Sunday, January 19, 2020
My seven-year-old, Mika, had an extended year schedule school schedule for kindergarten and first grade. Mika started on July 17th and finished around June 8th. I though I would hate the schedule, but I actually kind of liked it. Mika had two weeks off in October, two weeks off in March, and a longer holiday break. We only had six weeks for summer break. I liked walking to school and back with her in the July heat.

Mika’s school was part of a pilot program to determine if the shorter breaks would improve academic achievement. I live in an underperforming school district and they have tried many programs during the past 25 years to try to do better for their students. My son, Marcus, was seven when I had my automobile accident and was just starting to learn to read. I spent most of the next two years in the hospital, and when I came home again, Marcus still could not read.

The school was trying the Lindamood-Bell reading system, which was not designed for mainstream teaching, and my son never learned simple phonics. I could not believe my nine-year-old could not read when he had been going to school. Marcus and I worked hard that year to get him to grade-level reading. At that time, I do not think the school administration cared who got left behind.

Mika has had a completely different reading experience in school. Phonics and simple words were the backbone of her kindergarten curriculum. Mika did not like her first-grade teacher one bit, but she taught Mika how to read. The school district finally understands how important it is for children to learn to read well at a young age. Mika is in second grade and they break the kids into reading level groups with extra teachers, so the teachers can help the struggling kids catch up to the proficient readers.

This year, Mika’s school went back to the traditional school year schedule, although they started earlier in August than her brother or sister ever did. I was disappointed and thrilled. I was disappointed because I thought the experiment must have failed. Only two elementary schools in the district were on the extended year schedule, so parents with children in middle school also had different schedules for their kids. I thought too many parents complained about the different schedules when the district asked for feedback last year.

I was thrilled because Mika and I had nine weeks of summer vacation last year and we were able to run the streets when it was hot! I would much rather Mika have time off school in August than December. In my perfect world Mika would start school the day after Labor Day, have two days off for Thanksgiving, eight days off for Christmas/New Year’s Day, no spring break, and finish the Friday before Memorial Day. We would get 12 glorious weeks of warm weather to enjoy together.

This morning it occurred to me that next year’s school schedule would probably be available on the district’s website. It was, and I am both disappointed and thrilled. I am thrilled because the achievement experiment must have worked. The school year for the entire district will be a little longer next year. This year Mika started August 8th and finishes May 21st. Next year Mika starts August 6th and ends May 27th. I am disappointed because I would rather have two more weeks of vacation in August than a week in October and a week in February. I would probably love this new schedule if I lived in Tucson, Arizona.

My piece of advice to you is to accept change. I want Mika, and her classmates, to do well in school and support the extra breaks and shorter summer. This summer Mika and I are going to have 10 weeks to have adventures. The next summer break will only be nine weeks, but we will make the most out of every day because some day I may not be here to spend a summer break together.

Until next time,
Susanne

Please check out my GoFundMe page.

Saturday, January 18, 2020
Today has been a good “me” day. I was sweaty until about 1:00 p.m. but am sweat-free and comfortable now. My significant other, Donald, took our seven-year-old, Mika and one of her best friends to a kid’s indoor jumping playground and out to lunch. They were gone for four hours and I got a lot of work done. I need to work Saturdays now that I have decluttering volunteers coming during the week. I have not fallen behind and working Saturdays keeps me far enough ahead I will not fall behind if an unexpected hiccup occurs during the week.

I edited three of Mika’s YouTube videos and uploaded and scheduled her Monday and Wednesday videos. I had received new social media photos from one of my clients and got them edited for posting. I got a video of a friend reading one of my journal entries, so I edited, uploaded and scheduled that video for my own YouTube channel. I feel like I have all my ducks in a row.

It is such a relief not to feel behind. In December I was editing, uploading and scheduling Mika’s daily LEGO advent calendar videos and blogs and I felt I always had too much to do. This month I do have lots to do because I have not yet scheduled my client work ahead for next month, but I had scheduled far enough into January I have not felt pressured to get all the work done at once.

