A visit from my Dad...

My dad came to visit me on Thursday night, Thanksgiving Day. His flight arrived early enough that we were able to share somewhat of a small Thanksgiving meal. My husband and my dad enjoyed some honey baked ham with a mixture of pineapple and brown sugar, Rutabaga mashed potatoes, gravy, and french cut string beans and mushrooms, with pumpkin pie for desert. Friday, I cooked the turkey, Yams, sweet potatoes, Dressing, Cranberry sauce, gravy, and more!

My dad has come to visit me several times over the years especially since the diagnosis. I will never ever forget him visiting right after I got diagnosed and that huge huge surgery. He stayed with us for about 10 days in our tiny little apartment. Well during that stressful time, he was able to witness our wedding (December 3, 2002) and he got the opportunity to walk me down the aisle at the Moss Beach Distillery. It was a very impromtu perfect little wedding.

The next couple of times my father came to visit was incredibly scary for him seeing me in such severe pain and suffering. I think it nearly killed him to see me in so much pain.
I was in the hospital when he arrived and he came right to my hospital room. It was a few weeks after my second abdominal surgery and it was during those many weekends we spend in the hospital. I was discharged just 2 days later, then a couple of days later, I was back in the emergency room. This had proceeded to be a problem for many weeks in a row. Anyway, my dad and I went to San Francisco together and was able to have some fun prior to my next severe abdominal blockage.

One thing that was cool was that he was able to witness the real miracle of the power of medicinal cannabis in my situation. He had watched me struggle with severe pain, to the point that tears were streaming down my face and I struggled with breathing due to the sharp, sharp pains resulting from my blocked and twisted intestines and then all of a sudden after smoking, I felt almost instant calmness and relief from the severe pain. It was quite a contrast in a matter of 5 minutes. Even though it was only temporary relief, those were moments where I was not crying in pain and was able to be somewhat normal.

I try to take the pain as much as I can because I know in my heart how difficult it must be for my father or even any family member to see me in such pain. It can't be easy for my father to know how hard I am battling for my life. I am true testament of how important it is to cherish life and each waking moment.

Well this visit we were so busy on today. We went and had breakfast at Carrows (won't go there again because of the awful service). You would think in this economy that the bad workers would be let go but not here. Anyway enough about bad karma, we still had a blast. The neighbor's daughter came and spent the entire day together with us. We went to the dog park and Blue Belle got to show off her skills playing frisbee and romping with another beautiful Blue Merle Sheltie (Jagger), then from there, we went to the pet store for more food for Blue Belle and while there, my father got to see these huge snakes molting, then some huge tortoises, and more pets. We walked to the back of the store and Blue Belle got very nervous as we approached more huge snakes. I think she could sense that these animals could easily eat her for dinner. I felt bad for this poor rabbit in a cage as it was very obvious that he would be dinner within a few hours for the huge snake in the cage in front of him.

After the pet store, we took Miss Blue Belle home and we continued on to the Gun Show which was held at the Santa Clara Fairgrounds. No photos were allowed at all (we even had to take our camera back to the car=bummer). We saw lots of old guns, redneck t-shirts (many ignorant racist t-shirts), lots of really nice jewelry for which me and Amanda (my neighbor) couldn't get enough of. We saw a really neat hand made lamp that was made out of a fishing pole, and the lever part turned on the light (it was stringed like a fishing rod). Very cool. We also saw this guy selling lots of tasers starting at $350 and of course he has pistol in his belt.

The coolest part was when we got to the very last booth where this older gentleman had a bunch of old Winchester Rifles and even one which was priced at $26,000. That particular model, only 183 total were made of that particular gun. I was trying to explain to Amanda about these guns and old Winchester Mystery House. The man then started up a conversation with us to include a very, very interesting history lesson about Sara Winchester. It is weird that in that house, you don't really see much of a gun collection. Most of the Winchester gun Rarities are found in North Eastern Wyoming at the Wild Bill Museum.

The man continued to tell us that all the things about Sara Winchester and how the whole ghosts and seances were pretty much untrue and that the real reason Sara Winchester had built this huge house was partly because she was the very first woman to ever graduate from MIT in Architectural Design. It just seemed so unbelievable, but very fascinating.

I was hoping this might all be true but I seriously doubted it but we listened anyway. He claimed that most of the areas of the house that were so strange for some like the stairs to no where were from designs and paper drawings from school and why they were designed the way that they were was simply because she mostly just wanted to see up close what she had learned in school. He had claimed there were many homes that now featured many of Sara's building designs from that house.

Now I did do a search in Google and found nothing at all about any of this, so I do plan to at least call MIT to find our more and to see if she actually did graduate MIT? I have to know so if you are curious I plan to find out for sure soon.

We then left the gun show and went home to pick up Miss Blue Belle and take her over to a friend's party. She had some Dungeonous crab which my dad had never tried before. It was very good and Blue Belle got to play with a Rottwieller until she got too rough with Blue Belle (she nipped her little bottom or tail?) Blue Belle also got to meet my friend's rat which she didn't want much to do with. Amanda played with the rat the entire time at the party. It was a good get together as me and Celeste exchanged stories of our unusual childhood's with wild animals.

