10 day check in

Well I made it to my 10-day post chemo labs.  Supposedly, this is the lowest my white count will drop which means, hopefully that I will start to slowly gain energy over the next 10 days to get ready to do it all over again.

This week has been a rollercoaster of events and emotions, and I haven't had the energy to post anything new except my little angel that helps me Be Brave.  I want to write a super cool, awesome post about my fabulous Saturday night Birthday Bash with Djinn, Beatbox Guitar and Bellyqueen, but I want to do it on a day that I have energy and can do it justice, so stay tuned.  The outcome of all that is I actually took the shrink wrap off Carmine Guida's Begintermediate doumbek, so maybe once my energy comes back up, AND Connor goes back to school, so I can have the TV, I will start practicing my rolls, pops and fills.  Drumming and bellydance music, and dancing bring so much joy and energy into my life, I think I definitely need to up my dosage! Here is an example of the fabulous talent we got to experience live on Saturday: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR1GQCYhXzs.  I highly recommend watching, it will have you mesmerized.

I'm also trying to lower my med load, so I've been reducing some of my nightime sleepy meds, with the result being, I was awake most of the night last night.  sigh.  I did stop drinking coffee in the am, it makes me queasy even thinking about it, so I figured I may as well go off caffeine and see if that makes a difference.   If I can make it through today, without napping, then maybe I can keep it up. I hate being completely dependent on chemicals to keep me going around in my amazing lifelike state. ha.

My best girl M from high school called me yesterday, she lives in Colorado and we haven't seen each other in 20 years, but we recently caught up with each other, thanks to FB, and it makes me happy that in the midst of this Cancer experience, I get the opportunity to re-connect old friends and family relationships that have frayed over the years. I told her I was feeling pretty wiped out this week and she recommended soaking in an epsom salt bath - it restores Magnesium.  This is something new to me, so I thought it would be interesting to try it and see if it makes me feel any better.  I've been craving salty food since Chemo, so I'm thinking that I'm low on electrolytes or something, so I've been eating stuff like rice in broth with Dulse (seaweed) flakes and Kale Crisps (a la Molly Katzen).

I have so much food in my house right now- between fridge pickles and homemade jam, plus some big batches of dishes I've made that we've been eating; but just don't have enough people in the house to finish it all. I think I have lost some weight since Chemo, and I just can't afford to drop anymore, unless I plan to go as Skeletor for Halloween.

 I inventoried my pantry and cupboards on Tuesday and I'm convinced that we could live out of our pantry and freezer for at least 6 months, and probably closer to a year. Luckily it's coming on Fall, and I love to make soup with whatever I have, so I will definitely be working out different grain/bean/veggie combos in the coming weeks.  We also have a 20 cu. ft. freezer that is filled with organic local meats and veggies from our garden and fruit from the farm stand down the road.  If the zombies come, we are ready!

To add one more thing to The List of things that suck right now. Hubby got the results of his thyroid scan today and called me to tell me there is a 'mystery nodule' or 'suspicious lump' or something like that on it.  So, he gets to go to the Endocrinologist and have it checked out. Perhaps biopsied.  This is starting to sound a little like deja vu.   He tells me the GOOD news is that no one actually dies from Thyroid cancer.  Joy.

I don't have anything peppy to say about that right now.  I still need to go figure out what the heck they are talking about and try and figure out what the cabbage is going on.  We can only hope for the best and deal with the reality and keep trying to move forward. So here's to hope.

 (compliments of http://clnprint.com/2011/01/17/postaday2011/)