I thought of a problem with my mini house idea.

Health Insurance.

I absolutely need health insurance, not just because I have a tendency to get sick…. but because I require a prescription to Synthroid for the rest of my life.  Without insurance, it’s about $40 dollars a month.  With insurance, I pay $22 (cause it’s a name brand - and has to be Synthroid cause of the cancer).  Plus, I’m also prone to tumors (thyroid and one in my left breast that was removed in 2004).  And I have GERD, which I have heard can cause esophegeal cancer.  Plus, I was a lifeguard in the hot sun for 40 hours a week for 7 summers, which isn’t good for skin cancer.  So…..  That could be a problem.

I know that in Massachusetts (where it is ILLEGAL to be without health insurance), they have Mass Health that anyone can get (please don’t question me about this, I’m still covered by my parents’ cause I’m still in school).  But I’m not sure about “down south” where I’d be living.  Could I use Medicaid?  Or, if I have a part time job doing MH stuff, then perhaps I could get it through my employer.  That is definitely something that I need to think about before moving off to my own little village.  Perhaps I should just move to southern Italy, Spain or Greece.  My guess is that they would have national healthcare.  Or perhaps by the time I’m ready to move down there (2010, 2011?)  President Obama will have some new awesome health plan.  My mom has just made me very aware of the fact that I can not let my health insurance lapse, because then people will refuse to cover me because of a “pre-existing condition”.  Which is bull crap!

So I need to think of that before I move.  Perhaps in my little village, I could have a doctor and a pharmecutical drug rep.  The rep could get me free drugs (the good kind), and the doctor could take care of my health.  It’s all about bartering, people.  Alissa proposed that she wanted to live in my village (and be the one with the real job), which is awesome.  But, I ask, what do you have to offer?

On a totally different note, I want a bowl of cereal.  I had dinner an hour ago (at 7:30), and I have been hungry ever since.  I had a serving of a Trader Joe’s vegetable lasagna, half a piece of Texas Toast, and a garden salad.  It wasn’t enough, especially cause the seving of lasagna was only 260 calories.   But, the good news is, that I now have tons of room for cereal!!!  I crave cereal every single night, and sometimes I have room for it, and other times not.  But when I get a craving, I can’t stop thinking about having a bowl of cereal until I actually eat it.  It’s weird.  Then, I’m done eating the serving, and I think “Oh no!  I want more!”  But I’m usually very comfortable on the couch, and can’t convince myself to get up and ger more (plus, I know my stomach can’t really handle it).

**Update, I ate a nice bowl of cereal at 9:30.  It was delicious.  I can’t wait to have another bowl tomorrow morning.  Yuuuuum.**

I have only one class left for my degree. Counseling Assessment and Case Management.  Everyone in the program just calls it “Case.”  It’s the last class - the one that is required before I can do my internship. It’s a six credit class, so it’s a double whammy.  We will meet every Monday night from 5-10.  Even though it’s only one class, it’s double the price.  I paid for the class last week and it cost me $1558. I put it on my Visa so I could earn points.  I will be able to pay off the bill in full, but just barely.  I’m not touching my real savings, so it seems like any money I ever make goes right to school.

Years ago I thought I’d be on track to save money for a down payment for a house. This was before grad school. Before all my earned money went to my education. It comes in, and then goes right back out.  It’s very frustrating.

I had a dream last night about Destare.  It was a good dream, and I woke up missing it.  I’ve had plenty of dreams about Destare, but they were all bad dreams, where either I was getting yelled at, or something else bad happened.  Even when things were good there, I would have bad dreams about the place.  When Lance and I were on good terms, I would tell him about my dreams.  I told him I was too involved with the place if I was having nightmares from it.  Back then, we thought it was funny.  So anyway, last night’s dream was good, and I woke up kinda regretting not working there anymore.  Well, not really, but I wished I hadn’t felt like that.  I just had to remember all the bad stuff, and that it HAD sucked, and it sucked a lot lately.  I hadn’t been happy there for months.  Stupid dream!

