Clean House

One of my favorite TV shows lately is called Clean House. In the show they go to a very messy, cluttered house, get the homeowners to give up stuff for a yard sale where the money is matched up to $1000 and is used to redecorate and reorganize their house. The host will cajole the homeowner to give up stuff by offering free gifts like flooring, furniture and even electronics. Then the homeowners get to go to a luxury hotel for a few days while the Clean House team totally does up the house. Did I mention that this costs the homeowner nothing, except maybe some self esteem as TV cameras show America what sloppy people they are….

My house would be a perfect fit for the show and I wondered how I might get them to come to eastern NC to clean my house? Between my eye cancer, the uncomfortable treatment they are trying, issues within the family and just not feeling well, I had sunk into a bit of a depression. It got me wishing for a nice clean start, beginning with my messy house. Then the rains came and flooded our basement causing a remodel to be a necessity rather than just a wish.

It was one of those typical Holstein weeks. I had just finished my three week course of chemo eye drops which caused my eye to turn blood red, swell and the whole right side of my face to hurt. We had driven up to Chapel Hill on a Tuesday to see the eye doctors. On the way home Doug’s tongue started to bleed. This happens occasionally and holding a tea bag on it for a while usually stops it. However, since he is on Coumadin, it is harder to stop and the time before this one we had to go to our dentist and she stitched him up. As we were about two hours from home, we decided it was best to go to an ER to get it stitched up. So instead of getting home in time for supper, it turned into a rather late night.

Then next morning the rain started. The weekend before I had started to sort papers in my office in an attempt to get organize and there were cardboard boxes all over the floor. Thursday morning we were suppose to drive up to Chapel Hill for an appointment with my breast cancer oncologist and monthly treatment. Four in the morning Doug was up wet-vacuuming the basement in an attempt to suck up the water already seeping into the basement. We left for Chapel Hill around 7:00 AM for a noon appointment knowing several roads along our route were subject to flooding. Sarah came home twice to wet-vac the still seeping basement while we were gone. By the time we got home around 6:00 PM, the creek was the highest we had ever seen, with water covering our dock by about 18 inches. However, the creek was still pretty far away from the house, it was the rise in ground water and rain that was causing our basement to fill up. Unfortunately, this was most rain to fall in a two day span since we moved into this house and the flooding not only affected the back portion of the basement we were used to, but it also covered the front section, soaking the rug in the office and all of the boxes I had started to sort the weekend before. So instead of organized sorting, things were just grabbed and thrown into any empty, dry container we could find. Doug vet-vacuumed until late Thursday night and again early Friday morning until it was time for him to go to work. Happily by then the water had pretty much stopped. After those hectic and stressful few days, why was I surprised when he called to tell me his car had been hit in his office parking lot? Some guy lost control of his truck, struck the truck parked next to Doug’s, which then crashed into his parked car. I was afraid to think “well, what else could go wrong?” since it probably would! We spent that weekend pulling up the wet and smelly carpet.

Clean House didn’t come to my home, and instead of a crew of a dozen or so, there were four of us emptying my basement of years of clutter. It looks so easy on TV when they have that large crew and speed up the footage so the room is cleared in about 15 seconds! What I do have is a wonderful neighbor, Jim, a retired Marine. He is tiling my basement floor, water-proofing the walls, supervising the outside waterproofing and acting as overall handyman and contractor. He is assisted by Rusty who is one of the hardest workers I’ve ever met! It brings new meaning for me to the phrase “calling in the Marines!”

After taking everything out of the front part of the basement and piling it out on the porch or stuffing it into the back potion of the basement, Doug and I were exhausted and about to shower and go to bed early, when Sarah called. “I’m really, really sorry” she started. Oh no, what now…. “I didn’t mean to, it just happened..;.” this sounded bad… “I found another cat.” NO, no more animals, we still have the last stray she found that we could not get adopted because she is too mean. The problem is that our local pound is a high kill shelter, her office is on a busy street and the cat was too friendly to be safely left on its own, or so she convinced us.

unadoptable cat and have named him Niles, I suspect he isn’t going to be going away. I may have mentioned that we have to keep other cats away from out 18 year old cat Tipper as they upset her too much. We’ve devised a plan of each cat getting a shift where they can be loose in the house, Tipper locked in the back part of the house during the day and Jessie banished to the basement at night. However, with the work going on in the basement, this is probably not the best time to be introducing a new pet into the family. I guess I should be resigned to this by now; this is how much of our life has been, so why would things suddenly get easier?