That was one thing we had in common; both of our mother's loved animals much more than humans and even treated them better in many ways. On one occasion when I was about 6 or 7 years old and my brother was maybe 3 or 4, we were riding along in the back seat together (before child seats) and my father was driving. A family of skunks were crossing the road and my mom had my dad immediately stop. With that, she bolted out of the car to grab two of those little skunks by the tail. She threw both little skunks into the front seat right next to my dad where both little assholes were pointing directly at my dad enough so that he got some double spray action. My parents were fighting like crazy but it was hilarious. My brother cried because the smell was just god awful while I laughed because I was more aware of what was happening at the moment. The smell was so horrible that my eyes were burning. I don't even think the smell phased my mom at all because she really wanted to take both those cute babies home no matter what. My father yelled for her to take those little skunks out of the car immediately and it took her a few moments before she finally picked up both babies by the tail and placed them back with their family. My dad had also remembered that it must have taken months to get the smell out of the car. Everyone was in stitches as I told this story especially Amanda.

Celeste had several cool stories about how her mom had rescued animals and she mostly had snakes and alligators since she was originally from Florida. It was funny our parallelisms in our moms and our fathers. It just goes to show how we live in a parallel universe.

Bodies in Motion stay in motion...

Despite several painful days I am finally starting to feel somewhat normal again. The pain has subsided some; but I've been keeping myself busy each day and getting more rest. I have been off chemo for approximately 3 days including today and am stoked that I am just starting to feel a little more NORML. I plan to cherish these kind of days where the pain is minimal. I will have to start the Etoposide on Tuesday, Nov. 11th and will continue to enjoy every day that I am off chemo. (I try my best to enjoy the days I am on chemo as well;)

Yoga is very important for me in relaxing and stretching my body every day. I try my best to practice in the morning about 1/2 hour after my Ensure breakfast drink and an hour and a half before bed. It may be for 10 -20 minutes per session. I know it's been helping so far. Another way, to help my body heal is to walk my dog or my cat. I always feel better if I exercise at least once a day. Here is a video of me walking my cat which I video taped today with my new camera that my dad sent me recently. I'm so grateful! This camera is so much fun!

I hope Tonto's effort in walking on his leash as least made you chuckle just a little; I know he certainly made me and continues to!

I took Miss Blue Belle 2 days in a row to go run and play with her boyfriend Jagger another Blue Merle Sheltie. Here they are resting. They rest, they run, they drink water together, run some more and then rest again, over and over again. She was a little jealous of the other girl that Jagger likes to run with, Sophie a three year old Golden Retriever.

I have been having loads of fun taking photos with my new camera. Here are a few winners. I took Miss Blue Belle after she had been worn out playing with Jagger over to have a romantic picnic lunch with my hubby. I picked up some sandwiches and drinks at a Safeway and we had lunch by a beautiful lake. After lunch, we walked around the lake and looked for various subjects for photos. Here are a few excellent photos of snapping turtles and a few birds.



































































My husband and I walked on the beautiful trail together holding hands and cherishing the beautiful time together. I felt warmness in my heart and when I close my eyes, I can think about how warm and comforting his hands feel in mine = wow another great meditation!

Meditation for today: #714 "Earth Energy: collect a handful of pebbles in your hand and lightly play with them. Feel their smoothness and listen to the sound they make as they click against each other. Imagine the earth they have been lying in for so many years. Tap into the vast powers that created our Planet".

Perhaps with the addition of these meditations that I am trying out, they can also benefit you! I just want to express my love for all of my readers! Thank you from the bottom of my heart! I'm surviving this disease in order to give you hope and inspiration to look at the positive things in your life. No one likes complainers now do we?

For those of you worrying about the future and disappointed about the election. I do know that there are some of you who are. It does no good to stress about it. We must move on! We can only do our best in this lifetime!)

Our Adventure in getting a dream puppy....

Just look at that face and tell me that she can't make you smile. She's very sensitive and sweet but what Shetland Sheepdog isn't? We got her exactly 2 years ago on the 6th of May just after learning that my cancer had returned. She certainly made my treatments much easier to take this second time around.

We named her Blue Belle being a Blue Merle and how her little ears just layed perfectly on top of her head just like 2 little bells, so how appropriate of a name for her.

She got along great with the cats from the start and respected that they were there first. We had read this about Shelties just prior to getting her anyway because we wanted our cats to not have their lives change all that much if we got a dog. We had researched several breeds thoroughly and as a child I had always dreamed of getting one. We went to the shelter several times but we were hesitant to get any of the dogs because most did not get along well with cats. The older cat we didn't want to add more stress and he didn't deserve stress having gone through all that he had with his Crystallitus(sp) condition. Normally we rescue pets but at the time we couldn't find any Shelties that needed rescuing, but this time we just felt, you only live once, so why not get your dream puppy? That's what she was to me; a dream come true; actually for both of us, she is. It made the cancer coming back not so bad at all. I hardly thought about it at all or even going through the treatments.