Since I’m not working at Destare anymore, I’ve been filling in more at Macy’s.  The store manager offered me a continuous weekend manager position, every Saturday night from 5-9:30, and all day Sunday.  I told him I wasn’t interested in working every single Saturday night:  I had just gotten off a job that did that.  I told him maybe I’d consider every other, but I wasn’t positive.  I’m working this Sunday, and my guess is he’ll ask me to work next weekend as well.  I don’t mind doing that, looking at my schedule and saying “yeah, sure, I’ll work.”  But I don’t want to commit to anything.  This Saturday I told him I was unavailable, because I’m going into Boston with mom and dad to go to a Thyroid Cancer Support Group at Mass General.  Then we’ll have lunch and go see Frost Nixen (or whatever that Nixen movie is called).  I’m also babysitting every Wednesday for my family in Leominster.  That’s an easy $50 for a fun afternoon of not doing anything.  They have family friends who are looking for a sitter, but they have four kids - 2,4,6 and 8.  That’s a lot of kids!  My mom also said she knows some people who are looking for sitters - so that’d  be interesting, too.  That will leave me available to do my practicum and have time for class.

I had applied for a part time job at MOC, and I got a call back today!  Unfortunately, she told me it’s a part-time/full-time job, with hours from 8:30 - 2:30, or 4:30 Monday through Friday.  I’m looking more for a job that is only three or four days a week.  I told the lady that I was sorry, but I can’t do full time.  That sucks, but it also wouldn’t be fair for me to get a job, and then have to leave for my internship. But it’s very exciting that I got a call back!  That means they saw my resume, was impressed, and wanted me to come in for an interview (which she gave me the option to if I was still interested).

Megan said that I should come see her in England and we can work on making lots of different food.  I said “Wow, I can come live there for three months like I did in Santa Fe!”  And she said “Well, I wasn’t thinking that long (cause I’ll be at work, and I don’t want you to get bored, plus it’s really expensive here), but I have a friend who maybe needs someone to look after her baby.  That’s in June, so maybe you could au pair for her?”  Holy crap would that be neat!  If I lived in England as an au pair for three months in the summer?  That’d be super cool.  I already have experience with my little baby here, and that’d be a piece of cake.  Little babies are easy, it’s when they start to crawl and run around and put things in their mouth that they’re harder.  But little babies just lie there, eat, and poop.  That’s nothing!  Megan keeps calling it my “post cancer trip.”  She’s so cute!

It is 54.3 degrees in the house! There’s something wrong with our stupid boiler and we have no heat. It blows. Luckily, I have a heated blanket. I plan to stay in bed tomorrow until it’s fixed. And I’m going to bed with a hat on.

We were able to stay out of the house most of the day. We went to Worcester to see Milk, and then we went out to dinner at the 99, because we had a gift card we got for Christmas. I’m trying to get my family to have a new year’s resolution to only eat out at local places. My mom is trying to tell me that there aren’t enough options. I tell her that’s bull crap. There’s a great Mexican restaurant in Lunenburg, and several Italian places, and good Thai and Vietnamese places, too. There’s also an OK regular American place that my mom doesn’t really like, but it’s not terrible. I think we have plenty of options, and if not, then we shouldn’t go out to eat!

I finished the fourth and final Twilight book tonight. The author started to write a fifth book, but it got leaked to the Internet. She stopped writing it, but allowed her fans to read it on her website. I checked it out not long ago, and it’s 264 pages! I’m pretty excited to read it, but haven’t started it yet. I guess it’s the same story as the first book, but from Edward Cullen’s perspective.

On my to do list for tomorrow is to clean out the basement and organize things. I have my whole “apartment area” of pots and pans and dishes and stuff like that, and it needs to be organized. There’s also a lot of other crap in the basement that just needs to be tossed or freecycled. That’s one of the things I told my parents I’d do with my free time.

Knitting a blanket would give me something to do with my spare time. Afghan yarn is 50% off at Micheal’s this week (what is afghan yarn?? It sounds appropriate at least). My brother got me a gift card there, because I told him I want to knit a blanket. (I actually haven’t received the gift card yet, because he’s a dead beat.) But I love blankets so much that I think it’d be great to be able to use a blanket that I made. Every night when we eat dinner, I wrap a blanket around my lower body. Here I am in December of 2007 after my first surgery, with my blanket at the dinner table.

