I was so lucky to be able to go home yesterday. Dr. Jolly surprised me with discharge orders after seeing that I managed to keep away a fever for over 24 hours. My dad insisted that I would be going home that day, after the conversation with Dr. Jolly, but I insisted that I would be staying until this morning, but I was wrong! I was so happy that I could get going from the hospital and away from my IV pole, not to be restricted to only being in the hospital and having to rely on the help of others to get me whatever I could possibly be craving at that very moment, and not be woken up during the night to get my vital signs checked. Don’t get me wrong, the hospital is an amazing place to be when I am not feeling good, but when I am feeling healthy (well, my terms of healthy) then I really want to go home. As much as I have so many people who love me right there in Roseville Women’s and Children’s Center Kaiser, it is just not the same as being able to go home at a whim. 

Today I woke up and was not feeling particularly good, mostly because I tossed and turned all night. I was a little upset because Panda decided that he was not going to sleep with me, probably because he is not used to me being home yet! I was really cold too, as I had on my three fans, as usual. It was surprising to me, so I just turned off all of them and went back in to to bed to hopefully snuggle with my cat. He was more into playing than cuddling, and my feet were like popsicles, so I grudgingly rolled out of bed to get out a pair of socks and made my way to the couch. I had made it out of bed before 10am, which is very unusual for me. Then again, I went to bed at 8pm last night, so I guess that makes a little bit of sense. I immediately turned on the tv to watch The Biggest Loser, a guilty pleasure of mine that I did not get to see last night as a consequence of going to bed early. This finally gave me the opportunity to let out a good cry. I cannot tell whether I hate crying in front of people because of the vulnerability, my ego, wanting to be strong for everyone, or a combination of any of those. I just feel so uncomfortable crying in front of people. Even my parents. I feel perfectly fine crying by myself, it is more of a release than anything else to me now. A really needed release. I have read from a lot of people that they feel like they are pathetic when they cry alone, but I honestly feel better. It is a little quirk of bottling things up.

I started to feel physically better immediately after I was able to cry for a little bit, I guess emotional and physical health really do go hand in hand- always good to know. My mood increased and I suddenly decided that I had to check out some music and dance to some tunes, working out slightly and getting my lungs a little stretched out. This makes me a little hopeful that I will be able to compete again, eventually. I have to admit that I do not have a very good lung capacity anymore, which saddens me because I used to have awesome swimmer lungs. I guess it just gives me more to work on when it comes to being a better athlete. I am less likely to give up mentally on workouts when they get hard or when my body hurts now as well. You get a little mentally tough when it comes getting chemo and all of the other things that come with cancer, as that pain is not in your control. When you workout, you are asking for the pain and getting a great physical benefit. Going through chemo, you get pain like no other, no high from endorphins, and the only workout your body gets is a fantastic ab workout when chemo gets your stomach upset and won’t hold anything down. That is the only positive that comes from puking, which I guess is part of my sick humor, when I realize that my first workout in a very long time was not the one that you can press a snooze button or be too lazy to get out of.

Since I was so happy to finally be out of the hospital, I decided that my car had to get driven. Since it is a Camero, it likes to go fast, so I filled up the tank and went down the highway. It made me realize how much I missed driving and the freedom of it. The music blasting from my stereo, the window blowing through the windows, to having the oh-so-satisfying stares from strangers, it was amazing. I feel a little bit fulfilled when people eye my car, as I do the same. I am still not used to Christine- that is what I decided to name my car. Yes, this is based on the Stephen King novel. Christine is portrayed as a slick car, so I thought that it would be perfect to go along with my love of horror films/books. My car desperately needs to be washed, but I still do not have enough strength or stamina to wash it myself, so I deal with having a car that is full of kitty paw prints, and kind of laugh at how small Panda’s feet are. Have you ever noticed how tiny a cat’s footprint is? It is so adorable to me, they look so delicate compared to our own. Now back to the car, I did not get any people who approached me to race me, it is always a little exciting when that happens, although I am only up to racing by accelerating fast and am not into going 100 on the freeway or 80 on the streets, that makes me uncomfortable. I have never gotten a speeding ticket and I am deadly afraid of getting pulled over, so I will save my tears and money by going more near the speed limit. 

I have been craving Popeye’s since I had been admitted into the hospital, so I decided that today I would go out and get it for myself. I saw commercials for the crayfish and I could not shake my hunger for it, so I got that and a huge tub of mashed potatoes and gravy. Yum! It was just what I wanted- and probably what I needed. I can tell that I have lost weight because the rings on my fingers move around freely and annoy me. The diamond constantly moves to the bottom of my hand and get in the way of my everyday activities. I am in no way complaining about the rings on my fingers, just the weight I have lost. I wish I could keep my weight on! I am a little afraid to step on the scale, so I am unsure what I weigh, I am sure it is around 120, five founds light. I think it is a wrestler thing, always knowing and obsessing over the scale. I was not a fantastic wrestler, but you do pick up a few habits from it that may seem strange or unhealthy to others. I was always lucky that I did not have to starve myself to fit into a lower weight class and that I always made my weight easily. I saw the horror of others having to run and diet to be a certain weight, so I was thankful for not having to do so. 

I am sorry to say that I have no updates for my health. The cultures taken from my blood were all negative, so we do not know what was ailing me. This is an everyday annoyance that I have to deal with, not having the answers that I desire. I get my plans and dreams thrown off by things that I cannot foresee and sometimes do not know the cause of. I have pretty much no doubt in my mind that I will have to wait at least another semester before starting up school again, which really bothers me. I get so tired of my plans being changed or postponed. I cannot keep most of my plans and have to back out of things last minute because unexpected things tend to happen to me a lot. 

With regards to my health, I guess we are all unsure of what my future treatment will be, whether it is going to be chemo or radiation, but I did find out that they cannot just up and take out my whole lung. That saddens me a bit, I was comforted by having the option of just taking out my entire lung in case no treatment was working. I did handle the ICE chemo better than expected, and as my doctor put it, “Better than you should have,” This is not too surprising considering how strong my body is and how it decides to hate me but put up with a lot at the same time. I continue to surprise my doctors with how well my body handles everything, but I am not. I feel like it has always been there for me and has worked well (other than this whole cancer problem) and has always held up no matter what ailment or physical challenge that it faces. I really don’t want to go through chemo again, I hate being in the hospital and I really, really, really don’t want to lose my hair again. I cannot stress it enough, I know that my life is way more important to my hair, but my quality of life is important. I don’t remember if I posted this before, but if I do lose my hair, this time I will wear wigs so to stay away from the hats and beanies- they remind me too much of chemo. However, my wigs would be the colorful wigs that most people only wear on Halloween or costume parties. I would be wearing pink, purple, red, blue- whatever color I can find and whatever style I choose looks good.

I am a little emotionally drained, so I will leave this post a little short today! I just figured I had to let everyone be up to date on my health, basically everyone knows what I know when it comes to what happened recently, which is pretty much no information whatsoever. So until next time!