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Yep, that's me - done with chemotherapy!
(And still able to make things rhyme.)

11 days ago I had my last chemo treatment and I can confidently say that the worst is over. Woo-friggin-hoo!! Yes I still have some aches and pains, but they are minor and each day I feel a bit more like my old self again.

On Friday I went for my radiation mapping, and though I swore I'd never do it, I now have 5 tattoos. Well okay, technically, they're just little teeny dots so that each time I go for radiation they can make sure I'm lying in the exact same position. Wouldn't want that zapper thingie to miss! I will go every day for 5 weeks starting on September 30th. Which means, if you do the math, I will be DONE in the first week of November.

What else have we been up to? Well, we bought a pretty new clock to provide a taste of New York and to go with our newly painted living room...


I don't think the color is 'true' in these pictures, but it's close enough that you can get the idea of what the NCS version of BM's Saybrook Sage looks like...





We had new gutters installed on the house and the current project is painting things outside. Before we started, everything was a very dark brown and we're brightening things up a bit so stay tuned for the final results!

Lastly, my Google calendar is starting to fill up with actual dates and times of social events. Before you know it, I may have something that resembles an actual social-life!

Bragging Rights...

Yep, I'm taking this moment to brag a bit about my incredibly talented oldest brother, Jeff. Not only did he write this particular piece but the second solo is him - he's the one sitting in the dark!

And yes I do realize that the video is 12 years old, but hey, youtube didn't exist back then!

The group is called "New York Trombone Conspiracy" and if you enjoyed this performance, you can find a bunch more on youtube. :)

Silver Anniversary

Today is the 25th wedding anniversary of one of our neighbors and the perfect time to explain another Danish tradition!

Last night the neighborhood was a frenzy of activity - kids running everywhere while the parents 'pretended' to drill holes in the neighbor's house. They didn't actually drill any holes but the idea is that you attempt to freak out the happy couple by pretending to destroy their house - or something.

By the time everyone went to bed, there was a beautiful 'gate of honor' at the couple's front door:


Between 6:30 and 7:00 am this morning, everyone gathered in the street in front of their house:


There was a trumpet and a flute to accompany what some would call singing...

The singing was sad. I'll give everyone credit for attempting a few tunes at this obscene hour of the morning, but let me tell you, they really needed a Ken Nelson (aka my dad), a man who can be heard miles away, to lead them in their songs. Instead, this singing sounded more like someone had woken a few mice and led them in a sad chorus. I kept thinking.. I thought this was supposed to be a happy occasion? When you have 40-50 people singing and you can still hear the flute... something is amiss! Perhaps by the time another couple on the street celebrates their 25th, I'll know the Danish better, and the tunes better, and I can attempt to lead them.

As the group started song #4, the happy couple appeared on the front stoop...


And when the singing ended, everyone was invited inside for breakfast.

While I love embracing new traditions, I must admit that to me, this ranks up there with the faulty concept of the danish birthday party. Hasn't anyone in Denmark figured out that when it's YOUR day, someone else is supposed to do all the work? The happy couple had transformed the inside of their house into a banquet hall with seating for all these people around 3 HUGE tables. I can only imagine where the tables and chairs came from - I hope they were borrowed and that it wasn't necessary to rent them or something!

Keep in mind, this was 7 am!! Which means, in order to serve breakfast to all these people, my poor neighbors were probably up at 5 am putting rolls in the oven, slicing cheese, setting out jars of marmalade, etc. I do hope that once everyone left they finally had some time alone to celebrate their anniversary!!

Note to the Danes... When Ole and I celebrate our 25th, please do come and sing to us, but, if it's not too much trouble, can you bring the breakfast with you? Oh, and some tables and chairs too? Thanks!!

Fire and Ice

Last Wednesday was my second dose of Taxotere. In my best effort to ward off side effects, I gulped down nearly 2 liters of water prior to the treatment. We were home, all ready to go, and then the phone rang. There was a problem at the pharmacy inside the hospital -something with ventilation - and they were unable to prepare the drugs for me. Thankfully, we weren't yet on our way and could just sit at home and wait.

Ole decided to take advantage of the little break and put on his painting clothes. Just as he was halfway through painting a window the phone rang again and now, of course, they were ready for us! He predicted that simply by changing his clothes and getting out the paint brush, they'd be ready, and he was right!!

When I go in for each treatment there is a whole question and answer session about the side-effects from the last time. This is where they decide what other glorious pharmaceuticals they will send me home with - more little bags of pills! The best thing is that I never have to go to the pharmacy for any of this stuff, they just give me little baggies with whatever pills I'm supposed to take.

In reviewing the last treatment, and my complaints about the numb fingers, it was decided that my hands would be put on ice. The nurse came with two frozen gloves and stuck my hands into them... holy ice, that hurt! But, I kept telling myself, if it helps, it's worth it!!


