Memorial Day Sale

So today is Memorial Day and with Memorial Day comes Memorial Day sales. Ha! Three Memorial Days in one sentence. I rock. OK so as I was saying. Well Preggers and I decided to go shopping to celebrate, as if one actually celebrates a Memorial Day. We don't but we do go shopping apparently. Nevertheless, we decided to go to Babies R Us and check out the cribs. Preggers kind of already had one picked out but I wasn't sure which one and what color. So she wants white and she showed me the one she wanted. I didn't care for it one way or the other but I did see one that I liked better. To be completely honest I don't care what it looks like. Only that it secure my baby and send it peacefully in the land of the sleeping. It could be a cardboard box for all I care so long as it does the job its designed to do. That being said I think I may have convinced her that the one I like was better....I do have those skills you know. So we walked in and looked around really with the intent to buy....but....Preggers wasn't feeling up to buying which didn't hurt my feelings any. So we looked and decided to go on about our afternoon. Went to best buy to check out some cameras and camcorders then had some lunch at the nearby Ruby Tuesdays. We don't usually go there and I always have a hard time remembering why. Now I know. The menu selection sucks. In my opinion anyway. So now we're home and Preggers is fast asleep, off in dreamland, meanwhile I sit here eyes wanting to nod off myself and the only thing stopping me is the fact that its almost 5pm and I shouldn't be sleeping. Otherwise I'll be up all night. Well I don't have much else to say. I'll end this for today. By the way I found this book that I'm eventually going to get....totally made for people like me. Its the Consumer Reports Best Baby Products. The A to Z of what to get for the baby. I have to find it at the book store though....hopefully they have it. Well for now its time to be off. Thanks for reading.

Another day

Ok so today is another day. I can tell you that since the first day of Chemo I had expected that the days would gradually get better. The nausea the first day was as someone I know would put it....crippling. I only hoped that would be the last crippling day. It has been from a nausea point of view. Energy is something I wish I had more of. I never know how much I'm going to have or what to do with it. So I confess. I am a royal pain in the ass, during this suck they call Chemo. I can only hope that Preggers is inducted into Sainthood for putting up with my crap. She's nothing if not persistent, and here's why.
I enjoy eating...well normally anyway. Since Chemotherapy I can't really stomach anything..not food not drink. So she has to coerce me into eating something....at least three times a day. The sight of food just turns my stomach. The smell of food....yep turns my stomach. It's unnerving I really like food. At least I used to. Thats one of the many fun side effects. Weight loss is another. I have lost uh...almost 20 pounds, total anyway was down 15 pounds...and up 5 and now back down a few....I'm at 172ish. I wouldn't call it 20 down from original but whatever. Um well the one effect thats almost gone but so far really isn't my favorite is called Peripheral Neuropathy.
Peripheral Neuropathy is what the tingle you get when you fall asleep on your arm. That intense tingle is what I feel everytime I touch something cold. My whole hand or fingers just start tingling. To make it even more fun...Johnny tell'em what he's won. I can't drink anything or eat anything cold. My esophagus starts tingling.....way intense tingling. So all my drinks have to be warmed up. No cold foods for me. It's kind of a pain in the ass.

I told Preggers that I needed to get out of the house yesterday. The days seem so long. I wake up and eat...under protest. Take my meds. Lounge for a bit. Take a nap wake up eat something else under further protest, take another nap wake up look around and realize that I haven't been napping long enough...check the mail....take a nap. Eat dinner, take my meds....watch some t.v. Shower....go to sleep. I think of it like a time machine. Thats what we called it when we went out to sea. We would spend time in the rack sleeping...it made the bad times go faster. Or at least seemed that way. I figure that the nausea isn't so bad when I'm sleeping and that the pain isn't so bad while I'm out. So the time machine is where I choose to be. I don't know how else to explain it. So back to the needing to get out of the house. I thought how bad can a walk around the house be, just a quick jaunt around the block. Except that it wasn't quick by any stretch of the imagination. It was long...and painful....lightheaded and chest pains....ok bad idea. Mental note don't do that again. Not for awhile anyway. Alrighty...I'll leave this one alone now. I am going to sleep. I haven't stayed up this long in almost a week.

