I'm a mixture of nerves and excitement and relief.....

Today is the day that I get my Hickman Central Line removed. I'm a little nervous about this to say the least. From what my doctors have been telling me, the procedure of removing the line is as follows: Wrap the exposed portion around the doctors hand and yank. Ummmmmm......... no deadening of the area, no pain meds, nuthin. They have compared it to tying a string to a loose tooth, distracting the child and pulling. Bah! One consolation is that the doctor that put the thing in me is the one removing it, so at least I have confidence in him and his abilities. I just don't have confidence in MY abilities to not scream bloody murder. Maybe they have leather straps for me to put between my teeth to chomp on to avoid the yelling. Hmmm.. I will have to ask. :/ So, yah 3:15 today my central line gets yanked. Fun for me. Now, don't get me wrong. I a SO stoked that I don't have to go home with the thing still attached. There for a while there was that possibility. I am very pleased that it will be gone and all the annoyance that comes with it will be gone. That will be nice. I am just currently nervous about the removal of said object. But, I will be tough and deal with it eh? Cause that is what I do. :) tee hee. :)

Post said procedure I will have some well deserved rest time, but just for a bit. B&B are taking my momsy and I out to dinner as a farewell outing. I am excited to see the boys and I am excited to eat some uber delicious food! It will be interesting to see how I feel. I'm sure all will be dandy. I've been told that people are out and about going and doing within half an hour of having their lines yanked. So, since I'm slightly abnormal in EVERY way, I will give myself an hour. :/ I will have to blab tomorrow to let you know how it went eh? Eh. :)

Now, to go backwards, H just left on Monday night. She had been here since Wednesday night last. :) What a busy and fun weekend we had!!! We went to Pike Place Market, the Seattle Aquarium, the General Relief Society Broadcast (which was fantastic), and on a Harbor Cruise. So much fun was had. I mean really. H and I could just sitting still and still end up having too much fun and laughing way too much. :) It was beyond fun to have her around. She cracks me up. :) But I do have to say, when she left, I crashed. I was so tired yesterday. But I had my Transfusion meeting and my Departure meeting. Now, weirdness news for the day from both meetings. From the Transfusion meeting I learned that in the case that I needed a blood or platelet transfusion, when they take my blood to determine what type of blood to give me....... My blood type is O positive when you take it from the blood stream, but my organs and such still show a B blood type. WHat???? no I'm serious. It's weird. But here's the weirdness from the Departure Conference. My DNA. Yup, I have two types of DNA for the rest of my life. Blood will show my donors DNA, but if they did a mouth swab or took it from any other bodily fluid, MY original DNA I was born with. What the WILD!!!! The amazingness of science and medicine. Anyhoo. Just thought I would share that neat info. :) That's it for now. More soon.

Well, wow, I am a huge slacker..... yup.

I know I know, it's been a long time since I have written. I apologize. Really. I guess I could give numerous excuses, but I won't. I will just leave it at the fact that I didn't blog. Sorry.

OK, now, on to the news. Wow, since it's been forever, there is a plethora of things to write about so I hope I cover it all. :

In the area of fun stuff and such, it's been great! My moms and I went to Whidbey Island on Saturday. What a beautiful place!! :) It was a wonderful cool day with a little breeze. Perfect. We went to the cutest farmers market, stopped at a quaint used store, walked through a beautifully serene garden and explored a lighthouse. Speaking of the lighthouse, besides being afraid of butterflies, I'm also afraid of ladders. Now, I've know this for a long time, but as we were walking up the stairs of the lighthouse all of a sudden, yup, they turn into a ladder. Of course, I can see that they are wrought iron and VERY sturdy, but I still freak out a bit and take seven years climbing up it. Down was even more comical, but hey, I did it and I was glad. The view from the top was beautiful. It was a short lighthouse, but still had a wonderful view. :) After all the sightseeing and some lunch on the island, we decided to drive back to Seattle over Deception Pass rather than go back to the Ferry. It's a two-hour drive, but so worth it. Deception Pass alone was worth the drive.

Isn't that lovely? Yuppers. So, anyhoo, that was Saturday, it took all day. I was so tired. :) A good tired.

