(Is any other blogger having trouble uploading photos and videos? I'm going crazy. I think I'll just post the text for now - other stuff later, I'm tired of fighting with my computer.)
Once again, we've proven it's impossible to have dull moments around here. I get chemo... I laze and sleep and moan around because I'm puny and useless. Then I catch a cold and it gets worse and worse so I continue my moping around. Then I start coughing and stop breathing. Almost. I'm home alone, sitting on my bed, pulling in air through what feels like a pinprick hole in my throat, determined not to panic - someone will come, someone will come, someone will come... After 15 minutes or so, Andy's shadow darkens the doorway, I burst into tears, whisper, "take me to the ER".
Of course the poor man nearly falls apart, his knees literally buckle as he hears his nurse-wife actually asking to go to the ER when I have not once before let him take me. (Those places are for sick folks, y'know. Stay away at all costs.) But because he's made up of the same stuff as Superman, he calls outside to have Tiffany bring the truck around, picks me up and starts running. He somehow grabs the right insurance information, opens doors, gets me in the truck and down the highway, speeding past drivers who have less purpose, and lands us safely at our little hometown emergency room where thankfully they know how to open up airways.
(***everyone take a deep breath here. Think about how awesome it is. It's priceless - don't try to tell me it isn't***)
After a series of treatments (for some reason my throat did not want to stay well-and-truly open until about 18 hours later) I'm shaky and miserable from all the adrenaline they give, but I'm breathing. And proud of it. So that was Saturday, this is Tuesday and after 3 days in the ICU I am home!!! No one is really sure what happened, although 2 of the doctors think I had a severe reaction to some rubitussin I took Saturday morning. Others feel I had a "viral" reaction which affected the tissues in my throat. Personally, I agree with the viral reaction scenario because I had a temp of 104.5 when I arrived at the ER and allergic reactions don't do that. But all I really know is that I reacted to something and I'd prefer not to do it again.
I'm writing too much. I must wind this down or I shall lose my captive audience. So I'm sleep-deprived, still coughing and congested, and suffering from ICU psychosis, but all's well that ends well, as they say. Unfortunately my cancer probably survived the episode too, but if it didn't I'll be sure to let you know. :)
Lots of pictures of life at home
In latest cancer news, in one day I go from this: 
To this:
And this:
And this:
And this: :) See how much fun wigs can be. And that's not to mention all the hat options I have... I'm gonna miss my curls, but till they come back again we shall wear hats and wigs with great abandon.
We had twin calves born to a heifer a couple nights ago. She was confused about what to do with these two weird little, slimy beings, so this whole household spent the night awake, feeding and babying those tiny critters, doing our best to keep them alive. It worked - they're both thriving. The little heifer, who somehow got dubbed 'Louise' by AndyRay, was taken back by her momma without batting an eye. Poor Teddy though, got left alone, so now he's a human/dog/calf. Our dogs have starting bawling (seriously) and I'm expecting Teddy to start barking any day now because they've all become fast friends. Here are some photos of the new addition. The video looks blurry on here, but you'll get the idea:
Sanity and Happiness??
For those of you who may have been wondering why I have such an odd title to my blog... Mark Twain once said "Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination". I found that to be both amusing and enlightening. Consider that. .....One cannot be happy unless one is insane. That cracks me up. So therefore I found I simply had to post my statement to the late, great Samuel Clemens that there is, out there somewhere, a family who is both sane AND happy, as impossible as that may be to believe. :) 
On to business matters. Thanks to all of you who sent emails for calendars. This has been a ball getting all these notes! They are done on my end, I just wasn't able to get to town to price them until recently where I found out they're pretty spendy to make here. But all is not lost, we're still pressing on and I ordered from an online company. They aren't perfect - - they don't have my comments or the beautiful borders and matching calendar pages I painstakingly added on my original, but they should be just fine. It'll come to $22.00 apiece to help me with shipping them out to you folks. I shall send emails to each of you, giving you our address and you can mail checks anytime. Then I shall need your addresses, of course, so if you could email that info back asap (if you haven't already, of course), that would be splendid. They shouldn't take long to make, so hopefully you all with have them by March 1st. Keep your fingers crossed!
Now for a cancer note. Do you remember those doctors in Denver saying they were sure I had a separate kind of cancer and they wanted to send samples of all my tumors, from first diagnosis till now, on to a famous research place for study? Well we did all that and this is their report: They cannot tell me whether or not I have breast cancer or ovarian cancer, but it is all the same. So what does that mean? It could all be ovarian, metastasized to the breast, which would be bad news as it's very rare and very hard to work with.
OR... [drum roll please]... it could have been breast to begin with that metastasized to the ovary and grew faster there, so it's the first thing they saw. They never even considered looking for breast cancer at the beginning, but those Denver doctors feel my cancer acts and looks much, MUCH more like breast than ovarian. Plus my risk factors place me in a far more likely group to get breast cancer, NOT ovarian. Such weirdness!!!
It doesn't really change anything at this point - we just need to be sure my chemo is good for both (which it is) and keep watching numbers and CT scans (which we will). My first chemo went well a week ago - - knocked me flat for a couple days (see the picture of me after surgery 2 posts ago for a visual), but I'm up and going now. Slowly, I must admit, but at least I'm moving.
It's been cold here again, so I've posted a few photos for you to "feel". Especially those of you in warmer climates... you can look on in envy at our beautiful winters. :)
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