Everyone please say a prayer for my childhood friend Linda.  She has been fighting oral cancer and a mass was recently discovered in her lung.  Also pray for Philip, a high school friend fighting cancer.  I can’t forget about my Little Pink family: Katrina, Dawn, Connie, Connie,  Jennifer and the woman who brought us together: Jeanine.  CANCER SUCKS!

I’ve been very busy with work lately.  Between Domstat, BLAST, and TrafficStat, I’ve been working more than I hoped.  When I have these meetings, I usually don’t sleep the night before because I am preparing.  I don’t want to make a fool of myself.  As I’ve been busy, I haven’t been able to update my blog as often as I’d like (of course that damn “Candy Crush”  could be partly to blame).  We have all also gotten into “The Big Bang Theory” so we’ve been watching all of the reruns.  The show is hysterical and laughing is great for anyone.  Laughter truly is the best medicine.  But I digress….

Friday October 11th was “Pink Friday” in Warwick.  I planned on going with Gillian.  It ran from 3 pm-9pm and I had hoped to get home by 6 or so.  Christian met up with me at work & we started home.  Traffic utterly sucked that afternoon & it took us over 2 1/2 hours to get home.  Gillian and I then headed into the village.  We walked by a tattoo parlor and they were running a special on pink ribbon tattoos.  We had gone to “Pink Friday” last year and the shop was running a special as well but I had been going through chemotherapy.  I still wanted a tattoo.  Gillian and I decided to walk around a bit first.  We checked out some of the booths on Railroad Avenue & then we headed back to the tattoo shop.  I picked out a pink ribbon and worked with one of the artists to make the sketch smaller for and to add the kid’s initials.  We decided on the finished product and then a stencil was made.  Gillian went back out to watch a band while I got the tattoo.  I think it came out rather nice.

I still feel like I live in doctors’ offices.  I’ve been back to see Dr. W to remove more fluid from my breast area.  I see him again next week.  Fluid continues to build up in the “pocket”.   I’m not sure when I will go for reconstruction surgery.  I was supposed to go for surgery in November but Dr. G doesn’t want me to have surgery until I see him again (which will be the 1st week of December).  I don’t know if I want to have major surgery right before Christmas so I’ll probably wait until the new year.

I was coming down with a cold a week and a half ago, as the weather was changing, and I hadn’t slept well the week prior so I was run down.  As my colds tend to progress and I end up with bronchitis, I decided to see my general practitioner, Dr. S.  I told him about the pleural effusion.  He listened to my lungs and wasn’t very concerned.  He told me that if there was fluid, it wasn’t much as he didn’t hear any decreased breathe sounds.  My asthma was acting up a bit though, so he put me on steroids and antibiotics and I’ve been using my nebulizer.  I’m feeling better.

I’ve gone back to Dr. S for more acupuncture.  I got busy during the summer with vacation and work so I hadn’t gone for acupuncture for about two months.  I had been experiencing pain traveling down the outside of my lower right leg, especially after wearing high heels.  Acupuncture helped.  I went for acupuncture this Monday.  I worked late Sunday night and only slept a couple hours.  After work Monday, I went to acupuncture.  Dr. S put around 30 needles in me (legs, stomach, head, face, ear, arms) and I fell asleep.  I don’t normally sleep during acupuncture.  When I woke up 45 minutes later, I felt refreshed.  I then went to the allergist for my allergy shots and then went to a chiropractor I met during “Pink Friday”.

I had originally seen the chiropractor last week and was following up with the results.  He did some type of nutritional/applied kinesiology type testing on me.  It was very bizarre.  He told me that despite all that I had been through, the tests revealed that I was pretty strong.  He also stated that he’d be able to help me out.  I have to do more research before I commit though.  The program which includes nutritional supplements would take at least 12 weeks or more and it isn’t cheap.  He stated that chemicals, medications, and scars were affecting my body functions.

Charles purchased a Ninja blender from Kohl’s and we’ve been making more fresh fruit & vegetable smoothies.  The blender liquefies everything.  Carrots, apples, kale, cucumbers, beets, etc, with just a little bit of water.  We don’t even have to peel or core anything.   I try to have one smoothie every other day.  I need to start getting back into shape and eating better.

Gillian and I participated in “Making Strides Against Breast Cancer” on October 20th.  It was great to see all of the participants in a sea of pink.  The number of survivors present was inspiring.  Gillian and I sprayed our hair pink & Gillian wore a pink boa. My hair looks pinker because the gray hairs in the front of my head soaked up the pink spray nicely!  Thanks so much to everyone who supported me and Gillian.  I pray that a cure will be found for cancer in this lifetime.   After the walk, Gillian and I went to breakfast together and then to church.  Gillian ended up altar serving, pink hair and all, as there was only one other server and he was new to altar serving.

On October 24th, Gillian accompanied me to the Theodore Roosevelt Awards Dinner at the Harmonie Club on East 60th Street in NYC.  The Roosevelt Awards are given to members of the Police Department who suffered some type of debilitating injury or illness and return to full duty.  Four members of the service (MOS) were recognized.  It was a lovely ceremony and dinner/dance.  All previous awardees and a guest were invited as well. The NYPD band was the entertainment and they were excellent.  We did a little dancing and singing and had a great time with all of my friends.  I bought Gillian a new blue dress for the occasion.  I wore one of my purple dresses.  Gillian straightened her hair the day before.  It took her over 3 hours but her hair looked lovely.

Gillian dressed like a zombie bride on Halloween.  She wore her costume to school and left it on to hand out candy to the trick or treaters.  I was at work and didn’t get home until 9 pm so I missed all the action.  It was a little depressing to be at work.  I am on Restricted Duty, which means I can’t go out on patrol.  I take care of a lot of the administrative issues.  The Halloween Parade is a big deal in the West Village on Halloween.  I really missed being a part of it.  I know I’m not ready to work “Full Duty” because the four days I work now are taking a lot out of me, but it was sad to see all the cops showing up at the precinct to get ready for the parade and to see the spectators and participants walking by in their Halloween Costumes.  I did my part for Halloween though.  I wore black and orange and put a little purple in my gray hair to get into the spirit.

I went to lunch with some old friends, Kevin & Christine.  It was great reminiscing about old times on the Job and some of the old-timers we worked with.

I’ve got to get some sleep.  I hope to update my blog more often.  Hopefully next time I won’t delete my whole blog while I’m typing it.

Much love to everyone!