Sunday was lovely as well. My father and brother J2 are in Vancouver for a conference this week and they came up on Sunday to Tacoma to my sister's house so we had a family gathering. I love my family. :) In regards to my family, going home will be a bittersweet thing. I'm excited to be home and see the family that I left behind in Boise, but it has been nice to be so close to B & M here and their families. It is rare, usually that I get to see them under normal circumstances. Now, if only we could work out a way to go spend a while in Eastern Idaho with J2 and his fam. I would be happy happy for quite some time. There ARE, however, current plans for all to be in Boise for Thanksgiving and that makes me joyful. 

OK, on to medical news. I found out on Monday for sure that I don't have to go home on hydration. Which means that I don't have to go home with my Hickman Line in place. I'm very pleased with this news. :) There has been some question about this since I can't take Magnesium in pill form. One of my meds basically flushes all magnesium out of my body, and now that I am taking less of said pill, I have more Mag. With added efforts of eating Magnesium rich foods, my levels look good enough and the doc won't make me continue hydration and Magnesium at home. Yay. :) I am a little nervous about the removal of the Hickman Line, but we'll just have to wait and see how painful that really will be eh? :) Other than that, big news, I haven't had a bad day in like 10 days or so. RECORD! Seriously, this whole process I have maybe gone two or three days at a time feeling ok then have two or three horrible days. This past week or better has been bliss. Not to say that I am back to my previous self. Don't think I will be for years yet, but I'm SO much better than a month ago its astonishing! I actually look forward to getting up and having a day rather than dreading them and wondering what will go wrong next. :) That's pretty much all I have on the health front right now. Next week will be my departure meeting with all the results of the tests I have had and the most recent bone marrow biopsy. I will let you know what they say. :)

As for the rest of this week. H is gonna be here!!!!!!!!!! She will be flying up from SLC on Wed. and staying until Mon. night. SO thrilled!!! I heart her heaps. :) Oh, yes, let me not forget. I got to see A yesterday for a little while. He was up here for his jaw surgery and he looked great!! Apparently all went swimmingly and he is recovering and healing quickly. He looks great and I can't wait to see him once ALL the swelling goes down. It will be wonderful! :) I'm so excited for him that he was finally able to get this surgery done. I know he's happy. So that was a fun treat yesterday. :) I heart A as well. :)

OK, even though it's been a while and I'm sure I missed things. I am so done for the day. I hope all of you are well and I hope to see you all soon!!!! 10 DAYS!!!!!!

I bought my plane ticket home!!!!!!

Yup, I sure did. I get to fly home the morning of September 30th. Woot! Now, before I face a pile of ridicule about me flying home and my mother having to drive by herself the way long trip home, it was kinda her idea. We discussed it and I still just get SO worn out riding in the car, even for short 45 minute to 1 hour trips, so I'm flying. I feel bad that she will be alone, but she seems ok with it, so what to do eh? So, yah, I will be home soon. I am so thrilled!!! I seriously have missed Boise. Well, I will be living in Idaho City with the parental units until I can find a suitable apartment in Boise, but I have missed both places. I commented to my moms today that I am excited for tap water in Boise. The tap water here tastes funny. I know, random, but true! So, there's some good news. 

Other news? My sister and her family are in town this weekend. I am thrilled I get to see them a bit. They are staying at my sister's house in Tacoma, but I get to see them tomorrow and Sunday. It seems weird to not have seen them for this many a month since I lived with them before I came here, so it will be really pleasant to see them. Then next weekend I get to see my dad, brother and nephew that I haven't seen forever. The three of them are coming up for a conference in Portland for work and they will be coming up to my sister's house in Tacoma next Sunday. THEN, my good friend H will be here for like 5 days!!!! We have some fun things planned! Wow, crazy busy with people, but it will be a good way to go out of Seattle. All these people are mixed in with a pile of appointments at the clinic as my "going home" appointments. They start next week. I will have two weeks of full days of all kinds of appointments to make sure I really am good to go home. Similar appointments to my first two weeks here in Seattle what seems forever ago. So, it's gonna be crazy, but it will make the time FLY!

