Chemo Scoreboard

Four Down!

TWO TO GO!

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, folks.  Finally.  But I've figured out that it's attached to a train that's speeding my way to run my ass over.  This has been the worst one yet.

To begin with, I wasn't even on the schedule for an infusion on Tuesday, which nearly turned into a disaster.  The doctor I see and the oncology clinic each have to schedule me to come in, and the clinic hadn't done their part last time.  I was not a happy camper.  You can tell from the pic.  That is my patented "not a happy camper" face.

I had to wait for them to squeeze me in.  Then, it took three nurses to find a vein to use.  Two of them kept insisting they had one and would not stop digging and poking with that damn needle.  Don't they know that shit hurts?

After the infusion, I went to work and very nearly passed out in front of my class.  I tried to send everyone on break for a few minutes, so that I could recover and we could go on, but got over-ruled by my students and the attendance clerk. 

I barely made it inside the gate to my house before I had to sit down and puke my guts out.  I know that made an impression on the neighbors.  I stayed home yesterday, but am going to try to go to work today. 

Dr Kosh has placed me on internet restrictions, so other than catching up on Days of Our Lives, I'll be taking a little online break.  See you all sometime next week!

Meet Stacey Joy!

I thought I would give you something interesting to look at while I'm getting my toxicity topped off this morning.  Her name is Stacey Joy and she definitely fits the bill for "interesting to look at!"

This is not at all my style of thing, but I'm pretty sure it will be someone else's.  I'll be totally happy to provide it for them!  I do believe that you have to have some sort of focus to your re-selling efforts, but, at the same time, limiting yourself only to stuff that appeals directly to you is a good way to pass up money.

I found it on Saturday at a sale that was being held by a young woman who had just moved in with her boyfriend and was looking to unload some extra stuff and get it gone quick.  This meant the prices were oh-so-right!  I am still kicking myself for not buying two chairs at this sale.  Dammit!

I call her Stacey Joy because that's her name, which is written on the bottom.  She's some kind of caddy, maybe for remotes or keys or some such.  I've never seen one with a goofy face before.  She's also 10 years old, according to the date on the bottom.

Still, mine is not to question why.

Mine is but to sell

(and buy)! 

Memorial Monday Rambles

Sorry to have dropped out of blog-sight last week, but I spent a lot of the week too tired to do anything except go to work and then go to bed.  I thought last week was going to be my "good week," but I think I learned that there aren't really any "good" weeks any more.  There are tired weeks and then tireder weeks.  The goddam bricks are everywhere these days, it seems.

I have my next round of chemo tomorrow.  I can't wait to see what new fun it brings!  Okay, so really I can wait.  A very, very long time, in fact.  Unfortunately, I am not able to wait, so bring on the next round of toxic fill up!

I have been kind of pleased with my blog totals for the year.  I am on pace to meet my 200 posts for 2013, even with my forced vacations.  I really have tried to keep up with the blog as one of my ways of coping with everything.  Plus, having to finish a post before I leave for work gives me an extra incentive to get out of bed.  I need all the incentives I can get, since the bricks provide their own kind of incentive to stay in bed.

Sales have sucked all week.  I've not had a decent day at either site, which means my monthly totals are going to suck.  It's extra discouraging right now because it takes so much out of me to really work the booth the way it needs to be done.  I worked several hours on Friday with a foof and redo that hasn't yielded any results.  I could have phoned it in and been a lot less tired.

Worse yet, I had a text the other day about some AnnaLee dolls I have at one of the booths.  I've got 10 of them, very reasonably priced.  Someone wanted all of them and was inquiring about a discount.  I am more than happy to deal in a case like that and offered a very generous 20% off, which was turned down flat.  Pissed me off too.  That would have really turned my month around.

There's a customer entitlement mentality you run into selling secondhand stuff, particularly vintage items.  Some folks have the idea that you ought to be so glad they have deigned to take an interest in your shit that you should mark it down to next to nothing, then carry it out to the car for them.  I don't have any problem saying "no thanks" to that.  Many of them turn out to be dealers, too.  It's enough to make one cynical.

