Time Together

Ok…so a couple days ago was me and my husbands one year anniversary! Huge day for us, obviously. I wish I could tell of some over the top romantic thing we did to celebrate ourselves together, but we basically stayed in and played cards…I am simply not up to doing myself up for a night out when I am a bit mopey and well…you get what I am saying. So instead I thought I would share some over the top romantic thing we did in the passed…ya’all aren’t getting away that easy 😀

So earlier this year we had our beautiful baby join us, and make us a real family. 6 weeks later was our first Valentine’s day as a married couple. At 6 weeks…yeah…I’m just not keen on leaving her yet…I’m not ready and in all honestly, he is not ready to leave her either. So I figure we will have a nice little night at home in the condo (we had not moved yet). Of course he had to go out and totally surprise me!!

My hubby talked to the property people and rented a vacant condo a couple floors down for the day, and my dad came over to babysit. We went downstairs and he’d made a nice dinner and we just laid in front of the fire and had a little wine and listened to music, enjoying some us time. No, don’t worry, I didn’t drink much, and the night was amazing!! I truly am the luckiest girl on earth! I have an amazing man who saves me from myself and helps me be me at the same time.

43 Responses

I was shocked…everyone I wrote to wrote a response…not a single one was “bad.” Some where tense, some where great. Friends that I spoke my mind to, that apologized with regret on how certain things went and also said their piece…we talked back and forth, and if nothing else, so of the relationships have a healthy closure. Others seemed to touch people’s soul a little, and their responses touched mine as well. The big one…my mom’s….I was floored!

A good flooring? I dunno

A bad flooring? I don’t think so

An emotional flooring…words can not describe.

I wish I could copy and paste my letter and hers in here…but I can’t do that. I have no intention of ever really sharing those…they are between 2 people. I did share mine to her and her’s to me with my husband and a friend though…I just had to.

Not the reaction I expected!

At first I thought she was blowing sunshine up my ass…saying the right things, because I know she wants back into my life. But then I got half way through and read her stern rebuttal on a few things, and I had to stop and start all over. It took me 4 hours to read it…I just started crying and crying…good tears…not happy…not sad…good tears.

We have agreed to start talking via writing messages, because it gives us a chance to process stuff, and then go from there.

I can’t believe we are talking…2/3 of my life we have not! I hold no expectations, and there even if stuff goes well there will always be a guard, especially with her around my daughter, but who knows…this is good…it either opens a door or provides real closure to something that has crushed my soul as long as I can remember!

Clarity Coming

I have been continuing counselling and group sessions, and find it is really helping to talk to people dealing with similar issues and having that independent person help me. My counsellor is great…not the type that won’t make suggestions and simply leads you to answers, but actually interacts with me, so I am rather liking my time with her.

I had my appointment with the specialist, and I start my treatments on the the 26^th. So the idea is that I do 3-4 weeks of 2 IV sessions of Chem, then daily for 4-6 weeks, then I go to the tablets and see where I am at. It is all coming at me fast, but honestly…I am ready…I want to take this head on and beat it so I can move on with my life…I want to be the girl who can say yeah…I beat cancer….twice!

My group actually clapped when I said that and my counsellor hugged me and said she was proud of my attitude. We talked a bit and one of the things I said was that I still felt rather clouded with regards to my mom, and all of that. So she came up with a good idea! She knows that writing seems to get my head in the right spot, so she told me to write letters to friends and family…anyone I could think of that I felt I wanted to say something to…whether it was anger, love, what they meant to me, how they had helped me…anything…get it out there and go in with a clear head.

BUT

She thinks I should actually send them. She said not to finish any letter in a single sitting, and to review each hours or days after each change I make. I am a little nervous about confronting people, but you know what…fuck them…they need to know what the did to hurt me, just as much as the people that have helped me deserve to know that to…so that’s what I have started…writing letters!

Results

So my husband accompanied me to see my doctor Friday morning to get my spinal tap analysis back. Now going in we already knew that I had Leukaemia again. This was verifying it is not acute and the exact strain and moving towards developing a treatment. Now going in I was told it was still in it’s early stages, and seeing as I get extra screening I knew that I caught it early…so that is good. My attitude is that worst case then 6 months or so down the road I start treatment. Lot’s of time to prepare myself.

