My sister is regretting talking to me I think, pictures and a recipe ... of sorts
I have decided, since I only plan to do this once, I am going to document as much of it as I can. It will be an adventure!
First: Chemo sucks! Really.
Radiation was kind of fun though. I got put, topless (oh yeah!) under a grid of lasers which needed to be precisely lined up with the three little tattoos they gave me last week, then slid under this big arm thing with a giant disk on it that rotates around your body and makes all sorts of funky noises.
Kind of a lot like this actually. (Educational video warning! Possibility of learnding stuffs! Or, just watch and go "That is REALLY cool!")
Then it was on to chemo where I got 4 hours to study the reaction I was "supposed to be having."
I am going to make myself really, really, REALLY unpopular right now and state point blank that it is my opinion that the attitude of cancer patients plays a HUGE roll in their treatment success and I am more than a little pissed at a growing list who seem determined to whine, cry, snivel and otherwise bemoan their "Poor me! I am going to die!" status.
WELL DUH!
If you go in to it thinking you are going to die, guess what?! You probably are! Congratulations! You just became a statistic for the loosing side. On behalf of those of us who plan to be on the winning side, GRRRRR! The losing side is winning in numbers. Suck it up people, put on your bigkid pants and HAVE A LIFE BEYOND TEARS AND HEAD HUGS. (Don't get me started on the head hugs ... seriously.).
It isn't that I don't understand being scared. I do, and I understand the need to cry sometimes, and the need for support. There comes a point though when you have to step up and decided that you aren't going to go out like that. At the very least resolve to enjoy the life you have and get everything you can out of every minute you have especially since you could very well have DECADES left to live.
There was one man in the chemo room today. Sadly, there with his wife, both older middle age. He attempted to make conversation and "share my pain" by telling me that we really just had to take it one day at a time, one minute at a time and accept things as they come. This man was not the patient. His wife is and the more he talked about "just accepting things as they come" the more upset she became.
Um ... No. I will not just accept anythign I am not happy with and I have plans I intend to keep. I have a feeling Mr. Somber-grouchy-minute-man-pants and I are not going to get along. I really hope his wife and I do not remain on the same treatment schedule. Actually, I hope we do. I want to give her another way to look at things.
Mathew and I were getting funny looks all day for talking and laughing and generally acting like asses. For example (some of this is paraphrased. I do not have a perfect verbal memory, you get the gist):
"You are a big stupid meanie face, Fooie. Why won't you colour the platypuses with me?"
"I will only colour with you if you admit the are really beaver with Pringles."
"They aren't beavers with Pringles. They are Platypi. Oh! The candy dude is back! Can I have a green one?!"
"The red ones are better. But you wouldn't know that because you don't know anything .. like that those are beavers with Pringles."
On the other hand, chemo does kind of suck. The meds burn going in, they make you really tired and incredibly easily winded. I was not expecting them to work that quickly. They did though, and now here I am, sitting, which I do a lot of lately and I am getting really tired of, and talking to my sister on steam.
Which brings me to the portion of the recounting of the day's events where I am pretty sure my sister is regretting talking to me. The conversation went:
Sister: hey they put a tiny reindeer in lights thingy one the lawn next door
Sister: ether that or it is a small dog
Sister: or a large cat with a long neck
me: its a poodle
me: cause if you are gonna have a sleigh
me: have it be a poodle sleigh
Sister: no no sleigh
me: pft, he's just grazing before the main sleigh event
me: grazing sleigh poodles
Sister: they always have a ton of lights across the street
Sister: but i need to cut a hole in the tree out the window
Sister: Imma do that tomorrow
Sister: make it look like a large dinosaur went through it
me: be sure to measure carefully
me: and make the hole exact
me: also, make sure to tie the cut ends to the ones above and below so you can have that cut out look
* * * later in the conversation * * *
Sister: so I am thinking only one of us is allowed to really hurt at one time
Sister: and apparently today is my turn
me: okay, but you only get this one free pass
me: next time you need to fill out forms
me: in triplicate
me: please schedule all pain 3 weeks in advance
me: take a number and the neurons will be with you at your appointed time
Sister: what really sucks is it is food related and I have no idea what caused it other than "food" and not sure what i am going to try to eat that does not hurt
Sister: so umm
Sister: ya
me: anti-inflamitories, analgesics and paregorics in corticosteroid sauce
I am actually starting to feel a little bad for her ... a bit ... maybe ... Okay, she made spiders with 16 legs for Halloween. She's had this coming!
