Spring has sprung!

Hello!

Wow. Spring has definitely sprung. I guess the saying "March comes in like a lion, leaves like a lamb" has held pretty true for this year; we had blizzards at the beginning of the month and now the weather is just beautiful. Everything is already getting greener. The pine trees in our front lawn look a happier shade of green, though maybe I just think that because they're no longer covered in snow. Either way, it's nice to see the sun and the beginning of spring growth.

Claire has fully adjusted to life at our house. She loves running outside and playing with Zoe. Today I sat out there with them and watched as they played a serious game of tug-of-war with an old sock. Zoe won since she has so much bulk behind her; compared to Claire, she looks like a grizzly bear. I was hoping to get both dogs brushed out some, but neither of them really care to sit still to be brushed. Oh well. Zoe's going to have to let us brush her at some point as the weather gets warmer since she has seizures when she gets too hot.

This past weekend I had my second round of chemo with Oxaliplatin. I tried to stay active and ignore the side effects, but yesterday and Sunday I couldn't help but crash and end-up taking a couple of three hour naps which left me feeling like I was run over by a truck when I finally got up. I think my cold sensitivity is starting to fade from this last treatment, but my hands and feet are starting to feel chapped again- that always happened before when I was on Oxaliplatin. Next time I go in for treatment the skin on my hands and feet will probably start to peel since that's the side effect that follows the chapped feeling.

Anyways, I haven't been up to too much. I've been to one band practice where we actually played something. It was fun though. We're playing a medley from "Pirates of the Caribbean" that I haven't played before. The only downside was that I volunteered to play the second part since one of the other kids had been playing the first part in my absence. The second part isn't half as fun, but it's not too bad. I get to play lots of low notes that aren't usually in a saxophone part, and my new horn sounds like it was made to belt them out. We're also playing one of the classic overtures, though I can't remember what it's called. It's not "William Tell," but it's one of the ones you think of when you talk about a fox hunt. This would be how I would sing it: duh-do-do-do-do-do-do-doot-doo-doo and repeat... I don't know how much sense that makes to anyone, but I bet someone will be able to figure it out. =D

Lol. I have to make mention of this: I'm sitting on the couch and Claire is laying beside me with her back to the front of the couch. Three times now she's leaned back and almost rolled off the couch. Hehe, it's really funny. Oh, there- now she's turned around so she won't fall off. Hehe.

Tomorrow I go to Brainerd with the RCTC band to play in the community college gathering of bands/choirs. It should be fun. I don't get home until late Friday night, and then Saturday I'm on the road again with my mom as we travel to St. Cloud to see Jase's play.

Eww. Claire just farted. It reeks. Why does she always have to fart around me??

Ah, I just figured out what I've been up to! I was finishing Mr. Little's website for his book. Thanks to everyone who helped me work out the page's problems! I think the end result turned out quite well. You can check out the website and order a copy of Little's book here: www.seanpatricklittle.com Don't be too impressed with how the webpage looks; I just altered a free webpage template to my liking. Luckily the template was image-orientated, so all I had to do was edit the images on my camera's photo-editor and the pre-written HTML did the rest. =D

Well, I've gotta run.

Wait! One more thing: Exactly 140 have placed a pin on my map! I am seriously impressed! =D
Thanks everyone who put in a pin!

Much love,
Cheryl

Oh come ye technologically inclined!

Hello!

Lots of events have taken place since I last posted. Well, maybe not "events"- they aren't really big enough to be considered "events". "Various activities" maybe? I was hanging-out with friends who were home on spring break for most the week, almost everyday actually; it was great seeing them all again! I attended a gathering at Ann's house on Friday and on Saturday Laura, Ann, and I went to the conservatory at Como Park in St. Paul. There were lots of pretty flowers there. I must say the sunken garden was the best part. There were tons of blooming flowers, all in shades of pink, white, and festively happy colors. It was gorgeous. I hope to head up there again soon since the sunken garden is changing from its winter exhibit to its spring one. The conservatory said that the spring exhibit features bulbous flowers, like tulips and daffodils. I think that would be fun to see.

