April Showers Bring May Flowers

*235* <---Something like that. Around about there. 

 I was awoken by a couple cats at 3am. They decided that would be a perfect time to ask for breakfast. Most of the time they bother Hubs because they know he has to get up anyway. The nerve of them! I know for sure I will be taking a nap later.  No gardening going to be going on today. It rained so much yesterday that all the leaves and the beds are saturated. I like to garden but I am not that hardcore.

  Let`s get the icky stuff out of the way. I saw the surgeon. She says that my left boob is negative. No cancer. There is a very small radial scar that will have to come out but otherwise, thank god! The cancer in the other breast is stage 1a grade 2 at this point. That could change after everything is biopsied. She is going to recommend me for radiation. <---not fucking happy about that. I am having surgery to remove the two areas in the breasts and a few lymph nodes on the right on May 14. May 1 I have an appointment with the oncologist and I know she is going to put me on the dreaded Tamoxifen. I already saw a shrink and he gave me a script for Lexapo to deal with the Tamoxifen. I havent started taking it yet. I hate side effects. I will probably start taking it on this Sunday. Fresh week with a fresh new medication.

  I do not know how I feel right now about all of this. I should be freaked out and I think a small part of me is. But I have to take it day by day. There is nothing I can do about what is going to happen cause it has to happen to make the cancer go away. We will just pray really hard that the Onoctype testing on the biopsied pieces will come back with a very low number. It is a test that will tell you if you have a chance of reoccurence of the cancer. Higher then 20% will require chemo or mastectomy or both. LOW NUMBER! I have a oncology nurse navigator. She will help me with appointments, if I do not feel well, classes, questions, insurance, and the like. I will have three doctors and someone has to help you navigate the maze of cancer.

As for otherwise life, nothing much else is occupying my mind at the moment. I do have the garden going on but with the deluge of rain we had been getting, I havent planted the lettuce or radish seeds yet. I am hoping that I get out there tomorrow when the ground has dried some. I want to get them in the ground. I also need to pick up some kale and collard plants at some point. Yesterday`s rain was really bad. I am surprised the basement didnt flood a little bit. I have to do the kombucha today after I come back from the dispensary. It is time to bottle it. If you wait too long, it starts to taste vinegary. So today is the day.

 I am boring. I have nothing witty to discuss or share. My mind is in boring old Cancerland and I have lack of sleep. Maybe the next post will be more exciting. Maybe not. Whose to know.
I hope you have a great rest of your week. I will be back to share again next week. Pray for lots of sunshine!

Forgive me for my tardiness

*234*

  Yes, I have breast cancer in my right breast. This is why I havent posted. I have been walking around in a bit of a fog. I had a MRI biopsy on my left breast yesterday. Next Friday I see the boob surgeon to talk about what those results are and what my journey will be. I have a Invasive Ductal Carcinoma (IDC) that is Estrogen and Progesterone positive and HER2 negative <---that is very good. It is very small, about 9mm. If there is nothing nasty going on in the left, I will probably just have surgery and take the Tamoxifen for five years. But I do not know what is going to happen. We do not know if it is in my lymph nodes. We do not know what is in my left breast. So I have no more answers then what I just said.

  That is all I really want to talk about today. I am just not ready to engage with people. I have been working in the garden bed on the side of the house to get it ready for planting. I have been just keeping busy so I do not have to think about it. I just realized I had not posted and guessing there are some of you that were waiting to hear from me. I am sorry, please forgive me.

Ok. I will post when I think about it and I will let you know what is going on. I am going to go work on the chicken dinner I have planned.
Have a good weekend.

It is a gonna be a two coffee pod kinda day

This is Julien. Kid #1 calls him Bashir. Shout out if you get reference 

*236* <-----eating things I shouldnt it. Make it STAHP!

  It is 932am est and I have been up since 530ish am. We are in the midst of another Nor`easter here on the shore. They are saying we could get a foot of snow when it is all said and done. The snow was impressive earlier but no so much now. Unless we get some more banding going on, I think the thought of epic snowfall is a bust. We shall see.

   Again, I have missed too many weeks in a row and for that I am sorry. My past couple weeks have been very stressful. It always seems like shit storms comes in threes. I will break some of these things down, some I will not because I have to keep a little air of mystery about me. I will try to add a positive at the end of each thing because that is how I am trying to live my life. Except I have no postives to say about my computer life. First the iPad died. I cannot afford to replace it. Now I found out that this HP Stream that I bought for myself is a $200 piece of garbage. Windows 10 is too large for the gigs on this things so it has already out of memory (bought in January). I cannot update it at all. I cannot upgrade the memory because of the kind of memory it has. And you guessed it, I cannot afford to replace it. I still have the Chrome book as a back up when I can no longer use this one. No positives for this declaration at all. And we do not get refunds so a computer will not happen then. Oh well. Maybe the Apple Fairy will gift me. Probably not.

