lustig

Oh oxygen, you feel so good! And people, I have missed you! Sorry I didn\’t update in the past couple days since I had my procedure, but I got caught up in email (and I still haven\’t even responded to a lot of my gmails, so don\’t be offended if I haven\’t written back yet! it\’s tough for me to type still for a variety of reasons… er, mostly the \”twitchy bitty paws\”, heh, which probably you should just ignore since that\’s going to fly over sooo many people\’s heads, and then of course the continuation of dozing off while sleeping which yes of course is going on right now!). So I decided, well, mayhap it might be a better idea to do the blog before the email. Wise indeed. ;)

So the procedure to put a \”pig-tail tube\” (i.e., a little teeny tubey) into my lungs went quite well! They drained 600cc worth of fluid during and 2L immediately afterwards, wheeee. :) And thus, I could breathe. And the townspeople sang for joy. Actually, not really townspeople, but my lovely suitemates made me a mini-CD! Seriously, they sang 3 songs for me on Valentine\’s Day (which I am so sorry to have missed! I am just always missing holidays while in the hospital, so it seems…) and they all have gorgeous voices and it\’s just wonderrrrful! :D But back to the procedure — unfortunately, I can\’t leave the hospital afterward from anywhere from 3 – 7 days. :P So it\’s been … only 2 days!? Wah. :/ (As for the grand total, it\’s been 12 days! A new record since my appendectomy stay of 9 … yeesh.)

Anyway, please know that I am feeling MUCH better since the day or 2 before my procedure! The morning, AND afternoon (psh), leading up to my ordeal on Thursday (was supposed to be in morning — of course didn\’t get to me till 2:30pm, hmph) and so that was a bit agonizing — just tried to sleep as much as possible in the meantime!

Also, it\’s good to be back on chemo FINALLY, surprisingly! I just like to know that I am doing something though. It\’s a good feeling, whoa. It\’s a weird protocol that I can\’t exactly explain right now since we don\’t have a copy yet, but I can say it consists of a couple short infusions, handfuls of pills, and a hideous liquid I have to mix in with a drink (yeeccch!). Get a 2-day break tomorrow, oooh. Hurrah. :D

Good thing I did do this before email because maaan it\’s getting long. Sorry to the people with bad eyes, which is just about everyone I know. :) So, so sorry! Well, in some fun news, Aunt Lisa got to spend the day with me today, goody! She brought the first 6 episodes of The Office (the British version!) and it was miiighty funny. (We even got through all 6.) Of course David Brent drives me crazy and even though he\’s pretty funny I completely deSPISE his character and ohh it is hard to watch. Love Martin Freeman though (esp from Hitchhiker\’s Guide) so I enjoy his character, Tim.

Finally, last bit of WONderful news: when mom returned to the hospital, she had received from ITALY a relic of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati!! My family and friends have been praying to and for him recently because he needs 2 miracles to become a saint, and oh, how convenient, I just happen to need a miracle to be healed! Plus I happen to have a lot in common with him and then, you know, he\’s Itaaaalian! ;)

Oh, WHY does it take me an hour to write this?? I guess that\’s good enough for now. Email can wait till tomorrow. This will hold everyone over for at least a few days though, right? :)

Okay, this one actually WILL be short (ha! no, it won\’t be) because hey, speaking of short, I am short of breath because there are tumors in the fluid around my neck lungs (duh, lauren) or something like that and anyway it all results in my not being able to breathe. (Or type, apparently; it\’s really gotten hard! And … see above mistake for example!)

So, tomorrow: having a \”sort-of\” surgery, I think. I am so confused about all this. Probably eating something or sleeping might help but … a) no appetite, and b) everytime attempted a nap another vistor or doctor walked in. (Vistitors = YAY!, doctors = boo go away).

Really will have to explain rest of this later. Just know that I need to get this fluid removed from the right side of my lungs tomorrow in order to be able to breathe. And I don\’t need to ask, but prayers are always appreciated. :) OH, and on Valentine\’s Day (uh, Tuesday), I was in a room in (P)ICU without access to phone, and I know a lot of people tried to call and were worried, and well, that is why — so very sorry!! They did save my room for me though (called the Princess Room b/c of how it\’s painted, and yesss I did get pictures!). And I hated the PICU, for a horrible reason, which I\’ll have to get to later.

(Also, will have to get to Spa Day, the one actually fun part of this drearily long hospital stay…)

So in conclusion, they did fix my nausea and my pain (at least for the most part) but now unfortunately cannot breathe. Seriously guys, that\’s an important part of living, I must say! So good night … must finish up some meds before I go to bed for earlyish non-surgeryish thing tomorrow? Yeah, sorry for The Vague. Hope to see you all soon though! (Will give my loving godmommy login info if needed, of course, if I can\’t get on for whatever reason.) Ciao…!

