The Crazy Lady still stuck

Hmm…..I can’t remember if its day 6 or 7 of enforced bed rest.  Originally, I was given a week – however they (the people in white coats – who come to take you away, hee-hee ho-ho) have extended my prison term to 10 days.  Hmmm let’s examine how I am, fever – nope, sore throat – nope, wheezy breath – in the evenings, hacking cough – okay, okay I give – still hacking up lungs at night.  Grrrr, I foresee that I’ll be given an additional sentence ……but I want out of here.  Now the whining starts.  First, my family completely ignores me (as if I’m invisible or something), no food or drinks for the token ghost upstairs (again – whining, it peeves me when I can hear them munching down on chow downstairs – especially when Rainer made his chicken last night, chicken, parmesan, gobs of garlic, stewed tomatoes, zucchini, a little curry, fluffy mashed potatoes with butter – having been ignored I’ll day, I’m hungry).  Laundry is still piling up, you think my family would start washing their clothes……but nooooo, I just keep hear them in the laundry room sorting through the dirty clothes to find shirts with no stains and smell relatively okay.   I can only read the newspaper five times before I’m snoozing with sheets of newspaper tenting over my face as I’ve drop off to sleep again. I’ve missed my Emmie’s school music concert (but she did look fab before she left – clean glasses, shiny long red hair, wearing a snazzy short sleeved black tunic, black leggings, and extremely hip black suede boots).   As some you know, Emma is a tomboy opposed to an actual girl, she prefers ragged jeans, t-shirts, muddy boots, and of course her coat (if I let her, I swear she’d wear it 24 hours a day – Recently, I finally got her to keep the hood down so I could see her face).  I sometimes forget how beautiful she is.  Her older sisters have always been stars, but I have a feeling little Emmila just might outshine all of them in her own way. 

Sorry, took a mini break there – Dylan showed up with a small bowl of beef stroganoff (yummy family recipe).  Did anyone come to eat with me? No.  I turned the TV on and played america’s favorite pastime, flipping channels on the TV.  What’s that old Springsteen song, “57 Channels and Nothing on”. Watched the end of Sherlock Holmes (the Downey one), the end of Hello Dolly (foolish pleasure), news, and then started watching the movie “Out of Africa”.  Can’t you just hear in your mind Meryl Streep saying, “I had a farm in Africa”?  I love the movie, but just hearing the music I started to sob.  I turned the TV off.  She dies, you know. 

So I’m typing – was going to interest my readers with my Tucson story, but I’ll save it for another day.  I just took some cough medicine and have a throat lozenge swirling around in my mouth.  Pretty soon, I’ll have to actually get under the covers and pretend to sleep.  So here, I’ll bore you with what’s going on around me.  I’ll work backwards.  Emma is in her room.  Her room is actually clean; I put my foot down and threatened her with sanctions.  She’s on her computer. She’s been starting to program little cartoon videos that she’s loading up on YouTube.  Her characters are always from Erin Hunter’s Warrior books – cats with courage.  Hannah, I know she just finished her homework.  She was downstairs earlier in the day watching “American Idol” with her dad – I could hear her laughter.  They love that show……not my kind of entertainment.  Her dad is getting worried, he only has three more years and then she can try out for American Idol.  Let’s hope they cancel the show.  I know she can sing, but I much rather her to stick to her plan.  What’s that you ask……my daughter wants to go to Yale University – she wants to be either an actress or an Ichthyologist (fish doctor), she’s had this plan for years.  My little steamboat, although on more than one occasion – the mean mom comes out when she whines about doing homework – I say those fateful works.  Okay, if Yale doesn’t mean so much, you don’t have to study so hard.  But Mom, she drags my name out.  It’s fine that you don’t want keep your grades up for potential scholarships (The hard truth there is, now that I’m no longer a VP –we’ve got no money for college – if Dylan can get money, so can she).  Okay…..I’ll study or I’ll play the piano…….isn’t the guilt great. Guilt is the only weapon I have now to use against her.  She’s heading into teenager mode.  Remember way back when, it’s when you certainly didn’t want your mom around and 90% of the time you didn’t like her.  Dylan’s home, he graduated from college last May (with honors – I’m grinning when I say that).  He’s been looking for a job since then…….well, really, really looking for a job since October – he went down to visit his father in SF until Christmas.  However from May to October, you could find him and his dad hanging out at the ballpark watching the SF Giants baseball team do their thing.  No jobs in SF, although I think he was hoping about a potential contact from a friend of a friend.  He wants to be a journalist – so if you know of a job……sent him an email.  One other reason, he’s hanging around up in the gray, rainy, big Northwest.  His girlfriend has a job up here…….she’s wonderful, ahhh, isn’t that sweet.  Ashley, Ashley…..she’s radiating happiness with her new beau up in the wilds of Michigan.  I need to send a package to her; perhaps I should throw in some yarn and needles.  She can knit as the snow piles higher and higher.  J

