Tag Archives: Cancer

Season Six, Episode One: Daddy’s Girl

Posted in Family, life, poetry, Writing by

“you’re so strong”, they say

as if I had a choice

as if there was any alternative.

you taught me to be strong,

and you were the strongest man I know.

you were my first best friend,

my truest friend

you got me when no one else did

a perk I guess of sharing some of the same DNA

you taught me how to properly dunk mini donuts into a glass of milk

tried to teach me to play the keyboard, 

but I was too impatient to learn.

you taught me to be gracious

told me that I was capable of the world and so much more

I learned to appreciate sports from you

learned to carry an intelligent conversation

how to make people laugh.

I inherited your stubbornness

the tendency to work too much.

I’m certain that my love of true crime came from you 

and I will miss watching our “murder mysteries” together 

because of you I’ve never felt short,

even though I’m the tiniest person in the family

confident in every step I take, head up because your daughter would never, could never, won’t ever walk with her head bowed down

you passed on your fierce pride,

along with your quick and ferocious temper

I think of you constantly, 

pushing my sadness aside because it does not bode well to dwell on tragedy

I hope to make you proud one day, if the human soul exists

if your human soul is somewhere out there

I hope that wherever you are, you smile and say 

“you see that strong and accomplished woman? that’s my baby girl, my Caker Boo.”
I love you, Dad.

                    –“Sunday, November 13, 2016 @ 7:28 pm”







George Chillious, 04/26/1944-11/13/2016

Season Three, Episode Six: Curveball Thrown

Posted in Family, Random, Uncategorized, Writing by

Man, it’s been a while.  Like two months.  I feel like we went out on a really bad date and then I decided that things were too awkward for me to like your statuses on Facebook, favorite your Tweets, or call/text you back.

My bad.

Fret not, kiddos.  I’m back.

That's right.

That’s right.

Shit got a little real after that last post I wrote about the Single Chick Bucket List (which I have been trying to get done and will start to blog about in the near future).  Six days after that post was published, my dad was rushed to the hospital for severe swelling and leakage in his neck.  He received emergency surgery the next day, and on Valentine’s Day (because nothing good ever happens on that fucking day) he was diagnosed with advanced stage throat cancer.  So needless to say things have been quite the rollercoaster since then–with the exception of a week and a half at the end of February, he has been an inpatient at the Cleveland Clinic and its sister hospitals.  Three weeks ago he had to have his larynx, lymph nodes, both thyroid glands, and a major vein removed from his neck–he has a trach and hopefully in a few weeks he can begin to try to learn to talk again with speech therapy.  Once things settle down and he gains the weight he lost (he was admitted to the hospital at 115 pounds;  he is 6’4″), he will start radiation.  He is supposed to have a lung and bone biopsy in the upcoming days, and hopefully things slow down a little and the results come back good.

My dad has taught me a lot about strength in the past two months.  The things I worried about in January seem so damn trivial compared to what we are dealing with now.  My dad being sick really made me get over my ex–seeing him still sucks ass in ways that I can’t eloquently describe, but I changed shifts in the shift rebid we had at work and I won’t have to worry about seeing him except for an hour or two depending on my schedule.  For some reason I thought that maybe my ex would come up to me and ask me how I was doing or how my dad was doing–his younger sister has stage IV cancer and I love her like the sister I never had, so I thought maybe he would show a shred of compassion.  Yeah…I was wrong.  He acts like I am invisible.  So I had to suck that up and tell myself right then and there that his lack of being a nice person just shows that there was no point in being brokenhearted over him.  I have learned to appreciate my friends and I love them all so incredibly much.  The texts, hugs, kind words, and phone calls have all meant more than you would think.

But strength.  My father has faced every step of this bullshit with a positive attitude.  He smiles and cracks jokes and just holds it together for our family.  I think maybe he always knew that this was a possible consequence of being a smoker for nearly 60 years.  I did, but I never really thought it would happen.  It has made us stronger as a family, it has made me stronger in the fact that I have realized that life isn’t a given.  Things change.  Moments occur that can shake our every belief and thought to the core.  I laugh a lot more and I have decided to become more self-assured and more self-aware then I was before.  If I don’t like something, I make it known.  If I don’t want to do something, I don’t do it.  I decided that you don’t get anywhere in life by shrinking back in the background and not making waves–I’ve always been an extrovert, but I hate confrontation and I hate hurting other people’s feelings.  I have also decided that if I know what I want, I should try to figure out how to get it.  There are no do-overs, no rewind button (old school VHS reference), no backspace.  Everything is constantly moving forward and you have to move forward with it.

It’s like the Modest Mouse lyric, “And we’ll all float on okay”.  We need to stop taking everything so goddamn serious and just let it go.  Time hurtles on through the great void, with or without us…just stop worrying about the little things and let go.

It’s good to be back.  I missed writing, but I figured that I would find my words when I was ready.

