Memorial Service

Surgery

So, the big surgery was yesterday. I had to be admitted overnight the night before because my electrolytes were all out of whack and they needed to get them back to normal before the surgery. So an extra night inpatient was not exactly what I wanted, but they got it all sorted out which was good. And I also had to get more blood and platelets before the surgery too.
The actual surgery went pretty good. They had doped up on major morphine so I wasn't even in that much pain last night, but morphine makes me really itchy so I had to keep getting the nurse or my mom to put lotion on my back every hour or so. I wasn't allowed to sleep for more than an hour at a time anyway, because I had to wake up and take deep breaths every hour.
Now I am still just as itchy, but on a pain pump and getting dilauded instead of morphine, so hopefully it will improve. Today the goal is to sit up in a chair and to walk around.
Once I have recovered from this, probably next week, I will have to start chemo #2 which I look forward to even less than I did this surgery.

The Food

I have always been a fan of ethnic foods. I love different all the different flavors and spices. One great thing about New York city, similar to Vancouver, is the abundance of good food from all over the world. When you want to go out to eat, you have to decide between Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai, Mexican, Indian, Afghan, Italian, etc. all very different and all extremely tasty. Another good thing is that a lot of these places have free and quick delivery.
Tonight my mom ordered in Vietnamese so I had Pho for supper. For those of you who do not know, Pho is an extremely amazing Vietnamese beef noodle soup, which I have managed to get my mom quite hooked on. I'm going to have to hold her back from ordering it too often, so that we don't (horror of horrors) get tired of it.

Here is a lovely picture of Pho (not taken by me or anyone I know) to tantalize you all!

Lately

Just a few pictures of what I have been up to lately. My cousins, Monique and Krista were here last week and it was so good to see them again. I was feeling relatively healthy and energetic while they were here, so were able to have a bit of fun and see some of the city.

Homesick

I hate this city. I love this city. Of course it will never be Vancouver. Of course I would have been perfectly happy to never set foot in this town again. But I'm here. It could be worse. It could be Cleveland. (No offense to anyone from Cleveland.)

It's raining outside and I'm feeling homesick.

Anesthesia

I like the feeling
of going under
thick white liquid
capable hands push the syringe
count backwards
10... 9...
veins warm, muscles dissolve
And quick
merciful sleep
too quickly over

Merry Christmas

I got out of the hospital last week on wednesday. Which of course meant I was able to have Christmas out of the hospital. My dad and my sisters had been in Florida, on a cruise that was booked way back in October before we knew I would be here. Anyway, it was so great to have family around, even though I couldn't go home and even though it wasn't all of us (my brother had to work). We didn't cook a turkey or anything but my mom and I made a delicious Christmas dinner. Everything was so tasty it's impossible to say which thing was the best. We had a roasted pear salad, and then for the main course my mom made mashed potatoes with sage and white cheddar and brussel sprouts with pine nuts and marjoram. I made chicken breasts with apple and currant stuffing, and of course extra stuffing. Currants were the only thing on our shopping list that was impossible to find, so I ended up having to make it with cranberries. Then for desert I made a chocolate cranberry tart. I would put some recipes on my blog, but we got all our recipes from www.epicurious.com so if any of that sounds good to you, you could just look it up yourself.

Who knew that brussel sprouts grew like that?
So for now, I'm still in New York, I have to go to the hospital three days a week for anti-fungal medications and for transfusions and such. It's a bit of a break being out of the hospital, but it doesn't look like I'm going to get any kind of break where I can actually go away. Hopefully I will find enough things I can do here to keep me entertained for the next few weeks until transplant.

Dream Catcher

There was a request made to see some of my lovely crafts, so I thought I'd start out by displaying this dream catcher against the dramatic background of my pillow case. Sorry it's not a good pictures. I took it with my web cam.

I actually don't hate the dream catcher. I have it hanging on my IV pole. I didn't have a clue what I was doing so it looks a little cluttered, but I spent a lot of time looking through endless containers of ugly plastic beads (and I mean really ugly beads, I wish I had some pictures to show you how ugly) to find a few good ones.
It was actually a pretty fun craft and somehow I had managed to never do that one before.

I had like a million tests done today, all kind of pre-transplant stuff. They found some pneumonia in my right lung, so they're changing the medications again.

I'm listening to Metric. It is making me happy.

Last night I watched Volver. It was extremely interesting. There were so many unexpected things that happened, which is one of the main factors in whether a movie is good or not. I don't like having the whole plot figured out in five minutes. Also, I've never liked Penelope Cruz, but she's really good in this movie.