My dad took this with his iPhone as the picture that would show up when I call him. This was the time I was wearing turtlenecks all the time, because I had bandages on my neck.* I can also tell because I look really tired and worn out in this picture. I’m smiling, but I can see the tiredness in my eyes.

This is my song for 2008 - It’s called A Drop Filled With Memories (how appropriate!) and it’s from the movie Paprika.  Feel free to listen to it while you read my long post.  (Megan, don’t listen, it’s that song you don’t like).

2008 was a crazy, crazy year.  Absolutely insane.  Let’s review all I’ve been through.

I rang in New Year’s 2008 at Destare.  I came back from medical leave early so I could work. It was a lot of fun, but I teared up at midnight cause Steve was home alone, and I couldn’t spend it with him.  He spent the night playing World of Warcraft.

January 2nd - I had surgery on December 17th, and went to get my results from the endocrinologist and found out that the tumor on my thyroid was cancerous.  Not only was it cancer, but it was follicular cancer, rather than the more common papillary thyroid cancer.  Follicular is a more extreme of cancer, and tends to spread throughout the body while papillary always stays in the neck.  The reason they couldn’t be 100% sure about the cancer from the needle biopsy was because it was follicular, and that one they can’t tell just from a biopsy.  I needed to have another surgery, and I was only two weeks post-op from the first. Seriously, I find out I have cancer on the second day of the year?  That’s not a good start.

March 3rd - Surgery number 2.  I wasn’t really worried about this one (cause I had already done it once), but this surgery was scheduled in the middle of school.  I had to miss only one class, I think because I was still in the hospital when class met (Surgery was always on Monday, and I stayed over night until Tuesday).  For this surgery, I got out, and they put me in the recovery room, but my room upstairs wasn’t ready, so I had to stay in the recovery room all afternoon.  I got out of the OR at 11, and didn’t go up to my room until 5.  I was on morphine which was awesome, but they wouldn’t give me any water, only ice chips.  People in recovery kept getting X-Rayed, so they kept throwing a lead vest on top of me.  I think it happened about 6 times.  If I didn’t have cancer before, I most definitely had it after that. My parents kept coming in and out of the room, but for privacy reasons, they couldn’t stay.  My mom brought me my book and I was reading.  I was most definitely ready to have my own room.  I finally got upstairs and I had my own private room!  I was also really alert and able to hang out with my parents cause I was doped up.  In the middle of the night when the morphine was worn off was when the pain finally hit. I was awake on and off all night, and Steve spent the night on the floor to keep me company.  He kept having to help me move or adjust, or go to the bathroom (I had an IV in, and had to work around that to go to the bathroom).  Notice the awesome pen marks on my ear and neck in the bottom picture.  That is to say “CUT HERE”  and “THIS SIDE.”

Sometime in March - I was really really stressed out and sad.  I broke up with Steve because I felt like I couldn’t deal with anything anymore.

May - Radioactive Girl!  I had to go on a crazy low iodine diet for three weeks, and then go into Boston and get a mini dose of radiation, and then two days later, a major dose of radiation!  It was mixed with strawberry Kool-Aid. Yum.  Any of you ever been tested with a Geiger counter before?

Senator Kennedy was at Mass General the same day that I had my radiation.  I had two appointments scheduled.  I got my whole body scan (me lying down) at 12, and then didn’t go get my radiation until 2pm.  Between those times, we came downstairs to the lobby of the Wang building at MGH (that’s where all my appointments were).  Senator Kennedy was being released just as we were in the lobby.  We got to see him walk out of the hospital, and everyone in the lobby stood and clapped for him.  Here’s my dad live on CNN that day, his twin brother happened to be watching it live on CNN in Ohio, and hit record on his Tivo.  Then, he called my dad, and said:

“Uh, are you at some hospital in Boston?”
“yeah, Robin has her radiation today.”
“Are you wearing jeans and a blue shirt?”
“Yeah, how’d you know?”
“You were just live on CNN!!!”

My dad was also on the cover of the NY Times the next day.

