Message from the Known Donor and CEA Levels

He stated he did not forget about us and that he just wanted to let us know that, that he was still thinking about it and that he had talked with his ex wife and was going to talk with his 12 year old daughter this weekend coming up I guess. I don't think he will say yes. If he did that would be nice, but it's also filled with hurdles, like timing and ovulation, lawyers and whether or not to do home inseminations which would be more convenient, but maybe not as productive. If I were to go to the doc's it would cost 350 per insem, but we would be able to use fresh sperm and that would pose the obstacle of getting it to the doc's fast enough so the swimmers don't die, and of course getting him, which would be during the daytime and conflict with his schedule at work which we do not want to compromise. What to do, what to do? Sometimes I wish it would be easier, sometimes I wish we were the same color so donor selection wouldn't be such a thought process, sometimes I wish we were younger, shit sometimes I wish I were a man so I could get her pregnant. Dawn pregnant would be a sight now.

So yesterday I went to the doc's, my onocologist, who still isn't worried about the weight gain from the chemo, I am, now at 181.5, my highest in my entire life. He wants me to do two more cycles of chemo. I do not, perhaps I will do faux chemo, where he thinks I am doing it, but I am not. I asked him about my port, I can get that removed 6 months after my chemo stops, which really wouldn't be if I were to get pregnant in between that time. Then he stated I would do scans every six months which elated me because I was worried they were going to settle for yearly. Then he told me that my CEA level was normal, absolutely 0! It's never been zero, always like 2.5 or 3, so something is working huh? I am really excited about that. I hope it stays at bay, now if I can just get this weight off. He also asked me when I was going to have the hysterectomy because of the mutation.

If we were to try to have a child, amidst the problems we are having off and on, I would need to lose about 40 or so pounds, be out of surgery at least a year, that happens at the end of March, and be chemo free for three months, so even if he were to say yes, we would not start trying for baby until June of 2007 probably. I figure if I start in January I could probably lose 40 pounds by June of next year, that would get me ready for baby. I don't think my body can tolerate a lot of weight, I feel like I am in my own way now, I have a mini double chin and my boobs are a DD now. I hate that, they never seem to go away. I would also need to thoughtfully consider using my own eggs again, for awhile I'd grown comfortable not worrying about being genetically attached to the child, but now I am worried about being genetically attached to the child, what if chemo did something to my eggs? What if I pass on this mutation, with a 50% chance of doing so, I don't want to spread this gene down the family tree more than it already has been. Needless to say we and I have lots to consider for the upcoming year.

Ta ta for now.

Christmas Dinner, tidyings of comfort, but not joy?

Oh boy, where do I begin? well let me tell you, we were expecting about 32 people. We had about 35-40 here. It was rough, tense and nerve racking with the sounds of 13 year old boys playing with younger boys and dragging them on the upgraded hardwood floor we paid for in the foyer, or how about the lingering garage door, always ajar? I asked 5 people to close the door, and they didn't, one person even walked by and looked at it open and didn't do anything. I was really irritated and screeked out, can someone close the GD door? They all just stopped and looked at me, I did not care. I didn't want everyone here at one time, Dawn is oblivious to all of this, as usual.
I have several reasons for ill regard towards her family and up until this year, I never had a reason to not like them. I have always went out of my way to do things for them, for example, I always send all the nieces and nephews baskets of goodies, all like 13-15 of them for Easter, Halloween, Christmas, and Valentines Day. I even put together goodies during back to school time and send it to them, to the point where even one of them asked if they could give us one of the children's school list for that year, talk about being ungrateful.
I don not like the Christmas season because of how commerical it has become, it's not about that, if we got back to what the true meaning of it was, regardless of the religion you practice, we would not have all this credit card debt as consumers into the next year, okay that's my rant. I will stop there, not like I am one to talk either, I have a ton of cc debt, we didn't have any until we moved into this house.
Dawn and I have been having a rocky time in our relationship, it's not her, it's me. I am a little crazy, depressed and psychiotic I think...just a bit. I get easily irritated with her and her empathy towards planning stuff, etc., basically, we have a great sex life, except I always initiate, we don't have a terrible financial life and I do everything besides take the trash to the dump, the maintenance on the vehicles and hanging stuff around the house, like pictures, blinds etc.
I do the laundry, grocery shopping, coupon clipping, house shopping, decorating for the holidays, buying the gifts for the holidays, baking for the holidays, planning all the holidays, trips, outtings, financial planning, taxes, etc., I am sick of doing everything. If I wanted to do everything wouldn't I be by myself? Now I realize that some are better than others at these sorts of things, however, I do feel that there can be a ying and a yang, and lately our ying is yanged!

