Sometimes I wish

Sometimes I wish

I wish that it was like it used to be, let’s say, 25 years ago…

No worries, playing with grandma what it would be when I was all grown up.

Well, I’m grown up all right, and it is absolutely nothing like I thought it was going to be.

Bastiaan and I went to the hospital last Friday to get the results of the scan we had the previous Monday.

The good news was that nothing really got any bigger, the doc did see some “new” spots but he thought they were already there last time, before we started the IL-2 treatment. They were new to us, so I just hope the doctor is right (and yes I trust him so I shouldn't worry too much…). The not so good news was, of course, that they didn't get any smaller either...

I know this all is actually good news and I know I should be really happy, the news that we got Friday was above all our (mine for sure, which is only proof that I still don’t know my body) expectations, but “happy” doesn’t seem to be on the menu lately.

I think that is why I’m having such a difficult time writing, I do not want to be negative (I always imagined my little stories to be positive and hopefully make people laugh) or write negative stories/blog posts, so I didn’t write at all for (what seems to  me) a incredibly long time…

Sorry it took me so long

Your prayers, gifts, cards and above all love still give me inspiration every day. And if you can hang in there with me a little bit longer I am (almost) sure we are going to be oke and smile like that little girl again…


...

The C stands for ...

When we were in the hospital something amazing happened!
Well... I think it was pretty amazing, anyway...

It is very uplifting/humbling to see your life story written down by somebody else, it sure makes you feel very blessed! I really hope you like Emily's article!

And i am sorry but you have to click the link in order to get to the article (maybe even open a new window)...

Chasing a Dream: One woman's fight for a Dairy farm life


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Things are going well. Every new day is a better one then the day before. Hopefully we are going to see the girls today! And i am sure happy to be back here with all of you!

Round Two starts Today...

OK, today is the day.
Bastiaan and I are heading back to Indy...

My little sister came back from The Netherlands again for a couple of weeks to support all of us and I am pretty sure my mom, dad and little brother are going to do an awesome job keeping the farm running. Making sure the boys (our employees) and our girls (our cows) are getting the best of everything.

Still incredibly scared but ready to fight again if the doctor says we are going to go for round two but since we are not quite sure what the doctor is going  to say (probably "yes, let's do it") it is not only scary but also a bit nerve racking...

It might be a while before I see you all again. But I am gonna assume it will be not too long...

I'm gonna miss you!

In case we are a little bit longer gone... Bastiaan might have given an update on Love for Leontien


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You got to be kidding?!?

What I believed at some point as simply not possible, just came with time... I can walk from one side of the house to the other, without toppling over from lack of breath… I can even walk to my mom and dad’s house (if I really wanted), three quarters of a mile down the road! 

Whoohhooo!

The stress test went well. Doc says I am ready for Round Two…

I don’t think I am ready for Round Two…

Last Thursday I was sleeping in a little bit, like I have been doing since I got back from the hospital and I was having this incredibly annoying, please, please go away, itch. One of the side effects is itchiness and for the last week, somehow it just doesn’t wanna stop.

I rub myself with five different lotions but they all seem to work a couple of hours and then I have to undress and lather up all over again. But Bastiaan and I reason this to be a good thing, it just means that the chemo stuff is still doing its thing and thus Kill, Kill, Kill all those nasty cells…

So while I lay in bed, scratching myself everywhere until I am nice and red all over again, thinking by myself that I really need another bottle of lotion, right here besides my bed,  I feel something  (feeling something  that wasn’t there before on your body is NOT a good thing)…

YOU GOT TO BE KIDDING!!!????

I jump out of bed towards the bathroom and check again.

It could be imagination, you know. Very common amongst patients to feel things that are not really there just because they are scared that something is there…

There was defiantly something there.

And then I got a little angry, well and then MAD and then even MADDER (don’t know if that is a proper English word but my spelling check says it’s ok…) and then I got REALLY REALLY upset.

How come that we are doing this immense-awful chemo stuff, which almost killed me (and I thought the whole plan behind this chemo thing was that I was NOT going to be dying any time soon) and now I am feeling a little bump in my armpit…

Let me tell you this is NOT very uplifting, hopeful or encouraging while trying to Kick Cancer in the Butt.

I called IU in Indianapolis but they didn’t pick up the phone so I called my Dr Nala. She told me to come right away and she would have a look (did I tell you she and the nurses over there are just little angels???). Bastiaan and I rushed to the hospital and Dr Nala checked the little bump. Yes it was defiantly there and no I wasn’t just in my imagination (which I of course new, but then again I have been wrong about my body in the past…). Dr Nala got on the phone and checked with my doctor at IU and together they looked at my CAT-scans and discussed the situation.

Their explanation: It had been there before, I just might not have felt it any sooner and/or because of the chemo it might have enlarged a bit or got closer to the surface of the skin and that is why I felt it now. BUT that it did NOT mean that the chemo is not working and/or that we are not doing the whole kill, kill, kill thing, so we shouldn’t (never ever) give up!

I am scared shitless.

