On Having Chemo AND Being in "Remission"

Theoretically I am still in remission. That is what all the tests say. I have no tumour markers in my blood work nor has any cancer come up in my recent PET and CT scans. Yet, we know for a fact the cancer has returned.  How did this come to light? Let me explain.

When I was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005 it was discovered it was HIGHLY estrogen receptor positive meaning that the estrogen in my body was fueling the cancer's growth. This is not unusual and there are drugs used to remove estrogen from the body. I was put on Tamoxifen for this reason and eventually started receiving monthly Zoladex injections which turned off my ovaries completely. Theoretically that should have kept my cancer at bay.

After a few years of these monthly Zoladex injections I asked my oncologist if having my ovaries removed was not a simpler option. She agreed that since it didn't seem likely that I could ever stop taking the medication and that I was having some undesirable side-effects that might be resolved from a simple oophorectomy, going that route was a reasonable choice.

So on August 18th, 2011 I had elective surgery to yank my lady egg sacs. I woke up from the procedure feeling surprisingly good and was chatting with my mom when my surgeon arrived at my bedside. She looked like she was about to cry and told me that once she had entered my abdominal cavity she found small white cancerous deposits all over the place. Most of them were under 3 mm which would make them invisible on a scan but she had removed a couple larger ones for testing. She went on to tell me that I would likely need more chemo.

I'm not sure why but I was not particularly shocked or even that upset. Maybe it is because once you've heard a cancer diagnosis it is always in the back of your mind it will come back and you will hear it again.  Even being declared cancer-free you are never really free of the memories or thoughts of it returning. You are certainly not free of the scars and even side-effects of your treatment. Cancer never entirely leaves you after you've had it.

I remember feeling sad for the doctor that she was so upset telling me this news and I patted her arm and told her it would be okay.

She went on to tell me that while these cancerous spots were all over my peritoneum the rest of my organs, including my ovaries, looked fine. This was not entirely true as when the test results came back it turned out my ovaries were "completely" cancerous and that 1.5 cm biopsy of my bowel came back cancerous as well. One thing I knew from the start is that my type of breast cancer, lobular carcinoma, can be sneaky. It doesn't produce actual tumours but simply infiltrates the tissue, symptomless and invisible, much of the time. I've never had tumour markers in my blood tests. All my biopsies have looked perfectly fine to the human eye but have turned out to be very cancerous. Needless to say my oncologists' calming reassurances of my remission status hasn't meant a whole lot to me over the years.

This type of cancer diagnosis is called an incidental finding. If I had not had this surgery I would have never known the cancer had metastasized. So I am lucky. Not the lottery winning type of lucky but the type who finds out her previously thought cancer in remission was not so remissiony after all and gets to have chemo sooner instead of finding out once it had spread to bones, brain, etc kind of lucky!  WOo!

My oncologists were happy to take a wait-and-see approach for treatment but since I have the sneaky kind of cancer I wasn't that confident conventional testing would identify when things might be getting out of hand. I chose to act aggressively and do chemo right away. Sorta.

I decided to finish my semester at school and managed to do that while recovering from surgery, undergoing tonnes of tests and seeing lots of doctors. My attendance record wasn't pretty and my focus and concentration really sucked but with the help of some very understanding instructors I passed my fall semester with fairly decent grades.

Then I went to Vegas for a week to spend time with a good friend, had Christmas with my family and started chemo in January.

So far it is MUCH less debilitating that my previous chemo regimen. Yet, I can't say I am having a blast either.

When cancer goes rogue like mine has it is likely to be a long-term chronic condition; a disease you can live with, sometimes for many years. The hope is to keep you alive long enough for a better treatment to come along. Only about 7% of people have their metastatic cancer go into full remission. However, I've been oddly lucky so far and my cancer has been weird and rare from the start so I don't see why I can't be part of that statistic.

How Smelly Is He?

There is something wrong with the kitten. Nothing obvious. To the casual observer he is a regular kitten doing regular kitten things like attacking his tail, being bad and looking cute. However, if you are unlucky enough to be around him for any length of time you will soon come to realize that something dark is brewing in the bowels of his being. Literally. This kitten stinks. He emits such revolting odoriferous clouds of funk playing with him becomes an exercise in gag reflex control. Cleaning his litter box of his rank deposits is not so much a kindness to him but a desire to breathe in my own home.

If his smell was a book it would be War and Peace-The Director's Cut. If his stink was a biblical reference it would be the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse pulling a manure cart. If his stench was a person it would be Hitler with hemorrhoids. If his inner essence was a sandwich it would be Ebola on Rye. His farts could be classified as weapons of mass destruction. The US will be bombing my living room next. And rightly so. I should be charged an environmental fine for illegal emissions. Brain cells die upon inhalation.

He is eating well and getting very high quality food. He's been wormed twice at appropriate intervals. Clearly, I need to get him to a vet for some antibiotics. Maybe he has food allergies.

