Rhiannon

She rings like a bell through the night

And wouldn't you love to love her?

She rules her life like a bird in flight

And who will be her lover?

All your life you've never seen a woman

Taken by the wind

Would you stay if she promised you heaven?

Will you ever win?

No Adderall didn’t work out too well so my doctor switched me to a different kind of legalized cocaine: Vyvanse. “In a clinical study of adults with ADHD: Once-daily Vyvanse improved attention throughout the day — even at 14 hours after taking. The most common side effects reported in this study were decreased appetite, dry mouth, headache, trouble sleeping, upper respiratory tract infection, irritability, nausea, anxiety, and feeling jittery.” I’m fairly certain I do not have ADHD so tomorrow I will find out how it works for me. Doesn’t everyone have ADD or ADHD now though? I was hoping to get off as many medications as possible. Maybe now is just not the time. This is not ideal though.

Update in bullet points again:

*Busy day. Managed to somehow make a sort of double horrible first impression on my Marketing professor. First I sent her a desperate email explaining that it was impossible to upload an assignment that is due tomorrow, only to realize that uploading the assignment was an extremely simple and obvious process. So I started by implying that she is incompetent when I was the incompetent one. Then after rushing around to get my new drug, I was happy that after fighting traffic for entirely too long, I arrived just in time to take a test with the same professor. Or so I thought. I found her in her office (I’ve never met this woman face to face) and said, “Isn’t the test today?” “Yes, I just emailed you. The test was from 4 to 6.” I showed up 4 minutes before 6 thinking I was really on the ball. A great start.

*Just in case it wasn’t already obvious, I will not be voting for Mitting T. Romney the 14^th.

*My accounting professor, who teaches the one class I have to make a two hour trip 3 times per week for, is extremely dry. I briefly considered breaking my own thumb the first day so I would have an excuse to leave. Decided against that quickly.

*Ever closer to reaching that oh so elusive orgasm with someone other than myself. Kind of a big deal.

*I can’t wait to be in Germany, even though it isn’t set in stone and that journey is over 5 months from now. And yet for some reason last night I dreamt I was in Paris and it was just as I thought Paris should be.

*Have I mentioned here that I signed up for a German language course? Well, I signed up one day and decided the next day that two addition 2 hour trips on Tuesdays and Thursdays was not ok, especially since I do not actually need to take German. Switched back to Management Organization and Theory. Disappointed when I got an email saying the German class would be picking out German names the first day. :-(

*My academic advisor was switched without me being told. But I found out that now I have Dr. Mechitov, who is automatically more fun to talk to than other professors because he has a thick Russian accent. (In thick Russian accent:) “Oh, another boring smart student who only makes As!” I’ll take that!

Now I must bid you all adieu and get some happy sleep time. Puss puss!

Adderall

I got the ok from my doctor to stop taking adderall so I've been off of it since Saturday. I was worried because it seemed to be speeding up my resting heart rate, and making me irritable and more tired. At first I thought I might being feeling better even though I was really tired Saturday and Sunday. Yesterday I had my first day of class and a date. Today I just don't feel right. I feel weighed down and I'm having trouble finding the motivation to get anything done. I'm also having the weird shoulder pain that I always get when I'm depressed. I won't wait to see how this plays out. I'm done with being depressed. I called my doctor and now I'm just waiting to hear back from him. I can't take getting depressed again.

My Future is Looking Brighter!

I’ll be starting back to work soon. Only 2 or 3 shifts to start so I don’t overdo it, but I’ll see how it goes. It will be nice to get to spend time with my work friends more often again. I also start classes next week, so I really will have a lot more going on. I had signed up for 3 online classes because I wasn’t sure how I would be feeling at this point, but I am taking one accounting course on campus. I’m excited about being on campus. Just going around and doing ordinary things seems really exhilarating. I feel like my enthusiasm is making up for my not fully recovered energy level.