Until you turn around and have a pretty good day yard saling.  The day started off with a decent sale right down the street from me and kept going all day long.  Every stop ended up being worth it, and that almost never happens.  I'm kicking myself over a couple of chairs and some wicker that I didn't get, but I listened to what the bricks were saying instead of my instincts.  They would have required a run to both booths that day, and I didn't think I was up to it.  Damn bricks talk too loud sometimes.

I ended that day at a vendor mall that's closing at the end of the month.  Lots of the dealers were in their spaces marking things down, so they wouldn't have to take them out in a few days.  I found a few things there.

Yeah.  Just a few.

I think that I'm well set for this next round of chemo, just in case I end up not being able to make it to any sales or thrifts this go around.  I'll be taking some larger items into the booths this week, if I'm able, to give it the quick and easy approach to a new appearance.

The third anniversary of Mom's death is this week.  I'm trying to get a post for that finished, but I may be off by a few days, depending on how I feel.  I'm trying to take advantage of having today off in order to take care of some things that need to be done this week.

There's a terrible lot of whining in this post.  Sorry about that.  Being tired all the time makes me grumpy.  I hope everyone has a good holiday.  Travel safely.  And take it from the dude with melanoma:  Wear a hat when you're out in the sun and use lots of sunscreen!

Having Fun Finding

There used to be a restaurant in town that was known as much for its kitschy decor as the food.  It closed not too long ago in the midst of a labor dispute.  I had mixed feelings about the place.  The decor was fun.  Some of the food was pretty good, if a little pricey.  It wasn't one of my regular haunts, but I did go there from time to time.

One of the things the place was known for was having toys and doo dads on the tables to amuse customers while they waited for their food.  Usually, it was small plastic animals, toy cars, crayons and the like.  Whenever I ate there, a few of them somehow made their way into my backpack.  Never quite sure how that happened, but it did.

The last couple of years the place was open, they added on a gift shop.  One of the items they sold was an hourglass kind of thing filled with plastic bits.  Hidden in the bits were all kinds of little toys and items.  The object was to shake the hourglass and make the different objects surface.  You were supposed to find as many of them as possible.  This became a pretty popular table toy.  If someone really got into it, they could buy one on the way out in the gift shop.  Pretty clever.

Anyway, I was in Goodwill the other day and I found two of them for sale!  They went home with me, of course.

Okay, so they're more like cylinders than hourglasses.

Let's see what we can find!

Here's a star!

A lot of the hidden objects were these little cubes with letters, etc. on them.

Forgot to do the crappy cell phone pic alert, didn't I?

There's a list on one end, so you can keep track of your finds.

Scotty dogs are turning up in several of my posts these days.

  Okay, maybe only two of my posts.  but that's enough to declare a trend, isn't it?

One of the things I like about junking is discovering bits and pieces from local places that are no longer there.  For some of these places, these bits and pieces are the only record they ever existed.  It's cool to preserve long-ago memories.  I'd never thought about this from the perspective of places that have more recently passed from the scene.  Isn't life interesting like that?

Monday Rambles

The going was a lot slower last week.   I was way more tired all week than I had been the week prior.  Not only that, the bricks were back with a vengeance.  I actually had to take a nap at work a couple of times!  I started coming out of it a little towards the end of the week.  On Friday, I stayed home and rested.  Over the weekend, I could feel things perking up a little bit.  Last week was the "bad" week in the cycle.  This one is supposed to be the "good" one.  We'll see.  I do have a lot to do, as I get fill up #4 a week from tomorrow.

I did learn some things last week, too.  I apparently have large lungs.  That's what the X-Ray Tech said when she had to re-position one of her plates and re-take the X-Ray because they didn't all fit in one shot.  I'm not sure if this is a normal human condition, but I'm calling myself "Large-Lunged Ed" from now on.  Maybe that is my heretofore undiscovered mutant power?  I've always known I have one.