Well, some of the first word’s out of his mouth were that it is a lot more aggressive than anticipated. He still swears it is chronic, but I can’t help feeling like this is acute and he just doesn’t want to tell me. Perhaps in my head, but I am a bit set back. My husband and him get going…you wanna feel like the dumb one in a room…try a specialist and a Dr discussing this one! I asked them to slow down a few times and speak English, but eventually gave up lol. So some time this week I am going back in to see him, and they are going to analyze things further and put together a treatment plan. The good news is it doesn’t sound like I will need radiation treatment, but I will need chemotherapy, and they want to try to start within a couple of weeks…I knew it was coming, but right now…well…that was a big ass truck and I hate the driver!

At any rate, my basic understanding is that you don’t want to start treatment to early. I am no doctor, so I may be confused on these…if this relates to you…please please…talk to your doctor and get counselling…find a group counselling session and talk to people that have been through it, or are going through it….never trust the sit, even mine, that you read in places like this…I’m just getting stuff out of my mind, and if it helps someone else, awesome. Oh…my understanding…o basically you don’t want to treat things too soon, you want more and more cells active so that once you start treatment they actively fight each other. If you start too soon, they can grow a resistance. Again…my understanding…I could be wrong, but that is how I have always interpenetrated it all.

So please forgive me…I am doing my best to be positive right now, but I am angry…pissed off. 2 years ago, ok…but this isn’t just me now, and it is going to be harder on the people around me and that kills me. I think of my husband’s tears when I was getting a spinal tap…will I be able to look at him in a few months? Will it be too much for him? He sees sick people all day, and will come home to me! And the biggest…the part that pisses me off…our daughter. When I got really sick as a kid my mom left, and all I want is my daughter to have a mom! Every time I look at her, as I type this, as I here her making her funny lil noises…tears fill my eyes. I am staying positive…I am just in a slump right now…but even within that, I have to face the reality that I have to prepare for the worst. It is not just me, and I need to look long term…we have been doing lots of videos, and these and other writings will be there for her some day if the worst should happen. People tell me not to think like that and to stay upbeat…I will get there…I will beat this…but for me, this is peace of mind. I need to do this for me, and I need to do it for my family in case I am not around!

 

On a brighter note…I was worried about my husband’s mental health through all of this…he only knows his work colleagues here, so I surprised him by flying out one of his best friends for the long weekend :). I booked them some golf and such, and last night I got a photo text of my husband stretched out on a pool table at 330am captioned “just a little nap….no worries” lol.

They are the funniest friends! As I told some people…if their was a gay ounce in them they would date. I couldn’t stop laughing as they critiqued each others attire and said no…try this on…omg…they are worse than me and my friends! He is a funny guy…bit of a dog, but he doesn’t hide it. He always asks me which of my friends are single and put out, but hey…he doesn’t lie to them and pretend like he wants more than that, so I have to respect that. At the same time he is a guy that I could phone at 4am to talk to, or get a ride home from…married or single…and trust him. I can remember going out and being cold and him buying someone’s jacket for me, and going 30 minutes back to the last bar to look for my phone…he is an awesome guy, and my husband needed a good friend whether he wanted it or not! Tonight however, I am not making them anything to eat at 4am!

The Test

“Hello. I promised I would give a bit of an update on T. I have never done a lumbar puncture but seen a few. It was hard for me to be there and watch. Guess because it was her. I think I teared up more than her. She did well. Very proud of her. Not much else to say. She had some minor paresthesia as they had some difficulty setting the spike and had to make a few attempts so she might be sore. Because of the setting issues spinal headaches are more likely via potential increase in csf seepage so I had them do an epb as well. She is in recovery now and I will see her again in a bit. Should be home in a few hours.”

That was the update my husband sent to people 2 days ago. I had my spinal tap and await the results. Might be a few days to a week…tensions are high, I am sore, but we are positive.

If you have never had a spinal tap, don’t let people scare you…yes it sucks, but it is not nearly as bad as people make it out to be. It is the soreness afterwards that sucks…not terrible pain, but general stiffness. You are getting this to take on the bigger challenges!

