I've been especially neurotic lately. At least I can identify it now. When I get anxious I get ailments. Most recently, I have chosen to highlight my respiratory system. Last week, while Lee and I were lying in bed, suddenly I felt like I couldn't breathe. I made Lee go out to the car and pull his nasty public hospital stethescope out of his doctor coat and listen to my lungs. You know, I really want to be tough all of the time but I simply cannot. Lee is priviledged to witness my weaknesses and frailties. He and my housekeeper. But mostly Lee. It must be burdensome. However, I am the one that needs reassurance, so I have him listen a second and third time and assure me that my lungs aren't filled with fluid or riddled with metastatic disease.
Two girls that I know, friends, have been diagnosed with breast cancer since my diagnosis. They are both in their 30's and they both have 3 kids, 8 and younger. Being a good, supportive friend in this situation is not complication-free. As much as I want to be objective, I can't completely extract my own story from their situations. I don't think that it is just about reliving my own circumstances. Rather, I have not yet come to peace with my whole scenario. I guess it is a little bit like picking a scab off of a wound when it is almost healed. But I don't know if this sore ever completely heals. If I isolated myself I don't think that the rawness of it would go away. I'd just be by myself with this exposed nerve and I'd still be getting zapped. I guess I just need to come to terms with the notion that no one is expecting me to be the expert in 'how to be a breast cancer patient'. No one needs me to write the manual with the '10 simple steps to achieving breast cancer survival nirvana'.
Validation-it boils down to this. Somehow by helping these girls, coaching them along, it validates the year I spent wrestling with the breast cancer demons. It puts all that time to good use. In my mind, somewhere deep in my psyche, I can think, "It was all worthwhile. It was purpseful. I can recycle it and use it for something better." That is the type of girl that I am; never sitting still. I need to allow that year, 2007 and the whole frightening ride that it was, to just be. It happened and it happened to me and my family and it was unfortunate, but it is okay now. God or Lee or my parents or my family or my friends are not expecting me to make something profound and useful out of the experience. I'm doing that to myself. My only job is to be me.
Their experience, now, sends me back to those places that I did not like; the dark corners of uncertainty. I have no more control over my destiny now than I did a year and a half ago. And, I have no control over their destinies. It's between them and God, just like everyone else's life is between them and their maker. So, when my friend has to have a mastectomy and reconstruction and her 3 kids have to wait for months to hug their mother, I can cry for her. I can remember my surgery and my recovery and not sugar-coat it. It was hard for everyone. We made it through, but I can still cry for me too. Not because I am feeling sorry for myself, but because I can just let it out. I should not, nor could not, hold this sadness inside anymore than I should or could hold in a sneeze or a hiccup. Because my other friend has finished her treatment and is scared because there is no longer a battle plan and she feels helpless and out of control, I can understand her fear. I still feel her fear. I know the terror of waiting for test results because you think you have some new complication. I can tell her, "I know you are scared. I've been scared too. Whatever it is, it is going to be okay. I am here for you no matter what." I don't have to try to explain away her fears. Acknowledging them is enough.
I am not Superwoman. No one thought I was. There wasn't even a job vacancy. I made myself put on the tight, constricting costume. This is why I couldn't breathe. It was my own anxiety. This is a journey and I can simply join my friends. I don't have to lead the way and sometimes I can fall behind. As I wrote on my friend's poster to hang in her hospital room, in the word of Robert Earl Keen, "The Road Goes on Forever and the party never ends..."
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
Fillin My Nights With Song
Before I go to bed, I want to share an observation I made regarding the differences between boys and girls...Girls like musicals and boys don't. I think you can draw a line in the sand and have boys stand on one side and girls on the other when it comes to this critical issue. I chose the movie tonite for me, my 3 kids and my nephew. My daughter is 5, my sons are 6 & 8 and my nephew is 7. I told them my kingdom is a dictatorship and they had to watch what I wanted to watch or go to bed. There was lots of R rated stuff that I could have picked out, but I didn't want to spend the whole movie explaining inappropriate stuff to the 4 kids, so I settled for a PG-13, Mamma Mia!
All of the boys' choices were immediately vetoed. As we left Blockbuster they hung their heads in defeat. We started the movie soon after we arrived home. My daughter was immediately enraptured. The singing, the dancing, the costumes, the love story...it was all too good to be true. She sat next to me on the couch, snuggling close and smiling from ear to ear. I could tell what she was thinking; "Where has this genre of movie been hiding for all these years?" She wanted to know all about the girl and the wedding and the dress and the traditions. Who was going to walk her down the aisle? How old would she be when she got married? In her mind, it was all good. And suddenly I had a new partner with whom I could watch chick flicks!