It was while talking to my sister though, that I decided I should document this adventure - in pictures because I will never experience it again and later I want to look back and go "LOL! That sucked so bad it was awesome!" and then I decided to share.
SO!
You get pics.
Some of which are probably not for those who are squicked by things medical - or WTF faces, but we will get to that!
This is my Zin Protectorizer-sock. New name totally sanctioned by the nursing staff, cause its actual name is one that I will never remember.
And this is my Zin bringing death, doom and destruction to the poor pineapple leaf he has just pulled from the pineapple and sent flying across the room.
My Zin Protectorizer-sock is to protect Zin from bringing death, doom and destruction to what is under the Zin Protectorizer-sock.
And this is what is under my Zin Protectorizer-sock. It will be my close personal friend for the next 3 days. I'm so happy!
.... that was totally sarcasm. Just, you know, if it wasn't already clear.
All of the above (Excepting Zin) are rumored (with 100% certainty, I kind of really want to take that down to only 99.9% because screwing with statistics is fun) to be rapidly contributing to the imminent loss of my hair. (Zin has already been contributing to that because hair is fun to lunge and grab from across the room, then dangle from with whole clumps clutched firmly between teeth. Ineveitably at least a few strands are lost in the process of removing him - a process which often sounds like "AAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEE! JESBUS CRISP! ZIN GET THE HELL OFF MY HAIR! FUCK! FUCK! FUCKSICLE NUGGETS WITH CHEESE! MATHEW! HELP!!!!!!!")
The hair in question having spent the past 2 years 1 months and a few days growing back from being hacked off in preparation (they even told me too!) for the surgery that didn't happen and now looks like:
I on the other hand ... okay, yeah, I actually look exactly like that fairly often.
Just as this picture was begin taken, my daughter, then engaged in the making of "It Used to Be Banana Cake" (recipe to follow) called from the kitchen "I just cut the pound of butter on this line on the package here where it says half a cup and that is half a cup right?" and I agreed with her and she said "Okay. So a whole pound is a cup and half a pound is half a cup. So that is what I put in. Half a pound."To which I answered "Wait! What the fuck?!" and this picture happened right on the "the" portion.
WTF face was followed immediately by "Please tell me you didn't just put half a pound of butter in the cake" face.
If you look at the lines on a pound of butter sometime, how she made the mistake even makes sense ... in a sort of really weird, twisted "I look at the world through my own 'special filtre'!" sort of way.
I like her filtre though. See that calender on the wall behind my head there? That is the family schedule, and the short child is the one who does most of the scheduling - due to her ability to remember to write things down.
And this is what she has added to the schedule.
Finally. I found a way to eat bananas!!!!!!!! *insert mental image of dance of exuberant joy here - make it good people! You have NO idea!*
Because this is a feat of epic proportion I felt I must share!
It Used To Be Banana Cake
1 standard banana bread recipe of your choice - I like this one.
Add to recipe of your choice
With the wet ingredients:
1 navel orange - peeled and pureed
1 finely grated carrot
1/2 cup frozen cranberries
1/2 cup each pumpkin and sunflower seeds - shelled (toasted or raw is your choice)
the preserved skins of 1.5-2 lemons (just preserved ones though, not the spicy ones which are equally good but not what we are going for here)- chopped finely -grated lemon peel would work as well I suppose. I like pickled/preserved lemon, plus I can just outright skip the salt in the original recipe this way.
With the dry ingredients:
1/2 cup ground flax seed
Mix according to recipe directions. Pour into greased 9x13 pan (mostly because we can't find our loaf pans) and bake at 375 F about 35-40 minutes or whatever your recipe says minus about 20 minutes if using a cake pan. Golden around the edges and firm in the middle should just about do it.
And yes, I cook everything exactly this precisely. Actually this one might be a bit more precise than most. No where in there does it say "Enough" as a measurement for an ingredient. Mathew does not like following my recipes :(
This entry is crossposted from: http://genlisae.dreamwidth.org/244693.html
First: Chemo sucks! Really.
