Get out that Dyson!

Something in this house is shedding and in this case, it's not a 4-legged creature. Well, they're still shedding too, but now something new is shedding!

Today when I got in the shower and went to put shampoo in my hair, my scalp was so tender that I couldn't even rub in the shampoo, and I said to myself.. this is it, this is the moment that I freak out.

I rinsed out the shampoo and then started running my fingers through my hair to figure out whether or not I was right on this one and voila, there it was. It has officially begun - my hair is falling out! EEEEK!

When they told me it would start 2 weeks after treatment, no one mentioned that it would be exactly 2 weeks to the hour - these treatments really should come with better warnings, or at perhaps they should just hand you a ticking time bomb and tell you that when it explodes, so shall your hair!

So I spent most of the afternoon sitting at my desk picking at my hair. It's fascinating and freaky and I'm completely obsessed with it at the moment.

When I was about to leave work, someone said 'Don't pull all your hair out!", and then followed-up by saying, "It's not every day you can say that to someone and mean it literally!"

Ole's in Poland this week and I told him when he booked the trip that I was going to lose my hair while he was away. Right again! Hope I'm not totally bald by Saturday when he gets back.

Oh well, I've got my caps ready! But I really hope I look more like this:



... then this!

Adjectives

Went to Danish class last night and the teacher was describing the shirts that some of the guys were wearing so that we could learn the various adjectives - practical knowledge I guess if you wish to buy a specific type of shirt and lack eyes with which to view the merchandise.

He started with the obvious - describing it as a striped shirt. I think everyone can agree that for this particular shirt, 'striped' would be the apt adjective:



However, the next shirt he came to, and asked us to describe, led to a bit of discussion...



Okay, more of a little argument, and okay, it was just really me being difficult again. Sort of like the time another Danish teacher attempted to tell me that basketball and volleyball could be described as similar games, which he based solely on the fact that both have a 'ball', and I argued that in reality, basketball is more closely related to hockey, whereas volleyball would be more closely related to badminton. Yeah, I'm like that sometimes, and if I were the teacher I'd probably want to slap me upside the head, but that's not allowed in Denmark and besides, I'm the class entertainment. Without me, they'd all be asleep 30 minutes into the 2-1/2 hour class. But, I digress. Back to the shirts and my point.

We needed the equivalent of striped with which to describe the above shirt. So I said "på engelsk, det er 'plaid'" and then I quickly grabbed my dansk/engelsk dictionary to look up the danish word for plaid. Which, lo and behold is.. wait for it... PLAID. The teacher had decided to use another adjective to describe the shirt.. he chose "ternet". So with some speedy little page flipping, I found 'ternet' on the danish side of the book, which officially translates to "checkered".

When I said... "No no, that's plaid!" - and I then showed him that the danish dictionary translated the english plaid to the danish plaid, he looked at me strangely and said I was incorrect. Grumble.

Now, 'checkered' to me is the pattern you see on a flag at the racetrack - not the shirt pictured above. A checkered shirt, in my opinion, looks like this:


THAT is checkered. The one above it is plaid. Hmmph.

In Danish class, one of the important things we are taught is that when you have an opinion, you also need argumentation. So, I present to you, my argumentation:

plaid

–noun
1. any fabric woven of differently colored yarns in a crossbarred pattern.
2. a pattern of this kind.
3. a long, rectangular piece of cloth, usually with such a pattern and worn across the left shoulder by Scottish Highlanders.

–adjective
4. having the pattern of a plaid.

checkered

–adjective
1. marked by numerous and various shifts or changes; variegated: a checkered career.
2. marked by dubious episodes; suspect in character or quality: a checkered past.
3. marked with squares: a checkered fabric.
4. diversified in color; alternately light and shadowed: the checkered shade beneath trees.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.


His argumentation was that 'plaid' was only used for certain plaids, not all plaids (as if that makes any sense), as in the definition found under the NOUN plaid (3. a long, rectangular piece of cloth, usually with such a pattern and worn across the left shoulder by Scottish Highlanders.), not the adjective, mind you. HA!

