This is a friendly reminder.

You deserve a day to yourself.

A day where you sleep in.

A day where you get up early, before everyone else, and enjoy the silence.

A day where the dishes don't get done.

A day where you don't wear pants.  A day where you don't wear anything at all.

A day where you play video games for six hours.

A day where you lounge in the bathtub until the water gets cold and you start to nod off, narrowly avoiding dropping your book into the water.

A day where you burn a tank of gas without a destination in mind.

A day where you don't leave the house.

A day where the kids have cereal for dinner.

A day where you eat off paper plates.

A day where you don't see or talk to people.

A day where you say "Sorry, I have other plans," even if those plans are playing videogames in your underwear.

A day where you turn off your phone.

A day where you turn a blind eye to dust bunnies, and circles on the coffee table.

A day where you don't beat yourself up for not living life to its fullest if all you want to do that day is marathon episodes Orphan Black.

You deserve a day off.

(Sometimes I need this reminder. I hope you find it helpful, too.)

2015 Resolutions: Quarter One Report, Part 1 aka the Creative Stuff.

We're coming up to the end of March and as expected, after a couple weeks of lovely almost-springish weather, the temperature is taking a nosedive because Mother Nature likes to celebrate April Fools' Day early.

Back in January I wrote a post where I made some promises to myself for the New Year.  I thought it might be fun to revisit that post and see where I find myself at the end of Q1. 

(Yes, I work in a businessy-type-field so I use terms like Q1 and ROI and other bizness-speak sometimes)

Let's review, shall we?

1) Be More Active.  - I'm actually doing somewhat well with this.  I've been faithfully going to the Y three days a week and averaging about 16-20 pool lengths for each roughly 25 minute workout.  I'm having a hell of a time getting there earlier than 8am, which kind of puts a limit on how long I can work out, so I try to push myself for those 25 minutes.

I also returned to kick-boxing and have not missed a Monday workout thus far.  It's been a challenge.  I'm not going to lie, I'm probably about 30-40 lbs heavier than I was when I stopped going (a couple months before I got my diagnosis and I was feeling shitty all the time) so getting used to the way my body moves and what it can and can no longer do.

It's frustrating in many ways.  For instance, I've developed fat-girl ankles, which basically mean they don't hold up to high-impact (like skipping, running) like they used to.  They get sore and achy.  The first couple workouts my calves seized up, much like the did when I played with Reagan's basketball league.

Room for Improvement:  Nicer weather is coming, so I need to get my iPod or other digital music thingie loaded up and get out walking on my lunch breaks and/or after dinner.  Hiking season comes fast.

2) The Penis Table.  - I'm going to give myself a pass on this one.  It's winter and I lack facilities with the proper ventilation to adequately deal with stripper and paint fumes.

3) Blog More. - I started off kind of strong in the beginning on this one, but kind of dwindled, from 7 posts on this blog in January, down to 2 in March (not including this one).   I blame a cycle of 'Nothing going on, nothing to write about' mixed with 'too much going on, no time to write.'

The art blog had a similar decline in posts: 5 in January, 4 in February, and 3 in March.  The two roadblocks I'm having can be summed up by the following:

• I'm only posting finished projects.  I currently have three projects on the go, plus at least two more I want to start.
• I'm hesitant to post some of the older stuff, mainly because A) I've been doing a lot of fixes and re-dos, so I hold off posting older works in case I decide to rework them, and B) Some of the old stuff is kind of terrible and I'm frankly a little embarrassed.

Room for Improvement: I pretty much just gotta make more time, or make peace with one or both of these blogs getting a little neglected while I try to do other things.

4) Paint. Draw. Craft. - Bragging time, because I've been a goddamned VIKING in this area.  As I mentioned, I've got a number of projects on the go, and I've been getting a good 2-3 hours in some weeks of creative time.

I entered another painting in a local show, and was once again skunked, so that was a set-back, but I'm going to keep trying and also check out some shops that deal in local art.

5) Write. - To quote Jon Stewart: "I don’t have any specific plans, just a lotta ideas, a lotta things in my head."  I may or may not have some paragraphs and sentences saved in various files on my computers, that could one day blossom into something more substantial.

6) Make Music. - Yeah, I kind of let this one slide. I'm getting out of practice, no lie. I did make it to one open mic, the saturday afternoon one at the MCC.  It's a busy one, though, and you only get two songs per set, which seems like... well, you're just hitting your stride.  Three makes more sense.  One to warm up, a second one for redemption, and a third one to kick ass at.

7) Audition for Plays. - There were some auditions a few weeks ago.  I found out the morning of, so I missed it.  My kid is in a play, though.  Does that count?

Stay Tuned for Part 2...

The Obligatory Year-In-Review and New Years Resolution Post

2014.  This was not my favourite year.

I dealt with a lot of stress, mental health issues, physical health issues, house stuff, money stuff, relationship stuff.

The high point of my year?  NOT having Cancer.  Which is a really, really awesome thing, but a pretty low bar to measure a whole year by.  Also, this last month the last remaining portion of my colon decided to get its shit together, figuratively speaking, and push my colitis back into a state somewhat resembling remission.  At any rate, the daily ass-bleeding has stopped for the most part.

Not having Cancer was Ay-Oh-Kay in my books, as was the reprieve from daily ass-bleeding, but quite frankly, the rest of the year just felt like a god-damn struggle.

I know it's not been all bad.  The change in mood between this post and this post from a few weeks ago can probably tell you how all-over-the-place I have been. I've been making efforts to maintain some level of positivity.  Some days are 'be thankful and count your blessings' days.  Some days are not.

On a side note: I had a pretty decent Christmas. Got to actually see my family and eat turkey.  And then every single member of my household got sick as shit for the next four days (not from the turkey, from the flu).  So while Christmas was much better than last year, the universe did it's damndest to make sure Boxing Day blew chunks (metaphorically).

So basically, 2014 can fuck right off for not being the vast improvement over 2013 it was supposed to be.  You're fucking fired, 2014.