Rainier (remember rhymes with finer) has been recording music on his computer all weekend.  He laid down some guitar parts, added a base, cut in some piano licks. Jeez louise, he even was recording music on my cello – which just kills me that in no time he plays even better than I do.  Gosh all mighty, I wish he’d just join a band or something.  Unfortunately, my wanna be rock star just turned fifty and loves to play those golden oldies from the 70’s, 80’s, and perhaps a 90’s tune here or there.  If nothing else, I wish we could build the garage and then I could throw him outside the house when he wanted to pound out on his guitar

And here I am, time is fading.  And no it’s not my bedtime but I might actually get under the covers instead of sitting on top all day.  I see a favorite book next to my nightstand.  I think it’s time to re-read it again.

Ni ni all……from the crazy lady sentenced to bed rest. 

The Flu

So it’s the beginning of day four of doctor imposed bed rest. This year’s flu is not very nice.  I went in for my monthly chemo cocktail and my doctor said I had to get a flu shot.  I receive both my chemo and flu shot on January 11^th.  I have been sick ever since.   I was rather stupid, instead of resting and getting better I just kept playing supermom.  I mean I’m the Mom, who else is going to do the stuff I do – being a taxi service for my children’s escapades, doing wash, doing dishes, going to the market picking up enough food to feed five hungry mouths, feeding our goatie girls, dogs and cats.  (Sorry I don’t feed the gold fish, he’s been with us for nearly 10 years – personally I wouldn’t mind to see him floating on the on the bottom, but Emma and Hannah love that fish) Next thing I knew I had a deep hacking cough, wheezing due to fluid beginning to fill up my lungs, fevers, chills and achy body.  I finally gave in and went to see my doctor.  Tisk, tisk…..I need to run some test, she says.  Once again, I went thrqu my favorite things, tongue swabs, needle pricks, blood drained. I was given the choice of either three days in the hospital or ten days of bed rest.  So after a long day of intravenous antibiotics mixed with a 1000ml bag of saline solution for dehydration, I chose the bed rest.  I’ve been to that prison called the hospital.  The hospital is nightmarish.  First, they (the orderlies dressed in blue) show up every half hour to hook you up to the blood pressure machine (which is worse than the hug of python), you’re your temperature, measure and empty your bladder bag, and just make sure your still alive, your nurse showing up every hour doing double duty of blood pressure, pulse count, giving you little cups of funny colored pills, interns pretending to be doctors while they experiment on you,  and handsome residents who know the end of their midnight duty is just about done.

I know, I know, I haven’t been writing much lately.  You’re wondering what in the world is going.  I thought she had cancer and here she’s writing about the flu.  Yes, I still have cancer – I’ve got new tumors on my sternum and a particularly nasty one just above my right lung.  I’m a walking cancer monster, shoulder, sternum, ribs, and hips.   Lord almighty, the cancer just keeps finding nice and tasty bones to munch on.  Plus, I’m tired of cancer.  I’ve been on a sort of a vacation from cancer, translation, no chemo for the month of February.  So I’m sort of peeved that I’ve been ill with the flu for nearly a month.

I’m working on getting my game face ready.  I’ve got a nice new tumor on the right side of my chest opposed to the left side.  (Well that’s funny – I’ve been leaning to the left for years and years  and now they want me to lean to the right…..sorry, no can do, Go democrats  – Cancer humor).  My doctor will take a slew of new tests on March 11^th.  However, I’m pretty sure I’m going to go from chemo light to chemo heavy.  I’ll go from thinning hair to no hair, being able to eat great pasta loaded with tomatoes, spicy sausage, and garlic to food tasting like metal and pulling out the pink bucket so I don’t have to worry about making it to the bathroom.-

So instead of going to a Jewelry Show in Tucson (I’ll explain later), going to Florida and staying at the Ritz (aka D & H condo, right on the water in Palm Beach), trekking down to LA to finally take my kids to the land of wonder – Disneyland and spend time drinking wine with my dear friend.  I’m stuck on bed rest for at least 6 more days.  Boo-hoo.  Needless to say it’s killing me as I watch the laundry mountain grow higher, and haven’t been to my knitting group and bible study group for which seems like years.  Grrr.  I hate the flu, however I guess the good thing about it is…….nearly everyone round me seems to be getting the flu.  I guess it’s nice to be a part of this terrible click call the flu – now where’s the Kleenex and cough syrup.