But do you love me enough...

to help me move? It has been STRONGLY recommended that I consider just up and moving on Oct. 1. I should use my October rent payment as a deposit and first month's rent on a new place in the $600/month range. Of course, the person who is strongly suggesting this has no plans to help me physically move, just offered to drive me around town to view apartments. I am being told I am stubborn and too attached to my shit to stay put in an apartment I cannot afford to live in while I am unemployed and don't have a roommate. I agree. I also find the whole idea of packing, selling, moving, even half my shit, to be overwhelming and exhausting in nature. I would have LOVED to move Sept. 1 so as to never have to worry about the roommate issue again, but as most recall, I was in the nursing home for weeks before the first, making apartment hunting and moving a REALLY hard option.

Although I am not too worried about the landlord coming after me, I worry about getting approved to move into a new place. It is my understanding and experience that being unemployed and broke is the last thing a landlord wants to see on the application. There are some places that will let you move in with a non-refundable fee and no deposit, no application fee, but that still doesn't deal with the physical move itself. The cost of moving is never cheap and I have JUST ENOUGH to pay the rent and deposit with not a dime extra to pay for a moving van, let alone the movers to move my shit. It has been suggested I just pack my necessary stuff and move whatever my friends will help me move, and abandon the rest.

I understand that by staying I am simply putting off a possible eviction if I don't get a job AND a roommate, but is moving really, truly, honestly an option? Am I being stupid to stay? Does anyone love me enough to want to really move me in a week or three? Really? I am asking for feedback. The mere thought of all this makes me want to cry but I hate being broke in a place I cannot afford and only rented because I thought the boys were moving home. I love this place, but I am totally realistic in knowing that it won't get better by just postponing the possible inevitable.

The little head

Last week I felt an itch on my back. It is in the middle of my back and I was unable to reach it no matter how I stretched. When I looked in the mirror I noticed something resembling a pimple on my back. Needless to say, it is now huge. I would say it was the size of a second human head, but I would be only slightly exaggerating. It is the size of a quarter and it hurts like all hell. I had the nurse at the VA look at it yesterday and she confirmed it was just a pimple run amok and not a second head sprouting from my back. She recommended hot compresses and waiting it out.

The news flash on hot flashes

For those of you (read men) who have never experienced a hot flash, let me tell you, it is like getting punched and pulled at the same time. Apparently my "hormone therapy" pills, that I am supposed to take for the next 5 years, cause hot flashes. Or, if they don't cause them, they certainly make the experience more intense. It is like a lave flow that starts somewhere in your trunk and moves to the top of your head. I don't know about anyone else, but I can feel them coming on and it makes me want to yell, "hang on, we got another one coming", every time it happens. I used to joke and refer to them as "power surges" and that is actually what they feel like. All I know is that if I didn't take my sleeping pill at night, they would be strong enough to knock me out of my bed. With the sleeping pill I appear able to sleep through most of them. Five years of this huh? Makes one wonder if the cure is not worse then the disease at times. Oh well, time to start researching a natural remedy for the hot flashes that don't manage to spike the levels of estrogen in my body that the pills work so hard to suppress.

Damn them!

As anyone with tomato plants knows, this has been a lousy summer for tomatoes. It seems it has not been hot enough to get the tomatoes to ripen. I FINALLY had one large beautiful looking slightly pink tomato that I have been watching for weeks now. I found it laying on the ground today. Those damned squirrels took a few bites from it and left it to rot. Damn them! Did I mention I now have the cutest looking baby squirrel begging for nuts as well as good old Chippy? It is the cutest thing. Apparently its mother never taught it to bury some of the nuts because he just likes to sit out there and eat them. Miss Kitty thinks it looks adorable as well, or is that tasty?

Fatigue. Lately I have been more tired then I recall being with chemo. It is not just a day or two once a week, but a long-term lingering sort of fatigue that seems to take me over. I am desperately trying to decide if this is some sort of mild depression, being jobless and all, but I don't think it is because as many times as I was jobless in the past, it never manifested itself like this. Prior bouts of melancholy were more mental in nature and not really physical at all. I believe there is a huge difference between being lazy and being physically tired. Either way, I really, really, really need to get back to work.

What is it about men and finishing things?

I had my follow-up at Hines today for my tooth. The dentist stated that even though it had broken, it should be saveable. The partial root canal the dentist started two weeks ago was supposed to be finished today. Instead, they did a partial root canal, AGAIN! I have no idea what they did last time, except it involved drilling holes. This time, they took the broken portion of my tooth out and then drilled some more. I am waiting for them to call me to schedule a time to finish the job, but not holding my breath.

