The five stages of grief - sort of.

Dear cuzzes and others,

THRILLED beyond speech that Obama was elected. History in the making. I cannot tell you how joyous I am that a non-white person is in the white house. For the first time ever I can tell Tess that she could grow up to be president - and not actually lying.

Love his wife (altho WHAT was it with that red thing? Oy!), and that she doesn't pretend that everything, or her marriage, is perfect - Cindy McCain gave me the allovers - Stepford Wife from hell. Is she really an android?

TESSIE DANCED HER NUTCRACKER PART ON POINTE TODAY. First time EVAR. She's only been on pointe shoes for about 6 months. The kid is amazing, everyone - she is SO beautiful and expressive on stage, and she says "Mama! I love dancing on stage, and having people watching me dance!" (Ulterior motive - those of you here for thanksgiving, you can see her dance in it. hint, hint, hint, entice, entice, entice. And maybe even see ME dance in it! I'm practicing the part of a Party Parent in the first act - depends on chemo, though.)

I had a port-a-cath put in today, and it was a beeeyitch. Took FIVE doses of painkiller to get it down enough for me to go home. two pentathol, three vicodin. It goes like this - pain - narcotic - nausea, narcotic wears off, pain, narcotic, nausea from the narcotic, pain. Would someone PLEASE invent a painkiller that doesn't make me want to HURL?!?!? So I'm trying to find the exotic midpoint between pain low enough to handle, but without the hurling part. Tell me some good fifth grade barf jokes, I might need 'em.

OK, enough of that.

Chemo tomorrow, and they are going to give me the Steroid From Hell to me intravenously, instead of orally. Apparently this is far less likely to cause the manic jitters I had last week. So glad they THOUGHT OF IT. Wish they'd thought of it LAST week. I fricking hate hate HATE our medical system.

My cuz told me about a friend of hers they sent home the SAME DAY as her mastectomy. They tried to send me home the day AFTER the mastectomy, and I threw a fit. I was still not really handling the pain, and I was damned if I was going home, where I couldn't tell the nurse to crank up the fricking morphine. I had the surgery on a wednesday morning, and I went home on saturday. The treatment of your friend is totally, unutterably fucked. It enrages me. It boggles me. If Obama fixes exactly ONE thing, let it be our medical system. No, the war. No, energy and global warming. Fart. Ok, three?


Guess who we had a visit from last night. Wait for it.... Helen Anne! I had not seen her in something like 14 years - I think I last saw her when Nigel was FOUR. It was amazing, wonderful, fantastic - she looks exactly the same, and the two of us talked a double wide blue streak for three hours. It was SO much fun. She sends her love, and we traded much skuttlebutt about both extended families - were all of your ears burning?

I'm the walking personification of the five stages of grief right now, can you tell? Only she got it wrong. I can experience them all - denialgriefangerbargainingacceptance - in the length of one e-mail. Super Speedy Grief Queen!

However, Therese and I decided the process was missing two, especially in the grief after the loss of a boyfriend -
Denial, Grief, Anger, Bargaining, BITTERNESS, REVENGE.....and acceptance.

Remind me to post piccies of my fabulous new haircut!

Love you all tons, gobs, buckets!
grundoon