So, this week is...this week, with links.

Friday of last week, barn time.  I gave the pony a manly war braid thing to get his mane pulled up off his neck because it's so long and thick.

Saturday, found out there's a lady who boards her horses at the small horse farm around the corner.  She does Very Reasonably Priced Lessons, as in VERY reasonably priced.  Score!

Sunday, laundry.

Monday, picked up trash along the fence line at the small horse farm around the corner and spoke with the lady who does reasonably priced lessons and handed out carrot bites.  Score!  

Tuesday, went to small show barn and had some social time with some of the show horses.  With the heat being as bad as it is, grooming is more of a challenge than when it's cooler, so I only managed to get one horse groomed well before I needed to leave to run some errands and pick up Football Monkey.  Still a score.

Today, well, what can I say about today?  It was strange.  Some of the people I know online have had metsters they knew who died earlier this week.  It fucking sucks.  I fucking hate it for them.  This disease fucking wrecks lives.  I also had to ponder an NCBI release of information regarding HER2+ and HER2- cancers.  Evidently, there isn't long term tracking done, so the statistics are fucked regarding how those like me are actually doing long term.  I also found out that regarding mets, what is of most concern for me is the potential of mets to my liver and brain for twelve fucking years.  Twelve.  And yes, that's going according to the statistics presented.  (Where people pull the "magic" five years out of their asses as a "safety" zone regarding HER2 cancers, I have no fucking clue, but it pisses me off.  I want to print this shit out and put it under my onc's nose and tell him I'm not stupid and that I don't appreciate not being told about this stuff.  To be fair, he's not the one who was such a dill hole to me when I did chemo, but at the same time, I'll never really trust him because he's a doctor and he probably is under the grossly mistaken impression/opinion that I was already "informed" about this stuff when I was in chemo, which I was not.)

This is a lovely post about the Mythical Cancer Warrior.  The phrase, "Mythical Cancer Warrior" reminds me of the typical over done trope (perspective) about cancer  by the non-cancer civilians.  I greatly appreciated reading this post and wanted to share it here, since my readership seems to have picked up.

I Can Pretend by the Cancer Curmudgeon and the reality of this shit.  She so articulately states what so many of us are thinking/encountering at any give time when dealing with the shit storm that cancer is.

And here's how a Molecular Biologist explains how THC kills cancer.  Gosh, you'd think using something like that to cure cancer without fucking up people's lives and wrecking their health would be, oh, I don't know, criminal, or something.  JS

In spite of the heat, today definitely falls into the category of amazing barn time.  While I managed to groom only one horse, I had the amazing experience of being on the receiving end of not one, but two hugs from two different horses.  If any of you readers are familiar with the body language of horses, you'll know that their noses are super personal space for them.  They explore with their noses.  I eat peppermints like a fiend anytime I'm around horses and once they are interested in me, I'll exhale slowly from my mouth and let them smell the peppermint.  (Yes, horses like peppermints.  I have yet to have this fail me.)

My action is rewarded with perky happy forward ears and great interest in whatever it is I'm going to do--comb, brush, and/or braid.  I visited with one horse who I wasn't going to groom today and was standing outside his stall.  He had poked his head out of the stall to say hi to me, so I started scratching his neck.  He straightened it and leaned, so I kept scratching and moved to the other side.  He leaned on me, so I reached up around both sides of his neck as high as I could get and managed to find his happy spot on his poll, up on his neck on behind his ears.  If he was a cat, he would have gone into hyper purring mode.  He rested his head on my shoulder, the full weight of it and even pulled me a bit closer.  This is like a horse hug, for lack of a better way to put it.  I felt so privileged to have gotten that sort of acknowledgement from him.  (And for continuity's sake; Score!)

I moved along to the leggy bay mare and brushed her, worked on tidying up her wild mane, and didn't even mess with her tail.  I need to work on stepping up my game on the mane and tail detangler.  The winter/spring formula is NOT going to work during the summer.  I'm thinking aloe pureed with distilled water, white vinegar, and a couple of other things should potentially work.