Okay, going to make this a short one because I want to get to sleep, but please allow me to explain my recent absence!

I drove with my mom up to Children\’s for an appointment with my oncologist to get the results of my most recent CT scans, which were … not too bad but not so great. Everything has basically stayed the same size, although the lung lesions grew a bit more, but the cancer has spread again, this time to my liver (2 or a few little spots there now). I was hoping for at least ONE little bit of good news, and I got it, because my brain is still clean! Whewww. (Well, I\’m probably going to get a brain MRI soonish, actually, because it\’s more detailed than a CT scan. So I might not really be safe from that. But I\’ll keep on hoping!)

So after my appointment finished up, Dr. S decided it would probably be best to admit me and let their pain management team get my pain and nausea under control, and I agreed with this, because the nausea HAD TO GO. And it has! (I guess I was dehydrated and fixing that fixed the nausea.) On the downside, my doctors somehow managed to create excruciating pain in every single part of my body below my waist! Amazing! Basically I am referring to my legs, because when I woke up Wednesday morning, OWWWW. How did they do it? I did not have pain there before!! My right leg has improved but my left leg hates me. It\’s a nerve thing there and I just can\’t get it comfortable, and the meds for it take weeks to kick in. Horrid. Today the docs finally got me on some stuff that might help in the meantime, but it hasn\’t started yet.

Oh my gosh, this is not short AT ALL. Sorry. I\’m really bad at that. Okay, let\’s speed it up here:

– Was hoping to be out by this morning so I could be at the FORCE Benefit Concert I was sooo looking forward to.
– Had to miss it. Story of my life.
– Wanted to help make Hannah (suitemate) a birthday cake tomorrow. So much for that!
– On the plus side, they are having a Spa Day here tomorrow which sounds really rather excellent, and at least kind of makes up for the spa day I missed in my suite LAST time I was in the hospital…
– Oh, to explain the blog post: actually got a laptop to use here just yesterday (really two days ago since it\’s past midnight..)! unfortunately is dial-up, eeek, but better than nothing. also, had no clue what my blog password was until I realized I could just have a new one sent to me. Fantastic!

Okay, that\’s the end for now. I will keep you posted on when I get out IF EVER.

:)

P.S. I am in the PRINCESS ROOM! I\’d take pictures except of course I was not thinking I\’d be stuck here for like a week and left everything at school, seriously I only have my Lit folder because that was the class I had right before we left (which btw I threw up right before AND right after, good for me), and wow this is the antithesis of short and actually has taken me about 20 minutes to write, so I am STOPPING RIGHT NOW. (the princess room really does rock though.)

Oh Friday! What joy. I\’m happy because I\’m going home soon and not coming back till Sunday afternoon. Too bad I have to spend part of my time at home going to Children\’s tomorrow and getting a ton of CT scans. :/ The regular chest and leg, plus the brain (aaah) as well as … arm (left arm hurts like it\’s bruised, but there aren\’t any there) and stomach, I think. After throwing up TWICE on Wednesday AND on Thursday, my mom did a little Veronica Mars-style sleuthing and found out my major pain med has side effects of nausea, vomiting, and dry mouth (a recently-noticed symptom), we have decided that\’s the key to what\’s making me nauseous! Seems very likely, especially since upping the dose over the past TWO days … hmm? Making a connection? ;) Okay then.

I think I\’ve caught most of the typos I\’ve made so far, but apologize very much for any I missed, because lately I have been kind of falling asleep every 2 seconds while reading or writing and I guess blogging too. Soooo drowsy. :( Aunt Lisa and my mom have been working with this nutrition guy this week to get me lots of weird-sounding stuff that should boost my immune system. That would be swell! So I should be starting that this weekend and please let it work.

Can\’t focus anymore on this so think I will lie down a bit. Filled in most of the important parts of the past few days (except sadly I had to miss a few classes this week, boo — I was doing so well before!!), and also I still have to share my great new game with you: \”How Many Public Restrooms Can Lauren Throw Up In Around Grounds?\” This was started on Wednesday, when I threw up directly after Italian AND Nutrition! Bonus points if you skip the restroom part and just throw up in a public area, but I haven\’t stooped that low yet, whew.

Okay, NOW it\’s time to rest. Yaaawn. Happy weekend!

