SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2014

The prescription anti-itch cream is working great so far.  You can barely see the spot that used to be so red, and it doesn't itch anymore.

The foggy-brain, clumsy, absent-minded list so far:

I once walked into the house and started taking everything off, completely not thinking about it.  Standing there by the front door in my undies about to take off my shirt, with Mom looking at me funny, I realized this wasn't right.  I looked at myself and said, "Oh.  I just took my pants off!"  That was weird.

The day after Thanksgiving Abby and I went Geocaching since the weather was so nice.  After two hours with a success of finding 3 of the 4 we attempted, I just suddenly needed to be done.  Unfortunately we still had at least a half mile walk back to the car.  Finally in the car and sitting at a stop light Abby said, "Mom!  Mom!" and hit my arm.  "The car is rolling."  I had no idea I had taken my foot off the brake.  Good thing no one was in front of us.  I somehow didn't notice the landscape sliding past my window!  I must have really been tired although Abby says I was staring straight ahead.

In the ER with David the other night I was trying to distract myself from the cringing thought of being in a place filled with sick people, some wearing masks, and crying babies, and people walking in with blankets and slippers, like they were so sick all they could do was get up off the couch and walk out the door.  Ick.  The last thing I need right now is to catch God only knows what.  I tried to not even think about it.  I looked over at David clutching his garbage bag of spit-up.  Abby was doing her math homework and plugging equations into her smartphone's calculator.  It gave me a neat idea.

I said, "I have a great idea for an app!  Really, I should invent this.  They should have an app where you can put in any math problem and it figures it out for you."  No, I wasn't trying to be funny.  I was totally serious.  I actually thought I had just come up with the greatest idea ever.

David said, "Yeah that is a great idea except they already have one of those.  It's called a calculator."  Wow.  That was probably the dumbest thing I've ever said.

Today at work I walked straight into a wall.  Well I more like stumbled into it from losing my balance after turning around.  This kind of losing my balance happens a lot lately.

I'm also finding that sometimes I can't get all my words out in a neat and tidy order.  I'm usually pretty well spoken, at least able to speak my mind.  Lately I just feel very unconfident when I'm trying to speak.  I hope all this fuzzy-headed stuff goes away.

Still no letter or pick-up notice.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2014

The cramping in my feet started to get worse while sleeping and I woke up this morning with intense sciatic nerve pain in my left calf.  Over the course of the day it spread up to my knee and down into my foot and is very painful when walking.  Touching my skin is excruciating.  Makes my leg feel like it's on fire.

And my feet are now peeling.  I've always gotten dry skin sometimes but this is not normal, definitely due to the chemo.  When I get out of the shower is when the skin peels the most.  I'll be toweling off my feet and the skin just rubs right off.  That's gross sounding, I know, but that's what it does.

I don't feel a thing when it happens.  I just rub it off until it's done peeling and then that's it.  Later in the day if I check my feet they might show a little peeling but it's rougher and dryer, so for it to come off I'd have to pull at it, snip it with clippers, or shave it down with an emery board.  Still no feeling at all.  Definitely a reaction to my therapy.

My face peels too but thank God not to that degree.  It's like when you've had a sunburn and your skin is lightly peeling and flaking.  I use Oil of Ole beauty cream or whatever it's called.  Put it on a couple times a day and you can't even tell.  I just keep checking the mirror periodically to make sure there's no flakes of skin showing.

Still no letter or pick-up notice.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2014

I've been having feet cramps a lot the last few days.  I haven't done anything in particular, so this came out of nowhere.

I picked up the prescription anti-itch cream.

I also made a surprise visit to my landlord's house.  Even though he's got a new tenant not all is finished.  He's supposed to let me know how much of my deposit I get back.  Said I'd have it no later than December 2.  But they've been ignoring my emails so I just showed up.

He acted like he had no idea why I would be ringing his doorbell.  When I asked about my deposit he said they sent a certified letter.  When I said I hadn't gotten anything and it's now past the 2nd, he said it was because they didn't know my address so they put the rental house address on it and that it had come back to them and they had to sent it back out.  (So what made them think it would work a second time if it didn't the first??) I could tell he was lying.  When I asked what I was getting back he acted like he didn't know anything about my deposit because his wife handles all that stuff.  Really?  I'm supposed to believe that they never talk about anything?