The reason I was having such a hard time with the diet was because I was just picking at food and not eating real meals.  I finally was able to change that after a few days, but here is what I would have for lunch:

After receiving the radiation at the hospital, I had to then come immediately home and be isolated from my family for three whole days.  It was crazy!  I was having trouble sleeping because I was off my medicine, so I had to hang a blanket over my window so it would get completely dark in my room.  I also had my laptop, my pile of books, and my remotes!  Bill let me borrow 30 Rock, which was awesome because I had never seen it before.  This was the first day I was allowed to be off my diet, so I’m enjoying my first bowl of cereal in 3 weeks.  I was so excited about it, I had to take a picture (on timer mode, cause I had to be alone).

July 2 - Turned 24.  Pretty uneventful.  But I went out with friends! (Jeanne, Bill, and Paul)

July 6th - I went to the Boulder with Amy cause her friend Kyle was playing in the band.  It was the last night of the Longsjo, and I met Emiliano! (he’s the one in the yellow and green all the way to the left)

I was sitting on the curb with Amy (the band was playing in the blocked off street), and these guys come walking up to the bar.  One of the Lonsjo volunteers says “Oh, these are guys who raced today!  They’re on one of the best teams”.  I looked up, and I noticed one of the guys had bright yellow socks with weird red suns on them.  I recognized the socks as the state flag of New Mexico, because I used to live there.  I jumped up from my seat, and ran up to him and the convo went like this:

“I’m sorry… are your socks the state flag of New Mexico?”
“Yeah, that’s where our racing team is from!”
“I used to live there!”

“what part?”
“Santa Fe”
“That’s where I’m from!”
“No way!”
“Ok, I’m going to go grab a beer, and I’ll catch up with you later.”

So then I went to sit down, and the older gentlemen who were sitting near us said to me, “Wow, you don’t waste any time, huh?”  He found me later, and we hung out all night, and I just knew that he was this cool guy that I HAD to get a picture taken with, so I ran to my car and grabbed my camera to get some pictures before I left.  He had busted up his hand pretty badly in the race earlier in the day (notice the awesome wrap job).  Emiliano and I have become great friends, and he does my blog for me.  He doesn’t write it, but he does everything else.  Check out his awesome web design site, Pushing Buttons.  Go to him for all your web design needs!

July 25th - X-Files: I Want To Believe came out.  I had waited 6 years for this movie, and Bill and I went down to a midnight showing in Marlborough (a 45 minute drive). I brought my action figures with me.  I was so excited, that we kept having to re-take this picture because my smile was so big I looked like an idiot.

July 27th - Dad and I get caught in the rain while running.  We knew there was a huge storm coming, but I wanted to go for a run anyway.  We were almost done when it started down pouring.  I had my mom take the picture, because I think it shows our dedication.

July 28th - Megan and Mac came home to prepare for their wedding!  They didn’t do so much preparing, as much as they did lollygagging around and picking berries with me.  I love picking berries.

August 3rd -  Megan gets married! Mac and his parents fly in from England, and we have a great time!

At the wedding (and during the receptions) Sally and I went a little crazy, and took hundreds (literally, hundreds) of pictures of us goofing around.

August 13 - 26 - I fly out to New Mexico and hang out with Emiliano for two weeks.  We went hiking, hung out in Santa Fe, cooked a lot, took artsy photographs, watched a LOT of Weeds, and I got Strep throat, and had to go to the ER.  It was an all around great trip.  I got a little really homesick for Megan, and felt bad that she was in the US, but I wasn’t with her.  I think I got a little cranky and sad because of that, but Emiliano put up with me!  To apologize, I will include this picture (on the left), because it is his favorite, and it makes me look like an idiot.  He kept scratching this one spot on my back (scratching it in just one place, so the spot would get raw), and it was driving me insane.  I was still getting over being sick (I spent about 2 full days in bed), and I was very irritable.  This is him driving me insane on purpose so he could take a funny picture.  He looks very pleased with himself.  But seriously, Emiliano, tell them how sick I was!!!  I was incredibly sick.  His step mom was giving me Vicodin to make me feel better.  It rocked.

Emiliano was also kind enough to go on a horribly long car ride with me to Roswell, NM, home of the infamous 1946 UFO crash!  Everything was UFO themed, it was awesome.  We even went to the International UFO Museum and Research Center.  Pretty interesting stuff, definitely worth the 3 hour long ride.  This was also my very first blog post!!!  (I had backdated other cancer related stuff - but the Roswell post was the first, cause that’s when Emiliano set up my blog!)

