The Details

What a journey of emotions I walked today. As I woke up this morning I had a song in my heart. Fully knowing I was not alone. As I got Danny up to get ready for school, my sweet boy was ready to puke. The love my boy has for me melts my heart. I am sorry he had to go threw the fear and knowing he couldn't touch me after I consumed the radiation affected him deeply. I allowed him to stay home from school. Off to catch the ferry I went alone (by choice). After I boarded the ferry I started surfing Facebook where I learned the horrible news that my hospital roomie who finally went home yesterday,  since our surgeries on September 19th, passed away in her sleep. She give it such a mighty fight!! She was such a strong strong lady! I lost count to how many surgeries she ended up having but 16 is in my head. I don't understand why, we had the same surgeon and the same fight. Cancer is such a nasty beast!! As I rode the ferry I cried for my friend. Then I had a new sense of I gotta kick this cancer in the face for both Lyn & I!! I laid in the scan with my Pandora Laura Story music for 49 minutes.....as the scan moved downward they had the monitor facing down at me...the images were blank...nothing was lighting up. My song Blessings filled the room at top volume and I was filled with Peace. Of course the tech's couldn't give me the results but by then we had swapped stories of our jobs. I had the same tech as I did yesterday who witnessed me hugging a patient in the hall. She thought I worked there...lol Sometimes reading between the lines gets one a smile with knowing information. I next went to my doctors office and asked for the results. Yes I was that patient without the appointment,  but I wanted to know if I could eat. I was nice about it and friendly but the clerk was a grouchy pants with an gray cloud attitude.  I told her I would wait, her response we'll the nurses go to lunch in 45 min you may have to wait tell 1:00 when they get back. I said no prob I will wait. Then she proceeded to make snide nasty comments about me as I sat there. So not OK! I held my tongue but not my finger as I email back and forth with my MD so I figured I would email him as I sat there listening to Debbie Downer....not 5 minutes later his MA came out and got me and my MD was waiting for me with my results. Such a giant reminder for all my medical friends and that we don't know the whole picture of any of our patients days and to watch our attitudes and tongues. And not to sit at our desks and complain about things our patients so don't take for granted. (Off my soap box now) My doctors words are still a shock to me......there wasn't any radiation uptake anywhere.  My lungs are clear, my neck is clear of thyroid cancer. This summer I will have a CT scan to check my lungs and make sure whatever it is in there doesn't grow. On Sunday as I stood in church singing at the top of my lungs I had this pain in my lung that I can only describe as a feeling of something climbing out of my chest, directly followed by a complete feeling of peace. I honestly expected there to be some uptake in my neck and fully intended to not treat if my lungs were clear. In the simple words of my son tonight....."Mom, you are very blessed!" Feeling very blessed and even taking tomorrow off from work to just embrace life!! ♥

Crying over Food

Did I really just cry over food? Man who am I? I have been mostly living on oatmeal, granola, fruit & coconut milk. Safe to say I'd be surprised if I am even consuming 600 calories a day. Tonight I came home cut up some veggies to go with my special Indian rice and went to grab the sodium free turkey to add to my concoction and the turkey was MIA. So I call Ken at work and he & Mary ate it....I totally busted out in tears. How wrong of me to get so emotional over food. I was so let down because I was excited to just have food. Needless to say I had already cut up mushrooms & celery.  So I took 4 egg whites cooked them up. Took 1/2 stick of unsalted butter melted it in the wok, added veggies, NON-iodized salt, pepper, rice and cut up egg whites....fried it up. Funny is it turned out so yummy I ate 2 bowls. Then I felt foolish for crying over missing food. Trying to look for positive.....so I will focus on the fact I am now more then half way...I am down 8 pounds in a week and my new pants are falling off and so is my wedding ring. I grabbed my daughter's winter coat out of the closet this morning and zipping up a size small toasty warm coat did make me grin. I am finding it harder to stay focused and put my headsets on my ears at work to keep me from getting distracted.  But SQUIRREL's sure like to jump at me. ;)

Snappy pants

I have spent my weekend sleeping a whole lot. Sleeping in AND naps. Tried to shop after going to the Vet and I was done 20 minutes into it. I just wanted to go home. I did make it to second service at church but didn't have the strength to stand and sing. Funny how much strength we really do get from the food we eat. I am not even half way thru my special radiation diet and I have been forced to face that I really do have a disease. Up until now I haven't really thought about what does cancer look like. Sure we all see people who have lost their hair as they under go treatment, but there's not always a solid image that screams cancer. Cancer can be silent with no image to display.  Which in some ways really makes it easy to live in denial.  My favorite place to live for sure....because when living there it's like living at Disneyland. My brain is not operating fully and at times it takes me a second. Maybe it's safe to say my brain has turned into oatmeal....because I sure have been living on oatmeal.  12 days until my scan....hmmmm kinda like the 12 days of Christmas. Let's see on the 12th day of prep my true love gave to me a bowl of oatmeal. On the 11th day of prep my true love gave to me a poached egg white. On the 10th day of prep my true love gave to me a bowl of oatmeal. On the 9th day of prep my true love gave to me an avocado with no salt tortilla chips. On the 8th day of prep my true love gave to me a bowl of oatmeal.  On the 7th day of prep my true love gave to me 5oz of chicken, no salt of course. On the 6th day of prep my true love gave to me a bowl of oatmeal.  On the 5th day of prep my true love gave to me homemade granola.  On the 4th day of prep my true love gave to me a bowl of oatmeal.  On the 3rd day of prep my true love gave to me special rice & turkey. On the 2nd day of prep my true love gave to me a bowl of oatmeal.  On the last day of prep my true love gave to me one last freakin bowl of oatmeal. It's safe to say life is rather interesting right now as I try and cook for the family and for me. They are being so good about trying to help and not complain.  I am trying not to be grouchy pants but I love food and being told I can't makes me grouchy. So if I get snappy at you, please don't take anything I say right now too personal.  ♥