Tomorrow is "tha day." Am I nervous. Yep. Pain and I are not friends, but hopefully this won't be too bad. Usually the worst part is the shots to numb you. Talked a long time with my daughter tonight, and that always does a mom's heart good. She's so accomplished and clear-headed. How I produced a child that smart amazes me. I mean, not just book smart but all-around smart. Okay, okay. I know - every old crow thinks hers is the blackest (but mine really is!).

I shall blog tomorrow if I'm able. If I'm too uncomfortable, I'll catch up with you guys on Thursday. I love my friends, family and coworkers. Couldn't do this without you!!

~pinkie

Yay! My new skin works - hooray!!! Laura informed me it doesn't work in all browsers (she see the text all squished to the left side), but she's going to work on it for me tomorrow. Man, I'm blogging with the best of them now. I need to get that site counter thing next.

Oops - I was supposed to be writing. Gulp! Don't beat me, Gena!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa..........

~pinkie

Di does it yet again - she finds the most interesting websites and books. Be sure to check out her comments.

Well, I just came in from the back yard where it has begun to rain. I hope it keeps on raining instead of teasing me with the usual 2-minute downpour. My poor plants are barely hanging on. Even with the sprinkler system, the yard and flowerbeds look pretty dry. Thank goodness we put in the system this year, or they'd all be dead, I'm sure!

I've been so tired the writing hasn't been going very well, but will give it a stab again tonight. I have to pick up my son at 10:30 tonight as his car is still in the shop. I'm starting to get a little apprehensive about the test Wednesday. The only thing painful about my last biopsy was getting the shots to deaden the area, so I assume this will be the same. The nurse said they may give me that 'twilight sleep' where you're not really asleep but very calm. Sounds good to me.

I scheduled my doctor's visit today for Wed the 23rd in the afternoon. Will post here with my results as early as I can.

I've gathered up a list of naturopathic doctors and MD's who practice alternative medicine. Will start calling tomorrow to make appointments to check them out. So far the plan is to spend 8/24 through 8/31 doing the pre-diet. I have to stop eating all meat, fish, poultry, pork, dairy products, wheat, and a few other things I can't remember. Then on 9/1, I'll start the juice fast for two weeks. Then I have a 'coming off the fast' diet to do a few days and then I go forward eating 75% raw foods and 25% cooked foods. Still no meat, etc., until I get a clean bill of health from the doctor. Please forgive all my 'thens' in the previous sentences.

That's all I know for now, and of course, all of this is dependent on what my oncologist plans to do and what I hear from the nutritionist.

I'd better go get busy writing. I have a critique partner that likes to crack the whip!

More soon,
~pinkie

We have a date!

My biopsy is scheduled for this Wednesday at 8:00 a.m. I'll get the results the following Wednesday. I'm so excited! I know, I know. It's a weird thing to get excited over, but waiting for anything long enough will induce excitement, trust me. I'm ready to get on with it and get busy fighting.

The prayer of the day is: If *any* of the spots are cancerous, I want this result to come back positive. I don't want to have to go through additional biopsies to find cancer if it's there. If this comes back negative, they'll do a PET scan and then biopsy the largest spot on my vertebrae (T4). That's a tricky one to get to which is why they didn't biopsy it first.

If the result comes back positive, they'll still do a PET scan to measure the level of activity in the spots. Activity means bone turn-over, which is new cells coming up and dead cells being carried away more rapidly than usual. It's a sign of the bone trying to heal itself or fight something off. This PET scan will serve as a baseline to measure the effectiveness of treatment. They'll change my hormone-control medication and then take another PET scan to see if the level of activity has changed and so forth and so on. The road goes on forever and the party never ends, boys and girls.

Chemo may be involved at some point, but since this is medically incurable (notice I said 'medically'), they'll do the least they can to contain it.

I talked with my boss today, and working at home is a go. Now I need to discuss this with my oncologist to make sure the extreme (and we're talking way the hell out there, baby) nutrition therapy won't interfere with what she's doing. If it does, such as if she decides to do chemo right away, I'll wait until that's done to start shooting coffee through the bottom end.

Holy Frijoles, I can't believe I'm talking about juice fasting and coffee enemas. Have mercy. It's just more than a spyder can comprehend some days. Even more amazing is the amount of information on both you can find on the internet. I actually have detailed instructions.

I'm also in the market for a naturopathic doctor and/or nutritionist in the area. If any of you know of a good one, let me know. I need one that's not so into supplements as eating the right foods to accomplish what I have to accomplish. I already take 98% of all the supplements known to man, so I don't need a source. I need a complete program of diet, exercise, supplements, etc. The book I have has some guidelines but leaves many unanswered questions. I need expert guidance.

I've just about talked your ears off here (those of you who know me well won't be surprised), so just a couple more things.

Laura - I wish you were here, too, sweetie! Those of you who don't know, Laura is my lovely, talented and very intelligent daughter and is a constant source of pride for her mother. She's in Boston working on her Masters degree (man, I *love* saying that!).

Di - I loved your comment - will have to visit that site! Everybody check out Di's comment on day before yesterday's post. She found a cool website with healthy recipes, etc.

The ladies of OKRWA are the best in the world!

Everyone visit: http://altmedicine.about.com/od/detoxcleansing/l/bl_quiz_detox.htm for a quiz on whether you need to detox your body. You'll be surprised.... Scroll down and click on the really small blue link that says Detox screening quiz. You have to look for it. It'll bring up the first question.

Love you all!
~pinkie