WISDOM CHECK

Life, the universe, and everything nerdy

  • So, How’s it Going?

    So, How’s it Going?

    Thanks everyone who reached out to me. I know I’ve been missing in action the last couple months. I spent most of summer trying to navigate side effects from the Whole Brain Radiation and the new chemo protocol I’m on, Enhertu. Together with all the other life stuff happening, my fatigue was kicking my butt. We are slowly getting it sorted and I’m feeling a bit more normal again. At least, I have enough energy to put words to keys.

    I thought I’d cover some of the side effects I’ve been having since finishing the 6-8 week recovery from radiation and starting a new chemo protocol.

    Nausea not nausea

    Nausea was the biggest side effect I had to navigate, not that I knew it was nausea. This was caused my the chemo. It doesn’t feel like nausea in the traditional sense of feeling like you’re going to vomit. My nausea makes me not want to eat. Either my stomach feels really full (not in the bloated sense, just an uncomfortable fullness), I just can’t stand the sight or smell of food, or I just don’t want to eat. This of course lead to me not eating and my already fatigued self getting more tired from lack of food energy. I even fainted once during bloodwork due to lack of food in my system. Not a great feeling.

    The tummy pills I had been originally prescribed said they were for nausea, so I didn’t think they would do anything because I wasn’t feeling like I was going to vomit. But, of course, they did. After mentioning my “lack of eating but not vomiting” feelings to my oncologist, he said I should give the pills a try and if they didn’t do anything we’d try something else. They worked. I’m learning that nausea has a bigger definition than just vomit that includes “a distaste to eat”. 

    I still have days that the tummy pill doesn’t work 100%—like I can’t watch other people eating—or where I don’t need to use it—usually breakfast if I’m having something neutral like cereal—but overall it’s doing its job.

    I’m just glad I can eat again and that I’m getting some energy back.

    Fatigue

    Woah boy the fatigue has been something else. First caused by the brain radiation, now caused by the chemo with a little bit caused by depression thrown in the mix. 

    I’m trying to sort the two lack-of-energy feelings I get into two categories. Tired is regular sleepiness, usually caused by physical activity during the day or just typical “bodies need sleep” tiredness. The fatigue is wariness I feel in my bones and the fogginess I get in my head. It makes it so that I don’t have much energy or clarity to do much beyond fog-scrolling on my phone or bingewatching Netflix (I can’t focus on reading or writing). This is caused by the cancer treatments (or my depression). It’s taken me a while to sort out the two different feelings, but I think it’s important for me to categorize them so that I better understand what’s going on in my body. 

    With getting my nausea not nausea under control, I’ve been able to decrease the fatigue which has been really good! Clear and awake brains are good. It means I can do things like write this blog post, or read books again. You sometimes forget the little joys like that when you’re so stuck in the fogginess of fatigue. 

    Reaching for words and short term memory loss

    After the full eight weeks of recovery from the brain radiation, the effects on my brain became more noticeable. I used to be the sort of person who was sharp as a tack when it came to words and recalling information. Now I find myself grasping for words, and even tripping over other words as I try to explain the original word I was looking for Miles was looking at a fire extinguisher earlier today, and I called it a fire hydrant.

    My short term memory is mostly okay, but I will sometimes find my brain glitches out immediately. I’ll have my phone open about to open an app, flip to the next screen, and suddenly I can’t remember what I was doing. Going into another room and forgetting what I was going for was something that I always did, but this is something totally different. The immediacy of it scares me sometimes—”did I just take my tummy pill?” when I’ve literally just taken it a moment before. 

    Most of the time these effects don’t trouble me, just frustrate me. It’s not like I’m forgetting things and scrambling for words all the time. But it’s definitely one of the side effects that emotionally bothers me the most. 

    Insomnia

    I do get the odd burst of insomnia. Usually in the form of waking up at 5:30 am and feeling wired and fully awake. I’ve been on a sleeping pill for ages thanks to my anxiety, so I don’t usually feel it at night. This delightful morning insomnia is being caused by the steroid, since I would get it A LOT when I was on the steroid for the radiation for four weeks (Now I only need a few pills after chemo treatment). 

    At least it gives me some energy and clearheadedness; if only it didn’t cause tiredness, too, from being up so early. 

    Hair loss 

    The mini mullet

    My hair is starting to grow back, but it’s definitely not what most folks would consider growing back. I am bald with a few sprouts growing here and there. This is a combo of the radiation and chemo. You can see on the back of my head where the radiation stopped, because I have this (thinly) growing mullet at the back. 

