CANNOT stop

I can't stop thinking about my upcoming pixie haircut.  What it will look like.  How will the back look.  Will I get annoyed with side swoopy bangs.  Will they get greasy from me swooping them out of the way all day.  Will I be able to do it well myself since I'm not very skilled at doing hair.  Do they have pomade that doesn't smell like a guy.  Will it look shiny.  Will people think I'm a man (this is probably my biggest concern, in all seriousness).  Can I wear winter hats, or do I need to get earmuffs.  Will I cry at the haircut.  Will I regret it and wish I kept it long (I doubt that, though).  Will I still need to condition.  Will guys think it looks hot (my informal polling seems to be NO; guys I know tend to look at me with confusion when I say I'm chopping it off, especially less than shoulder length).  Will people who don't know about my tumor ask me why I cut off my long hair.  Will they push for more info if I just say I wanted a change.  Will I have to tell someone that actually I had brain surgery because of a brain tumor, and screw you for judging me and my short hair.  How much will I miss my long hair.  I.  Can't.  STOP!

On the upside, it's kept me distracted and hasn't allowed me to get too freaked out for my MRI next week.  Which is definitely a GOOD thing.

All my lady friends keep telling me they're excited to see my new cut.  I'm excited for it too!  Now if I could just stop thinking about it...

My future curly rat tail

Yesterday and today I wore my hair down with a hat, which I haven't done since early September (when I discovered I could put it up in a bun safely).  I want to enjoy my long hair as much as I can these last 2 weeks!  Yesterday when I dried my hair, I realized the bottom section of my short grow-in area (the part that gets pulled upwards into a bun) is totally trained to go that way naturally.  As in, even drying my hair and wearing it down results in a big upwards curl.  NOT CUTE.  Especially with my new haircut coming in T minus less than 2 weeks!  I am slightly terrified that my hair will finally be long enough to chop off, my hair guy will cut it, and I'll have a weird reverse cowlick that curls upwards and totally throws off the wrong vibe.  (I don't know what vibe that is, but it's not sexy pixie, that's for sure.)  Let's hope that 12 days of hair down will retrain my hair!  Eek!

It's totally like this in the back!  BUT WORSE!  (Maybe...)

This picture is less accurate but more AWESOME.

Fingers crossed, friends!

I almost forgot...

Today is exactly 6 months since my surgery.  It is CRAZY how fast time passes.  I can remember the day I got the "we think it's a tumor" phone call and the day I decided to go ahead with surgery and the day I went into the hospital for surgery like they were yesterday.  Let's hope that the next 6 months, and the 6 years after that, and even the 6 decades after that go by just as fast and without any tumor drama.  The older I get and the more time that's passed, the more life I've lived.  And that's a great thing.

That's all, I'm off to bed.  Just wanted to recognize this.  :)

Oh so thankful

Happy Thanksgiving (a day early)!  This year's adventure has helped me gain some perspective, and I have a LOT to be thankful for.  Don't we all, though?!?!  In no particular order...