 (I promised myself I wouldn’t curse in my blog… I am promising you now it won’t happen again)

...

Back in the land of the Living...

My gosh…

Cancer Butt Kicking is HARD!!!

I remember the first day in the hospital

I remember the last day of being in the hospital

I remember it being so hard to breathe

I remember Bastiaan being there… always…

When you gain about 7 pounds in 3 days you look like a tomato. And no I don’t mean a cute little tomato  on a little green limb but a FAT, I do not feel happy RED ( called the IL-2 tan) I’m almost falling of off my stick tomato! Being like a tomato is not a good thing. Especially when you keep telling the doctor you are feeling “peachy”…

I got 12 treatments in. They (the doctor and very sweet nurses) say this is a really good thing cause the total you can get is 14 treatments in the first round. We started Monday the 17^th. Every eight hours they would give me the Inter Leukin, but by Thursday I had accumulated so much fluid that my heart had a lot of trouble pumping all my blood to my organs.

A little birdie told me once that it is pretty important to have your heart pump blood around too all your organs all the time...

So Dr Logan and his team stopped treatment and they focused on “fixing me up” quick so my heart didn't get crazy ideas.  Which I think was a super idea!  We stayed in on the Intensive Care Unit until Tuesday the 25^th instead of Sunday the 23th (like normal IL-2 patients) because they wanted to make sure I was all right, that my heart was doing fine, and the fluid was decreasing. Also I needed to get my strength back and get of off the oxygen, (like those little old ladies you see in the movies toting around one of those oxygen tanks… although I didn't walk at all at that time…) and start breathing normally.

I don’t remember very much of being in the hospital, only what my family tells me I did or didn’t do. But maybe that is better. It must have been very hard on them though….

Today I have been home for a week. I can shower by myself (WHOOHOO!!!), I can breathe, read and write again (Oh Yeah Baby) and I can talk walks outside and see Classic, Jones and the crazy cats. I have been to the farm for the first time yesterday and seen our girls...

Life is good.

But this was only part one.

In order to do the full Inter Leukin Treatment (and kill kill kill all those nasty cells) we have to do another round off 5 days Intensive Care…

And, well… we are not sure my heart can take another round. So this week were going to fuel up, get strong, get stamina back and learn to walk to the other side of the house and not be totally exhausted… (no, our house is NOT that big…) AND do a stress test. This stress test is to see if my heart can take another round. They are also going to draw some blood and we are going to see Dr Logan again.

In the mean time I just am overwhelmed (in a GOOD way) with your prayers, cards, gifts, presents, flowers, bears, cookies, socks, pirate games, monkeys in a jar, lollypops, crèmes and all the other goodies you guys sent me and continue to feel very much blessed and loved! You Crazy American’s really do things bigger and better!!! Haha!

THANK YOU!!!

...

I'll be back!

OK...
I think I'm ready...

I will see you in a week or so...!!!
Well...  Maybe sooner if you are up for a pajama party in the hospital.... ;-)

We will see how things go and I'll try to keep you updated! I hope you have a wonderful week and make sure you love every moment of it! And don't forget, I'll be thinking about you all!!!

Big hugs
Leontien




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Who's afraid of heights?

I am afraid of heights.

Not as much as I am afraid of spiders.

Well... maybe...

I went to Australia a couple of years ago, and it was an absolute wonderful experience. The country is just gorgeous. What I liked the best was the fact that about every two days we had a different scenery. One day we would be at the shore looking at the sea and see the sun go down, the other day we would be in the middle of a rain forest. Well at least I thought it was a rain forest, it sure was hot and humid!

We saw mountains and we saw cows (of course) and very very disappointing, I have to admit, only ONE kangaroo, and I don’t even think it was a kangaroo but a walibi (big difference)! But we did see some koala’s which made up for the lack of kangaroos.

Everything was just fantastic until the day we got the “genius” idea to do something different…

This something different  was us scouting for fun things to do on our way from one destination to the other,  we needed some exercise as well and since we already walked besides the shore (where we found out we really needed good shoes, walking gear AND drinking water) and  the desert (which was just HOT again with crazy amounts of flies, EVERYWHERE but at least we brought water that time) we were very pleased when we saw a sign that said “Tree Top Walks” and an explanation of what a three top walk was (which is a path in the top of the trees, man made, which meant the path was made out of metal with little see true holes  in the bottom and attached with cables and/or laying on TALL round posts and SWAYING) and... some stunning pictures.

Being a little naive and blown away by the great pictures (good advertisement on their part) I thought this would help me get over my fear of heights and so I said “Ok, let’s do it!”

I really should have known better.

The beginning was not so bad.  The “path” started out at “ground level”, but quickly the dirt was not there anymore and we were up in the air. Yes, as long as I would look straight forward and went from tree to tree, it wasn’t so bad… But of course that was NOT the only thing I did.

Nooooo I had to look down, see how those cables where attached to those trees, and because I saw the cables I saw us moving slowly from the right to the left and back, and I did a little calculation that those posts on which this metal path WITH SEE TRUE HOLES was attached too was defiantly not strong enough to keep us up there!!!  Doing all this math is not a good thing when you are up 60 feet (i don't know how high we were, it was HIGH to me) in the air and afraid of heights….

