Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! I know, it's been too long. I've been so busy lately. I'll start from where I left off.

So Bertha got here last last week on Tuesday (12/11). The following day we went dress shopping at the mall. I bought a hot pink dress that was pretty cute. Later that evening we met up with my friend Erasto and we went to West Hollywood to go eat at Fiesta Cantina, which is a gay bar. Turns out it was karaoke night and we ended up staying all night long. It was quite the experience, gay karaoke. First, guys singing girl songs. Second, singers with back up dancers. Third, the night ended with NSYNC Christmas songs. I had a blast.

The day of my birthday I went to a Lakers game with Bertha, Clay, and my brother Sergio. Clay got pretty good seats, the Lakers won, and we all had a great time, too much to drink but still lots of fun.

The next evening was when we went out for my official birthday dinner at the Melting Pot in Pasadena. It was pretty cool. It's a fondue restaurant so we had cheese fondue, salads, a selection of meat and seafood fondue, and then chocolate dessert fondue. I had a wonderful time and I'm happy my wonderful boyfriend arranged it. My sister and her boyfriend came to dinner but didn't go with us afterward to the Three of Clubs, my favorite 80's dive bar. It was a lot of fun.

I feel like I'm just listing things and then saying, "I had a lot of fun," but I did! I had a wonderful couple of days. Something else I bought was a pair of well-fitting jeans. All the jeans in my closet were sagging on me like I was a crack head. So this new pair of Miss Sixty jeans are my new favorites that I wear every time I leave the house not in sweats. I feel so chunty.

On Friday afternoon we went to a Salvador Dali exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). It was actually amazing. I had never been a big fan of Dali but the exhibit really piqued my interest in his work. Bertha is a big fan so it was great having her knowledge. I never knew that Dali and Walt Disney planned on making an animated movie together. It was eventually completed but I think never distributed. I was able to see it at the exhibit and again, it was simply amazing. We found out about the exhibit by accident on Wednesday night when someone told us about it and I'm glad we had a chance to go while Bertha was here.

Bertha's last day was spent grabbing a late lunch at La La's, an Argentinean restaurant on Melrose, with some old college friends, Anabel and Karyna. It was strange to see Karyna again after so many years. We were roomates our senior year and had been great friends who ended up just losing touch. I thought about everything that had happened to me in those years after our time at Cornell and I wondered what the years had brought her. Unfortunately, because she had gotten lost and therefore arrived really late to the restaurant, I missed most of their catch up because I'd left with Erasto to browse at a nearby store. It was still great to see her, even for just a little bit.

For my birthday my sister gave me a shirt that said, "This Girl Can Party." Bertha's last night in LA I proved that this girl CAN'T party. Bertha, Clay, and I went to Clay's apartment where we talked and drank until about 10-10:30pm. I'd had 3 watered down vodka tonics and I was feeling pretty good. We get into this club that's a block down from Clay's apartment and have 1 shot of tequila. It was over for me. I got wasted, was dancing on an empty dance floor, and eventually had to get carried out by Clay and Bertha sometime between 11-11:30pm. That's right, I partied for about a whole hour. Clay took us home and I was passed out in my bed by midnight. Nice. I hope Bertha had fun in that one hour.

In my defense, I was so tired. I'd been exhausted all day and Clay and Bertha's solution was to give me a 5 hour energy drink. I probably should have just taken a nap but oh well! At least I think I had fun.

After dropping off Bertha at the airport, I went to this hotel in downtown LA called the Bonaventure where Clay had gotten me a gift card to their spa for a massage and facial. It felt like the perfect end to my week.

But it was back to work on Monday. I had a few doctor's appointments that week that would determine what my next course of treatment would be. I'll summarize.

I have a very aggressive and persistent cancer. I had the opportunity to look at slides from all the PET scans I'd taken and the difference between June 2007 and November 2007 was vast. It really is almost gone but a little bit persists in my chest and left and right abdomen area. It's that persistent little bit that's hard to treat. My options are: more chemotherapy (different drugs), an experimental drug (which turned out to be back ordered so, therefore, unavailable), or low dose radiation therapy.