There was one horse I hadn't worked on last week or earlier this week, so I tackled sorting out his mane and getting him groomed.  He leaned into the brush when I was brushing his neck, so I started scratching his neck in the same place, up on the poll.  That elicited a very soft, relaxed snort and he closed his eyes.  He sighed and leaned some more, so I went in for the ne plus ultra.  Both arms around the neck, scratching his poll, and I managed to be rewarded in the same manner.  The full head weight relaxed on my shoulder and that slight pull with the head to move me a little closer to him.  Score!  

I exited the stall and closed the door.  Then I asked him if he remembered "pretty neck" and he responded with arching his neck to show me that he did.  I told him he was a good, smart boy and was so pleasantly surprised because I hadn't asked him for "pretty neck" for several months.  He accidentally learned it back in the winter in maybe five minutes with no treats involved other than verbal praise and me petting his forehead as a reward for his effort.

Horses are amazing animals.  They are intelligent and it's so easy to understand why they are exceptional for therapy.  

Avoiding the scary chickens today?  Why yes, yes I did avoid the scary chickens.  Score!

Mostly unpacked, key word being mostly.

Yes, I know.  We've been officially moved for like six weeks now.  No, I'm not all the way mostly done done, as in the house is all neat and tidy and organized because I need a bookshelf for the books.  

The other day, I cooked a beef roast in the slow cooker with about twelve ounces of beer and it turned out rather well.

I decided it was time for some colcannon, or colcanon, if you prefer that spelling.  It was amazing, of course, and definitely one of my more favorite comfort foods.

Spent quality time with the monkeys when College Monkey was off work for two days in a row.  Best way to do that quality time thing?  Star Wars.  Yes, I raised them to be SW nerds.  It's a wonderful thing in the insanity of this day and age to be able to commune around the tv and discuss all the fun stuff that's SW related and speculate on the upcoming movies.

Football Monkey wanted to know who The Phantom Menace was.  I told him it was Jar Jar Binks.  He asked me if he was really supposed to believe that.  I said yes.  Jar Jar Binks was The Phantom Menace.

Anakin Skywalker is still a whiny bitch, always has been, always will be, except for Little Kid Anakin.  He was tolerable.  After watching the other SW movies (the originals) also, I can safely say that Luke definitely inherited that trait.  Even when the originals came out, I can definitely say that as warped as it may sound, I preferred Han to Luke, even though my cousin told me Han was "too old" for me to prefer.  I liked the idea of Han and Leia, the fangirl in me was so pleased to find out in the SWEU (INSERT GRATUITOUS SPOILER ALERT HERE) that they eventually got together.  Woot.  Han and Leia.  Awesome sauce!  (ETA:  I'm not a professional movie critic, I just like to make opinionated comments on my blog sometimes.  JS)

One of our cats resembles an Ewok.  I want a Chewbacca because then I could tell people I have a Sasquatch for a pet, even though I don't speak Shyriiwook.

On a weather related note, cooler weather is headed our way.  The geese are returning from Canada.  The Children of the Fur have been acting differently this week.  The Ewok looking cat has been super bouncily energetic, so that must mean cool weather is on the way.  This would be a good thing.  The black cat has also been on the spazzy side of energetic, so I'm thinking he will also appreciate the cooler weather.  (Now that said, keeping him out of the fireplace should be a challenge since he seems to like walking around the back of the fire screen.  Glass doors shopping at a home store, here I come, since I don't want the cat to injure himself.)

The amount of laundry I'm doing is down to one load every other day.  I'm not joking about this.  It's a glorious feeling!  The reason for that is A--ginormous washer.  B--it washes a load of laundry in fifteen minutes.  The dryer takes a few minutes longer to dry, but talk about the time I spend on laundry being minimized!  It's amazing!

