Feeling Human Again

Well, I had my staples out last Tuesday, and removed the last of the tape today. I feel like I'm Human again. Its been a rough couple of weeks. The staples weighed about five pounds and really started to be an irritant towards the end of the week. I had an allergic reaction to some the tape, and got a good tape burn from it. I'm off all pain medications, and that the best part. I'm grateful for the pain killers taking the edge of pain, but the side effects were no fun. They don't tell you about the nightmares and emotional roll-a-coasters. I was tried of crying for no reason. And the nightmares: I never realized that cute, adorable ferrets and Pixar movies are the things of nightmare, but in my mind they are.

Happy Thanksgiving

I have so much to be grateful for this year. First of all, the surgery I have been dreading since August, went really well. My Doctor said that I was probably going to be in the Hospital until Friday. I had the surgery on Tuesday and got out on Thursday around 1:30p.m.
I had a couple of hours to relax at home before joining the family for Thanksgiving. (I was excused from providing a dish for the dinner this year, for some odd reason. I think they don't like my cooking.) I was even able to enjoy a small serving of most of the dishes, including pumpkin pie. It always fun to see my wild and loud family, we have a good time trying to visit, but we are just to loud to have a real conversation.
A side note about my surgery: When they were taking me to my room to recover, I kept telling the nurses that I had to write my paper and that I needed my laptop. She final told my that she didn't have my laptop. (I have a five page paper due on Tuesday, but I had already got an extension on it.)
I had a nice surprise when I got home, one of my family's had sent me a beautiful bouquet. It was the first thing I saw when I got home, it really brightened my day.

More Good News

They did another biopsy, as a preop procedure, and they didn't find any more atypical polypoid adenomyoma. Things are looking good for Tuesday.

Character Card

images copyrighted Stampin' Up!










HeHe! I had a lot of fun making this card. Now I just need to figure out how to make a Kermit card. I CASEd this card from my upline Janae.

Happy Halloween

This motley crew are my nieces and nephews. There were two pirates, two fairy princess, one snow princess, one corpse bride, one tweety bird and a devil/angel. We gathered Friday for a trunk or treat at Katie's ward. Then on Halloween Becca's three youngest came over to spent the night at my place. After trick or treating, we returned to my house for Halloween movies. Isabelle over indulged in candy and we were up at 2:17 am because of it. Then at 4:00, 5:30, so on and so forth. Lots of fun at my house.

Medical Update

Things are starting to improve, medically speaking. I'm no longer anemic. Barely. If I lose blood, say from cutting myself cooking or getting a scrape on my knee, I will be right back to being anemic. My Hemoglobin is 12.2, normal being between 11.5 t0 15.9. My Hematocrit is 36.3, normal 34.0 to 44.0. My September Hemoglobin was 8.0 and the Hematocrit was 25.3. July's and August numbers were even lower.
My iron saturation is still low, its at 11%, normal is 15-55%. My doctor explained that may because I was so low on iron for so long that my body was creating new places to store iron. So I have iron, its just not where it needs to be.
It's kind of too bad that I'm back to normal right before Halloween. I was going to use the anemic look to my advantage. Some bright red lipstick, black finger nail polish, some studded jewelry and I could have pulled off the vampire/ goth look really well. I was already paste white.

Labor Day Fun

This Labor Day my family traveled up to Idaho City and Robie Creek for some fun in the sun. We were planning to meet at my house and caravan up together. Becca said she would be at my house at 8:00, so I told everyone else to be at my house by 9:00. Everyone showed up by 8:30 and Becca and her family showed up around 10:15. (In all fairness, Becca had seven people to get out the door.) We arrived in Idaho City vistor center just in time for three people to ride up on horses. The owner of the horses offered to let the children ride the horses. All my neices and nephews, except Libby who's afraid of large animals, rode the horses around the parking lot.



After the horse ride we walked over to the park and enjoyed a potluck lunch. Much to the children's delight, there was a stage. After lunch the children entertained us with every motion song known to man since the beginning of time.



After the entertainment provided by the children we walked around the town taking in the sites. We even stopped to get ice cream at a local ice cream parlor.


