Some of this and a little of that

Gozer saw the vet on Friday and she's healing up really well. The lump was benign, as I expected, and the stitch was pretty much dissolved. The vet is going to refer her to a dermatologist for allergy testing. While this won't help us with her food issues, it'll tell us whether she's got any other allergies.

For some reason I've developed a wicked sore in my mouth. It's just at the spot where my cheek attaches to my lower gum and it's about 1/2" long by 3/16" wide at its widest point, starting one tooth from in from the back molar. It's almost like the two are splitting apart there. My cheek is very, very slightly swollen and my jaw is a bit tender below that spot.

Of course this sore is on the left side. That's the side where I had the original cancer, where the lymph nodes were removed, and where I've got lymphedema problems. The lymph fluid doesn't circulate well on that side so it's no surprise that if I'm going to have problems it'll be on that side.

I'm pretty sure I don't have an infection but I'm watching the sore quite closely. If there's any more swelling, heat, or redness, in the area or more discomfort or if I start developing a fever I'm heading straight to the dentist. The concern with an infection is that it could spread to the jaw and that's bad because I've been on a bisphosphonate for over six years and I'm at risk for osteonecrosis of the jaw (ONJ). I actually know someone who's been on bisphosphonates for as long as I have and who might have to have part to all of her lower jaw removed. I don't want that to happen to me, as I'm sure you can understand.

I'm watching the Oscars right now and I'm quite enjoying all of the gorgeous dresses and jewellery. I'm looking forward to doing this red carpet post!

I think I spoke too soon

Gozer is still doing very well after last week's surgery, so don't let my title scare you about that.

I guess I shouldn't have said anything about how well the transition to the new food was going, however. Yesterday she was licking her skin more obsessively than usual. She tends to lick a little bit but normally when I put my hand over the spot where's she's licking, she'll just lick my hand and then leave it. Yesterday when I put my hand on top of the spot she really tried to get at the spot by wedging her tongue between my fingers. When I took my hand away I noticed that the spot was red and raw-looking. Here's a picture:

The spot where Gozer was licking. See how red that spot is? It looks so sore.

This kind of licking behaviour is different than the the kind of licking she does when she's having yeast problems. Usually those don't get this red and she's not that obsessive. Also, she didn't have the yeasty smell that she gets when she's got itchy yeast spots.

After taking a picture of that spot I rolled her over onto her back to take a look at her belly. I was horrified and sad to see that she had a couple of red spots there. Here's a picture:

Sideways view of Gozer's belly (the top left is her right hind leg and the bottom left is her left hind leg). See the red spots? That's not good.

We're fairly certain that these spots are an allergic reaction. We'd just increased her new food to slightly more than half of her total food intake and it seems that once we reached that threshold it triggered her immune system. Obviously she can't have this new food anymore even though she loved the taste of it. At least she'll eat the food she doesn't like if it's mixed with butternut squash.

Sigh. I feel so defeated. I really wanted for her to have a food that she liked, that didn't trigger an allergic reaction, and that gives her well-formed stools (and that doesn't include any fish or shellfish). It appears that there are zero easily available foods out there and I'm so sad about that. There might be prescription foods available but I'm hesitant to head down that road because I don't want to be disappointed again and I'd like to have food options in the future. Once we run out of commercially-available foods the only option will be cooking her food.

We see the vet on Friday for our post-surgery checkup and I think we'll ask if she can be referred to a dermatologist. Maybe if we can figure out exactly what's wrong there might be other options for her.

Gozer is doing well

Gozer is doing very well. We took her for a walk just before bedtime that first night and since then she's been eating, sleeping, and playing normally. The stubble on her chin feels really creepy when she licks me but her hair is starting to grow back now.

The vet's office called on Thrusday to check on Gozer's condition and they said that we'd discuss the pathology results for her lump when she has her checkup next Friday. She said that the pathology results don't usually take long - they come back faster than people's results do - and I figured that since the results hadn't already come in, they're most likely going to be ok. It's been my experience that bad results come back super-fast.

I promised you a picture of how silly Gozer looks, and here it is:

I know that this isn't exactly the kind of silly I'd meant before.... but she does look silly, doesn't she? :) She's on our bed and she's not supposed to be there and as you can see, instead of reprimanding her, I got out my phone and took pictures.

And here's a close-up of her silly-looking chin:

If you look carefully you can see a little black bump on her black chin. That's the stitch where the lump was removed. Normally her chin has white hair (yes, on that black skin - she's got quite a few places where her hair colour and skin colour are different) but as you can see it's black.

