Yowzers

I can't believe it's been so long. I have good excuses though.

As most of you know I was supposed to move from South Beach today. Well, after a major internal mental struggle, I realized that I'm not totally ready to leave permanently.

So I'm keeping my apartment, with the intention of spending about a week per month here. I have no concrete plans about New York yet; I've learned not to plan too far ahead when Cancer is your life partner.

I will be in the City for a week a month as well. That's about all I can plan right now. Basically, it's more fiscally feasible to keep my apartment here and come here for checkups than at Sloan. I'd be paying $800+ for Norton visits, when they're covered here.

On that note, I had my blood work done Monday. Schwartz is content with the numbers and when I talked to the nurse today, she said that a 15-point drop from October to December is "making good progress."

The fucking side-effects though. They're bizarre. The Xeloda has me retaining water in my arms of all places, so you can imagine how thrilled I am with that since I never liked my arms anyway. Chad has me on Alfalfa capsules, nature's diuretic apptly. The most troubling/annoying/painful thing I've got going on right now—aside from wanting to stick pins in my arms to release the fluid—is pain and irritation on the soles of my feet. This is from the Tykerb. So I awake in the morning with a pseudo burning feeling on my soles to the point where I can't even put on my flip flops. Thank God I've got travertine floors, which cool the tootsies. So now I'm in the habit of slathering Regenecare (sp) to Lidocaine the feet in socks. Not being able to wear flip flops in Miami = not being able to wear black boots in New York.

So my arms are fat. My clavicle area is completely swollen, which sucks because there's nothing I like more than seeing my clavicle bone protrude in that too-thin way. Yes, I'm psycho about my weight, thus it's starvation central until my Heeb reading.

And I'm getting very excited about that. A lot of people are showing, including my amaaaazing onco Schwartz and some of the other members of my team. That being said, Schwartz will avail himself for Breast Cancer questions for you ladies. Loooove him. And of course the Shrink, Acupuncturist, Yogis, parents, family friends and probably a bunch of weirdos who are turned on by yarmulke covered tatas. You can pick up the fliers locally at Base and Books & Books on Lincoln Road.

Finally, tomorrow is the TWO YEAR anniversary of my initial Breast Cancer diagnosis. Last year I flitted off to Chicago to celebrate. This year though I want to go to the Sante D'Orazio and Francesco Clemente Basel bash, most likely I will be too emotional. Last year, I thought I was in remission. This year, not so much. Maybe retail therapy. I don't know. Alls I do know is that I never imagined I'd waste two years of my life on Cancer. So not cool.