At the same time my daughter was experiencing nirvana, the boys were somewhere in between complete and utter disgust and bewildered resignation. My nephew could not sit still. He stood up. He sat down. He bounced to the left. He crawled across the back of the sofa. He crawled under the sofa. He crawled under the coffee table. He stood up. He sat down. He bounced to the right...About half way through the movie, he turns to me, completely befuddled and with the utmost sincerety and asks, "Why do the keep speaking out in song?" And that will be the same question that he and other men will continue to ask for the rest of their lives. Some day, 30 year from now, he will be sitting in a theater with his wife, having just paid top dollar to see Chicago or something like it and he will turn to his wife and say, "I don't get it. Why do they keep breaking out into song? When are they gonna kill somebody?" That was the question that my 6 year old had for me. "When is there gonna be some action?" As if watching Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan proclaim their unrequited love via a ballad wasn't action enough. My 5 year old daughter got it. As the credits roled, I know she would have sat there through another viewing while the boys were wondering how the could have been duped so easily. That was an hour and forty five minutes of their lives that they would never get back that they could have used playing video games or watching Sponge Bob. While I don't think I could ever get my 8 year old to admit that he liked the movie, I do think that there was some morbid curiosity on his part (like watching the monkeys mate at the zoo).
I know they will never trust me again. I don't see how they can. It was a complete abuse of my power and I know it. I subjected them to a musical without a grown man nearby to come to their defense. I suppose if I allow them to use the Play Station 2 for 4-6 consecutive hours tomorrow, I may be able to atone for my sins. But, I'm not too worried about it because I have my new ally and tomorrow she and I will probably watch the movie another time or two or at least till we know all the songs by heart!
All of the boys' choices were immediately vetoed. As we left Blockbuster they hung their heads in defeat. We started the movie soon after we arrived home. My daughter was immediately enraptured. The singing, the dancing, the costumes, the love story...it was all too good to be true. She sat next to me on the couch, snuggling close and smiling from ear to ear. I could tell what she was thinking; "Where has this genre of movie been hiding for all these years?" She wanted to know all about the girl and the wedding and the dress and the traditions. Who was going to walk her down the aisle? How old would she be when she got married? In her mind, it was all good. And suddenly I had a new partner with whom I could watch chick flicks!
At the same time my daughter was experiencing nirvana, the boys were somewhere in between complete and utter disgust and bewildered resignation. My nephew could not sit still. He stood up. He sat down. He bounced to the left. He crawled across the back of the sofa. He crawled under the sofa. He crawled under the coffee table. He stood up. He sat down. He bounced to the right...About half way through the movie, he turns to me, completely befuddled and with the utmost sincerety and asks, "Why do the keep speaking out in song?" And that will be the same question that he and other men will continue to ask for the rest of their lives. Some day, 30 year from now, he will be sitting in a theater with his wife, having just paid top dollar to see Chicago or something like it and he will turn to his wife and say, "I don't get it. Why do they keep breaking out into song? When are they gonna kill somebody?" That was the question that my 6 year old had for me. "When is there gonna be some action?" As if watching Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan proclaim their unrequited love via a ballad wasn't action enough. My 5 year old daughter got it. As the credits roled, I know she would have sat there through another viewing while the boys were wondering how the could have been duped so easily. That was an hour and forty five minutes of their lives that they would never get back that they could have used playing video games or watching Sponge Bob. While I don't think I could ever get my 8 year old to admit that he liked the movie, I do think that there was some morbid curiosity on his part (like watching the monkeys mate at the zoo).
I know they will never trust me again. I don't see how they can. It was a complete abuse of my power and I know it. I subjected them to a musical without a grown man nearby to come to their defense. I suppose if I allow them to use the Play Station 2 for 4-6 consecutive hours tomorrow, I may be able to atone for my sins. But, I'm not too worried about it because I have my new ally and tomorrow she and I will probably watch the movie another time or two or at least till we know all the songs by heart!
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Farewell Sweet Piggy...Farewell
I read a quote recently about blogging; "Never has so much been written about nothing by so many people and read by so little." Pretty much sums it up. But, as long as I realize that I am doing this for me and my kids and not to get discovered by Oprah, then who cares, right?
