Ain't That Some Shit?

If you didn't catch it in the middle of my rant in the last post - I am now the proud owner of 26 ducks.

These are baby pictures of my 10 original ones in the order we got them:

6 White Pekins

(March 8th, 2015)

 

2 Indian Runners

(1 week later)

 

2 Khaki Campbells

(2 weeks after that)

 



If you can't tell, I had baby fever. And anyone that knows me, knows I love whatever animal I can get my hands on. Here are my 10 originals now:

These are the 16 new ducks (they were terrified so they're basically on top of each other) and the first time everyone met each other:

 

The gang's all here!

 

 

My boyfriend and I got our 10 originals in early March because I was researching how Cancer thrives off of acidic environments and dies in alkaline ones. So, I figured it wouldn't hurt to try to alkaline my body as much as possible. Of course, going Vegan (or as close to it as I could get since I still love seafood and cheat with 1 or 2 items a week...so yes, I know, I'm technically not Vegan but it's easier to just say "I'm as Vegan as possible" then go into explaining the whole thing over and over...) has helped that tremendously but before I decided to do that, I read how duck eggs are less acidic than chicken eggs. So when my boyfriend wanted to get chickens and I didn't, we discussed the possibility of ducks instead. I mean, who doesn't love little ducklings?! Look at those little angel faces!!

Unfortunately, you cannot "sex" a duck until they reach a certain age so we got 10 ducks without knowing what they would turn out to be. As they got older, we realized we had 6 males (4 of the Pekins and both Indian Runners) - which is no bueno when it comes to ducks. As much as I love my little angelducks (as I've nicknamed them), they can really be little assholeducks quite often.

Male ducks are rapists - it's as simple as that. The problem is, when one duck starts humping, the others come over to do it as well. So my females started getting attacked by multiple males - and I could NOT have that happen.

I found a couple that has some weird makeshift farm close by where they raise chickens, ducks, goats, turkeys, guinea's, cats, dogs...basically whatever they feel like doing that moment. I informed her I only wanted females and was told by another duck breeder that 3 females to every 1 male should be a good enough ratio where the same females wouldn't always keep getting attacked. She wound up having the right amount, at the right age, for the right price...so, voila. Twenty six ducks!

The only problem is, the new ducks must not be as old as I was lead to believe because the same few ducks still keep getting attacked. Other than that, they really require no work at all. We had to build a slight duck-house expansion when we got our 16 new ones, but they aren't harder to deal with and the new ducks are very well behaved.

Duck Palace

We let them out of their house in the morning and put them inside their house at night so they're safe from predators. They have access to food and water along with two pools (one in ground and one above ground - they're so fancy), shelter, shade, a bunch of running room. When I let them out of their pen to roam around the backyard, they stay in the yard (except a few of them have become adventurous and have started testing the waters a few feet into the woods so I've had to run into the high as shit brush to get them out...little jerks). They know where home is and most of the time they listen just like dogs. Plus they're super cute and have funny little behavior quirks that make them fun to watch. However, from being inside their pen most of the time, 90% of it is just dirt...or more like, matted down poop. They poop A LOT. Like, A LOT a lot. And they have no control over it. So they just poop and pee wherever, whenever. I have to clean out the above ground pool at least every other day and pump the in ground one at least once a week. That is definitely not the more enjoyable job.

Since my non-surgery, I've been pushing myself harder than I probably should. I do this every time I have a surgery. It's hard sitting on the couch all day and asking others to help you with everything. Today was no exception. Plus now my lung is starting to heal and beginning to get the weird tight feeling that causes it to hurt when I take deep breaths and kill when I hiccup or internally burp or anything like that. So today, God punished me...in a pretty humorous way.

I was outside with my dogs, looking at the ducks when I noticed one of my female Pekin's neck was missing feathers and she just looked super ratty. I feel bad for her! Since she's one of the 2 oldest (and largest) females, she's always getting picked on. I decided to clean the above ground pool and lock up the 4 big males (the Pekins) so that she could clean herself in peace.

The ground was already a little wet from it raining yesterday so when I dumped the pool out, a large area was totally soaked with mud and a ton of poop. I filled the pool and went to work trying to catch the big ducks. It's hard when they have so much running room, on top of the fact that the ground was wet so I was going slow, and finally the simple truth that I shouldn't be chasing around anything to begin with.

