Yes, I did mean to blog every day but after two days there wasn’t much to say beyond, here it is, Day three, same ole same ole.

We had some personal stuff go on in the family. The Girl came home from college for the weekend. It’s not actually a SUPER big deal as she’s come home every weekend since school started, but again, the university is about 20 minutes from here and Beloved works there, so her coming home isn’t hard or anythingl

Saturday was HeartLA’s monthly meeting, just a week after our luncheon. Siince I found out about the cancer after the luncheon, I told them all about it and several people had friends who went through this so I got a lot of support and all that. The meeting wasn’t too exciting; our speaker forgot to come which was fine as we only had about 8 or 9 people there to begin with.

I didn’t go to lunch with them because Beloved’s car was on the fritz and the family usually goes to Chick-fil-a on Saturdays. Or at least the boys do. They couldn’t go if I didn’t come home with my car, so I went to lunch with them.

The Girl and I went to confession Saturday afternoon. I talked to the priest about how I don’t think I’m all that good a Christian as I don’t seem to automatically turn to Jesus when I’m in the hospital or at home. Even at Adoration the night before I didn’t really know what to pray for. I mean, God knows I want healing, and it seems selfish to ask for that. What if that’s not in His will for me? Anyway, I feel a little better. Father Tom is undergoing prostate surgery soon for his own cancer and he was trying to tell me that he thought his medical problems won’t be as bad as mine. Yeah, right, um, sure, okay. Anyway, I’m praying for him.

Sunday I was feeling a little more tired, but the Girl and I had tickets to High School Musical on Stage at LSU. I’d never seen it before, being not a big Disney Channel Movie fan, but the Girl needed to see it for her theater class. She didn’t know exactly where the theater was, so we did end up walking a bit which took a lot out of me by the time we got there. Fortunately, sitting in the theater made me feel better, and the walk back to the car wasn’t so bad.

The play? It was cute, but so predictable and kinda…cheesy. I don’t know what the big hype is. I know there are tons of people who just love High School Musical – I mean, they’re making High School Musical III so it must hit a chord somewhere — but I just don’t get it. If anyone out there does, please tell me what I’m missing.

Mass was fine, but I was tired. Several choir members talked to me after and offered support and prayers.

Yesterday, I was sleepy most of the day. Just didn’t sleep good Sunday night. I went to Weight Watchers and was down .2 which isn’t great, but at least it’s not a gain.

Today, I’m feeling a bit icky. Woke up with a cold like sore throat and have been coughing. I felt like I was coming down with one before the surgery but I think this one is a DIFFERENT cold as Beloved is feeling the same way.

Tomorrow, the Boy has an appointment with an audiologist and Thursday is our Stampin’ Up Hostess club, so I’m hoping I’m feeling better for those things.

Interestingly enough I felt better this morning when I got up. Spent a lot of last night trying to come up with a title for an inspirational romantic suspense about an ex-black ops guy who wants to put his past behind him and settle down in a small town but can’t because someone blames him for the death of a team member and kidnaps the new love in his life.

Today is also Adoption Day – the Boy became legally ours five years ago today.

We went to see the psychologist about his ADHD assessment and she said he doesn’t have ADHD; he has some language processing problems. We aren’t sure if his hearing is involved, but he had some limited hearing a year or so ago before had tubes put in and she thinks possibly that put him behind.

We’re going to have him see an audiologist and a language therapist. AND if he needs to, we will have him attend a different school as the one he’s in now is very tough and they move quickly through concepts. She says he’s just not getting some things.

Back to me, I don’t want to keep thinking about how terrible I’m going to feel soon because I don’t want to psych myself out about this and maybe make myself feel worse, but I want to be realistic that I am going to feel terrible soon.

Didn’t bake any bread today. Possibly later.

Well, I saw the endocrinologist yesterday, and yes, we’re going to do the radioactive iodine treatment in four weeks.

Starting today, I stop taking the thyroid hormone which means eventually I’m going to feel terrible, but we need to make sure the thyroid cells that are left are as receptive to the iodine as they can be. In two weeks I have to go on a no iodine diet – no processed foods, no cured meat, no dairy (we don’t know what the cows were treated with), and nothing baked that I didn’t bake myself. She suggested that this next week or so while I’ve still got energy I bake a lot of bread and put it in the freezer (just no prepackaged mixes).

