My glamour

I never read the How To Be a Girl book.  I didn't even know girls plucked/waxed their brows until I was in college!  I just thought I was lucky enough to have giant caterpillar eyebrows.  I also keep busy creatively and was probably a little snobby, thinking I was too smart to 'waste' my time on make-up.  The mentality serves me well–losing my hair is more fascinating than anything.  

But I have to say that getting scarves and shopping for wigs gives me a different perspective.  I'm not thinking about an effort to look good as being potentially shallow anymore, it's an indulgence but it's FUN.  I went to a 'Look Good, Feel Better' workshop at Sunshine Mansion where I got a giant goodie-bag of make-up and spent two hours learning how to use it.  It was nice.  I'll never use all that make-up in a million years but the process was weirdly comforting.

Wigs are even more fun.  I've always loved having purple hair but the dyeing process/mess and inevitable job issues are more trouble than they're worth so I've been wanting a purple wig for years!  It was only $10 but I angst about spending money on non-essentials.  Now I have an excuse ;)

It actually looks way better in the picture than it does in reality unfortunately :P  The quality is not too high but eh, it's just for fun.

But, I got a free blonde wig from the workshop which my mom is considering dyeing dark blue =O  We just have to figure out the best way to do it.

Of course, we did get a REAL wig too.  After about a hundred million hours of shopping online and in a variety of stores, we narrowed it down to a few options.  The most popular was a super cute, super stylish one.  If we could have gotten two, I would have gotten this one as well.  It was totally not me which is really cool.  I'm not stylish at all and it looked GREAT!

But I figure if I can only have one, I should get one that feels more 'me.'  I'm a long-hair type of gal and I really wanted to get something with red in it.  I was really tempted to get this next one but my mom thought it looked too fake because of the red.  Also, one of the salespeople mentioned that if I lost my eyebrows I might want a wig with bangs to hide/soften out the drawn on brows.

I still think the red looks great!

And now the ACTUAL wig we FINALLY decided on.  By the way, we bought it from Wear Hair for You and Laura was amazing.  She could tell by looking at me for five seconds how I normally wore my hair.  Within five minutes, she'd guessed two of the wigs we had narrowed our choices to.  We probably should have gone to her first but my mom and I are very meticulous about choosing something to spend money on.  I know I wouldn't have been comfortable buying something without having tried on those hundred options that didn't work out.  

Some wigs looked great on the heads but awful on me, and some looked awful on the heads but great on me….plus it's really hard to get past the color hair.  I tried on blonde wigs that probably had great styles.  There was actually one, last wig we almost got.  Too bad we didn't get a picture.  It had real nice layering but it wasn't monofilament so the part looked chunky and fake.  I'm tall enough that no one can see it anyway so it probably didn't matter but it was a blonde wig…..

Anyway, without further ado………………..MY WIG!

I’m a wiggleworm

Much like my puppy-to-be!  

I can't help it when they wash out my arc reactor with saline….it's cold and it tickles!!  Then there's the injection that makes me taste rubbing alcohol.  I also have had nurses have trouble drawing blood from the arc reactor but raising my arms and doing a little dance (aka wiggle given that I'm sitting down) helps.  I think it's because my blood pressure tends to run low.

So now I can't help it!  Any time they pump something in there, I've got to wiggle!!

Chemo round 2, out patient this time!

They should have given me benadryl for my mediport surgery.  They said it was umm fenelthamine (I bet I totally made that word up.  I do think it started with 'fen' though) that they used and I was wide awake but man, once the benedryl hits me my muscles go slack and I pass out.  And it HITS.  I was reading a Clicker Training book then BAM, dropping the book, trying to get my mouth to work to ask my mom to lower the chair but I'm not sure that any comprehensible words came out haha.

The chemo is done in a "Chemo Suite" in the hospital and btw, you need a GPS to navigate Inova Fairfax.  None of the elevators connect to the same places so you have to take three different ones in order to get from parking to the 9th floor.  I walked in about 5:45am and felt something familiar.

