thisismydisease.com

for the first time in more than four months, i have shoes - and i can wear ‘em!!!!!

my feet have gotten a lot bigger, but they’re not swollen anymore. so i have shoes, thanks to endless and zappos (both of which have free overnight delivery and return, if needed). a pair of black hemp boots with crepe soles and rubber buttons - and a pair of orange nubuck mary janes with huge elastic straps.

i picked the right size - really big.it feels weird wearing shoes. i’m not used to it. i’m mostly used to wearing slippers and, maybe, the smiley cow gumboots. but not shoes.

i’m happy.

can i sleep in my shoes? please???

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).

i realised, when i woke up from a much-needed afternoon nap, i was sleeping curled onto my left side.

it’s the first time since february or march.

oh my…it’s been a long week. work has been busy. treatment happened (and sucked as it usually does). i bought new knives (and a sharpener - gotta love amazon) and might get new pots (despite the fact mine are ancient they’re still in perfect condition because they’re tools - but my cooking style has changed sooooo much, though, i think they’re feeling unloved and unappreciated - so it might be time to gift them to someone that’s going to love them as much as i do). my back hurts (thanks to the chemo) unless i’m resting on the wedge. i’m sleepy. i might be in remission. i’ve made arrangements for a certain “group” to be gifted with very large-pawed puppies within the next three weeks. (it’s a cutie group, that’s for sure. and it’s not one of those stupid, inbred pure-breed groups.) i “played” (sent messages - none of those super poke things that can end up with a 2 X 4 to the head) on facebook with a group of new “recruits” (aka people who got sucked into the time suck invented by a group who is not even the demographic). a colleague proved that “lazy-assed” gamers can contribute a hell of a lot more with little to no solicitation than the clueless susan komen “i am celebrating *me* by raising a shitload of money for some admin’s pocketbook because i’m too clueless to know better or, *shock*, do my research” can. (do “the voice”, people. do” the voice”. and by all means wear pink head to toe because we all know how important pink is.)  i managed to only be forced to buy only two (!!!) “pink” useless, lying products this week (and prided myself in *not* mentioning to the guy in line behind me - the guy controlled by his “pink” wife who is just too clueless to understand - that the yoplait “pink labels” he spent so much time picking is nothing but a lie and in fact contributes to the propagation of the disease, not the cure - let’s hear it once more for corporate amerika and self-induced brain-deadness). yeah, it was a long week. the normal. the usual. ish.

and i’m hungry.

poop.

well, at least dear S helped me out with my tennis ball hair (which has to go asap - it’s fugly to the 25th degree and feels like something  one would find at the bottom of a very dirty dry laundry basket). and at least i know that dumbasses mean more in this world than people who do their homework and research and don’t rely on tv. guess i should go watch fox news now. or something.

nah…

instead, i’m gonna go get ready for the fun of later (5.5 hours later in fact) today: a conference call. on a toll number. that we can’t claim. that’s sure to announce something as interesting as obama running for president. yeah. that interesting.

earlier today, while sitting here doing what i do when i sit here (working, for those of you who think you can call during business hours because i work from home and, therefore, don’t really work) and something plowed into the sliding door. since my yard backs onto a golf course i really didn’t think much of it. i figured it was some guy’s runaway (nice way of saying “aimed improperly”) golf ball - so i ignored it. it happened again about 10 minutes later. and again sometime later. each time i ignored it because, well, i was working and really don’t care as long as nothing gets broken.

but then it started at the kitchen window.

for some reason, something bonking at the sliding door doesn’t annoy me too terribly. maybe it’s because it’s in front of me. i don’t know. but something bonking at a window behind me annoys the crap out of me and convinces me little dog is going to go ballistic (which, of course, he cannot because he’s mostly blind and mostly deaf).

so up i got and went to investigate.

in what’s left of the window box i found a cat - a cat bonking his head against the glass and clawing at the miniscule screen with his claws.

pork.

i mean cork.

i mean the puppy-cat that used to be a kitten but took some growth pills and went from being a cute little thing to being one big ‘ole creature in what seems like a matter of days but is, more likely, a matter of months.

my friend.

one of only a handful of cats i happen to actually like instead of tolerate at best.

so cork and i played at the window for a few minutes - and little dog put his head up to try to figure out why mummy was making strange gestures and the like.

so i turned around to see little dog.

and cork zoomed away.

dayam he’s still fast! the additional length, height and weight certainly hasn’t changed that.

i’ll be gone all day tomorrow - but i do hope cork stops by again, if only to look in on little dog. they don’t get to see each other in person very often - and good friends are hard to come by. especially the fuzzy ones.