Speaking of mutant powers, from time to time we'll walk into the kitchen and find Kosh sitting on his favorite kitchen chair.  Then, we'll notice that the door to the upper cabinet where we keep the cat treats is open.  I think someone else is hiding his super-powers.

Lots of good sale action going on over the weekend, but we only got to about half of it.  The power steering on the car started acting up after one stop, so I started dropping sales off the list where parallel parking was going to be required.  I left the big church sales on the list, so I did still get some stuff.  Of course, while we were driving to the last one, all of a sudden, the problem cleared up.

I did get a 1921 copy of Science and Health Through the Scriptures.

And a pair of giant plush Dr Pepper cans.

All together now!

 And Hulk Hogan.

Who would win in a fight between HH and Ben Grimm?

So it wasn't a total loss.

I also saw this when we were out.  See what's written below the tail light?  We are everywhere!

I did kind of scare the driver when I shouted "Fuck cancer!" at them when we passed them.

 

Junk set out week was pretty much a loss, though.  Threatened storms held off for most of the weekend, but the stuff just wasn't there.  Lots of real junk in junk set out this time.  Who would have thought?  I did find an awesome primitive cabinet, but that was about it.  Sorry that there's not a pic.  It's on the back porch, and I'm too lazy/tired to go out right new and snap one.  I still need to clean it up and get it to the Rough Room.

While cleaning out the shed to get some of our stuff to set out, I went through another box of Mom's stuff, which only leaves about 8 more to go.  I also found a tub of religious articles that I've been looking for to restock my religion wall.  Combined with the junk I threw out of there, I'm starting to get enough room in the shed to put a couple of pieces of furniture as a reserve.  I think I might make the shed my Memorial Day weekend project and get that finished.  There is a lot of stuff in there I would like to take to the YesterNook Outdoor Sale in a couple of weeks.  All I have to do is resist the siren call of the big flea market and half-price day at a large thrift.  The choices we have to make....

Sales were pretty good last week.  The Little Tikes stuff, the art table, the red chair, and one of the lamps have already sold, putting me in the black for last week's yard saling, before I even get to the small stuff.  That was nice.  I'm pretty much selling out the bulk of what I bring in for every restock at the Peddlers Mall, plus a nice chunk of already existing stock throughout the week.  I'm moving enough larger items to keep the daily take almost at what I would like for it to be, but I still have a few lag days that affect the overall monthly take.  Consistency, it seems, will forever be something I work towards.

It's gonna be a light week at work, which is good, since I do have other stuff to do.  One booth needs a complete do-over, and I'm in the middle of re-doing the other one.  It's the big one, and I'm working it a section at a time.  I'm nearly done with it, so it's time to begin revving up the other one.  I want to have it done by the outdoor sale, complete with a near-total restock.  I'll move most of the stuff that is there to the other booth.

Hopefully, I'll be able to accomplish at least half of what I want.  Still got some of those bricks to contend with.

Mark Your Calendars!

It's gonna be a really fun time!  I'm going to set up with a booth full of special deals.  If you are in or around Louisville, I'd hope to see you there!

Fun Finds: What's Up Doc?

Go ahead!  Try and tell me that you could resist a pair--not one, but two--of giant plastic carrots!  I won't believe you.

Well, maybe you could, but I sure as hell can't.  Not when they're 50 cents for both.

Now I just need to find a giant, plastic rabbit to feed.

Bricks 101

I guess you all have figured by now out that the ton of bricks is my (now overused) metaphor for my chemo fatigue.  Telling (bad) brick jokes here is helping me cope, but I thought I'd share some information that I've been noticing, with the thought that it might help someone in a similar situation some time.

