CANCER SUCKS.....

But it is a little bit funny.

rock and roll chicks

rock and roll chicks
this is me with spiked hair. It's growing in. Not the greatest picture of me, good one of Cindy but this blog is not all about her!

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Turning pink into green - The Boston Globe

Turning pink into green - The Boston Globe

Saturday, October 30, 2010

This is npot tht funny

Is it still October? So I give my shrink the address of my blog to prove that I really do have ADD. Then I looked back on some of the posts and realized she is probably going to commit me. Although there is a really good chance she wrote the address down to be nice and has no intention of visiting it. (Just keep the crazy person happy.....)

I did yoga this norning and am feeling very virtuos despite the fact that I had 2 pieces of angel cake for breakfast. Virtuous? How the hell do you spell it anyway? It looks wrong both ways. Maybe that is because I am using my boring left brain. Last night I went to a fundraiser for breast and ovarian cancer. It was very pink. And there was fancy wine tasting which is the main reason I went because of course now I think breast cancer is getting pretty full of itself and thinks is better than those other cancers. But I did get some good ideas for the fundraiser I will have for childhood and young adult cancers, at Denise's house. I think she said it was ok. But it was in Sharon where I used to live and although it was Denise's friends, I ended up running into people who had kids that went to school with my kids and that sort of thing.

So anyway someone told me to volunteer for some cancer cause that I am interested in, so I signed up on a web site about cancer for young adults. However, I had to lie about my age to join and I think I already forgot the password. OK, ny coffee is ready.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

cars

OK I got that facebook thing that makes you feel guilty if you don't post it to your profile in memory of someone with cancer- We have a thousand wishes, a cancer patient only has one- to get better. (i paraphrase.) So I posted it but since i reaaly need to be totally honest at all times unless it doesn't benefit me, I had to add, well i also had a wish for a red sports car. And I must admit reluctantly that it is probably better to be cancer-free with a 2004 Toyota Corolla than to be cancer ridden with one of those really cute BMW 2 seater convertibles. Not a miata, Denise, my boss has one and I don;t want her to think I am copying her, although I did consider dressing as her for Haloween. But instead i am going to be Sarah Palin. My campaign buttons say, "If i am elected, every unwed teenage mother will get her own reality show."

But back to the car thing. I love my car. it has hundreds of thousands of miles on it and it still runs great. Unlike those prissy entitled american cars, it thrives on neglect. When the oil change guy asked me how often I change my oil and I said, I don't know....every 50,000 miles? he laughed because he thought I was kidding. As all of us that are not young chickens, it has its marks of character. There is the little bump in the back that i won't fix because i keep it around to remind me that it is not such a great idea to have an 18 year old new driver (who actually got her license on the third try) to be your designated driver. And it gets great mileage, and it is long ago paid for and for a while I couldn't open the trunk but now I can, so it's really pretty good. Since i am one of those people secure in myself who does not need a fancy car to prove something, i am good with that. Oh, wait a minute. i do love my car, but I am not that type of person I just described. I would love to have some fancy sporty thing that is the envy of all my friends- well not my friends, they would just be happy for me and I would let them drive it whenever- so i guess i just want to be the envy of total strangers. And people I randomly meet who turn out to be assholes. But I just don't want to pay for a big fancy car. i guess there is some mercedes that cost $175,000. That is what I paid for my house in Sharon. And it had 6 acres of land. So if anyone kinows of a charity that gives expensive sports cars to people that had cancer but don't anymore but still like to whine about it, please pass on my name to them.

In fact, I was thinking of starting a cancer charity. Not to give cars to me- I'm not sure, but as an attorney i think it's possible that that could be a conflict of interest. But it would be a different sort of charity, dedicated to helping people with cancer have fun. Kids have make a wish but adults, even young ones, don't. I wouldn't limit it to breast cancer. I don't mean to sound ungrateful- i am thrilled that there is so much energy finally poured into breast cancer research. Every fucking commercial on TV is a product supporting a cure for breast cancer. Today I heard about some place that created a pink bagel and all proceeds go to research fo breast cancer. I have said it before and will say it again, breast cancer is the new Paris Hilton. People that didn't care much about you one way or the other hear you have breast cancer and suddenly you are a saint, extremely brave and their best friend. I need to take a break now and puke.

