1. I chastise myself for not commenting enough on other people’s blogs.  I don’t read as many as I used to since some have left the bloggy world, but the ones I read I heart dearly.

2. Right now, my body is warm but my toes are like icicles. And speaking of toes, wtf? My second toenail on the right foot has spontaneously turned black. ewwww

3. I dispise William Shatner.

4. Dude, my ceiling fans are fricking dusty (I just glanced upward as I tried to think of another randomosity)!

5. I will begin decorating for Christmas tomorrow.  Or maybe later today.

6. I was extremely randy yesterday….. and lately that’s been a difficult thing to be.  Ironically, it was our anniversary and very well timed!

7. If I could, I would LOVE some M&Ms right now.

8. My broken heart has been hurting again lately, I guess it’s the season for that.

9. My clothes dryer just dinged.

10.On Thanksgiving, my aunts mashed potatoes sucked.  That was disappointing.

I don’t know if I really have all that much to say, other than I’m Tired.  I’m physically tired and emotionally spent lately.  I just want this ordeal all to end.  It’s been way longer than I had envisioned going in to treatment.  And I just don’t feel like I have the energy anymore.  The energy for what you ask?  I don’t even know anymore.  I don’t have the energy to cook, clean, get dressed.  Physically I’m having difficulty doing those things and more.  I can’t go out alone for a walk without being nervous.  I’m just really fed up.  

So tired.

So my online pharmacy is a Butt Hole who messed up my antidepressant order.  Now with all tenacity of the Energizer Bunny, I’ve been trying my damndest to be happy and peppy and bursting with love; but it’s getting harder and harder as the days wear on without them.  It’s now been two weeks since my last pill, and I actually woke up crying this morning.  How lame is THAT?  Not even a clear coherent thought yet, still had eye goop in the corners of my lids and I was weepy.  That’s enough to put a damper on an already damp (both literally and figuratively) day.

If I see a small child or baby, I cry.  If I think of my unknown future, I cry.  If I think about the fact that I was SUPPOSED to have ONLY 8 treatments total and today I did my 14^th and there really is no end in sight to hone in on, I cry!  Just please, don’t look at me with your funny eye * that lilts in the other direction, cause then you know what I’m going to do for Pete’s Sake!!! 

I leave you, my friends, with the lyrics to an oldie but a goody, as I go check my mailbox for my Rx, one more time: 

Please Mr. Postman

“So many days you passed me by
See the tears standin’ in my eyes
You didn’t stop to make me feel better
By leavin’ me a card or a letter

(Mister Postman)
Mister Postman, look and see
(Oh yeah)
If there’s a letter in your bag for me
(Please, Please Mister Postman)
Why’s it takin’ such a long time”

*PS Thanks Flickr dude that I don’t know for a cool lazy eye shot.  If you don’t like me using this shot, please advise and I will gladly remove it!  All in fun here on my pages.

In so many ways, it’s the littlest things in life that fill my heart and soul with the wonders of love.  As I lay next to Mike on a motel bed with the sounds of Grace breathing heavily with sleep in the next bed over, knowing that just two short days ago Mike had another seizure (not a bad one at all, but they ALL scare the bejesus out of me to be honest), I’ve been rubbing his back and caressing his head to put him asleep.  I’m gazing at the laughter lines that squint out of the sides of his eyes and made me fall in love with him several years ago.  Just watching him and smiling.  Maybe I’m even getting a little teary-eyed.  Loving him in the simplest of ways.  Knowing that I can count on him and him on me, just when we always need it the most.  To quote a popular reality show (and boy is our life full of reality) “It may not be a perfect life, but it’s OUR life.”  I don’t think I’d have it any other way!

Well, OK maybe I’d want it a little less dramatic and medically inclined, and perhaps a little more financially stable, but other than that, I love our life, and I love him. 

Yes, you may all start the vomiting now. lol

Several years ago, I kept a daily Blessings journal.  You know the type, I’m sure.  You write down between one and five things that you’re grateful for each day.  It was part of the Abundant Life series that Oprah sponsored.  I’ve been thinking that I need a little more of that in my life these days.  So I’ve decided to do it as often as I think of it.  I don’t think I will publish it all daily, but perhaps several per week or maybe just once a week.  I think, however, that being more conscious of the positive things in my life will keep me just that much more balanced and upbeat.

 On that note, let’s begin.

