because they use dye for that and the kidneys wouldn’t be able to handle the dye.  They sent him home.  Anytime we talked to him about doctors, my MIL would get so upset.  She would freak out.  When he was in the hospital, she was a nightmare.  She couldn’t stay home alone because she was too scared to be home alone at night, but she was getting lost in the hospital and the nurses told us she couldn’t stay with him.  Sadly, he never got much help from docs after that and he slowly got worse and worse. We felt helpless.

Fast forward to last week.  Bossman gets a call from his mom saying his dad can’t get off the toilet.  Bossman heads over there, it’s a Friday night.  His dads legs are jello.  He can’t hold him up and ends up lowering him to the ground.  He sits back to back with his dad to prop him up and calls for help.  The paramedics arrive and his mother is screaming not to take him, he’s getting better, he’ll be fine.  She won’t let them in the house.  They finally get in and take him to the hospital.  Bossman spends 4 hours in the hospital ER with his dad.  His mom calls screaming at this dad on the phone that he didn’t come home immediately, he didn’t love her anymore.  Bossman tells everyone he can that his dad can’t go home, his mom can’t take care of him.  Next day, a social worker calls Bossman and everything.  But...they send him home.  They SENT HIM HOME!!!  Bossman was devastated.  Of course that night, she called again to say he couldn’t get off the toilet and it was just a mental thing...a MENTAL thing!!!!  Bossman told her to call 911.  She said no again...so he hung up on her.  This was Saturday.  She refused to answer the phone after that.  Bossman called during the week and nothing.  Then Thursday.  I was a the hospital all day with my sister in law...a story for a different day...and when I get home we are eating dinner when the phone rings.  The caller ID is his parents, so Bossman picks up the phone and...it’s the paramedics.  Sadly, his dad passed away.  They were still at the house.  Of course, we were very upset.  Bossman couldn’t talk to his mom.  He just couldn’t.  The next day he had to call his mom and now we have been dealing with everything.

I’m adding this on to the post a week and a half later... We’ve had the memorial, it was perfect.  My husband was happy with it and felt we honored his father so that is all I can ask for.  We are now dealing with his mother, trying to help her get life insurance payment and such.  They were terrible with their money and he didn’t leave her a big policy.  She is hard to deal with and has the onset of dementia so...this is fun!  Bossman sister is trying to get as much money as she can from all of us and we have had to block her from our life and it’s making things even more difficult.

This is where we stand now.
Please send prayers or good thoughts or whatever you believe in!
grace

No comment

Seems I’ve been away from blogger too long.  I’ve commented on PK’s comment and yet nothing shows.  I tried it 3 times.  So, if there are 3 comments from me...now you know why! *Edit* I had to go to a different browser to make it work.  So if you are having trouble commenting try that.  I went to chrome!

The Detail Whore...I’m looking at you, PK...would like to know about the kids and such.  I have no kids.  They are adults!  The youngest is 21 now.  Just so you know, I started this blog when he was in kindergarten.  Damn, I’m old!

Anyway, the 21 year old MAN has been living with us for about 2 years.  We thought we got rid of him when we sent him to boarding school for high school and a year of college in Washington.  Turns out, he hated the school in Washington and came home.  So he’s been going to community college and he just finished his AS degree.  I think that’s what they call it.  It’s a two year degree.  He’s studying business.  Turns out, even though he graduated, one of his classes he took in Washington was not good enough for him to transfer to a 4 year school so he is now finishing that class this semester.  He decided to take other classes that are helping him along with his degree or will at least look good on a resume so that’s good.  He just got word on Friday and he got accepted to a school in southern CA for the winter semester.  So...FINALLY...he is leaving the nest again in January!  Let the happy dancing begin!  I have loved having him home, he is such a great person.  He’s genuinely a nice guy. I know he’s my son, but people tell me that about him all the time.  He’s smart, funny and kind.  No girl yet, but whoever ends up scooping him up is going to be one lucky gal!

I may have mentioned that my daughter moved to Maryland.  That brat LOVES it there, so I doubt she will be moving back to CA anytime soon.  I miss her so much!!!  We video chat and text all the time!  She just went home after being here for a week and I hate it.  We have so much fun together!  They still are having fertility problems.  She has said that if she doesn’t have a child by the time she’s 30 they would look into other options.  She’s about to be 29 so...guess we will see. She found out last week that she got a job she had applied for about a month ago....so she is very excited.  Bossman and I decided to buy a house in Md and let them be our first renters.  They moved in in June and are in LOVE with there neighborhood.  We told them if they want to buy the house from us someday, they can.