This week I will be able to get social media for two of my clients scheduled into March and I will have a few small tasks my clients may send my way. I know the humility gods may convince every one of my clients to suddenly need large projects done immediately because I have written these words and the humility gods want me to be stressed out, but I am in a really good place today.

I am sure part of that good place is due to the fact that so much progress was made this week on my decluttering project. My soul feels better knowing so many items have left my house forever. I do not have a volunteer for the day I made available this week, so it will be the week after before all the progress that was made starts to be visible. I am still looking at stacks of storage buckets and piles of like items everywhere.

I have been making Mika try on clothes I pulled from the shed purge and since she is off school Monday, maybe we can finish trying them all on this weekend. Mika has focus issues when she does not want to do a task, so maybe not. It is cute to see her in clothes her older sister used to wear when she was little. I think about half of what I pulled out will fit Mika now and the other half can be saved for when she is a little older. I am hoping for approximately half of a storage bucket full of too big clothes; that is not too many to save.

I love days like today when I truly feel all is right in the world. Mika had fun with her dad and friend. I am still ahead on client, Mika, and me tasks, and I have made a lot of progress on my exceptional exit plan tasks this past week. This coming week I will get started on personal videos for my family again. I recorded three videos in December that I did not watch completely when I downloaded them to my computer, so I will review them and decide what is useable and what I will need to rerecord.

I will be home alone Thursday afternoon this week so that will be a good day to record more personal videos for my family. I did not brainstorm video content ideas while Mika was out of school and will be sticking to the easy topics for a while.

My piece of advice to you is to bask in your internal happiness when you can. It is not often I reflect at the end of a day about how nearly perfect it was. My day was good because I took the time to think about my accomplishments and allowed myself to be proud of the progress I have made.

Until next time,
Susanne

P.S. (written May 17, 2020) We ended up with one completely full storage bucket of too big clothes to keep.

Please check out my GoFundMe page.

Friday, January 17, 2020
I woke up with three heater blisters on my upper arm today. I have not had a heater blister in years. I have had plenty of heater blisters over the years and take pride in the fact I rarely get a heater blister for the same reason twice. I have learned that ceramic space heaters will burn your skin within 18 inches even if left on low overnight and have the scars to prove it. In fact, I am pretty sure every scar on my arms is the result of a heater burn.

I have learned through trial and many, many errors how to use my heaters without getting burned. When I follow the protocols I have created, I do not get burned. Yesterday I could not warm up the entire day. I woke up cold and my day went downhill from there. I was shivering in my house (where it is 80 degrees around me) while I was brushing my teeth and I was sweating a fair amount. I actually did not feel too cold on my way to and waiting for the bus because the wind was not blowing that early.

By the time I finished my blood draw, I was very sweaty and very cold. When I went back out to catch a bus home, the wind had started and that was more than I could handle. When I got home my helper was already here because the infusion clinic was running behind appointment time and I did not get home until 11:15 a.m. instead of 10:45 a.m. I had her plug in my second computer heater so I could warm up before my decluttering volunteers arrived at noon.

I never warmed up. I spent most the time my volunteers were here huddled in front of my computer and heaters. I would turn to look at the items to sort when my volunteer brought a new box or storage bucket to me, but I never moved my wheelchair away from the heaters like I had on Tuesday and Tuesday I was only using one computer heater. It was a rough three hours for me, but I think I hid it well.

After my helper and volunteer left, I stayed right in front of those computer heaters with them both on high trying to warm up. It never happened; I never warmed up. When it was supper time, I did not eat because my arms were still shivering, and I did not think I could feed myself (I was having trouble lifting my drinking glass). I was supposed to shower last night, but I had sweated off the occlusive dressing the nurse had put on my accessed port in the morning and I was concerned I could get an infection though my port which has direct access to my heart. I am not in any hurry to die.