I am a bit disappointed about something though. I got a call from the dean of the business school at my university. He called to talk to me about the classes I wanted to take at Lund University in Sweden. He told me the most he could promise me was credit for 2 of the 5 classes I would be taking and even if I did get credit for all the classes, none of the classes are classes I need to help me graduate. So even though it would be so amazing to get to go, it would put me even further behind in terms of graduating. I started to think that I’ve had my head too far up in the clouds and I need to look at the prospect of going to Sweden practically. I haven’t heard back at all about financial aid money for Lund and I don’t think it would be enough if I did get it. I don’t have any money of my own to pay for something like that so the financial aid would have to cover tuition, living expenses, and airfare. Then there is also the possibility that Dr. Gore will decide I am not healthy enough to go off to another country at the last minute which would be devastating.  

TU Dortmund in Germany was originally my backup plan but I’m starting to get exciting about it because I’ve learned more about the programs and it’s a much more feasible option. The details and financial aid are much easier to work out because my university has an exchange agreement with TU Dortmund. TU Dortmund is also offering classes that I need to take in order to graduate on schedule. I would also be leaving in March or April instead of January, which both gives me more time to try to gather together extra money and to get healthier and stronger. Plus, this is a bit silly to add, but I’m glad it will be a bit warmer! Hopefully I can still make a little trip up to visit Sweden if everything works out for going to Germany.

The 3^rd date with the guy I’ve mentioned went really well. He’s gotten me hooked on this British comedy called Peep Show. A new “thing” with someone is always exciting!

It seems as though the sun is shining on me once again. :-D

From Russia, with love.

I was so happy because my eyebrows had finally grown back. Oh they grew back in full force. Even though my natural hair color is red, my brows have always been a really light blonde. So luckily it was difficult to tell how manly and unshapely they looked.

Example of conventionally feminine brows

Example of conventionally masculine brows

They were so far from the shape that I wanted (not quite so unruly as the second picture above) that I decided I just need to get them waxed. I’ve gotten some bad brow waxes in the past but there is one place in the same shopping center as the restaurant that I’ve worked that I remembered getting a great wax. Even though I had to drive a distance to get there and it is a splurge for me to get my eyebrows waxed at all, I felt sure it would be worth it. The person would do such a good job that I would have no trouble maintaining them on my own. The woman who waxed my brows was not surprisingly someone different than the time before, since it had been so long since I had been to this place. I found out quickly that she is from Russia. We chatted about that and I showed off my horribly embarrassing pronunciation of some Russian words to her. I was worried right away because she didn’t ask me anything about what I wanted my brows to look like; she just went to work while she chatted away in a semi-thick accent. I told myself she was so confident and so good at her job that she knew what she was doing. She seemed kind of pushy and bossy so I didn’t want to interrupt. She tinted my brows without even asking what sort of color I would like them to be. I still didn’t say anything. When she was done, instead of having me inspect her work up close in a mirror with the bright overhead light they use, I had to stand at a bit of a distance and check them out in a regular mirror in the dark of the room (I suppose the dark room is meant to make it spa-like and relaxing). Once again I didn’t say anything and at this point, what I ended up with is my fault. I paid and then went out to my car and checked her work in a close mirror in the good sunlight. This will sound ridiculous to many, but I just started crying. The left brow just looked like a light blonde comma over my eye. Too thin and no arch at all like the picture above of the ideal way to shape an eyebrow. The right brow was more of a brown-blonde color and was waxed significantly farther out from my nose than the left. It is also a different shape, though still not a good shape. Below is a picture of the disaster. If I look awful even in the cropped close-up, it’s because I’d been crying like a 15-year-old girl.

awful

 Yes, I can fix it with makeup and try to get the brows back to the same color with lemon juice and sunshine, but I didn’t expect to drive out and pay to have my brows done only to have to try to fix them on my own.

I apologize that my first lengthy post in a while is me ranting about my eyebrows. I do have other news. The other hair on my head has been growing back quickly also:

Can't see the brow unevenness from the side!

I’ll be even more excited when it gets long enough that my scalp doesn’t show through. I was told it wouldn’t grow back like my natural hair initially (curly and red). For now it’s straight and blonde. I would be ok if it stayed straight and blonde though. :-)

 

For the time being, the blog’s name (Adventures in Cancer) stays. It was hard to know what to make of everything Dr. Gore said when I talked to him about the CT scan results. He still seems concerned about possible cancer in my abdominal lining and intestinal lining. So the journey continues for now. Who knows when it will finally end?