Why do I have to do everything? It's annoying, it's time consuming. I really have felt that I have learned a lot from having cancer. Not to take life for granted, to realize that the best things in life are truly those that cannot be bought with money, even as cliche as that may sound, and that you really need to evaluate what you want to do and how you want to spend your life, everyday for the rest of it. Nothing is guaranteed. I've decided that death and illness happen to make us realize how important life is. I now know how it feels to be a caregiver, survivor, patient and motherless daughter from this disease. I know that I love Dawn, but I don't know if I am in love with Dawn, however, with that said, is it possible to stay in love with someone over time? I don't think it is, I think you fall in to it and then it becomes a maintenance cycle after that, I don't think it's a continuum. I don't think there is anyone person for anyone. I feel that a person can have multiple mates at any given time in their life. People change over time with growth, so do their wants, needs and expectations. I feel I've had several "soul mates", both male and female in my life over time. I don't know what will come of the two of us, but I am willing, at this time to do something about it or at least try to for now.

Woman's Best Friend and Domestic Partners

Today I picked Drew up from the vet. She had a syncope episode earlier this week and they wanted to do a blood pressure on her, a sonogram of her heart and an EKG, she also had some radiographs of her belly.

$544. 00 later, she has heart failure and has a new medicine as well as some prescription dog food. After I wiped the vaseline from my buttocks and got over the soreness of being stuck with a stiff one, I was ready to take my baby home. She's doing a little better so far, the doc said she could live for years like this if she responds well to medication, if not, she may only live months.

Domestic Partners-Tonight is Friday night, it's rainy, nasty and cold outside, like one of those afternoons when you were younger and got home from school and just wanted to go home and read something and eat grilled cheese sandwiches, however, after our mini party tonight for a close friend that just achieved her master's degree, she decided to go out to the bar. I dropped her off at 10:30, the club doesn't close until 1:30, so I assume I will be getting her then.

I get irked about her wanting to go to the bar, I think some of this might be because of the whole ordeal of having a an alcoholic father, also the fact that I feel like why would she not want to stay home and spend the time with me? I know that at times I am unbearable, and all, but I have been getting a little complacent in our relationship.

I am tried of always putting forth the effort, I don't know how I will or can handle her famliy and their balant disrespect of me and the fact that we're together in not so many ways. We've recently asked a friend to be a known sperm donor for us, but we're thinking that maybe it's not such a good idea, or at least I am. Part of me thinks that Dawn and I aren't meant to have kids, we've had a lot of obstacles in trying to achieve this, so maybe it's just not meant to be.

Sometimes I wonder where I'd be without Dawn, just because I feel like I've lost some of myself with being with her, but isn't that normal? I don't know anymore.

I know I am tried of being the one that always tries to do romantic or nice things or always being the "gas" in the relationship. Dawn is happy with the status quo, she's one to stay the course, whereas, I am one to want to do something to change it for the better or improve in anyway possible.

Sometimes, I just wish I'd dated myself, fucked around, went to school and not stayed so uptight about shit. Sometimes I wish I wasn't the one that worried about everything. Would have, should have, could have? You tell me!

