I did it.

I don't exactly know how, but I did it. I have done better in this year's NaNoWriMo than ever before. I mean, look at this:

 

I don't know how I pulled that one off. I really don't. I just know I sat down and started writing, and boom. Story exploded all over me.

I accidentally the whole thing in 5 days. I'm not done yet, though. I'm maybe - maybe - at the story's halfway point, and this is the first of three. 

My carrot dangling in front of me isn't just visions of an agent and a publisher (although I will admit that would be nice) but nursing school. Since my diagnosis, I have been so scattered, so fatigued, so unable to focus and finish anything that I can't risk an application because if I do get in and burn out, it would crush me. But, if I can stay focused to finish, not just one novel but three, not just the rough drafts but a polished finished version, then I can pull myself together enough to be serious about nursing.

In the meantime, I'm going to sit here and stare at myself and try to figure out how I averaged 10k a day, and I'll share a little bit of the raw material I produced during this time

======================================

     The sunrays coming through the trees increased in angle as the day wore on, and although William was tired, there seemed to be a degree of tension in the group that worried at his nerves. Suddenly his horse shied, tossing its head back and almost clipping him in the mouth, and a shrill, jabbering shriek came from somewhere to the east.

While William was trying to make certain his horse didn't bolt out from under him, Baeron and Jo were already nocking arrows, aiming in the direction of the shriek. The woods were as still as death, then he heard the noise again.

"What was that?" he heard Anna ask, her voice low.

"That was a bzoar," Roth replied. "That's how they communicate with their tribe."

"They're a ways off," Baeron said, though he didn't lower his arrow.

"They're not on the hunt right now. They sound different when they do. But be cautious, and keep a keen eye out for any movement in the woods. Don't be afraid to point out anything that looks suspicious," Roth said. "Try to make as little noise as possible."

The string of horses began to move again, although William noticed flecks of white, foamy sweat forming on his horse's shoulders and neck. It snorted, tossing its head more, the small pointed ears swiveling and always in motion. Baeron and Jo relaxed their bowstrings and lowered their aim slightly, but kept their arrows nocked.

The strain of the hard trail and the threat of bzoars wore everyone's nerves thin, but there was no arguing among the group as they all remained silent. The road was too steep and the horses too tired for them to move any faster than they did, and William watched the encroaching spread of evening from the east with a wary eye. He heard the bzoar's jabbering cries off and on throughout the afternoon, though it was hard to tell if they were any closer or not.

William glanced over his shoulder, and saw Tyzel had a battle axe ready in his hand, although it rested in a casual manner against his leg. He twisted back around in the saddle, and started to recite the spells he had been learning before the trip, practicing at drawing forth the energy. He stopped before the spell completed, and allowed the built-up energy to bleed off. He was told that it was similar to lifting heavy things to get physically stronger, and the exercise kept his mind off his nerves and on something he could use for defense.

The woods grew darker as evening arrived, and William anxiously waited for signs of a settlement up ahead so they could take shelter. Another jabbering shriek broke the quiet, and gooseflesh raised on his arms. That voice had been definitely closer.

While he looked around for signs of either danger or sanctuary, Baeron moved his arms enough for William to notice that Anna seemed to be wiping at her face a great deal. He caught himself before he could say her name, wanting her to look back at him, to see if she was crying, and say something to make her stop and feel better if she was. Instead, he tried to will her to look back, staring hard at the back of her head.

Anna did not seem to notice, but Baeron did, and looked behind him at William for a moment. Then Roth turned around a slight bit in his saddle, and looked at Anna briefly before putting his attention back on the woods. William bit back a noise of frustration at the apparent awareness of Anna's distress, and no one seemed to do anything to stop it.

He was so focused on Anna that the next shriek made him jump, almost causing his horse to bolt. There was another shriek, closer, the sound seeming to echo off the dark trees, and then further away, there was a howl that made his blood turn to slush.

William could feel his horse trembling underneath him, from either fatigue or fear but likely both. The white foam of sweat lathered on its neck seemed to glow in the dark when he wasn't looking at it, and faded away to obscurity when he tried to focus. Then the horse seemed to perk up and find a new burst of energy, and they all broke into a slow trot. The ground was not as steep as it had been, although it was still far from level.

Move quickly. Roth's voice in his mind startled him, he'd forgotten about the dragon's telepathy. Then he saw thin slats of dim light coming from shuttered windows. The buildings were smaller than he expected, after the last village, and while there were a number of dragon-sized buildings, he saw just as many, if not more, sized down for an elf.

Roth dismounted and everyone else followed suit, and Jo's horse reared a bit when another howl echoed through the woods. William staggered on shaky legs, leaning against his horse's sweaty shoulder for balance. The only noise was the shuffling of feet and the agitated snorting from the scared horses. Someone grabbed his arm, and William stumbled a bit as Tayani pulled him over to Anna, and then escorted the two of them to a doorway. She tried the latch then knocked hard, and William watched the others hurry to get the horses into a building across the road.

The door next to him opened, and a green-eyed older man eyed them suspiciously. "Get in," he said, looking past them to the others. "How many in your party?"

"Eight more," Tayani said. "Have you room?"

"Barely," the old man said as they passed. He kept the door open and watched, and William looked around, realizing they were in the tavern room of an inn. Several others were present, somber and grim-faced, watching in silent curiosity.

