Ugh, no Sleeping

I had to get up and do a breathing treatment, and if you know anything about albuterol, which is what I nebulize in my hookah, you know it makes your heart race, and wires you for sound.  For instance, I'm sitting here at my computer, and my HR is 122, and I can't stop shaking my left leg.... that's one way to get exercise, I guess. ;)


So, I've been playing World of Warcraft.  I just mute my system so I don't wake up the whole household.  There seem to be plenty more insomniacs on line tonight, so I was enjoying a chat with Smacky, a very handsome Orc warrior that is totally epic'd out.  He had kindly notified me that a rare was up, if I was interested in taming it as a pet, since I was on Kauket, my lovely Orc Hunter.  Alas, I would have needed some druid back up, and since I had just started the Firelands quests on Kauket, I did not have them at my disposal.  And believe me, Kauket is NOT epic'd out. :)


Playing World of Warcraft (WoW) when you are having trouble breathing serves an important purpose; it helps me relax, believe it or not.  That way, I stop getting anxious and feeling impending doom.  Anxiety is the worst thing you can develop in the face of an asthma episode.  And yet, it's almost always going to happen because let's face it, it's scary when you can't breathe!  But with the anxiety comes more shortness of breath.


I like to use both WoW and the power of numbers to keep me from getting too neurotic.  For instance, I have my Pulse Oxymeter, which tells me my HR and my Oxygen saturation level (the level of oxygenation in my blood).  Obviously, if my O2 level is showing at 99%, I am in really good shape.  And the breathing treatment that I did earlier is having good results.  I got a little worried I'd be heading to the ER this evening, but I think I'm going to be fine.  I'll just keep an eye on my sats.


Now, I guess since I am nowhere near being able to sleep, I should return to World of Warcraft.


Peace!

This one's all over the place...

Tomorrow, I return to the oncologist, and he will have had time to decipher all the path reports and my medical history.  Perhaps he will have decided on whether or not I will have radiation as well as chemo.

Thursday I'm having the surgery to install the infusion port in my chest, and I wonder how long after that it's good to use?  I mean, will Dr. F say my first chemo will be on Friday?  So far, I'm keeping up with work, and thanks to IM's, e-mail and the good old phone, I'm keeping in touch with my customers.  I can see a time coming when I end up working on the weekends because of chemo fatigue or something.  Even now, I'm finding it hard to start working at six in the morning; today I didn't get on-line until six-thirty... scandalous! :)

You know, when I found out I had this esophageal cancer, I wanted my mother back so badly.  And it's weird because at the end of her life, our roles had changed.  I became provider and care-giver, and she sometimes had almost childish moodiness, but thankfully, what's most easily remembered about my mom was her amazing stoicism.  Yet, I can think of no one on earth who was more emotionally fragile in some ways.  I'd hate to say I get my anxiety disorder from her, but, oh believe me, she was many times worse than I.

In her day, you didn't see therapists or counselors; you bucked up and dealt with it, or like her, tried to self medicate it away.  And maybe that's why I'm so leery of taking those Xanax unless someone's trying to put me in a tube.  I, on the other hand, am an advocate of therapy.  When my friend Evelyn died at 46, after a twenty year battle with breast cancer, I used our company's Employee Assistance on-site therapist to work through that grief, and those few sessions got me back on track with mental tools I use even now to make sense of life.

Of course, the writing has always been my best source of therapy; it helps me get outside of myself and see life for what it really is, not what my fears are trying to tell me it is.  And the projects.. oh yes, here is a shot of that very first mosaic, but this was pre-grout.

Music is something else that grounds me.  I love to listen to film scores and my favorite composers are Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman, Thomas Newton Howard and Howard Shore.  My friend, Paul, introduced me to the work of Clyde Bawden, a composer and pianist I would NEVER in a zillion years have found on my own.  He composed wonderful music that accompanied a photography exhibit we all went to see last Christmas.  If you want to see some of the most evocative and touching photography ever, look up the work of Mark Mabry.  I'm not a Christian, but for me, it's all about the love and the sensitivity of this man's work.  I love it.

Now, I think it's time to go drag out my Tauren Druid and run a few old dungeons before they are forever banished into cyberspace.  Until tomorrow, dear readers!