such a wide, wide chasm of faith to leap

I remember back in February, this blog was slated to become my cancer update blog. I was having all these medical experiences I'd never had before (really: who's had a PET scan?) and wanted to talk about it. But then I was too lazy, so it got wiped off that slate.

And really, I don't talk about it that often. Sometimes it's nice to pretend that it's not the only cool thing about me. (I was going to say "Requisite sneaky complaint: check." But then I remembered what this post's probably going to be about. So there's more where that came from.) However, the sad truth is, it's pretty much my entire life right now. And that's what we do in blogs. The boring ones, at least. Talk about our lives.

So, here ya go. A bunch of random stuff about my life now, as it pertains to my treatment.

~I'd spent my entire life thinking I was A+ blood type. Come time for my first transfusion (I've had 7 now -- donate blood!!) we found out I'm actually O+. Who knew?

~I am a master of finding my drinking glass at night. We recently bought these silly clear cups, so that makes them pretty much invisible in the dark. To me, at least, since I've never met anyone with worse eyesight. (Still one of my points of pride!) But somehow, I've never spilled. My hand just magically knows where to go. I'm going to jinx it, huh.

~Every conceivable part of me has lost weight. I finally dropped below 100 lbs, and I practically had a tantrum there on the scale. I'm talking my ears have probably lost weight and everything.

~My hair's coming out again. When I was at the hospital over the weekend, I kept getting eyelashes and eyebrows all over my glasses. And I have bald patches on my head, but that's mainly because I keep pulling it...this is hard to explain to people. Some few of my acquaintance had the opportunity to pull it out when it was longer than 1/3 inch, and they'd understand. It's addicting. And I'm okay with my hair being different lengths of that much.

~I got a lot of weird side-effects from chemo that nobody at the hospital had ever heard of. I got these peculiar brown stripes on my stomach, and a similarly styled image of a bandaid on my arm, and my elbows are really dark. Plus sometimes my feet burn off. No one ever told us about that. Even the side effects that I'm supposed to get, like mouth sores, come in weird. My jaw swells up. They all look at me like I'm an alien. My body's amazing!

~No, really, my body's amazing. You take things for granted, like an awesome heart and lungs -- which I hope to still have when this is over. And the way my surgery site healed up so awesome (except for that one little part -- c'mon bug, I wanna be able to submerge my leg). All these things I can't take credit for.

~I hate talking about my hospital experiences, because it makes me nauseous. Usually right before and right after, but why risk it?

~I think the ice cream truck just drove by. We didn't have one of those when I was a kid. Did it seriously come up our street? It must be lost. Um...there's a kid sitting in the back. Should I be concerned?

~Okay, so, my siblings? They think my walking assistance devices are so fun. Whenever I'm lounging about (which, let's face it, happens a lot more often than anything else) they'll pick them up and play with them. And ... sometimes leave them far away. Not on purpose, I believe.

~By the way...anonymous gifts/letters are really annoying. I wish I hadn't been so busy in March, or I would've done some serious handwriting analysis.

~Can't remember if I've said much about my tattoos. Well, there's not much to tell, besides the pain worse than a bee sting to get them. And that I have 'em.

~Guys, once my radiation burn healed up, it's been so fun! It's like a constantly peeling sunburn, without hurting. I wonder if it would look so very tan if I weren't so "constantly inside" complexioned right now.

~Right below my left collarbone is my port. It is the cyborg machinery they inserted inside me in order to pump me full of poison. And blood, when the need arises. It is a little metal disk just under the skin. Back when it was cold, and I would shiver, my port would totally shiver too, and spasm, and feel like it was trying to jump back out. Slightly creepy? Luckily I think it's grown to my ... whatever innards are right there and I only have to worry when I get hugged really tightly and it pops out of alignment. Which doesn't do anything, except for a while I have a crooked metal disk sticking up instead of a flat one. If they needed to poke me (you access it with a needle, of course) they could do it just fine.

~Oh yeah, I'm glad I was never afraid of needles. Do I love getting shots and blood draws twice a week? No, but I don't freak out. Especially not now. My arm veins are a little bit hashed, but I don't have to do it much longer!

~Everyone keeps accusing me of getting my nails done. Never! I just happened to get a really opaque white stripe one round and it's finally grown up to the top. And I don't think I would be pleased if I did get my nails done and they looked like that. Pretty sure they can make them look better than that...

~Sometimes I act really pathetic. But I feel like there's really just one thing that I'm consistently pathetic about, and it's something that was going on way before I was diagnosed. And, er, I'm too embarrassed about it to admit what it is. *wince*


On that note, which wandered off the Wonders of Cancer Treatment and onto paths that will remain untrodden on this blog, let's end. This is more than enough, though I'm sure if I left it for another day I'd come up with some more.

Have a great day, everyone!


"Soon Love Soon" ~ Vienna Teng


[P.S.: I had a typically hard time finding a good subject line for this post. My first choice has already been used! But luckily before I found that out I'd already found a bunch of possibilities. Here are the runners-up, since I'm unlikely to use them for any other post.

blind, only my hands to guide me ~ now three
i'll tap into your strength and drain it dry - my medea

And now you see why!]