Half way true the “walk” I decided I didn’t get no air anymore… “Well, and that I really was afraid and never ever should have attempt something as dumb as this”. But of course it was a bit too late for that and I hurried on down the half mile path…  pushing everybody out of my way and yelling to keep following me!

Do you know how long half a mile is?

It's pretty far…

I got to the other end and just went on my knees and cried like a little baby. You should have seen the looks on the faces of the other people that came of that path, they for sure thought I lost my mind, but I just could not stop myself!  And just as a reminder, you shouldn’t believe the people who tell you you look lovely after bawling your eyes out for 15 minutes either.  Lucky for me the whole thing was a loop and so I didn’t have to go back over that path to get to the car and face more people. Which would have added more shame upon embarrassment…

We went for some more scenery seeing in the safety of our car… which was just fine with me! I didn’t need no more exercise anyway that day…

I really love trees, love them in my yard, besides the roads, in forests, in pictures or paintings, with leafs or without leafs, but I am never going to attempt to do a three top walk again, EVER!!! There are just some things a girl sound not attempt twice…

...

Monday is coming closer and closer but I don’t quite know if that is a good thing or a bad thing… Guess we will find out soon! I did do some fun things (laying in the yard watching the cats play, called a bunch of good friends and chatted, went pantie shopping with my little sister. I worked at the farm, my little brother is getting really good at cracking those numbers. And read a lot of beautiful blogs, and i am soaking up all the LOVING you guys give me... Everything is going to be just fine...

Problem or Opportunity

I have a little problem…

I have one week…

One week before we start the huge battle…

One week before my life starts to look pretty grim (seeing a list of all the side effects and hoping my body doesn't decide something that my mind doesn't want to admit could even happen) and now I don’t know what to do until we get there…

Do I spent the week by doing all the things I normally don’t do, or do I work like normal (or a little harder) and make sure that everything is good to go when I will be in Indy?

Maybe I’ll do both?

...

Ready... Set... Go...

Ok, you better all get your undies and toothbrush gathered cause you get to visit!!!

The Plan (and yes “The Plan” might change a bit when we move closer to the "starting date") but we have decided on going to Indi. Yes I know this might come (a little bit) as a shock and truth to be told, Chicago was really nice, the people were very sweet and the doctors very knowledgeable but we felt that we wanted to be a bit closer to home...

I really need all of you, my family, my friends, my buddies (Classic, Jones and the cats) and girls (our cows)  to beat this thing with me and I thought I would feel kinda lonely in Chicago... And yes this may seem a bit silly... But i feel stronger this way and ready too fight, so Bastiaan and I thought this would be a good reason because we need to be as strong as possible. In Chicago they told us that we always could come back if necessary, which was a good and nice thing to know.

So, while we decided on where to go, more tests were done, more test results came back and all the treatment options were presented to us. Out of the three options we have chosen for Inter leukin IL-2, this is a fancy smancy name for a shitty (yes I said it) drug, that hopefully will boost my immune system and knock all those nasty cells out of my body. And no, I am not a nurse or doctor so I might not have used the perfect terms to describe it but I think you get the whole picture if you click on the link (which you don't have to cause its no fun anyway).

The Plan in Indy is as follows: We are going to go to the hospital, I will get admitted to the Intensive Care Unit and I will stay there a whole week. They only do five days of treatment, every eight hours, but we'll need the two extra days to recover. Then we will go home for a week, rest... And we will be back at the Intensive Care the following week and we'll do it all over again, if (and this is a big IF apparently) my body (and mind) can stand the treatment.

The side effects are pretty nasty, so I am not going to name them (The list is too long and a tiny bit depressing…). The good thing is that we will have all day visiting rights!!! Whoohoo... Only two people at the same time, but well… I was pretty happy about that!

Bastiaan and my family can stay most of the time and if they need to go home for a bit, (maybe to drive around in some tractors, look at the cows and talk to all the boys, which can be pretty relaxing after spending a lot of time in the IC) somebody else can come for a bit and stay with me...?

There you go, that is The Plan. Having a private party while doing some MAJOR cancer kicking in Indy while wearing our scull panties and new PJ’s!!!  It sounds good to me…

…

Check, check, double check

I have my horse. Check
I have my sword. Check
I have my skull panties. Check
I have my family and friends. Check
I have lot's of love and support. Check
I have lot's of wonderful people praying for me (THANK YOU!). Check

I seem to have all the check's in place. But for whatever reason i can't quite start fighting yet. Maybe this week is, "The Week" and we will stop waiting and start doing... I'm ready...

My new fighting buddies















"I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it." — Maya Angelou




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How a girls still loves her horse!

