Gee Thanks.

I slept from 11pm Saturday to 10:30am Sunday. When I woke up my husband was gone. When he came back, he said I “must have needed” that sleep. I told him that was not necessarily true, because while I might be sick, I’m for sure depressed.

Him: “what would help?”
me: “I don’t know”
Him: “I guess I’m on my own, then.”

Oh hey *that* sure helped, good job.

Let’s see, which of these would be more likely to help:

a) arrange for someone she’s insecure about to drop by (to get some free tickets) and see how we live, on a Saturday. (We live in a very strange mess, several rooms of dusty air pollution equipment mixed with decades old computer stuff and decades old catalogs)  Vacuum the living room to make it “presentable” (sure) and then get ill for several hours. Bonus points if the person doesn’t show up on Saturday, thus ruining the whole weekend.

b) get ill around the time you usually feed her. Wait til she’s napping, starving, and has given up on going out for 45 minutes of music at a very late hour. Wake her and offer to go after all.

c) Let her sleep in on Sunday morning, while you go out in the sunshine and play music, and go to Costco, without getting the list she made on Saturday, when you were still going to go on Saturday.

d) At noon, offer to make her breakfast after your shower. Stay in the shower for 45-60 minutes, during which time the person supposed to “drop by” calls twice and leaves messages.

e) Miss connecting with the “drop by” person so that she doesn’t come by at all. Leave a message, but don’t bother trying to call her again to see what is up.

f) Leave it to me to get the free tickets to the “drop by” person at work on Monday. When I complain about having to wait to go on a break, pass that right on to the “drop by” person, along with the idea that I want to get coffee at a place that I actually never go to anymore, and suggest she might want to meet me there. (Sometime in the last week I mentioned I never go there anymore because of the people I might run into.)

g) Tell the person at the last minute that I want to go with her to use the tickets she is picking up, even though I just said this weekend that I did NOT want to go. Thus giving the person the impression she has to take me with them in order to get these “free” tickets. (And why would she need to pick them up if I’m going?)

h) All of the above?

Bonus points for complaining about how you’re just trying to help, get nothing but bad feelings back, and will never do it again.

blindsided

I thought I was out of revelations regarding my birth. It turns out my mother’s mother was very good friends with my dad’s first wife. My grandma was more of a parent to me than my father by a million, and made me feel better about myself than my mom ever did.

I guess my grandmother had nothing else but us kids, after my mom devastated my grandmother’s peer group, by breaking up a marriage of a man 15 years older than herself.

I miss my grandma. Her old friend, my half-sibs’ mom, has been really nice to me lately on Facebook. Maybe someday we’ll talk about my grandma…

Mom always told me those people in my dad’s family didn’t like us, but she never revealed the extent to which she devastated all their lives.

Doctor visits

I had my last herceptin last week. I have a thing, an elongated hard thing, in my armpit that I hoped was a welt leftover from the rash, but I told the oncologist about it of course. She ordered an ultrasound for yesterday. The tech and radiologist thought perhaps it’s “fat necrosis” basically, dead fat. Which would be good.

The oncologist called today to schedule a followup in a month, with a blood test, the one that tests tumor markers, beforehand.

Last week my tumor markers were regular people level. Last spring they were high. So, as I said to a doctor “that that means they might mean something.” He said that’s the correct way to state it.

Life is going to be a long series of exercises in not panicking. Luckily I have great denial skills. No really. I didn’t think about this except for half hour periods, over the last week. Of course one of those was while driving to the ultrasound… Pay attention to the road! I had to keep telling myself.

Heh. Heh heh. Hehehehehehehe….

The story starts here:          Communication
and continues here:             His female friends

I’ll just briefly mention that T has stopped talking during the music and I’ve been enjoying her company. We are managing to stay neutral in N’s melodrama and enjoy her company. This update is about B…

The next time we saw B after the phone call and email mentioned in Communication, was at a concert in a nearby city. She had to fly down for it or was there on business, which defeated my purpose when I chose to go to that city instead of her city to see this band. OH well.

We stayed in a hotel. She had a room. We shared a room with our male friend H, who is a delight to travel with. (He came to our elopement in Vegas and ran one of the cameras (still or video.) He drove 8 hours to do it.)

The three of us wanted to go eat food and then hang out in the parking lot at the concert. Yes, we’re talking the (no longer Grateful) Dead. B wanted to delay at the hotel and get a burrito to go somewhere, to take to the show, because she was not hungry. She continued to express this preference for 20 minutes and we all caved and then she said “oh but you have veto power”. I said “I told you what I wanted 20 minutes ago, so whatever. I’ll just keep eating these chips, here.”

