Wednesday, January 31, 2007 - Dreamgirls

Dear Journal,

I must admit, I'm a little perplexed as to why it takes me quite some time to get going in the mornings. I realize that I'm not starting the morning off with the Oxycodone anymore, so it seems that it takes that much longer to physically get up to scruff.

But, I had to get the morning tasks done because I was going in to see Dr. Fay this morning. I have an appointment with him for Monday, with the idea being he will remove the rest of the staples in my incision. But Monday was still 5 days away and I figured he should take a look at the incision. There are still about 4 inches of the incision that is still taking it's time healing... and since I am so paranoid of infection, I just wanted him to look at it and assure me that I'm just being paranoid. He agreed that it was certainly taking it's time, but also felt more of the staples could come out, so he took out about 10 of them. That leaves 8 of them to come out on Monday :) He also took a culture sample to send to the lab to check if there is any indication of infection or bacteria.

Hehe... I also warned him that next appt. I would be bringing him some more forms that he has to fill out. I swear, I'm getting so sick of filling out forms! And some of them are soooo stupid! Like CPP wants to see my birth certificate and if I don't want to send the original by registered mail to them with the forms, then I can get a photocopy and have it certified. HELLO?? The whole reason I'm filling out these forms in the first place is because I'm sick... why are they making a sick person run around getting forms filled out? If there was nothing wrong with me, then I'd be going to work and wouldn't need to be filling out forms proving who I was and why I was applying for benefits because the insurance company insists I do. Grrrrr! And some of the questions on these forms are totally ridiculous. One of them.. in pertaining to your illness... "How is your breathing?" HELLO??? If I couldn't breathe then I wouldn't be sitting here filling out the forms, now would I???

Anywho... as you can probably tell, I have not finished filling out the forms because they frustrate me (grin). I'll look at them again in a couple of days.

Oh.. one thing that did sort of make me wonder... I had asked my doctor if he knew what stage the cancer was in the tumour. He said that he didn't but not to worry, the oncologists would go over all of that in detail when I have my consultation meeting with them next week. I told him that I was just wondering because I want to be prepared and not have any surprises when I go there. He suggested I just wait because one could speculate over and over and not know what the oncologists are going to say or explain, so it's best to just relax and let them do the explaining. I agree and he is right.. but it does make me a little anxious that maybe I don't know the whole story. I'm going into that meeting assuming that as far as we know, the cancer has all been caught and the chemo treatments are going to be a preventative followup treatment to catch any potential cells. If they say they think there is still cancer inside somewhere, then I may go into shock again and I don't want to go there. Then again, I may just be overreacting and that's what he meant.. to not start putting eggs in a basket I don't have yet. To just wait and see what the oncologists have to say and what their plan is.

To distract me from this way of thinking, I decided to treat myself to a movie since the Paramount Cinemaplex is just down the street from my doctor's. I went to see a matinee of Dreamgirls, even though I've heard some really mixed reviews about it. Steve O. and Jo went to it when it first opened. I couldn't go because I was in the hospital, even though (grin) the theatre was just down the street from the hospital. Both Steve and Jo were not impressed with it and recommended I wait until it came out on DVD. But, I was in the mood to distract myself and I really do love musicals... and I particularly like the soundtrack to the Broadway cast of Dreamgirls (Jennifer Holliday who played Effie White on Broadway is one of my all time heroes).

Well, I totally enjoyed the movie!! It was right down my alley. I LOVED Jennifer Hudson's portrayal of Effie White and can that newcomer sing or what?? I recommend anyone to go see the show, if only to see Jennifer Hudson. She is fabulous and deserves to win the Oscar (she's already won the Golden Globe and SAG awards). I think Eddie Murphy did a good job, but I really don't like him... and I don't think he deserves to win the Oscar. I think it is interesting that the role he played or a womanizer star is very much what he's like in real life, so it wasn't much of a stretch for him. I also liked the other characters. I know a lot of people thought Beyonce was very lame in this movie and can't act... but I didn't mind her at all. Her part was not the biggest... and maybe that's part of the problem. They cast a big name in a part that didn't have a lot of meat to it. She definitely looked the part, could sing the part and really didn't have a lot of dialogue. What dialogue she did have was certainly not deep. In a way, there were no leads in the show... it was more about how the business can really cause more problems and heartbreak for those who started out as innocents... and of course, there's the whole era back in Motown where it was hard for these extremely talented singers to break into the mainstream music industry. Anywho... I really did enjoy the movie and wouldn't mind seeing it again. Mind you, there are a lot of other movies I'd like to see before the Oscars on Feb 25th, so I may not get to it again :)

So, after the movie I came home and this evening I'm just taking it easy. The doctor did say he didn't see any problem with me driving again... with the understanding that if I'm tired, then don't drive. Makes sense to me :)

Cheryl

Tuesday, January 30, 2007 - BC Cancer Agency calls

Dear Journal,

I just had to add a picture of the flowers I received today from Rod and Joan Oben. Aren't they beautiful??? And the timing was perfect. Today, it wasn't that I was in pain per se, but more like an ongoing discomfort. I was also very tired and ended up having a long nap this morning, after I had already had a good night's sleep. Now, I know I had cut out the Oxycodone on the weekend and it's possible that my body is getting used to not having that pain med in the system. Also, about 3pm today I realized, because of the morning nap, I did not take any of my pain meds. Duh! And I'm wondering why I was in discomfort??

