Tidying up.

Saturday and yesterday, we watched season one of Marco Polo from Netflix.  It was great, stunning costuming and hair, beautiful scenery, good plot without being complicated.  Would I watch it again?  Definitely.

Yesterday, I also spent time with one eyeball on an ancient email account and I worked on going through the stuff which was stored on it.  Now I feel old.

I've also been cleaning today.  The master bedroom and bathroom are clean.  This includes cleaning the husband's desk and shelves, sorting through the tons of paperwork piled there, which yet further includes dental, medical, and pharmacy related papers like EOBs, miscellaneous stuff, and yes, it all got sorted according to what it was and by year.  It's all in neat little file folders.  I also spent nearly two hours shredding things which needed to be shredded.  The thought occurred to me that if I called this the start of spring cleaning, at this rate, I might be done with spring cleaning by the time the school year is over with in May.

During the above activities, the Smooky Boy Cat supervised.  He pounced on papers, attacked shreds that escaped from the paper shredder, and flopped on the papers to hold them down to keep me from shredding them, I guess.

I discovered it helps to have the fucking vacuum cleaner on the correct setting for carpet.  Evidently, one of the monkeys decided to monkey around with the settings on the vacuum cleaner and not put those back the way they found them, which means any vacuuming that's been done for however long has not been done in an efficient manner.

An envelope attacked me and gave me a paper cut on the wrong hand.  (With lymphedema issues, even a hangnail or paper cut can cause serious problems.  So now I have to be a basket case about my finger for the next several days.)

At least I was able to put my hair in a fabulous sock bun before that happened, so hello fabulous sock bun hair.  It truly has that Tinkerbell look when it's done like this and looks awesome.  I will never achieve the perfect princess bun thing that Streak is able to achieve with her hair because her hair is four feet long, but mine is definitely better than it was and probably  halfway down my back now.  Definitely able to do multiple bun things now, even if the ends need to be trimmed.

I want to do barn time tomorrow morning, but I'm thinking mornings are not all that great for me right now, so I'm thinking maybe I'll ask if I can shoot for going over in the early afternoons.  Hopefully, that will be okay with them.

Football and other assorted oddities.

Excellent football movies to watch now that high school and college seasons are over, except for the college bowl games:  When the Game Stands Tall.  Out-fucking-standing movie.  The Blind Side.  The Waterboy.

Speaking of movies, watch Dallas Buyer's Club and insert the word cancer for the word AIDS.  Maybe then you'll better understand my Pinterest board, A Valid Option.

Moving on to the other assorted oddities part of this post, I give you...well, I'm not sure what to call it.

B and I were out and about last week and looking at furniture since we need a new sofa, couch, chesterfield, or davenport, whatever the fuck you want to call it.

We're at a particular furniture store where we'd been looking and discussing and discussing and looking.  Some other customers came in.  The sales lady excused herself to go speak with them and then eventually came back and mentioned to me that this particular couple was really funny and the wife owns a bra store and if I needed any bras, she suggested going to that woman's particular store.

I started laughing and I damn near broke a rib because I was laughing so hard.  I laughed myself silly and when I could finally breathe, I pulled my shirt front out and said "I had a bilateral mastectomy and have nothing but skin over ribs on the entire upper third of my chest, so bras are a non-essential for me, but thanks for the suggestion."

The look on her face was a combination of appalled, horrified, and unsure if she should laugh or not because I was laughing.  She said she hadn't noticed and never would have if I hadn't mentioned it to her.

We discussed breast cancer for a few minutes and then moved on to other topics.

True story, that.

Here's another one.

I used to have the most wonderful cat.  His name was Tigger.  No, I didn't name him that, he was already named that when we got him as a free to a good home ad in the newspaper.  He would like just a tiny drop of milk each morning, loved his Tigger Treats, and he never was much interested in catnip or canned cat food, but he did love drinking tree water each year in December.  He crossed the Rainbow Bridge a year ago in October.  I have his ashes on the speaker by the bedroom door.  In the new house, he will go on top of the mantle, right in the  center.  I still miss him.  He made the move with us from Mississippi to Florida to Alabama to Oklahoma.  He would ride on the console after making sure his humans were in the vehicle.

We acquired another cat from a shelter.  This cat didn't particularly know or care that he was a cat and exhibited minimal behavior of a cat.  Didn't know how to purr, didn't really groom himself, didn't know what treats were, didn't know what the hell milk was, didn't give a rat's ass about canned food and had no interest in treats.  He was litter trained, would eat and drink, and wanted to constantly pounce on anything that moved.  It turned out he was more like a teenager kitty and not an adult kitty.  Since we had drive three and a half hours one way to acquire him in another state, we figured we'd keep him and maybe get him another cat to play with.

