It's Officially Fall!

It's finally here! Fall has arrived! The temperatures are still high, with the occasional beautiful day thrown in to tease me before it gets warm again. I guess that is what fall is like, summer is still fighting to stay but fall is pushing summer away! I can see the days getting shorter, the sun is going down earlier which means less sunlight and less time for the heat during the day.
I did start working on getting the last of my cleaning list done. I wanted to wash all my towels and redo the linen closet. I picked a cooler day and pulled out all the towels. I had a basket of laundry and wanted to wash my sheets and blanket too. I put in the first load and went about my morning, once it was done I put the laundry in the dryer and put a new load in the wash. It was a beautiful day and I like to lean on the rail and look down on the little stream under my deck. As I looked down, I saw a massive stream of ants trailing across the bottom of my deck. I ran inside to get the ant spray and get rid of them before they made it up to my deck. I sprayed the bottom of the deck and then it became a horror story. Every time I would look somewhere, I saw ants. They were everywhere! There was a line of them running up the wall, when I followed that stream, there were hundreds on the beam over my deck running across it. I would spray every time I saw a trail of ants. I sprayed the wall, then I sprayed the beam, then I looked over and they were all over the ceiling of my deck and running into the cracks under the roof! I sprayed and sprayed, the wind was blowing so I was covered with ant spray and I am sure they were dropping down on me as they died. Once I was sure I had sprayed everywhere I jumped into the shower! I have never felt so itchy and creeped out! I did not venture back out on my deck until the next day. There were still a few ants, but they were dying  from all the bug spray. I hate ants!

I gave up on washing all the towels that I had pulled out of the cabinet, and the temperatures were supposed to be pretty warm, forget warm -- it was going to be hot! Hot is was, the temperatures were over 100 degrees. On Friday it was 106 and Saturday it was 102. How horrible! I did absolutely nothing, I did not even leave the house.
Now it is the third week of September and I have started updating my Infoarmy reports for quarter 3. I was planning on getting two updated a day that way it would not be overwhelming the week they were due. It has been working out pretty well. I have eleven reports updated for quarter three.
One thing that I don't look forward to in the fall are the allergies. I have mild allergies and usually I may have a day or two when I have issues. This year is different. I started feeling allergies coming on, for me that means my front teeth start hurting. My lower sinuses always become inflamed and cause pressure on the nerves of my teeth. I did take some Benadryl, but the post nasal drip was so bad that I got a really bad cough. I hate coughing. Since my surgery I have stress incontinence, which means that I lose some urine in stressful situations. Coughing is extremely stressful. So I was not only coughing, I was running to the bathroom constantly. By Saturday I thought I was feeling better, so I cleaned the refrigerator and freezer. I felt great that I got that done, but by Saturday evening I was developing a sore throat and really did not feel well. I spent Sunday resting and recovering from overdoing it. It was a good move and by Monday I was feeling better.
Now it is the last week of September. I have until the end of the week for quarter three to end and I will not only have to work to get the rest of my reports updated, but as senior researcher, I will have to approve the updates that have been made to the reports that I am senior researcher on. My plan is to get all my reports updated this week, that way next week I only have to work with the senior researcher to get my reports updated and work with primary reports that I am senior researcher on. I did get quite a few updated today. Updating does not really take a lot of time, you are only really updating some of the information for any changes or additions for the current quarter.
The temperatures are supposed to be warm again this weekend, but I am hoping that things will start settling into the lower temperatures soon....

September

September was one crazy busy month! In my last post I was getting ready for fall and had found a treasure trove of energy to help me through it. That energy did not last long after that day, but I am glad that I was able to get so much done when I did have it. That is a lesson to take advantage of my "good energy" days.

My last post was on the third and that upcoming weekend was the Lobster Festival. I get some extra money by stuffing the will call tickets, it is not too taxing a job. I go to my friend's house, she is in charge of the ticket pre-sales, I get a printed sheet of name labels with the amount and type of tickets ordered. I sit on the couch with boxes of blank envelopes and rolls of tickets. First, I put the name label on the envelope and then I put the corresponding tickets into the envelope and make sure everything is alphabetized. I usually stuff tickets on the Wednesday and Thursday before the Festival since it starts on Friday. I wind up with an average of 4 boxes of tickets.

This time it was different. Tickets had been sold on Amazon local and the numbers doubled the usual count of tickets I stuff. Plus there were also two new tickets that could be sold for a lobster roll and lobster on a stick. That gave me five different tickets and double the amount of tickets. I worked as fast as I could but I still only made it through the letter "L" after six hours. I knew I would have to be over even earlier the next day, not only to catch up from where I left off, but there would also be more ticket orders that had come in since the day before that also needed to be stuffed and alphabetized.  I arrived around noon and started working. I did not finish until 10pm, by that time my eyes were starting to cross from looking at the same tickets. I wound up with a grand total of eight boxes full, twice the usual amount. That was much more exhausting than the usual ticket stuffing.
On Saturday I went down to the Lobster Festival. I arrived around 10am to help with setting up the ephoto booth. Not only is my friend the graphic designer and in charge of ticket pre-sales, she also has an ephoto booth that she works at during the three days of the festival. I did not go down on Friday, I had things to do, including continuing my job search and some errands to run. I usually only go down to the festivals for one day, it is all I can handle. I don't really do much at the festival other than help with set up and occasionally I will walk around the festival taking pics for the website. At least I got some lobster! yum! I think the heat really gets to me the longer I stay at a festival and it takes me a couple of days to recover. My body really can't handle the heat at all anymore. I get overheated and then start feeling sick. I spend a few hours at the festival and then head home.
As I suspected, I was really not feeling well by the time I got home. It took me two days to really recover and start feeling good again. At least the festivals were over for the year.
I found out that my ex boyfriend's aunt had been diagnosed with leiomyosarcoma, which is a smooth muscle cancer. Hers was located on her uterus, so she had to get the same surgery as I had, a radical hysterectomy. Her cancer is very rare and the doctors don't really know much about it so her treatment will be different from mine. Since I am the only one that really knows what she is going through, I have been talking to her about her treatment and her fears. She is really having a hard time coping with it, especially since someone close to her passed away from cancer the year before. I am glad that my story and experiences can help her. I have managed to calm her fears as much as they can be calmed considering the treatments she is going through. I told her to call me anytime, that she was not going through this alone. I am glad that I can help others that are going through something like this. I did not have anyone that really understood what I was going through. I had support and love from friends and family, but no one really understood. That is why people that are going through cancer really need to connect with others that are going through the same kind of cancer. I am a member of several groups on Facebook for survivors and people that are just starting their journey. We can be there for each other, it really makes a difference.