The puppy is adjusting well. She is already pretty spoiled and is as lazy a dog I've ever seen. Her favorite pastime is laying in the middle of the living room floor, that and snoring. My goodness! I've never heard a dog to snore like she does. I guess it's not too bad. Just every once in a while she'll let out a snore that sounds like it came from a grown man instead of a puppy. =P

Now for the main purpose of this post. I need help designing a web page. Since most of this blog's readers are IBM-ers, I figure someone out there might be web-design inclined or knows someone who is. I've already got the code all written out. The problem is that some of the graphics are not behaving. When I open the HTML file from my C: drive, it works fine: everything lays out like it should. However, when I open the actual web page, everything changes: the graphics don't extend to the bottom of the page and the main content text overflows into areas it shouldn't. I would be thrilled if I could get the silly page to behave in one web browser, but it'd be even better if the web page could be supported by different browsers and fit different sizes/resolutions of screens. I am not all that knowledgeable in computer languages: the only way I got this website put together was by using a free template and a WYSIWYG program (Nvu). So, yeah: I need lots of help. If you could help me fix my problem, or know someone who could, email me at telaldalin@msn.com. Thanks so much!

Oh, I want to thank everyone who has added a pin to my map. It's exciting to see how many people read my blog and where they all come from. =D

Wait! I've got more thank-you's that I've been forgetting to post:
Thank you Deneen and Alvin for the monkey PJ's. They're so cute!
Thank you also to Jana and Kelley for the orchid; it's beautiful.
And a general thank-you to everyone who has been sending me cards and flowers to brighten my day. =D

I think a rush of activities is coming up soon. For band at RCTC, we're traveling to Brainerd for a collaboration of college bands and choirs for a few days; the RCTC band will play a few pieces on its own, but we'll also be joining a band that's made up of all the attending colleges. It should be fun. My friend Jase has the performances for her play in St. Cloud starting this week; I hope to attend one of her shows in between playing sax for RCTC and having my next chemo treatment.

I'm not looking forward to chemo. I guess I never am, but it keeps getting to be more of a strain. Like I've said before, I'm sick of it. I hate being leashed to the pump and feeling the side effects of the oxaliplatin. No fun at all. The problem is that if I stop, it's not like everything is going to be all happy-go-lucky again. I think that's the impression people were getting from one of my previous posts. It really isn't all that easy to just pack-up my bags and go traveling. I still have my femur/hip to worry about. My mobility is so limited compared to what is used to be. I'm always worrying that it'll fracture, which after seeing a video of the various ways a femur can fracture I've decided does not look pleasant in the least. I still get tired quickly too. Not mentally tired, but physically. I'd have to say that's mainly due to my hip also: it gets sore and then I need to sit down. Meh, it bugs me.

But enough of that. I have a puppy who's wandering around looking like she needs someone to play with, so I think I'll go and do that. =D

Much love,
Cheryl

"Save the cheerleader, save the world."

Hey.

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. Things have been busy this week with friends being home on spring break and last week was chemo so I didn't feel like posting. But I'm getting to it now. =)

This happened near the end of February, on one of the snow days. Greg and I decided that the snow was just right for building snowmen and ventured out into the yard.










This first picture (on the left) is Greg and I beginning the construction of our snowmen. Mine is more of a small pile of snow while Greg's is already a decent sized base. Well, we continued building for a good part of the afternoon and this is what we came up with... The picture to the right is of my snowman David(pronounced: da-VEED). I decided not to go traditional-style in my snowman building, as you can tell. =D He didn't really have man-parts, by the way- just leaves. =P It was really funny when he started to melt because he kept leaning really far forward until he toppled over. The picture to the lower left is of Greg's snowman. I thought it turned out pretty cute.

I really don't know what all to write about concerning what I've been doing since I last posted. I was at state wrestling, which was fun. I've been reading quite a bit again: "Yay" for Diana Wynne Jones. And then last weekend Mom and I went and picked up a five-month old puppy from the humane shelter in Red Wing.

This is Claire. She got named after the cheerleader from the NBC television series "Heroes": "Save the cheerleader, save the world." It's actually kind-of appropriate since the character was adopted and we adopted the puppy. Claire is about the mellowest puppy you'll ever meet. She loves everyone and is quite fond of snuggling with people to take naps. She's the first inside dog I've ever had, so it's been lots of fun. She potty-trained really easy: she's smart like that. Oh, Claire is a border collie lab mix.


