grundoon's New Writeups

Rain on water (idea)

2009-06-30T20:00:22Z

What are you doing?

Nothing.

Outwardly nothing.

Inwardly, I'm being with the rain.

Friends ask me what I do at our summer place. I usually give a fairly flippant answer. We swim, drink tea, eat, and sit around and talk about what we are going to eat next.

But it usually takes me about a week to switch into Matinenda time.

It's best explained that my logical brain turns off, and my sensation brain turns on. Perhaps I should say my Apollonian, verbal, digital, planners' brain shuts up, and my Dionysian, artistic, interrelational visionary brain takes over.

At the moment, I'm sitting in beauty. An afternoon thunderstorm is rampaging itself across the lake, and the surface is changing every few minutes. Dark, smoky emerald green with a mirrored surface. Now the downdraft, and it turns to rough steel, light and dark grey with multitudes of tiny cracks and…

January 16, 2009 (personal)

2009-01-16T16:37:48Z

I had a CT scan this morning, and after nagging the daylight out of my docs, I got the results...all seven cancerous lymph nodes have decreased in size. Thus, the chemo is working, and we have hopes for a really good outcome.

Thank you all for the lurve and support. I am speechless with delight this evening.

Love, grundy

January 12, 2009 (personal)

2009-01-12T21:42:29Z

I hate Anthem Health Care!

I'm going to moan for a second -

Chemo sucks! I have horrible side effects! I hate my insurance company! Suck suck suck! Hate hate hate!

Okay, enough of THAT.

Pacificare insurance, which I had when I was originally diagnosed, covers cancer treatment. All of it. Fully covered. No co-pay, no nothing. Chemo was covered, surgery was covered. Pacificare, you rock - or at least then you did.

Then I was hired by Caltrans, and switched to Blue Cross Blue Shield. In order to keep my same group of docs, I had to get the PPO - the most expensive health care option - large deductible, etc. Paid out the nose for premiums, payed the deductible, payed the max out of pocket - for four years running, so far. But at least I got all the care my docs recommended.

Now a few months ago, Blue Cross became Anthem Blue Cross - and for the first time drugs and procedures recommended by my…

December 6, 2008 (person)

2008-12-06T22:53:49Z

Five down, seven to go...

Chemo went pretty easily yesterday. I think we've finally found the right cocktail of drugs for most of the symptoms. It's so weird - I have a BOWL full of prescriptions in the bathroom, this for the girl who usually is reluctant to take ibuprofen.

I get tagamet (reduce stomach acid), kytril (antinausea), benadryl (prevent allergic reactions), dexamethazone (a steriod to help reduce inflammation from the taxol) ativan -a benzodiazipine- (to make me all happy/stupid - also antinausea, also helps reduce the jitters from the aformentioned steroid), tylenol, and then finally taxol - dripped in over 2 1/2 hours. The whole schmear takes 5 to 6 hours, depending on how easy it is to access the port, and other stuff. I usually sleep after the first hour or so, since the ativan makes it so I can barely walk, I'm so spacey. Just as well.

Then I have oral versions of…

November 15, 2008 (personal)

2008-11-15T16:40:23Z

So what's chemo really like, you ask? Well, dearly beloved, let me tell you at least of my own experience.

wertperch and I usually arrive around 9:30 am, although this is going to change. What I'm describing is a fairly typical regimen for breast cancer, although there are LOTS of different protocols, and other types of cancer have their own.

The first bit, which yesterday didn't go as smoothly as I'd hoped, is to access a vein. I had a port-a-cath installed a week ago, which is a little subdermal gizmo with a rubber top, that's attached to a tube running into my vena cava. That means generally they can get a blood sample for labs, and give me chemo and the associated drugs, through the port, rather than using a needle in my arm. I dislike getting poked with needles in the arm every single week, and I generally find an IV uncomfortable even though they are supposed to be painless, so I like having a port.

Alas, this week it was not to be. They tried to access…

November 13, 2008 (personal)

2008-11-13T06:08:38Z

Okay, no energy to write much tonight, but after juicing and talking about chemotherapy and nutrition and organic fud and health and my overpublicized digestive system and cancer and blahblahblah until the cows come home, I have to say that
http://www.candyboots.com/wwcards/czarina.html
Weight Watchers Recipe Cards, is my single most favorite web site EVAR.

I laugh SO hard every time I come back and read them. I try not to do it to often, so the text is fresh.

The soup is love, and we have an electrified fence.

Love,
grun o'doon