For me I still have mixed feelings on my husband being in the room during the procedure. Likely it is good that he was, because he made some good decisions for me…I am in pretty good shape…I work out lots, and apparently that can make the initial spike difficult. They had to make a few attempts on me, so he told them to do the EPB. Now if you don’t know what that is, don’t feel bad, because neither did I lol. Basically, as he explained it to me, they take some of your blood and find the puncture they made in your spine and make a clot so that the spinal fluids don’t leak. It is the spinal fluids that create the insane headache after the procedure…or is it the pressure loss from it…whatever…the leaking of that fluid makes life rough, so he attacked it head on. So that part is great…and it turned out good there…but there was a bad part to him being there. I never hurt until I looked up at him and saw tears in his eyes. For a doctor he is a puss…i kid…for a doctor he sees a lot of procedures and sick people, so seeing those tears damned near killed me…I remember seeing them, then feeling tears of my own, and not much else until I woke up at home with a sore boob…lol…I will explain that for ya!

Apparently the drugs were good…REALLY good. My husband tells me that he had to pull the car over on the way home and put me in the back seat. Apparently I had determined it was hubba hubba time and was getting rather frisky while he drove and was all over him. I am going to assume that my licking his face was me trying to give sexy kisses or something…that’s what I am sticking with! So he puts me in the back seat, and gives me my phone to entertain me. In that time, I managed to get 5 “texts” out there…not a single one can I comprehend! My absolute fave was one to a group of friends on Skype:

hapytime wihbi gluv styf

If you have any idea of what that might mean…please please share!

so…boob….lol

I woke up some time later…not being able to sleep on my back, of course, I was face down with my arm tucked under me, phone in hand, wedged against my breast…funny as hell yes, but fuck it hurt! I guess if after a spinal my biggest complaint is that…well…I am doing pretty good.

The only really really bad thing is attempting to pick up my daughter…too sore. But a friend gave me an idea…I just lay down on the floor and feed her…or as I say….milk me. Fun thing to do for anyone breastfeeding…when you are doing it and your bf/husband/friend is around, just start mooing…doesn’t matter how many times I have done it, he never knows what to say.

Mind over matter people…you are always going to have down moments…just don’t let them keep you down…when times are rough always look at the fortunes of your life. Have a phrase that you can envision…even write down that helps you reflect on it…for me, it is LGOE (Luckiest Girl On Earth). When I think that, I start saying…why did I start saying that…oh this, and that…yeah…I am fucking fortunate. This strategy has helped me a LOT!

Life Changing Events

So today I feel like rolling back time a little. I think if you have read my blog, you can see the big life changes I have being going through. It is a lot in a short period…Married, kid, moved, transitioning career….that is all pretty minor. Each of those, well they are positive thngs with a little uncertainty wrapped around them, but it is perhaps time that I discuss the big one, and hopefully my last life altering moment in a long long ass time…cancer.

Back in October my doctors were doing extra blood work on me. I was pregnant, so didn’t think a lot of it. I also have to get regular blood work because of the cancer when I was young…continual monitoring a couple times a year. Well, I had my baby, and the blood work continued. It went from twice a year to monthly…no real thoughts about it for me. Then in late January it went to weekly. This scared me, and I didn’t want to know, I refused to listen, I hid it from my husband for a few days even! This is hat made our move so hard…I mean this is big…fuck everything else right. He said he was turning down the job because I needed my family, but I knew this was a once in a lifetime opportunity, so while he was at work one day I packed up a few token boxes. When he came home I was standing by the door with our baby and just said…I don’t care where we call home as long as we are together…this is my family.

I finally just went to my doctor and had them lay it on the table in late February…my cells were suspicious, and it was getting worse. They didn’t need to say a word, I knew what it was.

I have Leukemia.

It is my second battle with it. I had Leukemia as a child.

They say no…it is not necessarily Leukemia, and go through a pile of scenarios of what else it might be, which is comforting but scary.

So we move, and I am super happy, and life is grand, even with this dark cloud of uncertainty hanging over us. We settle into our new home and test continue….finally I get the results…my fears are true….they feel it is Leukaemia and want to do a spinal tap to analyze shit and…..drowning out….not hearing you doc….blah blah blah blah….

SOOOOO sorry to the bouncer!

