The Apple falls far

People somehow still seem to doubt the crazy shit that happens in my life. As if no one else ever bikes into the middle of a shootout in a small town, or runs across a rodeo in the middle of nowhere cornland on  a bike ride, or narrowly misses a tornado while….on….a bike ride. Hmm.

Anyway, the latest scenario happened NOT on a bike ride, oddly enough, but during the week recently when my computer when kaplooey. The Apple guys had told me it would take until probably that Satuday or Sunday to fix it, so imagine my surprise when I get a call that Friday.

Me: Hello?

Apple Guy: Hi there, I’m calling about your computer that you dropped off…..

Me: SIGH, yes, my poor baby. My adoring public is despondent over my inability to blog since I can't work on anything else.

AG: Umm, I’m sure. So, well, we did get the mothership (I think that’s what he said) replaced earlier than thought, so it’s ready to be pic….

Me: SQUEE! Omgomgomg you guys made it a priority because it’s ME, right? I mean I know you did, because I’m sure you thought about how unfair this all was to my fans and determinedly decided NAY this must not be.

AG: Well I…

Me: It’s okay though, it’ll be our little secret. We don’t want everyone else to know that they were unceremoniously pushed to the side like old mashed potatoes.

I change my plans and go to pick up my laptop, battling Friday afternoon traffic there and back, and am just walking into the house with laptop in my arms, kicking off a shoe to play Who’s Got the Shoe with Kone, when my phone rings. I hesitate, then ignore it, because I can easily see disaster ensuing if I try to finagle answering it. How important could it be?

Message: “Yeah, hi, this is Apple Guy from the Apple Store. You were in here a little while ago to pick up your laptop, and, well, heh heh, somehow we forgot to put the screws back in. So if you could call us to arrange to come back in…”

Say. What?

I go to look, and sure enough, out of 10 screws, 1 is in. One. You have GOT to be fucking kidding me.

The Apple Guy is probably lucky I had let the call go to voice mail, because the thought of having to head the hour or so back to the Apple store when I had so much stuff to do was less than endearing. I fumed and raged for a good, oh, 20 minutes or so, then thought ech, par for the course.

Besides, I can see how these things happen.

* * * * * * 

Scene: The Apple Store. Apple Guy is merrily finishing up work on Miss Tasha’s computer. I picture them as being somewhat Ed Grimley-like and twee.

“La la la, hi ho hi ho, what a glorious day to be working on….” (looks at slip) “….Miss TASHA’S computer! I can just imagine her joy when she gets it back, like a day full of rainbows and skittles and boozy fruit and those wonderful overcast-yet-brooding-days that give lie to the need for aggressively hot and sunny days. Huzzah!”

“Just have to screw the precious back together and……..ermagerd! SHIT!”

AG suddenly runs from the state of the art beautifully-appointed Back Room of Apple Miracles and into the kitchen.

“Oh no,” he wails. “I forgot about my So Manly He-Man Manliest of Days microwaveable dinner! It’s ruined! What to do, what to do…..”

Just then Apple Guy #2 walks in and sees what remains of AG #1’s nuked beyond recognition dinner.

“Whoa dude, what’s that? No, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know. You need to get yourself a new lunch.”

AG#1: “But I don’t want to take time away from my most important work. The little people are counting on me, on us!”

AG#2: “This we know to be true, but think about it man, think about it rationally, dammit! You’re no good to them like this, a weak starving shell of your former self. You need to fortify yourself to do battle in the Apple trenches – the people deserve your best, and it’s your duty to give it to them.”

AG#1: “Okay. See ya!”

AG#1 heads outside to the Tiki Bi Bim Bop Fusion Asian Grille Shoppe to get himself some food, then after eating gets distracted by the koi pond at the mall, then realizes he needs coffee as fortification, then goes to the candy store to get some jelly bellies and taffy.

Upon return to the Apple Store 2 hours later

“Hmm, I seem to recall I was working on something critically important when I left. What WAS it. Hmm.”

He looks up and sees his empty workspace. “That’s odd, I could have swore……oh. Oh shit. SHIT!”

His scream of anguish brings all his colleagues running from all over the store. As they stare at him in confusion and worry, he can only say this, as he looks at them with panic and a handful of screws:

“We’re fucked.”

* * * * * * *

So see, I get it. These things happen all the time. Especially to me, I might add. Not just the Schleprockian tales of things that happen to me and no one else, but also the forgetting. Still, the next morning when I was driving back to Apple, I was back to fuming a bit. Because I was running late and had a shit-ton of things to do that day and no reason to be wasting time driving to a MALL, for crikey’s sake, and they had made me make an appointment at the Genius Bar, which I’d surely be late to. I already had the dialogues planned out in my mind.

AG: You missed your time slot so we’ll have to pu…

Me: You were going to say you’d have to see me right away, because I’m only here to get the SCREWS PUT BACK IN MY COMPUTER. Yes?

AG: I’m sorry you’ll have to wait since…

Me: No. There will be no waiting. Because I shouldn’t even need to BE here today, wasting my time.

And so on.

So yes, I was ready when I walked in. Steely, determined, I walked up to the first check-in Apple person. Told her my name, she poked at her IPad, whisked me off to someone else. He similarly poked, then directed me to the back of the store to the main counter where “they’ll take care of you RIGHT away.” Then not content with that, he escorted me back there.

And I tell you, it was like the parting of the Red Sea. Words were whispered, people looked over, they started to cluster. Someone held up a plastic baggie with screws, and there was a slight hush. The girl tasked with taking away my laptop was, well, sheepish. They were all sheepish, wondering how in the hell something like this could have happened at THEIR establishment. It must be common though, right?

I see my old friend AG#1, who I talked to that first day that I handed over my computer for repair.