During the course of treatment, these frozen gloves came in quite handy. You see, one of the other wonderful side effects of all of this is that my body goes through menopause... or as it's called in some places, chemopause. And with chemopause, comes hot flashes. They were interesting and fascinating when they started, now they're just annoying! However, if you happen to be wearing an ice glove when you get a hot flash, just put your hand on your head and you'll instantly feel better!

After treatment, I was feeling the usual tiredness and spent the last few days just trying to take it easy knowing the worst was yet to come. Yesterday I spent most of the day in and out of sleep and wasn't feeling great last night so I decided at 10:30 pm that I would just go to bed. I mentioned to Ole that I was cold and as he gave me a hug, he said... "You're not cold, you're burning up." Bah. We then took my temperature, and yep, I had a fever.

The 'book' says that if I have a fever, I'm supposed to call them immediately and we did. And then, an hour later, I found myself in a small room, in a bed, in the hospital. They spent the next hour poking me, drawing blood, checking me, questioning me, etc., trying to determine whether it was just a fever or if I could have contracted something else. With my blood counts so low from the chemo, I'm not really able to fight off any possible infections, so they have to be extra cautious. Finally, they hooked up an IV with some antibiotics and saline and let me sleep, and Ole went back home.

After a frustrating morning of waiting around to see whether or not they'd let me come back home, and some pretty decent breakfast and lunch at the hospital, the doctor finally came to talk to me around noon. My fever had gone down and they cleared me for release. And here I am, home again!

So how did you spend your Saturday night?!

Whammies

Tap tap tap... is this thing on?

Hello world - I'm alive!

Last Tuesday was my first treatment with Taxotere (aka docetaxel). It seemed innocent enough. Oh sure, they warned about allergic reactions that can happen within the first 10 minutes of treatment, but I didn't experience that. I figured I was home free. I ... was wrong.



The day of treatment and the next day I had my usual tiredness but overall the Taxotere seemed to have much less impact than the previous treatments. I was thinking to myself.. weee.. this isn't bad at all! And then slowly, gradually, it snuck up on me. All my chanting of No Whammies, No Whammies, No Whammies... and then the little whammie with a lawnmower plowed through.


I don't remember the order of which horrible reaction came first, but I can tell you that if you go through the booklet of possible side effects and put a nice little check mark next to each one I felt, or am feeling, you end up with more marks than a high school trigonometry test.

I'll spare you all the gory details because 1. they'd probably gross you out, and 2. typing is still painful. Suffice it to say I'd rather have 2 more treatments of the first chemo drug than 2 more taxotere, but I don't get a choice in the matter. The worst effects that I'm still feeling are the numbness in my fingers (hence the typing issues) and the fact that nothing I eat tastes the way it's supposed to taste. Even water tastes funky! And, if you wish to share in my current misery, go to the kitchen and grab a bit of unsweetened chocolate as that will simulate what ALL chocolate is currently tasting like. They really should've warned me about that part. However, in fairness, had they done so, I would have been running out of there kicking and screaming.

There was one upside to the last treatment. While I was getting my treatment, a nurse came in and asked if I would like some lunch!! When she said that I could have tarteletter, I was so excited that nothing else mattered. The only other time that I ever get these is for julefrokest or easter time, made by my mother-in-law. This wasn't the hospital food they served back in the US!! One giant point for the Danish medical system...

Coloring My World

3.5 years ago, prior to my arrival, Ole moved into our house and, with the help of his dad, painted the entire house in good old painter's white. The great plan was that when I arrived, we would then choose some actual paint with which to decorate the place. Up until a month ago, everything was still white. Shocking, no?

An interior decorator I am most definitely not! I find the process of picking paint colors, rugs, curtains, and other associated knick-knacks to be excruciatingly painful. On the other hand, laying on the sofa staring at blank white walls is equally painful, and I just couldn't take it anymore. So off to the paint store we went - finally!

When you shop for paint in the US, you will be instantly overwhelmed with racks and racks of little 2x1 colored squares, on strips, from which to choose. Each color will have a carefully chosen name which is just about as relevant to the actual color as the names typically chosen for lipstick. Should you choose "autumn pumpkin" or "fireball sunset"? Sure, both are some shade related to orange, but they can't just call it orange as there are probably 500 strips of color that all fall somewhere between yellow and red and labeling them Orange 1, Orange 2, etc., would just bore people.