August 27th - I flew back from New Mexico on the 26th, and the very next day, we flew out to England for Megan’s wedding party over there.  It wasn’t too bad, cause all my luggage was already packed!  I just had to grab fancy stuff for her party.  We had a lot of fun, but we weren’t there for long enough!

September- I got a pedometer, and went a little crazy.  Such as the time when I jogged in place for 2.5 miles to get to 10,000 steps.  I still wear it religiously every day, but I’m only at 4388 now (at 8:45pm), and there’s no way I’m jogging in place for 2.5 miles tonight.

October 1 - 31 - Buy Nothing Month!  It was awesome, and I’m going to do it again this month. (I bought a new laptop September 28th, only days before BNM started)

October 4th - I ran my first 5k!  (I haven’t seen that recycling shirt in a few months.  Uh oh.  That’s why I have to clean my room!!!)

October - I started picking up trash around Fitchburg.  I did this many more times, but I had to stop cause it’s too cold out and there’s snow everywhere.  Niles and I will commence in the spring.  I will try to get more people involved, and to expand the area where we work.  I think we should have T-Shirts made.  Here’s me and Niles celebrating our trash accomplishments:

November - Started to get fed up with Destare.  Started back at Macy*s for the holidays.  Thanksgiving with family friends.  I met with the Brew Year’s Eve crew twice a week to plan BYE.  We decided on our production company name, Beers For Good, and started our own website.  From August through November, I get sick for one week every single month.  It started with Strep in Santa Fe, and continued.  I am immuno-compromised.

December -  More planning of BYE.

Quit Destare.

Huge ice storm hit North Central Mass, and we lost power and heat for 11 days.

I got a 4.0 in my class this semester, leaving me with a cumulative GPA of 3.93.  I have only one class left.  w00t!  (this portion added for Megan).

Megan came home for Christmas.  We got walloped with two ice storms - 18 inches total in 72 hours.  She loved it.

Dec. 31st - Brew Year’s Eve!  It went great, and we had tons of fun.

That’s it.  2008 in a nutshell.

I clearly lost steam after October.  I figured that because I started blogging in September, I only needed to update peeps on the things that happened before then.  Plus, that’s when all the important stuff happened.  But if you want to learn more, read my friggen blog.

I am done.  This post took me 3 hours to write!  It was all the pictures that were slowing me down… but I think they’re great!

I realize this wasn’t a review.  It was a synopsis.  Here’s my review of 2008:  it sucked. Too many bad things happened.  Sure, there were good parts, but there were also not good parts, and I think the effect the bad parts had on me out weighs the good parts.  Disagree?  Too bad.

Questions?  Comments?  Leave ‘em.

Monday night at 6. You can see the clock in the picture of Megan with the fridge. I noticed the neighbors across the street had power, so my dad went to the basement to unplug the generator. Trevor and Amy had arrived for our dinner, so he went down to help. I turned the kitchen light on so we’d be able to see it turn on. They turned off the generator and the house went black, then power came back. When we saw the kitchen light go on, we all cheered.

11 days later and we got power back.
I finally saw a Unitil (our power company) truck on Tuesday, day 12. It was getting gas. I hadn’t seen one at all the entire time, and when I finally see one, they aren’t even working. HA!

Tuesday Megan and I went into Boston because I had two doctor appointments at Mass General with my thyroid doctor. I had my 6 month post radiation ultra sound. It came back negative, which is good. My blood work will be back next week. He thinks my levels are too high which is why I’m hungry all the time. He said young people tend to eat more with a high level, thus can gain weight. Most people think “hyperthyroid” means being skinny (high metabolism) but the high metabolism makes Hypers super hungry, so we eat more and actually gain weight. That blows. If I had better self control, maybe I wouldn’t have a problem.
After my appointments, we went out shopping for gifts and groceries. Megan will only eat meat if it’s humane. Meaning free range. So we had to find free range chicken for our chicken pot pie tonight, and a free range turkey for tomorrow. Quite the adventure. We went to two Whole Foods and one Trader Joe’s. Megan was disappointed with TJs, but very very impressed with WF. We both got a yummy dinner at WF and we even brought home our plastic containers to reuse them. That’s a picture of Megan boxing everything up to take home.

