Unopened

 

Unopened

Another gift but the best gift of all is still my little Teddies. 

8x8 oil on canvas panel. For sale or auction at my DPW gallery

just follow the link to pay via Pay Pal.

Next Time

 

Next Time

Next time I will do better. Next time I wont put off stuff for tomorrow that I can do today. Next time I will tell someone that I love them before it is too late. Next Time.

8x8 oil on canvas panel.

For sale or auction at my DPW gallery just follow the link to pay via Pay Pal.

What's Inside

 

What's Inside

Don't you just love getting gifts. The anticipation of what's inside is sometimes better than the

gift within. I love the feeling of the smooth crispness of the paper and then seeing the beautiful bow. That alone makes me thankful for whatever is inside.

10x8 oil on canvas panel

For sale or auction at my DPW gallery just follow the link to purchase via Pay Pal.

Giving Love Away

 

Giving Love Away

I am still in my quest of doing the perfect study which will become a larger painting. And

daily I trudge along paintingmy little heart out. Today once again I paint this Teddy Bear which my

mom gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago. I only have a few of them and treasure each one.

As I think about this little bear I think about my mom. She will be 89 this year. I still call her each day and I can't help but think about all those times she showed me love in so many ways. Like all of the times she did without so I could have what I wanted not what I needed. It is a wonderful thing when you give love away and years later it brings a smile when someone thinks of it.

8x8 oil on canvas panel

For sale or auction at my DPW gallery just follow the link to purchase via Pay Pal.

Expecting A Hug

 

Expecting A Hug

I found this little dog at the wet canvas reference gallery.

Thanks to Danitangel

For sale or auction at my DPW gallery just follow the link to purchase via Pay Pal.

Submitted to Leslie Saetas

30 in 30 days challenge

Millie says "Fly"!!

images on wood blocks...papers, wings and wire....

A Slice Of Orange

 

A Slice Of Orange

How very nice. Oranges or any fruit for that matter are so sweet to paint.

It is a challenge to capture that translucent look. Maybe I didn't do so hot with it

but I like it anyway. 5x7, oil on canvas panel. For sale or auction at my DPW gallery.

Just follow the link to pay via Pay Pal.

The Present

 

The Present

I painted this as practice for a large painting I am doing to go over my fireplace. 

Nope this is not it....I will be painting a 30x40 and it will have a gift in it in some way. I added

the jar for the challenge at DPW. I am pretty satisfied with it but you will be seeing more with gifts.

10"x8"  Oil on canvas panel. For sale or auction at my DPW gallery just follow the link to pay via Pay Pal.

Skeletons in the Closet

blog.1800gotjunk.com

We all have one of those closets that you need to kick its door with force to be able to shut it closed, as there is so much junk behind its doors. However, when it’s shut no one knows the difference nor suspects the mounds of hoarded crap on the inside.

Earlier this week, it was as if the door on mine busted off its hinges and all the junk just couldn’t be contained. Figurative glass vases, decks of cards, untouched workout equipment, old coat upon coat, dusty pillar candles, all came flying at my head. I felt as if I were buried in bags filled with more paper bags, reams of tissue paper, rolls of wrapping paper, and fabric scraps that I might use some day, drowning in the very things that that closet door usually keeps safely distant from me.

However, instead of those inanimate objects, it was every Hodgkin Lymphoma B symptom I have experienced in 3-and-a-half years of living with the disease. Things spiraled even more out of control after Tuesday. My mom came over to drive me to get my Cortisol level checked and to spend the day caring for me as I could barely see past the bridge of my own nose, woozy with pain and weakness.

Throughout the day and night, everything came flying at me: incredible pain in my bones and aches in my body tissues; shaking chills; insatiable itchiness on my lower legs and chest, sweats that soaked so bad I had to change my clothes four times throughout the night; swollen, palpable lymph nodes; nausea; a good vomit session as soon as Craig pulled in from work to take the caregiver baton; lack of appetite; fevers reaching nearly 103 degrees; weakness beyond belief. I was a hot, hot mess.

