In which I enjoy my last thyroided day.

This post, on the other hand, is all about The Cancer.  Even though everyone who reads this blog either also reads my book blog OR is my mother, and knows all this already, I feel like I should tell you that I'm going in for surgery again tomorrow.  There won't be any rad in-hospital pics because I forgot my camera at my parents' house in a turkey-induced haze of frantic leaving.  So.

Between Thanksgiving and then bogarting all the leftovers and Joel talking me into going for a donut and then talking me into getting the 12-pack once we get there, I've taken a running head start on my post-op weight gain.  I feel like I'm storing up for my 2-day hospital hibernation.

So, they're keeping me for two days this time.  Partially because they're taking out my WHOLE thyroid, and partially because my nerves are finicky.  My voice, once gone, came back with a bang just under a week ago and I am the most Raych-sounding I have ever been.  I have been singing AC/DC and making SCREEEE noises when we take sharp turns in the car and generally relishing the thought that I won't be waking up with a tube in my throat.  If I come out of Surgery 2.0 with my voice intact, it will be like being buried in puppies.

I'm not overly worried.  I've lost my rabid enthusiasm of two weeks ago and I'm not totally stoked to go through recovery again, but I'm thrilled to be recovering for good this time.  All the healing I've done over the last month and some seems like so much wasted energy, but I guess it'll make things easier that I'm so damned healthy again.

I seriously feel great.  I forget for long stretches of time, and then I go to scratch my neck and I'm all, Oh yeah, I have cancer.  And then it's all I can think about.  I feel like this is what the early stages of pregnancy must be like, all Oh right, that Thing! I know that I'm lucky in this.

So!  I have sweats packed, and a few books that I don't need to be terribly lucid to read.  We're going out to Applebees for my last meal and I have a coupon somewhere for a free dessert.  The house is clean, the laundry is done, I have no assignments due for a week and a half.  Let the scalpeling begin!

The good ferry

Ok, this post has nothing to do with The Cancer and everything to do with me and Joel finally Getting Ours.

So, even though I know several people in real life who work for BC Ferries who are not idiots, I remain convinced that BC Ferries is entirely staffed by idiots.  I mean, there has to be a system that just isn't being used, right?  They aren't supposed to load us all on the ferry willy-nilly?

And very little of my beef is with the wait times.  We've only ever once in life (before last weekend) gotten to the ferry when it was sufficiently non-busy that there were no sailing waits.  We are always on the next ferry but one, or the next but two (once on the next but four) and that's fine.  We bring homework.

But when the car in front of you is the last one on the previous ferry, it is RUBBING SALT IN THE WOUND when you are not the first one on the next ferry (after the reservations, I mean.  And the bikes.  And the oversized vehicles).  This is not rocket science OR brain surgery.  Can you not leave a different-colored cone in front of the line where you left off, so that you remember and don't start loading two lines to our left so that we almost don't make it on this one either?

I also have beefs with the process of filling the ferry left-to-right (one car here, and then you go next to him here, and you can go here) instead of just filling a line and then filling the line next to it, but I feel like I'm not explaining this well and I will have a hard time articulating why this is simultaneously inefficient and unfair.

Moving on to the part where we win.  So, my mom offered to ferry us over for Thanksgiving weekend, and buy us a reservation so that we could stick around for the actual dinner part of Thanksgiving and still catch the 9 coming home.  All day Friday things were going pear-shaped at ye olde ferrie terminal because one of them was out of commision, and then apparently Saturday morning as well.  But by the time we got to the terminal at 1:45, there was nothing but crickets and we drove straight onto the 2.

Victoire!  But then also, on the way home with our reservation we got to board first (durrr) and though we should have been off in the last quarter (due to the left-to-right loading procedure), enmeshing us in serious ferry traffic, we were blocking the motorbikes and had to be loaded off first.  Zoot!

I feel triumphant.  I ALSO feel like we've used up all of our good transit karma for the year, and as such we will not be coming home again until Christmas.  I want to ride this come-uppance for a while.

I would shriek with delight, were I capable of shrieking.

