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Margot Update 88April 24 – Feeling very good today so, of course, tomorrow is doctor day again. Morning is blood work for Anemic Anastasia; afternoon is seeing Dr. J and maybe getting the stitches out. I cannot tell if Dolly is getting bigger again or if I am being paranoid. Will get her “checked out” tomorrow. Had a great weekend, was away doing Teacher Tina stuff and I stayed with a friend so that made it even nicer. Not tired one bit except for the usual stuff but nothing related to cancer or anemia. Yea! Hurray! Came home and became Greta Gardener, not too much, but I had to play in the dirt to renew my spirit! Feels very “Normal Norma” and that is a very good thing. I have a quote for you that I really like. It is from Brian Andreas, my absolute favorite (www.storypeople.com). I keep by my desk so I can see it all the time – “He taught me to run high on my toes. I will always remember his words: run proud & remember you are alive.” Isn’t that great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Plumbing Pamela (I am on a roll today with persona names aren’t I!) is sending along a tip from a friend. It is for constipation from all the drugs involved with chemo. I took four Senna-S every night and was fine. My friend said she took Phillips Milk of Magnesia, two tablespoons to get started and then one tablespoon daily to maintain the plumbing! She said it worked for her chemo group (people with whom you have chemo treatments). Others have sewing groups, painting groups and quilting groups, and then there are those of use who have chemo groups! April 25 – Well, poop. My blood has dropped a bit instead of going up! Not much, from 11.6 to 11.4 so not major but it is going the wrong way! Have to increase foods with iron and go again in two weeks. The nurse said sometimes it takes a year for the bone marrow to get back to normal !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I must ask the doctor about that! I didn’t have this complication last time with the chemo but I didn’t have treatment go on for such a long time either. I am going to eat so much iron they will be calling me Rusty Rose when I go in again and it will have nothing to do with the color of my hair! I am sure my blood will be rusty when they test it! On to Dr. J. Still have the stitches at the site of the drain hole. One more week. I have to find one of my old bras (I must have one somewhere!) and put it on every day to check if Dolly is staying the same size or growing again. This will take some doing as I have been Brazen Braless Betty since 2003! I can, however resume most of my old stuff except I have to favor my right arm for a bit longer. I will be digging in the dirt this weekend for sure! I think all of this is finally beginning to get to my darling hubby. He said he has forgotten what “normal” was ever like! It is a bit wearing on your nerves to never seem to have things get resolved. I feel for him but now there is nothing I can do about it but wait and eat healthy and be tested. I am sure this is how he has felt for the past four years, just standing by and waiting. Not so fun. April 27 – What a horrific experience I just had! Remember Dr. J told me to put on a bra each day to check and see if Dolly was getting any bigger? (She’s not.) Well, I dug around and finally found an old one from 2003. Industrial strength, underwire, three hooks in back – it was however, pretty beige satin – but I digress…………..I put it on and low and behold it fit perfectly! No odd gaps at the tips and the girls looked pretty good if I do say so myself. And then!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The girls began to panic! “Let us out! Let us out!” I could feel their desperation so I quickly removed the hated item and they immediately relaxed! They managed to convey this message to me - “Why would you want to do that to us again when there is no need? We stay perky all the time for you (except for those odd times when they either disappear under my arms or jump around when I staple or get ketchup from a pump dispenser) and we hate that thing and please, oh please, don’t make us wear that thing again!” I hastily assured them that I would only try it on for a moment or two each day for the next week and then never again. They assured me that in turn, they would stay perky forever for me so I would not ever, ever, ever, have to resort to the torture device again! Good to know we reached a compatible agreement! Off to get my hair color jazzed up and to get more spiky areas in my hair style! I’m back and I am gorgeous! At least my hair is! I told her I was looking way too much like “A nice lady” (a fate worse than death!) so she bumped me up a notch and I am redder than I have been for awhile and she just chopped away at my hair until I am Sultry Spiky Suzette! Red Hot Sultry Spiky Suzette! Now combine her with Brazen Braless Betty and what a combo you have! Do you know it had now been a whole year since my chemo has been over! Last year at this time I was getting ready to begin radiation. I must say I am much happier having to deal with Dolly and all her problems and Anemic Anastasia than contemplating radiation! So no complaints here – Whiny Whitney