• My family, especially my seester Amy and cousin Steph, who have all gone to appointments with me, taken lots of time off of work to take care of me after surgery, given good advice when I'm feeling anxious or scared or sad, and just been an unending source of love and support.
• My friends, who have made me food, taken me out to dinner to get me out of the house, shared kind words, taken me to appointments, stayed with me after surgery, and also given great advice and been an outlet for me to share my feelings.  They also keep things fun and help to distract me when needed, and are another never-ending source of love and support.
• A job that I enjoy that is low stress, has sweet travel perks, is for a company I love, and comes with fun, supportive coworkers and bosses that have been amazing and flexible.  I could NOT ask for more with my job this year.
• The generosity of my family and friends (and even people I've never even met) with their donations to the National Brain Tumor Society.  I tear up just thinking about it (seriously).
• New friendships and connections with my fellow tumor-dominating lady friends (Krystal, Jess, and Sara).  While I wouldn't wish a stinking brain tumor on anyone, it is comforting to talk with people who are going through the same thing and knowing that I'm not the only one.
• Amazing doctors, some of the best in the country, right at my fingertips.  They are experienced, very skilled, knowledgeable, and have a great bedside manner.  I'm the #1 fan of my neurosurgeon Dr. S and am also loving my neurooncologist Dr. M.
• Great health insurance!!!!!!
• An apartment that I love (all 460 sq. ft. of it), in a nice neighborhood, with a charming view of Lake Union, a kickass rooftop deck, and very supportive management staff.  They gave me a spa gift certificate before surgery and let the people that stayed with me after surgery park in the garage for free.  They all know my name and always ask how I'm doing when I see them (and not just to be polite).  Plus they gave out free Costco pumpkin pies to all residents yesterday!  YUM.
• Health!  Minus a stinking tumor, but nobody's perfect...
• Us Weekly magazines and Starbucks, which became my daily routine during my post-surgery tumor vacation (plus the aforementioned rooftop deck) as I started to venture out.
• TiVo, because it rocks.
• My iPhone and my Garmin, which help navigate me daily now.
• Music... my outlet, my release, my love.  Now if I could only narrow down the songs for my upcoming Best of 2011...
• Travel!  In 2011, I went to Shanghai, Seoul, London, Paris, Boston, New Hampshire, Las Vegas, Missouri, San Francisco, Portland, Victoria, and down the entire West Coast.  I can't WAIT to make 2012 travel plans.  If anyone wants to go somewhere, let me know!
• Pixie haircuts and hats being in style this year.  ;)
• My new perspective and priorities in life: happiness and health.  It's a short list, but the things on it could NOT be more important to me.

What are you thankful for this year?

It's never TOO early...

I try to have my Christmas shopping done by Thanksgiving each year.  It's partially because I love shopping for the holiday and wrapping gifts and planning, and then if I see things in December that I like for me, I don't feel guilty picking them up.  ;)  Plus, when I start planning early, I feel like I get better gifts for my family as I'm not trapped in a last-minute purchase out of necessity.

Love me some curling ribbon

I had a very productive but relaxing weekend.  It include some gift wrapping and online shopping for other gifts.  I simplified some more of my apartment.  I cleaned a bit.  I got through the last couple weeks' worth of Peoples and Us Weeklys.  And I had time to meet my good friends Sydnie and Jeni for brunch at Phinney Market Pub & Eatery and even have an encore catch-up session with Jeni later that day at an early happy hour at the new Cactus location in South Lake Union.

I also went to my first acupuncture session since February.  I filled in Jen, my acupuncturist, on all the happenings with my health and she tailored my session to help with my brain and vision.  She threw some general well-being points in there too, just for good measure.  Besides the normal needles, she stuck some ear BBs (her name, not mine) in my ears.  They're little clear stickers that have a tiny metal BB in them, and they're more pleasant in the ears than needles and they stay put for a few days.  She looked up some specific brain spots and BBed away.  I still have 4 on my left ear and 3 on my right.  Plus 2 small magnets on my legs, meant to help my "marrow" (which in Chinese medicine means your brain).  We won't know if/how the acupuncture is helping very easily, as it won't be obvious (like it was when I went for issues with my feet cramping... which it TOTALLY helped).  But I have my fingers crossed that it can help...  After all, it can't hurt!  My next appointment is in 2 weeks.  It's good to get my qi flowing (or as my Dad said, cheese flowing mmmm).  :)

My eyes are happy again!

While I'm still nervous for my upcoming MRI, I am feeling a lot better as my eyes have started playing nice again.  For the last couple of days, they haven't felt strained or tired or had the focus issues they'd been having for the last week.  WOOOO HOOO!!!  Eye issues are exhausting, so I'm feeling a lot better!  I'm relieved that they're just back to (post-surgery) normal again.