Now, for today. My momsy and I went to the Pacific Science Center. It was uber fun, but I have a confession. It is official, Dani is afraid of butterflies. No, I'm not joking. (chagrin) In this science center there is a butterfly house. You enter into this amazing jungle-fied room where the butterflies just fly around free like and live there short lives in a beautiful place. Now, of course you are not allowed to chase them or grab at them and such, but they have no problem landing on people and zooming right by your head and such. To be 100% honest, I slightly spazzed out everytime I thought one was getting too close. No really. I'm afraid of butterflies. Wow. I've always been told I was special, but really, this is just ridiculous. It did remind me of something though. Please watch attached video. Brian Regan is the best. 

Anyhoo, we also watched a galaxy show in the planetarium and played with some of the science experiments. It was a fun outing. It was a good day. Yup. So, coming home soon, excited for tap water, afraid of butterflies. That's about it. :) Luvs.

 

Good Timing and Bad Timing

So, I have blabbed about timing before right? Right. Well, I certainly re-learned the lesson that timing is everything yesterday. I felt like hud all day. Know why? Because I slept in. No sleeping in for me. I HAVE to get up between 730 and 800 in the morning, take a pill, eat some food, take my anti-nausea pills, take the rest of my meds, then lie down for about 15-20 minutes. If this doesn't happen almost EXACTLY like this, my whole day is thrown. As I learned AGAIN yesterday. I wasn't up until around 10 and that just made the rest of the day full of yuck. Ah well. Today was done right. I learned. Good job me huh. You would think that I would have learned that a long time ago because it keeps happening. I'm a nerd. We all know that.

So, moving on. Saturday was a fun day! We went downtown to what is called Pioneer Square. It's a bustling area of town. Full of people. Well at least it was on Saturday. That might have had something to do with it being Labor Day Weekend, but still it was crazy busy! :) There are some beautiful building facades and a huge totem pole in the square. Most importantly though, were the large two story toy store and the chocolate shop. Now don't get me wrong. The wonderful and colorful history of Seattle was not lost on me, but really..... toys and chocolate? Or rather in my personal case it was toys and ice cream. Wouldn't you have gotten distracted? Yes. :) It was a glorious day all in all. The weather was beautiful and there was a nice breeze. It was nice to get out and wander. Very nice.

Today has been pretty low key. We have mostly hung out in the apartment, but we did wander on up to the rooftop garden for a bit. Moms took some pics of the Seattle skyline while I blew some bubbles. Then Moms blew some bubbles. She wasn't going to miss THAT opportunity. :) Then we had a nice long sit on the wooden swing chair and chatted about all the changes that will happen when we get home. Both of us have many things on our minds about the next few months, but we will just have to take things day by day huh. :) Anyway, I currently have a smashing headache so I'm going to be done writing. Hope that's ok. Love you all. I'm so grateful for the support that I am STILL getting from all sides and corners of my life. Thank you, everyone.

The adventures of my week.....

This has been a good week. NO really..... Even with the ups and downs, all in all it has been a good week. Started out with a fun Monday evening spent at my bro. B's house having dinner and watching the 25th Anniversary Concert Performance of Les Mis. Um, amazing. Yes, it was so great! At B's house they have the nicest theatre room setup. Huge screen, surround sound, etc... The perfect place to watch this amazing show. It was very sweet of B&B to have us over for such yummy food and fun. It was definitely a late night, didn't get home till after midnight, but it was worth it.

Worth it, but it totally threw off my Tuesday schedule causing me to not feel so hot all day. I felt OK, but not rearing to go and do stuff. I have found that I really have to keep a strict schedule when it comes to getting up, taking my pills, eating, etc. When I sleep in it throws it all off and my stomach just doesn't handle that well. I swear. When it comes to my stomach I am one of the most sensitive people in the world. My doctors totally agree as well. Any tiny little change in my meds or schedule and I am nauseated and such all the time. Lame. I sure hope this is something that will simmer down soon enough.