I’m back on three weeks of chemo eye drops, with the plan of three weeks off and then another course of three weeks. If the drops don’t melt away the tumor, then surgery to remove it will be in order. My oncologist did move up my scans by a month to make sure everything else is holding steady as hoped. In the mean time my right eye is blurry and my distance vision isn’t too good. It gets worse when I am tired and driving with troublesome distance vision tires me, so I avoid driving if I can. The good news is that hanging around the house has me attempting to clean a bit more. But then, with my bad eyesight, who knows what it will end up looking like!

When all the work is done, my basement will be light and bright due to a new tile floor, freshly painted (if we can ever decide on a color), and hopefully, totally wet free! But that leaves me with the daunting chore of going through our ‘stuff’ and weeding out what I want and need to keep, what can be donated and what we might can possibly sell at a yard sale. I’m not very good at this as the fact that I have all this stuff to go through shows. However, I am in the mindset of clearing out and having a ‘potential use’ for something is not a reason to keep it. I even have Sarah in on that idea, although we are not yet sold on the idea that sentimentality is in the memories and not the object. The next thing is to make a need and wants list of other things to do around the house

It’s not as easy as they make it on TV. There is no decorator to decide on the perfect colors, organizer for solutions to storage problems and furniture placement, no matching yard sale money or companies donating wonderful new things for our house. However, thanks to some wonderful neighbors, the house is shaping up and Doug and I (with input from my artist daughter) will hopefully get things just like we want it! And, my dirty laundry (literally my dirty laundry and dusty, cluttered house) will not be aired on national TV!

Eye Update

The spot on my eye is malignant according to the eye doctor at UNC. He seems to think it is unrelated to my breast cancer, which would be good news as far a my prognosis goes. Surgical treatment involves removing the tumor and stitching amniotic tissue onto my eye. He said it is major surgery with a painful recovery... He suggested that I return on Tuesday to see his colleague who is an ocular oncologist. He treats eye cancers with a chemotherapy eye drop that can shrink the tumor instead of having to cut it off. The surgeon eye doctor will also be there and we can further discuss which treatment will be best for me. Unfortunately, in looking up information about the eye drop treatment, it was said to also be a painful procedure...... 

So, best case scenario is having to go through some very painful treatments for a simple, unrelated cancer, worst case scenario is, well, the worst case scenario.........

Sometines Getting Together Helps you Get It Together!

Meddin Family Reunion August 14th, 2010

  
Wow, it’s amazing how things can seem to pile up on you before you know it. The last few months I have been working with my sister and several cousins on a family reunion that occurred the weekend of Aug. 14th. It was a lot of work, a lot of stress, but it was AMAZING! When my mother, who gets a little confused, kept asking me why everyone was coming in that weekend, “did someone die?” I answered, “No, it is because no one died that we are doing this!” Families tend to get together at weddings, when you have two different families trying to merge and a nervous bride somewhat in charge, or at religious milestones, when again you have two different families involved and a very nervous child or teenager, or at funerals, where the guest of honor isn’t around to enjoy the gathering. So, plan a family reunion before the next funeral, you won’t regret it!

At ours, I saw cousins I used to hang with, but hadn’t seen or really been in touch with, for almost 40 years! I met a new generation of family members, and better yet, they were able to meet each other! I met members of the family from distant branches who I didn’t even know about growing up. Timing couldn’t have been more perfect. The majority of the younger family members were in their 20s and early 30s, so they appreciated this gathering more than they might have at a younger age. Technology was available where presentations, pictures and old movies could be arranged and flashed onto a large screen in a way for everyone to enjoy, and it was held in the old home town so favorite places could be visited and food enjoyed! But most of all, the guests of honor, the last few of the older members, (my mother, uncle and great aunt) were there to share wonderful old stories and enjoy the festivities. As I said, we had it BECAUSE no one died!