In other Gozer news, we're transitioning her food. She'd been eating a food that she didn't like and that she would only eat if butternut squash was mixed in with it. The new food is actually the very last food we can buy for her and as it happens, she loves it. She doesn't even have to have the squash added to it to make it palatable! We've been taking the transition very slowly just to make sure that she's not allergic to it and now that we know she'll be ok, we're ramping up the transition.

Our delicate little Gozer flower is doing well. I'm very relieved.

Gozer's surgery went well

Our Gozer is very groggy after today's anaesthetic. She's very unsteady on her feet, is moving very slowly, and is sitting more like a big lump than a dog. Although she ate a few kibbles, it's clear that she's not feeling very well right now and I'm finding it really hard to watch her be in such a sad state. Is this what being a parent is like? Worrying about your little one and feeling so bad because they feel bad but you can't explain what's happening to them to help them feel better? If so, I'm glad I don't have kids because it's bad enough that I feel this way about my dog.

Gozer's surgery apparently went very well. We were given the option beforehand of having a blood panel done and setting up an IV line during the surgery. Apparently these procedures aren't standard but doing them makes getting over the anaesthetic easier. The blood panel makes sure that she's healthy for the anaesthetic and the IV line allows them to hydrate her during the surgery. We said yes to both because that's the kind of people we are.

The vet called at about 2pm to tell me that Gozer was out of surgery and that everything had gone well. We picked her up and took her home at about 4:30pm. She's not to go down stairs by herself or to do any jumping and she has to be careful while walking on a leash tonight and she should take it a bit easy tomorrow as well. At least she doesn't have to wear the Cone of Shame which is a big relief to me.

Fortunately, the vet didn't have to take too much skin off with the lump and only put one dissolvable stitch in to close it (which is why Gozer doesn't need to wear the Cone). The lump had a diameter of about 6mm and while the vet thinks it's a wart, she's sending it out for testing just to be sure that it's benign. Her teeth were very clean; there was a bit of plaque on her back teeth but overall her teeth are in very good shape. Gozer's bloodwork was also perfect. We'll see the vet again in ten days.

We do have some aftercare instructions that are all related to her dental cleaning. She's got a gel-type mouthwash that has to be given to her twice a day and an oral antibiotic to be given to her once a day for three days starting tomorrow.

They did have to shave her chin and parts of her front legs so she looks a little silly. I'll try and get a picture of her tomorrow as right now she's barely lifting up her head to look at me. Later on tonight we'll take her for a very short walk out to the communal mailboxes at the end of our place to give her a chance to pee.

I'm so happy that this surgery went well but I really I hope this is the last surgery she has to do. Surgery is stressful for everyone involved.

Gozer and the Olympics

Have you been watching the Olympics? I know there's a lot of controversy around the games what with Russia's anti-gay stance and the shooting of the stray dogs but it's the Olympics... and it's not like there hasn't been controversy around other Olympic venues.

I've been watching some of the games but with the time difference (Sochi is 9 hours ahead) it's hard to see everything. I can't stay up all night watching different sports, unfortunately, because I've got things to do during the day. I've been enjoying the figure skating, of course.

As I was walking Gozer this morning and watching her trying to pee on or against all the different snow banks I was thinking that there should be a doggy Olympics. For example, Gozer attempted a front-paw stand pee, where she tried to lift both of her back legs and pee at the same time. Later on, she attempted a ridge pee, where her left and right paws were on opposite sides of a snow ridge. She's also been known to do a hill-rolling poo where she squats at the top of a hill and tries to see how far everything rolls down. Points are given for the greatest distance achieved. Other events could include hunting for the rodent (it's either a mouse or a vole) in the snow and finding the tastiest hidden treat.

I think I'm onto something here - this could be a whole new industry, right? There could be coaches and trainers and friendly rivalries and everything we associate with Olympic competition. I don't think I'm the person to get this going but if someone else wants to, be sure to credit me :)

The reason I was walking Miss Fluffybutt this morning was that the bump she had on her chin has grown this week. It's been there ever since we first brought her home but to see that it had grown was a little disconcerting. Weirdly, it shrunk a bit yesterday but it was still bigger than it was before. The vet recommended that it be removed so she's going to have that done on Tuesday. We'll also get her teeth cleaned at the same time since she'll be under the general anaesthetic and we figure we may as well take advantage of that.

