but not in a good way

The Riley Report

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Five weeks ago, Riley had his first x-ray after finishing chemo.  His last x-ray was on Halloween, and it showed clear lungs.  This one was not clean.  They took three pictures, and on one of them, they could see a shadow that they were pretty sure but maybe not but probably is a lesion.  So Riley’s cancer metastasized.  When we got his diagnosis at the end of last summer, they told us that with the amputation and chemo, his odds were 50/50 that he’d be cancer free in year.  Looks like Riley fell into the wrong 50.  They couldn’t tell us anything else (like how bad, how fast, how much longer) without a second x-ray, so that brings us to today.  His second x-ray was this afternoon, and while there’s still only the one spot, it has grown by 38%.  That only brought it to 2cm, so it shouldn’t be affecting him yet.  The vet says it probably won’t bother him until it gets to 5-7cm or unless more appear.  We started the metronomic chemo (low doses by pill) yesterday, in the hopes that it will slow the growth.  Our next x-ray is in 7 weeks.

John is upstairs trying to make an L-shaped cut into a porcelain tile with a hacksaw, I just finished cooking Riley some chicken, and he’s hanging out on his dog bed looking at me.  (I feel judged – I’m not being entertaining enough.  Or I’m in trouble for not giving him the chicken yet. It’s too hot, buddy!)

He’s still okay for now.  We are, too.

Time flies

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I don’t think time runs the same way on Sundays as it does the rest of the week.  I just don’t believe it’s after 5 already.  I don’t know where the time went, so it must not have happened the usual way.  Sunday time = magic.  Dark magic.  I need to find the other white hats so we can band together and fight it.  In unrelated news, I just watched a bunch of clips from Jay Leno’s last Tonight Show on YouTube, and I can safely say I don’t regret never having watched a single show of his in 22 years.  He wasn’t funny.  I suppose that assumes that his last monologue was representative – maybe it wasn’t.  Still, no regrets.  Now, I’m off to find some time wizards to get our Sunday hours back.  Oh my god – time wizards.  Timelords!  Duh.  Doctor, where are you when I need you?

Cataloging my symptoms, just for you

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Why read my book when I could be watching Supernatural?  This is how I know I’m sick.  I’m not knocking Supernatural, but when I can’t summon the willpower to focus on a book when I have a whole day ahead of me, there must be something wrong.  And there is, in the sinus congestion, inflated head, throbbing headache behind one eye kind of way.  I took medicine, of course, so add weird loopy dryness to the list.  I can breathe freely through my nose, but my head is still congested.  And I’m having slight difficulty swallowing.  But I feel fine from the shoulders down.  Except for some mild aching….  This print is really tiny.  I’m going back to the couch and my TV.

Trying out insufferable

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I feel virtuous.  I RAN to my polling place this morning and voted and then ran home.  I exercised my rights as a citizen of this country while exercising.  (John did, too.)  I am proudly wearing my “I voted” sticker, which has so far managed to stay stuck to my sweater, so EVERYONE knows how citizenly and more-civic-minded-than-thou I feel today.

And with that, I think my period of insufferableness (insufferability?) needs to end.  I’m tired, and I’d like to take a nap.

Waiting

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Riley’s been limping lately.  He’s limped before, usually when he lands badly after guiltily jumping off the bed or the couch, and with a couple of days of rest, everything’s fine.  We took him to the vet the first time – nothing to be done for him except keep him quiet.  This time, he limped for three weeks straight.  Our gentle prodding never resulted in any pain (that we could see), so it didn’t seem urgent.  John took him to the vet Friday evening (we decided that three weeks was excessive and were feeling guilty for not getting him there sooner).  We expected to hear that his ankle was sprained.  Worst case, maybe a small fracture.  That would have been great news.

Our vet, who we really like, took four x-rays, all showing the same thing.  She doesn’t want to say for sure until she gets a second opinion from the specialist, but it looks like bone cancer (osteosarcoma).  She did a chest x-ray, and his chest looks clear, so she doesn’t think it has spread.  John asked what this means for treatment, and the vet wasn’t willing to get into it until we have a definite diagnosis.  He turned to Google, of course, and found that we might (probably will?) have to amputate his leg (it’s his front left leg) and then follow that with chemotherapy.  We have absolutely no idea what this means for him long-term, or even what long-term means now.  He’s only 10 and a half.