as for me, i was very glad to see him - but even more glad to have seen him through a wall of glass. his favourite game is “trip the human”. his second favourite game is “trip the doggie”.  neither one of us is very fond of falling down. or very graceful.

there’s this hotel on portland everyone who thinks they’re anyone is buzzing about. it’s called the ace hotel. the hipsters (the ones that buy $150 “new and unused” tee shirts they could have found “used and naturally worn out” at goodwill for about $1 or less) have made this “their place”. every blinkin’ magazine is giving the place kudos for being so “hip”, “cool”, “alternative”, “[insert today’s buzz word here]”. but nobody - not one single body - is mentioning the reason why this lame-assed, recycled soda-bottle wearing non-hipster loves the place so much:

the people that work there are nice. genuinely, honestly nice.

i stayed at the ace just a few days before the diagnosis. by day two i was feeling pretty terrible and couldn’t walk more than 50 feet without having to stop and recover (thanks to the respiratory distress).  the folks at the ace, without my asking, saw that i was having some problems and took it upon themselves to try to help me feel as comfortable as possible. they volunteered to get my much-loved stumptown morning iced latte for me (and not go through the usual room service - just call the desk and they’d get it for me). they volunteered to come get my luggage on check-out day. they insisted on taking my luggage out to my car for me (despite the fact i took over 30 minutes to walk the two blocks to the parking area, rested and drove back to the hotel entrance - only to have the lobby filled with checkers-outers). and let’s not even mention the folks at clyde commons, the attached “restaurant of the day” in portland.

i have to admit, i did not eat at clyde commons. feeling the way that i did the idea of getting adverturesome was not something that even remotely came to mind. i went to clyde’s after the seminar each day do to regroup, gather my notes and get away from myself. one day when i walked in and took a seat at the bar, i mentioned to the bartender that i wanted “something”, but really didn’t know what that something was. he just sort of looked at me, then asked “do you like orange juice?” i replied that i did - so he went to the refrigerator and pulled out a glass vial covered with clingwrap. he asked if i like it a little or a lot - to which i replied “pretty much” - so he poured most of the vial’s contents into a glass for me, added a straw and set it in front of me. then stood there. i tasted the orange juice. omg. it was spectacular - perfectly sweet-tart, no pulp, luscious beyond words. as it turned out the bartender had spent the first part of his shift hand-squeezing the juice (which amounted to just over an un-iced glass). it was meant for some of the specialty cocktail hour drinks (all served in iced glasses). i drank almost all of it. he had to go squeeze more. i felt so badly about it i volunteered to pay for the drinks it was meant for. he charged me for a large juice, which was something like $2.

so, yeah, the ace hotel and clyde commons are getting written up everywhere as being “the hip place to see and be seen in portland” which, i’m sure, is helping them get their grounding in and helping them get past the usual “how to get popular quick” dreck that hotels and restaurants have to go through if the press isn’t all over them. for that i’m glad. they’re good establishments - and i look forward to getting well and paying another visit sometime soon. meanwhile and to non-hipster me, they’ll just be two places staffed by very nice people.

and i’ll bet money that if i show up their bald the little hipsters will think it’s cool. (i’ve heard rumour that headshaving is the latest rage among the <28 women in portland. wow. i’m a trendsetter.)

yesterday - another typical day in the neighbourhood: work folks shirking their responsibilities (not advertently, i don’t think - but i could be wrong) and passing them on to me, irc issues, a missing boss, a colleague riding shotgun in the cancermobile his father is driving - and holding on for all that is holy, bleeding gums, bleeding nose, sleepiness, itchy feet, itchy hands, lost boys and girls sending emails, ideas contemplated and tossed about, dwight and candy amusing me, little dog being a dork.

just a typical day.

i sucked it up and cut my nails (after doing my best to soften them so the clipper would actually clip through). it didn’t hurt as much as i anticipated it would, but it didn’t feel particularly pleasant. i’ve a feeling it was the chop-chop through the now concrete-solid fungus that caused the pain.  later today i’ll attend to what’s left.

and i made chocolate chip muffin bread. it’s yummy, although it does make my tongue hurt quite a bit. i’ll toast some for breakfast and eat it with raspberry freezer jam.

not much to say right now. nothing funny. nothing insightful. nothing that anyone would quote me for. just typical things for a typical day.

today was one of those days when a lot of little things happened. nothing important happened, but when you put them all together they made up my day. and it was a good day. normal, but good.
early morning brought my corporate email migration to a new system. in the real corporation this would have been completely seamless and a non-event. but because i work with a bunch that take “diy” a bit too far many times, it was a whole magilla. three hours into what should have taken five minutes i was halfway done - so i made the necessary announcements and aborted the mission. it’ll get done on monday. or not. it’s not that big of a deal (despite what the engineer boys think).