Next logical step is an exorcism by a qualified priest.

Looks sweet. Smells like a bloated corpse.

Crush Your Cat's Head Friday-You Can Lead A Cat To A Kitten But You Can't Make Her Like Him. Who Am I Kidding, You Can't Lead A Cat Anywhere.AC

Here is the kitteh update you’ve all been asking for.

How is Yoshi doing? Well…not great but not terribly awful either. She stopped eating all together a couple days ago and still occasionally (meaning pretty much every day) yaks bile which, I’ve discovered, leaves a lovely green stain on my carpet. Who said having cats was not like having kids? My berber disagrees.

So I started getting desperate and bought all sorts of yummy things Yoshi might successfully ingest with no luck. I vacillated wildly between guilt and exasperation. It was not pretty around here.

I tried to push the limits a little by keeping the cats separated all of the time except in the evenings when I allowed them to be in the same room with each other-supervised for fair play and safety. And the thing is that Yoshi, while not happy, was fairly calm and resigned to Dexter flinging his noodley kitten body all over the living room. She didn’t even blink when he chased a toy under her chair or ran close to her head. One night, when I was playing with Dexter and some toys she jumped down from her perch and crouched about two feet away to watch us, her eyes never leaving the kitten or the feather wand.

I thought I was seeing a very faint glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. Not so much because Dexter started really wanting to be with Yoshi and to approach her and play with her and if he so much as looked in her direction that is when the hissing, spitting, and growling frothed up in full vitriolic volume. Only on Yoshi’s part as Dexter is probably the most laid back kitten I’ve ever met. Nothing fazes him at all.

So as I watched Yoshi losing weight and some days getting worse instead of better I started thinking that maybe this whole kitten idea was just not meant to be and that Yoshi simply couldn’t handle a new addition. I resigned myself to returning the kitten after the long weekend and feeling very incredibly horrible about it.

Then I saw this.

And I got MAD! People introduce new cats and dogs into their house all the time with little or no problems. I saw all those cats living together in harmony and I decided I wasn’t going to let a 9lb cat with a bad attitude run my household.

But I wanted a medical assurance that pushing her further wasn’t going to jeopardize her health. So off to the vet we went today and this is what she said:

-I do not have to get rid of the kitten!

-Yoshi is an exceptionally high-strung cat.

-It is possible if a cat has not eaten for a very long time for their whole digestive system to shut-down permanently and they can die.

-Yoshi is not even close to this stage.

-Yoshi has lost almost a pound this week but she is not underweight by any stretch.

-When a cat is stressed and vomits a lot their digestive tract gets all irritated and they lose their appetite. This is probably what is going on with Yoshi.

-They took blood and urine to rule out any other issues that might be complicating things.

-Being a jerk is not an official feline medical condition.

-I have to give her an antacid pill every night.

-I have to give her a syringe of laxative twice a day.

-I have to pry her stubborn Siamese lips open and force feed her a foul smelling cat mush every couple hours. Literally poke it down her gullet. Although she makes terrible noises and spits most of it out doing this will get her tummy working again and her appetite shall return. However, she will hate my ass for some time to come.

-This unanticipated and expensive vet visit means I will not be getting a new pair of winter boots next week.

The main thing I came away from the vet with is that while Yoshi is very high strung she only is so when it suits her. She did something similar to this several years ago when I went on holiday. I returned and that night she started vomiting uncontrollably and then started barfing blood. A visit to the emergency vet and almost $2000 later it was decided that she was stressed about my absence. And we all know what happened when I brought Lulu home. Yet every time I’ve moved into a new apartment she’s adapted just fine to her new surroundings. No hiding under the bed or anything. She was fine when I was going through treatment and in the hospital a lot. She acts totally freaked when the dogs come to visit or friends and family are over but the minute they leave she is all perky and cute like she didn’t just hiss and try to bite them. So there is definitely a component of my energy that is affecting her as well so I’ve got to get rid of all the guilt and fear and concentrate on visualizing exactly what I want to see happen in my house.

MY house.

Fight the feline power!

First co-mingling of death ray kitties- lasers on standby. Yoshi rasps, "Dexter, I am not your mother" *gaspgasp*

Second meeting-Yoshi is more relaxed. Dexter is trying to eat the kitty crate/cat jail/feline transport unit.

Third meeting. Dexter bogarts the kitteh drinking fountain. Yoshi is not amused. Barfs on my bed later to prove that bad manners go both ways.

One Of Those 'Life' Posts Filled With Questions That Have No Answers And Lots Of ' Marks

Do you ever find yourself in the same difficult and perplexing situations over and over again? You start to wonder if the universe is trying to teach you something or it is some heinous personal defect since the only constant element in all these situations is you.

Or in this case, me.

My particular situation is that am finding it increasingly difficult to be in the company of people.