It’s been a rough weekend.  We’d hoped that the vet could get in touch with the specialist yesterday, but apparently she couldn’t.  We’ll hear something tomorrow, but I’m sure there will be more appointments, more discussions.

It hasn’t even been four months – we got rid of Roxy’s old toys and medicines today.  We’re keeping her bowl and her pillow and her leash and collar.  It’s too soon to go through this again.

Life sucks sometimes.

Acting like a child. Except for the refinancing thing. And the taxes.

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I can’t figure this weekend out.  I’m in kind of a funk.  A petty annoying funk.  I did stuff yesterday (the gym, wrestled with TurboTax on linux, a couple of errands), but not enough.  I HAVE to get to the store today (we’re nearly out of calf liver for Roxy, and we need some other essentials), and I need to go to the gym…I think I’m going to put off my pedicure until later in the week or next weekend…

I did just finish our taxes, so that’s something.  I broke down and used my work laptop.

I’m on the verge of pouting because I have to go to the store.  Or because I have to go to the gym and the store, and that’s a lot of time out of the house.  Pouting!  Jesus.  I think it’s Sunday Afternoon Syndrome.  I can feel the weekend slipping away.

[Break]

Haven’t left the house yet (it’s about two hours later), but I’m about to.  John and I did finally call the bank to discuss refinancing, and now that we have all the numbers, it’s possible that we just won’t.  It depends on when we’re really trying to get out of this house.  I feel better having gotten that information (I’ve backed off from the pouting ledge).  And we’re about to go to the store.  Looks like the gym isn’t happening today.  I can take a day off, right?

Invasion weekend

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I have been taken over by a pod person.  Wait – I am a pod person.  I’ve been taken over by a pod?  I think it happened when I almost tripped over that squirrel yesterday.  Not that I traded places with the squirrel.  That would be more like a Freaky Friday scenario.  Hey, I was never really into that whole body snatchers thing, so I don’t know the details.  My point is that I’m not acting like myself.  This is a big build-up for just one thing, but it’s kind of a big thing for me.  Are you ready?  I COOKED today.  Like multiple things, so we’d have food for lunches and stuff the rest of the week.  Can you believe it?  It’s an obvious thing that lots of people do, but that’s my point.  I don’t do it.  I never have.  But now I have a brisket all cooked and cooling on top of the oven and chicken corn chowder simmering on the stove.  (It was originally supposed to be Mexican chicken corn chowder, but since John doesn’t do spicy, I left out the chiles, and I’m thinking that means it doesn’t count as Mexican anymore.)

Aaaaannnnd here’s why I don’t cook much.  I just stepped away from the laptop to check out the soup (and maybe take a picture), and I found that the soup was bubbling, and when I went to stir it, much of it was stuck to the bottom of the pot.  I only turned up the heat because John noticed that it wasn’t particularly hot (when he tasted it).  I didn’t mean to leave it…I suck at cooking.  I don’t think it’s ruined.  I lowered the heat a lot and stirred a lot, and most of it looks fine.  We’ll see.

It’s a mystery

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Going to bed early didn’t work.  I had crazy dreams and I woke up too many times.  So what’s different?  I haven’t been overeating, I haven’t been drinking caffeine much (and what I’ve had was all gone no later than mid-morning), I haven’t been exercising at night…  I haven’t done anything out of the ordinary the last couple of days. The only thing I can think is that sleeping sitting up (because I’ve been so congested) is just not working for me anymore.

Boring boring boring boring.

I’m putting off stuff I don’t want to do, but it’s not leading to interesting stuff here…

Boring.

Hmph.  I might be boring right now, but my book isn’t.

Coughing for Christmas

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Why am I sick again?  Is this some cruel joke?  I was better for a few days, maybe even a whole week, and then I woke up with a sore throat Thursday morning, and now I’m a wreck.  I’m drinking water like there’s no tomorrow, which means I’m going to the bathroom every 15 minutes or so, and I’m congested and coughing my head off.  This is getting old.  Everyone keeps asking me what they can do to make me feel better, and I appreciate that, I really do, but there isn’t anything anyone can do.  I have medicine (although it doesn’t seem to be doing anything), and I have lots of water and lots of tea and lots of kleenex – what else is there?  Oh, it’s time for ibuprofen.  Ouch, people.  This sucks.