Radiation was kind of fun though. I got put, topless (oh yeah!) under a grid of lasers which needed to be precisely lined up with the three little tattoos they gave me last week, then slid under this big arm thing with a giant disk on it that rotates around your body and makes all sorts of funky noises.
Kind of a lot like this actually. (Educational video warning! Possibility of learnding stuffs! Or, just watch and go "That is REALLY cool!")
Then it was on to chemo where I got 4 hours to study the reaction I was "supposed to be having."
I am going to make myself really, really, REALLY unpopular right now and state point blank that it is my opinion that the attitude of cancer patients plays a HUGE roll in their treatment success and I am more than a little pissed at a growing list who seem determined to whine, cry, snivel and otherwise bemoan their "Poor me! I am going to die!" status.
WELL DUH!
If you go in to it thinking you are going to die, guess what?! You probably are! Congratulations! You just became a statistic for the loosing side. On behalf of those of us who plan to be on the winning side, GRRRRR! The losing side is winning in numbers. Suck it up people, put on your bigkid pants and HAVE A LIFE BEYOND TEARS AND HEAD HUGS. (Don't get me started on the head hugs ... seriously.).
It isn't that I don't understand being scared. I do, and I understand the need to cry sometimes, and the need for support. There comes a point though when you have to step up and decided that you aren't going to go out like that. At the very least resolve to enjoy the life you have and get everything you can out of every minute you have especially since you could very well have DECADES left to live.
There was one man in the chemo room today. Sadly, there with his wife, both older middle age. He attempted to make conversation and "share my pain" by telling me that we really just had to take it one day at a time, one minute at a time and accept things as they come. This man was not the patient. His wife is and the more he talked about "just accepting things as they come" the more upset she became.
Um ... No. I will not just accept anythign I am not happy with and I have plans I intend to keep. I have a feeling Mr. Somber-grouchy-minute-man-pants and I are not going to get along. I really hope his wife and I do not remain on the same treatment schedule. Actually, I hope we do. I want to give her another way to look at things.
Mathew and I were getting funny looks all day for talking and laughing and generally acting like asses. For example (some of this is paraphrased. I do not have a perfect verbal memory, you get the gist):
"You are a big stupid meanie face, Fooie. Why won't you colour the platypuses with me?"
"I will only colour with you if you admit the are really beaver with Pringles."
"They aren't beavers with Pringles. They are Platypi. Oh! The candy dude is back! Can I have a green one?!"
"The red ones are better. But you wouldn't know that because you don't know anything .. like that those are beavers with Pringles."
On the other hand, chemo does kind of suck. The meds burn going in, they make you really tired and incredibly easily winded. I was not expecting them to work that quickly. They did though, and now here I am, sitting, which I do a lot of lately and I am getting really tired of, and talking to my sister on steam.
Which brings me to the portion of the recounting of the day's events where I am pretty sure my sister is regretting talking to me. The conversation went:
Sister: hey they put a tiny reindeer in lights thingy one the lawn next door
Sister: ether that or it is a small dog
Sister: or a large cat with a long neck
me: its a poodle
me: cause if you are gonna have a sleigh
me: have it be a poodle sleigh
Sister: no no sleigh
me: pft, he's just grazing before the main sleigh event
me: grazing sleigh poodles
Sister: they always have a ton of lights across the street
Sister: but i need to cut a hole in the tree out the window
Sister: Imma do that tomorrow
Sister: make it look like a large dinosaur went through it
me: be sure to measure carefully
me: and make the hole exact
me: also, make sure to tie the cut ends to the ones above and below so you can have that cut out look
* * * later in the conversation * * *
Sister: so I am thinking only one of us is allowed to really hurt at one time
Sister: and apparently today is my turn
me: okay, but you only get this one free pass
me: next time you need to fill out forms
me: in triplicate
me: please schedule all pain 3 weeks in advance
me: take a number and the neurons will be with you at your appointed time
Sister: what really sucks is it is food related and I have no idea what caused it other than "food" and not sure what i am going to try to eat that does not hurt
Sister: so umm
Sister: ya
me: anti-inflamitories, analgesics and paregorics in corticosteroid sauce
I am actually starting to feel a little bad for her ... a bit ... maybe ... Okay, she made spiders with 16 legs for Halloween. She's had this coming!
