February 20, 2023 Monday--12:15am

Technically it is Monday.  

Being on steroids I am awake much later than usual and hungry all the time, so I figured I'd just start blogging now and see how far I get.  I'd be happy to blog early again.  That's been working well for me lately.

  Been a better week, for sure!  The burning biting shingles still has me in its grip, though, so I can't type for very long...BUT...I am now able to hand write for longer periods of time so I have been catching up with letters!!  At least able to do something, eh? 

The steroids seem to be just what I needed to help boost my very slow recovery.  I am headed in the right direction finally...seeing more improvement than I had since November!   It feels like my body was just waiting for some actual assistance.  :) 

I started on the steroids Tuesday morning.  (Since they make you restless and antsy I can see why they say take them in the morning...just forgot that from last time a few years ago when my leg mysteriously swelled up--lol!)  By that evening I could breathe through one nostril!!  And have been able to breathe through one or the other ever since!!  That is the first time in over six months I can breathe with my mouth closed!!  Oh, the little things we take for granted, eh?

And even by the first night I actually had a tiny bit of saliva!  Over these past six days I have even more and my mouth is getting less sticky...and my eyes less grainy and dry...and my knees, ankles, and knuckles are less swollen, red, and painful.  I'll take it!!  Very exciting to have some relief after all these many months.  Even if it is partial...just a hint of normalcy...or my old normalcy...whoohoo!!  It is quite early in the game but I believe I'm on the path to recovery.  I would be sooooo thrilled to just get back to my old disabled limitations.  Everything is relative, isn't it?  LOL!  :) 

The verdict on the poo situation is far from in because I had to take Imodium just to get to the appointments--lol!  But I have hopes of all that eventually getting back to my old IBS issues--LOL!  (If I am lucky maybe even better?!)  I don't want to be greedy, though, and jinx myself.  Even my brain fog feels like it is lifting a bit.  Which makes me immediately start to plan and plan--since I still am basically pretty non-functional but my mind is busy again.  ;)  I am back to sorting, purging, and reorganizing my new home in my head--LOL!  Can hardly wait till I can get back to it in the flesh.

Oh, and as far as I know the floor guy didn't make it over last week, so hopefully this week for the second options.  

Tuesday, when I started the steroids, was Leah and the boys shopping day.  I had a few groceries this week...and the boys surprised me for Valentine's Day.  They got Valentine stickers when they were at Target and then they covered a couple Lily's chocolate bars with them for me!  Ian's on the left and Liam's on the right.

We had a blizzard that night.  Not a ton of snow but high winds of 50 mph.  Middle of the night (awake due to steroids) I got a virus--or malware attack--on my laptop.  Someone commented on my blog post that I hadn't seen for a really long time.  I clicked on their name to go to their blog and wham!  

When I tried to "X" click the boxes away they just popped right back and multiplied.  Tried restarting the laptop.  Nope...still there.  So I shut it down.

Wednesday I let Dagan and Leah know via text that I had big troubles.  Dagan said he'd stop by after work.  You really find out how much you miss the internet when it is suddenly gone--lol!  

Yes, I know I do have access on my cell phone, but I am like a babe in the woods on there.  Can't figure most of it out to save my life--lol!  Glad I had the freezing birds to keep me company all day.  ;)

When Dagan showed up he found another box of flowers outside my door.  Same exact flowers and card and pitcher to put them in from Janie Junebug.  

Turned out the first bouquet was supposed to have been here end of January and probably got lost along the way.  She didn't get charged twice.  And you may notice none of the roses actually opened up and the greenery was dying already on the first one.  Twas a flowery fluke to my advantage, eh?

Anyways, Dagan messed and messed with my laptop and it was such a stubborn virus he couldn't get it out easily...and then he got a call that he had to go back to work...so he took my laptop with him.  

So it was another sunny cold day of Critter Cafe customers and binge watching Vikings: Valhalla and The Crown on Netflix.  Still had my TV streaming channels, thank goodness.  I don't have broadcast TV or cable--but these days you don't need them to have things to watch, that's for sure.  

And I connected with the dermatologist.  Good Lord!  The earliest consultation I could get was in August!  If the sore goose egg on my head bothers me or changes in any way I think I will just go to urgent care.  

Allie has been keeping my non-functional self company.