I have a couple things going against me. First of all I have terrible social anxiety complicated by some pretty weird phobias. Any social situation is pretty agonizing on most levels. Secondly I am very sensitive to the emotions of others and so called ‘vibes’. Just very aware of the undercurrents of most interactions. Some therapists think this is why I have such bad anxiety. It is like I am lacking some sort of protective life filter.

That is another consideration as well. I’ve had a lot of therapy. A LOT. Some really bad but mostly good. I’ve learned a great deal about myself and the various limits and problems I deal with daily and as a result I am also able to recognize various psychological ‘issues’ (pronounced ithews) in others.

Let me give you an example. I have some family members who bicker a lot at family gatherings. You know, insults with smiling faces. They would also talk poorly about other family members behind their backs. When I first started seeing these people socially I would become seriously depressed for a day or two afterwards. On a couple occasions I was even teary. It got to the point where I would decline invitations to be social with them. With a couple therapy sessions I came to realize that bickering is the way some families show affection. Certainly not how I am comfortable with showing affection but each to their own, right? And I also learned that I could very subtly and politely show that I was not accepting of the negative talk about other family members. It totally worked and I am now able to be social with these people again.

The fact is that I was not raised to be assertive at all. I was raised to be ‘good’ and we all know that being ‘good’ often means being a doormat. For years I have not stood up for myself when being treated poorly and have swallowed all the emotions that go along with that. No wonder I have depression and anxiety, right? It is only in the last few years that I have stood up for myself and become pretty open about how I am feeling and, especially, how I want to be treated. As when anybody learns a new skill it is not always performed perfectly but overall I am happy with these changes. I’ve learned that not only am I a pretty quirky outspoken person with people I know and trust but in fact a leader in many respects opposed to the follower I always thought I was.

But here is the thing; I still am not sure how to deal with people who hold back from me. I’ve had a few friends/family members/acquaintances who I could sense were annoyed, displeased, or outright angry with me and for whatever reason couldn’t tell me so. I trust my gut that I am right about this and can probably guess what I had said or done to make them feel this way. Usually it is that I have an opinion that differs from theirs or have done something that they disagree with. And fair enough. I am happy to say that I am ok with all this and am totally happy to be disagreed with. I can safely be sure that I’ve not done or said anything out of malice or anger. Or it might simply be a misunderstanding. But they won’t tell me. They just start treating me differently. Sometimes it is just a feeling and sometimes it is outright passive aggressive behavior. In any case I just don’t know how to talk to somebody who cannot tell me what is wrong. And I hate being afraid to be myself and have my opinions and own ideas when I think they clearly are uncomfortable with that.

A few years back I had a very good friend who I met at work. We totally hit it off and became very close very quickly. We had a blast hanging out and were very similar in many ways. I totally trusted her and really felt like she had my back. After a couple years she seemed to be having some problems at work. I tried very hard to be supportive but found it very hard to know how to do that. So I just tried to listen and agree with her feelings. A few months went by and her behavior towards me started to change. I’d ask her if everything was ok and she’d say it was just work. But I knew it wasn’t. Unfortunately she decided to bring up everything that had been bothering her about me while we were on vacation together. Stuff that had happened over a year or two in the past and unto itself not a big deal but over time it had festered within her until it became so overwhelming she damned near lost her freaking mind. Her behavior scared me and after she brought up personal stuff I’d trusted her with and thought she accepted me for (mostly about the limits of my anxiety disorder) and then threw it in my face I knew I couldn’t save the friendship and I’ve never spoken to her since.

I hate that it got so out of hand. I really missed her but ironically not as much as I thought I would as I didn’t realize until I was out of the friendship how much I had to tippy-toe around her ‘stuff’. It was somewhat a relief in many ways to have her out of my life.

So what do you do when you just wish your friends/family/aquaintances would come out and say what they are feeling? How do you deal when you feel like you can’t be straight with them or else they will disengage or ‘punish’ you in some way?

Is this a common situation with friends and acquaintances or am I just some crazy lady? Is being up-front, honest with how I am feeling, and willing to talk about how we can agree to disagree maybe not a good thing?

Being with people is hard.

A Long Post As Life Is Never Concise

Well, I’ve been leaving cryptic Twitter messages over the last few days as I’ve been going through a minor (and often not so minor) emotional rollercoaster. Here’s what has been going on.

In a nutshell I tried to adopt a kitten. And in another nutshell (I hope you’re not allergic) it got weird. The end result was that somebody else adopted this kitten and I am very sad about it.