Somehow, during these past two weeks, I did get enough energy to be able to finish going through my final bookcase. I have a couple more things that I want to do, like cleaning the linen closet and the fridge and then I will be ready for the holidays. One step at a time and I will get there...

Fall!

I don't know where I got my energy from today, but I am not questioning it!! I noticed that on the days that my feet are not swollen, though that is not too often, I have lots more energy. The backed up lymph must really drain my energy. I must take advantage of my good days when they come up. I have gotten so much done today! I am not quite done, but my house is just about ready for the holiday season.
I started this morning with throwing sheets and blankets into the laundry while I had my coffee. Coffee...the most important start to my day! Once that was done, I threw it into the dryer and started another load of laundry. While that was going I started to tackle my deck. I have a small barbeque grill out there that I have barely used this summer, I cleaned it and put it into storage and then swept the deck. All the leaves that have blown on there were driving me crazy but I never had the energy to take care of it. Well, it is done now!
Time to tackle the rest of the apartment. I took my fresh sheets out of the dryer and put them on the bed....I love fresh sheets...can't wait until bedtime! That finished I started on the bathroom, I really only needed to wipe down the mirrors, the counter, clean the toilet and sweep and wash the floor. I have found a time saving tip on Pinterest to keep my shower clean all the time. I keep a soap dispensing brush in my shower, I filled it with Dawn dishwashing liquid and vinegar. Now the first day it smelled pretty strong, but after I shook it up a lot it mixed and has been fine. After every shower I run the brush across the walls and glass doors and floor of my tub and I don't have to worry about cleaning it with harsh chemicals. Saves time and energy.

Now vinegar is pretty thin so you want to fill the brush with the Dawn first and then add the vinegar. Shake well to mix and leave in or near tub for a quick clean every time you shower.
Finished the bathroom and it is on to dusting and fallifying. I use cloth napkins in fall colors to give my home that fall feel. Adding some silk fall leaves from the craft store in glass vases with a fall themed bow really make the room pop with color. This is an example of some of the fallifying I did today.

It really gets me in the mood for fall and even if the temperatures are still summery outside, at least in my house it can be fall!
I can't believe I still have energy after all I have done already. I am almost done with my house! I quickly vaccuumed and put away my laundry. The only room left to tackle is the kitchen. I think I have almost reached the end of my energy today. I will take a break and have some lunch and see if I can get the rest done.........
In the meantime, not only is my house almost clean, but it is almost de-cluttered too. I only need to finish going through the last bookcase and the kitchen cupboards and I am ready for the holidays! Of course, I still need to get some of these boxes down to the garage and sort the ones that I meant to donate a few years ago before the cancer. There will be two piles when I am done, one for the library and one for Goodwill. Once the house is done and the temperatures stay down I can get that done and get rid of my clutter. Soon.........

Job Hunting Made...Difficult

Having both lymphedema and coccydynia has made a difficult job more difficult. Yes, I am talking about finding a job. I have to take both of these issues into consideration when I apply for a position. I can't sit for long periods of time because of the coccydynia, and on really bad days the inflammation can be so bad that I have to lay on my side on the couch. Try explaining that to a boss!  The lymphedema is another story.... I can't be on my feet for long periods of time, and at this point I only have a pair of sandals that I can get on my feet.  I will have to start experimenting with my shoes when the weather gets cooler. I also need to put my feet up as much as I can, especially on really swollen days. One more thing that is kind of hard to explain to a boss in a normal work environment.
My options have come down to trying to find a job that I can do from home. I know that not everyone is suited to work at home with all the distractions that can occur. I am very focused, so for me, that is not an issue. Translating my skills that I used at Barnes & Noble to a home based job should not be difficult either. I found a job that I like, but it is a start-up company and it is not really at a position where it will be making money yet. What I really like is that I can do as much work as I want on my own time schedule, and the job is doing internet research, which I love. I really hope that this turns out to be a viable source of income in time. In the meantime, I am still sending out my resume and applying for whatever jobs I am qualified for.

Enough of this serious business...Summer is almost over and Autumn is on the way. Labor Day is the unofficial end of summer and for me that means it is time to start decorating my house in fall colors. I have been working on, I guess you can call it, a pre-Holiday cleaning. I am de-cluttering my house, there are three piles right now, garbage, give to goodwill, and donate to library. I am taking on one room at a time and once this is done my house will be clean and organized again. Not that I don't have a clean and organized house, I am kind of OCD, everything in its place. Every once in a while, I get bored with things being the same and I feel the need to change it up some, and I am at that point right now. Working for Barnes&Noble, I have soooooooooo many books! Twenty-two years worth of books. The last time I got rid of half my books was before I moved to California in 2001, it is definitely time to get rid of books again. I have three book cases full of books

(This is my bookcase after I cleared one out completely. They all looked like the middle one.)

As you can see, it was time to get rid of some books. I plan on clearing out two full bookcases and taking the middle one down to just my favorite authors. At this point, I am at stage two, the two end book cases are cleared, the only one left is the middle one. I hope to work on it over the weekend. I know some people are sad that I am getting rid of so many books, but what good are they doing sitting on my shelf. Someone else can be enjoying them, and the library could really use the donations. The cleaning goes on and one day soon my house will be ready for fall...............

Why is My Ankle Swollen?

Sometime towards the end of 2011 I began to notice that my right foot/ankle area was swollen. I was not too concerned because I had issues with that ankle previously. I had sprained that ankle in 2006, not a bad sprain, but enough to weaken the ankle. I was fine for a few years, the ankle had healed and I had no issues. In December of 2008 I was checking my email,  like I did every morning before I went to work. My cat was sitting in my lap and I guess he must have caused my leg to fall asleep. Usually you can tell when your leg falls asleep, you get that tingling or numbness, I guess it was not quite at that point where I would notice that it was asleep, but enough that some of the feeling was gone in my leg. I finished checking my email and was getting up to grab my keys and jacket to head to work. I got up and stepped forward on my right leg, not realizing that it was partially asleep, instead of landing with my foot flat on the floor the foot was tilted. As I stepped down on it, the foot went all the way over so I landed on my ankle.

