June 30, 2008

Today is my parents' 46th wedding anniversary.  Isn't that remarkable?  46 years.

It also would have been my grandfather's 95th birthday, had he lived.  It was always easy to remember those two things since they occurred on the same day.

Daughter has arrived across the US at The Boyfriend's where she is 'meeting the family' for the first time.  It's been a long day tracking her travel from here to there.  A longer day for her, I'm sure.  But she is now safely in the care of The Boyfriend, so I feel better.

It was Doctor Day, but a good Doctor Day.  Dr. Riggs always gives me things to think about, to ponder, and to study.  I think perhaps being placed in her capable hands was the smartest move we've made since I got this dread disease of lupus.

I see Dr. Egan on Thurs so that will be a Sore Day by the time she pokes every sore spot on my body to see how hard it is to peel me off the ceiling.  In the meantime, I intend to do my PT and try to get some stamina back.

Getting a little sass back is one thing, but if you can't walk across the house, we have to work on it.  I need a sassy walk to go with my sassy mouth.



June 18, 200e
I just finished watching the actual move "The Bucket List".

Note to self:  Do not watch a movie about two men dying of cancer the week before you go for a biopsy.

I have not felt so blessed and so sad at the same time.

Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman were brilliant.  The message was clear, with infinite depths of meaning

and I am devastated.

This is why I only watch comedies, adventure movies, and certain kinds of sci fi.  I *feel* too much. 

Or maybe it's just the damn hormone the doctor gave me.

But it has me thinking again.   About the List

I want my children to love me when I'm old and not consider me a burden.

I don't want to BE a burden whether considered one or not.

I want to drive a race car.  On a race track.

I want to go into space.  May have mentioned that.

I want my life to have been a blessing, an example in a good, Godly way to someone.

I'm glad for the concept of a Bucket List.

But today, I wish I'd not seen the movie.


June 17, 2008

yet again, I awakened at four am.  This time a sore throat and drainage kept me from going back to sleep.  So it is now six am, Steve hasn't even arrived at work yet, and here I am.

I bought canvases and oil paints, the kind I was trained to work with as a child.  I had the painting in my mind.  When I bought it,   It was an ugly picture, a cleansing picture.  But now, I feel like i won't do it.  It was representative of lupus and how overwhelmed I feel by it.

At the time, I was feeling very overwhelmed.  Of course, that doesn't take much while I take these stinking hormones.

The wolf seems smaller and less threatening at times.  It merely paces outside my fence.  Sometimes it jumps the fence and I have to fight it.  But other times, I have to allow others to stand between me and the wolf, to fight for me while I gather my strength to fight myself again.

We shall see.

June 11, 2008

I have an update for The Bucket List.  That's the list of things I want to do before I kick the bucket. :)

I want to dance like Gene Kelly in "Singin' in the Rain".  I want to dance with total abandon, stomping the puddles with utter joy, kicking sprays of water while singing at the top of my lungs.  I don't want to feel pain, or worry about a leg falling from under me.  I want to Praise His Name In The Dance by my simple joy in a small thing which, if broken down scientifically is truly a miracle.

I'm in a part of the house where I don't hear the rain unless we're having the kind of storm where you need to have the tv on to watch the weather.  But I remember as a child, visiting from Texas and having thunderstorms so strong that they rattled the windows at my grandparents' home.  We'd have every variety of lightning you can imagine, particularly ball lightning, which for some reason thrilled my uncle no end.  I wonder if he still gets joy from ball lightning.

Oldest Son who is still studying abroad in Japan said there was a Firefly festival coming up that he was looking forward to.  There's a big festival then for two nights in a row, everyone goes down to fields by a river and watches the fireflies.

Joy in the simple things.  I hope never to lose that sense of awe when I find joy in the simple things.


June 3, 2008

*Warning* This entry is for women only.  Men will find it squishy and icky and full of gynecology and will likely run screaming from the room while trying to pop their eyeballs out.  You have been warned.

So I had to have an ultrasound.  Now there are the fun kind of ultrasounds where they put warm jelly on your tummy and you get to see the baby, or what they tell you is your baby squirming around.  It's great fun.

