Archive March 21, 2014

Day after chemo 5, starting round 2. Coffee doesn’t feel good today. She’s very tired and doesn’t want to eat. She really didn’t even want LSD ( liver sausage delight ). I went and got her hamburger, different liver sausage and little summer sausage bites. She’s eating a little here and there. I have her a nausea pill and she’s very tired. She wanted to go for a walk so I let her walk a little and then she got pushed the rest of the way.

Coffee is not feeling good today. She doesn’t want to eat ( just liver sausage) and she’s tired. She went for a “push” today. Fresh air helps.[/

Week 7 – it’s been 7 weeks since our cancer diagnosis. 7 weeks of driving to Madison and dealing with blood, blood counts, chemo and learning about lymphoma in dogs. Coffee is one of the youngest dogs they treat, she has no side effects except that week have to stay to the nap schedule or she get over tired. We have to go to bed early too. She allows me to do quiet things but she doesn’t like the light on when she’s trying to sleep. We have to iPad under the comforter.

This is our first treatment in our second rotation of chemo treatments. We still have a long way to go. I am grateful for :

Smart doctors, a nice clinic, and caring people both in Madison and at home.

A great receptionist that allows us to change from Wednesdays to Thursdays depending on the snow flying.

Coffee’s cancer reacting very well to chemotherapy.

Coffee not having any side effects. Some dogs here are having such a hard time with chemo or radiation.

A new van that can make us comfortable driving 90 miles each way to chemo and only 90 miles. People here come as far away as Illinois, Iowa and Michigan. Today we met someone who drives 12 hours to get here.

When we had the budget crunch last year me forgetting to cancel the ASPCA health insurance on Coffee. It’s the first time one of my pets had health insurance but they are paying a portion.
So if the bill is &300 and they only allow $200 for that service. They pay 80% of that $200.

Really great family and friends who care so much that last week when we had a chemo break and I didn’t post on Facebook, even the Avon lady called to see about Coffee!

Waiting for chemo, lots of big dogs today.

Classroom poster

I used to have this poster hanging behind my desk at school. It was too complicated for the kids to understand but toxic thoughts will really eat you away. I am trying my best to let go, and move forward. I don’t really have a clear line of sight or a ending destination. I am a person who always needs to have the ending goal established firmly in my mind to reach it. I knew what the decorations I did for the school would look like. I knew what the family nights I planned would look like. I could visualize them in my head. I can’t visualize where my path is going right now and it’s hard.

I have to stop looking at life like I am a victim. It makes me feel vulnerable and ashamed and somehow I have to get past that. I really do.

I have to stop looking at other things. Dad used to say nothing was good enough for me, and I always wanted more. He was right.

I have to let go of being a teacher and be something else. God I let that job define me and that was wrong. Of course it took up almost every waking moment, until I fell into bed but I am not a teacher anymore. What am I?
I guess I need so new positive thoughts!

I met a new family member today. She is wonderful and she made me happy. Her nickname is Moo and she is six months old. She’s my grand niece.

“Fringe times are crucial” says Melanie Griffin to her friend as she tries on fancy clothes that belong to someone else to try on a life she doesn’t have.

Maybe its because I grew up on a farm by myself, with no siblings my age. Maybe it’s because my mom always expected me to keep busy. Maybe because I learned to talk to myself and keep myself busy but I can fill any fringe time. Talking on the phone, doing paperwork, creating art….I can always keep busy. I now think of my time doing this as a teacher, a waste with nothing to show for it….lots of teaching awards…..wood and glass. Doesn’t do much for me now. But working 100 hours a week have me a rush and I really loved all the extra stuff I was doing. Taking my ideas for the classroom or school and bringing them to life. I loved that.
I used to do all the family social events up to 400 people, family nights, dances, open houses. I loved it. I loved the planning and the preparation. Too bad there is not just a job like that in a school.

I took all that work with me wherever I went. Lunch, dinner, day out. I always carried work with me…..fringe times you know. Walking was listening to books on tape to find the next cook novel for my students.

I lived with Harry Potter one summer and Junie B. Jones. I never liked Junie B. until I listens to the books on tape. The reader bring Junie to life like Stochard Channing does the Ramona series. I love that.

Fringe times are crucial. ……LOLOLOL

My other favorite line from that movie
“To quote Coco Chanel, Less is more”

I belong to the teachers professional Facebook page and I hear about the teachers getting hurt all the time. I had a friend who teaches high school. She was sexually assaulted afew weeks ago and told the principal she was calling the authorities and reporting it. The assistant principal said if she called the evaluation police would be in her room daily! This is not right. A lot of thing in my old school system are not right, but being a victim of a continuos assault by a first graders with no school action until it causd a permanent traumatic brain injury, so maybe I am a little more predjudice about violence against teachers than normal teachers but the public has to know. Police officers and firefighters get protective hear. Teachers get nothing! This has to change.

When life gets rough, what do you do? Do you hide? Do you eat? Do you cry? Do you rock out on music? I found this article on www.lifehack.org and I started thinking. Not everything applied to me but some does.

Do you ever get tired of “it is always something?” When I told someone my dog had cancer, and the dog is my world, that person said “it’s always something with you!” She’s right. How do you keep life from creating the always somethings? It is not like you choose and things happening to you?

Buddah says “it is resistance to what is that causes suffering”. I make myself miserable by obsessing over it. I need to accept the things I cannot change and change the things I can.

I need to change myself. You have to start with yourself. Change yourself change things around you. I don’t know if I need more knowledge or I need more of a positive attitude. I guess I have to figure out what I need to change about me.

I need to live in the present. My dad said I was never happy with anything. I always wanted more, wanted better, and was never happy with what I had. That wasn’t entirely true. I was happy with things but I did want more.

I am always afraid. I was always afraid before I was attacked but I made myself do the things that were hard for me but it was a rush trying to conquer my fears. After I was attacked I was always afraid and conquering my fears wasn’t a rush anymore, it was a chore….a life changing chore….

I know things do change. I am a person that doesn’t like change. Maybe I have to be a different person and be more accepting of change.

We must face the choice between what is right and what is easy”

That happened to me four year ago and it wasn’t not easy. The easy way would have said I give up. The hard way was fighting for 19 months and ruining my health. But I took the hard road and fought, fought, fought. They say I won, I don’t know if I did win. I know I could not walk away in the midst of what happened but fighting was hard. What was more hard is there was a whole bunch of stuff I know no one told me, and I doubt I will ever find out what it was. What’s worse then fighting is fighting in the dark.

Do you know how you find those favorite quotes in movies and remember them. Then they make you think or they relate to a part of you that you have experience with.

I love this one that Peter Mellark says in The Hunger Games 2 Catching Fire.

“But our lives aren’t measured in years. The measure in our lives are the people we touch around us.”

I love that quote. So I nave decided as I watch movies and hear a quote I love am recording it. Being a former teacher I guess that is why I like Peter’s quote. I like to think I have touched and made somewhat of a difference in some of my student’s lives. The teacher in me loves this quote.

My October chair