I'm still standing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Lawdy people, it's been a rough month. But I am here, still fighting the good fight with just a few more chinks in my armor.

I've been pretty much a sick wreck for several months. Around Thanksgiving, I started feeling like refried poop. Achy, weak, intermittent chills and fevers. When I wasn't hanging around Cancerville clinic getting tanked up with blood or platelets (A process that sometimes takes nearly all day.), I was at home wrapped in blankets either on the couch or in the bed. Poor Adrian was having to juggled taking care of our whirling dervish of a child and his pathetic sick mess of a wife. I was a lifeless puddle of flesh. My small bursts of energy could carry me through the day, but I never felt like blogging, so apologies all around for keeping the theater of my discontent dark for so many weeks.

Turns out I have some sort of infection, a wicked little bacteria that resides in the same family as TB. My doc's got me on two kinds of antibiotics that seem to have kicked out the "feelin' craptastic" side effects. Yet, the infection decided to start playing house in my urinary tract. And we all know what fun a UTI can be. It's like this really bad joke: the UTI causes this nuclear blast of pain whenever I pee AND it also causes me to pee A LOT. Never knew the toilet could induce such a sense of dread. Plus, as anyone who's had a UTI can tell you, when you've got to go, you've reeeeeally got to go. Like now. Like right this very instant or you'll wet yourself. It's not an uncommon sight to see me dashing off to the bathroom doing the pee-pee dance like a four-year-old.

To cap off my loveliness, I developed a weird craving due to my whacked out taste buds (More on that later.) for ruby red grapefruit juice. I kid you not; I drank like a gallon in two days. Hey, you know what's one thing you're not supposed to drink when you have a UTI? Citrus juice. Know why? It exacerbates (you know, to make worse) the pain. Who's a BIG FAT MORON? Who spent the next few days afterwards going full retard every time she voided her bladder?

Good times. Still trying to get the UTI under control. I've got another antibiotic to start in hopes that we can finally chase away the last of the ickies.

Due to low platelets, I've been susceptible to weird bleeding. My legs are all bruised to hell. I bite my lip in my sleep and I've got a fat welt on my lip for days. I also had a bout with nose bleeds, especially at night. My pillowcase looked like a crime scene (Thank God for Oxyclean stain remover and a good washing machine.).

Then I picked up this snotty, bronchial thing that's been making the rounds. Of course since I have no functional immune system to speak of, I get the horrible consumptive cough. I was coughing so hard that sometimes I would wretch and heave. It was horrible. After coughing like a maniac, my stomach would then start spasming. Every time I did this in the presence of my cats, I honestly think they were waiting for me to hork up a fat hairball. The cough is finally starting to fade into the background; I no longer sound like a doomed heroine in some 19th century novel, wasting away in my bed coughing up blood into a lace hankie.

As for my treatment, the last round of chemo brought down the white counts in my blood slowly, but now they are back on the rise (Meaning chemo no work-o). So the doc is researching clinical trials at hospitals around the East Coast. But first, I've got to be free of this infection before I can be considered a candidate for any trial. I'll be on the move soon, just don't know when or where. Life is a highway, people.

There's the litany of most of the fun adventures I've been having. Needless to say, all my sickness has kept me from really getting into Christmas this year. I've gotten gifts, but nothing special or handmade like I prefer. I didn't even have it in me to make my annual Christmas mix for my friends. The house is mostly decorated. All my nativity sets are out on display, and The Mister did a great job hanging our Richmond Rococo-lite wreaths on the windows and wrapped the evergreen in front of the door in lights. But we don't have a real Christmas tree to speak of since I can't have a live tree in the house for fear I might get some crazy tree fungus or something. We do have a silly, lopsided table top tree with colored lights and no ornaments that is functioning as our substitute.

But I'm here with my family. That's way more important than any of trimmings and trappings.