 !!!!! The pain was excruciating!!!!  I was sure I had broken it! I was able to drive to work and planned to head over to urgent care as soon as they opened. They were located right near work so I figured I might as well be close. I was not able to step on my right foot at all, I could only step on the ball of my foot. As soon as they opened, I headed over to Urgent Care. They took some X-Rays and determined that it was not broken, just a very severe sprain. There are three levels of sprains:
 Grade 1 sprain is defined as mild damage to a ligament or ligaments without instability of the affected joint.
 Grade 2 sprain is considered a partial tear to the ligament, in which it is stretched to the point that it becomes loose. 
Grade 3 sprain is a complete tear of a ligament, causing instability in the affected joint.^[3] Usually bruising will occur around the ankle.
I had a level 3 sprain. They wrapped my ankle and gave me some crutches to use. Now I have to tell you that the crutches were never going to work. I have no coordination at all, and I could not get the hang of using the crutches. I decided that limping on the ball of my foot was going to have to work.  By the next day the bruising started. My entire foot and ankle on both sides was completely bruised and swollen.

It took about a month to be able to walk on my foot normally again. My ankle was weakened by this experience, so much that I had to get an ankle brace to wear when it really started giving me problems. 
Since my ankle was weak and occasionally gave me problems I did not really think anything when I began to notice occasional swelling in late 2011. The swelling was only occasionally and was gone within a day or so, so it did not seem too bad. I assumed that I must have stepped on it wrong and irritated the already weak tendons. The new year rolled around and I still had the occasional swelling, I don't think I really thought anything was wrong until early March. Now the swelling seemed to be occurring more frequently and lasting longer. It was still only in my right foot at this point, but I finally began to realize that this was not from the sprain. For one thing it did not really hurt. I also noticed that my right shoes were giving me problems and the top of my foot was really irritated when I wore them. Sometime around the end of March I noticed that my left ankle was also starting to swell. OK, now I was concerned. I still had no health insurance, so I applied for a few, but was turned down due to pre-existing conditions. There was a pre-existing conditions insurance, but I needed to have no insurance for 6 months to apply. So going to a doctor was out at this point. Time to do some research. I researched my symptoms and one thing kept coming up, Lymphedema. 

Lymphedema refers to swelling that generally occurs in one of your arms or legs. Although lymphedema tends to affect just one arm or leg, sometimes both arms or both legs may be swollen.

Lymphedema is caused by a blockage in your lymphatic system, an important part of your immune and circulatory systems. The blockage prevents lymph fluid from draining well, and as the fluid builds up, the swelling continues. Lymphedema is most commonly caused by the removal of or damage to your lymph nodes as a part of cancer treatment.

There's no cure for lymphedema, but it can be controlled. Controlling lymphedema involves diligent care of your affected limb.(Mayo Clinic)

Now it began to make sense. I had lymph nodes removed as part of my surgery. From all that I was reading, lymphedema usually starts to occur about two years after surgery, and this was two years so it was right on time.  Lymphedema can't be cured, but it can be managed. I began to try and learn all that I could do to manage it. 

There's no cure for lymphedema. Treatment focuses on reducing the swelling and controlling the pain. Lymphedema treatments include:

• Exercises. Light exercises that require you to move your affected arm or leg may encourage movement of the lymph fluid out of your limb. These exercises shouldn't be strenuous or make you tired. Instead, they should focus on gentle contraction of the muscles in your arm or leg. Your doctor or a physical therapist can teach you exercises that may help.
• Wrapping your arm or leg. Bandages wrapped around your entire limb encourage lymph fluid to flow back out of your affected limb and toward the trunk of your body. When bandaging your arm or leg, start by making the bandage tightest around your fingers and toes. Wrap the bandage more loosely as you move up your arm or leg. A lymphedema therapist can show you how to wrap your limb.
• Massage. A special massage technique called manual lymph drainage may encourage the flow of lymph fluid out of your arm or leg. Manual lymph drainage involves special hand strokes on your affected limb to gently move lymph fluid to healthy lymph nodes, where it can drain. Massage isn't for everyone. Avoid massage if you have a skin infection, active cancer, blood clots or congestive heart failure. Also avoid massage on areas of your body that have received radiation therapy.
• Pneumatic compression. If you receive pneumatic compression, you'll wear a sleeve over your affected arm or leg. The sleeve is connected to a pump that intermittently inflates the sleeve, putting pressure on your limb. The inflated sleeve gently moves lymph fluid away from your fingers or toes, reducing the swelling in your arm or leg.
• Compression garments. Compression garments include long sleeves or stockings made to compress your arm or leg to encourage the flow of the lymph fluid out of your affected limb. Once you've reduced swelling in your arm or leg through other measures, your doctor may suggest you wear compression garments to prevent your limb from swelling in the future. Obtain a correct fit for your compression garment by getting professional help — ask your doctor where you can buy compression garments in your community. Some people will require custom-made compression garments.

When several of these treatments are combined, this therapy may be referred to as complete decongestive therapy (CDT). Generally, CDT isn't recommended for people who have high blood pressure, diabetes, paralysis, heart failure, blood clots or acute infections.

In cases of severe lymphedema, your doctor may consider surgery to remove excess tissue in your arm or leg. While this reduces severe swelling, surgery can't cure lymphedema. (Mayo Clinic)

(this is actually my foot)

Well, I bought some compression socks and found some videos on Youtube that showed me how to massage my lymph swelling. Summer tends to be the worst time because the heat may cause more swelling than during the rest of the year. These are the summertime instructions! :O

Many people with lymphedema find that their affected limb(s) swell more in the summer because of the heat. It's important to stay cool. If possible, be sure that you are in well air-conditioned places while indoors. Try to limit the time you spend outside during the hotter parts of the day, between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.

If you do get hot, you need to try to cool your whole body as soon as possible. Cool or lukewarm showers or baths work better than very cold water. If you're hot, but it's not possible at that moment to get into a shower or tub, at least cool off your affected limb by wrapping a cold wet towel around it and elevating it with support. To avoid getting your compression garment wet, place a plastic garbage bag between your garment and the towel, encasing either your limb or the towel. Some people prefer to cool off by dampening the garment itself. If you do this, be sure that the garment dries in a reasonable amount of time and that there is no chafing of the skin, especially at the joint creases.

