Thank You and I Love You

I’m having my sister post this.  It will be the last entry into the blog.  I’m gone, now, but what a wonderful time I had!  Oh sure, the last bits were not much fun, but the great life I have had certainly counted for much more in the scheme of things.

To my family:  No other people could have loved me, nor taken care of me with such grace of spirit, nor such generosity and consideration.  I know it was hard on you; lots of times, harder on you than me.  I can’t say don’t grieve, because that’s a normal part of the process of dealing with loss, but as soon as you can, start to laugh.  Call Polly.  She’ll make you laugh, and she’ll need to laugh as well.  I want you to remember that I loved to laugh and I loved to smile, so do your best. J

I do not have to tell you how much I loved and will continue to love each of you.  I hope I showed you this as I lived.

To my friends:  The support and love you all gave me through this most challenging of journeys was astounding.  You know, Facebook was a good thing; I got to make sure that the people I cared about were kept in the loop… a crappy loop, to be sure, but a loop nonetheless.  Some days, your words of encouragement were all that was between me and abysmal despair.  Your positivity fueled mine and just knowing you were there for me and knowing how much you were rooting for me; well, that strengthened my resolve to keep fighting. 

But the fight is over, and as we all must, I have gone on to continue the journey.  Where the journey progresses is anyone’s guess, but one thing of which I have continued to be certain, there is nothing about which to be afraid.

Special thanks to all the people at Arizona Family Hospice; I felt such love and caring from each of you as you made my transition fearless and mostly painless. J

Dr. Fastenberg, my medical oncologist, thank you for always being up-front about everything. You are one of the rare breed of caring oncologists, and I adore you.

Dr. Ramaswamy, you treated me with compassion, intelligence and great humor; and you know I love humor.  Best of all, both you and Dr. Fastenberg treated me as a fully-fledged, intelligent member of the team, and for that I love you both.

And as I have exhorted you all in the past, when you love someone let them know; when you find someone to be charming, let them know; when someone does something that makes you happy, tell them.  Share love, share happiness, share peace.

Shoulder mets?

Last night my shoulder began to hurt....and read hurt as painful enough to make me cry.  Nancy applied one of those moist heat  things from the microwave.   Oh that helped a ton.

I took some morphine and tried to sleep, but thtat didn't quite work so well.  Now I wonder if the bone mets have gotten to my shoulder, gods forbid.

I hate Dizzy!

I had a lovely shower today, thanks to aide Jennifer.

Sick and Dizzy

Must tell hospice nurse.

Journey to death

I am sitting here on my La-Z_Boy recliner, and may I say it is THE most comfortable sitting surface I own.  If you want to see it, it's a Carlyle recliner.  It was pricey, but oh so worth every penney.

Anywho, I have lots of time to think these days.  My hospice nurse would love to see me take a trip, but it's so problematic hauling all themedical equipment around.  And I'm just talking for the lung disease, never mind the cancer.  And then I think why lug it all around?  If you are really ready to die, do you need it?  Well that's a damned fine question. I don't think it behooves me to HASTEN my death, and besides, the point of this blog now is to describe the the facets of experience in light of a waning life.

I don't want to fear it and I don't want my readers to fear it.  It's such a natural progression on our journey' and everyone we have ever loved, encountered, and been annoyed by has taken it.  And I can't imagine that any deity or deities that had a hand in our creation would simply abandon us at this end point.

Perhaps I just think this to give myself comfort, but I have seen those that wait for me, and they tell me I have time yet.  Maybe it won't be the most pleasant of times going forward, but I WILL be going forward!

LOVE, HUGS, AND BLESSINGS TO ALL.

TIME TO CONFESS

I must confess to nurse Betty later today, that I am getting dizzy again.  I would have to bet it's caused by growth in the brain tumors.  And, there is now pain when I try to eat, although the strawberry ice cream was no problem.

I hate confessing to any kind of pain because I know they will want me to take some kind of pain killer, and they all mske me sick.  Oh well, though, I do still want to be able to eat, too.

Should be an interesting day ;)  Love and hugs to all!

My Funny Valentine

It's little Tyra, a rescue Toy Poodle/Chihuahua.  Not to worry, my sisters will love her when I am gone.

We were both rather tired.

Far Too Sleepy

Today I feel like I did when I came home from the hospital; weak and very tired.  I don't know if I just overdid it too much last week when I was feeling great.

I do have a bit of a sore throat, but Nurse Betty took a look and said it was red, but fine.  My labs were great from last week, too.  So why do I feel like I could sleep forever?  Oh well, back to the walker and that's not such  bad thing.  I guess I'll just go back up there to my La-Z-Boy and doze some more.

Love and hugs to all!

