Thursday, February 25, 2010

Bad bad wife

Today, I had an infusion treatment. It's been a month since my last treatment and over 2 months since I had the chemo pump to wear at home. I was afraid this treatment would be hard on me. I left the clinic just 2 hours ago and I am already starting to feel some side effects. My chest feels very heavy and I am extremely tired. I figured I will write tonight because I am not sure how I will be feeling tomorrow. Plus I have something fresh on my mind I would like to share. My supposedly loving and adoring wife abandoned me at chemo today. She chose our 7 year old son over me. I sat there alone and waited and waited for her to show. She said she was going to do a little shopping at Target which is next door. I thought maybe she would be gone an hour at the very most. Unfortunately for me, one hour turned into two and two turned into three. I sat there sad and lonely, wondering if she would ever return, realizing now that I may be an orphan. I was left there to sit there and ponder how will I get home if she didn't pick me up. Plus, I was wondering how could she choose Zachary over her handsome, sexy, hardworking, compassionate, understanding, sexy, devoted, sexy and ect, ect.............. husband. She did manage to call me and tell me Zachary had called her (by the way he has memorized mine, Sally's and Michael's cell phone numbers) crying because he missed her. So she left to be with him.When ever I call her sobbing saying how I need her and miss her, all I ever get is get over it. I was almost in tears and had nurse Angela almost in tears telling her how sad and lonely I was. I work hard to bring home a pay check so Sally can go out to lunch with her friends, eat chocolate bon-bons, read romance novels( she isn't even a book reader), relax at the spa, take long bubble baths( even though she doesn't like baths she prefers showers), and lives a life of a queen in a cardboard box for a house), And how does she reward me? She ditches me. My eyes and nose are red and swollen for the river of tears that are streaming down my face( not from the booze that I have been sneaking-please don't tell my devoted compassionate and loving until today wife). But yet, I know she has everyone fooled and no one is going to believe how terrible she is to me. Please keep this quiet, I don't want to get locked up any more.

Enough about my pathetic life and being second class to my wife. I think everyone enjoys the stories about our kids better. The other day we were talking and Sally mentioned she hated her name because it's old fashion and very few people in her age group have her name. She told Zachary that is why we gave him a cool name. Zach said he didn't like his name(" Oh hell no", I said to myself). Sally asked him what he wished his name would be. Zach replied "Big Belly Button". He honestly said this and I don't know why. The next day I addressed Zach as Big Belly Button and he got mad at me. This happened about a week ago or so. I would every once in awhile address him as big Belly Button. So today Zach was playing with some of his Christmas presents that he got. A Star Wars light sabre and a Star wars gun that he got from our family friends Ron and Lynn. Zach was twirling his Sabre and shooting his gun. He was really getting into it. I had to say "Hey,Big Belly Button tone it down a little bit, you might break something". He came to me and said that he was "Master Zach" and preceded to clock me in the melon with his light sabre(he didn't hit me hard)." Why did you do that"? "Cause I am Master Zach. I'm going to have to remember that so I don't get beat up any more.

Kaity keeps getting cuter and cuter. Just when I think she can't get any cuter she does. We no longer help Kaity with her showers.Most kids her age and a little older will play in the shower. She takes her shower time quite seriously. In fact she cleans herself better then we would. She cleans herself better then I clean myself. She scrubs every nook and cranny of her body even the bottom of her feet and under arms. She is so clean we could serve our food on her instead of our fine china (she is probably cleaner then our fine china, if we had fine China).
Sally and I took her and her baby doll out for lunch today. We usually go out for lunch or breakfast depending on my appointment time. She kept asking me "Do you like it?" after each bite I had. Remember how Kaity pulled grandma's baby lashes out? Well..... Sally was in the shower and when she came out Kaity was sitting in the living room on the floor with her doll. She had scissors in her hand. Sally looked down and there was clumps of hair on the carpet. Sally said "Kaity no! That is naughty!" Sally grabbed the doll to see how much damage was done. The doll was from Santa and Santa (Sally) spent hours researching dolls to make sure she gets the "right" one. Sally is more attached to the dolls then Kaity is. I would not be surprised if I found out she played with the dolls when no one is looking. Sally realized the doll's hair was fine which meant one thing. It was Kaity's hair. Kaity was crying and crying. She buried her head into Sally and then she ran to her crib and wanted to take a nap. I was working midnights but I woke up to Kaity's pathetic cry. Before she climbed in the crib she cuddled up to me and sobbed. During this time Sally was trying to examine the damage. Every time Sally would touch Kaity's hair she would get a clump of hair. Kaity finally had enough of Sally touching her hair and talking about it she pushed Sally away, climbed into her crib, buried her face with a blanket and cried herself to sleep. She did cut a bunch of hair but she did it in such away, it's unnoticeable to everyone else except for her mother who still makes comments every time she combs her hair .

