When I walked into Punk's child care, the child care provider told me she was closing for good when she has her surgery. Which potentially could be as early as next Friday.

Pretty much anything after that just sucks.

I want to quit my job and just say 'eff it' to everyone.

K had her follow-up appointment with the surgeon who did her lumpectomy and we were hoping for the good news. Pre-surgery, the thought based on the mammogram and biopsy was that she would have a lumpectomy and then either hormone treatment or maybe a little radiation and by the end of October, she could consider herself a survivor.

Today she learned that when the doctor removed the lump, there were a lot of precancerous cells around and the lump was near a lymph node. They are recommending a mastectomy which is scheduled for October 14th. They are also ordering an MRI of the other breast to see if there is anything suspicious looking and if it doesn't look right, a biopsy of the other breast and the possibility of a double mastectomy.

I am so sick over this. I care more about K than about most other people... and even in the best case scenario (single mastectomy, no significant treatment required), she's out for a month. Beginning October 14th. Which isn't a heck of a lot of time to find new childcare.

Holy hell.

This has been a hell of a week. My emotions are just... I don't even know. There are just too many emotions.

Yesterday a friend of mine went in for her scheduled induction and learned that her baby had died sometime in the last 24 or so hours. She had gone in the day before for a non-stress test and everything was fine. Perfect, even. How the hell does this happen? I am still super shaken about it, the unfairness of it all but also that awful niggling feeling that you can NEVER be sure that everything is going to be okay. Two years ago, in this same circle of (online) friends, a friend died after child birth from an amniotic embolism. It just brings back so many memories - so many of the same people saying, "Oh my god!" or trying to mobilize.

On Monday my beloved child care provider had a biopsy in her breast after a routine mammogram. Yesterday she was very upbeat and positive, saying that the person who did the biopsy was saying that there was a major increase in biopsies since they switched to a new digital machine. Today she left me a message that child care is closing tomorrow by 2:45 because she has to go in to talk to a doctor right away. To say that I am freaking out is an understatement.

It just seems like I have been stuck in Low Tide since my grandfather told us he had pancreatic cancer in February. Everything is just low, low, low. I feel all washed out and swept out to sea. My sandy shore is full of rocks and abandoned shellfish.

I had the worst haircut experience of my life today.

Not only did she do the exact opposite of what I asked (I asked her to leave the top alone so I could grow it out and cut the back-bottom because it was getting annoying, and instead she left the back-bottom as long as it was before and cut the top and sides and I look riDICulous), but she had this annoying tone of voice and kept talking down to me every time I would tell her I wanted her to do something else. It was so infuriating!

Finally I got tired of trying to re-explain what I wanted and got tired of hearing her tell me "that's not how hair grows" (umm, down?) that I said, "Can you just stop right now? I don't like the way you're speaking to me." And I paid for my haircut and walked away.

So irritated. SOOO irritated. With bad hair.

~//~

It was just the cap on a very frustrating day. Jen and I switched cars today so I could get her car inspected, and so I went to the bank to get some cash for the inspection and then realized there was no registration in the glove compartment. So I had to go to the RMV and wait for an hour to get a new copy of the registration, but the copy cost $25 (WTF? It's a piece of paper!) which of course took all of my inspection money... so I had to go /back/ to the bank and get more money and then go get the car inspected. Maddening!

Random hysterical crying last night? Check.
Terrible night of sleep? Check.
Fever in the morning? Check.
Sobbing on the mama at diaper time? Check.

Moms' diagnosis of ear infection: Correct.

~//~
Two hours of sleep for me, one from 11-12, and another from 4-5. Jen and I are splitting the day home with Punk. I got the 'pediatrician walk-in hours, pharmacy run, hydrate and feed kid' shift, and will go to work when Jen comes around noon. Until after 7. Late night at work on two hours of broken sleep. There is not enough coffee in the world.

Aaah, the glamourous life of a mama.

I guess I will soon have a lot of time on my hands to get my house in order. Spring cleaning and all of that. I suppose that's good, except for the paycheck part. I wonder if they are going to buy out the rest of my time. That would be nice. A girl can dream.

