Cookie Weekend.

Given my flight cancellation plus PMS, we baked 3 batches of my mom's super duper chocolate chip cookies this weekend. All were meant for the Cancer team at Beth Israel, but one batch came out too thin (the batter was too warm), so, sadly, we had to keep them. Actually, my favorite cookie texture, crunchy and thin. The other batches came out beautiful, fortunately ( or not, hah!)

It was an intense weekend. After having missed 4 days of school due to a terrible cold and fever, we were off to the races. My girl does NOT like homework, tries to do minimal work or avoid. I basically told her she had to do her best, I'd be checking, and after each assignment we'd set the timer for 15 minutes of video games. It totally worked. She beat my ass in Mario Kart but not by much - she did quality homework, and though she has more to do (it's not due yet but I didn't tell her) she's well on her way to being totally caught up. She'll be with her dad tomorrow night so hopefully she will do what I asked in her math book. It was a LOT. But it was supposed to be done.

So my day has consisted of, kissing hubby goodbye for his few days upstate teaching, drinking 3 cups of coffee and a bunch of water, homework, video games, baking cookies, and eating hot and sour soup and cookies. I feel slightly unbalanced, but considering I'm in the middle of raging PMS, I'm doing GREAT. I didn't once lose it today with my kid - no yelling, no frustration (that was, due in part to her magically good spirits and cooperation... where did I go right?)  And I didn't really gorge on much. Ok, the cookies? Maybe not the best lunch. But again - hormones.

I also have been wearing hubby's most disgusting workout tank top. The armholes are so sweated up (it's clean but old) that they feel plastic. He had one that was worse but I was afraid it would actually cut into my burn. Not kidding. But this awful top allows me to put cream on my burn space, gives my armpit plenty of breathing room, and I look like an ass hole. Everybody wins!

Wait... what?

Anyway, my daughter kept looking at my fake boob, it's tan and super freckled. She thought it was cute, how freckley it is. She also really feels for my armpit, the peeling and pain. But I told her it's a small price to pay to burn the cancer away. She believes it. Do I? I'm on the fence. I have been this whole time. If I didn't have her? I wouldn't have gone through this. With her in my life, there was no question. If I were "just me", meaning not a mom, I would have gone super hippy-dippy and probably headed to The Ann Wigmore Institute. I was so interested in her in the early '90's. I even started sprouting and making weird fermented things.

Oh, wait. I'm doing that now. But, seriously. I would have gone there and immersed myself in their live food protocol until the cancer was gone or I was gone. I was so against all this barbaric crap called modern medicine until I had a kid, and I had to be here. I couldn't take a chance with things that only I seemed to believe in. I have worked them into my life, but I also had major surgery, I've been turned into a human barbecue. And soon, I'll be a guinea pig taking medication that will turn me into a 70 year old woman. I'm STILL on the fence about the pills. I've always told hubby that these "studies" that are released aren't the whole truth. They're what companies benefit from.

And then I came across this. Read the article, but also watch the TED Talk. Now, hubby is a huge fan of TED talks, so this might get his attention. I keep telling him that I find snippets and pieces of tamoxifen studies around the 'net that say women drop like flies out of the tests because the side effects are so super ass-sucking that they want to kill themselves. He wants me to live. I do too. But taking medication for 5-10 years that will turn me into a broken boned, achy, menopausal, sweaty, fat, cranky old lady with uterine cancer and no will to live (I added that symptom as a result of the others) is not my idea of a good time. I'm a young woman. I look and act younger than I am. I love my life and family. I'm active. I'm fun. I'm athletic. I'm an artist. I'm a mom. I'm a wife.

That shit sounds like a crazy old cat lady who hoards.

Disclaimer: We have 2 cats.

Disclaimer: I have a lot of shoes.

But no, we're not hoarders or crazy cat people. We're a newleywed couple with an 11 year old here and a 17 year old elsewhere. We have finally found our matches in each other. We laugh a lot. We joke. We're each others best friends. Yesterday, we lay in bed talking about everything and nothing, waiting for my girl to wake up. Just laid there and talked. As if we were catching up from not seeing each other for years. But this happens every time we see each other. If I start turning into the cranky old cat lady hoarder, that shit will end. I will turn into Grumpy Cat. But not as cute.

3 treatments left. I'm so scared that my shit is going to completely fall apart.

Tomorrow my treatment may not happen. Software upgrade. No morning appointments so they moved me to afternoon/eve. But that means I won't be able to put any cream on all day, and I'll have very little recovery time. If they think it's a good idea, I'll go ahead and roll through. Sounds like too much chaos, maybe my doc was right in telling me to just can Monday and extend another day. I'm just so excited to be done Wednesday (and go to a recording session where nobody knows how fucking sick and tired I am of cancer, but that's part of the fun! Anonymously Super Sick!)

The magazine is going to be published end of next week. Yes, it's a February issue but they're a bit Euro about it. So when that happens, everyone will know, but by then, I'll have gotten through first major surgery, recovery, radiation... all that's left is heinous cat lady hoarder meds and reconstruction!

meow.