I shouldn’t laugh, but I do…sorry lol

This was in mid April…finding out for sure, and my immediate response is of course…fuck, I need to go for a drink. Funny, I get a drink and never even take a sip…I just stair at it and let my self pity grow and woe is me and all that stuff, which I suppose is natural. I eventually get nasty and this bouncer comes at me, and I punch him right in the throat!

Ever dropped a bag of potatoes…yeah…that was him.

Now my husband apparently did not approve of this 😦 . So he insisted I find this guy….probably smart in case he did go to the cops or something. So I found that bouncer and apologized and such…he was pretty good about it after I explained myself a bit…really pissed at first obviously, but he understood my perspective and such and we were all good at the end. I make no excuses, it was not an acceptable action…but in the end I think his pride was hurt more my getting laid out by a girl than anything. I teased him a bit and said he could hit me back if he wanted…pretty nice guy actually.

Now I was in a bad state of mind the night I punched the bouncer…I think anyone can imagine the crazy thoughts that one might have. My initial reaction was “I can not do this again.” I had given up. Of course I don’t know anyone, so I turned to the net…trying to contact a few people…friends/online friends…talk to a few…not ready to spill the beans on this yet…i just tell people I need a happy story. How sad is it that you can ask a dozen people for a happy story and not get one!

But I am good now…a few days has passed. I remember my husband crawling into bed with me…we just laid there for hours, holding each other…I am a gabber…like you couldn’t tell, but we just held each other…silent. That moment…that time without a word said…that will forever change me. To know that in one of my darkest hours that I had someone I could just hold, and who could read my soul and I there’s…to see that no matter what the future holds that her and now I am the luckiest girl on earth…and I would be pretty damned selfish to expect that I deserve more!

I don’t have to beat this…We WILL beat it TOGETHER!

I go for my spinal tap next week, and then we determine how we kick this things ass!

New Roots

I hate moving!

 

The only good thing about the physical act of moving is packing up and looking at memories as enter a box. But hell, I just did that when I bought my new place, and again when my husband moved in and we had to rearrange stuff. Funnily enough, me and my husband didn’t technically live together until a few months after we were married haha. Yeah, he was moved in, but he still had his condo next door until it sold…weird.

 

He recently got a job opportunity and it meant moving almost 3000km away. Now, we cam here in February to look at house, and he warmest fucking day we saw was -52C with windchill, and the coldest I think -67C! Getting off the plane, I thought it was some kind of sick joke! There was however this nice lady at a store in the airport who gave us a good price on some blankies and helped transform PJ into even bigger burrito…poor girl. I made it 4 days of hot car, cold air, hot house, cold air, hot car, etc…when I finally said fuck this, I ain’t leaving the hotel for a day!

 

That said, we have officially made the move and I am pumped up about our new start together! I am eyeballing some houses and going to try my hand at flipping them! He has an awesome new job, and we are going to make a bunch of new friends! We moved in at the beginning of April, and are nicely settled…perhaps another reason I am writing on here…it helps because I don’t really know people well enough to open up yet.

 

Also, some day soon I think it might stop snowing! God I hope the summers are nicer lol. So cold

Expansion

Some say my husband and I didn’t date long enough, we say we simply knew it was right.

He was the only person that ever made me want to change my lifestyle, and I was the one who stretched him from his comfort zones. You know, we are coming up on a year of marriage, and every single morning he kisses me as he gets out of bed and tells me he loves me, even if I fake sleep sometimes and say I love you to as he walks out the door…and it is the last thin we say before we get into bed every night. If one of is not home, we know a phone call is coming…I can’t imagine not waking up to it because it starts my day with a smile, and I can’t imagine trying to fall asleep without it!

We had grand plans, not yet laid, of a tropical wedding where friends from around the world come. My husband is American and I am Canadian…half the people are flying a long ass way, so lets just make it a nice winter wedding right?

Uh-oh…I mean yay….err uh-oh,…err OMG…err WTF…er yay!

Dumb luck…like not even 2 months after we are engaged I am pregnant! Wait…let me check my math…more like a month lol. We hadn’t even had big talks about kids…and I really didn’t know how I felt about having a kid! I had just taken a new job at a pretty major record label in an executive capacity, and I really didn’t get kids…at all. A year before this I had been banned from babysitting from a friend (we are good now), because she called me at like noon on a Sunday when I was not even close to waking up from the party the night before. She was having a rough day…her baby wouldn’t stop crying, and me in my all mighty still wasted wisdom asked if she had tried shaking him. Yeah. Me…mom material?