I’ve wanted another kitten for years and for one reason or another I’ve not acted on that urge. Not for lack of obsessive internet searching on Petfinder and all the local animal rescue shelters, mind you. First of all, when Yoshi was young, I knew I was going to be moving and while it is easy enough to find accommodation that accepts a cat it can be a bit harder to find a landlord ok with two cats. When I did find cat friendly living space it was so small and entirely without doors so I just couldn’t see how I would successfully introduce a new cat into the situation. Well, I lived there for almost 8 years. Then I got cancer and dealt with the possibility that I might not be around to successfully see Yoshi to the end of her life like I expected to which was, seriously, my greatest worry throughout my treatment. Then I got better and, as many of you remember, I moved to my new apartment and attempted the Great Dog Adoption Experiment with very poor results. So I put the whole thing on hold. Yet, in the meantime I still obsessively lurked on adoption sites…

Fueled by stories of people successfully adding a new cat to their home, an enlightening dog sitting long weekend where Yoshi showed me that she could possibly handle a new addition to the family (anything would be better than 2 freakin’ dogs, right?) and the fact that I simply fell in love with this little tiny face I saw on the screen motivated me into applying to adopt a little boy kitty I saw on a cat fostering blog.

There are many MANY more pros and cons to adding a new ruler to this dynasty but that is a post (or twelve) for another day.

Now I am going to be kinda vague here as this particular blog with the cats is very popular and the content of my post is really only about my side of the situation. I can assure you all that the foster people are exceptionally great to their furry little wards and do a wonderful job. In fact that is partially why I really wanted to adopt one of their foster kitties as I knew they were loved and well taken care of in their first kitty days. These people are good people to the kitties.

So I saw this little kitten and fell in love with his eyes. He reminded me so much of Yoshi when she was tiny. All kittens are super cute but, honestly, for me, only a few tweak that aching in my tummy. I call it my ‘caternal’ instinct. I was smitten with this kitten.

The site said that if one lived in the area and was interested in adopting a kitten featured on the blog to email them. I did that knowing that I didn’t really live in the area (I lived about 3 hours drive away across the border) but hoping that my suitability and willingness to drive down for however many interviews, security checks and cavity searches were necessary to complete the deal might allow for flexibility on their end. Alas I got a reply saying that, indeed, they did not adopt out of the area. I accepted that and returned to my busy week walking dogs and doing fiddly tax reports for my business.

A couple days later things settled down, the pooches went home and I started thinking about this particular limitation and how when I was inquiring about adopting dogs as well as researching what was necessary to foster kittens myself that the typical rescue shelter mandate was finding good homes for pets and if the applicant met the criteria and was willing to deal with distance and travel issues it was not at all a problem to adopt across large distances and to neighbouring countries. Also I remembered reading on the Cat Fostering Blog that they have flown kittens to other states so…WTF?

Out of curiosity I checked out the website of the rescue organization these folks fostered from and couldn’t find such a rule. Now feeling a little odd about this discrepancy I called the shelter and asked if they adopted to folks in my situation/location and they said they did.

Now I got more than a little weirded out. I was very puzzled. Why would these people, on the basis of a couple sentences I emailed to them asking about a kitten, decide to go against shelter policy and deny me the opportunity to submit an application based on a non-existent rule?

You see the whole spirit of fostering is that you take care of an animal who might need extra care, medical attention, socializing etc. that a busy rescue shelter might be too busy/over capacity to provide in hopes that the animal could be eventually adopted opposed to euthanized. You do not own the animals you foster nor do you normally have much say or the final word on who adopts the animal you are fostering. That is the responsibility of the shelter that has its own adoption screening process. The adoption fee is paid to the shelter only. That is not to say that a foster caregiver doesn’t fall in love with their foster pets and want only the best for them and even encourage potential adopters to fill out applications but the final decision is from the shelter. So if they are not happy with the type of homes the shelter is finding for the animals then they shouldn’t foster from that shelter. Alternately if fostering doesn’t give them the control they desire over who with and where their foster pets end up then they should start their own small in-home animal rescue situation and then pick and choose where the pets go based on their own criteria.

So I emailed the foster blog folks again explaining that I had inquired to their shelter and was told there were no reasons why I couldn’t apply to adopt this particular cat. I asked why their policies differed from the place they fostered from. The reply I got made me furious. Suddenly the reason changed. Basically it was stated that for them it wasn’t the distance that was the issue after all but the border crossing that might cause delays/detention and since they cared deeply for their kittens they didn’t want to potentially subject one to that.

::Mrtl Style Tangent:: I’ve researched bringing a pet cat over the border and it is seriously no problem. Any cat over 3 months of age simply needs a current rabies vaccination (And proof thereof. IE: the receipt) and that is it! Younger kittens don’t need anything. Canada doesn’t quarantine pet animals at all. I wouldn’t even have to get out of my car crossing the border. Soooo not any kind of potential negative situation. If there was any risk that the cat would be taken away from me at the border for ANY reason I would never ever think of risking that. Jeeeez. ::End of Mrtl Style Tangent::

It was then said in their email that, differing policy aside, they thought they had possibly found a home for the cat anyway and they were sorry they couldn’t help me. Yes, a home for a cat I wanted to apply to adopt SEVERAL DAYS prior.

