Tired of Being Bald

Hey Guys,

So I've reached the point where I'm tired of being bald!!! I'm HOPING that by the time I take my trip for New Year's that I'll have a little bit of fuzz growing back in (that gives me about a month and a half after my last treatment) and by the time I go back to school, I'm hoping that I'll have enough to get a little styling done.

What I'm really looking forward to is having enough hair to do this:

I really love Audrey Tautou (so disappointed Coco Avant Chanel isn't playing anywhere in the Cincinnati or Cleveland areas...) and we have similarly textured hair, so I'd really like to keep it short cropped and curly for at least awhile. I think she looks so chic, and despite the fact that I'm betting it takes a decent amount of product to keep it from being super frizzy, it's GOT to be easier to take care of than the mid-back length hair I had before I cut it off.

I know, I know... it's still a little early, but a girl can plan, right?

Lots of Love,

Lauren

Back to School (Again...)

Hey Guys,

Celebration! I got to go to class today! Unfortunately, though, my counts were still a little low this morning (around 350), so in order to go to class, I had to wear this lovely mask. In case you were wondering, yes, it's from Children's, and yes, those ARE flying band-aids printed on it. It matched my outfit SO well...

Anyway, it was really good to be able to get out of the house and back to school. Basically things seemed like they had been pretty uneventful when I was gone, and I had kept up with my reading, so I wasn't confused. I had a French quiz to make up, but I took it while the professor went over the graded quizzes with the class.

I felt a little foggy all day, but I'm pretty sure that's because I got up at 7am so I could make sure to be at the clinic by 8 (when they open) to get my blood work done to see how low my counts were.

I also got to meet up with my friend Andrew for a little bit - it was nice to see him because we haven't gotten together in over a month because our schedules have been kind of conflicting. Hopefully we'll be able to get together again sometime soon, because I miss all of my friends!

Time to go do homework! (is it bad that I'm actually getting excited about that??)

Lots of Love,

Lauren

Surrounded by Britten

Hey Guys,

Yikes, I'm getting really bad at consistently posting!

Anyway, I've been SO happy to get back to class! It's really weird being at a new school, very disorienting. I keep telling myself that I really shouldn't be back to BW anyway (since I'm a fifth year...) and would most likely have been starting Grad school, but it's still weird being someplace new! Especially because I'm taking all upper-level classes with kids who have been together for the last two or three years. I'm the only "new kid"!

My French Civ class is interesting - I can't really figure out WHAT the heck the prof is talking about most of the time, and the class is even in English! I kind of think it's a forum for him to ramble on about his political views, but it's not going to be too much work (only two 1-page papers, a midterm, and a final) and it's all opinion-based, so I'm not too worried about anything but getting bored. Plus there are no windows in the room, so not even anything to distract myself with. The TA is cute, though... and French! He interjects occasionally when he can tell the prof. is getting off topic, so that helps a little bit...

I'm taking a French language course as well - I'm a French minor, so I've taken all the "Advanced" French classes, but I have to go back and take the 200 levels to get the credit for my minor (I skipped them when I was just taking French for fun...). The class I picked to transfer is all about food (I accidentally picked it! They gave me a choice of three courses that would transfer correctly and I picked the third in the series... lucky chance!) and my prof is AMAZING! She's this older French lady (maybe in her 60s?) and used to design lingerie for Victoria's Secret before going back to school, getting her master's in French Lit, and becoming a professor - she also was a professor in the Fashion Design dept. until a couple of years ago. Sooooo cooool! There's a girl in my class that I sit next to who's a Fashion Design major, and she was telling me about a design class for non-majors. She's bringing me some info about it tomorrow in class, and I'm hoping that I might be able to audit or sit in on the class - I've always wanted to take a design class, even though I can't sew or draw... I guess that's why you take class, though...

So far, though, my favorite class is my German Art Song class... It's taught by this tiny, tiny man who knows EVEYRTHING! He reminds me of Dr Strasser (at BW) - just a font of knowledge. We sit in the class (me and 60 voice grad majors - intimidating!) and he talks and we take notes. I'm extra happy that he's not making me sing, either (I wouldn't want to force the other singers to listen to my chemo voice right now!) so I just have to do written work, which isn't a problem for me since I'm not taking a full load of classes OR voice lessons!

I'm also taking an Orchestration class (required for my Music History degree) which I'm still not so sure about. I'm the only vocalist in the class (singers aren't required to take it unless they have a double major, like me) and I know NOTHING about instruments! I warned my professor, though, and she's been really kind and offered to help me out whenever I need it.

