My Day

Slept approximately 7 minutes last night. This not being able to sleep stuff is truly beginning to wear me down physically and emotionally. I like sleep. Actually, I love sleep when it is sleepy-time so when it is time for bed and I can't sleep, well, let's just say I ain't happy. You throw in not being able to sleep for weeks now and you can just imagine. I tire incredibly easy and am more prone to have a long to-do list on which very few things get checked off.

I love checking things off my to-do list.

Enter aggravation mode.

Anyway, today I went for my Muga Scan and it went fine, I guess. Again, the Muga Scan is required after hard chemo to check the heart for damage. Hard chemo has a tendency in some people to damage heart vessels and arteries, so the oncologist will order a Muga Scan after you finish the hard chemo to check it against your echocardiogram which was completed before chemo began. The first stick was alright because I had been drinking water all morning and my veins were "plump". Ew. I also had my secret weapon with me...Big Daddy. So he held my hand and had me focus on him as Steve, who had mistaken me for a needle warrior last week, had asked another technician to try me this time. Poor Steve. He wasn't even in there while this woman stuck me. I told you he was about as upset as I was when he couldn't get me last time. So, she gets the vein and I am infused with some radioactive substance and have to wait fifteen minutes before they inject me with the sugar dye which will adhere to the radioactive stuff.

Well, as we all know, I can only be stuck once, if that many times, before my veins tap out, so here we were, fifteen minutes later and BAM! My vein shuts down. The woman who was silently showing off to Steve that she "got the hard stick" was now digging and rooting around for a vein to work. Without the second injection, the first would be a bust, so I was trying very hard to not jump up and run away...again. There is only so much I can take, fortunately, Big Daddy helped me breathe through everything and focus on him and not the treasure hunt going on in my arm. Eventually Needle Nelly got the vein and then I cried...but at least I held it together until then.

We all went back to the Muga room and this included Big Daddy. This was the first time that any tech had allowed him to come with me for ANY kind of test. I was so glad he was in there. It wasn't that I was afraid of the test or anything, I just like him being there with me. I knew the hard part was over...lying in some machine as still as can be is nothing. Needles, injections, infusions...that's the sucky part.

The technician asked if I was claustrophobic and I said I wasn't. She positioned me on the table, attached wire receptors to my chest and tummy, and gave me a blanket. I had one arm raised behind my head and the right arm was placed in a tray by my side. The machine moved and rotated in very close proximity to my chest and then it stopped. I just laid there and breathed in and out and it did not take very long for me to get sleepy. Of course, when you are told to be as still as possible, your nose itches and you need to pee, but I laid there and tried to talk myself out of those things. The scan was over and that was it.

I always try to detect some underlying message the techs are trying to tell me without saying anything... You know they know what they are looking at even without the "interpreter of the test" giving the final analysis, so if they run up and hug you and have tears in their eyes as they say "goodbye", then you know you are dying. If, when you leave, they blow you off and don't seem to really care that you are heading out, then you know you are either okay or they don't like you. I try incredibly hard for the techs to like me because I know they are the ones who will stick me... Anyway, as we were leaving, both Steve and Needle Nelly wished us a Merry Christmas and neither of them were crying so I guess my heart looked okay and I will live.

Big Daddy and I left, came home and ate some leftovers from dinner last night. I really do love my cooking... I spent the next hour and a half on hold (a.k.a. "on ignore") with my insurance company and still they say they will have to investigate and call me later in the week. Um, today is Thursday, so you can call me tomorrow. Ugh! My two biggest questions for the insurance company are:

1. How can you deny my mammogram for $235 claiming it "medically unnecessary" when this mammogram led to the biopsy which led to the bilateral mastectomy because I HAVE CANCER?!?!?!?!?!?

2. How can you say you need my medical records when you have already paid umpteen thousand dollars based on my medical records which you already have?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
YOU DO HAVE MY MEDICAL RECORDS NOW PAY THE DAMN BILL!!! ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Moving on... We went to see Southern Lights and had a fabulous time. We go every year and this year we went with Babs, Ken, and their son. Everyone had a blast as we ate kettle corn, peanut brittle, hotdogs, and funnel cakes... We looked at miniature train sets and rode on the kiddie train which goes all around the horse park. We took goofy pictures and sang Christmas carols. I was able to speak with one of my favorite photographers in Kentucky as he was vendoring at the museum. It was a tremendously evening and memories were made.

So, as I sit here this late hour, my heart is happy and filled with joy. The way I see it, anytime you end your day thanking God for it, as simple or as jam-packed as it may have been, then you are blessed to realize God's love for you. My day was not the result of anything that I did or deserved...it was about God blessing me in ways only He can. He took a chilly December day and gave Big Daddy the power to pull me through the rough spots of it, thus bringing us even closer. Then, He took a brisk December evening, filled it with friends and made a sweet memory for each of us to remember forever...and we shall.

Thank you, God, for Your love for me and my family and also, thank You for my day.