Chemo, Annie and Jackson Spider

Two years ago today was my final round of chemo. You can read about the debut of the Chemo Queen here. Seems so bizarre that I went through all of that and am now living a fairly normal day-to-day life. Preparing to open another show, fixing up my house, thinking about another Christmas.

Of course I become more wistful every day when I see all the families with multiple children. I see the siblings interact at Jackson's school and I really want that for him. And I am beginning to really understand that I may not be able to have another baby and I feel cheated somehow. And it seems like everyone has a new baby when you want one so badly.

But it is two years post-treatment and I am still here to worry about it. That is something. And I had a CT scan this week and got the good news yesterday that all is still clear. NED.

Annie opens on Nov. 20th. Rehearsals are a crazy circus with two of three casts rehearsing each night, one on the stage and another on the rehearsal stage. So many of us are in more than one cast and end up running back and forth all night to determine where we should be and what we should be doing. I don't envy the stage managers their job of working all this out.

I don't think I even blogged that I will be playing Miss Hannigan for 5 shows. But Mary Ellen determined that she needed a third Hannigan to swing a few shows and offered it to me. So I am playing Lily for 14 shows and Hannigan for 5. Here are the dates:

I will be playing Miss Hannigan on Nov 29, Dec 12, 20, 23 & 29. And I will be playing Lily (Rooster's Girlfriend) on Nov 20, 28, Dec 4, 11, 16, 19, 22, 26, & 27.

This will be at the Palace Theatre in Georgetown. www.thegeorgetownpalace.org.If you want to see me, get tickets in advance because this show is going to sell very well. It is Christmas-time and there are so many kids involved so tickets will sell well in advance.



I have had requests for Jackson Halloween pictures. I will confess that I didn't get great pics of him. Cause it was low-light and he wouldn't sit still. But this one at least shows you how cute his spider costume was. He really was adorable, raising his arms and saying "raaarr". I think he must have been one of those rare rain forest roaring spiders. or something.

And here is one of us at Andy & Renee's Halloween party. I am a ghost bride of some sort, David is the Emcee from Cabaret and Jackson is 15 minutes from falling asleep in the guest room.

Talking With...

Talking With opened Friday and it is a good show. I am really enjoying, not only the performance part of it, but the fact that we work as a crew together, changing sets and helping each actor get set for her piece. It is really a lot of fun and very bonding to have my individual monologue, and then change into my black clothes and become a member of the backstage crew. Working with such a talented group of women is not something you get to do all the time. And they are all so much fun and there are no personality issues or egos to contend with. Just cool ladies and a good show. I am going to be sorry to see this one end. It is such a short run. Only 4 more shows. Tomorrow through Sat at 8 p.m. If you are in the Austin area, you should definitely come out and see it. Austin Live Theatre.com reviewed us and seemed to really like it. I was pleased to even get a favorable personal mention! Check it out here. And make reservations to see the show here.

I am still here.

When you don't blog for a little while, it becomes a habit. Do people really want to hear about what I am doing on a daily basis? From the comments of friends and family complaining about my blog silence, I suppose for some reason they do. So here I am. Blogging.

My life at this time is full. I am working on two different shows. Talking With is a monologue show with North by Northwest Theatre company. There are six of us and we each have our own pieces to memorize and perform. Mine is a bizarre and awesome monologue about a baton twirler who finds religious ecstasy through twirling. I have borrowed batons from Andrea who, of course, took twirling lessons as a tween and my flag twirling skills from marching band are coming into play. Baton twirling and flag twirling are not exactly the same, but they translate enough to make me credible enough for the show. And I am hoping not to look too bad (and exposed) in the twirler costume. Dance tights are my friend. Talking With opens October 9th at the City Theatre in Austin and runs for two weeks. Posted is the publicity shot we took. It is missing Jen Coy who was sick the day of the shoot.

I have also been cast in the Palace Christmas Behemoth, otherwise known as the musical Annie. There are 27 scheduled performances which means that Mary Ellen needed almost three full casts to get them all covered without killing her actors at Christmas-time. So I said what the hell and threw my hat in the ring. If I am ever going to get better at musical auditions I will have to keep doing them. I get so nervous and can't sing my best. I did pretty well this time, though and I will be playing Lily, Rooster's girlfriend (the Bernadette Peters part from the movie). So I will be starting rehearsals for that immediately and anytime I am not needed at Talking With Rehearsals. Annie doesn't open til November 20th, so I have plenty of time after Talking With closes to catch up on the rehearsals I will miss while off doing the other show. I think it will be a fun part. It seems the last few shows I have been cast in have been for character roles. I have to shift my thinking some, because I am used to thinking in terms of the ingenue roles. But it seems my skills as I get older are evolving and I am being challenged to do characters that are quirky; different. I think this can only be a good thing and as I get older can only serve me well. So I am tentatively excited to play the trampy, blowzy, over-the-top Lily St. Regis from Jersey City.