So, the husband changed jobs.  Just when that was going on, I got a call from the oncology office and was told by the nurse "You have to have your appointment changed.  The doctor won't be in that week."  No, I don't HAVE to change my fucking appointment, because *I* never made the appointment to begin with, so yeah, ever so glad you decided to call me about it.  I have clearly and repeatedly stated I make my own appointments.  (If any of you readers have had a shit storm diagnosis like cancer or something devastatingly similar, you will appreciate making your own damn appointments for yourself because YOU know what's going on in your life at any given time and what your schedule/potential schedule is/could be.)  

The way it works for me is this way.  (And yes, this HAS been discussed with the oncologist, and was, in fact, his idea.)  I don't just randomly go in, see him, get orders for a scan handed to me, get get scanned, and then go back to him to get the results.  In regards to that, I think he's being reasonable, which I don't have a problem with.  Why pay for two office visits when the scan order can be faxed to whatever facility is doing the scan and then just pay for a single office visit to get the scan results from him?  Yay for the common sense factor of this oncologist--I do have an appreciation for that.  (No, that's not actual sarcasm, that's me being serious--I actually do appreciate him having discussed that with the husband and me.)

Not only that, with the job change came insurance changes, so I don't even know if the medical facility where my oncologist is takes this kind of insurance, if this insurance pays for the scans I'm supposed to have, and if the place that does the scans takes this kind of insurance.  (And I'm supposed to see the oncologist, according to what he said, once every three months.  I stretch it out closer to once every six months because I turn into this terrified, excessively stressed out insomniac who can't eat without getting sick any time this even comes up with a visit to the oncologist and/or scans.)  I know, right?  Like it's not stressful enough without having to deal with freaking insurance shit?  ZOMFG, already!

(To make it all much worse though, when the local office where my husband was employed was shut down, he lost five weeks of paid vacation.  That meant he could take off to go with me for scans and oncologist visits.  Now?  He has to work like holy fuck, a week to earn four hours of paid time off.  Now he won't be able to take off to go with me to get scanned or visit the oncologist.  I know you're probably thinking I should grow the fuck up and put on my big girl panties, but fuck, you know, any time there's a visit to the oncologist, once diagnosed, there's always the potential for Bad News.  No, that's not me looking to borrow trouble, that's just the fucking reality of a cancer diagnosis.  Once diagnosed, there's always the potential for it to return FOR ANYONE.)

I'm acquainted with some metsters and have communicated with some of them for around three and a half years now, and some are the #PINKISNOTACURE people, some aren't, but yes, I have a point to this, and that is mets.  How many of you have had it discussed with you when you were first diagnosed?  Like specifically something along the lines of, "You've been diagnosed with breast cancer.  Whatever is done to you to fix you, you need to understand there's always going to be a possibility of mets.  That is the reality of this vile disease."  

There was a discussion recently on my CB group about some things that aren't always discussed with patients.  Things like actually explaining the sort of breast cancer someone was diagnosed with, a prognosis, and...dare I say it?  Mets being a part of that discussion.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Mets.  It was certainly not discussed with me.  I'm not fucking making this shit up.

I was told the breast cancer I had was not hormone fed or driven, as some doctors say.  (I also wasn't told I would need a bilateral mastectomy done.  The entire fucking time, it was "Lumpectomy, lumpectomy, just a lumpectomy, nothing more.  Mastectomy won't be necessary, blah blah blah."  While I understood that a mastectomy might be necessary and the thought crossed my mind, everyone and their fucking brother said LUMPECTOMY.  That.  Was.  It.  

