Thursday, September 20, 2007

Thursday, September 20th, 2007 -- FLU!!

Dear Bloggy!

I have a good excuse this time why I'm late with any bloggy updates!! I have actually been meaning to for the last week or more... but one thing after another has cropped up and prevented me from doing it.

At first... things were going really well. I had a good weekend where my friend, Amanda and I went to see some Fringe shows on Saturday. What a great day!! We saw three shows and all three of them were great!! Hahaha... now if I were really good, I would get up and go get the proper names of the productions, but I'm going to guess at them... after all, it was almost a week ago (grin).

Fluffy... Confessions of a Dirty Puppet.

This show was hilarious and brilliant at the same time!! And then I found out a gal I worked with at the Waterfront Theatre when we did Honk!, Chorus Line, Ruthless and Suds was the head puppeteer (there were two of them). What a treat!!

If Tap Shoes Could Talk

I really enjoyed this show! A cast of two (married in real life). The man was an agrophobic and couldn't leave his apartment... but he could see his neighbour across the courtyard in her apartment, practicing her tap dancing. She was going to have a show and invited all her neighbours by leaving a flyer under their door. End result, you don't know if he went to the show, or he dreamed that he went ;) Very good show!!

The Kenny Rogers Experience

Now, I'm not a big fan of Kenny Rogers, but this was a wonderful show about him, his life and his music... with so much humour thrown in, you couldn't help but enjoy yourself, even if you don't care for Kenny Rogers.

Here's my friend, Amanda!! We had such a good day on Saturday!!


Here I am on Saturday. See the great colour on my hair?? I was starting to feel quite depressed with the mousey gray colour and although I'm not allowed to use colour chemicals on my hair while taking the chemo, I went to an Aveda salon and had them use their productes which are 97% chemical free :)

PS: In hindesight, I can see that I'm not looking my usual perky self. This was 2 days before I came down with the Flu/Bronchitis bug. So although I was feeling ok here... I had no idea that I be hit so hard in 2 days :)

Now... about 10 days ago (give or take) my desktop computer up and died!! Yikes!! This is the computer that I have all my data on for the web pages, etc. It also has all my photos which I have not backed up yet (about 2400 of them). It just up and died... and wouldn't boot up.

To make a long story short... it turns out that it will cost about $600 to repair the computer... more if they find there are problems with the mother board. Even $600 seems a little steep for me to be sinking into a 6 year old computer... so I've decided to go ahead and buy a new one. I am now the proud owner of a 20" iMac (all in one). What a brilliant machine!! I have left it at the shop and they are going to transfer all the data from my old desktop to the new one. For those of you who haven't seen the new look of th new iMac, you can see it here:

http://www.apple.com/imac/design.html

I am also getting them to put in an extra GIG of RAM so it will have 2 GB of RAM. I should not have any memory problems with the new machine :) It should be ready for me to pick up tomorrow sometime :)

Of course... this week just had to have it's downs too!! It was only a week ago Tuesday that I had to go to Emergency. Well, this past Tuesday I came down with the most vicious, nastiest intestinal flu bug and a horrible bronchitis bug. I really had my doubts I'd make it through both bugs this week. Tues, Wed and Thurs (today) were horrible!!! I went to my GP and he said that there is a nasty bug going around and because my immune system is compromised, I am feeling the nasty effects even more than the average person who gets it.

Luckily, tonight I'm feeling a bit better... well, quite a bit better. I'm now convinced that I'm not going to die :) But it will take me a few days to kick both bugs, at a minimum. I'm hoping the worst is gone by Monday because that's when I get more chemo (#10).

Which leads me to an interesting thing that my doctor (GP) said today. He said that he is amazed at how stoic I've been through this whole journey and he can't tell if I'm bluffing or not. I asked him what he meant because as far as I know, I'm not bluffing. Other than this week with the flu and I really thought that I may not make it through this horrid flu/bronchitis, I have felt pretty good throughout the whole thing. The days that I've been hit with the fatigue or tireds, I stay home and sleep :) And I do have my neighbours and friends who will take Bridget out for her walkies if I'm just too tired to take her out myself. But his take on it is that I am being bombarded with the toxins (Chemo) and then there was the 5 1/2 weeks of radiation... that my insides will be a war zone, and yet I keep on truckin' on as if it's nothing. Heck, I give more attention to the flu/bronchitis than I do to the heavy duty treatment I'm on. I told him that I really and truly think I must be feeling ok because if the treatments were anything like the flu this week, I would probably have quit months ago... and if not quit, I'd certainly not be a happy, friendly camper (grin). He said that he has had many people go through chemo/radiation for various cancers... but most of them have gotten a lot less than what I'm getting and their particular chemos have not been as intensive... and his other patients have not been so normal and positive. So that's why he's not sure if I'm just being very very stoic or if I'm in a lot of discomfort and despression and just bluffing when he sees me.

Hahaha... so I'm not sure whether to take this as a compliment or a criticism!! LOL! I'm going to give him a little benefit of the doubt because a lot of my friends have said how surprised, shocked, amazed they are when they see me and I'm just my usual self with no indication of a serious illness or cure. But I must admit, maybe it's not working in my favour :) Those who see me might not believe I'm going through a journey because I don't make a big deal of it. Oh, the confusion :)

Cheryl