Then we drove down to Robie Creek for a relaxing afternoon and dinner. It was a beautiful day and the water looked so inviting. Unfortunatly, none of us had thought to bring our swimsuits, so we had to be content with just wading up to our knees. After playing in the water some of us enjoyed walking around, taking in the scenery.







We had three dogs and eight children with us and we never lost track of one of them. One of my sisters did however lose her husband for a short while. A quick search found him taking a nap.

Great News

One of my many doctors called me on Friday with great news. My cancer has not metastasize or done any other nasty little things cancer can do. So I will not have to do Chemo or anything like that. I just have to be "carefully montored" for the rest of my life. The tumor itself was about the size of a walnut. The tumor ended up at Harvard Medical School. Hey, I finally made it to an Ivy League School, just not as a student. Right now some Medical student could be looking at my tumor. I feel so honored to helping the next generation of Doctors with their education.

I'm so grateful to finally get some good news. It seems that every time I went to the Doctors they would find something new wrong with me. The Tuesday before my surgery I was so frustated, I was ready to stop going to Doctors for the rest of my life. I was going to start going to witch doctors and other nuts for my healthcare needs. After having a total meltdown, I was able to pull myself together in time for my first class at BSU. It actually felt good to have an afternoon of stomping my feet and having a "poor me-pity party".

I'm not out of the woods,yet. I have a major surgery in a couple of months. I'm not looking forward to being down for the time required to recover. And the prep treatment for the surgery isn't any fun either. The Lupron shot they give me once a month are shrinking my fibriods, but are also have a side effect of giving me menopause symptoms for a few months. Between my mini-menopause and being anemic, I'm having a hard time maintaining a regular body temp. Its so much fun being hot and cold at the same time. I spend most of my time hugging my air conditioning while wearing warm socks and gloves.

Post-Surgery Update

The surgery went fine. They think they got the whole tumor out. I'm actually feel good. I'm not in any pain, which is surprising. I'm just tired right now, the nurse said I'd feel this way about twenty-four hours. Now its a two week wait for lab results. I think the waiting will be the hardest part of this whole mess.

Huston, we are cleared for takeoff

My heart looks normal, so I've been cleared for surgery. Barring a massive natural disaster, I'm going to have the surgery this morning.

The Good News and the Bad News

First the good news: My red blood count is slowly coming up. It is 28, normal is 40.
Now for the bad news:I now have a heart mummer. At first the Doctor thought it was due to me being anemic, but because my red blood cell count is higher so that not it. My Doctors are not sure whats going on so its off to a Cardiologist for more tests. My surgury been postponed again, maybe. I'm feeling a little overwhelmed at the moment. I'll know more tomorrow. I hope.

The Newest Addition To My Family

All right, I'm really behind. My neice was born May 14, 2009. Her name is Grace Katherine, or Gracie as we call her. She now three months old, and quite the Princess. She only sleeps when she is being held. She spends a lot of time in a baby sling, because she only happy if she being carried around. She is adored be her big brother and sister.

My Summer Travels

I always complain that I never get to travel, I finally made it to the East Coast. Or at least part of me did. One of the the tissue sample they took had my doctor concerned, so it ended up at John-Hopkins. Apperantly, like many in my family, not only do I get a rare condition, but I got a rarest form the condition. The doctor called me and told me that the tests said I might have a "cancer-like" fibriods. There is a long medical name for the condition, but I don't remember it. I'm going to have to more tests and what not to find out for sure. Let me tell you, hearing your doctor say "cancer", "John-Hopkins" and "your test results" all in the same sentence can really put a damper on your day.
Update: I have Atypcial Polypoid Adenomyoma