It was 1998 and being in a different country (Canada), speaking a different language was not easy, but manageable. A bit harder to manage is riding 15 horses a day, cleaning stalls and look after the mommies and babies. But given there are 24 hours in a day, it is doable…


Nice thing about working with babies and mommies there are usually daddies too! And daddies make a difference! Since i was a little girl I had a soft spot for Walt Disney movies, you know the ones that always end right, the good guy gets the pretty girl and no animals die, ever, or the go to doggy heaven.

So being in a foreign county with all these beautiful horses was just fantastic! There was one in particular, a Morgan stallion named Fox Trim Classic. He was just like the Black Stallion, but sweeter! Basically he was just big pup, but nobody had the guts to compare a horse to a dog, so i just thought he was fantastic. I had the pleasure to ride him in a big show two weeks after i got to meet him and every day after that. I just loved the “big”  (only 15.2 which is really not that big) boy. 


I grew quite fond of his owner as well and I told her if I was EVER going to move to The States and if she EVER wanted to sell him for whatever reason I would take him! Off course being 19 years old and very optimistic and naive about live, I thought it was a reasonable suggestion...

And live goes on.


When we moved to the States in 2006 it never occurred to me that Classic, would still around. He had to be in his twenties and after a full life of breeding every mare presented to him, I didn’t think it was a possibility, of him being alive and kicking… 


I was wrong (in a very good way, wrong)!


In April of 2008 we got the earth shocking news that I had cancer. After that news I was very lost and lonely (even with all my loving family and friends surrounding me) and it was a hectic and stress full time. 


Two weeks after I received the shocking news I got another phone call. From the woman who had Classic!?! If I would be interested in having him, he was all retired and she needed a good home for him, she was getting a divorce and needed to find him a good new home.

After 12 years I said YES right away! It was just a gift from heaven, to let me know that I didn’t have to battle cancer all by myself …


So he came, a little more gray, being beautiful, understanding, sweet and powerful and during chemo, every time if I felt I just couldn’t do it no more I just had to look outside the window and see my black stallion and I know I could…

This all happened three years ago and i STILL look out the window every ten minutes to see if he is there. If we are at the farm and i know bad weather is coming, i will run home and make sure a he and his buddy Jones are ok. And yes, i will make Bastiaan go outside, right before we go to bed, and check up on him. Just in case... And i know Bastiaan doesn't mind...

I am also pretty sure that just like us, he's ready for round two and kick some cancer butt again. He sure is my Black Stallion!

This was one of my first posts from 2009 a little bit changed (no new pictures i just didn't have the time...), i hope you liked it (again)!


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We got home from Chicago and it is decision making time. What doctor, which hospital and what treatment... All of these different decisions make my head spin... Though choices are never easy ;-)

Crazy Americans that I LOVE

Ok, so last Monday the 15th  I got this HUGE surprise!
Never in a million years i would have thought that this would happen! I feel extremely blessed and thankful and much, much stronger now too fight this thing even harder!

The sweet ladies from Real Farmwives of America put up a special Facebook page... for me!?!... called: Love for Leontien to give me an extra push in the right direction (as in keep fighting)! But if you have no facebook (yet) or just quit facebook because of all the (crazy) changes you can also visit the Real Farmwives of America blog and meet the ladies who were so incredibly sweet to get this whole crazy "Love Bombing" started! Well, and the Power to the Panties, Kick Cancer's Butt Movement of course... Hehe...

Just know we love you all for being soo good to me, everybody who commented, sent emails, sent cards, Facebooked, hyved, called us on the phone, texted, stopped by the house/farm and prayed for us AND being fantastic friends! We could not fight this fight without all of you!

At the moment were back in Chicago, tomorrow (hopefully) they can tell us what kind of treatment we are going to try...

It'll be alright.

...

And just in case you missed the first Crazy Americans and you are wondering what this crazy talk is about:

Crazy American's and Public Restrooms

 





Dog Whisperer

I have absolutely no idea what our Jones is thinking most of the time.

We tried to “teach” him stuff. And yes he knows; sit, down, come, zit (Dutch for sit), pootje (give me a paw in Dutch) and AF! (means stop it RIGHT NOW! in Dutch). But if we are walking over to my mom and dads house and I try to call him to come back to me, he all of a sudden looses all the hearing senses he had two minutes before and he will just look at me with this smarty pants grin and keeps on trotting along (from a distance... yes).

I am NOT a dog whisperer. Not even close…

Lately I have been having some trouble sleeping and because we don’t have central air we also don’t have air condition. So when it gets really really hot (like it did a couple of weeks ago) Bastiaan installed on of those air-conditioning things in the window of our bedroom. But, you might know, that thing is LOUD! And that doesn't improve sleeping, so we just had the window open… hoping for a nice breeze…

It was about 3 AM in the morning and I hear Jones barking, i just (almost) fell asleep and was NOT happy with this interruption. He sometimes barks, but normally he just goes on for 3 barks and then he is silent again. This time it just seemed he was barking his head off… for forever…

Really pissed and worried that Bastiaan would awake I climbed out of bed stumbled around in the dark to find a robe, couldn’t find one so I decided to run out of the bedroom half naked…  Hoping all along that Jones wasn’t barking at some killer on the loose, didn’t really want to make some killers day by showing up all naked!