She'll go to the vet's at 8:30am Tuesday and will be able to come home around 4:30pm. She can't have anything to eat after 8pm Monday, either, so she won't get her bedtime cookie. She's allowed water and can go for a walk if she wants. Even though she'll be groggy when she comes home and so won't be able to walk home, I'm relieved that she won't have to stay there overnight.

She's going to have to wear the Cone of Shame for at least five days, most likely seven, and possibly even ten days. How long she has to wear it will depend on how deep this thing goes, how big the margins around the lump will be, and how many, if any, stitches are needed. I'm not looking forward to that because it'll be so uncomfortable for her but at the same time I don't want the wound to get infected or to stay open. It's got to heal.

They asked if we wanted to have the lump sent away for testing. I guess that the cost could be prohibitive for some, especially if the results come back as cancer or something like that. We'd rather know one way or another and deal with that rather than just take the lump off and leave it. I told them that if the lump was obviously a wart then it's ok to not send it out but if there's any uncertainty about what it is, send it.

Hopefully her scar won't prevent her from competing in the doggie Olympics.

I've felt better

As usual after dropping my antidepressant dose, I've been feeling a bit tired and generally unwell over the last little while. I've been feeling a bit fuzzy-headed and have been headachy. As well, my stomach has been feeling very upset and I've been a bit nauseous which has made eating a bit difficult. Poor Ian isn't getting dinner made for him because I'm not up to eating anything at dinnertime.

As well as feeling kind of crappy, I've been rather cranky over the last week or so. I'm not getting angry or snapping at people or anything but I've been finding myself reacting more strongly to people's posts and comments on the interwebs. In other words, I seem to be encountering more idiots out there than usual :) I know that the problem isn't everyone else - it's all me.

Part of this crankiness is because tomorrow is the anniversary of my dad's death. I miss him so much even now, six years later. My grief isn't as sharply felt as it used to be; these days, it's more of a melancholy feeling or an ache than the stabbing, overwhelming sadness that it used to be but it still affects me - especially around anniversary dates.

Fortunately, even though I'm feeling sad and cranky and physically I feel awful, I don't feel that I'm becoming depressed or that I'm dealing with everything in a bad way. That's a good sign - being on a reduced antidepressant is comparatively easy when things are going well and harder when things are going poorly. So the fact that I'm doing ok is a pretty good sign.

Classic Albums Live show

Last night we saw Classic Albums Live AC/DC Back in Black. The Classic Albums Live series has musicians reproduce, as faithfully as possible, a classic rock album. If the album has two records, playing the album takes up the whole show but if there's only one record, the musicians play some of the band's greatest hits during the second half of the show.

Even though seeing this show is pretty much equivalent to seeing a cover band, it was still fun and worth the time and money. The musicians were very good and there was a high level of quality control in terms of reproducing the vocals and music. You might not think that there's value to sitting there and listening to someone else play a classic album but you'd be wrong. Listening to music live and being able to see the musicians actually play adds an additional layer to the music itself. Plus our venue has great sound and great acoustics so we were able to really hear and feel the music as it was played. Even though we didn't hear AC/DC, we heard their music played in near-optimal conditions.

It was also interesting to see the difference in playing between the first and second halves. All of the musicians relaxed during the second half and it was like they were just jamming up there, playing the music they like. They were clearly having a great time up there, trying out their own dance moves and crazy guitar strumming, and this was reflected in the music they played. They were playing AC/DC songs with their own slight spin on them, which was fun for both them and the audience.

I was actually surprised at how many kids were at the show. There were seven that I could easily see, all between the ages of about eight and twelve, and I'm sure there were a lot more behind us. I'd expected to see zero kids there but thinking about it, taking kids to this type of show makes a lot of sense because it's a safe introduction to live rock music. You get all the loud music but none of the drugs or crushing at the front. Plus, while people were drinking they weren't going crazy with it; they were drinking like they were at the theatre. Some of the kids were in a nearby box suite and were dancing and air-guitaring up a storm while a kid in front of us was dancing and air-drumming like crazy. Eventually she and a few other kids went right up to the stage.  

One thing I really liked about the show, aside from the great music, was that the musicians saw the kids dancing and acknowledged that the kids were there - they even gave them free stuff! It was nice to see the musicians encouraging the kids to really enjoy themselves and to see them interacting with the kids. 