Sprout's Sunday

Okay, today I am going to take my first foray outside of my house since I entered hospice.  I was trying to decide what kind of goodies to get, and then realized I won't be having a paycheck for at least 4 more weeks.

So, that's rather narrowed my selection a bit. :)

But, I do want to get a big hunk of fresh ginger to make some tea; nothing better to settle one's stomach.

I had a lovely visit from my friend, V. Corrigan.  She wrote in the memory book that Linda, my hospice social worker had made for me.  It's got a beautiful cover of parrots, and three marmalade cats.

Strangely, I spent most of today dozing...I just could not stay awake for long.  Oh well, I guess I needed it .

And speaking of sleep, I guess I'll get some more in, now.

Love and hugs to you all!

Pizza Cravings

I know that the fact that I can still eat is almost miraculous.  The main esophageal tumor takes up 60% of my ...um...esophagus. :)  But holy moley, I get these cravings for things I haven't had in years, or for things I normally don't care.

However, Jane brought home a cowboy pizza from Papa Murphy's yesterday, and it was spectacular.  It's the kind of place where they make it, but you have to bring it home and cook it.  Yum.

I had a letter from Banner Baywood asking me how much I enjoyed the care I received during my last hospitalization.  I'll be calling in my report soon.  I'm still so angry with them, and yet there were definitely staff there that went out of their way to make up for what happened with the two original murderous loons.  Should be an interesting conversation. :)

I posted a picture on my Facebook page of the very sweet surprise my Hospice Nurse Betty brought me yesterday.  It was a wig!!  I have no hair again, which is fine, really, but we had talked about wigs although I never thought to actually GET one.  Well, Betty got it for me, and I am thrilled with it.  The hair is straight, which is odd to me, since my real hair was massively curly, but it's still a cute wig.  Makes me want more, but that would be very wasteful, and with my upcoming retirement and the expense of COBRA, I can't afford to be frivolous. :P

But the wheels of retirement planning are finally moving right along, so hopefully, we'll be there soon.

And now, love and hugs to all!

Happy Saturday!

And I am indeed pretty darned happy.  With the valium on board, the vertigo is almost a thing of the past.  Not sure how that works, but I'm good with it!  My friend, Jon, says valium is the only thing that took care of his vertigo, so I guess it's getting more use in that area.  It's just so LOVELY not to feel dizzy every time you move.

I had a visit from the Hospice Chaplain today.  First time he'd ever had a pagan client, and he was intrigued.  He was very respectful and we generally had a good discussion.  I'm happy to hear pretty much every person's view on spirituality, as long as it doesn't involve burning me at the stake. :D

The Boeing retirement package came, finally, so I guess I'll sit down and with the help of Jane, probably, get that all ironed out tomorrow.  You know, there's so much to decide!  But gotta get cracking if I'm to get 'er done for a March 1 retirement date.

John Alfonso got my taxes done for me; the man's a saint.  I just was afraid my little tumor riddled brain would screw something up, and I KNOW John won't. :)

My hospice nurse says I should be up for a trip to like a grocery store or something.  I'd love to go to Trader Joe's, but I don't think it could handle my scooter.  Wide aisles are not present at my local TJ's down at Gilbert and Baseline.  But I could go to Sprouts.  I love that place anyway.  Good, local produce, yummy goodies, etc.  What's not to love?  Maybe NEXT weekend. :)

So, anywho, I'm feeling pretty good, which makes me happy, and I'm once again just living for today.

Love and hugs to all!

Arizona Family Hospice

That's my hospice.  They are relatively new, but I really like the people with whom I have dealt so far.

Today I met my goal of getting to the bathroom by myself, thanks to my 3-wheeled walker.  Later, I fired up the electric wheelchair and went outside to get the mail!  It's these little victories that help keep the smile on my face.  My sisters Nancy and Cathy built me a curved ramp to get me out the front door.  It works like a charm!  Sadly my house has LOTS of step-downs ... one step only, but a hinderance all the same.

I had a visit from the hospice doctor yesterday.  He just said, essentially, to do whatever I want. So, I had two chocolate chip cookies today.  I felt so decadent. :)

The amazing care and empathy of this hospice's staff truly impresses me greatly.

Now off to bed I go.  HugsAnd kisses to all.

Retirement?

I would never have retired at 53, but it looks like I have no choice.  Thankfully, I just hit 35 years with Boeing so qualifying for said retirement is no problemo.

I shall call in tomorrow to get the ball rolling.  I guess I should work on disability at the same time.

My appetite is back with a vengeance, and I think, while I can still eat, I should take the bull by the horns and eat what I darned well please.


I did eat a whole , albeit small, bowl of chicken tortilla soup.