I peeked true the window and didn’t see no killers, so I even got more pissed,  that crazy dog was probably barking because of some skunk and I would run into it and it would spray me all over with that stinky stuff…. while Jones would be running around with his stupid grin on its face… Great!

While I was running thru the house I kinda forgot that I brought a new friend for Classic the day before. The friend in question was a cute baby calf all white and gray instead of white and black, like “normal” Holstein cows are, that i took from the farm. I was sooo impressed with this baby calf I talked Bastiaan into keeping it. And thus I had made a little stall besides Classic’s stall and had put the baby calf, named her Stella, in there.

I was thinking about Jones, being such a pain in the buttocks and trying to find my slippers and a jacket, (better not to run outside naked, even if it is 3 AM in the morning and we are in the middle of nowhere) at the same time ripping the door open and start running towards the barn.

Jones is barking even more (if that was even possible) and anxious waiting for me to get in the barn…

I hit the light switch and Classic is standing there, blinking his eyes as if trying to waking up but not really succeeding at it, and Jones goes absolutely berserk!

I think, “O my gosh! What is up with this dog…, I think I might need to KILL HIM!!!”

And then I see it…

Stella’s newly improved stall door is open….

“OH MY GOSH!!!”

It is dark outside, and this little 4 day old baby calf got out and I have a major big stallion here that does NOT like baby calves!… What if he runs into the fence cause all the barn doors are wide open and he can go everywhere!…  What if the little baby calf gets lost!…. What if the little baby calf gets hit by a car!.... OH NO, I have to take care of ONE BABY CALF and I lost it the first day I have it at our house!….

Needles to say I was a little worried…

Jones decides to just sit in front of the open door and stops barking all together. And there in the corner of the stall I see something white and gray. And Jones looks up at me with this look in his face like, “Look mommy, the door was open so I decided to make A LOT of noise so you would wake up and make sure you lock that door so my new friend does not get out…”

I gave him three cookies.

 And a hug.

 And one more cookie.

And told him he was a good, good dog.

…

Bastiaan have come back from Chicago, we have no real news to share except that we have to go back to Chicago this Wednesday to talk to more Melanoma specialists... we wait, and wait and wait... No news is good news, right?

Ugly things...

Yep, this says it all...

And do you see those pieces of dust on its body???!!!

Good thing I'm not scared of ugly things (yeah, yeah except spiders...)!

Chicago here we come!


...
And for all your sweet ladies (and gentlemen) who wanted my address, here is the link to our website, Four Leaf Clover Dairy, (www.fourleafcloverdairy.com) and there you can find all our contact info! Thanks!!!

Arretjes Cake = Comfort Food

I wanted to do this for a long time so, here we go! Every gal or "though" guy needs his or her comfort food every now and then to keep on going, no matter what the doctor says!

A couple of sweet people who where brave enough try the pepper and ice cream… This recipe is  much less exciting, but still very very good and no oven needed! If you have been reading my stories for a while you might know that I love a Big Mac every now and then, but this cake is just right up there on the list… The only difference is that this is a “grandma used to teach us” authentic Dutch recipe.

I promise you if you finally have all the ingredients in house (which are not too complicated to get) this should NOT take more than 15 minutes… Oh well maybe 20, depends if you have your kids, nephews and nieces, friends, friend’s kids or grandma herself helping you with the “smashing”…

What you need:

·         A bag of animal crackers (you only need about half the bag but the rest you can eat while you are “cooking”)…

·         12 tablespoons of confectioners powdered sugar

·         1 egg

·         5 tablespoons of Nestle cocoa (I am firmly against everything Hershey….)

·         And butter,  about 12 tablespoons of it, as in normal Imperial  (at Walmart) sticks of butter

If you double everything you get a nice cake form full of yummy sweetness...

How to make it:
Break  (smashing is even more fun) all the animal crackers into two or three pieces. You don’t want to make them too small but if you keep them as a whole they are too big. Melt the butter into a fluid mass. You can do this in the microwave (use a lid) or gradually on your stove. Add the sugar, cocoa and egg to your melted butter. Whip until you have no more lumps. Then add the crackers into your mixture while it is still fluid.  Put the whole mix into a cake pan which you have lined with aluminum foil, to take the cake out more easily after its done. You need to use a LOT of crackers, remember every animal counts! Hehe…

You let this sit for a night, and yes this is the HARD part because if you are like me; a little (very much so) impatient you just can’t wait the 12 hours until the next morning…  Just wait about 5 hours and it will probably be fine…

The trick is to get it stiff/hard enough so you can slice the pieces like you would do a normal cake. But even if it is not very slice able it still looks pretty funny and it sure tastes good…

I know you are NOT supposed to count the calories in this cake, so I wouldn’t recommend to make it once a week… although it is very VERY addicting.

Now that I am a full time swimmer (we went twice in two days, whoohoo…) to build up my stamina and overall physique, to be better prepared to handle the side effects of the chemo (we probably are going to start soon) I think it is also very important to make sure you eat your comfort foods (yes, besides all the healthy stuff) soooo, what better way to do that with some authentic Dutch Arretjes Cake!