But the names serve another purpose - they let you choose your color based on a feeling. Autumn Pumpkin evokes memories of wandering a field of pumpkins in October, picking those perfect specimens that will then be carefully carved, adorned with a candle, and left to rot on your front porch until some teenagers come along to smash them in the street. Ahh, sweet pumpkins. If you want to have this memory of Halloweens gone-by everyday, then Autumn Pumpkin may just be for you! But perhaps a 'Fireball Sunset" is more to your liking. Perhaps you live where you don't ever get to see a proper sunset and would like to experience that feeling each evening in your living room. The bottom line is that Orange #4 just doesn't quite give you that same ease of choice - it has no meaning, and therefore, no memories - 'tis just a color. And without feelings, the process of choosing is just too difficult!

I thought everything would be the same here in DK. I was wrong. We arrived at the paint store only to find that there were no walls of paint chips. There weren't any books full of pictures of what Mango Mango could do for your living room, or what Apricot Dream could do for your kitchen. There was just a dude behind the counter and walls of nondescript buckets of paint. We went to the counter and the dude handed us a fandeck of the NCS color system - 1700+ colors. All without names. All simply labeled with the official NCS color codes.

It's a very mathematical system they've designed; apparently the Swedes are responsible. The color codes look like this: S 3010-G50Y, which I suppose is very helpful if you're trying to match the new carpet you purchased in S 3010-G10Y. Yep, exactly. To start this process, I had a general idea of what I wanted. For my office, I was looking for something in a terracotta type color, and for our living room, I wanted some sort of sage green. So I spun the deck, flipped back and forth, and did my best to make some choices. We left the store with 3 sample bottles of colors related to orange, and 3 samples of colors related to green.

We splashed my office walls with the 3 shades of orange so that I could sit and stare at them for a day and see which appealed to me the most. That plan worked out quite well and I was able to pick 1 of the 3 - woohoo! We splashed the living room with 3 shades of green, and that didn't really go as planned. One was too dark, one was too 1983 and the other was just ugly. Total strike-out. The next day, Ole went back to get the orange I had chosen, and to get 2 more samples of greens. The two new samples were equally horrible, but they also didn't match to the chips I had seen and we were convinced they hadn't been mixed correctly. At this point, I was just so frustrated by the process.

Off to the internet I went, searching for pictures that would speak to me by people who do such things as paint their kitchen and then put it on the web for all to see with the name of the paint. I found a forum at gardenweb full of green painted rooms and I learned that Benjamin Moore's Saybrook Sage seemed to be exactly what I was looking for, if only I could purchase BM paint. But I can't. But... Benjamin Moore happens to be the licensed seller of the NCS paint line within the United States, so I decided that if I could call a BM retailer, he would surely know how Saybook Sage translated to an NCS color code. He didn't, but he did hook me up with a phone number for the Benjamin Moore company's service group and that was my next call. This man was initially not so helpful... "It is BM's policy that we cannot translate our colors to other manufacturers". Ahh, capitalism at it's best. I reverted to my most desperate voice and explained to the man that I was living in Denmark and if I could purchase his product, I most definitely would do so, but unfortunately I cannot and I am desperate to use his company's color, if only I could figure out what it is, but I'm a total wreck and please, oh please, Mr. Benjamin Moore rep, help me out here! It worked. He said they likely have the NCS colors somewhere in his offices and while it wouldn't be exact, he was willing to give it a go and see if he could eyeball the closest color match. He would call me back. Needless to say, I was skeptical that I would hear anything from him and went on to Plan B.

I found a number for an NCS agent in the New Jersey. I called, he answered, he was British. Weird. I went through my whole plea for help again. I explained what Benjamin Moore had told me. The NJ Brit felt my pain and was sure he could help. He took my phone number and said he'd call me back in 10 minutes. Wonder upon wonders, he did. He then presented me with 2 choices: S3010-G40Y and S3010-G50Y. I thanked him profusely, carefully wrote down the numbers and handed them to Ole to go fetch some paint. 5 Minutes later, he called again, this time being more decisive and said go with the 50Y over the 40Y. It sealed the deal. Then, surprise, surprise, while Ole was driving to the paint shop, the Benjamin Moore rep actually called me back with what he had decided would be the closest match. His pick? S3010-G50Y. Woohoo, we were on to something and both reps had chosen the same!

Ole fetched, we splashed, we loved, decision made. Our living room is now Benjamin Moore Saybrook Sage, or NCS S3010-G50Y. You decide which sounds more homey.

I don't yet have any pictures to share of the living room as the room isn't really decorated yet for the new color scheme and I'd rather show off a finished product. However, I will share with you my wonderful new 'hyggelig' office - it's not for everyone, but I happen to love it!



And yes, there is a desk in the office as well, but pictures of desks are boring!

In other news...
Today is treatment day. This is my first of 3 Taxotere (Docetaxel) treatments. I have no idea how it will go or how it will make me feel - we'll have to wait and see. Catch you on the other side of the drip!

Coffee and Diapers and ... Seriously?