Oh crap.

Seriously?!

Ladies, you know what I'm talking about.   Yeah.  After skipping 2-3 periods from being sick and having no idea when it would hit, it just figures.

The suite has a bunch of reclining chairs with tables attached and awesome nurses that helped me to the bathroom any time I woke up cause  umm yeah I was way drugged up.  I thought they were going to halve my benadryl dose this time but they didn't.

The chemo took FOR-EV-ER.  Would have been awesome writing time if I wasn't unconscious.  I have an hour of premeds (zofran(?), something like pepto, the benadryl, etc) then I've got four hours of one chemical and three hours of the other.  Umm carboplatin and paclitaxel.   And then prep/cleanup adds up to another hour so I was there from 6am to 1:30pm.  Took some time to have lunch and recover from teh drugz too.

The mediport access was weird.  It was better than a needle in the arm.  Kinda.  Much easier for the nurses than finding a vein…they've got a much bigger target and then they punch it in.  And 'it' looks like a freaking NAIL!  It's HUGE!!!  It hurts but in a different way.

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So, that was yesterday.  Over the next three days or so I'm supposed to be tired and achey and stuff.  Except that, the last two or three pre-chemo days I felt tired and achey plus I pulled a muscle in both my neck and shoulder and they huuuuuuuuurtttt–the taxel makes my body extra sensitive.  I was a little worried about feeling worse.  But today I feel fine!  Like, cabin fever fine!  I'm not even cramping that bad, just in short minor waves.  I want to take a jog around the neighborhood and hit up the pool at Oak Marr now that my surgery scabs have come off.  But I know as the day wears on I may feel worse so I'm trying to force myself to relax and not overextend.  

But, this is a good sign for me getting a puppy and for enjoying the holiday (:  My nurse told my mom I have a verbal prescription for a puppy and that I better have one by the next time I come in!

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My head scarves order came in!  There was a tie-dye blue one I was really excited about that turned out to be a lot lighter than the picture which doesn't look good on me so that was sad.  I'm much more pleased with my hair fringe :D  It's open on top so it's not too hot or itchy and it's got bands that distribute the weight so it actually feels better after a long day than the scarves–with the tails on those my neck starts aching in some places.

It's the red that I wanted my wig to be but that my mom said it looked fake and outvoted me since she's paying :P  We still haven't compromised on the actual wig yet.  She allowed me to indulge on the fringe though.  I've got some real nice options now and my sexy new glasses came in…I feel like I need to do a photoshoot!

I also got a fabulous package from my friend Alex in New Zealand!  I LOVE the hat and it loves my fringe :D  Look closely….it says Relay for Life!  I always want to participate more in Relay for Life but the whole running….walking thing is a pain.  If I had a dog it wouldn't be so bad (:   I really want to be entertainment for the people working, that's what  we did in high school.  My choir would go out to the track and sing for several hours.  I need to get published already :P  then I could offer the audio version for free/discounted to people participating in the relay and I'd set up a booth where they could load their ipods.

I'm dying to dig into the Skittles he sent–they have blackberry flavor!!  But I'm trying to be gentle to my tummy…it's been doing fine so far but just in case, I've been limiting myself to soup and crackers.

Speaking of Alex, he's a fantastic photographer and just put together a book called Broken Memories: A Memento Mori of Waikumete Cemetery.  He's offering some discounts now in honor of the new release (:

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I'm sooooooooo glad my concentration is getting better!!  Being sick in Savannah SUCKED, the only thing I could do was lay around and watch The Devil Wears Prada or whatever other crap was on TV.  I couldn't even get up and get my brain to choose a DVD, the whole process of putting one in the player was overwhelming.  Treatment is SO AWESOME!!   I can finally catch up on my gaming (:  which of course instead means buy new games hahah.  Hey, it's not my fault… I technically didn't buy it, my dad offered to and I couldn't say no to a free game so now I've got Brutal Legend and I am LOVING it.  I've got it on easy so I'm playing through fast enough that it keeps my dad entertained.  It's got a nice combination of fighting (yes, combos included), driving (sexy hot rod), and strategy (organizing a horde of headbangers).  The only problem is when I fail at map reading and find myself in Lake Hylia when I'm supposed to be at The Killmaster's lair :P

Video blog: Feeling better, whoo!