And I've not crapped out on Cannonball Read but been piss poor with updating and writing my reviews. Here's what I've knocked out so far:

Book 21: The Darkest Part of the Woods-Ramsey Campbell
Book 22: The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse-Robert Rankin
Book 23: A Nearly Normal Life-Charles Mee
Book 24: Body Piercing Saved My Life-Andrew Beaujon
Book 25: Richard Matheson Collected Stories Vol. 3
And just finished Book 26-The Black Spiral: Twisted Tales of Terror

I am pretty sure this is where I stand; I'll have to check my bookshelf to confirm.

(Much props to the excellent Shawn of Texas and his care packages. Much appreciated and loved.)

I'm looking forward to a crazy Christmas with Little A and The Mister, hopefully feeling mostly human. And to the rest of you faithful readers who've been hanging around waiting for me to get my act back together, Happy Christmas. Enjoy the day, and in the immortal words of Christine Baranski in the holiday classic The Ref:

"Celebrate the birth of Christ, dammit!"

Pop Culture Cancer

Maybe I'm just more attuned to the slightest whisper of leukemia anywhere outside of my own sphere of existence, but it seems like leukemia is popping up everywhere.

First, in one of the books I read for Cannonball Read (The Road Home, a recent release), the protagonist is a widower who lost his wife to leukemia. And yeah, she was like 35.

Then there were new episodes of House where bone marrow biopsies are performed to rule out a leukemia diagnosis. The depiction of how a biopsy is done was ridiculously off the mark. I mean, hello! Where was the pathologist? Plus, in one of the episodes, House blurts out that a patient needs a bone marrow biopsy and that a donor had been found with such flippancy I almost choked on the absurdity of it all. Now I understand why my friend Dr. Kate gets irritated by this show. If it were not for Hugh Laurie...

Next was the latest Episode You Just Can't Miss of ER with Extra-Special Flashback Containing Dead Characters! In it, Angela Bassett's character (Okay, that woman looks like she was carved out of stone. Her skin is incredible!) remembers losing her young son in the ER. Now The Mister and I missed the bulk of the episode, but reading online, I learned that her son presented with seizures and vomiting blood. Then he died. Of acute leukemia. According to the synopsis online, they tried to flush out his white blood cells or something. Man, I wish I'd watched the episode now so I could have given it my stink eye of skepticism. Dr. Green told her it was "an unusual presentation." No joke.

Finally, there's a new French movie out,Un conte de Noël, starring Catherine Deneuve as the matriarch who's recently been diagnosed with...can you guess...leukemia!

I'm telling you folks; leukemia is the new black. It's the hot disease for the season. What can I say; I've always been ahead of the trend.

For those who are wondering, I'm doing good. I just saw my oncologist today, and we're in a "wait and see" period for this last round of chemo. Right now, I feel just fine, but my blood counts are low. Yesterday I got a unit of blood. As I type this, I am receiving my first of two units of platelets here in Cancerville Clinic. They are tanking me up to keep me going.

The blood drive was a big success. Much thanks to everyone who came out to donate, even if you didn't get a chance. At last I heard, they had collected about 44 units of blood (or somehwhere in the neighborhood). Yeah! You people are awesome!

My butt's numb

While I appreciate the doctor's efforts to reduce the amount of pain I feel during a bone marrow biopsy, I am not thrilled about the fact that I am numb from my butt all the way down the back of my leg to my heel on my right side. Makes me walk like I'm learning to use my limbs for the first time.

Today's biopsy is to gauge the success of my latest round of chemo (Blue ink!); we should have the results by tomorrow. If the results aren't good, like I've said, my doc has threatened to admit me immediately to start another round of something else. On Halloween. Like my favorite holiday, ever.

Sigh.

I love my life.

Also, Pajiba posted my book report for The Dud Avocado. Cruise by and read it. Then go read the book.

Brickmouth

I woke this morning to a freakishly huge swollen lower lip. It was gross. I've had a fat lip before, and this was worse. And the sores inside my lip had become excruciating painful. Eating breakfast, I felt like the Elephant Man.

