I'm trying to ward off a panic attack, so I thought I would write a blog entry. I realized that I don't write very much on here anymore. I kind of miss it. But it's good in a way. This blog is strictly for breast cancer ranting and raving and whining. If I don't have many posts, it's because I'm not having much to do with it. Yay!!

I'm finally getting over a monster sinus ugly cold from hell. This is so dumb, but I can handle the big stuff like getting menopause, needing to have a procedure done, etc. No big deal! But I get a cold and I feel like the world's biggest wuss. lol I probably had a very common no biggie headcold, but it felt like I wanted to die. I thought my sinuses would explode one night and I coughed so hard I think I pulled a muscle in my back. How frigging embarrassing!! Can you imagine going to the doctor and trying to explain why your back hurts? "Uh, I coughed". That's not going to go over well. It's mostly over thank goodness.

I don't get too looney unless I don't take my meds one day or so. Than I get major mood swings. I would so enjoy not having to take too many medicines. Currently I take three and I'd like to take less. When it's time for my next regular doctor visit, I'm going to see about cutting one particular one out.

Another thing I've noticed is this winter I've gained weight. I don't know how much but I can definitely tell. It depresses me and scares me at the same time. For a lot of reasons. I was supposed to go to a physical therapist for lymphedema but I said no. I've had enough of doctors. But I can see it in my hand, especially the finger that started all this worry. Gaining weight plus lymphedema is not a good things. I literally have to get off my fat ass and start doing something about it. I struggle with self esteem issues and believing I can make a change is hard because I don't believe in myself.

I feel guilty and selfish too. Most days I'm good. I can handle things fine. It's the one day out of the week that I write on here and get the bad stuff out so I can be happy and okay the other 6 days a week.

I had another set of migraines this month. I dropped Mom off at the airport and started to drive home and got a migraine or the beginnings of one. I got another one a couple of days later. After that got better, I started down the path to this rotten nasty head cold I'm barely getting over.

Okay, panic attack not going away. Time to haul out the Ativan.

I'm so excited, I have to put this somewhere...

My wonderful friend is a photographer. She took this picture and with her magical wonderful photographer ways, she can put letters on there to appear that someone has carved their initials into the wood. Jason and I have struggled for a long time and lately things have been so good between us. I just love him and how hard he works. So I asked my friend if she could do our initials in the picture. Yay!!! She did it and I was so excited to get the picture that I immediately went out and had it made into copies. I have a little one and then an 8x10 that I had matted and framed. Not the best frame, but it still looks really good. A nice black frame with offwhite matting. We are dirt poor, but I was able to do this for him. I'm so excited to give it to him. Thank you Sunny for your beautiful picture and the work you put into it.

Lit a candle last night

A beautiful young mom on my bc board was close to dying last night. As a group on the board, we lit candles for her. It felt so good to know that no matter where we were last night, we all did it as close to the same time as possible. I felt like I was apart of something powerful and special. Mandy was one of the most beautiful women I've seen on that board. Like Miss America beautiful. I didn't know until a couple of days ago that things had gotten so bad. We knew it was close yesterday, so we all lit candles around the same time and most of us kept them lit throughout the evening. We found out this morning that Mandy had passed away sometime in the early morning. It hurts all over again. But I'm glad we did the candles because maybe in my mind it helped me be able to do SOMETHING. You feel so completely helpless and by doing this, I hope in some corner of her spirit she could feel that we were all wishing her peace and that the pain would end. I really hope she knew in some part of her being.