I work this weekend. Sally and I have tickets to see "Noises Off "at the preforming Arts Center in Munster on Saturday night. Take Care and God Bless you all. I want to say thanks for all the words of encouragement from the friends and family that have been there and my new Facebook friends and the ones that I have reconnected with from past friendships and the good old high school days at Bishop Noll.

Sorry that there hasn't been any pictures posted as of late. Sally is having trouble with her computer. Hopefully it will be fixed soon.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

I am 45 years old now and proud of it!

It's funny how a little word like cancer can have such a huge impact on how you perceive life. When I turned 30, I thought I was old. When I turned 40, I was like I'm going to die soon( how little did I know how true that almost could have been). I didn't think I would live to be 40 honestly because I was sort of the wild child in my earlier days.I liked to go out with the boys.Hey,wait a minute the ladies too. Lets not forget about the ladies. I often look back and can't believe how I survived my stupidity at times. 40 seemed to be old and I felt life was down hill after that. Then I was diagnosed with the dreaded cancer. For sure 40's suck. But now I am glad to celebrate another birthday. I am looking forward to turning 50 and the 60's and even the 70's don't look so bad seeing how well my mom and mother in law are doing. Not to forget how I would like to be around to see how my kids turn out and I how I did as a parent raising them. Although I do have soon not so good news for Zach , that I willmention in a later blog. So hold on to your hats or ear muffs or whatever you have on your head.

My birthday always brings a lot of memories. Good and bad but I welcome them both. The good times reminds me on how lucky I am. The bad memories are just learning lessons that make me even more grateful for the good times. When I was young and foolish I got married on my birthday. I will never recommend to anyone on getting married on their birthday. The marriage was short lived and she was out by my next birthday( it was all her). I actually proposed to Sally the day before my birthday. It wasn't that I was trying to create new memories to wipe out my failed marriage. My birthday is 3 days before Valentine's Day which is the time everyone expects to be proposed to. Sally and I rarely talked about marriage. I did propose to her a month after we started dating but she just laughed at me, but I was serious. We were dating for over a year so I figured she might be expecting a ring on Valentines Day and I wanted to really surprise her. I put an add in the Times news paper and ask her and Micheal if they would marry me.I was hoping she would read it with me( my brother Mike did the same thing, that's how original I am). Instead someone at her work saw it and cut it out and put it on the time clock so she knew before I had a chance to get on one knee and show her the paper. I was the one with the surprise. Thank God, I was able to spare my knee.

Last year on my birthday was hard for me. I was given my dreaded diagnoses and prognoses a week before my birthday. Plus I was in a lot of pain from just being cut opened. I wondered if being 44 would be it for me. I must admit though I did get better gifts last year. I even had a cake plus cup cakes. Did I ever mention that I like cake.