Drink lots of water, even more than you do in the winter, to help keep yourself well hydrated. This makes it easier for your body to regulate its temperature. Even if salty foods don't normally affect your swelling, they may be more likely to in the summer. For crunchy snacks, go for fresh raw vegetables instead of potato chips.

Wear light, loose, non-constricting clothing. Not only will it be cooler; it is also better for the free flow of your lymphatic system. Because of the tendency of lymphedematous limbs to swell more in the summer; clothes and underwear that fit well in the winter may be too tight for summer wear. Check each day to be sure that the edges of your clothing do not leave indentations in your skin. Do not wear the item if it leaves indentations - it can constrict some of your delicate superficial lymphatic system. Moreover, looser, non-constricting clothing will allow more air circulation so that perspiration and moisture won't be trapped next to your body. http://www.lymphnet.org

So management of this issue was going to be something that would take time and planning. This was not going to be easy. I had already determined that most of the shoes that I own had to go. I would not be able to wear them again with the swelling. I was down to a handful of shoes and I did not even know if those few would work. They tended to be the roomiest of my shoes, so I would wait for fall and see if they worked. The only shoes I could really wear at this point were my sandals. They have velcro for both straps across the foot so I could make it as loose as I need it to be. Now having my shoes loose is presenting another problem for me, my feet keep cramping. Foot cramps tend to happen when you wear shoes that don't really fit right, your foot has to work extra hard to keep the shoe on. Since I could not wear my shoes where they fit snuggly, I will have constant foot cramps when I wear shoes. 

So this is where I am right now. I deal with the issues of both Lymphedema and Coccydynia. I guess they are a small price to pay to be cancer free, but my life is more complicated now. I can't just get up and go somewhere, I always have to think about what kind of circumstances I will come across and will I be prepared. Time will tell how this all works out....

Pain! What Could it Be?

I had been noticing a pain in my butt since I finished treatment. At the time I was still recovering from the side effects of my surgery, loss of muscle tone and pain in my right hip. I had also been told about side effects of chemo and radiation. As far as I could tell, I had no side effects once the treatment ended, or so I thought. 
At first I would only experience pain when I sat on hard surfaces. Sitting was not too bad, but when I stood up there was pain. I was going on the assumption that this was related to my loss of muscle tone and I just needed to get back into shape and the problem would resolve itself. I mainly noticed the pain when I was sitting in the lunchroom at work; the chairs were folding metal chairs. The pain really didn't bother me at any other time at that point so I did not really worry about it. 
Once I was laid off, I spent a lot of my time on my computer looking for a job. My computer chair was well padded so I did not have any issues with the pain and I pretty much forgot about it. As the year went on, I began to notice that I was beginning to experience pain occasionally. I had just replaced my computer chair of 10 years with a new chair, sadly the old one broke. The new chair did not have as much padding as the old chair, so I began to add pillows or a folded blanket to make up for the padding. As the year was ending the pain of sitting in this chair was increasing. I began looking for another chair, this time with more padding.
Around March of 2012, I found a chair that was reasonably priced and had decent padding on the seat. I bought it for myself as a birthday present. To top it off, the chair was blue, my favorite color.

At first it was great, the chair was nice and padded and so comfortable. That did not last long, the pain was back, and it was getting worse. I began to do some research to try and find out what was wrong with me. I searched for my symptoms and would cross-check the results with cancer treatment. I knew that the pain was related to some aspect of my treatment, either the surgery or chemo/radiation. I finally found what I was looking for and it made sense. 
Coccydynia. That word is a mouthful!
Coccydynia, commonly called tailbone pain or coccyx pain, is a fairly rare and relatively poorly understood condition that can cause persistent pain at the very bottom of the spine. This part of the spine is the coccyx, or tailbone. Coccydynia is felt as a localized pain and will generally feel worse when sitting or with any activity that puts pressure on the bottom area of the spine. (spine-health.com)

Coccydynia symptoms may consist of one or all of the following:

• Pain that is markedly worse when sitting
• Local pain in the tailbone area that is worse when touched or when any pressure is placed on it
• Pain that is worse when moving from a sitting to standing position

I had found the cause of my pain and the reason for it was radiation. I had radiation to four points of my abdomen area, front, both sides and the back. Well I realized that the radiation point on my back was right at the coccyx. Radiation damages bone and cartilage.

The coccyx is at the very end of your spine. It seems so small to cause so much pain. When it is damaged, like mine is, it moves. So when I sit down, the coccyx bone will move either front or back which puts pressure on my spine and is painful. The worst pain comes when I stand up and the coccyx bone moves back into its original position. Now that pain is pretty bad!

This is an image of a coccyx bone that moves. Now that I knew what the problem was, I needed to find  a solution. The first thing I could do was to get a special cushion for coccydynia. 

This is similar to the one I bought. It has a cut out to take the pressure off the coccyx. I can tell you that it does help, but only for a little while. I can usually sit for a couple of hours before the pain becomes bad enough that I need to get up. Sometimes sitting with my back arched helps, but that puts pressure on my back muscles and causes them to hurt. I have my good days and my bad days. Sometimes the inflammation is so severe I need to lay on my side to take all pressure off the coccyx, and sometimes I can even feel pain while laying flat on my back.  The next solution would be to get a cortisone shot in my coccyx, I have personally never had a cortisone shot, but I have heard that they are pretty painful. Since I still don't have insurance, that is off the table for now. The final solution for coccydynia is surgery to remove the coccyx. Now that would be a last resort. For now I will try to make the cushion work and give my coccyx a break when I need it. 

I had thought that when I finished my treatment that I was done and there were no more surprises for me. Well learning that I had coccydynia became one of my surprises, but there was more to come......

New Year and a New Idea

The holidays are over and it is now 2012. I still don't have a job, but I did come up with something new that I wanted to try this year. Playful Kitten Jewelry was almost a year old and I wanted to start a new line of Cervical Cancer bracelets. I did not want to add them to my PKJ facebook site because I wanted to market them differently. I started a new Facebook page that I called PKJ Cancer and Awareness Jewelry. I planned on donating 10% of the sales to the National Cervical Cancer Coalition. After talking to my friend F who had just gone through Kidney Cancer, she suggested that I also do some Kidney Cancer Awareness bracelets. I did eventually want to expand to do bracelets for other kinds of awareness, but figured I would start with Cervical and Kidney Cancer for now.