Can I get a discount card on Cat Litter?

  First up, you have probably seen the pictures of Julien on the IG feed. He has been Kid #2 and my secret this past month. This lady came into the office with her cat and the litter. The office was going to adopt one of the litter when they were ready because one of the vet cats passed away. All the girls (3 left) are very much older and they wanted to bring up a youngin while the girls were still around. Kid #2 asked me to come in and see the kittens cause they were so tiny. Julien is the runt. He had to be mine. We received him two weeks ago during the last storm. We also found out this week he contracted round worms from his mother (the whole litter did) but he had his first de-worming and he will be fine. He is a little spit fire. He leaps. He runs like the wind. Last week he weigh 1.86 lbs. He is too small to be so fearless but he is. It took about a week but everyone has adapted. I am now OFFICIALLY a crazy cat lady. I had no plan at all to get another cat. We had three. Dont need another. But it happened and we are happy. He is very lovey to everyone. He is black but he still has a bit of his fever coat. That will go away as the months go by.

 I am the IV queen

 Last week I had the upper endoscopy. Nothing impressive. No ulcers. I still have gastritis, esophagitis, and he noted my hiatal hernia. Biopsies were taken. I have not heard anything back so that tells me that all is well with that. But, the hernia is probably the reason I am having trouble swallowing. It can get it the point where it pushes up a little higher in your chest and can make you have difficulties. I am supposed to take care of my Acid reflux but I cannot take PPIs because of the Cdiff.  I will just deal with what I have gut wise. If the hernia ever gets too bad, I will have the surgery. But as for now, no no no.
  Yesterday, I had my Mammo and my boob MRI with contrast. That all went well too. Of course they cannot tell me anything. I have an appointment with the boob surgeon next week. Lets hope I hear NOTHING before that appointment. I want no phone calls about the scans. All is well and they found nothing.

 When one door closes, Another one opens

We found out that hubby`s last cleaning job was given to some other company. Nothing do with him or his performance. Just company restructuring. That left us with alot of money a month out of our budget. I lost it. Completely lost it. I remember my friend (and mechanic) said he had someone that had a cleaning company. Long story short, we will be making approximately 2/3rds back. Still money missing but not catastrophic. We can work with that and hopefully there will be more to come.
The paid internship fell through. They could not work around the rules of paying me so that fell apart. I had decided that I would never get my hopes up for a job again. Now I have a chance at maybe another paid internship with our local cable company. That is actually the first job I applied for and had not done so well on the phone interview. Not bad. Just inexperienced at it. Now I know how to do all that. The company actually does participate in internships so we shall see. They need workers. I need a job! Wish my ass luck cause I am really tired of applying for stuff.

Girl, you need to stop

Because of a bunch of stressful stuff, I have not been eating right. Bread. Noodles. Rice. Potato. Junk. Pizza! You name it, it is going down. I have to really do it now. My doctor is gonna raise my insulin at my appt in May. Now it is the middle of March and I have not lost a significant amount. I have a plan. I am going to slowly slack off from now until Saturday. Saturday I will be taking my first Methotrexate shot..did I tell you about this? let me look....I guess I havent. The rhemy changed my methotrexate from a pill to a shot so it does not effect my gut like the pill did. I had to wait till this cold was all over before I can take the first shot. So, Saturday will be the first shot and the first day back on LCHF fully. All the junk in the house will be gone/ I will have set myself up with good for me snacks and I will be ready to go. I have to lose at least 10 more pounds by the beginning of May. I will do this. I need to do this! As i eat a slice of leftover pizza for breakfast/lunch.
Crap! 49 days until May 1, 2018!

Housework sucks

  Since I am *snowbound* today, I am going to get some cleaning done. I have to change the hose on the sump pump (it sprung a few leaks). I have to water all the plants. I will do the plants after I finish up on here. They are priority. I have a few that cannot wait for Spring so that I can repot them. When you have a boisterous kitten, you realize how dusty your house is. Pulling stuff out and vacuum underneath is going to happen in the livingroom today. Has to be done. I will polish all the furniture in the there and I will be good till next week. Okay. I ate one small slice of pizza. I think I am going to throw the other two away. Not gonna eat them. Going...going...gone. I tossed it in the trash and smushed it in the trash. Not that I would ever ever never eat that now but I felt it needed that extra Fuck you for being there so that I would eat it.


Okay...it is really time for me to do some stuff. I hope all is well with you. Stay out of the snow if you can help it. And I will be back next week.

