TigerLizard

this pandemic i can’t even.

Enough already.

I was watching this neat show on people getting fancy swimming pools put in, and kept thinking, “I wonder if those people voted for Trump.”

I can’t with those people. I’m done.

like, if we could just lock down for 3 weeks. It would be over and we could go back to ordinary life.

There was an article somewhere recently where the author was amazed that people in big cities still cared about the pandemic because everyone in small flyover towns was acting like the pandemic was over, not wearing masks or anything, because it’s over and not real.

I’ve had a migraine for 3 days. I blame omicron stress.

Had my 6-month cancer checkup in early October. Everything looks good.

Went to the dentist for the first time since before the pandemic. Fortunately there were no new issues. Thank you Sonicare and Water Pik.

I got a Moderna booster.

I am so tired of the pandemic. I am also tired of winter and winter hasn’t even officially started.

People who won’t get vaccinated… maybe I’ll write a post about that sometime. But people who won’t get vaccinated should be required to get tested every day, at their own expense. because WTF, people.

Just a quick summary of this vacation week, so I don’t forget.

Took this week, 7/19 through 7/23, off. Since I may not have another chance for a vacation until fall!

The fence people started building our fence last week – thursday and friday. They were here Monday, Tuesday, and now today, Thursday. It’s almost done – they just have the gates left.

Saturday 7/17: Morning – took Mavis to the dog park with Sam. Later, excursion to McLendon’s Hardware for plants. Also went to Ulta, Marshalls, and the new Ross in Westfield shopping center.

Sunday 7/18: Picked up Buddy’s prescription at Bartells. Did my regular Sunday chores. Planed some of my new plants.

Monday 7/19: Took a long walk with Mavis, up to Admiral and back, going up the hill on 53rd/College/Grayson, and back down via Sunset and Bonair.

Tuesday 7/20: excursion to University Village – Crate & Barrel to get a Breville espresso machine. Also looked at a plant store, walked around, etc. Stopped at Trophy Cupcakes in Wallingford on the way home.

Wednesday, 7/21: excursion to Flower World with Dragnhild. Got several plants there, then stopped for lunch at the Village Square Cafe in Redmnod. Also looked at Dragnhild’s garden. She said she would give me some hardy geraniums when the ground is soft. Stopped at West Seattle nursery on the way home and bought two banana plants.

Thursday, 7/22 (today): worked on knitting Sam’s sweater (the collar and band – so hard to get excited about it!). Mapping out sun patterns in the yard. Will go to Burien Bark for some compost/organic matter and a sample of cedar chips, plus will ask about delivery scheduling – when the fence is done I’m going to order some gravel and dark bark for delivery. I may stop at Fred Meyer too, since that’s right in Burien.

Friday, 7/23 – this is in the future but I will work in the yard. I also have a hair appointment at 5:30 in White Center.

This week has gone by pretty fast. I think I should take another week in August. I’m also going to take one day in September to go to the Puyallup Fair with Tobi and Dragnhild.

It is so nice to have a break from work. Wouldn’t it be nice to be independently wealthy, so I could just do whatever I want all the time?

It’s Sunday evening.

I rode my bike all the way to East Marginal Way & Spokane Street. I was afraid it would be too difficult, but it seems like all the yardwork I’m doing translates into endurance for other kinds of exercise.

Progress on the yard is slow. But it is progress. I’ll have a nice yard that I can actually hang out in one of these days.

We got a quote for a fence and I just emailed them back to ask about scheduling. That will be a nice first step.

I’m waiting on some yarn to get here so I can continue knitting Sam’s sweater. I am also going to make a Pride sweater for Mavis.

It’s funny how much faster time goes by as you get older.

I’m looking forward to the pandemic being over, but I also feel like I’ll be wearing a mask in public for a long time. Besides COVID (even if I can’t get a serious case due to my vaccine, I still don’t want to get it, and sincerely do not wish to give it to anyone), I really like how I haven’t caught a cold since before the pandemic started.

Work is going to be moving toward post-pandemic times. Parking will stop being covered after July 5, and I definitely am not comfortable riding public transportation yet. After today’s ride I figure I’m in shape enough to do the bicycle commute. They’ll probably let us telecommute at least some of the time, so that’s good. Telecommuting has been a huge life benefit for me.

Here is where I start writing like this is a normal journal.