Then after these four weeks of miserable-ness are over, I’ll be checked to make sure my TSH levels are as high as they need to be and then I’ll be given the radioactive iodine. After that, for 3-5 days I’ll have to kinda be isolated because any radioactivity not absorbed by remaining thyroid cells will be excreted from my body in various ways and I can’t risk contaminating my family or friends. So, separate beds, eating utensils and laundry, and no one within about five or six feet. So, no visitors!

I think it’ll be pretty easy here to do this as the master bedroom “suite” has its own bathroom and all. I have to figure out if we can get the computer in there, but I can probably get some writing, reading and maybe stitching done during this “retreat” period.

The doc said this kind of cancer can reappear after a number of years so I will be monitored. Oh, a full body scan will be done after the treatment to see if any unexpected cells light up from the radiation, which would be bad.

All in all, I’m not overly happy about all this (the low thyroid level sounds terrible) but at least it seems simple enough and it doesn’t require horrible chemo or anything like that.

I plan to blog about how I’m feeling and such. Today, of course, there’s nothing really to report and I have been taking the Synthroid in the mornings and today was the first morning I didn’t take it. Also, last night I didn’t take anything to help me sleep. I did seem to sleep okay, but woke up feeling like I want to go back to bed.

I went to the Y and did 36 minutes on the bike (31 plus a 5 minute cool down). Since on Sunday I did 30 minutes (plus 5 minute cool down) I decided to try and see if I could push it a bit. The 31 minutes wasn’t as hard as Sunday’s was, but still not the way I was before, knocking out an hour without a problem. Gotta work my way back up there I guess.

I’m having a shake this morning and then I think I’ll head to Hobby Lobby for a little while. All their scrapbook stuff in on sale and I need some white card stock to print up some scrapbook pages I’ve done. Also I want to get Halloween cards made this year and I bought cute rubber stamps for this last year and didn’t get the cards sent.

In other news, I’m reading Beloved’s manuscript for him and hope to get that done by the end of the week. He’s taking the Boy to Chuck E. Cheese tonight because he can now tie his shoes (the Boy not Beloved who has been tying his shoes for at least as long as I’ve known him.). I may stay home; I’m not sure yet.

Tomorrow we go to see the psychologist to get the results of the Boy’s ADHD assessment.

Busy week.

How’s everything in your neck of the woods?

Yesterday I saw the surgeon who took my thyroid out.

I saw him the day after the surgery and he told me that everything looked good; there had been no sign of cancer. This was a non-issue to me. I’d had nodules on my thyroid for about 15 years so the idea of cancer seemed unlikely and the endocrinologist said there was only about a 12% chance of cancer from the cells she saw, so cancer wasn’t my worry at all.

Yesterday I found out that there was cancer in my thyroid after all.

At first, I thought, wow, isn’t that interesting. The surgeon said that it was pretty much taken care of. That’s what you do with thyroid cancer. You take the thyroid out, and we had, so, therefore, it’s done. However, he wanted to talk to my endocrinologist to see if there was anything she wanted to do in the way of further treatment. He asked me to wait while he called her. He said she might want me to take radioactive iodine.

I sat alone in the exam room and tried on the label, “Cancer Survivor.” It just didn’t feel like it belonged to me.

The endocrinologist said she’d call me so I left and called my husband. He was upset and wondered where we go from here. I wasn’t worried or even concerned. To be honest, I was more amused. How funny. I had cancer and I didn’t even know it until it was over.

I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t even upset. It didn’t even seem like it mattered.

Then I got home from getting the Boy from school and there was a message from the endocrinologist’s office. They want to see me this afternoon.

Okay, that seemed like it might be a little more urgent than I would have expected.

I looked up radioactive iodine and while it’s pretty much a safe treatment with virtually no complications, it would require me to be isolated, at home, from people for about five days. This doesn’t sound like fun and it got me to thinking about all this.

I had cancer.

It’s kinda scary now that it’s set in.

However, I don’t think I want to identify myself as a cancer survivor.

My brother called and said, “You’re a cancer survivor and a transplant survivor. I’m going to send you Gloria Gaynor’s CD.”

I thanked him and said please don’t.

