Being Jeanne...

I have been out of my house six times since March 16th.  Coincidently, that's my birthday.
This COVID19 is really changing how I see the world.  You can see a lot of people pulling together to get PPEs to our essential workers.  Speaking of which, they need a pay raise.  A big one. Restaurants, grocery store employees, delivery people, distribution personnel, of course, our first responders and health care providers.  I could talk for hours about how many people need to be paid more.
Personally, I am lucky that our school district has decided to do distance learning via Microsoft Teams.  It's been interesting but three weeks in and the students are asking for video conferences and are becoming more efficient in their navigating skills.  This is good, as it's preparing them for real-world application use. 
Both Jerry and I are working from home.  We have had a few bumps in the "office" but have a schedule and follow it pretty much every day.  We do make sure to "…

Whew!  My chest x-ray where unremarkable.  My kidney levels are stable.

The doctor talked about possibly doing some genetic testing, but at this point, it isn't required.  Apparently, new research has shown clusters of genetic mutations for different kinds of cancer.  My parent's cancer and mine don't seem to be in a cluster group, but the research is still new, so, at this point in time, no testing is recommended.

In six months, we will do another chest x-ray and a sonogram on my right kidney to make sure there isn't anything "going on" there.

I'm glad I moved my appointment before spring break, so I can just relax next week.

Today I went to get my chest x-ray to see if my kidney cancer metastasized and traveled to my lungs. Whee? No.

I have been pretty glum about this all weekend. Crying. Yelling, “I’m afraid” and just generally mopey. I know, rationally, I should be fine. But cancer if fucking scary. It looms like a monster under the bed, ready to grab your ankle as you wake up. Ok...maybe not that scary, but it does loom.

Today’s appointment was just annoying. President’s Day is one of those Mondays that I’m off from school. I tried to get a different time, but I was too lazy to call earlier. Maybe it was because I didn’t really want to have my x-ray. So...appointment set from 8:20am. I get there around 8:05, so I can do all the check-in paperwork, etc. 8:20 comes and goes... 8:40 comes and goes... Finally, at 8:58, I asked how much longer, and they checked with the tech and told me a few minutes longer. Another 15 minutes and finally they take me back.

 The room is freezing. Thankfully, …

I love Christmas lights.  Twinkly little points of light make me happy.  I was excited to plug in the outside lights this year.  Until they didn't work.  My heart sank.  We have rechargeable, and I thought it was charging, but it wasn't.  I tried charging them again, but to no avail, the lights didn't come one.  Jerry finally got involved and finagled the charging battery, and after a night of charging, I had my twinkle lights on the porch.  Yay, it was Christmasy! 
I didn't put up Christmas decorations in the house until the 20th of the month.  I thought about it doing it earlier but just felt "meh" about it, so I put it off.  The day I decided to put up some lights across our mantle was sad.  My lighted garland was dead.  I wiggled each light, couldn't see if any were burned out to change so that the twinkly strand of lights would work again.  Jerry came up that evening to "emotional Jeanne" and tried his best to see if the fuses were bad.  I…

I'm feeling much better.  Just a cold now, but that is going to be all the time at school.  It seems this year the kids don't know how to "vampire cough" or that they should rub the snot onto their hands and then touch things.  This is why I don't share pencils or pens with students.  I secretly don't like giving them to other adults either.  I wouldn't say I'm a germ-a-phobic, but you can never be too careful.

Jerry and I went and saw Jekyll & Hyde at the Alhambra Dinner Theatre.  I love that we have season tickets.  Later this month, our FSCJ season starts.  We will see Wicked the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.  I'm excited.

Speaking of holidays.  We didn't hand out candy this year for Halloween.  I think maybe next year we will.  We'll see...  We have been invited to Jerry's sister's house for Thanksgiving.  We are going to take some gluten-free dressing. YUM! Christmas is still too far off.  I did just order a little "sk…

This past month was not fun. Mid-September I had an ear infection that caused laryngitis and temporary hearing loss in my right ear.  I went to my primary care doctor and got a round of antibiotics. Nothing cleared up, so I ended up back at an ENT's office, and they confirmed the ear infection and hearing loss (moderate to severe) with a hearing test.  Yet another antibiotic, stronger...

About five days into that round of medicine, I developed what I call "the three hours of hell."  The first hour was uncontrollable shivering, followed by high fevers (topped off at 103.5 at it's worst), finally ending in an hour of heat intolerance. 

Finally, I went back to my PCP and got a flu test (NEG), and she put me on Tamiflu.  Great...more pills.  Another five days until the fevers broke, and I started feeling better.

Poor Jerry took care of me during all of this.  I wasn't eating much as there were days I couldn't keep anything down.  I lost 16 pounds during those 2 w…