    And that’s my experiences so far! I’m feeling so much better now that I have been eating again, so I’m hoping I can get back to more writing.

    Enjoying my writing? Ways to support me.

  • Do The Thing: Project Management Plan

    Do The Thing: Project Management Plan

    I looooove project management. There’s just something so satisfying about checking an item off the to-do list that scratches my brain in a good way, seeing all the little pieces come together into the final whole.

    If you’ve never managed a project before, it can definitely seem daunting with buzz words like Gantt chart, ROI, SMART goals, DONUT graph (no I made that one up). But honestly, its not that scary. It’s really just about sitting down and gathering your thoughts, getting them down on paper in a meaningful way. 

    In today’s post, I want to walk you through the basics of a good Project Management Plan. At the end, I’ll give you a free Project Management Plan template you can download that I have used for over a decade while working at non-profits, for government, and for our small businesses.

    THE PLAN

    Name Your Plan

    Like writing your name at the top of your worksheet back in elementary, start with a name. You can always change the name later as your plan becomes more clear, but it helps to take the scary blank page away.

    “Join Our Family” Membership Drive

    Opportunity / Situation

    What’s going on in your world that you’re doing this project for? Just a few sentences about why you’re getting into this project.

    With Family Day coming up, we want to tie in a membership drive campaign for the community to “Join our Family” and become a member or renew their membership. Summer Student Catherine has gathered member stories to share, so we’ll be using those to tie it all together. 

    Audience

    Who is this project for? Is it for a specific type of customer (Magic Players, jewellery lovers who are into K Pop Demon Hunters)? For staff only? Just for yourself? There can be multiple audiences, but try to keep it to three at most or you risk your project having too many moving parts.

    • Primary: People connected to our organization, but not members.
    • Secondary: Members about to expire.

    Objective

    What is your overall hope for this project? Here you don’t have to be specific, just a general: what does a successful outcome look like? 

    Awareness of our Membership program and its perks.

    Goals

    This is where we figure out what exactly we’re trying to accomplish. Are you making a new thing? Are you trying to increase sales or social media numbers? Are you trying to find savings or reduce waste? Get specific.

    Get 10 new members, and 5 renewals by March 8th, 2025.

    Budget

    How much money do you actually have to spend on this project?

    Zip. Nada. Only staff time.

    Strategy

    What are all the pieces that you’ll be doing to reach your goals? You can start by brainstorming ideas, then refine it down to the items you think are most important to make this project happen. 

    • Landing page with stories and big sign up button; featured in homepage rotator box
    • Email blast to non-members introducing the campaign (News & Updates, Volunteers, excluding current members)
    • Email blast reminder soon-to-lapse members to renew 
    • Email thank you to current members
    • Corporate social media
    • Posts to Facebook groups
    • Blurb in March enews

    Plan & Timeline

    Working backwards from your end date goal for this project, take all the items from your strategy and put them into a timeline. When do you want them to be finished? Who is going to do them? I also like to add in lines for their current status and any notes I might have about line items. This is where you can get fancy with Gantt charts or project planning apps, if you’re into that, but honestly a simple table chart does the trick just as well.

    Evaluation

    Once your project is completed, it’s important to take five minutes and review how you did. Did you reach your goals? Great! If not, that’s okay too. What went well, what was tricky, what would you change if you were to do this project again?

    Had some issues pulling the soon to expire list. Pull this sooner.

    And that’s it! When I get overwhelmed with a project, I would always just come back to this document and revisit the why and focus on the tasks I’d already laid out.

    I have a template Project Managment Plan you can download here.

    If you enjoyed this post, buy me a tea?

  • Ghost

    Ghost

    Wren Gaglardi was a character in the STar Trek RPG I was in. I created her about six months before I was originally diagnosed with cancer. Writing for her and her PTSD and all the things she’d overcome was a soothing therapy for me.

    I wrote this piece long after I’d retired her, sort of a new start beginning for her. Here she thinks she spots a piece of her past.

    Leaving the transport ship was a relief. After almost two decades of active service, it was physically painful to be a civilian aboard a starship. Wren had felt claustrophobic the whole trip, despite the transport’s very nice lounges and recreation areas for passengers. Was this what her life was going to be like from now on? Constantly feeling like a rat in a cage, like she wasn’t able to do anything, like she was being forced to sit on her hands?

    No, it’s not. You’re in transition, that’s all. She made herself to take deep breaths in the way she’d been trained, trying to quell the antsy feeling. Wren didn’t want to answer that maybe her anxiety was because she’d just made a huge, life-altering decision. 