I was in touch with my nurses at Columbia throughout the day, filling them in on the downward spiral. It got to be 8:30 Wednesday night and I was so fevery, I was crying to Craig and contemplating a trip to the Emergency Room. We were weighing the options of what to do.

Then my cell phone rang, and it was Dr. O himself, calling me from California to tell me he heard about everything going on and to talk me through a new thought process. That’s the sign of a truly good doctor. He wasn’t even in his office, but took the time to call me to figure this all out and even give me his cell phone number to call or text him if anything further came up after our conversation. He immediately made me feel better as his suggestions matched seamlessly with the layman’s medical thought process I had been having also.

He didn’t even want to wait for the Cortisol level return. He knew instinctively that this wasn’t an adrenal failure, but that instead the anti-inflammatory powers of the Prednisone – even at such a small dose – had been holding back all of the Hodgkin symptoms I was now experiencing. The Prednisone had been my closet door and when that busted open, out came all the realities of what was happening inside my body. He was right. 24 hours later, my Cortisol level read at 12.4 – actually a little higher than normal.

He told me to take 10mg of Prednisone that night. Within an hour, it was as if that door was shut again and all the crashing, clanking, and screaming stopped. All was quiet, balanced and stable again. It was incredible. He told me to continue to drink fluids like a horse, which I did, and continue to do. We conceded that the NAE Inhibitor trial I was planning to go on was not right for me at this time, despite all of the set-up we’d already done to work toward it. My disease is in too much of a flare right now to risk going onto such a novel therapy with very little data behind it. I need something more tried and true at this moment.

We are instead going with a clinical trial which Dr. O had discussed with me when we first learned from my PET Scan that the Revlimid had stopped working. At the time, he had wanted to keep it “in his back pocket” because we knew that it was something that would very likely work and that we should hold onto it until I absolutely need it and try these other novel therapies until then. I can’t be burning my bridges until necessary. Options are few and far between. Well, now I need it. We need to melt this current disease.

Next week I’ll be starting up on a trial at Columbia that combines Brentuximab Vendotin (SGN-35) and Bendamustine chemotherapy. I have had both of these drugs in the past, but never in combination, and never at these lower doses. Apparently, his research team has had good luck with using them together synergistically, having put several people into remission. He hopes that that will happen for me as well. We don’t know how long a remission would last, but a remission will give us options to decide the next step and as he says “turn this into a manageable chronic disease.” I feel completely comfortable with this plan.

Monday brings me back to the city for yet another set of pre-tests and consent forms to sign, then I’ll start treatment as early as Wednesday or Thursday. Time to reset everything and refocus on this new “plan”. I’m just so incredibly grateful for that that damn closet door is again shut tight. That shit was scary in there. No more pain. No more fevers. No more vomiting. Just back to my normal aches and fatigue, which I am now oddly thankful for in comparison.  

Turn-Up

 

Turn-Up

One vegetable that I do have a hankering for is turnips. They are sweet,strong and just

plain good. I love turnip greens and turnip tops. They are a bit peculiar though. 

You really should try them sometime.

5x7 oil on canvas panel

For sale or auction at my DPW gallery just follow the link to pay via PayPal.

A quiet day in the studio....

A Passion For Fruit

 

A Passion For Fruit

5x7 oil on canvas panel. Thanks to Dewi at wet canvas for the reference photo. 

For sale or auction at my DPW gallery just follow the link to purchase via Pay Pal.

V-8 The Beginning

 

V-8 The Beginning

Carrots...Rich in Beta Carotene I think... Good for your eyes or something....

Carrots are ok cooked but raw....I just can't do it.

7x5 oil on canvas panel

A Day Filled With Sunshine

A Day Filled With Sunshine

Painted for a challenge at DPW

For sale or auction at my DPW gallery just follow the link to purchase via Pay Pal. 

Today is 1/25/13 I retouched this painting. When I looked at it something just bothered me.

I had painted all the flowers forward (I know better). So I repainted and flipped some of them and added some background petals I also reworked the ellipse in the water. Better I think.

Some Red I Said

 

Some Red I Said

I am so used to painting blue or gray backgrounds till this was quite different for me.

