Amusing Links

I spend a considerable amount of time surfing the internet. Sometimes I do cancer-related research and check out cancer message boards. Other times I read other blogs that span a variety of topics. I also find myself drawn to celebrity gossip - though I try to keep perspective and not believe everything I read. I love when I come across things that make me laugh out loud. Here are a few things that I've come across recently that REALLY cracked me up. Enjoy!

I still can't wait to see this movie, but this is hysterical: Fugging Impossible III

This is just a great story: Things to Do Monday

This makes me happy that other people have crazy ideas and actually follow through with them: Yogabeans

Overheard in My Apartment

There's a great site that was recommended to me a while ago called Overheard in New York and the related site Overheard in the Office. People submit amusing conversations that they have overheard. I often hear very random things in my apartment and have started keeping a list of the more entertaining statements and conversations I hear. Here are a few for your entertainment:

“You never smell me when I ask you to.”

“You don’t have green eyes.”
”If you ever looked at me, you’d know.”

“Do you usually get up in the middle of the night and eat corn?”
“No, but I usually get up in the middle of the night and watch porn.”

Delayed Again

It's been a while since I had a treatment delay. I had become comfortable with my schedule and started depending on it for future plans. I should know better by now. This morning my blood tests came back with a low platelet count. It's been low for a few weeks, but was still hovering around 100 which is the general cutoff that they use to decide if you can handle treatment. I'm down to 89 so I have a week to rest and hope that my bone marrow will produce some more platelets. My white count is low too, but not so low that they'd delay treatment based on it. I'm frustrated that I have to wait a week. Now I have to redo my schedule for the next two weeks. Ugh!

Creative Input Needed!!

Something has been bothering me for a while. Although I have a great title for this blog, I am lacking in a good tagline. I need suggestions and I know there are lots of creative people out there. Please help!!

Taking a Bite Out of the Big Apple

So what did I do while I was in New York? Hmmm... where do I start?

On my first day in NYC, Jen took me shopping. We went to really fun stores like Flight001 and MXYPLYZYK. We had a late lunch and then headed over to the Guggenheim. They had an exhibit of Kandinsky paintings that I really wanted to see. We lucked out and got there about 20 minutes before they opened for "pay what you can" evening. The display was smaller than I expected but I really enjoyed it anyway. Tim, Jen's fiancee, joined us after that and we went out for a delicious italian dinner at Supper and then hit a couple of really cute bars. Then we headed to Magnolia Bakery for their famous cupcakes.

Saturday, we got up early - meaning 9 am - and headed to downtown Manhattan to get half-price tickets to a broadway show. We figured that we'd be in line for a while, but it only took about 30 minutes. Then we grabbed some lunch on our way to see the Statue of Libery. Unfortunately, the line to take the ferry to the statue was literally the longest line that I had ever seen. I never did see the beginning or the end. So rather than waste an entire afternoon, we took the free Staten Island ferry ride to get a closer view of Miss Liberty.

After our ferry ride, Jen took me back to Brooklyn to check out her wedding dress and do some more shopping. We got some yummy cookies from a cute little bakery and yummy chocolates from Jacques Torres. Then we headed back to Manhattan and went to dinner at a great Thai/Asian fusion restaurant and afterwards saw an improv show at the Upright Citizens Brigade.

On Sunday, we had brunch in Brooklyn, then headed out to see Sweeney Todd on Broadway.

It was great. Patti LuPone and the rest of the cast were awesome. I was really glad that we picked that show to be my first Broadway show! After the show, we walked up 5th avenue to Central Park. We picked up food and since it was such a beautiful day, we had a picnic in Central Park.



I was a great way to end the weekend. I had such a good time and Jen and Tim were awesome hosts! I would go back in a heartbeat.

So Tired, But Happy

I'm back! My flight arrived just before 10am this morning. For those of you keeping track, that means I left Brooklyn at 4:45am eastern time - that's 1:45am pacific. I am exhausted. Plus I was unable to sleep last night because I was worrying about getting to the airport this morning and about ten thousand other things that weren't worth worrying about.

I'm not going to regale you with stories of my trip today or any treatment updates, but they will all come soon. I'm also behind on responding to emails, so if I owe you an emails, I'm sorry and it's coming. I will try to catch up in the next couple of days.

It's sleepy time now...

A Typical (or Atypical) Chemo Treatment

I went in for another treatment today. I haven't had a break since they cut my dosage by 20%. Apparently, my body can handle that and instead of lower my blood counts, my hemoglobin and white cell counts have both moved into the normal range. It's nice to know that I have an immune system and I'm not currently anemic, but honestly, I miss those surprise weeks off.

I had my blood draw and appointment with Dr. W on Friday so I didn't have to spend as much time at the center today. My treatment started at 9 am and I was out of there by 3 pm. I would have been done earlier, but my body chose this treatment to start an allergic reaction to one of the drugs. I was just sitting there, talking to another patient and scratching my hand. Then a little bell went off in my head... if I have an unusual itch, I am supposed to inform the nurse. I looked down at my hand and my whole palm had turned bright red. Plus it was slightly swollen. As soon as the nurse came back, I showed her. She brought over my study coordinator and another more experience chemo nurse. The other nurse said that this is a typical reaction and many patients develop this reaction after being treated multiple times. They stopped administering the drug and gave me a hefty dose of benadryl which almost instantly stopped the reaction. After the dose of benadryl, they restarted my chemo and I was fine after that.

The benadryl really knocked me out though. I'm usually really hyper from the steroids when I get home. Today I came home and slept for two hours. When I woke up from my nap, there was a sandwich from Subway on my bed next to me. It took me a minute to remember that Jim had asked me if I wanted him to pick on up and had handed it to me (I set it on the bed). Weird.

I'm going to spend the next two days resting and recovering because I leave for NYC on Thursday and I want to make sure that I am in tip-top shape. We have lots of plans and I don't want anything to slow me down.

National Young Adult Cancer Awareness Week

This week, April 2-8, is National Young Adult Cancer Awareness Week. I have some interesting statistics that I got from Planet Cancer that I’d like to share.

Cancer is the leading disease killer of 20 to 39 year olds.

Nearly 65,000 young adults in their 20s and 30s are diagnosed with cancer every year.

Young adults are the demographic group most likely to be under- or uninsured.

Only 2% of patients between 20 and 30 years old are in clinical trials, compared to 60% of patients under 15.

In contrast to younger and older patients, survival rates for young adults have not increased at all since 1975.

These are scary statistics AND they're dramatically under-reported. Without increased awareness, it is unlikely that these will change. People, especially in their 20's and 30's, generally think that it'll never happen to them. Trust me, it can happen to anyone.