The best laid plans...

This was supposed to be the very first week in months that I had no plans, intentions or appointments at the VA. Wrong! On Thursday afternoon, I broke the tooth that had a partial root canal done 2 weeks ago. I was able to make an appointment for Friday morning. Once at the dental clinic, they took an x-ray, or three, and informed me that I was not entitled to the care I needed, meaning a full root canal and a crown. So, my best bet was to come back on Tuesday and see the dentist who had done the partial root canal and see if he planned to maybe make the whole thing happen, if ya know what I mean.

My other option is the visit the UIC dental school clinic. They don't quote prices, but it is supposed to be much cheaper then a real dentist. The down side is that they require payment in full on the day of service. If I am going to lose my home for failure to pay rent, might as well be to save my teeth...LOL Keeping our fingers crossed the job come through in the next two weeks!

Wow, time flies.

I bumped into a friend on the street the other day who inquired as to whether I would be attending a friend's birthday celebration over the weekend. My response was one of surprise because I was convinced we had just celebrated that birthday no more then 6 months prior. When he insisted it had been a year, it hit me square in the chest like a ton of bricks. It HAD been a year almost since the first mammogram on Sept. 27, 2008.

The first mammogram was done on a Saturday morning at Loyola and I knew when they called me back on Monday morning at around 8:30 am for a follow-up mammogram that the news was not good.

I have now spent almost the entire last year with my head down looking a just the next step in the path and never once considering the amount of time or distance to the end of the race. I was focused solely on making it through each little ordeal and over only the very next hurdle. It was almost a month between mammograms and another month, almost, until the biopsy. Through both surgeries, chemo, and then radiation, I never once looked up to see how far I had gone or how far I had yet to go.

Last night, during a conversation with a stranger about the whole journey, I was asked if I had learned anything from all this or if this had changed me. I had to admit I had not really thought of much of anything except for surviving until the next step. I did learn that I could endure almost anything (think horrifying experiences with needle biopsy and MRI), and to try desperately not to panic or worry but to merely go along when times are really rough, but I supposed I should sit back and see if I really "learned" anything from this.

I guess time really flies when one is riding the gravy train. Now that I am finally looking up and looking forward, I need to set some life goals and work towards achieving instead of merely surviving. Today is the first day I don't have to worry about what next. What a long strange trip it's been.

DONE! and it is like a sunburn

I have FINISHED all 28 doses of radiation so I am finished with all of my treatments except for the next 5 years of Tamoxifen. I take 2 pills once a day for the next 5 years. It is an anti-hormone treatment for post breast cancer patients.

I am happy to report that I only started to feel like my chest was sunburned Thursday night. It was the first night in ages I went to sleep without a bra on for support. When I woke up in the morning, it was the first morning I still felt sore and my boob was still a bit red. I am still tired, but at least the sunburned part was kind enough to hold off until the end, and yes, it is the end. Last night my friend and I celebrated with pulled pork tacos and champagne.

Yes, really!

Yesterday I received a phone call from my landlord wanting to know why I told the building manager to show my apartment for Oct. 1. I told him I had NOT told the manager to show the apartment, as I understood I had a signed lease, but to do what he had to do to protect his own interests. The manager had told me that the landlord was not acknowledging my lease. The landlord apologized for the miscommunication and informed me he was glad I was staying. I was shocked by the phone call, to say the least.

Stupid me, I thought that was the end of the whole lease issue. Today the building manager called me to inform me he would be showing the apartment tonight at 6:00pm if that was ok. NO, that was NOT ok, the landlord already agreed I had a signed lease. I am sitting here chuckling, but it really isn't very funny.

It goes...

This last week of treatment has been a pretty quiet week for me. My friend has been kind enough to let me borrow her car a few days so my long commute is not every day and I just look at it as exercise and a chance to read.

The one thing I finally noticed, or rather, really paid attention to, is the fatigue. I find myself coming home from radiation and sinking into the couch after I am finished puttering around the house. By 8:00, I am half laying down and by 9:00 I am ready for bed. I figure that because the forewarned side effect of blistering sunburn to my chest area did not occur, that I was immune from any and all side effects. As I lay in bed last night, it hit me that I was not symptom free, but that I had just chosen to ignore the worst one. So, armed with that knowledge, I am cutting myself some slack and not beating myself up over the fact that I am not ready, willing or able to start training for a marathon.