Oil on 7x5 canvas panel 

For sale or auction at my DPW gallery just follow the link to purchase via Pay Pal.

Scattered Grapes

 

Scattered Grapes

I always thought that painting grapes was quite a challenge but

painting these just gave me a feeling of contentment kinda like visiting an old friend.

Oil on 7x5 canvas panel.For sale or auction at my DPW gallery just follow the link to purchase via Pay Pal.

Miss Prissy Pants

 

Miss Prissy Pants

This little canine has one problem. She does not know that she is a dog. 

She sits and begs for food but finds it an annoyance because you should just know what

she wants without her having to ask. She is one little miss prissy pants if you know what I mean.

8x8 on canvas panel

For sale or auction at my DPW gallery just follow the link to pay via Pay Pal.

Photo reference from wet canvas CRYROLFE

Withdrawal and Dependency

I passed all of the pre-tests with “flying colors” to get onto the NAE inhibitor Phase I trial at Columbia: healthy heart, healthy urine, normal blood cell levels. Turns out the sponsoring drug company will pay for travel and accommodations, so I booked a hotel suite just a couple blocks away from clinic adjacent to Rockefeller Center. The amenities that sold me were the kitchenette, free WiFi, free filtered, bottled water, and a free “yoga kit” brought to my room on demand.

All of our questions were answered, the consent forms have been signed, and the treatment calendar was drawn up by the study coordinator. I would start treatment on Monday, Jan. 28, and live in midtown Manhattan through Feb. 12. It meant that I had to back out of my performance of “The Vagina Workshop” in The Vagina Monologues, as I wouldn’t be able to make the rehearsals nor the performance even. It meant that I’d have the four days free to attend the San Francisco Writing Conference I’d won a scholarship for, but wouldn’t be able to swing our long-ago booked San Fran/NoCal vacation that Craig would be joining me for – with flowers in his hair – the following week. My medical team would plead with the drug company to allow some flexibility in the regimented schedule to allow a five-day delay on the second cycle start. Results still pending on that one. 

Though the infusions themselves are only twice a week for 60 minutes, each of those days requires blood draws every hour, on the hour, for six hours afterward, and each day in between requires clinic visits for EKGs of my heart, urine testing and more bloodwork for safety monitoring and data gathering. I’d go back to the city for another overnight early the following week then have a week off before starting up the second cycle.

We had a caregiver/company keeper rotation set up between my mom and Craig, and some space built in for alone time for writing projects, which I planned to do by the natural light that pours through the grand windows of the New York Public Library. I was beginning to research Broadway shows, concerts (both Fun and Mumford & Sons are playing in the city while I’m there!). I started back up my e-mail subscription to midtown Manhattan Groupon and Living Social deals.

After much internal (and external with my husband) debate, we went away on a previously booked ski trip to Vermont with two incredible friends and a crew of their friends, who quickly and comfortably became ours this past long weekend. I was hesitant to go because I was pissed I wasn’t allowed to ski nor drink – and what is a ski weekend without time on the slopes and an après-ski IPA?

I was anxious about being away for a three-day weekend when I’d be away from home for long stretches at a time again so soon. Then, I had a change of heart and realized I was getting ahead of myself, disallowing myself fun now because of the tough stuff that was around the corner. I could still have a fun, relaxing weekend, just doing it differently. This is my new life and I can’t avoid that by getting caught up on what I used to do in the past. Adapt. Adapt. Adapt. We packed up Sammy and headed north. Craig would ski both days and I would hang back with those who didn’t.

I couldn’t have made a better decision, as the weekend was full of hearty laughs, delicious food, fun people, reading, relaxing, football watching, and dog cuddling, all in a fantastic, eclectic Vermont home with views of an expansive frozen lake and snow-covered trees made more beautiful by passing flurries of fat white flakes. I didn’t think about cancer or my upcoming treatment for more than a fleeting moment.

What I didn’t know at the time was that it was a last hurrah before shit hit the fan on the evening of MLK day. Seeing as I’ve been relegated to the couch and the bed from Monday evening to this morning when it’s now 4 a.m. and I’ve been up since awakening with excruciating pain at 2:30 a.m. yelling to Craig that I need hospice care, things have gone downhill fast. After two Aleve and a heating pad, I am off the hospice thoughts, but only the very edge is taken off. I am in some of the worst pain of my life.