AG#1: You have to tell me, this wasn’t my fault, was it? I mean I handed off your computer to someone else, right? Please tell me I AM NOT THE ONE who did this.

Me: No no, you looked at it, it needed more work done, I had to leave it….

AG#1: Thank GOD. I couldn’t figure out how I could have done something like that!

Me: But this has happened before, right? I mean how DOES something like this happen?

AG#1: I…I just…I just don’t know. In all my years of working here, this has never happened before.

Oh.

AG#1 and I agree that while it might be tough for them to have an actual BAR at the Genius Bar, they should at least have a stash of whiskey for when such things happen or they have to tell some poor schmoe that they lost all his data. I’d hope they’d at least have gift cards for such occasions and that I would be graced with one, but alas, no such thing is forthcoming.

At least I have my computer. WITH screws this time.

* * * * * * * *

In other news, I seem to be notpregnant. And it’s my 6-year Cancerversary. Normally I SadCancerFace my mom into treating me to dinner, and we go someplace where the server invariably is impressed by my rock$tar cancer-ass-kicking nature and brings me free dessert and heaps of maraschino cherries for my fruity cocktail. Alas, this year I’ve been abandoned by my mom, probably due to the fact that I’m an orphan (I don’t think the fact that she lives in Chicago has anything to do with it), and no one else offered to take me out to wine and dine me (obligatory self-pity note), so I’m celebrating by hanging out with The Kone, working, and slugging down a cocktail. With the more expensive kind of maraschino cherries, so there.

I am nothing if not a party animal.

A wrinkle in time

I could be knocked up! But probably not. I went for my IUI on Sunday; I’m basically 100% sure it won’t work, so I’m ready and waiting to move on to IVF. Not pessimistic, just realistic, though I have ridiculously high hopes for IVF and assume that’ll work out just fine right away.

In the meantime, I’ve been checking out various message boards, in particular one that my dear Ukrainian-Finnish friend Motya passed on to me a while ago, Inspire.com. They have lots of message boards there for fertility stuff, including one for the 40+ contingent.

I have to say, it’s pretty fucking depressing.

Basically anyone going on there as a newbie being all “hey, so nervous, no idea what’ll happen!” is shot down pretty rapidly and told yeah no, just go straight to donor eggs. Do not pass go, don’t even bother with your own old crappy eggs. Great.

Which has all got me thinking too much – and certainly not in a good way – especially since this is Cancerversary time for me, and normally I’m all woo hoo, bring on the charred meat and maraschino cherries and FUCK YOU CANCER! This year, perhaps prompted by my new onc who asked me something like “So how do you feel about how cancer affected your life?”, it’s a little different. Because I could only rather bitterly think about how much it totally derailed it, in this death spiral of surgery, treatment, more surgery, more treatment, crazy medical bills, being unable to work, trying to recover from all that, etc. And oh yeah, losing 6 years of fertility, just to top things off.

So yes, I’m a little bitter.

It’s especially obvious to me this year because the days line up with the dates, so Friday July 4^th back then was when I found the lump, July 10^th was biopsy day, aka what I now think of as my official Cancerversary. Oh sure, I’m sure people will say, but Miss Tasha, it could be worse, at least you don’t have mets. And this is true. But I could also have not gotten cancer in the first place. And I’m not a big believer in the lowest common denominator approach, because then none of us could complain because none of us are starving orphan Biafran refugees with AIDS, so it could always be worse.

(If you’re the one Biafran refugee who’s found my blog, then okay, you get to complain.)

This isn’t to say that I’m not generally a happy person, in spite of my curmudgeonly demeanor. I am, probably in part because I have such craptastic luck, that I bounce back pretty quickly and can find humor in almost anything. But I still grieve the parallel life not lived, the one where I kept on with my hockey and triathloning and working and found PerfectMan through a Meet Cute involving our dogs and a duck pond and we lived happily ever after.

Of course, I could have also been mowed down by a Mack truck, so there’s that.

Anyway, I’ll do the POAS (Pee on a Stick – I’m getting hep with the fertility lingo) on July 10^th, because if this were a feel-good Hollywood movie of the century, I’d find out I’m pregnant on my Cancerversary. Of course my life’s not that movie, so it’ll be negative, and that’s that. We move on.

On a brighter note, today is also the anniversary of the day my little Koney-Chunkers was brought to my house for me to “foster” – hahahahahaha. The girls and I went up to Wisconsin that 4^th of July weekend to hang out and do some bike riding, and I still can hear clearly as day Annette saying “Look at how great the pupems is – you need to keep him.” Even my mom described him as “meek.” Hahahahaha. Such a little conman. We marked today with a trip to the reservoir, then lots of toysums, treats, bones, snuggles, Fun Waters. In other words, the usual.

So while I often think along the lines of (paraphrasing) I’ve taken the road less traveled, and have no idea where the hell I now am, overall, in spite of the bumps and turns my life has taken, this much is true:

Being (seemingly) cancer free is a beautiful thing.

Being alive is a beautiful thing.

Onward.

Perfect like me

Today I decided was a good day to try to see Kathryn and The Goats, The Goats being her two sons Cyrus and Cash. Why The Goats? It’s not that they resemble our goaty friends, but rather that pygmy goats are so damn cute and I’m tempted to get them for The Manor, and sometimes I wonder if I should just forget the whole Damians thing and just get goats instead. Somehow this has turned into Kathryn and I referring to her children as The Goats. Go figure.

So we go to a Mexican restaurant, where I learn the horrifying news that Kathryn has not been reading my blog, and thus has no idea what’s been going on with every bit of minutiae in my life. I know, what the hell. I start by telling her about my new love interest, Joaquim.