So, now that we've got all that bother out of the way, some plans and resolutions for 2015:

1. Be more active, whilst remaining actively body-positive.  This will include: 
• Continuing to swim at the Y three mornings a week
• Returning to kick-boxing once a week
• Using my lunch-breaks to walk each day, or taking evening walks after dinner
• Refraining from negative self-talk and avoiding the "D-word".  Riots, not diets, folks.
• Eat more system-friendly foods that will keep my fucked-up digestive happy
• Drink water. Lots of water. Because dehydration is a bitch, yo.
2. Finish working on The Table Formerly Known as the Penis Table
3. Blog more, both here and on The Art Blog. I also have a plan for a third blog that has been in the works for a while.
4. Paint. Draw. Craft.
• Submit work to art shows. Try not to get frustrated if not accepted. Keep trying.
5. Write.
•  Look for opportunities to write outside of blogging.
6. Make music
• Find a conveniently-scheduled and receptive open mic to attend.  Attend with some regularity
7. Audition for plays
8. Continue to practice good self-care, for the benefit of both my physical and mental health:
• Take my blood-thinners and butt-meds regularly
• Get my blood work done regularly, as required
• Continue seeing my counsellor for as long as work will cover it/I can afford it
• Bitch-slap the jerkbrain when she starts getting too loud.
9. Make friends, and make time for friends.
10. Make time to keep being a good mom, girlfriend and person, overall.
11. Make time for me.
12. Breathe.

So that's all from this end for this year.  Here's to new beginnings.

I look slightly deranged. I kind of like it. Cheers, y'all.

Michael Jordan, I ain't.

Today, the basketball house league that my youngest daughter plays in had their end-of-season parents vs. kids game, and because I am a sport (and a bit of a masochist, it seems) I took the opportunity to face on a group of 10-12 year olds with more athletic ability in their pinkie fingers than I have in my, well, everything.

I played for three periods, then had to quit, because having your mother quit halfway through a bonding experience HAS to be less traumatic than watching your mother drop dead of a coronary in the middle of a gymnasium.  I also developed one hell of a cramp in my right leg, as my calf decided it was going on strike for the rest of the day.

But overall it was a fun experience and I learned a few things:

- I am not as bad at basketball as I imagined myself to be. Oh, I'm not even close to being good, but I did manage one basket (was I stoked? Mister, you better believe I was STOKED) and not once did I find myself curled up in the fetal position or running with my arms covering my head.

I used to have what is referred to elementary school phys. Ed. circles as an intense "FEAR OF THE BALL".  I credit three years of kick-boxing for helping me get over that.  Once you've taken a round-house kick to the face, a mere basketball is a nuzzle from a kitten.

- my kid is fast.  Like, I knew theoretically that she was fast, but after being tasked with actually having to keep up with her, she is FAST.  Holy crap.

- I am old, fat and out of shape.  The old part, I am totally cool with. The fat part, well, I'm still unlearning a lot of toxic shit, but am gradually becoming at peace with my shape and size.  The out of shape part is not effing cool.  Not cool at all.

So I'm going to get on a new workout plan. I've been swimming lanes three times a week, but I think I'm going to hit some Boxing Day sales and find myself an MP3 player and dedicate myself to walking again, as well as joining kickboxing again, once a week at first.  Hopefully if my schedule can handle it I can move up to twice.

My goal is to get back to a similar fitness level as I was before the whole Cancer thing.  Wish me luck.

*******************************************

In other news, the original title to this post was going to be "Michael Jordan, I ain't (Hal Jordan, maybe)" as I was thinking Hal Jordan played the old guy on Evening Shade, but turns out that's Hal Holbrook, I think, and Hal Jordan is the secret alias of the Green Lantern.  So, I figured that comparing myself to a superhero rather than a professional athlete wasn't so much self-deprecating (which is what I was going for) as just kind of arrogant, and that I needed another option.

I considered changing it to Tracy Jordan, but worried that may have been appropriation, and in light of recent events, pretty fucking insensitive.

So I toddled off to the Goògle to search "Famous people with the last name Jordan" and you know what? There are way too many porn stars with that name, which is something I never needed or wanted to know, but now I do and you do too.

You're welcome.

The difference a year makes...

2013 ended on a shitty note.

My two favourite holidays were both a pretty huge bust.

On Halloween I was sick as a dog.  Regular sick, on top of being scary-Cancer-sick. My National Lampoons Christmas Vacation's cousin Eddie costume was kind of crap.  No Zombie Walk.  Didn't decorate.  Cancelled my Halloween party because I couldn't deal with the stress of hosting while dealing with impeding surgery.  I missed out on trick-or-treating with the kids and had to get up at 3 am so I could drive to Toronto and have a rather important organ removed.

So, that sucked.

Christmas I was still in recovery mode, although I was back to work part-time. My tree had but two piddling LED lights.  On Christmas Day my car battery died, which didn't matter much since my ENTIRE FAMILY got sick with a stomach bug and I couldn't be around them for fear of catching it and potentially blowing out my newly re-attached colon.  We ended up having pizza since there was nothing in the house to eat.  I cried a lot that day.  I don't think we did our family Christmas until almost, if not after, New Years.

This Halloween I decorated the shit out of my house. There was blood and skulls and fake corpses galore. I positively revelled in decorating and gathering materials for my Radar O Reilly costume as I recalled my bitterness the year before.

Today is December 17th. I just finished putting up my tree, with the help of the girls and my friend's children.  It's got a full contingent of lights, and even a few gifts under there.  My shopping is about 75% done, and I've yet to panic about the money, unlike years past.

Last year, I gathered all my energy to attend my staff Christmas party for at least an hour. This year, I was able to dance well into the night.  

I feel relaxed, yet incredibly appreciative, of everything I have right now. 

We've come a long way.

In other news, I've started a new blog for my artwork at actuallyacollection.blogspot.ca

Please feel free to check it out and give it a follow.

Excerpts from my notebook - The ER

Came into the emergency department around 11am.  It's now going on 3:30. I have been poked full of holes by nurses trying fruitlessly to secure an IV. I need fluids.

