Social butterfly

I've been remiss in posting the last week, but I hit one of my deep lows, spent some time at "The Farm" with my family, and had a wonderful time with a house guest. I felt really bad for my friend though, she got here just in time for me to crash, but she's a Cushie too, so she understood.

I've been spending some quality time with both my sketch book, and WoW, I am planning to paint a clown picture for my sister-in-law-in-law (she's a lawyer), and she really likes clowns. The one that I'm working out is a cat clown, I am planning it as a portrait, but I'm still working on the background and the media. The background will likely be a watercolor wash, since I like that effect. I just need to decide if I'm going to have smaller cats in the picture as well.

I forgot to get a pix of the fish painting I did for my niece Becky. It was a birthday gift, and I hope she likes it. I used all "her" colors, so if nothing else, she can use it as a background piece. I did scan in the dragon cave pix I did for her sister Jen. I believe I posted a copy of that already.

Links from friends that vastly amuse me: this is to the Llama song, from Amiamiami, and this is to the Badger Badger Badger song, from my friend Kevin. This one is truly twisted Headcrabs... it's made from the Half-Life 2 engine, so if you've never seen the game it probably won't make much sense to you. I woke up with this as an earworm, so be careful...

This is one of my asteroids, graphite pencil of course, in many different hardnesses.

I'm super special... only about 1/4 of a pituitary

I have been trying to process this news. I found out a couple of weeks ago, and I really think this is the reason the tumor board has been so wiggly with me.

Dr. L is still working like a madman trying to get me help. I think I've discovered why I'm having sugh a difficult time moving forward. I've had plenty of high and normal and low values in my tests, and those normal and low tests are probably what's making the board all wiggly.

But the other news that I think I know is holding up the board back from approving me for pit surgery. It seems that I only have about 1/4 of my pit left. Left after what you ask? It looks like I had a very large tumor at one time that crushed my pit. This large tumor apparently died after it outgrew it's blood source, and has been re-absorbed. I do not have a visible tumor now. We think that the remaining tiny little tumor has taken over and is very powerful, given the wide and hard swings I have with my cycle.

I don't know what my future holds right now. I just don't know. It is likely that if I ever do get to surgery, that I'll have to ultimately have a BLA.

I don't know how many people have had a tumor that died, taking most of their pit with it, only to have another tumor show up wreaking more havoc.

So much for "Asymmetrical Pituitary..." it more like a crescent moon with a little blob at both ends...

I crashed hard on Wednesday, here it is Sunday night, and I'm still crashing. Crashing and crashing and crashing and crashing. It's like my starter motor is going bad or perhaps it's my alternator ....

We spent the afternoon with my family, I hadn't realized that it's been since July since I've been up to Whidbey. Too long, but when you crash every five days, not a whole hell of a lot I can do. i just have to hold out that I'll be cured soon. I have to hold that thought close.

Back on-line--Huzzah!

Hip-hip-HUZZAH! I'm back on line. We lost all connectivity at home for five days, there was some weird problem but now it's fixed. Oh sure, I had to call our ISP several times a day to get it resolved, but we are all good now.

I've got a friend visiting me for a few days, and I crashed hard today, so I've been asleep since 10:30 am, and here it is 1:30 am. Well, I did get up several times to drink water and to have dinner, and to visit with my friend for a while. But I've been asleep for most of the day. I'll be heading back to bed after I finish that last water bottle. Gotta stay hydrated.

I'm at almost 20,000 words for my NaNoWriMo novel, Shades of Grey, so I'm a bit behind schedule. All in all, it is coming along really well, but I've slacked off since Monday... I know, excuses, excuses, but I hope to write tomorrow. Okay, it's technically tomorrow right now, but you know what I mean.

Today's picture is based on one I took at Snoqualmie Falls. Because we have out of state visitors, I think we will have to take them there, if we can. But let's just face it, I want to go because it is beautiful and with the recent flooding, it should be amazing!

NaNoWriMo day 5

I'm at around 6,400 words, that's just a SWAG on my part. The last couple of days have been rough going, since my pit tumor shut off and I'm in a cortisol Low.

It really is going to be every bit as challenging as I thought it would be. It is almost 5 pm and I've been awake for ... less than 4 hours today.

The funny part so far is that when I'm really low like this I seem to concentrate on the story from the Alien invader's point of view. I noticed this a couple of weeks ago when I was in another Low and working on my character sheets. The aliens were just more... real to me. Too funny!

I just ate a bunch of salt, so I should stop itching soon. What a crazy disease I have!

