november 15,  a sunday, i checked into casa doyle for some amazing fun, food and frivolity.  seriously, i could totally live there as the non-participating sister wife.  dude, everyone needs a housewife and my dearest of friends does not disappoint.  there was coffee ready every morning.  we cooked breakfast, went out to lunches, ordered in for fun and made some spectacular dinners.  mostly i just stood there when the spectacular dinners were emerging.  there were two mammas, two nurslings, and (eventually two) very happy daddies with ex-disney girls for wives. 

monday, november 16th through wednesday, november 18th my amazing friend drove me to the pathology lab that does stem cell harvesting.  thursday, november 19th i was admitted here to the bmt (bone marrow transplant) unit.  all bmt units are generally still referred to as such since autologous and donor stem cell transplants are relatively new.  well, new enough not rename the units yet.my havest days were uneventful.  so was my check-in day.then day -5 (11/20) i started high-dose ICE chemo.  that lasted through the weekend and finished up on the early pat of day-2 (11/24).  the days -2 and -1 were mostly fluids and resting, and let me tell you, plenty of barfing.  nasty!

i got my stem cells back on wednesday, november 25, day 0.

we’re at day +3, and it’s saturday, november 28th.  i spiked a high fever last night, as was expected at some point.  i got all of my lines, blood and urine cultures right away.  then i woke up after a few hours of iv antibiotics and needed some benadryl to combat the red man syndrome i was suffering.

so there it is, my life in a nutshell so far.  i’m sure i missed plenty and didn’t talk any about the hospital drama with nugget visiting, but they’ve already beaten me back to a half slumber with the benadryl and reconnected me while i typed.

more to come, i promise!

nugget and nuggetdaddy are here with me the entire week this time.  they are staying with our amazing friends, kristie and brian,and their two little girls who live super close to the hospital, again.  i am so thankful to have such awesome friends and happy that nugget will have “the other mommy” to look after her. 

it’s really challenging being an ap mama while trapped in the hospital.  were he in the room, nuggetdaddy would remind me that that’s what daddies are for.  i’m so lucky to have a partner in parenting that shares the same goals and ideals as me.  i know staying at home would be easier for him.  i’m glad he’s got not only nugget’s, but my best interest at heart.

i’m too scatterbrained at the moment to write a long “yeah me!” post, so you’ll have to check back after the drugs kick in.

peace!

one of the greatest things about organic gardening + toddlers is that some nights you find a d’avignon radish in nuggetdaddy’s bathroom drawer.

my sister’s one-day sister-in-law (i just know it!) tagged me in a facebook note, “end of year meme.”  it would have been sooo easy to use the majority of her answers because, dude, it’s like she wrote them just for me!  but, alas, she did not, so i’ve crafted my own responses just for you.

1. what did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?
   was diagnosed with and treated for cancer

 

2. did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
   i don’t make them

 

3. did anyone close to you give birth?
   most recently, the greenes welcomed their twin girls

 

4. did anyone close to you die?
   i lost an old friend.  he was a great man.

 

5. what countries did you visit?
   chemoland.  it sucked.
   walt disney world

 

6. what would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
   energy and hair

 

7. what date from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
   june 12^th, it was the last time i nursed my daughter before i started chemo

 

8. what was your biggest achievement of the year?
   resuming nursing after battling cancer

 

9. what was your biggest failure?
   having to stop nursing
   yes,  i realize that was beyond my control, but to me it felt like failure.

 

10. did you suffer illness or injury?
    yes

 

11. what was the best thing you bought?
    our new house

 

12. whose behavior merited celebration?
    my mother’s
    my husband’s
    my daughter’s

 

13. whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
    northern virginia’s drivers

 

14. where did most of your money go?
    our new house

 

15. what did you get really, really, really excited about?
    taking my daughter to disney for the first time

 

16. what song will always remind you of 2008?
    the hot dog song

 

17. compared to this time last year, are you:
    happier or sadder?  happier
    thinner or fatter?  fatter
    richer or poorer?  poorer

 

18. what do you wish you’d done more of?
    crafted more homemade gifts
    visited more friends
    blogged more
    taken more photos and video of my family and friends

 

19. what do you wish you’d done less of?
    had less cancer
    gained less weight

 

20. how did you spend christmas?
    at our new house with my husband’s parents, brother, sister-in-law, and my parents, grandparents, aunt & her family and her godparents & their family

 

21. did you fall in love in 2008?
    every day

 

22. how many one-night stands?
    (seriously?  this one i have to change to something more mommy blog- friendly)

 
what changes did you make to “green up” your lifestyle?
collected more reusable shopping bags and got my mom in the habit of using them, too
started a compost pile
chose a tankless hot water heater for the new house
 

23. what was your favorite tv show?
    lost

 

24. do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
    hate?  that’s much too strong of a word.

