Handle Me with Care

 

Wordle in five tries today. I am also pretty good at the Spelling Bee and the sudokus from the NYT. Word puzzles and counting make me happy. 

So, the oncologist confirmed his first diagnosis of small cell carcinoma in the liver. I will begin chemotherapy next week. It will be the same regime as for the first cancer: three days of infusion every three weeks x 4. With luck, this will slow or reverse the growths. However, as he said, this is very bad and this will eventually kill me because even if my liver gets better, the cancer will migrate to another location. After this treatment, he will assess my case and take it from there. 

My slightly crazy, blown-dandelion hair will fall out. I don’t know yet if I will have my head close-cropped again or just let it go as it wants.

I’m glad that Sweetie will have his sister around so that they can take care of one another. I have put down the Night Shift shawl in order to finish a pair of socks for him. 

Therapy Dog

 Wordle took me 6 tries before I solved it. I had 4 letters in the right place by try #3 and all I needed was that last consonant. 

To the oncologist today. It is raining cats and dogs with thunder rumbling every so often. Just the sort of day to drive an hour on the interstate, right. I hope the sump pump holds up.

I am calm, knowing that I am just a vessel from now on, a passive patient who will have things done to her and there are no decisions to make. I got my 4th Covid-19 booster yesterday. I literally shot out of the door to the nearest pharmacy when I heard the news that the FDA had approved it. I still had to wait while the manager called the owner, (it’s a small, independent drugstore), and I had to explain what medical condition(s) I had that made me eligible. So I related the tale of the anal cancer which was small cell carcinoma, and how the cancer had returned and that I would be getting chemo again. She recommended prayer and I scoffed. She asked if she could pray for me and I said that she could do whatever made her feel better but that I didn’t care.  

Just Dropped In

 

Wordle in 4 today. Not too bad, really. 

Went out to a pizza place with Sweetie Sunday night. We hadn’t really talked about ‘my condition’ until then, so it was good. I mean, it’s hard to talk about but there are practical aspects that need to get sorted out such as him getting the FMLA paperwork filled out for the doctor to sign. Sweetie said that his sister plans to not renew her teaching position in order to be available for my care. When I objected, he said that she was not thrilled with her 1-hour commute morning and evening and there wasn’t anything closer or better and so she was just looking for an excuse. Okay then. 

The other thing we talked about was taking a trip to England or Ireland, but only when my condition was so bad that it won’t make any difference if I drink. I quit drinking in 2012 because I am an all-or-nothing drinker. I still want to drink but I just don’t. 

We’ll see the oncologist tomorrow and I reckon I’ll get the chemo schedule then. He had also said that immunotherapy is an option so maybe we’ll find out about that then, too. I am so not looking forward to the sickness that the chemo brings but I don’t want to not do it, either. 

Last Spring I bought a pattern for a wooden whirligig in the shape of a P51 Mustang airplane but I was too sick to work on it and then it got put on the back, back burner. I may get a friend to cut out the pieces for me to assemble and paint. I would like to have it done and installed as a gift to Sweetie.  

Uncomfortably Numb

 Wordle in 3 on Friday, in 4 yesterday. I haven’t solved today’s; it’s still too early. Edited to add: Today's puzzle was hard! Took 5 tries.

The biopsy went well. It wasn’t painful but I was a bit tired yesterday, so I took the day off and lazed.

The doctor who performed the CT-guided biopsy, who had read my previous scans, said that the growths in my liver are most likely related to the anal cancer. Small cell carcinoma. The little buggers like to migrate. My feeling is that soon it will spread all over, and both I and the oncologist know that there won’t be a “good” outcome this time.

And yes, I am depressed. I saw this on Reddit: If someone says, “Don’t be depressed, there are people worse off than you,” you can reply with, “Don’t be happy, there are people much better off than you.”

I am also just sort of numb.

Thursday

 Wordle in 3 again. Knitting progresses.

Liver biopsy tomorrow.

A Sucky 'Journey'

I ripped out the first iteration of the Night Shift shawl and have begun again with a different palette of sock yarn. I don't have a lot, but I do have enough leftovers in purples and burgundies and greys and brights to match a new light purple skein. I’m pleased.

Wordle in three today, after not getting a single letter right in the first word. But that meant I eliminated 5 letters from the running. The second guess left me with 2 green and 1 brown, and the answer was easily discerned after that. 

I’ve been having mini panic attacks of the existential sort and I have no one to talk to about it. I don’t want sympathy, but a therapist to listen would be nice. I haven’t told Sweetie everything the oncologist said, because he doesn’t need to know just yet. I’ll let him remain optimistic until after the biopsy when we meet again with the doctor. Maybe my doctor is wrong, but I really don’t think so in my heart of hearts. 