Ok internet, remember how yesterday I asked you to pray for an early surgery date for me?  Well you can all start praying for me to become a millionairess, because apparently you are quite good at this.  Today my surgeon's secretary Dawn phones and is all, Let's do this thing (because that's how she rolls).  I'll be going back under the scalpel in exactly 2 weeks (that's the 19th of October, for those of you who are bad at math) which gives me 2 weeks to get myself organized, scholastically speaking, and 2 weeks to stock up on frozen pizzas and 2 weeks for my voice to make that final lunge into normal.

I am absurdly excited.  I have never been this thrilled about a medical procedure.

Selective mutism

Ok, right, so the reason I haven't yet blogged about this whole not-being-able-to-talk business is A.) because I have a lazy ass, and B.) because it has actually been the most difficult part of this whole shim-sham.  Interacting with other people is such a large part of who I perceive myself to be that being reduced to a whisper has not been compatible with me having an awesome time.

So.  I woke up from the surgery with my voice in shreds and that was crappy but we thought it was just a normal side-effect of all the KNIVES that had been so recently whirling around my throat.  But many days went by (10.  Exactly 10) without it getting any better at all, and I cannot convey to you the extent of the frustration.  I couldn't thank the bus driver and I couldn't order a coffee and I couldn't speak in class and I had to SHOUT to talk to the person next to me and it was exhausting.  Plus, there were many instances where I'd be talking to someone and they'd be nodding away and I'd KNOW they couldn't hear me, but were just being polite.

And then I went to a wedding and did a fair amount of shouting and drank a great deal of Fireball whisky and woke up the next morning substantially improved, in the old voice-department.  It was a Fireball miracle.

But then 10 MORE days went by with no significant improvement, so now I could be heard across the room but only if the room was small and quiet, and if the person across the room was expecting me to speak, PLUS we had a chit-chat with the doctor about what ye olde nerve-paralysis means.  Turns out that the same nerves that help you talk also help you breathe, and that if I go in for Surgery-the-Dos and t'other nerve goes down too, I will end up with a trachotomy, and that is just about at the bottom of my List Of Things To Do In Life, right above Lose Arm To Shark Attack.

Anyhoodle, now I am stressing out because not only is this seriously chapping my ass, but it is freaking me out about a surgery that I was not previously freaked out about.  But nerves do not heal quickly if they heal at all, so I'm marshalling everyone I know who prays about stuff and getting them to pray about this, because the rest I can handle but I cannot re-grow my own nerve.

So Wednesday I come home after a particularly vigorous episode of Top Model and I'm talking to Joel and all of a sudden my normal voice switches on like a light and I stop sounding like Gary Busey.  Thank God.  And I mean literally, and if we were still doing the whole animal-sacrifice thing I'd be rustling up unblemished cattle like they were going out of style.

And Thursday morning it's gone again but by Thursday evening it's back, and now it cuts in and out like a bad tv set and if I clear my throat really hard sometimes I can knock it back into shape.  I sound like I'm going through puberty and I never have any idea when I open my mouth what's going to come out, and this results in me being INAPPROPRIATELY LOUD sometimes but I don't even care because this is such a relief, this is such a load off my mind, and I've never been more grateful.

Now we all need to pray that someone else cancels their surgery so that I can sneak in there like a bandit.

How I live now

Ok, it's been six days since my surgery and you can tell because six of my lillies are open, and have been opening with extreme orderliness at the rate of one a day.  Like some sort of flowery day-clock.

Every morning I wake up feeling orders of magnitude better than I did the evening before, but because I spend the day feeling slowly shittier my overall gains aren't as astronomical as one would like.  I have gone off the T3s which made the water stop tasting like ass, but also dragged me back into the depths of exhaustion because hey, T3s also have caffeine in them.  Who knew.

Joel has gotten much chattier in the past week because if we're watching, say, The Deadliest Warrior (which is all kinds of horrible but also incredibly watchable), he's the only one able to keep up a running commentary on how dumb this is.  I have to weigh everything I want to say in terms of how funny it's going to be, how much energy it's going to take to holler, and whether it'll be worth it in the end.  The answer is usually 'no.'

I feel like I'm shouting all the time, but at best I'm making myself barely heard in a quiet room.  Mostly I'm running at just above a whisper.  This is maddening.  I like to make casual conversation with the salesgirl in the Urban Planet, I like to give directions to the young couple on the bus, I like to be the one poking fun at Deadliest Warrior's scienticians.  It's supposed to get better, but I'm not good at the wait.