Resources for NaNoWriMo

This is a collection of writing tools and resources I've used this year for NaNoWriMo

Scrivener: http://literatureandlatte.com/

Zim Wiki: http://zim-wiki.org/

Map Creator Tutorial: http://calthyechild.deviantart.com/art/Fantasy-Map-TutorialxResources-258559867

Chaotic Shiny Generators: http://chaoticshiny.com/

Fantasy Name Generators: http://fantasynamegenerators.com/

Animal Groups: http://www.thealmightyguru.com/Pointless/AnimalGroups.html

Twitter: https://twitter.com/VictoryOverBC/status/529768543412568064

Doll Divine: http://www.dolldivine.com/hobbit-and-lotr-dress-up-game.php

SFWA Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions: http://www.sfwa.org/2009/08/fantasy-worldbuilding-questions/



Happy worldbuilding!

And so begins November

Blogger is on West Coast time. When a post would be published at midnight, in reality, it was already 2 in the morning where I was.

It's 2am in Nebraska. Right now, I'm probably getting home. From midnight onward, I was writing at the Perkins on O Street, kicking off November.

It's National Novel Writing Month, or as it's more commonly known as, NaNoWriMo. The goal is to write a novel, 50k words or more, in 30 days. It's an exercise in turning off the inner editor, to hang up the hang-ups over whether or not that's the right word, obsessively editing what was written and pacing back and forth over the same ground without making any real progress toward the end. The editing, the polishing and proofing and ruthless cutting, that comes after the meat of the novel is produced. NaNoWriMo produces the meat. If you choose to cut it into something marketable, it's up to you.

NaNoWriMo has produced novels which, after polishing and cutting, went on to be published. NaNoWriMo has spawned ideas from the monthly projects, a tangent thread to follow, which in turn produces a novel fit for publication.

It's not a formula that works for everyone. Some people flounder instead of fly in the unbound freedom of it all. Not every novel, even if cut and polished, will be fit for publication. Very few novels actually face the wrath of an editing pen. It's a month of nonsense, a lesson in powering through writer's blocks, training in a habit of writing a little bit every single day.

All you need to stay on the goal is 1667 words a day. That will put you at 50,000 words by November 30th.

There's a novel idea I've been wanting to do for a while. The core elements, the basic plot. But I hadn't found quite the right setting, the perfect stage to make the characters shine. In 2013, I think I might have solved that problem.

In November 2013, I also received my breast cancer diagnosis. I was ahead of the projected word count, I was turning out easily 2,000 to 3,000 words a day. But the diagnosis derailed me. Hard.

I did some more writing in the spring, but not very much. I'd lost the motivation for fiction writing. My energy went instead into this blog, into a memoir which is still far from being where I can give it a final period.

I knew November would come around again. They changed the rules, a work in progress was now allowed as a novel entry, provided we started counting the word count at zero on November first, and only factored in the words we wrote through the month of November.

I'm picking the novel back up. It only has 30,000 words to it. A little more than that, actually, but not by much. I want to find my creative drive again. I want to get this story told, about the daughter of a necromancer, the science-minded son of a mage, a shadow dragon and his family.

If I can do this, if I can finish this novel without falling behind the curve (some allowance will be made over Thanksgiving as we're hosting it this year) then I will allow myself something else: the attempt to get into nursing school. If I can't keep up the energy and drive to stay ahead of the daily word count, to finish this novel, then I can't keep up with the demands of nursing school. If I want to go, I'll get this done.

So take a break from a month-long parade of anti-pink, and expect updates to be more sparse this month. What does come across this blog will very likely pertain to writing woes.

And in case you're a fellow NaNo'er, my pen name on the boards is Zanne Chaos.

October 16: Ways To Help

So your friend or loved one has been diagnosed with Metastatic Breast Cancer. What can you do to help?

1) Don't tell them to be brave. Chances are, they're putting on a braver face than you can imagine because they don't want to worry you. Actually, go read (or re-read) the four-part entry on what not to say (Oct 8-11, 2014)

2) Ask what you can do to help... and follow through. If they answer and it's in your abilities, you made the offer. Nothing stinks more than being offered help, and having that help disappear when specifics come up.

3) Offer to do housework. Especially if they're undergoing radiation or chemotherapy, they might want to be able to clean the kitchen or do laundry, but lack the energy.

4) Make up casseroles that freeze and reheat well. First, be sure to account for their personal tastes and any weird taste glitches that treatment has brought up. For the last few rounds of my chemotherapy, I could not stand the taste of meat, especially chicken and seafood.

5) Find out if there's any supply they're going through quickly, and pick up some extra and surprises them. I went through boxes of tissue rapidly while on chemo due to increased sinus drainage and nosebleeds. I also started going through bottles of RealLemon juice, added to my water, since I could no longer stand the taste of plain water. I also snacked on dried, sweetened ginger candy to keep the nausea at bay.

6) Offer to drive them to and from chemotherapy and radiation appointments. If they need a ride or have been driving themselves, offer to help share the burden so they can rest on the way home. Plus, the company during infusion can be nice to have.

7) If they have a caretaker, ask the caretaker what you can do to help them. Sometimes the best way to help a cancer patient is to help the people already helping them.

8) Let them talk to you about what they're feeling. If they're having a bad day, let them vent without panicking that they're giving up. Avoid giving them empty platitudes, just give them an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on.

9) Spend time with them. If they're currently in active treatment, they might not be up for going out and doing very much. Coming over and watching a movie with them and just spending time with them can be priceless, especially with how little time we might have left.

10) Offer to accompany them to doctor appointments and take notes. It's hard to listen and remember everything that's said, especially with chemobrain being a thing. It's difficult to pay attention and take notes while interacting with the doctor, and having an impartial pair of ears listening can be a real boon.

For even more ideas, check out 44 Ways to Make the Day of Someone With Cancer by Elana Miller MD.

