Tempus Fugit

It is already June. Time seems to be flying by as opposed to when I was in chemoland and the hours slowly..slowly passed. I still have trouble sleeping at night. I go into another room and try to read or do puzzles. I hate the night and eagerly await the morning. I obsess about things too much. Most of the things that I have wasted time worrying about have come and gone. I do sweat the small stuff, which I am trying not to do. There is some big stuff too.

I have heard that if you have mets, you would know it. The triple positive (this term doesn't seem to be used) woman I met the other day with distal mets went 9 years with no symptoms. One day she lost her voice. After much investigation, it turned out a lung met had impinged on a nerve going to her vocal chords. Various scans revealed tumors in her bones, lungs and brain. Some of the tumors have been controlled by Zometa and Herceptin, whole brain radiation and surgery. She never felt pain from the bone mets (which are still present but not increasing). The idea that cancer cells can be silently gathering strength in my body creeps me out. But they will presumably rear their ugliness sooner than later-no nine or ten years of slowly growing for triple negative. After 4 years or so, my chances of mets goes way down below that of the estrogen positives. But honestly, I don't think of it that much-just occasionally in the middle of the night.
What does take up my thoughts....NAOMI. What is going to happen to her and Maya. What indeed and what do I need to do?

At the last minute, the weather service cancelled our 'deadly storm' which morphed into an ordinary thunderstorm ending an 8 day drought. I did have to go out in it yet again to rescue a friend who locked her keys in her car for the 2nd time in 2 weeks.

Our family BBQ became an indoor dinner at Josh's. There is a chihuahua pup a few doors down that discovered Dakota and the two had fun rollicking around. Dakota at 6 pounds looks huge to its probable 2 pounds. But next to Sunny, at 80 lbs, Dakota is tiny. Sunny's tail knocked her down. It was a nice dinner and no big issues arose. Naomi and Dontae had been staying there for the last 2 days watching the dogs.

There was a marathon session of "Hoarders' yesterday. I've had to deal with too many of these in my life. Just want to slap them. Other obsessions can be dealt with with SRIs but hoarding takes a different path.

On my flag counter below, I scored a new country yesterday-Guernsey. I didn't realize that was a separate country. In the 2 months or so, I am up to 42 different countries. On my master list, 95. I am such a nerd.

Calm before the storm

There's not a cloud in the sky but the TV keeps beeping WARNING! WARNING!-Huge storm coming! The air is still, hot, and moist-very bad for running this morning. I was already tired from my double workout of the day before but I figured running along the river with Steve wouldn't be too hard. It wasn't for the first half hour but..

The other night I was watching a movie that had been filmed in the Detroit area-You Don't Know Jack, about Dr. Death (Jack Kervorkian). It was clear that no one from our area did the final editing as one of the suicide areas was referred to as Lake Oh-RYE-in instead of Lake ORE-ee-in as Orion is pronounced in these parts. It actually showed the seedy motel that I 'lost' my virginity at. Little did I know that it was the spot for one of the first assisted suicides. There is a commercial on cable TV stressing to go to their business because it is locally owned and operated. Yet they mispronounce the name of the business-Ypsilanti as Yipsi instead of Ipsi as it pronounced by the 'true' residents though some call the whole area Ypsitucky. One of the last big issues discussed back and forth in the Ann Arbor News before it folded was whether that was a pejorative or not.

Five weeks or so to go and then the real storm really hits.

Komen 3 Day Walk

This racing bib is from my friend Sara in Wales who regularly blogs. I'm learning all sorts of stuff from her. Anyway, on the bib, I am listed as Sue in Italia, my original blog name before it morphed into Cancerland

So this August, my name will be on my friend's back as she does the Susan Komen 3 day 60 mile walk. I decided to go on one of their shorter training walks today as I know some of the participants.There is a large group in Ann Arbor that trains regularly headed by my former neighbor whose girls are Josh and Shanna's ages. At one point, her younger daughter was Josh's girlfriend. Now she (the younger daughter) goes to school at the university right next to Shanna's apartment. The other is a professor at Mt. Holyoke, also in Massachusetts. Small world. I hadn't seen their mom since Josh graduated 10 years ago so it was fun catching up. Also usually training is a woman I met in the infusion room and later, she was scheduled on the same radiation machine as me so we'd catch up every day that I was in treatment. Neither of us had hair when I saw her last so it would be fun to see her again but she wasn't there.