I was able to catch the first duck fairly easily. I found myself running up and down the length of the pen trying to nab the second one so I grabbed a small (and very light) 4ft plastic shovel we use to clean the inside of their house and was attempting to herd the duck into a corner. I was able to get him after a few minutes but by this time I was huffing and puffing. I knew I didn't want to be out there, running around much longer. After a few more minutes of unsuccessful attempts I started getting really frustrated. As I was coming back down the small hill towards the duck house my flip flop (yeah, I really need some good duck shoes) slid on the wet ground and yup, you guessed it. I fucking fell. Right in the middle of the mud which, let's be honest, was really mostly fucking duck poop. And as I hit the ground, I said out loud in one of the most ironic moments, "Ain't that some shit?!" <-- I kid you not.

Covered in duck shit and mud, I was PIIISSSSSSEEEDD. I came at those ducks like a raging bull and was finally able to get the last 2 little assholes into the one side of the house. I left them in there all damn day. Luckily for me, I didn't fall in a way that hurt myself. Probably because as I was going down, I aimed the side of my ass towards the ground and Lord knows I have enough padding there.

My fall was also probably cushioned with the massive amounts of wet duck shit beneath me.

You can stop laughing now.

Needless to say, I spent the remainder of the day on the couch and the ducks sat in time out all day without me feeling an ounce of sympathy for them.

1 Year and (almost) 1 Month...

WOW. I knew it had been some time since I last wrote but I didn't think my last entry was July 14th...of LAST year. That's crazy! I guess looking back I may have needed to just live through what I was going through instead of living through it AND documenting it.

In a (very large and probably very long) nutshell, I completed 3 weeks of alternative treatments/therapies in Mexico, have remained on an all organic diet, continued with my alternative supplements every day, had a left lung/right kidney ablation surgery on January 9th, 2015 (that was done at Johns Hopkins because the doctor at Sloan basically told us that having the procedure done wouldn't prolong my life - in which my mom then asked if he was God...haha), had a right lung ablation surgery on February 2nd, 2015 (which I also had done at JH), wound up radically switching my diet to an as-Vegan-as-possible regimen, began hitting the gym as hard as I did back in 2011 when I started getting more in tune with keeping myself healthy, found out I now have a tumor in my pancreas (which cannot be ablated and both Sloan and JH told me the only surgery they would be able to do is to remove the entire tail end of my pancreas as well as my entire spleen - to which I said no to both...I don't care what anyone says, I'd like to think that organs serve a purpose and are there for a reason so I don't want my spleen removed), lost about 25lbs, found out my kidney and right lung ablations have stuck and I no longer have disease in those areas, got 26 ducks and now refer to myself as a Duck Farmer, found out my left lung ablation didn't stick because it was attached to a blood vessel and my doctor wasn't able to get it all, scheduled a second left lung ablation for August 5th and now here I am, recovering from that (non)surgery.

Before I go ahead and fill cyberspace in on my most recent brush with death, I'll explain what the hell an ablation is. First of all, an ablation in layman's terms is basically when they stick a giant probe directly into whatever organ the tumor is in using a CT machine as a guiding tool, then a little balloon-esque thingy grasps the tumor, encasing it almost and either burns or freezes it. I had Radiofrequency Ablations (RFA, which is burning) done to both lungs and Cryoablation (freezing) done to my kidney.

 I'm just going to go ahead and say my first ablations (left lung/right kidney) sucked. I remember staying overnight in the hospital, unable to open my eyes because they burned SO badly...that, of course, was unexplainable and no one could give me anything to make the pain in my freakin' EYE SOCKETS go away. Then the following 2 days at home were a nightmare. I was incredibly hot and cold, I couldn't take a shit for days, I was shaking and sweating, my kidney felt like it was going to explode, my lung felt extremely tight...but yet, all in all, it wasn't my worst surgical experience by far. Notice the strained smile on my face in the hospital room (which was, by far, the best hospital room in existence! I felt as though I was in some sort of low budget hotel room, which, for a hospital, is quite spectacular. It came with it's own sitting area, lounge chair, desk/work station, flat screen, huge bathroom, wood paneling...and the food was delish. It was wonderful!) since the picture took more than 2 seconds of me having to force my eyes open...