Speaking of changes in meds. So, they tested my blood for estrogen levels and such and it's official. At the age of 32, I am in menopause. Ridiculous. :/ I've always felt that I have matured quicker than my peers. Ha ha.. jk. :) So, lovely hot flashes are here to stay for a while. My OB doctor here did recommend BC Pills as mentioned in previous blogs and I took them for two days. Guess how I reacted to that? Yup, I was nauseated. As my mother put it, "it was very much like morning sickness". Yup, from the moment I got up I felt sick until around 3ish in the afternoon, they I felt ok. It put quite the damper on the past couple days. However, the decision has been made to stop the BC Pills for a couple reasons. There are a lot of risks with taking BC and the only things they WOULD be doing for me are treating my symptoms of hot flashes and having a cycle every month. (I won't miss that). So, since these BC pills, as far as we understand, will not help heal or restore anything that I have lost, we don't see the benefits. I would much rather have hot flashes every now and again than be nauseated for half the day every day. Anyhoooo... lots of info, but just keeping you all up to date.

So, Monday was awesome, Tuesday and Wednesday and this morning were on the not-so-awesome side of things. We are hoping that things will start looking up again tomorrow morning. Now, on to cool news of the day...... We were informed today, that IF everything continues to go well and nothing serious comes up, I could be discharged around the 28th-30th of this month. WHAT? Awesome! That is so stinkin soon I can't even fathom it. So, that's fun news huh? Yup. A few days earlier than expected. One thing, we have accumulated SO much stuff it is going to be a trick to get it all home. :) But we shall prevail. Well, that's all the news I have today. Hopefully next time I write I will be able to report no nausea. Wouldn't that be a miracle? Um, yes.

Another quiet and peaceful Sunday. :)

Yup, today was quite nice. Slept in a bit, went to church (which was wonderful), took a nap (after, for those of you who may be thinking during), read some of my book, now we are watching Masterpiece Mystery. That's what I call a very productive day. :)

After Friday I needed a couple days break. Although Friday was great fun and very enlightening, it wore me out crazy like. My mumsy and I decided it was high time that we went to the Seattle Art Museum. High time. So, off we went. Thanks to complimentary passes for patients and caregivers from SCCA, no charge, no problemo. Can I just confess one thing about myself that most of you may not know? I could spend a day wandering through art museums. No really. I am so slow in art museums that I normally have to go alone to spare anyone else. :) I'm that person that will find a painting I like and sit down in front of it and look at it forever until I have every inch memorized given the chance. Due to the fact that about three hours into our art viewing pleasure my legs started to kill, we kinda sped through the last few rooms and moved on. 

We took a quick trip down to the parking garage for some munchies we had in our cooler and some mucho needed leg rest. We hung out for a bit snacking and reveling over the art museum, but even though both of us had aching bones in our legs, there was a little shop that my madre wanted to go to about 5 blocks from the museum. Down on the waterfront. So, down to the waterfront we went. It was actually quite a nice day, in the shade. We just wandered on down to the shop, bought some fun stuff for family members and decided it was high time for some ice cream. High time! So, a huge scoop of Butter Pecan for mom and Huckleberry for me and we were set. Then up a couple hills back to the museum where we had parked.Then home we went to crash and relax. It was a great great day. Oh, and I forgot to give you one of my mother's confessions about art. She is VERY talented. I have been asking her for a painting for years, but no....... silly mother of mine. 

Anyhooooo. :) So, then yesterday, my legs pretty much needed to recover. I hung about the apartment and wrote cards and such. My mom did get out and go grocery shopping for a bit, but I didn't tag along. It was the beginning of a long, quiet weekend. Lovely. Lovely.

As for my health, all seems to be well. No relapses since Tuesday. I often think of how lucky I am on my recovery. I really have had it easy. I don't have any BC pills yet, and we will have to wait and see on that. I'm sure that adding a new medication will put a fun spin on my health for a minute, but hopefully it won't be too bad. With that, I am on the path of slowly reducing all of my other medications. It's great to hear that within a couple weeks or so I will be down a couple pills and then a couple weeks past that, possibly on the way home. If I were on a mission, my companions would all call me trunky. Eager to be home with my babies. Eager to find a place to live and start again.

Oh, and to finish it all out tonight. I think that my hair is growing back. I have peach fuzz where there used to be total bald. Wahooooooooooo!!!!

Another A day..... A+ if I do say so myself :)

A day equals A was here. Just in case you were wondering. Ah, A, how we adore him. He had to come up to Seattle for the day again so we got to hang out a bit. Guess what we spent the majority of our time together doing..... finishing a puzzle. Aren't we the most exciting people in the world? Hey, puzzles are great and A is so stinkin' skilled. Seriously, if they made puzzling an Olympic Sport, A would win Gold.