    After the disastrous mission aboard the Beckett, Wren had resigned her commission. It was perhaps a long time coming for her; at least since she’d gone from security to command, or maybe even since she’d gone from being enlisted to commissioned, but more likely it was since the away team mission that had left her so messed up in the head. It was hard to let go off something that you had worked towards for so long. But perhaps the Beckett mission had been a good thing, giving her the last push she’d needed to get her to change directions in her life.

    What direction that was going to be, she didn’t yet know. Wren planned to spend a few months, maybe a year, trying to figure that out. Wren definitely had a particular set of skills, but she didn’t think she wanted to just fall back into security services. Go from working security to being a merc, because that’s original.

    No, she was hoping for a fresh start. There would be a legacy of the path she’d already travelled–great bird knew that she’d be stuck dealing with her PTSD for the rest of her life–but that didn’t mean she couldn’t go in a completely new direction. What had become clear in Wren’s mind was that her priorities had clearly shifted. Her job wasn’t the most important thing for her anymore. Family, friends… that was what was becoming the number one in her life. 

    Wren stopped dead in her tracks and turned to look at the person that had caught her eye. 

    Solek?!Blinking, Wren took a few steps in the direction that she’d seen the familiar face. Had that really been him, or was it just someone who looked similar? Nobody looks like Solek, Wren told herself. Moving against the flow of the debarking transport passengers, Wren scanned the crowd trying to find another glimpse of her mentor. 

    There! In the dark forest green cloak, the bald pate and greener-than-usual skin seemed to be a dead giveaway. Wren moved faster now, trying to follow Solek as he made his way through the promenade. He seemed to slide through the crowd as if they weren’t there, while the crowd seemed to take pleasure in standing in Wren’s way. 

    She puffed up her cheeks and straightened her spine, putting on her well honed, take-no-bullshit Chief of Security face. “‘Scuse me, pardon me,” the words were polite but the tone made people move. 

    “Solek!” Wren called across the crowd. She raised a hand and waved, though she could only see the side of his face and couldn’t catch his eye. 

    She kept pushing through the crowd, now at an intersection in the corridor. Which way had he gone? Wren stood on her tiptoes to try to give herself some visual height over the crowd. But even now as the crowd was thinning out, she couldn’t see him. 

    Then–there!–she spotted the green cloak. She put some speed back into her step to try to catch him. 

    But then the corridor artery he’d gone down turned into a dead end. Well, shit.

    This was just like Solek, turning into a ghost.

    Enjoy my work? Buy me a tea!

  • Nine Tips for Writing Donation Requests

    Nine Tips for Writing Donation Requests

    As a retail company, we get asked to sponsor events and fundraisers at least once a week. As a small business, we can only sponsor so many organizations. There’s just so many great causes out there but, ultimately, we like to eat, too. Some asks are good, and some don’t have enough information about the who, what, where for us to know what it is you’re asking. How can we decide to spend money on your cause if you don’t even tell us what it is? (And yes, that happens!)

    Asking for money is a daunting task. As someone who worked for a charitable organization for seven years, and who also runs her own charity TTRPG event, I still get nervous every time I send out a request. Nobody likes rejection! 

    I want to share some tips with you that will help write a quality ask to a company and (hopefully) increase your chances of getting a yes!

    1. Don’t ask over social media. Your message will get lost in the notifications, or said notification will get eaten. Its also super impersonal. The only instance where it would be okay is if you have a previous relationship with the company and you regularly use social media to talk to them. 
    2. Do email. Yes, there’s still a chance it could get caught in a spam bin or lost in the rest of the emails. But email really is the main mode of business communications these days. 
    3. Do say hi! You don’t necessarily need to know our names, and sometimes it can be hard to find that info. But use it if it’s listed! If you have a choice of people to email, don’t just address your message to the “man” / male-presenting person.
      • Hi Adventure Dice!
      • Hi Andrea and Blair!
    4. Do introduce yourself! Tell me your name and what you do. Have we chatted before or have you seen us at a convention? Mention it!
      • My name is Andrea Driedger and I’m the Managing Director for Terminal City Tabletop Convention. I stopped by your booth at SHUX and we chatted a bit about my event.
    5. Do tell the company the details! The reader shouldn’t have to do a web search to figure out what you’re asking for. Tell me the name of the event/cause, what exactly it is, when it is, where it’s happening, where I can find out more information. 
      • This year’s Terminal City Tabletop Convention takes place March 13-15, 2025, at Vancouver Convention Centre West, in downtown Vancouver. This three-day event is dedicated to board games, tabletop roleplaying games, proto-games (games that are in-development), and our gaming community here in Metro Vancouver. You can find more info about our event at www.terminalcitycon.ca. 
    6. Tell me how I can help! Or if you have a specific ask that you’d like, say it!
      • We have a variety of ways that you can support our event: vendor booth, prize support, room naming, lanyards, and other general sponsorship. We would love to have you attend our event as a vendor! You would be our prime dice vendor. 
    7. Sweeten the deal. Let them know how their donation will be recognized by you. 
      • We will include your logo on our website, in our information booklet, and we’ll name the vendor hall after your company. 
    8. Do provide any additional information. I usually attach a sponsorship booklet that includes more information about my event including: attendance numbers, number of views, ways that the sponsors will be recognized. I also include sponsor tiers/options, so that they can see how much you’re hoping for and what they will include in return. 
      • Please find attached our sponsorship booklet, which includes our sponsor tiers, vendor information, and more information about our event. 
    9. Thank them for their time, and provide any additional contact information.
      • If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Thank you for your consideration!
        – Andrea
        Andrea Driedger (she/her) | Managing Director
        Terminal City Tabletop Convention