One attempt, on my right wrist, felt as thought [sic] a red hot wire was inserted into a nerve.  My hand felt tingly and numb for several minutes after.  I screamed out in pain.  I may have said Fuck.  I'm sure I said Christ.

There is zero cellphone reception here.  I stood outside for 10 minutes trying to update {The Well-Travelled One} on what has so far taken place.

My stomach is growling.  A cinnamon bun sits on the table beside me.  I bought it in the lobby minutes before I was told not to eat or drink anything.

My mouth is dry.  I need fluids. I finished my book and now I am bored as hell.

{The Well-Travelled One} got me this notebook for my birthday.  I have been saving it, not wanting to mess it up with grocery lists and price comparisons for ceramic tile like I had done with my cheap Dollar Store red book.

A nurse just came in and hooked me up to an ECG, so now to go with my lovely set of holes and bruises from multiple IV attempts, I also get to wear the badges of medical grade adhesive.

So, I'm basically just writing to pass time until my blood work comes back and they decide what else to do with me.

I'm here because I've had a headache for the last four days, a strange feverish feeling, and the ass-bleeding has ramped up in frequency and volume over the last week.  My doctor's office takes at least three weeks to get an appointment and in three weeks, I could be dead.

I hate this body that keeps failing me at every turn.  Colitis at 18. Colon cancer at 33.  Legs that want to clot up and pool blood at every turn.

Any time conversation turns to "What kind of superpower would you want?" my answer is invariably,

"MUTANT HEALING FACTOR"

Every time.

I really have terrible handwriting.  It's gotten worse as I get older and I type more and the most writing I do is signing my name on my kids' agenda.  This is barely legible, especially since the hospital bed doesn't give a great surface to write on.  I seem to think faster than I write so there are numerous mistakes.

Going to try to sleep for a bit.

I don't know cars but I can read an invoice, or, Why I Won't go to Pro Oil Change again

I'm really starting to wonder how I keep running into service companies that don't seem to understand that if you give someone a price on something, that should actually be what they pay.  Hell, just being relatively accurate would be great.   In the general ballpark, even. Whatever.

So, in preparation for an upcoming big-ass road trip, and in the name of general automotive maintenance, I decided to get my car's oil changed on my lunch break.  I've had friends offer to do my oil changes and sometimes I take them up on that but mostly I get lazy and impatient and end up going to a 10-min oil change place.  Usually Midas, but they are admittedly a bit pricey, especially when you start treating your motor-baby to synthetic oils.  Generally in the $90 range for a full-synthetic package.

So I decided to try a different place this time.  Pro Oil Change opened a franchaise near downtown about a year ago and lo and behold, they also had a ten-dollar-off coupon on their website and a claim to a 12-minute drive-through service, which seemed handy considering I get a half an hour for lunch.

Ka-ching.

Lunch time rolled around and I drove down to see what the pricing was like.  I asked the senior mechanic guy about pricing and if they did synthetic and he told me a full-synthetic oil change was 60 bucks plus tax.  I asked if the coupon was valid with that package and he said sure so I gave him my keys and hunkered down with one of the limited magazine offerings.

On a side note:  How much sense does it really make to have hot rod and other automotive magazines in a 10-minute oil change place?  Anyone interested enough in cars to want to read about them in magazines are probably doing their own oil changes.

But I digress.

Gripe Number One:  I waited a lot longer than twelve minutes.  I guess they were short-staffed, but I still feel the need to include that to give the fullest picture of my overall shitty experience dealing with this particular company.

Gripe Number Two:  My air filter needs changing, apparently.  I was offered a new one for 29.99 installed.  Now, I could be mistaken, but I have bought one of these before and I don't remember it being near thirty bucks.  And I don't know if you've ever seen where the air filter on a PT Cruiser sits, but a monkey could probably change it.  Hell, I'm fairly confident I could change it, and I'm sure there are monkeys with better automotive knowledge than I have.

Now, these first two gripes, I would let slide.  People get swamped, and understaffed.  Shit happens.  People are in the business to make money so they are going to try and upsell.  And honestly, my air filter DOES need changing.

However...

Gripe Number Three:  When I got the invoice, I saw that I had been charged 38.99 plus tax for service and 37.00 for the oil filter and about 5 liters of synthetic oil. 5W-30.

All told it comes to about $85 bucks after the tax.  After I had been told $60+

(for those unfamiliar with HST, the Ontario rate is 13% so after my coupon was applied, I should have been looking at about $58 bucks total)

I pointed out the discrepancy and was told that ".. that's how the computer rings it up.. you see, it's this much for the service and then this much for your oil."

To which I replied "I see that, but you told me it would be sixty dollars, not over seventy-five."  To which he again said that it was the way it comes up in the computer.

Once again, I reiterated that I was told $60 and that the price card I was shown when I came in also said $60 for the package.  If it comes up as over $75 on the computer, then that is what it should say on the price card.  That is what I *should* have been told when I asked about pricing.

I was also told that I needed to account for the tax.  Which pissed me off, because - as I pointed out on the computer screen - the price BEFORE tax was still fifteen bucks more than the price I was told.

The guy apologizes and says that he's run into this problem before and has told his boss about it a couple of times now.  I told him I'm not surprised he's had problems with customers over it because it's a shitty, dishonest way to do business.

I also told him that as a first-time customer this was a crappy first impression and that I felt I had been ripped off.  I agreed to let them do the oil change under false pretences, believing that I would be paying one price, and then being charged more after the fact.

He then apologized and offered to knock 15 bucks off the price, without the coupon.  He gave me the coupon back and said I could use it again the next time I was in.  I scoffed and told him to keep the coupon as I would not be returning.  I also suggested that he pass that message along to the company owner, once again expressing my opinion that theirs was a shitty, crooked way of doing business.

So yeah.  Will not be going back there.  I had full intention of going in this morning and speaking to the manager face to face, but... life.

For now, this will need to serve as my strongly worded letter and my warning to others who may be tempted as I was.. don't bother.  

The continuing saga of the so-called penis table

I have what some may call irrational and so may call perfectly rational hatred for MDF (also known as chip board) furniture.  I have a shit ton of it in my house, but I absolutely loathe it.  

