5/29/09

I'm not sure if I'm doing anything differently this month than others to handle the chemo. However, I have napped a total of 7 hours between yesterday and today. It's ridiculous. I hate losing days this way. Only 3 more nights and I'm done.

5/28/09

Last week I was sent a card with no return address and no last names on it. This card was so thoughtful. It said hurray! for the last round of chemo. After a solid week I think I figured out who it was from. I only had one name to go on "Stephanie". At first I thought it was from Lean'n Tree, a company I applied to before "Fred", but that didn't make any sense. Then I sent an e-mail to my old Avnet boss seeing if they sent it and they hadn't. It wasn't until this morning when I received an e-mail from Stephanie at Meals on Wheels that I realized who it was from. What a terrific organization. That is the type of company I want to work for.

I had a good meeting with my doctor yesterday. My blood draw took one poke, I wanted to break out in a song of praise, but didn't. All signs of a recovery are pointing in the right direction. And my doctor prescribed my last round of chemo to me. The last dose will be this Sunday night. And then I'm done. I've already got some goals.
1. Land a fun/rewarding job as an account manager or something similar working with people.
2. Go to Water World
3. Continue to volunteer
4. Jog a 5K
5. Get my house back into shape
6. Make time to see friends and family

These goals seem reasonable and attainable. I can do this.

May 26 2009

Has anyone see the commercial from V-8 recently? I dig it. It's a white screen with bold black words that say "Stop Hating" and then it adds "vegetables". I was just thinking that the add would be perfect with just the "Stop Hating" portion. Stop hating things, people, places and so on. For me it takes way more of my energy to hate and it doesn't get me anywhere. Does it feel good in the moment? Sure. But dwelling on something that isn't going to make me smile or laugh isn't worth it.

I continue to remind myself of all the things I'm grateful for. And for some reason clean hot running water always comes to mind in the morning. I also remind myself to be grateful for my situation. I don't want "Fred" but it did do a great job of shaking things up and keeping me aware of what I have and what is important to me.

5/17/09

I have an answer about the YMCA volunteer thing. The way it was explained to me was that the YMCA's are sort of like a franchise. This explained so much. I am my locations first volunteer and it sounds like they need the help. I think they are sort of creating the system as they go. I'm positive other YMCA's have had volunteer's. If you are in another state don't let my experience stop you from donating your free time. Maybe they will ask me to help out in the process and I can put all of that Six Sigma training to work. I will need to be on my best behavior and watch my sarcasm. I wouldn't want to ruin this for future volunteers. I could just see future volunteers being offered a chance to clean toilets because I was rotten.

The last two weekends Derek and I have gone to the movies. Star Trek, and Angels & Demons, both were entertaining. Which brings me to movie etiquette. Please don't talk during the movie, and if someone asks to you shhh don't start talking again later on in the movie. Next if you would prefer to lay down in your girlfriends lap... maybe you should think about waiting for the movie to come out on DVD and watch it at home. Contrary to your belief that no one cares, your wrong. Leave it at the house. I paid $10 bucks too. You may have picked up that I had a tough time at the movies last night. The movie began and the stranger to my left would not shut up! When I changed seats I would have thought they would have picked up on my not to subtle action. Nope. I guess being 2 seats away from them wasn't enough distance for Derek who had to verbally ask them to shut it. Which was useless because they started talking 5 minutes later. My point being I enjoyed my movie less due to their lack of respect for others. After this blog entry I'm not going to think about it anymore. I have the option to stay at home where I can control the environment. There really wasn't any harm done. I'm just a movie theater snob. I need to let it go.

I want to put a special shout out to Mr. and Mrs. Muller. Thank you so much for the grout gun suggestion. Derek and I are finally making progress on the grouting in our bathroom. We owe you big time.
Our bathroom has about 90% of the tile laid. If you make it to our home we'll show you our semi-finished project. You will see why we are so excited about the grout gun. Before we were using something that is the craftsman version of an iced cake decorating tool. Talk about tough to work with. I was using my entire body weight to squeeze schmootz out. Now Derek can just pull a trigger and the grout is effortlessly oozed into place. We may get this project finished before 2010.

5/13/09

I seemed to tolerate my previous round of chemo better than the last couple months. Other than the expected energy suck there was less to deal with. I received a little bit of a promotion at Meals on Wheels, moving from assembling brown bags in the kitchen to baking cakes and cookies. I have made more giant sheet cakes and peanut butter cookies than I care to count. As an added bonus I now know how to work 3 different sizes of Kitchen Aid mixers. Oh Golly the big mixers are huge. The baking at MOW's has taken care of my cravings to bake at home. Which is a good thing for my diet.

Meals On Wheels continues to be a blast. I've met Martin who is 80+ years old. He's a WWII veteran from Germany. He takes food home to feed the fox living around his house. For some reason that makes me laugh. My coworkers all seem to get along pretty well. I told one coworker that "Everybody has a little bit of crazy in them. Some of us are just better at hiding it than others." Which made me realize that I want to let some of my crazy out. Good lord. I better rein it in if I want to receive a decent recommendation.

Today was my first day volunteering at the YMCA. I'll be working at the front desk in 2 hour increments. Right now I'm taking the 5-7 pm slot a couple days a week. If that ends up being a pain for Derek and me I have the option to change my hours. The work is a bit more complex than MOW's, there are binders and schedules and forms along with giving tours. It was funny I was introduced to everyone as "The Volunteer". I felt a little self conscious to be "The Volunteer". I can't tell if I'm the first or not. My guess is that I'm either the first or the last volunteer quit years ago.