Did I mention I hate wallpaper?

“Lonnie” and I have discovered why Buckwheat, the ugly mass on my armpit, exists.  The cause is now one more reason that I hate wallpaper.  Our recently purchased, awesome, 1924 home in Wichita is full of wallpaper.  I mean it covers everything. Some of you may have read my little diatribes against wallpaper, but I’m really thinking of rewriting Dante’s Inferno with the levels of hell reserved for each manner in which wallpaper is misused.  Each of these levels has been found in our house (except for the inventor, which would be weird).  Here is an overview:

Level 1: Inventor of wallpaper, so he has to go through all the other levels to see what his creation hath wroth before reaching redemption.
Level 2: Painted over wallpaper, while extremely lazy does make it easier to strip off.  Still a pain
Level 3: More than one layer of wallpaper, really lazy, seriously can’t you just take the crap off??
Level 4: Three or more layers, are you freaking kidding me? You had 13 kids living in this house and not once did you use them for manual labor?  That’s just stupid.  And lazy.
Level 5: Wallpaper on the ceiling.  I hate you…
Lever 6: So instead of just removing it, you plastered over the wallpaper in sections, and then reapplied new wallpaper?!?!  And why does it look like old lady underwear?
Level 7: Load-bearing wallpaper. Because putting up glue and paper is going to ensure that the canyon sized crack in the plaster will NEVER come down?! Idiots! Morons!! Four letter words!!!!!!!!!

As you can see, I’m a bit frustrated by the wallpaper and we are working really hard to get as much down as possible before we move in at the end of the month.  Here is where Buckwheat comes in.  I’m right handed.  I’ve done nothing but go to work and scrape wallpaper for almost 3 weeks.  The location of Buckwheat is on the rear part of my armpit, near the lymph nodes, but actually a part of my shoulder muscle.  Yes, the ugly mass on my arm, that my doctor thought was cancer, was actually caused BY STRIPPING WALLPAPER!!!!!  It is a highly developed, strangely located, muscle that is activated by the upward and overhead scraping motion used to remove wallpaper.  When we discovered this little reality, we laughed.  But my detestation of wallpaper is now infinitely more vast.  Heaven help the inventor when I get there (now many decades years in the future)….

I'm baaaack, and needing some support!

So, I might have cancer. Non-hodgkins Lymphoma to be exact.  I’ve been having some “girl symptoms” over the past few months and so I went to the doctor thinking I might be going through early menopause (wouldn’t THAT be awesome).  She found the lump near my armpit that I never noticed or felt, but when she put me naked in front of the mirror (uncool because I hadn't shaved) and said “raise your arms”…there it was.  It looked like a bulging muscle which if I had it on both sides I would know that all those pushups were working!  Instead, it looked kinda gross and of course now that I was aware of it, it started bothering me.  That’s the crazy thing about cancer, or any other potentially deadly illness, the moment you become aware is the moment it tries to kill you.  Before, when you are ignorant, your brain isn’t running through every horrible scenario from missing your 3 year old daughter’s future wedding to how are we going to afford that trip to Everest for my bucket list?  You are happy and ignorant and the ugly mass in your arm doesn’t truly exist.  And then it does.  And everything changes.

I’m not a worry wart or a fatalist.  But even the most positive person has some fear when you are confronted with the possibility of cancer.  It’s not necessarily that I may die.  That will happen someday anyway.  It’s the possibility of being sick and bald right before that.  It’s the possibility of being too ill to participate in my life which is currently quite awesome.  I could probably even handle the baldness, because ‘Lonnie” and I have already made tentative plans (diagnosis pending) to be involved in St. Baldrick’s Day to donate our hair and get our kids to do it to.  We’ll be a whole family of baldies!!  Best family photo ever! 

I normally wouldn’t write about something like this until I had full diagnostics because I’m not a worrier and I like to be sure about things before I invoke the potential sympathy of others.  But this seems different.  There is more evidence of possible badness other than the ugly mass in my arm--which shall remain nameless at this point, but I’m leaning toward Fred--like a low white blood cell count.  I have a CT scan this afternoon and I guess all I’m writing this for is to get out my anxiety and ask for positive energy from everyone that everything is normal and to not be afraid.  I’m also starting a preliminary “name the ugly mass under my arm” contest…so get your votes in ASAP because if it is lymphoma, the mass will be in a surgical jar with formaldehyde pretty soon.  Also taking suggestions for bald head tattoos (I’m sure that’s in regulations?) because I’m sure I’ll get bored with hats.

I did not come to Wichita to die.  More to come…