Thing is, it's inexpensive and light and usually comes ready to assemble.  Ergo, I have a ton of this crap in my house.  Book shelves, dressers, desks etc.  

But I dream of wood.  Real wood furniture.  I dream of eventually replacing every piece of cheap, shitty, Walmart/Canadian Tire etc prefab crap with oak, or maple or pine.  

A few years ago some friends of mine were moving out-of-country an as such, had divested themselves of most of their furniture.  By the time they their going away party, they were down to a coffee table set and a couch, both of which were slated for the dumpster the next day.

It was a few hours into the night that I realized that here was a rather nice wood coffee table set, that was just going to be thrown in the garbage without my intervention.  I asked my friends if the would mind if I took it instead and they quite were agreeable to this arrangement.

There was one small catch.

Prior to my "hey, this is some pretty decent shit" revelation, our host had presented the partygoers with a few Sharpies with which to sign their well wishes on the last of the furniture before it made its way to the dumpster.

Do you know happens when you combine an apartment full of revellers and a batch of Sharpie markers?

Penises.

Penises on your new coffee table set.

So many penises.  And boobs.  And penises with boobs.  Some sort of multi-headed penis hydra.  And a penis palm-tree.

There was even a Cock Ness Monster.  I kid you not.

Nonetheless I was determined.  With help, I dismantled and fit the set into my car, then took it home and hid it in the shed away from my children's impressionable view until I could find some time to strip and refinish it.

Three years later, I'm finally getting around to this project of mine, mainly because I dislike my current coffee table and I got tired of hemming and hawing about whether or not I was actually going to get around to refinishing the damned thing.

It's slow going.  I started off using a paint/varnish thinner but after multiple chemicals burns and some kind of reaction to my nitrile gloves that caused my hands to heat up and stiffen in an alarming manner, I decided that paint stripper was fucking bullshit and sought out a heat gun, which I was able to borrow from a friend and former co worker.

What a difference.  I've only burned myself bad enough to leave a mark once (although I've probably singed off some leg and arm hair with flying paint chips), and the gun goes through the paint and varnish much faster than the paint stripper did.

I am hoping to at least have the whole set stripped, if not sanded, by the end of the summer.  But that is what I have been up to.  

Work in progress.. 

I think we've been scapegoating the wrong animal.

I don't want to jinx it, but I honestly and truly think spring might actually be here.  I also thing we may owe The Groundhog, (or groundhogs, as it were) for I'm starting to think there is another fuzzy woodland creature to blame for this never ending winter.

Easter is awfully late this year, isn't it? Late Easter, late spring.  It's the damn Easter Bunny's fault! He's been using the Groundhog as a convenient scapegoat.  Bastard.

Ah, well. Such is life. I'm starting to feel the spring time in my bones, in between listening for the almost constant running of the sump pump.  There's so much snow to melt!  My driveway and yard is a maze of channels and slopes created by my lovely Well-Travelled One in a never ending attempt to divert water away from the house's foundation.

This is probably the closest I will ever get to owning an island property.  Let's hear it for low-lying areas.

I'm slowly but surely working on some spring cleaning.  I'm thankful to have been able to be productive at all, however.  Friday morning, as I was preparing for work, I was struck with a case of dizziness, or vertigo or whathaveyou that confined me to the couch for the majority of the day.  I called into work, since I was not in any shape to sit up, let alone attempt to operate a motor vehicle.  The feeling staying with me into the early evening, so I spent the day sleeping and watching Game of Thrones.  I've Harry Pottered this particular series, which basically means I ignored it for a while, wondered what all the hype was about before finally getting curious enough to check it out and now I'm marathoning the hell out of the first three seasons, in an attempt to catch up.

When I woke up Saturday, I felt fine, if leery of the vertigo suddenly deciding to come back.  I took the girls to Open Mic at the cultural centre, and today I swapped out the old and broken handles on my dresser for some new ones.  I was left with just enough of the old ones to replace the broken handles on T's dresser, which came from the same bedroom set as my dresser and bed.  I also managed to clear out a wooden wardrobe that was being used for general storage, but will be moved into T's room , as the kid has entirely too many clothes.

So far the dizziness has not returned.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it won't. 

Anxiety and other monsters under my bed

It's been a while.  

I've fallen into that blogging trap of going weeks without posting and as a result, all my posts begin with the requisite apologies for not posting in forever.

And so it goes.

I've been struggling.

This winter has been a tough one and I have found myself in an almost constant state of anxiety dating back to the cancer and the floods, a state of waiting for the other shoe to drop, a sense of looming disaster at every turn.  

When I was younger, I was very anxious.  I worried about change, about risk and what if? It's one of the things I am sure helped contribute to the destruction of my marriage.  Incidentally, that destruction helped quell those thoughts for a long time.  After the initial separation, I felt as though if I could get through that, anything else was a piece of cake.

I learned to roll with the punches.  That things were never as bad as they seemed, they could always be worse.  I'm trying to get that back, because anxiety is a huge asshole that robs you of your ability to enjoy your peace as you are always looking around the corner for the next sign of impending doom.  It leaves you with pain from walking with your shoulders at your ears.  Everything is a fight and everyday decisions become fraught.  Everything that goes wrong becomes a sighing, eye-rolling case of "What the hell else?"

Anxiety has been eating at me, these long winter months, and it's affected my relationship, my children, my work.  I've been neglecting friends and hobbies (hi, blog) because being on guard, it's so fucking exhausting that at the end of the day it's easier to zone out and watch episodes of M.A.S.H or surf the Internet than actually try and socialize, which ends up being another source of worry... Either worry about co-ordinating efforts or worry about if you're a horrible person if you just bow out, one more time.

I'm fighting, though.  Bit by bit, I'm trying to relax.  Breathing.  

Out with the jive, in with the love.

Slowly, but surely, I feel like I may be able to pull myself out of this darkness and enjoy the light once again.  It's going to take some self-care and taking some time to fix the things I can, but each day I'm feeling a little more hopeful.

Blizzard 2014 and the great flood that wasn't.