has been banished from my persona list forever! April 30 – Well……………….I am in big trouble now! I was playing Greta Gardener (I think I managed to be Super Greta Gardener since I felt so good) on Sunday and it was hot out and I was sweating and sweat was under “the girls” and so it wasn’t until later in the day when it cooled off and I was laying new patio bricks that I noticed that Dolly was wet underneath the fold of skin against my chest but that Polly wasn’t! Sure enough, I managed to open up that drain wound – with stitches still in place! Drats. Dr. J is not going to be happy with me at all. It’s not leaking much, but leaking is leaking. I will probably have to keep those stitches another week and have to go back to light duty! Geez Louise! He may have to sew me up tighter and use permanent stitches! However, everything else is going well! I am doing tons of artwork so am doing justice to my new studio! I have a museum auction piece going, a pen and ink on glass, a watercolor and submissions for an upcoming convention deadline! All going on at once but on their separate tables so I can just go from one table to the next and work away! Artist Annie is in full swing! Love it! Love it! Love it! May 4 – Saw Dr. J on Wednesday and he wasn’t mad at all, in fact he was quite pleased by how everything looked and took out the stitches! Whew! I was afraid he was going to yell at me for being stupid! Got out of that one, didn’t I! He said that no matter what, the stitches could not stay in any longer and that if it was all going to break open again it would do it with or without the stitches. Yeeooww, did getting those stitches out ever hurt! I just had to like there with my eyes squeezed shut, my body tensed and listen to him say, “Sorry.” Yikes! Geez Louise! The leak was just a small one and he told me to wear the hated bra for a few days to put pressure on the wound to see it that would help it heal itself. I just looked at him and he said, “What? Surely you can stand it for a few days!” Hmmmmpppfff………………..it’s not him that has to wear it, now is it! I agreed though, since if it is still draining by Friday (today) I would have to come back in and have it cut away and stitched up again and if that didn’t work then back to the hospital for outpatient surgery to have another drain inserted somewhere else to allow this one to heal! Since he put it that way…………………………. And now it is Friday and I have been dry since Thursday morning so I do not have to go to see him today, I can wait until next Wednesday which is blood work day anyway so I can keep all my doctor visits on that same day! Hurray! I am still wearing the hated bra for today, will forego the torture for tomorrow as I have places to go and people to see and do not want the lumpy bra look but will wear it again on Sunday when I do yard work. Then………………..off it comes, hopefully for good this time! The Twins have been complaining big time about all of this! Poor Harold is the patient now. He has bronchitis and had to have more skin cancers removed from his arm so his left arm looks like a mummy wrap! It is from all those years in the Florida sun with his arm hanging out the window of his car! What a poor baby! He is very stoic, only has local anesthetic and says it doesn’t hurt much but does like to be fussed over, especially in the manner of really good dinners! Off to the hairdresser again today. Decided it was still too long for me to be spiky! I look a bit like Ronald McDonald instead of Red Hot Sultry Spiky Suzette when I try it right now and that definitely is not the look I am after! It is sooooooooooooooooooooo nice to have enough hair again to be able to cut twice in a week’s time! I have been eating a ton of stuff with iron in it so am hoping that my blood work will have risen by next week. Truly I will be Rusty Rose! I will have to continue to go every two weeks to be checked since the deal was with my oncologist that if my blood count came up and maintained that level I could change to once a month instead of every two weeks. Bummer. Oh well, Wednesday’s are on my schedule now and I also run errands and do my grocery shopping so it really is not bad at all. I just wish they could do it without poking me with a needle! When are we going to advance to the stage that Dr. McCoy used in Star Trek! He just ran some kind of scanner over you or pushed against your skin and - Voila! – done! Speaking of Star Trek – I have an observation to share and must tell you that I am not the only one to have noticed this. You know those electronic thingees that people are wearing in their ears that look really tekky/techie (how DO you spell that?). Well if you are a Star Trek fan you will understand. They look to me like they are being assimilated by the Borg, a race of half human- half machine that is trying to invade the universe! Makes me uneasy every time I see one of those devices!
Until next time, Margot a.k.a. Perky Polly - Keeper of the Perky Twins, Anemic Anastasia, Teacher Tina, Super Greta Gardener, Normal Norma, Plumbing Pamela, Rusty Rose, Brazen Braless Betty, Red Hot Sultry Spiky Suzette, Whiny Whitney and Artist Annie. If you have any questions please email me | |
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