I'm baaaaack

Did you miss me? Sorry about the absence. My dad came to visit--which meant several days of preparing the house so it would be a little more "finished" for his first visit--and then he was here for 5 days and then the day he left I came down with a head cold. Apparently a simple head cold on top of gleevec was enough for a few days on the couch. But today I am up and about finally and trying to make up for lost time--i.e. attacking the evil laundry pile. I think someone dumped some miracle grow on the hamper while I was incapacitated.

Sam left for Chicago today. His 20th high school reunion is this weekend. I probably should have gone with him so that I could beat off all of those girls that had a crush on him 20 years ago and never got over it. I told him I would prefer it if he dressed like a slob and didn't shave or brush his teeth before he went. :-)

He gets to spend the weekend with his four moms too. More specifically his mom and his 3 older sisters. He will answer probably a thousand questions in the span of the weekend--they are big question askers. (If you say something was blue it would not be out of the ordinary for them to clarify what kind of blue you mean--cobalt, sky, turquoise...? If a food was delicious they will want to know what made it delicious. I, not being very detail oriented, just say it was blue and good.) He will also get some very yummy food as all of them enjoy cooking--unlike the wife he was lucky enough to catch. We, on the other hand, will probably have our fill of cereal and pizza for dinner. Maybe I'll throw in a little mac 'n' cheese and dazzle the kids with my culinary expertise. But if Daddy ain't home you can be sure I won't be cooking full-on meals. Not that I've been slaving over a hot stove from my perch on the couch all week. Although I did cook Wed. night--in between rest stops on the couch. So really it is a well deserved cooking vacation after that exhausting exercise. Once a week is more than enough for me.

Well, I've put my head down onto the desk 3 times now so I think that's the signal to call it a night. Must have been all that exertion bringing home those Little Caesar's pizzas.

Anniversary o' the Lump

Five years ago today the country was still reeling from the Sept. 11 attacks. We were all still glued to our television sets hoping for survivors and wanting to know how this had happened. It was an emotionally wrenching week to be sure.

And then on the evening of Saturday, Sept. 15 I started my own emotional journey when I discovered a lump in my breast. I tried to take the position that it was probably nothing but I would get it checked out anyway (after of course I scoured the internet and found out that statistically "most" lumps are benign). I called the doctor on Monday morning and got in right away--it's amazing how quickly there is an opening in the doctor's schedule when you say the word "lump." He referred me for a mammogram, which I had to wait a week for because Sam and I were going to San Francisco for a long weekend for a conference for church. So, less than two weeks after 9/11 I was flying on an airplane and wondering if I had cancer. Suddenly terrorists seemed a very distant threat when I was walking around wondering if I had a time bomb of sorts inside of my own body. The weekend turned out to be very introspective for me as I was faced with my own mortality for the first time at the ripe old age of 33. All kinds of what-ifs went through my mind but surprisingly I wasn't an emotional wreck. I was still trying to remember that nothing definitive had been found and I shouldn't diagnose myself. After all, "most" lumps that are found turn out to be nothing. So I would go back and forth between "what if it's cancer" and "I'm sure it's nothing." The lesson there is to focus on truth and on what you KNOW.

Our weekend in San Francisco was nice but eerie at the same time. No one was traveling and so our hotel was almost empty. The city of San Francisco, normally bulging with tourists was like a ghost town. I think all of that added to my introspection. I think all of us were faced with our mortality in some ways as we realized that thousands of people had lost their lives in the Twin Towers having only gone in to work for the day. We realized how easily it could have been us. So, add "gee, I wonder if I have cancer" on top of that and you have a very serious look at your life. I kept thinking I didn't feel like I was "ready" to meet my Savior. I knew my heart was so easily turned from Him. I felt like I would be ashamed if I had to face Him because I was caught up in so many other things besides Him. He was not my priority. I did not want to face Him knowing that. Thankfully I am still here and He very kindly gave me the time and the grace to have my priorities altered. And I can say wholeheartedly now that I am ready to leave. There is nothing I would rather do than sit at His feet. My life is not perfect by any means, but my heart, while still prone to wander, is His. There are a lot of things I would still like to change in my life to have it be more Christ-like, but I don't fear being ashamed in facing Jesus. For one thing I understand grace so much more! It's not about me and what I have or haven't done, it's about Him and what He did on the cross. I will never "earn" his love and devotion. He gave it freely on Calvary.

So five years ago I was a very different person starting out on a journey not knowing where it would take me. It was a long hard journey (still is!!!) but I would take it again in a minute. Because in those difficulties I came to understand who God is and that my hope is in Him. His grace truly is sufficient. And I can't wait to be with Him forever!

Come, Lord Jesus!

Side effect #1: fatigue

There are a number of side effects to my medicine but fatigue is the main one that plagues me. It is rather humorous at times. Like last night when I was making meat loaf for dinner. I was mixing up the meat loaf by hand and the muscles in my arm were burning after about 30 seconds. Like "at the gym bench pressing twice my weight" burning. And I was breathing like I had just run the 50 yd. dash. All of which I find hysterical because, give me a break, all I was doing is mixing some meat, bread crumbs and eggs--not exactly a physically daunting task. But maybe I've got something new here. This could be the newest workout video craze--Meat loaf to Muscles: Feel the Burn. I bet there are chemo patients out there that would buy it!