Then, despite his supposedly not knowing anything about it, as an afterthought and no very nicely he said that I forfeited my deposit by breaking my lease and that I wasn't getting anything back.  Whoa, I wasn't expecting that kind of reaction.  For one thing, I asked permission to get out of my lease and he agreed to it.  Plus, I have it in email where they said they would deduct necessary yard work and house cleaning costs from my deposit and then get the rest back to me as soon as they could "no later than December 2".  (Backpay for the water bill was to be deducted from it as well, which pretty much wipes out my entire deposit.  But that's ok, I was expecting that).

What's not ok is for him to tell me that instead of deducting it, they're going to just bill me for the work and the water bill!  He kept saying, "It's in your contract.  Read it.  Read my letter, and if you have any questions after that, call me."  Wait a sec, I thought he said he didn't know anything about any of this?  (He did.  I'm being facetious).  This is exactly why I just showed up at his door without calling.  I knew something was up.

As far as I'm concerned, that contract is now expired because of the changes we agreed to and because he's got a new tenant.  And besides, I pointed out to him that all this time, from September when I asked if he would let me out of my lease (and he said yes) until now, they said nothing about keeping the deposit but instead led me to believe we were all on the same page.

I asked him why they would purposely mislead me, literally lie to me, and he actually said, "The reason we didn't say anything was because we didn't want a confrontation."  Wow.  I'm assuming they meant that they were the ones who would be confrontational because I'm not, nor should they have reason to expect me to be.  All I did was ask a question, "Will you let me out of my lease?" Later followed by, "Can those costs be deducted from my deposit?"  As far as I'm concerned, their emails agreeing to these things overrides the rental agreement.  Being in agreement to break the lease is on both our parts.  It's what got the ball rolling.  They can't lie to me, then have me go through the move, even helping them advertise, interview tenants, and show the house, then after the fact say they didn't really agree to anything.  That's ridiculous.

And if they really want to stick to the rental agreement, then they would see that they were supposed to tally the water bill overcharges at the end of each lease each year and have me pay it then.  They didn't.  They also were supposed to get the receipts of work done along with the refund on my deposit, if any, within 45 days of my giving them the keys.  They didn't.

He also lied about having sent a letter out to me already, saying they had no idea what my new address was so they put the rental house address on it, and that it had been returned to them, and they had to mail it out again.  Why would you knowingly put the wrong address on something instead of calling, texting, or emailing for the correct address?  That makes no sense at all.  Besides, it would have gotten forwarded like all my other mail.  I even called the post office and they said mail is forwarded for up to 12 months.  

We've had a very friendly relationship the entire 6 years I've rented from them, so why on earth wouldn't they just call, text, or email me for my new address?  There's no excuse for that, other than they didn't have all their ducks in a row and didn't get everything prepared on time, and felt like they had to lie about it.  That, and they're mad they had to come up with money to pay for the work.  I have a feeling my deposit was not just sitting in the bank the past 6 years.  They probably didn't actually have my money to deduct anything from!

When it comes I'll check the sender's slip to see when it was sent.  And it'll be interesting to see what his letter actually says.  I have a feeling he was just upset and wanted to blow up at me.  Hopefully he didn't actually keep the money and is billing me too.

I haven't done anything wrong.  A conversation is a just that, a conversation.  He agreed to let me out of my lease.  I didn't hold a gun to his head.  That means we made changes to the original rental contract.  So why lie to avoid confrontation?  If we have a mutual agreement then there is nothing for anyone to get confrontational about.  At least not on my end.  But then again, I'm not the one who lied.  You can't pretend to go along with something and then turn around and say you didn't really mean it because you were just too afraid to say anything.  Unbelievable.