It seems weird that I went through cancer treatment. it’s now been over a year since my mastectomy. Since my pain management was so good, I feel like my surgeries and recovery were pretty easy. And in a weird way I looked forward to them, not just because they were important and necessary treatments (which of course, I was very happy about), but also because recovery time meant I didn’t have to DO anything. It was restful.

Now I’m working on so many projects. I’ve taken up knitting again (after what, 25 years?) and have knitted several things. And I’m teaching myself to crochet. Crochet is definitely harder for me, since I don’t have any history and I don’t understand the mechanics the way I understand knitting. It’s fun to learn new stuff though, and I have lots of ideas for things to crochet – I found out that you can crochet BASKETS. And bath mats. Those are two things I want to make.

I’m working on fixing up the yard. We’ve been living in this house for over five years now. that seems like a long time. we were in the Billings house for 7. And i’ve made several attempts to fix up the yard, without a whole lot of progress. I did manage to remove some horrible plants that I hated, and plant a few new ones, but mostly I’ve done a little chunk, and then got distracted by some other life thing, and then left it to get all overgrown and weedy again.

But now – I’ve weeded all the current planting areas, and have gotten plants planted all over the parking strip, and a few other plants in other places. I haven’t done a whole lot in the backyard because I want a paver patio put in back there and I don’t know that it’s worthwhile to do plants back there when it might get all ripped up.

Plus I want to rip out some more grass, which I hate, and put in plants and ground cover and mulch. There’s this sod netting underneath a lot of the grass, which is REALLY hard to remove. so that’s a long term project.

We got someone to come out and give us a quote on a fence. this will be great for the dogs, and maybe even the cats.

We had another person come out to give us a quote last summer – when we first adopted Mavis – and he ghosted us.

It’s SO hard to hire people to do stuff for you when you have ADHD! Understanding this, and not just thinking I’m a total failure as a human being, has helped me a lot mentally, but it has not made the process any easier. It takes, like, WEEKS to work up the executive function to start it, and if you have to be persistent and naggy it is even harder.

I just feel like the whole process of hiring people to work on the house has been fraught with peril. And the experience we’ve had with trying to get people to actually show up has been terrible.

but I like the fence people so far. We were recommended an electrician by one of Sam’s colleagues, and we liked him, and he recommended to us this fence guy.

There was a problem with the ground wire by the gas meter (that was messed up by the horrible electrician company that updated our electrical box and sold us the new heat/AC unit – that’s a whole other story that I won’t go into. Suffice it to say that it sucked!).

that was after I tried to hire an electrician who introduced himself on Nextdoor – I thought, ok, it would be good to hire someone local, but he blew us off on several appointments and I finally got sick of trying to pin him down. And maybe part of that was my problem – as someone who is socially anxious and needs to have appointments and things reliable, it was hard for me to have him say things that SOUNDED like they were appointments to me, but evidently weren’t for him.

Once the fence is done (provided these folks actually work out – we accepted their quote and they told us we would figure out when to schedule it early next week) I will order some landscaping materials – mulch or something, and some gravel – and start really making things nice. I’ll also buy some more plants.

I also finally got Party Cat into the shop for repairs. Way back when we first got her, she got side-swiped in a parking lot (we think). It was just a smallish ding on the driver’s side door, but we never got it fixed. then, a couple of months ago, I backed her into a dumpster and cracked her driver’s side taillight and scratched her bumper. So I thought that I need to just get everything fixed, finally.

I’ve had three instances where I spaced out and backed into things over my driving life. Is that a normal amount? The first time was when I was in my early 20s. I backed my car into…. a dumpster, believe it or not. The damage was minimal – it was just a little scratch, and no lights broke. The second time was when we lived in Gainesville, and I backed into the corner of another car. So I was in my early to mid-30s. I paid for that damage out of pocket. And now this time, early 50s. If I continue like this I will do it again in 15 years or so. So, now that I am diagnosed, I understand that the spacing out is an ADHD thing, and I can mitigate it by taking my Rx and otherwise managing my symptoms. but argh, it sucks so much to be like this.

When Party Cat is out of the shop I will go plant shopping. When the fence is done I’ll get landscaping materials.

***

We’ve been taking Mavis to the Westcrest dog park a lot lately and she loves it. It’s nice to have a dog that loves other dogs.