Lamp tripping

Quick Blurb:

I started a new shift last week and I’m adjusting to working during the day like a normal person.  No more 8 pm to 4 am…I don’t know what it’s like to be awake during the day and asleep at night.  It’s like the world flip-flopped itself on me.  I feel more rested and maybe I’ll get more accomplished.  And accomplished means more blogging, which is always excellent.

I just have to get used to it.  Sunlight?  What’s that?

when did they put a lamp here

Season One, Episode Thirty-Two: Of Boobs, Cheetahs, and Justin Bieber

Posted in Comedy, Health, Humor by

So I joined a gym last month.

I am so guilty of this. I am in an imagined one-sided race with people at the gym and they don’t even know how intense the competition is 😛

I’m not really an athletic person–I got a D- in gym my freshman year of high school, and that was after the A’s and B’s I got on the written tests.  (Deduce your own conclusions from that.)  I’m rather clumsy and uncoordinated.  I’m that girl who trips over her feet and gets visibly flustered, yet does it again roughly fifteen minutes later–I love flip-flops, but I tend to catch the tops of them along the sidewalk for some unforeseeable reason and I always wind up stumbling.  I can’t catch, and my throwing skills are pretty sub par.  If I go to hell when I die, I will spend copious amounts of time being forced to play volleyball and badminton amid the fire and brimstone–my older brother is the athlete of the family, and I am okay with that.

But anyway, I joined a gym.  I figure that a little physical exertion never hurt anyone, and as long as the activities I participated in didn’t involve a single ounce of athleticism I’d be okay.  So I have gone quite a few times, and I like it.  I prefer the elliptical because it feels like fancy skiing (if I knew what skiing felt like, haha) and because it’s a guaranteed sweatfest.  Well…it was.  After the first few times my body got used to it, and I exercised the other day for a half hour without breaking a sweat.  No bueno.  So I hopped off the machine in search of a cardiovascular workout that would make me look like a sweaty mess.

I tried the stationary bike.  I got a little sweaty, but I had to keep messing with the seat because I’m short and I couldn’t find a good height to sit at…plus I kept sliding off the seat because it was at an angle (and it made my ass hurt later.  Now I see why the fitness magazines tell you to bring your own cushioned seat cover.).  I casually made my way over to the treadmill and stared it down for a good thirty seconds–I’m sure the other gym-goers probably thought I was insane, but there was a method to my madness.

I am not a runner.  Not necessarily by choice, more or less by my lack of athletic prowess, my questionable coordination, and the fact that I can trip over nothing.  Oh…and did I mention that I’m a 34DD?  Yeah, that too.  So I turn on the treadmill and put it at 3.5 mph, a good speed for getting my walk on.  The chick next to me is running at a speed of 9.3 mph, and not to be outdone, I crank that shit up to 5.9 mph, bust out that Justin Bieber song that I’m embarrassed to admit I really like (“As Long As You Love Me”), and start running like a cheetah.


…Make that a cheetah with huge boobs and lungs not used to running.  I lasted about a minute and a half before I had to slow my shit down and walk without looking like a winded old lady.  Fighting the urge to hunch over and gasp for breath, I walked it out and attempted to find my inner Usain Bolt.  I made it for about two minutes this time before my chest started screaming at me to stop–it wasn’t that I was out of breath, to my partially winded surprise I actually had found a decent rhythm and was doing okay.  It was my boobs who were threatening to cause a chesty revolution and attack me.  Now I’m used to having to double up on sports bras and the such when I exercise, it comes with the territory, but that day’s choice of a strapless bra underneath a Target sports bra wasn’t getting the job done.  Nay.  I’m sure the boys in the gym enjoyed the show, but I was in pain and I had to jump off the treadmill and call it a day.

Sweaty and broken, I immediately Googled “how to run with big boobs” and found all kinds of sites where girls complained about running with large chests and how it really sucked.  It also seemed like they were running in search of making their ladies smaller–I like being chestacular, I would just like to be able to run without being in pain.  So I have decided to go on the search for the Holy Grail of Sports Bras.  I hear compression bras are the way to go, but I need a really spectacular one to lock these babies down, or my half-assed dreams of running will never be fully acheived.  I have received suggestions of trying the VSX line by Victoria’s Secret, or even Under Armour, which I think I will test out in the upcoming weeks.

Speaking of running, I’ve decided to participate in the Cleveland edition of the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure.  It’s Saturday, September 15.  I won’t be running in the 5k, but I will be doing the 5k walk.  I’m collecting donations and my goal is $200.  If you feel like donating, please click here.  You don’t have to feel like giving a lot, even $5 will help.

I have mixed feelings on the Susan G. Komen Foundation after all the crap happened with Planned Parenthood funding earlier this year, but I have friends who lost their mothers to breast cancer when we were in high school, one of my former co-workers’ mother had a double mastectomy due to breast cancer, my boyfriend’s mother and sister have both suffered from it, and no woman (or man, for that matter) is immune from it.  I feel like we need to make strides to find a cure for breast cancer, hopefully in my lifetime.  If you choose to donate, thank you and I appreciate it.  If not, please just take the time to do monthly self-exams and stay vigiliant.