OK I'm back. Seems like people with less politically correct cancers get the short end of the stick. That blog i stumbled upon and mentioned- some young student with her whole life ahead of her gets some stupid thyroid cancer. Oooops! Not politically correct enough. Like, what color bagels are they going to make for that kind of cancer. here's a hint- they are not. breast cancer is a good feminist cause because it mostly effects women, except for my friend Adam's father who is cool although a republican, and this guy I used to work with at Childrens who was whining about it on a daily basis years after he had his treatment and he didn't even lose his hair, so it wasn't even that bad, you big baby.

But you know what? all kinds of cancers suck. i am not sure about skin cancer but all the other ones do. Whether you are old, young, male female or ambivalent about your gender. i especially hate the cancers that young people get because of my niece Emily who died from AML at 18. I know i mentioned her before, so look her up. And that is one of the other reasons i don't want to get rid of my car. Emily borrowed it the summer before she got sick to go on a road trip with her firends to look at colleges, and I can still feel her spirit in the car sometimes. No she doesn't talk to me or change the radio station but I know she's there. However, I have not been able to use her as my designated driver yet.

So stay tuned to find out if i actually have the attention span to follow through on a non profit to raise money for young adults with cancer to have fun. because fun helps. Laughter helps. Going to jamaica helps. So if any of you are movie stars who want to volunteer to support my cause when i invent it, let me know. or if you just want to buy me a BMW, well i guess that's ok. I promise to let cancer patients drive it all the time.

My big mouth

I noticed yesterday that someone in Honolulu read this blog. if it was not in error, and they read it again, I would just like to tell them that if you like the blog, you might really enjoy me in person and i would be willing to come out and visit you for, say, a month or two. Let me know. Ditto for anyone in France.

This is my week so far. Work, understaffed, stay four hours on the night shift. Work second day, again understaffed and having to stay late just to finish everything. I suppose that is not unusual for most nurses, but I am ALWAYS out the door the minute my shift is over, and frequently before then. Finally a day off and I have to go to the dreaded dentist- who is really quite nice but is nonetheless a dentist.

So anyway last night in the midst of my bitching about work and insisting there was a conspiracy between the day shift and i don't know who, Satan?- to make the evening shift so busy, and complaining about a few other things....I went out to talk to one of my patients that had just come in, a very young, very scared woman-girl who had never been in a psych unit before. At the end of the conversation, she said, how late do you work? I said usually 11:30, maybe a little later tonight. So then she said, will you come and say goodbye to me before you leave? Oh my god it was the sweetest thing and i remember why I do what i do (besides the fact that I am too ADD to run my own law office.) And I took back half of the complaints and the muttered, "Can't you shut her the fuck up?" that I am sure the person in question did not hear.

OK now i am rambling which is not unusual but it is clearly trying to avoid going to the D-word so i will stop. This had nothing to do with cancer, did it? Well read that other woman's blog i wrote about yesterday.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

better than me, even

I just found another cancer blog that puts mine to shame. but keep reading mine anyway. http://cancerisnotfunny.blogspot.com/ I think that cancer that effects young people should be awarded the fame and political correctness as breast cancer is, because it is really much worse. It is one thing to be funny when you have a cancer that while being a pain in the ass is most likely curable and even if it's not you're middle aged and have done a lot of fun things. But to be seriously ill when your life- the fun part anyway- really does suck. Sorry for being serious. It probably won't happen again.