It's fun to be me

I have been slacking this summer, but I have a really good excuse. This past semester I have been having intermittent pain that seemed to pop up at the most inconvenient times. Such as, when papers were due or when there was a big family to do. I planned to go to the doctor after the events but the pain would be gone and I would not go. This worked until the weekend of July 4th. I was so sick on the Fourth that my family was extremely concerned about my paleness. I had no color in my lips and my family was begging me to go to the doctor even though I had an appointment in two weeks. I went to the doctor on the Fifth. After the usual round of questions they pushed on my stomach and said,"Huh." They prescribed pain meds and ran some blood tests with instructions to go to the ER if the pain got worse. The next day I got a phone call telling me I was severely anemic and they told me to take iron and to follow up with my doctor.
I went in and my doctor ran more blood tests depleting what little blood I had left. The day of my follow-up appointment I started getting several concerned calls from my doctor. My red blood cell count was 11 out of the usual 25-35. The doctor was surprised I was still on my feet. Though,the tests showed that I had the bacteria proving I had an ulcer. They suspected a bleeding ulcer causing all my problems so they started treating me for that and scheduled a follow-up in two weeks.
After a few days of medication my pain was getting much worse (we won't talk about what the meds were doing to my stomach, i.e. not much was staying down)and I called the doctor. He strongly suggested I go to the ER. I grudgingly went to the ER where the doctor promptly put me on morphine for the pain and deservedly sent me straight to get an cat scan. I was feeling pretty good at that point. I told the doc I was anemic and she said that she needed more blood tests, which totally baffled me. They wanted to take more blood from me . I even had the proof with me that I was severely anemic. As a side note I had my nieces with me. They were excited about the ER. They got to watch cable TV. Yeah.
The doc came back with the results of my cat scan. She said, "Well, you like to do things big." I had a 7mm kidney stone, which you can only pass a 3mm stone in normal circumstances. I also had fibroid cysts in my uterus the largest being the size of a baseball, about 7cm. So I have been to see many more doctors in the last week. On Fri. the 24th I went in to have the stone removed. After a search and destroy mission the found the stone and blew it up, you know, like the asteroid in the movie, "Armageddon". I felt like the asteroid, too. The recovery process was equally pleasant, refer back to what the ulcer medication did for me. I was so sick my poor mother was so worried she wouldn't leave my side. If she did have to leave she arranged for a babysitter. While it was humiliating I was extremely grateful. The doc said I could be back to work on Wed. Hah, what a joke, I am still laying on the couch wondering when I will feel better. There is a plan to take care of the cysts which have been described as benign growths. I am currently receiving shots to shrink the cysts. This will help with my anemia since the cysts have been taking up a good portion of my blood count. In three to five months I will have a more invasive surgery to remove the cysts. This will mean a longer recovery period. Then hopefully everything will get back to normal. Whatever that may be. But things are looking up. My scheduled vacation time has been turned into laying on the couch trying to hold down what little food I have been able to eat. Hence, I have lost 20lbs these last few weeks. Normally losing weight would mean a celebration but we all know with rapid weight loss comes rapid weight gain. You gain what you lost and then some. Though I will try not to put the weight back on.
There are many things that I am grateful for : 1. Power pain pills. 2. The support of friends and family. 3. Flowers from my co-workers. 4. My family who took me to doctors and babysat me. 5. The sense of humor of my family i.e. I went to family function shortly after my diagnosis and forgot my lovely pain meds so I took Tylenol on the way and when I got there I was pale and miserable. My family asked how I was doing I told them I was fine I had taken some Tylenol to which my sister,Katie, said, "Oh gee, I just got diagnosed with cancer. I'll take half a Tylenol. That will fix everything." My brother-in-law Michael keeps asking how my diet is going. I tell him that it's going so well I am going to produce an infomercial about it. My brother-in-law Jeff likes to hold pale things to my face asking his kids, "Which is paler, Aunt Heidi or this...?" The kids say, "Aunt Heidi!!!" 6. Cards from my tadpole class.
My strength is returning I will be back to work next week. I would like thank everyone for their support and help through all this!!!

Just Stinkin' Cute

My nieces and nephew were here today and Kylynn wanted to make Easter decorations. She went right to my punches and with very little help she made the following Easter decorations. She was so proud of herself and I thought her projects looked great. Not bad for an eight year old.

New Catalog Fun

Sweet Stems

Elegant Thank You

Petal Pizzazz

all images copyrighted by stampin' up 2009

The new catalog is just around the corner. I've been having fun playing with playing with some of the preview sets and new papers. I love this Raspberry Tart DD paper. Its like a breathe of spring air.