Stars

"This might kill me," I yelled to my Mom in the living room. She ignored me because I shout out random phrases all day that are completely relevant to me, but usually to no one else. I suspect the next thing she heard was grinding metal and few small crashes as I lugged the paint ladder out of the hallway and into my room. I was feeling pretty good today and I didn't know how long it would last so I got right down to some important business. One of those things was hanging up my stars.

Earlier today I posted about the stars Rayne made for me. Well, they have now been successfully hung above my bed. I'm so happy about it. They look so magical and now I have something pretty to look at when I'm lying in bed. Here are some pictures:

My friends Gina and Aprille came over for a visit this evening and thought they were just wonderful. Hear that, Rayne? They used words like "incredible". I'm not lying. Gina, being a crocheter, thought the crocheted chains were very cool.

Today Mom told me I should start thinking about what I wanted to do for my birthday. What I wanted to do? Gosh, I hadn't thought about that. So I did. I settled on lemonade and peanut butter cookies at a quiet tea time. Apparently my first request of Rayne's chocolate chip cookies was shooting too high. I also requested Nakies, Sam and Lin back from the dead as well as a new liver. Mom told me those were perfectly acceptable things to wish for, but I needed to think of something that I wanted to do or did I maybe want some more sweatpants? I thought about it and eventually decided that going to the zoo would be nice, as long as a wheelchair could be obtained. Then a wheelchair was added to my presents list. From there I just said, "I dunno, music, movies and books." I was given a subscription to Netflix right away, which is awesome.

Now is the part where I give a deep, personal paragraph about how my perspectives have changed and I don't even really think about material gifts anymore, I just want to be able to get up and clean the rat cages, but I'm too tired. I wore myself out and I'm probably going to pay for it tomorrow. But as my friend Rayne says (I mention her far too often, don't I?), "If doesn't kill me, it's within my limits." L'chaim!

Prezzies!

Today I finally got around to unpacking the beautiful stars Rayne made for me. I didn't realize there were so many! With so many different colored beads! I hung them all on my door for now. I plan to hang them around my ceiling for a night sky effect. I'm pretty excited about it. The picture hardly does them justice, but aren't they beautiful?

I also took a picture of all the cool toys Staci brought me yesterday, with the exception of the sidewalk chalk. I took it outside yesterday and did a little drawing.

It's been a good day so far. I haven't had much pain so I've been up trying to get things done because I never know when I'll have to go back to bed. I'm already starting to wear down, but I'm going to try and do just a few more things. But right now I'm going to do the little game thing that Rayne posted.

I say ... and you think ... ?

Loneliness :: Someone in blue jeans sitting with their head on their knees. Preferably in an alley.
Traffic :: Exhausting
Chaos :: I want to hide.
Burp :: Gross. My sister pretends to make these gross burps all the time because she is not capable of making one naturally. Why does she think this is attractive?
500 :: The number five followed by two zeros. If you multiply ten times fifty you get five hundred. I like to think of the multiples.
Movie :: Big, silver screen that makes me feel like I'm flying.
Coma :: Scary. You can't even dream. Well, at least, I don't remember dreaming during my last coma...
Bark :: I find the bark on trees very comforting. I find dogs barking make me want to strangle innocent bystanders. Especially if said dog is a beagle.
Stare :: I like to stare. It means soaking in an image.
Angelina :: The mouse who danced. Angelina Ballerina. We named one of our rats Angelina once. She was a Wesleyan rat and very athletic.

Now you're tagged and you can play the game!