Wedding: A Recap

As I write this, I'm snacking on dipped pretzels provided by Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory as wedding favors. They're good.

It's Monday night. well, technically, Tuesday morning. Twenty-four hours ago, I was collapsed exhausted in a very comfortable bed at the Hampton Inn, recovering from a day which, for me, began at four in the morning. I've been waking up at that time for the last week and a half to take my antibiotic, which has me accustomed to the routine. It was only two hours before the alarm would go off and I couldn't fall back asleep, so I decided the hell with it and got up.

We left shortly before 8:30 to stop to get a newspaper which had an article about us in it, and some drinks for the trip, then picked up a friend on the way out of town. We went to the Hampton Inn for early check-in, meeting the wedding planner, and got our first glimpse of where we'd spend the night. We were then given the jewelry donated by Rhylan Lang. One necklace was a pendant, the other was a strand of three. They went beautifully with our dresses. The pendant matched the gemwork on my dress's bodice, and the three-strand one matched the drape of Jen's gown.

Then we went to the reception hall and got a preview of that, and boarded the party bus for Council Bluffs. At the EQ School of Hair Design, the bridesmaids all got dressed while the instructor, Margi, herself a two-time breast cancer survivor, helped me with my wig and styled in the veil and tiara. Christine from Blush Makeup Artistry painted up my face. I was airbrushed, such a weird sensation, and I wore false eyelashes for the first time.

Christine, myself, and Margi

The bridesmaids all had their hair and makeup done after, while the rest of the party bus riders relaxed in the salon with snack sacks my mother put together and brought to the salon for everyone.

The wedding party plus Kim at the salon

After that was done, we all boarded the bus again and headed to Willow Creek Glass Chapel. We got lost once and had to turn around, and it was well off the beaten path on gravel roads which kicked up a ton of dust. Because some windows were open due to the warm temperatures, everyone at the back of the bus got covered in dust.

Jen and I got changed into our gowns after we got there, and donned the jewelry and posed for pictures. While standing around and trying to walk in them, my pumps rubbed the sides of my feet raw so I ended up abandoning them for the actual ceremony, especially since I had to go up and down several steps without a railing, which isn't easy for me to do.

Aside from the shoes, the ceremony went beautifully. Once we were done and out, we boarded the bus again for a much longer trip, without any stops this time, for the reception hall.

From L to R: Caity, Micchi, Rebecca F., me, Jen, Sara, Amanda, Rebecca H.

 Dinner was excellent and for the first time in my life I had a potato salad I liked. Sweet potato salad. Then we cut the cake.

After the cake came the first dance. The song we picked dropped the F-bomb a few times, but it was so perfectly us we had to use it. Here's To Us by Halestorm.

We danced the Time Warp, we were given a bottle of homemade mead from a friend, everything went perfectly. There were a few minor bumps here and there, we were devoured by mosquitoes during the photo shoots, and I have not been that physically active in a long time and I felt like a giant bruise by the end of the night, but it was beautiful and perfect and we loved it.

Cake was chocolate, the cupcakes were raspberry

Wedding Day!

This is scheduled to be posted automatically during the time of the wedding. I want to thank everyone for making this day possible.

First, thanks goes to Wish Upon A Wedding, because without them, none of this would be happening.

To Cindy Lange-Kubick of the Lincoln Journal-Star, for running a feature in today's paper to highlight Wish Upon A Wedding and the awesome people who made everything happen.

To Tina Schneckloth, my wedding planner from Kimera Wedding & Events, for all of her hard work getting everything coordinated and on board with this event. She's the reason everything is going so smoothly. And an extra thanks to Jen from Cherry On Top Events for helping Tina set everything up today and your assistance in seeing that it all runs like clockwork.

To the Willow Creek Glass Chapel and the Millard Plaza Ballroom for hosting the Ceremony and Reception, respectively.

To Shari from I Choose You Ceremonies for officiating the wedding, and writing up a beautiful ceremony for this special day.

To Andrea Erickson, for lending your powerful voice to a performance of Shania Twain's "From This Moment On" during the processional.

By Marla Austin Photography

To Scott from A Joyful Rose DJ Service for providing the music throughout the wedding and the reception, and having even a few obscure songs we wanted.

To Marla Austin from Marla Austin Photography for the beautiful pictures taken for the engagement and the wedding itself.

To Cali from A Sound Impression for the wonderful engagement video and the videography of the wedding and reception.

To Blush Makeup Artistry and the EQ School of Hair Design for doing the entire wedding party's makeup and hair, and working with my wig so I can wear my veil.

To Rhylan Lang for the stunning bridal jewelry gifted to the two of us to help make the day even more special (and sparkly!)

To Corum's Flowers and Gifts and Country Elegance for the flowers and decorations for the chapel and reception hall.

To the KROC Center Catering for a delicious meal, and to The Cake Gallery for a gorgeous wedding cake. A tasty note to a wonderful day from the both of them.

To M&M Advertising for the beautiful invitations, to Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory for the wedding favors, and to Memories For Life for the guestbook.

To Jone-Z Party Bus for the transportation to and from the chapel, and finally to the Hampton Inn and Suites for providing a room for Jen and I after the reception so we might have a chance to unwind in private. (We have 3 out of town guests currently staying with us over the week around the wedding)

It's an incredible day and it wouldn't be what it is without the contributions and help from each and every one of you. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for this, and may the coverage send paying customers your way. That's the gift I have in return for everyone's amazing generosity.