We had some videos on some hard drive and she insisted they hook them up to her computer in her room. After about 10 minutes of boys futzing with wires, I said to her “you knew it would be like this, right?” she said “no.” I said “Oh I guess I know it because I’ve ever touched technology before.” she said “I call Gomer my neighbor and he always fixes it in five minutes.”

I just stared at her. She said “oh… I guess I should call him then” I just nodded. They finally got it hooked up, we watched 3 minutes and then left.

We found a burrito place.  It was after all Los Angeles. We went inside and sat down. The three of us decided to get our food to stay. She ordered hers to go. There was no A/C and she kept fanning herself but we refused to leave. I even put on my outer shirt just to piss her off, but I was comfortable.

We arrived at the parking lot. She wanted to get in line. We had assigned seats so the three of us wanted to do the parking lot. We figured out that she thought she would get the water she had and the burrito inside. We assured her there was no freaking way. We parted ways.

Later I saw her with a hot dog and found out she got to the door and found out she could not get the stuff in. Did she get out of line (still plenty of time) and eat it? No, she threw it away.

So we did everything she insisted on and she still didn’t get what she wanted. It totally made my day, seriously.

Earlier, when we were going out to buy the chips, she made us wait while she not only reported, but waited to see if the hotel was going to fix, a problem with her room. The problem? Her toilet seat was loose. I doublechecked on our toilet when we got back. You hand screw the plastic nut to tighten the toilet seat, just like on the one at home. I wonder if she calls her friend Gomer for that too.

Oh and I forgot to mention… she ironed her shirt, to go to a Dead show.

We recently went to our yearly campout and B was there. This trip was even more satisfying to my evil heart, but I think I’ll put it in another entry.

Holy crap I’m allergic to WHAT?

Apparently I’m allergic to Aloe Vera straight from the plant. I had used it, but not lately. Wednesday night, I covered my face in it and coconut oil (which I have used lately.) I woke up looking like a cabbage patch doll.

I iced my eyes open, drove to “fake chemo” (herceptin), got lots of sympathy, and a prescription for steroids from the on-call oncologist. He practically rolled his eyes at me, and told me not to put ANYTHING ELSE on my skin….

My face got all crusty and I’ve spent three days with a wet washcloth on my face. It’s sort of fascinating to watch the skin heal.

MY FACE HURTS.

This is your cue to say “yeah? well it’s killin’ me…”

This song has no title, just words and a tune

My rash is … mostly better. I did get red where my shorts and shirt covered the other night, when I went out dancing to bluegrass. It looks like a reverse splotchy sunburn. I’m hoping it is just heat rash. It didn’t “bump up” like the other rash … and it doesn’t itch as bad.

But now I’m reading the ingredients lists on the new stuff I just bought in my latest drug store trip that same day. Sigh. Am I allergic to beeswax in addition to lanolyn? Cetyl alcohol? Isopropyl palmitate? Each of these things has 25 to 50 ingredients, even the Burt’s Bees.

Another possibility is that I’m allergic to clothes. I want to go on disability and be naked all the time. Or they could let me telecommute.

Early on during the rash, I cut my fingernails all the way down, and have to file them every 12 hours. One hand madly tries to scratch and as soon as it succeeds, the other hand grabs the nail file and gets rid of the sharpness. I miss my fingernails. I try to scratch my scalp, it gives no relief and my crazy, curly, never-trimmed hair-grow goes all Einstein. I can’t get things open, and the ends of my fingers hurt from rubbing and trying to scratch, awake and asleep. For a while my arms were sore from putting on lotion. I can reach every part of my body and do quick complete coverage, now. I spent so much time scratching and lotioning that I didn’t sit around eating all day, and I lost ten pounds. I didn’t even realize it at first until my husband asked about it.

Last week, my face had either a sun reaction or a late rash reaction, and my freaking eyelids hurt. They had little sores on them. At least I have that under control. But my scalp still itches, and I have some sores on my upper lip that bleed a little sometimes. Nice huh? I’m sort of self conscious about it.

But I did get out for live music on Wednesday night and I’m so proud of myself. My husband was out of town on business so I had to get myself out of the house, which hasn’t usually worked.

The band, Hot Buttered Rum, has been one of my favorites for years now. There were two openers, so I didn’t want to be on time. I was nervous, though, cause the only other time I got myself out of the house when my husband was gone, it was to see them, also. It was a couple of years ago. When I arrived, I found out they were the opener, not the main act, and they had finished playing. I was totally crushed and left pretty soon, after wandering around the crowd for a while feeling disappointed.

One other time when we went to see them, they were sold out. We were amazed, this is bluegrass, in SoCal, sold out? So this time I bought a ticket on the internet ahead of time. For $12 I figured if I didn’t feel up to it, so what.