3^rd date tomorrow. Hope it goes as well as the first two. :-D

To the moon!

I’m overdue for an update! I’ve been feeling better so I’ve been a bit busier and have thought less about posting about it. But now I am soooo tired that I can’t write a decent post. 

A summary:

-the Paleo diet seems to be going well so far.

-Good second date, third date Wednesday.

-Going back to work soon. Starting out slowly.

-Learned that Swedish men wear engagement rings on the same finger they wear wedding rings. Situation is still just as shitty to me. 

-Test Saturday to assess my ability to speak and comprehend English in an academic environment. Shouldn’t be a problem but if I do horribly, I might have an intellectual meltdown.

-Went to the moon. It was pretty neat.

Ok, so one is a lie. Will try to write a better post soon.

Good(ish) News/The Uncertainty Continues

I did not sleep well at all last night because I was so anxious about my appointment to go over the CT scan results with Dr. Gore today. Because I am so exhausted, I don't know that I will be able to do a proper post but I'm going to do the best I can.

Dr. Gore said that it's a good sign that the level of fluid in my abdomen has progressively gone down. He seemed concerned about a possibility of cancer in my intestinal lining and my peritoneum (I hope that is the right word) so he wants to have another CT scan in two months. But, for now at least, no more chemo!

I told him, "I have a good feeling about this and I want to do a study abroad in Sweden in January if I get an ok from you." Of course he couldn't just say, "Go for it!" at this point and I did not expect that. But I was so happy to find that he wanted to make it happen if it would be reasonable for me to go and he thinks it is great that I want to live my life to the fullest. 

There is more I could say, but I've covered all the main points and I'm just too exhausted to write anymore.

The Suspense!

Tomorrow is the day I go in to talk to Dr. Gore about the results of my CT scan and to find out if I will need more chemotherapy or not. I’m really nervous but I have a good feeling about it. I’ve tried to stay busy the entire week to keep my mind off of that and other frustrations. One night I had dinner with my mom, the next night with my friends Jessica and Allison, the next night with my dad, and the night after that with a new guy. Wednesday during the day I spent five hours at my university trying to get things sorted out so that I can do a study abroad. Right now I prefer to study in at Lund U in Sweden but that is partly because I did not know much about the programs at TU Dortmund. I talked the international coordinator at my university and she gave me more information about TU Dortmund and about study abroad in general. I’m going to ask my oncologist tomorrow if he thinks I will be healthy enough to go to Sweden in January, and if he says no, I will have to let that dream go for now and hopefully I can go to Germany in April or May.  

My first passport ever came in the mail yesterday!

So exciting! It makes me want to travel right now!

Today I am starting the “paleo diet,” which was recommended to me by my sweet friend Linnéa. I’ve mentioned that chemo caused me to gain a bit of weight instead of lose it, which is apparently common. This diet meant to help not just with weight loss, but to improve a person’s health. I will update with any progress on that front. 

And now I am going to try to make the most out of this Sunday.

And now we wait.

Yesterday morning I had my CT scan but there really isn’t anything to report yet. I have an appointment with my oncologist, Dr. Gore, Monday at 2:15 and I will find out then what he thinks we should do next. If he does see that fluids are building back up in my abdomen again, I’m going to ask him if there are any alternatives to getting more chemotherapy. I just feel like there can’t possibly be much cancer left at this point so maybe there is a less awful option than chemotherapy. I’ll just have to wait and see but I promise that I will update after I find something out.

In desperate need of good news.

I’m sorry about yesterday’s tantrum post. I was really upset when I wrote it. The first half of this week has been very trying for multiple reasons. 

The biggest reason: I have been chatting with someone online for about 7 months now. We talked every day and I had even gotten to the point that I considered him one of my best friends. I started talking to him on the dating site that I’m a member of, where his profile said he was single. In my mind he was single and it never occurred to me that he might not be. I may have even posted that not long ago he and I switched profiles on the dating site and he had me looking for women for him. Sunday I discovered that he is married. I don’t know how much of what he has been telling me all this time was just a lie, but I am crushed to find out that he is not the person I thought he was and he had so little respect for me. I talked to him more than anymore else and I find out I can’t believe anything he has said to me. Needless to say, I have been reevaluating these online friendships. 