Inconvenience

You see, I have noticed that there are different levels and amounts of bricks.  I call them "Brick Levels."  First comes the couple of bricks that I seem to be carrying with me all the time.  They're not enough to keep me out of the loop, but they mean that I move slower than I am used to in just about everything that I do.  I call this level, "Inconvenience," because it's inconvenient to have to always carry 2-3 bricks with you.  What wants that?

The second level is "Hold on There, Pardner!"  It's a few more bricks, maybe a couple dozen or so.  I can still keep moving, but I have to way slow it down at this point.  If I'm working on something and I'm standing, then I need to work out a way to sit and keep it going.  They'll fade away in a little bit, and I can pick up my pace a little bit.

Hold on There, Pardner!

"Time Out, Cowboy!" is the brick level that calls for a break--usually about 30 minutes--in the action.  They can hit hard and fast or pile up over a period of time until there's about a couple hundred pounds of bricks.  The rest break will usually clear them out, but I have to take it pretty quick.

The last level is "Down for the Count, Mister!"  This is the full one ton pallet and it hits out of the blue, any time, any where.  Sometimes, it accumulates slowly, until I can't go any further, but more often it just drops out of the sky like something out of an old Warner Brothers cartoon.  I can be doing anything, and all of the sudden the feeling comes over me

Time Out, Cowboy!

and I know I need to be laying down pretty soon for an extended period of time.  Usually, I'm able to cut whatever I am doing short, when this one comes around.  I kind of have to.  Lately, though, this one has been holding off until the end of the day when I'm at home.  It still hits hard, but it's not interfering as much with my day.

When I write my "surviving chemo" pamphlet, I'll be putting in a section about dealing with the bricks.  In the meantime, you can consider this my rough draft.

Down for the Count, Mister!

(Anti-)Ode to the Bricks

A Fuck Cancer Poem Which I Have Wrote

By Michael Edward Mitchell, Age 48

Bricks!

Bricks!

Go Away!

Come again another day!

(Or even better, don't ever come back again!)

Little Eddie

Wants to Play!

Well, actually Little Eddie ain't so little and he needs to get to work,

but then he'd like to:

Thrift

Work at the Booths

Price and Pack Stuff

Go to Yard Sales

Eat Out

Do Work at the House

Do Work in the Yard

Love on that Kosh
Maybe Take a Walk

Whatever.

The bricks are still in the way, though. 

Shoo, bricks, shoo!

Weekend Finds

I don't normally do these kind of recap posts.  For one thing, others do it so much better than me.  For another, I try to get stuff to a booth so quickly, that it is often not available for pictures.  Every now and then, though, a weekend comes along that is so fantastic that the story has to be told.  This is one such weekend.

To begin with, I'd been feeling pretty good, relatively speaking, all week. I'm still slow-moving and I still get tired, but it created an eagerness in me to get out to the sales.  I never know how I'll feel from one day to the next, so I gotta strike while the iron is hot, as they say.

I think the story is best told through pictures.  They are worth a thousand words, after all.

This mod-style ice bucket is missing a handle, but was too cool to pass by.  It was the only decent item at a sale where I saw the nastiest electric skillet-wok-thing I've ever seen in my life.  Imagine cooking a pound of bacon every day for like a month and not cleaning the thing out in between cookings.  Then, imagine taking it out in the yard and setting it under a tree and leaving it there for another month.  Then, nest a family of chipmunks in it for a month.  It was nastier than that!

 These vintage Star Wars figs came from a sale where a perky blonde missionary-to-be tried to push me into buying more than I wanted.  She said she didn't have exact change and was insistent that I just "get something else" to make it up.  Instead, I put something back to being my total down to the amount she said she had.  She was so rude through the whole shopping experience that I nearly left everything there.

This chair is a modern repro, but still classy and so cool.  I love the button detail.  It was on the worst street for parking in this city.

These next items all came from the same sale.  We pulled up and I just started piling them up.  I needed some larger stuff, because I just sold a cabinet at Peddlers Mall.  Since I really don't have much storage, I have to kind of do the large stuff on an "as needed" basis.