I bought a profusion of scarves just before my surgery.  It's not so much that I'm self-conscious about the incision, it's that it's uggers.  It has gotten gorier-looking since you saw it last, but I will spare you a photo, just as I spare the walking world by wearing scarves.  ANYway, I have this one cream-and-gold scarf that I refer to as my Flight of the Navigator and that I unashamedly ADORE.  Today I went to go look at coats because I need reasons to get up and walk around, and every coat I tried on I'd be all, Oh, my scarf is so pretty.  This is such a pretty scarf.  This coat looks so nice with my scarf.

I narrowly escaped, only having bought the one coat, and then I had to come home and skype my sister just to make sure that the coat was actually adorable (it is).

That time they severed my heeeeed

Ok, so this one time way back in April we're both studying and I look up and Joel's squinting at me like he does sometimes and I'm all, What?  And he's like, You have an Adam's apple and I'm all Dude, I do NOT have an Adam's apple.
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But it turns out that I sort of did.  And we had no family doctor at the time so it took a while to get one, and then she poked and prodded my apple and was all, Ehhh, I'm not concerned but I'll send you for an ultrasound.  And the ultrasound people ultrasounded it and were all, Ehhh, we're not concerned but we're going to send you to an endocrinologist for a biopsy.  And then the endocrinologist stuck some needles in my neck and I did not like it.

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ANYways, the results came back suspicious but inconclusive which means that it may or may not be cancer, but that even if it is cancer, it's what they call an 'indolent' cancer which is the opposite of an 'aggressive' cancer.  So!

Tuesday night we had steaks, and then considered night-nachos because I wasn't allowed to eat after midnight, and while we were considering night-nachos we fell asleep.  We are not made for this sort of lifestyle.

Wednesday morning Joel takes me down to the hospital and they whisk me off right away to the Patient Storage Locker, which is big and square and full of people lying in beds either bored or unconscious.  And they give me one of those little nighties that opens in the back which I totally put on wrong at first, and also a skeezy robe and some booties, one of which is broken.
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And then Ridiculously Kind Nurse #1 keeps bringing me toasty blankets straight from the little blanket oven where they keep them warm (no jokes) and checking to see how I'm doing but other than that I'm just lying there in my little crib for close to two hours watching an orderly change the sheets.

And then like eight people come by one at a time to ask me all the same questions about who I am and if I have any allergies and what my birthday is and whether I understand the procedure that's going to be done to me and I'm tempted to make jokes about it still being me in this bed but I get that they're just doing their jobs and trying to make sure that no one accidentally goes in after, say, one of my kidneys by accident.  Plus, every time someone comes by I'm all, Yay, a person!  I WILL ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS!

And then Ridiculously Kind Nurse #2 comes to bring me into the OR Patient Storage Locker and I'm all, Wheeee, something is happening!  And she's like, Ahhh, not so fast.  You're probably just going to have to wait in there for a while, and also, I'm going to need to take your glasses now.

So I end up waiting in there for another half hour only now I'm blind, and then the surgeon comes by to ask me if I understand the procedure and to please indicate the lump for him and then he scribbles on me with some marker and leaves.  The man is seriously a robot.

And then the anesthesiologist comes by and looks vaguely like Joel and this is comforting, except that I haven't got my glasses on so he could really look like Charo for all I can tell.  ANYway, I give him a heads up that needles make me faint, and he says that if I can go ahead and faint I'll be doing half his job for him.  He is pleasant and I like him.

And then Ridiculously Kind and Probably Not That Much Older Than Me Nurse #3 comes to wheel me into the OR and introduces me to the three other Nurses in the room as though I were a pal of hers and not just some specimen they were going to dissect, and then I'm on the table and they're all fussing around me and sticking things to me and it's like being at the spa but less relaxing.

And then the anesthesiologist pokes a needle in the back of my arm and is all, That was the bad part.  But this is the good part!  And he holds up a syringe full of something brownish so I can see.  This is your rum and coke, he says.  It's your Kahlua and milk! says one of the nurses.  Your bellini! says another.  And while I'm trying to think of a cocktail suddenly it's six hours later.

So I'm back in my crib in the Patient Storage Unit and I'm conscious again and no nurses are coming to check on me and I haven't got my glasses on and my voice is broken and I can't make any noise and I feel like nothing so much as an infant.  A terribly bored one.  And it's half an hour before I can get anyone's attention and have them bring me a phone so I can call Joel, and also my glasses and my book.