People, I have come to beg you for money. Wait, don\’t run away yet! It\’s for my FORCE Relay For Life team at school. I already sent out an email to a lot of friends/family when I first signed up, and by the way totally blew everyone else away with the amazing generosity of the people I am lucky enough to know, but you see, we can\’t lose that reputation now that others are getting in the game, so I thought I\’d come to you, my loyal readers! (FORCE, by the way, is the anti-cancer club I\’m in: Fighting, Overcoming, and Responding to Cancer Everywhere.) If you\’ve already donated, thank you so very much for helping me out! And if you haven\’t, please consider some contribution, no matter how small. Here\’s the link to my Relay page: Donation Page. You can easily contribute online or even print out a donation page and mail it in. I know you guys won\’t let me down, and I\’m very grateful! Thanks for reading through that! :)

Okay, now that my sales pitch is out of the way, I really should get started on some homework since I realized during Lit today that I am terribly, terribly behind in the reading for that class. Whoa. What have I been doing?? But I just wanted to keep you informed that I had an ultrasound for my gallbladder today and it is shockingly FINE (seriously, I\’m more surprised to hear that than anything else) and I\’m also supposed to up my pain meds to hopefully help with this new and unpleasant lung/back pain I\’ve been having (especially since it\’s just awful when I\’m lying down and trying to sleep, oof) and I also got a chest X-ray to see what\’s going on there although I don\’t think the doctor exactly knows yet (maybe another nerve thing?). So basically, things are confusing, and I hope my anti-nausea meds from today will work the whole week (seem to be okay so far at least…) and that these pain meds work, and then I\’ll be okay for at least a few days until some other part of my body wants to get in on the action. All right, homework time, except I now only have 10 minutes to work until CSM dinner. D\’oh.

Haaate the nausea so. Went into the clinic for some fluids today and the doctor was there and after observing me doing what I do best (i.e. throwing up, of course) she thinks there might be a problem with my gallbladder. You should ALL believe me well when I say I honestly would not be surprised at this point. Yeesh. I\’m going back tomorrow for some IV anti-nausea meds, thank goodness (and perhaps a GB ultrasound). I hope the meds hold me for a while. I would so love a nausea-free week! My doctor also told me, before I went home, to have some fun tonight! \”Fun?\” What is this fun? Does not compute. Okay fine, it\’s not like I\’m swamped with homework, just that I don\’t really feel well enough to have fun. Wah. I know, I know, could I possibly complain anymore? (Yes, I can, in fact: my lungs hurt now too! Awesome.) She did mention this very cool-sounding Italian place downtown called \”Milano\’s\” (I think) that serves excellent espresso, coffee, and GELATO! and also plays Italian movies upstairs. Sounds molto divertente to me! Maybe not today, but I will definitely make it there eventually! So on the brighter side (there is always a brighter side!), I got a 96 on my Italian test (whewww) and I had a nutrition test today that I think I did pretty well on (hope so because if we get A\’s on all 7, we\’re exempt from the final!), only there was one horrible math problem that I spent about 10 minutes on (keeping in mind of course that I haven\’t taken math in … a year and half now? yeahhh). But my mom looked at it and thinks I might actually have gotten it right. That would be spectacular. But I think I got most of the rest correct, at least. Cross those fingers! ;)

Oh, honestly. I have had my pain under control for WEEKS, and yesterday I had a follow-up appointment with pain management where I informed my doctors that I thought I had everything under control for now with my meds. And so it just figures that today my back would start hurting again. What is this??

Okay, kept forgetting to post about this, but Thursday was such a non-fun day. Felt sick, threw up before Italian, okay fine … better that than in class. Except I\’ve got Slavic soon after Italian and was feeling sick AGAIN, so I was eating some goldfish to try to keep my stomach under control because … I don\’t know, I hadn\’t eaten in a while. Also I was exhausted and soon gave up on trying to stay awake and focus on the lecture. But 5 minutes till the end of class, knew I couldn\’t make it, and had to run out to find a bathroom, which … did not go well. (If only I had turned left instead of right!) So first I finally find a unisex bathroom — pull open the door handle in relief, only to see some guy sitting on the toilet shouting WHOA, so I said sorrysorrysorry! and ran away, and the next thing I found was a men\’s bathroom and by this point that was good enough for me, and luckily no boys were in there, but EW, their toilets are so nasty, so first I flushed (priorities, ladies) and then proceeded to throw up. Whew. And of course class was over by this point so I had to find Katherine, who had my stuff and was waiting near the girls\’ bathroom, which was of course was just to the left of the classroom … sigh. So then I took a nice long nap at my mom\’s place and that helped quite a lot. Yay naps. They fix all.

Friday went better but today I\’m feeling not so good again. But Aunt Lisa is on her way to spend the weekend with me! So Self, you must get better. I don\’t want to see this yummy fruit that I\’m eating right now a second time.

So far this morning I\’ve taken about every pill possible except for Tylenol, so I guess that\’s up next (kind of have headache which also = nausea). Hate you, stomach. And head, too. Sorry.