 Wed 4-22-09

1. All my appointments were On Time!
2. Sleeping during treatment is at least a good way to waste the time away.

Thur 4-23-09

1. Great talk with Mom in the car going to the hospital about parenting.  She told me she was proud of the way I handle Grace.
2. Mom took me too see where the Iris garden is in Montclair

Fri 4-24-09

1. Good to see Grace tonight.  I missed her.

Sat 4-25-09

1. Wonderful weather!
2. A day with Family at Mike and Cathy’s
3. Surprise fun time with my Mike
4. $ from Aunt Jo

Sun 4-26-09

1. More great weather
2. Got all my laundry washed, dried AND put away.
3. Burgers, yum

Mon 4-27-09

1. Mike played hookie
2. I didn’t kill him when he started to annoy me lol
3. GREAT Summer like weather
4. An impromptu day at the beach with Frank and Mare and Matt
5. Dinner with them too – which meant I DIDN’T HAVE TO COOK!

Tue 4-28-09

1. Mike kept me company again
2. We ran errands and I got to check things off the To-Do list
3. Lunch – IN A RESTAURANT! WOOT
4. A good conversation with him about money that didn’t get nasty
5. FINALLY got to the tailor with some clothes!  A major plus.
6. That nap at 7pm rocked my world

Wed 4-29-09

1. While the summer weather was a bonus, the spring temps again feel great
2. Quiet in my world once again
3. Got to get out of the apartment for a few hours with an old friend!

Thurs 4-30-09

1. I loved seeing my family walk in the front door.
2. Dinner tasted better than it looked. lol
3. Cooler weather means snuggling under the blanket.
4. Happy for Brian and Lisa’s good news that they will have a FREE videographer for the wedding.  WEEEEEE

Fri 5-1-09

1. One day until Mom’s bday and hanging with the family!
2. Did SOME of the things I needed to do.  Better than nothing!
3. Pie turned out pretty.  Hope it tastes good too!

Sat 5-2-09

1. I actually accomplished all that  I needed/wanted to do in time to leave.
2. Found time to go to the cemetary today.
3. Enjoyed a wonderfull day with my family for  Mom’s bday.
4. That pie was the hit of the dessert table! WOOT! and yummmy!
5. Weather turned out well for the BBQ.

Sun 5-3-09

1. Slept well last night. 
2. Had a good cry.
3. Snuggled with the man.
4. Cleaned out part of the closet and felt semi-productive… even on a boring dreary day.

There are times when thoughts of you seep into my days and lonely nights and invade the quiet recesses of my mind.  There are times when you don’t know how very addictive you are to my soul.  There are times when the simple memory of your voice warms me just as if I were wrapped in the warmth of your arms.

Today is one of those days.   I wish you were next to me so that I could taste your kisses and inhale your scent.  I wish you were nuzzled into my neck and between my legs.  I wish I could reach out and touch your very manhood and feel how being next to me effects you.

Kiss me.

Touch Me.

Make Love to Me.

Ravish Me.

But whatever you do, Come Home to Me!

What is guilt? Is it sorrow? Anger turned inward? Jealousy?  Guilt as defined by Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary is “feelings of culpability, especially for imagined offenses or from a sense of inadequacy; self-reproach.” 

Like many people, I have issues with guilt.  I have always had to deal with my feelings of things seeming to be my “fault”, even if they weren’t.  When my parents would argue, they sometimes argued over me.  Even though the issue at hand was that my father was drunk and they didn’t have the best marriage, when I heard my name come into the mix, I felt that I was the cause of the argument……… When all along it was really the beer or other issues.  That’s just one main example.

These days, most of my guilt stems from being sick.  IF I hadn’t gotten sick, then perhaps we could’ve pursued our mutual dreams of having a family together.  IF I hadn’t gotten sick, Mike wouldn’t be so stressed and over worked all the time.  IF I had stayed well, and continued to work, then we ‘might’ not be in the financial disaster we are now.  IF I hadn’t gotten sick then I wouldn’t cause my parents and other family members to worry about me all the time.  IF I hadn’t gotten sick, we might be having sex right now, instead of me being too tired to do much of anything.    **sigh**

I realize that I did not technically cause the illness.  I did not wish this onto my life.  I did not will myself to be sick.  And yet, I still find myself carrying all this unnecessary guilt for so many things.  Sometimes I don’t think I’m imagining things.  Sometimes I look into Mike’s eyes and think I see contempt.  I’m not ridiculous.  It could very well be there.  However, if it is, it’s for the situation and not directed toward me.  He’s very supportive of me and whatever it is I’m going through. 

