The Family

Truth is, another problem with my diet is that i know I am going to have hanging sklin. I have talked about this before. I have the name of a couple of plastic surgeons and my doctor also recommended looking into a teaching hospitlal resident surgery. She said that residents have at least 5 years of surgical experience but need practice on real people performing real surgery so hospitals give a pretty good discount.
But i was still afraid of the cost…. envisioning $100,000+
Went looking online today. It is pricey but it is do’able. I only found the dr charges, not the hostipal, and when you add in the hospital cost I will probably have to go woth a teaching hospital and cross my fingers, but it is not going to run as much as i was afraid it would… not for the bare minimum, anyway.

Much relief.

I am trying…  I am honestly trying….   All of a sudden it got hard.

Last month i was awarded my 16 week pin, the pin that signifies that i have made it thru the crucial time and am more likely, statically, to make it all the way to my goal weight.   I was asked what i did to stick with it.  I told them it was not that hard, really…   that i had this health crisis and something in me changed.  (Well it did!)  But i think i jinxed myself.  Since January 12th I have lost a whopping 5 pounds.  (well, almost – I am 2/10ths of a pound from my next 5 pound star. – I suggested that we close the doors and let me strip to get rid of those 2/10ths, but the weigh’er-in’er did not think that was a good idea.)

I know some of the reasons it has gotten hard:

1) I feel so much better.

2) I relaxed my guard.

3) My fat cells are starving and crying out for food..  bad food…  I crave fat….    strongly.
4) I am not good at long-term…  I lose interest…  Get sidetracked.

But, even so, I do not understand why it is so hard.  I want this.  I really really want this.  I talk to myself…   remind myself of all the reasons.  I listen; I determine that i am back on the straight and narrow.   And then I just fail….   I don’t understand.

It is good that I have all of you pulling for me.  It is good that my doctors are both so proud of me that i feel sick at the thought of not having lost more when i go back for the next visit.  It is good that i have gotten rid of all my clothes that are too big.  I go in and try on the next size down from time to time and have moved them into my closet so i see them all the time.  I want to get into the next size down.  It felt so good to give away all my “fat clothes” that i want to do it again.

It is also good that i am beginning to feel fat again.  For a while i felt so much smaller…  It is still nice to sit in places that i could not easly sit before…    but i am increasingly aware of my belly again, which is a good thing.

Well, it has been a while since I have “reported in” because i did not have anything good to report…   consider this my update.

Wanted to share a cute video.

This story begins on Monday.   On Monday, Kevin met with a new cleaning lady.   We’d had a service before he was unemployed.  Dropped it while he was.   Restarted it now that he isn’t.

Not with the same service (a little iffy with them), but with a new lady that does the houses of several of his new coworkers and came highly recommended.

She cleaned the house on Monday.  She was, as stated, thorough and conscientious.   Let me rephrase that.   She was VERY thorough and VERY conscientious.  Just how thorough and conscientious took me four days to discover.

Fast forward four days.  Friday morning.   I wake up; get up.   Took Kevin to the airport the night before, so it’s a qiuiet morning.  Get all dressed.   Feed the cats.   Get the paper before starting in on the cereal.  We have a weekend subscription to the paper – Friday, Saturday, Sunday.  It’s a nice treat to read the paper on Fridays while eating breakfast.

So.  Out to get the paper, back to the porch to discover just how Very Thorough and Very Coscientious our new cleaning lady is.  She wants to make sure the house is secure when she leaves.  She uses her new key to lock the deadbolt – and the door.   The doorknob.  Which we never lock.   Which we never check because we never lock it.  Which is now locked.

Which puts me and the newspaper outside, without a coat, without a key, without a phone, without a spouse – locked out of my house.

It’s hovering around 40 degrees.   It’s 7:15 in the morning.   The Kroger – nearest source of a phone and a phone book – is a mile away.

So yes.   I walk.   A mile there.   A mile back.  A two mile stroll in two inch heels.   On the jogging trail, which I am grateful exists and am very grateful it is level, but would have liked it to have been paved.      I tell myself I am glad I am fully dressed.   I list the five pairs of shoes in my wardrobe that would be less comfortable to hike in.