And before Joel gets there, the surgeon comes back to say some stuff about the surgery, about how it went well or about how they found an army of gremlins growing in my throat or who knows, because I was still HIGH as a kite and I remember nothing except that he came.  I think.  That also might have been Charo.

And then Joel comes with a pot of yellow lilies only one of which is open, which are my favorite way to get flowers because then you get to watch them open one at a time and it's like a science project, or an advent calendar.  And then he sits there for another four hours studying while I alternately sleep and pretend that I am not sleeping.

And finally they decide that I can go home except that putting my pants on gives me the faints, and they want to keep me but Joel talks them into letting me leave and I am miserable by this point because I only thought I felt fine, and all this putting on of pants has made me realize that I feel horrible and I want to be in bed.  But we have to go fetch me some T3s and it's late and we drive all over town looking for a pharmacy that is open and I am queasy as hell but swallowing hurts so much that I can't stand the thought of...reverse-swallowing, as it were.

And I thought that I wanted to eat some yogurt when we got home because I had had nothing since the pre-op steaks except some jello that they brought me, and to be honest Joel ate most of that because my throat felt like razor blades and sea salt, but upon further consideration it turned out that I did not want to eat yogurt because I was already sleeping.

And sleeping is most of what I do now.  Also lying in bed.  Today I had a shower.  I mostly feel fine until I try to do something, and then I feel like an invalid.  Also, I thought I was going to be all tough shit and go easy on the pain meds, but then I realized that all that does for you is give you PAIN, so that you cannot DRINK and then you are dehydrated and also you have a raging case of hot-face and both you and your husband are pissed because you have to sleep with the fan on even though it is FREEZING in your room and you are both 100% swaddled in blankets except for your stupid hot face.  Now I just take the meds.

The end!  Oh no wait.  We still have to wait 2 weeks or so for the test results.  THEN the end!!

Here I am!

Internet!  Blog that I mostly ignore now!  I was going to come on here and tell you all about that time I maybe had cancer but maybe didn't but they still had to go in through my neck and have a look-see, but then I walked to the store and back for some yogurt and now I am done. in.  I tell you, this only having half a thyroid isn't all it's cracked up to be.  It's like my body has devolved from employee of the month to that guy who drinks behind the dumpster when he's supposed to be working.

ANYhoodle, I'm off to take a bit of a nap, and then I might wake up and take some T3s before embarking on my night-nap.  Sleep, I swear, you are EATING my weekend.

Things that I own.

Because Joel and I are now Grown-Ups Who Own Possessions and because we are sick of being That Couple That Never Brings Their Own Tent and because we are going camping by ourselves this week and therefore have no one with which to share a tent, we bought ourselves a tent.

And then because we are Grown-Ups Who Think Ahead, we set it up in the yard to make sure that we knew how, and that it had all its doo-dads and gee-gaws and everything.

And then we had a sleep-over in the yard. It was awesome.

I cannot be left alone in the house.

So I bet you're all wondering what I'm doing on this, the first weekend in MONTHS where we are neither going to the mainland nor having the mainland come here nor camping nor staycationing nor nothing, and THAT is the answer: I will be doing nothing.*

But for right NOW I'm baking some coconut-topped brownies for a bbq tonight, and I made the brownie bottoms which have to cook first for a while, and I always think I'm so clever, all I'll just do this differently, or add some of this, but I never seriously consider the ramifications of what I'm doing or why the recipe may not have called for a layer of chocolate chips between the brownie and the coconut, and the answer IS that spreading what amounts to coconut, sugar and eggs onto a sort of half-baked brownie base is challenging, but spreading cocosugareggs onto a SWAMP of melted chocolate chips on top of a half-baked brownie base is a whole new level of impossible. Also, I made the cocosugareggs too early and the brownie base still had 10 more minutes to half-bake, so I sat there for 10 minutes eating cocosugareggs and yes, I REALIZE THE SALMONELLA RISK PLEASE DO NOT BRING THIS UP UNLESS YOU ARE MY MOTHER, and now I feel over-sugarated.

*Of course, by 'nothing' I mean 'studying for my midterm on Monday and also reading the play that's due to be read for that day and also trying to catch up on the intarwebs.' So, sort of like nothing.

