Daughter Is Moving On

My daughter and her friend found an apartment today that they're moving in to next month.  It's in the town an hour away where her fiance' lives.  I completely support her doing it - but I sure will miss her.  I will truly be alone in this house then.  The way things are now, she's gone a lot, the days she is here she works 3-11 so I don't see her much anyway - but I DO see her and I know she's going to be coming home.


But - I think this will be better for me next year after the wedding.  It would have been a double whammy of after wedding blues if not only was she married and the whirlwind of the wedding over, but I was also having to get used to living alone.  She lived away from home for two years right after high school, but of course Ex was still here then.  And that was also when I had cancer, so I really didn't have time or energy to focus on her being gone!


I go to her future home town quite often and for now at least, she'll still be working 20 miles away, so I'm sure I'll see her plenty and thank the good Lord for cell phones!  (Brain cancer, shmain shmancer)  The really good thing about it is her DAMN DOG will go with her.  I love that dog and hate it at the same time.  As it is, I'm having painters come for probably the next three weeks and the dog is going to have to go live with Ex.  She is SOOOO aggressive with strangers - I've just worried to death about her biting someone.  She's so sweet with us - but she is a very spoiled dog who doesn't mind me at all - and it's been quite embarrassing.  Ex lives out in the middle of nowhere so she should do well out there.


I'm going to go stay at my parents for a few days next week while my bedroom is being painted.  That will certainly cure me of any need to live with someone!!  I love them very much and they're great - but once you get used to living away - it is very hard to go back!  Especially with my very strong willed father - who when he goes to bed, thinks everyone in the house should go to bed.  Although since he's lost a lot of his hearing, that's not as bad as it used to be!


So, I'll watch my daughter as she gets together stuff to move and I'll share her excitement for her.  Then we'll see what the next chapter will bring.

Spring Cleaning & Divorce

After months and months of procrastination - I'm cleaning out closets, drawers, clutter catcher corners... and it's been pretty thought provoking.  I'm getting the inside of the house painted and new carpet - so I've been forced to get off my ass and clear stuff out to get ready for that.  And it's made me realize that I wasn't quite so over things as I thought... but it is helping me get there.

Our My master bath has double closets - his & hers.  My stuffed to the gills closet has all my winter stuff, coats, "vacation" gear etc.  Until today, I hadn't moved one single thing into his empty closet.  I'm sure there's all sorts of psychological truths in that!  He's been gone since November 12th - over six months.  I can certainly put some of that off on pure laziness - but when the weather got warm - why didn't I start putting just washed clothes into that closet?  I think it's just the finality of it - I have a his and hers closet and no "his".  

And what do you do with old pictures of you and your ex?  What do you do with the cute framed picture of you and your bridesmaids wearing funny glasses at your wedding reception?  He's not it in - but it's your freaking wedding reception!  What do you do with the framed family pictures?  We WERE a family, we still have a beautiful daughter together - but I really don't want those sitting around on display anymore.  What about the big group photos with my brother and his family and my parents?  The snapshots of his family?  The sweet birthday cards and notes from when I had cancer?  They were real, they meant something - but what do you do with them now?  I've realized while going through this that I still have a very funny "card" he gave me for Valentines under my plastic desk protector at work where he cut out pictures from the funny papers and put his own captions in.  It was so creative - it was so the best of Ex.  How can I toss that away now?  I guess I should at least get rid of it there - but where do you put that stuff?  

I finally decided to keep the group photos - but in the living room - and give the 3 person family pictures to daughter.  I found a picture of just the two of us taken as we got off the boat on the cruise we went on for his 50th birthday and threw it away.  Who wants it?  It was the last New Year's we were together - a New Years that I later found out when we were docked in Key West he was texting a "friend" who was a woman- and telling me he was texting his buddy.  I don't believe he ever cheated on me physically - but he did mentally.  