Me: And the key things in his profile were that he’s an avid cyclist, speaks Russian, has traveled all over the world……what?

I’m getting The Look from Kathryn.

Kathryn: So you’ve somehow managed to work it so that you’ll be impregnating yourself with your own sperm. Because basically Joaquim is your clone.

Well….okay. So I want a mini-me – what’s wrong with THAT? Sure, I wouldn’t want to date me (I fear that much personality would cause a total eclipse of the sun, or something), but having a little me toddle about correcting people’s grammar and saving spiders and being supremely witty and sarcastic? Hell yes.

Anyway, we have our lunch, and The Goats are well-behaved enough but I still need to admonish them and give them the death glare a couple of times. Because….

Me: ….I do run a tight ship you know. Cyrus, please dear, let’s leave that huge box of food alone – that’s for The Kone. Anyway, as I said, tight ship, all the time.

There’s a slight lull in conversation.

Me: You’re hoping right now that I have three of the most hellacious kids to ever walk this earth, aren’t yo……

Kathryn: YES! I was just thinking that, that I hope The Damians are hell spawn that drive you insane! Tight ship my ass! And if they’re not, if they’re perfect and lovely and well-behaved all the time, well, I just don’t know.

Me: So if we show up everywhere and The Damians are the cutest little Stepford urchins dressed adorably in matching sailor outfits and one is saying “here’s a flower I picked just for you mama” and the other is helping a little old lady across the street and the third is helping a baby bird with a broken wing…

Kathryn: We could no longer be friends.

Me: Fair enough.

On a separate note, as far as my adoptive status, I fear that my mom still hasn’t come to terms with the situation. Hence our phone call today:

Mom: So in addition to these cataracts that I need to have taken care of there’s also this infection and other things…..it’s not easy getting old.

Me: Well, it’s a good thing I’m adopted, so I didn’t inherit those derelict Ukrainian genes from you. Skol!

Cue uproarious laughter. Sigh. Like I keep telling my mom, just because you gave birth to me doesn’t mean I wasn’t adopted. I mean how else would it turn out that I’m Finnish?

Really, why is that so hard to understand?

Stood up by Joaquim

As if being a curmudgeony spinster* isn’t bad enough, getting stood up by your sperm donor is just another kick in the teeth. How does this happen?

I’ll spare the vast majority of you who have zero interest in the nitty-gritty of fertility treatment the boring details. Suffice it to say that normally I ovulate like clockwork on cycle day 14, but this time around, nada. Nada, and more nada. I seriously wondered, is this some cosmic joke? Where everything is just going along smoothly, and then poof, just like that, I stop ovulating?

Well, no. Apparently clomid, of the dreaded Clomid Challenge, has a well-known side effect of delaying ovulation, sometimes by many days. Which is why I went today to pick up a shot of Ovidrel that I had to administer to myself tonight. Yay. This is all very weird and surreal. And boring. I bore myself with it all, with the googling on what such and such means, what It means to have 4 follicles or 13, if anything can improve egg health, if anything can improve your IVF chances, if if if.

It’s all just a fucking crapshoot.

The supplement stuff out there is crazy enough on its own. Some people are taking an entire pharmacy of supplements: anti-oxidants, vitamins, enzyme, you name it.  I find myself tempted to write it all down and add it to my regimen, such as it is (hey, cheez doodles are indeed a regimen!), but none of that stuff is proven to work. It seems coincidental if it does seem to “work.” I’ll stick to the CoQ-10 that my doctor said wouldn’t hurt to try, and the regular vitamins, and leave it at that. Maybe.

So tonight I gave myself a shot to trigger ovulation, then Sunday I go in for my hookup with Joaquim.

He better put out this time.

*Speaking of spinsters, why is it that in the alterna-universe of IAWL, Mary is not only a timid wretch closing up the library, but she’s also visually impaired?? Glasses? Did somehow having George in her life keep her eyesight keen or cause her to eat more carrots? Were glasses the only way they could make Mary homely? Wasn’t the porkpie hat and 6 layers of clothing enough?

Just wondering.

My lucky thirteen

 

The tale of how my laptop woes brought the entire cohort of Apple Store employees of Bridgeport to its collective knees is a tale for another day, gentle 19s of readers, because today Miss Tasha is going to reprise her role as Dirty Sock, in the odd story of her life.

So as part of this fertility hooha (technical term), I did the Clomid Challenge last week, which is another one of those hoops they have you go through to tell you….something. I wonder sometimes about the point of all these tests when you’re old as dirt, because the likelihood is that the results suck, in which case they tell you you’re out of luck. But if the results are good, those don’t seem to tell you much either, and they’ll probably still tell you your chances suck.

Anyway.

Last week I decided it was time to pick a donor, and because of the GRACILE Syndrome, my choices were limited. Luckily, one of the ones I had to choose from – Joaquim (this is a new fake name to override his original fake name) – is an avid cyclist, speaks Russian, and is a world traveler. Good enough for me!

After selecting and paying, I’m informed via email that “a vial of Joaquim has been transferred into your account.” Which seems a bit forward of him, I must say. No dinner and dancing first? For some reason it also brings to mind Young Frankenstein, and bug-eyed Marty Feldman as Igor accidentally selecting the “Abby Normal” brain. Not sure why.

On Sunday I get the results of the Clomid Challenge, which, can I say, I kicked ass at. Yes I did. An FSH of 9 beforehand, 11 after, and those are damn fine results, my friends, damn fine.

Today, however, was the sigh-inducing mid-cycle ultrasound, to count those pesky follicles again. Sigh. At least this time I was prepared for sucky bad news, me with my 4 wee but fierce contingent of badass follicles, left to do all the heavy lifting on their own.

Except there weren’t 4. There were 13.