Time for bed.  Love and hugs to all!

eating

i can smell chicken tortilla soup!  Jane,my sister, has been cooking...yay.  My friend, Annette, came by, bearing fine company ...i love her...and Dunkin Donuts.:)

But i was good and had greek yogurt for breakfast.

getting stronger

now that i have been sprung from a banner facility, where religious prosecutions are alive and well, i seem to be gettong much stronger.   of course, now i am being taken care of by people that love me :)

still here

sorry it has been a while since my last post.

Things have been hopping on the home front.  my electric wheelchair was delivered today, as well as my hospital bed.

i'm a bit tired and overwhelmed.

and now i need to sleep.

love and hugs to all.

terror at banner baywood

i had just finished saying a prayer for whomever was coming in via helicopter when i decided to say a prayer for me for some strength, and to get rid of this dizziness.  i kind of sang it.  i freaked a couple of people out.  they threatened an exorcism and to just burn the witch.

ok that last part freaked ME out.

so yeah i'm back in the hospital with not a littlte trepidation.

love and hus to all.

Sumo Legs

the Decadron that I take to keep the brain swelling DOWN, has given me Sumo wrestler legs.  This is actually quite uncomfortable.

Soon it won't be a problem any more because once the radiation does its thing, we can begin a taper off of the decadron and my normal legs will return YAY!

Looking forward to the Golden Globules, if only for Ricky Gervais again.

Tomorrow we return to our daily radiation schedule, brain and thigh zappage at 2:10PM.

Sorry, tired, but love and hugs to all.

Hospice

I made the decision today to apply to hospice.  My oncolgist says all we can do now is try to give good palliative care, and we're going to go through the course of radiation on the bone cancer, and the radiation on the brain.  This way, I can have a good quality of life with what's left, and not have to go back through the torture of chemo that doesn't work.

I got through the initial brain radiation, and it wasn't of course as bad as my antipation of the terror.  I did come home with waffle marks all over my face from the evil mask they snap onto your head and adhere to the table.  You WILL NOT MOVE!  Jane says they were more like honeycombs.

One of the ladies I always see while waiting for radiaion brought several of us homemade bread.  Mine is blueberry and carrot.  It was still warm, and very fragrant.  And MY was it fabulous.  I grabbed a hunk to eat on the way home.  This is same woman who knitted me a purple hat because I didn't have one.  She's a snowbird from Michigan.  An angel of a woman.

So, my primary care doc, Dr. Ramaswamy is going to get the hospice stuff started.  We will probably wait until both rounds of radiation are finished.  But I can't tell you how relieved and happy I am at making the decision.  I no longer have to go through treatments that ultimately don't work, but torture me in the meantime.  I can concentrate on my job, my family, my friends, my doga and help them undertand that this is the very best decision I can make right now.  And I am happy!

I'll keep you up to date on my progress as we take this journey; I am almost excited to see where we'll go.

Love and hugs to all!

Constipation

Now that I have your attention with my indelicate post title, let me explain that cancer patients are universally beset with either constipation or diarrhea.  Dang, I can never spell the D word right!  Thank you spell-check!

Constipation usually is a result of trying not to live in pain.  It seems most painkillers will cause it.  I try to eat a lot of fruit and thanks to some lovely ladies this week who sent me an Edible Arrangement, I had some FANTASTIC fruit to eat.  J  But even lots of fruit doesn’t cut it sometimes.  And thus, it’s on to Phillip’s Milk of Magnesia.  I remember a Gallagher bit about constipation.  He was making fun of the products that promise ‘no cramping’ ‘stool softening’, etc.  Gallagher said that when he is constipated, he wants a BOMB!  Amen brother.

Now, let’s get past that fascinating subject and on to a strange time in the hospital at the New Year.  I had several visitors, amazingly all at the same time.  One of the hospital’s admins came to see me, as well.  She was perturbed because I had no religion listed on my paperwork.  I just find it easier to leave it blank than to have to explain that just because I am pagan, I don’t worship your devil-figure.

So, she just came right out and asked me, and being under the influence of some interesting drugs, I told her, “I’m a pagan.”  You would have thought I told her I was a commie baby eater!  She got pale, started to back from the room, when one of my visitors told her, “But she’s a GOOD one!”  Oh my gosh, I cracked up.  Anyway, we never saw THAT admin person again.

 I’ve always thought that spirituality should be between you and your chosen deities.  You can have a more personal relationship and communication that way.  But I understand the need for a community-based spirituality.  You have like-minded people, willing to support you, and give you comfort in troubling times.  My sister is a Christian Minister, and a more loving woman you will never find.  She writes incredible prayers, and I know how much she loves me.

In the books about coping that I am reading, there is an emphasis on spirituality being a boon to your coping mechanism.  I find it soothing to write prayers.  As a pagan, you are free to express your devotions in the most simple or the most elaborate means.  I like to keep it simple.  Especially since the brain tumors. :D

Love and hugs to all!