This clinical trial does not allow a patient to be on any amount of steroids. I have been on a therapeutic dose of 10mg Prednisone for months now after trying to come off of it after several months at 60mg necessary to clear up post-radiation lung inflammation and having dizzy spells and blood pressure drops without it. I was told on Friday that I’d have to come off the Prednisone again, instructed to drop to 5mg on Saturday and Sunday then cut it out altogether on Monday. Being at 5mg over the weekend in VT wasn’t so bad: I had some headaches and back pain in the morning, but it went away with Aleve and breakfast. However, when my body realized by Monday evening that it wasn’t getting any, it went ape shit.

10mg is about the amount of Cortisol that our bodies produce naturally, which can be replaced/supplemented with steroid therapy. Cortisol is a life sustaining adrenal hormone essential to the maintenance of homeostasis. Called “the stress hormone,” cortisol influences, regulates or modulates many of the changes that occur in the body in response to stress. Without it, the body can’t effectively fight disease and stress or regulate itself. Well, from the symptoms I’m having there is worry that my adrenal glands, which produce the hormone, have gone caput after being in a state of stress for so many years now, going through so much treatment, and having been on so many steroids (a double-edged sword).

Without even the small level of Prednisone, I’ve been riding a wave of severe Hodgkin symptoms and steroid withdrawal: fevers in the 100 range, soaking night sweats, sleeplessness, extreme fatigue, shortness of breath, incredible pain in my back, hips and pelvis, aches and swelling in my lymph nodes, insatiable itchiness on my legs, lack of appetite, nausea. Basically, the works. 

My medical team does not like this and is highly concerned. We already know that the disease is on the rise and that the Prednisone acts as a Band-Aid masking symptoms. As my nurse explained to me today, once that Band-Aid is taken off, everything that’s been brewing underneath is exposed – hence all my b symptoms raging. On top of that, the fact that I may be dependent on the Prednisone for my Cortisol brings its own very serious dangers, as the body cannot function without those stress response functions.

In three hours I will get a blood test locally to check my Cortisol levels without the steroid. If they are less than 5, I will have to go back onto a Prednisone course, which would disqualify me for this clinical trial and wipe out all of those beautifully laid plans above. My body’s drug dependency will probably disqualify me from many trials. I don’t know yet what the plan of action would be, but I obviously need a treatment that works – fast.

If I do have enough Cortisol, it may mean that these are just steroid withdrawal and Hodgkin flare symptoms. I’ll be able to move forward with the clinical drug trial, and they’ll give me a drug similar to, but not, a steroid that will help to stimulate some of my functions that are lacking.

I’m scared and exhausted but can’t sleep due to the pain. I have to get through another whole day and night before Cortisol level blood test results return and we can determine the safest way to get me feeling stable again.

"It's better to feel pain, than nothing at all ...
So keep your head up, keep your love
Keep your head up, my love
Head up, love."
-The Lumineers

"Stubborn Love" by The Lumineers from Look Sessions on Vimeo.

Some doors close as others open....

We have had to leave our cottage.......I'm sad.....but I keep telling myself that a new chapter is beginning....one door closes and another opens....I tell myself over and over.  I have been reading a blog "Tongue in Cheek" for years now.  I begin my day reading the thoughts of a woman who lives in France...who loves the brocante (fleamarket) who loves the story of old and battered things discovered there.   This woman sparked a dream....France....a wish...but beyond my realities.  The funny thing about wishes and dreams is that they unknowingly do expand one's reality.  Several years ago I went to France for a art workshop with a friend.  The next year I returned because I met a woman who lived in my home town who had a house there and we did a house trade.  I brought my husband and shared my thrill of crumbling castles and cafe au lait. A year went by and I returned again.....bringing my 3 grown daughters and my oldest granddaughter as her high school graduation present.  The best time of my life!   And I wonder how this happened....it's like a story book dream to me.  The power of a wish...a dream...a vision.