Little Tikes Shopping Cart

Little Tikes Table and Chairs

Adorable Vintage Lamps with Fiberglass Shades

Three Foot Tall Vintage Lamp

This was probably the most fun stop of all.  The actual seller was at the bank getting change, but I kept asking her friend questions, so she had to keep calling.  Finally, she called the seller and just handed me the phone.  Fun times.

The big lamp was on the porch and I bought it with the other stuff.  Then the seller came home and asked if I wanted to see two more she had for the same price.  She brought out the little ones and I just died. Sold!  And Sold!

We got so much stuff there that this was the end result.  The seller and her friend were cracking up that we took a picture.  The shopping cart and a half table are on my lap!  You can kind of see the Little Tikes table through the back window.

I know that goatee is starting to look goofy. I ain't cutting it until chemo is over.

We had to run home and unload after that one.  Then we went to a church that had already had one sale this year, but if they are selling, I'm buying.  I found this child-sized art/drafting table there.

Child-size drafting/art table.

The top raises up like a drafting table!

We had to leave the table and go get my truck to haul it.  The weather looked just iffy enough that we didn't want to chance using the truck unless it was needed.  The color on that table is hideous, but that can easily be changed.  It's got a lot of life left in it.  At least, that's what I am going to say on Craigslist.

I spent Sunday running stuff to the booths, so most of it is out there and priced.  Sunday night, I did Craigslistings for everything as well.  The shopping cart sold on Sunday, and the table and chairs sold yesterday!  I'm definitely keeping Little Tikes on my list from now on.  Fingers crossed on the rest of it.

There were some more little items, but these are the highlights.  I'm saving a couple of things for a "Fun Finds" post in a few days.

Monday Rambles

For all the trouble I had chemo week, last week has turned out to be the best "first week after chemo" I've had yet.  Keith thinks the nausea pills might be a part of that.  I'm down to taking one every now and then, when needed, as opposed to every four hours like clockwork.

The nausea pills don't help with the bricks, of course, but they've been manageable bricks, for the most part, instead of excessive bricks.  This is a trend I hope will continue for this week.  I got a lot of stuff done last week for the booths, and this weekend is JUNK SET-OUT!  Free stuff just sitting everywhere for the picking!  I have to be well for that.

Good news!  I found my camera!  It was on the floor beside my desk for some reason, under a bag of stuff that was waiting to get priced.  I have got to get organized.  I swear!  This means no more crappy cell phone pics.  My phone does okay, usually, but it's cranky and I haven't mastered the art of massaging a consistently good pic out of it yet.

It's bike riding weather and that makes me a little sad.  I see all these folks on theirs and I wish I could ride mine.  I'm afraid I don't have the energy for it, just yet.  I took an intentional short walk the other day.  I did okay for the whole walk, but crashed soon after getting home.  Not quite ready for bike-riding to work yet.  I don't want to go the whole summer without riding, but I may have to.  Sad face.

Yard saling this weekend was so good that I have decided to go against my usual grain and do a special post about it.  Look for it tomorrow.  The most awesome thing is that I loaded up on booth stuff and never got halfway through the planned list.  I love it when things go like that!

May has started out well as far as booth sales go.  I moved a cabinet at Peddlers Mall on Friday.  Thanks to Saturday's yard saling, I had a good load of large items to take to both booths.  I ended up making an impromptu booth run on Sunday.  Fingers crossed for good sales!

I'm still doing a lot of "drive by" quickie posts to take my mind off things.  I should have stuff up all week, so keep checking in.  I've been working bit by bit on some longer essays, which should be ready soon.

I have a slightly busier week than normal.  The end of the year at work is next week, so there's a lot to do there.  I also have to get a chest X-ray on Tuesday, just to make sure this cough I've had since the chemo started is not anything serious.   Wednesday, I'm filling in for a colleague, so I've got an extra class.  I just hope that the bricks stay out of my way through all this.