One Week

So my parents were here, and Mom found a roller brush that's an easy way to get cat hair off the sofa and loveseat. She also cleaned the carpets and did some laundry, and helped me organize my closet. (She's brilliant at that) And we did a final dress fitting for both Jen's and my dresses. The straps my Grandma made for my gown needed the placement verified, and she had taken it in a bit too much and it had to be let out. So both dresses are off to Ohio with them to be finished and de-wrinkled.

Grandma and I hemming the dress

It's the right length now. It had to be hemmed by quite a bit, so Grandma used the fabric from hemming it to make the straps. I wanted something to help disguise the port bump in my chest. The scar I'm fine with, but the port bump is a little weird. The straps don't quite cover it, but it's far less noticeable than it would have been had we left the gown strapless.

We're not wearing traditional dresses, neither of us are crazy about wearing white since it seems to add pounds, visually, so we went with evening gowns that flatter us. Jen's is raspberry pink and sparkly and gorgeous. It's a hard color to match though, so I went with gray to compliment it. The bridesmaids are wearing black floor-length dresses. Not all of them are evening gowns, but they're all black floor-length and they flatter them.

The bouquets will have ribbons with the Metavivor colors, and the necklaces for the bridesmaids will have the Metavivor charm. I've mentioned this before.

One more week. Caity and her boyfriend are flying into Omaha on Tuesday and we'll go pick them up. On Wednesday, Micchi's flying in to Lincoln - an easier pickup. On Saturday, Rebecca, Sara, and Becky are arriving, and Amanda lives in Lincoln already. If Becky ends up staying with her mother instead of at an Omaha hotel, she'll be able to join in the festives on Saturday afternoon/evening. Grilling hot dogs, watching movies, getting our nails done. If they all show up, I can give them their Attendant gifts. Hmm. I think I'll do that anyway, even if Becky can't make it. I'll give her the gift on Sunday if she stays in Omaha. That would make for less things to keep track of.

In other news, I found out something new. Apparently I do have a family history of breast cancer. My great-grandma Timbrook had breast cancer and a mastectomy. I barely remember her. I barely remember my great-grandpa Timbrook. They both passed on when I was pretty little. But she's the only person in the family I'm related to that has had breast cancer.

This doesn't really change anything, except I need to go through all of October's posts and make corrections if this comes up. I might just wait for the posts to go live and then review them before I share the link on Facebook.

But a single great-grandma who had it is not a strong history. It doesn't change that I'm BRCA 1 & 2 mutation negative. But it's a bit of a relief to know I'm not the only one in my family who's had it. I have enough of being the only one with things in my family. I'm the only one in my immediate family (first cousins included) who's gay, I'm the only one who's deaf, and I'm the only one who has Vitamin D Deficiency Syndrome. (My body doesn't produce enough Vitamin D on its own, I need to take supplements, and without it, my bones won't absorb calcium properly and if I get too much calcium in relation to Vitamin D, I can end up with kidney stones.) But I am NOT the only one with breast cancer. Never mind I'm the only cousin who was alive when she was. Not the point.

In preparation for October, I have some blog entries incoming from guests, the deadline I gave is October 3rd, because I'm a Fullmetal Alchemist nerd. That's also the day I'm having my other tooth extracted. If I don't get things until the third, I'll work on getting them formatted over the weekend. They won't run  until the later part of the month, so I'll have time. And I'll also have time to figure out what to do if I don't get all the days filled.

And even more teeth problems

Seriously. More teeth problems. I just had a molar in my lower right jaw removed due to an abscess on Friday. By Sunday a molar in my upper left that the dental bridge is attached to started hurting. I went into the dentist today and found out it's forming a abscess there too. Really? Really? Really?

That's me and my teeth. Seriously, e-fucking-nough. So now instead of just a follow-up on Friday, I get a follow-up and a consultation for another extraction. The dentist prescribed an antibiotic for the infection, and hopefully that will manage the pain until I can get this damn thing removed, which very likely won't be until after the wedding. Why this month of all months? This is ricockulous!

As it is, the prescription hasn't hit the pharmacy yet so we're still waiting on that, and it'll take a projected 36 hours before it starts working. 

In other news, I've discovered that there is currently no live-chat peer-led breast cancer support group that is accessible to the deaf or hard of hearing community. Every single one is telephone-based. Even the ones that allow for video still require a telephone connection. I've been talking with an administrator at the Young Survival Coalition about using the forum's chatroom for a deaf-accessible peer-led breast cancer support group at 7pm Central Time, the 4th Monday of every month.

I know I'm not the only deaf person with breast cancer out there, and there's a distinct lack of accessibility for the average deaf person. Hopefully I can help change that.

Getting closer to the big day

My tooth extraction yesterday went smoothly. The Tramadol I'm already on, coupled with Tylenol, is doing its job of keeping the post-op pain at bay. It's making me nod off quite a bit though. I normally only take Tramadol before bed to stave off arthritis pain in my lower back. I know it is arthritis and not bone mets because the arthritis was confirmed and diagnosed with X-rays a couple of years prior to the breast cancer diagnosis, and it hasn't changed or moved. The Tramadol also helps with joint pain brought on by the Femara.

It is now exactly 15 days before the wedding. The itinerary for the wedding day has been written up, a fine piece of time management by my wedding planner, Tina. She's following up on a few more things for me, and Jen needs to finish setting the reception music with the DJ, Scott. The cake, the catering, the flowers, the decorations, all that's finalized and will be ready to go. I'm super-grateful to all these people who are volunteering their time, energy, and resources to make this a special day.

