There is Still Magic . . .

Wasn't the sun just beautiful yesterday??? After so many days of dark dreariness, the bright sunshine really lifted my spirits.

We went out to visit my sister and The Herd in the afternoon, and I had a magical moment with one of the horses. Pearl, the new mare, has been rather standoffish. Horses are a bit like people and dogs in that eye contact is an important part of their social interaction with each other and with other creatures. Pearl so far has been reluctant to make eye contact. When you talk to her or scratch her ears, she tends to turn her head away or to stare straight ahead of her, a sign that she doesn't really feel comfortable. It's almost like she's apathetic and doesn't care one way or the other what you do with her.

The other horses are a different story. They have no problem at all with eye contact. They will not only stare you out of countenance, they will shove their big faces right into yours and gaze into your eyes with a look that says, "Hi, howya doing? I love you. Got any cookies?" And if you don't have a treat for them, they don't care; they'll just snuffle you all over until they get bored and wander off.

Yesterday I gave Pearl a bit of a comb with the shedding brush and pulled off lots of hair, then I kind of stuck with her, petting her and scratching her ears and her cheeks and under her chin. She is of a size where, when I stand by her head, we see pretty much eye to eye. As I was scratching her ears, she suddenly turned her eye to me and looked right into my eyes and held the look for a few seconds. It was almost as if she was saying, "Thanks, that feels good." If horses could smile, I would say she smiled at me.

It was a magical moment for me, that sudden, short connection. I can't really explain how it made me feel, but it was wonderful! It rather took me by surprise, too, because she has never looked me in the face before and I expected her to just wander away when she was tired of having me rub her head and face. And I certainly didn't expect any magic.

Just had to share that with you.

-- Lori

At Least When My Mouth is Sore, I Tend to Keep Quiet . . .

One of the things they drill into your head when you start chemotherapy is to keep healthy - as healthy as possible - and avoid catching any flu, cold, or other bugs that are spreading through the community. In fact, throughout the Cancercare building there are stations with waterless handwashing solution, kleenex, and even boxes of masks that, if you have a communicable illness, you are supposed to wear while you are there. Every washroom has big posters that you can't avoid seeing extolling the virtues of handwashing in the prevention of disease.

I have been extremely fortunate in that I haven't picked up any bugs in the last few months. However, I am now suffering from an outbreak of a bug that, once it is in your system, stays forever - Herpes simplex!

Don't get all panicky, people, I'm talking about cold sores, not genital herpes or any of the other nasty forms Herpes can take.

I can only distinctly remember having three cold sores in my life. Well, Tuesday I noticed that the left corner of my mouth was sore, almost like I had scratched it with a cracker and got salt in it. It got sorer and sorer. Wednesday morning both sides of my mouth were involved. Thursday morning when I got up, I wandered into the kitched, yawning as I did, and felt the sores on each side crack open. The one on the left promptly began to bleed, quite profusely for such a small crack.

There are several of you readers, I know, that often suffer from cold sores. I now understand the pain you feel when you have a breakout, because I've never had such painful sores in my life. I have found something that alleviates the pain - Bio Oil. It probably doesn't do anything to cure the sore itself, but it does lubricate and soften the sore and so is very soothing. Plus it smells nice.

Thanks for letting me vent, folks. I have been so careful avoiding viruses, now one that I've had for years is giving me grief. Just hadda get that off my chest.

-- Lori

Darned Vandals . . .

One look out the window today, and I know I will be sticking close to home. Mother Nature sure is dragging this spring thing out as long as she can, isn't she? I wish she'd get her butt in gear and just let spring happen without all the stormy, snowy bits.

I titled this blog entry "Darned Vandals" because my car was vandalized over the weekend. Not terribly seriously, like years ago when my poor little Ford Fiesta had its tires slashed, windshield wipers torn off, a window smashed, and graffiti in black marker scribbled all over it. All they did was tear off the driver's side mirror. But still, with all I'm going through, I really didn't need the additional aggravation and hassle of getting my car fixed because some idiot decided to have some "fun" at my expense.

