i am not entirely sure how we ever managed anything socially before cell phones. on monday, the MLK holiday, i woke up with my day barely half-planned as far as who and when and where i would be meeting with people, but over the course of the day, got everything all worked out. i had the day off and headed southeast in the morning, and was directly in front of fluff bakery in athens a few minutes past 10am. i caught up with lisa over a blackberry and cream cheese danish, and then it was off to central venue and that morning's play cafe. (basically, my old church is testing out using one of their locations to let kids play, while the parents work or talk or hang out.) i wasn't there for the dozens of kids, obviously, but it was good to see some familiar faces. then it was lunch with paul, laura, and lydia... and then catching up with megan... and then visiting curt and erin... and then chatting with daniel and talinn... and then having dinner at casa with patrick and sarah. i was surprised at how quickly a day can fill up. in my brain, i should have had time to see at least half a dozen other people! i perhaps overbooked myself, but i will just have to catch up with the others next time. oh and of course, i picked up a mocha from donkey to accompany me home to columbus. and maybe some salsa verde, for good measure. and maybe some mac and cheese and fried chicken from miller's...

tuesday was fairly uneventful, though the evening was delicious. andy made a version of haluski, with cabbage, onions, kielbasa, egg noodles, and plenty of black pepper. the traditional slovak version his grandmother makes involves potato dumplings, but the noodles were a perfectly good stand-in for our purposes.

on wednesday, i left work early and headed to an appointment: a massage! i haven't had a massage in probably a couple of years. the bing cancer center at riverside offers three free massages to patients currently undergoing treatment for cancer... yes, please, i will take you up on that. it was a little weird walking into the building i associate with mammograms and biopsies and ultrasounds and scans to get a relaxing massage, but life IS a little weird nowadays. anyway, the massage therapist was lovely, and my favorite part was the head and neck portion. with my head now unencumbered and hairless, it was a full-on lotioned-up head and scalp massage going on and i was ALL ABOUT IT. i definitely remember thinking in the middle of it that i needed to schedule another massage before my hair grows back. the rest of the massage was very relaxing, though slightly less intense than usual, due to chemotherapy making patients more susceptible to bruising in general. all in all, a good way to spend an hour. the rest of the afternoon and early evening was spent doing a little clothes shopping, because why not? hiking pants were purchased, gift cards were used. a pretty successful day.

another thursday, another infusion: taxol, round 11. the penultimate chemo! we got the roomy corner chair, which is nice because it is tucked away, and andy doesn't have to feel like he's in the middle of the walkway. other than the nurses actively decorating for valentine's day, nothing out of the ordinary: the usual drips, nap, cryotherapy, taxol, and chemo picnic.

in the spirit of Doing More Stuff In 2020, friday evening we headed downtown. (after living in athens for over 16 years, it feels weird to not say "uptown"). our first stop was condado, as i figured it was about time i visited. i ended up liking the taco i built more than the pre-built ones. i guess i have... good taste? (ba-dum). then we walked down to the palace theater to see brian regan, a comedian i have enjoyed for almost two decades now, but have never seen live. he was just what i expected in person, and as funny as ever.

after a bit of meetup location confusion on saturday morning, we were off with liz and matt to the clear creek metro park winter hike. there were more people than i expected, and we were ushered on to an additional parking lot after the first one was deemed full (we totally could have fit). we set off for the cemetery trail, which was basically marching straight up the muddy hillside. my body reminded me that i have not been hiking for quite some time, and that also, i am no longer in my 20's. after some wet, muddy hiking (some of us may have taken a shorter route than others), we finished and headed to the olde dutch buffet for too much lunch. when we eventually got back to columbus, i promptly took a two hour nap, because hey, i know my strengths. andy and i played a couple of board games later that evening.

today was a pretty chill day that involved laundry and organizing and tidying and i'm sure that sounds suuuper boring but the end result makes my brain happy and relaxed. that's it for Week 22 in Cancer Land... this coming week brings the last round of scheduled chemo. let's do this.

Week 21 in Cancer Land, hello there. monday evening involved board games with a subset of andy's coworkers, and tuesday evening i met up with my friend christina in what has become a bit of a monthly-ish texas roadhouse tradition. we met as neighbors many moons ago in my apartment in the plains, then we were sort of east side neighbors in athens, and now we both live on the west side ish of columbus. who would have thought all these years later we would be having regular dinners out in columbus? life is funny that way.

wednesday i picked up a few things at the store after work, and is it just me or does the grandview kroger have the most poorly designed/smallest/worst produce section? not the produce itself, which is fine, but i mean, the layout. it's like no matter where you are, you are always in everyone's way, and everyone is always in your way. or perhaps 5:15p on a weeknight is just not the best time to go shopping if you want to take your time and browse all your vegetable and fruit options? i suppose that's possible.

thursday was a trip to the zoo. just kidding! obviously it was chemo day: taxol, round 10. i checked in at the front desk and they seemed to have gotten the memo from last week's call -- no random out-of-pocket charges, and they sent me on my merry way for my chemo infusion. as i settled in and my nurse for the day began my blood draw, i learned that eric trump was in columbus for some reason, and had been at the starbucks less than a mile away from the oncologist's office that morning. she was not impressed with the extra time spent having to wait due to secret service protocols. just give the woman her coffee!