It's a lazy day today and as usual, I am putting housecleaning at the bottom of my priority list. The amount that needs to be cleaned is overwhelming and I'd rather sit my butt down in front of the computer and waste time. Speaking about wasting time in front of the computer. I joined Facebook recently. There is absolutely nothing redeeming about the time spent on Facebook; very little return for the investment you make. But...it is addictive. People that I haven't even thought about in 20 years-now all of the sudden I know when they are going to go to the bathroom or have their dog groomed. I wonder what it says about us as a society that we'd rather electronically peer into obscure acquaintances' lives than have a conversation with your own family who is sitting in the same room with you or the neighbors that live next door. I'm not proud of this fact, but I have hushed and shooed away my children because I was busy reading Facebook. Not only is that downright pathetic, it's extremely pathetic. I'm 40 years old. I should be busy doing something worthwhile. Sadly, I don't think I am going to quit anytime soon. Like any addiction, it is feeding some deep seated need that I have. I'm not sure what that need may be, but I am feeding it nonetheless.
Piggy, our black and white mouse, died yesterday. I was very flummoxed as to how I was going to break the sad news to our kids. It's not like they haven't experienced loss (in the form of pet death) before. They are actually veterans at this point. After I allowed myself a moment of sadness and reflection, I decided to wait until this morning to tell them. Lee is the one who noticed that she was dead. Earlier in the day one of the neighbor boys asked if she was dead, but I was preoccupied and wasn't really paying attention, so I answered, "No, she's just sleeping." I never went and actually checked Piggy out myself. I went back to whatever I was doing and forgot about it. Later in the evening when Lee told me that she was dead, I thought he was lying. We joke about killing the mice and have fantasies of their demise all of the time. They stink and we are the only people who clean out their cage (except for our housekeeper when she can't stand the stench any longer and she does it herself).
Earlier this week we thought Piggy was on her way out and I actually took the damn thing up to the vet. "Get her here right away!" the vet receptionist instructed me, with alarm in her voice. I immediately jumped in the car (after strapping the cage into the seatbelt) and raced up to the vet's office just to be told, mockingly, that there was nothing wrong with Piggy. "I don't really know that much about 'rodent care'" he told me (and still had the nerve to charge me the $9 office fee). "They can get something called wet tail and you have to get them to me right away so I can give them a shot of antibiotics. But your mouse's bottom looks clean. Sometimes they can get tooth abscesses, b/c their teeth grow continuously. You can just get a pair of nail clippers and clip off the end of their teeth. Just do that and watch for signs of diarrhea."
I gazed at him like he was stoned. "Do you really expect me to be vigilant about my mouse's anal and dental care?" I asked him. He just shrugged and looked at me like I was a fool (which I suppose I was. If wasn't in this pseudo-housewife role, would I have the time to take a mouse to the vet?). I took my mice and left.
For the next couple of days Piggy was fine. She rebounded from whatever mouse ailment from whence she suffered and resumed her role as the less dominant mouse in hers and Snowflake's relationship. She gathered seeds, tended to the mouse dome and occasionally took a foray around the cage...until last night. Last night was the last time that she would climb to the top of the waterbottle to better search for nuggets of food.
Lee banged on the cage. "See, she's not moving." Sure enough, Piggy lay there, amidst the blue shavings, rotting. God only knows how long she had been dead. As I mentioned, I was slightly sad. As much as we joke about it, I could never actually bring harm to the damn things. Even after I threatened to euthenize them earlier this week. After confirming her demise we debated about the best way to rid of her corpse. I thought we should put it outside in a plastic bag and let it freeze (it's been near freezing here) and then take it to the vet to incinerate. Lee didn't like this idea. He scooped it out of the cage with a couple of plastic bags and threw it in the garbage can outside. He said he didn't really care if it decomposed in the garbage can and stunk up the whole neighborhood. He just knew there was no way he was taking the mouse up to the vet. Remind me to make sure I have some plans written down somewhere so he doesn't just put me in a plastic bag and throw me in the garbage for Thursday trash pick up.
The next morning I decided to tell the kids after ruling out my other options; a) get a replacement mouse (been there, done that) or b) lying to them. I'm not opposed to the latter-I lie to my kids quite frequently, especially when it makes my life more convenient. But I decided that it was too much work to make up some elaborate lie about how the mouse escaped, etc...All 3 of them were sitting on the couch with the boys' friend who had spent the nite. The boys were playing with their hand held electronic games, so their noses were buried deep in the screen.