The Best Maid, Sara, has put together gift bags for the wedding party. It was her idea. She suggested something, I brought up something else, and it snowballed into a project she's enjoyed doing. She's a rockstar. She's also putting together an in-case-of-anything emergency bag with the Matron of Honor, my BFF, Rebecca. Rebecca is also in charge with making any necessary phone calls on the wedding day and helping me transport people to and from the reception.

METAvivor Ribbon Charm

Sara made beaded necklaces with the Metavivor ribbon attached as a charm, and my bridesmaid, Micchi, made matching earrings to go with the necklaces. These are just some of the goodies included in the wedding party gift bags.

Speaking of gift bags, my mother is having fun planning and putting together snack lunch bags for everyone who'll be riding on the Jone-Z Party Bus from the reception hall parking lot, to the chapel, and back again, since there'll be a layover around lunchtime at the hair salon where the party's getting hair and makeup done. These bags will include a variety of treats, ranging from healthy (and low-carb) options to indulgent, and include a bottle of water and wet wipes for cleanup. She's also bringing up some local soda water from Texas, fifteen bottles in a cooler, for people who want something other than water to drink.

All this activity and the prospect of a lot of people is triggering Jen's anxiety disorder, so Sara and I, along with Jen's "sister", Kim, are plotting ways to keep the attention off her and keeping her from getting overstimulated and having a meltdown.  My own anxiety disorder is far more mild and tends to present itself when I don't have a lot going on to occupy my attention.

As far as the plans for Pinktober go, I've got almost all the days filled. I'm holding off on writing any more posts to see what my guest bloggers will produce, along with an interview from someone at Metavivor.  I think I have the hang of this queued posts thing figured out, and I'm looking forward to seeing these going live. I think it will be a good month for everyone reading. I'll have a new tag, Pinktober, for all the posts for the month.

Still Waters

You know what they say. Still waters run deep. Right now I haven't been updating the blog because, well, I've been updating the blog. I have over twenty entries queued up to be published, one per day, throughout the month of October. I'm not done. I want to have one post for every day. I have a couple incoming guest posts (hopefully) and at least one interview with someone at METAvivor, hopefully two. (I haven't heard back from one of the ladies I've asked yet)

I also started a Facebook page specifically for this blog, for a few reasons. One, so people don't have to friend me (and vice versa) just to be notified when I update, and two, so I don't end up spamming my wall with posts, especially in October when I'll be sharing one post a day. You can find and like it at Metathriving on Facebook.

Things are falling into place for the wedding, along with an upcoming interview with Cindy Lange-Kubick of the Lincoln Journal Star which will focus on Wish Upon A Wedding, and run in the Sunday edition the day of the wedding, September 28th. I'll be sure to post a link as soon as I can, which probably won't be until the Monday after.

The sample demo our wedding planner put together

 

We have the catering menu selected. The two main dishes will be Madeira Chicken (Pan seared chicken breast kissed with a shitake mushroom Madeira sauce) and Pork Loin Roulade (Apple, cranberry, sage stuffing, cider-juniper veloute). Jen is getting the chicken, and I'm eyeing that pork loin hungrily. The cake will be a single layer cake with cupcake tiers, with dove cake toppers and decorated with snowflakes. This is a nod to both our deities. Jen is a daughter of Loki, who, according to Norse mythology, is a Frost Giant. (No, that's not just a Marvel movie thing, and in the myths, he's Odin's oath brother, not Thor's adopted brother. Marvel takes a lot of creative liberties with the myths) And I follow Yeshua, hence the doves.

We have a great DJ who Jen is working with to create the soundtrack for the evening. Our song of choice for the first dance is a bit unusual, but the song fits us so well. "Here's To Us" by Halestorm.

Stuck it out this far together
Put our dreams through the shredder
Let’s toast cause things got better
and everything could change like that
And all these years go by so fast
But nothing lasts forever

Here's to us
Here's to love
All the times
That we messed up
Here's to you
Fill the glass
Cause the last few nights
Have kicked my ass
If they give you hell
Tell em to go fuck themselves
Here's to us
Here's to us

Like I said, it's not a traditional choice, but it suits us and our history. That's more important than picking out some overplayed pop or country song because it's "typical". This is our wedding, and we want it to reflect us.

To recap, if you want to be notified of updates to the blog and you're on facebook, you can Like the page Metathriving. I also have a Twitter, and I try to remember to link updates there as well.

Dental Woes and Whatnot

When I was four, I contracted bacterial meningitis. To save my life, I was given some powerful antibiotics that worked, but at the cost of destroying my enamel. This resulted in yellowing teeth and getting cavities and abscesses at the drop of a hat. Not to put too fine a point on it, my teeth look like a meth user's, so my mother and I have been looking into dental implants. I've been appointment-hopping, getting consults, and it turns out I currently have an abscessed molar that needs to be taken care of before I can even begin thinking about consults for implants. Fortunately, it doesn't hurt, probably because there's nothing opposite of it to aggravate it. The molar on the top got abscessed a while before my cancer diagnosis, and that's when I got a few fun facts about me confirmed.

1) My veins are shite. It took seven tries to get an IV working, and all the other attempts resulted in my veins blowing out. As a result, I spent the next couple weeks looking like I'd been battered.

2) Locals do absolutely nothing for me. After they tried - and failed - to get an IV line going for IV sedation, they switched to locals to see if anything would work. I've not had good experience with getting locals to work, and this time was no exception. The first one did work, for all of 10 minutes. The second one just made my face numb, and had the fun perk of worsening the toothache pain to the top of the pain scale. (This crisis was ultimately resolved by admitting me into the hospital and someone there was finally able to get an IV going on me, and I was put under general anesthesia for the extraction)

This means any major dental work done on me has to be done by a place that 1) does adult IV sedation and 2) accepts Medicaid. There's a grand total of one place that fits that bill, the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. I have an appointment for a tooth extraction on the 12th of September, a few weeks before the wedding. And Jen has to drive me home since they're doing IV sedation, and she loathes driving in Omaha, especially in unfamiliar areas. This is going to be exciting.

