Real-life quotes to entertain you that I collected over the past few days:
"Hey, don't lick the table!" - Aunt Tina to Andrew at the restaurant during dinner on Thursday.
"Must be nice to be you..except for the whole brain tumor thing."- Curtis to me when he was confused on what day it was due to a day off work and I said I forget just about everyday.
Now that I'm reading these, they were probably situations that you had to be there for in order to be entertained, but I think they are still worth sharing with the universe.
I know, I know. I promise to update more and then a week goes by and still nothing. From my perspective, I don't really think many of you are affected by the fact that my posts are not consistent, but that's just me and if I am incorrect then I apologize! I am really trying. What is interesting to read about? You tell me. My health updates? Some days/weeks there isn't much new info to provide. What about life updates such as what I've been up to, what I'm accomplishing on my down time? If so, there's much more there to provide but again, my perspective is that not many people may care about that information and may only care about the health aspect, after all that's why I started this blog. I'm still trying to make my mark and figure everything out so bare with me in the meantime!
I have finished TWO weeks of radiation & chemotherapy. Two down (10 days), 4.5 (23 days) to go. As a reminder, radiation only occurs Monday-Friday and chemotherapy is taken 7 days a week. The reason radiation only occurs Monday-Friday is because didn't you know that tumors only grow during those days, between 7 a.m. and ~4:30 p.m.? They take a break on the weekends, conveniently enough the doctors and patients get breaks as well, everyone works as a team and everyone is happy :) Just Kidding. Well that's what the doctors' explain as the reason the schedule is the way it is but I still feel the need to add a disclaimer that obviously that is not the case. Not that I don't think you are intelligent human beings, but I don't know 100% of the people reading this blog. There may be people I don't know at all. Are they intelligent? Hopefully, but who knows and quite frankly I don't want my name associated with a 'fact' that tumors have the same schedule as those white collar workers downtown. Anyway. I feel pretty good. I am a little tired but I wouldn't necessarily attribute that to the treatment just yet, probably just me being lazy. Yesterday I got really hot and uncomfortable during our garage sale and ended up going in to lay down for the last couple hours of it. It's also been hot as balls these past two days, heat advisory's and everything, and if I wasn't drinking enough water that could explain the lightheaded & generally crappy-ness I felt yesterday. Did you know that I am supposed to drink 4 quarts of water a day while on my chemo? Do you know how hard that is? At least for me it's hard, and my bladder is the size of a grain of rice so those two things don't go well together. I have been doing fairly well, minus yesterday. Just going to keep trying my hardest. Oh also if I drink caffeine I need to re-drink that amount in more water. I love my coffee. I love my Red Bull. I want it all the time.
So like I said, so far so good. Not experiencing any hugely inconvenient side effects yet, now I wait to see if I will experience any hair loss which I am anticipating to be determined later this week. Thanks Sheree for sharing that YouTube link to the scarf wrapping tutorial, I need to practice just in case! There's this woman at the hospital with beautiful head scarves on and I asked her if she could help me, too. I think she will also be pointing me to YouTube. Good news is if my hair starts falling out this week and is patchy, this weekend is Lollapalooza and hippies love that head wraps/scarves shit, right? Maybe I can find a meadow somewhere and pin some flowers on it, they'll eat it up.
You might be thinking, "You're going to Lollapalooza in the middle of all of this? Is that a smart decision?" and the answer is unless my white blood cell & platelet counts are low this week, yes. The decision is fine. I take the appropriate precautions, won't be part of any crazy crowds that might put me at risk for being kicked in the skull, won't be drinking, will be staying hydrated, and know my limits if it gets too hot out. I am more than happy with sitting behind the crowd enjoying the people and music with my girl Ashley, and even going back to the hotel if I get to that point. This is a trip that has been planned for months now. I'm continuing to live my life unless the doctor requests otherwise. I mean that if my counts are low then I shouldn't be around crowds, nothing else. So until that happens, let's continue celebrating life as usual.
Celebrating life as usual while not working. I am still on short-term disability through my 33 treatments, and will return to work around what I am thinking is mid-September. Depending on how I feel of course. Could be earlier but from what I have been told the couple weeks following aren't the best and you are stuck in somewhat of a 'hangover' feeling but then come out and return to normal. With that said, people have been asking if I need anything and to let them know. If you know me, I am not not one to call out and ask for help whether it's money, food, etc. I try to figure it out on my own and only vocalize my stress to a few select people who aren't those who I am asking for help, but are those who I can talk to about life. My dad took it upon himself (after discussing with me to make sure I was comfortable) to create a Go Fund Me page for me so those who keep asking how they can help can go on and help. I do want to touch on a few things here and this is how I feel, may be too raw for you and might piss people off so if it does, I'm sorry but this is my space so here it goes: Go Fund Me has gained negative attention because of the reasons people are using it. I was about to go on and state my opinion in greater detail but after thinking it through, it's not worth it. People can do what they want, and maybe they don't agree with my choices so be it.
The point of the story is that my father made this page out of the kindness of his heart. He is doing all he can to help me out and I could not be more grateful. I guess people at his cousin's work and his work and elsewhere are asking how to help, if there was a page set up, and so if they want to help now they can. I am receiving a portion of my regular salary and trying to stay on top of everything but to not stress about whether or not this bill or that bill will be paid this month is something I am happy I don't have to think about. I didn't know I wouldn't need to stress but now, with the help of family, friends, acquaintances, coworkers and strangers, I feel much better. I was trying to figure out how to put my student loans into forbearance for a few months (only 2 out of 4 were eligible), requesting our rent doesn't increase with our new lease, and just trying to save my money, which is helping more than not but I am starting to get billed for my employee benefits that I need to pay my company directly because I'm not receiving a check from them so there' nothing to deduct those funds from. Oh and my hospital bill and prescription copay's. It's not a lot and I'm not complaining and still wouldn't have reached out, but the fact that my dad did this really meant a lot to me. He's a good man. I'll share the link below with a few other fun resources I found and want to share.
One of the last things I want to share is on August 20th, there will be a Tiger's game to benefit Head For The Cure. Ticket sales come directly back to the foundation. If you aren't sure what HFTC is, the website state "The Head for the Cure Foundation is committed to raising awareness and funds for the fight against brain cancer. Our mission is to inspire hope for the community of brain cancer patients, their families, friends, caregivers and other supporters, while celebrating their courage, spirit and energy. The National Brain Tumor Society estimates 190,000 men, women and children in the U.S. are diagnosed each year with a primary or metastasized brain tumor, equating to more than 14 per 10,000 persons." Visit the site here and read more info for yourself! Curtis and I will be attending this game, and I will be working with others to coordinate an event on FB to spread the awareness and get as much participation as we can to benefit this great organization! In the meantime, if you're interested in going to the game, you can buy tickets at the link below. For my Metro-Detroiters, this is the weekend of Dream Cruise so keep that in mind. The game is at 7:10 so you can car watch all day and baseball all night :)
Now I will return back to garage sale-ing with Curtis and Tucker. Rambo drives customers away so he's not allowed outside. I did man the sale by myself on Friday and while I was in between selling & melting, I had my own photo shoot so enjoy!
This is my miserably hot look.
Comments