Alrighty, so A was here and we had a calm day. I did have one appointment in the middle of the day that kinda put a wrench in doing anything MORE exciting than a puzzle and poor A had to hang out in the lobby with my mom during this appointment. :) jk. I didn't think that he wanted to come to a Gynecological consultation. Nope, probably not. I didn't even tell him what the appointment was, just that I had one and I would be out shortly. It wasn't a biggie. All the doc and I did was sit and chat about the fact that for two months now, nuthin'. I wanted to make sure that was normal and that hot flashes were normal and that cramps without any actual cycle was normal, ya know. Apparently yes.

The Busulfan I took, one of my chemos, basically ruined whatever it is in my body that creates Estrogen. So, in order to regulate the Estrogen, which would take away all these crazy side effect, apparently, she is recommending that I go on a low dose BC pill. Basically for the rest of my life. Well, unless I'm trying to get pregnant, which we don't even know if that is possible, or if I'm producing eggs anymore or even if I have eggs, they may not be healthy enough to be fertilized. Pretty much they tell everyone that goes through this process that they WON'T have children of their own, but I say two things: If I am meant to have children I will; and if I can't I will take H's advice and adopt a brood of ethnic children. :) Wow, fellas reading this, was that too much info? Sorry. I'm sure you will recover. So, I will be starting BC pills supposedly this weekend and I should start feeling more like myself at 32 not some menopausal age. :)

Now, I have a couple silly stories. Well, one is an anecdote for Optimism and one is a true life Dani-is-a-dork story. Anecdote first. A cancer patient wakes up one morning with only three hairs on her head. She says, "Excellent, I will make a braid." The next morning she wakes up with only two hairs on her head ans says, "Excellent, I will have piggy tales." The next morning she wakes up with only one hair left on her head and she says, "Wonderful, I will have a ponytail." Now, the next morning she wakes to find she has no hair on her head. She exclaims, "Excellent, I don't have to do my hair any more!" Pure Optimism. :) Love it. That story was told to me by Dr. F here at SCCA, which I am literally tearful to say that he is transferring to another team of doctors next week. My clinic with him tomorrow will be the last one. That makes me really sad. F was there on my hospital team and then when he transferred over to the Clinic it worked out that when I got out of the Hospital he was my doc at the clinic as well. It will be very different without him to harrass and be harrassed by. We are about the same age and have very similar senses of humor and it just has made this whole process better knowing that F is there and on my team and on my side... So, I'm a little bummed about the change in the line up, but hey, I will deal I guess. :) I need a little optimism. I got it, he is kinda like an annoying younger brother sometimes, now I won't have to deal with that. Just kidding.

OK, Dani story for the day. I love this story both because A was witness to it and because I really love making fun of myself. Hours of enjoyment. Today, A and I were riding up in the elevator and chatting. We got in, pushed 6 (which is the floor upon which I live) and resumed chatting. The elevator stopped, door opened. We knew my mom was already in the apartment so we just went around the corner and opened the door. As soon as I open the door I see a big number next to the "201" and the people sitting in the living room and realized that I sure wasn't on the 6th floor. Ha ha... Classic. I don't think they saw us or heard us, but we quietly shut the door and beat it to the elevator just in case. The rest of the day whenever we got in the elevator, A would try pushing 2 first, just in case........ rude. It was certainly awkward but hilarious. Loved it. Made my day a little brighter. :) Really, I'm a ding-dong. Don't you think that I would have realized the ride up from the 1st floor to the 6th floor sure was fast and had a lack of dings. oy vey. Ah well, this is who I am and I'm proud to be me. :)

Anyhooo... That's about it for me and around here. Weather has be AWESOME. Sorry for all of you that are roasting to death. Mid 70s to low 80s the whole time we've been here. And yes, I'm gloating a little. :) jk. I really hope that all of you are doing well and that I will get to see you all soon. Just about a month and a bit and I get to come home. Hopefully. That's OUR plan at least. :) I am continually grateful for all the support and well wishes that I have received and am still receiving. You are all wonderful beautiful people. Love you all and I write again soon. :)