I've thrown out three bags full of trash in just my bedroom and bathroom and have so far got two bags full of clothes.  I look through my clothes and just shake my head at some of them.  In just the last six months, my style has changed so much.  I have things in there I bought last October that I wouldn't be caught dead in now.  Old lady clothes - fat, matronly, do-not-think-of-me-as-an-object-of-desire clothes.  Happily, some of this is because I've lost weight (which has started falling off FINALLY!)  But I look at so many things and remember how I hated the same old plain blue polo shirts ex ALWAYS wore - and think - how much of my same dowdy looking clothes did he hate?  I, of course, told him I was sick of them - he, of course, never said a word....typical of our whole marriage.

But as I go through this stuff and make decisions - I'm also putting things away in fresh, new containers.  I've got cute organizer trays and clear boxes and am making the closet worthy of a before and after makeover.  I'm getting together the stuff to completely redecorate my bedroom once the new carpet is in and the painting is done.  I'm decorating it exactly the way I want it.  Ex never had any opinions on that - but so many of my decorating decisions were based on keeping something clean and not on what I truly WANTED.  It makes me very happy and I feel calm.  It makes me feel like I really am moving on.

No plans

I've got a very good friend, she's been one of my closest for years now - that bores me to tears lately.  What's up with that?  I can't decide if she's changed, if I've changed, if we've both changed???  She calls and I just cringe because I know she's going to talk about the same damn thing she talked about last time - which is all the stuff a friend of her has left in her home that she and her ex abandoned!  Obviously the woman is depressed and doesn't want to deal with it - but my friend went over there with her and gave her a check for a bunch of stuff that the girl didn't want anymore - mainly doesn't want to deal with - that yes, it's good stuff - but give it a rest.  She keeps calling her, "I just found this in this box - you don't want this?"  "Don't you want to E-bay this?"  Blah, blah - NO she doesn't.  She's told you 20 times now and if you feel guilty taking it - don't take it!!  Otherwise, take it and shut up about it.  Badgering a depressed person about that shit isn't going to change a thing.  And telling me over and over and OVER about it isn't going to change it either.  UGH!


I'm dying to go do something fun this weekend.  Have Monday off and absolutely no plan - except of course boring friend invited me to come to the city and hang out at her place and stitch - and as desperately as I want to do something - I don't want to do that!!  If I stay home, I've GOT to start de-cluttering and getting the house ready for the carpet guy and the painter - DOUBLE UGH!  LOL!


What I really want to do - is take of to Disney World.  Seriously - I love Disney World and we used to go at least once a year if only for a day or two.  It's been almost 3 years since I've been - I'm Jonesing!  This is the part that sucks about being divorced and not having a relationship - finding people to do stuff with you.  Although I actually think I could have a pretty good time at Disney alone - or it could totally suck and remind me of all the wonderful trips we had as a family.


One thing I don't miss - this weekend is the Semi-Annual "ex's surname fest" where his whole family - most of whom are crazier than he is - at least he knows he's crazy are getting together in our hometown.  I'm so glad not to have to go to that!!! But I must admit that it has left a hole.  I've done that for so many years now - that Memorial Day just kind of snuck up on me before I realized I had no plans.  Daughter is working and I really don't want to be at home cleaning out closets and drawers by myself all weekend.

Reconstruction

Today I'm blogging about after the Civil War....


Haha - aren't I just cracking myself up?  No, I went Wednesday to consult with a Oncology Plastic Surgeon about finally doing reconstruction.  When I was diagnosed and treated almost seven years ago, I was told I had to wait at least two years after I finished radiation before I could have reconstruction.  Because of the kind of cancer I had - Inflammatory Breast Cancer - they don't want you to do anything that could hide any recurrence, especially in the skin.  So that would have been March, 2007 before I could do anything.  When the time came, my best friend, who had had breast cancer about the same time I did, had just spent the last 2 years having a NIGHTMARE of a time with her reconstruction.  It totally freaked me out and ex and I decided that I didn't need to do it.


 He was so supportive, "it doesn't matter to me, I'm just glad you're alive. Whatever you want to do, it is major surgery....blah, blah, lie, lie"  So as I've talked about before - he then tells me years later, "um - sorry, it did matter to me."  So I had started thinking about doing this even before we decided to divorce.  As much as anything, I'm sick of having to buy only certain kinds of tops that I can wear this huge, big strapped bra with that holds my prostheses.  I'm tired of being self conscious about it.  And now that I'm divorced - I'm SUPER self conscious about it and I know it had a HUGE part in me turning down Convention guy.  