I've finally spent a lot of the past few days realllly sitting down and working on my thesis. This is going to (obviously) be a TON of work. I've got a few of my books all read and notated, and I have an EXTREMELY preliminary outline written (just so I have an idea of what to look for when I'm reading my books). My goal is to finish all the books in the next week or so and to have a better outline written by the end of October. Ideally, I'd like to start writing before I go back for the spring. I'm just worried that I'm not going in a good direction, and it's hard to work with my advisor via email! It would be SO much easier to sit down for an hour every week (like I'm supposed to be doing!) and get his advice face-to-face. I'm emailing him to see what I should do about that (maybe find an interim advisor here in Cincinnati?) but in the mean time, I'm slogging along through all of this Britten and Peter Grimes on my own. It's amazing, but overwhelming sometimes!

On a chemo note, I finished my FOURTH round of steroids tonight, which marks the end of my drugs for my fourth cycle! Woohoo! Only two more rounds to go, which means four more chemos, two more weeks of Procarbazine (which doesn't bother me much that I can tell), and four more weeks of steroids (which I HATE). I'm a little but nervous because my counts drop lower and faster with each round, and they've already started dropping according to the bloodwork I had this morning. I'm hoping they'll hold up until this weekend since I'm supposed to give a joint presentation in class on Friday, and I don't want to have to beg off a project already! I mean... I have a good excuse, but still! I had to wear a mask for the first time today - there were tons of sick kids at Outpatient (where I get my blood drawn) and they were all coughing all over the place... Fortunately, the nurses let me go wait for my lab tech in the ultrasound room so I wouldn't have to sit in the waiting room with the sick kids. Score one for being bald! Less exposure to Swine Flu...

Well, I promise I'll be back again soon. Hope you guys are all holding up well & avoiding H1N1!

Lots of Love,

Lauren

@Jacinta - check out your last comment! I put a response in the right place this time!

Bad Moods

Hey Guys,

I've been getting pretty frustrated with myself lately. Throughout the entire first half of my treatment, I managed to stay really upbeat and positive about everything. Lately, however, that doesn't seem to be the case. I've been finding myself in bad moods pretty consistently, and getting frustrated with people who are only trying to help (especially in my family - I'm sorry to all of you guys!).

This is the most time I've spent at my parents' house since I left for college, and I think I'm starting to go a little stir-crazy without much to do, especially since most of my friends are up in Cleveland, and the few that ARE here actually have jobs - so it's hard to see them sometimes. Plus, my blood counts get lower and lower with each treatment, so I'm worrying about days when I can't really go out in public much (remember the meltdown I had when I was supposed to go up to Berea a few weeks ago??)

I'm hoping that when I start classes at UC on Wednesday, some of this will turn around. I'm not used to feeling so negative all the time! I think it's probably due to boredom - I can't seem to really get motivated to do anything that I normally would LOVE to be doing (namely, right now, researching and writing my thesis on a topic I'm super excited about...)

In better news, my mom finally convinced me to organize allll (or... at least most) of my clothes - a majority of my "winter" things are still living in my apartment, which I'll hopefully remember to bring home next time I visit the Cleveland area...

about half of my shoes (too many to fit in one organizer... yikes...)

my tiny closet - organized mostly by color (score one for good ideas)

my new rhinestone sandals... (I mentioned them in my Chicago post)

for some reason, the picture transferred sideways...

Also, my mom and I went today to visit my brother Andrew at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN. It's about a 2.5 hour drive from our house, and it's a really pretty ride through a lot of farms and small towns. We found a new restaurant that none of us had ever been to - it's called Roots, and it is completely vegetarian (or vegan, if you request your meal made that way) and I had some AMAZING polenta with pesto and steamed veggies... I wish I'd thought to take a picture, because it was sooo delicious and colorful.

In chemoland, I've been feeling pretty decent since my Monday treatment - some mild nausea and a few mouth sores, but mostly I've figured out a routine to keep that all under control (unless I do something stupid like forget to take my Kytril - which I did this morning! I'm glad I have my emergency tin of anti-nausea drugs in my purse!) The mouth sores don't suck nearly as much as they did during my first round. I get a little bit of soreness around the bottom and sides of my tongue, but mostly I just get a couple down my throat - which may sound worse, but is actually better since it just feels like having a sore throat.

Finally, I'm really looking forward to helping out with the musical at my little brother's high school (my old school...) They're putting on a production of Blood Brothers, by Willy Russell. Brian will be playing the part of Mr. Lyons - everyone in the Cincinnati area should come out and see him (he's an AMAZING singer!!!). You can contact the Anderson High School Theater Department for tickets (Nov. 19, 20, 21). We'd love to see as many of you there as possible!

Lots of Love,

Lauren

ps posting this has already made me feel better :-)

there's no place like home... *UPDATED!*

Hey Guys,

So my mom and I were in the Windy City this past week (although it was more like the Slightly-Breezy-Very-Foggy City, in my opinion...)