I was curious so I headed over to google in an attempt to learn what are the most popular grocery items. Now, going with the theory that the first link is the best, I was taken to the following page of bestselling items under the category of Grocery, at Amazon.com.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/grocery

I'll give you a few minutes to peruse that list - hurry back!

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Oh good, you're back. If you're like me, this particular list will raise more questions than answers. Let's review.

The #1 item is coffee. That in itself isn't really a surprise. The interesting part is that the #1 coffee on amazon comes in 'frustration-free packaging'. I can't remember ever becoming frustrated when attempting to open a package of coffee, and remember, this is before my first cup of the day. Annoyed perhaps, that a new bag must be opened, but not frustrated. If your 'normal' coffee ends up causing you frustration, perhaps you're buying the wrong brand, or maybe you need some help - let's be honest, is coffee really the source of your frustration?

I can't help but picture some woman with frazzled hair answering the doorbell to receive that package, tearing into the coffee (minus the normal frustration) and just snorting the ground up coffee, thereby skipping the entire brewing process - which, mind you, could be somewhat frustrating.

So we move onto #2 -some sort of accessory for a Braun shaver that apparently "leaves your shaver thoroughly and hygienically clean for a better shaving performance every day". Really. There goes my theory of the frazzled woman - apparently it's metrosexual men that are shopping for coffee at Amazon. And thingies for their shavers. If these thingies are the #2 item, these men are either incredibly hairy, hence requiring the daily changing of this item and purchase of so many of these, or incredibly concerned about the cleanliness of their Braun shavers. You decide.

Then there's some more coffee -with frustrating packaging I assume - then we move on to item #4 - baby wipes. Okay, now this one at least makes some sense. Anyone with a baby needs them and I suppose you go through them rather quickly. I'm down with that.

More coffee... more baby wipes... some fruit roll-ups which, I guess, are for said babies... now we get to the weight loss pills. No surprise there, honestly, you just had a baby, right?

Now we get some sort of powdered product, typically found at GNC. The object of this drink is "For maintaining and increasing lean muscle mass". Not really sure if it's the hairy men or the frazzle-haired new moms buying this one. I'm gonna assume it's the hairy men.

More baby wipes, more coffee, more shaving accessories.. hmm.. #12 - Organic chocolate coconut bar. Maybe it's sold only on Amazon?

Coffee, coffee, coffee, wipes, wipes... white strips (#18) and toothbrushes (#19)! Ahh, clean teeth does kind of go with the shaving obsession. Clean teeth, white teeth, check.

More wipes, more coffee... diapers! Where there are baby wipes, there are diapers.

#23 - Moroccanoil. I had no idea what this was or what it could do for me. Opened it up - it's a hair care product. If I still had my hair, this is probably something I would've loved to try. I'm going to have to remember this for the future, assuming my hair is going to come back at some point. It's supposed to tame the frizzies, so now my frazzle-haired woman theory has been confirmed.

Let's move on... As we continue further down the list of the top 100, there seems to be an overall theme of babies and coffee with the occasional personal care item thrown in here and there. #33 is Prilosec - acid reducer. Considering that about 20 of the top 30 are coffee, it's no surprise that acid-reducer may be needed, particularly if you consider these coffee drinkers also have babies.

Then we get to #56 - "K-Y Intense Arousal Gel For Her". Seriously? At this point, I'm going to recommend that our frazzle-haired woman and her hairy, metrosexual husband may want to focus their attention elsewhere. Really. Perhaps this is what got you into this whole baby mess in the first place.

Now, if you're like me (which you probably won't admit to if you are, and who could blame you) as you scrolled through this list of the 100 most popular grocery items, you learned something. I'm not sure if you learned something about humanity in general, or just Amazon shoppers, but chances are you noticed that someone, somewhere has an obsession with coconut flavored products, there are many people purchasing baby wipes at amazon, and coffee. Who knew this many people purchased their coffee, in bulk, via the internet. Oh, and they shave - often.

But nothing jumped out at me quite like #74.

Ladies and gentleman - I present to you - the most ridiculous and insulting representation of an American president - ever...

Chia Obama Handmade Decorative Planter

I kid you not - it's an Obama chia-pet that, in truth, looks nothing like Obama. If I were president and that were me, I'd be using that power of office thing to get that representation of me off the market. Does anyone need to be growing weeds out of the president's head? And, oh look... it comes in both 'happy' and 'determined' - maybe I'll buy both so I can put the appropriate Obama chia-head in my office window each day.

After that item appeared, I pretty much gave up on the rest of the list. The shock value of that alone made me close the browser.

And now that I've looked at the list again, all the way, my whole hairy man theory is out the window...

#98 - Rogaine for Men Hair Regrowth Treatment

Or maybe the only place he's missing hair is on his head.