While I am walking, the temperature is actually a good thing.  Then I get back to the house, and wait for the locksmith.  He arrives at 9:00, but as I have no watch I have no idea of how much time passes.    All I know is that sitting still, it is cold outside.

Locksmith gets out of his enclosed truck, walks up all friendly, says ‘Beautiful day, isn’t it?  Wonderful weather.’   Sigh.

He comes, happy ending, I get back into the house (only $50, which is nice).  I warm up.  I go to work and adjust my timesheet to show 1 1/2 hours of personal leave.   I discover that I have blisters on both of my feet.  I am glad I have a desk job.

I eat fast food for lunch, and I biggie size it.  I’ve earned those calories, drat it, and I need comfort food.

And yes.   The rest of my day seemed just marvelous.    Made my to-do list for the weekend with the most unflappable aplomb.

To Do.

Item 1.  Make extra house keys.

Well.    I’ve waited days and days to see a new post, so that “Grailing .. bad news” isn’t the first thing I see when I load the page.

Guess I’ll just have to post it myself.

So let’s see.    The carry case for my telescope finally arrived.  As much as I enjoyed getting the telescope set up, I am looking forward to breaking it down into the proper porting pieces.   It’s a wonderful bag.  I can proudly take my place with all the other beginning amateur astronomers.    I have a fine telescope.

And yes, Saturn is way cool to look at.  But I am going to have to get some more eyepieces.

Ordered stuff from e-bay (it’s my second order).   Think it should arrive soon; it was theoretically shipped Monday.  Will leave my glowing seller feedback when it arrives.

Donated three formal dresses to the Cinderella project here in Raleigh.   They gather formals and have a big party thing where qualifying girls get to come in and try stuff on and find a dress they like for the prom.   All free.   Gave them the used-to-be matching shoes, too, though I hestiated on the shoes.  They really aren’t the best .. but perhaps they will find some use.

Like FreeCycle, I liked donating to the Cinderella Project more than I would have enjoyed simply donating to Goodwill.    Though I have a couple of boxes to take in there, too.

Weekend is coming.  Plan to make all those donation trips on Saturday.  I’m also planning to shuffle my fish around.   One has been in the kitchen tank, the other has been upstairs.  I think they should switch for a while.   I might get a fancy guppy to put in the tank with the frog.   I just feel like it must get boring, sitting in a tank all day.  Perhaps the frog and guppy won’t speak the same language, but it will be something.   Something is less boring than nothing.    Or I might get a second frog.  But I think it would be important to have two frogs of the same size, and I don’t know if I can judge which store frogs are the same size as my frog at home.   Which is why I generally come back to the guppy idea.   And I like guppies.  They are colorful.

I got a new Tolkien book for myself.  Haven’t read it yet – so many books from the library, and they have due dates.   But it is so pleasant to have a Tolkien book waiting for me.

Was talking to Mom about Hawaii, trying to be motivational and all that.   Then suddenly it dawned on me – I’d be going too.   I’d probably have to wear a swimsuit.  In public.   And I only have a year to become posterially fabulous.    So now I have a goal, and I wasn’t even looking for one.   Should I be thankful or vexed??  😉

Did you guys know Ann now has an employee in her business?  Getting very official.  The new hire is only for a few hours in the middle of the day, and Ann is amusingly managerial about how slow they are, but with all that I was greatly impressed.   An employee.  So many orders Ann and David can’t keep up with the business on their own.

I’m going to start saying only nice things about my good and clever friend, Ann.

Well, I guess I’ll wind it down now.   I really didn’t have anything to say, just putting something new up there.

Didn’t want to write this yesterday. Didn’t want to face this or think about this or acknowledge this yesterday. But today is the next day, so here’s the update.

Two weeks ago, I noticed a small (pencil eraser) raised dark patch of skin on Grail’s underside. Took him to the vet. Vet found another three raised areas, but told me they could just be folds of the skin from the surgery – that as the extra skin inside is carted away by the body, the bits that are left would begin to feel more like distinct lumps.

We planned to do a small follow-up surgery to take one of the lumps and biopsy it.

To my unhappiness, the next week was out and the following week, the best day was Friday. Not what I wanted to be doing on my birthday; taking my beloved in for another surgery.

But over the two weeks, it became more and more obvious to me that surgery wasn’t going to happen. And on Friday, instead of doing any surgery at all, the vet did a physical exam and confirmed everything.