I'm also really trying to optimize my sleep as much as I can.  I may have gone to bed at 9:30pm a couple times this week, just like the cool kids.  Not sure it's working, as I'm still pretty tiiiired, but it can't hurt.  I also got an appointment scheduled to see a sleep clinic neurologist the day after my MRI, so I'm hopeful that he'll be able to help.

These small positive steps forward have pushed me to keep moving my home life forward.  I did some serious cleaning out tonight (peace out, old books; happy electronic recycling, old TiVo; see you never, random bathroom goods).  Great Friday night, right?!  ;)

I'm looking forward to a relaxing weekend with more organizing and cleaning, Breakfast Club with my ladies, and an acupuncture session (first one in almost a year).  Happy Friday, friends!!

Ponytail!

Check out my sweet little 'do:

Wheeee!

It's the shortest little ponytail I've ever had (at least in the last 28 years or so).  Looks almost pixie-ready, wouldn't you say?!

Paranoia

I've become part of a vicious cycle that I imagine will be a part of my life for a long time.  Scary MRI appointment, relief from good news (HOPEFULLY), 2 months of relaxation, and then a month of nervousness and paranoia until my next MRI.  At least, that is how it seems to go since surgery.  I'm a little under a month away from my next MRI and I'm starting to get really nervous.  Paranoid, really.

I've been sleeping really terribly, which has affected my head my whole life (more headaches) and my eyes since surgery (feeling strained and tired and less than stellar).  And for almost the last week, my eyes have been exceptionally terrible.  They feel tired and strained all day long, even when I wake up.  It's like I've been reading on a computer screen all day... except I haven't.  They should be somewhat refreshed from the bit of sleep I'm getting.  Granted it's crappy crappy sleep, but still.  They've been so bad that I skipped a friend's going-away party on Saturday night because I was nervous to drive at night to get there.  My logic tells me that my poor sleep has finally built up enough trouble to cause my eyes to be very unhappy with me, but my paranoia tells me that my tumor is growing and causing this.  After all, it is in the vision part of my brain.

I am afraid to type out my fears on here, as I'll start to cry, but the summary includes fears of tumor growth, radiation, and going blind.  Not the life I dream of, that's for sure.

I called Dr. M, my neurooncologist, today and spoke with his nurse.  I told her about what's been going on in the last week and asked for a recommendation for a sleep doctor.  I'm hoping she calls me back tomorrow after talking with Dr. M, as I just don't think I can wait until 12/8 to try and get this resolved (or at least on the 1st steps to resolving it).  I've slept poorly my WHOLE life and it's really starting to cause me some serious trouble.  And if it's causing symptoms that make me paranoid that my tumor is growing, that is really a bad thing.

Recovery discovery

As I get "more normal" and more time passes since surgery, I'm becoming hyperaware of the permanent adjustments to my brain as a result.  There are new things that pop up as well, or maybe things that I just never really took notice of.  When I had my first MRI checkup, I asked Dr. M how long it would take for my brain to fully recover and regain any functionality that it would.  I cannot for the life of me remember if he said 6 months or 12 months, but I'm just a couple weeks short of the 6 month mark and wondering if this is how things will be, or if there will be further adjustments.  We'll just have to see.

One new thing I've been noticing recently, just in the last week, has to do with my ability to recall words.  And we're talking EASY words, not random tip-of-the-tongue references that you have to Google to find the word for.  Today in a meeting at work, I could not think of the word "script," even though my coworker had just used it in the sentence I was responding to.  It took me about 10 seconds to come up with the word.  The other night, I was trying to think of the name for my blow-up air mattress.  That would be "aerobed."  It came to me the next morning.  A few days ago, I couldn't think of the word to describe the different things that Expedia sells (e.g. flights, hotels, cars, etc.).  My coworker goes, "You mean 'products'?"  Ugh, DUH!!  I really don't recall having issues remembering everyday normal words like this until very recently.  I hope it's not an indicator that anything fishy is going on in my brain that shouldn't be...

