bye bye hives, hello hot flashes

in an odd twist of fate (take note, winecat!) i have to wean myself off of effexor because the allergist thinks that's the root of my skin issues.

it's not ringworm, which, as i said before, would be easy to treat, but would have made this weekends' baby shower a bit awkward, as i would have felt compelled to saran wrap myself.

after a looooong conversation with said allergist, as well as a "cold" test and a "scratch" test, he made me list all the pills i pop on a daily/weekly basis:

effexor, daily
fosamax, weekly
multi-vitamin, daily
lycopene, daily
cinnamon, 2 caps 2xday
turmeric, 2xday
ginger, 2 caps 2xday
astaxanthin, daily
chromium picolinate, 2 caps 2xday
chewable calcium + d, 2 tabs 2xday

everything except the effexor has been added post treatment, and the effexor is the only thing i was on during chemo and ever since.

so the doc's theory is that something about the effexor is making me more prone to hives from the cold, and that without the effexor in my system, my skin will settle down.

or maybe it's just that without the effexor i'll have so many damn hot flashes i'll never get hives.

the rives

after spending much of yesterday researching hives on the internet, i came to the disgusting conclusion that i may in fact have ringworm. or some sort of ringworm/hive hybrid.

maybe it will be some new thing never seen before and it will be named after me or i will be able to name it (rive?), and one day when someone else gets it, they will say, "damn! i've got a case of the rives."

in any event, i will hopefully find out today, as my oncologist got me in to see an allergy specialist on short notice.

the upside of ringworm is that it's (generally) easier to treat than hives, the downside is it is very gross to think about and may cause me to come home and sterilize everything in the house, including the cats and dog.

itchy boat

even since chemo, i have broken out in hives when the weather turns cold. hives that last all winter and drive me about up the wall.

i get them on my eyelids, the tops of my feet, all over my torso, on my knees and elbows, etc.

it ain't pretty, that's for sure.

i've tried every OTC remedy out there, and Alavert seems to work the best.

but this season, when the hives cropped up a week or so ago, i started taking the Alavert and it's just not doing the job. i still itch. i'm still bumpy. and now i'm grumpy to boot.

so i did what i do when faced with any ailment and went online looking for more info. i have been self-diagnosed with Cold Urticaria .

i have also emailed my oncologist to see if it is in fact chemo related, and if so, what the hell i'm supposed to do about it other than "live with it," as is often the case when post-chemo fallout occurs.

although i'm sure there's no magic pill to fix it, it would be nice to know it's not a reflection on some underlying condition, and that there are others in the same boat as me.

the itchy boat.

progress

over the last couple of weeks, i have done pretty much anything and everything to avoid working, including walking greta twice per day, whether she likes it or not; cleaning out every closet in the house, resulting in nine bags of clothes and two bags of shoes taken to weave; moving furniture around; going through all of my books and parting with some; cleansing our cd collection (bye bye justin timberlake, ashlee simpson, etc.!); brushing all three animals once per day; *trying* to brush greta's teeth once per day; and, of course, watching way too much tv and keeping the netflix stream of movies flowing in and out of the house.

i never used to procrastinate. in fact, i used to get everything finished waaaay ahead of time. lately, i've been working on not being so "all or nothing."

i am definitely a work in progress.

rain?

seriously...rain?

i let greta out to do her business this morning at oh-dark-thirty, and she stepped out from under the covered porch and then looked back at me like "you have got to be kidding me." it being dark, i had no idea she was protesting the drizzle coming down.

this has been an ongoing issue from the get go. i know greyhounds are by no means water dogs, but greta seems to think she's made of sugar and will melt into a sticky sweet puddle if she gets wet.

it's going to be a loooong winter.

newest obsession

in my internet wanderings, i have recently stumbled across someone who i wish i had found years ago when i was trying to adjust to life with one breast.

of course, in looking at the timeline, i think we were going through similar experiences at about the same time (correct me if i'm wrong), so it might have been a case of the blind leading the blind.

in any event, as is often the case with me (please, keep your secret to yourself!), i found her too little too late for our big cross-country trip last fall.

and maybe it's lucky for her, because had i known about her, i would have dragged mike to brooklyn to meet her and admire her work, in my all-or-nothing stalker-esque style.

instead, i have initiated chatter, purchased two boob-free tops and two necklaces, with the intention of giving one of the necklaces to sally when we visit her and our friends in san diego in november and celebrate my five clean years (knock on wood!) and her year and a half (knock, knock, knock...).

all of this worry about the jinx (which, by the way, is a great name for a cat and will definitely be my next, i'm sure) reminds me of one of the first "real" cancer books i read and identified with--it takes a worried man, by brendan halpin.

somewhere in the book, he talks about how he and his wife wonder if her cancer is "payback" for all the shit they've talked about people in the past.

i used to belive in karma, but no more.

to this day, whenever someone says "what goes around comes around" i want to throttle them. i'd like to know what the hell i did to "deserve" cancer.

was i really all that bad?!