June 15th 2011

Carroll wasn't in the 21% that made it through his cancer for 10-12 months.
My world ended when he died in our bed early morning of June 15th, 2011.
His world started in another place.

It has been 4 months now, and I pretend I am ok and getting along. I miss him so much I can't breathe.

When he left me I realize how many people it would take to replace him.
I lost my cook,
my gardener,
my landscaper,
my maid,
my lover,
my confidant,
my friend,
my teddy bear bed warmer,
my partner,
my playmate,
my companion,
my sounding board,
my heart,
my soul, and
my reason to get up in the morning.

I miss you, Carroll
you can come back now.

Thanks for your thoughts and prayers

Hello All of Vivian's friends,

I dont know how to go on each of your blogs and thank you all, so I am just thanking you all here. you all brought a tear to my eye. It is amazing how many people Vivian has touched! here I thought she is just my sister.
I am not talented like her or creative like her, but I appreciate all she can do. She is special and you all probably know that.

anyway,
Thanks for your thoughts
Valerie

The "never" ending story. . .

Ok so here it is, another year and more trouble. okay last year I couldnt really say anything except about Grandma because I spent the whole year looking for a house to buy. finally in November we moved into a house. It is a good house, great mortgage payments and only 4% interest on the loan.
however, within a week of moving in the trouble started. Carroll is sick again. All through November and December we spent a lot of time at the VA hospital and having tests run. he has cancer again. Now you may notice he had Kidney cancer in 2008 and recovered after a partial nephrectomy. He has skin cancer, but not Melanoma, now he has lung cancer.

So this time, after two months of tests and biopsies, we have a clear diagnosis of SCLC which means small cell lung cancer stage 4, otherwise known as extensive SCLC. It means the cancer has metastasized to more than two other locations. In Carroll's case it is his adreanal gland, abdomen, lung, and brain.

What does that mean? It is inoperable, it is incurable, and it is the most agressive kind of lung cancer.

(deep breath)

All treatments are for quality of life. Chemotherapy actually does well killing the tumors already present and shrinking them, more than 90% have results with strong chemo. The only problem is.. the cancer is so fast growing, it usually grows faster than they can treat it. Also with this type of cancer they usually suggest patients have whole head radiation to PREVENT brain metastasis, but since Carroll already has it... they will try a little stronger radiation. This could extend his quality of life for months.

months.

without treatment this kind of cancer has about 6 to 8 weeks for survival. With treatment 21% are around 10-14 months.

Ofcourse those are only statistics. There are exceptions ofcourse.

Chemo has started and he has lost his hair. I call him Telly Savalas. the radiation of his head starts early in February.

I am overwhelmed, strong for Carroll, worried, freakin' out, sad, mournful, depressed, not real talkative, and germ-a-phobic now.

I don't know why I write this kind of stuff here.

Grandma Mary is gone. Who is the head of the family now?
I wish I could find my poem I wrote about her. "Treasure " I think it was called. It would be so appropriate to put it here now.
I love you Gramma.
I wish I could be there for my mom.

mom and val

mom and val
Originally uploaded by vivianneroni

great pic

James' health

I am so frustrated. I don't know what else we can do for poor James. His Prednizone makes him moody, he's in pain, he's miserable and the doctor keeps telling him just eat a low salt diet! He is on a practically NO salt diet. He eats rice, vegtables, fruits, malt o meal, occationally a piece of meat cut up in his stir fry... meat we get from the butcher shop so it isnt loaded with sodium. He wont eat bread or anything that says it has 4% or sodium or more. He watches how much of it he consumes a day. But then he gets pissed because he has doubled and tripled his Lasix for the swelling and it still wont go down. The doctor probably thinks he's lying about what he's eating. I know.
He has a real bad cough.. probably bronchitis again. His mood is terrible. He wants to be taken out back and shot. He's so ready to die and get it over with. He even told his Nephrologist his mental health was deterioating and the dontor said, "that's the prednizone". That's nice DO something. Give him an anti depressant or something. If you can't make the swelling go down. He also told James," well get the Cyclosporine". Which is the one that is $205/month and he/we havent been able to get for over 5 months. He had it the month Kenny bought it and one other month. But the child support takes so much out of his check he barely has enough left over for gas and cigarettes, and the medicine he is taking. He's not even his car payment or insurance. He doesnt have a bank account anymore. He buys vegtables and fruit every time he gets paid along with rice and Maltomeal. Carroll has learned a lot about cooking low sodium and we change it to no sodium so he is actually getting real real low sodium.
I called the nurse line today and worked out with them the amount of grams of protein he shold be eating since the doctor wont be specific. He says his Bun and Cretinin levels are not that bad and the kidneys arent getting any worse right now. But this DAMN Nephrotic syndrome is gonna kill him!
I finally took some pictures of his legs to show you. I will be researching some more and sending the pics to doctors online if I have to.
I gotta go.

Poor James' Health

Blue morning Blue day....

Today I had to put Tigger down. She has been getting really skinny and weak. Sunday she threw up everything she ate, and yesterday I took her to the vet because she looked like she was going to die.
She was going to die. The vet didnt even have to run any tests to know by looking at her and checking her eyes and mouth, she had end stage renal failure. She was massively dehydrated, she said Tigger's eyes were even sunken in. She also said her breathing was very labored and she was working very hard to breathe. She told me if she was going to try to put in an IV for fluids, she would have to "tap" her lungs first to see if there was fluid in her lungs, because she was breathing so badly, and that that might even kill her.
She told me that she had so many things going wrong, including the fact the that she hadn't eaten since Sunday, that even if we aggresively treated her and put her in the hospital IF she lived through IVs and diagnostics, her chances of survival were 10 - 15%. She recommended I go home and think about what to do but she highly recommended putting her to sleep, because otherwise she was starving to death.
I don't think it's fair I should have to choose if she dies and when. I prayed God would take her before I had to make the decision, but he didnt. She was purring and trusting and I let them kill her. The choice was let her suffer and starve to death or help her go. I can't make the decision for a person why can I make that decision for my baby Tigger? I HATE it. I did it, I held her and she went to sleep forever.