"Kid's I have some sad news. Piggy died." I told them in my most solemn tone. I waited for a second thinking that the wailing and gnashing of teeth would begin at any moment. Complete silence as the boys are trying to navigate thru the 8th level of whatever particular game they had been playing. I add, "She died peacefully and she's in mouse heaven now. She didn't suffer."
"I told you she was dead!" the boys' friend proclaims triumphantly. "So where is she rotting?"
"Daddy put her in the garbage can last nite."
"Oooh! Cool! Can we go see?" the friend wants to know. Obviously he does not appreciate the delicateness with which we need to approach the situation.
"Where was she?" my middle son wants to know. "In the cage." I answer. "No, I mean was she in a corner or in the middle of the cage? Because Sally [9 yr old next door neighbor who the boys worship-name changed to protect anonymity] said that mice only die in the corner of the cage. If they are lying in the middle of the cage they are just sleeping." he explains to me.
"No, she was definitely dead" I assure them. "Dad checked her to make sure."
"How, how did he check her?" This is the oldest who never ceases to ask questions. I begin to explain, but notice that neither of the boys have stopped playing their games since I began the conversation. I decide to just leave it at "She wasn't breathing and he's a doctor, so he knows."
"Yeah, but he's not a vet." He says this with complete seriousness, still playing the handheld game.
"She's definitley dead" I told him.
Meanwhile, my daughter is busy flirting with the neighbor boy. It's more important to remain cute in the face of tragedy, she decides. Later when we are by ourselves, she expresses sorrow. I tell her that the mouse had fulfilled her destiny on earth and now she is in mouse heaven with all of our other deceased pets. She's okay with this for now....Until another one meets his or her untimely death!
It's a lazy day today and as usual, I am putting housecleaning at the bottom of my priority list. The amount that needs to be cleaned is overwhelming and I'd rather sit my butt down in front of the computer and waste time. Speaking about wasting time in front of the computer. I joined Facebook recently. There is absolutely nothing redeeming about the time spent on Facebook; very little return for the investment you make. But...it is addictive. People that I haven't even thought about in 20 years-now all of the sudden I know when they are going to go to the bathroom or have their dog groomed. I wonder what it says about us as a society that we'd rather electronically peer into obscure acquaintances' lives than have a conversation with your own family who is sitting in the same room with you or the neighbors that live next door. I'm not proud of this fact, but I have hushed and shooed away my children because I was busy reading Facebook. Not only is that downright pathetic, it's extremely pathetic. I'm 40 years old. I should be busy doing something worthwhile. Sadly, I don't think I am going to quit anytime soon. Like any addiction, it is feeding some deep seated need that I have. I'm not sure what that need may be, but I am feeding it nonetheless.
Piggy, our black and white mouse, died yesterday. I was very flummoxed as to how I was going to break the sad news to our kids. It's not like they haven't experienced loss (in the form of pet death) before. They are actually veterans at this point. After I allowed myself a moment of sadness and reflection, I decided to wait until this morning to tell them. Lee is the one who noticed that she was dead. Earlier in the day one of the neighbor boys asked if she was dead, but I was preoccupied and wasn't really paying attention, so I answered, "No, she's just sleeping." I never went and actually checked Piggy out myself. I went back to whatever I was doing and forgot about it. Later in the evening when Lee told me that she was dead, I thought he was lying. We joke about killing the mice and have fantasies of their demise all of the time. They stink and we are the only people who clean out their cage (except for our housekeeper when she can't stand the stench any longer and she does it herself).
Earlier this week we thought Piggy was on her way out and I actually took the damn thing up to the vet. "Get her here right away!" the vet receptionist instructed me, with alarm in her voice. I immediately jumped in the car (after strapping the cage into the seatbelt) and raced up to the vet's office just to be told, mockingly, that there was nothing wrong with Piggy. "I don't really know that much about 'rodent care'" he told me (and still had the nerve to charge me the $9 office fee). "They can get something called wet tail and you have to get them to me right away so I can give them a shot of antibiotics. But your mouse's bottom looks clean. Sometimes they can get tooth abscesses, b/c their teeth grow continuously. You can just get a pair of nail clippers and clip off the end of their teeth. Just do that and watch for signs of diarrhea."