Thirteen little plump rock$tar follicles. Okay, some seemed to be a bit smallish and slackerish, but still. THIRTEEN! Yes, Miss Tasha was grinning like a fool at this bit of amazing news. Now, as the very nice ultrasound woman told me, they could very well harbor shitty quality eggs (paraphrasing). Yes, this is true. But I’d much rather take my chances with the possibility of having 12 shitty and 1 good egg, over 3 shitty and 1 good.

Because all I need is one good egg.

So, suffice it to say, Imma hang out here a little while longer on my log, soaking up the sun, no rush to go anywhere, no sirree, thankyouverymuch.

My Ukrainian – I mean Finnish – ancestors would be proud.

Skol!

The truth always come out. Always always. No matter what, at some point, it’ll rear its ugly head and those supposed secrets that are dead and buried come to light.

So as part of all this fertility treatment, ORM asked if I wanted the genetic testing component of it, just to make sure there are no weird genes I need to be concerned with. Sure, why not, I say. It’s just money, and when you’re robbing the bank, you don’t worry about double-parking, I always say.

They set up the call day/time beforehand, so I had my call with the genetic counselor scheduled for this week. I speak to a lovely woman, who informs me that, unbeknownst to me, I’m a recessive carrier for some kind of@^#$(CAUR Syndrome.

Me: Huh?

Genetic Counselor: GRACILE Syndrome. I’ll send you the info on it.

Me: What is that exactly?

GC: Well, it’s very rare, so that’s good, but it’s also really bad, so that’s bad. Basically any baby with it dies at birth or shortly thereafter, after a painful and agonizing brief life.

Me: So if I read between the lines you’re saying this isn’t a good thing to have.

GC: Right.

Me: Well damn.

GC: Since it IS so rare, the chances of you finding a donor with the same gene isn’t likely, but because of this you need to make sure that any donors you choose have done the Counsyl testing as well and aren’t carriers.

Me: What in the world…I mean, where did this come from?

GC: It’s common among the Finnish people. So yes, you should avoid donors with a Finnish background too.

Damn. There likely goes by chance of choosing Othello.

And….Finnish? Wth?

I do some research after we get off the phone, and indeed, this is considered a “Finnish Heritage Disease” – basically no one else has it. Wth? I decide to go right to the source.

Me: Hi mom, what’s up?

Mom: Oh nothing, how are things going there?

This is where I decide it’s best to be wily and subtle, perhaps calling upon my imagined newfound Finnish trait of being a crafty and cunning people. I mean all those James Bond movies were always set in Finland, right? Right next to Russia, spies and all that? Right.

Me: So, I was wondering…..niin ketkä ovat oikeita vanhempia?

Mom: What?

Me: As I just said in a language familiar to all those on this line, niin ketkä ovat oikeita vanhempia? Or to put it another way, kuka minä olen ja mistä minä olen tullut?

Mom: I think something’s wrong with your phone again – you’re all garbled.

Me: No no, I was just speaking the language of my people, “mom”….

Mom: That didn’t sound anything like Ukrainian.

Me: Aha! J’accuse!

Mom: Have you been spending too much time out in the sun?

Me: The jig is up! When were you going to tell me that I’m actually FINNISH? What, was I found in a fjord wearing a little red bonnet and clogs by two Finnish people who then left me on your doorstep in Chicago?

Mom: You realize that makes no sense.

Me: Whatever.

I explain to my mom my exciting knowledge about my true roots, and rather than getting the whole sad and mysterious tale of my forgotten land and people, I’m treated to hysterical laughter, with occasional sputters of “we…were still paying for you 2 years later!” and “hahaha……troublemaker….who else…would want…..” and so on. Sigh.

Me: Okay mom, so I can see you’re going to be of no help. Excuse me, I’m going to go have some pickled herring for dinner.

Mom: Pickled her…..you hate that stuff!

Me: Yes, but that was before I knew I was FINNISH, hello! I’m sure I’ll love it now, since it’s part of my culture.

As I hang up, I idly wonder if my mom is coming down with some kind of laughing disease in her older years, as we somehow seem to have conversations like this a LOT. I can’t figure out why.

I then decide to look up more on the character of the Finns, aka Miss Tasha’s new tribe. Pretty quickly I manage to find the following:

“A taciturn people, who “rarely start conversations with strangers.” Slow to share their opinion, and “they don’t boast about their own achievements.”

Okay, so, maybe I'm not Finnish after all.

A Tale of Two Luckies

So there I was on a work call Tuesday morning via the computer, having my typical conversation: “Well normally I wouldn’t espouse discussion of the standard model of Higgs Boson, due to the circulating particles that…”

….when POOF just like that I was cut off. What the hell? My laptop had suddenly turned off, apropos of nothing. I try to turn it back on. Whir, click, constant grey screen. I try safe mode. Whir, click, blue screen. I try some random shit that I read about on the internet using the hated PC, and again, nada. Hmm. Not good.

Did I mention that this week I’ve had MAJOR deliverables due for all my clients? Yeah, pretty bad timing.

After realizing that my Macbook isn’t going to magically start itself, I make an appointment at the Apple Store 45 minutes away and head over. There, I’m eventually helped by a very nice guy who runs all the standard diagnostic tests and can’t figure out what’s wrong. He tries reloading the operating system – it stilll won’t go past the grey screen. He does other magical things with odd commands that us mere mortals have no knowledge of – still nothing.

Uh oh.

Finally he decides to take it in back (aka the dreaded “in back,” kind of like the euthanasia room at the shelter), and when he comes back, he looks solemn.

Apple Guy: I have some bad news. It looks like it needs a new hard drive.

Me: Uh oh. How much will that cost?

AG: Probably around $200.