If you get a chance to see one of the Classic Albums Live shows, take it. I highly recommend the show for both adults and kids if they're interested in the music.

Antidepressant reduction

Did I mention that I've been tapering off my antidepressants? I've been taking Cipralex (also known as Lexapro) ever since I was diagnosed with the mets and I ended up on a fairly high dose of 30mg/day. I'd been wanting to try to decrease the dose for a few years now, mainly because I sensed that my brain was a bit fuzzy: I felt like I wasn't getting to enjoy things quite as much as I wanted to and that my thinking was duller than it used to be. I also felt like my body and brain were missing a connection and I didn't feel quite right.

However, my family doctor didn't support the idea when I first talked to him about it a couple of years ago. I could sort of see his point as at that time I was still undergoing some pretty intense therapy to deal with my childhood and my traumatic past and my new tools for dealing with life's events weren't as well-used.

However, about six months ago, after having spent two years with my psychologist, I felt ready to try to slooooowly taper off the Cirpalex. I knew I didn't want to do this too quickly because I'd heard about some unpleasant side effects (SSRI discontinuation syndrome) that could happen if the dosage was reduced too quickly. I also wanted to be sure that I really could handle life without the antidepressant (or at least this level of it) and I was confident that I could. My psychologist was also careful to make sure that I knew that it might not be possible for me to go off of the Cipralex entirely; it may be that my brain requires the chemical to function.

My psychologist helped me set up a self-monitoring plan to chart things that were early signs of worsening depression and/or poor coping skills. Each day I track the amount of sleep I get at night and from naps, how cranky I am, and how many commitments I'm dropping (the more I drop, the worse I'm doing). I also track more general signs of depression each week. She agreed to help monitor me as I do this as well, and somehow all of that convinced my doctor that I was doing this taper in a responsible way and he said I could do it.

I've been dropping 5mg/day every six or eight weeks or so and this week I just got down to 10mg/day (remember I started at 30!). The only side effect I've noticed is that I'm more tired and easily fatigued when I first drop down a level. It's as though my brain has to work a little harder when the dosage is reduced and gets tired more easily. Aside from that, I haven't noticed any other issues.

I saw my psychologist today and she agrees that I'm doing well. I'm feeling creative and my brain feels alive in a way that it didn't before. Apparently this 10mg/day is the level beyond which I might not be able to go and if that turns out to be true I'm ok with that. I'm still going to try to get down to zero and if I make it, that's great but if I don't, things are pretty good right now. Even if I do go to zero, I won't rule out taking an antidepressant (or increasing the dosage) in the future if I need it. It's a tool in my coping toolbox and it has its place. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to life without quite so many chemicals in it.

Screen Actor's Guild Awards 2014 Red Carpet

I bet you didn't think you'd get another red carpet post so soon after the last one! Well, you're in luck - it's awards season and I'm interested in what they're wearing this year. I don't think I usually look at the SAG Awards red carpet but I figured that I finished the Golden Globes post in time so why not do this one?

Enjoy the pretty (and not so pretty, and downright strange)...

One more thing

I forgot to mention one thing that came up in yesterday's appointment - I got so focused on the nurses' new best practice's that everything else left my brain.

When I got my flu shot this year, it knocked me flat for days. I couldn't figure out why but then I realized that the flu shot uses the immune system to build antibodies. The denosumab/Xgeva I've been receiving every month for a while now is a monoclonal antibody and also uses the immune system to do its job. Even though I got the flu shot halfway between my denosumab shots, my immune system still ended up overloaded and couldn't handle making antibodies for both. Hence me feeling like I was run over by a truck.

I mentioned this to my oncologist yesterday because denosumab is anew product and they're still gathering side effect information. We agreed that getting the flu shot is very important because I can't afford to get sick and that being laid up like that isnt ideal. So for next year, I'll skip a month on the denosumab and get the flu shot six weeks after the last denosumab injection. That should give my immune system plenty of time to heal up.

I know this isn't a big deal but I wanted to bring it up here for others who are on the denosumab and get flu shots.

Oncology appointment

Today was oncologist day. My tumour markers from November were at 40 (still well within my norm) and I'll get today's tumour markers when I see her again in three months. We've decided that since I'm still so stable, I'll see her every three months instead of every two. It used to be that I had the tumour marker bloodwork done two weeks before I saw my oncologist but it stopped being scheduled that way and I got tired of calling them to change it.