So that is what I am up to. David has good theatre news, too. The list of B. Iden Payne nominations came out last week and David's show, I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, was nominated for 4 awards including outstanding cast performance and outstanding production of a musical. In addition, the Austin Circle of Theatres folks asked the cast to perform a number at the awards ceremony! I am so excited for him. I was so proud of his performance in the show last year and I wanted to see it way more that the three times I managed to see. And now he is being recognized for it and it is so well deserved.

Enough for now. If I blog to much my first time back I might make myself sick - having lost my blog tolerance and all that.

Floor project!

The last week and a half has been very full of physical labor. We ripped the carpet out of all but the bedrooms in my house and are installing laminate floors. My house is a complete mess and I have been going to bed totally exhausted, but content. David's parents came this weekend to help get the majority of the floor layed. We had the house mostly prepped when they got here - carpet out, baseboards off, furniture out. We worked in the evenings all week last week to get it done.


And while we had the office empty, we took the opportunity to paint the dirty eggshell walls two shades of vibrant blue, which is getting mixed reviews from the peanut gallery. We like it though. If you are going to make the effort to paint, I say paint big. Andrea came over to help with the painting and Jackson enjoyed helping us paint as well. Though I will say that painting a room bright blue with a four-year-old's help is a lot of work. Especially since we were painting two walls darker blue and two walls lighter blue. Making sure he kept the right color on the right wall was tough. He desperately wanted to mix the colors.





He managed to survive the chaos of the weekend with no furniture by carrying around his little folding chair. Unfortunately, he broke out in ugly hives all over. We think he must be allergic to the cement dust and general yuck that we stirred up by tearing out the carpeting. Benadryl cleared them up mostly but we are keeping an eye on him since the floor isn't quite done and we still have a hallway of cement till the weekend.


The cats wandered around all week wondering what the hell was going on and why we were moving all the furniture they like to sleep on. They were so bewildered and funny. Of course as soon as the first boards in the living room were installed, Sarah cat took up residence on them and stayed there all afternoon as the work progressed.


While David and his parents worked on laying the floor Elaine and I prepped and repainted all the trim baseboards. I had no idea how nasty those things were till we took them off the walls and I got a close look at them. They are going to look so nice with fresh paint and a new floor.


And here are a couple of pics of the floor in the living room and office. They are both still a mess and these pics were taken before we got the baseboards back on. But you can see what a nice job David and his parents did laying the floor. It looks great. I will post finished product pics when we get all finished and the house put back together...in a few weeks...or months...however long it will take to put the chaos to rights.




The last two evenings have been spent putting back baseboards and caulking the gaps and putting some furniture back. We are already so beat from the prep and actual floor laying that we are taking our time and working as we can. We feel pretty productive and proud of how our first major home project is turning out.

Planet Cancer Retreat This Weekend!

I am excited. This weekend I am attending my second Planet Cancer Retreat. I am so lucky that PC is based in Austin and has its retreats here each summer. I don't have to spring for airfare! My friend Becky, whom I met at the retreat last year, is flying in a day early tomorrow and will hang with me for a night and a day before we both head to The Crossings for the retreat on Friday afternoon. I am taking her to dinner at Threadgill's and then to Andrea's production of The Vagina Monologues. Maybe a trip downtown after or on Friday to show her a little bit of Austin.

Then the retreat this weekend where we will meet and connect with cancer survivors from all over the country ages 25-40. It is a really neat weekend and I am happy I got accepted to go a second year.

I'm pretty weary tonight from working hard this week so I can take Thursday and Friday off, and then tonight getting the house ready for a guest. I have a little more to do tomorrow, but I have done most of the cleaning I wanted to do. The kitchen is the last thing and that can be done tomorrow. Now I just have to keep the small child from destroying all my work before she comes tomorrow. We may have to tie him up and sit him in the corner. (KIDDING! REALLY!)