So in short I was told I couldn’t apply to adopt a kitten due to a rule that didn’t exist by people who normally have little to no final say over who gets to adopt said kitten or make rules in the first place and then was told upon further questioning that it wasn’t actually the first stated rule that was keeping me from applying to adopt the kitten but now a fear of ‘potential’ issues that are, in fact, total non-issues (easily discovered by anyone with internet access and Google) (and really only the concern of the shelter anyway) that imply a lack of care and concern by me for the kitten. This situation caused me to miss my legitimate and time sensitive opportunity to apply to adopt.

Um…OK! Not so short, huh?

I know I might not have been accepted to adopt this kitten by the humane society but I should have been offered the opportunity to apply.

I was terribly upset, angry and insulted. And sad, really sad. Hence the emotional rollercoaster mentioned above.

So I called the shelter again and explained everything that had gone on wondering if somehow I had missed something or if there was some sort of unique arrangement with these foster people that gave them special authority. The regular fostering co-ordinator was not in but the woman I talked to encouraged me to call the acting co-ordinator today and report what had happened.

I just got off the phone with her and she apologized which was very kind and much appreciated. While I won’t get into any details of our conversation I can say I feel much better about the situation and I felt very heard and understood by her.

And if you love happy endings then I’ll give you one. There apparently is a leeetle eeeensy teensy kitten that is similar to the one that got away. He/she is too young to be adopted yet but I get first dibs when that time comes. I’m just waiting to receive the call to drive down and take a look.

So YAY!

And whew! I need a nap.

The Silence of the Hamstrings

I’ve never been one for video games nor do I salivate over the latest technology. I can’t say I’m afraid of it but have more of a certain distrust of The Hype and a desire to keep life pretty simple. I also don’t have a lot of disposable income. So the other day I noticed Dooce was giving away some Wii Fit sets and I immediately started to covet. Sadly being a Canadian resident I am not eligible for the contest. However, I suddenly decided that I desperately neeeeeed one of these things. Admittedly I’ve never tried one. I’ve never actually seen one in the shiny and plastic-y flesh. But for some reason I am absolutely convinced that this, THIS contraption is the key to my physical fitness reform.

I have a long and sordid affair with exercise that has left me wary as well as emotionally and physically beaten. It all started when I was born. I don’t have any other reason why I was never really adventurous physically or competitive on any level other than it has got to be missing from my DNA. Kids in the playground would run around screaming their fool heads off swinging on monkey bars and flinging their bodies in all sorts of dangerous ways and I was the one sitting off to the side with a book. As a child I was cautious and always afraid to get hurt. Perhaps it was that I was very small and not very strong. Or maybe it was that I was a city kid who wasn’t exposed to the great outdoors a lot. In any case I was, from an early age, an obvious target for ridicule and torment by ‘regular’ kids.

When I was 10 years old we moved from the city centre into a suburb and the new school had a very different type of Phys Ed curriculum. Specifically it was much more competitive, team based and not at all user friendly for geeky little wimps like me. Very soon I found myself caught up in a nightmare of bullying-verbal, physical and even, frankly, sexual from my classmates. It certainly didn’t help that my PE teacher laughed at my expense frequently and quickly nicknamed me ‘Useless’ in front of my peers. It got so bad that my younger brother soon was identified by this teacher as ‘Useless’s Brother’ and eventually transferred into a completely different school as following in the footsteps of my academic reputation was too unbearable to contemplate.

Some highlights of my PE classes were team captains arguing over who would NOT get to have me on their team. I also was kicked in the face causing my front tooth to crack and called a wuss when I asked to go to the school nurse. Good times. I could go on an on but I fear, should I do so, I may eventually find myself in the corner of my closet weeping and viciously stabbing my lone dusty pair of running shoes.

Later I was diagnosed with asthma which explained why my stamina wasn’t so hot but it didn’t take long before I was dreading PE to the point of other physical symptoms. Once at the doctor office I begged to be excused from PE class due to some small ailment. The doc sensed my desperation and asked me some pointed questions. I explained everything with tears rolling down my face and he wrote me a note excusing me from PE for the rest of my school life. And then the angels sang and the weight of the entire 6^th grade co-ed second period PE class was lifted from my shoulders. Literally.

A year or so went by and I joined a friendly neighbourhood girls softball team with much encouragement from my friends (AKA: peer pressure) and assurances (from my deluded parents) that it was all about having fun and it is not whether you win or lose but…say it now, people…how you play the game. I hated it and I totally sucked at it but I tried to be a good sport and did my very best, which was, obviously, not very good at all. Then one day I overheard the coaches talking about how they thought our team was ahead enough to put me on the field. I was so crushed and embarrassed and learned that for most obsessively competitive folk sportsmanship was a load of bullshit and even pot-bellied middle-aged coaches of girls softball teams only cared about winning.