I had started veering towards radiation only because I felt like maybe we should try something new but then they told me that it’s much easier to do radiation after chemo than chemo after radiation. I might limit my options if radiation doesn’t completely work (there is a tumor by my kidney and they might not be able to treat it because if my kidney receives radiation, I would definitely have kidney failure).

So to make a long story short, I’m choosing what I thought I never would: more chemotherapy. However, it seems as if some studies have shown that it might work and even if all it does is shrink my tumors just a little bit more, then the radiation doctor can use less radiation, which is better for me long term. They anticipate that I’ll be on this chemo for about a month and I’ll be coming in once a week. It’s suppose to be very tolerable and has few side effects. My doctor said I wouldn’t even lose my hair, which was pretty cool.

He said I could even go back to work! Of course I’m going to take it easy, I’m well aware of my physical limits. My emotional limits I’m not so sure about. I just hope I don’t break out into tears for no reason! It also wouldn’t be until after the New Year, maybe a week after.

So I feel like I’m back to the same place I was last year. But this time I’ve done more, seen more, and can therefore, handle more. I need a central line put in but I don’t want to have surgery for a port that will only be used for one month. So I’ve decided to get a PICC line put in instead. Isn’t that funny. Last year I kicked, punched, and screamed not to have a PICC line put in because it grossed me out. So I had a port put in. This year I was like, just give me the PICC line, I don’t care. So it was kinda funny.

I forgot to mention that Saturday afternoon I ended up in the ER. I woke up feeling so tired and started throwing and didn’t stop all morning. When we realized I also had a fever my mom took me to the hospital where I threw up walking up the ramp and while waiting in the ER line. They kept me overnight for observation and I stopped throwing up but still had a low fever. When they let me go, they told me I probably just had a viral infection. The doctor told me that viral infections manifest themselves where people have the most weakness. I guess mine is the gastro-intestinal area. They told me that because it was a viral infection, they couldn’t give me anything for it, it just had to work its way out of my body. It hasn’t been that bad, I’ve had the runs (sorry TMI) but other than that, I’ve just been really tired, my body hurts like hell at night though. Thank goodness I had some leftover Vicodine, it’s the only thing that has worked for the pain. I get the feeling that no one wants to prescribe it again (I'd only gotten it after surgeries) but I might have to get ghetto tomorrow because tonight is my last one and the pain is so bad I can’t sleep. Seriously, it’s pretty bad.

I’ve also had to adhere to a bland diet these last few days. Apparently greasy spicy food would irritate my stomach more and make the infection worse. So Christmas Eve I wasn’t the cheeriest person around. All I’d had for 2 1/2 days was jello and water. And my Christmas dinner was mashed potatoes and biscuits while everyone devoured their meaty, spicy, dinner.

But opening up gifts was a blast. Like most latino families, we open up our gifts on Christmas Eve, but us being impatient Morales’s, we opened them up at about 10pm instead of midnight. I had some great gifts. My sister got me grouchy cat slippers (apparently I’ve been grouchy lately), but I think this was all a ploy for her to get my Uggs. Since I’ll be using the slippers, I won’t be using the Uggs and guess what? I woke up this morning and they were gone and she was gone. Sneaky I tell you but very well thought out. I also got orange sheets (I have 3 orange dresses so I have to admit it‘s among my favorite colors by default), my favorite Season 1 Volume 1 of She-ra: Princess of Power (I watched it as a kid!!!), a drawing of pueblo people on a piece of bark (Diego knows I love art), socks, money, candy, a Best Buy gift card, a scarf, and I can’t remember what else. I have to say, I’m pretty broke after this but I couldn’t help myself. I had to. Clay gave me a framed picture of us which made me cry, it’s probably our first picture together that has been printed out and framed. But he also gave me another spa day, and this one is almost a day event that includes other services. I guess my extravagant praise of the first one convinced him it was a great idea that never gets old, lol.

Anyways, I think that’s it! That’s been my past 2 weeks. Tomorrow I get the PICC line put in and Friday I start chemotherapy. And next week, ROSEBOWL!!!