A brief explanation

First of all the last post was called live free or die trying because the hike at my sisters house was in New hampshire but I forgot to put that in. None the less some people liked it, must be some of my followers from countries I have never heard of. Not that that means anything about the countries- it is more about me. I am geographically challenged. My nephew is doing a semester abroad in Budapest, which I iknow is in Hungary. Peggy said he went to Transylvania for the weekend. I said, that isn't a real place, it was just made up for horror movies. Apparently not. Unless it is a relatively new country invented by someone with a sense of humor and a penchant for old horror movies. But i forgot to ask that. Did i use the word penchant correctly? If i was typing this on my smarter-than-me phone, i could press a button and get the exact meaning of the word. But then I would be typing on a tiny little keyboard and squishing all the letters together. But i am not as geographically challenged as Cindy, who has: 1. Once said, "now, are we in Europe or are we in England?" and 2. Opened the window of the rental car from the company I am now banned from renting cars at, but not because of this, and said "Can you tell us how to get to Switzerland?" apparently not noticing the border guards and the signs that said "Welcome to Switzerland. Don't fuck around with us. We have no sense of humor, and by the way we don't take any of the kinds of money you have from those other European countries. We have our own solely to make your life more interesting and complicated." I love Cindy. She takes everything in stride.

Now a cancer-related thing for my cancer-related blog. I read in a magazine in my sister's bathroom- in new Hampshire, the state whose motto is live free or die, abpout some designer, I think it is Anne Klein, so it is not super-expensive, and her extras or last years items will be at the regular TJ Maxx, not the fancy ones with their own fancy designer sections- but i digress, anyway, she is designing a breast cancer bracelet and selling it with profits going to breast cancer research, not to breast cancer survivors, which is where they should really go. A more upscale version of the $39.99 shoes I mentioned yesterday. I am kind of liking this support breast cancer by buying stuff movement. Of course, i do not support breast cancer. I am against it.

But having had breast cancer, I no longer love the color pink. I used to wear it all the time prior to getting it. Oh shit, maybe wearing pink causes breast cancer! I need to warn my sister- in california, whose motto I do not know, is it "Let's elect a republican actor for governor and then make marijuana legal so we can put up with it?" It should be. Anyway i should warn her not to wear my favorite pair of pink shoes, from a famous designer at the fancy TJ Maxx, which I left there, anticipating establishing California residency. But I think she has bigger feet than me.

And I thought I had nothing to say. A benefit of my brand of ADD. You are never bored because as soon as you think of one thing to say, your mind goes on to something else. Plus I heard that if you write for a long time, and I imagine typing is the same, eventually the other side of your brain which is the creative side kicks in. I think it is the right side of the brain that is creative and the left side logical. I don't like that, it should be the opposite. i guess because left is usually associated with the more interesting and fun things like in politics. And maybe therein lies why I still have trouble telling my left from my right. Not politically. I think I want to be Sarah palin for Haloween because that is the scariest thing i can think of. But directionally. if I am in a car and someone- a person or even worse, the dreaded GPS, and they say take a left I invariably take a right and vice versa. Unless it is my sister peggy who will say take a left meaning a right, because she also is directionally challenged. But not geographically challenged because she knew about Transylvania. of course, she probably looked it up because it is her son that is there. Like I had to look up Prague when Laura was thinking of going there. I forget what country it is in- not because i am stupid, but because it was in Czechoslovakia but i think that country has changed names, at least i hope so because it is very hard to spell and I do not have spellcheck on here although I probably do on that fucking phone.

OK that is enough. And to think i didn't think I had anything to write about post-cancer. Maybe i should change the name to cancer does suck, but ADD is very funny. But i do not have the attention span to figure out how to do that.......

Monday, October 25, 2010

Live free or die trying.......

See how bad I am at keeping up with this blog since I don't have cancer anymore. So now i will probably cram a million things into this one, as I thought of a few cancer-related things this week.