So now I am an adult and as much I know that all that happened in the past is over and the bullies were a bunch of ass-wipes who are now probably meth addicts or in jail I STILL dread any kind of sports or exercise. I dread it, dread it, DREEEEEEAAAD EEEEET! I become paralyzed and absolutely refuse to participate in any kind of organized sports and fall into a shame spiral at the thought of working out.

I’ve tried all sorts of fitness regiments and I either hate it, can’t afford it, or I hurt myself. Damaged rotator cuffs and shin splints. I think I even broke my axel once. Pinched nerves and pulled muscles. $25 individual yoga classes which make you sweat. Crowded and smelly gyms where it is more about getting picked-up than getting fit. Driving in traffic and costly parking fees for specialty fitness centres catering to us gals who are chunky and just really want to be left alone when we copiously sweat while doing puny exercises with eeensy teensy weights. All of it = FAIL!

I get discouraged easily and bored almost immediately. And being prone to panic attacks in crowded and noisy places doesn’t help. But I have to GET OFF MY ASS! Some way, somehow. I’m putting on weight, I have arthritis in my foot and my right upper body is so stiff and sore from all my breast re-construction surgery even getting started on anything is daunting. I can’t even say I am out of shape as that would imply I once was fit. It feels like a lose/lose situation and I am not talking about the saddlebags below my hips.

But what? WHAT? What is out there for me that isn’t too hard, too expensive or too humiliating in some way?

And that is where the Wii Fit comes in. Yes, it is more than I can afford but it is certainly cheaper than a year’s gym membership. Bowling, boxing, tennis and yoga…interactive style! All sorts of fun stuff that I couldn’t and wouldn’t normally do right at my fingertips along with goals to set and achieve. My own little white cubic fitness instructor! It sounds like it just might work. Is this Wii Fit thing the way to go for a fitness-phobe like me?

The Scoop, The Poop, The Skinny

*big sigh*

You have no idea how many times I've said to myself that I HAVE to update my blog and then get totally distracted and, well, don't.

So sorry.

Here is what is happening with me lately.

I am EXTREMELY busy.

Specifically I have, with very little notice, committed to participating in a craft fair. In theory this is a great thing. In practice it means I've been up to 2-2:30 am every night madly sewing stuff to sell. I've got lavender owls (Nighty Night Owls), little zippered pouches, fabric magnets and fabric grocery bags.

I seriously lost my mind and bought a total shit load of incredibly beautiful designer fabric (like several hundred dollars worth [I am a total fabric whore at the best of times but I went overboard with this]) planning to make billions of these bags. Well, it takes about 2 hours for each bag so I am totally running out of time before I am running out of fabric. I know I can sell stuff at the Christmas craft fairs but I really want to do well this weekend so I don't feel bad for buying so much.

You know, that evil mix of guilt and high expectations and stress? I call it 'Oh My God What Have I Done!?!' - That would be me.

Did I mention that somehow I got roped into the committee that is arranging this craft fair (actually they are calling it a Art Market but it takes everything I've got not to call it a Fart Market to their faces) (you know-because it rhymes) (and because I am a 10 year old boy deep inside) so I've got that on my mind as well.

And Oh YES! I've started a little job while not time consuming is also very much on my mind. And then all the work I am doing for UrbanBeast.ca is taking up some serious time.

So the poor blog is really being ignored. So is Yoshi who punished me by pooping on my bathmat the other day. The first time she has ever done anything like that in her 10 years on this planet. The same 10 years that nearly ended when I saw the poop. But it did work as I very quickly stopped ignoring her. Very loudly too.

Anyway, so that is my life right now. Please forgive my lack of updates.

Also anybody want to buy a fabric grocery bag or 6?

I'm Totally Seriously...

Guess what? Another migraine looms on my horizon so I am off to bed with more Tylenol 3s. However, I shall return tomorrow (or I guess today but later on, right?). In the meantime check this out. My cross-stitch was featured on this site.

The Curse Continues

It has been a less than fun week for me. I got sick. Quite sick. In fact 2008 will forever be remembered as The Year I Puked On My Birthday And I Wasn’t Even Drunk. And if you don’t know me then you cannot fully understand how traumatic this was on a couple levels.

First of all I suffer from this pretty severely. And as such I will not get into my particular lurgie with any great details. Secondly it was my 39^th birthday. The LAST YEAR I will be in my 30s. A dinner party was planned and had to be cancelled. In fact my whole birthday weekend was a complete blur of ick and grossness.

I woke up Saturday (March 1-my birfday) quite early with terrible cramps. Whole torso cramps opposed to your typical gurgley tummy type situation. Only now that I am feeling better do I understand how sick I really was as I simply laid in bed, labour breathing through each spasm, idly thinking, “Hmmmmm…I wonder why my stomach feels so bad.” Opposed to say, calling 911 or getting my ass to my doctor.

I eventually called my folks to let them know that I was likely not going to make it to dinner citing ‘gas pains or something.’

I then took some Tylenol 3s and dozed for awhile.