Attack of the virus

*230*

  I was germed by someone and that is the reason no post this past Sunday. I am just feeling kind of okay today. I do not know if it was the a watered down version of the flu or a nasty cold but it sucked. The weekend was a blur of dayquil, cough drops, and pee pads. I say I do not know because I didnt have a fever but I was feverish. I had aches in my legs but it only lasted for a day. I was sick as a dog but I did not feel like I was dying. That is why it could have been a watered down version because I did have the flu shot this year. Even though that has been deemed to only be about 20% effective. I have a nagging leftover cough and my bladder needs time to recover but otherwise, I am gonna be okay. The laundry will get done.

Paid Internship

  I am thisclose to having a paid internship with a very large company in my area. I am not going to say what or where at this point. It will be 3 months to start off and can go to a max of 6 months. I will be able to use it as experience and filler on my resume. I need the administrative work to help show that I know stuffs. Just give me a chance! If they like me and vice versa AND they have a job to fill, I could be hired at some point. The wheels are rolling with this so it could be very soon. I also have another job that is very exciting and that is being reviewed. I have not had an interview for it yet but I will be positive. I had contact with the HR department already for that one. I am not putting all my hopes on it but it would be good if this one were to happen also. So I have balls in the air. Who would have ever thought when I started this blog that I would be close to going back in the working world? I wouldnt have. I try not to obsessively look at my email. It is like I am WILLING them to email me back with a time to come in for an interview. Come to me. Come to me. You want me to work for you!

No Boobs for You

  Because of this wretched ick that has befallen me, I had to cancel my boob MRI and Mammo. Plus I had to move my appointment with the boob surgeon so that it is after my scans. That will all happen in March now. I am also going to be able to get my upper endoscopy after all. The gastro is having someone else in her practice do it on a Monday so that Hubs can take me. My gut has felt better since I stopped taking the Methotrexate pills. I saw the Rheumy this week and he has switched me to injections instead. I will give myself a shot once a week. He says that it bypasses the gut so I wont have to worry about that being an issue. It was working so well for me too. Now all my patches have come back and brought friends with them. The pains I was feeling before are back also. I hope the shots do not give me any issues because I really want this to work.

Gotta Make Money, Honey

 I really really really need to get on the selling train. I have been so lazy about it. I have boxes of shit to put on Etsy and I have not even moved a muscle towards doing it. This past week has been a wash out because I have been sick, but that does not explain the past few months. I have literally have tons of shit to sell. I need the motivation. I know money is a motivation but that doesn't seem to be enough to force me to do it. I gotta DO it so these totes can stop staring at me. There are totes full of stuff right behind me. They are there because I have to photograph, post, and put them in a place for when they sell. I need to get boxes and bags and bubble wrap. Give me the motivation to get this started!! I know once I do it, I will continue to do it. I am one of those kind of people. You have to push me off the cliff and then I will fly. 
  I have a big dilemma. It has come time to pay for my garden beds at the community garden. I do not want to be there anymore. I do not like the way it is being run and last year all of our beds were taken over by ants that like to bite. We are not allowed to use chemicals and the people that run the place did not help us at all. I think that is why our peppers did not flourish at all like they have before. There is alot of weird stuff going on at the garden that I am not going to go into. Lets just say that the person running it is an asshole elitist and we will leave it like that. So my dilemma is there is a guy that is selling 4 foot, 100 gallon galvanized steel animal feeders for $50 a piece (or best offer) and I could get four of these and put them in the front yard. Fill them with compost and not have to do the community garden thing anymore. But even at $50 a piece...that is $200. I want to get four of them while he has them because of their small size and when am I going to get an opportunity like this again?
 But I am not supposed to be spending money. What would you do? Ugh! I told him I didn't get paid till the end of the month so we shall see what I do. I will either do it or not do it.

RIP iPad

 My iPad is dead. Okay, not completely dead but she is having issues with the screen. It started acting up a month ago. Yesterday it finally went. I could get the screen up long enough to email myself all the pictures I had saved on it. It is a iPad mini and I won it in a contest. I have had it for five years. It almost never left the house and I used it ever night when I went to bed. I miss it. The screen was big enough to watch videos but small enough that it was not cumbersome. It helped me so much when I was sick or healing. I will not replace it with a android one. NO. I went on the Apple website, I saw this one and I am in love but the price. After taxes, apple care, and such...it is $527. I know I could buy it someplace else but I like the protection you get when you buy it at Apple. Plus I can get a free engraving on it. I was going to call it Heidi`s Toy. 
 It is okay. Maybe if I get one of these jobs, I can save up for it. That gives me a little hope that I will eventually have one again.

That is it for today. I have breakfast/lunch cooking and then I am going to dive into some laundry and recipes. I have been slowly pecking away at the mess in the kitchen. I was literally in bed for three straight days. So maybe it was the flu. I hope you all are not having the flu or a cold. Enjoy the last grasps of Winter. March is coming and I am dreaming of Spring.