so..... full........

Today, for the first time ever, I ordered a burrito from Chipotle. Usually I just get my happy little chicken tacos. But today I decided, "No, I am deliriously hungry. I need a burrito." Little did I know what was in store for me. I took my first bite roughly forty-five minutes ago. I still have a good two inches to go. The first bite was delicious! Rice and beans and spicy green salsa and grilled chicken and guacamole... Mmm. The second bite was just as good. I continued to slowly eat said burrito until it was about three-fourths of the way finished. At about that point, I started feeling full. Like, extremely full. Like, I just put a Lot of burrito in my belly, full. And I wasn't even finished yet! I'm still not finished. But eventually the burrito will be wholly consumed, and I will go lie down while resolving not to eat again for the next day or two. And so that's what's exciting in my life.

Actually though, today has been quite busy for me. I started my volunteer work at the Arboretum (the tree place). It was just stock-room work; specifically, I was price-tagging t-shirts. But I was doing something, and it was out of my house. There was also another student working there, so it was nice to have someone to talk to. Who knows, maybe I'll make a (gasp!) friend. Although he said he thinks he might be getting bronchitis, so I may have to destroy him... It was fun though. He asked me about my cancer too, which threw me for a loop at first. He said he was just curious what it was like, as he hadn't ever known anyone with cancer. It's kind of funny: when something like this happens to you, especially when you're right in the throes of it, you feel very different from your peers and almost segregated from everybody. It may just be mental, but it's not just me. The other young adults in my weekly group sessions agreed with me when I said that often I feel invisible to other people. Or at the very least, you feel different. So it was nice to talk to someone about it who really was just curious. I didn't get any pity or sympathy vibes from him. Part of it, I'm sure, is that he was sitting across from me. He could see that I look normal, that I talk normally, and that there is nothing inhibiting my daily funtions. I was just another college student who could have been in his class. I just happen to also have a life-threatening disease. Mehh.

And finally, once again, BU Today has flattered me immensely by doing a special little bit about the (b)log. If you are so inclined, you can check out their very kind words HERE. Super exciting stuff. And that's about it. Once again, I may or may not balls up and go to an open mic tonight. I think I'm going to go. I just have to make myself. Sigh, I wish I had a buddy for this... But oh well, we'll see what happens. Thank God it's almost Friday! Peace peeps.

DUCK!

This could quite possibly be one of my favorite pictures ever. It's too bad I panicked when he started flying and didn't quite get the whole body. Check out the eyes though. And the middle pigeon. I just see him saying, "coocoo, I'm fat and pompous, coocoo, pigeons don't fly fool, coocoo." Or something similar at least. To see this and more photos from downtown Chicago, check out the whole album at http://picasaweb.google.com/Justmec2131. Ah, shameless advertising. Nothing better.

Exciting day! Kind of

I spent much of this beautiful day walking around downtown Chicago. I'm really starting to learn my way around the place. It was about 80 degrees outside, sunny, brisk southwest winds, lots of photo ops, what more could one ask for? Oh, I know, how about not having a piece of sterile plastic covering a patch of my chest. For those of you who have never experienced such a bandage, allow me, please, to share a few things. First of all, these coverings don't exactly "breathe." That would defeat their purpose, which is to keep air and dirt and other little bacteria floating around from reaching the hole where my catheter sticks out. Secondly, our bodies naturally perspire when we are hot. Sweat is our cooling mechanism. Now, I have already noted that it was hot here today, and I was doing a lot of walking. So naturally, I perspired some. Enough that I started having a small problem with my bandage. The sweat builds up with nowhere to go, which in turn causes a reaction on my part where my skin turns red and itchy. Worth noting, however, is that I have a reaction anyway to the bandages the hospital puts on. So I didn't pay much attention to the itching, as it has been itchy for the past few days. So blah blah blah, day goes on, more wandering around. Finally, I'm sitting in Union Station (the train station) waiting for my train home. I decide to take a peek at my happy little catheter site. And lo and behold, when I look down, the damn thing is oozing. "Oozing what?", you ask? I am afraid I don't know what; it just was. And it had oozed down the line and out my bandage. There was actually a very small amount of ooze on my shirt. Gross. And scary since ooze usually means there's an infection, which would pretty much be the absolute worst thing ever -- no hyperbole necessary. So it's oozy and itchy, and I'm freaking out because I don't know what to do. I call my home care nurse, the woman who usually comes to change the dressing for me, and tell her my predicament. Her advice to me is to change the dressing. Since I was perspiring and the hole was oozing, there is moisture underneath the bandage. With nowhere to go, that moisture can only do bad things to me. I needed to get rid of the moisture, as well as the dried ooze. Okay so long story short (hahahaha), I end up changing my own dressing. There were a few slight mishaps, but I think I did okay. My site still itches, but at least now it is disinfected. And hopefully my nurse will come tomorrow and tell me if I am going to die or not. Or at least whether or not I should call my doctor about this.