Me: Oh, whew! That’s not bad – let’s get it done.

Problem solved, right? No. Because AG comes back in 15 minutes or so, looking even more solemn.

AG: Well, we tried replacing the hard drive…and it still doesn’t work. So that’s not the problem

Me: What could be wrong with it?

AG: We have no idea.

Uh oh.

We decide to leave it there overnight and they’ll run more tests on it, and I go home dejected and Apple-less. This morning, I talk to AG 2 who says it’s the logic board that went kerplooey, and that needs to be replaced but they need to order a part. That’ll be about $600. Sigh.

I’ll remind you, gentle reader, that this is all happening during a week when I have major deliverables due to various clients. With all of my work on that laptop. Which is now dead.

In my mind, that would qualify me for the shittiest luck in the world. As in, a crushing blow, to lose absolutely everything from my laptop. I. Would. Be. So. Fucked.

I say “would be,” because here’s the weird part. This all happened on Tuesday. On Monday, I had had enough of my annoyingly slow computer driving me crazy. Crazy! This had been going on for months! I’d have just a few programs open on the computer, MS Office, Firefox, nothing that would seem to suck up a lot of resources, and the computer would just grind along. Now, I hadn’t been to the Apple store for anything computer problem related probably since I bought the laptop 3 years ago. But on Monday for some reason I decided that hey, I would drive the 45 minutes just to have them take a look at it, see if they could figure out what was going on. (Passed all the diagnostics then too, turned out I just needed more RAM to combat the slowness.)

And of course, before I took it in….I backed the whole damn thing up.

Yep, after not backing it up for over a year, in spite of scribbling notes to myself of “back up computer!” – I hadn’t done it. Until Monday.

Unrelated to that, my computer died on Tuesday.

Weird, no? So my thinking at this point is that that is some damn fine luck I have. I picture my guardian angel Stan, my little beer-drinking chain-smoking bald guy who likes to bowl, getting distracted and then realizing oh shit, I’ve gotta do something about this! But he’s late to the game, or can only do so much, so he throws in a “fix” that makes things less of a catastrophe, some saving grace. This seems to happen a lot with Stan, whereby something horrible happens in my life…but it could have been so much worse.

So, thanks Stan, I owe you a beer. And maybe could you arrange for me to win the lottery? I promise I’ll start playing. K’thanks.

Dirty Sock and Zen, revisited

Friends who know me best will hear me refer to Dirty Sock and Zen, at which point they’ll smile and nod and think to themselves, there’s Miss Tasha going on about something esoteric as usual, with it making sense only in her brilliant mind.

So it is with Dirty Sock, who I’ve mentioned before in this blog, but it bears repeating. You see, Dirty Sock makes his appearance in the Tom Robbins classic, Skinny Legs and All, whereupon Dirty Sock and his comrades Spoon, Can O’Beans, and Conch Shell are all making their way to Mecca. Because of course.

On the way, Dirty Sock winds up in a creek, and is struggling to stay afloat, getting waterlogged and gasping for air, and eventually he gives up all hope, resigning himself to a watery grave. Just as he does so, he gets hooked on a log that flips him out of the water just in time, and he lays there exhausted on said log, thanking his good fortune.

The lesson here being that sometimes, just when all hope is lost, things take a turn for the better.

So there I was, despairing, albeit cheered up by friends like Kate Gace Walton from (ahem) Wharton, who posted a link to abandoned hotels on FB for me to cheer me up (thanks Kate!) (because I love that stuff, and have dreams of going to each abandoned building and exploring and recreating scenes from The Shining) (I know, I’m weird), bummed because I had missed the call on Saturday from ORM telling me the results of my blood test. But of course they’d be sucky, because everything else had been.

Lo and behold, I called this morning, to find out that I have fricking rock$tar results. An FSH of 9. Estradiol of 11.7. Again, for the uninitiated, fucking awesome results.

I then immediately jumped to the logical conclusion: my follicles might be few, but they’re mighty and fierce, dammit. They’re the uber-super-mega-awesome follicles that people dream about. They’re the toughs at the…Follicle Bar, yeah, that’s it, swaggering around and boasting about how awesome they are, and how they don’t want nobody nobody sent. That’s the Chicago in them talking by the way.

They’re the badass Logan’s Run of follicles, hunting down and exterminating all the lazy-ass slacker follicles with their shitty subpar eggs. Or maybe that would be Mad Max and the Thunderdome.

Anyway.

Point being, Miss Tasha has wound up on a log, and despite staring down a rabbit hole of madness, I’m going to take my shiny optimism and run with it. Yep, Imma take my little waterlogged socky self and just hang out right here for a while, thankyouverymuch.

On another note, I’ve been looking through the ORM Sperm Bank for a donor, and while I don’t want to post anything that would risk my getting booted out of the program, I have to say that they have some goofy names and descriptions of these guys. Names like Cedric, Thurmond, Alistair, Warrick, Sterling, Leopold, etc and so on. Seriously, Leopold?? Clearly someone’s having fun with this.

The best parts though are some of the descriptions. “Cedric has an impeccable smile and symmetrical features. He dresses well in button down shirts and khakis with a smart leather jacket on top.”

Khakis? At this rate, it looks like my donor may be Jake from State Farm.

Fantastic.

Tomorrow I start my “Clomid Challenge,” or, as I like to call it, Battle of the Network Ovaries. Seriously, who comes up with these names anyway? But being the uber-competitive type that I am, I say, bring it. I will report back.

