I’m starting this fun photo thing over here at my other blog! Go check it out!

The reason I’m doing it over there and not here is because posting pictures is so much easier on Blogger than it is on WordPress (where this blog is hosted). I’ll let you know when next month’s pictures are up!

Some days I simply cannot believe my life as it is right now. Just six months ago, everything was normal; everything was great. I’m not feeling sorry for myself by saying all this…I’m just still working through acceptance and grieving the loss of my old “normal” life. In August, Honey and I got a new dog. After two years of me whining and begging for another dog, we finally found the right one! We were fated to end up with little Miss Scarlett. A week or so later, we went to Hilton Head for a mini-vacation. Just the two of us, away at the beach, just to relax and have romance as we began our journey to have a baby. In fact, one of the main reasons I wanted another dog was to give Dobby some company to prepare him for another human addition to our house - he was such a spoiled Little Prince, I shuddered to think of how he would react with an infant taking up all of our time and attention. I thought another dog would help him learn to adjust. It worked well. And we had a great time in Hilton Head. When we got home, my Grandmother was in town and my mom wanted us all to have dinner together. I hadn’t seen Grandmother in several years and hadn’t really spoken to her in almost as long. Mom and I were still on shaky ground with each other but we were learning how to maintain a steady relationship with each other. So Honey and I took mom and Grandmother out to the Rio downtown for burritos and margaritas. We had a great time! I thought mom was a nervous wreck but she seemed to really enjoy herself. We told stories and laughed and drank too much. It was wonderful. By the end of August, I felt like so many things were falling into place in my life. I got a promotion at work, my very own classroom to lead. Things were moving forward and upward.

By the middle of October, it felt like we were screeching our brakes to try and stop so we could grieve our miscarriage. But the brakes on our life didn’t work. They squealed and scraped out of control and we kept sliding. We slid through my still-undiagnosed abdominal pain and the shock of my mother’s death. Eventually, we slammed at full force through a brick wall that was my cancer diagnosis. The wall shattered and our life finally came to a halt. I feel like I’ve just recently been able to catch my breath and climb out of the wreckage of bricks and debris.

I know I’m not supposed to think about death. I’m supposed to think positively and be strong and visualize my recovery and a healthy, happy pregnancy…some day. But it’s exhausting to think like that all the time. Sometimes (usually late at night when I can’t get to sleep) I allow myself some quiet moments contemplating my mortality. I don’t believe in heaven or hell and I don’t go to church. I’m not going to go to church because I do have my own faith and its certainly not found between four walls with a cross up front. I believe in nature, the cycle of life. Everybody dies and everybody is born again. I believe in reincarnation. I always have. I just never really gave it much thought. But in the last week, I’ve had the topic of reincarnation come across my path and explained to me in ways I never thought about before. And it made me less afraid. I’m not going to explain it to you here because I firmly believe that everybody’s spiritual beliefs are extremely personal and just as I don’t want anybody trying to convince me that their beliefs are the RIGHT way to believe, I don’t want to come across as trying to convince you that my belief system is the RIGHT way either. So you have yours and I have mine. So I’m thinking about reincarnation and it gives me some peace to think about where/what my mom has become since her passing. And it makes me think………………

I’m sorry. I just lost it. I can’t continue that train of thought. I seemed to have opened up a big can of worms that I had not intended to. Please forgive me and allow me to change the subject. Maybe I’ll revisit that topic some other day.

Let’s talk about my tongue! In my attempts to try to explain to you just how my tongue feels of late, I’d like you to do a little experiment with me. Go to your kitchen and get a cheese grater - the smaller the better. Not a cheese slicer, but a grater/shredder. One of those metal thingies with the hundreds of sharp holes where you can slide a block of cheese over to create finely shredded cheese. Don’t worry if you don’t have any cheese on hand…it’s not necessary for the rest of the experiment. I’ll wait here while you go get the cheese grater.

Waiting….

waiting…

Got it? Okay. Now stick out your tongue as far as you can, lean forward and run it back and forth over that cheese grater. You will probably need to run it over the shredder about 25 times to get the proper effect. If there is blood that means it’s working! Way to go! Be sure to cover the entire top surface of your tongue, all the way as far back as you can go without gagging yourself. You’re almost there!

Once you’ve effectively shredded your entire tongue, go get a big bottle of rubbing alcohol and some salt and some lemon juice. Take turns pouring all three over your shredded tongue and FEEL THE BURN! It’s indescribable, isn’t it? Oooooo. It hurts!

And now you know how my tongue feels when I eat anything, no matter how bland or easy on the palate. It’s from the CAKE and to be perfectly honest, it is the least of my unsavory symptoms. Yes, the neuropathy is subsiding, though I tried to refill our coffee canister from the bag of ground coffee that we keep in the freezer this morning and my fingers almost fell off from extreme pain. Anyway, the nausea and acid reflux still comes and goes but I’ve learned to ignore it and persevere. The liver pain is still here but, again, I’m ignoring it and just trying to get through the days without taking extra pain medication. No I have not told my doctor about the tongue thing because she probably can’t do anything about it and even if she could it would probably only be prescribing another medication and I am running out of room in my medicine chest for any more prescription bottles! Sometimes, sucking on an ice cube soothes it — that is, until the neuropathy kicks in and it starts hurting in a whole new kind of way.

Anyway, I just thought I’d give you a taste (no pun intended!) of how awesome my tongue feels of late! That’s honestly the best way to describe it. I’m sorry about your tongue. Mine doesn’t bleed as much as yours probably is about now but don’t worry, your tongue will heal in no time!

This post is too long already and all over the freaking place. Sorry about that. That’s my mind lately. “I am Jack’s short attention span.” Now I have to go get a cavity filled in my mouth like a regular, healthy person. Horray!