The more you know.

Boo and Darren came for a visit a few weeks ago. It was a trying couple of days, and we learned many hard lessons.

Like, it is difficult to see a statue of Terry Fox and not make fun of him just a little bit even though you know he did great things and was a warrior etc etc etc, because he always looks a bit...off. No? Or, like, it is difficult to understand signs sometimes. What exactly about this is wrong?

Or, it is difficult to see a pirate-y ship and not go over to investigate, and having investigated, not to make incessant 'arrrrrrrr' sounds and keep 'avast'ing each other. Also, it is difficult (unless you are facing the camera directly, as Exhibit Boo) to make your shin look like it has vanished and like you are in fact peg-legged. Instead, you will just look storky (see: Exhibit Me).

Also, it is difficult to fit entirely behind a pole. They are not precisely body-shaped.

Also, it is difficult to put one over on the bunns. They know when you have food you're not sharing.

Also, it is difficult (when the bunns are under your sway) not to try to make them do tricks...

Or to lure them into your lap...

Or to try to please every bunn at once.

Also, it is difficult to make fake-hair look like real-hair. Even improbable chest hair.

Also, it is difficult to stand near my sister without snorgling her.

For boo and Gillian

Campus looks for all the world like someone has taken a basket of baby bunns and heaved it onto the grasses.

Come visit, won't you?

I have no connected thoughts

THIS is why Up was so awesome and Monsters vs. Aliens was only so-so.

Also, I can't stop buying cherries and then eating half of them on the way home, but I'm totally freaked out by the thought that someone might see me spit out the pits, so I hoard them all up in my cheeks until I'm near a hedge and NO ONE is around, but this happens less often than you'd think and frequently I'm not sure what in my mouth I should and should not be swallowing.

Also, I am perfectly capable of dressing myself cutely in the winter, but somehow when it rains in the summer I'm all Do I own boots? Where are all my coats? And what of long-sleeved shirts!?!? And then end up leaving the house in a hoodie and a cap.

An exhuberance of photos! A dismal formatting fail!

Due to some sort of karmic face-slapping, both my birthday and our anniversary fall smack in the middle of PAPERSFINALSTHESKYISFALLING!!! So we celebrate these things in the summer when all the madness is over.

And even though we are po-po, we usually try to get at least an hour away from where we are currently living for el aniversary. This year we left it til the very last minute so that all non-organ-harvesty B&Bs were booked up and we ended up snagging a hotel room in nearby Sooke. Except that while the address of the hotel was in Sooke, the hotel itself was in downtown Victoria.

So we hopped in the car Friday evening and drove a whopping 20 minutes. Getting away from it all! It was probably for the best, though, because we haven't really had a chance to explore Victoria since we moved here SIX MONTHS AGO!

We pretty well spent two and a half days tramping around the city, somewhat hampered by Victoria's abundance of statues and our complete inability to walk by a statue without trying to look like it.
This is tricky when the statue is A.) very high up and B.) holding something that you are not holding (i.e. a sceptre or a gun).It becomes extra-extra difficult when the guy is just STANDING there.Slightly more successful...The old 'stare into middle distance'This inability to walk by a thing and not try to imitate it goes double for animal exhibits where we aren't supposed to be taking photos at alland triple for old-timey posters of Hitler...where we aren't supposed to be taking photos.

Because we have plenty of visitors coming over this summer we had to do a fair bit of 'field research' (read: eating tasty treats in new and exciting places).
It has been a dream of mine to eat one of these ocean-side waffles ever since Robyn came over in April and we walked by the waffle guy. So, maybe less of a Life Dream and maybe more of a Goal for This Year.

Do not think, because of the eating, that we are filthy swimming rich or have forgotten our frugal Mennonite heritage. We totally brought a whack of food from home but we are robust eaters, Joel and I, and there is something about stomping all over the city that says 'Eat a chimichanga the size of your head!'


Lessee, what am I forgetting. Oh yes, the street performers. Seriously, the third of Victoria's population that is neither a college student nor an retiree is a street performer.

Painfully unfunny and aggressively-money-grabby street acrobats that I hated so much I didn't even photograph? Check.

Man-stealing brass statuette from the other day? Check.

Air-brushers, caricaturists, and other on-the-spot artists? Check.