Today we went 7.5 miles. Yesterday, they went for 12. As I run regularly, I figured walking has to be easier, just way more time consuming. They are very organized with mandatory water and stretching stops. Everyone has this cutsy cancer paraphernalia attached to them along with squeaky toys that sound like frogs. I looked quite bare with no water bottles, hat, toys, buttons, dangling chains, pink ribbons galore festooned to myself but I am used to exercising by myself out in the boonies. A few of them are cancer survivors: one woman I spoke to at length has stage 4 cancer in her brain, lungs and bone kept somewhat in check by Herceptin. But she will be walking the 60 miles! Another woman is an oncology nurse whose beloved cousin died in her early 30s of BC leaving behind 2 toddlers. I walked 3 of the miles with her and another 3.5 miles with my former neighbor. Her little girl stressed to me the difference between little girls and boys. She'd come over when she was 4 and I would set up art projects for her and Josh. She would carefully and expertly color between the lines and write her whole name, including a long last name. Josh would scribble a bit and signed his name with a backwards J. She was very articulate whereas I was sending my boy Josh to speech therapy. Finally Josh told her he wouldn't play with her anymore because she was 'bow-wing'. She'd beg him to reconsider but he was heartless. She'd stop over a few times after that to show me various missing teeth ( a common obsession of 6 year olds) but that was the end of their relationship until middle school.

Afterwards, some of us went out for iced coffee (it will be 90 today!).

I am down to one dog today. It was decided that Sunny would be happier at her own place so Naomi and Dontae are at the house with Dakota while Josh and Julia wine taste in Northern Michigan. I did have Dakota all yesterday. I will train her to have more manners: no more begging, no peeing in the house, etc. Julia already has made some headway with her. My friend and I took her on a long walk yesterday to tire her out (Naomi does not). She slept at my feet last night.

Should I lift weights today? Was walking enough?

Bluet

I got 2 big balls of mini petunias to brighten my patio

All over my yard, I have various types of columbines. These ones haven't reverted to wild types as some of mine have

My favorite clematis

A bluet. One of the original flowers the house had when we bought it 27 years ago

Still likes to walk around in that bikini

Summer came here all of a sudden after a long, cool spring. Still haven't planted all my flowers.

Our car was finally finished after 2 weeks. Naomi had a rental car. All seemed fine but we got a call a few hours later saying that there was a scratch on the bumper. Naomi says it was there before but no documentation either way. They have her credit card number but it belongs to an inactive account. Every day a new annoyance. Sigh.

Hummingbirds and dogs

Another beautiful hand-made card from Lesa of LittleLifePreservers
Scanning doesn't capture how intricate the cards are or the silver paper she printed the woman on

My hummingbird came back looking for the feeder that I had taken away to clean. Hopefully she will come back now that it is clean and full. Also back, the chimney swifts tweetering away but they don't seem to be going into my chimney.

Steve volunteered to let Dakota stay part time until Naomi gets new housing. There was a shooting there last night-not a good place. Julia will watch her for some of the time. Sunday and Monday, we will have all three dogs here. Dakota will have to learn not to touch Sunny's stuff. Sunny is a 80 lb German Shepherd that we watch sometimes. She leaves Spud alone and we feed her on a separate level so Spud (who can't climb stairs) won't sniff her food (he wouldn't eat it-he's very particular). Dakota can climb stairs and will eat anything, food or otherwise.

It was less humid this morning so running was not so much of an ordeal. Maybe I cn do more gardening without sweating so much.

Needed: New Home!

Chipughua: Needs new home!

Naomi was informed today that her apartment will evict them if that dog isn't gone. Of course, no one checked this out first before adopting the dog. She is crying. As a small dog, I'm sure it would be quickly adopted if we took it to the Humane Society but Naomi wants visiting rights. Her brother will take her temporarily as she looks for a home. Steve is put out enough that we have Spud so I won't ask him.

The situation makes me sad. Just another situation out of many in which the consequences of her actions are not considered. And I was already sad even before she put this on me.

More shower pix

Checking out the 'poop'

The Shower ladies minus Deb the photographer

Naomi and Julia

Naomi at 33.5 weeks

Lots of food

So hot today. I went early to the Farmer's Market to buy plants..not early enough as there was no place to park though finally I scored a good spot.

I planted some of my purchases but it is too hot to do much. I will go to the gym and lift weights.