My headache has continued to plague me this week. It's now localized itself to the right side of my head/neck and shoulder and my right shoulder is swollen. When dh realized how swollen I was he panicked last night. He started going through all of the lymph nodes that he could feel (none of them swollen) and I admit it....I got panicked too. I remembered how painful my shoulder was last Thanksgiving before my diagnosis and how nothing seemed to help. We stood in the kitchen together in an akward moment of silence until I realized that Zoe's car seat is hard to carry...I carry it with my right arm...and she IS getting heavier. Sighs of relief...sort of...This morning dh came downstairs and immediately went to my shoulder to see if it was still swollen. I woke up again at 3am and had to take some ibuprofen and get ice packs. The shoulder is still swollen, but the muscles are all very hard. I really think it is muscular and has to do with the car seat carrying. I'm going to start carrying on the left side and see if this makes a difference! It's hard to feel so out-of-control in regards to one's body. My experience with NHL has made me realize that bad things do happen that we have no way to control and I'm a bit more paranoid now!

For the most part, things have been quiet. The neighbor situation sometimes makes me feel like I'm losing it....even though in all honesty, it shouldn't even approach my radar anymore. I feel sad and disappointed that our "dream house" has turned out to cause us so much stress because of our neighbor...but dh surprised me the other day by telling me that he has considered moving because of it as well. We've decided to try and limit contact again, but to do it more....gracefully than in the past. I'm getting Alex signed up for a bunch of after-school activities that start Monday....Andrew is already busy and it isn't an issue. Actually, Andrew is sooo busy that I don't know how he's managed this far...he's thriving on it though! I'm also signing Amanda up for several things (which I know she'll hate, but will just have to deal with!). In addition, I scheduled a playdate with Alex's friend from our old neighborhood today. I've decided to try and bring in people from the outside and then I can legitimately say "Alex can't play today because..." without it seeming that we are snubbing the neighbors in any way.

Also, we've decided to do more landscaping next year. Our backyard is fenced in, but the fence is the only barrier between us and the neighbors. Next year, we're going to have the sprinklers moved out a little and create an oasis of large bushes/trees/flowers etc to creat an additional natural barrier. It'll be beautiful...and functional :>

I love my house...I love the pond...I don't want to leave and so we're going to work hard to make it liveable here.

I have realized in recent weeks that we have become more a part of this community than I had thought. On the middle school parents night, I ran into more people that I knew than I didn't know. Since school has started, I've had more people "pop in" for a visit than I have since...well...since we lived in Penssylvania more than 7 years ago. I realize more and more that I do have friends...

This last year was difficult because people whom I had considered friends pretty much disappeared when I was diagnosed. I had that "now I know who my friends really are" epiphany.

That has also now been resolved. The friend whom I felt most hurt by stopped over yesterday. She was also pregnant (with her first) when I was pg with Zoe. She was a month behind me. Her baby is ~3 months old (and bigger than Zoe) and has colic. She had a traumatic delivery, hemmorhaged days after having her daughter and ended up back in the hospital and has been struggling with post-partum depression. She called a couple of days ago out of the blue sounding horrible and so I invited her over. I felt uncomfortable because we hadn't talked in so long...but things pretty much flowed like they did before this whole mess.

After we had talked for about an hour, she was standing in my kitchen warming a bottle for Zoe for me. She turned around and out of the blue said "Kris, can we be friends again. I really need our friendship". It really took me by surprise. I told her that we are friends and she said "No. No, we're not. I let you down. I wasn't there for you when you needed me and I feel so awful about it."

I opened my mouth to tell her it was ok and instead I burst into sobs.
I really didn't know how much it still bothered me...She sat on the sofa then and bawled....I told her it was ok and that I had been hurt but that I was past it....that I knew that she had a lot going on in her life...that I wanted people's support but that I had also been embarassed by it and had avoided it to some degree.

It felt good to have it out there and resolved.

We're going to meet at the mall on Monday so that she can get out of her house...

Funny story to end with:

Andrew's saxophone joy quickly turned to frustration, agitation and eventually outright rage! He kept telling his band instructor and me that the sax was broken. I got so angry with him on Tuesday morning (because he tried to refuse to take the sax to school) that I yelled at him that the only thing wrong with his sax is that he was lazy and not practicing. I was so mad, and he nearly cried. After school I asked him how band was. "Well, at least I have the fingering right...but it's broken, mom...I didn't blow on it because it just squeeks!"

I had him take it out of the case and decided to prove him wrong by playing it myself.

"hmmm, Andrew, it IS hard to play"

I was shocked.

I took the neck off of the instrument and looked inside. It was blocked by something black.

"Andrew, does this belong in here?"

"No"

I took a butter knife and pushed down.

Out of the sax flew the black cap to his mouthpiece We put the neck and mouthpiece back on the sax and it sounded wonderful.

He then played for an entire hour. :lol

I called his band teacher the next day to update her and we both laughed that neither one of us had actually considered inspecting the sax to see if the instrument really was the problem.

Andrew said "Well, mom, you better suck it up and apologize to me"