I hope to continue writing about this sucky ‘journey’ I’m on. Sweetie and Sister-in-Law don’t read this blog and I don’t know if anyone else does, either, but that’s okay because just writing makes me feel a little better. I’ve never been an avid, or good, journal writer, being embarrassed by the crazy inner monologues that are my thoughts. And I feel that my writing skills, which used to be okay, are now shit. 

I’m 65 and the last chemo messed with my cognitive skills and while I’ve gotten most of those skills back, I can’t say that I am just like new. And I also want to say here that I have noticed a few things going on with my body over the last 2 or 3 weeks that have had me a little concerned.  Instead of my physical strength increasing, it was slowly decreasing. I had stopped getting better.

What Do I Know

 

Wordle in 6 again today. I hear that it is poor form to discuss ones Wordle score, but since I have so few accomplishments otherwise, I will keep posting about these successes.

Other news is that I had a CT scan yesterday, three months after my last scan was clear. This time the doctor saw, I think he said, 6 golf ball-sized growths in my liver. He was surprised and saddened since we thought it was going to just be a routine scan.

I was, and am, strangely calm. I had gone through all the emotions during my first cancer diagnosis, though, and so pretty much all I had to say was, “Well, shit.”

I will have a biopsy this Friday and will meet with the oncologist again next week, and he said that I had options including more chemo as well as immuno-therapy but the prognosis isn’t good since the golf balls had grown so much in such a short time. I have more than 6 months but most likely less than 5 years to live is his best guess. 

It’s weirdly comforting to have a time frame to get my affairs in order.

Happy Equinox

 

The daffodils are blooming and the houseplants are ready to go outside soon. This is half of them.

Wordle in 6. Yesterday was also 6. In spite of that, I really like this puzzle and am glad it only comes once a day. 

I'm okay

 Wordle in 3 today. I had a lucky starting word. 

My cold is getting better, but it's a cool and dreary day. In other words, a Good Day to Knit. 

Also me

 

I have a cold. Sister-in-law caught it from one of the Petri dishes in her classroom. She was afraid it might be Covid but tested negative. I asked Sweetie, who now has it, how this could have happened, what with all the mask-wearing we still do, like, all the time. And he said that there is no vaccine for the cold. Dammit.

I had forgotten what a fountain of mucus feels like when leaving my face. May you all be well.

Also, it took me 6 tries to solve Wordle today. My average is 4 but I have two 2s and a sprinkling of 3s.

We Live in the Land of Cheap Gas

 

Amoeba Cartoon

 

Click to embiggen.

Knitting and Bread

Here it is March and my daffodils look like they’re ready to pop and the few little crocuses in the backyard are blooming. Spring is trying but March is a treacherous month and not to be trusted. For example, it was almost 80º Saturday and today we’ve had flurries and will barely get above freezing. 

It’s a good day to stay inside and bake bread and knit. I make a kind of ‘slow rise’ loaf that takes about 4.5 hours but most of that time is hands-off. So in the meantime, while I’m waiting, I’m knitting. (I tried sourdough bread making over the summer along with some so-called artisanal bread and finally realized after a few months that I didn’t much like either one.) 

Fell into a rabbit hole of mosaic crochet a while back. It was fun and easy and I watched many videos about it by a jolly Icelandic woman named Tinna Thorudottir Thorvaldar. I even bought a pattern from her off of Ravelry. Now, I have been crocheting longer than I have been knitting, which is a long time, and I have never had any issues with my tendons or had pain of any sort from crocheting. This time, though, after a few weeks my right arm was so sore that I had to stop. I bought some of that K Tape (kinesiology tape) and that helped. I also cut the toes off of some compression stockings and wore that for a couple of weeks. My arm seems healed now, for the most part, but I am sad that I cannot pursue the mosaic crochet.

However, there is such a thing as Mosaic Knitting! I made a scarf as a first project and it turned out reasonably well. I made it to particularly go with this sweater coat.

I bought Barbara G. Walker’s book on the subject. (And what an interesting person she must have been.) 

I have now embarked on the Nightshift Shawl by Andrea Mowry. Again, I bought a stand-alone pattern which is something I have seldom done in the past, but I don’t feel I have the time anymore to figure shit out, re-invent the wheel, and so I will now happily pay someone else who has already done the work. 

The shawl calls for worsted weight yarn in 6 or 8 colors, but I had the idea to use 2 sock weight, self-striping yarns. It will take me forever, I am sure, but it is interesting to see how the different yarns interact. Banana for scale.

I am still knitting socks for Sweetie. This is Berroco Sox yarn.

Again with the Rabbits

 

His name is Rabberto.

Sing with the Angels

 

Be Nice to People