I found $5 on the ground yesterday. I bought two lotto tickets with it. Aye, there's my luck; no winnings.

Joe and I took Brogan to the oncologist on Monday. My stomach was in knots all weekend over it. One minute I was anticipating the worst, planning for it, shaking and crying, and the next minute I'd be optimistic and certain that Brogan would be strong enough to pull through. The latter was especially true when I'd look at him, as normal as ever, wanting nothing more than to play fetch or wrestle Jake or eat my dinner for me.

Anyway. The oncologist didn't find anything more in Brogan's mouth, no more obvious physical manifestations of melanoma. That's good. He then took two x-rays, one of Brogan's chest and another of his right lymph node; it was swollen, and while the vet thought that it was most likely because of the surgery he wanted to check and make sure. His initial read of the xray results was that everything looked normal - he'd have the pathologist/radiologist look at them to double check, and call us in 48 hours.

So we were given a half-hour talk about melanoma and how it works and what the various options are. Brogan has 'low-grade' melanoma, which is the best of the worst, really. The problem is that the lump that was removed had melanoma going into it's base, meaning that it's still on his lip. Thus, the next step in trying to fix Mr Brogan is cutting off more of his lip, and hopefully this time all of the melanoma will be removed.

Unfortunately, the pathologist saw some sort of dark pigmentation on Brogan's lymph node. The oncologist doesn't suspect that the melanoma has metastasized, but to be on the safe side he recommends that that lymph node come out too.

Bit by bit poor Brogan is getting cut apart.

So, one bit of lip and one lymph node later, hopefully all the melanoma will be gone and the last thing Joe and I will have to decide is whether or not we're going to somehow, by some miracle, cough up the money for this way-too-expensive vaccine, or just hope for the best.

I'm still optimistic. Scared, but optimistic.

Aye. It's hard to convince myself to sit at the computer and write here. I haven't done sketches for any work either because the thought of sitting up in this corner at the computer isn't appetizing at all. I've replaced night-blog-writing-time with reading. So many books to read.

I've not been myself in a while now. In part, I blame this on quitting smoking. My world was thrown upside down. What a strange process. On one hand, it wasn't so hard at all; the cravings were shitty, but they were short, and the bad ones only lasted about a week. Now they're gone completely. The only draw to cigarettes I have left stem from "I wonder, if I start smoking, will I go back to normal? Will my patience come back? Will this god-awful fecking appetite go away?" Then I remember how horrid they smell, and what an awful headrush I'll get if I take so much as one drag, and the desire is choked.

But on the other hand, it's been intense. At times I feel like I don't know myself at all. I've become impatient, quick-tempered, and I have an appetite (in particular, a sweet-tooth I've inherited from my dad) that goes through the roof. It's awful awful awful awful, all of it. I loathe this person I've become. I loathe how I have this new found need to rush through everything, to constantly be go-go-go-go-go. I can't sit still. I can't just sit and enjoy things. What is this? Where did it come from? How the hell do I make it go away? This is driving me insane. The appetite, worst of all. I've not gained weight, but that's mostly because I've been running and walking and cycling more than ever before. If I stop doing that, it'll hit me like a brick, unless I change my eating habits.

And my attitude on life, on living, needs an adjustment.

I simply loathe this person. This is the reason I want to go back to smoking - not because I miss it, or crave nicotine. I don't miss any of it, not a bit. I just wonder, will old Kaetlyn come back if I do? Or, how the hell do I bring her back without it?

Today I felt a bit more like myself. More than I have in a while, anyway. So, we'll see.

Tomorrow's a new day.

Brogan has cancer.


Suddenly he's delicate to me. Looking at him feels like it might break him. I'm cautious, and full of sadness. He's oblivious. He's lucky, and incredibly unlucky. I could ask 'why?' for the rest of eternity.

I'm terrified but optimistic, and most likely extremely naive.

He can't get a break. He's only four. It's not fair.

My childrens' photography course is over. I'm not sure how I feel about it. Six-year-olds are a tough crowd, and difficult to keep engaged. I do know that I'm of the opinion that paying $130 for your six-year-old to learn digital photography is very silly. They're six. They don't care; they just want to make messes, run around, climb things, tell stories, and have fun, not learn about camera settings or image composition. I think it would have gone better had the weather been cooler, thus our walks/adventures more tolerable.

Joe and I took Brogan in to get that wee lump removed from his lip and sent off to be biopsied. Now we're just waiting to hear test results. I'm optimistic, but we'll see.

My teeth won't give me a break. Now, my top-left wisdom tooth is being a disaster. Since all three of those teeth (the two that were just removed, and this currently problematic one) all came in at the same time it only makes sense that they'd all go bad at the same time as well. Unfortunately, my luck is awful and they begin to give me problems when I have to jump through loads of hoops in order to see the dentist. This one, on Friday during dinner, was giving me issues; any time I bit down on that side an awful searing pain would shoot through my mouth. Then I pulled out a tooth fragment. Well, shite, it was Friday night, there was nothing I could do; I'd have to wait until Monday. Saturday and Sunday: cue more tooth pieces falling out. Yikes. I discovered yesterday afternoon that a huge chunk of that tooth is extremely loose and would probably pop right out if I asked it to. On top of that, all weekend the bugger's now razor jagged edge has been cutting and cutting and scraping into my cheek, which at this point is swollen and irritated and painful from it. So this morning; first things first, I called my dentist's office. But ho! They're on vacation until the 10th. Luckily, they listed their go-to backup dentist, so I called him. Ho ho! His office is closed on Mondays. Forget it, I'm fed up with this tooth and this 'you-must-always-wait' nonsense, I'm calling his emergency at-home number. Luckily, he got me an appointment with an orthodontic surgeon for 11:30 today.

I picked the wrong career. It seems that dentists get an amazing amount of time off, and lots of holidays and luxuries (based on the banter I hear in the office of my own; she has a horse ranch, a farm that she doesn't even live at, and a fancy vacation home somewhere tropical.) Maybe I'll go to dentist school instead of postgrad.

Anyway, I'm 99% sure this means I'll be getting another wisdom tooth removed today. Which means that's another week of no jogging, horseback riding, bike rides, hiking, yoga, anything quite physical. That's the worst part of all of it. I can deal with the mushy food and having to be careful about not irritating anything, but being largely sedentary for a week is misery. Especially since quitting smoking; I have an awful neurotic way about me now, a need to constantly be doing something, mainly in order to stay away from replacing my cigarette habit with food.

Well, I suppose the good part is that being sedentary forces me to focus on things I haven't been able to otherwise focus on because of being a neurotic mess, like doing some reading and art-making.

In other news...there's a family of bunnies living in a wee hole in front of a tree right next to the street. Perhaps a foot or so from it. That's an awful spot to raise a family of bunnies, I have to say, and I worry for them. Hopefully motherbunny moves the kits around and they don't stay there where they're at danger of being hit by cars or caught by passing dogs. 

I bought a handful of succulents and herbs to be excited about. This morning I thinned the spearmint/peppermint monster and put the good cuttings into paper bags for drying, and did the same for mam's thyme because it was getting crazy and she doesn't keep up with it. Most everything needs to be re-planted and I have to figure out what to put everything in, which is turning out to be tricky.

So I'm off to enjoy trail mix while I can before it's back to a diet of sweet potatoes and smoothies.