I hope you enjoy and please let me know the results of your Dutch "cooking"!

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Rainbow colored basket case

My gosh!

I just can’t keep up! It is truly amazing what you guys are doing!

I feel simply overwhelmed with sweetness, kind thoughts and prayers and it sure is a good kind off “being overwhelmed” and yes I’m going to visit all of your blogs soon! I should have some “free” time coming up…

I was planning on a funny story… I have several…  But they don’t want to come out of my head. Last week has been a roller coaster and we haven’t seen the end yet. Since I posted last Monday I have not seen a doctor. Apparently it is really hard to figure out what is going in my breast on so they need some more time. In the mean time Bastiaan and the rest of the family have insisted I go get a second opinion, so I made some phone calls and maybe next week we are going on a little trip… to a special cancer center that is.

Which makes me very scared, because I like to stay here, in my own bed. With our own bathroom (that is getting really pretty by the way) and with our own animals. I don’t really want to be shipped off to a place where there are only sick people in a strange hospital in a strange bed without my wonderful stud and crazy Jones who keeps barking at coyotes in the middle of the night (which drives me absolutely NUTS…)! Last time we did this (the chemo thing) I was absolutely happy to go get “better” every other day to go and focus on the bookkeeping, talking to Colby about the girls, and minding my brothers business. So now I am scared that if I don’t have all these things to keep me busy, how in the world am I suppose to get better…

But…

Maybe being away from home makes me focus more on getting better, instead of worrying about the farm all the time (which is a common thing for farmers, and which comes like a second nature to me, I was after all the one with the “American dream” to milk cows in this amazing country)…. and actually GET BETTER?

Though choice…

Today (Thursday) we go to Dr Nala and hopefully we will find out about what the game plan is. And if she thinks that maybe we need to go to “a special place” I think I will pack our suitcase and stuff in full of “home”, get my scull pantie  (yes I really need some more of those) and hop on the plane with Bastiaan, see how windy the windy city really is…

In the mean time I’m gonna make one hundred mistakes a day at the farm (cause I just can’t focus), automatically knowing my sweet hubby, mom & dad and little brother are fixing them behind my back, continue being a little rainbow colored chameleon who changes color ever five minutes (just like my emotions, by the way, this sound WAY more romantic then it really is…) and just ENJOY and feeling incredibly BLESSED with reading your comments, suggestions and cyber hugs!

Cancer butt kicking is going to be a piece of cake with all of you by my side…

Bent

If I fall along the way

Pick me up and dust me off

And if I get too tired to make it

Be my breath so I can walk

If I need some other love

Give me more than I can stand

And when my smile gets old and faded

Wait around I’ll smile again

Shouldn’t be so complicated

Just hold me and then

Just hold me again

Can you help me I’m bent

I’m so scared that I’ll never

Get put back together

Both biopsies were positive

Dr Nala had no good news to share
And right now i do not know how or why this is happening...

Wednesday we have to go back and discuss treatment and surgery options.  Round two, here we come, ready or not...

I am a fighter but I seem to have lost my sword (and my scull panties for that matter) at the moment. But give me a couple of days and i'll find it back...


...
Bent - Matchbox Twenty

In the spotlight!

When your are a bit blue….

As in, waiting for biopsy results and because of that you simply can’t put a decent word on paper… 

You paint…

Well at least that is what I do…. But because my painting is like my drawing in kindergarten (all over the place)  and as you can see in the picture of our bathroom, i must have been color blind at that time (I blame it on the meds)... I won’t bore you with how MUCH the color is going to CHANGE and yes practice makes perfect so I keep practicing...

Yes this is pinkish and purple... What was i thinking...

But since my right side is still hurting and yes, literally a little bit blue too, BUT only 2 stitches (whoohoo), and i couldn't finish my painting job...  I decided to show you something really neat! We, as in you and I, made it into the Progressive Dairyman Magazine! 

Front page of Progressive Dairyman

The article! Yes you can enlarge and hopefully read...

Oh, so sweet!!!

Even more fantastic is that this magazine goes all over the US! And this makes me happy because i love to spread the word about how fantastic dairy farming, AND blogging is! So thank you all for making this happen i simply could not have done this without you all!

Hopefully tomorrow the waiting ends and i can tell you the good news that everything was negative and that i just have been an incredible stressed, emotional overwhelmed, silly girl! And i can go back to try to be a good wife, thoughtful family member, motivational employer and  good caretaker for all our girls (the cows)... yes i am a bit of a perfectionist, if you didn't already knew... ;-)

Dr Nala here we come!

Big hugs

...

And who are you...???

A mammogram, in my imagination was a terrible/the worst/ incredible scary procedure…But was it really??? NOPE! What it was; it was pretty interesting, to be honest…

I hardly slept the two days before I went, and I have to admit all these Stephen King, Dean Koontz and the other horror story writers I like to read didn’t help, but really, it wasn’t that frightening. Not like the awful,  peeing in your pants feeling that you get with the CAT scan and not as SCARY as feeling like you’re the bad guy with the mask in the Silence of the lambs movie, stuck in a tube that is way too small, SCARY!