So anyway - I am super excited about this.  I loved the doctor - he's partners with the guy that did my original surgery and he's the head of plastic surgery at the very prestigious hospital where I went.  I'm going to have what is called DIEP flap surgery - which is SOOO much better than what I would have done if I'd had it back when I first could have.  So once again - Yeah, God and his timing!  Basically, he gives me a tummy tuck (awesome!!!) by taking the fat and blood vessels from my lower belly and using that to make new breasts.  It's micro surgery because he will connect the blood vessels from there to the blood vessels in my chest wall.  I'll then have 2 more out-patient surgeries - one to "tweak" them and one to make a nipple.


It's an 8 hour surgery - Yikes - and will take 6 to 8 weeks to recuperate from - Double Yikes! so I'm nervous about that.  What's funny is this is much more major surgery than my mastectomies were.  The good thing is that this does not take muscle like the TRAM flap surgery that is what I would have had before so it's not as bad as that would have been.  I can't have simple implants because of having radiation.


But - he wants me to lose another 25 pounds.  I'm supposed to go back and see him in August and we'll see where we are from there.  He, like everyone else I've talked to, was very surprised about my polyps!  He agrees that they need to come out. 


So now I'm super motivated to lose weight.  On his scaled, I've lost 15 pounds from my doc's scales in January.  The pants I wore yesterday, that were part of my "fuck soon-to-be-ex" shopping spree last November were practically falling off of me.  So I'm going to start kicking it up at the gym and I'm cutting out all white foods.  My gyno and the doc that did the colonoscopy gave me pretty similar diets - although the gyno says double fiber wheat bread is okay and colon doc said no to bread.  I think I'm going to go with gyno on this - for one thing, it's so much easier to eat a sandwich at lunch then to figure something out without bread.  But also because she has pretty much followed her own diet since last October and lost a ton of weight.   


Now, I just need to figure out the timing!  I really wanted to go ahead and do this in the fall - but the damn polyps are going to use up my Flexible Spending money and so I'd have to come up with a HUGE co-pay out of pocket.  But if I wait until January - I'm afraid I'll be cutting it too close to daughter's wedding to be able to enjoy it!  


Oh, well, I'll think about that tomorrow at Tara.

Gotta' Love Hot Young Men!

Ahh - back from an awesome beach trip.  After a beautiful day on the beach Saturday, we started the party at sunset and didn't come home until sunrise!  The night was like some sort of movie - moving from one crazy scene to the next - but nothing bad like they usually have in the movies!  No one woke up with a tattoo on their face or a broken tooth or a naked Chinese man in the trunk!  Too much to even detail here - but...


The overall theme of the night - was HOT * YOUNG * MEN!  We didn't buy a drink all night long.  Every place we met there were cute, fun guys dancing with us, flirting with us and buying us drinks.  And I'm talking about women the youngest of whom was 36 - the oldest was me @ 50.  Where were these guys back when I was a hot, young women?  Were they out chasing old ladies like me back then?  None of them were over the top drunk, none of them were pushy or inappropriate - and they took no for an answer without turning into dicks when they wanted us to come back to their rooms with them!  


What is apparent to me now - at 50 - is that they were basically looking for the same thing we were - to have a good time with no commitments, no pressure, no girl who thinks she's found the love of her life in one night. I've got to give it to these young men - they're smarter than we are at how to have a good time without breaking their hearts or ours.  


Once again - I have a crazy week and will probably not post again until Friday at the soonest.  I go tomorrow to see the plastic surgeon about my reconstruction.  But I'm more than likely putting it off until January now that I have to go get all those damn polyps removed.  Then a meeting all day out of town.  So good night blogging world for now.