Dealing with all the bottled up guilt is a difficult burden to bear, however.  Letting go of something so deeply rooted inside us can sometimes seem almost impossible.  What seems to be the issue is that with guilt, we are holding onto the feelings rather than working through them.  It would seem that working through the feelings and trying to correct the thought processes are truly the only way around the downward spiral in which guilt leads you.  When others do wrong, whether to them or toward us, we are much more able to forgive them, than if we are the cause of the wrongdoing.  It would seem to me that we (and by we I really mean I) need to work on self-forgiveness and acceptance more often. 

Perhaps I just need a reality check.

Or a lesson in Buddhism.

Or something.

As evidenced in the “chart”….. Last week up…  This week down more… 

Stay tuned for more in the never ending roller coaster we like to call my diet.

Before I went through chemo the first time, I had never heard the term “chemo brain”.  Last time around, however, it seemed to take a little longer to set in to my repertoire of side effects.  I’m a week past my second treatment, and tonight I think it snuggled down and gave me my first unsettling hug.  I’m sitting here trying to explain chemo brain to myself, so that I can in turn explain what it is or how it affects me.  Combine a bit of Alzheimer’s with ADD; then add in the type of physical fatigue that affects your motor function and comprehension and then mix in some fog.  That might encapsulate what it is – maybe. 

I seem to be slowing down physically.  Believe you me… I’m fighting it as best I can.  I’m pushing through and doing as much as I can do.  BUT, I can feel myself slowing down.  I get side tracked easily.  I start one thing and finish a second with out going back to the first!  God, I hate that crap.  I love to read, but am reading for smaller increments of time.  Or I open a book and then just kind of stare at the words wondering what they mean.  I’ve had some important paperwork to take care of, and I’ve been putting it off. (Yes, we all know I’m a sorry case of a procrastinator!)  Today, I embarked upon that task, only to fight with the words and concepts.  I’m scared that I won’t be able to get through it all.  After quite a while, I just decided to shelve the idea for the night and do something a little more “relaxational”.  Mike gave me a digital photo frame for Christmas and I’ve been building a file of photos which I want to display.  However, some of the photos need to be titled etc. in order to create the folder.  I did one of the smaller sets of pictures.  However, when I opened another, I could see the pictures in front of me, but I couldn’t group them and name them. It was frustrating.  I just sat there and stared while all the images melded together into one flowing foggy picture.  Again, I side-lined that activity and moved on to TV.  It’s on and I can’t even get through one show completely before being bored.  Talk about frustrating!  Honestly, I’m surprised I’ve been able to get through this post.  I think I’m tricking my brain by pretending to talk to you all.  You know, as if you were actually sitting next to me and listening.  Sometimes, speaking aloud can rustle my thoughts back into some sort of muddled sensibility.

It will get worse……. Then it will get better.  This I know.  In the meantime, I will just manage to get through in the best way I know how – perseverance.  And you know what?  Just being able to get these thoughts onto paper (screen?) has been a help. It has cleared the frustration so I can move on to do something else, even if that’s sleep!  So, I suppose that creating this blog MAY be a benefit after all!

Simply stated: Another one down… A shit load to go – lol!

Total: 12.4 pounds

In other news, this is my up week physically.  Most of the side effects have subsided for now (later to return, of course).  Feeling well is a blessing, for sure.  I’ve been a little lazy the beginning portion of the week.  Not a good thing physically or emotionally.  It’s just given me time to become morose and whiney.  I spent a part of last evening with tears in my eyes, just because.  Surely we all are entitled to a bit of melancholy.  However, in my case I don’t like to indulge because I can sink low if I allow myself.  I think the other part is a bit of Winter Stir Crazy syndrome.  I’m stuck in the house and I dislike it.  I want OUT!  I want warm air and sunshine on my face.  I want nature.  The other part is that my hair finally started falling out in clumps last night.  To the naked eye, I don’t think others can notice today, but I can.  And they will very soon.  I was hoping to get through this weekend as “normal” as I have some functions to attend.  It will now steadily keep falling until it’s gone.  It’s not like I didn’t know it would happen.  Though when it does, it hits every part of my vanity and self esteem.  It shakes me.  It makes me think that others will point and whisper and feel sorry for me.  I don’t like pity.  Compassion I can handle and embrace, but Pity? UGH.  I also have to work to keep that bit of femininity alive within my soul.  You’d be so surprised at how much of our self esteem comes from our HAIR!  Honestly, I know I was able to move past it all last time, and I know this time will be no different, possibly even a bit easier.  But now, in the beginning, all of those feelings have come rushing down upon me.  Crushing my smile.  Shattering my ego.  Cracking my strong exterior shell. 

At least for today.