Thank the good Lord that I have to wear a mask while I am in Cancerville Clinic so I didn't have to endure stares from people wondering who'd be so bold as to punch Leukemia Girl in the mouth. The nurses and nurse-practitioners all gathered 'round to give my lip a good stare. Kevin, the nurse-practitioner I normally see, asked me if I had anything for pain. After my "Nuh" reply, he asked if I wanted anything. My eyes went buggy as I nodded my head. When he warned me that the painkillers could make me constipated, I said, "Yuh. I cuhn deawl."

The swelling has gone down considerably since then, but I've still got this nasty red burn-looking sore along the inside of the lip. But I've also got some cream with which to treat the sore.

And my new friend.

Oxycodon.

Ahhhhhhhhhh. No more feeling like my mouth was scorched earth. Just feeling good.

What cracks me up about the trials and tribulations of my treatment is that I can't have the typical symptoms. Everyone always asks about nausea, which I've never had. No, I get a funky-monkey case of brickmouth. Nonconformist to the core.

My latest Cannonball Read book report went up today. Give Pajiba some traffic and read all about it.

And we'll all float on OK

Since coming home Tuesday afternoon, I've been reorienting, once again, to home life after a stint in the Big House. For the first few days, I slowly got through the typical case of "hospital belly" developed from sitting on my can too long and eating phenomenally non-nutritious and non-fibrous hospital food. Then there were the three or four days where my body just ached. Pains over most of my body making it annoying to wear clothes, sleep, or be touched. In the past few days, my mouth has erupted in pain and irritation. I have this swell looking red sore on the inside of my lip and the inside of my mouth feels like I've been rinsing with Agent Orange.

Now is it hard to understand why I am a wee bit on the grouchy side when I first come out of chemo? Can anyone question why it is sometimes hard for me to be a pleasant person? Good. But if not, I'll gladly light your inner lip on fire and then you get back to me about how congenial you feel.

What has been particularly difficult this time around with my treatment is that things are way more complicated than they were a month ago. This summer, my main focus was on fighting the disease, getting through the rough parts of chemo, and moving forward. Now I am fighting on multiple fronts against the fact that people are crappy and the world is sometimes bad place. It's not just enough to worry about treatment working but now it's whether or not I'll be able to even get treatment. Instead of just being concerned about how my stupid disease is affecting my family, I've got the added worry about how their basic necessities are going to be provided for. Swell. Like I need more stress.

I wear a bracelet inscribed with the words from Philippians 4:13, a verse any well-churched adult can probably quote at the drop of a hat: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Lately, I've been trying to tap into that strength. A lot. So it helps during the times when I feel like I am mired in the world's worst pit of black tar to look down and read those words.

Thursday I go for a bone marrow biopsy (Number 12! Or 13! I've lost count!), and I'll know the results by Friday morning. My doc has told me to be prepared that if the marrow is not clean (meaning Chemo Big Fail AGAIN), he will admit me on Friday to start more chmo. Happy freakin' Halloween folks. I'm thrilled as piss.

In less cancery news, I keep forgetting to post links to my Cannonball Read Book Reports. Last week, I reviewed Wicked. Check it out. One, two. One, two. More book reports to come.

Fancy New Digs

This morning I got checked into my new home for the next five or six days, room 126 in the new Critical Care Hospital, and man, is this room huge. Square footage-wise it might not be any bigger than the biggest room I inhabited on North Six, but it is just so spacious. There are two nice pieces of furniture, a loveseat and rolling recliner (This outta excite Little A.) with lots of moving around space. Compared to the closet-like accommodations I've had as of late, this is the freakin' presidential suite. The window's huge and offers a lot of natural light; the view is meh but I can people watch. My television (as yet untested-I am trying not to rot my brain too much) is a shiny new flatscreen, and the remote has actual numbers, not just an one-way channel surfing button. So I guess if I have to be confined in the hospital, away from friends and family, this would be the room to be confined to.