Nakies

It’s only 5 o’clock and already today has been a weird, sad and eventful day. This morning Staci (of Capital City Rat Rescue) brought my rat Nakies over for a visit and a tooth trimming. Staci has been caring for Nakies and my rat Mabel for about a month now since both girls are old rats and needed special care that I didn’t have the health to give them.
I knew that Nakies had been declining, but when I saw her this morning I was hit by how bad she’d gotten. Not that Staci wasn’t taking good care of her. She was giving my rats the best care available. But Nakies was old, there was no denying that. My mom decided that she should be kept here to die at home. It was evident Nakies wasn’t going to be around that much longer.
Staci also brought me…Toys! Becca is gonna have some fun this 4th of July, that’s for sure. I got sidewalk chalk, bubbles, silly string, some wooden Brain Benders, one of those awesome 20 questions balls, an adorable guinea pig beanie baby and a hilarious card of people doing a fashion show of hospital gowns. Everyone’s butts are hanging out, of course and the front says, “Next…Thelma strolls the surgery floor with confidence in this ‘sassy’ bile green evening gown.” The inside says, “Hope to see your sassy butt out of bed real soon.” It’s great.
Staci was sent off with all my boy rats. I can’t care for all of my rats right now and their cage was posing a particular challenge for me. The boys were very excited about all of this, except for Luke, my old boy. He all of sudden seemed weak and sick. Staci knew to keep an eye on him since he is very elderly, so she promised me to keep a very close eye on him from now on. Apparently, when Staci got the boys back to her house, Luke wasn’t doing so well. He’s very lethargic and can’t walk very well, possible signs of a previous stroke. Luke is going to be getting some special care and antibiotics, but he may not be around that long.
When Nakies first came this morning I could tell that, even though she wasn’t doing so hot, she was still Nakies. Throughout the next few hours she seemed to decline very rapidly and the Nakies we knew began to disappear. Mid afternoon, Nakies passed away while my mom was holding her. We think she held on until she could see her family again. A lot of rats seem to choose how they want to die. Some wait until their owners are gone and some hang on until their people can be there with them. We’re glad we were able to be with Nakies and she could be home.
Nakies was the smartest rats I’ve ever met. And I’ve owned rats for 11 years now. She did a lot of “bad” things and outsmarted me many times, but she endeared herself to our family and our friends many times over. We were truly blessed to have such a lively rat in our lives. She will be greatly missed.

The New Hair

So now my hair has fushia streaks in it as well. It's super cool. I like how it looks next to the purple. Some of the streaks got dyed with the purple and that looks really cool, too.

...Sorry, I'm not very coherant. On narcotics over here....

Sorry I'm in my jammies and looking sick. I wasn't up to a full-blown photo shoot, but I know everyone wanted to see my hair.

Life Reflections on my Health

It's 3 in the morning-the perfect time for blogging. There's an atmosphere of uninhibited, magical honesty at this time of night/day. I'm not awake for the purpose of blogging, however. I'm up because fever and pain won't let me sleep. Cupcake the rat is running around my bed, keeping me company. This is one good trait about Cupcake: She stays on the bed. Except in the case that she does something daring and accidentally falls off the bed. Cupcake, however, is still a nuisance, running back and forth on the bed, stopping only to run over me with her sharp baby nails. Still, she's distracting and that's good.

I seem to be getting sicker and sicker. Everyday is a little bit worse than the one before. Hopefully this is a phase of some sort and soon I'll be back to my normal sick level. Coming back from the evaluation, though, I was a little overwhelmed. All these others things I didn't even know about are wrong with me. It seems and feels like my body is just shutting down, like it doesn't want to live anymore. Sometimes it seems like my will to live is the only thing keeping me alive. And I suppose that's partly true. It's easy to take this in stride most of the time. I mean, I've grown up getting nothing but bad news about my body; but sometimes, like I said, it gets overwhelming. I wouldn't say I'm overwhelmed tonight, but the huge amount of pain I'm in forces things into perspective.

I've had doctors tell me since I was four, "We're going to fix this or that problem and then you'll be able to live life as a normal person." Up until about two years ago I believed them. The fact of the matter is, no matter how many problems we "solve" another one always comes up to take its place. Even the problems that were supposed to be solved years ago still aren't. I mean, I'm going for my third liver transplant for God's sake. Do I believe I'll live very long? No. Do I believe I'll ever be healthy enough to have the kind of life where I can go to work everyday and pursue my interests? No. Sure, I've had good periods in my life, but they were never good enough to keep me in school on a daily basis or anything like that.