I was glad not to shower, because I was still shivering at bedtime and it would have taken me even longer to warm up after a shower. And now we get to the reason I have three new heater blisters today. I have two bedside heaters and one floor heater in my bedroom at night. In the winter we set the floor heater at 86 degrees so it never shuts off (in the summer we set it at 77 degrees).

One of my heaters is on my right side on a bedside table. That heater is always far enough away from me I can safely turn it to medium heat and be certain it will not give me blisters even if I leave it set at medium all night. I never set that heater on medium at bedtime because at some point in the night I will warm up and I will wake up hot. The cord is stretched pretty far from the outlet and I have trouble lifting and pulling the heater close enough to turn it down and place it back on the table. I am afraid I will drop it and set my house on fire in the middle of the night.

The other heater sits in the bed with me. I have a rail on my left side so the heater cannot fall off the bed. That heater sits about ten inches from my face. When I am very cold, I turn that heater to medium to warm up because it is easy for me to adjust. Last night I was too cold for too long. I fell asleep with that heater still set to medium instead of low. I fall asleep with my left arm on my head and my arm probably drifted right beside the heater for the few hours it took for me to wake up hot and turn the heater back to low.

My piece of advice to you is never get too big for your britches. Not only do I have heater blisters; I have had blisters from this exact scenario before. I know my heaters must be set to low when I sleep. I think the humility gods are taking revenge for me writing about them Wednesday. Yesterday I could say I am always safe with my space heaters; today I am a loser who cannot follow my own safety standards. At least tomorrow will be day one without a heater incident.

Until next time,
Susanne

Please check out my GoFundMe page.

Thursday, January 16, 2020
Today was an unexpected decluttering volunteer day. My friend, Lela Rae, had told me last week she had a truck if I wanted her to take loads of unneeded items to a donation center. I emailed her after I saw the mountain of trash bags under my patio awning and she replied she would stop by today to pick up a load to donate for me.

Tuesday evening, my decluttering volunteer for Wednesday, Molly, called me to let me know she had a miscommunication with another person she thought she was meeting with Thursday who thought the meeting was Wednesday. Molly wanted to schedule another day and I mentioned Lela Rae was stopping by for a few minutes Thursday so Molly asked if she could come on Thursday too.

I am purposely not scheduling decluttering volunteers on days I need to get my blood draws and Thursdays are blood draw days. I do get home by 11:15 a.m. at the latest, but I am cold and unmotivated when I get home. Having Lela Rae stop by for a quick donation pick up was one thing, however I had to think for a moment when Molly asked to come for a few hours and I would need to think while cold and miserable. I told Molly I had February days available, but she was so insistent on helping sooner rather than later I caved in and said yes.

Molly got here a few minutes before 12:00 p.m. and Lela Rea was here a few minutes later. Both of them loaded Lela Rae’s truck with my ready to donate items so she could get on her way. Then it was Molly and me ready to start purging more items from my house.

I do not know Molly well at all. Molly is a member of the networking group I joined the month before my cancer diagnosis, and I have not attended meetings regularly in the past 18 months. I am not sure I have said more than hello to her at events. I appreciate the fact that someone who has only a very casual connection with me was so willing to help.

Like my helper on Tuesday, Molly made short work of sorting boxes and storage buckets full of household discards. When my seven-year-old, Mika, became a toddler, I cleared off 12 shelves worth of my books, boxed them, placed the boxes in my library area, and created a four-foot wall of buckets to keep tiny Mika from going into my library and destroying my books. That wall should have come down two years ago. In the meantime, I kept putting unwanted items in that area because my sheds were full.

My wall has been taken down! Molly and I cleared out another six or seven trash bags and a couple of small boxes full of outgrown clothes and other household items. Six more empty storage buckets went to the shed! Unfortunately, just like decluttering day on Tuesday, it does not look like much progress has been made. My mountain of ready to donate trash bags on my patio is now a foothill, but inside my home still looks very cluttered as far as the eye can see.