 

 

I had 2 tumors in my left lung and 1 in my right kidney that were all ablated on 1/9/15. Prior to going into surgery, my new JH doctor (whom I really enjoy as a person) informed me that the larger of the 2 tumors in my lung was attached to a blood vessel and would be nearly impossible to get it all because in order for that to happen, they would have to ablate some of the blood vessel, which just isn't any sort of option. Still hopeful, I kind of pushed the thought of it not working out of my head until recently when my latest scans showed that the tumor was back and had actually gotten a little bigger than the first time.

The recovery time wasn't horrendous for my first set of ablations so the second one for the 2 tumors in my right lung was scheduled and performed less than a month later, on 2/2/15. I can honestly say that I don't remember much about this surgery except that once again, my eyes were so sensitive that people walking by my recovery nook may have mistaken my need for sunglasses as me being a total diva and not wanting the paparazzi snapping any unwanted photos.

I know, I know...I'm sure some of you are probably thinking, "well Erin, you kind of are a Diva..." To you I say, you can kiss this Diva's ass  ;)

SO, this catches me up to present day. I am currently propped up in bed with 4 too many pillows, Vaseline slathered all over (an in) my insanely dry nose (which I'm assuming is a lingering issue from the oxygen tube they had in my nose), on a cocktail of anti-nausea, anti-pain and anti-constipation pills and recovering from a surgery that I didn't have.

A surgery you didn't have, you ask? Oh yes...! Let me try to explain without having a mental breakdown.

This past Wednesday, August 5th, 2015, I returned to JH for another left lung ablation. The original larger tumor that was attached to the blood vessel had returned and there was also a tiny spot right below it that he was going to burn outta there as well. The week prior to my procedure, my surgery was pushed from 8am to 10am to 11am to 1pm. How fun!!!

We arrived at 11am for my surgery at 1pm. Around 12pm I was informed that the person in front of me had yet to get into surgery yet and that their procedure would take at least 2 hours. I won't bore you with all the details, but it wasn't until AFTER 4PM that I was FINALLY taken back for my surgery. Mind you, I had not eaten and now I KNEW they would keep me overnight since who knows when I would even be getting out of recovery. I was pissed, to say the very least.

I woke up a few hours later to a bunch of nurses around me saying my name, in excruciating pain because of some giant IV sticking out of my wrist where there wasn't one before. It was kind of all a sort of whirlwind experience but I know I kept telling them to give me more pain meds (as usual - since NO ONE ever listens to me when I tell them I'm some sort of tolerance anomaly) and then my doctor coming in to tell me I gave everyone "quite a good scare". Ohh, did I? How so?

 

To summarize the events that followed 5 minutes into my surgery, they were beginning to do the ablation when an air bubble just so happened to get into the blood vessel that the pesky tumor was attached to and then that lovely air bubble started to make it's way to my beautifully beating HEART! The ablation was called off and instead another team of doctors were called in to make sure I actually woke up from said ablation. JOY!

In my anti-pain induced state, all I kept asking was, well did you get it? Because even now, I just don't want to accept that I had surgery for legit no reason whatsoever. Ain't that a bitch? So again, I say with great disdain, I'm now recovering from a surgery I didn't actually have. And the even shittier part of this whole thing is that I was going to have to follow this ablation with 2 weeks of radiation to hopefully get rid of any leftover tumor that he wasn't able to get again this time around. NOW I'm going to need who knows how much more radiation to hopefully shrink the fucking thing enough to actually HAVE the ablation done again. I won't know anything more until this week when my radiologist gets back from vacation, but the whole purpose of going to Mexico and repeatedly turning down chemo was to take alternative route and not pump my body full of toxins and poison. Therefore, I'm even more upset now about having to have more radiation than what they originally told me I would need...which I never wanted to have to begin with anyway.

Basically, this whole thing just sucks some huge hairy balls. And I won't even begin to explain how horrible the night was after my non-surgery. I may have gotten 1.5 hours of sleep total, but that was in 10 minute increments. I just could not sleep for the life of me. And because I was on so much pain meds, they wouldn't give me anything to help me sleep. That night of zero sleep was followed by a morning of violently puking with 3 anti-nausea meds not doing shit to help. Take notice of my facial expression in this picture compared to the last two times I was able to bust out of the hospital post surgery...

So now my focus is recovering from the non-surgery and getting through radiation. I pinky promise to never exceed a year between entries again...if for no other reason then typing myself to sleep as I write this.