I played this prank on my supervisor.  We joke around a lot and the #1 rule of thumb is, if you get up and walk away, your cubical is fair game.  Over the years I've taped all her file drawers shut.  Taped everything on the top of her desk to her desk.  Switched her calendar out for an old one.  Stuck googly eyes on everything in her cubical.  Hidden her chair.  Chained all the paperclips in her paperclip cup together.  I can't tell you how many times I've set her clock back, or forward.  I've even resorted to the whoopee cushion.  I'm nearly running out of ideas but managed to come up with this one while working on a do's and don'ts list for what I can eat after my surgery.

Trust me, she's gotten me back plenty, and has made lots of jokes about the bag I'm going to be wearing after my surgery.  She deserves this one :)

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2014

Off work today so I could go to a couple appointments.  First, I had to drive David to Boulder's Fiske Planetarium for his astronomy class field trip.  He was nervous about driving himself that far in his new car so I was going to drive him today anyway, but since he spent half the night in the ER and was out on propofol getting endoscoped, I definitely needed to drive him anyway!  Good thing too because after I picked him up he wasn't feeling well and didn't feel like going back to school.

My first appointment was a follow up with Dr. Kemmis, my radiation oncologist.  I went over my list of symptoms and everything I had to mention was normal.  The vaginal drainage is lessening and most of the time there is none, but it's still normal.  The radiation and changes to my hormones affect the vaginal flora and cause this reaction, he said.  The hot flashes, normal.  He said again that at my age he believes this will be a permanent menopause for me.

Being foggy-brained, losing my balance, and not knowing what I'm doing sometimes....all normal, but probably mostly caused by lack of sleep because those darn hot flashes wake me more times a night than my newborn babies ever did!

The increase in pain?  Still normal.  I don't have pain most days but it just comes on sometimes, probably when I do too much walking.  I asked him if it's possible the tumor was growing or the cancer spreading, but he said not likely.

So it was a relief to hear everything's normal.  The nurse even told me that they wish they saw more patients like me.  Most people have so many more side effects and complaints and really do not handle it well at all.  I asked her if she meant patients with exactly my same type of cancer, stage, and treatment, and she said yes!

After that appointment I had to hurry to my next one, my primary doc, so that I could get surgical clearance.  I got an EKG, chest x-rays, urine sample, and then sent back to the hospital for blood work.  She also gave me a prescription for an anti-itch cream for a skin reaction I've had for a couple years.  My belief is it's an allergic reaction to Vicodin.  If the cream doesn't work she'll send me to a dermatologist and maybe get a biopsy.  I'm pretty sure the cream will work.  For years now whenever I take Vicodin my entire body itches.  But there's one spot on my chest that is the worst.  When I scratch it too much I get this red, dry spot.

Ever read that sheet of directions, indications, and sides effects you get when you pick up a prescription?  I do, but then again I read everything.  The first thing on the side effects list is "itching".  Yep.  The cream I'm taking for my extreme case of itching may cause itching.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2014

Tonight during dinner my son, David, got a piece of meat stuck in his esophagus where he had his surgery as a baby.  He was born with a tracheoesophageal fistula with esophageal atresia.  All those fancy long words simply mean his esophagus was not fully formed but ended in a pouch mid-chest, while the rest of the esophagus grew up from the stomach and attached itself to his trachea.  Every once in a while food gets stuck there because there's none of the normal peristalsing muscle to help move food along and scar tissue can build up and cause narrowing.

So we spent the evening in the ER, got home around 12:30 am.  Biopsies have confirmed he has Eosinophilic Esophagitis.  It can be abbreviated as EE or EoE.  We'll have to have him allergy tested to see if we can identify specific triggers, but for now we were told certain foods and medications cause narrowing of the esophagus.  I had no idea.  I always assumed his problems were caused from his surgery.

David and I have always had major medical conditions happening close to the same time.  He was born by C-section with his birth defect, and 8 months later I found out I had a tumor in my lungs which nearly made me drown in my own blood.  Then a couple years ago I needed wrist surgery, and a week later we found out David had a pilonidal cyst which required surgery.  Then in September I was diagnosed with cancer and now David has this EE.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2014

David bought himself a new car tonight!  I'm so proud of him and also very thankful he can drive himself around now.