Also, this is a teaching hospital. I think that's why the medical team was so ridculously excited to learn that I had a medical port to use instead of getting an IV in my arm. I'm sure a lot of that is because it's easier, but I'm not so sure there wasn't an element of "SHINY TECHNOLOGY!" going on there too. Most people coming in for dental work aren't going to have that.

I'm just glad that this tooth hasn't started hurting and even more that it didn't start hurting during chemo, which is hard on the teeth too. It would have been harder to get dental work done while undergoing chemo. There are false teeth of near-denture quality that can be used to give a cosmetic appearance of having nice teeth at a fraction of the cost of dentures, so I'm going to try that out for the wedding pics. You can't eat with them on, and I'm not sure how comfortable they'd be overall, but I've seen good reviews. There's a reason I smile with my mouth closed in pictures. I laugh too much to be able to remember to keep my mouth closed, which is why my mom's helping me get implants, or if I'm not a good candidate, proper dentures. It would be nice to be done with this tooth business.

In the meantime, I have other things in the works. YSC will be featuring me in an article they're going to publish on October 13, the National Breast Cancer Awareness Day. I'll post a link to it when it goes live. I'm also being interviewed by the local newspaper for an article about Wish Upon a Wedding. The journalist doing the story wants to be able to publish it on the Sunday of the wedding, September 28. I'll post a link to that article as well.

Another metster who has a blog of her own is going to be running guest articles for the month of October, and I've submitted an entry of my own to Telling Knots. I plan to try to post every day in the month of October with information about metastatic breast cancer to fight against the pinkwashing of Pinktober. I'm also using a breeding sim site I'm active on (Wajas) as a way to spread awareness. I have two customs with the Metavivor ribbon colors that I've bred for pups that I'll be selling for game-site currency in October, with a big sales post promoting them and featuring information and links about metastatic breast cancer. To help drum up more awareness, people can buy a pup for only 40k, which is stupidly cheap in site currency, to represent the 40,000 people who die each year from metastatic breast cancer if they post in the thread sharing something that they learned about MBC, forcing them to read the information provided, and also if they pledge to spread MBC awareness to counter the pinkwashing.

One of the pups I bred for myself, fairly identical to how her parents look.

I'm not going to be thrown under the bus, or swept under the rug, and forgotten about in the wave of Pink, Hope, and Cure this October. I'm gonna make some noise.

Scanxiety

I went through one PET scan prior to starting treatment, and that, along with some biopsies, confirmed the spread to my lymph nodes under my left arm, and to one spot in my liver. I was metastatic from diagnosis, and I started chemotherapy almost immediately. From December 10 to May 13, I never missed a single three-week-on, one-week-off chemo infusion. I had several CT scans during my weeks off, and they all said the same thing: each scan revealed the tumors had been reduced since the last scan. The chemotherapy was very effective in obliterating the tumor in my  breast and under my arm, and almost wiped out what was in my liver.

But I was starting to show the strain from cytotoxic treatment, I was becoming more wan, growing weaker, more bad days than good. It was time, my oncologist decided, to give me a break from chemo and try a different approach.

I'd like to take a moment to underline something here. He decided to give me a break from chemotherapy. Not end. I was not finished with chemotherapy. I would have to resume it someday in the future, but for now, he wanted to try to maintain it with anti-hormonal medication and keep it stable.

If it worked.

For several months, I received a once-monthly Zoladex injection to the abdomen, and every night without fail, took a Femara pill. Their purpose was to block all estrogen in my body, to put me in a chemical menopause, to starve the ER/PR positive cancer cells and keep them from growing. The question was if it would work at all.

Because it's not a matter of if it fails. It's a matter of when. We could only hope that it would work for a long while, and we didn't know if it would, or how well it would work.

August 19th was my first CT scan since then. It was early Tuesday morning. I had until Friday afternoon to get the results. Those hours in between became agony as I logged into my patient portal, only to find the results weren't posted yet. In the past, they were usually up in a day or two. Why weren't they up yet? Was it because there were bad results and they wanted to wait until my oncologist had a chance to break the news? What was going on? Would I have progression? Was the cancer growing despite the drugs? Would I have to go back on chemo? Maybe I just needed an increase in dosage of my current drugs. Would I have to have another biopsy to find out if I was still ER/PR positive? I know that sometimes tumor cells can change on you, and what's positive can become negative. What was going on?

I tried to sleep and would end up staring at the wall, holding my pillow in a death grip, my heart racing. I took maybe one or two Ativan more than I should, just to keep the anxiety from becoming a full-blown panic attack. Friday came and I logged back into the patient portal, expecting to see the results now. Still nothing. The hours crawled by until it was time to go to the appointment.

I popped another Ativan.

I was going to stop at the in-clinic pharmacy to have my Femara refilled while I was in my appointment, but my partner stopped me, pointing out that we didn't know what we'd find when we went in there, if he'd even keep me on the same medications at all.

Finally we were back in the exam room and my oncologist walked in. I stepped in with a few idle chatter comments, asking him how he was, that sort of thing, in an effort to not appear too anxious. He saw right through it, and I blurted it out less than a minute in. What were my results?

I was stable. No sign of progression. The Femara and Zoladex were working.

"I'm doing fine, then?" I asked him.

"No," he replied. "You're doing great. Fine is just average. You're doing better than average."

