My father-in-law said, "Don't wait for a better day. Live your life. Doing will make it better." 

He's right. Don't wait. Make today good. 

{Me in my Ragnar Team Shirt 2009- I can't help thinking of my teammates today.}

Good Luck to all of my friends running this today. I've blogged about my own experiences running this race in Vegas and The Wasatch Back. Who knows, maybe I can be back at it next year. 

I had to have more blood drawn today. It got a little sporty. It's getting harder for the techs to find a vein willing to cooperate. They've been poked a lot lately. All the veins in the crook of my arms no longer cooperate. They roll, jump or let the needles pass all the way through. Little stinkers!

Mercifully, after an hour of experimenting with different veins, tourniquets and needle positions, a nurse came in on her day off just for me. Using a pediatric needle and syringe, she found a decent vein in a weird place on my hand then manually filled the vials. Like I said, a little sporty but manageable. She filled a little more than half a vial before the blood stopped flowing. We were hoping for three. But that should  be enough for the tests. If not I'll have to go back on Monday.

I'm pretty used to the drill. It usually takes at least one miss before a tech can find a good vein. Today almost pushed my limit, almost.

But enough about blood and needles. I've got awesome news!

The big fat silver lining to the blood draw today is that my Doctor only order three vials! That means my hormones have leveled out and we have narrowed down the culprit that's making me sick. Guess what? It's the same old one. The Thyroid. My stinky thyroid does not play nice with the others. It always thinks it needs to show everybody else up but sending out way too many hormones then throwing a tantrum and not sending any out at all.

Which a relief for two reasons:

It's an organ fairly easy to regulate and that means my tumor isn't secreting anything else.

This is very good news. Secreting tumors are almost always benign but they can cause a lot of health issues by throwing off the delicate balance in the body. And when the hormones are out of whack, yikes, you get all kinds of weird symptoms. Maybe I'll share some of the yuckier ones with you but not today.

So for now my tumor is just hanging out, enjoying the scenery. Hopefully once I get my cheeky thyroid reigned in I should feel great!

Okay, "great" is my word. My Doc prefers "better". But he doesn't really get that I'm an overachiever. I'm shooting for  "fantastic", "stupendous", "better than ever". I've got races to run, classes to teach and a million creative projects simmering on the back burner. Believe me, all this laying around has given me one HUGE back burner.

But that is a post for another day.

Em got a bike for her birthday. Isn't it cute? She was so excited she screamed and clapped, and jumped up and down. Then I got all chocked up because I'm getting soft like that. Don't you remember your bike? The one you loved? The one with streamers and a basket or big fat tires you could take over jumps? 

Mine came from a garage sale. My mom painted it lavender then stayed up for two nights while I slept detailing it with little white and yellow daisies. She even painted my name on the chain guard. I thought it was the most gorgeous bike I had ever seen. I rode that bike until the vinyl peeled off the banana seat. 

I love the color of Em's bike, mint green, like the ice cream. She's cool like that. One bowl is never enough. This bike says so much about her personality: classic, intelligent, talented, mature but fun, well-read (okay, maybe it doesn't say well read but she is and this is my metaphor so just go with it). 

The best part about the girl on this bike is that she my daughter she is one of the coolest people I know. (And I know a lot of very cool people.)

Happy New Bike Day Em!

{N. clowning around.}

Today I had big plans. Mornings are so promising and chock full of possibilities. Think about it, anything is possible first thing in the morning. I'm a sucker for mornings. Mostly because I feel indestructible before ten-fifteen. Well, not indestructible exactly. I'm usually pretty thirsty. An unquenchable thirst is standard for me nowadays and it's the WORST when I first wake up. So I drink (chug) about a gallon of water and wait for my body to absorb my daily dose of hormones. Then I pee for about an hour.

Okay, I'm getting distracted. Where was I?

Oh yes, I had big plans to paint a checkerboard pattern on the floor of the playhouse in white and green. I'm super-psyched about it. I've only been planning to do it for the past three months. It's going to be stinkin' cute. Since I haven't felt so saucy the paint's been sitting in the garage, settling into layers like Native American sand art.

But this morning I felt great. I dusted off the paint cans, walked outside, armed with a chalk line and enough painter's tape to checkerboard a parking lot, and bent down to find the center of the floor. Then I nearly passed out. Standing only made it worse. So I staggered back into the house and called it a day at 10:30 a.m. SWEET!

On the up side, N. entertained me. He cracks me up. I'm not kidding. He's hilarious, like pee-your-pants funny. And I mean for a normal person who doesn't drink two gallons of water daily.

Then I tried to sleep while my younglings fought.

Don't I look dewy and peaceful? I heart photoshop!

