Online friends

How do you get so attached to people you've never meet? Just talked to online, never even seen a picture of? Don't even know there real name?

There's another group I chat with online. It's a cancer group. Not everyone has cancer but they are affected by it someway. We've even got a couple of Dr types that jumps in to answer questions. It's nice because everyone knows what your going through and you don't have be nicey nice, just tell it straight.

Anyway, one of the other participants got her scan results back today and they were not good. I'm totally devastated. Here's someone I hardly know anything about and I'm crying. Crying for her, her pain and her loss of everything. She's really at the bottom right now. I really want to help her up but there's not a lot I can do.

I don't want any of us to die but I realize it is inevitable, cancer or not.

Oh yeah - SCREW CANCER (screw is not the word I normally use)

Bad Genes

There's been a lot going on. Bad ovary that will be removed on Feb 22. It's been giving me a hard time since New Year's Eve.  Ready to get it out and move on with a less painful life.

And then this:  it's official: My family is broken. I now have a 2nd cousin (?) 16 yr old that has a tumor on his pituitary gland.

Here's the brain cancer cluster that is my family:

Maternal Grandfather - dead brain cancer

Maternal Grandfather > Daughter/My Aunt > Daughter/My Cousin> Son - 16 with tumor on his pituitary gland

Maternal Grandfather > Daughter/Mom > ME - brain cancer

Maternal Grandfather > Daughter/My Aunt - deceased brain cancer

Paternal Grandfather - dead brain cancer

Paternal Grandfather > Son/My Uncle - deceased not from cancer but had some type of tumor on his brain as a teenager

This makes me very glad I don't have any kids to pass this onto.

Two Years!!

October was 2 years. I'm amazed how much my life has changed. The first year is a big blur. The second is me trying to get some kind of life back. Will be interesting to see what year #3 has in store.

There are things I do to compensate that I don't notice. I have problems with feeling and dexterity in my fingers so I hold things differently. I didn't realize it until someone pointed it out i.e.: I hold my fork different. And somethings I do notice. I have issues with the right side of my face, similar to my fingers. Sometimes I have issues eating, food just falls out of my mouth (not often!) but the problem I notice most is that my lips don't make a good seal so I occasionally emit a high pitched squeak. I'm told that's it's not really noticeable but it drives me crazy. There are lots of other things but it could be soo much worse. If you don't pay attention you'd never notice there was anything different about me.

My personality has changed in that I'm not as outgoing as I was before. I'm hesitant to talk to people because of the slight lisp, saying the wrong word or sometimes I just pause mid-sentence. It's not like I'm looking for a word, or thinking, but that the hamster just stops running on the wheel.

Most of my friends make of fun of it now, which makes me more comfortable about it all. They know I can't say my ABC's and not to even think about me doing math in my head. If I pause while talking they just pick up what I was going to say and we keep on going. Some friends still expect the "old" me to show up, not understanding that the new me is what they got now. That's the hard part.

OK, didn't mean to write a book. I was just going to do a quick update and it all just came tumbling out.

Happy Anniversary Honey!

Six years ago today I was on a beach in Hawaii getting married.  It was awesome!

Started out flying from RDU to DFW to Hawaii.  Everybody noticed I was carrying my wedding dress and was either telling us congratulations or not do it  :)    Actually everyone was very nice, especially the flight crew.  They took very good care of my dress, hanging it up in their closet and wanted to upgrade us to First Class but all the flights were jam packed full. 

One of Ronnie's friends meet us at the airport with beautiful flower leis.  Seriously, we got leid before get to the hotel! 

Then Mom and Philip flew in to participate in the festivities.

Anyway we got to spend a couple of days of doing nothing but soaking up the sun and drinking fruity drinks with umbrellas.  It was wonderful.  I wish I was there doing the exact same thing right now.

Then the BIG day arrived and it suddenly occurred to me that I'd planned all this over the Internet. I had no idea how this was going to turn out.  I was sure we'd be married at the end but no clue what the limo would be like or the pics/video or the guy that was supposed to marry us. I freaked out.  Thank goodness Mom calmed me down and told me not to worry about it because all that mattered was that we were getting married.

And it was beautiful.  Everything was perfect. And now 6 years later I wouldn't change a thing.  So Happy Anniversary Ronnie and I cannot wait until our 10th anniversary and we go back!

Yeah! < cough, sneeze, cough >

YEAH! There was no storm. 

I got home to a huge pile of mail from Nortel. I put it off for a couple days because I have a cold that makes me feel bad enough, I didn't need anything more.  When I finally started opening mail, the very first letter I opened from Nortel stated that they were NOT going to stop any benefits August 31st in fact to ignore all the other letters because they were no longer valid.   Why?  There was too much push back. 


< cough, sneeze, cough >
I came home with a terrible, horrible cold. It's all Ronnie's fault, he gave it to me. I finally sucked it up and went to the Doctor yesterday. I figured I had a sinus infection or bronchitis or something bad.  He told me I had a horrible cold and gave me some cough syrup with Hydrocodone in it. Forget that codeine stuff cause I got me some Hydrocodone.  Seriously, it gave me a buzz the first time I took it. 

Today I think he's an idiot! I'm worse today than I was yesterday. Still coughing up stuff that is way the wrong color, bloody stuff every time I blow my nose, shitty headache, very congested head & chest, now my chest is hurting and my throat is sore again.  Of course my throat is probably sore from the 2, yes 2, strep test I had yesterday.  Why 2? Because the first one wasn't painful enough.

So do I go to another Doctor, the ER or what?  Why the ER you ask?  It seems when you have a bad headache and a history of brain cancer that Dr's freak and just send you to the ER to be on the safe side.

Anyway, YEAH - cough, cough - I still got benefits that I can use to hopefully get rid of this cold.  (I don't think it's a cold but that's just my opinion, heck I didn't think I had a brain tumor)

Calm before the storm

I've taken the last week off to just relax and not think.  I've spent a lot of time by the pool reading*, chatting with friends, sleeping in and eating whatever I wanted. It has helped and I'm not as stressed as I was.  No more panic attacks. 

I will be going back to reality on Monday.  Hopefully it will all go well.



*I need to better explain reading.  I don't read books like I did before.  I cannot read any books with lots of  people or much of a plot.  I read "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and it took me forever.  I was about to start taking notes on who was who and what they did because I could not remember it or follow. At that point I decided to just read it and try to remember the people and try to enjoy it.  This is a very popular book and everybody is reading it.  It's classified as "summer reading." Yeah, that's right I even have problems with the easy summer reading books.

Screwed!

Yeah I know it's been a while.  Lots of stuff happening, most of it not too good.  Mainly I've been freaking out over this: 

Nortel seeks to cut retiree benefits to 4,000
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2215538920100622

That includes me.  Yes, in a few weeks not only will I stop getting paid but I'll have to start paying for my insurance and meds.  I'll have NO life insurance.  < insert screaming here >

First I got a notification that they were petitioning the court for approval to stop all the benefits.  So I started freaking out.  The court date isn't until July 16th so I thought I had a little time to get everything together.  Nope wrong.  Two days after the notification I got my termination papers. I totally freaked.

Here's all the information.  Nortel is currently in bankruptcy not going for reorganization but going for total liquidation.  They are self insured. All the rules go out the window once you go into bankruptcy.  Being self insured means they are paying my LTD not someone like Aflac.

After consulting with a very good attorney he confirmed that I am in fact screwed.

I knew this day would come but I was under the impression that as long as the "doors" were open that I couldn't get fired.  Well, I was wrong.  Very wrong.