 I did some research and found out that Cervical Cancer ribbons were teal and white and Kidney Cancer was orange. I was able to find a supplier that sold the ribbon charms and then I needed to order some teal and orange beads in various shades for variety. I had no trouble finding teal beads but orange was more of a hunt. Once my materials arrived I began to make some bracelets. I wanted to start with an inventory of twenty bracelets for each cancer type. My friend F would promote the Kidney Cancer ones in her Kidney Cancer groups and I would try to promote mine in my Cervical Cancer groups. This sounded so much easier than it really was. You can mention the site and the bracelets but you can't make people come and buy anything. I knew this site was still a good idea and I would just need to find a way to promote my page and get people to come to my site. In the meantime I still had lots of ideas for Playful Kitten Jewelry, and I had to start getting ready for Valentine's Day. 
I know the holidays just ended but when you are selling holiday themed items you have to start selling them at least a month in advance of the holiday. I started with a bracelet and two necklaces with heart charms. I took a fun promotional picture to post on my jewelry page and I posted it on my personal facebook page. I could not believe it when someone wanted to buy all three pieces! Now that is the way to start off the year!

I quickly made some more Valentine's themed items and just as quickly sold a pair of heart earrings. I was hoping that this was indicative of the way the rest of the year was going to go. It was February and I knew my window was closing on Valentine's Day sales, the next holiday was St Patrick's Day. I had green beads and I saw some cute Shamrock charms in the store, so I decided to make some cute items for St Patrick's Day. 
Well March came and no sales on the St Patrick's Day items, but on March 7th, Playful Kitten Jewelry turned one year old! I could not believe that I had been in business for a year already! The sales this year were already looking better than last year, I had hope that the business would continue to grow.
March 14th is my birthday, I am blessed to be able to celebrate another one cancer free. Now that the holidays are over and I had settled back into the normalcy that was my routine I began to notice things that were not quite right. What was wrong with me? Were these long term side effects or something new?

Christmas Time Again!

I love Christmas! Now that Thanksgiving is over it is time to start decorating for Christmas. First the house needs to be cleaned, I am still getting tired pretty quickly so I break it all up. December does not start until Thursday so I have a week from Thanksgiving to clean and decorate. I spend the weekend cleaning the house thoroughly, taking down all the fall items that I had up since September and putting them away. I had also started bringing up my Christmas totes and the tree so I could just decorate when I was ready.

I decided to follow the same pattern as I had last year. I got the tree set up and the lights put on day one of decorating. That really wiped me out! First I had to anchor the tree to the wall with fishing line so it would not get knocked down. Then the reaching and pulling and twisting those lights really tired me out and my back was hurting. I knew that was it for day one, and the tree looked really pretty with just lights on it. One of these days I was going to have to get a pre-lit Christmas tree, they are so much less hassle!

The next morning I started unpacking the totes. It is kind of like Christmas morning just unpacking the decorations. I always seem to forget all the cute stuff I have until I unpack it. I try to sort everything into piles and then decide what will be going where. It took a few hours to sort and get everything put out, the only thing left was to decorate the tree. I use a red and green velvet bow on top of my tree and I like to drape the long tails of the bow through the branches. Then I start putting on the ornaments, the smaller and more delicate ones at the top of the tree and the larger plastic ones on the bottom. I would avoid plastic ornaments but I know my cat will be knocking those off and I don't want anything that will hurt him.
Finally I was finished! Everything looked so festive, it makes me feel all warm inside just looking around. My cats are happy too, they come running out and lay under the tree like a couple of furry presents. Now I can rest.
December always seems to go so fast. I remember being a kid and Christmas could not come fast enough, now that I am an adult, I wish it would last longer. Everyone seems a little nicer this time of the year, except if you are out shopping! I like to do my shopping online to avoid that! This year most of my gifts were handmade considering the fact that I was still unemployed.
Another reason I love Christmas is the cooking and baking. I was cooking some delicious cool weather foods that are so comforting. It is so hard to stay on a diet at this time of year. I also did some baking, I used to make my Grandmother's butter cookies, but they are too much work for me now. They require making the dough and letting it chill, then having to roll out the dough and then frost them afterwards. I did not have the energy for them, but I found a recipe for drop butter cookies. All you do is make the dough and chill it then grab a spoonfull of dough and drop it on the baking sheet, add sprinkles or colored sugar and bake. They taste almost as good as my Grandmother's recipe with half the amount of work.
All good things come to an end eventually and Christmas came and went as it always does. I was at the end of my severance pay and I would now be relying on unemployment and my savings. I wonder what the new year will have in store for me......

November and Thanksgiving

November came and with it the anticipation of that holiday feast and then Christmas. I was looking forward to it, because it is my favorite time of the year, but it was bittersweet since I still was not able to find a job and my severance was about to run out and with it my insurance. I also knew that I could not really afford to buy Christmas presents for people this year, but I felt really bad not getting people at least something. I decided that I would make jewelry for all the women on my list. It was fun for me and I hoped they would really like the fact that I made it with them in mind. It would be a truly personal and unique gift. But what about the men?
As I was continuing my job search I came across an ad for Avon. I remember my Mom used to buy Avon many years ago so I decided to look into it. I spoke with an Avon rep and it would only cost me $10 for the initial materials to get started. I am not really a sales person so I was a little concerned, but I figured I could bring people in through a facebook page and my Avon website. I did find some fantastic deals so I got the men on my Christmas list done and I did have a few sales but not as many as I hoped for.
Thanksgiving was almost here! Usually I go to visit my Mom for Thanksgiving, but with my limited funds and my major claustrophobia I was really terrified what would happen if I was in an airplane with no way to get out during a panic attack. I have to catch my breath just thinking about it! It's so sad because I really loved flying and now I was so afraid of being trapped in an airplane. Hearing about the horror stories where people are stuck on the tarmac for hours and hours on end with no air conditioning terrifies me even more. There is not enough Xanax in the world to get me through that!!

So, I would be having Thanksgiving alone. I got a great deal on a turkey and got all the ingredients for the side dishes I grew up eating for Thanksgiving. I know most people have sweet potatoes and cranberry jelly and pumpkin pie, but I don't really like those things so I have my own traditional foods. The turkey of course is the star of the day and my kitties would agree! It would not be Thanksgiving without mashed potatoes and gravy, and my Mom always made rice a roni so that is part of my tradition. My family is German, and my Mom loves noodles more than anything, so German egg noodles are always on the Thanksgiving table. To finish it all off I like to have a warm cherry pie with vanilla ice cream melted on top.