What an adventure she has been and she still is. I remember not being able to wait to get her. I had found her online and the picture of her is just what we had dreamed our dog would look like. My husband wanted a Blue Merle and I just wanted a Sheltie as I had all my life. I saved her picture on the screen saver so that my husband could see her. He immediately fell in love with her and told "Yes" call and lets get her.

We had to first wait a few weeks until she was old enough. The problem with the date was that we had to go to a concert just the week after she was old enough. The Concert had been elaborately planned months before and we were to meet some good friends that we hadn't seen in a while, it was expensive for the tickets, Madonna was playing and several other bands like Massive Attack, Depeche Mode, Tool, just to name a few. My husband and I had thought seriously of just blowing off the concert and getting the puppy early so that we could enjoy her. She was ready to go, but we had to plan around this stupid concert which we really didn't have much fun at anyway. It was the Coachella concert held near Palm Springs in Indio, CA. It took us 4 hours to drive just 1 mile in that the town was not wasn't ready to accomodate that many concert goers. It was when gas was approaching 3.39 per gallon and we were driving a rental gar which was a gas hog, a Dodge Magnum.

The bathrooms at the concert were terribly disgusting with ridiculously long lines for using just portopotties. I remember just standing in line in terrible pain and hearing women screaming as they walked into the hot portopotties without toilet paper or doilies.

It was about 103-105 degrees. Very, very hot! My bladder was suffering from the cancer returning and I had to go practically every half hour with the lines in access of 45 minutes. After I would finish waiting in line, I would have go back in line to wait to go again.

Because the concert was all ages, the beer garden was a good ways away from the concert stages and if you got a beer you had it to drink it before going into the concert. This was by far the worst concert the two of us had ever been to and we had been to plenty of concerts including several Lollapalooza concerts (mostly the early years 91-94), Rockfests, Ozzfests, and hundreds of bands, quite literally. There were a lot of the bands performing, but sound just wasn't set up correctly and it sounded muffled most of the time.

The concert was total misery and if we were to do it again, we would have blown off Coachella and just gotten our little fluff ball early and enjoyed her an extra 2 weeks. Blue Belle was 10 weeks old when we got her and those 2 extra weeks were blown because of a dumb concert that actually cost us 40,000 American Express Miles. Long story, big regrets.

We had walked out of that concert just as Madonna was entering the stage and even though we didn't get to see her I don't regret walking out early at all. I couldn't handle the bathroom situation anymore and we certainly didn't want to deal with all the traffic getting out of the concert if it had taken us 4 hours of getting there just to go 1 mile. We decided then that we were too old and disinterested in ever going to another concert like that. We went home thinking about waiting an extra week to get our little fluff ball puppy.

I worked the whole week thinking of her as the breeder updated us with pictures and how she took her to the vet and people kept stopping her to check out what a cute puppy she was. She couldn't walk 10 feet without people getting out of their cars just to check her out. She pranced so proudly on her leash.

It was so hard to concentrate on work when that Friday came around. Her flight was to arrive at 3 pm. I couldn't wait and everyone at work couldn't wait either. They saw the photos and were just as excited. When 3pm finally rolled around, I left to pick her up in cargo. She hadn't been taken off the plane just yet, so I went to the restroom. When I returned from the restroom I noticed a white pet carrier sitting on the counter and a few people crowded around it. I was so excited as I hurried over to get a glance at her. I looked in as her little ears were at attention on top her head, she was so tiny (about 2 lbs), and just a ball of beautiful fluff. I couldn't help but let out a "Awwwwww"; as I said it her head tilted to the right so much so that another "awwwwwww" came out and then she tilted her head to the left. She was too adorable not to open the crate and take out and just love on. She was so perfect and still is.

She has been the most amazing dog I could ever wish for and has brought me nothing but smiles, laughs, and healing for both me and my husband. She has it in her to be a therapy dog and we have taken her to visit a few people who have needed her healing touch. After getting diagnosed I had to take antidepressants but after getting her, I no longer need them. She cheers me up just fine, gets me out of the house, but can be quite a child magnet. I can take her anywhere around town and someone knows her or remembers her. They know her at the post office and especially the dog park or any of the pet stores around town I will usually hear someone else calling her name "Blue Belle!" or "Look it's Blue Belle!".

What's really cool about Blue Belle is her healing power. I know she has a healing power because I witnessed it on so many occasions; too many to count. She has made me feel healed in so many ways. I have walked her many times down the street and maybe seen someone looking quite depressed, walking with their head down, she can sense this and will walk out her way to put her ears back and get a sniff of that person walking by. She'll wag her tail as if she is trying her best to cheer this person up and usually a smile will result and so I have proved my point, she brings smiles with her everywhere she goes.












Here she is right after a bath sporting in a new bed at the pet store. The photo on the right is of her 4th best friend Tonto as the two go on a walk together. This is what we love about Shelties, they are loyal, peaceful dogs. Our kitties didn't have to alter their lives all the much. The older cat loves her and tries to sleep with her sometimes.