Home Stretch

Radiation and Quarantine this coming week.  I've gone dairy free (among other things) since April 16, and I miss cheese the most. I have even read about making cheese at home, and may even make squeaky cheese!  I'm getting ready to radiation proof the house, and figuring out my life post severe hypothyroid and stupid, funky diet.

I have learned cool things like, I hate veggies, except a very minor few, and I can only eat so much oatmeal.  I have learned how to make roasted red peppers (and will never buy them again!).  I have a go-to spaghetti recipe--which I had worked on ages ago, but have really never written down, now, the base is written down, and what you do to it can be played with (gluten free pasta is made without eggs).  Turns out I am okay with hard boiled eggs, though throwing away the yolks makes me feel sick.  They put sea salt in nearly all milk substitutes (except coconut milk beverage), and I really like cheese.  Like, I've dreamed of cheese, all different kinds.  I've looked up recipes for cheesy things (and meaty things), restaurants that have had amazing cheesy foods that have closed in my area but may still be open elsewhere, so I can get them--and cannot wait to make the torte from Felicia Day's flog episode 3--it looks divine (I kind of want her apron)! I am grouchy when I am hungry, but I don't like to eat things unless they are really good.  By the way, I have never really liked fries unless drowned in sauces, and now, I can make my own with paprika, garlic powder, and dill.

My kitchen needs cleaning (because when you have to cook all your own foods, you make a mess), especially when you are super exhausted all the time. KSB has been a dream, and hooked me up with bread and peeled and cut potatoes for oven fries for two weeks, and if anyone was going to be changed in a twinkling, it is she. Kale smoothies, y'all, and flatbread, and hummus, and she is amazing!

I am bloated, a little depressed, and achy, but I am hanging in there.  I am so glad to be able to take thyroid meds starting on Thursday (and for CS to bring me a cheesy, cheesy pizza! and BL to be a doll and bring me Red Robin!--at first, I thought on the same day, and now I am not sure. . . ).  Supposedly, I will be really, really tired, so I am making a pile of books I've been meaning to read, but may or may not get to them, and am thinking Alias/West Wing marathons while half awake. Though there will be some Dr. Mario and maybe some other marathoning (Buffy, Veronica Mars, Farscape, Lark Rise to Candleford, Witchblade, and Lost have all waved their hands in the air, as well as the lead up to the Avengers--Thor, Captain America, Iron Man 1&2, and you know I can do Jane Austen marathons for weeks on end).

It has been so long since I felt like a person, I am just looking forward to feeling like I am not waiting around for doctors to fix me.  And to engage in my life again (which you need energy for--Thursday cannot get here fast enough).  Though supposedly it will take me three months of figuring out my meds to get to fully functioning.  My therapist has been a dream through all this, and if you are going through cancer treatments, I would recommend therapy to everyone--if only to talk me down off the ledge when I wanted to chuck it all. 

Cancer free by the end of May, y'all! Hopefully.

On a complete side note, if you are around on June 9th, I have a gig singing at Bocci (well, technically in the courtyard) with my favorite little local jazz band. Patti, their normal singer, who does the most gorgeous version of La Vie en Rose I've ever heard, cannot sing that night, so I am going to be their vocalist. I just got the intimidating set list of 33 songs, and I am a little nervous, but SUPER excited. I'll post more closer to time, but 6:30pm on free cake night at Nantucket?  Easy peasy! 

Funny enough, one of my favorite recovery moments was singing for an hour at a wine tasting with John K--the amazing jazz guitarist from this group.  So fun!

Anyway, I know this is super meandering.  Just thank you for your help and prayers, and I figured it was time to update everyone again. 

Time to go make coconut milk, egg white, french toast. . .   I may need to buy a bread maker after this.

Broadway Baby, updates. . .

So Smash has been less than impressive, and is definitely for adults only, but the songs still make me smile.  Maybe I just want to be in a production. Vertigo, laryngitis, and everything. . .



The Workshop--sort of


A little more of the Workshop. . .



All why I would want to see this staged! :)

Here is the show I saw last night.


Ans this is the one I want to see this summer (though that will be in the Park with Amy Adams and Donna Murphy!



Good Christian Belles, though also adult only, also brings the musical laughs:



The Best ones from La Cheno recently--though she brings it every time. . .




I especially love an early one where she dedicated Jesus Take the Wheel to the widow of a man who died in a car crash. . . Horribly blasphemous, but really funny.

Side note: I am doing a gig soon--hold your calendar for June 9 at Bocci.  The TeaCups usual vocalist is busy, so they are getting a particular, soon-to-be-cancer-free, stand-in. Maybe I should get a hat. . . I'll need to talk to Roulette's Kara! :)

Home

I've been jamming on the Civil Wars for some time now--when TV and reading makes you dizzy, the only thing you have left is randomly dancing (and not falling to the left) to various tunes. So, of course their Pandora Station (with some Weepies added), have made for delightful listening. This one makes me smile whenever I hear it.  So, get up and dance along.



And a little Florence. . .

And then...

Tears streaming down your face after two hours of conference, and the Lord's Angel knocks at your door with groceries--even the ones you didn't ask for but were going to. And though crying turns to a coughing fit; the genuine tears of gratitude remind you that even if you feel like it may be time to handle your own life, the Lord is very much aware it is not, and one of the big lessons in this is you are not supposed to go through this alone. He has an army of angels he will continue to deploy if you continue to try, so give in!

I surrender, Lord; you know best.

Crazy sauce

They say when it rains it pours, and I normally subscribe to the notion that people get an equal share of good and bad luck; but this past month has led me to believe I may be wrong.

Thyroid cancer
Surgery
A pinched nerve that left my left foot paralyzed for a few days
Vertigo
Ten year anniversaries
Sinus, ear, and kidney infections
Acid reflux and weird gas bubbles
Bronchitis - possibly shared by both Rus now
Laryngitis
Fever
A debilitating cough that sounds like a lung is coming up in the process
A car-totaling, life flashes before your eyes wreck

I think that we may need to stay in all of April or we'll be the April fools.

Thank goodness for good friends and blessings that don't just laugh with you when yet another thing happens, but roll up their sleeves and ask how to help. We are incredibly blessed--though possibly also cursed.

Don't get me wrong--I know with the Lord I can handle all the things he thinks I can, but I believe it--we don't have to measure how much that is right now.

Mortality

And just when you think you can handle it all, the Lord decides to remind you that you need others.  It has been humbling and demoralizing but good for me to learn that I have thyroid cancer.  They took out my thyroid on March 13, and in a few weeks, I'll have radiation.  They keep reminding me that it is really cancer, and your brain gets it when they give you a printed off sheet of "your cancer." "If you have to get cancer, it is a really good one to get," is a familiar tune, and I am starting to get used to it.

I haven't had any of the odder side effects they have told me I would get--my voice has been fine (knock on wood), but I lost feeling in my left foot (and couldn't walk on it for a few days), had severe vertigo (nowhere near as funny as Lucille Two), and felt like I personally was making honey for the homeless due to the calcium storms. . .

It is funny how you need to be reminded of your own mortality every so often.  It is also funny that he chose now, when I would be awfully aware of it.

Two down, one to go.

Ten Years

I don't hurt as much, but I still hurt.
I don't cry as much, but I still cry.
It doesn't ache as much, but it still aches..
I don't want things for you as much, but I still dream about what your life could have been.
I wish I could see you laugh or grin or snark..
I could use a hug, B could use a kiss (you know the kind), and S could use a wrestling match.
I don't miss you as much. . . . Liar! I miss you tons.