…had the nerve, 2.5 years ago (but not seen in places i go), to issue “i’m sorry you have cancer” cards. last year, a gentleman wrote a book and included Hallmark’s blurb on why “I’m sorry you have cancer”.  just 6 or so months ago - just 6 months - one month after the review - the book came out in kindle.

to the guy who wrote the book “What Were They Thinking” (and you can either google him or pull him up on amazon, which has a great search engine): THANK YOU! nobody with cancer cares about those stupid cards - epecially those with Stage 4 cancer.

to the HALLMARK woman that wrote the cards: YOU IDIOT!!!!!!! tell HALLMARK, YOUR EMPLOYER, YOU HAVE MADE A HUGE MISTAKE!!!and get fired - which is what you deserve.

i don’t care about cards - especially those with no return address (which is ILLEGAL as of 11 september 2001). they got the card AND to break the law? anything that is hand-written with no return address goes in the trash. emails go in the trash - except if you’re a well-trusted friend, and then you might get a response in three or so weeks. send a note with the return address on it - and don’t send one of those “I’m sorry you have cancer”  HALLMARK cards.

i have to go to chemo now.

…and giraffe slippers. that’s what fits. and they’re cute - they’re CUTE!!!!!

update on me:

close to c-mas i ended up in the er thinking and writing (very slowly) in english but speaking in what i found out was french. my friends on the east coast got me an ambulance. the head male thought i was drunk. the head female knew i was not (where did i hear that before???). net-net: i had a small stroke which required 15 very, very short sessions of radiation.

i have brain cancer.

i’m having a very bad reaction to something. i think it’s the arthro - which i had to take to get over the pain of the port removal -  and residual pain - because everyone in oly and lacey was out of oxy. since, like ibuprofin, it’s an NSAID and has the same side effects, i’m taking ibuprofin now - weeks later. don’t ask.

chemo (finally) tomorrow. senior doc being more doc-like.  junior doc being a futz. (she didn’t even remember to put the arthro in the computer. must have a new girl.)

i *heart* my boots and slippers (but my slippers more cuz they’re funny - and warm).

little dog died late in january. nothing to say, other than i’m going through a depression and he’s not here to help out. i miss him terribly and wake up crying from missing him. almost 17 years. tears. random tears.

i can’t get clean. my skin looks and feels like fish - and it’s everywhere. cannibal says it’s another reaction. all i know is baby oil only makes things worse. just call me pigpen.

i woke up on c-mas day completely bald (hair everywhere!!!) and 25 pounds heavier - seriously. thank goodness i wore something loose to sleep. when in doubt, eat cookies - and after i finished off mum’s cookies (which were sooooooo good)  i made my own. coconut, brown sugar and a few choco chips. so there!!!  and they were also so good. not as good, but pretty damned good!

everything tastes like salt.

the doc who put the port in had to be convinced to remove it. i did not know that the argument went so far. all i know is they hardly ever used the port because it was always infected. the taxi driver didn’t even want to take me to the grocery store - despite the fact it meant more money for him. he just wanted to take me home to sleep.

my sleep cycle is strange.

so is my dream cycle.

i keep dreaming of aw. it’s b&w. and brown. and green. mucky green.

mucky green.  why in the hell am i dreaming of him?

upon having the port removed i, immediately, felt much better. the following day, though, i had to get the packing removed. s tried - to much screaming on my part. b tried with lidocaine with more success - but not without some screaming.

i’m not a screamer. really. not. a. screamer.

all in all it went ok. on saturday i did have to take 3 arthro to get through the pain, but that’s it. some days one. some days none. now i get ibuprofin. we’ll see.

for now, that’s it. more later. tomorrow. a week from now. a month from now. whenever.

i miss you.

i’m not dying.

today.

and certainly don’t disregard me.

i sleep with little dog’s blankie on my bed - something he didn’t do.

i have slept for hours today and need more sleep.

please don’t hate me.

two computers died. not one, but two. the mbp officially bit it. the imac officially bit it. i’m now the proud owner of two dead macs - and a mb - which i may or may not get reimbursed for - and which cost over $1K (unlike the original of the computer with lesser specs, which cost over $3K). the lenova, at about $400 or so, i could’t get arrroved for. at all. i never even got the monitor because it was given to me *after* my furniture left raleigh and i had no room whatsoever for it in my car. so i gave it to a colleague and now, picked out my own. per me and thanks to the dead imac. i picked an hp due to the fact it’s an incredible monitor - and the fact that it’s 1/3 the price of the equivalent apple. hell i couldn’t get an apple for under $699.  or is it $599? regardless, i got a new monitor for far less money than i should have paid because i paid too much for a computer i may or may not get reimbursed for. and truth be told, i don’t want to be. i bought 3gigs of RAM - which amounts to 2gigs more than i originally had. i bought a monitor - one worth viewing my photos on and certainly not what would have been purchased for me or given to me. that one would have cost under $100 for a major-assed square box with no colour control.