As much as I love Thanksgiving and all the delicious food, I do not like all the dishes and dirty pots and pans it creates. I was still pretty tired much of the time so I had to improvise. Now I am pretty OCD about having all my dishes washed, I can't "leave it until later". I do have a dishwasher, but since I am only one person, I usually do not use it. Thanksgiving is one of the few times that I do put my dishwasher to use. I start rinsing things and putting them in the dishwasher as I prepare the food.  I do have quite a bit to do after dinner because I can't put away the leftovers until they have cooled some and are put in tupperware for storage in the fridge. I usually clean out the fridge the day before Thanksgiving so I will have room for all the storage containers. I don't feel like I can relax until all the food is put away and the dishwasher is humming along cleaning my dishes. Only then can I collapse on the couch with my full and happy belly.

I talked to my friends and family on the phone, wish I could be with them, but this is the next best thing. At this point I am full and happy and looking forward to the next thing...Christmas! 

Fall Changes Everything

Fall is my favorite season. It starts getting cooler and you can start wearing a jacket again, and after the hot days of summer I really look forward to cooler days. I even love the fact that it gets darker earlier. I want to drink warm drinks and eat comforting foods. The only thing I miss about living in New York is seeing all the leaves changing and the beautiful colors of fall! Southern California is different, instead of summer starting in May/June and ending mid-September summer starts in July  and ends in mid-October. People always think it is summer all year round here, but we do have seasons. Summer doesn't start earlier than July because we have a marine layer that keeps the temperatures down in May and June and sometimes into part of July. The unfortunate thing is that summer hangs around until mid-October, it seems like it is never going to leave and I am already in fall mode starting in September so I am impatient for fall to start.

September came and I was still doing well with my diet and exercise plan. I had myself on a schedule and I was really sticking with it. It was still pretty warm and the days might have been getting shorter, but it was not really noticeable yet. I was looking forward to cooler days. Finally September was over and October arrived. I knew that the cooler temperatures were coming soon. It was now noticeably darker earlier which I love. I was still on my diet and workout plan but I started noticing that I did not have as much energy and I was more tired. I blamed it on the changing seasons and the shorter days. It was starting to get cooler too and that always makes me think of cooking comforting meals and baking.
Now my Slimfast diet was about to become a thing of the past. I am a strange eater. I can eat the same thing over and over for months on end, then one day I just can't eat it anymore. That is what happened with the Slimfast, I had been drinking it since May and now all of the sudden I could not do it anymore. I had to start eating regular food again, I did try to keep the calories low but a lot of the foods I wanted to eat were not low calorie. Pot roast and mashed potatoes, chicken and rice, stuffed shells...all things I was craving. I was also looking forward to that Thanksgiving feast.

So my diet had failed at the worst time of the year and I was so tired and back to little energy. I had been doing so well and now I was back where I started. Why was I so tired?

I Have More Energy

It was May and I still had no job. I had been looking but nothing was really working out. I still wasn't sure what kind of job I should be looking for. I did not have anything specific in mind so I was looking for a job in generalizations. That never works because you get overwhelmed by the amount of jobs to sort through to try and find something that you are suited to. I just had to keep trying to find something that I could do and that I would enjoy doing.
In the meantime, I had fallen into a pattern for my days. I got out of bed around 8am and had breakfast, checked my three email addresses (personal, job hunting and Playful Kitten Jewelry) and checked my facebook pages; personal and business. Around 10am I would take a walk around my complex to the mailbox that is located on the other side of my complex and back. When I got back I would do some other things on my computer until 1pm, at that point it was lunch time and then I would work on some jewelry until dinner and then back on the computer to load up my new jewelry and log the new piece into my database.  That process may seem simple but it actually takes some time. First I create the piece, then take a picture or several to make sure I have a nice clear picture. Then I load the picture onto my computer from the camera and fix it ( crop it and put my business name on it) At that point I need to set up the piece in Payvment and Etsy (what I was using at the time, I now just use Artfire) and set them up to be on sale. I also load the picture onto my PKJ facebook page. Then I opened my Excel database and entered the information on the new item. Time consuming, but I was still new at this.
May did bring some changes to me. I started to have more energy and decided that I must be getting back to normal! I had put on a lot of weight because I was too tired to be able to work out. I decided to start a diet and exercise plan. I was going to drink Slimfast shakes for breakfast and lunch every day and a sensible dinner. Be warned, anyone that decides to do this, DO NOT buy the shakes pre-made! They are nasty! The best way is to use a blender, I have the magic bullet so I can make it by the glass. Add your low fat milk to the cup, then add the Slimfast mix (chocolate is the best), blend it up and it really tastes like a chocolate shake! Surprisingly it really fills you up too!

Now for the exercise. I was still doing my walk to the mailbox every day but I needed more. I had some DVDs of workouts that I had done throughout the years so I chose Hip Hop Abs because I remembered that I had liked it and you did not have to get down on the floor. Getting down on the floor was a little difficult for me, I don't know if it was because of the forced menopause or just a side effect of the radiation. In any case this DVD would let me tone my abs and get some cardio too so it was the perfect choice.

I was doing so well. I was still doing my Slimfast and I had actually lost some weight at my last doctor checkup. I was doing my workout every day and I was feeling so much better. I had energy again, I really was feeling like my old self before the cancer. I was confident that I was finally back to normal! Everything I had read said that it takes about a year to get your energy back after cancer treatment, and it was about a year before I started getting my energy back. I was confident that the worst was over and I could now really move on with my life. All through the summer I felt good, then came the fall.........

Unemployed and a New Start

Before I continue my story I just wanted to share some great news. Today marks the two year anniversary of the day I finished my cancer treatment! I have been cancer free for two years! 