I've also figured out that when my sleep suffers, my eyes suffer too.  I've always been a crappy sleeper, which has gotten a little worse since surgery, and a LOT worse lately with the breakup, so my eyes are quite unhappy with me.  They are super tired all day and don't want to focus in the morning.  They get even more tired throughout the day, and driving at night makes me a smidge nervous as things are a little blurrier than I'm used to.  I've had to limit my reading, and I can't read on the bus anymore because it just devastates my eyes for the day.  I'm hoping that as my sleep improves (hopefully... someday...) my eyes will become happier again.  I'm considering seeing a sleep specialist, but who knows.

On the plus side, I am realizing that while my directional and orientation issues are still there, I'm able to sort of relearn ways to get places effectively.  I still have little directional "blackouts" as I call them, where I'm somewhere familiar and totally blank on which way to go (sort of like my current word recall issue, hmmmm).  But I am able to better recall the ways to get places after I've done them more.  Like I can picture the entire drive to Target again, which I couldn't do before.  I think I'll always get disoriented super easy and need GPS and have other people navigate, but at least the places I go to regularly are coming back to me as I go to them more and more.  WHEW.

I'm learning to accept and adapt to my new post-surgery brain's shortcomings, but am still optimistic that I can perhaps be even more normal than the 99% that I feel like I'm at now.  Cross your fingers!

My net, my blanket

As I flipped through People magazine tonight while on the treadmill (getting yoked, you know), I read an article about Cate Edwards, daughter of John and Elizabeth.  And I quote:

"My mom [had a] theory that the relationships you build are that net for you, that blanket you wrap yourself in.  That's definitely what my family and friends... have done for me in the past year.  It's really been incredible."

Well, Cate, I couldn't have said it better myself!  I know I've said it before, but I feel so incredibly lucky to have a really supportive group of friends and family that have given me so much love and support this year.  It has been my toughest BY FAR, but also the most eye-opening to what really matters, how fragile life and health is, and how important happiness is.  While I know I won't be including everyone who has been there for me this year, because there are a LOT of you, I consider this my little mini tribute to my personal net and blanket group of people (in no particular order).

My fam: Amy, Steph, Lisa

Some of my Wazzu ladies: Karrie, Carly, Heather, Denise, Heather, Kelly

 Taylor, duh

BFF Carl (from waaay back in the day)

My kickass Tumor Walk team! 

#1 Fan, duh

My former P-dub and Troop 404 ladies: LuAnn, Sydnie, Lynn

More lovely Wazzu ladies: Megan, Courtnie, Brittany

Johnny, duh

Chelan homies: Alissa, Casey, Ryan (not pictured: Bob)

I kid on some of those, but in all seriousness, the rest of the people in these pics are pretty darn amazing.  I am honored to consider them part of my support group!

Holy donations, Batman!

The Portland Brain Tumor Walk was nearly 3 months ago and the donations KEEP rolling in!  A bunch of matching donations from Expedia (thanks, colleagues/friends!!) came in today and boosted my total once again.  I love surprises like these!!

I love winning.  (And raising money for a great cause, duh!)

An additional 8 matches came through, boosting my individual total from $4,535 to $4,885.  And the team total is now at $8,568!  The bar keeps raising for 2012 but I'm confident that we can beat it.  :)

San Francisco! Woo!

I got away this last weekend with a semi-last minute plane ticket to San Francisco.  I went to visit my good friends Lynn and David and their kitty Lola.  It was sooo nice to get out of Seattle!  Although I did take the rain with me, but it didn't affect our fun too much.