A slow decline into congestion

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Hey, guys.  It’s miserable me, checking in.  I have a cold.  I think I put up a good fight yesterday, but I gave in when we got home last night, and I have spent all of today on the couch.  I watched a couple episodes of Arrow and a pre-election episode of SNL with John this morning, and I watched two episodes of Glee after he went upstairs to do some programming.  (He gave up on Glee a long time ago.  I’m not entirely sure why I haven’t yet.)  I think I’m TV’d out for now, and I just took some more medicine, so I’m going to curl up under a blanket and read for a while until John gets hungry.  And then I think we’re going to order Chinese so I can have egg drop soup.  I love egg drop soup, even when I can’t taste it.

Update: I burned my tongue on the egg drop soup.  Go me.

Blah blah, complain complain, shut up already

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Riley is going insane, I’m freezing to death, and I think I just heard “Gangnam Style” coming out of John’s office.  The world is ending TONIGHT.  Hug your loved ones and duck and cover.  (Isn’t that what the Mayans said to do?)

Riley has been one uncontrollable bundle of annoying energy today.  If he could focus that energy on keeping me warm, I could handle it, but instead he’s been bouncing off the walls while I sit at my computer and shiver.  The thermostat says it’s 67 degrees in here.  I don’t see how it could be. I’m so COLD.

[Pause while I wrap myself in a blanket.  It’s times like these when I wish I had a snuggie.  Kind of.]

Just got distracted by Bookshelf Pr0n and Better Book Titles.  And my fingers are too cold for typing.  So…sure, I’ll publish this disjointed and not very entertaining blog post.  Don’t judge me!

Baffled

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I’m confused.  The time change, the weather, the fact that Thanksgiving is next week already – all of these things are throwing me.  Also, maybe it has something to do with the fact that I don’t have anything to worry about.  There’s usually something, and given another day or so, I’m sure I could come up with a new thing to gnaw on, but it probably won’t be big.  Why do I feel so weird?  John does, too.  We had a good weekend, fun, even productive: we finally made an appointment to get an estimate for putting hardwood floors in upstairs, something we’ve been talking about for probably a year now.  I’m not that excited about my book – that’s probably part of it.  I haven’t been making the time to read (what is WRONG with me?).  The book I just finished (Sheri S. Tepper’s latest) was okay, but not gripping (definitely not her best).  WAY heavy on the exposition.

Okay, you know what?  I can’t solve the mystery of why I feel at loose ends, but I can go upstairs and put something light on TV and clean up before the flooring guy shows up tomorrow.  He needs to be able to measure, and right now you can’t see where the wall meets the floor.

I don’t want to do anything

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You know, it’s been a fun weekend, but I need another weekend to recover from it.  Friday night was the concert, and it was nearly 2am before we went to bed.  Six hours later, I was awake because I still had stuff to do in the house before John’s dad and sister showed up.  Then John and his dad spent the day replacing a column on the porch, and Emily and I went wine-tasting and got pedicures (which was a very nice way to spend the afternoon – I highly recommend it), and then we picked up sushi for dinner.  And then we sat at the damn table until 1:30 last night because we are incapable of shutting up and going to bed.  So now?  I’m exhausted.  I’m sacked out on the couch when I should be at the grocery store or out on my bike or walking the dogs or doing something productive…  It’s taking everything I’ve got just to keep my eyes open.

SO late

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I have a feeling that nothing this weekend is going to happen on time.  That’s not really a problem, since we only have one activity planned that runs on a schedule we don’t have any control over (we’re seeing The Pirates of Penzance at Wolf Trap tomorrow night – yay!), but it did affect my day today.  My plan (like every weekend) was to do my long run early Saturday morning, but John pointed out (and I applaud his foresight) that tonight isn’t likely to be an early night and we’re going to want to get a relatively early start tomorrow morning, so there is no way I’m going to run five miles before we get in the car to go to Annapolis.

Instead, I did my five miles this morning.  Of course, I didn’t start quite early enough, so I didn’t get back to the house until 7:45.  Very late for a work morning.  It took me a lot longer than usual to cool down and stop sweating (because it’s so crazy hot right now), and I was puttering around the house doing last-minute cleaning things, and then I cleaned my bathroom, and then I got in the shower.  At 8:45.  When on a normal work morning, I’m at work by 9.  It’s not a big deal – work is flexible as long as I put the hours in, but it messes up my whole day.