Anywho... I got the call from the BC Cancer Agency today. This was the call I was waiting for to let me know when the consultation appointment with the oncologist(s) will be. It is going to be Thursday, February 8th at 12:15pm. So this will be the beginning of PHASE 2 of Cheryl's "It's All About Me" Journey (grin). This consultation appointment will be 2-3 hours where I will get introduced to the staff/doctors who will be looking after me and my case. At the moment, Jo and Steve O. will be coming with me to the appointment so that I have more than just my own set of ears to hear what all they have to tell me. I say "at the moment" because Jo is out of town this week and Steve is at work on location today and tomorrow, so I left messages on their voicemails about the appt. and hopefully they will be available on Feb 8th. It will be at this appointment that they will let me know when I'll be starting the chemo, how often, and how many treatments... as well, if I'll be getting any radiation treatments too. Until I meet with them, I don't really know what my treatment plan will be, other than I do know chemo will be involved.

Sooooo, that was today's news. Other than that, I was totally lazy. I guess some days are more energetic than others.. today was not one of them (grin). I do have more insurance paperwork that needs to get done, so I really should get started on that. Naaaaa... I'll look at it tomorrow (grin).

Well, time to put the bird (C.B.) to bed, and take the little 4 legged diva out for her evening constitution. Until later... ciao for now!

Cheryl

Monday, January 29th, 2007

Dear Journal,

Well, it's Monday... the beginning of another week. The last update was on Friday, so I figured I better get in here and put in another entry. It's soooo easy to get into the habit of letting more and more days fly by and less and less entries. Now what kind of a journal is that, I ask you?? But, I reckon that right now is sort of the lull between the surgery and the followup treatment. Once we get into that, I'm sure I'll have oodles to report on... whether it's interesting to read is quite another story (grin).

The weekend was fun :) Let's see... on Saturday, Steve Street came over and we got chatting for hours. The plan was, we were going to watch a video or two, but do you think I could figure out how to run my DVD player??? I have used it a bunch of times, but for whatever reason, I could not get the picture to display. Obviously, I was missing a simple little setting or the press of a button, but there went our plan of watching any DVD movies. So we just chatted instead.

On Sunday, a couple of things to report. For starters, because both my surgeon and GP are concerned that I may become addicted to the narcotic pain med, Oxycodone (I've been on it since the end of October), I decided, after Saturday night, that my pain level really is manageable and for the most part, below my pain threshold. Now, that doesn't mean I don't have pain, but since it is below my pain threshold then I don't feel it. So I stopped taking the Oxycodone and will be able to report to my doctor that, just as I had predicted, I am NOT addicted to it and there was no problem stopping it. Since not taking it, I've noticed more muscle pain, but that is not unusual after a surgery, so I use my non-narcotic pain med Tramocet and/or some Ibuprofen.

In the afternoon on Sunday, Steve O. and I went to TinselTown to see the movie, "Stomp The Yard". It was quite disappointing. The trailer for this movie was probably the best part of the movie. Yes, there is a lot of stomp dancing in it, but the plot was soooo predictable, you knew exactly what was going to happen from beginning to end. My recommendation... wait until it comes out on TV ;)

Oh, and Sunday night an old friend of mine, Michael Forrest, who I have not seen in 20 years got in touch with me! Well, through email and then I called him. It was one of those things where he had coffee with a mutual friend and happened to ask her if she ever saw/heard from me and of course we had, so when she went home, she sent him my email address. It is soooo good to be back in touch!! He has an even bigger battle to fight with two different kinds of leukemia, yet his attitude is phenomenal! If people thought I had a positive attitude, I wish you all could talk to Michael... he is unbelievable!! Anywho... we are going to get together real soon in person... and that is going to be one get together full of laughter and going over memories from years gone by. I can't wait!

Today... Joan, Mimi, Tamara and I got together at my place and had some tea. Joan was going to go to a movie and she was going to see either The Queen, King of Scotland, or Blood Diamonds. Well, we all yakked to the point it would be too late to get to the matinee of The Queen, which I was interested in seeing. The other two seemed like they would be a little too violent for my liking. But I've now heard that The Queen is disappointing, so I'm going to have to rethink which movies I want to see now and hopefully can catch before the Oscars on Feb 25th ;)

Now, just to change the subject... a friend sent me this link to an article for a cure for cancer and I found it incredibly interesting. One really does have to wonder if there is truth to this, then why ISN'T it headlines and why ISN'T there lots of funding going into this. I will have to do some more searching on the web to see if I can come up with more info about it, but it does sound very interesting.

Ok... time to take the little furry diva out to do her evening business... then I think a nice hot shower is calling to me!!

Cheryl