other than that, it was all the usuals for chemo day, including the little picnic that andy and i have had for most of the taxol infusions. when the weekly treatments began, it was unclear at first when i would be finished for the day. since we were bringing a cooler for my ice packs anyway, we always packed another cooler with sandwiches, chips, and a drink, just in case we got hungry (as it is not recommended to bring hot foods into the infusion area, due to everyone's possible sensitivity to smells). as it turns out, i am usually released just around lunchtime, so we end up eating our packed lunch in the car, which i have recently dubbed Chemo Picnic.


ordinarily, i would be happy to go out and about for lunch on a day "off", but it has been nice to not have to decide where to eat, and immediately begin shoving food into our faces. plus, it is funny to think about, because if anyone is actually watching us, we probably look like two poor squirrels nibbling at food in our own car right outside the oncologist's office. like, wow, these poor souls must have it pretty rough... nope, not really, we're just hungry and lazy.

friday evening, we were invited to our friend christina's house for dinner (different christina than tuesday). we ate and caught up and hung out with her kids and played games, a pretty relaxing night. on saturday morning, we had had plans to go on the old man's cave winter hike in the hocking hills with our friend liz, but the constant rain and possible ice pellets caused us to abandon the plan. unfortunately for me, i was already up with a stomach full of breakfast and coffee by the time we cancelled, so instead of going back to sleep, i decided to be productive. after sort of organizing one of the hall closets and taking down the christmas tree, i took the first nap of the day. later, realizing that we were basically out of all of our usual breakfast food (among many other things), we ventured out grocery shopping in the rain. then andy did some laundry and i napped again, and in the evening we headed off to serena and tyler's for dinner and board games. good times, however, this lasted until well after midnight, which was far past my bedtime.

after a short night of sleep, today was church and then lunch with andy's family. other than that, it has been a quiet afternoon and evening, including blogging and planning a short trip to athens tomorrow. this government worker has the day off, so why not spend it with old friends? looking forward to catching up with people and eating some salsa verde... Week 22, let's do this.

are we already a full week into 2020? yes, yes we are. throughout the week, i medicated my cough with varying degrees of success. poor andy was, i'm sure, woken up multiple times on multiple nights due to my random coughing fits. things are under control now, at this point i mostly just sound like i've been smoking three packs a day for a while now. super sexy.

i tried to keep to myself with my office door shut during the week so as to avoid infecting/irritating my coworkers. normally, i am all about the liberal use of sick time as needed, but i've already sort of been doing that over the past several months. plus with holidays and everything else, i was feeling a little behind... hopefully i didn't annoy everyone too much.

thursday was, of course, chemo day. for some reason, despite having the exact same insurance as last year, and the exact same treatments as last year, the oncologist's office insisted that i suddenly owed more out-of-pocket costs this year. it is important to note that i work in my organization's human resources department, and while i am a fiscal person, not a program person, i am pretty well schooled about our benefits and healthcare plan. it was infuriating to be told that i owed money that i KNEW i did not owe, but in order to proceed with the office visit, i had to swipe my card anyway. oooooh... LIVID. i was livid. i am generally pretty chill, but i do NOT take kindly to being told i am wrong when i know damn well i am right. (we'll return to this later in the post).

chemo treatment is every thursday, but seeing the oncologist beforehand only happens every two or three weeks. dr. m continues to be pleased with my body's response to the treatments ("i can't feel anything -- it just feels like normal breast tissue!"), so that is always a good pep talk and reminder. we discussed my future appointment with the breast surgeon in february, as well as dr. m's opinion that i have inflammatory breast cancer. i questioned her about that, as i had specifically asked dr. h on the day of The Original Call if she thought it was IBC; dr. h had said no. dr. m simply stated that she disagreed. to be honest, i thought most signs pointed to IBC as well (the problem area of my breast was originally firm, heavy, warm to the touch, red/pink skin, fast growing). i am hoping to get that cleared up before my appointment with the surgeon; perhaps getting my relevant physicians to discuss my case with each other regarding that assessment. it wouldn't have changed the chemotherapy treatment (it doesn't change the invasive ductal carcinoma diagnosis), but from what i know, it might inform future plans (surgery type, radiation frequency, follow-up scans, port removal, etc.). i could include details on what i know about IBC, but i will refrain until i discuss with my doctors. long story short is that IBC is rare, and not preferable.

after seeing dr. m, it was time for the usual taxol infusion, round 9! three more to go. nothing of note: benadryl, sleepies, cryotherapy, colbert. afterwards, i needed to schedule the last three appointments, and due to a new system, we waited way longer than was usual. all in all, the day was not a great experience administratively at the oncology office. c'mon guys, get it together.