Maybe it helps if you have smaller breasts???  It really wasn’t that bad. Not that it was fun, but the nurse was really friendly, explained all my 200 questions per minute in a very patient manner AND her hands were warm! Which I thought was a PLUS!

After we got done, she told me to sit and wait and probably within 15 minutes I could go home.

Well, that did not happen.

They saw “something” high up, pretty much above my right breast and they needed to further “investigate”… So I followed another really sweet nurse and unbuttoned. Good thing those fancy robes only have tree buttons (if you are trembling all over it is pretty hard to undo those little thingies) and she scanned my breast again. I have found out that the more you have intimate parts uncovered amongst total strangers, it easier it gets…. (at least that is what I thought up to last Wednesday…) NOT that it is fun, but it isn’t as scary anymore as it was the first time and I think I had my heart rate under control (for the most part anyway).

Again this didn’t go according to plan. After she took several “pics” she left me by myself in that room. All kinds of interesting tools you got there, plus two computers but not the stuff that you want to play with while the nurse is away… So I just fiddled with my robe and buttons.

She didn’t come back for what seemed like an ETERNITY (I should have asked Bastiaan to come but I wasn’t expecting to do all of this, blame the positive side of me) and when she did, it wasn’t just her, no she brought her superior nurse lady…. “Hhhmmmm….”.

The “new” nurse who was even more skilled in reading ultrasounds and mammograms told me that they had indeed found something “off”, but they weren’t sure what it was. And she wanted to look over herself. So I laid down again. Got gooey stuff all over me and the ladies looked…

Inconclusive.  Just my luck…

BUT it is better to know for sure than to not know exactly what it is and since I already had to go to a surgeon later last week, the sweet nurses told me not to worry (haha….) and talk to Dr. L on Wednesday.

I generally like ALL the nurses, nurse practitioners AND doctors (as you probably know). With that said my trip to the hospital on Wednesday is one of my least favorite.

If you have female problems (whatever they might be) it is nice to have a female doctor. At least I like that… They know what you have and what might be going on in or on your body, maybe a tinsy bit better than their male colleagues . So when I found out I had a man as the surgeon who was going to check out my breasts I felt a little uneasy.  But since I am no sissy and everybody deserves the benefit of the doubt AND because I had seen Dr L. before, I thought I would though it out, get it over with, prove everybody that  there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING wrong with me and go home….

So past Wednesday, after being escorted to the examine room by a lovely nurse who said she recognized me from 2 years ago (which was very flattering), putting on a bright pink robe thingy, I sat and waited…

And waited…

And waited some more…

Until I got EXTREMELY upset with everybody and everything! My heart rate went sky high, even higher than with the ultrasound (so yes it was beating almost out of my chest!)! I decided it was not worth the getting upset about waiting part, the doc probably was very busy (it sure didn’t seem like that when I left my little brother in an almost empty waiting room FORTY FIVE MINUTES earlier…) so I waited some more. I didn’t have the guts to go outside my little cubicle, in my paper pink almost fall apart robe thingy anyway…

After almost a full hour of waiting and putting crazy ideas in my head (which happen a lot lately) the doc walked in.  WITH AN ASSISTANT…. And no they did NOT ask me if it was all right that a 20 some year old BOY was gonna see my boobies and they DID NOT apologies for being an HOUR late!

I was in utter shock!

I come from Holland and in Holland we are pretty open about all kinds’ sexuality stuff and yes I know doctors are students before they are doctors BUT I was NOT expecting this and I did not like it! NOT ONE BIT.

But since they did not ask me if it was all right for the boy to stay, and the doc did not explain to me why or what the boy was doing there, I just laid down, zeroed myself to another planet and let them check my breasts. I do think I said yes and no at the right moments and I was aware of the fact that it wasn't the good news I was hoping for but at least it was over in 5 minutes… tops…

You have to believe me, I am no sissy, and I do understand that young folks need to learn, and they can’t learn from books only. But at least they could have asked me if it was oke, for him to be there…?  Since I have been diagnosed 3 and a half year ago I had never felt so vulnerable and like a number as last Wednesday, and you probably knew that because I have been writing a LOT of funny hospital stories although they were not always funny at that time. This was really not one of them.

And to make matters worse, Dr L. and the boy did not know what “it” was so now we have to do a biopsy. This will be biopsy number two this week. Which again is all right with me, because I rather know, then live with the maybe’s…

So this Tuesday I will probably have a blue boobie and Thursday Dr Nala will say… “YOU ARE ALL RIGHT!!!” See…  those words are worth all the blue boobies, blue ribs and young boys who need to learn!

...

My steel horse

Since I was a little girl I wanted a shiny car. And yes, I was pretty sure what kind of shiny car that needed to be. I had no doubts, nobody could talk me into something different and I wasn’t gonna change my mind.

