Archive | October 2017

Getting sucked back in….

Oct18

Last week  I had to go in for my Lupron shot. Which is always a pleasant experience. Not down with having to sit in the infusion room while you wait. It’s like they put you there on purpose so you get to relive every painstaking moment you went through in Chemo. At first I don’t sit in the treatment chairs because in my mind I’m NOT a chemo patient and those chairs are specifically reserved for PATIENTS. Then you realize after a bit that you had better sit in the chair or else they will never get to you. So you take a deep breath and sit in the chair.  I was doing totally fine until the infusion machine started to beep. You know after awhile you forget about that beep. Until you hear it again. For those of you who don’t know. The infusion machine beeps when the drug is done.  So when you are in chemo you are there for like 4-5 hours and go through like 4 different bags of drugs. It’s a total PTSD thing.

Well, I know that every time I get this shot I’m a miserable mess for like 3 days afterward! Well, this time it was just unbearable.  I kept trying to decide if I want to do 9 more years of this. I had my appointment with the GYN on Monday and we decided that this surgery would be the best overall treatment. I mean, yes it’s not ideal, but the benefits outweigh the negatives. So I guess we’ll see!

I really need to get this eating sugar thing back under control. It’s bad. I literally have no control over this. I’m going to have to lock myself in a room for 3 days and go through the withdraws or something. It makes me sick every time I do it so you would think I would just stop. I was doing pretty good this week. Then I went to support group today because I hadn’t been in awhile and it’s the annual Breast Cancer celebration. Well, there were brownies. I had like 2 of them. Yes, they were good, but I got the worst hot flashes afterward and about passed out. It’s really not worth it to eat that sort of thing anymore. Which really makes me sad because I love it. But I think it is now to the point where it may be a serious issue. So much for my normal streak!

I have parties to go to in the next few months! How to be social and not offend everyone when you can’t drink alcohol or eat junk food! Here’s where the willpower, mind over matter thing comes in. UGH!

In other news, I am trying to design a booth for the upcoming Bridal Fair in November. I think I kind of have an idea. Now it’s just making that vision come to life. So the next week or so should be kind of fun. I’m still fighting with the SEO. Seems I have to Blog on a regular basis. I’m so not good at that! I guess I’m going to have to learn and accept it.

It Never Ends

Oct13

I went to Las Vegas for the Wedding MBA conference. Learned so much. I’m putting together a plan to implement all of this stuff. It’s going to be a lot of work, but I’m hoping it will all pay off in the end!

So I had a drs appointment to get my 6 month Lupron shot. It’s such a pleasant experience (sarcasm). But I had to insist on them doing bloodwork since I haven’t had anything done since I finished treatment and I’ve felt a little off. Drives me nuts that I had to insist. So I got my blood drawn and the results came back. Not exactly stellar results. Lots of high numbers and some low ones. They are putting me on the super dose of Vitamin D. Seems I’m having liver/kidney/bone issues. I go back in a few weeks to get my blood drawn again to see if the D helps with anything. And if not we figure out what to do next. But I have an appointment on Monday with my GYN to see if we can remove the ovaries so I don’t have to keep taking this awful shot every 6 months.

I’m trying not to let my imagination run rampant. I already made the mistake of looking things up on the internet. And of course, I didn’t find anything overly positive of course. Well. What are you going to do I suppose… Now I’ll spend the rest of the day trying to figure out what I can do to make this better. Of course, if I have learned anything it’s not to get freaked out until you know anything. So I’m going to just not worry about it until I get the results back from the next blood test and then we’ll take it from there.

I have been rather lax the last few months though. I’ve been trying to pretend none of this happened and tried to just be normal. And this is what happens when we play “normal” I suppose. So I go back to being overly cautious about what I eat and back on my exercise kick. I’m not going to lie. I’m a bit down because of it. I just want everything to go back to the way it was. But that’s not realistic. I’m really not digging this new normal crap at all. It’s a lot of work. Well, I guess I’m going to spend today trying to figure out how to balance all this and how to save my liver, kidneys, and bones in the process.