I think things are going to change when I get my bloodwork, though. I've been getting it done in the chemo suite because I have a port-a-cath. My veins are super-crappy from my primary cancer treatment and the less they have to be accessed, the better. I've kept the port because I figured I was going to need it for treatment - and long before now, to be honest - and because it could be used to do bloodwork at the hospital, eliminating a regular assault on my crappy veins. My port gets flushed by the home care nurses at their office in between hospital appointments.

However, at today's bloodwork appointment, I was told that their new best practices are that they don't access ports unless the person is receiving treatment that day. In other words, their best practices tell them to not access ports just for bloodwork to reduce the risk of infection. In my case, the port has to be flushed at that time anyways so it's not like it would be getting an additional access to it.

I spoke with my oncologist about this and she told me that the nurses run everything there and to push back against them. The policy doesn't make sense for me or for anyone who has bloodwork the day before they have treatment (as was happening to someone while I was there). Hopefully I'll be able to convince them to continue accessing my port instead of forcing me away.

Golden Globes 2014 red carpet

I'll bet you never thought you'd see another red carpet post from me. I've actually started a few over the last year but by the time I got to working on them it was so far past the event that it didn't seem worth posting them. This time, I really wanted to get one done. So here it is!

Most of the outfits people wore looked ok although there are always a few that are not quite right for the occasion. I'm happy to report that the strapless mermaid dress is fading from view but sad to tell you that the mullet skirt (shorter in front and longer in back) is showing up more frequently. Sparkles and embellishments are more subtle than they used to be which is a pleasant change.

Enough of me talking; go and have a look at the outfits. Enjoy!

Metalsmithing projects I have finished

One of the biggest changes for me in the last few months is that I've actually finished some metalsmithing projects. You read that right - I finished a couple of projects. I have many projects that are partly-done but very few finished objects. To prove that I finished something, I took some (rather bad) cellphone pictures.

Two sterling silver rings that I made. Each was carved out of carving wax, cast by my instructor, and then polished and finished by moi.

A side view of the rings. One of them, as you can see, has a peak all the way around while the other has just the one pointy bit.

Another view of the rings. You can see that the pointy but on the one ring is kind of a pyramid shape.

A top view of the pyramid ring so that you can see the point. You can also see the side view of the other ring.

I guess it would have been useful to include pictures of me wearing the rings, huh? Well, you'll just have to imagine them on my finger (my middle finger, as it happens). I'm quite pleased with these rings, especially considering that they're my first real attempt at carving and casting anything. They aren't perfect but I love them.

We'd learned carving before but I was having trouble carving something that looked good. I was having a hard time keeping my carvings balanced; often when I tried to file away the wax I didn't want I'd end up filing too much off of one side and my design would end up torqued. I did some research and found a fabulous, step-by-step pdf file that helped me tremendously. The best tip from that guide was scribing center and other guide lines on the wax. That tip alone helped me keep my designs from torquing.

Now that carving is easier for me, I'm finding it a very relaxing thing to do. I'd like to do a few more rings around the pyramid theme and maybe some others involving more complex carving. We'll see; I have some other projects I need to finish, too. And still others that I need to start :)

Our fluffybutt, Gozer

I'm sure you're all wondering how Gozer has been doing. She thinks she's the center of our universe so you must think so, too, right? Ok, maybe not, but since she is the center of our universe I want to talk about her.

It was a rough fall for Gozer. Just before Thanksgiving she was being treated for yet another ear infection and the vet suggested that she had food allergies. She was constantly scratching and licking and developing ear infections, all of which are signs of food allergies in dogs. She had also developed red spots on her abdomen.

We switched her over to a new veterinary food, Hill's Prescription Diet z/d Ultra which has hydrolyzed proteins and tried that for a few weeks. She stopped licking and getting ear infections but her stool was very soft. The vet kept urging us to stay on this food because it's great for dog's digestion but our dog needs to have good, solid poops and these were not them.

We switched her over to a Lamb and Potato mix and within a week she was licking like crazy so we had to take her off that right away. We moved her over to a limited ingredient Turkey and Pea protein food that she seems to be tolerating fairly well. We're giving her the treats we were first given with the Hill's diet because she likes them and tolerates them. We'd tried other treats but she seemed to still be licking more than when on these treats so that's what she gets.