Now that it’s over I thought I’d have some time to relax and not feel so busy. WRONG. Besides trying to catch up on paper and house work too long ignored, my days have been filled with upset kitty cats who tend to pee in inappropriate spots, poisonous snakes in my back yard and the sound of a jack hammer demolishing part of my driveway in an attempt to waterproof part of a basement wall. Normally independent pets have become glued to my ankles and, because of that, bathroom time is no longer a solitary event…..

Oh, and as things seem to happen, a spot on my eye that my eye doctor had been unconcerned about for a few years, saying it was just a cyst, is now of concern and needs to be removed and biopsied. I’ve learned to handle having a metal and rubber port under my skin accessed for my infusion and a two inch needle inserted into my nicely padded read end every month, I’ve gotten used to drinking nasty stuff for my scans every 4 months, and I survived a bone biopsy of my rib a year ago, but now to have something actually cut off my eye, gees, what else will my body think of to entertain me? Unfortunately, one of the ways I cope with unpleasantness is to close my eyes shut and imagine I’m sitting in a beautiful meadow high up in the mountains on a calm and sunny day. This, unfortunately, will be a new and eye opening experience…..

I always try to learn something from my experiences. Though I’m not sure what eye surgery will teach me (I thought my mother taught me not to poke things in my eye….), the following is a list of random things that recently popped into my mind, in no particular order:

•    You can catch more flies with the good sense of humor, then all the money in the world.

•    From Molly the Owl (http://www.ustream.tv/theowlbox): give all you can, and when things don’t work out, clean up and move on.

•    Also, watching toddling owlets on the computer is way more fun to watch than most TV shows!

•    A lick from a puppy gives a lot more pleasure than getting your licks in on your opposition.

•    Chocolate covered strawberries give you a whole days serving of healthy fruit covered in a serving of comfort.

•    Crying over spilled milk means more liquid to clean up.

•    People you expect the least from generally give you the most.

•    Some people don't have an ulterior motive when they do something nice for you.

•    When you have cancer, things that people say about you (good or bad) have a lot less significance than it did before.

•    It's not what others say to us that count, it's what we say to ourselves.

•    You heal from the inside out, not the outside in.

•    Waiting for a loved one who is having surgery is a lot harder than being the one having the surgery.

•    Sometimes you have to be like Emily Lattella, just say “never mind” and smile.

•    Sometimes when you love someone, it hurts.

•    Respect other people, whatever their position in your life is, whatever their position in the world is, by doing so you’ll learn to respect yourself.

•    Everybody has something of value to share.

•    If you think you are above everyone else, you must be living in a very boring space!

•    Insecure people are the ones acting overconfident and condescending.

•    It’s really hard when love two people who don't like each other.

•    Laughter is the best medicine.

•    Those that are good sports in life are great people to be around!



•    Sometimes when you put your foot in your mouth, all you can do is add some spices and swallow.

•    Cancer teaches you what's important in life and what‘s just bull shit.

•    Letting go of old baggage brings wonderful new things to your life.

•    It's not always about me.

•    It's usually better when you are trying to help someone to let them lead the way.

•    People deal with things in their own way.

•    People say things they don't mean, but not always on purpose.

•    A casual comment can always be twisted to mean something insulting.

•    When you do something expecting to get some kind of response from somebody else, their response is never as good as you might give to yourself!

•    Also, if you do something for yourself and it doesn't quite work out, you don't get as disappointed as when you do it to impress someone else!

•    From Meddin Studios: Sometimes when you name a business, you get a family

•   People don't become more mature just because they get older.

•   Smiles can make all the difference; I've learned that from people smiling at me!

•    Sometimes you just run out of time.

•    People that you are insecure about are the ones you want to show up or impress, but when you try to impress someone else, you never really can, and you're always disappointed.

Good News!

The good news first: all scans show no change. 

The bad news is that I am wiped out from two days of hospital visits and weeks of anxiety over the results, and I get to do it all over again in four months. Oh well, I am grateful that my cancer seems to be holding steady and not advancing past the two spots in my bones. So I will continue going up to Chapel Hill for my monthly infusion and injections and will see my oncologist every other month.

Before my regular oncologist came in, an oncology fellow came in to check me out. She was very nice and started asking me lots of the normal questions: “how are you”, “are you having any pain”, etc. After a couple of more questions I finally piped up “I’m sorry, can I stop you for a minute? Will you give me the results of my scans?”