    Here’s the ask email all together. Feel free to copy it, but do try to personalize it and make it your own! 

    Hi Andrea and Blair!

    My name is Andrea Driedger and I’m the Managing Director for Terminal City Tabletop Convention. I stopped by your booth at SHUX and we chatted a bit about my event.

    This year’s Terminal City Tabletop Convention takes place March 13-15, 2025, at Vancouver Convention Centre West, in downtown Vancouver. This three-day event is dedicated to board games, tabletop roleplaying games, proto-games (games that are in-development), and our gaming community here in Metro Vancouver. You can find more info about our event at www.terminalcitycon.ca. 

    We have a variety of ways that you can support our event: vendor booth, prize support, room naming, lanyards, and other general sponsorship. We would love to have you attend our event as a vendor! You would be our prime dice vendor. 

    We will include your logo on our website, in our information booklet, and we’ll name the vendor hall after your company. Please find attached our sponsorship booklet, which includes our sponsor tiers, vendor information, and more information about our event. 

    If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Thank you for your consideration!

    – Andrea
    Andrea Driedger (she/her) | Managing Director
    Terminal City Tabletop Convention

    My writing is free to read. But if you enjoyed this, please consider buying me a tea!

  • Fiction: Displeasure to See You

    Fiction: Displeasure to See You

    This was a little warmup piece I wrote from the prompt, “Displeasure to See You.” It’s based on our Vampire the Masquerade characters Ellie and Freddie from a longterm campaign that has gripped our hearts.

    It’s an alternate future where Freddie has done something that caused Freddie to be forced from the group.

    “Ellie.”

    A small smile tugged at the corners of Ellie’s lips, her fangs peeking out just so. She didn’t bother to turn around, knowing there was power in her movements. Instead she just ran a finger gently down the side of her glass,drawing a stripe in the condensation. She flicked the moisture away.

    “A displeasure to see you, Freddie,” she practically purred, slipping into that familiar persona. “I didn’t expect to see you around these parts anytime soon.”

    A form slipped onto the barstool next to her, heavy, weary, letting out a long sigh. “Don’t do this to me Ellie.” 

    Though she didn’t turn to look, Eleanore glanced at Freddie from the side. That tall, solid form had offered her a safe harbour once. Now he only represented betrayal. From the start, Freddie had lied to her. They had been a team–the only person, other than Warren–that Ellie had trusted from the very start. For almost a year she’d put her faith in him, through the uncertainty, the occult, the other vampires. In a world of darkness, he was the light. And then in an instant he had stabbed a knife through her chest, practically thrown her to the beasts. 

    So she’d cut ties. Grabbed Warren and Clem and ran. 

    She knew it would never be far enough. He had too much of their sire in him to leave her be.

    “Why are you darkening my door?” Ellie said, turning to look at him at last. She smiled a little more; she could feel her beast’s presence, shoring up her backbone far more than her spiked blood martini ever could. “I thought I made myself clear: the next time I saw you, I would kill you.”

    “But you haven’t yet,” Freddie quirked a half grin at her, the one that used to make her weak. But no more. She felt the beast in her rumble a little at how fun it would be to rip that dimple off his cheek if only she’d let it. Ellie gave the beast a little leeway, letting it shine through her eyes and she stared into his. 

    He broke the stare first. 

