Leaping Lizards, It’s a Blizzard!

Aaaaaah! Where did all this snow come from!? I woke up this morning to the sound of thunder and I was thinking, “Oh, it must be raining outside,” but when I looked out my window there was white everywhere!

So now I’m sipping cranberry tea (thanks, Linda), the only good tea there is, and eating toaster apple strudels while I glare outside at the evil snow.

I can’t believe there’s already five inches of it out there! Yuck.

I was supposed to take a math test today, but Mom says the roads are so bad that she doesn’t want to take the chance that we’ll be in an accident on the way there and I’ll be stranded in the cold while I’m extremely cold sensitive. I feel guilty for having to ask my teacher to move the due date of my test, but it’s just not worth the risk of trying to drive in to RCTC.

Wednesday and Thursday night I had my band concerts at RCTC. I think they went pretty well. There were a couple of glitches while we were playing (like a squeaky clarinet and euphoniums not coming in when they’re supposed to) and my director even forgot his music, but otherwise everything went smoothly. The concert band played first, so I stuck around Wednesday night to hear the rest of the concert. The jazz band was really good and the choir was fun to listen to also. The last group to perform was Aires, the show choir. They had some really cute numbers, like “Route 66” and “Gimme Some Lovin’.” To say the least, they were very energetic and they kind-a pulled the audience in with their enthusiasm. I’m hoping maybe I can join it next semester, but I don’t know because you’re supposed to audition at the start of the year to get in and I’m supposed to have surgery, I think, sometime during that semester.

After I performed at the concert Thursday night, Ben took me to my Peter Pan rehearsal. Like always, I had fun and got to goof around with the rest of the pirates. It looks like we get to sing a song during a scene change or something like that, so we were picking out a song and seeing who could sing or play various instruments. It looks like the one guy knows how to play mandolin and had found a bouzouki the other day and was thinking about buying it for the play. I told him I already had a bouzouki and could bring it in for him to try. Then they asked me to bring in some of my whistles and recorders, so we might have a full ensemble of pirates singing some sort of silly sea shanty. =D

Thursday I started my seventh round of chemo. They tried giving me some new-ish drugs. Instead of feeding me an anti-nausea medication through the IV, they gave it to me in pill form. It was supposed to make me less groggy, but it still made me really sleepy so I was asleep for most of my hospital stay. Also, instead of taking compazine or zofran to keep my stomach settled, I’m now taking kytril. It seems to be working rather well; I took it last night and I didn’t feel sick at all. So I’m taking that twice a day and my stomach remains happy, verses taking the other drugs and still feeling like crud.

It looks like in a few weeks I’m going to have CT-scans again and meet with Dr. Pitot and possibly my surgeon, Dr. Cima. They also scheduled me for a bone scan since I kept asking them about the state of the cancer in my hip and they weren’t telling me anything. I don’t know if I’ll actually have the bone scan, it all depends on what Dr. Pitot says, but I’ll definitely be having CT-scans and talking about the possibility of surgery in my future. I think I’ve said this before, but I’ll post it again: the goal of having surgery is to remove the very cancerous right lobe of my liver and the primary tumor in my intestine. The result of such surgery would be a temporary colostomy bag, yet a body with considerably less cancer, which means that when I resume chemotherapy after the surgery that the chemicals can concentrate on fewer spots of cancer with greater force, which is definitely a good thing.

Oh, I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, but I kept forgetting to do it. I want to thank Jaselyn, Corey, and especially Jack for the movie they made me. Jack, if you don’t know him, is a very talented individual that makes these totally awesome videos with stop-animation (at least, I’m pretty sure that’s what it’s called). He uses Lego pieces and makes hilarious short films out of them. Recently he’s been working on a mini-series of sorts involving two characters, Jack and Jordan, who continuously get themselves into trouble. Jack’s latest “Jack and Jordan” film was made for me as a birthday present. So here is a link to it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhV81x2QBW8. You kind-of have to know Jack, Jordan, Jase, Corey and I to get all the humor, but it’s still really funny even if you don’t know all of us. I also recommend you checking out some of Jack’s other clips, like “Motorbike” and “History Crap.” The link to his main site is this: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=JackQ. Just browse around and watch what you please. Again, thanks Jack! You’re awesome!

Oh, I also want to thank my Aunt Lori and Uncle Jim for the teddy bear, care cards, and aromatherapy mineral bath. I think I may be making use of the bath salts some time in the next couple of days while I’m hooked up to the pump.

Well, I suppose I should go get ready for the day. I’m still lounging around in pajamas, but then again I’ll probably just bathe and change into sweatpants and a comfy shirt.

Talk to everyone later!

~Cheryl