We left my books boxed up because I need to finish clearing the shelves I used for Mika and repair them to be able to hold the weight of books again. We also left my adapted bassinet and a storage locker of black baby clothes I am not ready to part with yet. Those items will go in my upper shed once I get it shelved (whenever that happens). We have a path through the area and the wall has been removed so it is better.

My piece of advice to you is to be flexible with your schedule. I did not want to say yes to Molly on Tuesday, but I am glad I did. I cannot believe how much was done again today in only three hours. My friends come ready to work and deliver beyond my expectations.

Until next time,
Susanne

Please check out my GoFundMe page.

Wednesday, January 15, 2020
Why do I make statements out loud? I know better. A million years ago, when I got out of the rehabilitation hospital after the automobile accident hat left me paralyzed, I made a statement. “At least I only have this little scar here and this little scar here.” I was still preoccupied with my looks and the little scar on my belly from where they did exploratory surgery to check for internal injuries after my automobile accident and the little scar in the base of my neck from when they pinned my spine back together were barely noticeable.

The humility gods must have heard my statement and decreed, “Paralysis is not enough to curb Susanne’s vanity, she needs a bigger curveball.” Four and one-half months later I was fighting for my life having contracted the flesh eating disease. When it rains it pours! I am now minus two feet and my body is more scar than not. I just had to speak the words out loud.

Yesterday, when my volunteer was here, we were talking about how great I have been feeling the past few days. I told her I had finally kicked my nasty virus again, my appetite was back on track again, and my sweating had stopped for the past few days. Why did I say those words out loud? Today the sweat is back.

I would rate my sweat as a medium today. It is heavy enough for me notice and be annoyed by at home, but not enough to start me shivering and render me unable to work. Until I went to school to have lunch with my seven-year-old, Mika. The actual temperature today is not that cold, however there was a bitter cold wind blowing on the sweat covering my body on my way to and from the school.

It takes a while for me to warm up enough to function once I get cold and it does not take much to get me cold. I have a low core temperature (which my older daughter says comes from my cold heart). My temperature frequently drops into the 95s or lower. When my temperature drops too low, I shiver so much I have difficulty straightening my arms and if I do get them straight, they shake so much I cannot control my trackball or type well. I simply sit in front of my heater, turn on Netflix on my computer, and wait (sometimes hours) to warm up.

It was a little rough for me when I returned home from having lunch with Mika. I was functional again after about an hour and the rest of the day has been fine. It is only 158 days until summer when I can sit outside in 85-degree weather to warm up in the unlikely event I get cold. Air conditioning is my only cold problem in the summer. I carry my coat with me to wear on the bus and when I am in indoor places all summer long.

I will trade recovering from the cold to have lunch with Mika each week at school; it makes her feel special. We only have 17 more weeks of lunches this year, and now that I am scheduling decluttering days there may be a week or more I am unable to fit lunch with Mika into my schedule between now and when school ends. I am okay with letting those few lunches go because if I finish decluttering my lower level by the end of the school year (and if this week is any indication, I will) Mika and I will be able to run the streets whenever we want for ten glorious, warm weeks. (Dr. Doom and Gloom had better give me a summer break after I finish cycle eight in this round of chemotherapy.)

My piece of advice to you is keep your thoughts to yourself sometimes. I know my speaking out loud did not really make the humility gods laugh at me and my sweat did not come back today because I told my friend it was gone yesterday. Life is what it is, and bad things happen to good people. I am a good person even if I am able to disconnect my humanity at will. My older children will tell you I am the meanest mother in the world, mainly because I said it to them frequently when they were young. I have only said that line to Mika a few times; I have mellowed out in my older age. However, I have still not learned to keep my mouth shut.

Until next time,
Susanne

Please check out my GoFundMe page.