"Oh, yes, you would want to know that right away wouldn't you." So young with so much to learn! Of course when Dr. Carey walked in, the first thing she did was give me a big thumbs up.

Other highlights: 

• They only give you an extra large size of soda mixed with contrast to drink before the CT scan instead of what seemed like a double Big Gulp size. 
• There was a farmer's market going on in the hospital lobby Wednesday so I bought some fresh, just picked figs! Yum! 
• The oncology nurse saw me reading Stig Larson's second book, The Girl Who Played With Fire and told me that Daniel Craig is set as the lead in the American movie of the first book in the trilogy. Now who will play Lisbeth Salander?
• I fell asleep as soon as I reclined the car seat and didn't wake up until just a few miles from home on the way back, leaving Doug to deal with the traffic and delays on I-40!

So now I'll take a few days to deal with the side effects of my treatment, relax from my pre-scan stress and get back to the many projects I kind of let slide this past week. Life as usual, or in my case, life as chaotic as usual!

Anticipation......

Well, it is just a couple of days away from my next set of staging scans. I know I really should post this AFTER my scans so y’all don’t have to wait for the results, but I figured if I had to endure the wait, my friends can wait along with me. I know that isn’t very nice of me, but then people with cancer don’t always have to be nice, do they?

The worst past, is somewhere inside of me I want the news to be bad. Not that I WANT the news to be bad, but the waiting for the other shoe to drop is the perpetual state I seem to be in. Eventually the news will be that the mets have grown, or spread to other organs. That is just a fact of stage IV cancer. Having them spread isn’t a definite death sentence, but it does mean a step up in treatment and the idea that the cancer is becoming more aggressive. So each time I get scanned the possibility of receiving bad news is there. Unfortunately, getting good news keeps me in a state of anxious anticipation, but then at this stage, getting not so good news also keeps me in this state of unknowing. Cancer really sucks! I know that there are some people who seem to be pretty good about just taking things one day at a time, or looking at the glass half full. In other words, each good scan is the expected result, not that bad news is inevitable. I’m not one of them….

Actually, I’ve not been as bad as I usually am pre scans. I guess the Zanex helps, as well as being totally preoccupied with preparing for the upcoming, first ever, Meddin Family reunion, thanks to a generous offer by Meddin Studios, the group who bought my maternal grandfather and his brothers’ old meat packing plant. Keeping the Meddin name for their business and including the flavor of the old plant, they wanted to know more about my grandfather and his brothers, and the Meddin family. Except for my first cousins, and a few other cousins who still live in and around Savannah, I haven’t seen many of these family members for 40 years or more. Also included are some branches of the family that were recently discovered by two cousins who have been doing genealogical research. So seeing old family and meeting new has been the better part of my anticipation this summer.

The other things that has made my summer less stressful was a first ever vacation with my husband. Our two children, who honestly haven’t ever been too consistent at remembering our anniversary did something unexpected, they sent us on a cruise to Alaska for our 30th anniversary! Our past trips have always been to see family or a quick weekend a short drive away. We had planned our first vacation, to the Gran Canyon, for our 25th anniversary but had to cancel the day before we left due to an illness in the family. So this trip was a much appreciated gift and the timing couldn’t have been better. A trip narrative and pictures will be forth coming when I can cull down some of our 5,262 shots! How many whale tails and eagle close ups are you really wanting to see?

So, our plans for this week are a cardiologist visit for Doug, driving up to Chapel Hill the next day for bone and CT scans, spend the night at the Carolina Inn (thanks to Priceline, at less than the internet price for the Day’s Inn!) and then my appointment with my oncologist for the results and my infusion treatment and falsodex shot. Unfortunately my scans come on my daughter’s 26th birthday. She gets to spend it pet sitting for us after work, but we’ll celebrate it with a dinner out at another time. Life has its priorities, unfortunately not always what we would choose them to be.

Happy Birthday To Me

Happy birthday to me
Happy birthday to me
Happy birthday dear me
Happy birthday to me!