Known Donors and Migraines

Last night we took Mini to go see RAW at the old MCI center in DC. It wasn't that bad, but OMG this shit is so fake, then I ended up getting a fucking migraine as usual. Today we had a workshop at work and I missed it. I am so fed up with getting sick and getting migraines.

We asked a known donor, a friend of ours, to be our known donor, after reading an article in the Sunday Washington Post about known donors and unknown donors, it made us want one even more, but there are so many things to consider.

We've decided that if he says no, it's meant to be and if he says yes it's meant to be, we're leaving it in God's hands. Something makes me wonder if we're really meant to have kids, I mean we've had so much trouble with donors lately and previously too with the miscarriage two years ago, almost three this January. I mean, are we really meant to have a child? The cancer for me and genetic mutation and then the diabetes for Dawn? We're both tainted.

Then last night Drew had a seizure or so we think, I don't want to put her down but I think sometime next year I may have too, with her cushings and then her respiratory problems and now this. I was really upset on top of having a terrible migraine.

Dawn and I were arguing about her family as usual. Her mother invited one of her nephews, step nephews that we do not keep in touch with, we do not keep in touch with them for a few reasons, they're the type of people that only call you when they want something, there seems to be a lot of them in Dawn's family. She makes excuses for them and for the most part I never feel like she sees my side of the story, but that's beside the point. I dunno. It's going to be real on Christmas Day that's for sure. I am not looking forward to this at all

Family Issues and Sleeping Disorders

First, let me say that I love Dawn, I totally heart her so, I am just so tired of her being tired all the time and ignoring the fucking family faux paws that do exist.

It's Friday night, we're not doing anything tonight, nothing planned, you know why? Because I did not plan something and also because it's Friday, we're trying to save money, I had a sigmoid done today, etc., there are other underlying factors of why we did not do something today and why we are home, besides the fact that I did not plan something.

I am irritated, she's a sleep. She went to sleep last night at 7:15 or so and slept through the night, I know she works hard and gets up early and all that stuff, but she's had this tired issue her whole life. I wonder how things will be different when we have a child or if it will be with regard to this and her inputs.

I am also irritated by the constant family issues with her side of the family, which I won't go into on here for privacy issues, but it's annoying and I am tried of being annoyed, I don't know.

Debt

It totally sucks to be in it. I don't know what happened at the beginning of the year, we were well on our way, new house, money in the bank and no debt, now a year later, here we are, I am determined to work on that continuously to get us out and to get us some babies this upcoming year, in addition to losing weight!

Nothing but good times ahead thank God!

Cancer and Chemo Free, it's all downhill from here

I am cautiously optimistic. I had a petscan done last week, last Saturday to be exact, looking for any new cancer or any of the lingering old, it came back CLEAN! I am so estatic about the good news. I've decided to stop the Xeloda, I've taken a total of three months chemotherapy, which traditionally for my type of cancer, stage IIA colon, you don't typically do chemo, specifically when it did not spread to the lymph nodes. I must say I've been totally blessed and thankful that this year has been so wonderful. Sure, I had my entire large intestine and appendix removed, but I had a great surgeon, my recovery wasn't so bad, I was only out of work for four months, and I worked about 1.5 of that while I was out.

Dawn's recently got a raise and so did I. I am determined to get us out of debt and on track.

My insurance covers 10K for fertility as a lifetime. We would like to go to Shady Grove Fertility in Annapolis and do IVF, however, our last consult with them didn't bode well, so we're considering Columbia Fertility Associates in DC. We also chose a donor, a black donor, initially from Fairfax Cryobank, when I was going to carry and use my egg, however, now with my genetic mutation of colon cancer, we've decided not to use my egg, especially since the black donor we selected had a history of colon cancer on his mother's side. We choose a white donor and now I've recently found out that he is on quarantine because some of the offspring he has produced apparently have a medical issue, of which the cryobank will not say.

It's on to new donors? Possibly.

I hope the new year brings new news and tidings of joy and great health.