Tuesday, January 14, 2020
Today is day one of the twenty-odd days I have asked for or will be asking for, and am receiving, help with my massive decluttering project. I posted in two Facebook groups for help in January and I have six women coming on different days for four of the five days. Today, I have one woman coming who is not part of either Facebook group and she is walking into a mess.

My volunteer today is one of my local clients, Lauren. Lauren had messaged me after she saw one of my journal posts mentioning my massive decluttering project and told me she would like to help. I was sick at the time and focused on packing up my older daughter’s belongings, so I told her I still needed more time before I was ready for volunteer helpers (I am still not sure I am ready, but here we are.). I sent Lauren an email the day after I posted in the Facebook groups and she stepped up for the first day available.

Lauren was prepared. I warned everyone that it is 80 degrees inside my house, and they needed to dress accordingly. Lauren came in wearing layers for the outside cold and quickly stripped down to shorts and a tank top to tolerate the heat. Lauren was here for four and one-half hours and she is a worker. I am not surprised Lauren worked so hard for me because I know she goes above and beyond for her clients in her business.

I had pulled six storage buckets of items away from the shed clearing on Saturday, so Lauren and I started with those. I had two buckets of kids’ books for various reading levels. One bucket I had sorted yesterday with Mika and Lauren helped me sort the rest of the books today. I am left with one, smaller bucket of above reading level books for my seven-year-old, Mika, to save until Summer 2022. Lauren is an amazing packer and she got a lot of books in the storage bin. It is still a very heavy bucket, even if it is not an 18-gallon tote so I will ask my son to put it in the storage shed for me this weekend.

One of the buckets does not need to be sorted. That bucket is full of LEGOs, Mika’s favorite toy. Mika has a wall of adjustable shelves in her room and I let her choose five large storage buckets for the floor level. Mika has one bucket full of Bionicle LEGOs that were her brothers. This bucket from my upper shed will make three buckets or regular LEGOs once it gets transferred upstairs. That is a whole lot of LEGOs.

Lauren helped me sort the rest of the buckets of items I had claimed when sorting on Saturday into like items. I had saved some clothes for my girls to try on, some DVDs for my older daughter to decide if she wants to keep at her new home, and a bucket of baby and toddler toys about half of which I donated. I ran out of steam and did not feel like sorting that last toy bucket on Saturday. Now I have sorted buckets waiting for others to decide what to do with the items. Mika and I will be trying on a lot of clothes this weekend.

When Lauren and I finished the Saturday leftovers, we moved on to the lower shed leftovers from last year. I had kept a few dozen t-shirts that I had collected before, and a few of them after, my accident that left me paralyzed. They are all short-sleeved and I only wear one short-sleeved shirt now; the shirt I wear swimming. I have emaciated arms from muscle atrophy, and I do not like to look at them. Lauren and I sorted the shirts I wanted to photograph into a pile, and I videotaped Lauren holding the t-shirts so I can get a screen shot of each one when I download the video to my computer. Three more boxes, empty!

My piece of advice to you is to take what your friends want to give. Lauren was here for more than four hours, and, even though my mess looks just as bad as it did when she got here, I have only four buckets full of items for my family to keep or donate, three boxes and a bucket of items left from my lower shed ready to donate, and a grateful me because I know the progress was extraordinary.

Until next time,
Susanne

Please check out my GoFundMe page.

Monday, January 13, 2020
It distresses me when I think I did a task only to find out later I did not do it after all. That is how my morning started. I got up extra early today because my older daughter, who usually gets me out of bed in the morning, has jury duty, so my significant other, Donald, got me up this morning and he starts his regular job very early. (It is 6:30 a.m. right now and I have already worked for more than an hour.)

When I rolled up to my computer this morning, I noticed the automobile insurance statement Donald had given me Friday or Saturday to pay still sitting on my table waiting for me to schedule the payment. I did that task right away so I would not forget to do it again. That was not the task I was sure I had done; the insurance statement simply shows how easy it is for me to get distracted and forget to do simple tasks.