Second cat we acquired was from a more local shelter and as an adult.  She has taught the boy cat how to groom himself, although she grooms him more than he grooms himself, and she loves treats.  He will eat one just because he sees her eating one, though.  She loves canned food and if a can is opened, no matter where she is in the house or what she's doing, she comes running to the kitchen and of course, he's learned that behavior, so they turn into floor buzzards when the can opener gets used.

Boy cat does purr on occasion now and does tolerate being held now, which is good.  He wants to be held on his back like a baby, though.  We have no idea what that's about.  He does love to chase girl cat and they are both drinking tree water for fun.

Girl cat is lactose intolerant.  I gave her a drop of milk.  She barfed.  A few days later, I tried again.  She barfed again.  I waited a month.  Tried once more with just a drop of milk, mind you.  Boy cat still doesn't gaf and girl cat barfed, so I have a lactose intolerant cat.  It's like dealing with an addict every time I fix coffee.  She begs for milk because I put milk in my coffee.  Actually, she damn near throws a fit for the milk, but I don't give it to her because she'll barf.

She also loves feet, my boots, and drools while purring.  I guess she never learned how to purr without drooling.  Boy cat doesn't seem to drool, though.

Cats are entertaining, that's for damn sure.

Solidea Medical is having a contest, located here, if anyone is paying attention to anything I post.  They haven't updated their winner list for the past few days, but they probably will tomorrow.  I won, so it's definitely a legit contest; if you're in the market for a out-fucking-standing compression garment and possibly even winning one, you might want to pop over to Solidea Medical and see what they are doing with their contest.

Pinterest milstone? Yes, indeed!

I now have hit over 500 followers on Pinterest.  Earlier, I checked and was at 499.  

I just checked again to see if anything exciting was going on and noticed I was at 501 followers.  266 of those are on A Valid Option, thus proving that people are seeking more information of all kinds about cannabis as a valid medical option for a variety of illnesses and diseases.

So, those of you out there who want to tell me I have a bad attitude, I don't have a bad attitude.  I have bitchitude, a bitchy attitude, and I'm putting it to good use.

I'm putting it to good use by speaking up about the vile pink washing of October.  I'm putting it to good use by reminding people that men can be diagnosed with breast cancer, also.  I'm putting it to good use by speaking up about mets and trying to tell people that what they are told about "breast cancer" generically by media is lies because it's not "curable" in the sense that media is lying about it.  They don't talk about those 30% of women who will wind up with mets.  They don't talk about how once diagnosed, the risk of that never truly goes away, be it within months or decades later, regardless of the kind of breast cancer someone was diagnosed with.  They don't talk about the lies about early detection saving lives; it doesn't.  Someone diagnosed at grade 0, stage 0 can still wind up with mets.

I'm putting it to good use by refusing to sugar coat or glitterize anything cancer related.

*I* do talk about those things because someone needs to.  If someone doesn't like it, then fine.  Go somewhere else.  The only fluffy thing around there that will be discussed will be my cats and the sheep who is my new BFF.  Just saying.

Been busy; busy can be a good thing.

This month, I've been busy.  

Busy with football stuff because Football Monkey is just that busy with football. 

Busy with volunteering at both the school and at a nearby horse farm cleaning stalls and tidying up in the barn.  

Busy learning that it's evidently not too difficult to befriend a sheep and have her follow me around with her nose in my spine at the nearby horse farm when I'm there like she's my new instant BFF.  (Sheep can recognize faces, or so I've read.)  Sheep are really larger than I realized.  Their backs come up almost to my waist.  The one sheep loves it when I talk to her.  The other one stares at me, and the goat just looks at me like I'm deranged when I talk to them.

Busy figuring out I'm afraid of the two chickens.  They have claws.  Chicken claws that want to rip and shred.  Beaks that want to peck at me if I get in a six foot proximity of them.  Put me in front of a 1,300 pound horse and tell me to move it and I'm good.  The barn cat doesn't seem interested in me at all.  (Seriously, about those two chickens, they don't seem rabid, but since my exposure to chickens has been very limited, I am afraid of them.)

Since I made mention of the horses, there's a radio at the barn.  If the rest of the humans wander off, I sing to the horses.  And I dance.  They seemed interested because they watched me and their ears were perked up.  I suppose you could say they were a captive audience since they were in their stalls.  

Busy trying to get the house cleaned up for the holidays.  We all know how well that's going.  (Watching Good Eats just makes me want to go start cooking.)

Busy trying to convince The Fat One (Fuzzy Manatee Cat) that she cannot have a drop of milk because she is lactose intolerant and will barf if she ingests even the tiniest drop of said amazing beverage.  She is pouting pitifully on top of her sun worshipping space.