Fight Cancer Tees

Continuing on with my story. I  had been laid off after twenty-two years of working for Barnes and 
Noble. What a strange feeling...I was really glad that I had a severance package so that I would not have to depend on unemployment to pay all my bills. The first few days were really weird, I did not have to get up at 5am anymore. I spent the first week signing up for unemployment and filling out various papers for my severance. 
My Mom came out to see me the first week of February. It really helped to take my mind off the situation I was in. I don't think that it had really sunk in yet that I was really unemployed. After she left I began to think about what I wanted to do as a job. The book industry was going through so many changes with the rise of ebooks so that was not really an option for me. I was going to have to reinvent myself and figure out a new career. I updated my resume and put it on every job site I could find, but I did not really know what I wanted to do at this point. How would my skills translate to a new career? I was going to do some research and figure out the best direction for me to take. 
In the meantime, I had been planning on opening a Facebook store for the jewelry I had been creating. I used to make jewelry when I was in my 20s, but life has a way of pushing things like that off to the side. In October I had been looking at the magazine section at Barnes & Noble for fall ideas. I love fall, it is my favorite season and I loved to look at the magazines for fun ideas. While I was perusing the magazines, I saw   a beautiful bracelet on the cover of Step by Step Wire Jewelry. After looking through the magazine, I decided to buy it and give jewelry making another try. I loved it! I began to play around making jewelry and I took some pictures to show my friends on Facebook. 

One of my friends also made handmade jewelry and told me to open a Facebook shop too. I thought this would be a great idea and had been creating jewelry for a few months so I would have some items to put in my shop when I opened it. Then I lost my job and for a few weeks I forgot all about my jewelry. During February I decided that I was going to open my shop anyway, I looked into the requirements for a business in California and saw that the only requirement was a sellers permit. I set up my store on Facebook and loaded up my jewelry onto the sales engine, Payvment. I went down to BOE and got my sellers permit, my store was slated to open on March 7th.  Playful Kitten Jewelry was born! 

It was exciting to run my own business. It was also a lot of work. I really enjoy it, it helps me to focus, one of the side effects of having chemotherapy is something called chemobrain. 
Chemo brain is a common term used by cancer survivors to describe thinking and memory problems that can occur after cancer treatment. Chemo brain can also be called chemo fog, cognitive changes or cognitive dysfunction. Mayo Clinic
My memory did not work as well as it used to and making jewelry helps me to train my brain to focus on something specific. I feel that it has really helped me to keep my brain functioning at a close to normal level. I do still have memory issues, but I have just learned to write everything down so I don't forget. I have pads full of lists and ideas and sticky notes everywhere. 
I was still looking for a full time job and decided that maybe I needed to take a couple of classes to gain some more skills. I had seen job postings for proofreaders and for SEO and marketing so I decided that I was going to take a couple of classes online. I took a proofreading class and a marketing class. I enjoyed being "in school" again and I passed both classes with no problem. The problem came when I was looking for a job and saw that the requirements for both types of jobs were experience. It is a catch-22, you can't get a job without experience and you can't get experience without a job. I needed to keep looking and hope that I can find something that is within the scope of my experience. It was only April and so much had happened so fast for me, but I was coping with it and adapting to my new schedule. I wondered what the rest of the year had in store for me..........

January and More Surprises

The new year was here. I was really hoping that this year was going to be so much better than last year. It seems like 2010 was the cancer year, between the diagnosis and treatment and side effects I don't think that I accomplished much of anything else that year. I had high hopes that 2011 was going to be a good year. After all I had been through I deserved to have an uneventful year. Unfortunately for me that was not going to be the case.
I returned to work on January third, this was going to be my first full week since August. The first couple of weeks back to work were normal. I did the things I usually do. I was tired, but I was getting through. We were told that we were going to have a budget meeting on January 19th. I had the first feelings of nervousness when I heard this. It was unusual to have a budget meeting that we were all required to attend. When I say all I mean my entire department. I tried not to think about it and assured myself that we were probably going to discuss ways where we could cut our budgets because sales were down. As the day got closer I began to feel more uneasy. On January 18th, the day before our meeting, I had a panic attack driving home from work. I had to pull over and get out of my car, I wasn't sure I was going to be able to get back in the car and get home. After a while, I was able to get back in the car, but I was still borderline panicky. I focused my mind on getting home and I was very relieved when I finally arrived.
January 19th came and I woke up with an incredibly uneasy feeling. I tried to tell myself not to panic until I had something to actually panic about. Thank goodness I still had Xanax, I had to take one to calm myself enough to get to work. I arrived at my usual time at 7am, and tried to distract myself with work. My boss arrived at 9am and our meeting was supposed to be at 9:30am. A few minutes before the meeting was to begin someone from Human Resources came to our office. I knew that my uneasy feeling had been correct. We called in for our meeting and were told that we were laid off and that the HR person would walk us through the paperwork we needed to fill out for our severance packages. I was in shock, even though I had a feeling that this might happen, it was still shocking. I had been working for B&N for 22 years, and now it was over.

We were offered a very generous severance and we could also collect unemployment as well. I was thankful that I would have the time to find a new career. The book business was changing, with the advent of ebooks sales of actual books had been dropping. I can't blame B&N, they had to evolve with the changing industry, but because the industry was changing, I would need to find a totally different career. I packed up my stuff in my office, I had several boxes worth of papers and books etc, working in that office for 7 years, I had made it my second home. The saddest part was saying goodbye to my boss and my friends in the store.
Not having a job was a difficult thing to get used to. I had been working since I was 14 years old.  What was I going to do?

Working Again

I was really happy that I was still entitled to my vacation time. I had no plans to go anywhere, but having those days enabled me to take at least one day a week off. Having those days made all the difference in the world for me to make it through the last part of the year. I was still so tired, I really missed those daily naps I used to take in the afternoons. I was hoping to regain some of my energy as time went on. I had read somewhere that it could take up to a year after treatment to regain your energy. I just had to take one day at a time and hope that my energy would return at some point.

Autumn is my favorite time of the year. By that point I am usually so tired of the hot weather and sunny days. Many people think that Southern California is always sunny, but that is not true. Our winter is more like autumn and it is our rainy season. One thing that happens every year around this time is that I get a little more tired than during the summer. Maybe this has to do with less hours of sunlight, and when it is dark outside my body tells me it is almost time for bed. This meant that I was extra tired this year. 

I did have some lasting effects  from my ordeal other than the tiredness. I guess I can say that the tiredness was partially to blame for the other effects. Before surgery I had been pretty strong with good muscle tone, I feel like I lost it all during surgery. My abdominal muscles were cut through during surgery and that destroyed the stability of my core muscles. Putting on a sock could cause me to pull an abdominal muscle. Even after the surgery, I had to be really careful not to do anything strenuous for the first six weeks after surgery. This meant that  I was not able to do any working out, I could just take short walks. Once those six weeks were up I went right into radiation and chemo. That was enough to deal with, and I certainly had no energy to work out at all. Even at this point, a couple of months after treatment had ended and I still had no energy, just making it through the day at work was hard enough on me. This being said, I was also dealing with poor muscle tone which made doing normal tasks even harder. One other side effect that I was hoping would go away were those panic attacks. I wish I could say that they went away after treatment, but I could have another attack at the most inopportune times. I have found myself going to see my doctor and standing in front of the elevator and that panicked feeling coming over me, time to take the stairs. At least the attacks did not come too often. 

