Jan Curran Events

It's been a year...

I lost my little mommy a year ago today. I can't believe it has been a year and hard to grasp that she is gone.  I think of her every day. Burning a memorial candle in her memory today, but that doesn't help my grief.

That's my mom in the middle with my Aunt Gertie and cousin Dorothy at "the lake" where we all went on vacation. That seems like yesterday, too.

Catching up...

The last time I wrote on here it was chilly and starting to feel like winter...

Now, today, it is hot and dry and windy and feels like July. We're to hit 90 today in Ventura which is very unusual, but what is worse is that this hot and dry and windy climate can also mean fires so there is what they call a " Red Alert" for this county until Sunday.

Medical news...

Okay, so I went and saw the lung man who came in to the exam room and said, " you look great!"... I don't know where he was looking cus I dropped another couple of pounds and weigh 108.  Look I've weighed a nice 130 for years, sometimes would drop down to 125 but wore a size 6 or 8 and had what some would call a nice figure.  Now, I have no figure -- mostly bones -- no ass.  Well, that is off the subject of lungs... so back to the subject.  The doc said yes it is okay to go a few hours during the day without the oxygen, see how I do.

He was honest when he said, " I have no answer for you as to why this all happened. It is a mystery."  So that makes three docs who say they have no answer!

Lung man said he wants me to have a PET scan to rule out any cancer involvement so will have that in early November and be nervous about it until then.  I see the oncologist on the 30th of October and she will schedule it.

Talking books..

In Robert Wagner's book he had a story of how actress Yvonne DeCarlo picked him up and they had a one night stand.  I just finished reading Tony Curtis's autobiography and he told a story of having a one night stand with her, too!  She must have been one busy lady picking up all those good looking young guys.  I used to like Tony Curtis.  Not that I knew him. I did meet him and his current wife in Palm Springs at a film festival.  He was very pleasant and so was she, but that is the extent of any contact with him.  Mostly  I just liked him from his film roles and the way he looked.  Well , after reading his book I don't like him much. He was so unfaithful to his wives, said some mean things about Janet Leigh, slept with every woman he could, and blamed any lack of success on two facts; either people were jealous of his good looks or it was because he was Jewish.  Wines like a baby about never getting an Oscar, over and over until I wanted to yell at the book and say, " Get real!"

Did you see Curtis on " The View?"  He hasn't aged well, had on a cowboy hat which made me wonder if he is bald now.  However , in his defense I do know he spent a few months in a coma in 2006, had to learn to walk and talk and even write his own name again and that he uses a wheelchair most of the time. On "The View" he was already seated when the camera went to him. No grand entrance so assume he is still in the wheel chair. 

If you read his book, let me know what you thought -- am I off base not liking him now?

 

It's starting to feel like winter...

Was 54 degrees when I checked a few minutes ago... and that's a big change from the 85 it was just a few days ago. That's how Southern California can be..I used to love hot weather, then spent a lot of time in the east and my childhood love of winter returned and I became a born again cold weather person. Love winter coats,  bulky sweaters, hand knit scarves, boots, all of it, even the snow.  Okay, so we don't get snow here in Ventura but our temperatures are so mild, it can feel like winter. 

Two years ago I landed in Seattle in the middle of a major snow storm that then promptly closed the airport, and the freeway and all routes to the airport. Was stranded there for five hours until some nice pilots shared a car with me and gave me a ride to Madison Park and my little mommy who waited up and worried about me out in a snow storm. I was fine, just cold and tired and hungry and eager to see her.

I day dream about being in Seattle, sitting out on mom's deck in warm sunshine, or looking out all the windows to the rain and the waves on the lake and loving that so much. And I also day dream about Maui and the condo Mom and I shared there that also had  huge deck where we would sit outside to read or eat or just gaze at the view.  I know Seattle and Mom's condo are no longer possible for me, and I wonder if my travel to Hawaii thoughts are also just day dreams now, too.

TB or not TB...

Way back on July 23 I had a procedure at the hospital where they went in and did a little biopsy in the lung and looked around, looking for reasons for me being short of breath and having fluid collect around the lungs.  Some of the aspects of that biopsy take 6-8 weeks to gel and get a report back, the lung doc said. 

Two weeks ago I got a call from the lung doc, asking how I felt, blah blah blah and then saying he didn't want me to be alarmed but the biopsy showed a result that looked like TB, but wasn't, it is some other microbacterial something  -- but he wanted to warn me that the public health department would be calling me. Matter of routine, as a biopsy result  like that is automatically given to the department of health and they have to test me for TB.  Okay.

Public health did call and wanted me there the next day and there was somewhere in Oxnard ( a town not far from here).  I hired the driver to take me for what they said would be a half hour of time.

First of all they kept us waiting an hour and that cost me not only time but money.  Then the exam which consisted of a skin test and then a lot of questions.. questions like, " what was the result of your last HIV test?"  What last HIV test, never had one.  Then questions about why am I so skinny , which I thought was rude -- on and on with questions about who in my family has had TB ( no one) ,who in my family has AIDS ( no one)... this went on for about another hour.  By the time I got out of there and home it had been a three hour ordeal and they wanted me back in two days for them to look at my arm to see if I had TB.

The next day  I went to my oncologist who also said I didn't have TB and got a giggle out of all the questions they must have asked me.  She had me get a chest Xray to see if I had a lung fluid problem again - and happy to tell you there was no fluid.. lungs looked normal.  Yay!  She gave me a flu shot, said go home and eat ice cream to gain some weight, and she would see me in a month.

Then, back to the public health office so they could look at my arm. No TB.  Knew it. But can surely see why they might think so way back in July when I had so many of the symptoms.. the bad cough, no appetite ,weight loss.. well, won't bore you with the symptoms cus chances are you don't have TB and won't have TB , either.

There is still no answer as to why I had a sudden loss in body oxygen or that fluid buildup.  I'm still on oxygen 24/7 but go an hour or so without it if just sitting here at the computer or reading a book. Hoping when I see the lung doctor on Wednesday he will say to cut back on the oxygen use some.

Book report... I got Robert Wagner's autobiography.  It was a quick read and a fun one for me because I had met or knew many of the people he wrote about. I know Wagner  and Jill St.John, and knew St. John's mother, too.  I don't know them well enough to invite them to dinner but well enough so that when I would see them at something like the Frank Sinatra Celebrity Golf Tourney we could stand and chat or say hello kind of thing. Wagner had a home in PS for years and Jill's mother lived in a lovely home in Rancho Mirage and I went there once for a luncheon she hosted. I remember in the living room she had this almost life size painting of Jill.  Anyway, if you are of my generation or an old Hollywood buff you'll enjoy his book and the tidbits about the days when he began his career and then the days of TV and "Hart to Hart" with Stef Powers who I also knew and well enough to go have lunch out together... she told me a lot about William Holden but that's another story, maybe one she should write...