The Battlefield

I wrote this last night but wasn't sure I wanted to post it.......here it is.

I apologize now for this post. It’s not about the baby...not directly anyway. It's 1:15 in the morning here in the great state of Connecticut. I have much to say I think and I don't know how tactful I can be. Preggers is at work and I'm alone. Alone with myself and my thoughts, I can only wonder what tomorrow brings. Really it brings a dresser for the baby’s room. Beside that I am unsure of what’s going to happen. I think I should “feel” something. Really all I am is angry…because I don’t feel anything.

For those of you who don't know, I was diagnosed with Gastric Cancer. It seemed as nonchalant a conversation as one could ever have. I sat with Preggers in the Oncologists office, waiting for the news I knew was coming. I was hoping deep inside somewhere that it was a mistake. Somebody in the pathology lab was a little tired after lunch and they saw something that wasn't there. You have Cancer. No one ever expects to hear those words. I certainly didn't. I laugh alot about it. I don't know what else to do. I must seem like a fucking lunatic laughing out loud as if I've lost my mind. I have I don't know where it went but its hiding from this reality that is going to hit me like a ton of bricks. I try to remain positive. I try not to think about it. Try really is the operative word. What other choice do I have? Everything I do now revolves around it, my appointments and planning. What will I be doing next week...next month? Make plans....its going to be tough. I don't know how I'm going to feel. I don't know if I'll be up to it. Up to what you ask? Everything, and nothing. I don't know if I'll be well enough to make the Obstetrics appointments, strange that I was worried that my military obligations would hold me from that.

If you were to ask me what cancer felt like I couldn’t tell you. I don’t feel anything. Which makes it that much harder when I have to surrender to the treatment that is going to destroy what I can’t feel. I've had diagnostic tests all last week and yesterday. "Staging" they call it. I can tell you what that feels like though. To determine where, how much and what they're gonna do. A procedure to them, a list of things to accomplish before going home, it’s their job. They go home and remove themselves from it as easily as if they were working any other job. It's a life to me, actually its 3. Me, my wife and the life of my unborn child may be affected. My life, the life I live doesn’t belong only to me. It encompasses those I love and those that love me I have to be strong for them. I have to remove stress from my life so that it doesn’t affect Sarah. Every appointment is another part of the checklist of treatment. I want to do them all at once. I want it over with. On an ever growing positive note its small and its localized. Call it what you want, its taking over my life....no matter how small it may be. I have pondered this for a week now. I heard that they found the cancer cells last Monday it was the 7th of may. It was then that I hoped the mistake was made. The Confirmation was 2 days later. I don't want to tell the story again of the hows and whens. I'm tired of telling it. I'm tired.

Chemotherapy starts on Thursday. Thursday afternoon at 12:10. I don't know much about it. I know the side effects. I know what what happens to other people. I just don't know what happens to me. What lies in store for me as the evil poison enters my blood to eradicate the cancer that has placed its foot inside the threshold of my body. I see it like the picture of the sharks. I am below and the sharks are the chemo....and its going to suck but I have to swim it to get to the surface. I've done my research, my recon of the battlefield before the conflict. I know what to expect. But I'm not ready for the war.