Every unexplained pain in my body gives me the creepy crawlies but other than that, I wanted to show off (:

Click here for the video because I can't remember how to embed T_T

I have moments of terror

I hear a passing 'died of X cancer' and it chills me.  I don't dare research anything.  The less I know, the less I have to freak out about.  All I want to know is how to beat it.

Hollywood Ron died.  The last time I saw him, he was so vibrant….so far from stillness.  The last time I saw him was just a few months ago.  He ran the best tours in Savannah, just added two new ones, and was involved in just about every movie production that came through.  I got on the tours free for being hospitality staff but he always told me to bring lots of friends and they could come for free too.  Then he bought us ice cream at Leopold's.  He was that kind of guy.  The kind that deserves to live forever, not have a massive heart attack.  

I'm definitely losing my hair….this is what happens when I run my fingers through it!  Hmm is the picture big enough to reveal an embarressing draft of The Deep Within? =O 

I take it step by step, indulge in presents and look on the bright side like how awesome my wig is gonna be.  Maybe I'm not being realistic, maybe I'm laid back because I don't fully understand, I don't know but I'm glad I can spend most days smiling.  

The ginormous TV my dad got for my room doesn't hurt ;)

When a moment hits me, I don't want to talk about it.  I want to hug my dog and then race across the yard for a frisbee.  I WILL get a dog.  

Working at the pet salon has made me ridiculously picky but that's good, that gets me focused and researching.  It may be another two months before a puppy is old enough to come home with me but I can read training books, I can visit, I can envision that future.  A good future.

I have no patience.  I feel great, I'm SO ready for my next dose of chemo.  Bring it on!  I want to fucking decimate this evil and I want to do it NOW.  I hate that it's working inside me while I have to wait yet another week before I can give it another kick to the head.

Hehe I kept my Fall Alert bracelet from the hospital on.  It makes me giggle.  WATCH OUT, SHE COULD FALL AT ANY MOMENT!  I was pretty unsteady on my feet but now I'm running up and down the stairs :D  the bracelet slipped off somewhere, goodbye my dear Fall Alert you warned people well!

Chemo is pretty anticlimactic

I thought it was a radiation tube that burned you to a crisp :x It's just a few drip bags into the ol' arc reactor. They gave me Benydril which totally knocked me out and then it was getting on in the evening so I slept through most of it. Woke up feeling pretty good though I'm sleepy and my stomach hurts now. No nausea, no weird reactions, it's so easy I'm wondering if it even worked T_T the on site pulmonologist checked my lungs and said they sounded good which is a first! My breathing feels the same though and I'm still coughing :P I guess miracles take time.

There's a white board in here that the nurses write their name/number/the date etc on and there's a "Excellent quality care is…" and "Care goals"and "pain goals" In my last room, the Excellent care list included "sleeping, good room temp"and my Care goal was "Go home (=" I really want to write "Kick cancer's ass" under my care goals but there's no pen in this room T_T

Since I'm not showing any negative reactions, they're discharging me today. FINALLY! I'll miss knowing what my temperature is every two hours :P It's ranged anywhere from 95-100. 

Things to bring next time (lol hopefully there won't be a next time D:)
-Hilarious underwear because no matter what you do, everyone ends up seeing it so you may as well make it worth looking at
-Socks with traction
-A camera
-A list of phone numbers and a phone card (not supposed to use cell phones in patient areas)
-Snacks if okay'd by the doctor
-Hairdryer
-Luxurious bath products like a Bath and Body Works set because the shower is the best part of the day, rock it!


Also I am never ever accepting a job without insurance again.