The year, dare I say it, is off to a decent start.  We survived that vicious hell storm and cold snap, or polar vortex, as the kids are calling it these days.  Alls I know is that I have not been witness to such a blizzard since the winter of 1991 when I got sent home from school and went to my friend Corina's place instead, effectively scaring the shit out of my parents, whom I did not call at work since I didn't know their work number.  Instead I called home and left numerous messages on the answering machine, all the while wondering where the hell they were.  Meanwhile, having heard that the schools were closed, they were frantically leaving messages for me, wondering where the hell I was.

For you kids reading this, before voicemail, we used to have what were known as "answering machines", which were basically cassette recorders attached to you stationary phone (aka your landline).  Not that I expect anyone born after the year 2000  to know just what a "cassette recorder" is supposed to be.  At any rate, you could not simply call and check your message.  You had to wait until you got home, which is how we finally ended up with 20 minutes worth of "Where are you?" messages.

Long story short, cell phones for kids aren't always such a bad idea.

But, back to the present.  We survived the nearly 60cm of snow in a two day period, as well as the frigid colder-than-freaking-Mars -40 wind chills. Despite my having left ordering heating oil to the last minute and the oil guy being unable to get through for two days, we did NOT run out of heat.  The noise and struggling of the furnace over the last couple of weeks ended up being easily fixable when the furnace guy came on Friday, in spite of being completely convinced that I was going to find out I needed a new furnace because why wouldn't I?  We also found out the chimney, which we were also worried about, does indeed have a proper liner (which is necessary with oil heat) so sweet Jesus and hallelujah somebody actually did something fucking RIGHT when building this place.

Lastly, the sump pump and basement has (so far) survived the thaw and the rain that brought the snow banks down by a good foot in the course of the day, as has the roof.  Turns out the ice from last months ice storm has formed a bit of a barrier between the melting snow and the ground, keeping it from melting too rapidly and flooding us with an over abundance of groundwater, or submerging the end of the drain pipe.

So, a week and a bit into the year I am feeling very cautiously optimistic.  I am enjoying a quiet Saturday evening taking turns playing Hatris (it's like Tetris, but with with hats!) with the The Well Travelled One.  This leaves me enough time for an update, since the one downfall to this game is that we're both good enough at it that a "turn" takes about an hour or more.

Enjoy your evening, Internet.

Yup.  Hatris.  This is an actual thing.  It's surprisingly addictive.

By a thread. (Note: Here there be swears)

I start writing blog posts that get too involved and, in my opinion, boring so I end up abandoning them.  So I'm going to keep this short, like bullet points short.  In the last week or so since I last posted:

- I saw an oncologist about my pathology report.  Stage one tumour, no chemotherapy recommended.  Not sure if this qualifies me as a cancer survivor or not.  I am told that they don't actual consider you "cured" until you have something like six months or a year cancer-free.  This is good. Excellent, in fact. Hold onto that, as it's the high point of this post. It's all downhill from here, folks.

- Right around that time contracted a minor infection in my join.  The one set of antibiotics I am on smells like cat-piss.  The other one can't be taken with alcohol, coffee or dairy.  I missed the dairy part so I have spent the last half a week feeling like absolute dogshit.  I'm off dairy as of today after talking to a pharmacy-tech friend who clued me into that particular contraindication.  

-  One of the odd side effects also seems to be an incredibly heightened sense of smell.  I'm wondering when I get the adamantium claws and mutant healing factor.  In the meantime, I've been spending the the majority of the day hiding in my bedroom from the smell of industrial disinfectant.

- industrial disinfectant, you ask? Why yes. I woke up this morning and was greeted by the eldest, who informed me that she stepped out of bed and into a foot full of wet carpet, courtesy of a failed sump pump.  About 1-2 cm of water greeted us in the basement.  For reasons unknown, the pump, the secondary pump, and the pump alarm all failed during the night. Why? Because fuck my life, that's why.

-  Did I mention this is all just a couple weeks after a broken pipe caused the sewer to back up into my basement and render my second bathroom unusable.  Which is terrific in a house who just had major colon surgery and whose daily movements are still unpredictable, at best.

I was looking over old Facebook posts and I came across one post about what a great year 2012 was and how I was looking forward to seeing what 2013 had in store.  I don't mind saying that 2013 Q4 can eat a giant dick.  I can't wait for this shit-eating year to be over.

My intentions were good.

I had a plan, when I recieved my diagnosis, that I was going to blog my journey, create an account of everything I was going through.  It's kind of fallen by the wayside, clearly.

Maybe it started with stress cold I came down with a week before the surgery.  All my energy that remained was focused on getting better so that I wouldn't have to reschedule the surgery, because frankly, waiting a month was long enough.

I brought the iPad to the hospital with me, with every intent of documenting the days following, only to discover that the Wi-Fi signal up there on the 14th floor where I recovered was pretty pathetic.  Great hospital otherwise, but man... That was some frustrating.

Since being home I've been in a mind fog from the morphine I'm still having to take to manage the pain of having not only a huge ass incision cut through most of my abdominal muscles, but my internal organs shuffled around as well.  Also, I've not. Been. Doing. Anything.  There was a lot of stuff before the hospital (like, hey! My sewer main backed into my house) and in the hospital but I have the attention span of a fruit fly.

Today I have promised to make a concerted effort to get outside, for the sake of my own sanity, which puts me in the position of having to go out of my comfort zone and ask people to assist me in getting out of my house, since clearly being Morphine McBrainFog means no driving for me.

Hopefully over the couple weeks I will have more energy, motivation and mental stamina to fill in the blanks on everything else that's been happening as of late.

I saw my own rectum. They call this "progress."

As of Friday I had my shit figured out.

So, naturally, everything had to change, because reasons.

I got a call from my surgeon Saturday morning, informing me as i sat, dazed from just waking up and not yet having had coffee, that she had contacted another surgeon friend of hers in Toronto, who is, and I quote, both a "guru" and a "godfather" of colorectal surgery and is willing to find a spot for me ASAP in order to perform a restorative proctocolectomy and ileo anal pouch. In laymen's terms, he can take my colon out and make me an internal pooh-pouch in one fell swoop, which means a longer downtime (4-6 weeks at least) for this surgery but less surgeries overall. 

