Busy Friday

Latest side effect of chemo that has popped up: headaches. Really bad headaches that happen randomly throughout the day.  Or the headaches could be the result of a sinus infection that I think I’m developing. I don’t do so well with really bad headaches. I’d almost rather go back to vomiting a lot instead. Though I don’t want to be, I know I’ve been irritable and short tempered because of the headaches. It always makes me feel really shitty do be bitchy to someone who doesn’t deserve it at all so I really hope that these headaches won’t stick around.

Yesterday was a busy day. Well, busy by my current standards. I was going to have a coffee date at 1PM with a really nice guy I’ve been talking to for a little while. This went out the window because both of our dogs ran away while I was in the shower and stayed gone for about 3 hours. My date had a distance to drive to get here so when it looked like the dogs weren’t in a hurry to get back, we rescheduled for today. I ended up being stressed out the whole time the dogs were gone because even though Gordon has run away a hundred times and always comes back, Emma, who is still so much like a puppy, has never run away before. I was really worried they would get hit by a car or Emma would wander off too far and get lost. But when I heard the dogs of the neighbor in an uproar, I knew ours must be outside. I ran outside with my bald head and my bare feet in the chilly weather and discovered them in the neighbors’ driveway. I brought them back home wet, dirty, and stinky. Well, I hope they at least had a good time!

I decided to put on some makeup to get ready for what was supposed to be the second date of the day – a skype date with my pretend fiancé! He was out having Friday night fun while it was still midafternoon for me (10 hour time difference between me in Alabama and him in Russia!) so I decide to do my online thing until he got back. This mainly involves responding to messages I receive on facebook, email, and on this dating site, and chatting with my online buddies. One of my penpals that I’ve been talking to since right before I found out I had a mass in my abdomen, but that hasn’t been online much lately, logged in so I was really happy to chat with him for a bit. The chat seemed to kind of dissolve into a bit of a fight at some point though. Because we been talking for a while online and have talked about everything from the mundane to the intimate, I feel that he is more than a stranger behind a computer screen. To me he is my friend now. I should also mention that he is just the type of guy I would develop a huge crush on if I knew him in real life: smart, funny, kind of nerdy, handsome, tall, and now it seems he is also elusive. The little spat started because I’ve wanted to skype with him for a little while now because we’ve been getting to know each other more and it would be nice to finally have a kind of face to face conversation. The reasons he gave for not wanting to do this didn’t make any sense to me, like not liking to hear his own voice and not having skype downloaded (takes a couple minutes to set up!). I went into girly mode and got my feelings hurt and yet kept bugging him about it (I think I’ve mentioned that sometimes when I get an idea in my head, it will simply not unlodge itself no matter what). The chatting winded down with me saying I didn’t want to talk anymore at the moment because I was too upset and that I would try not to send him so many messages since he can’t take 5 minutes to respond to them even though I always put some thought into them as I’m writing. He did say he has enjoyed every message I’ve sent him but I pointed out that I would have no way of knowing that since he hasn’t been responding at all. My Russian logged on just in time and I ended my girly hissy fit (hey, we all have one every now and then right? Say “yes” so I won’t feel like such a whiny baby!)

I called up my pretend fiancé on skype and he answered wearing a hat kind of like this:

Ушанка?

I laughed so much! He’s hilarious. He was so cute on skype too! I really liked his Russian accent but he speaks English really, really well. He tried to get me to say a few words correctly in Russian but I think I mostly butchered them. I joked about my name becoming Maria Kharybin and he had to correct me. Even last names have masculine and feminine versions in the Russian language! I don’t think I’ll ever learn! Maria Kharybina would be the correct name. We ended up talking for 2 hours and 45 minutes on our first skype date, so I think it went well, hehe. We talked about everything from the Russian election to movies to parents, and other private things that will remain between Машулечка (me) and мой жених (him). :-)

We did decide yesterday to have our honeymoon in the Philippines:

Since I’m white pale, I will have to bring a gallon of sunscreen and maybe a big hat so I don’t end up looking like this:

I’m excited but the beach is not my natural habitat. I think I'm about as pale as a person can get. In addition to sunscreen, I will also need a bikini that somehow hides my tummy surgery scar. The port will be long gone by then and I think that little scar above my right breast should heal nicely (and hopefully my breasts are nice enough to distract from it!)

 

My mom came home from work last night with a surprise for me. She had “business cards” made for my blog to pass out to people! They are light blue trimmed in red with a big yellow flower on each. At the top they say “Adventures in Cancer by Cancer Girl” and below that it describes my blog a bit. “Intimate and real, this blog is about a 25 year old American woman who is diagnosed with a rare form of ovarian cancer on January 2012.” Then at the bottom it has link to my blog. I have no idea yet who I might pass these out to but they are pretty neat! I desperately tried to scan one but simply could not figure out how to.

My mom likes to go out to eat on Friday night and wanted me to go with her. I thought it would be nice to get out but between the headache, tiredness, and lack of much of an appetite, it wasn’t much fun. A super busy restaurant is not a fun place to be when your head is pounding and you just want to go to sleep. 

I know this post is really getting long, but I’m starting to get the jitters about chemo on Monday. I’ve been feeling a lot better… well for the most part… lately and don’t want to go back to feeling extra shitty. I’ll try not worry. I have my rescheduled coffee date today and I might go to the movies with friends tomorrow if I’m feeling up to it, so keeping my mind occupied is good.  :-)