So I shit some bricks, and I quit some habits immediately…hey…I’m being honest…I don’t condone that kind of stuff…but I did stop immediately and ran every check under the sun twice. When it levels out a bit, we are happy…ecstatic about this! We ramp the wedding up and have a small ceremony within a few weeks and the rushed to prep wedding turns out to be pretty awesome!

 

OMG…I have a family!

 

I quit my job at the label, something my dad is still rather upset about, and return to work for him. I do the same routine for a bit while we work out a new role…sorry…you can’t be the uber pregnant woman at a gig or prepping for it or doing PR…it just doesn’t work lol. So I take a job that puts me more in the office and then flying out to work with and seek out bands. I’d done this a bit, but now it is full time…hitting Nashville for a few days, the New York, anywhere you were catching vibes of something that might be a new sound emerging.

About 6 months in I have a massive fear…I am due December 27^th! O M G…I do not want a Christmas baby!

I get huge. Am I having quadruplets? Seriously…in the end I put on pushing 33% weight! I eat healthy, I exercise, I even start aquatic aerobics.

I get depressed.

They had warned that based on evaluation I was a high risk for postpartum depression…even though I was still pregnant, I am sure this was associated. I have major mood swings a temper that is scary. I just spiral down and down. I see this ending my career goals, I had a really shitting experience growing up with an emotionally and physically abusive mother (another post some time perhaps), I quit all of these bad habits…I have become unhinged. So I explode in the office one day, and I am actually institutionalized by my husband and my father. I end up in there for 4 days and have to go to counselling a lot. Of course I am furious about this, but somehow, thank Christ, I see the light of day and that these people care for me and my baby. K, my SL friend, talks to me about it a bit, and really gives awesome personal insight. You know, I think that until now she is the only person I have told about this outside of immediate family! Part of my therapy is writing stuff down…doesn’t mean I have to share it, but the advise I am given is to write a letter to someone…evaluate the letter…then tuck it away, send it, burn it, whatever you want. The idea being that as you structure that letter and evaluate it opens your eyes and you see things a little different. If you are ever reading this and you take any single thing away from it…take that…write it down…write poetry…write a letter…you don’t need to share it with anyone if you don’t want to!

The good…this worked for me! With this and an amazing husband I get through it. I don’t have a plethora of friends, but my SL friends are there for me…they are awesome! Things get a lot better from there, and I start to get truly excited. We start talking baby names and doing a room and things are great. Eventually I get just too big to work, and I can’t fly any more anyways, so I work a little from home, and await my pray to god not Christmas miracle. I spend more time online with my SL friends who keep me upbeat and socializing while off…so happy I had that. Christmas comes, Christmas goes…fwew. Well, hopefully not a New Years baby…I’m going to be a little selfish here…I don’t want my New Years committed for life lol. New Years comes, New Years goes…god I am fucking HUGE! My husband has taken a couple weeks off around the season, we figure it is a good idea…spend the time together with family, and welcome our baby at the same time…nope…he goes back to work. So I am sitting on SL trying to convince a sister from the MC that I am not in labour, refusing to admit it, and scared out of my mind…I am vibrating…even late, I am SOO not ready!! She calms me down and gets my husband home…we have a healthy baby girl who’s name changes from our plans as soon as I hold her (ooo…we didn’t know if it was going to be a boy or girl…we didn’t want to). Doesn’t matter what her name was supposed to be, as soon as I held her I said “hello Piper.” All the concerns and fear go away…it doesn’t matter…Happiest day of my life!

New Starts

Stories have a beginning, end, and everything between…it is all a matter of how they are conveyed really. Well, my little story, I don’t know the end, and I really don’t want to talk about the beginning right now, so lets go somewhere in the middle shall we? I always tend to look back about 2 years ago and see it as my grand experience in large changes in my life, so I will start there…why…because I want to…this is my story I will tell it how I like…suck it up! 🙂