Speaking of school, when all these liver problems started getting serious I dropped out and was told I could come back at a discounted rate whenever I was better (for those of you who don't know, I was taking an online course in veterinary technology). Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for education. Big time. But I wonder if I should even go back. I enjoy veterinary technology, but if I'm going to be living on disability for the rest of my life I would like to use the time I have to write, to compose, to create. Part of that is because I want to leave something behind other than cages of rats and boxes of pills. I want to leave behind parts of myself, parts of who I am.

Cupcake managed to make her normal mistake of riding a falling DVD case to the floor where she is now happily prancing around. I kinda glad she's gone. Note to self: trim Cupcake's nails.

I think people often underestimate how much pain I'm in or how tired I am. As I'm sure I've mentioned before, I have this uncanny ability of looking, sounding and even acting healthy even when I feel like I'm going to pass out/throw up/explode. I don't try to (at least, I don't think I do). It's been a curse to be for as long as I can remember. You have no idea how often school teachers thought I was faking sickness. I think that even my friends and family can't really tell exactly how I'm feeling. You can't really tell it from reading my blog, but I hate to complain or whine. I'm not going to waste my time doing that. I suppose that may have something to do with how I come off. Also, when you've been sick for as long as I have, you tend to try and carry on in a normal way as much as possible. The only exception to all of this is when I have one of my "episodes". Then I will scream my head off. But even then...I think I hold back. FYI, my "episodes" are when I ovulate. They've sent me to the emergency room more times than I can remember.

The pain med is starting to kick in so I think I'll try and get some sleep.

Evaluation, Days 2 and 3

I’m back! Sorry to everyone about the delay in updates. I’ve been pretty sick lately. My liver transplant evaluation nearly killed me. Okay, that’s an overstatement; but it did push me past my limits which resulted in extra pain, fatigue and a fever.

Day two of liver evaluation: The worst part of this day was the pulmonary test. Before I even got to the breathing-into-a-tube-hooked-up-to-a-computer part they had to take a “blood gas”. Apparently this can’t be done like a regular blood test. They have to go directly into an artery. I clenched my eyes shut as a needle was jabbed into my wrist and (I think) air was pushed into the artery. I was trying really hard not to scream because I could feel the air traveling up my arm and into my heart and it hurt. A lot. Blood was drawn and then the needle was (painfully) removed. As I held the gauze over my wrist I started to break into a sweat and the room turned upside down.
“I think I might pass out,” I said to the guy who had just done this awful thing to me. “And I think I might throw up, too. Do you have a bucket?”
“A bucket?”
“Or I don’t know. Something I could throw up in!”
“Um, let’s see,” he said, starting to look around. “I don’t think I have a bucket.”
“Or a plastic bag. That would work,” I was holding on tight to the table and eyeing the trashcan cautiously in case I had to make a break for it’s vomit-safe confines.
“Do you have a problem with blood?” the guy asked me.
“No! I don’t have a problem with any of that stuff.”

He got me to come over to a different part of the room suggesting that a change of scenery would do me good. He also suggested that I chat with him to get my mind off things. Was this guy daft? If I opened my mouth more than absolutely necessary I was sure I would barf (Rayne later said I should have let loose all over the guy just to teach him a lesson). Nevertheless, I was forced to answer stupid questions about my life to which I mumbled feverish-sounding responses. Miraculously, I was able to go on with the test after things settled down a bit, but my arm and neck hurt the rest of the day. One thing’s for sure: I fully intend to exercise my patient rights of treatment refusal next time I am faced with a blood gas test.