This year my birthday was peaceful. Michael treated me to breakfast at Round the Clock. I had an omelete that was as big as a small island.I couldn't finish it. As I was eating it there was a lady watching me. I was thinking that I still have it, if I ever had it. This was going on for a while. I thought that she was admirring the masterpiece on my plate or the handsome chap eating the masterpiece. Before Michael and I left, I went in the restroom to clean my hands. I was in front of the mirror rinsing my hands when I noticed a catsup spot on my shirt( I like to mix catsup with my eggs). Now at that point I think I know what the lady was looking at. I went home to never be seen again ay least not there for a while. I later had to go to my mother in law's and shoveled her neighbors sidewalk, waering a ski as not to be reconized. When I finished I went home and took a nap. Sally and I later that night went to see "The Blind Side" followed by dinner at Giovonni's. They have the best spaghetti I have ever eaten. While we were waiting to order an older couple was seated at a table near us. They caught are attention because of the way they presented themselves they looked well to do and the fact they were pickering with each other. It kinda reminded me of ummmm, me and Sally,minus the well to do part. After hearing the waitress talk to them we realized the woman was Jewell Cadet who owns Rogers & Hollands jewelry stores.( Rogers and Hollands jewelry creations for now and forever) After dinner we went home and I had my cake and ice cream. Most people look forward to presents on their birthday for me it's the cake and ice cream part. Sally made a banana cake with chocolate cream cheese frosting. She served it with my favorite rock road ice cream. It was delicious.

God Bless you all and hope you liked this weeks blog. Next posting will be Thursday or Friday. Thank you for visiting.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Hide your dolls!!!

I promised I had a good story about Kaity last time. Well... Sally's mom had to watch Kaity back to back a couple of weeks ago. The first day she was there, Mary let Kaity play with one of her "special" baby dolls. She left the doll out for Kaity to play with the next day. Kaity was in the front room playing with the babies. She was very quiet so Mary thought it was a good idea to check on her( when a child is to quiet, it is time to investigate and hope it isn't to late). Kaity was on the couch with her back turned to Mary. When she saw Mary, Kaity bent over tried to cover up her wonderful handy work. Which was removing one by one all of the baby's eye lashes. Of course she couldn't do it to her much less expensive doll, she had to wait for Grandma's costly baby. Grandma of course was shocked to see and yelled a little. Kaity was heart broken. How could grandma yell at me, I am the cute one? She sat there with her head buried in the couch and sobbed. Silly Grandma felt bad and tried to bribe Kaity with candy, which didn't work. Grandma sat on the other end of the couch crying as well. Finally, Kaity realized the TV was on and turned her attention to the TV. She slowly started to be back to normal. Three days later, Kaity had to go to Grandma's again to be watched. Usually she loves to go there and doesn't want to go home. This time she said "Nooooooo!" "Grandma mean". Then she said baby and pointed to her eyes. Sally and I couldn't help but laugh at her. On the way there Sally told her to be good or she was going to pull out Kaity's eye lashes if she wasn't good. Kaity started to cry and covered her eyes. Now she will laugh when we mention it but she was scarred for a couple of days. We have to find a doll hospital so we can get Mary's doll repaired.

Right now our computer is on the fritz. Kaity turned the electrical strip off for the computer. Ever since, the computer is not running right. When we get the computer fixed I am hoping we can post a sound clip from Zachary's DSI. Zachary was recording and wanted to record Kaity. He kept telling his little sis to "say something" and then she would respond "say something". He would say," no Kaity Say something", again Kaity would respond," say something".After about ten minutes he started to get frustrated and moved on to making more weird recordings of himself and left Kaity out of it.

As for me, I am doing the same since last time which is good. I had the weekend off. I spent much of yesterday cleaning up around the house. Sally and two of her sisters went to a home party. Afterwards, they were going to have a couple of drinks. Sally told me that I should come meet them at the bar, so I could "pick her up". I get to the bar and she isn't there. I was standing there waiting and waiting. Finally, one of her sisters , Stacie came in and "picked" me up instead. After the first drink the sisters decided it was time to switch bars. So we went down the street. It's amazing what is revealed by 3 sisters who had a couple of drinks. I thought I knew everything about Sally and I was wrong. Some info I could have lived without.