I gazed at him like he was stoned. "Do you really expect me to be vigilant about my mouse's anal and dental care?" I asked him. He just shrugged and looked at me like I was a fool (which I suppose I was. If wasn't in this pseudo-housewife role, would I have the time to take a mouse to the vet?). I took my mice and left.
For the next couple of days Piggy was fine. She rebounded from whatever mouse ailment from whence she suffered and resumed her role as the less dominant mouse in hers and Snowflake's relationship. She gathered seeds, tended to the mouse dome and occasionally took a foray around the cage...until last night. Last night was the last time that she would climb to the top of the waterbottle to better search for nuggets of food.
Lee banged on the cage. "See, she's not moving." Sure enough, Piggy lay there, amidst the blue shavings, rotting. God only knows how long she had been dead. As I mentioned, I was slightly sad. As much as we joke about it, I could never actually bring harm to the damn things. Even after I threatened to euthenize them earlier this week. After confirming her demise we debated about the best way to rid of her corpse. I thought we should put it outside in a plastic bag and let it freeze (it's been near freezing here) and then take it to the vet to incinerate. Lee didn't like this idea. He scooped it out of the cage with a couple of plastic bags and threw it in the garbage can outside. He said he didn't really care if it decomposed in the garbage can and stunk up the whole neighborhood. He just knew there was no way he was taking the mouse up to the vet. Remind me to make sure I have some plans written down somewhere so he doesn't just put me in a plastic bag and throw me in the garbage for Thursday trash pick up.
The next morning I decided to tell the kids after ruling out my other options; a) get a replacement mouse (been there, done that) or b) lying to them. I'm not opposed to the latter-I lie to my kids quite frequently, especially when it makes my life more convenient. But I decided that it was too much work to make up some elaborate lie about how the mouse escaped, etc...All 3 of them were sitting on the couch with the boys' friend who had spent the nite. The boys were playing with their hand held electronic games, so their noses were buried deep in the screen.
"Kid's I have some sad news. Piggy died." I told them in my most solemn tone. I waited for a second thinking that the wailing and gnashing of teeth would begin at any moment. Complete silence as the boys are trying to navigate thru the 8th level of whatever particular game they had been playing. I add, "She died peacefully and she's in mouse heaven now. She didn't suffer."
"I told you she was dead!" the boys' friend proclaims triumphantly. "So where is she rotting?"
"Daddy put her in the garbage can last nite."
"Oooh! Cool! Can we go see?" the friend wants to know. Obviously he does not appreciate the delicateness with which we need to approach the situation.
"Where was she?" my middle son wants to know. "In the cage." I answer. "No, I mean was she in a corner or in the middle of the cage? Because Sally [9 yr old next door neighbor who the boys worship-name changed to protect anonymity] said that mice only die in the corner of the cage. If they are lying in the middle of the cage they are just sleeping." he explains to me.
"No, she was definitely dead" I assure them. "Dad checked her to make sure."
"How, how did he check her?" This is the oldest who never ceases to ask questions. I begin to explain, but notice that neither of the boys have stopped playing their games since I began the conversation. I decide to just leave it at "She wasn't breathing and he's a doctor, so he knows."
"Yeah, but he's not a vet." He says this with complete seriousness, still playing the handheld game.
"She's definitley dead" I told him.
Meanwhile, my daughter is busy flirting with the neighbor boy. It's more important to remain cute in the face of tragedy, she decides. Later when we are by ourselves, she expresses sorrow. I tell her that the mouse had fulfilled her destiny on earth and now she is in mouse heaven with all of our other deceased pets. She's okay with this for now....Until another one meets his or her untimely death!
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Kids, Don't Try This At Home
New year, new blog...The Hollerin Chef was going to be the name of mine and Lee's cooking show, but we could never get beyond the conceptualization phase so this idea fell into the same pile as the idea for the restaurant for dogs.
Lee and I are getting old. I can't believe it has actually happened, but when we weren't looking, we both turned 40+. Now more friends than not have some kind of diagnosis and, sadly, many of our friends have either buried parents, or they have parents who have become ill. The fifteen years between 25 and 40 flew by at light speed and now I find myself in this demographic and I'm not sure I am preparred to be in it. Five years ago everyone was having babies. That time between having babies and becoming middle-aged was condensed in our generation because we all waited so damn long to have kids. Anyway, I digress...