Then there's the vaginal ultrasound where they put an instrument that looks like it doubles as someone's sex toy on the weekends inside you and see if they can invert your bellybutton from the inside out.  Fun? Not so much.

I didn't much want to go have it done, but since I seemed to be having a period once every other month or every other other month or even every other other other month, Dr. Tackett thought it a prudent thing to do.  For those of you who don't know me, Dr. Tackett delivered both my boys and saved my life on more than one occasion.  I have great faith in her.

So I had my U/S and took my pictures and piece of paper back to her office, knowing I had a cyst on my left ovary.  I knew it was there.  That ovary likes to make cysts and make them pop and hurt.  Little did I  know that not even the cyst would be the highlight of the day.

You see, it seems that endometrial (uterine) lining should be no more than 11mm thick, and that only at a certain time of the month.  Mine, at the thin end of the month was 21mm thick.  This did not make Dr. Tackett happy.  If Dr. Tackett ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.  She wanted a biopsy.

Oh joy. 

Back on the table, assume the position, and prepare for twenty minutes of attempts to get a biopsy sample.

My cervix, however, decided not to cooperate.  They did everything except use a crowbar to open it, but by golly, it wasn't going to open enough for her to get a very thin wire probe in there.  Nope, that cervix was slammed shut tighter than a toddler's lips at a spoonful of spinach.

I've had my insides pinched with that stinking speculum, my cervix pried and probed and instruments put in it, but in spite of my efforts at meditation and relaxation (oh yeah, in that position...like that was gonna happen), my cervix literally *shot* the instruments back out.   Ptoooie.

I think they ought to call those speculums gators.  Snap snap.  I feel like I got a couple of hunks taken out of me yesterday.  Unfortunately, not biopsy material.

They said I was one tough chick for putting up with all that.  I told them I had lupus.  I had to be one tough chick.

SO, on Monday, I begin a hormone for ten days which, at the end of that time will force the proper circumstances, supposedly, to allow the cervix to open a bit so they can get the biopsy.

Oh joy.  Something to look forward to.

I don't want to appear ungrateful.  I'm glad I have a doctor who is so careful.  I'm glad I have a woman doctor who knows the indignity of stirrups, and tries to make the experience as humor filled as possible.

So, what does it mean?

I looked it up.  Bad things can hide in a thickened uterine lining.

But if you get on it quickly, that's good, and Dr. Tackett wasn't waiting around on this broken down old body to produce the most favorable conditions for getting a biopsy.  She's forcing it.  And that makes us both feel better.

Well, eventually better.

Snap snap.

June 1, 2008

Not long ago, a movie was released called The Bucket List.  The premise was evidently these two  older fellows making a list of the things they wanted to do before they kicked the bucket.

This has been on my mind, particularly as things come up that are on my Bucket List that maybe I didn't realize.

I'm very fortunate that some things that would be on my bucket list I have already had the good fortune to be able to check off.

Here are a few examples:

Get all three kids baptized.  No matter what else I do for them, seeing that they get their basic grounding for their eternal salvation is by far the most important.
Attend a space shuttle launch.
Swim with dolphins
See the whales...three times and it never gets old.
See lava pouring from an erupting volcano.
Learn to play blackjack

Then there are things I've experienced that I didn't even realize were on my bucket list until I had the good fortune to experience them.

Go on a cruise...now looking forward to number 7.  This time, however, I'm going with a dear friend.  I'm not anyone's mom or anyone's daughter.  I'm just me.  I look forward to it.

Swimming in the ocean in the Bahamas.


Then there are the things still on the Bucket List:

Panning for gold...Aunt Leslie is taking me in July!!!!!  I can hardly wait!

Walking with ease for long distances again.  Like to walk Disney instead of the wheelchair.

Be cured of lupus and all health related problems.
 
Get my writing career back.

Learn to ballroom dance.

Fly in an F-16 (?) with an experienced pilot and land on an aircraft carrier.

Allow somehow, my husband to know and appreciate how much love, admire and respect him as a man, a husband and a father.

Then there are things that are NOT on my Bucket List.

Swimming with sharks
Swimming with stingrays
Riding in a hot air balloon
Parachuting
Bungee jumping
Anything to do with reptiles.


I'm falling asleep or I'd add more.  Perhaps tomorrow.