Fire-juggling unicyclist? Check.
Opera singers? Er...check. Buskers dressed inexplicably like lobsters? Checccccccccck!

Darth Vader playing the violin? Victoria, you so crazy. But yes, check.

So...it wasn't like last year when we went to Mexico for two months, or even like two years ago where we actually got out of the city, but it was cozy and relaxing and exhausting all at once.

Happy two years, two months, one week and six days, baby.

All times are for relaxing.

Friends! Who would have thought that time off would be so busy!?!? I have not got a single one of the useful, productive things done that I meant to get done, and Joel and I are skipping town tonight which means that nothing will get done this weekend.

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Because there are things to do, and those things are called Canada Day, and Canada Day in our province's capital is full of entertainments. Like unexpected peacocks.

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Or unexpected lizards.

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Or unexpected fountains.

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Or thieving crows. This happy bastard was rooting through that lady's purse before she came to shooo him.

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Also there are brass statues.

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Brass, husband-stealing, home-wrecking statues.

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Mile Zero is ever-present.
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As is this incredibly de-motivating sign.

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And dice. Giant dice will never lose their appeal.

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And then we lay on the grass and waited for the fireworks to start and hated on the teenagers and cheered when the cops came by to move them along and groused like old people when they came right back. Bonne fete, nation.

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A summary, of sorts

You will have to excuse me for not blogging. I have discovered Twitter and cannot be torn away.

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Before I fell into the twittersphere, I had what they call in the business a 'full weekend,' wherein I wrote a final on Friday evening and then booked it to the ferry and rolled into Burnaby to see my family, and receive generous gifts. The sandals are from my mom. As are the bunions.

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Then we got up at 6:00 to drive to Chilliwack to have breakfast with two of Joel's friends, napped hard at the Kruegers' due to 6:00 a.m. wake-up call, watched two become one (by which I mean, went to a wedding) and then partied hard, had brunch the next morning with friends, went to church with more friends and then had lunch with our old landlords and this tiny nugget of personhood...

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who has become this rambunctious thing.

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Now I have a week off of school, and many exciting plans such as take in some of Joel's shirts that don't fit him, have a few needles stuck in my neck, pit and freeze many pounds of cherries (also, give myself the squirts even though I am an adult and should know better), and register for classes.

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Oh yes, and twitter like mad, because it's like a giant internet party in there.

Koala-kins finds twins

Ok, remember that time boo photoshopped the two of us together into an aquatic nightmare, and then added Robyn to the pile?
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So, I found this photo on CuteOverload and was all SYNCHRONIZED KOALA-FACES and promptly forwarded it to everyone, because I am that person.

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Abuhhhhhhhhhh.

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And then dad was all, Why has bekah not photoshopped Koala into this photo yet, and Robyn was all, Seriously, why? And because my sister is the best one:

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Abuhhhhhhhhhh for everyone.

You will get a real post from me when this Spanish hell is over.

If you're wondering what I've been doing while I haven't been posting, I am slowly being eaten alive by Spanish and I went vacationing last weekend and I've been up to my usual hi-jinks over at backofthebook.

I am a mcseamstress!

Friends! It is June! When did that happen?

Joel has been locked in a windowless room for the past few weeks with nothing to keep him company but THIS:

Those are his notes from one block. He has eight (ish?) more like it. I will never be a doctor.

As for me, I mostly sit on the deck. I sit on the deck and read Victorian novels. I sit on the deck and brush up on my espanish. I sit on the deck and I fix shirts. Remember that shirt that I bought three of that one time? In black and blue and this orangey-red that looks good with literally all of my skirts? Because they was on the cheap? Turns out the reason they were selling 3-for-$15 was because the back was too open and the sleeves didn't stay up, making me look like a slutty milk maid. (poorly-framed auto-timer photos to follow)

This...is not a good look for me.

Fortunately, they have these ghey little straps that are supposed to...tie around your waist? Loop over your neck? H'whatever, they have them.

Un- and re-attached, the straps make excellent back-straps. Hey presto, the shirt works!

So now instead of three shirts I regret buying, I have three shirts that I will wear all the time because you can't see it, but those three buttony-looking things down the cleave, those are jewels, and I love a good bedazzlement.

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Also, sorry I uploaded the photos so small. It's so hot, and my brains are melty.