Getting thru my TBR before I die

I realized I have over 400 books in my To Be Read pile. A lot of them are when I was in my queer or romantasy phase. I’m over both now, so I think they’re going to get tossed. Life’s too short to read books you don’t like.
Most books are female-driven now. I understand that it’s important to show girls in powerful positions, but geez. Not 75% of the new books in my genre (fantasy). I’m sorry, but I like Harry Dresden in the early days. Or early urban fantasy. Yes, its trope is some white guy in a trench coat living in some down and dirty city, practicing magic. (Oooh, should I have some Black guy in a trench coat practicing mojo and hoodoo in, say, Providence? Hmmmm.)
Anyway, I started cataloguing the books to read for the next few months. I only read at dialysis or in bed, and then on the phone or Kindle respectively. My challenge is to read 30 books this year. It was 75 last year–yeah, right. I got up to cataloguing 13 before I realized I might not make it to 30, never mind 400.

Do I read the first fifty or so pages, the middle, then skip around until I get to the end? Is that reading or a Did Not Finish? If the first fifty–heck, the first twenty, sometimes–doesn’t grab me, it’s definitely a DNF. Medusa’s Sisters was like that; a feminist snorefest. I’ve only read one book so far this year: The Astrology House, a mystery of sorts. Forgettable. I think someone died. There were so many different points of view told in the same voice that I couldn’t tell one person from the other. How does this stuff get published?

I don’t think I’ll make 30 books his year. About twenty hours a week is dialysis. Maybe ten or so is editing/etc. Forty hours of sleep, if I’m lucky. Maybe ten hours of working on my own stuff (that includes gaming). The rest is waiting or transporting to doctor visits. I should get Airpods to listen to audiobooks while I wait.

It’s a date

Biopsy is slated for Wednesday, February 4 and CT Scans Friday, February 6. My expectations are that the biopsy will show renal carcinoma, and the CT scans are negative.

I am dumping my BFF of 40+ years. First of all, she thinks she knows me. I’ve changed over the years. My favorite band is not The Police. It was when I was in high school. My favorite color is not black any more. She has no idea what I am now.
Secondly, she is not supportive. She is homebound because she is afraid of going out and falling. And her idea of support is telling me about all the people she knows who died of cancer, including her father. He had colon cancer that spread to his liver, and he was gone in three months after diagnosis.
Like I needed to hear that.
So I’m walking around with a big red “C” on my forehead, thinking I’ll die in three months. Because of that, I’m scared. Petrified. I don’t have my life in order! I don’t have a will. Nobody knows my wishes.
It’s all her fault for putting this in my head.

Good news! (such as it is)

It seems I don’t have liver cancer. My kidney cancer has come back and attacked my liver. So technically, it’s not liver cancer? I always thought cancer is cancer and whatever organ it’s in is that kind of cancer. Seems there are different specialties and the oncologist I saw specializes in liver cancer.

Anyway, the next steps are a biopsy of the mass on my liver to find out if it is the kidney cancer come back, and a CT scan of the chest and pelvis just to be sure it’s not all over the place. Based on recent–within a year–images, it’s not everywhere, just localized in my liver, which is good. There’s a lot of new treatments, the oncologist said, like targeted therapies, but we’re not going to talk about that until the biopsy is done. That will probably be late this week, early next. Mother Nature has thrown a spanner in the works because of the winter storm, so everything will probably be off a couple of days.

My last post went off on my poor son. He’s a “prince” as a good friend called him. He’s been helpful, kind, and makes me laugh. He’s been morbid, talking about how he’s going to tell off my “BFF” and what he’s going to wear (his version of cosplay) at my funeral. I hope he doesn’t get forced into a suit. Anyway, he’s been the best anyone could ask for.

So now it’s a waiting game. Waiting for the appointments, waiting for results, waiting on doctors. Need to advocate for myself and be a squeaky wheel, which I’m not used to being.

Cancer. Again.

I went for an MRI of my liver on January 16. I got the results via the portal on Sunday. “Consistent with metastazised disease.” Doctor-speak for cancer. This is the second time for me; the first being kidney cancer in 2008, when my right kidney got removed. Now it’s back in the liver. I don’t know if it’s operable–I’m waiting for my PCP to give me a call with the official diagnosis and next steps.

I haven’t told my kid, who is dealing with his own issues of having seizures in public places (he doesn’t want to go out and end up in the hospital if he has a seizure, so he prefers to be homebound). He approaches me at 4 this morning saying he doesn’t think he should go with me to the doctor’s today because he had a “mild” seizure last night. He wants me to change the appointment. I already have. Twice because of him being scared. I refuse to change appointments anymore because of him. I can get around in my wheelchair without him.

Yes, I’m in a wheelchair when I go out. I fell once and the drivers don’t want the liability of me transferring into a vehicle (even though I can do it) so now I have to take a wheelchair van to doctor and dialysis appointments. I can Uber/Lyft in a pinch, but not with the big wheelchair. I have a transport wheelchair for in case of that reason. It’s a smaller wheelchair and fits in the trunk. But I have to be pushed in it. The big sheelchair I can push myself. Slowly, but I can.

I want to remain as independent as possible. If chemo is warranted, then I’ll have no time to do anything other than dialysis and chemo. No time for fun or even doctors’ appointments.

But then, I may not have to worry about it.

Don’t be honest with Dah Man

So, I thought I’d be honest with the government and tell them that my utility bills have nearly tripled since I was in rehab. All of them. I went on our Medicaid website and updated my bills, which hadn’t been touched since 2023.
What a cascade of errors.

This caused them to send me a questionnaire. “Are you on LTSS?” I took that to mean “Long Term Something Service” which meant to me, rehab. So I said no.

Three days later I get a notice I’m being booted off of Medicaid.
Panic ensues.

Trying to get through to Department of Human Services is like trying get Taylor Swift tickets. On hold for 2 hours, to find out that LTSS means Long Term Social Services, such as dialysis. Ohhhhh, I said. Ohhhh, she said, “We’ll fix this.”

I get another note. “Please provide documentation from your application dated 4/2023”. I did this already! Call them again. Talk to the same person. “You’re okay,” she said. “The whole thing is automated.” Lovely AI from the 1950’s. Our state Medicaid was notoriously breached three years ago and they supposedly overhauled the computer system. Not.

Anyway, it’s all cleared up now. But by the Gods, it was scary. I was calculating Uber and Lyft costs to dialysis ($150 a week) on my disability income since I have no car. Medicaid Ride Share is notorious as well–I hear it’s like that all across the country. We take the Ride Share to appointments, and sometimes Uber home because it can take upwards of an hour to get back. Yesterday, I got out of dialysis at 2:30. I didn’t get home until 5.

So that’s my complaint for the week. Medicaid is helpful in keeping you in your home, but you have to be patient.