A lot of other smaller issues contributed to me having a meltdown yesterday. It’s hard enough waiting to find out if my oncologist will add more treatments or not without having to deal with liars and jerks. My CT scan is tomorrow morning, but I won’t talk to Dr. Gore about the results until next week. Please let it be good news…

/End.

I don't feel like posting here anymore. I'm not getting anything out of it and I think maybe a handful of people give a shit at this point.

We will assume that my CT scan Thursday comes with a happy ending and I am declared to be in remission.

Sorry if I have let anyone down.

Liar, Liar - Pants on Fire

I have a friend that I haven't been talking to quite so much lately because he is so brutally honest that he tends to hurt my feelings. No sugar coating anything. The cold, hard truth laid out raw - as is. Difficult to swallow. However, after discovering another friend has quite the opposite issue, I've come to see the value in that brutal honesty. Lies hurt ten times more.

Given the option, I would choose a friend who wounds me with the slap-in-the-face truth to a "friend" who kills me slowly with lie on top of lie on top of lie.

You have tortured and killed my trust in you.

Sweden or Germany

FINALS: Fuck, I never actually learned shit. 

I guess since my grades were As, it would seem like I did learn “shit,” but I could feel all the information draining from my ears as soon as I finished my final exams. So don’t look to me for answer answers about the economy or computer hardware/software. 

Now summer classes are over and I have a break until fall classes start on the 27^th. I’m started to feel better so I might get more enjoyment from the break, depending on what I find out after my CT scan. I simply can’t stand the possibility that I will have to get more chemo. It seems much worse to slowly get back a bit of energy and then have it taken away again than to have just gotten it on the schedule I had expected. 

Also, if I am not healthy enough, it could wreak my dream of studying abroad in Sweden or Germany for the spring semester. I’ve sending out tons of emails and making phone calls about financial aid and scholarships that would make this possible (along with looking up all sorts of other information about it). I think I’ll be crushed if it doesn’t work out. :-(

Please oh please work out!

Nightmare

It’s been just a little over a month since my 7^th round of chemotherapy. I’ve been thinking like I’m in remission even though I won’t find that out until I get the results of my CT scan. The scan is August 9th but I wouldn’t find out right away about the verdict. I want to do more than I’m capable of because I’ve been doing so little for so long. I even tried to work out yesterday. I managed about 15 minutes and felt like I was dying afterwards. I had to take a long bath and a really long nap after that. I want to go back to feeling the way I felt before now, not slowly over time. Actually, I want to feel healthier, stronger, and more energetic. Hell, I want to fly. 

Last night I had a dream (nightmare) that I was at the cancer center and Dr. Gore was going over the results of my CT scan with me. Actually, it’s hard to remember the dream clearly but I don’t think he talked about the scan at all. He just told me I would be getting loads more chemo and he was switching me to harsher chemo drugs. I then started sobbing in the way only a hysterical child can while simultaneous uttering every imaginable combination of curse words. For some reason I ran out into the apocalypse going on outside and that was the end of the dream. 

I think I am down to just one medical bill for $350 for the surgery to remove my tumor (not including all the thousands of dollars in medical bills of the past that have gone to collection agencies because I could not pay them). I called the number on the bill and explained that I had a medical bill that I couldn’t afford to pay because I haven’t been able to work in a long time. The woman I talked to was extremely nice and said that there were charity programs that could help. She told me she would find out more and call me back. She did call me back a couple of hours later to tell me that my bill was too small for them to help! I told her that $350 might not seem big to a hospital as far as medical bills go, but to someone who currently has no income, it’s a lot of money. She couldn’t understand why I couldn’t just pay it and I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t be helped because my bill was “too small.” She said she would talk to her supervisor and call me back. That was over a week ago. I’ll take some preemptive ibuprofen and try calling again today. 

Final exams for both Summer II classes are on Friday, so now it’s back to telling myself I’m about to study while watching random videos on Youtube.