I think everyone agrees that an unwritten, but understood part of every longterm relationship is patrol of the other person's unwanted hair growth. Making sure that there aren't unsightly hairs growing out of your partner in unorthodox body parts is part compassion and part self-serving. To forego this critical duty is not only careless and thoughtless, it is grounds for reconsideration of the whole partnership. If you can't rely on your mate to tell you when you aren't properly groomed, you are operating at a level beneath primates. I tell Lee when his ear and back hairs are reaching maximum density and he tell me when I've forgotten to pluck a stray chin hair or upper lip whisker. Imagine my horror and dismay when I realized I had been walking around all day with a long, white hair sticking out of my nose. With every word I spoke or breath I breathed, it danced in the wind, but I didn't know this until after I had been to the bathroom and reported back to him that I had just encountered the most unsightly hair protruding out of my left nostril. Instead of faking like he didn't know that it had been there, he said, "Oh yeah, I saw that this morning and forgot to say something to you." As if that one incident wasn't bad enough, while putting lotion on my legs this morning I noticed pubic-like hair on the back of my right mid thigh. It was a small patch, but it was there, beneath the level of most shorts and certainly visible to the naked eye. Hair grows back differently after chemotherapy. It crops up in strange locations and with different textures. I'm not sure which was worse, letting me walk around with nose whiskers or short curlies on my thigh, but we had a "come to Jesus" after that and he knows that unless he wants small birds nesting in his ears, he's got to improve his surveillance skills...
Which brings me to my last insight for the day...Don't ever try on your dog's choker collar. The choker collar has spikes directed into the neck so your dog won't go nuts when she sees other dogs/squirrels/cats while you are taking her for a walk. If the dog starts to chase or run after something, the spikes dig into her neck-it gently reminds her to stay in-line. Well, Lee and I decided it would be a good idea to try on Star's choker collar ourselves. Lee's neck was too big for the collar, but guess what, my neck was just right! Yup, we snapped that baby on and it was much easier to put on than it was to remove...I have about a dozen spike marks in my neck to prove it. So, even though we are both old, we are still stupid.
Lee and I are getting old. I can't believe it has actually happened, but when we weren't looking, we both turned 40+. Now more friends than not have some kind of diagnosis and, sadly, many of our friends have either buried parents, or they have parents who have become ill. The fifteen years between 25 and 40 flew by at light speed and now I find myself in this demographic and I'm not sure I am preparred to be in it. Five years ago everyone was having babies. That time between having babies and becoming middle-aged was condensed in our generation because we all waited so damn long to have kids. Anyway, I digress...
I think everyone agrees that an unwritten, but understood part of every longterm relationship is patrol of the other person's unwanted hair growth. Making sure that there aren't unsightly hairs growing out of your partner in unorthodox body parts is part compassion and part self-serving. To forego this critical duty is not only careless and thoughtless, it is grounds for reconsideration of the whole partnership. If you can't rely on your mate to tell you when you aren't properly groomed, you are operating at a level beneath primates. I tell Lee when his ear and back hairs are reaching maximum density and he tell me when I've forgotten to pluck a stray chin hair or upper lip whisker. Imagine my horror and dismay when I realized I had been walking around all day with a long, white hair sticking out of my nose. With every word I spoke or breath I breathed, it danced in the wind, but I didn't know this until after I had been to the bathroom and reported back to him that I had just encountered the most unsightly hair protruding out of my left nostril. Instead of faking like he didn't know that it had been there, he said, "Oh yeah, I saw that this morning and forgot to say something to you." As if that one incident wasn't bad enough, while putting lotion on my legs this morning I noticed pubic-like hair on the back of my right mid thigh. It was a small patch, but it was there, beneath the level of most shorts and certainly visible to the naked eye. Hair grows back differently after chemotherapy. It crops up in strange locations and with different textures. I'm not sure which was worse, letting me walk around with nose whiskers or short curlies on my thigh, but we had a "come to Jesus" after that and he knows that unless he wants small birds nesting in his ears, he's got to improve his surveillance skills...
Which brings me to my last insight for the day...Don't ever try on your dog's choker collar. The choker collar has spikes directed into the neck so your dog won't go nuts when she sees other dogs/squirrels/cats while you are taking her for a walk. If the dog starts to chase or run after something, the spikes dig into her neck-it gently reminds her to stay in-line. Well, Lee and I decided it would be a good idea to try on Star's choker collar ourselves. Lee's neck was too big for the collar, but guess what, my neck was just right! Yup, we snapped that baby on and it was much easier to put on than it was to remove...I have about a dozen spike marks in my neck to prove it. So, even though we are both old, we are still stupid.
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