After we started the turkey food, she developed red sore-looking things under her arms and the vet told us that we had to put her on antibiotics for two weeks. These antibiotics were very hard on her, giving her an upset tummy, very loose stool, and lots of lethargy. She was barely eating anything at all and so we tried giving her canned pumpkin mixed with her food to make her eat. It worked for about two days before she stopped wanting to eat again. We ended up hand-feeding her some of her food and playing with other parts (so that she could hunt for her kibble) so that she'd eat.

It's been a few weeks since she finished the antibiotics and she's now eating full meals again. We had to reduce her "full meals" to ensure that she finished them, but she is eating everything in her bowl now. She's also having regular, well-formed bowel movements. That's all good.

On the downside, she's got a yeast problem. I thought that corn-chip smell she had was just her smell but it's actually the smell of yeast. We're using one of the eardrops we'd been previously given for yeast infections which seems to be clearing that up, and we're also trying a new shampoo to try to clear the yeast off of her paw and thighs since she's still licking there occasionally. The old shampoo was good for her but it has oatmeal in it and I read somewhere that yeast like oatmeal so it isn't necessarily the best way to clean her and get rid of the yeast.

A little bit more concerning is that she's having anal gland issues. After she finished the antibiotics she was clearly having problems there because she was licking like crazy and appeared uncomfortable. The vet expressed them and said that they were almost impacted. I figured that this had happened because the antibiotics had made her stool very soft and her glands weren't emptied properly with her bowel movements.

The vet told us to have her glands expressed no more than every six weeks. Since she's being groomed every six weeks and they can express her glands then for only $15 extra (compared to a normal vet visit of $90), we're having it done then. Three weeks after her glands were expressed, she was groomed and we had her glands expressed again - we figured it wouldn't hurt and it would help us get into the habit of having it done.

It's just as well that we had her anal glands expressed because they were quite full again. I thought that this might have been because her stools weren't completely regular or well-formed at that point. However, now I'm questioning that conclusion because she's been licking her butt again and is looking uncomfortable. I think her glands are in need of expressing yet again and it's only been about three weeks since they were last done.

Our sweet little rescue doggie has turned out not to be maintenance-free. I hope that in 2014, she stays stable on her food, her yeast infections go away, and her anal glands start working properly.

Some updates

So... I guess it's been ages since I updated you about my cancer, hasn't it? That's because nothing's changed, really. I see my oncologist every two or three months, we do CT and bone scans every nine months or so, and a mammogram once per year. All of them have come up clean.

Well, that's not precisely true: in fact, my bone scans reveal that the cancer lesions are continuing to heal. This is great! It's also weird. So much of the last six years have been about me coming to terms with having cancer and having a terminal illness. But if the lesions go away then my illness really is controlled and I don't have cancer in the same immediately terminal way that I thought I had it.

When other cancers disappear like my lesions are doing, they say that the cancer goes into remission. However, it's different for breast cancer because once the cells travel outside the breast and nearby lymph nodes, they can hole up and stay dormant for ages. Therefore, we who have stage four breast cancer are said to have No Evidence of Disease (NED) when the cancer can't be detected by scans.

Most of the people I know who get a NED status are thrilled about it - and I am, too - but it still feels strange. If I'm not the person who has cancer, who am I?

I should tell you that my tumour markers have stayed stable as well. They tend to oscillate up and down fairly regularly - in fact, I made a chart of their values over the years (up until August, 2013) that shows the oscillation very clearly:

Well, hello there

It's been quite a while since I was here. Several people have asked me what I planned to do with my blog and I haven't really had an answer for them.

I started this blog as a way of keeping my family and friends informed about my cancer status and treatments and then as my cancer stayed stable it became a place to keep my family and friends in touch with my life. It also became a place for me to think through and talk about things going on in my life.

After my mom died I found myself having a hard time posting here every day, partly because I was depressed and partly because in my head much of my blog was a way for her and I to be closer. Then of course I had the breakdown and didn't know what to write, and later it was enough for me to post small updates as my Facebook status.

These days, I'm finding myself missing the ritual of writing my posts and it's no longer enough for me to put something on Facebook, so I'm thinking that I want to start posting here again. I don't know that this means that I'll post every day but I do hope to post a little more often I'd posted over the last couple of years.

Oncologist and some stuff

I'd planned to write more about our trip but I wanted to include pictures and they haven't been processed yet. We took a couple of thousand photos on the trip and the task is a bit overwhelming so I haven't done it yet.

