lord... i'm so tired.

as any egomaniac would do... i love to quote myself. hence the title of this post.

i mean it. i'm tired down to my very bones. been sneaking up on me for some time. thought it was neuropathy leftover from chemo years back. recent blood work showed i'm crazy low in b12. and abnormal in several other related blood factors. so low that it has turned my hands numb, my feet numb, sometimes even my lips. i can barely write with a pen. my hearing goes in and out. and the tears... the tears they fall so easily these days.

when i heard the news i was like... gee... i must not know how to eat. but in fact, that is not the case. i eat plenty of b12 (cheese, eggs, meat, bread). i also eat a balanced diet with lots of fresh veggies from our garden. but apparently, my body can't absorb the b12. we don't know why yet. maybe a autoimmune disorder. maybe intestinal issues. maybe we might never know. but now, and possibly for the rest of my life, i get to give myself b12 injections.

this week, i had a nurse teach me how to give myself a shot. ok, i can give a pig a shot. a goat a shot. a dog a shot. but it totally freaks me out putting a needle into my OWN skin and muscle. but, i'm brave. and i'll give it a go. next shot is in two weeks.

it's just so frustrating. my hands are my life. i play piano. i spin yarn. i crochet. i milk a cow. and i write. preferably with pen and paper. that's how songs happen. right now i can barely hold a pen. so i'm gonna attempt writing on computer for a while. but i'm old fashioned. and ritualistic. and insane. and stubborn.

oh, and a recent CT scan of my chest showed that those spots on my lungs didn't magically disappear as i had thought back in may. they are still there. but they are stable. and my oncologist isn't worried about them right now. so i will try my hardest not too either.

and surprisingly, a recent brain MRI showed that my brain is "grossly normal". ha! take that, science!

so forgive me if my future blog posts might tend to be less fantastical-animal-photo-montages and more like a poorly written autobiographical emotional exorcism. i me me mine.

and now to go along with this narcissistic trend... here are some photos of me (courtesy of kristi collins).

the glamorous life

me and kristi laughing in our beer

my girls

the lace and microphones diet

results in.... survey says... more tests.

first off, let me share the good news. echo and bloodwork are fabulous. always knew i had a good heart. :-)

CT doesn't show any new activity. but the spots are still there. so i'm being referred to a pulmonary specialist. i'm sure lots of fun tests and adventures lie around that corner.

meanwhile, i'm still having trouble breathing. and having chest pain. and still on limited activity orders from my surgery last month. which is making me stir crazy and frustrated and i'm sure driving my husband nuts. BUT, i've only more week until surgical follow-up and then i should be able to go back to my cherished yoga and farming. i'm really hoping that the introduction of aerobic exercise will help my breathing. right now, i can hardly get through singing a song without getting winded. which is el sucko!

but spring is here at last. little marton has moved outside. tonight will be his first night to sleep in the barn (instead of in our house). hope he does ok. he seems quite healthy and strong but he's not out of the woods yet. so wish him luck!

and now for that embarrassing tito video i promised....



sorry about the shaky camera and the lens cap. i was being attacked by a hungry and shameless seven month old pygora goat!

this just in....PET scans are not for pets.

sorry i've been away so long. i have a thousand excuses (some pretty good, some just weak sauce). weather being one of the weaker ones... we've had snow, rain, snow, and more snow. freezing temps. frozen ponds. and snow drifts up to my knees!

and we've had more hardships. we lost our dear ram, einar. and our little orphaned twin goat, ramona. i don't even know what to say. except that it is so completely disheartening to have this happen. we know the reasons. but it doesn't make them any easier. still feels like failure. still makes us mourn. the strong survive. the weak ones fade. i hate it. i really do. but farming is nature. it is life and death. and birth. and seedlings. and giant tomatoes. and evil hornworms. and dogs. and birds. and bunnies.

with mother nature at the reins 24-7 and with us pulling the plough, it's hard to make room for personal issues. like family. and our own health. a month ago i somehow squeezed in a day to drive up to the big city (st louis) for an overdue visit with my oncologist. been having some symptoms (cough, chest pain, along with some other nags here and there). my onc ordered ct scans of chest, and abdomen. and a bone scan.

bone scan came back great. abdomen shows a few weird things but nothing too scary. yay! yay! i'm so happy. whoo hoo! then comes the chest scan report. first off, i have a ruptured implant. geesh! i had no idea. and second, multiple ground glass nodular opacities in lower and middle lobe of lung. huh? wait! what? first i'm thinking , "it's probably scar tissue from radiation. that's happened before". and secondly i'm thinking "WTF are ground glass opacities?" since i live 2 hours away from my oncologists office, i ask to have a copy of report sent to me. you know, just so i can be sure they are reading it right. because, i am so much smarter than a team of doctors and radiologists!

i finally get report in my hot little hands two weeks later (mail is slow in the middle of nowhere). i rip open envelope and start trying to decipher all the information. well, it's definitely not radiation scar tissue as i had hoped. these new spots are on my other lung. my good lung. and the official report reads, "metastatic disease can not be excluded". wow. i've never seen those words before written about me. so ominous. so frank. so nonchalant.

due to these spots, my oncologist ordered a PET scan. which does not involve pets. all my dogs were upset. especially porkchop. he said he has played a doctor on tv many times and was really hoping for a big break on this one. he said he wouldn't even need money. just bacon.

"PET scans are for people. for people!" i said in my best charlton heston.

a pet scan is another way of getting images. especially when looking for cancer. a glucose/radiation cocktail is injected into the vein. cancer cells metabolize different than healthy cells. the imaging can pick up hot spots where cancer is feasting on some day-glo sugar.

so, on feb 2 (groundhog day) i had my very first non-dog PET scan. it took a long time. you lie on this cold table with your arms above your head and the table moves every 4 minutes and takes another picture and you can't move and after about 15 minutes your arms fall asleep and after about 20 minutes you start to wonder if you still have arms because they no longer feel attached to your body and you do your best yoga breathing and eventually start making weird humming noises until finally test is done and nurse is back in the room with you asking if you are ok because you seem a bit freaked out. and the worst part was..... NO CARBS the evening or morning before hand. OMG! i live on cheese AND bread AND crackers AND pasta. not just cheese and cheese.

so jump forward to this week. PET scan results are in. the damn spots are there. but they are too small to say for sure what they are. we can't rule out cancer. but we can't rule it in. and we can't biopsy because it would require major surgery. so standard protocol is to wait three months and scan again. to see if anything changes.

all i can say, is to a cancer survivor, waiting for results suck. it is a recipe for anxiety. we want to know NOW. we want to be proactive. we hate to be sitting ducks (which by the way we just added the most beautiful flock of moscovy ducks to our farm - more on that in a future post).

thank the lord for xanax and red wine and friends and family and ducks and goats and bunnies and donkeys and pigs and blogs!

i will keep you posted. i'm having a little ol'surgery next week to replace my busted implant. and then, i promise to get back hawking my yarn, and to posting anthropomorphic photos of animals.