It was great to have so much time away from the house - combined with my trip to Berea/Oberlin, it's the most time away from my house since MAY! Yikes.

Anyway, we did TONS of shopping (fortunately for my dad, we did most of it at discount stores/H&M - the big names we just window shopped). I got some really fantastic pieces at SUPER low prices. I absolutely love love love H&M, and Chicago's Michigan Avenue store was definitely the best I've ever been in - even better than the last time I was in New York! I'm really into the whole 80's revival, and it was definitely in full swing at H&M. I found an amazing super pale denim jacket with puffy sleeves and really nice details on the bottom. I also found the perfect pair of lace up high-heeled oxfords and a variety of brightly colored tights (although I wore the shimmery purple ones to the bar last night and snagged them on a stool and didn't notice til there was already a hole - any advice on fixing that would be so welcome!). We also stopped by Filene's Basement (which I'd been hearing about but never visited). There was a lot of not-so-great stuff there, but a few reallllllly sweet finds for my mom and I. She got a couple of really cute things, and I found a pair of Betsey Johnson massively awesome rhinestoned sandals. Originally $250 and I found them for $60... I almost died.

We did a couple of tours - a bus tour around the city, and a really cool architecture tour on the Chicago River. Unfortunately, I forgot my sunscreen and ended up with a moderately scorched scalp. Bit of warning to all of you readers with cancer: NEVER forget to wear sunscreen on your bald head, even if you don't think you'll need it! It was super foggy when we went on our tour, and my mom & I both managed to get sunburned. A rosy scalp neither feels good nor is an attractive look. I've been moisturizing like crazy to make sure that it doesn't start to peel (which I'm pretty sure would just drive the boys crazy...)

Anyway, we also took a day trip to Oak Park to check out Ernest Hemingway's birthplace, as well as the 35(ish) Frank Lloyd Wright homes in town. This may make me sound like an idiot, but before that trip I'd always thought that Wright had been designing in the 50's - I'd had no idea that it was really the 1890's and early 1900's. That makes him even more impressive. Instead of doing the typical walking tour, my mom and I stumbled upon Rickshaw Rick - which sounds extra-cheesy, but really he was AMAZING! He took us all around Oak Park on an actual rickshaw. He knew so much about everything in Oak Park, and gave my mom and I a great tour. If any of you are planning a trip to Chicago, I definitely recommend a day in Oak Park with Rick.

My Mom & I in the rickshaw before the tour... Lookin' good in our shades

My lovely Mom in front of Ernest Hemingway's birthplace

We stayed in this very European little hotel called the Raffaello - also highly recommended. The beds were some of the most comfortable I've ever slept in, and the rooms were excellent - clean, light, and very pretty. The only thing was that they weren't particularly "service" oriented (no room service that I noticed, not very much concierge service) but I'm cool with that. Plus, we found an authentic Italian cafe (coffee, pastries, bar, lunch service) just down the street that we ate breakfast at every day. Our last day I even managed to remember enough to order in Italian (from the real Italians who work there). The Raffaello is in an amazing location as well - on Delaware, just block off of Michigan, and right by the John Hancock building. Right by all of the best shopping, but far enough off Michigan that it's quiet and peaceful, even in the city. It's also located right next to the Casino Club - an EXTREMELY mysterious and exclusive club for billionaires. No, not millionaires - BILLIONAIRES. Plus, Oprah's main residence is just around the corner. Awesome neighborhood!

Me on a fountain at the Presbyterian Church across the street from the Hancock Building

Me eating lunch & sipping champagne at the American Girl Cafe

*UPDATE!*

I totally forgot to write about the fantastic lunch my mom and I had at the American Girl Cafe in Chicago... It was almost like a tea party - dolls included! We (obviously) hadn't brought any of my American Girl dolls along, so they even let us borrow one (actually... the sort of forced her on us, haha) to have lunch with! My mom and I each had a drink - I can't remember what it was called - that was cranberry and champagne - SO GOOD! For lunch, we got a "welcome" of a warm cinnamon roll, an appetizer of veggies and strawberries with cheese, a main course of cheese & cranberry quiche (great with the champagne!) and a dessert with a piece of cake, a cookie, and a cup of chocolate mousse (OMG sooooo delicious). We got tiny portions of everything, but when it all added up, we were so full by the end! The decor was amazing, too - lots of black and white and pink, with chandeliers decorated with daisies. Definitely not little-girly, but plenty whimsical!

I'm off to bed (again...) but I'll be back soon - tomorrow we're going to the Cincinnati Zoo for a Children's Hospital event. I'm excited to go back to the zoo for the first time in YEARS! I'll hopefully have lots of pictures and stories.

Lots of Love,

Lauren