Because I didn’t get my driver’s license until I was 19 (in Holland you can’t get your license until you are 18) I was a little behind on the majority of teens. I didn’t mind because I was still working hard and saving my money for my dream car. But because I had to drive something, my mom and dad got my sister and I a little car to share. She was gonna take it one week and I the other. The weeks that we didn’t have the car we had to take the bus and train to get to school. The car was a good car and i was very grateful that my parents let my sister and i have one, but I wasn’t mine…

Finally after several years of working every weekend, every after schools hour and vacation period,  I had enough money saved up and so I bought my first BMW! I was so happy! So proud and I felt so free! This baby was mine and I did it all myself!!!

The only problem with that car was, (and of COURSE I didn’t admit that while I had it) that it was VERY fuel inefficient. And it would break. A lot! As in maybe, once every month…. Sometimes close to home, sometimes close to school and sometimes right in the middle of where I was going to…

So on a sunny Friday afternoon D. and I were driving home. We had the music on, and we were happy that it was almost weekend. Not that I could do a lot of partying, because I had to work the whole weekend in order to pay for all the fuel and the latest gasket, oil filter or plug for my car… But we were happy anyway and feeling on top of the world driving our own cool car!

In Holland the highways are crowded. And I don’t mean crowded like here, no, its crazy bumper to bumper three/ fourths of the way home. So while we were in the left lane, called the “fast” lane and creeping forward at about 5 miles an hour, smoke started coming out from under the hood….

I whispered to D., “D. this is not good!?!”, and it wasn’t good at all… we had major overheating problems…  Because the highway was so full of cars we couldn’t go to the right lane and park in the grass besides the highway, nobody would let us true anyway…

So after some more panicking we decided to park in the middle part of the highway. And yes we know that this is STRICKTLY FORBIDDEN. But we didn’t know what to do and I wasn’t gonna let my car do any more damage to itself!!! I needed my baby!

So we park the car on the “wrong” side, open the hood and check. I don’t know much about cars but I thought it was some kind of hose that was busted. D. thought the same. While we were standing there lots of cars honked. Lots of “friendly” faces that were laughing AT us. BUT nobody stopped!!! So were standing there besides the highway, car smoking, two desperate looking young girls, and NOBODY stopped…

After some 15 minutes of looking at the hose and getting more and more frustrated by all these people not stopping to help us, finally a truck driver stops at the good (right) side of the road and comes over. He looks in the car and concludes that it is indeed a hose… “Oh well, tough guy we already knew that but thanks for stopping”.

And then things started to click... or so we thought…

While our truckdriver was standing there staring at the hose, a police car stops right behind my parked car…. 

“YOU CAN’T STAND HERE!!!” he yells while exciting his cop car.  I was trying to explain to him that I knew that but that we didn’t have no other choice and I was a little bit surprised that he didn’t ask if we had an accident or something and if somebody was hurt. Nope, he didn’t ask anything at all, he just yelled that we weren’t supposed to be here! The bad thing was; the truck driver didn’t like the police…

And so he starts yelling (to the policeman!!!) that those girls (D. and I) had car trouble and that we could park anywhere we wanted! So while D. and I thought that this couldn’t go any worse, it got worse!

The policeman and the “good Samaritan” are yelling and were just standing there besides the highway and wondering what is going to happen next.

Finally the policeman had enough and tells the truck driver to go away or he is going to get a ticket. After some more cursing, screaming and yelling…!!!  He finally left. In the mean time the police man apparently called some other coppers and they arrive but instead of HELPING US (or even asking us what the matter is) the block off the highway….

Three lanes of highway completely blocked off by police cars…

The policeman yells (again) that we need to go to the other side of the road…

So D. and I hop in the car, drive (really, really slowly, we really felt like royalty too…) to the other side of the road and park it in the grass. And before we even know what is going on, all 4 police cars left…. “What???!!!”

Within no time the traffic is bumper to bumper again, 5 miles an hour and people politely smiling at us… Ohww, what a day!?

Then we realized that one of my housemates who was still at school (in order to get home) needed to use the same highway, so we called him up. He was maybe 5 miles up the road stuck in the same traffic jam. He promised us he would get there as soon as possible and help us out.

What seemed like forever we finally saw his car and he pulled over,  got us hooked up behind his car (which was slightly smaller and less heavy) so the pulling didn’t go as smooth…  But we were on our way again. After some CRAZY driving and towing our car we made it to his house. Changed the troublemaker hose and put in a new hose.  D. and I drove home, with all the windows open and the air at full blast, because we were too afraid the car was going to overheat again…

I dropped D. of at the train station and got home at 9.45 pm. We had left that same day at 1 pm and the drive normally takes us 2 hours….

D. and I have been in a lot of situations like this, but I never sold my car, well not until it was unsafe (as in really, really unsafe) to drive it anymore (I bought a new BMW)… and I never regret one day driving it. I felt on top of the world driving that car. And it made me realize that as long as you believe in yourself, work hard and long for something and you never give up, you will reach the top. Whatever that top might be for you….

...