It was while talking to my sister though, that I decided I should document this adventure - in pictures because I will never experience it again and later I want to look back and go "LOL! That sucked so bad it was awesome!" and then I decided to share.
SO!
You get pics.
Some of which are probably not for those who are squicked by things medical - or WTF faces, but we will get to that!
This is my Zin Protectorizer-sock. New name totally sanctioned by the nursing staff, cause its actual name is one that I will never remember.
And this is my Zin bringing death, doom and destruction to the poor pineapple leaf he has just pulled from the pineapple and sent flying across the room.
My Zin Protectorizer-sock is to protect Zin from bringing death, doom and destruction to what is under the Zin Protectorizer-sock.
And this is what is under my Zin Protectorizer-sock. It will be my close personal friend for the next 3 days. I'm so happy!
.... that was totally sarcasm. Just, you know, if it wasn't already clear.
All of the above (Excepting Zin) are rumored (with 100% certainty, I kind of really want to take that down to only 99.9% because screwing with statistics is fun) to be rapidly contributing to the imminent loss of my hair. (Zin has already been contributing to that because hair is fun to lunge and grab from across the room, then dangle from with whole clumps clutched firmly between teeth. Ineveitably at least a few strands are lost in the process of removing him - a process which often sounds like "AAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEE! JESBUS CRISP! ZIN GET THE HELL OFF MY HAIR! FUCK! FUCK! FUCKSICLE NUGGETS WITH CHEESE! MATHEW! HELP!!!!!!!")
The hair in question having spent the past 2 years 1 months and a few days growing back from being hacked off in preparation (they even told me too!) for the surgery that didn't happen and now looks like:
I on the other hand ... okay, yeah, I actually look exactly like that fairly often.
Just as this picture was begin taken, my daughter, then engaged in the making of "It Used to Be Banana Cake" (recipe to follow) called from the kitchen "I just cut the pound of butter on this line on the package here where it says half a cup and that is half a cup right?" and I agreed with her and she said "Okay. So a whole pound is a cup and half a pound is half a cup. So that is what I put in. Half a pound."To which I answered "Wait! What the fuck?!" and this picture happened right on the "the" portion.
WTF face was followed immediately by "Please tell me you didn't just put half a pound of butter in the cake" face.
If you look at the lines on a pound of butter sometime, how she made the mistake even makes sense ... in a sort of really weird, twisted "I look at the world through my own 'special filtre'!" sort of way.
I like her filtre though. See that calender on the wall behind my head there? That is the family schedule, and the short child is the one who does most of the scheduling - due to her ability to remember to write things down.
And this is what she has added to the schedule.
Finally. I found a way to eat bananas!!!!!!!! *insert mental image of dance of exuberant joy here - make it good people! You have NO idea!*
Because this is a feat of epic proportion I felt I must share!
It Used To Be Banana Cake
1 standard banana bread recipe of your choice - I like this one.
Add to recipe of your choice
With the wet ingredients:
1 navel orange - peeled and pureed
1 finely grated carrot
1/2 cup frozen cranberries
1/2 cup each pumpkin and sunflower seeds - shelled (toasted or raw is your choice)
the preserved skins of 1.5-2 lemons (just preserved ones though, not the spicy ones which are equally good but not what we are going for here)- chopped finely -grated lemon peel would work as well I suppose. I like pickled/preserved lemon, plus I can just outright skip the salt in the original recipe this way.
With the dry ingredients:
1/2 cup ground flax seed
Mix according to recipe directions. Pour into greased 9x13 pan (mostly because we can't find our loaf pans) and bake at 375 F about 35-40 minutes or whatever your recipe says minus about 20 minutes if using a cake pan. Golden around the edges and firm in the middle should just about do it.
And yes, I cook everything exactly this precisely. Actually this one might be a bit more precise than most. No where in there does it say "Enough" as a measurement for an ingredient. Mathew does not like following my recipes :(
This entry is crossposted from: http://genlisae.dreamwidth.org/244693.html