It's a Hard Egg

Whenever I hear the song It’s a Heartache by Abba, I think of my dad. We both really liked that song, and so, many aeons ago when I was wee, he decided he was going to go get the single record with that song, and he asked me: "Is it ‘It’s a Heartache' or ‘It’s a Hard Egg’?" I had no fucking clue. I guessed wrong, and when he came home later that day, I still remember his annoyance, because the salesperson at Ye Old Record Shoppe didn’t know what he was talking about. But they figured it out, and I think I still have the 45 floating around somewhere among all my piles of crap.

My dad would have LOVED the internet.

I thought of that song this morning, both going to and from my doctor’s appointment; to, for no reason at all having it pop into my head, maybe because it was my dad’s birthday this past Wednesday, and from, realizing that it was highly unlikely that I’d ever have a child with my dad’s dry and smartass sense of humor and his brilliance. Kind of like me – I was definitely my father’s child. Sure, my mom is a rock$tar as well of course, but even she would say that my dad and I were like two peas in a pod, two Geminis..

And now it looks like the Huebner genes are coming to an end. Because I went to my appointment this morning with a foolish sense of optimism – according to my AMH test, I should have had plenty of antral follicles. Tons. Tons of potential eggs and babies.

I had 4.

For the uninitiated, 4 is a shitty number. 18 would be good. 4 is not hopeful. 4 is the death spiral of fertility treatment, where you throw tons of money at this stuff and get nowhere.

Clearly, my AMH lied. Science lied to me. I’m a little bitter about that.

To add insult to injury, I then had my blood drawn, and yes, I’m a hard stick and I’m used to that, but this time attempt #2 hit a nerve or something, because my left hand and then arm got painful and numb. Attempt #3 wasn’t much better. I drove home bawling.

One reason I sold my house in Chicago – the main reason – was so that I’d have the money for fertility stuff and kids and so on. What a fucking waste that was, all that cleaning and packing and sorting and boxing up and sheer hell, all purely motivated by the thought of: think of MiracleBaby, it’ll all be worth it. I might as well have stayed in Chicago in my house with my friends and family and my bike rides to Wisconsin and my hockey playing and my railing against the idiot yuppie neighbors putting up their 6-ft privacy fences and blocking out all my sun.

Now I’m here with none of that, and likely no baby. Some great fucking plan.

And I have to say something here about all the Judgy McJudgersons out there who come up with something along the lines of “why did she wait so long” or “if she really wanted kids she would have had them by now.” My new cohort of childless-but-trying, we hear that shit a LOT. Or we see it written a lot, everywhere. Whereas we don’t see it for guys who wait until they get their shit together before having a family, do we? I don’t recall anyone ever saying about some guy having kids at 55+ or whatever, what the hell was HE thinking. It’s more along the lines of hey, congratulations you stud. Wtf is up with that?

The thing is, life gets in the way, and no, not all of us wanted to start churning out kids at 18 or 21. In fact, I’ll admit it, when I was younger I wasn’t sure if I wanted kids. Gasp. But then I’ve never made the case that that was my life’s only goal. Then when I was in my 30s, I figured I’d get married and then have kids, even thinking it through to the point of saying of course we’d wait a while before having kids, so that we’d have time together as a couple before the craziness of kids. Ha ha.

Then once I thought oh shit, that doesn’t look like it’s happening, (still in my 30s here), I didn’t have the savings to pursue fertility or childcare or actually raising a kid, PLUS my insurance didn’t cover any kind of maternity at all. Nada. That would be downright stupid, to take that kind of risk of not having any of that stuff covered. Then cancer happened, and that’s kept me occupied for the past 5 years or so. Gee, my bad.

So my point, if there is one, is to say this: we all take different paths to get to where we are, and some of those roads can be pretty bumpy. I’m sorry I didn’t follow the same fucking lifeplan as the rest of you, but let’s lighten up on each other, shall we? Can we just do that at least?

It’s lonely enough doing this all on my own as it is.

All the world's a par-tay

While we wait anxiously for things to start happening on the The Damiens front, life goes on. Specifically, the anniversary party for The Manor goes on, in typical spectacular fashion. Not only have I been planning the necessary festivities and merry-making, but beloved Cancerchick friend Cori timed her visit to Oregon so that she would be here for my par-tay. Score!

Before Cori arrives, she taunts me with missives on Facebook talking about the birthday gift for me that she’s managed to sneak through security. I can’t even imagine what this might be, as she has quite the history of ferreting out bizarre yet supremely perfect gifts.

To hear Cori tell the tale, upon arriving at The Manor:

“So I get to the first security guy, and he takes a look at my gift and tells me ‘oh no, they’ll never let you through security with that.’ I tell him well, I can only try. Second guy says the same thing, ‘oh, they’ll definitely not let you through with something like that.’ I can only try, I tell him too. It’s like a kids’ book at this point. The THIRD security guy before I actually get to screening ALSO tells me they’ll never let me through. ‘Nothing else to do at this point,’ I tell him, ‘so I can only give it a try.’ 

I get to security and lay the gift on the conveyor right next to my carry-on bag. It goes through. No one says anything. I pick it up and hustle the hell out of there – they might still be looking for me. As I’m trying to stuff it into the overhead bin on the plane, everyone is asking me how in the world I got that through security and why I’m traveling with it, and I just tell them it’s a gift for Miss Tasha, and it had to make it to Silverton.” 

THIS is what Cori took through security and on the plane:
 
Now I don’t know about you, but that’s what I’d call a cudgel. A heavy iron one at that, with a very pointy hummingbird beak, whereby once you start swinging that thing, more than just an eye or two will be lost.

And yet I’ve had a tiny nail file, a letter opener, tiny scissors all taken away from me. Cori, tweezers.

I will laugh about this, and the sight of Cori showing up in my driveway wielding this thing, until the day I die.