My chemo doesn't start until tomorrow which begs the question-why admit me now? Well, seems they want to pump me full of fluids to prepare my poor kidneys for the chemo and predicted side effects of said chemo (dead cancer cells) that will come flooding through them. The poison regimen this time around is a new to me-untried cocktail of chemicals. Apparently this particular flavor of loveliness is notorious for causing mouth and throat sores and diarrhea. AWESOME. With kicks like these, who wouldn't want to have cancer? I mean, come on people! Mouth sores! Diarrhea! It just doesn't get any better than this!

Honest to Jupiter, I am bored out of my mind. I know I could be writing the three book reports I owe Pajiba on my last three Cannonball Reads. It's not that I didn't like the books; I've enjoyed them all and recommend them strongly. In fact I just finished The Dud Avocado, and it's one of the most refreshing books I've read in a while. And it's fifty years old. But every time I open up Word, my brain goes into paralysis. I could even be writing for the three other blogs I supposedly write for, yet I can't cook up the words. So I've been browsing the internet relentlessly, IM'ing on Facebook, and walking the circuit of my new ward.

I still don't feel sick, but I think enui will be the death of me. Or I could just turn on the TV.

Oh and yesterday, while out the last of Little A's Halloween costume preparations, I asked my smacktacular son what Mommy should be for Halloween (Mister A is dressing up as a race car driver-big stretch.). His reply, "A princess."

Never in my life, folks, but for my son, I will be a princess.

My Spinal Tap

Last Friday, as they often do in Cancerville Clinic, my doctor sprung an exciting procedure on me: a spinal tap! Yippee! While not as common with AML, some forms of leukemia have been known to reoccur in the spinal fluid; as a precautionary measure, my doc wanted to perform a spinal tap to check for blasts in the fluid and to inject a tiny amount of chemotherapy into the fluid as well.

Yeah buddy, I've literally got chemo on the brain. Accounts for all the weird-o dreams I've been having.

When the nurse practitioner started to get set up for the procedure, he said to me, "So you've had one of these before, right?" I shook my head.

"What did you do when you had your son?" (He's referring here to epidurals.)

I gave him my best raised eyebrow and cock-eyed smile that said, "Crazy Woman."

"Oh." The nurse practitioner now thinks I am the biggest badass ever.

The spinal tap was actually less invasive than my bone marrow biopsies, and I got to see what my spinal fluid looks like (Water. So boring.).

I am beginning to get addicted to being poked.

This Thursday I am being held hostage by the bone marrow team for more pre-transplant tests and yet ANOTHER bone marrow biopsy. Goodie gumdrops.

If all continues to go well with me and these test results, I will be locked up for my long stretch in the Big House on October 2. The day before I will be getting another port inserted in the left side of my chest. Yee Haw. More holes. On the second, I'll start my first of six full body radiation treatments, followed by intensive chemotherapy. Then I get my transplant. Basically, the bone marrow team will kill me, and it's up to me to raise myself from the dead.

Sweet.

So for now I am trying to have a good time and enjoy my freedom, my family, and feeling healthy. The White Coat Folks have me on so many antibiotics that I swear I could spit on a wound and heal it. One of the antibiotics is actually used to prevent and treat anthrax. Who's rockin' the preparedness now? Another of my pills cost $200 for a 30 day (twice a day) regimine. That's after my insurance company kicked in $2,000. Da-Amn. Here's a stock tip: Buy Pfizer.

After several days of looking like a possum with mange, I am shaving off what little hair I have left. Back to the cue ball look it is. At least for the next few months.

For any of you awesome readers out there in the RVA area, this Friday night we're getting together at Dominion Shooting Range for some firearm-assist therapy, followed by dinner at Capital Alehouse. I've been jonesin' to fill a couple of paper targets with lead before this crazy procedure. Feel free to come and join my motley crew.

Oh and one more thing, I reviewed my fourth book in Cannonball Read, the highly popular The Shack, and it's up on Pajiba. Here's a little hint: I hated it. Read at your own risk.

