"But come ye back when summer's in the meadow..."

Hey.

I guess it's about time to update my blog.

Life continues to plod along. I can't say anything of extreme interest has happened to me since my last post, except for a reunion with all the 2006 Drama Monkeys and the happenings of Easter.

I'm still going to RCTC for band, which is the main activity of my day. The songs we have are alright. The only one I'm fond of is the "Pirates of the Caribbean" medley, but we still don't have it up to speed- which makes it a bit dull.

Other than that I don't do much during the day. I usually read, but that has become a problem since I've officially read every Diana Wynne Jone book at Barnes & Noble, except for one (which I'll probably go purchase within the week). That doesn't mean much, however, since the book selection at Barnes & Noble is atrocious and they only have about a fifth of the books Diana Wynne Jones has ever written. They also don't believe in carrying complete series and they often have a third of a trilogy in one part of the store and the other two thirds in a different part, which makes you believe that they don't carry the first book at all and would have to order it. I don't care for ordering books, or ordering anything in general. It always takes too long and then when you get whatever you've ordered there's something wrong with it. Anyway, I guess I'll go look for a new author to read.

Chemo is driving me insane. I despise being attached to the pump and being back on Oxaliplatin. My left had is now it a continual state of tingly-ness. I worry about it and wonder if this is permanent nerve damage, but Dr. Pitot doesn't seem to think much of it. However, they didn't think much of anything when this all started so I'm not much comforted by his lack of concern.

This brings about another point: Doctors do not follow straight paths of logic. You may defend the argument that this is a good thing: it is what allows them to come up with clever new treatments and such. This may be true, but I believe their deranged psychological processes are primarily used as an excuse for their intellectual shortcomings when they are addressing patients; in other words, they don't have the answers and will therefore come up with some complex (yet bullshit) reasoning for why they feel something should or should not be done in regards to the patient's health.

I recently experienced this and, for some reason, this instance is particularly bothering me. I think it was because for once I was going to my doctor's appointment with a plan. I knew what I wanted to have done: I wasn't going to be the stupid patient sitting on the bench hoping that someone else would make decisions for me.

I told Dr. Pitot I was considering hip surgery again. I told him I wanted to stop taking Avastin (the drug which causes bleeding and prevents "safe" surgery), continue taking Oxaliplatin (since that's the most important drug anyways), and possibly consider taking the alternative to Avastin, even if it would cause severe acne. I figured the gain in mobility after surgery would be worth a couple months of bad zits. I had thought of everything that would be worth considering before having surgery; I had even written it all down.

And I had it flung back in my face. "No, we don't want to do surgery on you."

Then, I start getting the crazy logic: "We won't do surgery on you, but maybe we should take you off the Avastin in case your femur does fracture. Oh, sure, you can be more active, unless there is pain." "How do I know if the pain is from the cancer or unused muscles?" "We don't know. So do you want to go on the alternative to Avastin?" "No! I don't want zits if I'm not getting anything out of it!" "But your femur could fracture and then we'll have a messy surgery with the Avastin in your system." "So why don't we do surgery now while I'm off the Avastin and can prevent a fracture from happening?" "Because we don't want to do surgery on you unless your femur does fracture." "What are the chances of my femur fracturing?" "We don't know. We've had some patients roll over in their sleep and had their femur fractures." "Great..."

Does this not make sense to anyone else!? They don't want to prevent a fracture yet they want to take steps to make surgery easier. This implies to me that they expect an eventual fracture. I'm still trying to fathom why they would want me to go through fracturing a femur. Ugh.

Oh, I guess I haven't really said why I've had the sudden interest in having surgery again. Of course, mobility is the reason, but the stronger desire for it is fueled by the fact that I'm going on vacation in Hawaii this June. Australia ended-up being a little far away and by going to Hawaii I can bring the rest of my immediate family with me, which is good since I think they could use a tropical vacation as well. I'm really excited for the trip. Actually, I'm really excited for summer to get here in general. It'll be nice having all my friends home; we already have plans to build a boat out of milk cartons to race in the Minneapolis Aquatennial. =D

I'm sorry this post had a lot of grumbling in it. I have a tendency to whine and make things sound worse than they probably are.

At least the weather is agreeable. I can't complain about that. The snow has finally melted...again. =P

~Cheryl