First, i am not going to talk in detail about my teeth but the whole idea of going to a dentist- i realized than when i blurted out at my radiation doctor check-up (I am incredibly healthy) " Well when I realized I was not going to die from cancer, I figured I might as well get my teeth fixed."- I was absolutely telling the truth. I thought I had a positive attitude when I was being treated, and I pretty much did, but in the back of my mind I now see that there was this little voice saying, well maybe you might die so don't bother to join the gym. It's ok to drink a bottle of wine and take percocet for minor pain because you just might be dead soon, anyway. Stuff like that.

So, now I have cancer after-thoughts. Of course, for the most part i still believe- and did so long before I got diagnosed just last thanksgiving- that you should live your life like there is tomorrow. But now I have a part of me that says, but just in case there isn't.......

So now I am even more seriously thinking about joining a gym, even though it is one I will have to drive to, but they are having a special, and they have swimming, and I think that is the best thing to get my left side as good as the right side and make my upcoming boob job easier. And in the meantime, I have started hiking. I can go hang around my sisters house, and her back yard- yes, this is the one with chickens- leads to this forest with cross country ski trails. We did a big hike there Saturday which completely justified the sugar cookies I had for breakfast. So I have decided I like hiking. Remind me to add it to my profile. It is just kind of like walking (which I like) in a pretty place (which I like) and it is a something you need to buy special shoes for (which I am all over.) And I feel much better after I exercise, especially since my nurse told me that joint pain and stiffness is a side effect of the aromatase inhibitor (tamoxifin for old people) that i am taking, and not instant old age. And then last night i volunteered to work in a haunted house as a fund raiser for my friend's kid's baseball team. I was a psycho in a bloody diner and I loved it. I became facebook friends with the two women who were the real actors who do this every year. it was wicked fun and a great outlet for my newly discovered talent of scaring people while being funny. A fake mouse was involved.

My other post cancer after-thought was that I need to pile up some money- no, not in case I get sick again, I know I won't, but so that i can go to Jamaica at the drop of a hat and I think I have gotten a second job. Only problem is that although it pays better than mclean, it is in the same system as Mcleans so they will have to try to keep me under 40 hours combination at both places...so maybe a third job? Definitely too lazy unless I could be a visiting nurse to the psych patients that live in my own building, present company excepted.

And finally i have found a cause that i can believe in. Right here on the computer, well not this blog I guess, maybe facebook, I see an ad for the single most impractical pair of shoes ever. Spike heel open toe boots in hot pink. No surprise everyone I have shown the ad to has said, barbara, those are so you! But the kicker- if you buy them, they donate money to breast cancer!!!!!!!!!! No need to do those stupid walks- although if they were hikes, I'd be there- just buy shoes and support breast cancer. Oh no pun intended when I said the kicker. Sometimes I think I am channelling my father or his best friend, Billy Murphy,whose anniversary mass I would have gone to except I forgot.

So clearly, this is my destiny- to organize a hike through a haunted house with all participants wearing open toe spike heel pink boots to benefit breast cancer. If that doesn't warrant a reality show, i don't know what does. Are you listening, Hollywood?

Saturday, October 16, 2010

One love, one boob.....

OK, this should be quick as I am getting ready for work. Of course, if Theresa is on facebook how busy can it be???? So, I know a lot of women who have had masectomies opt to not have reconstructive surgeries. I respect and applaud them. They are very brave, secure, not swayed by adverisements, and clearly aware that inner beauty is what is important. I, however, am not. I pride myself on being vain, shallow and superficial. I have resigned to the fact that I cannot stop aging- unless I am dead, which is possible the only thing i would rather not be than old- but to be old and one-boobed, no that is not for me. I am sort of hoping that those physicists at that place in Switzerland, one of whom is my step-son (I don't think there is such a thing as an ex-stepson, even if he is your ex-husband's kid) start working on curing aging but why the fuck should they they are all in their 20's and 30's!