This Friday starts the most wonderful time of the whole Spring.  It's junk set out in our neighborhood.  People are already jumping the gun.  Piles are springing up everywhere, but early piles usually aren't that good.  I've got to stay well, because I've got to get out crap ready to set out, then get ready to pick!  It's like Christmas for junkers!  I'll let you know what I find.  It's going to be tricky, as there are intermittent rain showers forecast all week.  True junkers love the challenge!

Talk to you all later.  Take care!

Motherless Mother's Day Number Three

The title says it all.  This is the third Mother's Day since I became an adult orphan.  I've been working on a longer post that I intended to use today, but since Mother's Day and the anniversary of her death come so close together, I've decided to save it for the end of the month and use it for the anniversary.  It still needs some tweaking I'm not up to doing right now.

Instead, some random thoughts and a special treat in a bit.

For the last few years, we hadn't really done anything special for Mother's Day itself.  Usually, we'd save it until the end of the month and go to the big Memorial Day Flea Market together.  I'd either buy breakfast or lunch, and we'd call that Mother's Day.  Going to the big flea market by myself hasn't been the same.

One of the hardest things about having cancer is that it's put that need back in me to pick up the phone and call her to talk about things.  I want to know if this is how she felt.  I want to know if I responded right when she felt that way.  I'd never felt unsure about anything we did, until I had to start having chemo too.  And what I am going through is nothing compared to what she did.  I'm still fat with a head of hair.  She looked like a concentration camp victim when she died.  I remember showing her ID to people in the nursing home and hospice, just so they could see her with hair.  She would have killed me if she knew the number of people I let see her without her teeth in.

But I can't pick up the phone and make that call.  It really throws me to have that feeling again now, all this time later.  Cancer--dredging up old shit since 2103. It's some kind of really bizarre, really delayed survivor's guilt, I guess.  But it's the one feeling from this whole experience I can't seem to process. Fuck Cancer anyway.

But, I promised you a treat.  How about Emmylou Harris and her own daughters?  Seriously sweet.



I hope that you're having a good Mother's Day.  Be good to your mothers while you have them.

Surprise!

You simply have to love it when you get a little more than you were expecting for your money, especially when it's at the super-low thrift store price.

I saw this recently at my favorite downtown thrift.

Now, it's not normally something I'd be interested in at all.  It's not really my style of stuff, assuming that there is such a thing.  It's just a cute little crafted-up pouch someone made to stash a yardstick in.  I've never really been aware that there was much of a demand for such items.

Then, I heard an interior little voice saying: "Touch it!"

To which I replied (interiorly, of course):  "Uhm, ew.  No.  I don't want it.  Why would I touch it?"

To which this interior voice said:  "Because I'm your goddam interior voice what's got more sense than you!  And I said TOUCH IT!"

To which I said:  "Geez.  Okay. Okay.  I'll touch the damn thing."  Interior voices can be so touchy.  You know?

It was at this point, I noticed that this was not an empty hanging yardstick holder.

It held not one.  

Not two.  

But three old yardsticks!

Next step was to check the price.  The hanger is a buck.  But are the yardsticks priced?  They didn't seem to be, so I grabbed the thing and headed to the check out!

And a little interior voice said:  "Told ya!"

Ben Grimm Isn't Available at the Moment....

He seems to be caught up in a series of existential crises and quandries.

To wit:

Why is he lying on a vintage golden handbag?  Silver is more his color.

What is he doing with his legs, and why is he doing it?

What is up with that pile of crap behind him?  Is someone putting off tidying the junk room again?

How long is it going to take the noob who runs this blog to find his real digital camera and stop taking such crappy cell phone pics?

And, most importantly of all:

How can he do the "Yorick" monologue from Hamlet if he can't find that prop skull?  It better not be sitting in some booth somewhere!  Just sayin'.

It's probably under all that crap behind him.

 

Here's an Old Trick

If you want to spruce up your booth and make it look newer and fresher, but you don't have a ton of stuff to bring in (or maybe you just don't have the time for a full-fledged foof), bring in some larger items.