I don’t want to identify myself with my illnesses or my health issues. I’ve never been the kind of person to focus on the medical issues I have. I have my life and those things are just bumps in the road. Yes, I’ve had a transplant and I guess now I have to say I’ve had cancer, but I want to identify myself as a Catholic Mom and Wife and a romance and fantasy author.

How do you identify yourself?

Most of us, I assume, want a career in writing. We want to be multi-published, and probably, want to publish regularly. Like any career, in order to be successful at it, we have to work at it.

For writing, we know we have to do it, ideally, every day. We’ve heard this advice over and over from writers we admire.

You have to write every day, if you want to be successful.

A few years ago, I read an article about an author. I don’t remember who it was nor why the article was written about her, but what I do remember was that she said that in the two years prior to her publishing she’d written every day, even on the day her husband died and the day he was buried.

This was evidence of her commitment to her career and was something she was proud of.

Last week, I had my thyroid removed and was in the hospital overnight. When I came home from the hospital, I went to bed and couldn’t stop sleeping. For the next few days I spent my time pretty much being a lump, watching mindless TV or catching up on my reading. I went out a couple of times to see how strong I was and generally, took a nap afterward.

I freely admit that in the week since the surgery, I haven’t worked on my book at all. I have done some writing related work – judging contest entries and updating my blog – but nothing that gets me any closer to finishing my book.

Does this make me a failure or any less committed to my writing than some other author?

I don’t think so.

Those of us in Louisiana just dealt with Hurricane Gustav, the worst storm ever to hit Baton Rouge. I wonder how many of us worried about our books when we were worrying about our homes, our families, and possibly our very lives.

I definitely would tell a new author that writing every day was important. In fact, I truly believe that if you don’t do that, you will have a harder time finishing your book.

However, I do believe that there are things that need to take a higher priority than writing.

I know, for myself, I need to look at my definition of “success.”

At this point in my life, I am still raising children. Well, at least one child. My daughter in college doesn’t need as much mothering as my son in kindergarten who is also in the process of being evaluated for ADHD. I am also still recovering from my surgery and desperately hoping to get past the hoarse voice and neck soreness.

I have to put my family and my health above my writing for the time being.

There might come a point in your life when you have to make these decisions, too.

Will you be able to write the day you bury your husband? If you can, is it something you should be proud of?

This is a question we each have to consider for ourselves. I think I know my answer, and I have to be okay with it.

Are you okay with yours?

Life has gotten in the way and it seems I just couldn’t find time when updating this thing seemed to be the top priority. However, I’ve been reading some of my friends’ blogs and have decided it’s time to get my butt in gear and update regularly, even when I don’t think I have anything profound to say.

The biggest news is that last week I had my thyroid removed. Everything is going well; the doctor said there wasn’t any sign of cancer. I wasn’t really worried about that, but now I’m dealing with a hoarse voice from the breathing tube and a little weakness from the surgery itself. I missed Mass on Sunday and today is Tuesday and it’s the first time since Thursday that I don’t feel like I want to just crawl back into bed and sleep.

I’m supposed to MC our annual readers’ luncheon this weekend, so I’m praying for a good voice by then.

LATER:

Beloved interrupted my writing here to take me out to run errands. I’d asked to go out since I haven’t been out since Saturday. We went to Hobby Lobby. I needed a skein of floss to use for the Boy’s stocking, but I took two of my finished cross stitch projects with me. Last weekend (before Gustav) the Girl finished a cross stitch snowman Father Time and we took it to Michael’s and I framed it for her. It turned out so nicely I decided to see about framing something I finished. I was surprised how Beloved got into this process. I was going to get a pre-cut mat in either a green or blue (my project was a teddy bear dragon) but he wanted to use both colors and had the guy in the framing department specially cut a mat so we could have both colors and he picked out the frame. The other project I took was Santa kneeling at the manger, and Beloved tried to get a mat he liked for it. It’s too big to buy a precut mat for it, but he couldn’t find a color he liked with it, so we’ll do it later. When I told him I was surprised as how much he as putting into this, he said, “If we’re going to frame this stuff, let’s do it right.” I’ll post a picture when it’s all done.

After that, we got a couple of other things we needed in some other stores then went to Tropical Smoothie Cafe for lunch. I’m tired now, so I might lie down for a short nap.