This morning at 6:02 a.m. it occurred to me that my seven-year-old’s, Mika, Monday morning video on her YouTube channel would be public now and I could get the embed code and schedule a blog post on her website. I went to Mika’s YouTube page and the video was not there. I was freaking out. I uploaded that video on Friday when I went to chemotherapy treatment. I added all the tags, text, and scheduled the video when I returned from my treatment. I remember doing it.

Some of Mika’s videos take a long time to upload to YouTube and slow down the Internet for everyone in the house, so I try to upload her long videos when everyone else is gone and I can work offline. This morning, as I was searching for evidence I am not crazy, I noticed I did not have a custom thumbnail created for today’s video. I upload all of Mika’s public videos with a custom thumbnail and that piece of evidence snapped my memory back on track.

The video I uploaded Friday was for MY YouTube channel. It was a video of one of my friends reading one of my journal posts. My plan was to upload Mika’s video on Saturday during the time the community service group was helping me clear out my shed because Mika and her dad would be gone. I obviously forgot to upload the video in the excitement of everyone arriving and getting started.

So here I am, uploading Mika’s video that will not be done until a little after 8:00 a.m. The positive part is that I am not crazy; I did upload a video Friday. The not-so-positive part is that my short-term memory is mostly useless. I miss my memory. Do not get me wrong; I have never had a great memory. Donald could probably tell you every movie we saw together in a theater during the past 32 years. I remember seeing Independence Day, The Lord of the Rings, and a few superhero movies.

I have always released information from my brain I do not currently need. I could not tell you details of any of those movies I remember seeing. Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum kill aliens in Independence Day, that is the only detail I need to remember. When I watch the movie again a few years later, it is almost like watching it for the first time.

Unfortunately, now I am releasing information I do still need. Forgetting to upload Mika’s video is not a big deal. I am the only one who knows I want her videos to go public at 6:00 a.m. on their scheduled days. Mika does not have a big following yet so two and one-half hours will not likely annoy her 24 subscribers, most of which do not watch all her videos anyway.

My piece of advice to you is to write down your appointments and important tasks if you need to. Fortunately, I do not need a reminder to go wake up Mika and get her ready for school, yet.

Until next time,
Susanne

Please check out my GoFundMe page.

Sunday, January 12, 2020
My seven-year-old, Mika, does not love to read. I have failed miserably as a parent, none of my three children have a passion for reading. Do not get me wrong, all three of my children like to read, but none of them are going to stay up until 2:00 a.m. because they must know what will happen to the book characters next. I need to accept my children all have their own desires and reading is not entertainment for them.
 
Yesterday, I pulled out two buckets of kid’s books when we were clearing out my shed. The books are various reading levels, so I want sort the books into two groups. Books that are most likely above Mika’s reading level and books that are near, at, or below her reading level. I am having Mika keep the below reading level books at this time in case she wants to select any of them for her Mika Rocks Reading YouTube series this summer. Today I tasked Mika with helping me to sort one of those buckets.
 
Mika’s older sister, Megan, is trying to help me instill a love of reading in Mika because Megan does really like to read, but she has mild dyslexia and reading is difficult for her. Megan will randomly tell Mika to read a book to her and last night she had Mika grab a book from the bucket Mika and I sorted today to read to her. Mika read the story to Megan before Mika went to bed.
 
When Mika picked up the book she read last night, she told me she wanted to donate the book. Mika would happily donate most of her books because then we would not be able to make her read so I looked at the book and told her to keep it. I told Mika The Three Little Pigs was a great story she could read for her YouTube series this summer. Mika looked at me and said she did not like this The Three Little Pigs book because it was not the “real” story. In this book the first two pigs died and did not run away to safety at the third pig’s house. How can you argue with that logic? The Three Little Pigs is now in a donate bucket.
 