This is my cart from last week's booth run

They'll attract the eye and make the space look new without a whole lot of effort. 

In the cart in the pic, I have four TV trays, a wheeled computer case, a vintage badminton racket, some toy golf clubs and hockey sticks, and a street sign (that I found).  Before I took the pic, I had removed a couple of adult golf clubs, a full sized hockey stick, a large wooden cross, a small end table, and a tall CD case with a glass door.  Strategically placed, they gave my little empire a completely new look!

Getting Graphic

I know I'm not alone in my junkin' love of vintage games.  Right folks?  They're just cool reminders of a time when entertaining yourself didn't involve cables or cords or downloading.  The graphics on the boxes are often some of the best things about the experience.

The problem with buying games is making sure that everything is still in the box.  Usually a quick glance on the scene is enough to inspire buying confidence, with a more in depth check later. 

Puzzles are another story.  I usually stay away from any puzzle that isn't sealed in the box, because it's too hard to make sure everything is there.  I don't have time to count out 500 or more pieces.  Who does?

The other day I got offered a couple of vintage puzzles for free.  I was waffling a little--free is always a great enticement--when I looked at the box for one of them.

That was all she wrote.  Could you turn this guy down?

 

I know I sure can't.

Awesome Stuff You Never Knew Existed!

Or maybe:  Awesome Stuff You've Known About for Years!

Or possibly:  Stuff That You Don't Really Think Is All That Awesome Whether or Not You Knew About It!

How am I to know?  Pick your category, people.  Me?  I'm going with the first one, because I thought it was pretty cool.  Then again, I am easily amused.

 

It's a bucket designed like a Bud can, with a lid, for storing beer and ice at tailgates and the like.  It caught my eye and it's perfect for the Peddlers Mall, so I snatched it up a couple of weekends ago.

I'm not a beer drinker at all, but I thought it was pretty awesome.  

Your mileage, as they say, may vary.

Monday Rambles

There's really only one thing I can say about last week:

I've certainly had better weeks.

Hell, I've certainly had better weeks while on chemotherapy!

This has been the roughest one so far.  Up to now, my main problam has been fatigue.  I've had a little nausea, sure.  Even threw up one time last round.  Overall, however, it's the fatigue that's been getting me down.

Nausea set in hard this time around.  I had the foresight to take off work last week, which was good, because I felt like throwing up all damn week long.  I did learn that feeling like you need to throw up is worse than actually throwing up.  At least if you do barf, you'll feel better.  But if you just feel like you want to, but continually don't, the result is misery.  I had that "need to" feeling for days on end, even got a good retch or two out of it, but no actually relief.

Friday night, I was actually laying in bed telling Keith that there was no way I could go on with the chemo if it was going to get worse than this.  And I felt so bad about it, because I've seen all the others at the cancer center who are so much worse off than me and still doing it.  I am still fat and have all my hair, after all.  My poor mother never had that chance.

As I'm about to sink in my own self-indulgence, I remember that I have a bottle of anti-nausea meds that I had not used to date, because I hadn't really needed them.  I looked up the side-effects online and they kind of scared me, but the really serious ones have a low chance of occurring.  Of course, I just know that I'm in the 2% that will get Parkinsons, but that's a self-indulgent post for another time.

My new best friend!

Honestly, if it weren't for those meds, I would probably still be in bed lying there moaning, dreaming of ramming a long-handled wooden spoon down my throat so I could finally throw up.  (Sorry about that, breakfast readers.)

Sorry about that pic.  I was lying in bed in the dark and had no idea where my phone was pointed.  Still, the whole thing is kind of indicative of how I was feeling at the time.

I did learn another helpful new thing this go around, as well.  I'd been taking Tylenol PM to deal with the shakes/aches from the IL2 shots I have to get all week.  I'd already figured out about when they'll hit and that taking the pills about an hour before that will deal with them and I won't be bothered by them.  The problem is that the PM also deals with the rest of my night, and I always wake up hung over when I have to take them.  That's just no fun, when you're already dealing with draginess and nausea.