What else? I’m knitting her another sweater, mainly just trying to figure out how to adapt the bulky-weight pattern I’ve been using to worsted weight yarn, so that I can then make her a Dude sweater that matches the Dude sweater I’m making for Sam. And that’s another thing I’m waiting for – one of the colors I need for Sam’s sweater is out of stock at the online yarn store so I need to wait for that to be restocked.

I had my six-month follow-up with my oncologist on Thursday, 3/25, which was also the 1-year anniversary of when i was diagnosed. All was well. The doc was happy to see I’d gotten my first Moderna shot, and said not to worry if my lymph nodes get all swollen with the second shot – he said sometimes patients get concerned that the cancer is coming back so he wanted to make sure I wouldn’t worry.

Next up medically – I have another leuprolide shot due on April 6, then the second Moderna shot on the 17th.

This last year has been so weird for me, medically – I’ve never had so many medical appointments before in my life.

Once I get past the second vaccine shot, and go through the two-week period that needs to pass before the vaccination becomes fully effective, I need to start working on getting back into the swing of the dentist. *sigh*

I got the first dose of the Moderna vaccine yesterday! With an automatic appointment to get the second dose in 4 weeks, on April 17. Then 2 weeks after that the vaccine should be fully effective.

This is so exciting!

No significant side effects to speak of. My arm is a little sore, similar to the flu vaccine but maybe not even as sore as that. Nothing else otherwise. Based on reports I’m expecting worse on the second shot but even that doesn’t sound as bad as being in the hospital on a ventilator, or being sick for 6 months.

Next week will be a year since my cancer diagnosis.

It’s so bizarre that I had cancer and COVID-19 all at the same time.

I had my first regular mammogram on February 25. Got the results back yesterday: all clear!

It was only on the left side – the right side is just skin and implant now so does not need to be mammogrammed.

In my last post I said I needed to start writing in this more, and then I waited until now to update. Hmm, ADHD maybe?

I had my permanent implant surgery on 12/30. It went really well. I took a couple of weeks off to heal and now I feel fine.

My medical team said I should schedule my next mammogram about 6 months post radiation, to give things time to settle down and heal. So I have that scheduled for February 25. One year and one day from my very first mammogram, which led to all this.

This time I only need to have the left one mammogramized, since the right one is not actually a breast anymore – it’s just skin, muscle, and implant.

That’s all. Will maybe write some more about the surgery later.

I really need to update this more often!

When radiation was over, I felt pretty good – my skin was just a tiny bit reddish, I was just the tiniest bit sore, and the only sign of fatigue was the more-frequent migraines, which could easily be explained by having to drive out of West Seattle every weekday.

The radiation oncologist said to keep using the prescription steroid cream for 2 weeks after the last day, so I did that. Everything seemed more or less the same. I was looking forward to being done with the cream since it is really thick and you have to mix it with a regular moisturizer to get it to spread. But I was instructed to keep using plain moisturizer, which I did.

Over the weekend, after I stopped using the steroid cream, my skin started to get redder and itchy, and the skin under my arm started peeling. I got a little concerned and called the radiation nurse on Monday. She reassured me that this was pretty normal and recommended something called Aquaphor. It didn’t really feel too bad and at that point I was just calling because I just wanted some reassurance. But it kept getting worse over the next few days. The Mighty Sam went to Bartell’s and got me some Aquaphor on Wednesday. That did help a little.

So, I’m thinking that the steroid cream worked EXTREMELY well and when I stopped using it all hell broke loose! My skin now is quite red in all the radiation areas. It is worst under my boobicle, in my underarm, and there’s an extra tingly-itchy spot in the center of my chest. I checked the intarwebs and it turns out that these three spots are exactly where one should expect it to be worst, because of how the radiation beams are directed. So fun times.

Now I am really, really looking forward to when this starts healing up. I kind of feel like it’s getting better now – I think it was probably the worst on Wednesday, right before I started using the Aquaphor. But it might just be that I feel better because of the Aquaphor.

I feel kind of irritated, because I had this false sense of security when I finished up the radiation and didn’t have any significant effects! It is so lame to have thought I was past the worst of it and then get blindsided with it 2 weeks afterward! Because I thought that it would get worst 2-3 weeks into it! Not 2-3 weeks AFTER being done!

I have an appointment with my main oncologist next week. Thursday morning. Then a follow-up with the plastic surgeon in mid-October to talk about getting my permanent implant.