in other developments, it was only herceptin this time (and next). my skin is so naturally smooth now - and my teeth don’t hurt as much (but cannibal junior is starting to look for a dentist for me as the chemo has destroyed my mouth - and i’m still not allowed to go to the dentist without getting knocked out).  my feet still hurt - but not need-an-oxycodone-every-four-hours hurt. i can get by with six. sometimes seven. besides, they’re only 5mg each, so what do i care? hell my little nephew takes a stronger dose. my hands still ache, though. no nails worth talking about. it’s going to take 4 full months for them to grow out *if* they grow out at the normal rate. anyway…

i hope the next cocktail will be different. this past one was horrible to the 85th power. now i can eat (sort of). and bake. and did i mention eat? things are still more than a bit strange - but it feels good to *almost* taste things the way they’re supposed to taste. it’ll take about a year post-chemo to get my tastes back - but this will do for now. couple this with everything else and, well, you have what you have.

oh, my brain is still really fuzzy. really, really fuzzy.

syd likes me though. he follows me around and gives me kisses. he stinks, but he gives me kisses.

i do like his kisses, even when he stinks.

ms. a took most of what my sil sent to hand out to the folks at the shelter. i really can’t eat a lot of is due to bad teeth and having different tastes by the minute. that’s fine. good, actually. people who can use it are getting it - and that’s all that matters (especially with this economy). i appreciate having someone to go out and feed those whose eating habits are bad because of that’s transpired with them. so brava to sil and ms. a.

so now it’s sleepy time. must relax. eat pumpkin pie (with or without crust - depends on a lot of things). drink my favourite drink (sans chocolate - i crave chocolate  but cannot eat it to save my gimpy soul). sleep well. and throw small soft toys at the tv. michael symon is on - and i do want to mame him. severely. good news is robert irvine is coming back to di in march.  does that mean he gets to come back to iron chef too - or do we have to endure any amount of that creaton? and if so, can we hurt him and get away with it?

another week ends; another week starts. i feel like total poop-shit this go ’round. the doc says i look great - and he thinks i’m in remission. i think he’s been hanging out with too many old folks and is just being wishful. either that or he ate too many mushrooms with his post toasties. regardless…

later today is human origami day. some nice rad or other is going to drug me and fold me into some position or other that people don’t belong in and, frankly, can’t bend into without major force and a lot of wishful thinking. lucky for me i’m relatively pliable when drugged out of my mind - and don’t mind being subjected to a teeny tiny spaces. i don’t really understand why so many people do, actually. but if i had to vote, i would say ct scans should require helper people (if they would actually help instead of being buffoons and making more trouble than anything else) or taxi drivers. getting home (or, in this case, to the pharmacy) after this is going to be interesting (as it was last time). oh well.

hey - we can go to seiverville, tennessee and go shopping! and see dolly parton!! and ride some sort of single-person indy-styled karts!!! doesn’t that make you want to rush to the airport (or kill your tv)?

yeah, remission. if it happens, little dog might need to go stay at the pet ranch for a while while i jump in the car and take some travel time. i’ve not been to canon beach for a while, so that might need to be on the agenda. bc, of course, is a given. montana, well, i think it’s snowing there right now, and i don’t really want to drive in snow. now. later is another day. one can never tell what i might decide. if i get to decide.

on a more concrete note, mum’s birthday presents are slated to arrive on wednesday. ‘course this in and of itself is going to cause yet more fighting, irritation and annoyance but i can’t, i won’t care anymore. i’ve got better things to care about. like whether or not monkeys make good pets.

later today is a day of reading, learning, and meetings - the last of which has the pleasure of a software engineer being the guest of honour. if i try hard enough, maybe i can gnaw off my feet before then so that i can have yummy, bloody stumps to bash again the floors. i’m sure he’s going to be very nice. like an inbred, hungry rottweiler is nice. but at least i have that human origami thing to look forward to. whee ha!

well it’s time to get to sleep, to rest, to prepare for later. actually, it was time a number of hours ago, but now it’s really time.  short pop is walking around the living room plotting my demise. i’m hungry (as usual) but nothing tastes worth eating (as usual). all is well with the world (as usual).

the hell with mccain, palin, obama and biden. what is up with the state candidates?

wouldn’t it just be more sane if we armed them all with boxing gloves or semi-automatics and let them have at each other like they appear to want to? either that or wouldn’t it just be nice if they would get over their sorry-assed, egotistical and useless selves so the rest of us can watch the early morning news in peace?

i vote we each donate a dollar so they can, collectively, get their resumes re-written to be somewhat accurate.

so what with the lies. just make them stop!