Chemotherapy went well this week; it is the week with the easier drugs. I am still shedding hair at a higher than average rate but you cannot yet tell that it's dropping out. Once I get looking ratty, I'm shaving my head.

The fluid buildup around my organs is remaining pretty constant, fluctuating between 31 and 32 inches so I am physically fairly comfortable. It still causes pain but I have really good drugs.

Mac is doing about the same as he was when I posted last. His cough is happening less often but seems to be more severe when it happens. The poor thing just hacks and hacks and hacks, and there is really nothing we can do for him. The vet called last night and confirmed that the growth in his mouth is a sarcoma (cancer) of the cartilage. Fortunately, it is a slow growing cancer that takes a long time to spread to other parts of the body, so his heart will likely give out before cancer can take him. As I have said before, the cancer could probably be removed but the vet thinks Mac's chances of surviving the surgery are pretty low given his heart condition. Sigh!

That's all I have to report today. I'm not going to say another word about this weather. Every time I do, we seem to get snow.

-- Lori

Yesterday's Appointment . . .

As I expected, yesterday's appointment with Dr. Cutie was basically just to touch base about the side effects of the chemo. We also talked about pain control because the pain is, over time, getting worse. When it's bad, it's like someone has thrust a sharp dagger up under my right ribs, making moving around rather a trial. Basically, for pain control, the doc says to take as much medication as I need; if it gets to where I am needing a certain amount per day, he will give me stronger drugs.

We asked about the size of the tumor. It appears that it hasn't grown much, if at all, since the MRI in January. I would much rather have heard that the tumor had shrunk, but them's the brakes.

On the brighter side, on Tuesday Transcona Collegiate's Global Issues Group held a CancerCare fundraising talent show concert, where they raised over $350.00 for CancerCare. There sure are some talented students at our schools! The last half of the concert was a band called Premonition that played for about half an hour - very good music, very professionally done, and all by four high school kids. I was impressed.

Mac the dog seems to be holding his own, although his hacking cough seems to be getting a bit worse. We should be seeing the vet next week to find out if the growth in his mouth is cancer or not.

That's it for me today. Have yourselves a wonderful weekend!

-- Lori

How Things Are Going . . .

This being the second week of my second round of chemotherapy with the new drugs, I have tingly hands today, so this may be a very short post. At least I haven't had any hand seizures so far; they usually start right after the chemo treatment, but I didn't have any yesterday and hope I don't have any today. Also, the fluid buildup continues to disipate. I have now gone from a high of 35 inches around to about 32 and am feeling much more comfortable.

I have noticed that my hair is starting to fall out, not in great clumps, thank goodness. It's more like I'm shedding more hair than usual. It's sort of funny how I realized it was coming out. I have a habit of running my fingers through my hair when I'm thinking or reading, and I was leaning up against a white pillow reading. When I got up and glanced down at the pillow, why, there was a pile of hair on the pillow! Yikes! I ran my hand through my hair and found about 20 hairs between my fingers. Ran my fingers through the hair on the other side of my head. More hair!!!

Every day I spend a few minutes just running my fingers through my hair, straining out the loose ones so I'm not shedding all over the house. Fortunately, I have lots of hair to lose, so I'm not getting anywhere near looking ratty yet. But if it continues at this rate, you might just see me with a shaved head one of these days!

Mac the dog is doing well on his medication. After he gets his heart medication, he goes for several hours with no hacking coughs, and he does seem a bit livelier; at least he doesn't look as sad and tired as he did a couple of weeks ago. He is still sleeping a lot, but he is rather ancient for a dog.

Last Friday afternoon the folks and I got out to visit The Herd. The weather was overcast but warm, so we spent about 45 minutes messing with the horses. In particular, we groomed Pearl, the new addition, and combed a few bird's nests worth of winter coat off of her. She is looking much better now that she is used to her new home. Bear gave me lots of love and nibbled me all over, as usual.

Saturday night mom and I went to the symphony to hear a piece of music I had heard about many times but never listened to: Modest Musorgsky's Pictures From An Exhibition. It was beautiful! We had a wonderful evening out, mom and I.