And there was also the nap I took during the conference at church yesterday--sort of a flashback to college. No offense to the speakers--they were awesome. I was thoroughly enjoying the material and the speakers. But my body decided about 3/4 of the way through that I was done physically. Way done. Over done as a matter of fact. Fatigue + Sitting for 2 1/2 hours = nap time. Thankfully I felt the sleep taking over and was able to take myself to the Guest Reception/Nursing Moms room (now renamed the Guest Reception/Nursing Moms/Melinda's Nap Room--we'll need to come up with an acronym for that to make it easier to say). I found a very comfy overstuffed chair and thereby avoided insulting the speaker by nodding off during his presentation. The good news was that I felt much better after my 30 minute snooze. Hopefully there will be a CD of the session so I can see what I missed!

So, 9.9 times out of 10 when you ask me how I'm feeling, you can rest assured that I am feeling tired. So we'll just have that as our break even point and when I answer I'll just let you know if I'm feeling better or worse than break even. Otherwise I'll be saying the same thing over and over and I am going to start sounding like Charlie Brown's teacher and causing great annoyance to anyone in my path. And we don't want that to happen.

Dishes and Laundry and Blogs, Oh My!

So, someone made a comment to me recently about "writing something new already." You know who you are. :-) I just have to refer you to the Leukemia Handbook where it clearly states that I am not responsible for a lack of blogging when caused by a gleevec induced walking coma.

I have come out of my coma today but I haven't got anything interesting to write about so I'll write about doing dishes and laundry because that is what I have done today. (See what happens when you complain about me not blogging? You can stop reading now and go watch some paint dry if you want.)

The laundry part is momentous because I have not been able to do any for a week as I have been without a dryer until today. We had to leave our old dryer for our renters--which was good for me because that meant I got a new one but which also meant I would be without a dryer until we had time to get to the store and pick one out and have it delivered. And when you have 5 kids and do laundry each and every day it is not a good thing to skip laundry for a week. The stress induced tic on the left side of my face was just starting to reveal itself when we finally got ourselves to the store to buy one. I have piles of laundry that are being run through as quickly as the machine will take them. If there is a problem with the new dryer we should know by the end of the day!

The inside of the new dryer is stainless steel which is cool--it is so shiny! My old one was white. Well, it was white at one time but recently it was sort of rainbow colored--not like a pretty rainbow in the sky but more like a dingy rainbow of smushed colors and old stickers. I could put my make up on in the new one. That is if I felt like putting my head in the dryer to do so. Which I doubt.

And then there's the dishes. Endless. In our old house we very rarely used the dishwasher. I don't know why, we just didn't. Here for some reason I use the dishwasher every day and sometimes twice. Although the kids are still trying to learn to put things in there instead of just tossing them in the sink. The same nerve endings that still need to mature for that task are the ones that cause them to step over their clothes and toys on the floor and not think twice about picking them up. But it's not their fault, biologically they just aren't capable. Either that or somehow I've scarred them by requiring too much from them at too early an age and now they have Oppositional Clean Up Disorder (OCUD).

Now it's time to answer the call of the shiny dryer and get another load in. Maybe I'll touch up my make up while I'm in there.

Happy Birthday Katya!

Today is Katya's 12th birthday. She was so excited this whole week that she was ready to bust. I asked her if she used to get excited about her birthdays in Russia and she said "not really because we didn't really do anything." That doesn't define birthdays in the Macrane family. We do birthdays big. Well, as big as I can with leukemia and five children as a handicap.

The day starts with the birthday child waking up to signs, balloons and streamers in their room. Why? Because I did it once for Emily on a whim when she was little and it became an instant tradition without anyone consulting me. (The year we moved to Chicago we were staying at Sam's sister's house and I didn't think to decorate Emily's room. Let's just say I won't be making that mistake again--you would have thought I had pistol whipped the child based on the reaction. And then there was the year we were in Russia for Emily's birthday. I had to leave the signs and specific instructions for Grandma to fulfill this requirement! And yesterday Katya asked me if I would be decorating her room like I did last year. I guess since we moved she thought the tradition might change. She can rest easy there, her siblings would never stand for it.) Needless to say there have been plenty of birthday eve's where I could be found holding my eyelids open while hanging the decorations in their rooms. Oy. Katya's birthday was no exception.

One birthday tradition that we got jacked on was free Krispy Kreme doughnuts since they went belly up here in AZ last month. But, that didn't stop Katya. She suggested that she could go somewhere else for doughnuts instead. The free part clearly escaped her. So Sam took her to Safeway for some coffee and doughnuts this morning. She LOVES coffee and doesn't get it very often so this was a fun treat. As if she needed anything to jazz her up even more.

Then this afternoon Sam took the kids and a few of Katya's friends to Hamilton pool for a couple of hours. It was so hot today that it was a great day for a swim. They'll sleep hard tonight. We capped it off with pan cookie and ice cream and sang to her. What kid doesn't like that part?

In our family, birthday kids get to pick the dinner menu. I was almost sorry for that today. Katya's request? Corn--you know it's going to be interesting when that was her lead item. And mashed potatoes with bacon. And fruit. Carb junkie doesn't even begin to describe her. That Atkins guy would have flipped to see her eat. I don't know where the idea for the bacon on the potatoes came from since I have never served it that way. I guess it was just creative birthday license. I opted to just offer it on the side and she crumbled it into hers for a smidge of protein and a whole lot of fat.

Her most favorite gift was a kids video camera from her grandparents. She's videotaping her siblings doing ridiculous monologues right now. A family of hams. She was totally surprised by the video camera as you can see by this picture. (Emily had given her the hat which ended up looking, appropriately enough, like a director's beret!)




Needless to say, her 3rd American birthday rocked. How could it not when she ended up with a video camera!?!