So, what's your opinion?

(And, btw, if you're a certain Canadian reader who has a certain PLAID skirt wearing scot for a hubby, feel free to chime in!)

Look what the cat dragged in...

Okay, okay, so the post doesn't actually have anything to do with cats, but rather, packages!! I do believe that at this point, the Danish postal service must believe that it's my birthday because for the last couple of weeks, they just keep showing up at my door with packages from the good ole US of A. Weeee!

First, a package from my mom and dad with books, a big chocolate Easter bunny (not pictured - hmmm) and lots and lots of Hershey Kisses (also not pictured.. sensing a pattern here)...


A few days after that package arrived, along came another one, this time from my sister-in-law. She sent me a whole pile of books as well as the Parade article featuring Frederick and Mary and several pages from the Sunday comics - a nice taste of home!


My mother is really skilled with a sewing machine and whipped up these little caps for me and sent them off! I don't know if it was because of a slow postal weekend or if putting 'chemo caps' on the customs form means they rush things, but she mailed these on May 22 and they arrived here on May 25!! Woosh!


And then yesterday, much to my surprise, another package arrived! This one was sent by my co-workers back in the states. I am blessed to have a great group of people to work with - people that I consider friends and people who have been there for me over the years many times. I happened to have mentioned during a meeting about 2 weeks ago that I didn't think it was possible to purchase Saltine crackers in Denmark and saltines are one of those things that, as any good american knows, what you eat when you feel nauseated! Lo and behold.. SALTINES!


I have to mention it - I don't know if you can read the card or not, but it's 3 Golden Retriever puppies and above them it says HEAL!. Perfect card for me and one that definitely put a smile on my face.

Packages from the US are always exciting and I am so lucky to have great family and friends! Thank you to everyone. :)

The long and short of it

Finally, I'm feeling human again! Yesterday I could feel the fog lifting, but today, I feel 'almost' back to normal. Either that, or I'm just getting used to what it feels like to not feel normal - which leads to the inevitable question of what exactly 'normal' is?!

Today was a perfect day. I woke up with a killer headache, mostly due to the lack of caffeine over the past few days, but happily my coffee tasted somewhat normal this morning and that headache passed quickly!

Kelli and Mads came over this afternoon carrying some gorgeous flowers and a big basket full of fresh buttermilk biscuits - handmade by Kelli. Wow, they were good!! I told Ole that I should get the recipe, but I actually liked his solution better - he said "just tell Kelli that she'll need to make them and bring them over!".

So, let's get to the long and short of it. Since college, my hair has been pretty long, usually below my shoulders anyway. This is a picture Kelli took a few weeks ago...



But, with my treatments, it is pretty much a given that I'll be losing my hair. So, in preparation for that, I had it all cut off. It's taken me more than a week to be able to accept the fact that my hair is short. I keep forgetting that I cut it. If I have a bit of a headache, I keep reaching around to pull out my ponytail only to be reminded that it's not there! Anyway, here's the new me...

Meow.. stretch..

It's official - I've turned into a cat.

I now sleep at least 18 hours per day.

Wooosh

Well, today was day one. My best description at the moment is WOOSH.

We arrived on time, to an absolutely stuffed waiting room - I guess that's what happens when your appointment time is one of the first times after lunch. We didn't have to wait too long, however, before we were led down a long hall full of nurses into a treatment room. There was one bed, and two big fancy chairs that reminded of business class on a plane. Thankfully, they put me in the chair, not the bed!

The next 45 min or so wasn't so pleasant. The first needle stick into my veins didn't work - my vein apparently ran away (smart vein). Then she whacked around my arm a few times and tried another spot that also didn't work. And it was at this point that happy Patti became very frustrated, anxious, Patti. The nurse said she was going to go get a colleague to assist. And at this point, I wanted to run screaming out of there - but instead, I found myself getting very overheated and starting to feel sick. Ole helped me to relax again and get my mind off the whole thing and then the nurse came back in to let me know that she had called a nurse down from the anesthesia department (now that has to be a nurse that knows what she's doing!), so I felt a bit better about that. She then wrapped a hot towel around my arm to convince my veins to come out of hiding. Then green hero nurse (regular nurses wear white - operation room nurses wear green) came in to try her turn at bat. She wanted to stick one spot very close to my hand, but the other nurse told her that it was better if it was between the wrist and elbow - so against her better judgment she tried it there, only for it not to work AGAIN. At this point, I was no longer looking - eyes closed, think happy thoughts! Green nurse then stuck where she wanted to in the first place and got the silly thing in my arm. WHEW.