I hate this day.

Today is Christmas
Oh Christmas! what a guilt trip it is. I want to give to the whole family and I barely got anything for my immediate kin. Our microwave died a month ago so Carroll got a new microwave, he and James made me let them use it instead of letting me put it under the tree. kill joys. So I had to get him another gift so he would have something to open today. (it is 6am) I got him a winter scarf I call it a man-scarf, I wanted the kind men in NY city wear in the winter, classy yet not real long, and manly. I bought one for James too it has been freakin' cold! I also bought them both winter gloves from Cabala's because James cant drive in the bulky ones he has been borrowing from Carroll. (actually I ordered the gloves and a nice fleece jacket for James but they had to be delivered to the store, I got impatient and went and bought one pair of gloves they didn't have them in the other size I bought. So the gloves and jacket are in at the store but I cant get them now. (I didn't have time or money to pick them up yesterday) So I got James an exercise ball. A man one, not the palates woman one. He has been worried about his center flab and wants to work his abs.
I had a hell of a time deciding what to get David, and settled on a Hot Topic gift certificate. That way I know he will get something for himself and not the baby. I also swiped the picture of him, Wendi and Nicholas visiting Santa and printed it out on photo paper and put it in a "Me and Santa" frame.
I bought Wendi a small Eeyore ( she likes him best) I should have sent something more but I couldn't I spent more on Nicholas. He got three outfits. one is jammies, one is a short and hoodie set but the hoodie is sleeveless, and an adorable three piece suit with a tie and a hankie in the pocket! It has pin striped pants it is so adorable! Also me, Ethan and Colling made him a no-sew blanket of Tigger and a no-sew pillow.
I sent a raving mushy letter to Wendi's parents thanking them for helping David, Wendi and Nicholas start out by living with them.
The kids (Ethan, Collin and Isabelle) made plaster of paris gifts for everyone here and snow globes. So me, Carroll, James and Vanessa are all getting those for Christmas from the kids. Making crafts with me and their daddy was part of their Christmas gifts but they dint know that.
I made Isabelle a no-sew pillow also. We got her a baby doll that babbles baby sounds, and an outfit of a corduroy jumper with a turtle neck shirt.
Ethan is getting one of the snow globes he made, a science kit to grow his own crystals, and his own backgammon set. (we play acey deucey).
Collin is getting a play set of a Navy ship, airplane and truck with some soldiers and another big set of soldiers, and a snow globe he made.
Vanessa is getting the trinkets the kids made, one of them has Isabelle's hand prints, and I gave her two pair of earrings.
I didn't get anything for anyone else. Not even mom or dad. not for Gramma or Jerry or Uncle Nick and Aunt Midge, or anyone else.
Like I said in the beginning what a guilt trip. I had to get a payday loan to get what I got.
But the tree is up and lighted, the decorations are out and it looks like Christmas here, no snow though. (I dint miss it)

I did have to give myself an attitude adjustment about Christmas. I am not sure how to do Christmas morning without kids or family. Being the Grandma on Daddy's side means I wait until last. The kids have Christmas at home and then most of the day with their other grandparents and great grandparents and I am last. At least with James living here I am still one the list.
James is working today until 3:30pm the kids will be here sometime between 1 and 3pm. I hated it the first year here waiting and pacing all day for the kids to get her to have Christmas, I hated it that's why we went to Florida last year.
This year I just needed to re-think it all. I asked people at work, "what do old people do on Christmas? I mean with no kids running down the stairs and yelling Santa came? What do they do on Christmas morning?" The consensuses was not church because they would have gone the night before.
So I decided Carroll and I will have a breakfast quiche and then watch "It's a Wonderful Life" and maybe play Scrabble. After James comes home from work and the kids are here we will have Christmas gifts. We are having a small ham and James is having a steak (ham is salty) the kids would have eaten all morning with their Christmas breakfast and their Christmas dinner in the afternoon.
This is the first year in 27 years I have not done stockings. Not even for me and Carroll because I didn't have the money. I did buy some M&Ms and Kisses though.
I woke up like a kid all night excited about Santa, I guess. I woke up at 3am and sat up for a while, then went back to sleep. I woke up again around 5am and have been up since. I am going to need a nap.
This is long, I am done for now. I will tell you later what I got for Christmas, besides the three books I bought myself. "Giving" by Bill Clinton, "The Enemy Within" about prejudices, and "A Traitor to His Class" about FDR.
Chao

New Year

My goodness I have neglected you! It has been almost a year since I last wrote anything. I use MySpace for checking up on others. I really only keep this so I can visit Viv's page.
I dont have anything to say because I just mailed out a year end letter to everyone.
I just wanted to update.
Carroll and I will have our 6th anniversary next week and because of Christmas and being poor we will not be doing anything again. Well, it must be ok, out of three husbands I have been married and living with him longer than the other two. Kenny and I were married 10 years but we really were only together 2 years ( that includes the year we were actually married and living together.)
Larry and I lived together 11 years but again were only married 1 1/2 years of that.
So here we are Carroll and I have been together 10 years but have actually been married 6 of them now. Maybe I need a new husband. LOL
I will wait until he dies . . . or I kill him. :) Actually he isn't allowed to die Unless I kill him.

Lorax Lover: Politics

Lorax Lover: Politics: "http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/hqblog"