Why am I singing happy birthday to myself when so many wonderful friends and family wished me happy birthday, both online and in person? Well, it’s really very simple. With all the doubts, depressions and fears I’ve had this year, if I don’t cheer for myself, then I can’t really accept and appreciate all the love and support I’ve received from everyone else. And cheering for myself has not been very easy. Like most everyone on earth, I am highly critical of myself. I never seem to feel totally confident in my decisions, am a bit insecure in social situations, and between my body being disfigured surgically and the changes age and weight gain has made, can’t say I like what I see in the mirror.

However, I need to remind myself that decisions are just choices, and choices are just different paths along the road of life. Being good in social situations doesn’t really change who am as long as I continue to strive to be true to my core values, show loving kindness to the world around me and be respectful of others. And as far as mirrors are concerned, it’s just a piece of glass. Throw a rock at it and it shatters easily into a million different pieces. Throw a rock at me, and if I don’t duck in time, it will hurt, but whatever damage it may cause can be healed with time and good medical care.

Birthdays remind me that I’m getting older, but getting to be old is a goal not a dread!  Yet, since getting old is not a guarantee (it really isn’t for anyone), I also try to celebrate each and every day. The challenge is to find the joy hidden in the drudgery of a daily routine, to feel love through the mundane conversation with a family member or friend, to find peace in the middle of a crowd, and to seek tranquility in your small backyard patio. Take a moment to watch a dog taking a cat nap on your sofa while you sit and watch the nightly news, or a cat doggedly chasing the roach trying to hide under your kitchen sink. They know to take advantage of any opportunity to rest or entertain themselves, and they don’t feel guilty about it. They have so much to teach us, and we, as a species, have so much to learn! Appreciate the little things because they can be found all around you. The big things in life happen, but infrequently and not always as you had hoped. A good cup of morning coffee or a quite conversation about plans for the upcoming weekend happen all the time and if you let them, can inspire in you a little joy, a bit of love, or other feelings you think only the big events to bring you.

Sing to yourself next time on your birthday, say out loud that you appreciated spending the day with yourself, smile at the beautiful person looking back at you in that mirror. Live as if everyday is your last, love like time will stand still and keep your dreams close to your heart.

I'm still here....

Hey all, I’m really am still alive. It seems that quitting my job to give me some more time to do stuff I want to do just gave me no more excuses to not do the things I had to do….. gees!

A quick update here. My last two scans have showed no changes in the spots in my bones and no new lesions, so once again, the news is good. Now I just have to learn not to let myself get so worked up and scared before my next scans, it really doesn’t do me much good.

Several weeks ago, my neck was really huirting. Not due to my cancer, or even the seven hour car ride home from visiting my mother in Savannah, it was from sitting down at the creek and having to constantly look from side to side as more activity than I’ve ever seen down at the creek was going on. It was truly marvelous!

I first noticed a large fish, maybe a bass, sitting in the middle of a gravel clearing she cleared from the normally muddy bottom of the creek to lay her eggs. Then, as I was feeding the smaller turtles, I saw the medium sized snapper over by a dead branch about four feet from the dock, gobbling up the cheerios I was tossing out. The gar fish were extremely active, proposing in and out of the water in circles after small schools of fish. Up and down the creek different groups (what do you call them: schools, hordes, mobs, packs?) splashed in the gater grass to spawn in orgies of as many as six or seven in a bunch. Above us an osprey was hovering over the creek watching for a catch.

All this activity caught the attention of my little Mattie, whose neck is going to be a sore as mine. If this wasn’t enough, my big snapper started gobbling up the cheerios making sucking sounds as he seemingly inhaled the cherries, only to have most float out of his mouth as he drew his head back under the water. While this was going on, several ducks made a bee-line right to me, and since they didn ‘t seem to be bothered by the three dogs sitting with me on the dock, I presume that they were the five babies we feed all last summer. Several gray ducks, siblings from a group I remember from up the creek last summer, also hung around but wouldn’t come close to the dock. As our group from last year greeted each other with the Muscovy dance, a combination of neck bobbing and head puffing accompanied by a hiss like quack. Poor Mattie was beside herself wanting to go chase them, but anticipating some duck activity, I had the gate up and a leash on her.