So anyway, I look forward to having big boobs. For myself, really, not anyone else. Also there is the very practical reason that a boob that is attached to your body firmly is not going to get lost unlike a fake one. And spaciness is right up there in my good qualities with vanity. I lose car keys, cell phones and appointment reminders with regularity. Why then is it a surprise that I have to add ten minutes into my getting ready to go out time to allow for the search for the fake boob. For a few scarey moments, i thought i left it at Denise's house when i house-sat. Well, I didn't and come to think of it it would not have been as embarassing as it seems originally. I know that because i did leave underwear there which Denise's husband returned to me in the middle of a huge dinner party. Luckily they were clean. it would have been embarassing to leave it at the house of someone who did not know I had a fake boob, though.

Which brings up the new concept of dating with one boob. OK, I have ascertained from mostly rational conversations and one slightly drunk phone call, that there are guys I have known for a while that will sleep with me, on a prn basis, while I am boob-challenged. So they don't count in this generalization. Someone, i think it was my massage therapist Ray said that if you find a guy who isn't bothered by sleeping with someone with a masectomy, then you have found a real keeper- again, someone who is not superficial, shallow and who is aware that inner beauty is what is important. But the thing is, i think I am more comfortable with the superficial shallow guys. Much like Groucho Marx not wanting to belong to a club that will have him as a member. i think that if I found a guy who wanted a relationship with my one boobed self, i would always be thinking, "shit, there must be something really wrong with this guy that he can't get a girlfriend with two boobs!" Does this make sense? Of course not. But you have to wonder- is it some kind of fettish or something? Now, let me be clear, I am not talking about the thousands (millions?) of masectomy-havers whose husbands and boyfriends stood by them. of course that is different. if you already know someone and they are somehow changed physically then no big deal. I am solely talking about myself and the potential pervert serial killers I anticipate will want to go out with me when i am between full sets.

Oh shit, now i have to go get ready for work and I didn't even allow time to look for my boob. great.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Purple

I can't stop writing on this just because i don't have cancer anymore, because I just found out that writing- and I suppose typing on a computer- is therapeutic. And here i thought i was just writing for the entertainment of my millions of followers from many different countries. OK, i only have 18 followers, but they seem to get around a lot. Besides I am still effected by cancer, as i await my new boob.

Sorry kids. Trying to make my blog more appropriate so that if my kids and their friends read it, they will not be horrified by me as they frequently are in person. it was pointed out to me that maybe i should stop talking about blow jobs. And you will notice that I have.

So now that i cannot bitch about my own personal cancer, I will have to find something else to rant about. i am really too stupid about politics. i guess i could become smarter about it, and I am not saying that I may not do so in the future, but right now it is not something I am interested in enough to learn enough about to not sound like an idiot writing things about it. Odd that I am suddenly concerned about sounding like an idiot when i never have before. Maybe it is a side effect od cancerlessness.

Actually it probably is. I think way back when i had cancer and was not the survivor i am now, I did sort of use it as a blanket excuse for stupidity, excessive drunkenness, bad hair, laziness, stupidity, and odd fashion choices. Now I am on my own again, although i do cut myself a little slack in the hair department, as I still don't have very much but have decided to focus on changing the color as often as I feel like it. Although people really seem to like red. Unless they are just saying so to be nice, but I think they have stopped doing that now that I no longer have cancer. Well they should anyway. Don't worry, Terri, my fashion mentor, i do plan to try purple at the appropriate time. Maybe February, as the birthstone is amethyst. Figures i get born in a month with cheap jewelry attached to it. As if people would have been buying me diamonds, emeralds and rubies had I been born in a better month. Well, i would lose them anyway.

OK, as i brilliantly try to think of something to write about next, I feel the urge to go out and karaoke, "I will survive."

Monday, October 11, 2010

Psychotic?....I mean psychic?

I will just say that hte dentist thing was not scarey and as far as I am concerned, successful, as my expectations are so low that I decided that as long as they did not say oh my god, your mouth is awful, we must pull all these teeth and replace them with old lady dentures, I would be happy. And so they did not and i am.