The dr had mentioned a bone treatment Zometa to help with the bone issue before I had my blood work done. But I’m not sure about it yet. I’m still thinking about it. I’m not digging going back to the infusion lab on a regular basis and an IV once a month. But it’s hard on the kidneys and liver soooooo….not sure if this is going to be an option now.  Well again….I guess it will all get figured out over the next few weeks.

Yay! I guess this will still fall into my overall grand plan. Healthy…blah blah blah…..

October

Oct1

Oh October. It’s this love-hate relationship. My Dad’s birthday would have been tomorrow…69th birthday. And my mothers birthday would have been on the 7th, the big 70.  Several other birthdays and losses in the month of October. It’s also that Breast Cancer Awareness month that I have come to have a really hard time with. I’ll spare you that rant…because we all know my feelings of the bullshit that surrounds that early detecting crap. Been kind of blue the last few days. I’m sure it has something to do with all of the above. I haven’t been moody or anything lately so I’m sure it was just a matter of time.

Anyhoo the things we love about October! it’s a BER month! Which means it’s getting colder, which makes me happy! I’m leaving for Las Vegas tomorrow for the Wedding MBA. I’m super excited about this week. I mean 3 full days of learning stuff from industry experts and meeting a bunch of people that I’ve only emailed and chatted with on FaceBook. So it’s going to be a blast. I’m hoping to come out of this with a lot of information to figure out my plan for 2018.

I start getting a little freaked out about business and then realize that I’m 2 events ahead of what I was this past year. So much can change day to day. I think that’s the hard part is that you can go months with no leads and then all of a sudden you get a bunch. It’s like it goes in waves. The other thing I have to keep remembering is not a lot of people get married around here in the winter months! But I have to try to think of things I want to offer and expand out to keep myself afloat for 12 months out of the year. The first year of the business seems like a mess. I mean learning the area, figuring everything out. I know next year will be better and each year it will improve. And I have to stay away from reading about other planners in the area. There are one or two that honestly don’t bother me and I am happy to help them as much as I can. But some, drive me up a wall. And perception is an interesting thing. I just have to remember to keep my eyes on my own mat! (yoga reference) It can be hard sometimes, but I need to just worry about what I’m doing.

I think the main thing that gets me is that everyone seems to be into doing these styled shoots. I don’t know. I mean I don’t consider myself a designer by any means. And how many styled shoots can one do in a year? And what for? I get it that it’s supposed to promote what you can do, but again, not a designer…I’m an organizer and a planner….hard to do a photoshoot of that! It just seems that people are putting so much effort into that. I start to wonder if I too need to be doing this. I mean if it’s getting them business then great, but if not….just don’t get it. So I don’t know. I feel weird asking all these companies to do yet another styled shoot around here. Seems like there are so many of them going on. I don’t know, I’ll have to investigate this a little more.

I’ve been in the throws of SEO for my site. This winter I’m focusing a lot on marketing and making sure I’m found. I also am trying to figure out exactly who I want to target. I reached out to my clients from this past year to see if I can’t get some reviews for facebook. Seems this is important. A lot of the seminars I’m going to this week are surrounding all this marketing thing and how to drive your SEO. So maybe I’ll learn a thing or two. I can totally see how you need a person to do nothing but make sure your ranking goes up in the world of Google and Bing. I’m completely amazed at the people out there that are giving workshops on this and charging so much money to do this. I had a company call me and they wanted $950 a month.  Or I can take a 6-week class for $1000. I can’t afford that right now! So I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m going to have to be smart about this. This first year was just a tester to see how things went. Now I know where I need to put my energy and effort.

It will be interesting what I learn from this week and what direction I’m going to end up taking this business. I have a lot of ideas, I just have to figure out which ones are going to work in this area!