Birthday

I had a good birthday today. David and I took Jackson for his first dental appt this morning. Not what you would expect us to do first thing on my birthday, but David scheduled it a few months ago, overlooking the fact that is is my birthday. But no biggie, I might have wanted to stay in bed longer, but I wanted to be there for his first visit.

He has been nervous about it for a few days, asking me to please not make him go. I have been telling him that the dentist just wants to look at his teeth to make sure they are strong and healthy. So he says, "What if she says they aren't strong and healthy? Will she make me stop brushing my teeth?" So there has been some anxiety leading up to this visit.



But he was so good. Didn't get too upset this morning about going and went into the exam room willingly, although apprehensively. The Dentist was great, taking time to really connect with him before getting into his mouth. She had a large stuffed frog with a full set of human-looking teeth that she pulled out to show him. Together they counted the frog's teeth and then Jackson let her count his teeth. She did and exam and polished his teeth and took x-rays. Jackson enjoyed seeing the x-rays of his teeth. All in all it was a good visit and a great first experience at the dentist for him. I am glad we went with this doc. She is not a pediatric dentist, but a family dentist that does kids too. But I think the calm environment of this office and the exemplary care of this dentist was the right choice.

Tonight, my mom came over and watched Jackson and David took me out to dinner. He set it up. I didn't even know where we were going till we got there. He took me to Fogo De Chao. Very, very good if you are a carnivore. Neat place. They bring skewered meats to your table and cut hunks off for you. Endlessly. Until you can't possibly eat anymore. And they have a first-rate veggie/salad bar. I am stuffed and content.

I have been starting to feel a bit better. My hormones are much lower which probably helps with my moodiness. Hopefully this will continue and I will be back to my old self again soon.

Miscarriage take two

I am doing my best to recover from my miscarriage. It has been three weeks and you would think I would be getting back to normal, but I had not been feeling anything close to normal. On Thursday last week I woke up in the morning with severe cramps and bleeding. Enough that I had to go to the ER to get checked out. Seems I had an incomplete miscarriage three weeks ago and it took this long for my body to figure it out. So after a day spent in the ER and some IV morphine, I think I finally may be nearing the end of the physical ordeal of losing the baby.

Finally.

I had a check-up today with the OB Doc who saw me in the ER. He is checking my hormone levels to make sure they go down this time. Thursday they were still high, explaining the feelings of still being pregnant that I have had for the last three weeks.

I am hoping the hormones will drop quickly and that I will be on a more stable level. I am so volatile lately. I get so mad so easily. Little things make me cry or curse and I am having a hard time just getting by without lashing out about stupid things.

Everyday life is hard. We all know it. Bureaucracy reigns and you just have to deal with it. Shit happens and you have to keep going. You have to go to a doctor's appt to deal with a miscarriage from three weeks ago instead of taking your son to a Kindermusic class.

So what is a girl who is emotionally unstable and kinda depressed to do? You know it. Nice and Easy. Hair color. I am now sporting dark, really dark, brown hair. I like it. It made me feel slightly better.

I am hoping to get myself under better control soon. Maybe when I am truly physically recovered from all of this, I can.

It just seems like everything has to be hard. Trying to make an appointment for Jackson to get a rash looked at is hard. It shouldn't be. I called the doc around 3:45 to get an appointment for tomorrow morning while I am off work. They wouldn't make an appt for him for tomorrow. Said they only make same-day appts. I would have to call back at 8 am tomorrow to get an appt for tomorrow. I could come in today though. Their last appt was at 5. I had my own appt today at 4. It was possible I could make it, if my own appt ran on time. So I took the chance and made the appt, knowing it was a long shot. Alas, my 4 p.m. appt didn't happen till 4:30. I got out at 4:50 and tried to call the pediatric office to tell them I wasn't going to make it. But they turned their phones off. Said office hours were 8 - 5. So they turned off their phones early and I couldn't even leave a message.

So I sat in my car and had a two-minute breakdown. My mom had taken Jackson to his music class that I had to miss and I was waiting for her to bring him to me. And I am sitting there in my car wanting to weep with unhappiness because I can't cope with all the tiny bullshit that you have to wade through day after day. And I was upset because I am upset by all of the stupid little shit that you are supposed to let roll off your back. It isn't rolling off me. It is sticking and building up and making me crazy.

I guess it would be easy to say this is all hormones and disappointment and I will feel better soon. And I hope it is. I am ready to be myself again and not flying off the handle and yelling at the guy at the post office for bureaucratic bullshit he couldn't help.