My hands are starting to stiffen up, so I had best leave off for now. I will update the blog after we see Dr. Cutie on Thursday.

Don't let this miserable, drab weather get you down. Warmer days are a-comin'!

-- Lori

About My Dog . . .

Every dog has its day, they say, so today is our dog's day to have a blog post.

Those of you who have met Mac recently know that he has had a growth on his mouth that showed up around the end of December. In the last few weeks he has also developed a really dry, hacky cough. Since Mac is about 15 years old and is getting deaf, blind, and very lame, I have been hoping that one day we'll wake up and find that he has passed peacefully during the night.

That hasn't happened yet, so we finally decided he needed to see the vet. I really didn't want to take him in myself because I was so worried the vet would condemn him to death immediately and I didn't think I could bear it. But, as usual, taking him to the vet fell to me; fortunately, the consequences weren't anywhere near as bad as I thought they might be.

Mac has a heart arrhythmia so his heart, instead of going dub-dub, dub-dub, dub-dub like a normal heart, goes dub-dub, dub-dub, dub-dub-dub, dub-dub. In other words, one side of his heart sticks in an extra beat once in a while. His heart is also enlarged because it's doing more work than it really should do. The enlarged heart is pressing against his airway causing the hacky cough.

The growth on his mouth probably is cancer, but if we can get his heart back into normal rhythm, the vet thinks it can be surgically removed. There is no sign that it has metastasized on the x-ray they took, so that's good news.

All in all, for a dog of his age, he isn't in bad shape. At least we aren't having to face putting him down right away. He's on antibiotics for the growth and heart medication for the arrhythmia, so we'll see how he makes out over the next few weeks and go from there.

On a brighter note, since this day is looking pretty good, I'm headed out to my sister's this afternoon for some equine therapy.

Have a wonderful weekend!

-- Lori

Chemotherapy Begins Again . . .

Yesterday was the first day of a new round of chemotherapy with the same drugs I had the last round. This first week I got the two "easy" drugs with only a few side effects, so I am expecting to have not too bad a week.

I haven't heard from Dr. Cutie about what the CT scan showed, so I am assuming I won't hear until I see him on March 26. As of Sunday night, the fluid buildup around my organs was at its highest - my waist measured 35 inches around. The highest it had been before was 33.5 inches. Since I measure every night, I should know in the next couple of days if the chemotherapy is working to reduce it again. I hope it does; it's probably the worst thing I am dealing with right now because the buildup makes it hard to take a deep breath, hard to find a comfortable sleeping position, and it also makes eating more difficult because it puts pressure on my stomach and I feel full right away. So I am trying to eat lots of little meals instead of three big ones every day.

On the brighter side of things, haven't we been having beautiful weather these past few days? It has been such a lift to my spirits to be able to go outside and sit on my front step in the afternoon and just soak up the sunshine. I am also enjoying not having to be bundled up in all the accoutrements of winter (coat, boots, hat, scarf, etc.) and being able to throw on a light jacket and gloves to go outside. I stood in our backyard for a few minutes yesterday afternoon and just listened to the water dripping off the buildings; it sounded like it was raining, the water is melting so quickly!

My parents have been enjoying the melt as well. They are very active people and will do any little job that needs doing. For the past few days, they have been working on keeping the front sidewalk clear of water and shovelling away as much slushy snow as possible. Our front sidewalk, by the way, is pretty much a lake during the spring melt because it dips down right in front of our gate. This is a job I usually do because it's a good excuse to play in the puddles. I guess my folks enjoy playing in the puddles as much as I do!

Another few days like this and the snow will be pretty much gone. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

I really want to get out to see my sister and the herd on Friday, and the forecast so far looks good. I'm hoping that as soon as the snow is gone, and my sister's new mare is healed up from an injury, we'll be able to do a little riding. I haven't been on a horse in probably 25 years, so I am very much looking forward to it. I've even been doing yoga stretches to get my legs in shape for the long strech across the saddle!

Here's hoping the warm weather holds!

-- Lori