Coming to terms with reality

A few weeks ago I was trying to fuel my car when my cell phone rang. It was the Friday before Memorial day at around 4:30 p.m. You can imagine how packed it was at the pumps. Visualize vehicles everywhere, SUVs' with boats, minivans and trailers, compact cars loaded to the ceiling with luggage and pillows. And right in the middle of it was my car blocking two fuel pumps while I talked on the phone. 

You should have seen the venom launched at me, not to mention the hand gestures. I don't blame them. I've probably glared at a women or two for acting like a bone fide idiot on her phone. But I couldn't move. I was locked in a stupor by the news spilling out of the receiver. 

Inoperable what? Sitting where? 

Someone honked behind me and with very shaky hands I shifted my car out of park and pulled away from the pumps and into a sorry parking space between a bread truck and a minivan. I tried to make sense of the words, "inoperable brain tumor sitting against my hypothalamus". What does that even mean?

Of course, I knew the anatomy. I'd prepared myself for every medical possibility of what could be leading to my steady mental and physical decline. But a brain tumor was the Big One, the impossible possibility, the most unlikely reason I'd lost so much of my life and abilities over the past two years. 

I mean, come on, a brain tumor? Really? That's the stupid go-to-plot device for killing characters on T.V. It's not something that happens to real people. Not really. 

Sitting there in my car on the side of the road I tried to make the words sink in and feel something. But I couldn't. For the first time in six years this thing that had slowly chipped away at my life, friendships, career, hobbies, writing and family had a name. Holy Crap! It had an image on a screen. I could actually see the parasitic thing that dogged me, drowning me with doubt, feelings of failure and confusion. 

I have a tumor. I am NOT going crazy. 

For about three days I was freakishly calm. In fact, I was such a pillar of strength I even impressed myself.  I comforted my husband, parents, siblings and closest friends with my seasoned wisdom of what a brain tumor had done for me. "It's such a blessing," "I wouldn't trade it for anything in this world." "It has taught me so much about love, and mercy, and humility." And I meant it. 

But when side effects from the meds sucker punched me and I was reduced to a ball of tears on the floor, I didn't feel like a big hero. The tumor wasn't a novelty anymore and I was ready to get off the roller coaster. 

This is where reality is starting set in for me. There isn't a cure. I have a tumor sitting between my pituitary gland and my hypothalamus. It's most likely benign and I've probably had it for years. And though there are many medications I can take for the symptoms, because it's using my hypothalamus as a lounge chair it's inoperable and I've got to learn to make friends with it. 'Cause it ain't going anywhere. 

Some days I'm okay with that and some days I'm not. But I am deeply relieved to at least see the challenge I'm facing. My husband asked me why I wanted to blog about this. He comes from stoic Vikings who suffer silently. That's part of the reason I love him. Wink! 

I'm not a Viking. I've stumbled a lot over the past few years and feel like I've lost some parts of a very full life but I believe there is still an entire life for me to live and I intend to seize it. 

I just don't feel like doing it alone.

Day 111

Hey, look who I found. 

Giving Good Voice

 I've put my stories so far under my bed I think they've found their way to the garage where I was happy to let them stay. But now I'm teaching this *&%^&% literature class and it's forcing me to read again, no more than read, it's forcing me to examine words and their meaning. And it stirs things in me. Things I'd just assume go forgotten.

My life is back to the beginning. Everything I will do today will be what I did before I picked up a pen. Last year, I told my friend Melinda I wanted my prewriting life back with it's order and predicability. I was putting down the pen and going back to my old life. 

And she asked, "Do you think you can? Will you still be able to find satisfaction in it? At this point is it even possible to go back?" 

I really resented the question.

Of course I can. I know what I want! I want lazy picnics on the back lawn and an organized pantry. I want to frost sugar cookies and to make jam. I want to know what is going on in my kids lives, the names of their friends and the contents of their lockers. I want to decorate for the holidays and run errands. I want to sit quietly and listen when people speak to me and be there, not just in body. 

Because, woo boy, when I've got story on the brain there ain't nothing else going on behind my eyes. And I'm completely impotent in reality. Which doesn't really work with my life. As I write this very sentence my five year old is dangling around my neck, scooting to my lap, then to the floor and whining because she wants me to get off the friggen computer. 

So, I put the laptop away and go on with my day, the same kind of day I had three years ago. But different. Melinda might be right. Once the words are in our blood . . . 

they sort of make an impact.

Thanks SuzyT for the link. You are amazing. All of you should know Suzy. She is about the coolest woman I know. If I could be like any woman in the world it would be her. And I've known her since I was a wee lass, so this isn't just virtual love here. She's got this whole creative/parenting gig figured out. Oh, and she's the most awesome kind of spontaneous—the let's go to Maryland for dinner and eat blue crab kind of spontaneous (she lives in Florida)—she's so cool. She's an artist and writer and coolest chic ever. In fifteen years, I want to be like her.