The party of course was a smashing success. Too much food as is typical for my par-tays, and Kone ate a goodly number of deviled eggs before anyone noticed. Old-timey punch, more captives in the JCoT, and croquet rounded things out, as well as a celebratory cake with frosting much to Kone’s liking (see: deviled eggs).

Speaking of eggs, in keeping with my goal of making this blog purely informative and science-based, I did in fact do a highly controlled experiment to determine if there were a way to boil/cook fresh eggs in which one would actually be able to peel the damn things. A bit of crowdsourcing via FB yielded the following suggestions:

1. Baking them
2. Boiling them with some baking soda

I tried both methods, and the verdict was……BAKING SODA! Which apparently helps get splinters out too, so that shit is good for everything. But yes, adding a tsp or so of baking soda to the cooking water worked like a charm, whereas the baked eggs weren’t cooked all the way through, and were impossible to peel.

Yes, life goes on, and there are always good things to be found, without much effort at all.

Anonymous and I, a love story

 
It’s been a while since I’ve had a comment from one of my twenties of fans that has spoken to me so intensely, so wholly, so profoundly. Well, at least not since the Days of Swimfan, who had such a deep abiding obsession with my finely-honed athletic self, it was almost a bit embarrassing. Almost, I say, because I’m used to that kind of adoration, but still. Anyway, lo these few years later, we find ourselves in a similar place, dear reader, albeit without the cookins and the image of Swimfan as a member of the Polish cycling team in bright red and overly tight biking shorts. Thank god.

Because this was the comment on my last post:

“Miss Tasha, how about a positive attitude, like when you sign up for a run, or bike race and sit back, eat crap and don't train and poof you do it.  If tests are negative there is always adoption correct?  You will be providing a needy child with all you have and that is a lot, it might be too much.

Also what do you think Kona will say?”


And you know what? Fuck yeah. I mean, not that I’ve been sitting around wallowing in self-pity, no sirree. But if anyone can make the impossible things happen, why that would be me, hands down. And it’s true – I do sign up for things, have great intentions, look for my running shoes for months, wind up taking my cycling shoes to a half-marthon, yet I still go ahead and do it. I’m stupid that way. Who else did the Goofy that one year (half marathon on Sat, full on Sunday) and screwed up her foot on Saturday but decided it would be a great idea to do the marathon anyway and wound up destroying her feet and legs so much that she had to be wheeled through the airport? Yep, that would be me too. “Stubborn” is practically my middle name.

So fuck yeah, this is going to be happen, one way or another. I already envision me and The Damians (I picture 3 little hellions) out on the back 40, toting those bales and plowing those fields, before we sit down to some Kool-Aid and cheez doodles. Oh sure, they say babies shouldn’t eat that stuff, but what do the so-called experts know? Not more than me, certainly.

Thanks for the words of encouragement, Anonymous. Sometimes it’s good to be reminded of what an optimistic full-speed-ahead idiot I am, rationality be damned. Oh, and when I’m out and about, I’m constantly asking myself WWKW, or What Would Kona Want, naturally. Kone wants a sibling or three – he loves the little bastards. I don’t know if it’s because of the crumb detritus left on their face and hands, but whatever. Love.

So it has been spoken, so it shall be done.

Floating on

 
Far be it from me to be one of those annoying bloggers who comes out with a monumental-ish, revealing post….and then disappears. Today is my birthday, so it seems as appropriate a day as any to talk about how I got to this point with my life not where I want it to be.

Having said that, it was a fucking awesome birthday, with well wishes from around the globe, the usual invite to tea with the Queen, telegrams and packages, and so on. Let it never be said that I scoff at any celebration of me just being my general awesome self.

But to update: nothing else has happened. Not surprisingly, with these things one has to wait until certain tests can be done, so that’s what I’m waiting for, and that should be next week. At which point I’ll go back to ORM for the FSH test and an antral follicle test, which is kind of the make or break one,  as that shows you how many potential eggs you have that can be harvested for an IVF cycle. That test scares the shit out of me, because if it’s bad, well, there go a lot of my options. So that could be an ugly day. A day to drink ALL the liqueurs.

A very very ugly day.

The only glimmer of hope that I stubbornly cling to is the fact of my rocks$tar AMH result of 2.94 (AMH is the new FSH), which was pass-around-the-office-worthy according to Dr. Barbieri.  Yay me and my Ukrainian ovaries! But just that fact isn’t enough – that’s kind of the lowest common denominator, really. If that had sucked, well, it would have been Dirty Sock and Zen, where one kind of gives up all hope. Even though it’s good, there are still a LOT of hurdles to clear, so….we’ll see.

 One thing all of this has shown me is just how many friends of mine have dealt with fertility issues. Sure, there are the ones I know about, and with my Cancerchicks it’s pretty much de rigeur – but there are a lot of other friends where I just assumed they didn’t want kids, when the reality is, they’ve found themselves in situations like mine, or having other issues to deal with. I guess that’s a good reason to not assume anything, about anyone’s situation, ever.

My other public service announcement is something that I preface by saying that if you think this is about you and something you said to me, it’s not, and you don’t need to apologize. This is a general point, because I see it all the time, anywhere there’s a discussion about someone trying to have a child via assisted means, let’s call it. And my point is this: the people saying I should adopt because why waste money on these treatments when there are so many unwanted kids out there? Yeah, not helpful. Unless this is your thing in general and you say this to everyone who ever says they want kids, in some Doomsday prepper belief that no new children should be brought into this world. Otherwise, no.

I’ll leave out any mention of how freaking hard it is to adopt and how expensive and how lengthy of a process it is, because my real point is this: no matter how things turn out, I have as much right to at least try to have a biological child as anyone else. Period.

Speaking of kids, I was at Trader Joe’s the other day buying stuff for tomorrow’s par-tay, and of course got to chatting with Checkout Guy (even though I hate people, as a general rule), after he asked me what was new.  