I told him I was glad to hear that, because I wanted to be around when Mars One puts the first humans on Mars in 2025.

I'm stable. It's working. Maybe it's just for now, but for now, damnitall, it's working. And it's brilliant.

The relief meant the Ativan no longer had to work to keep me calm, so when I got home, I went to bed and actually slept.

PSA

So I have it on good authority that my choices for background music for my funeral viewing suck. No Jpop for me. All the cries. ;_;

Oh, well. I suppose when it comes to music, I really should listen to the person who 1) will be there to listen to it and 2) can actually HEAR the music in the first place.

Funeral viewings aren't exactly the place for peppy, perky songs sung in Japanese. Gosh darn it all to heck.

And I accidentally resolved my dilemma about when to share this blog with Jen by sharing it on FetLife in a comment on the Breast Cancer Suvivor/Support group and she saw my comment show up on her feed.

Oops. Oh, well. That solved that problem, I guess.

And yeah, I'm on FetLife. I have all the sexual drive of a rock thanks to the medications, but the snark groups there (like Spectators Only, No Participants and Profile Pitfalls) are always good for a laugh. Oh noes. The world knows I have a passing interest in Kink (and yes, oh god yes, it predates 50 Shades of Utter Crap) however shall I cope.

yes, basically.

In other news, Mom's getting me my first pedicure tomorrow. We shall see how this adventure goes. Related, I have two new pairs of shoes. A pair of gray peek toe pumps, and a pair of black solid toe pumps. They are surprisingly comfortable for my feet not wearing anything but sandals in forever.

I also picked up some new ecig juice to try. Bavarian Cream. Mmmmmmmmm.

What's been up lately

On May 13th, I had my last chemo infusion for the time being.  I'm on Zoladex and Femara. There's no evidence of a tumor in my breast, and the liver tumor is 0.2cm in size.

I'm having post-chemo blues, as I've mentioned in another post. I don't feel like I should be having blues because I'm getting married.

I was accepted by Wish Upon A Wedding. Sept. 28, Jen and I will get married. Probably in Omaha.

I want to write a long post gushing about this but right now there's not too many details set in stone. We meet with the wedding planner on the 11th. I'll probably have something to gush about after that. Right now I'm still in the in-between doldrums and binging on Grey's Anatomy on Hulu.

Laurel and Hardy from Acme Shipping Company

Yesterday, we went to the house to take some more things over - like video game consoles - since it's supposed to be rainy today. We get there, and there are two big boxes by our front door. One was tall and skinny, and I'll call it Laurel. The other was short and fat, and that's Hardy.

Laurel was maybe four feet tall and for feet wide, but only about six inches deep. Hardy was three feet deep, and three feet tall, while being four feet long. The markings on the box indicate that it might be the bed my parents ordered off Amazon for their room in the new house.

Thing is, they ordered a queen, and there's nothing queen-sized about either boxes. Not to mention the bed was supposed to be delivered Saturday the 15, not Monday the 10th. But damn, they were heavy. We somehow managed to struggle them in the front door, where I promptly attacked them with box cutters to find out what in sam hill was going on.

Laurel was a queen sized box spring, compressed and folded in half. Hardy was the mattress itself, folded and rolled up like a cinnamon roll without the icing.

This is where the Acme Shipping company comes in. Itty bitty (in comparison) boxes, get them open and the product out, and boom, it explodes into full-size. Straight out of Looney Tunes.

The box spring, unfolded and expanded, is very normal and queen-sized and sturdy. The mattress held no creases that one might expect from a mattress being folded and squished, and was rather comfortable when I collapsed on it after we finished fighting with everything.

WHO SHIPS A BED IN LITTLE BOXES? Acme and apparently Amazon. Or maybe Amazon has been Acme all along. WHO KNOWS. I never would have been able to get it inside without Jen's help, and I'm just as glad that it came yesterday and not today. Not only is it supposed to rain today, but I have chemo today. And did I mention them's were some heavy fuckers? Have you ever lifted a queen sized mattress? Have you tried lifting one that was devoid of air and compressed denser than a black hole? I can say I have.

It rolled into the bedroom nicely though, before I took off the tape and overwrap paper. The box spring was bubble-wrapped.

Well, between the bubble wrap and overwrap, that solves my problem of what I'm going to use to wrap my big, good lamp in for the move, I guess. The boxes, unfortunately, could not be salvaged and repurposed for the move. I had to cut them up too much just to get stuff out, and they were already starting to show signs of extreme wear and were filthy to boot.

Why are UPS boxes almost always covered with a layer of dusty grime? Nasty.

But there is a bed, and it came in a box. For a brief bit of time yesterday, my life took a turn into Looney Tunes land.  I can now say I fully sympathize with Eddie Valiant. ~ Smile, darn ya, smile! You know this old world is a great world after all. Smile, darn ya, smile! And right away watch "Lady Luck" pay you a call. Things are never black as they are painted, time for you and joy to get acquainted. Make life worthwhile, come on and smile, darn ya, smile! ~

Busy!

Oh, man. Trying to pack and do chemo in the same week is exhausting. It's like this mountain of work, and I feel like I've only traveled a couple feet up, but damn, them's some hard feet. I did get some new things for the house (a socket adapter for the laundry room light bulb, a curtain rod for the bathroom, a box cutter, a couple ultra-absorbent dish mats, a new sheet/pillowcase set, some more water pitcher filters, dish soap, dishwasher soap, paper towels, plastic storage bins I can use for packing and later for storage, 9v batteries for the smoke detectors, and a new outlet surge protector for the bedroom since the one I have now is getting old and plugs are falling out.) and moved a few things from the apartment to there, mostly working on really fragile breakables that I don't want jostled around any more than absolutely necessary.