I saw my oncologist today. My CA 15-3 tumour marker at the end of May was 34 and at the beginning of August was 39, which is still within my normal range. Yay! My oncologist wants me to do regular bone and CT scans just to be sure that I'm still doing fine. She wants to do scans twice a year - which is fine with me - and my last scans were in December. I'll see her again for the results in a few weeks.

I wanted to say that the way I talked about being in the US stereotyped people as gun-loving nuts and cops as thugs. I didn't say that outright but I'm sorry to say that I did kind of have that view in my head when I wrote it. For the record, people in the US are people, and although there are people who own guns, not everyone has one. Moreover, while some cops everywhere may be thugs, the ones I'd encounter there are no more likely to be thugs than they would be anywhere else.

There are things going on in the US that I don't like, such as: the loss of women's reproductive rights in many states; the rampant racism in Florida and other places; the fact that the NSA has been electronically spying on Americans (and that Canada, being an ally, was involved); the increased militarization of US police forces; and the US drone strikes. Even though these are policy issues that have very little to do with the ordinary people in the US, my head got caught up in all these events and I transferred my feelings about them into paranoid stereotyping of the people in the country. My apologies.

Atlantic Canada road trip, part 1

We returned on Tuesday from a 12-day road trip to and from Atlantic Canada. I'd have mentioned that we were going away before we left but it didn't seem like a good idea to say to the world that we wouldn't be home. Not that so many people read this blog but we felt that it would be better not to take chances.

We decided to take our time driving there and back because we had Gozer with us and we weren't sure that she could handle being in the car for too long. Therefore, we limited our driving time to a maximum of six hours per day. We figured that even we had to make lots of long stops, we'd be on the road no longer than ten hours per day and with both of us driving, that would be no problem. As it turned out, Gozer is better in the car than we are! She could stay in the car for hours at a time but we didn't know that before we set out.

Today I'm going to talk only about the route we took and the three interesting challenges we faced but I'm not going to go into detail about what we saw or the things we visited. I'll save all that for the next post or two.

To make for a varied trip, we decided to drive through Quebec on our way there and through the US on the way back. I kind of feel weird about going through the US because of the number of guns and the police climate there. We were careful to stay near the speed limit or with the flow of traffic so that the police had no reason to look at us. Weird, I know, but there it is.

On the way there, we stopped in Gananoque, ON; then Levis, QC (a suburb of Quebec City); and on the third day we ended up in Fredericton, NB. After leaving Gananoque we encountered our first challenge: we'd left our laundry bag behind with the clothes we'd worn the day before. Although I called the hotel the next day, they haven't called me back to tell me they found it.

In Levis, we had our second challenge: I broke my glasses. The left temple snapped off of the front frame between the hinge and front frame and since the frames were acrylic they couldn't be fixed. I temporarily taped them together that night and the next day Ian got some Krazy Glue and strong tape. For the rest of the trip I rocked the hipster taped-up glasses look.

After Fredericton we made our way to Moncton, NB, where we stayed three nights while we explored the Bay of Fundy, Moncton, and PEI. On our first full day there, after spending time over at the Bay of Fundy, we developed a flat tire - our third challenge. We did buy the roadside assistance but it would have taken an hour to and hour and a half to get a tow truck to us and we were tired and hungry after overdoing it that day. So Ian successfully changed his very first flat tire :) This challenge took a lot of our time since we had to spend the next morning getting the old tire fixed; I'd wanted to swap cars but none were available. We had planned to go to PEI that day and we still managed to do that even though we didn't get to spend as much time as we'd hoped to spend there.

Fortunately, that was it for challenges and the rest of our trip was smooth sailing. Or driving. Once we finished up in and around Moncton, we headed to Halifax, NS for two nights so that we could explore the region around Halifax and the city itself. From there, it was homeward-bound through Portland, ME and Liverpool, NY.

I know that this sounds like a lot of traveling and driving but it turned out to be not too bad. Ian did most of the driving while I read or napped but I was ready and willing to drive whenever he was tired or migrainy. We stopped every couple of hours for a bathroom break and to stretch our legs. We managed to not exhaust ourselves by driving which meant we had lots of energy to spare when we were walking around looking at stuff. More on that next time.

Me and my anti-depressant

It's been quite a while since I've posted here. True, nothing much has happened, but that hasn't stopped me from posting before.

I think part of it is that I originally started this blog to talk about living with cancer and, well, it's been seven years since that all started and I'm still alive and stable. I don't think about the cancer most days because it isn't part of my daily life. And I kind of feel like so much of my life isn't worth writing about, you know?