We didn’t get a bag at WF even though we forgot to bring our Chico Bag. I had grapefruits and brie in my purse, and we carried the cider and turkey by hand. We are trying very hard to be Eco friendly!

That’s all for now. We still don’t have cable or Internet, so I have to do all my updates via iPhone. It takes forever! And I’m sure there are errors I haven’t caught.
When we do get Internet, I’ll be sure to update. I’ve been taking nice pictures on my phone of various things. Sorry I can’t put the pictures where they go, this app just places them at the bottom.

Fruit salad (cause it is delicious)

Wonderful friends at both of my jobs

Jenny at Macy*s for bringing me to see Twilight (I give it a 93 out of a possible 100).  We’re going to try to hang out more and watch sci-fi/fantasy movies together.

Trevor, Liz, and my dad for letting me be a part of Beers For Good, even though I’m not a beer enthusiast.

Being the healthiest and most fit I’ve ever been in my entire life (minus having cancer).

Being almost done with my degree.  One more class, and then my internship!

A mom and dad who understand that I’m trying to save money, and let me live at home rent free, and they even buy me groceries.  I try to cook for them, but I’m terrible at cleaning up after myself.

My friend Jay who introduced me to the TV show How I Met Your Mother.  It’s fantastic.

My friend Niles who always makes me smile at Destare, and who goes and picks up trash with me. (He’s the only one, you environment hating dead-beats).

Honey Bunches of Oats.  I couldn’t start my day without it!

Emiliano for hosting this blog free of charge.  (I didn’t even know that until last week, but I’m very thankful)

Fruit salad  (I just got a second serving!!!)

Diet Pepsi Max (Megan will kill me, but I LOVE it)

That Barack Obama won the election

Worked all weekend at Destare.  I always work every Thursday, Friday and Saturday,  It’s starting to be a bit much because I never have any free on the weekends to do anything fun.  It stinks! (said in the voice of Jay Sherman)  I don’t want to just have random Friday and Saturday nights off, because then I might end up sitting at home not doing anything, when I could be at work making money!  But I’d like to be free to do something.  I would LOVE to have a Monday through Friday job that I love, and then work the occasional Friday or Saturday night, and that will be my fun spending money.

Here’s another message I got on a credit card receipt at work.  This guy left a number AND his name (but I cropped out the number when I took the picture). Most of the doofuses only leave their number, and no name. Geniuses.  It wasn’t even a 20% tip, so he mustn’t have thought I was THAT cute. Plus, he left it on the credit card receipt that I have to pass in at the end of the night. Note to all guys who leave numbers to girls, DON’T put it on the credit card receipt!

Saturday, I worked till 2:30am, then had to wake up and go to Macy*s on Sunday.  After working the full day, we had our Christmas party that night to get ready for the busy holiday season.  We always do it on Sunday nights, cause the store closes at 7.  That way, even people who work can still get to the party. But once we get closer to Christmas, the store is open later on Sundays, which is why we had to have the party so early. Jenny and I got our makeup done by Lori at Clinique.  It was fun, but I don’t like wearing so much makeup.  It made it very obvious that I was wearing makeup.  I like wearing enough that the color in my face is well blended,  but I don’t look made up or anything.  You can’t really tell from the picture, but my eyes were pretty made up.  Notice my thyroid scar?  Yeah, it’s pretty awesome.  Everyone at works keeps asking about it, and they think it’s a scratch!  But then I tell them it’s a scar from surgery. Oh, and I just found out that one of the guys at work was gay (he’s on the right of the picture of Jenny getting her makeup). He was talking about some hot guy he saw at CVS, and I thought “jigga what?!” I had no idea. Then I told everyone that I didn’t know, and they all made fun of me. Kaleena said I had bad gay-dar.

This is Coleen, Jess, and Jenny at our table at the party.  We had a ton of fun, and danced the night away.  We did all the crazy group dances like the macarena, the electric slide (which I don’t know), the song that says “now glide to the left…. cha cha cha”, and of course, the YMCA (as seen in the picture). I got a cute Christmas tree decoration that has my name on it. I also did an awesome 17,000 by working all day and then dancing!