But that means numerous trips up and down 2 flights of stairs and that's steadily becoming more difficult. I can't be out of here fast enough at this rate.

I won't have to do the packing all by my lonesome - Mom's coming up from Texas to start helping on the 17th or thereabouts. I just have some stuff that I'd rather take care of myself before she gets here. And the place is so messy it's hard to know where to start with packing. I should clean up.

I need to get more things over there tomorrow, and I have all of next week to do that. But I can only do a little at a time, not the way I used to, so I won't be able to get as much done as I would have in the past, and that frustrates me. Especially because the biggest part slowing me down is navigating those stairs multiple times a day in the process. I am so done with those stairs. They weren't that much of a problem for me before chemo, even though I'd bitch and moan about them from time to time, but I could handle it. It's getting harder the more fatigued I become.

Jen's parents are giving us their old washer and dryer, along with their old fridge. So we'll have two fridges, one'll be kept in the garage for extra space so we can buy in bulk a bit easier. Not sure when we'll be getting those in, but that will also help, no more lugging loads of laundry up and down the stairs and trips to the laundromat.

Tomorrow, I suspect I'm going to feel even more like a giant, beat-up bruise than I normally do, and I'm still planning to try to make myself Do Things. We'll see how that goes.

*bell rings* Round Four!

I start Round 4 of Taxol today. I have 9 more infusions left to go counting the one I get today. (If I said 12 elsewhere, it's because I can't math). I'm going to push for surgery afterward, especially to have the tumor examined to make sure it's still ER/PR+ and Her2- before we begin hormonal therapy.

I'm also going to talk about NOT getting Tamofaxin, because I've read that it interacts poorly with Prozac, which I need to keep my brain from going loopy-depressed. I've battled chronic depression all my life.

Kohl's is still using the stupid Pink Elephant campaign despite now being fully aware they are co-opting METAvivor's campaign. We're still doing Occupy #TalkPink on twitter, and I'm trying to get some other #Talks off the ground, like #TalkMets, and #TalkBlue (for male BC) and #TalkIBC (for inflammatory breast cancer). It's slow, but it seems to be picking up.

Today's a busy day. I ended up with an extra Metastatic Navigator kit from YSC, and I'm meeting with my Nurse Navigator at the cancer center today to hand the extra one over to her to pass it on to someone else who could use it.

I also will probably find out if I'm getting a house. My parents are going in on renting a place with me, my partner, and our roommate so they have a place to stay with us when they visit instead of hotels and can help take care of things around the house if I need it. We found the absolutely most perfect place ever. Cross your fingers and say your prayers that we get this place. I will cry so hard if we don't. Please let something go right.

EDIT: WE GOT THE HOUSE!!!!!!!!!

I'm lucky my parents are finally in a financial place in their lives to do this, and I'm doubly lucky that they accept the fact their only child is gay, and accept my partner as their own daughter. My partner's parents are pretty supportive too, although my MiL is still pretty resistant to it most of the time. She bounces back and forth. My FiL is awesome. We're damned lucky.

My partner, Jen, is slowly coming to terms with this. It scares and depresses her, and she's taking it harder overall than I am. I haven't shared this blog with her yet because I don't feel she's ready. It took me a while to get to a place where I felt ready to discuss my own mortality.

I love her dearly. She's my light and my always. We've been together seven years this January, and still going strong. The early years were the hardest, before we got a clear diagnosis for her own health problems and got her on medication which stabilized it. Her health problems fall under the medical end of psychological, along with severe anxiety disorder, so it doesn't help her in getting to where she can handle my diagnosis easily. She's getting there though, and I'm so proud of her. I'm so in love with her. I'm so lucky to have her in my life.

Daily Living

There. Now that today's bit of morbidness is out of the way, time for something lighter. Thriving is not obsessing over dying, after all. (It is, however, geeking out over tunes, a couple of those songs which didn't seem to rhyme were actually just the English translation of the Japanese lyrics. Yes, I want anime music at my visitation. I'm too much a nerd not to have that.)

My parents are in town for a short visit, and they are too damned generous. Our bed broke a while back - the frame got pulled out of alignment and the box spring fell off and snapped. I was going to order a new bed off Overstock when my tax refund came in, but it was on sale at an even lower price than what it already was. (500 for a rather nice Serta mattress and box spring set, on sale for 400, and with free delivery that includes the delivery carrying the mattress up the stairs, taking our old one out, and setting up the new one for us.) So Mom ordered it for us, as a gift. A new comfortable bed to replace our 14 year old mattress. Hooray!

We went out yesterday to Cheddar's for a nice lunch and then hung out at their hotel for a little bit and exchanged presents. I got my mom a lovely spirit wings pink ribbon shirt, and my dad a Tough Guys Wear Pink shirt. Today, they picked us up and we went to Red Robin for lunch, and then over to GNS Vapor for me and Mom to get ourselves some more ecig juice. I had them whip me up a custom blend - chocolate and strawberries. It's delicious! Mom bought a bottle of my go-to favorite, Chocolate Candy Cane, for herself, and a new tank.

Then we hung out in the hotel a bit more today, and tomorrow I'm picking up Dad and we're going into Seward to get insurance for my car from a local company, switching away from Allstate. Suhr and Lichty are good, I've been told, and the rate they're quoting me is even better than what I'm paying Allstate right now, so that'll save me some money.

Dad gave me some more money, bless him, and I'm going to use some of that to apply to the Bryan School of Nursing. Wish me luck!