the rest of the day brought more work (nothing at all exciting, though - or even partially interesting), the bubbly bath, the trip to cannibal’s office to pick up the scrip (and chat with ina, his patient liaison and one excellent person) - and the overly lengthy wait in line at the pharmacy. it also brought a footbath.

skin scraping is disgusting but, unfortunately, necessary. a few weeks ago everyone was talking about fishie pedicures which, in a very real way, make sense. i don’t have access to said fishies, though - and even if i did i wouldn’t use them because i’d kill them, and there’s no reason for fishies to martyr themselves for the sake of my skin. so i did the next best thing - bought a footbath.

the footbath was supposed to have arrived here yesterday, but due to the fact ups has summer fill-ins who apparently can’t read street signs (or even know which city they’re in) it was delayed a day (and arrived opened and resealed - but that’s another story). at least it got on the regular route truck today.

so the footbath is here complete with warmer, massage feature, bubble feature, and variously reiki attachments - and all for $20 (gotta love amazon). i’ll give it a shot tomorrow. today’s too done for the time investment. or the mess that’s sure to ensue.

(great…yet another thing for little dog to use as a water bowl. what was i thinking?)

and the first design for the charms is done! i love it love it love it!!!!! but you’re not going to get to see it until it arrives here (along with the first of the second charms). so don’t ask or you’ll be berated for overstepping bounds. nah!

it was a good day.

but now, with the day almost done, it’s time for my midnight snack, a final nighttime visit to those blogs i read daily, a few emails - and then bed.

with all the pain and hassle of walking these days, i spend a lot of time just sitting and thinking. with the chemo and the narcotics, though, those thoughts can be rather random or, at least, non-sensical due to their impossibility.

but let’s say there’s no such thing as impossible.

and let’s say random isn’t. so with that in mind…

…the perfect day.

let’s say, in reward for good behaviour, the deities grant me a perfect day: a day in which i can walk without pain (and maybe even wear shoes - but i won’t be greedy), have hands that work and don’t hurt and aren’t ookey looking, taste buds that don’t malfunction and no mouth sores, feel relaxed, look good, have energy to burn - basically be me, but fortified. and let’s say money is no object. and distance means nothing. my perfect day is mine for the taking.

what would that day be?

well i thought about it long and hard - so here’s my day:

the “event” will take place in a modest yet lovely house somewhere on the coast (hornby island maybe, or oregon). the kitchen, though, will be huge and have every possible pot and pan and small appliance and gadget - and a viking stove - and a sub-zero refrigerator/freezer. i’ll be there with b and her two sons, c and her four, n with or without her teen terrors (her choice), and other b (who would also be feeling great). husbands will be outside doing hubby things (smoking some pork shoulders or turkeys, preparing the grill for later, you know, stuff like that) and planing some activities for six boys under the age of 12 to partake in (read “get tired and placid from”). m will drive up in her convertible (with or without kids and grandkids in tow, her choice). pets will be milling about playing with the boys or digging in the sand or snoozing on the porch. and we’ll be cooking copious amounts of food together. no menu. no specific cuisine. just lots of yummies for everyone by everyone. and we’ll cook and snack and cook and snack and field little boys and cook and snack some more. and at some point the guys will don their guy aprons and commence their grilling war. when the sun starts to set, we’ll light torches and candles on the table on the porch - a table large enough to accommodate the herd and serving plates of everything. and we’d eat, drink some very fine wine and home-brewed sodas, eat, talk, laugh, sneek the pets their share, eat, talk and laugh some more. and when the clock turns to midnight it’ll be done and we’ll be back in our respective days-to-day.

the perfect day.

my perfect day.

and if you think it’s odd i’ve thought this out remind me to tell you about the 72 calendar hours (save for sleep time) i spent trying to decide if a web site i found was stellar or stupid.

(got the old keyboard out of the garage. it’ll do until i can get another. this time it won’t be apple brand.)

if you recall, in this post i pouted and groused (all in good fun of course - sometimes i’m not convinced my sense of humour shows through to those that don’t know me really well) over not having tokens or charms to commemorate my milestones like the aa folks do. well…

i do now. or i should say will soon.

thanks to the wonders of etsy and its artist piano bench designs (whom i’ve made two purchases from) i’m gonna get my charms. ‘keeping it quiet right now - but look for piccies sometime soon.

so take that you aa people! nah nah nah nah nah!!!