medical bills suck ass

i wish i could get 100,000 people to give me two bucks...

i want to grow up!

i don't feel like an adult.
there are so many things that i haven't done, that all my other friends have done. they are all graduating college and buying houses and cars and i'm doing nothing. just sitting around having cancer.
i know the cancer isn't my fault, but the other stuff is. i could have finished college but i was too lazy. i could get a car but i'm too afraid to take the driver's test and get my license, and my credit sucks because i got a credit card and didn't pay the balance.
sometimes i just feel so stupid and immature, i feel bad that zephyr has a mom like me, instead of a mom that is crazy motivated like i need to be in order to get us out of our stupid financial situation.
i've made so many mistakes and i'm trying to fix them, but it's so hard. i feel like my cancer is a wall that is stopping me from making the next step in my life. but that's probably just another excuse for being lazy.
i wish i could grow out of that, but i don't even know how to try.

Rest in Peace, Michael Jackson

He was hounded, misunderstood, and hated by some in life...not much has changed since his death.

I feel bad for the man because it seems like all he wanted in life was to entertain people. I understand that feeling, and I am so sad that things got so complicated for him while he was pursuing his dream. I can't imagine living my life with so many people watching my every move and turning every misstep into front page news.
We will never know the truth about the accusations made against him, but that doesn't really matter now. The world has lost an immensely talented artist, and even more tragic, three innocent children have lost their father.


I hope he gets the peace in death that he never had in life.

how i spent my 2009 so far AKA catch up time

january -- quit at walmart. tired of all the crap. tired of not being able to spend time with my son. tired, period.

february --
started what i thought was a really heavy period. put off going to the doctor because i was literally too tired to get dressed and go. after paleness and lightheadedness began, i was persuaded by my fiance to go to my gyno. after a few blood tests, i was told without emergency treatment i would bleed to death. after a D&C, four days in intensive care and a painful bone marrow aspirate, i was diagnosed with leukemia and sent to UAMS in little rock arkansas for monitored inpatient care and chemotherapy.
my family visited me as much as they could, but being away from them, especially my son, was the worst.

march --
after several chemotherapy treatments, i started to experience double vision. i was sent to an eye doctor who told me there was swelling present behind my left eye. around this time i started having really bad headaches.
one night, as i was settling in for the night, i had a stroke and seizure due to excess fluid putting pressure on my brain. they sent me downstairs for a cat scan, and while i was waiting, i had another seizure. they called my family ("just in case") and my fiance came to be with me. later that night, i had another seizure. it takes about two weeks, but i finally regained the use of my right arm, and my speech started to go back to normal.
this is also the month that my hair started falling out and i just decided to shave it and get it over with. my fiance kept his promise and shaved his head with me.


april--
in the beginning of the month, i had surgery to place a shunt in my head to drain the fluid off of my brain. i was initially very hesitant to have the surgery, but once i was told that the next stroke i had could very well be fatal, i decided to just man up and get it done. i was terrified that i would die on the operating table but, obviously, i came out of it fine. i have scars in my scalp that are now covered with hair, and a big on my stomach which fits in nicely with all the stretch marks i got while pregnant.
two days after surgery, i am cleared to go home, after almost two months of living in the cancer ward of UAMS.
this is also the month that my five weeks of chemo started.


may--
didn't do much but go to, and finish up chemo in may. started feeling a little bit better and getting back into the swing of things. then at the end of the month, i was admitted to the hospital again and diagnosed with pulmonary embolism, probably a side effect of being off my feet for so long after surgery. after a few days at my local hospital, i was transferred to UAMS again and spent about a week there. i missed andrew's birthday due to being in the hospital for the second year in a row. i hope i don't miss next year!


june--
so far, june has been the least sucky month of the year. my 23rd birthday (june 15th) passed by without a hitch, and i even got to have not one, but TWO birthday lunches. we have been celebrating all week, because we realize that i am lucky to be alive with all the shit that has happened to me this year. i am still making it through ok, sometimes i get tired and run down but in general, i'm feeling good.



now i'm all caught up with my blog.
feels good to talk about all that crap i went through, a weight has been lifted!

too much time on my hands

i need to go back to work.
i am not the kind of person who can float through life with nothing to do and not a care in the world.
i need to have my mind engaged, even if it is engaged in something thats boring.
i have to have something to do to keep me from thinking too much about things i don't want to think about at all

when left to my own devices, i think alot about diseases and death. i dont know why.
i haven't always been that way. i remember a couple of years ago, sitting and vegging in front of the tv, i was thinking about shoes. i thought i was crazy then, because i couldn't shake this odd feeling of euphoria i got when i thought of high heeled boots...and i hadn't even bought them yet!

but now, here on maternity leave with a newborn son, all i can think about is how some day i will die and leave him. how one day, Andrew will die and i might be left husbandless. how one day, we'll both be gone and Zeph will technically be an orphan. a sad sixty-ish (i'm letting us live into our eighties in this scenario because that gives us sixty more years on earth...which keeps me from freaking out) orphan.


when i was pregnant with him, my thoughts would drift to diseases more often than death. i hadn't had any successful ultrasounds, had been to late to have the amniotic fluid tested. so, my fear was that he would have all the things that the testing would have revealed him to have, had i been able to have it, only i wouldn't have had any time to adjust to the idea of having a special needs child.
i was afraid he would be born with a problem, and that i wouldn't be able to handle it, and that both of our lives would be ruined.

but that didn't happen. he is perfectly healthy, and so am i, and so is his dad (or rather will be when he stops smoking) and i have nothing to worry about right now.


so why does it seem like i'm trying to kill us all in my mind?
i REALLY need to go back to work. like, tomorrow.

my new best friend

seriously.

two weeks

yesterday was Zephyr's two week birthday.
i guess being in the world for two whole weeks had him in a good mood because he seemed to mostly be over the fussy phase he had been in for the past three days.

he slept alot of the day...maybe he feels old already. ha!

i'm going to start planning his "yay i'm a month old!" party now so i don't end up sleeping through it!