I look at my life a couple of years or so back and I don’t even recognize myself. I know everyone goes through that, and I find each of those stories amazing, so this is a little bit on mine. For me, I started working in the family business in the summers when I was young, but started working outside of the summer when I was in my mid-teens. Now, our family business is not a restaurant or a market or a typical office environment….it is nothing crazy, but is a little different. My dad runs a moderately successful business within the music industry. It is a little hard to label the company for it is not a management company, it is not a recording studio, it is not a PR agency, but we dabble in it all. We focus on upcoming artists and artists looking for resurgence in their career. We often see ourselves as a stepping stone, and are happy to be that…some even take us along for the full ride in some capacity, and that is always awesome. No, we are not all glam and glitz…we are the medium sized player who strives to work with impassioned people and get them to where they want to be. That said, I can remember being the speechless awestruck teenage girl that was getting coffee for people i was gaga over and almost drooling into the cup as I handed it of with mumbles and shaky hands.

But why is this really relevant to my story in the grand scheme of things you ask? Well, at the root of it all it’s not, but at the same time it made some of my problems easier to run ramped. When I turned 18 I started working small venues, helping bands get jobs and exposure, getting them some cheep advertisement by swinging by the right malls, maybe a live spot on a radio, and managing their social media (not my previously mentioned disdain for facebook), and by 19 I was travelling a lot! By 20, I was never home. I had a great house that I spent about 3-4 days a month in, friends I didn’t know any more and a drug problem that Ozzy himself would have shaken his head at. I caved into the lifestyle. Never being home, I found it impossible to maintain a relationship, friendship wise or intimately. I always told myself I didn’t want a relationship, but buried somewhere deep I knew I did, so like so many other girls I compensated by being a doormat to guys…for me so that they would stay interested in a girl that wasn’t around enough. While I maintained my professionalism and was damned good at my job, my personal life was a wreck. I never really realized it but my self-esteem was almost non existent and my self worth outside of work was nowhere. Not a slut…just easily taken advantage of.

Well, in time I accepted that I had to do something with my time on the road…going to clubs every night was just not healthy, so I started going online a little more because I could do that from my hotel room. That’s where I discovered Second Life. If you have never heard of it SL is basically chat on crack and is 3 D and interactive…it is a whole post in itself, and I am sure I will make one at some point. Now the problem I discovered when I actually started getting more into SL was that I brought the same damned issues with me, and if anything they were amplified. So sure, I wasn’t out as much, but my self-esteem got worse! But then I found a diamond in the rough, a girl I will call K. She took me in a little and she doesn’t mince words…says it like she sees it. Even though I was a lil trouble in her online world she still accepted me…maybe she saw I was unlike a lot of people in there…open and honest, maybe she felt sorry for me, maybe it is because the more we got to know each other the more she saw how much we had in common. Anyways, K was in a SL Motorcycle Club, a group filled mostly with strong women who had some hoots together and (for the most part) had each others backs. In time, they took me in, a pretty big event for me!

For me, the MC was truly life changing. A lot of people have got rather fucked up and twisted from SL (hey…I’ve had my moments as well), but some also grow…fortunately I got more growth than twist. Being around these strong women was inspiring…I found my confidence growing and I was able to see my self worth. Ironically, when I was getting to know these girls they played a part in a massive part of my life…meeting my future husband! Lol…rather interesting story actually…how we met. I had had the realization that having a house was stupid. The little I was home I needed to tend to it, so as much as I loved the house I sold it and moved into a pretty high end waterfront condo…actually into one of their higher end ones…gorgeous place…I’ll post some pictures some day maybe. Anyways, as I am moving, in open shoes (yeah…stupid…I know) I split my foot open…stupid blonde! So I find a clinic close to my place and get it fixed up. A couple days later, I wake up for the first time in my new condo…foot sore, pissed off that I can’t find my coffee, rather lazy. So I am in SL chatting with a few of the girls and they say I should go see if a neighbour has a cup for me…a good way to meet people…but I am of course to lazy, sore and a lil timid about doing it. Well, fine…they eventually twist my arm…and who is it….mhmm…my doc that patched me up…now my husband! That MC and those girls gave me the confidence to step outside of my comfort zone, and as time went on the self worth they build up in combination with that…well, it made me actually put effort into maintaining a relationship and hold onto a wonderful man!

He is an amazing man who saves me from myself and helps me be me at the same time…who loves me through the worst and keeps me level on the highs…who makes me the lukiest girl on earth…

 

I thank those girls, I owe them my world!

OPGR