As it happens, I do have something to write about now. After taking 30mg/day of my antidepressant Cipralex for seven years, my family doctor has finally agreed to let me start tapering down on the antidepressant. I'll be reducing 5mg/day every six weeks until I can't handle it.

I've thought a lot about this and I wanted to approach this responsibly. I talked to my psychologist and she suggested that I monitor how I'm doing by rating my anxiety and depression out of a scale of 0-10 (0 is none and 10 is the worst possible) each day as well as counting the number of chores I don't do, social commitments I back out of, and sleep I get each day. Then each week I'll rate other specific questions about how I'm doing. This way, I can chart how I'm doing, and if I start not doing well then I can stop the taper.

Apparently I'm taking higher than the recommended maximum dose and my doctor wants me to at least go down the maximum recommended dose. If I need more than the maximum for this antidepressant, he'll switch me over to Wellbutrin.

There's part of me that would love to go all the way down to zero so that I don't need to take the antidepressants anymore. I don't know if that's possible since I've been on this one for so long. My psychologist said that my brain might not be able to go back to normal after being on this high dose for so long. If I can't go to zero, I can accept that; as much as I'd like to do that, I know it might not be in the cards for me.

So we'll see what happens. Let's hope this works!

It's been a tough month

This last month has been tough. My friend Steph C's death left me devastated because it was so unexpected. It really was. Normally I have an idea about when someone is getting really close to the end because of the things that happen to them; the decline is there if I want to see it (and I almost always would rather bury my head in the sand), so the end, even if it happens quickly, is something I'm kind of expecting. Knowing that it's coming means I can sort of be ready when it happens; I'll still grieve, but it's a different kind of grief.

With Steph there was no decline at all. She had developed new mets, just like before, and was going for the liver biopsy to find out whether or not her tumour had changed. Apparently during the biopsy, Steph's hepatic artery burst and she died. About 1 in 10-12000 die because of the liver biopsy and there's just no way to prepare for that when it happens to someone you know. The kind of grief I felt was different than usual because I had to process the suddenness of the event. I imagine people whose loved ones are killed in accidents feel a similar type of grief - and of course that kind of grief is there when someone dies by suicide.

Compounding my grief over Steph was what would have been my mom's 65th birthday a few days later. Big grief events always seem to remind me of my mom and dad... it's like I feel the grief for them all over again. The grief for my mom and dad come up during different anniversary days. Some are more significant than others: my mom's 65th birthday would have been a major event even though now I don't know how things would have changed.

On top of all that was Father's Day. It's been five years since my dad died and I still miss him. I didn't do much for my dad for the day but I'd call him and we'd chat for a bit and I miss that.

So all of that grief and sadness all combined together to take me out for the last month. It's just been so overwhelming. I ended up seeing my psychologist early, which helped because I could talk it all out.

I also went to Steph's memorial service/celebration of life in St. Louis this past weekend. Going to that really helped because I was able to have some closure around her death. Being around so many other people who loved her and lost her was cathartic for me. I cried the whole time, of course, but I knew it was going to happen and I brought lots of tissue with me.

I think I'm feeling better now, or at least not quite so sad and devastated. I think next month is going to be much better.

My friend is gone

My friend Stephanie C. died last night. I sent her a facebook message this morning, went over to the mets support board, and found out that she had died the night before. I'm shocked and so sad, and I know I'm not the only one.

She had posted just last week that scans showed some progression in her liver with a bunch of new tumours. They were biopsying the tumours to see if they had the same markers and she would have had the results at the end of this week. And then somehow, something went wrong and she died. It was sudden and unexpected, even though she was facing progression in her liver, because she was posting and had contacted people as late as Sunday. No one yet knows what happened.

Steph was a wonderful, caring, compassionate woman and I already miss her terribly. She was my co-admin on our support board and I loved working with her. She was funny and talkative and always welcomed people with a kind word. She was just so nice and such a centered person. She was so open and loving and saw the best in people. I admired her and strive to emulate her because she was such a good person - one of the best I know.

She leaves behind her family, her husband, her kitties, and many, many people - including me - who loved her so very much. She will be dearly missed and it will take a long time to deal with my grief. Rest in peace, Steph. I love you.

Updated to add that my friend was featured in this news article. The Kadcyla she mentions is the last chemo she ever received; it didn't give her the results she had hoped it would, and her liver mets grew while she was on it. Oh, I miss her so much.