We talked to my liver doctor last thing and he had all sorts of sad things to say. Like, “You have no vitamins in you,” and “You have pre-osteoporosis which will start breaking your bones in a few years and leave you crippled unless we treat it,” or “You have a slight issue with your heart.” (Don’t worry, it’s not a big deal and won’t get in the way of transplantation.)
As he was examining me he says, “So what do you do when you’re not seeing doctors all day?”
“Um, well, I play with my pet rats a lot,” I replied.
“Rats? You have rats?”
“Yes, I have eighteen.”
“Excuse me,” he said and walked quickly from the room.

Mom and I sort of wondered if he had gone to throw up or something, but he came back minutes later saying he’d just talked to another doctor about it and he wasn’t so sure about this rat thing. Mom and I tried to explain that these were domestic rats with species specific diseases. He didn’t seem to get it. Did this guy go to med school in the jungle or what?
“Do the rats ever bite you?” he asked.
“No.”
“Do they ever scratch you?”
“Well, yes, but only if I’ve forgotten to clip their toenails,” I said.
“Where are the scratches?” he demanded.
“Well I don’t have any right now!” He looked rather disappointed.

Finally, we were able to leave and go to Rayne’s house. After the giving out of presents and admiring of rats Michelle started right in on the hair coloring. We did it all in one night and I showered three times. Katy and Rayne made a delicious dinner of breakfast muffins and hash browns. I even got to try one of Rayne’s famous chocolate chip cookies. Did you know she puts cinnamon in them? It’s really interesting (in a delicious way). Then it was time for the shaving cream and food coloring fun. Click here to see the pictures Rayne took. And here to see her blog post on it.

Katy graciously let me sleep in her room. I got a kick out of her bookshelf since it looked so similar to mine. I kept asking her, “Have you read this? How about this? Oh, yes, I loved that book. Have you seen the movie?” I was going to take a picture of said bookshelf, but I forgot. Muffin the cat came to sleep at the end of my bed during the night.
The next morning I left with purplish hair and laden down with comics and these really cool wire and bead stars Rayne made for me. Once I get them hung on my ceiling I’ll take pictures to show ya’ll.

Day three of liver evaluation: All through my evaluation we continued to see the boy I mentioned in my previous blog, and his family, at every one of our appointments. “Mom, you have to promise me we’ll talk to them today,” I said. At one of our last appointments for the day there they were, the only other people in the waiting room. I walked up boldly and said, “So are you getting an evaluation, too?”
“Yes, we are,” replied the mother.
“I’m getting mine for a liver transplant.”
“So is he.”
“This will be my third transplant,”
“His, too!”

And the conversation went from there. They had come from Denver where the transplant hospital had turned the boy down for a liver. According to them it wasn’t a very good hospital. All too soon my name was called and we didn’t see them again. I’m hoping the social worker I talked to will know who they were and help us get in contact with them. It would be really cool to get to know them some more, especially since the boy is close to my age.

I had to take all of these brain tests for one of my appointments. They said that sometimes with a liver disease something scientific and complicated happens and it can make you feel stupid and drugged. I guess that explains why I feel drugged even when I’m not. I proved this theory right, I think, with some of my answers to their brain test questions because I had not taken so much as a Tylenol that morning.
“Who was our last president?”
“Um…um…I don’t kn-Bill Clinton!”
“What’s this a picture of?”
“Um…a…um…wooden clip?”
“No, it’s a clothes pin.” Doh.
“Connect the dots.”
“1...2...3...5.”
“Wait! What comes after three?”
“Oh. Four.”

The positive side is I have wonderful finger dexterity. When asked to explain I listed off all my hobbies that used my fingers. Playing guitar, knitting, origami, painting, etc.

Also, the surgeon we talked to gave us the go ahead for my ovarian cyst removal surgery! I called my gynecologist right away. I can’t wait to get this done. It will take care of about half my pain. I also learned that one of the medications I’m on is for esophageal varices (bleeding bits in my esophagus) and it lowers my blood pressure, thus making me fatigued. So it explains my extra, extra bad fatigue and mysteriously low blood pressure. Next Wednesday everyone (meaning all the doctor types) will get together and go over all my test results. Then, I get put on the transplant list unless someone comes up with some bright idea that will cure me.