This time around, I learned that a couple of ibuprofen will work just as well, without the immediate drowsiness and resultant hangover.  Score one for the fat guy with cancer!

I'm still hoping that the nausea will fade in a couple of weeks.  I have a lot going on right now:  end of the year at work, junk set out in my neighborhood in two weeks (which I refuse to miss), and helping plan the YesterNook Outdoor Sale for June.

My book sale didn't go too well, by the way.  I've extended it until Mother's Day, and the last three-four days are going to be 20% off on the whole booth (except furniture).  April ended up predictably low at both sites.  It's just a bad month.  It always is, even without the local team winning the championship in the middle of the month.

I've put a whole bunch of quickie shot type blogs up for the rest of this week and into next.  It was a part of last week's blog prep.  I'll get back to longer form posts soon, but I hope you;ll enjoy at least some of what I have in store.

Again, for all of you who have sent me such nice notes and things wishing me well, thank you so much.  I really have needed it lately.

Ugh!

Dr. Kosh has me on bedrest today.  Please call again tomorrow.  You can leave gifts of whiskey and old Marvels in the box by the door.

Also brownies.

Blog Therapy #2

Read yesterday's post for an explanation as to where this is coming from.  I don't feel like retyping it.  My interest in religious imagery stems from stuff like this:

  

Good old St Rita.  There is so much in this pic that just flat turns me on.  (Not that way!  Behave!)  There's a nun (which St Rita was).  It's loaded with symbolism.  (See the Crown of Glory and the Palm?)  It's totally overwrought and emotional, which is intentional.  These images are designed to provoke an emotional response.  They certainly do in me, although not necessarily the one intended.

Finally, it harkens back to the hagiography of the Middle Ages,  which is chock-full of all kinds of awesome pious legends and tall tales.  (I cannot tell you how much those turn me on!)  The scene depicted here is Rita becoming implanted with a thorn from the Crown of Thorns, which lodged itself in her forehead and stayed there for the rest of the life.  Most images of St Rita depict this scene, often with her kneeling in front of a Crucifix in prayer as a thorn shoots off of it and heads towards her.  (Seriously.  Now do you see why I love this stuff?)

Rita's whole story is fascinating reading as well.  One version that I have read (but cannot seem to find online) says that when the Augustinian nuns refused to take her into the order and shut the convent gate, two Augustinian saints--St Augustine himself, along with St Nicholas of Tolentino--flew her over the walls into the midst of the nuns.  How can you not love a story like that??  (I said love.  Not believe.)

For me the awesomeness is probably about four parts sweetness and eight parts kitsch.  It's just fun!  I fully admit my interest is driven just a tad by prurience and sarcasm, but I'm also genuinely fascinated.

Blog Therapy #1

I'm writing this last Saturday in anticipation of a bad chemo reaction, which the signs from my April chemo seem to indicate.  I'm finding that keeping the blog up while I'm doing this is really helping my mental state, so I'm doing a bit of stockpiling.

While I was doing the "Things I Like" post, I ran across a couple of pics that I saved to use for another day.  Here's the first:

Wonder Woman #1 from Summer, 1942.  I wasn't around when this baby was first published, but I had an oversized reprint edition from the 1970's.  I remember taking it with me on one of our family car trips from Texas (where my dad was stationed) to Kentucky to visit my grandparents.  I think I read the thing dozens of times on that trip.  My brother and I each had a paper grocery bag in the backseat.  Mom told us to put whatever we wanted to take on the trip for purposes of trip entertainment in the bag.  I don't recall what else was in my bag, but I remember Wonder Woman. 

I think it may have been this comic that cemented my lifelong love of the character.

How I Feel Sometimes

"What can I do for you, Sir?"

"There you go.  That ought to slow you 

down for a while."