election day is my next infusion day. we can only hope that 8 pm will roll around and either the candidates will have decided to play nice - or i’ll be overcome enough to make them stop on my own. in my own head.

eight! eight!! eight!!! eight!!!! yeah we we all love eight!!!!! how many is eight??????

as you know (how could you not - unless you live in a snowdrift), october is breast cancer awareness month. bfd. we all know not to get me started on that one. but you can feel free to get me started on this:

breast cancer awareness spray tan

or this:

learn to knit for the cause

or this:

avalon pink ribbon totally not waterproof watch

ok that’s not funny at all - but a person who bought this also bought this:

no fair…you have to click the link

now *that’s* funny - and not necessarily something i would admit to, what with buying a totally not waterproof watch and all.

now do you understand when i say everything is out there getting on the bandwagon!

i’m going back to r & r now - and to count the days until this stupid month is over. i’ll be avoiding amazon until then.

some poor pathetic drunk guy managed to take out four (!!!) power poles and an underground cable early this morning. that left little dog and me without power until just past 5:00 pm tonight. according to the brain deficient guy who answered my second phonecall to the power company i should feel really sorry for the guy who took out the power poles. “chances are he got really hurt!!!!!”

it takes skill to take out one power pole in a dump truck, let alone a passenger car. to take out four *and* the underground cable in a simple vehicle any one of us might happen to have in our garages, well, i guess we should notify mensa of his injury. surely he’s a member.

and i sure do hope he got really hurt. in fact, i hope he’s paralised from the ears down. that way he won’t feel it when the 500+ families’ members whose lives he disrupted for more than 15  hours on the coldest day of the season (to date) beat him bloody and stick him on top of one of those poles he so kindly took down for us.

…some people manage to survive 20, 30, 40, even 50 or more years despite being dumber than my dirty socks? i mean squirrels are dumb and manage to meet their demise relatively quickly. ’same with groundhogs. why not humans?

where’s the logic?

where’s the reason??

for every gods sake where’s the justice???

i have a headache.

october is the “official” breast cancer awareness month. the month in which almost every product on the grocers’ shelves are emblazoned with that infamous, well loved (or well hated) pink ribbon. the month in which major corporations, ranging from auto manufacturers to cosmetic companies to food processing conglomerates come together, side by side, to fight the good fight, beat down the odds, change the odd, win with war, find the cure. the month in which every child in north america can dine on ribbon-shaped blue box dinner, every cook can feel good about herself buying (and using) her pink kitchenaid mixer, every business traveller can feel “aware” by flying one of too many airlines’ pretty pink “breast cancer awareness” planes (and in the case of delta be more proactive and buy a pink lemonade). the month in which absolutely anything for sale has a pink-ribboned version also for sale (always at a higher price) - and random “think pink” items appear everywhere from the big box stores to the chic boutiques (and with vague promises made to contribute proceed from the sale of said items to [insert foundation here - but usually the susan komen foundation, but we won’t talk about that]).

why?

is it because documented instances of breast cancer have risen to the point where they account for 1 in 7 diagnosis worldwide (and yes, that includes the populations of countries other than those on the target list).

is it because funds raised go to causes with track records of success?

or is it because pink is pretty - and everyone want to be pretty?

and why pink?

breast cancer is neither pink nor pretty - nor are the women afflicted with it prissy little lambs.

corporate amerika has taken the symbol of this deadful disease and turned it into a saleable commodity - and in the process added more coins its own already deep and inaccessible pockets not unlike scrooge in “a christmas carol”. and it did so at the expense of every woman, child and man that tries to do what (s)he feels is the humanly right thing to do: provide support so a cure can be found - and found quickly. buy buy buy. march march march. donate donate donate.

“Let’s not pinkwash proper discussion about this disease”

(the above is a url. click on it.)

we buy (even stupid little things that have no meaning whatsoever other than they don pink ribbons and look at us cutely). we march (2 days, 3 days - under the banner of an organisation that boasts only 10% of its overall revenue goes toward administrative costs..i guess they forgot their head honchos earn most of that 10% and the rest of the workforce is volunteer). we donate (by spending extra for that pink colour on that mixer, by giving over money to inanely named sub-charities, by buying a special edition of kraft dinner at $1.00 more a box because “that’s a dollar that goes toward research and finding a cure”).

so where’s the cure?

and why breast cancer?

and why pink?

sorry amerika, but thinking puke would be far more appropriate and honest.

the corporations are making money off of your honest efforts - and all you’re getting is dust-catching tchatchkes or funny shaped noodles.

the foundations are taking your money - and the money of your sponsors - and spending it in ways and means that don’t need to be made public.

the conglomerates are selling you incomplete information - and taking “x” but not giving the promised “y”.

there is no cure. only a promise as empty and useless as those ribbon-bearing tchatchkes or ribbon shaped noodles.

think puke, not pink. and after you’re through puking, start learning.