And that is today's -- very long -- story. I'm hoping everything will turn out alright, but I'm still a bit nervous. Other than that, though, today was great! I'll be putting up pictures soon of my jaunt through the city. Well, as they say in the Vatican, Pax. (insert Pope Benedict giving you the deuces. word.)

Okay, so this actually is a funny story.

I went shopping with my mom today. The weather was beautiful outside, and we decided to spend a good portion of the day rifling through overpriced and over-handled product, along with hundreds of other jaded suburbanites. But I digress. So we were in Target, specifically at the shoe section. There were lots of shoes, some notable, others not so much, so I wasn't paying much attention to what was going on around me. I do remember there were background voices, but I wasn't listening to what they were saying. And then, just as I picked up a decent-looking heeled-sandal, I heard, "I bet she shaved her head," followed by, "No, I bet she just has short hair." I put the sandal back on its little rack and turned around. Right behind me, sitting in a red, plastic Target cart, were two small girls, aged roughly five and seven -- parent nowhere in sight. They were both staring right at me, although their discussion stopped when I looked at them. I just started laughing, which in turn caused them to start laughing. I didn't say anything, because really, what would I say to two small children who are considering why I'm wearing a beanie and there's no hair coming out from under it? Sorry guys, you're both wrong; I'm actually on drugs? So I just laughed. And then I walked away. And then I started wondering why two cute little girls would have even noticed my hair situation, much less thought that I shaved my head. And then I remembered the Media and certain recent debacles involving one former pop-star turned rehab junkie. I am, of course, referring to Britney Spears. She is a household name; of course these girls would know who she is. And we all know the Media has exhausted their coverage of Ms. Spears and her last-resort call for attention via head shaving. Which explains why the girls would 1: have noticed my not-hair and 2: not be phased by my apparent decision to shave my head. So, in summation, today's youth are having their innocence and naivete stripped from them by the exorbitant amount of sensationalism in the Media. Nothing is sacred anymore, and everything is fair game for vocal, public discussion, even by seven-year old girls.

Also, I saw the new Barbies in Target. They are disappointingly ugly. Otherwise, I felt great today, and tomorrow, I'm heading downtown. Should be a good time! Peace.

Has it been three days?

I always feel a little sad when I see no new comments on my posts. Just a little. I have, once again, returned home from the hospital. Apparently I'm stellar and cleared the chemo faster than the doctors expected, so they sent me home yesterday. I'm still waiting for my ears to stop ringing. One of the things about the hospital is that it is never quiet. I am hooked up to a hydration pump the entire time I'm there, which is loud. But there are also nurses and air vents and carts and people crying out in pain during their biopsies... I always come home and am shocked by how quiet my house is. Right now, for instance, there are no sounds in my house. Okay, my fridge just turned on, but that's about it. So my ears are taking their sweet time in readjusting to the lack of sound.

Speaking of ringing, I went for a bike ride yesterday, and some seriously funky things happened to my head. My ears felt like they were blocked (similar to when an airplane takes off), my hearing became messed up, and I felt a really strange pressure in my head. My theory is that this was all due to the fact that my blood counts are still substantially low. My red blood cell counts are hanging around 9.5, with the normal being around 15. So, I guess there wasn't enough oxygen reaching my brain when I was biking. I don't think it's necessarily damaging, but maybe I'll hold off on the extreme cardio activity for a while. I still don't understand how I lived like this for a good part of last semester. I guess I'm lucky I didn't pass out in the middle of the street or something.