It also means changing the date of my surgery, my surgeon, the hospital it will be at AND my plan of action in regards to work, so I'm going to be dealing with EI and insurance companies and all that fun stuff.  But apparently this guy is a colorectal rockstar who has been doing these reconstructive surgeries since they could do these reconstructive surgeries, who will be doing the surgery in one of Toronto's biggest, swaggiest, gastro-specializing hospitals (Mount Sinai) so I'm thinking all the chaos of the past couple days and the on-coming weeks may be worth it.

It also meant, however, that I had to go in for a flexible sigmoidoscopy today to make sure that my rectum, upon having this pouch built, isn't about to erupt in little colitis-babies.  

Unlike its more invasive cousin, the colonoscopy, a sigmoidoscopy involves a camera about as long as that thing they use to suck the saliva out of your mouth at the dentist, with no anesthetic and no prep involved.  I was freaking out a bit at the no-anaesthetic bit, but it was only vaguely uncomfortable.  It was more comfortable than when the receptionist, working with 10-year-old contact info, mistook the Well Travelled One for the Ex-Hub.  Yay outdated records.

Did I mention a camera? And a monitor. I've officially seen the inside of my own ass.  Cross that one off the bucket-list.

My now-former surgeon, having been informed, my myself, of my history with random blood clots is also quite adamant that, Doppler or not, I should be put back on anti-coagulants, not just because I'll be laid up in hospital, but because did you know what else ups your chances of blood clots?  Give yourself a hand if you said Cancer.

Before that, I had to have a blood-work up this morning that I am pretty sure consisted of every possible test for things that could result in a predisposition to clotting.  After 20 minutes of waiting while the attending nurse entered the requisition, she came out with a strip of vial labels as long as my bloody arm and more vials than she could hold in one hand.

And I didn't even get a cookie.

So I'm being put back on anti-coags of the injectable sort for the next several months (at least) which means I'm going to look like a smack addict or a victim of domestic violence but at least I won't need weekly blood tests like when I am on Coumadin.  Also, Coumadin is essentially rat poison, so there's that.

So I'm enjoying my last couple of drinks before I go pick up my script tomorrow and wait to hear when my new pre-op appointment is.

These poop jokes keep writing themselves.

I went to consult with the surgeon who will be performing my colectomy yesterday and she told me I was booked for October 29th.  So I'll be missing Halloween, which blows since it is my very favourite time of year.  I made the decision then and there that I would NOT cancel my pending Halloween party, which has kind of morphed into a Halloween slash "Farewell to my colon" party.  I toyed with setting a theme of "medical malpractice horror stories" but I thought that might just be in a wee bit of poor taste.  Besides, I barely have time to plan the party let alone think up a new costume, especially when I had mine all planned out before this shit hit the fan.

A weird side effect of my upcoming surgery is the tendency to snicker at any reference to shit or butts in my day to day language.  In fact, just now, when I typed "any" I SWEAR TO GOD that my iPad tried to autocorrect it to "anus".

The well-travelled one made a joke tonight about telling people at work that I was having my "Give-a-Shit" removed and I nearly freaking lost it.

It's funny cause it's true!

I'm glad I can take some of this lightly (stage six: inappropriate humour) at least some of the times.  Don't fall under the impression that it's been all good.  Some of the bad days, the waking up terrified and angry and full of despair, have fucking sucked.  This past Tuesday I wanted to curl up under my duvet and sleep until I woke up and this whole bloody nightmare was over.  I could barely function. I sobbed as I attempted to have my morning coffee and when I got to work I stayed in my office and tried to interact with people as little as possible, especially since I am one who cannot remotely hide when I am upset.  Generally, if i have been crying it couldn't be more obvious if someone wrote "Holy Fuck Am I Ever Sad!" on my face in black sharpie marker.

Demi Moore with her single tear I am definitely NOT.  I cry the ugly cry.

At any rate, Tuesday night, at my nephews 5th birthday dinner, I was able to surround myself with family who respected my wish not to talk about everything beyond a simple update on where we were at, schedule and doctor wise.  By the time I got home my mood had lifted somewhat. Since then I've been feeling more optimistic, or at least too busy to dwell.

I'm kind of stoked that my surgeon is a woman, after dealing with a lot of older, male doctors.  Don't get me wrong, they've all been doing well by me and are quite competent, but my rah-rah feminist side did a little fist pump when I found out I had a lady surgeon.  I was a bit nervous by how young she looked (yes, Google is handy) but I believe that sometimes in medicine, what one lacks in experience can be offset by up-to-date training.  Also, you don't generally get to call your self a surgeon if you're just getting off the bus.

My consult yesterday assuaged my fears as she seems like a competent, confident but not cocky, doctor who was very good about answering all my questions while being patient about my inability to answer quite all of hers.  Like I can actually keep track of the times I've been hospitalized!  Chronology is not my strong suit.

Now I have a party to plan, preparations for the kids while I am in hospital, getting my stuff sorted out at work, and I am hosting karaoke next Friday.  So yeah, some time off will be nice.

Mama's got a brand new bag.

I hope you'll forgive me the cheesy and obvious joke in the title of this post.  It's been one helluva week, with more doctors appointments, good news, bad news, ambivalent news and just kind of up and down, emotionally.  There's been a lot of tears, and a lot of anger.  Also a lot of people being supportive and awesome.

The good news! I got my CT scan results back, and there's no signs of metastasis (oh, Gord, I hope I'm using the right word there) so pretty stoked about that, but at the same time it's made me extra impatient to have the tumour removed.  Get it out while the getting is good.  Everyone involved has been doing well at getting the ball rolling but at the same time, it can't be fast enough.  

But at the same time I want to hurry up and get this surgery done, I'm dreading it. Herein lies the bad news.  After discussions between my internal medicine specialist, my family physician, and about 25 surgeons at a conference in Barrie (I'm a fucking medical anomaly, yo) the general consensus is that the whole damn thing is going to have to come out - my colon, that is - leaving me with iliostomy bag (..and there's the punchline. *rimshot*) until some restorative surgery can be done down the line.