Books are my weakness. I may skip after-Christmas and Black Friday shopping, I may not buy any new clothes for myself, but I am sure I will continue buying books until the day I die. I do not plan on downsizing my book stock much as I clear out all my clutter. My books are the one category of items I am happy to burden my family with after I pass. If I add in children’s books, I probably have 2,000 books in my house.

I love the way a book can transport me so completely to another reality. I love my reality and do not use books to escape, I simply love the experience a book gives me. I do not want to be in a spaceship or live on another planet, but I like to watch other people do so in my head. Reading a book is like watching a movie in my mind. I can see the dragon swooping down to attack the knight, I can see the magician casting fireballs. The movies in my mind are so much better than any movie I have ever seen on the big screen.

The movies in my head are why I am so disappointed that my children do not get the same thrill from reading I do. All three of my children have vivid imaginations so I know they could see the same kind of mind movies I do. My son did read all my books from one of the authors in my collection, but I could not get him to try any of the other authors in the same genre. Megan is not interested in the type of books I like to read and vice versa. I like wizards and spaceships; Megan likes personal development books.

That leaves Mika. Mika is very young and may yet develop a love for my books. I did not home in on science fiction and fantasy until junior high school. For now, one of Mika’s best friends loves fantasy books so I can encourage her to enjoy the movies in her head and lend her my books.

My piece of advice to you is to keep trying to share your passions. Perhaps one of my grandchildren I never get to meet will love to read; it might skip a generation.

Until next time,
Susanne

Please check out my GoFundMe page.

Saturday, January 11, 2020
Today I was a community service project! My friend, Crystal, arranged to have a few families bring their children to help me clear out my upper shed. The adults brought out the approximately 40 storage buckets and their young daughters pulled out item after item after item so I could tell the girls whether the item was a keep or a donate. I thought we would make progress quickly because most of the items in the shed had been placed there to be sold at a yard sale.

Those little girls rocked. I had five or six of them lined up, picking an item individually out of a bucket, and waiting for a keep or donate verdict from me. I started the day with an empty, double-sized storage bucket that I hoped to be the extent of my keeps. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. I finished the day with that one bucket full and five other regular-sized buckets full. At least six is a much smaller number than 40.

I knew I had a cache of some of my older daughter’s clothes that might fit my younger daughter, Mika, some dress pants that might fit my older daughter, a bucket of LEGOs, lots of kid’s books, and a small boom box that I wanted to keep tucked away somewhere in all those buckets. We worked from a few minutes after 11:00 a.m. until a few minutes after 2:00 p.m.

After the shed was cleared, I gained a couple of boys in addition to the girls for sorting help. Crystal was busy the whole time putting the donate items in trash bags and moving them outside to my patio, under my awning. Crystal had hoped each of the families would be able to take a load of bags to a donation center, but only two families were able to do so. I have a giant mountain of trash bags outside my back door, and I am okay with that. I will have more helpers coming to my house next week and some of them can take a load when they leave. The bags are protected from any rain or snow that may come, so getting them to a donation center is not time sensitive.

The last few buckets, which were toys, were the most difficult. Those were not toys sorted for a yard sale, they were toys I had taken out of my kid’s rooms when they would not clean. We tried to sort the items into like toys as we bagged them, so Barbies stayed together, army men stayed together, and etcetera. I kept the Barbie townhouse and a Fisher Price house because I thought Mika might like to use them as backdrops when she plays with her action figures. The rest of the toys are in donate bags (except the bucket of LEGOs and one bucket of nice baby and toddler toys I want to sort for a few toys to keep on hand for visitors).

We got so much done very fast today. My shed is not empty. I have an old, damaged dresser, a small table, an unadapted bassinette, a weight set, and possibly a little more left. The table and bassinette will be donated, the dresser will be destroyed and trashed, and the weight set is not mine, so I do not need to make that decision. Monday the shed will also contain stacks of empty buckets as my helper checks for broken storage buckets and lids to throw away. I am not going to donate my empty storage buckets until I finish clearing out my house. I do not expect to use them all again, but I know I will use some.