I am going to send Punk to day care for the most part and just try to get things in order. I want to finally hang the blinds in the spare bedroom and the dining room. (We have them, they are just not up.) I want to really scrub the floors and vacuum the carpets. I want to clean up the yard. We were going to use our tax refund to get a bunch of stuff done in the yard (sod, seed, whatever it takes, and clean up the landscaping) but who knows if that is going to be able to happen. I suppose it depends how quickly I get a job. I know I /will/ get a job, even though the pessimistic, fatalistic part of myself says that I will never get a job again. I am not going to let this job ruin me.

I am saddest about not being able to transition out my clients. Most of them know I am leaving, because I started telling them when I gave notice. But there are a couple I haven't seen in person (and therefore haven't told). Who knows what they are going to think? Who knows what they are going to be told? Sigh sigh sigh.

I need to take a little inventory about what foods we have in the house because I'm guessing it would not be a bad idea to stretch out the groceries a bit. Maybe we'll be eating some creative meals. We'll have to chill on the eating out. Thankfully I already have a good amount of a spring wardrobe for Punk (and some summer).

We refinanced our house yesterday. Not much different, but a little lower. Every little bit helps, you know? Thank goodness we closed on the refi yesterday, because it meant that the mortgage company did my employment verification on Thursday. Thank goodness. And I had to close our home equity line with the old mortgage company, and they had a $200 Visa gift card buyout. Thank goodness for that, too. And extra thanks to my mortgage guy who not only did some yard clean up with us yesterday (ILY, Jeff!) but also gave us a BRU gift card as a thank you. That will buy us some day care diapers, which is good.

Time to tighten the purse strings and hope for a decent job with a decent salary soon.

Today was every bit as bad as I suspected it would be.

Sometimes it sucks to "get people" and know how things are going to go down.

(But I guess that means I'm good at what I do?)

I use the television for two big things during the week:

1. Survivor
2. Friday morning internet checking and coffee sipping.

On Thursday nights, I really REALLY like to watch Survivor. It's the only television show I really watch regularly. The only one.

On Friday mornings, Punk likes to watch Curious George and Sid the Science Kid from 8-9am, and during that time, I catch up on e-mail and drink some coffee.

My television is broken. MY NEW FREAKING FANCY-PANTS LCD TELEVISION THAT I BOUGHT IN OCTOBER and haven't even finished paying for! No Survivor tonight!!! And what the hell am I going to do tomorrow!!??!?!?

Sulk.

I am in my pajamas. Jen is in her pajamas. Or maybe yesterday's clothes. We just ate some delivered chinese food. Punk is taking a nap. She is also in her pajamas. Because everyone is sick. And grumpy. And sick.

Jen has been sick since last Sunday and can't seem to shake the cold. Punk started getting sick on Wednesday night and has been crying and restless and feverish every night since (which never bodes well for me). She has a double ear infection and is getting two of her two-year molars. The antibiotics are /just/ starting to kick in and maybe we will actually leave the house tonight. Depends on Jen, really.

Tomorrow I will go visit my grandparents. My grandmother got out of the nursing home today and is doing very well, getting her strength back and doing PT and OT to build herself back up. My grandfather has been really depressed and down but I think he will perk up when my grandmother is home. He has agreed to see an oncologist (he previously said he didn't want to) to at least find out the scope of the situation. I am glad for that.

This is not at all the Valentine's Day I would ever have imagined for myself: us in our pajamas in front of our laptops with take-out chinese, and lots of tissues. But there are two sets of beautiful flowers on the mantle and that's going to have to do it this year, I guess.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone. I hope your day is better than mine!

I tried to call my grandfather on Monday, but he was sleeping. I called back this morning and got to talk to him for a while.

He told me that it's probably time for me to take over control of our joint bank account. I always said that I never cared about that account because it always seemed to mean so much to him to take care of it for me. (It's a CD, and he always liked to go to the bank and find the best rate or whatever.) I knew that I had plenty of time to mess with it.

He is starting to make preparations already. I don't like that one bit.