I'm told it's my "choice" but in that way where, yes I have "options" but that my options are not really options.  Shit in a bag or have reoccurring tumours and a greatly shorted lifespan.

Cake or death?  I'll have the cake.  Thank you for flying Church of England.

This is where I start to wonder why can't i get breast cancer like normal women my age?  Not that breast cancer is not a horrible terrible thing to have to deal with in and of itself, I am sure it sucks on all levels and far be it from me to imply that breast cancer patients have it easy and honestly i'd rather not have to deal with any of this, but at this point in time, if i had to make a choice, i could pretty easily live without my boobs.  They're pretty much ornamental.  My colon, other the other hand, is pretty fucking useful, even if it has been quite literally, a HUGE PAIN IN MY ASS over the years.

All this shizz here got to go.

Which brings me to the more kind of ambivalent news.. This surgery, will, effectively cure me of my colitis.  Since you can't actually have colitis without a colon. Durr.  I won't ever have appendicitis either, since in removing the colon, you pretty much have to remove the appendix as well, otherwise it'd just be bouncing around in your abdominal cavity, attached to nothing.

Also, I will apparently no longer fart.  Which pretty much blew my mind.  Like,that's weird, right? the Kids thought that was hilarious and replied with some exaggerated replies of "Thank GOD!"

So, at this point, just waiting for the surgery date.  They're telling me at the end of the month.  They're able to do this laparoscopically now, which is good, I guess.  Means a lot less downtime than open surgery, but the scars won't be as badass.

I'm hanging in, for the time being.

I'm blaming Bruce McCulloch for this one.

So, this week has been the downer to end all downers.  September 30th, 2013 has officially gone down as the worst day of my life

"The worse day of your life so far." - thanks, Homer Simpson.

Worse than September 25th(ish), 1998 when I was rushed to the hospital with a leg the size of a deli salami and a colon that had been bleeding my life away for months. Worse than January 13, 2003 when a very pregnant me saw her marriage shatter (a blessing in disguise if you ask me).  Worse than April 19th, 2005, the day I watched my home go up in flames.  Worse than that random day that summer when I was fifteen where everyone was fighting and we were broke and everything sucked and I hated life (I don't remember the exact date, but it was pretty craptacular.)

Nope, this was worse than all of them.

As you may recall, I had a colonoscopy a few weeks ago, to follow up on one that the doctors couldn't quite figure out.  Turns out "there's something here and we don't know what isn't is"  IS kind of, tangentially, similar to "holy shit, look at all this cancer," since that's what they found, this go-round.  A malignant tumour in my colon that will need to be operated on as soon as my internal medicine guy talks with surgeons and finds out which hospital is comfortable with taking my case.  You see, it is apparently rare to find colon cancer in one as young as myself.  *flutters eyelashes becomingly*

Go me.  You know, I've never wanted to be a record breaker.

So, this week has been a regular whirlwind of blood tests, CT scans, emotional breakdowns, and inappropriate dark humour.  Actually, I'm pretty sure the five stages of grief need to be adjusted to include inappropriate dark humour as one of the stages.  When I split with the ex, there was a Kids in the Hall sketch that helped me get through it.  Whenever I was down, my friend and I would recite the Hotel LaRut sketch and dissolve into giggles.

Now, once again, during times of trouble, Dave, Mark, Kevin, Scott and Bruce give me solace.  Mainly meaning that I can't get this damn sketch out of my head.

So, thanks a lot Bruce.  You always were my least favourite.

Ahh, but yeah, aside from the awesome healing powers of Canadian sketch comedy, I'm also quite grateful for the ridiculous amount of support I have been recieving, from The Well-Travelled one, who has been marvellous in listening to me freak out and letting me break down, to my family who have offered help in any way possible.  Not to mention friends and the management at work.

I'm not gonna lie.  I'm pretty terrified about all this.  But so far i am functioning on a day to day basis while I wait for more answers.  At least I feel okay.  Which is kind of messed up.  I don't feel sick, like, AT ALL.  I'm gassy and bloated and have occasional stomach cramps.. All that is pretty much par for the course for me.  It's rather surreal but at the same time, I'm glad at least right now I'm not feeling like crap, physically.

I have a rough go ahead of me.  But I will fight.  In the words of Aunt Becky, I'm going to go EYE OF THE MOTHERFUCKING TIGER on this thing. I will win.

Wherein I lose a shed, my neighbors regain seven feet of property and my kids hopefully gain a work ethic.

Upon gaining possession of what I like to call The Fun House, I stepped out onto the deck to gaze out over my postage-stamp sized queendom.  The northwest end of the teeny tiny yard contained what could generously be called a shed, although for all appearances, it had a greater resemblance to some bombed out pile of wood rot.

I had to reef on the plywood doors to open them.  Cautiously I had stepped inside and upon gazing at the ceiling (or lack thereof) and then at the floor (or lack thereof) I immediately marched back inside and informed the children that they were not, under any circumstance, to step foot inside the 'shed' or they would die.

No, this was not a threat.  It was a simple fact.  The thing was clearly a death-trap.

Oh, there was also the matter that this structure, if you will, encroached a good seven feet onto one neighbour's property, and two feet onto another.  Far be it from me to guess at whether or not the shed, which the Well-Travelled One and I have guess to be roughly 60-odd years in age, pre-dated arbitrarily drawn property lines or the shed was unceremoniously dropped onto what was 'roughly' the corner of the yard.

Anyway, this encroachment kept us from doing anything about it for a number of months as we pondered what the etiquette is in demolishing a frighteningly unsafe structure that straddles two properties.

Last spring, I had chance to meet the neighbour who has the misfortune of sharing this monstrosity and with some hesitation she asked what we planned to do with it.  When I mentioned that I hoped to tear the blasted thing down, I have never seen someone's eyes light up so brightly..