Other than the cramps I felt fine.

Then I got out of bed and walked around a little.

Big mistake.

Gravity was the final incentive my gut needed and I experienced the worst Thunder From Down Under in my life. Thinking it was a good idea to drink a little to keep hydrated it was then I was joined by a disgusting rally from the northern regions.

The next few days were unpleasant to say the least.

As such I was unable to attend the Apartment Blessing and remain cursed. I wonder if my stomach flu was a clever ‘spirit ploy’ to keep me from the ceremony thereby reducing the youthful (borderline) energy I would have contributed to banishing the bad vibes or simply a pesky Norwalk virus compliments of the old people in my building. Either way, well played intestinal horrors, well played.

Crush Your Cat's Head Friday-Evoking Mange

Normally, my evenings are spent at home, in comfy clothes, working at my computer, harassing the cat or watching sleazy TV. Well, if you know me you'll be very surprised to hear that I spent my Friday evening at a friend's book launch party. Now this is not just any ordinary friend but the fabulous lady who is helping me with my anxiety disorder.

Over the years I've seen over half a dozen different therapist type folks and although they have tried to help I cannot help but remember the puzzlement in their eyes while I described my issues and symptoms. I found Anna through the internet on a site she mediates and even though the site was based in the UK she lives in my city. I emailed her and she agreed to take me on.

I can say with complete certainty that this awesome chick gets me. Really truly gets where I am coming from. I honestly believe that she gets me like NOBODY else on this planet does. If she were a guy I'd stalk her like my boyfriend, Henry Rollins. Instead I blurt out inane things and she laughs and nods her head because somehow, someway, it makes sense to her.

I cannot explain how much this means to me.

Actually I can. Tonight I crawled off the couch and shed my manky Pjs and not only showered AND shaved my legs but I actually put on a skirt. It has been a couple years since I've worn girl clothes. AND I wriggled into a pair of tights. Now that, my friends, is HUGE. I despise pantyhose type items with a passion. It has easily been over 5 years since I've worn tights. Maybe even longer. AND, this is epic, people, I put on make up AS WELL.

Not even when I saw my boyfriend, Henry Rollins, in concert last week did I put on tights and a skirt. But I did it for Anna because she is so cool.

I so rarely go out where there might be people which may require me to engage in social chit chat. I feel completely inept and paralyzed and sick and trapped. It's that anxiety thing I was talking to you about. But I knew Anna would understand if I lost my shit and started clucking like a chicken in the middle of her party so I sucked it up and got off the couch. The whole night I wore one of those deer in headlights sort of gazes and at one point a guy approached me and asked me if I was ok and told me that I looked lonely.

Lord.

Anyway, Anna has written a book and if you are at all interested in creating positive change in your life this may be what you need to read. She has helped me immensely and has been very supportive of my goals. She went with me to the hospital to calm me the hell down with my last surgery and visited me afterwards. She is never mad when I have to bail on an appointment when my agoraphobia is so bad I cannot leave my house or if I am too tired due to my insomnia. She has been a huge cheerleader of my Yoshi Calendar.

So I want to share the love with y'all and link you to Anna's 'Evoking Change' Blog as well as to where you can buy her book.

And how does this affect Yoshi? Well, when the mamma is happy, the kitty is happy. So Yoshi endorses Anna's book too.

Craptastic

Quite the day yesterday. Here is what happened.

1. Photographed the Yoshi calendar on Tuesday. Wasn’t happy with a lot of the first shots so I stayed up all night worrying and got up uber early yesterday and re-shot the whole thing again. Yoshi was not amused but did just fine and was a little furry trooper.
2. So while busy returning the camera gear and putting together all the appropriate images for my graphic designer friend I get a phone call… My dad is in the hospital emergency room. He fell while changing a light-bulb.
3. I run to the hospital and there he is all sad on a gurney. He has broken his hip. Fuck. I hang out there for a few hours.
4. Start making all the appropriate calls. My mom is on Vancouver Island on a mini holiday helping a friend and I can’t get in touch with her. Rally my bro and sis-in-law to “Man The Bedside” while I do some business stuff for my dad and deal with his car, his cell phone and his clients. Dad is feeling ok with just a couple Tylenol 3’s under his belt. All the nurses love him already.
5. Run to my parent’s apartment to get some stuff for him, make more calls, and email another client.
6. Go through a couple hundred photos and burn a disc to take to my graphic designer friend.
7. Return to the hospital with magazines, chocolate and books and hang out to 11 pm. Totally forget to eat all day. My thighs will thank me later.

So poor dad is going to have surgery today to replace part of his hip joint. The docs say despite his age (the nurses keep on betting each other to guess his correct age without looking at the chart. Nobody can believe he is 77. Most guess in the early 60’s range.) his bones are strong and his health is great so he’ll heal up fine and be out of the hospital early next week. He is in good spirits and pissed off and bored already. My mom should be home today in the late afternoon.