The rain's back here in Seattle too. I’ve heard the month of November described as the NO month… no sun, no leaves, no fun. Dunno about that, but the rain has been amazing. We don’t normally get such heavy rain, and certainly not for long periods of time. The onther night my feet were burning hot, as opposed to the freezing cold when I’m in a Low, and I had to go stand out in the rain. I had to go stand in the wet grass for about ten minutes. I was astounded at how squishy the ground was, but it sure felt good standing on that cold wet grass. My husband couldn’t’ figure out why I was outside in my pajamas, but he doesn’t worry about my weird things, unless I’m really Low.

I’m so very lucky to have my husband and son. I know that there are lots of Cushies out there who are married to jerks, jerks who cannot or will not understand this awful disease. My heart breaks when other Cushies tell me what they have to put up with at home. I would like to just invite them all to live with me, but I know that isn’t realistic.

I'm off the Dope-o-max completely now! Hurray! That drug was the worst thing ever... It made my cycle a 5 day crash-to-crash, so I couldn't get a decent High... But now that I'm in a Low, my tumor keeps shutting off and off, sort of like I've got a bad starter or something. Or maybe it's my solenoid... car analogies...

As you know, I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year. I'm just not having much luck getting any kind of word count when I'm Low. So, I'm going need to figure out a strategy for that. The funny thing is that when I'm low I've been thinking about my antagonist’s point of view (invading squirrels from outer space), and because this is a sci-fi novel, at least nominally, this might work out well. Especially since I didn't have time to plot out the book from their point of view.

Crash day....


These are so hard. Anyway, the tumor Pitunia shut down sometime last night, so I am just draggin' my b-u-t-t this morning.

Shades of Grey is coming along, I've maintained my pace of 2,000 words a day. It's been two whole days into NaNoWrimMo, so I suppose it's not time to call in the dancing girls just yet.

I had thought I would just post the Novel as I went along, but that just isn't realistic, especially since I have a tendency to edit while I'm writing. I don't know if I can break this habit, I don't even know if I want to break it. I'm not sure if I need to create a separate blog dedicated to the novel or what. I'll figure something out in the next day or two though.

While I was in student housing at Idaho State University, my little two room apartment had these wonderful huge floor to celling picture windows. Unfortunately, as you can see from this picture, looking out my bedroom window, that mean zero privacy. The curtains were left over from when the rooms were motel rooms, so they were those wonderful heavy blackout insulated ones. Perfect for keeping out winter chill or possibly even radiation blast from a nuke, but that meant no sun light when they were drawn. I'm one of those people who likes to wake up with light. I had to come up with a way to keep the curtian open a little bit, so I could get some daylight, but try to maintain some privacy.

I'd seen a segment on the Christopher Lowell show (miss you Chris!) where they had painted a window for privacy, but they didn't go the same artistic way I did. I think they painted it to look like a screen, but I don't remember. On a different craft show I seen them painting glass fixtures, so I decided to paint the window.

I used acrylic paints, mostly just the 99 cent little pots of paint from the craft store, so the materials were not expensive. They would also wash off when it was time to move, with little hassle. I painted the branched first, then added the leaves and the flowers. Then I outlined it in black. I needed to keep an eye for how it would look from the outside too, so some times I would line in black, paint the leaf or blossom, then re-line in black so it looked good from both sides. I needed to let it dry between coats, which in SE ID, is not a problem. After painting the details, I thinned out white acrylic to almost a watercolor wash to paint the background white.

To give you an idea of the scale, the finished painting was 3'x4'. I chose this view of the painting because it gives the best view of what I was trying to block out ... my glorious view of the complex parking lot, and the utility room.

Shades of Grey

This is the first installment of my NaNoWriMo novel, "Shades of Grey" I wrote this today from 2:30 to 3:30 AM... yes, that's right, I've been up all night, but that's okay because I'm sky high... I will update as the day progresses... There is no picture with this post because no Blogger kept barfing everytime I tried to upload one...

He tried to warn me. He did his level best to warn me, to warn us all, but we, in our ignorance, paid him little heed. Oh sure, I thought it was just because he hated squirrels. Most dogs like to chase them. But my dog had a special reason for hating them. He knew what they were really attempting to do.

Even as he got old, and he got very old, no matter what, those squirrels would get him up off his dog bed. Up and barking! He would chase those squirrels away with such vigor. It always amused me the care he took to chase away those little puffballs of grey fur.