On a final note, I must be seriously stressed out or worried about something, because I am absolutely tearing my nails apart.  This is a picture Nicole took of my hand after she did my nails.  She went to nail school and she did my nails a couple times to practice.  After the nails grew out a bit, I decided to take them off because I didn’t want to have to pay for them.  However, now that they’re off, I can’t keep them out of my mouth.  I’m biting them so much that they’re bleeding, and they HURT.  I think I’ve decided to just get them on again, at least for the holiday season while I might be overly stressed (2 jobs, babysitting, school, and planning the Brew Year’s Eve party).  But I’m going to do a simple thing so they’re cheaper.  However, with babysitting, I pull in $50 a week, so I figure that can be my free money to spend how I please.  I know that fake nails are stupid, and pointless, and a waste of money, but when I have them, I keep my fingers out of my mouth.

Biting my nails was a HUGE deal when I had my radiation.  Because I drank my radiation, my mouth was a major hot spot (it was mixed in with strawberry Kool-Aid - seriously).  I couldn’t kiss anyone, share utensils or cups with anyone because my mouth was considered hot.  When I put my fingers in my mouth, I would get the radiation on my fingers, and then, of course, anything that I touched.  It was a big deal, and a bad way to contaminate things.  I got yelled at by my radiation safety officer for putting them in my mouth right in front of him.  Oops!  Being wary of that has not made me change my habits, though.  And so, the only way I know to keep them out of my mouth, is to put fake nails on them.

Holy steps.  I worked my first shift at Macy’s today as a Christmas Manager***.  It was only a five hour shift, but I walked a whopping 12,000 steps.  SIX MILES!  Holy crapola.  I don’t do anything like that at Destare… sometimes I’m lucky if I do around 3,000.  I’m still hesitant as if I’m excited to be back, I love the job, and I walk around all day smiling (seriously, all I do is walk around)…. but I’m not sure if I want to keep going back week after week.  It’s only a 7 week gig, so it’s not terrible, and it will put some extra money in my pocket.  The woman I babysit for called me today, and she’s opening up her own acupuncture place in Leominster (hopefully, she’ll work on me for free!!!).  She’s asking if I can work for her every Wednesday starting in December from 12-5 or 1-6.  Sounds good to me!  That’s even more extra money.  Just from babysitting, that’s at least an extra $50 a week.  Awesome.  I was thinking that with all these jobs (especially with the extra babysitting money) that I’d have Nicole do my nails again.  When I don’t have acrylic nails on, I bite the crap out of my real nails.  Seriously.  They bleed sometimes.  I just can’t help it. Plus, the money would be going to Nicole, which is cool.  BUT, Nicole went and got a job at VH1 in New York City, and she’s moving away this weekend.  Damn her!  But seriously, how freaking awesome is that???  I’m super jealous, but I’m sooooo proud of her.  That is absolutely the best thing ever.  “Oh, yeah, I work at VH1.”  Niiiiice.  But now I’m sad that she can’t do my nails, and that we can’t hang out anymore (this is the Nicole I ran the 5k with, and hung out with Saturday night).  Blast it!  Oh, and she’s going to be the Production Assistant on the show “Top 40 Celebrity Divorces.”  Hilarious.

And now that my day is over, I have walked a total of 19,346 steps.  10 freaking miles.  I wonder if I can beat that tomorrow?  I’m working the same 5 hour shift.  Challenge!!!!

I got my TSH levels back from my blood test.

0.04

Right where it should be.  Dammit.

Once a year for the next few years, I need to go on a crazy diet for a month for a scan to check to see if my cancer has come back. It’s a low iodine diet, and here it is.

Here’s the quick run down of what I CAN’T have:

• Iodized salt, sea salt, and any foods containing iodized salt and sea salt.
• Seafood and sea products
• Dairy products of any kind
• Egg yolks or whole eggs or foods containing whole eggs.
• Bakery products containing iodine/iodate dough conditioners or high-iodine ingredients.
• Red Dye #3.
• Most Chocolate (due to milk content).
• Some molasses (if sulfured, such as blackstrap molasses). Unsulfured molasses, which is more common, is okay. Sulfur is a term used on labels and does not relate to iodine.
• Soybeans and soybean products such as tofu, TVP, soy milk, soy sauce.
• On some diets, rhubarb and potato skins (inside of the potato is fine).
• Iodine-containing vitamins and food supplements.