My friend and unknown to her ....my boundary pusher....who writes the blog Tongue in Cheek...whom I have never met or even corresponded with....who had no idea that she had given me a dream..... wrote on her blog that she would invite 8 women to come, one at a time....and bring a friend....and stay with her, in her home, for a week....in the south of France.

It was to be a drawing out of a hat...a chance....I sent in my name.  I've never won anything....I didn't imagine it happening....that was too far beyond my reality.......

In browsing Facebook I noticed she had posted her blog....of course I read it...there it was...she wrote...."and the winners are....."

MOI  !!!

Unbelievable!!   I will fly to France and stay with my faery godmother who birthed a dream.   A door has closed but a new door has opened and it is painted French blue! 

How does it happen?  Sometimes I wish so hard for something to happen.  I do what is needed....and it doesn't happen.  And sometimes a dream is manifested in a moment.  How is that so???....what is the secret?

There is a portal through which my wish traveled and touched another's hand.......OMG.....I keep pinching myself and re-reading her blog...and there I am....I am going to France!

Sweet With Seeds

 

Sweet With Seeds

Watermelon is the sweetest...So sweet in fact that I like it with just a pinch of salt.

5x7 oil on canvas panel. For sale or auction at my DPW gallery. Just follow the link

to pay via Pay Pal.

Another Tasty Treat

 

Another Tasty Treat

7x5 oil on canvas panel. For sale or auction at my DPW gallery. Just follow the link to 

pay via PayPal.

A Treat To Eat

 

A Treat To Eat

I like smearing on those reds and the playful interaction of color which

makes the cherry glow. 7x5 oil on canvas panel.

For sale or auction at my DPW gallery just follow the link to purchase via PayPal.

Eaten With A Fork

 

Eaten With A Fork

7x5 oil on canvas panel.

For sale or auction at my DPW gallery just follow the link to purchase

via PayPal.

Not Without Ketchup

 

Not Without Ketchup

I just can't tell you enough how much I am enjoying painting these days. It is just

like something happened overnight and I am painting just like I have dreamed of painting all these

years. I am loving the painterly strokes and finally producing something I am proud of and not in a haughty way. I feel blessed to be able to do something that is so much fun and to be pretty pleased with the results. I was looking back to the very first paintings I posted on this blog. Boy and I amazed. Thanks to all of my followers who have stood by me through these last few years and to all my new followers who have just found my art. I hope that in the coming days and years you will find something that makes you smile. 

SOLD 5/2013

Not Without Salt

 

Not Without Salt

I painted this and there was just something about it that was not quite right. I studied and studied it and even photographed it but when my daughter walked in she said did you mean for those edges on the broken eggs to be smooth? I had painted them perfectly round. Of course I straightway changed the edges......Mush better I think. 7x5 oil on canvas panel. For sale or auction at my DPW Gallery just follow the link to purchase via Pay Pal.

A Grape Or Two

 

A Grape Or Two

This painting did not photograph as well as I would have liked. I did mix the

greys in the background but the blue strokes you see are not prominent at all.

5x7 oil on canvas panel.

For sale or auction at my DPW gallery just follow the ling to purchase via Pay Pal. 

Painted for the 30 in 30 Challenge by Leslie Saeta

Red Velvet

 

Red Velvet

My favorite cake...I mean cupcake.

I will share this with you...For Christmas I made a red velvet cake. I was so 

excited and proud of myself. Yep I made it from scratch. It turned out horrible. 

I threw the whole thing away. I am going to make another soon...Will let you know how that turns

out. 7x5 oil on canvas panel.

Iced

 

Iced

A few more strawberries, a little yellow cupcake and loads of icing...What

could be better. 7x5 oil on canvas panel.

Painted for the 30 in 30 Challenge by Leslie Saeta

Stems Intact

Stems Intact

Painted for the 30 in 30 Challenge

Two purple eggplants sitting on the kitchen table waiting

to be lunch. Their exterior is firm and smooth, their colors to die for. They are 

dressed for the occasion with Stems Intact.

7x5 oil on canvas panel. For sale or auction at my DPW gallery.

Just follow the link to purchase via PayPal.