To make things even more exciting, one of the male duck mounted the smaller female, and as the other two egged him on, held her head down with his beak and proceeded to have his way with her. (Did you know that male ducks have cork screw penises? Look that up in your Funk & Wagnalls!)  A while later one of the males went after the other female but was discouraged when another male rushed over and let it be known she was not to be touched. He also discouraged two of the gray ducks from taking indecent liberties with his lady duck!

The next day was not quite as busy, but the ducks returned as did my large snapper and several smaller slider turtles. However, what made it exciting was an incident shortly before we headed back up the yard to the house. Early on the ducks approached full speed down the creek looking to see what I was treating them with this day. Several sliders and the big snapper were in attendance, and strange as it seems, the snapper was the one to be pushed away from the food. Although his head was larger than some of the slider turtles, he'd contort himself to try and grab at the cheerios without getting a turtle instead! In turn, the smaller turtles seemed to be out grabbed by the ducks when it came to going after the same cheerio. As all were just at the edge of the dock gorging themselves on the treats I was offering, Mattie could no longer contain herself and slid right over the side into the creek. I don’t know who was more shocked, Mattie; Doug and I; the other dogs; or the ducks and turtles! Careful not to drop my camera into the water (I was taking great photos of the ducks and turtles but missed the opportunity to get the surprised look on Mattie’s face as she realized that her feet were no longer on solid surface!), I pulled in the leash until I could grab the handle of her life jacket and pull her out. I might have waited to see if she would know to swim to the shore if the snapper wasn’t within snapping distance of my little rescue dog! I still wonder if she would have swum to shore or after the ducks! With her wet and smelly, we headed back to the house where she was given a bath and a blow dry!

The big old gator showed up on mother’s day. When one of the ducks got gotten hold of by one of the snapping turtles and I had to use a stick to get him off, I decided it was time to band the ducks. I hated to do it, but I had to scare them away. Mattie wasn’t happy about it as duck chasing, or hoping to get past me to duck chase, was her favorite past time, even after her not so graceful dive into the water! However, she has discovered that fish jump out of the water and will keep watch hoping one might accidently jump right onto the dock. She watches so intently that by the time we come back inside, she can hardly keep her eyes open.

Though the creek is my afternoon vacation spot, a bigger trip is on the horizon! My two wonderful children are sending Doug and me on a cruise to Alaska for our 30th wedding anniversary! Not only is it our first cruise, it is our first real vacation, ever! When I was a little hesitant about going this summer, my Sarah, bless her heart (and blunt honesty), said “you know mom, you might not be around to go at a later date….” So, we are heading off to Alaska mid June! Hopefully I’ll have many years to think back and remember this trip!

Please keep nagging me to write

Thanks to all of you who remind me I need to post, I’ve not been too good about it lately and I appreciated the reminders!

So I left off with splashes of paint on my walls, which unfortunately still remain. I did manage to move all my computer stuff off the desk so it can be removed, although it too is still there. I guess it hasn’t been a very productive few months…… Except that I did retire from my job, am making some efforts to take care of some physical problems not directly related to cancer and did have an electrician come in and fix the basement lights and put lights out in the new doggie yard. So, there is some progress.

Other mile stones were reached in the last few months. My son turned 28, which sounds way too grown up. Doug turned 65 which sounds way too old and we celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary, which sounds wonderful! I don’t mind being married to an old man, he’s still cute, sweet and extremely lovable! We also had 8 inches of snow down here which gave our little Mattie a very cold belly and Rosie cold feet. Trooper didn’t seem to mind one bit, but then she can still walk in 8 inches and not have to hop to get through.

This week I had another port put in as my veins were just about to give up even though they have been hiding for the last few treatments. Just to refresh, a port is a small device that is placed under the skin, usually just below the collar bone that connects to a catheter that goes into a large vein and down into the first chamber of the heart so that medications can be injected into a large reservoir of blood. The port has a rubber top that a needle can access directly through the skin. This time I was given the new and improved "power port" which can also be used for CT and MRI scans. Those need the contrast media injected at a high rate which the old ports could not handle. So Instead of the stainless steel and black rubber doorbell looking thing, this is a purple triangle about the size of a quarter with a clear rubber center. Doug thought it looked like a dog tag. Anyway, it is under the skin just below my collar bone and as soon as the incision heals, all you’ll see is a triangle bump under my skin.