*Several hours later*

Well, it didn’t mess up my entire day, but it did continue.  I waited until just about the last minute to get to the store this afternoon, making it home only minutes before Corey and Gaby arrived.  Because – yay! – Corey and Gaby are visiting for a few days!

It’ll be a while before the machines are ready to take over the world

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We still have a land line at home.  I’m not sure why, really.   We use it to make some calls (the vet, the pharmacy), and our parents use it to reach us sometimes, but they use our cell phones at least as often as the land line.  We mostly ignore it because despite registering for every Do Not Call list out there, we get tons of telemarketers, political robocalls, and other spam.  We talked about getting rid of it not too long ago, but I think our main reason for keeping it is because it’s our primary contact number for every bill, every account, every everything, and it would be a pain to update those.  Not the greatest reason to keep paying for it.  It’s Vonage, so it’s cheap, but still.

As long as we still have it, though, I get some entertainment out of its visual voicemail feature.  All voicemail goes to my Yahoo account (another dinosaur, but I have better reasons for keeping it), but Vonage doesn’t always do a good job of transcribing what was actually said.  Sometimes the program gives up altogether, but usually it tries.  Just about half an hour ago, I got this visual voicemail:

“Hi Ms. Bird, this is Sharon calling from pointless mom. Just calling to let you know that your contacts are ready for pick up. Thank you”

That’s Vonage’s punctuation, not mine, and this is better than most since at least the second half makes sense.  It’s also only the second half that told me it was my eye doctor’s office calling.  I might suggest they change the name of their practice to Pointless Mom when I swing by tomorrow.  Much funnier.  I don’t know where that came from, though.  It doesn’t even rhyme with the actual name.  Speaking of names, no names had to be changed to protect the innocent – Bird is not my last name, and Sharon is not the name of the woman who called.  (I listened to the actual voicemail, too.)

None of this is convincing me to keep a land line for the house, but it has convinced me that I don’t have to worry about evil robotic overlords just yet.  Or maybe they just want me to think that…

The mirror is not my friend today

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I just got back from yoga.  It was good, but…  Heh.  More like, it was good, butt…  My yoga instructor had us put our mats up against the wall.  Most of the room is mirrored, so my back was up against the mirror, facing her in the middle of the room.  Then we went into down dog.  Hands and feet on the mat, butt high up in the air, head hanging down.  Because my head was down and my neck was relaxed, I was looking at my legs.  More specifically, I was looking through my legs, between my thighs.  At the mirror.  Where I had a fantastic view of my butt.  And it looked eNORmous.  I’m telling myself it was an optical illusion.  My butt’s not THAT big, right?  Anyone?

On second thought, don’t answer that.

Sometimes I bore myself

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You know something? I’m pretty good at babbling.  Sometimes it’s entertaining (I hope.  It is to me, anyway.).  More often, it’s not.  And sometimes it’s surprising just how long I can go on about something (like school, for instance) before I realize it’s boring.  To you, to me, to the dogs.  Flat out not interesting to anyone at all.  I TRY to delete (deletedeletedeletedeletedeletedeletedelete) that stuff.  Like I just did.  Blah blah boringcakes.

Unfortunately, there are some times (like, oh, I don’t know…now?) when I don’t have anything rattling around in my head to replace the long-ass rant I just deleted about the waste of time and money my statistics class has turned into (because a full half of this course is a repeat of the last two chapters of the previous statistics course, a course that was a pre-req to this one – I get review chapters, but these two review chapters are the only subjects on the @*&$%&*^ midterm – that was a much more concise way of putting it).  Do you think that’s going to stop me from posting?  Hmm?

Maybe.  It depends on a number of things.  Like, what time is it?  How tired am I?  Is my book particularly engrossing?  If the answers are a) late, b) very, and/or c) ohmygodyes, then no post is forthcoming.  Sorry.  If it’s today, however, and the answers are a) midday, b) not particularly, and c) have you looked at the time? What do you think I do all day that I could be reading my book right now?, then the fact that you’ve read this far should tell you something.  (Psst.  Come here.  Closer.  Just you.  You’re my favorite.)