Book 3 of 100

Apathy and Other Small Victories by Paul Neilan

Whenever I force The Mister to stop in the middle of reading whatever 19th Century seafaring novel he has in his hands so that I can read aloud a passage from my book, it usually means that my aforementioned book is pretty darn humorous. The more often I stop him is directly proportional to the book’s overall hilarity. Now when I can’t get through the passage I’m trying to read because I keep cracking up so bad the words coming out of my mouth sound something like “Ebid sheee. Iah. Ebid. Bwaw!”, well you get the picture.

Apathy and Other Small Victories did inspire a hysterical laughing fit at one particular scene, but not at every page’s turn. Still, it was otherwise amusing in a very above average sort of way.

Wanna know more? Slide on over to Pajiba.

Book 2 of 100

Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith by Rob Bell

The story of how I came upon this book is somewhat convoluted. Normally, I don't read a lot of religious books because to be honest I find a lot of them overly sentimental and treacly and frankly, not my thang. Another resident of LeukemiaTown told me about these spiritual shorts out on the 'net, called NOOMA. This guy swears by them and encouraged me to watch them. I cannot attest to the quality or power of these films because I am ashamed to admit I haven't seen a single one. Yeah, slackah.

The next day after our conversation I was in the bookstore looking for a gift to bring him. I thought, being that he is a churchin' dude, I'd see about finding him something with a more spiritual , devotional slant. As I glanced through the titles, this book caught my eye. Go check out the "Christian" shelves of your local book purveyor's religious section to see why a book with the words VELVET ELVIS in light mint against black is a standout. Intrigued, I pulled it out and flipped it over to read all the blurbies. Sure enough, there's the author, Rob Bell, who also happens to one of the individuals behind NOOMA. I bought a copy for my fellow LTown citizen and one for myself. It was too weird not to pass up.

Rob Bell is the founding pastor of Mars Hill Church, a megachurch in Michigan that meets in a coverted shoping mall. Rob also plays in a punk band. And he wears black framed nerd glassed. Awesome, I thought, A hipster Joel Osteen. Gak. Immediately, I was prepared to be annoyed by Bell just as I am annoyed by all those churches and their veneered, shuck-and-jive preachers.

Yeah, so totally wrong.

You know you want to read more; the rest of my review is up on Pajiba. Check it, one two, one two.

I'm Still Hanging. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yup. Still sitting on my butt with some brain numbing HGTV show on in the background. I've had a much more positive day today. The highest my temp has gotten (so far, knock wood) has been around the 99 degrees ranch, which isn't high enough to set off the the alarms here. My second and third blood cultures aren't showing any bacteria growth which is a sign the antibiotics are doing a good job. Plus, my visitors today (Mr. Preacher Ken, Kim, and the one-two punch of The Mister and Little A) really lifted my spirits.

The big concern now is that my white cells will start bouncing back. I'm always edgy about how quickly my white cells come back online because that tends to indicate how successful the chemo treatment was in squashing those Stupid Leukemia Zombie Cells. My heart tells me to shut up that chattering bitch in my brain filling me with all these fears and simply lay these concerns before God. But she's a mean motor scooter with acrylics. I just need to get in her face and rip her weave out and throw it across the room. While she scampers for her hair, I'll knock her up side the head, subdue her, and wrap her up in duct tape.

Or I could pray a lot.

I've still got this demon of a headache, one of those face and sinus beauties that are worse when you move your head around. Evil gnomes have crawled into my brain area while I've slept and now hammer relentlessly with ball peen hammers on the inside of my skull. Fortunately, Nurse Awesomeness is looking out for me tonight, and she's got the good drugs. Right now, those bastard gnomes are knocked out cold.

Lucy got to come home tonight. Her upper respiratory issue has almost completely disappeared,but she'll be required to take a number of pills for a while. She nibbled on her food in the dish a bit, but we'll still syringe feed her until she is comfortable eating on her own. Her reunion with the home was a loving one. Nervous-pervis, shypants Lucy even let Little A love on her a bit. Thanks to everyone who sent prayers and supplications on behalf of my sweet girl. I'm so glad she made it through this.