So between hospital visits, running my dad’s business and doing the Yoshi calendar I’m going to be scarce around these parts. I’ll update when I can.

A Karmic "Kick Me" Sign

I must have been real real bad in a previous life because the nasty stuff keeps coming my way.

So as you read in my last post the nasty peeper wanted to be my Facebook friend. I emailed him telling his that he was a “disgusting pervert peeping tom” and that under no circumstances would I ever want to be his friend-even through Facebook. I told him never to contact me again and I then blocked him.

It just wouldn’t have worked to accept his friendship request and then call him out that way as he could delete very easily anything I said about him.

I also don’t want to engage him in any way.

I’m working my ass off on the upcoming Yoshi Calendar and things are going slower than I hoped. I will start two months earlier next year. And to add to that time crunch starting Friday workmen will be coming into my little apartment to scrape the ceiling, patch the cracks and then re-texture. Did I mention my dining room table, set up with sewing machine and glue gun, is about 4 feet from where the work will be done? Crap! I have nowhere else to work while they are doing this so I will have to work around them somehow.

And then to add insult AND injury to this I had a wonderful little appointment with my doctor today. Thursday night my right eye felt sore and I noticed a bug bite sort of thing right near the corner of my eye. I put antibiotic ointment…

**MRTL Style Tangent-I love the word ointment. It is such a great combination of sounds. Say it to yourself a few times. Try some different accents. See what I mean? End of MTL Style Tangent**

..on it but it wasn’t getting any better. So off to the doc I went today and he took one look at it and told me what was wrong.

Eyelid herpes.

Yes, I have a cold sore on my eyelid.

Fuck.

Frantically, I told my doc that I practiced safe eye-socket sex (I put my whole head in a baggie for that) and he assured me that it is merely something I picked up from life. So every public door I opened, bank machine I used, grocery cart I pushed, second hand store I rummaged through (for props for the calendar), elevator button I touched, and piece of money I handled over the last few days flashed before my eyes and I got a little queasy. Then he told me I might have been infected years ago and only now having an outbreak.

I knew I was a germ-a-phobe for a reason, washing my hands several times a day and using that antibiotic stuff too. For NOTHING!!!! Dammit!

I have to be careful the infection doesn’t actually spread to my eyeball because that would be bad. *Big Sigh* Seriously, what did I do in a previous life to deserve this? I was probably one of those guys who didn’t wash their hands after peeing and then handled food or something. Or brought small pox to the natives.

At least it wasn't cancer.

I feel like a Petri dish. Please still be my friend.

Crush Your Cat's Head Friday-MY HEAD is in Jeopardy Today

I’ve never claimed to be a patient person but right at this moment I am losing my fucking mind. So much so that Yoshi is in danger of a head crushing for reals. After my own head explodes.

Ok, here is the thing.

I went to sign-in to my Flickr account today and was immediately diverted to a Yahoo sign-in page. Ok, whatever. I know all about how these sites buy each other out so I did what they told me and signed into my Yahoo! account. It then took me to a page where it asked if I wanted to start up a new Flickr account or associate my old one with my Yahoo! account. Well, obviously, yes, I would very much like to merge the two accounts opposed to starting up a new one. So it asked me to provide my Flickr account ID and password to do that.

This is where it gets very ugly.

I have all my log-ins and passwords saved per Windows XP’s auto-prompt security feature so I haven’t actually had to physically type in my Flickr info since I started the account a few years ago. But for some reason when prompted this time to log into Flickr my computer didn’t automatically fill in my info. I had to do it manually.

No biggie because to keep things simple I use the same email address and password for pretty much everything frivolous like this. I know this is supposedly dangerous but I figure if anybody wants to hack into my Flickr account and mess with my Yoshi costume pics they can do it. It would probably crack me up more than annoy me.

So I entered my info and Flickr told me that it was wrong.

This is slightly possible as it has been a couple years since I had to type in this info myself and I might have done something different password-wise that long ago in a fit of originality. Yet I am about 95% sure I’ve got the right password. Sadly I am just not very original that often.

Well, it gives you the option to click on that dreaded “Lost Your Password?” link where you have to answer a bitch million questions to retrieve your info. So I did that and it gave me my info. Except it is the ID and password to my Yahoo! account and not my Flickr one.

WTF!?!

I tried it anyway to see if they had automatically merged my two accounts together and they now both had the same password but they don’t. It doesn’t work. I still get prompted to enter my original Flickr password etc. WHICH ALSO DOES NOT WORK!!! Because it is apparently wrooooooooonnnnggggg!

I have now entered a cyclic hell of internet password angst. I cannot access my Flickr page anymore and I cannot seem to find the right path to get that crucial info retrieved.

Can somebody heeeeeeellpp meeeee and get my frickin’ blood pressure down? I’ll bake you cookies!

Yoshi's New Favourite Sleeping Position:

Hiding Head From Potential Crushing