Colonoscopy - written May 12th

Okay - today I had my first colonoscopy.  Partly because I'm 50 but also because I've been having recurring diarrhea problems.  The colonoscopy was a piece of cake - the prep - OMG - IT SUCKED.  Won't go into ALL the disgusting details - but after sitting on the toilet from pretty much 6:30pm to 2:30am  with a short break in between drinking the crap I had to drink - I was peeing lemonade out of my ass.  Literally.  And I now know where the expression "that really chaps my ass" comes from - because my ass was CHAPPED.

But anyway - had it done - no polyps, everything looked good and life is wonderful, right? 

WRONG!

 I ALSO had an endoscopy.  That's where they go down your mouth into your stomach.  I've had acid reflux for a while and they thought they ought to take a look.  I really thought it was overkill when they said they wanted to do it - but I have a freaking $500 co-pay for an outpatient procedure - so might as well get more bang for the buck, right?

I had over 300 polyps in my stomach!  THREE HUNDRED!  My doc - who has his own endoscopy center and does this stuff ALL DAY LONG and is at least my age if not older - said he'd NEVER seen that many, EVER.  That it was a record for him at least.  He removed 79 today - but was afraid to remove anymore because he'd remove one and two more would come with it and start bleeding.  So I have to go back in 2 months and will probably have to go back at least one other time besides that.  

The good news is that he doesn't think they are cancerous or even pre-cancerous - YET.  But they have to come out before they turn cancerous or start bleeding (some of which were) and I have a freaking hemorrhage.   He's sent them off to be biopsied and I'll know for sure next week.

WHY AM I SUCH A FREAK?  WHY DOES THIS WEIRD SHIT HAPPEN TO ME?  I didn't just get breast cancer - I got Inflammatory Breast Cancer - which I'd never even heard of before I got it.  I don't just have a polyp - I have 300 POLYPS!!  I didn't even know you got polyps in your stomach - and apparently the most anyone I know has ever heard of was 10 - 12.  I'm probably going to be in the New England Journal of Medicine!  Or the Ringling Brothers Freak Show.

UGHHHH  - I know I'm being dramatic - but DAMN!  I am tired - no sleep last night then had to be out of the house by 7:30 a.m. to be there in time and then THIS?

Plus - had a hiatal hernia - which is probably what caused the reflux.  He said that he's seen polyps form because of acid reflux medicine before - but nothing like this.  I was so dazed I didn't even ask if I should have the hernia fixed, quit taking the medicine, how long have they been there???? They're supposed to call tomorrow morning and check on me so I'll ask all that then.

Anyway - I'm going to the beach tomorrow come hell or 300 polyps.  I can't drink tomorrow - but they said I'd be fine for Saturday.  I can't drive all the way to PC tomorrow - but my friend is going to drive the car.  I'm going and I'm going to have a blast and to hell with the damn polyps or the damn biopsy.

Busy Week!

Probably not too much posting this week - I'm going to the beach again!! YEAH!!  But having a colonoscopy and endoscopy Thursday.  Worked until 7:30 tonight to get stuff done before I go (and go and go and go) But not sure how much I'll be able to do tomorrow and know I'll be out of it Thursday and gone Friday, Saturday and Sunday!  


Called and reserved the place for daughter's wedding today.  I've been very excited about her engagement and so happy for her - reserving the place made it real though.  Real that my daughter won't be living with me again.  I've been lucky to have her so close for so long - and she'll only be moving 50 minutes away.  But future son-in-law is in TV - and I doubt if she'll be that close forever.  Daughter and I have always been very close - even when she was a kid - but I'd say she's my closest friend in the world.  I can talk to her about just about anything - the only things I didn't talk to her about were things about her Dad and some of the things he's said that hurt me so badly.  


But that's what's supposed to happen, isn't it?  Your chickees grow up and start their own life.  Thank God for cell phones and unlimited calling plans!  At least we can talk everyday no matter where she ends up.


This beach trip is the big "girls" trip with 10 of us going!  TEN!  There's already been stupid drama today but it got settled before it ruined the trip.  It doesn't matter how old you get - there are always little pot-stirrers, drama queens, jealous brats etc!  I just tried to stay out of it and let it settle itself!