In two weeks, three small lumps right along the suture line have turned into a multitude of small lumps, coalesing in to about 4-5 larger lumps, which extend up to the shaved fur line. The vet could feel them extending upwards, under the ribcage.

Agressive rapid regrowth. Biopsies are unnecessary; it’s textbook fibrosarcoma. Future surgeries would just exacerbate the growth and decrease Grailing’s overall quality of life without doing anything at all for his quantity of life. 99.9% sure, said the vet. Then he gave me some other cherry phrases, such as “palliative care” and of course, that the best thing for me to do would be to take him home and keep him comfortable. And that there were options regarding Youth in Asia; we could do it at the vet’s office or at home, and that when it was that time I would know.
And starting next week, I have to start stage managing a show that I obligated myself to way back at the start of the season, and it’s going to take me out of the house every night for two and a half months, and I’m not even sure right now if Grailing has two and a half months. I’m going to do it, but I’m sure it’s the last show I’ll do for a while. I just hate all that time (and theatre’s been losing me for other reasons lately). And if they ask – if my attitude’s bad enough that they notice – I’ll tell them straight out that I don’t want to be there.

I’ve dropped Ren Faire this year (or they dropped me…uncertain). I haven’t gotten the e-mail notices I thought I should have gotten by now. But if they’ve dropped me off the list, I could easily remedy it if I choose – and I don’t choose, so however it started off I’m the one ending it. No NCRFaire this year.

I’m still keeping Grailing on all the supplements and foods. I know it isn’t helping at all, that it was all for nothing, but he does seem to enjoy it, and if it buys me just one more day….

The “good” thing is that the fibrosarcoma isn’t attacking any particular organ. It’s just some random cells run amok. So no organ failure, no sickness, just a gradual loss of energy as the cancer pulls food and other resources. As the tumor coalesces, the interior tissue will die and become necrotic, as we found in the first surgery, and some of the toxins released by the dead tissue will also weaken Grailing. But it will be a slow painless decline; no major trauma. One day, he’ll have lost energy to the point where he simply stops eating – and then I’ll know.

I’ve found a place that transfers photographs to cross stitch patterns – http://crosstitch.com/photo.html. Kevin thinks doing something like that might be bad for me; I think it might be good for me. We’ll see.

And that’s where we are. I started seeing a therapist last week – I didn’t need the vet to tell me the score, though of course the confirmation hurt all the same. I’ve found a local pet chaplain that helps people specifically with pet loss, I might go ahead and initiate that too.

Wish it was a better update for you guys. I didn’t say anything over the last several weeks, because I didn’t want to put it in writing when it was just a suspicion. But it isn’t anymore, it’s been confirmed. Grailing might not make it the full six months; the “average” survival rate the books gave. I’m realizing – but certainly not dealing with – the fact that he most likely won’t survive the year.

It’s been a very sad month.

Well obviously i do not know how to share a photo… I just posted a blank message, expecting Luke’s new haircut to be there….. Instruct me.

i keep talking about this cat tree place online, one that look really awesome

I give to you Cozy Cat Furniture.  I could soooo spend too much money here.

I’m reading a new book (this should be a familiar introduction by now) and ran across this funny little anecdote that made me feel much better about myself.

It’s a book on memory.  Starts with stories of people forgetting things, like names and dates and such.   Tells the story of one Sir Thomas Beecham, conductor and founder of the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

So … Sir Beecham is in a hotel, evidentally a nice hotel, and happens to meet an elegant woman that he recognizes but doesn’t quite identify.   She knows him, obviously, and they start chatting.   All the while, he’s trying to remember who this charming lady is, and then he dimly recalls that he thinks she has a brother.   So, hoping to jar his own memory, he asks how her brother is and if he is still in the same line of work?

“Oh, he’s very well”, the woman replies, “and still king.”

(direct quote from the book there)

So I laughed and laughed.   I have forgotten the names of many important people I’ve talked to, but so far none of them have been royalty.

But I suppose it worked .. I suppose it jogged his memory and he remembered who she was.  And then presumably excused himself from the conversation, the hotel, and the city in an attempt to find a deep enough hole to crawl into.   That’s what I would have done, in any case.