Then I sat there while red juice went first, then saline, then clear juice, then more saline, until the whole process was complete. My only reaction at the time it was happening was this really weird feeling in my nose - like I was about to sneeze, but not sneezing, just all tingly. So, I left the hospital feeling like, okay, I can handle this.

And I could - until a few hours passed. First, and they do warn you about this, you pee red. And yep, it's weird. It's the red drug that causes it, not blood, which is I'm sure why they warn you about it. Approximately 2 hours after finishing treatment, my body decided that it had to sleep.. NOW.

Slept on the couch, and woke up about 90 min later, but laid there trying to figure out how exactly to physically get up. Nope, couldn't do it on my own. Ole had to help me stand up. I wanted to get to the other end of the house so I could change into sweats - I managed to get down there, change, use the restroom, and then made it about halfway back before I just flopped into the nearest chair. Ole made up the guest room bed as it's down at this end, where everything else is, so I crawled into that and promptly fell back to sleep.

I did manage to eat dinner and then sleep again. The hospital told me to try to go for a walk each day, so we just not took the dogs around the block. I'm ready to go back to bed very soon.

So, the best description of day one is just WOOOSH.

(They did, however, warn me that any nausea is probably going to appear on day 2 and 3, so we'll see).

Don't be backward about coming forward - Or, as others put it - I'm awesome!

So, I've been tagged not once, but twice (that I'm aware of!) as being a blogger that is awesome. As part of this, I'm supposed to state 7 reasons why I'm awesome, and here's where it gets a wee bit tricky!

This is hard for me, but I'll give it a shot since the others have already spit out their own reasons!

1. Well, let's start with the obvious. I'm dealing with cancer for the 2nd time in my life. And, I am 100% confident that I'll get through it. It's scary, but so are other things in life, and I've done okay so far!

2. I was smart enough in life to wait for my prince. I didn't marry until I was 38 years old and looking back, I am glad I waited. I found my soul mate, I found the man who loves me for being me, and I found the man that truly makes every day a joy. He is MY Prince of Denmark.

3. I have the guts to go just about anywhere. I grew up in upstate New York, I went to college in Michigan, I lived in NJ and worked in Manhattan, and then I moved across the country to Washington state. And then, as you already know, I packed up my world and moved halfway around the world to live in Denmark.

4. I can do a triple pirouette. Admittedly, not nearly with the same level of skill I once possessed, but I can still do it! So there's something you probably didn't know about me - I have a B.A. in Dance.

5. I was once given the nickname "Brit", which was the short way to call me Encyclopedia Britannica, because I can remember things and my head is full of all sorts of random facts and trivia. It comes in quite handy in my work as I'm often the go-to person for 'do you remember when we made this change and why?'.

6. I amuse people. In most situations, unless it's highly inappropriate, I try to make people laugh. I don't take things too seriously and I have fun with life. I credit my father for this trait! If a joke is to be found within a situation, I'm going to do my best to find it!

7. I make an awesome chocolate cheesecake, an awesome chocolate cake, and very tasty chocolate chip cookies (sensing a theme here!). I don't really like cooking, and therefore, haven't really tried to excel at it, but I can bake. And the chocolate cheesecake is my masterpiece!

So there you have it. Now, the real challenge is to attempt to find 7 bloggers that haven't yet been tagged by someone that I find awesome! If you've already been tagged - it's just more pressure on you to come through!

A Swedish American in Sweden
Not Quite Danish
Happy Adventures
On a Quirky Quest
Our Feet are the Same
Forget Me Knot Nonsense
The Spotted Sparrow