friday was another day at work, and friday was also when i called the oncology office's billing department to give them a what for. it took three different interactions (with the same person); a significant amount of time raising my voice; the billing office calling united healthcare; and me being persistent in my knowledge of my own healthcare plan, but things finally got straightened out. there is a note in my file that, yes, my healthcare plan is ridiculously amazing, and no, i will not be charged any out-of-pocket costs just because it doesn't seem possible to you that all i owe is the copay. now, when my FSA account will be refunded thursday's incorrect payment is yet to be seen, but i trust it will happen. hey, i know people.

on the last call, the call where she confirmed everything i had been explaining about my healthcare plan, i apologized to the woman in the billing department for the previous call's yelling. she countered by telling me she was glad i insisted in getting it right. i responded by saying that i knew i was right, and i knew i was right to argue, and i knew to continue down that path relentlessly, despite being told that i was wrong -- and relayed that what infuriates me the most about the experience is all the patients who DON'T know they can argue, who DON'T have the confidence or the knowledge to argue with their physician's office, who DON'T know they might accidentally be overpaying. the state of healthcare and insurance is more complicated than it needs to be, and i don't understand why that is. she agreed, i thanked her for resolving the situation, all was well, and my blood pressure finally began to decrease.

saturday was a morning of sleeping in, playing a random board game with andy, and eating leftover chili. the afternoon was errand running and the evening was watching nfl playoffs at his uncle's (mostly for the food and the tradition, as we are kind of over the nfl season at this point). today was church, more nfl watching tradition in the afternoon, and some evening blogging. thus ends Week 20 in Cancer Land... what will Week 21 bring? let's do this.

Week 19, the last week of 2019, was quite a social one around here. monday and tuesday were usual days at work. tuesday evening was new years eve, which was spent at the wolfes. i have spent several new years eves at the wolfes over the years, most of which have involved us watching one of the various network tv specials and wondering who on earth all the performers and presenters are? this year, they must have catered to the x-ennial crowd, because many of the bands were recognizable: green day! alanis! salt n pepa! paula abdul! unfortunately, the performances weren't exactly what we were hoping for, so that was.. a little disappointing. but it was a good evening of catching up, playing games, and hanging out until way past my bedtime.

it should be noted at this point that a slow-growing cold was creeping up on me during the week. by the time i woke up on wednesday, my throat was sore, and coughing was a definite thing that was happening. out of precaution, i called the oncologist's office. they said no worries, do what you would normally do for a cold... as long as there is no fever, you should be fine and it shouldn't interfere with thursday's chemo. satisfied with their advice, that afternoon we headed to andy's parents for new years day, another day of food and board games and just hanging out.

thursday was the first chemo of 2020, with a bit of a twist. it was scheduled for noon instead of our usual 9am, mostly due to patients being scheduled for thursday instead of wednesday due to new years day. given the appointment time, it seemed like a good day to invite paul to hang out with me in the infusion room for a few hours. so andy got the day "off" from chemo duty, and paul came up from athens to retrieve me for lunch and then chemo. he was mostly well-behaved, and even got me an iced mocha while procuring his own iced tea, while i was in benadryl naptime land! it was good to catch up and hang out, despite the clinical environment. we were out of there around 3:30pm, and after some errand running, paul dropped me off at home a little after 4pm, and he headed back down to athens. instead of my usual post-chemo nap, i powered through the evening and had an early pre-9pm bedtime.

friday was back to work, coughing and sneezing still in effect and still annoying. that evening, we made dinner at home, played a board game that did not end up getting high marks from me, and i became snuffly and congested AF and headed to bed early to get some rest.

saturday morning welcomed a visit from katie. she came over around 10am, and we caught up as i tried to drink a steaming hot cauldron of tea to help my congestion and cough. we left andy to his laundry, and katie and i headed out for some hipster pancake balls and veggie cornbread at katalina's in clintonville. we got there at just the right time -- no line at all and we found seats with no problem. it was quite loud though. the day was rainy and not ideal for wandering and exploring, so afterwards, we headed to stauf's in grandview, hoping to chill there and have some coffee. unfortunately, all the tables were full, so we got our drinks to go. so we hung out back at the house with our hot beverages and all was well. very low key and very relaxing. later in the afternoon, dana and nick stopped by while they were visiting columbus. ALL THE FRIENDS THIS WEEK! we all hung out for a bit, though eventually katie departed, and dana and nick kicked their feet up for awhile in our cozy house. after some tire maintenance, they continued on with their columbus adventures. later in the evening, andy and i watched the accountant, which is one of the most WTF movies i have watched in awhile.

sunday morning we churched it up, made a quick trip to kroger, and then headed out for pho with a couple of friends, both of whom are in law school, which does not necessarily sound like fun to me at all. afterwards, we all hung out at our house, played a game, and enjoyed each other's company. the evening has been one of leftovers, blog writing, and taking drugs and drinking tea to try and stop all this coughing [the ongoing, annoying theme of the week]. to be honest, this cold and cough has been the most irritating and distracting thing i have had in the past month or two, even more so than chemo or any side effects. indescribably annoying. i would be very pleased if this went away soon, because i am OVER it. coming up is Week 20 in 2020... let's do this.