Except for the falsodex injections, which have been doubled so I get an injection in both of my butt cheeks every month, I'll never have to be stuck again except to access the port. That stings a bit but it's easy to find and only needs one stick unless the nurse is blind. But even then it has 3 little bumps that can be felt to indicate exactly where to stick! They can draw blood as well as hook up the infusions. I am now a card carrying member of the Power Port club!

When I was having the port put in, I was ‘juiced up’ enough to chat pleasantly with the nurse and x-ray tech attending me. Seems the tech graduated x-ray school a year before me, but from UNC, will be married 30 years in June and was born and raised here in Jacksonville! Or else I totally imagined all that! I remember the numbing medicine stinging my neck, then some pulling around my neck and then a moment later they said I was all done. According to Doug I was in there 1 ½ hours, but it felt like all of 5. That 'happy juice' is great! I do remember the nurse coming to give me a bag of cotton balls she said she promised just before we left but I have no earthly idea what they were for and why she promised them to me….. but I did get to come home with a goody bag full of gauze pads, tape and hydro covers to protect the incision when I can finally take a shower, which should be tonight! Since the tube goes directly into my heart, the risk of infection is taken quite seriously; even I was given a mask to wear during the procedure.

Now that I need to get two injections of falsodex every month, I did convince the nurses to let me lean on a gurney in a private'ish' room rather than stand in the bathroom clinging to the sink. Each injection takes 30 seconds to a minute to push in, so it is kind of an ordeal already. I always get a kind laugh from the nurses as I limp past them after my shots and the nurse comes out shaking her stiff hands from pushing that thick liquid into my ample, but still not made to accept an extra 500 cc’s of stuff, buttocks.

Next month I will have another set of scans (bone scan, CT of chest, abdomen and pelvis), to see how things are progressing. This is always a stressful time for me as the news can be good, bad or no change. If the news is good, or no change, then I’ll have a good two months until I start to anticipate the next set of scans two months after that. Kind of a roller coaster ride, and I HATE roller-coaster rides! I tried to see a therapist here in Jacksonville to help me cope with the not so good time before my scans, but unfortunately I started with her during my ‘up’ two months and we just never clicked. She was nice enough, but when she was sincerely shocked to learn that I do not believe in heaven, well, I figured this wasn’t going to be what I needed. She wasn’t trying to push her religion on me, but I guess it never entered her mind that some people don’t believe in an afterlife, or in the concept of reward and punishment for one’s deeds after death. It was an interesting experience though, kind of an insight into how others think and believe so completely.

I don’t belittle belief in religion; I know that it can be a powerful force in someone’s life. A woman I knew, a devout Christian, foster mother who adopted two children into her family of 4 biological children, someone who worked very hard to live her beliefs, was struck by tragedy several weeks ago. Her husband was killed in a freak accident, leaving her with children aged 20 to 5 to raise on her own.  I know her faith will get her through this and gives her the comfort she needs. Another woman I knew died unexpectedly 2 weeks after giving birth to her second child, a healthy baby girl. From what I understand, her husband's faith has been helping him cope with this horrible situation. For these families and their friends, religion gives them strength, comfort and a path to follow when all they probably want to do is crawl under a rock and hide. I won’t go into the negative aspects of religion, people need to see and decide for themselves both the good and bad of organized religion. I long ago came to peace with my lack of belief and find that my concept of life and living works well for me on the most part. I hold on to the tradition of my religion because it is a link to my past, my ancestors and to my family and hopefully to future generations. I see my role while I am on this earth is to leave it a better place after I am gone. Random acts of kindness rather than devout prayer, connecting with the goodness everyone possess somewhere inside of them rather than judging them based on one rule of thumb, and trying to be the best person I can be is what have chosen to follow. Like every one, religious and non-religious, I don’t always meet my goal, but I try. I hope that when I die people will say I was a kind person and somewhere along the path we two shared I gave something to them that they needed.

Well, back to here and now. We are off to find out why Doug’s computer is rattling, pick up cat food and come home to try and finish at least one project I have planned!