Well that’s what’s happening with the kids.  Tune in next time, when I tell you how Bossman and I are doing and are we, or aren’t we doing TTWD.

Empty nestily,
grace

Um...Hi

Once again life has gotten in the way of blogging.  It’s sad.  I miss the old blogging days when I was so involved in the community and I felt like I had a whole world of people as friends.  I realize there are a few of you still here...and frankly I wonder why...HA!  But I do appreciate it when someone reads my blog. I really do.

As for me and my life...where do I even begin?

The health has been ok.  Now that I’m over 50, I have to do all the “old lady” tests.  You know the ones, colonoscopy, bone density, that sort of thing.  When the doctor told me I needed to get those, I asked him when I would be getting my walker and my life time prescription of Ben-gay.  I’m stocking up on my shawls and reading glasses and I’ve reserved my place at the retirement village.

I’ve opted not to do the colonoscopy.  I’m doing the test that you can do at home.  Without getting graphic...how you would like to be the one to open all the packages with peoples poop in them?  I’m not sure that is the job for me.

On Friday, I have to have another bone scan.  It’s a pain because you have to go have some dye injected and come back in two hours so we can scan you.  I swear, I should have some sort of super powers with all the dye and crap they inject me with.

We had this guy come to our church to speak about health.  He started off nicely, telling us how we shouldn’t be eating meat and should have a plant based diet.  (GAH!) I get it, it’s healthy and Cheetos are not.  BUT, guess what, even the people eating that way are going to die.  They may live longer but if they are eating like that, they probably aren’t having much fun! HA!  Listen, I don’t want to offend, so if you eat that way, and you enjoy it....good!  I’m happy for you!  Anyway...like I said, it started off nicely, but THEN...he started talking about how bad xrays were and how when you get cancer they immediately start recommending radiation.  And he even went so far as to tell us that getting dental X-rays were bad and we shouldn’t get those either.

Well listen, I’m all for health and junk...haha...but when you start talking to me about how bad the scans are that I have to have ALL THE TIME...well I get a little agitated.  As I was getting more and more agitated, Bossman suggested I leave.  I did.  Apparently after I left, things get better...He started telling everyone that our illnesses is because of our sin.  Not because OF sin...no, no, because of OUR sin.  Meaning, my personal sin gave me CANCER!!!!

Insert me rolling my eyes!!!!  Now listen, I’m not getting religious on you.  I’m not even going to tell you what religion I am because that isn’t really the point.  The point is....How DARE YOU Sir!!!!

Seriously, I know the dangers of xrays and radiation and all that stuff.  If you aren’t living under a rock then you know this information.  When I go to church, I would like to be uplifted.  I would not like to be lectured about how the tests I’m doing, to prolong my life, are actually going to kill me.  Good grief!

So, I went home and wrote a stern letter to the people that invited this man to our church.  I told them I wasn’t happy with the things he said.  I am sure others were not amused either.  What he was saying was NOT helpful at all!  We have a lot of people going through cancer and medical things and DENTAL work and we don’t need to worry about how our treatments are killing us.

Everyone agreed and they won’t be asking him to speak again!  Hooray me!

I don’t know why I just told that story.  That wasn’t what I came to write about.  I guess that just needed to be said.  I guess this means I will probably be coming back soon to write down some more stuff that is leaking out of my brain.

Until then...
grace

Update on the update

It seems that I am destine to always worry about whether there is cancer lurking in my body.

The blood test results were similar to last time, which is good and bad.  Good that nothing is getting worse at the moment, bad because now I have to be checked every 3 months, I have to have more blood tests and I have to have another bone scan.  I appreciate being cautious but I hate having these tests and I hate even thinking about it.  I would like to go back to a regular life where I never have to go to the doctor again.

Of course, I’m just being a big baby and whining over little things.  The bigger picture could be so much worse and there are others dealing with much bigger things.  But if I can’t whine here, where can I????

In much better and much funner(is funner a word?) I am leaving in 30 minutes for the airport.  I’ll be flying all the way across the country to give my girl a hug.  I’ll also be heading to a nascar race on Sunday and I’ll be eating tons of cake on Monday.  I might even wear a crown!!  I mean, I will be the big 51!  Plus, I just really like wearing crowns!

So, I hope you all have a great rest of the week and a great weekend!  I’ll be home next Tuesday and I will be sure to have something to whine about.

HUGS!
grace