Baby baby

Today was great! It was baby shower day for my niece Dana. I couldn't mention it till now cause it was a surprise and Dana reads my blog.

I think we got Dana surprised which is pretty amazing. The shower was at Jane Bond in Waterloo which is a trendy cafe/bar that Dana's husband Chris's brother owns. Very cool to have it for a shower venue!

My niece Melissa did the cupcakes of course.

And my sister Anne did an awesome job with the fruit!

Dana with her dad, my brother Henry

Melissa is also an amazing knitter.

She made the elephant too!

The Baby's r us registry let us down big time. Dana got 4 of these! Annette and Karen even chose the same paper!

This wasn't really a baby gift. It's a cross stitch that I made of two of Dana's pets in 2005 and then lost! Maybe another time I'll show you how I changed the pattern to make it look like Amber and Toby. Karen just found it at her place this week!

I think a good time was had by all. Sitting that long was a challenge but more than worth it. Lets have a party every day, it's a great distraction!

Special delivery

Yes enough build up. This is what I got in the mail onThursday!

Ta da!

The possibilities for fun are endless!

There was also a beautiful hand written letter that my friend Marjorie included encouraging me to call any time of day or night.

Priceless!

Trust me you will be seeing lots more of this book. It was such a wealth of love to get at the same time as my sock puppet card, I could hardly soak it in! Thank you so much Marjorie and everyone for playing along. The pirate stuff is silly but it's helping. Like I just read on another blog: "Sometimes you just have to lean into the weird."

The pain is pretty bad, the plan to go into forced menopause has NOT worked and now my left shoulder muscles want to get in on the act. I think I'm holding my body tighter than usual.

Speaking of soaking I should go sitz and take more drugs. And not in that order.

This was one of my drawings today!

This has been popping up all over the net.

And don't forget to keep checking my Facebook wall for Heather's pirate joke of the day! Yay!

Day 17

A pretty good, kinda unremarkable day except that my friend's partner made me some wonderful turkey soup! I think I've met the man like 3 times. What a nice remarkable thing to do. It's delicious! Thank you Tom!

Tonight I hope to actually go to sleep for more than a few hours. Everyone tells you that radiation makes you tired but I don't know if that's still something that will hit later or if they just mean that it makes it hard to sleep so you feel tired. But maybe knowing that I can sleep as long as I want to and not being worried to miss my ride will help. Had one of my favorite drivers today. Ross is very easy to talk to and grew up near Hawksville too.

Cant sit anymore, I'll show you the special thing I got in the mail tomorrow!

Day 16

I know a lot of you are praying for me and you should know that God is answering your prayers because despite having a really bad night (learned the hard way at 4 am what not to do with the simple saline) today was awesome.

Got to spend the day with Annette and then the little girls after school. They can hardly wait to get to my house to pan for Harrison's gold!

All my bedding got washed which is a nice feeling. Yesterday Todd brought over a twin sized piece of memory foam and Annette put it in its own sheet and its on top of my bed. When I tried it out my eyes rolled back in my head it is so heavenly. It belonged to my Dad so that makes it even better. I am so very blessed

I have some egg shell foam from Henry for sitting on chairs so I'm pretty well equipped!

School's out!

I shared with them....

And they shared with me!

And look look what else they gave me!!!

And to top it off an amazing acrostic!

I also got something really really cool in the mail today that I'll show you tomorrow.

And finally a great new pirate joke from Heather. I can totally relate!

A pirate walks into a bar with a captain's wheel crammed down the front of his pants.

The bartender says "Why you got that Captain's wheel crammed down the front of your pants?"

The pirate says "Arr! I don't know but it's driving me nuts!

Day 15

4:49! This is the earliest I've ever started my blog. I hope to be asleep by 8 pm. We'll see, maybe I'll get my second or third wind.

Today's drivers were great. I don't remember hardly a thing about them except that they were pleasant and truly that's all I want.

I saw my buddy Bruce who was my radiologist the first week and that's always fun. He remembered my pirate shirt and asked if I had any rum in my purse. Sadly I did not.

I got my pain meds straightened out with my nurse and its all good. She truly is one of the nicest people I've ever met.

But my favorite interaction at the hospital today was outside and with a great big bruiser of a dog, a boxer wearing a spiked collar. He paused for a moment on his travels to put his chin in the corner of my elbow, snuffle softly and moved along. Fastest animal therapist ever. The spiked collar was clearly a projection of his human not him. Left a soft foot print on my soul. Must be tired, clearly rambling.

Look who's here finishing my floor. My nephew Todd. He's not just a computer engineer and poker player...

he's also kind enough to have taken out the horrible carpet in my kitchen and replace it beautifully. Such a big improvement to my life. That carpet was an unnatural disaster! Thank you.

Something I do at the gym when something hurts is I count forward for a while then I start counting backwards towards the end. Makes it go faster. So...

Day 14

Had great drivers today! Can't believe I didn't take their pictures but it was SUCH good timing to have friends driving me. Dr K wanted to see me a day before my scheduled appoint with her to see if my burns look infected which I am happy to say they do not.

So this is just how it will be now. First a white burn appears then it and the skin around it become blistered then open sores. They taught me some new ways to keep clean. No more soap. Too painful. I'm to make my own simple saline with kosher non iodized salt which my friend just happened to have and roll up soft cloths, soak them in the simple saline and leave them in my creases for 15 minutes and then air or blow dry on the cool setting.

Harrison would like to go on record as saying that he does not approve of blowdryers and would cite me for noise pollution every time.

Dr K said it will get a lot worse yet and reminded me that these effects will continue coming on for weeks after the treatment is over. She's a little ray of sunshine that one!

Still I feel luckier than many because my prognosis is great. This pain is temporary. Maybe I will chant that as I pee whilst clutching my little squirt bottle.

And can I just say that the hospital toilet paper might be better suited for pedophile prisoners and it'll be BMOT (bring my own tissue) from now on!

As promised some poker pics from yesterday.

The winner!

And finally, from the interweb, my favorite doggy costume ever!

All in

Too tired to write - good tired from a fun poker game at my bother's tonight. Came in third - Karen tell Caleb that Uncle Henry won - pictures tomorrow.

See what tomorrow holds and what they say about the burns although I think we can more accurately call them blisters now. Spready, oozy blisters.

Still, there's nothing like a warm fuzzy cat sleeping on your feet. I have to break it to him soon that I need to move!