Painting My Basement Office and Other Lessons in Life

We’ve lived in this house for six years and for most of that time I have wanted to paint the room we use as an office in the basement. Though it does have nice windows, the fake, dark paneling made the room somewhat unpleasing. After many starts and no finishes, I came to the acceptance that I was probably chromophobic. In all the houses I’ve tried to decorate since I’ve been married, all ended up painted in various shades of white. Don’t get me wrong, I love color and admire people with the courage to paint a room in rich bold shades. I can even imagine my rooms with accent walls, faux finishes, even dark colors with bright trim. Yet, whenever I try to choose a color, I get so overwhelmed and confused that in the end I pick the eggshell cream or vintage white. Recently, though, I had the misconception that “this time I can do it” and headed off to the hardware store. I knew I wanted beach colors. I wanted to feel like I was sitting out on the porch of a beach cottage. That should have been the clue for me: I wanted to FEEL the beach colors. However, I had yet to make that observation. Doug happened to be with me, and I tried to explain to him what I wanted as I struggled through the paint chips. I could not find what I wanted and I fought Doug at his every suggestion. All the paint chips laid out in chromatic shades just did not seem right. Luckily, I found a picture with the colors that felt right to me and Doug tried to find matching swatches. At one point he said to look for a blue with more red. This made absolutely no sense to me, blue was blue and red was red. To mix meant purple, or so, no pun intended, my black and white thinking was telling me. This is where I would normally get mad and tell him to forget the whole thing. But I wanted my beachy office space! I’m not sure when the revelation hit, but it finally dawned on me, I wasn’t looking for a color; I was looking for a feeling. Doug found several paint chips that were closest to the picture and we brought home small sample bottles of paint. Though still not the same as seeing the entire room done, the squares of color now on my wall make it a little easier for me to see which one will be right for this room and has eased my fear of picking a color, somewhat.

Picking paint color wasn’t the only problem. For years I would see things, do things, write things or make observations that made perfect sense to me, but not to anyone else it seemed. There was the time I wrote a ‘cheer’ song for my youth group to the tune of a popular song, or the banner I designed for a rally. They were perfect expressions of what I wanted to say or show, yet no one else thought they were “right.” At the time I thought it was that they didn’t like me, as it seemed that every suggestion I would make would be met with much opposition. I can’t say it did much for my ego. One of my freshman college roommates would always make comments about how I choose to dress and I decided she was just a fashion snob. Then there was the time I insisted that a particular celebrity could be the identical twin to a relative of mine and no one else saw the resemblance. My husband and I would go out shopping and I’d pick out the perfect accessory to match some furnishing we owned and he’d say it doesn’t match at all. Knowing that sometimes it isn’t worth the hassle of arguing with me, he’d let me bring it home and wasn’t even obnoxious about it when the color was so way off I really wondered what I was thinking. Left me kind of wondering what was ‘real’ and what wasn’t.

Then there is my face recognition issue. I just figured I wasn’t good with faces. I could see my doctor’s receptionist a hundred times, yet wouldn’t know her if we bumped into each other in the grocery store. But that was common, wasn’t it? I also had a hard time remembering what people looked like. I have a heck of a problem trying to keep characters straight in movies unless they had some outstanding physical difference. A movie about the 50’s and early 60’s when all men had short, slicked back hair and black rimmed glasses were especially difficult for me. And forget remembering who our server was at a restaurant. As with my celebrity look alike assumption, I guess faces didn’t register in the correct way for me. This just added to the distrust of my own observations. Sure didn’t help me feel confident to make decisions based on these observations.

When our recent paint picking episode showed me that I observe feelings and not what is actually represented, I think I finally figured it out. I ‘see’ and ‘hear’ the feelings that are provoked in me, or that I try to provoke in others. Since how anyone feels differs from one individual to another, a color choice, a face, or words in a song can illicit different “truths” to each individual. So I may not be wrong, as my “truth” is just a valid as anyone else’s, but it does make it more complicated! When people look alike to me, it is the similarity I see, not in facial features, but in their emotions, confidence, and their sense of self. I don’t see the blue dress with the Peter Pan collar someone is wearing; I see the flowing skirt, the graceful stance of the wearer and the pleasing color. I will see the casual self confidence of a button down shirt, not the expense of its Italian origin or the mass production of a Wal-Mart brand.

People decorate and paint their rooms every day, but for me, it became a wonderful lesson and helped ease 53 years of never knowing if it was me, or everyone else, off kilter!