Thursday Leah dropped off my laptop on her way to do errands.  Dagan had to completely strip the brains and start over!  So it was quite the bug!!

I wished I had tried to use it a little bit before she left...because she had forgotten all the old-lady-with-bad-eyes-and-a-heavy-hand-from-learning-to-type-on-an-Underwood adjustments that need to be made--ROFL!  I thought I was really screwed because Leah was leaving town in the morning for a girl's trip to Las Vegas with her siter, Michal, and best friend, Amber.  Not going to be back till Monday.  I fully expected to be in old lady hell trying to type this blog--but Leah managed to stop back after she was done with errands to enlarge my font--calm down my cursor and make me have to click things to choose them and not just breathe wrong--enlarge the cursor and have it change color depending on what it sits on so I can find the darn thing--and we inevitably forget to connect the laptop to my printer so she did that, too--ROFL!  All that is more Leah's domain.  She has helped her grandparents all the time with their laptop issues, too.  It is not in Dagan's normal wheelhouse--LOL!

Thank you, Leah!!!

I hope she has had a blast on her well deserved vacation...which miraculously was perfectly timed.  I told her to celebrate HER being cancer free, too!  She has been there for me through all of this...almost every appointment and infusion...been cooking for me and helping me out in all kinds of ways.  Her sister had wanted them to make this trip since maybe before covid it sounded like...what perfect timing it turned out to be, eh?  I can hardly wait to hear about Penn & Teller and all the other plans they had to fill each day (not gamblers).  

Friday-- till now...

The new bouquet is really gorgeous...

...and the orange roses are open wide!

I am still hurtin' with the shingles, but better than it was a week ago.  Am on the mend with some of the Keytruda side effects.  Able to hand write again with a lot of breaks.  Did laundry and got everything put away for the first time in months...even if it took me the rest of the day.  :)   And I am making plans in my head for where my pen case stuff will go...and what all needs to finally be in the same room--like all my writing stuff (pens, inks, tablets, journals, calligraphy supplies, letter tablet decorating supplies, my wax seal supplies...and there is probably more--lol!).  I can't imagine my writing supplies or my art & craft supplies not being scattered in every room and down the hallways and even in my garage--lol!  Keeps my steroid-restless-antsy-brain busy and me very happy to think about it all...while I wait to feel decent enough to actually start gathering supplies together.  Now--if we can just get the basement floor done, eh?  ;)

Meanwhile, Allie is just as happy that I am her barely functional napping companion.

Oh, and I am sooo glad to be at Sanford.  Been bothering me that all this time they told me I had three liver tumors and I only had two and a hemangioma.  Sanford even went back to my original MRI to verify that I only had two tumors.  I looked it up and hemangiomas are common--a tangle of blood vessels that can be found in many organs--even the brain.  About 20% of people have them and they are not anything to worry about (unless they are huge, I guess).

Then--since they did keep saying that the two tumors that were left were shrinking...then neither of them could have been the hemangioma because it doesn't change size and it is still there right now.  So then they either recognized their mistake and just told me the third one disappeared to save face or another lab tech couldn't find the third tumor because they recognized a hemangioma (but I do not remember ever seeing or looking that term up before and I would have wondered what the heck it was) and just blew it off and didn't mention it...??? Just strange to me.  Not that it matters now.  I need to toss it out of my brain, right?  The two tumors are gone.

Once I get the bladder scope done then we will know for sure that I am cancer free.  Double checking where the scan might not catch it...where this all began...back when they told me I would have to have my bladder removed and have a urine bag the rest of my days.  Whew!  All this has been going on since June of 2021.  Goodness!  Hard to wrap my head around all this may be truly be over with and I really am down to maintenance checks.

Probably because I still feel like crap--ROFL!  But getting better.  A little faster than I was before steroids.  And I'm focusing on planning where my stuff is going to go...and how much can I fit in the new dressers and bookcases...and how much can I purge and donate and toss...and being able to have paper chats again...and when will I be able to work on cards...and play in my art journals...

I know.  Anxious to be functional again.  Steroids make me a bit less patient--LOL!  But all is well.  I do love the Sanford Health System.  I didn't realize how much I didn't feel safe or cared for there...until I do now.  I can't talk about it or I get all wet-eyed.  

Life is good.

I am blessed.

In so very many ways.

Till next week, my friends!