Me: Well, I’m having a par-tay this weekend to celebrate The Manor. Here, let me show you a picture….  
CG: Ooh, picture swapping. Let me show YOU a picture of me and my nephew!  
Me: Dueling pics – you’re on! Oh…that’s a really cute baby.
CG, smugly: Yeah, setting the bar pretty high, aren’t I? Let’s see your…..oh, that’s a gorgeous house.

Us, in unison: Tie.

Then we somehow got to discussing the dilemma that one has when there’s an ugly baby at hand. I mean, what do you say? And no, not all babies are cute, let’s face it. Even my neighbor and I talked about this potential issue, but luckily her newborn is adorable and looks like Prince George, so they got lucky. Other times, when there's a gremlin-resembling urchin?

Some suggestions:

"Wow, now THAT'S a baby!"
"Congrats, so exciting!"
"Baby looks so happy!"

 Thankfully, this is often only temporary, as many times UnfortunateBaby will start to look much cuter, and then one can offer up honest sentiments. Until then, we do what we must.

Never let it be said that I am not one to proffer useful advice. Hell, I generally have so much, I could pass it out like cheap party favors.....

So the Yeti and Nessie walk into a bar….

It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others.
 
I don’t normally write about serious stuff on this blog – I mean I DO, cancer and shit, but other than some rants, I’m generally able to see the humor in things. Because that’s life, right? It throws shit at you, you deal. Laugh, cry, rally to laugh again, as I say. And as I always point out, I have so much bad luck in general, I’m able to quickly adapt to bad news.

This one might be tough though.

So yesterday I went on my first visit to a fertility clinic in Portland, namely Oregon Reproductive Medicine (ORM). Yes, Miss Tasha is attempting via sperm donor to have MiracleBaby, aka PerfectChild. Have I always and forever wanted a child ever since I was an embryo myself? Well no, because if that were my life’s goal I probably would have made sure to have a child when I was in my 30s and not leave things to chance, right? But I have for some time, though The Cancer did kind of derail things for a while there.

I drive into Portland all whistling and happy, me and The Kone, on a gorgeous spring day, excited about finally getting this party started for reals. Then reality came crashing down on me during my appointment with the wonderful Dr. Barbieri at ORM, who was really awesome. But she did tell me some sobering statistics, all revolving around the fact that I’m old as dirt. I was fine with them though, even though they were all along the lines of  “1% chance of such–and-such, and .006% chance of this” etc. Ech, numbers, I’m not so mathy anyway.

Then she pulled out the chart that will be burned in my brain forever, the bar chart that shows how many women they’ve worked with who have gotten pregnant with their own eggs, by age. And she points to the bar for 45-year-old women. And that number?

Zero.

A big fucking zero.

Me, being the eternal sunshiney optimist that I am, at this point start to sound like the guy in the movie who, when being told he has a one in a million chance of dating some woman, says “So you’re saying I’ve got a shot!”

See again: not mathy.

Hence the Yeti and Nessie reference, because those are about my chances. Hey, it could happen! We decide to go full steam ahead anyway, because as I told Dr. Barbieri, go big or go home. More testing, the “clomid challenge” (which to me sounds awesomely like the Battle of the Network Stars, so hell yeah, bring it on – not that I’m competitive or anything), an IUI attempt while working on the IVF stuff, then IVF which will probably cost around $24K. For each attempt.

As I jokingly told my most awesome Cancerchick friends Melinda, Cori, and Adrienne later at home as they were talking me off my tiny ledge, I should get on the fundme bandwagon and set up a page along the lines of “Help Kone achieve the baby of his dreams!” Because Kone LOVES babies. Freaking loves them. He just wants to be near them and kiss them and make sure they and kids in general glom onto him. So I could have things like, say, a gift for $10 donations consisting of a pawtograph from The Kone, and so on. Of course I wouldn’t do this, but it amused me to think of it. Do it for The Kone!

Anyway. This ledge thing.

Because then I started thinking of course about how I fucked up my life. Put stuff off, waited, putzed around, wasted time with idiot guys, didn’t take note of time madly rushing by. Though I did recall this morning that most doctors don’t tell you about fertility options before you start cancer treatment. They don’t mention that even if your ovaries aren’t completely fried afterwards, after you go through and finish everything, you might then be too old to get pregnant anyway. So it’s not ALL on me.

Just most of it.

And while it’s mostly on me, I’m also bitter and resentful while looking at all the people who have kids without any problems – not that I begrudge them, but it’s still painful to see billions of pics of kids on Facebook and everywhere else, knowing that might not be in the cards. I know that’s the case for a LOT of my Cancerchick friends, so it’s not like I’m some special snowflake, but still. It’s tough. It's tough for all of us. Some people get truly lucky with the kid situation, where everything falls into place perfectly, and often they don't appreciate how remarkable that is, but some of us don’t. And it sucks and it’s hard.

The thought that kept drumming through my head when I was talking to Dr. Barbieri was actually from the stupid show Private Practice that I watched maybe 3 times, because I don’t do tv as a general rule, and there was the episode early on where Dr. Addison has just found out that she basically has no egg reserve, or something like that, and her chances of having a baby are zero to none. And she’s in the elevator, stunned, just thinking – “I waited too long.”



 * * * * * * * * *

Well that was just one huge boring fucking pity party, now wasn't it?

The point being, young grasshoppers, don’t be like me. At least not in all ways. Don’t think you have all the time in the world for certain things. I mean I know we should be carpe dieming and all that shit in general, but with some things it really doesn’t pay to wait. Because then you’ll be like me, alone with your thoughts at night, and the main one that keeps running through my head is this:

I waited too fucking long.