We enjoyed a fancy dinner at Maverik on Friday night, then on Saturday Lynn had to work (ahh, the glamorous life of an accountant) so I met up with my friends Jacqui and Richard to go to the Wazzu football game against Cal.  I didn't know there was a game when I booked my plane ticket, but it ended up working out perfectly!  They played at AT&T Park (aka where the SF Giants play) so it was a little different watching football in a baseball stadium, but we had a good time.  We went to a pretty fantastic WSU tailgate (complete with the giant WSU flag that gets flown atop the Space Needle flying at the tailgate, no joke) and then tried to enjoy some Cougar football.  It POURED and the Cougs sucked but we had a good time, as evidenced by these lovely photos.

E-Drid (as in "say go, say Cougs"), yours truly, Jacqui, and half of Richard

Lurking in pics is even more fun than being the subject of the photo!

With the terrible score and ridiculous rain, we peaced out at halftime and watched the rest of the game from the comfort of 21st Amendment.  Still a really fun day though, I LOVE away games!!  And I made it all the way home on the Muni all by myself.  Take that, poor sense of direction and disorientation!

On Sunday, Lynn and I had breakfast at Chow and headed downtown for some shopping.  And oh, it did not disappoint.  I did a little damage, BUT everything I got was on my short list of things I wanted to find and have been looking for a while: an army green, parka-like winter coat with faux fur trimmed hood and a fun and special shirt to wear for my birthday (details to come).  Check and check!!  We also had a tasty lunch at Lynn's old friend Tom Colicchio's restaurant 'Wichcraft.  One bonus of visiting Lynn and David is that they always know the delicious places to eat!

Lynn and I didn't get any pics together, so here's an oldie but a goodie from our previous lives where we audited Holland America cruise ships.  It was a rough life.  ;)

Aboard the ms Oosterdam, October 2006... So young!  Pre-braces!

It was a great weekend, as it's always great seeing longtime friends again.  I hadn't seen Lynn and David since before surgery, or Jacqui and Richard since this summer, and I miss all of them.  Perhaps you should all move back to Seattle...?!  Okay, okay...  Can't wait to visit again!!

New friends > dentists

With a dentist appointment this afternoon, and the year I've had, I just KNEW that I would get bad news from them (even though I haven't had a new cavity in years).  Well, sure enough, 1 of my 2 existing fillings came out and needs to be replaced, the other one is being "watched" as it's about to fall out, and I have a tiny new cavity.  I KNEW IT.  I couldn't help but just shake my head as the dentist was telling me.  I cannot catch a break this year.  So guess who's getting 2 fillings on Thursday at a dental par-tay?!  Holler!  And who would rather be dropping $200 on something at Nordstrom than on some stinking fillings?!  This girl!

Things quickly turned for the better though, as I met up with my new friend Jess (a fellow tumor dominator) for the first time.  And she is AWESOME!  We chatted for 2.5 hours, OUTDOORS, and I probably could have kept talking but we needed a restroom and my toes were frozen.  We are in somewhat similar situations (grade 2 astrocytomas, no real symptoms from them, discovered pretty randomly, surgery by Dr. S at UWMC) although hers is a bit more serious currently.  But man, it is SO GOOD to talk to someone who knows what you've been through, really knows!

Jess is very courageous and strong and is really taking her health into her own hands.  While her oncologist is telling her she should start radiation (with really no good reason), she instead is pursuing some alternative treatments that have shrunk tumors in other people.  It is so important to be your own best advocate and do what is best for you, not just what doctors say should be done for cookie cutter brain tumor patients.  I don't know what I would/will do someday if/when they tell me I need radiation, but the more options for treatment, the better!  Jess could be blazing a path that we'll all be walking down someday.  Brain tumor patients, I mean...

It wasn't entirely tumor talk though, as we were able to discuss north central WA (she lived in Wenatchee before moving to Seattle recently), her wonderfully supportive hubby (I'm asking Santa for one myself), changes to life plans and perspectives, her half tough/half skittish dog, etc.  It is really comforting and energizing and refreshing to share with and learn from someone in a similar pair of shoes.

I had such a great evening, not even the dentist can get me down.  :)