After all that I was so tired I could hardly even sleep. Within a couple hours of getting home I was shivering uncontrollably and running a fever of 101.3. Today isn’t much better since it’s that very special time of the month and Becca has a uterus that bleeds into her intestines and 7 centimeters of bloody, possibly infected, fluid hanging off her ovaries. Sorry to be so graphic, but I’m kinda mad that I’m a female right now.

But I’m glad to be home and my ratties and Velvet are glad, too.

Evaluation, Day 1

It was a pretty easy day today as far as appointments go. But I really wasn't feeling well and had a very hard time. I'm kind of cranky about it. But I did take some potty pictures, with I realize is Rayne's thing, but I wanted to give it a try and see how cool it was:

The hoodie from the first pic is the one I was describing in my blog entry, Anatomy of a Hoodie.

There was a kid, maybe around 15, who was in the waiting room of the Multi-Organ Clinic when we were (due to lack of chairs I had to sit on the floor and, being the chivalrous person I am, offered my cane-bearing mother the cushy chair) who looked exactly how I felt. He was wearing bedroom slippers, his arms were pulled into his shirt and was was curled up in the chair trying to sleep. It was obvious he was sick; his skin was yellow and there were dark circles under his eyes. He looked kind of like...me, except I'm not quite so yellow. I guess he was waiting for a liver transplant. The boy touched my heart because he seemed to be going through something like I was. I wondered if he had to deal with his liver always hurting or fatigue so bad you can hardly walk straight. I wanted to go over and say something encouraging to him, but I didn't. Instead I watched him out of the corner of my eye.

At the end of our appointments I waited outside while mom went to get the car. I'm working on knitting some socks right now and that's what I was doing while I was waiting. At one point two guys, probably around my age, walked past and started whispering about something. I thought I caught something like, "That girl! She's the one!" I hoped they weren't whispering about me because, well, they didn't exactly look trustworthy. Turns out they were talking about me because seconds later they walked up to me and said, "We have a question." Oh God, please don't let them be hitting on me, I thought. I can hardly walk right now, let alone outrun two perverts.

Apparently one of them had been doing a crossword puzzle that morning and there had been a five-letter word for a knitting stitch and they could not for the life of them figure it out. Since they saw me knitting they decided to ask me. I breathed a sigh of relief and tried to help them with their dilemma. I couldn't think of a five-letter word for a knit stitch so they thanked me for my help and walked off shouting their room number and floor at the hospital in case I thought of anything. They were laughing when they said it so I'm pretty sure they had other things on their mind besides crossword puzzles. I heard one of them say, "She has a nice smile." Looking back on the whole thing it's actually pretty cute.

In other news, my rat Lin, who has been sick because of a spinal injury passed away today. We got home from Omaha and she was long gone. It's weird because I never once thought that this sickness would kill her, but for some reason I wasn't surprised. It's like subconsciously I knew it was going to happen. Minutes after we found Lin our vet called to check up on her.

Lin was one of the sweetest rats I've ever met. She was one of the Nebraska Wesleyan Xtreme Rat Challange rats and we adopted her in late April of this year. Lin's favorite thing to do was to sit outside with me. She'd start bruxing before we even got out the door. She was a very, very snuggly and loving rat. I'm going to miss her. I'm writing about Lin in a different color to give her special honor in this blog. Is that weird?

I learned the other day that, if someone give you instructions about something while you're on codeine, have them explain it to you very specifically. Otherwise you end up telling your friend how great Tim's pancakes are when, in actuality, Tim and the family are meeting you for waffles at a local coffee shop. You might also end up driving around town a lot, wondering where everybody is. My mom says, "When you talk to Becca you have to ask her when she's last taken narcotics."