Busy trying to convince The Smooky One (Little Black Cat That's Not So Little Now) that he doesn't need to climb on top of the kitchen cabinets since College Monkey decided to teach him that he could climb up there because he's a cat and cats like tall places.  (Before Army Monkey went into the Army, he taught The Tigger Cat how to drink out of any glass or cup he could stick his face in.)

The awesome husband did the grocery shopping, so we have a smoked turkey breast and a ham.  He also acquired more of the Foca laundry detergent.  That is some good stuff to do laundry with, under ten dollars and I can get 120 loads out of the big bag.  Woot.

Wearing my Solidea sleeves today since my arms were annoying me last night.  Hello nerve damage, fuck you.  (Because no blog post would be complete without me dropping the F bomb at least once.  Because, you know, I'm just so fucking evil.  Just saying.)

About to hit a milestone on Pinterest.  Will announce that when it happens, if anyone is interested.  Even if nobody is interested, I'll still announce it since this is my blog and it's all about me.  (See what I did there?  I'm clever like that.)

And I wrote a couple of new reviews on Urban Spoon and over here, I added a few new blog links to include Angrivated Mom and Laundry Fairy.  

Kinesio taping is good, I think.

Self-explanatory post title.

Secondary lymph-fucking-edema.  It's the vile thing that keeps on giving, because of breast cancer surgery. Uncontrollable and un-triggered random arm swelling, pain, numbness, severe surgery caused nerve damage, and neuropathy from chemo are all constant in any combination or at any given time, although the chemo induced neuropathy seems to affect my feet worse than my arms.  I have sleeves I wear, which do help with some of it and then Streak (the neighbor) has kinesio taped me for it just so we could see if that would actually help or not.  The first time she taped my arms, the swelling in both arms went down by an inch in each arm in twelve hours.  The compression sleeves are medical grade and supportive, but the kinesio taping flat out stops the pain, so I really like being taped, although I can't wear the tape constantly.  And I refuse to eat painkillers for this shit, so constant pain is something I have to live with, unfortunately.  I also have two sports grade compression shirts I wear which do help somewhat, as do the sleeves, which are something different.  The kinesio taping seems to help the most, though.  I'm debating on informing the consult person who will be taking notes on me ahead of my surgery that I will be taped for my comfort and that said tape better not be fucking removed.  It's for my comfort.

Breast cancer wrecked my life, my health, my emotions, and my thought processes.  I cannot ever say enough shitty things about it or the fact that in thirty years, there's not a cure for any of it.  I don't care who you are or what you were diagnosed with, what was done to you to "cure" you and what is done to "monitor" you are all things that have more than sufficient health risks so that anything questionable that happens to your health now, you better wonder about how/why it happened.  After all, money can't be made "fighting" breast cancer (or any other kind) if there is any "success" with "curing" it.

Did I mention this little gem?  http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/257008  Because, you know, zero "medicinal" value, right?  It's the closest possible thing there could be for a cure and yet it seems like damn near everything possible is done to keep it away from people.

Evidently, the HER2+ breast cancer I was diagnosed with back in 2011 was inexplicable, and so is this aneurysm.  I know what's going to happen.  I'll be taking this blood thinner for the six months I was told I'd need to take it because of this stent and coiling aneurysm fix.  Fine.  I'm willing to bet there will be another reason "found" that I'll suddenly "need" to remain on it.  The blood pressure medication, I get it.  Blood pressure issues aren't generally reversible.  The aneurysm fix is supposedly a "fix it and forget it" option. We'll see how that goes.

On to the cats.

Apparently, The Fat One (Sweetie) cat only drools when she purrs.  Why this is, I do not know.

The Fat One (because Sweetie is fuzzy and looks fat even though she's really not fat) and The Smooky One (because Boo is all black and "spooky looking, hence the Smooky word) are what the darlings across the street who belong to Streak and Mr. Streak. (They, (Streak and her family) happen to have a dog named Sparkle who I dog sit for on occasion.))

The Smooky One (Boo) can purr, does purr on occasion, but he doesn't realize he's supposed to do this very often because he is too busy chasing balls around.
Sweetie is also called The Fuzzy Manatee by the males of the family. I've taken to calling Boo by the name Goblin Cat since he likes to reach under doors like a goblin would.

Good news is, ground breaking on the house build is slightly less than a month from now. (No, I haven't posted about that. I wanted to wait until I knew things would be lined out and closer to ground breaking before I said anything.

Bad news is hospitals are for sick people and I am not sick, but I have won a not all expense paid stainless steel stent, multiple platinum coil repair to a stupid aneurysm in my neck Wednesday morning. Supposedly this is the fix it and forget it version of repair. The worst news is, I am going to be stuck in ICU at the pleasure of my doctor and however long he decides I should remain in there. I will likely go batshit crazy. No phone allowed, no laptop, and likely no internet access. I am wondering if he will take peanut butter cookies as a bribe to let me come home.