When the neighbor’s cats decided that liked our yard better than theirs, my poor old dog didn’t give them so much as a woof! No, “hey you! Outta here!” for them. It was pretty funny. We would come into the kitchen to see one of them chowing down on his dog kibble, inside his dog food bin. His attitude was “eh, let ‘em be, no harm, no foul.” One of them was always getting inside at night… some watchdog he was... not even a bark to let us know what was up… The neighbor’s cats would be on my counter top, eating my bread. I finally had to go get a metal breadbox.

But if a squirrel so much as poked it’s little head anywhere near our yard, well he’d be up and barking. It would wake him out of a sound sleep, and believe you me, that dog could sleep soundly.

It is only now that I know what he was trying to do. I couldn’t understand at the time, but now I know better. Now we all do. Well, the ones who believe understand anyway. Invaders.

My name is Debby Shiloh, and this is my story. I thought I was going to grow up and have a normal life. Grow up, go to college, meet a great guy, have kids, a great career, you know, all the normal things. And for the most part, I had those things. I did grow up. I went to a great college where I majored in Computer Information Systems, got a great job. I have a wonderful husband Greg and a really great son, Jack. Well, as great as teen-aged boys gets I suppose. I have a really great job as a Network Analyst for (really Big Company) where I get to travel to set up and trouble shoot networks all over the country. I have a beautiful house just east of Seattle. I live in the posh neighborhood of Bellevue, which always makes me laugh.

My house and neighborhood were built in the early ‘50’s. Mid-century archetecture split level house, a perfect example of that style of building. Yes, interiour decorating and archecitureal details are one of my many hobbies. I remodeled my kitchen practically single handedly. I had a lot of time on my hands during the dot-com bust…

But everything changed when I got sick last year.

I started having all these really bad headaches. I mean, they were really, really bad. Searing my brain bad. And other things started going wrong, health wise too. I would have terrible fatigue, where I would sleep for days on end. I’d come home from work, and just head right for bed. Not normal behavior, not for someone who normally had lots and lots of projects. I had a lot of other weird symptoms, and I saw a lot of doctors who only wanted to treat my symptoms. As a geek, I naturally want to know the root cause of the problem; I want to know why there are symptoms. Finally, I got to the cause of my trouble all right.

I was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

I will never forget that day. Never I think. I guess its’ something that sort of sticks with you. I don’t think that it couldn’t not stick with you. Something you always remember. Your first kiss, your first time you have sex, the first time you get a traffic ticket, the birth of your baby. Some things just stay with you. Etched into your memory as permanent as can be.

Greg wasn’t able to make that one appointment. He had a meeting that he had to attend, and so he didn’t go with me. We didn’t think it would be anything monumental. None of our other appointments with the doctors ever turned up anything, so why would this one be any different? Famous last words as that turns out.

This was my third appointment with this particular doctor. The first two were not very impressive, just your normal specialist doctor’s appointments I guess. I do remember that I was running a little late, I’d been really tired that day, and I felt like I was moving in slow motion. Like I was in one of those allergy commercials, in a fog or a blur. A haze. Anyway, I just was not my normal me, if that makes any sense. I’d been to get an MRI and a MRV and the doctor had the results from the radiologist.

The doctor’s nurse had me go into the doctor’s office and wait while she was with another patient. I was listening to my MP3 player; I had my mix of New Wave dance music playing. Devo was playing. At the time, the irony escaped me, now I have to laugh about it. I was sipping my cooling latte. I know it’s a cliché, but sometimes the things we do are clichés. Lattes in Seattle. Almost as much a cliché as the rain, although just as true. I heard her come in, and I took off my headphones.

She sat behind her desk, put the report down, and just looked at me. What doctor just looks at you? Then she told me. Told me what they found. What the radiologist found.

Tumor. The word haunted me for a long time. Or at any rate, it felt like a long time. I know that it echoed in my head, tumor, tumor, tumor. Like the word itself was something terrible. Something that I couldn’t accept all at once. That I had to keep coming back to.

There is an expression, that someone is dogging you. I always thought that expression was just something colorful, but then I had a dog that actually did dog me. She would follow me everywhere. And I do mean everywhere. To the bathroom, the bedroom, the kitchen. Everywhere I went, that dog had to be right with me too. She just couldn’t stand to not be near me. She dogged me. Sure, it got a little annoying at times when I’d want to be in the bathroom, by myself, thank you very much. But it was also endearing.

The tumor dogged me. There was nothing endearing about it. Tumor.

Tumor.

Tumor.