The Turkey

Well I suppose I should post as it's been awhile. Preggers is now as of today 10 weeks and 6 days along. Not much new to report really, as far as making the baby anyway. I guess its kinda like a Thanksgiving Turkey. You have to prep it and rub it down and then stuff it...thats the fun part. Now you occasionally look through the oven glass with the light on to see how its doing...then once in awhile you open it up and squirt juice on the top to keep it moist. I can see the metaphor in most all of that except the squirting juice on it...haven't figured out what part of the pregnancy that is. Hell even the belly button pops out when its almost done. See turkey metaphors all over the place. I like it. I'll use it....I mean, I'll use it again after this time. So the next time someone "looks through the oven glass" is on the 31st. Just a follow up with the OB. Hopefully no juicing, just looking through the door. So nothing very new. I mean nothing you all want to hear. I mean her boobs are getting bigger..(bonus), and they're more sensitive(sometimes bonus). But other than that she hasn't started cravings....least not yet, that I'm aware of. No new Aches and Pains...just the traditional stuff. She doesn't get the nausea like some people we know...Michelle. Sorry to hear that it sucks so bad for you. Just a little nausea here nothing too serious. Thought you'd like to know! So overall pregnancy still a good ordeal overall.
So now for those who may or may not have heard. I was diagnosed on the 9th of May with Gastric Cancer. I suppose this could have been worse, but the timing I think may have been a little off. It's ok though, I guess better now than 6 months ago. In the big world of Cancers I suppose I have won the Cancer lottery. So far it seems very localized, no spreading and a small tumor. I'm glad that we're already pregnant as the Chemotherapy has potential for sterilization....although the doctors assure me is unlikely. I was going to post a huge angry at the world blog last night but I'm glad that it turned into this. I'm not angry.....well yes I am but no reason yet to let it all out here. Just trying to stay positive an get through it. Until next time Ladies and Gents.....

Ultrasound

So there it is...the fetus what soon will be known as a baby....my baby. Mine. The kidney bean is mine I tell you. Ok so there it is....I can only tell you that until today I was excited about really a prospect, about a what might be. It seemed real but not really...I can't make this make sense. It was like reading a book about going to Disneyland. The best author in the world can describe it, and even the readers imagination and imagine it....but today it became a picture I SAW Disneyland. Maybe this is a really crappy analogy but its what I'm going to use for now. All I can say is that when I saw this, It all became real. It became tangible, the thought of starting a life was very evident, it moved during the ultrasound....it moved. I cried, not big sobbing crybaby cries but tears....I couldn't stop them, honestly I didn't want to. So after the ultrasound was all done and we were getting up I had to find something to wipe my eyes.....so Preggers hands me a tissue.....A tissue wasn't going to cut it so I reached over to this stack of paper towels. Only it wasn't the paper towel that I was imagining it to be, let me set the story for you so you understand....I am a man(yes I know you're aware of this) and as a man I've been in an ob/gyn office all of about 2 times....so up on this shelf, next to the tissues was this stack of Paper towels, not the papertowels I was imagining. More like Lap Napkins. These things were like 4 foot by 4 foot. Preggers tried to warn me....But no no, I don't listen.....so I grabbed one anyway not really realizing what I was grabbing opened it up and opened it and opened it...holy crap this think is freaking huge.....Oh well I guess this is good enough to dry my eyes....and my body after a shower and maybe the car after that too...crap...so then I kinda wadded it up and threw it away....so next time...don't use the lap napkin. Just the tissue.
So Preggers has been talking about having twins....up till today that is, she was hoping for twins. I on the other hand only want one, and I am happy that its only one. So if she was bummed about it, it was very short lived and now we're good to go. We had her regular appointment yesterday to check all the stuff. Everything seemed good to go. I just wanted to hurry up and get the hell out of there, I had an appointment at Yale New Haven Hospital and needed to get there in a quick hurry. So thats part of the reason for the Ultrasound today instead of yesterday.
Ok so an update. Well not much to report really I suppose things are progressing normally. Preggers and I seem to look at baby stuff more often now and we look at furniture and baby gadgets and gizmos...So far the thing I want the most is that baby backpack thing...I think that thing is so cool. Wear it in front or in back....Theres this one I like cause its all padded the right way and has some cool attachments and stuff....coolest thing about it is that its like 30 bucks. Oh the silly things I take pleasure in....Looking for strollers too....gotta have a cool set of wheels for the kid ya know...get corvette emblems and stickers put on it..heck yeah gonna make it fast....airbags for safety....the works...dual cup holders with Cd player....this babies gonna go. Ok so maybe the cd player is a bit much....I might just stick with the Satellite Radio.
Ok so this is where I say a hello and a thank you to all my readers....Gram and Cathy (Michelles Mom) and Sissy and Mom and well everyone..thanks.