So, yeah, you can imagine the fucked-up-ness of my brain when the fucking oncologist said "Oh, I'll call the surgeon to schedule you for your mastectomy."  What the ever loving fuck all?!  Seriously?  A fucking mastectomy?  After how many months of you saying "just a lumpectomy" and nothing more?  FUCK.  So yeah, when I went to the surgeon, I said "Take them both, I will not fucking do this again and stay sane."  Yeah, I have the feeling he made me pay for the statement because he did a radical mastectomy on me.  I was lied to about that, also.  I was told it would be modified and only breast tissue would be removed.  I fucking woke up with nothing more than skin over ribs from a massive amputation on my entire chest.  Modified, my sarcastic ass.  Is it any fucking wonder I have fucking huge trust issues with anyone medical now?  (That said, Streak does have a friend who is a doctor and I'm okay with being around her because I've never seen her in doctor mode, I've only ever seen her in mom mode in tee shirts, blue jeans, and flip flops.  That, I'm totally okay with.)

Anyway, I was not given a "prognosis."  I was told if I did "treatment A" then I had an XYZ % chance of being alive in X amount of years.  If I did "treatment/protocol B" then I would have ABC Z%Z chance of being alive in Q amount of years.  The percentage between the two "options" and I use that word loosely because I didn't get to make that decision was something like a miniscule amount of maybe two percent.  When that was what I was told, it was more like "This is what you should do." without giving the husband and I an opportunity to really discuss it.  It's ridiculous how it was explained/not explained.  

At best, it's an info dump that would make any patient's head explode because of the kind of diagnosis it is, but when these medical people tell patients "I'll give you the information I think you need to know.  Any questions?"  then how the ever loving fuck all are people supposed to even know what the fuck to ask?  They aren't.  Or is that the whole point?  I can say that more than once, I would ask a specific question and be completely ignored, so what's the fucking point of asking?  Not much of one, is there?

Mets was NEVER mentioned.  The cancer emperor has no clothes?  So that's how it works?  If mets isn't mentioned to the patient, then it must mean that it won't happen to the patients who aren't told about it.  Seriously?  That kind of mentality really fucks the patient over, because it's dismissive of the importance of educating the patient about what's going on with their body.  It's basically the same shit as "Oh, you're breastfeeding your baby?  You'll never get breast cancer."  

I'm fucking serious, people.  I had more than one doctor say that to me when the monkeys were wee little critters.  That's why the shit storm diagnosis that breast cancer is came as such a huge fucking shock to me.  I wasn't aware I had any risk factors going on for breast cancer, other than I had breasts, which evidently IS a risk factor for anyone since men have breast tissue, also.  What probably did it to me was the DES I was subjected to when I was in utero, but it kind of doesn't fucking fix anything related to any of this and it sure as fuck doesn't fix the fact that anytime I would tell a doctor I was DES exposed, it was ignored. 

Why bother even making the effort to fucking communicate with medical people?  They're obviously more educated than the average patient, so they must know more even though they aren't the ones living in these bodies.  What the fuck ever.

I'll get the fuck around to finding out insurance coverage shit when I'm damn good and ready, probably not until after school starts next month.  At this point, one way or the other, it doesn't matter.

I suppose I'll be trying to cram in as much time feeding carrots to horses before the scan, after the scan, and before the visit to the oncologist.  That's the only way I'll be able to deal with the amount of stress my brain will be trying to contend with.

Here's an exciting update!

I'm digging out from under boxes from The Great Moving House Adventure (All two blocks of it--yes, you read that correctly--we moved two blocks.  LOL), although slowly, I'm still trying to get stuff sorted and organized with the unpacking.

A few weeks ago, there was an incident online which I won't even dignify with commenting about, other than to say lesson learned and after nearly twenty one years on the internet, I will remain as neutral as Switzerland.  JS  

Cancer Bitches is growing by leaps and bounds!

Cookies, I've created new ones with using my base recipe, white chocolate chips and raspberries.  People jumped on those like crazy.  Some even made it to Oklahoma City, although I think more of my lavender cookies made it there than the raspberry ones, but that's okay.  My cookies are traveling!  Next up, miniature blueberry lemon cream cuppy cakes!  (Yes, oh yes, there will be foodporn!)