Tonight, Zachary and I watched the Super Bowl. I had a feeling the Saints would win. It didn't matter to me either way which team won. I felt both teams were deserving to win. Sally made home made pizza and tempura vegetables for us. Even though she isn't a sports fan she wanted to make tonight special since last year I was in the hospital during the Super Bowl recovering from colon surgery.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Happy Anniversary

Just a little update to prove that I am still here. I have been working a lot because of the project that I was in last week and I worked the weekend because it was my weekend to work. I also picked up a shift last night, other wise I would have had only a 36 hour pay check. I go back to working in the morning and I am looking forward to having the weekend off.

We haven't heard any news about the kids and their blood work. We should have heard by now if something were wrong. Kaity was whimpering through out the night Sally had said. When I got home this morning she was crying because her leg and hand were hurting her. She isn't due to go back to see the doctor until her 3 year old check up in April but not sure if we want to wait that long. I will talk with the doctor about her when I go see him.

This morning I had an appointment with the oncologist. Sally usually goes with me but stayed home this time because Kaity was in pain. I went to register and found out my appointment was at 1:30 and not at 9:30 which I had thought wooops.I worked midnights and thought that I scheduled it earlier. Luckily for me, they squeezed me in. In the mean time I fell asleep in the waiting room. I woke up to a crowd of people hovering around me and drool running down my face, wooops again. The doctor is letting me skip treatment on my Birthday so I will have a month off. I am hoping to get into see the dentist during the time I have off. I couldn't get a cleaning last time because of the chemo treatment. Who would have thought?

Last week when I went in for an infusion, Sally dropped me off because she had Zachary with her. She and Zachary went to Target which is almost next door to the clinic. I asked Sally to bring me back a drink when she came back. Sally decided to drop off the drink before she took Zachary back home. Zachary has always asked if he could go to chemo with me. We had to explain he isn't allowed in the room because he is under 16. Sally took him with but told him he had to stay in the door way and he could peek in. As soon as he peeked in I hear nurse Stacey laugh and say " Little Bill!hahahahahahahahah". "Little Bill, hahahahahahahahahaha". I think Zachary was a little embarrassed because he hid his little face in my chest. At least he got to see where I go for treatments and that it wasn't scary.

Sitting during chemo sometimes gets boring. I am either with a group that likes to talk which makes it go so much faster or I am with a group that mostly sleeps. Those times I dread. It seems like the 4 hours are more like 8 hours. The nurses talk to me which helps but they can't sit with me during the entire time. When Sally is there it's better but if I have chemo on a day my mother in law is working Sally isn't able to be there. A couple of weeks ago it was one of those days. Sally didn't have a sitter for Kaity. Everyone that was receiving treatment was sleeping and I was bored out of mind. What does one do in this case? Well, I decided to provide my own entertainment on nurse Angelia's expense. The pumps have alarms on it to let the nurses know when the IV's are empty. When the alarm goes off the nurses drop what they are doing to see who's went off and to start the next unit of treatment. Me being my clever self, tried mimicking the alarm. Every so often I would make the alarm noise. Angela would stop what she was doing and tried to find out who's pump it was. Of course she couldn't find the unit but every time I made the noise she ran to look. It was hilarious. It was hard to sit there with a poker face. I knew even if I let out a slight grin she would catch on and my entertainment would be over. As soon as I walked out of there, I had to release my laughter. I finally had to tell Sally what had happened so she could understand the reason for laughter and not misconstrued it for me going mad. She is such a party pooper though. Even though she shared in the laughter with me, she confessed to the nurses of my dirty little secret. So I am going to have to find another way to entertain myself when Sally isn't there.

As I am writing this, I just realized that last week was my one year anniversary of the colon surgery and being diagnosed with cancer. Honestly, I didn't imagine life resembling it to be what is now. Meaning I figured in a year I would either be dead or very sick and bald. Well, before anyone comments on the bald part I was loosing my hair before I was sick but I am still not bald. Being close does not count. Not sure what it's going to be like a year from now, so in the mean time I will just enjoy my life for what I have and for what it is.

Thank you for visiting and God bless.
Stay tuned for my next blog. I have a story about Kaity and her special day with Grandma, or was it a special day.