I guess that's about it. I'm on the full chemo treatment again. I hate it. Luckily the cold sensitivity isn't too bad yet and I haven't been vomitting.

Oh, you may have noticed that on the sidebar to the right there is a little icon that says "Map" on it. I thought it'd be neat to see how many people read my blog and where they're located. So if you feel like it, click on the icon and take a look at the map. A little bubble popped up for me asking if I was in Rochester, which is pretty much where I am, but I changed it to Eyota and filled out the the required spaces (name, email- optional to post a message). You don't have to enter in your real name. If you wish to remain anonymous, just put "Blog Reader" down as your name. You also don't have to enter a real email address. I tried out just putting down something random with "@" and ".com" in it and the site accepted it. If you put down your email address you automatically become a member of Frappr and get a goofy password assigned to you. So to avoid that, I would advise filling the email space with a made-up email address.

Okay. That's all the news I had.

~Cheryl

Update

I'm not having surgery. I've gone off Avastin for six weeks for nothing. This morning I had a CT-scan and X-ray. Dr. Pitot looked at both and reported that my tumors are getting worse. The radiation did little for my femur. The tumors on my liver are re-growing. There are specs of cancer on my lungs that weren't there before. So I won't be having surgery. Instead I'm going back to having the full chemotherapy treatment. That means I'm on Oxaliplatin again. That was the only thing that was really keeping my cancer at bay anyways. So I'll be cold sensitive again and constantly vomitting. I'll also be back on the Avastin, which means that if I do randomly fracture my femur I'll have to deal with the bleeding/healing issues that come with being on Avastin. No surgery means my mobility will remain hindered. No dancing or running around. Having radiation on my femur makes it more delicate as time progresses, so I have to be more careful to not randomly fracture it. I don't know if I'll stay on Avastin or Oxaliplatin, but the alternatives include severe acne and hair-loss as side effects. It mostly depends on how long I can tolerate the Oxaliplatin. Or how long the cancer reacts to it. It won't react to it half as well as it did before; actually, none of the drugs will work as well as they did before. By taking a break from Avastin/Oxaliplatin, I've reduced their potential to fight my cancer. That's also why we're looking into different chemo drugs. I'm thinking of just quitting chemotherapy. It's not doing much in the long run anyways. Dr. Pitot says it probably only makes a difference of a few months. Which doesn't matter much. He says I'm realistically looking at a year tops now, maybe half a year without chemo. I don't think I'll be going to college in the fall. What's the point? I hate my life; I'm just living to die. I have no purpose and I hate how people always say that they wish they could take this away from me. It annoys me because we all know it can't be taken away. I'm stuck with it. The end. Stop trying to wish it away. And stop saying you'd rather have it than me because I don't want you to have it. In fact, go out and get your colonoscopies when you're supposed to. I would give anything to have been forced to get a colonoscopy when this all started so that the cancer would have just been a stupid little polyp that could be removed during the colonoscopy. That's how easy this cancer is to prevent!! But what do people do? They never schedule themselves for a colonoscopy. That's why colon cancer is the second top killing cancer in the United States: because people are too embarrassed to take the means to prevent it. Stupid people. Have you seen the commercial by the American Cancer Society on colon cancer? The one where the guy uses the mashed potatoes as an example of a colon and a pea as a polyp? He just stabs the pea and the polyp is gone. It really is that simple. So let's see: quick polyp removal via a colonoscopy or chemotherapy that makes you vomit and feel like crap until the day chemo no longer works and you die. I think I would rather take the first option. But no. I'm the freak case that got this cancer way too early and therefore wasn't offered a colonoscopy. I was given a laxative and a pat on the head to reassure me that it wasn't anything serious. And now I'm angry, sad, and frustrated and seriously contemplating using the money in my savings account to buy a one-way ticket to Australia and never coming back. I'll just disappear down there and let everyone assume I'm on a vacation that never ends. Then no one will have to see me in my continually pathetic state and maybe they'll remember me as the healthy girl who graduated at the top of her class and was heading off to college in Iowa.

I'm sick of writing. I don't feel like reporting on anything else either.

~Cheryl