For those of you following the Cannonball Read, Prisco and I are also crossposting our reviews at my internet treehouse fort, Pajiba. I want to send a wee bit of traffic their way because it's a great site and an even more fabulous community of folk who've been a phenomenal support for me during my crazy cancer phase. So if you love pop culture, movies, television, books, and being super-snarky and have no fear of comment threads that often diverge down some, um, interesting paths, stop by Pajiba, check out our reviews, and support the site. Hopefully, I'll have something up from my second book tomorrow. It was a heavy (mentally not lbs) read, and I need some time to pin down my thoughts.

Life is a highway. I wanna ride it all night long.

Book 1 of 100: The Haunted Looking Glass ed. by Edward Gorey

While it may appear to the casual viewer that Prisco (Mr. Five books. Shah.) is owning my ass in this race, it simply isn't true. I've just been a febrile mess lately and couldn't be bothered to write anything about my reads. If anyone is currently keeping count, I am tearing through book four.

So there.

Prisco chose a sci-fi writer's self-help tome to be his first read. I pick a collection of old fashioned ghost stories edited by Edward Gorey. I'm sure this has deeper meaning.

Edward Gorey was one of those artists/famous people that I dreamed of one day meeting. I love his ability to take the macabre and twisted (The Curious Sofa, anyone?) and make them elegant and just a wee bit quaint. However, I am glad I never got the chance to share a drink with the man, as I am sure he would have thought me a ninny, and I would have learned some horrible truth about him, like his bad dental hygiene or that he was a raging misogynist (Neither of which I know to be true. I'm just speculating here, people.).

The Haunted Looking Glass does much maintain his place of adoration my heart. Gorey selected twelve (Oh, why not thirteen!) old-fashioned ghost stories such masters of the craft as Robert Louis Stevenson, Bram Stoker, Charles Dickens, and the godfather of the Gothic novel, Wilkie Collins. All of the stories are traditional chillers with haunted houses, premonitory visions, and vengeful spirits. There's no blood or gore. No vampires or evil clowns. Just a tidy collection of things that go bump in the night and leave you with a chill up your spine. And not only did Gorey have a hand in selecting the stories, but he also provides illustrations for the title page of each.

While some of the stories play out as slightly dated, there were definitely a few standouts with a strong creep factor. "The Empty House" by Algernon Blackwood is a tightly wound telling of a man and his elderly aunt's visit to a supposed haunted house. Their journey through the vacant house and what they encounter was far more effective at illiciting the eebie-jeebies from me than any of those "supernatural"television shows where people wander around old buildings using night vision cameras and exclaiming, "What was that?".

The most effectively creepy story came from none other than Bram Stoker. "The Judge's House" has to be the first time I've read a story and wanted to shout at the main character, like people do in bad horror films. A student rents an old house as a retreat to complete his studies, and very quickly encounters the infestation of rats in the wainscoting. Yeah, my ass would have been at the Days Inn five seconds after the first pair of beady little eyes peered out of the woodwork, but the unfortunately stubborn student continues to stay in the house. Stoker makes the skin crawl with this tale of haunting by rodents.

Gorey wisely chose to include the ever-frightening "The Monkey's Paw" by W.W. Jacobs. If you've never read this classic, you absolutely need to. Right now. All I can say is that it's the best illustration of how readers' imaginations sometimes can do all necessary work; a writer just has to give them the right tasty little morsel to set that machine in motion.

M.R. James' "Casting The Runes" rounds out the lot as the one story that felt the most "modern". It is a well-paced tale of a man attempting to crawl out from underneath a hex from a bitter, self-described alchemist whose badly written paper the hexed man made the mistake of giving a negative review. Be careful what you write in those Amazon customer reviews.

The Haunted Looking Glass certainly didn't terrify me to the point of needing to sleep with the light on. There's only been one book with that kind of power over me, Ghost Story by Peter Straub. But it was darn good for a little shiver before bedtime.