 

25. what was the best book you read?
    did i read any books?  i know i started reading anthony bourdain’s the nasty bits, but i can’t even remember if i’ve finished it. 

 

26. what was your greatest musical discovery?
    steve burns’ and the flaming lips’ steven drozd’s ” i hog the ground”
     

 

27. what did you want and get?
    to nurse my daughter again

 

28. what did you want and not get?
    skinnier faster

 

29. what was your favorite film of this year?
    this is the last question i answered because, honestly, i can’t remember watching any movie in its entirety aside from charlie wilson’s war. so i guess that’s it.  though if i’d had opportunity to watch the x-files: i want to believe, i’m sure that would have beat out charlie wilson.

 

30. what did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
    went to my birthday party, 35

 

31. what one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
    having more energy and less nausea after chemo

 

32. how would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
    chemo casual

 

33. what kept you sane?
    prozac and ativan

 

34. which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
    oh, how i love me some brit-brit.  girl is a spectacular disaster!

 

35. what political issue stirred you the most?
    the presidential election, though that was more of a circus then an issue

 

36. whom did you miss?
    my friends from orlando

 

37. who was the best new person you met?
    my chemo nurse, danna

 

38. tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008:
    this is your life, right now.  this is what you get.  stop preparing for “someday” and start living it the way you want to now.

 

39. quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
    “it’s a brand new day,  whatcha  waitin’ for?”

 

40. tag five people to post their answers to this 2008 wrap-up meme. please link back to this blog from yours.
    non-lucid drivel
    the twinkies
    motherhood and cancer
    life with the moonhils
    returnjourney

tonight, nugget and nugget daddy are sleeping in nugget’s big girl bedroom (aka, the guestroom) because mama is radioactive.  this means i get the whole california king bed to myself.  well, myself and the two cats.  i hope they can find some room to squeeze in.  the steroids are doing wonderful things to my physique.  i’ll share with you my lastest self-portrait.

a woman i used to work with messaged me on myspace this week.  i read it yesterday and it absolutely made my day, which i might add was spectacularly craptastic up until then.

“i started working at magic kingdom back in 1997 and only partially knew who you were. you were always cool to me at town square and spectro and stuff, but we were only acquaintances.

i happened upon your page through mikki and started reading your blog, “bits of myself”, and i cannot help being taken by how fucking amazing you are. sorry for the language from someone you do not know, but i can’t think of any other words. i don’t even remember where i started the “bits”, but i backed up to where you found out you had cancer. by the time i got to your final breast feeding with nugget, there were uncontrollable tears streaming down my face at how you kept apologizing to her, for something that you did not ask for.

i don’t know how much all of this means coming from someone you don’t know, but i just had to get this out. i was driving ddct floats when you were at mk with your baby girl, and i saw you two days in a row. knowing how painful it must be, there you stood in the sun, in a tank top, bald…smiling and waving.

i hope i didn’t weird you out with all this, but know that you have touched one more individual’s life. you are the strongest woman that i don’t know.”

i just needed to thank you for that and let you know that your kind words have touched my heart.  thank you for reading my blog.  and thank you to all of you who continue to do so.  i hope you’ll all stay tuned for the exciting conclusion to this chapter of my life.

it’s difficult keeping up with a toddler all day.  it’s really difficult when you have cancer.  we have to start doing something different, for everyone’s sanity.  sure, people come to help, here and there, but it isn’t enough.  there are simply too many days when i can’t manage on my own.  we’ve got to find a solution.

we’re working on plans right now, plans for our house, plans for our lives, plans for my treatment.  it’s challenging figuring out how all the pieces of each individual puzzle are going to fit into the big picture.

we have to start splitting our time between here and there, “here” being where we live and “there” being where we will live.  down there we’ll be with my parents who will help with nugget and nugget daddy won’t have to “commute” two and a half hours.  i’ll be able to keep an eye on the house construction and bring a steady flow of coffee and doughnuts to the site.  up here i’ll continue with my treatment at my oncologist and we’ll keep nugget happily enrolled in her gymboree class.

tomorrow is my birthday.  so come life, let’s see what plans you’ve got for me this year.

today, the motherwear breastfeeding blog is running a compliation piece of mine.  i’m so honored and excited!  if you haven’t subscribed to that blog yet, i highly recommend it.

and since we’re already talking about me, here’s what some other people have had to say about me recently:

going for the gold – world breastfeeding week 2008
pure love
you’re going to cry
what love looks like