Apparently the former owners of my little abode were unreasonably attached to the shed in question and had, on numerous occasions, refused to have the thing torn down, even after the neighbour offered to have her son and potential son-in-law come tear it down for FREE.

Not long after, The Well-Travelled One embarked on a mission over the summer months to single handedly dismantle this portal to hell, at risk of personal injury and respiratory infection from gord-only-knows what airborne toxins were kept in with all the animal bedding and so on and so forth.

This weekend we borrowed my parents pick-up truck and approached the back-yard neighbor about accessing the shed from their yard.  Never have i seen someone so excited about the prospect of someone driving a Dodge Ram across their lawn.  We proceeded to make upwards of five trips to the local dump, filling the box (not the cab.. See, I got it right this time!) to the brim with all manner of rotted wood, torn vinyl siding, I don't-even-want-to-know what kind of pathogens and enough nails that I could have built a replica model of the Eiffel Tower, to scale.

Okay, so I might have exaggerated slightly there.

We even got the kids in on the project with the promise of a decent hourly rate for helping out.  The little one was unfortunately limited in what she could do, given her size and tendency towards unwieldiness. However, she was able to put her destructive streak to good use by helping break down window frames and chunks of wall with a claw hammer, and otherwise helping to fetch tools and such.  

Surprising was how well the oldest took to the work.  I've been struggling lately with how to deal with my 12-year-old's sense of entitlement and adversity to hard work when it comes to earning money.  I've been tearing my hair out in frustration as she complains about not having money, wanting expensive things and yet not being willing to work towards them, unless absolutely convenient, and then completing task seemingly with the least amount of effort possible.

Thing is, when she puts her mind to it, she can work hard and work well.  When we went back-country camping, she was the most vocal about her inhibitions where the 8km hike was concerned, but she made it through with little complaint.  Yesterday was a prime example.  She was hesitant at first with helping me load and unload, gingerly picking up small pieces of wood and carefully placing them on the truck.  Rather than slowing down as they day wore on, by our third and fourth dump trip, she was tossing and and heaving beams onto the woodpile like a champ and leaping in and out of the truck box with the agility of a gymnast.

Both the girls worked exceptionally hard, as did my love, and by the end of the day, the former death trap had been reduced to a manageable pile of rubble, a scant 2-3 more loads and the cursed thing should be gone.

Checking in

I'm still alive.  Just busy.

Last week I had a second colonoscopy, since the first one contained some abnormal cells, I guess?  The internal medicine guy I see, who is a vaguely intimidating, yet oddly comforting older Irish-maybe-Scottish dude informed me that after 10 years of being diagnosed with colitis, your chances of getting colon cancer goes up somewhat and as such I should be getting scoped every two years.  

Basically, something showed up that the lab and the good doctor were unsure of, so they sent the results down to a specialist in Toronto (this was back in June I believe).  The specialist, as well, was stumped.  So I got scheduled in for another scope, this time to be biopsied every 10cm of my colon.  Hot, right?

On one hand, I'm not gonna lie.  I'm a little concerned.  Because some thing is not nothing.  On the other hand, saying "something showed up on your test and we're not sure what it is" is far from "Holy Shit, look at all that CANCER."  So I figured I'd just be a sport and go for the second scope, and take whatever comes with it, and hope it turns out like that Pap test that came back abnormal.  I just kept going back until I got a few normal tests and they tell me I don't have to come back in for another year. Easy Peasy, lemon squeezy.

I kind of screwed up and caused myself some extra discomfort during the pre-scope cleanse.  I couldn't remember whether or not coffee was allowed, so I erred on the side of not having any.  Boy, did I pay for THAT.  In the immortal words of Dave Foley "I'm not sure what's in caffeine but I'm pretty sure that without it, your head caves in."

So I did a caffeine free cleanse, so I could have a camera inserted where no camera should ever go and then topped that off with a dental cleaning because I am, ladies and gentlemen, a special class of masochist it would seem.  Speaking of masochism, I have agreed to go camping.  In October. In a tent.  Because that is a good idea?

I jest, I'm sure it will be enjoyable.  I'm looking forward to some fall colors in Muskoka with The Well Travelled One.  

In other news, I have an opportunity to be an extra in a movie that is being filmed locally.  I just need to see about getting a day off.. I'm not entirely sure I have any personal days left.  But if I can swing it, I'd like to do it as there are a number of locals also taking part and it sounds like it could be a lot of fun.

Well, that's my brief update.  Hopefully with winter approaching I'll at least have a bit more to talk about.

Tootles!

I'm not dead, but unlike Mr. Scott Weiland, I may or may not be for sale.

So, I'm not suicidal. In case anyone was wondering. I deactivated my Facebook account last week and the first thing The Well Travelled One warned me was to expect cops to show up, since apparently deleting your Facebook is considered a sign that someone is suicidal. Apparently it's a sign of being a terrorist or weirdo or something too. I have seen news stories to this effect, but am too tired and or lazy to link them.

You know who else didn't have a Facebook account? Hitler.

This actually concerned me a bit since I also took a hiatus from my kick-boxing classes for health related reasons.. It might have looked I really was withdrawing..

"I guess this would be a bad time to start selling my shit on Kajiji, right? Heh."

Anyway, I'm doing fine. Rediscovering methods of communication such as... The phone!! Holy crap. I kind of forgot that I have a pretty spectacular long distance plan.

In other news...

Painting. Renewed my efforts on a piece I started almost two years ago. It's a reproduction of a photo that the Well-Travelled one had taken on one of his adventures. I had left it alone for sometime out of frustration at my inability to paint a straight line.

Masking tape is a grand, grand invention. Except that I lost my masking tape so I had to use invisible tape. You know what sucks about invisible tape?

IT'S FUCKING INVISIBLE.

So that makes for a fabulous time trying to tell where you actually taped and didn't tape.

I'm harbouring a house full of pre- adolescent and adolescent girls. There has been much giggling and much sounds that indicate that the ceiling is probably three seconds from caving in.

It's not so bad though. I can't speak for tomorrow though, as I have been waking up with nasty, possibly sinus related headaches the last few days. Hopefully I will be able to handle the onslaught of girl noise come morning.