Basically, I can’t have ANYTHING made by anyone else, if it could possibly have salt in it. And that BLOWS. Lately, I haven’t been eating anything much that would be disallowed on my diet, except for my morning cereal. I eat Honey Bunches of Oats EVERY single day, with skim milk and a banana. I looooove it. But I won’t be able to have HBoO on my diet, or my milk. In May, when I was on my LID, I had either egg whites, or toast with 100% fruit jam, or Fleishmann’s no-salt margarine. The bread was handmade by my brother (cause he rocks), so I knew it had no iodine in it. Then, one TERRIBLE morning, I woke up, and I had no bread. My father had finished it for breakfast. Seriously. I was having trouble sleeping, cause I was off of my medicine, so I was up and about earlier than usual, and he was still home before work (8am? 7?) And booooooooy, did I let him have it. Basically, I kept yelling “WHY WOULD YOU EAT MY BREAD WHEN YOU CAN EAT REGULAR BREAD???? I CAN’T EAT REGULAR BREAD, AND YOU ATE THE ONLY BREAD I CAN EAT. WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT??? THERE’S PLENTY OF REGULAR BREAD!!!!!!! NOW WHAT AM I GOING TO HAVE FOR BREAKFAST?????” And his response was, “I guess I wasn’t thinking.” It ruined my entire day. I’m the kind of person who goes to bed thinking of breakfast (because I love it so much), and I imagine what I’m going to have. So when I wake up, if I can’t have it, I get veeeeeery cranky. I think I’ve made my mom run out at 7am to buy me the right kind of cereal. And because she’s the best mom in the whole world, she’s done it for me. But seriously, if I’m jonesing for toast and butter, I can’t then switch to eggs. I’m not craving eggs!!!

Since I can’t have my HBoO, Megan gave me a great recipe for granola that I can make myself, but milk is still an issue. I can’t have soy (all soy is a no-no), I can’t have almond or rice milk cause they all have sea salt in them (why??? I don’t get it!) However, there is a hemp milk, made by Living Harvest, that does NOT have sea salt in it. Alas! A “milk” I can have!!!! So today, I went on a mission to find it.

I had to go to Woburn to see Stephanie, she had a fancy dress of mine that I’m going to wear to a wedding this weekend. There’s a Whole Foods in Woburn, so it worked out perfectly! The Whole Foods didn’t have the kind I wanted, they have the Original, sweetened kind, with 15 whopping grams of sugar. The UNSWEETENED kind has 0 grams. That’s a pretty big difference. So no luck, they didn’t have it. They had Hemp Bliss brand unsweetened, but it contained sea salt. Either way, I can’t have it on my diet, so I figured “why get it, if I can’t drink it when I need to.” So I passed it up, and moved on.

Next, I went to Framingham where there’s a Trader Joe’s that sells alcohol. Including $3 Charles Shaw wine. Yes, Please! There was also a Whole Foods RIGHT next door, so I parked at Whole Foods, and walked from one to the other (cause that’s the Green thing to do). Whole Foods didn’t have it either. But they DID have another kind, made by Hemp Dream. It had crazy tie dye stuff on the front. Cause it’s hemp, and hemp is like weed, and people who smoke weed like tie dye. Or something like that. This one is NOT unsweetened, but it was salt free, and it only had 6g of sugar. Which was a lot less than 15g. My regular skim milk has 12g of sugar, but my mom said it was “natural milk sugar” . . .whatever that means.

Emiliano said he was also going to look for hemp milk (cause he’s lactose-intolerant, and he usually drinks rice milk). He said he’d give hemp milk a try with me, and we are going to review it. I will post his review along with mine.

I’m going to have it for breakfast tomorrow, with my cereal and banana. But I guess the real test would be to try out the granola and have it that way. Cause that’s how I’ll have to have it on my LID. And I’m thinking it might taste different with different things. I tried Emiliano’s rice milk with my HBoO, and it was great!!! But maybe it wouldn’t have been as good with Cheerios, or something. My HBoO is already sweet, so it might have masked the taste of the rice milk. I’ll let you know tomorrow how it goes! I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Update: Emiliano can’t find hemp milk, so his review will have to wait.