Went to see a medium, or psychic, or something the other night. Fortunately there was a buffet and drinks. She was actually quite good, unless she had about a hundred plants in the audience as she kept saying things that people said were true. She did not spend much time at our table, unfortunately. When she did, she said someone named Thomas was coming up. Nobody at the table knew a Thomas, but I remembered an old boyfriend, a pretty serious one at that, who had died. I thought it was odd that he would be trying to contact me, but then I remembered how the asshole never called or showed up when he said he would and it would be just like him to wait til he was dead. And then, as the psychic was leaving the table, she turned to me and said off-handedly, "Oh yeah, your mother says hi." I KNEW that that was my mother. Other people's mothers had communicated and given their kids advice, said they loved them, were proud of them, praying for them, etc. But oh yeah by the way tell barbara I said Hi. That'd be my mom.

Good thing i did not die because if anyone I knew went to one of those psychic things, I would monopolize the whole show. Drive the medium crazy and she would never get her own TV show, which she actually is going to get. Yet another person who is not me with their own reality show.

I am working on reinventing my post-cancerous self by actually buying groceries and baking dessert last night- apple crisp, delicious, and really thinking about joining the gym and vaguely committing myself to climbing a small mountain with my sister some time. Don't want to do too much change all at once. everything in moderation. Well actually, i usually do nothing in moderation, but i think maybe moderation in moderation is a good idea.

So my father is in the hospital in San Diego. Encephalitis, although my sister thinks he is getting better now. It just brought up the idea of caring for an aging parent- all right, i cared for him for years then shipped him off to California when he was really sick but come on, I had cancer! And then no house..... Anyway enough about poor me as we are now talking about my 86 year old father this close to a nursing home. Or not. Since my niece Emily died at 18, I sort of didn't make a big deal about people in their 80's dying. Like, so what? They had their life. But it is a little different when it's your father, who i was certain at one time would outlive us all when he was his vitamin-taking, basketball- playing annoying self. Well he still may. And if not, some day i will be at another medium show and she'll say, oh yeah, your parents say hi. I joke about it because he is probably going to be ok because i am far too classy to joke about life threatening illnesses. So anyway if anyone is inclined to pray or send positive thoughts- and if you did it for me, it certainly works- say one for Bill.

Friday, October 8, 2010

Do not read this it is disgusting.

Haven't written anything for a while because since I am non-cancerous now, what to write on a cancer blog? I guess I will have to read up on the politics and economics of health care, particularly cancer care, and then i can make fun of that. So now tha I'm a "survivor" I think I am going to get involved in volunteering in some way for some kind of cancer, although frankly I think there is enough hype for breast cancer- everyone i know went on that walk, getting money pledged to help breast cancer resarch. Not a single person took my suggestion to just skip the middle-man (middle-person?) and give the money directly to me.

But i would like to point out that now that I am a survivor, you would think I would somehow be stronger, or better, or something. However, i have to go to the dentist tomorrow and am scared shitless. Chemotherapy, radiation, surgery? That was one thing. This is someone poking around in my mouth. But I think I have no choice as going to a regular dentist is the first step in getting cosmetic dentistry so that when I get my boob replaced, i will have a great smile, which will add to my cougar-ness. Not having my own dentist, as it is something i have avoided for years, I chose a place called Gentle Dental in the hopes that it lives up to its name, that is gives you IV valium as you walk in the door. because filling out the paperwork can be stressful.

I hope these dentists don't think that since i had cancer i am brave and do not need hard core pain meds. I shall disabuse them of this notion immediately.

Well enough about my teeth - or actually this is just one tooth that made my face swell up like a chip munk. It was kind of funny, actually. Oh my god, this is what i am going to blog about now that I am cancer-free? My fucking teeth? I hate teeth. I am very sorry. i will never write about this again. When i first started working in a hospital in nursing school, other people complained about the bed pans, cleaning up incontinent patients, puke, poop, etc. Not a problem for me. Touching their dentures? Helping them with "oral care" Couldn't handle it. Teeth, gross.

steven tyler in a red sox shirt!!!

steven tyler in a red sox shirt!!!
not bad for an old guy