November came and Thanksgiving was right around the corner. I sure had something to be really thankful for this year. I survived Cervical cancer and the treatment! I usually go to visit my Mom during Thanksgiving week, but there would be no traveling for me this year. I was too tired to even think of braving the insanity of an airport during Thanksgiving. Instead, I planned my own little Thanksgiving at home. I could have some turkey and take a nap and rest. I did miss seeing my family, but I had a relaxing Thanksgiving. I am one of those people that puts up the Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving, not this year. I was not as strong, so this year I needed a plan. I keep my decorations in the garage, I have two large totes and a small tote plus my little tree that need to be brought upstairs to my apartment. I decided to try to bring up one each day and to put up my tree the next weekend. That was the plan, and it did work out, the larger totes were difficult but I managed to get them upstairs.

 On Saturday I began to decorate, now this usually took me a few hours to get the whole house done, but this year I would have to do it in stages. Now the first step was to make room for the tree and get it set up. I moved a few light pieces of furniture and started setting up my tree. 

I was able to get the tree set up and the lights on it the first day. I had to take frequent breaks, but I got it done. Sunday I was able to get the tree decorated and put up my other decorations around the apartment. It's a good thing my place is small so I was able to get it all done. 

I was really looking forward to Christmas, not only because I love Christmas, but because I would have off from Christmas until after New Years. It is a slow time at work and most of my department took that week off. Christmas came and it was wonderful. I had the best present ever this year, my health. I was able to relax and recover from working the last four months. Now the only problem that I could see was that I was going to have to start working five day weeks again when I got back to work. I hoped that I would be able to adjust to working full weeks again....

Done with Treatment...Now What?

I was so happy that there were no more surprises! July 9th came and I finished my last treatment! What an amazing feeling of relief. Now that I was finally finished life could go back to normal. I had read that after a few weeks any side effects from radiation should stop, so I made the decision to return to work as of August 2nd. This would give me three weeks to regain some of my strength and hopefully be less tired. I would be seeing my Oncologist the week before I was planning to return to work. She could give me the all clear at that point and I was finished.
I spent the next two weeks relaxing and taking lots of naps. I was feeling fine except for the tiredness. I had no obvious problems and no side effects at all. I went to see my Oncologist and everything was fine. I would be seeing her every three months for a checkup for the foreseeable future. She signed off on me returning to work on August 2nd.
I called my boss and told her I would be back on August 2nd, she was happy that I would be back. I let her know that I was still pretty tired, so would do what I could. She told me to do what I could and not overdo it. As the end of the week came, I was actually getting a little nervous about returning to work after all I had been through. I didn't know if things would be different for me or if I could do all the things I used to do.
Monday came and I got ready for work. I was tired, but I figured that if it became too much for me to handle, I could always leave early. It was nice to see all my coworkers, everyone was glad to see me back. As I headed to the back of the store to my office I was a little worried that I would not be able to keep up, we were heading into our busiest time after all. For us, Christmas was now, we had to make all the decisions for what we were promoting that holiday and then we needed to get our orders in within weeks. I made the decision to not worry about it, no one expected me to jump back in as if nothing had happened. I would take my time and catch up first before I took over my old duties. After being out of the office for four months, the first thing I needed to take care of was my email. I had thousands of emails to sort through, and that is what I did for the first couple of days. I also called some of my publishers who I used to talk to daily to let them know that I was back. I also called the person that had taken over my duties while I was out to let him know that I was back. I asked him to continue taking charge of our planner (this involves keeping it updated with changes and making sure that everyone gets their jobs done by the due dates) until I had a chance to catch up.

I made it through my first day back at work. I was so tired that I almost nodded off in the car while sitting at a red light. Four more days to get through this week. I knew it would be very hard at first to get back into my old routine but I figured I would get used to it. Somehow I made it through August. I still did not have any energy and I was completely exhausted by the end of the day. I did find out something that was going to help me a lot. Even after being out for four months, it did not take anything away from my vacation and personal days. I still had to take four weeks of vacation and two personal days! Now that was some really good news! I talked it over with my boss and decided to spread my vacation days through the next four months. I managed to get it so that I would not be working any complete 5 day weeks at all for the rest of the year. I couldn't believe I was still so tired and had so little energy. It was almost two months since radiation had ended, when would I feel normal again?

My Last Chemo?

The next three weeks followed the same pattern as the first two. Radiation was not bothering me nearly as much as the chemo was. I guess I can only be glad that this was my only real side effect during my treatment. I did have some dry skin from the radiation, but it was not much worse than normal dry skin. I have seen the horror stories that some people actually get radiation burns from the treatment! I will definitely take a little dry skin over that!

On June 30th it was my final Chemotherapy treatment. I was so relieved that this part of my treatment would be over as of today. I would still have six more radiation treatments after this, but I could deal with that. I checked myself into the hospital, and at this point the nurses all knew me. As I entered the cancer wing, I just checked the board and found my name and room assignment, handed my paperwork to the nurse at the desk and got myself settled in my room. I had one of my favorite nurses that would be in charge of my chemo. I was so excited that this was the last time I would be doing this. I got my IV and started my fluids. Everything was progressing normally, I was reading a book while waiting for lunch when the nurse from my Oncologist came in to check on me. I told her everything was going fine and I was so glad this was the last chemo. She corrected me and said I had one more chemo left. Oh no! At this point I had enough surprises to last me a lifetime! I sternly told her, NO! This was my LAST chemo! I was mentally prepared for the five treatments, I could not, would not do another. I finished the day, and when my last bag of fluid was done, I unhooked my own IV (told you I was getting good at this). I said goodbye and went home.
I had an appointment to see my Oncologist the next day. I prepared myself to argue with her if she tried to push a sixth chemo treatment. It was not a surprise to me that she did want to talk about it. I told her emphatically that there is no way I could go through another chemo treatment. I think she saw that I was at my breaking point and she reluctantly agreed that I did not have to have another treatment.
I only had five more radiation treatments to get through and I would finally be done with treatment. I just hoped there were no more surprises coming......