Doors were at 7, first band at 8. When my husband and I go to this venue, we show up at 6:30 and “do the line” so we can get a particular table. We are often the only people in line for 15 minutes. The closer a band is, in some imaginary family tree, to the Grateful Dead, the more people show up early.

This time I cruised in at 9, not expecting to get a seat. But the “bleacher” section was almost empty, so I got a fairly good seat, watched the opener, and had a coke.  I guess Wednesday nights are not as crowded. I was in a row with a couple who seemed content to ignore me, which was perfect. The fourth chair disappeared at some point, even better.

During the break, I ordered one of the trick drinks they had on a card, called a Vanilla Lemon Drop. It was some vanilla vodka, some triple sec… and uh something else I forget. And sugar on the rim of the glass. It was pretty good. But it turned out to be $11! so I won’t be getting it again. If I’m spending that much it better be a shot of single malt, straight up.

Drinking again is still a novelty for me. Before I got sick I was down to a drink or two a month, but while I was in treatment I didn’t drink for a whole year. I broke that fast with a G&T made by my G&T friend a while back.

HBR came on and after a couple songs I went down on the floor and danced almost the whole time. They were great, as usual. You should go see them. I was there til the end. They came back for the encore and played six more songs. During the last song, they played Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” for a while. It was okay to dance to. Probably the second time ever I’ve danced to an MJ song in public.

I got home at about 12:30. I stayed up til 2 watching “Ugly Betty” on hulu. I got up at 6:30 am, got to my desk at 8, and semisnoozed through the day (no change there).

Now I’m watching “WKRP In Cincinatti” and listening to a Guster CD, the first CD I’ve bought since I bought all of HBR’s last year.

There is no coherent end to this blog post, kthxbai

Mystery solved?

I think I finally know why I’ve had this itchy red rash… spreading around randomly, seeming to get better then appearing in a bunch of other places… for 9 weeks. It acted like I had poison oak oil on something in the house, but the rash didn’t look like poison oak, to the doctors, either. The regular doc shrugged and shot me in the butt, which did nothing.

At 6 weeks, mom left a message that boiled down to “maybe your bee stings are caused by nickel on the plants in the yard” so I wrote her off as having any useful info, although I am allergic to nickel.

After 9 weeks of this, of talking to my mom and having her ask the same questions about diet and stuff, she calls and leaves a message, she finally remembered she’s allergic to lanolin. I found no reference on the net until after my mom mentioned it.  I googled rashes for weeks and never saw lanolin on the lists of allergens. Now, when I google “lanolin allergy” I find it. This is probably the only useful info/advice from my mom in my adult life…

Lanolin is in the stuff they recommended for radiation  and I think I developed an allergy. Every time I used something else, it got better. When that ran out and I used the goo til I could get to the drug store, it got worse, and spread wherever the goo went…

Nice to know what it probably is. Now I just need it to go away.
I’m laundering everything that is coated with the damn goo…

I suggested I buy all new clothes and my husband said “okay”. I was surprised cause I was joking but he said “it would fit you, you haven’t bought anything for a long time… it’s not like ‘let’s go *shopping!*” Gosh I love him

Rash

I know I need to post, I want to post, but I keep getting confused about what I want to post about.

There’s this rash. What happened was, I got over my radiation burn, I got the flu. I got over the flu, I did some yard work, and then I got this rash. Around the same time, I read something that happened to someone else, and spent some time rubbing on my scar tissue and thinking “Oh I hope that doesn’t happen to me.” So maybe I got something on my hands in the yard and then rubbed it obsessively into my skin.

Also in the weeks preceding I had been getting really paranoid at work. I was convinced people were checking up on me, and I was expressing it on facebook and was rude to some people who deserved it. Now I think I really was picking up on something, since the department got merged and my bosses got changed without me knowing about it ahead of time. And maybe I gave myself hives. I had hives one other time, when I had accepted a new job, but had not given notice or told the people I was friends with at the old job. When I gave notice the hives went away.

And I just seem to have old lady, dry, sensitive skin, now. The upshot is I’ve spent the last 9 weeks rubbing various things into my skin. The rash will seem to die back and then will reappear in the areas right next to where it was. I hope it will only “go around” one time.

So there’s the rash, and then there’s work. I sort of feel like doing a timeline of this job, trying to get it all into one blog with the bare details. It’s pretty boring  but maybe it would make the stupid hives go away. Except, I’m nervous someone from there will find this blog… so I don’t want to do anything rash.

And then…

And then my “foster boss” sent me email saying he’s no longer my foster boss, and then he left for the day right after he pushed “send.” Since it’s the first time I have heard from him since October (except the wrong number), no big whoop.

Brief update

My rash is still traveling merrily around my body, seeming to be almost gone then breaking out in new places.

I work at a college. I found out today that my department is merging with another department, by reading the announcement email sent to the whole campus.