I am so grateful for all the people who answered Crystal’s call to come help a stranger get a jump start on restoring order in her life. I quit caring about my surroundings because I was so focused on how miserable I was feeling for the past four years, and I let go. I am fortunate to have people in my life who will say yes when asked to help me get out of the pit I dug for myself.

My piece of advice to you is to quit shoveling. A popular quote states, “if you put yourself in a hole, quit shoveling.” I am throwing my shovel away and reaching up to the hands extended to lift me up.

Until next time,
Susanne

Please check out my GoFundMe page.

Friday, January 10, 2020
The excessive sweating and associated coldness I have been experiencing are pretty much gone, except for yesterday. I get to blame my wound care doctor, Dr. Dash, for yesterday’s sweating. My sweat is my body’s reaction to pain my brain cannot feel, and I cannot feel most of my body. That inability to feel is one of the reasons it took so long to diagnose my cancer; I did not know where it hurt. (The fact nobody would order an MRI was a bigger reason.)
 
When you have pressure wounds, they need to heal from the inside out. A scab is a great tool for healing a scrape, but not a pressure sore. I have pretty clean wounds, but sometimes the wounds get scabby or get a small amount of dead tissue on top. When I go to the wound care center, Dr. Dash scrapes away any tissue that could impede proper healing. Some visits I do not need any scraping. Yesterday, Dr. Dash scraped three out of my four wounds.
 
I do not let the nurses put lidocaine on my wounds before Dr. Dash sees me because my brain does not feel the pain and she usually only makes me sweat a little. That was so not true yesterday. One of the wounds bled a lot after Dr. Dash scraped it and she used a cauterizing stick to stop the bleeding. That cauterizing stick sent my sweating into overdrive. By the time I arrived home, I was shivering and my teeth were chattering.

I am not a fan of the cauterizing stick. Blood is my friend. Blood means my wounds are healthy and healing. It is not like I have blood gushing from my wound when Dr. Dash scrapes it, it will simply take a few minutes to stop. My theory is put some extra padding on the bandage to soak up the extra blood and leave it alone. For some reason I cannot use my exceptional persuasive powers to convince Dr. Dash to let me bleed.
 
Dr. Dash still believes in my amazing skin growing superpower even though my wounds are mostly stagnant with the one, two punch of chemotherapy and steroids. As much as I like the steroids, they are bad for wound healing. Every time I go to the wound care center Dr. Dash tells me she knows I can heal these remaining wounds even on chemotherapy and steroids. I think Dr. Dash is delusional.
 
Dr. Dash’s charge nurse is new to the wound care center and yesterday Dr. Dash told the nurse why she is so confident I have a wound healing superpower. Four years ago, approximately four months after the excessive sweating and hatred of food started (and three years since I last needed to visit the wound care center), I went to the wound care center with a wound on my left hip that exposed bone. Bone is bad, very bad. Dr. Dash told me she wanted to put me in a facility because she was concerned I might die.
 
I used my exceptional persuasive powers to convince Dr. Dash it was simply a flesh wound and I would be able to heal it from home because I had a three-year-old daughter and could not possibly go into a facility. Dr. Dash gave me that chance and I healed that wound completely in less than a year. The wound was no longer life threatening in less than three months. Oddly enough, in July 2018 I was begging Dr. Dash to put me in a facility because I could not heal my wounds on my own. Six weeks later the tumors were found.
 
My piece of advice to you is make the best decision for you. The four wounds I have now are superficial and I could do more to get the wounds to finally close. However, I am not willing to go back on bed rest and miss any of my remaining time terrorizing my family. I will trade minutes of daily bandage time (and a monthly, five-hour trip to Dr. Dash) for more hours every day living the life I have left.

Until next time,
Susanne

​Please check out my GoFundMe page.