And finally, in an unprecedented turn of events, in which my body has essentially given cancer and chemotherapy the finger, my hair has started to grow back. Yes, that's right. Even though my body is in the throes of chemical destruction, my hair follicles have decided to cut their own path and strengthen up, allowing hair to grow back. (Chemo causes hair loss because it actually weakens hair follicles.) So now my head is fuzzy. I am excited. That is all. Have a good weekend! Pax.

Thank God for juice.

Before I elaborate on my title, it just started pouring here. It's funny because I suddenly saw a rather zaftig chap in a white button-down shirt try and run to the nearest building. And now it is hailing, so really, my day is complete. So anyway, I have a newfound appreciation for juice. I have become horrendously tired of drinking water all the time, which poses a problem because I am constantly thirsty. So I have begun experimenting with various types of juice. My favorite, thus far, is grapefruit juice. Unfortunately, that is a "home" treat, as the hospital doesn't carry it. Actually, the juices offered by food services are seriously lacking in juice-deliciousness. But I have my Nantucket Nectars Big Cranberry to hold me over.

In other news, I am back to my usual and sprightly self. Yesterday's nausea and fatigue passed as quickly as they appeared. Now I just get to wait until they clear me to leave, hopefully Friday. Oh, so I have yet another reason why I would recommend not getting cancer if you can help it. For that matter, don't ever get hospital-worthy sick. One of the chemotherapy drugs I get, methotrexate, I get in three different forms: IV, intrathecal (lumbar puncture into my spine), and oral. This story involves the oral methotrexate. I get the pills every six hours, 54 mg each time. Here's the fun part: last night and this morning, the pharmacy only had the pills in 2 mg tablets. Basically, I had to swallow 27 pills. Eventually, I mastered swallowing four at a time. Granted, they were little, probably about half the size of my pinkie fingernail - the one I keep short for guitar. But still, it isn't every day that one has the opportunity to swallow 27 pills. For me, it's four times a day. Hoo-rah.

And also, just because it made me smile: Apparently yesterday my phosphate levels were low. So this morning my nurse brought in powdered phosphate that I mixed with my morning juice. Needless to say, it tasted horrible. When the nurse came back in, I was just like, "Wow, this stuff tastes pretty god-awful." And my nurse, my young and friendly nurse asked, "Can I bring you a chaser?" I was like, HAHA. That's fantastic. I declined her offer, saying I've drunk much worse concoctions sans chaser before. But it still made me happy that she would ask. And that has been my day. Lots of pills, IVs, various mixes, and of course, juice. What more could one ask for on this most unpredictable of hump days? I tell you, not much. Pax.

Life is just full of quid pro quos.

Yesterday I was in a rather foul mood. I knew it would probably be gone by today though, and it was. Even though I didn't get a whole lot of sleep last night, I still felt better this morning. However, today is the day of chemo domination. They started me on the sodium bicarbonate IV this morning to raise my pH levels. The pills started around 7:30 am, with the chemo pre-meds coming around 9 am. 9:45 a doctor walked in, said hello, and told me they were going to do the lumbar puncture now. This was unexpected; I had been told it was scheduled for 11 am. But they came in with their needles and numbing serum. Thank God though, this one went so much better than the last one. My spine and hips were correctly aligned, and there was minimum pain. After that, my nurse came in with my IV chemos. Vincristine, over 15 minutes, and then the methotrexate, over three hours. After the vincristine, I started feeling physically terrible. About ten minutes into the methotrexate, yes, I got sick. I figure there were just too many drugs being pumped into me in too quick succession. It was an overload for my already tired body. So I threw up, and it was pretty gross. Kind of a pleasant, bright yellow hue. It was a bit of a shock when I realized that I was essentially looking at what happens when my body digests drugs. It was such an unnatural color... Once again, I was reminded of the toxicity of the masses of chemicals that are being pumped into my body. Aaah, good times.

So now I'm just relaxing, recovering. I've already taken a solid nap. I will probably take another. And other than that, my mentality is much better today. So I can deal with the sickness and all that. I'm not going to put up with having two negatives taking over my life. I can deal with only one bad thing at a time. And it's so much easier to deal with the physical illnesses when my outlook is positive. I suppose that makes sense though. Alright, back to chillin'. Peace.