The Children of the Fur like the new house.  I've acquired a couple of small baskets and they really like laying in those for some reason. 

I love living where I live.  I was out and about to pick up Football Monkey this week when I stopped by a shop in town.  At the shop next door to where I was going in, there was a man and a woman, each with a rather large blanket, running around the parking lot.  They were chasing a ginormous rooster that's evidently been running all over town for the last two weeks and nobody can catch it.  I hope they caught it because roosters are chickens and chickens are scary, although I have to say it was pretty fucking entertaining to see people chasing a rooster in town.

People are trashy.  I picked up trash from the fence line earlier this week at Mr. K's around the corner.  People are seriously trashy.  This wasn't stuff that was blown around by the wind because you know, Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plain.  This was people being too fucking lazy to ditch their trash properly and tossed it out the window.  A porn mag, seriously?  Beer bottles, water bottles, sports drink bottles, empty cigarette packs, paper soda cups.  But a porn mag?  What a fucking I can't even come up with something creative enough for that shit.

Up side?  I had carrots with me and was nicely hugged, nudged, and loved on by the horses who wanted carrot bites.  (Yes, horses can hug a human if they use their head and neck the correct way.  It's pretty awesome to be hugged by a horse.  It's probably like petting a sea turtle, dolphin, or elephant.)

Now that I've unpacked probably 3/4 of the way, I want to go back over to the small show horse barn and start grooming again, even if it's only once a week because of football going on right now.  (Note to self to avoid the scary, rabid chickens there.)

Speaking of unpacking, I found my horse cookie recipe.  This is awesome because I have peppermints and carrots and molasses and oats, so I can make horse cookies.  How fucking awesome is that, readers?  Pretty fucking awesome!

And speaking of finding my recipe, I stopped off at the local library to see if they had any interesting books available for sale.  Let me tell you, I walked out of there after having paid one USD with five books, two of which were amazingly spiffy recipe books!  I've got a wealth of new recipes to monkey around with in the kitchen and spent only twenty cents on each book!  I am sofa king awesome!

I've acquired more twit followers than I can shake a stick at, all over the world in all kinds of varying fields, and the same goes for my pinterest boards, although pinterest is now wanting to charge for paid pins, so I'm not too sure about that yet.  We'll see how that goes.

There's a crochet project I'm working on, which could turn out to be interesting, if it works.  

Recently, there was a discussion about advice for flatness.  Of course, there was a comment made about breasts not defining us as women--there always is one of those.  And of course, I had plenty to say about that shit.  I said I felt like my breasts did define me as a woman because they helped make me appear to be more feminine and they were part of what made me a woman and I hate not having them now.  If anyone feels like their breast did define them as a woman and that was ripped away, that's normal.  One person said she hadn't thought about it from the perspective of if someone didn't like being flat.  It opened up the conversation enough to where I was able to tell her I got so tired of seeing the fake platitude crap about yippee-skip-acceptance that I started the Cancer Bitches group.  If someone is having a bad day, and it happens to everyone, they're allowed to say something there in a safe space instead of being told to suck it up and wear the pink ribbon because yay, gtfoi, pink ribbons and shit.  Nope, if someone's having a shit day, they can cry or vent or rage in a safe space and will be given kindness and respect and now she's a Cancer Bitch.  (No, we aren't always going to agree with each other about everything all the time, but that's part of being a mature adult, being able to discuss things with others, even if it's not always something everyone will agree about.)

Change what you can't accept or accept what you can't change.  I can't fucking change how much cancer fucked me over in a multitude of ways.  It fucking happened and I can't fucking change that and I sure as fuck refuse to accept it.

You're now returned to your regularly scheduled mundane blog reading.  I know you all missed my bitchtastic bitchitude here since I haven't updated recently.  I'll try to get that regular updating thing sorted out.