    “No,” she admitted, taking a delicate sip of her drink. “So this had better be good if you expect to leave.”

    She knew that as soon as Freddie was within a mile of the bar, Warren and Clem would be on it. Ellie knew that Warren was nearby, could feel his heart beating through that tie that bound the two of them together. She could feel Warren’s cold emotions as he went through his threat assessment. Clem, Ellie was sure, was likely right behind them already.

    Freddie held his palms up to show he meant no harm–because of course from their time together, he would also have done his own threat assessment, knew that Warren and Clem wouldn’t be far. He wouldn’t be that stupid. Then he slowly reached to his jeans pocket and pulled out something metallic, tossing it towards her. 

    Ellie didn’t flinch as a set of car keys hit the bar with a jangle. 

    Her car keys. 

    The Charger.

    “I’m listening.”

    Enjoy my writing? Buy me a tea!

  • Mom’s Lasagna

    Mom’s Lasagna

    I made a heckin’ good lasagna this past weekend. I’m not a professional cook by any stretch of the matter, but it was just so darn good and fulfilling to my spirit. It made me want to share it with all of you, so now me sharing recipes here on the blog is something I’m going to do.

    There’s not too many dishes that I can make without a recipe (just the way my brain seems to work with food), but this is one of them. My mom taught me to make this so it brings all those good memories back to me too. I’m sure the Italians I know will cringe at its Andrea-ness. But I swear its delicious!

    As written from my memory.

    Mom’s Lasagna

    • Olive oil
    • 1lb ground turkey or chicken
    • 1 onion, diced
    • 3 carrots, shredded
    • 2 celery ribs, diced
    • Fresh garlic, diced
    • Can of diced tomatoes, don’t drain!
    • Jar of marinara sauce
    • Italian seasoning
    • Cinnamon
    • Salt and Pepper
    • Box of oven-ready lasagna noodles
    • Mozza cheese or your favourite Italian blend

    What to do

    1. Warm up a big pot. Add the olive oil, and then the ground turkey.
    2. Brown turkey.
    3. Add onion, carrots, and celery and cook until translucent.
    4. Add the garlic and let brown.
    5. Dump in the full can of diced tomatoes (including the juice!) and the jar of sauce. Mix mix mix!
    6. Add the Italian seasoning and the cinnamon to taste (approx a tbs each). Add salt and pepper.
    7. Bring to boil.
    8. Pre-heat your oven per lasagna noodle box temp.
    9. Get your roasting pan ready. Scoop 1/3 of meat sauce into the bottom of the pan.
    10. Layer on noodles. Scoop 1/3 more sauce.
    11. Add another noodle layer and the last of the sauce.
    12. Put on alllll the cheese.
    13. Cover the roaster with tin foil. Mind the foil doesn’t touch your cheese or you’ll lose it.
    14. Bake per directions on noodle box.
    15. Last 15 mins or so, remove tin foil so your cheese will brown.
    16. Remove from oven and let rest 5 minutes.

    Enjoy!

    Enjoy my writing? Buy me a tea!

    r

  • Let’s Fry That Noodle: Full Brain Radiation Therapy

    Let’s Fry That Noodle: Full Brain Radiation Therapy

    When I was told I need to get full brain radiation treatment my world stopped. It sounded like the absolute worst type of therapy I could receive. Don’t get me wrong, it is absolutely intense in the way we need it to be in order to get this shit (cancer) under control. Our goal is to destroy what we can and shrink what we can’t, so that we can manage it for as long as possible. There was just too many tumours in my head for us to do a targeted radiation or even surgery. And sure, those are scary too in their own ways, but this meant radiating my whole brain—even the good stuff.

    The radiation oncologist didn’t offer up the alternatives, though I had been googling. And she had to read off all the possible side effects of them radiating my whole brain. 

    Needless to say I couldn’t breathe. Nobody prepares you for that.

    In an attempt to prepare myself, I tried to find stories of people who had been there and through it. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s suprisingly difficult to find real life stories of people who have been there and living it. I did manage to find some wonderful ones through MBCBrainMets.org, which were super helpful in putting my mind to the actual living through this and seeing the other side. But that fear of the unknown and all the side effects listed made me afraid to my core.

    So, I thought I would share here what my experience was like. Hopefully it will help someone else feel not so alone in this journey.

    The Fitting

    Once we had my treatment plan, things moved fast. First up was fitting me for my hockey mask. Full brain radiation therapy requires you to be held in place so that when they zap you, they are getting the exact areas they want and avoiding as much of the good brain stuff they can. They still zap your full skull, but they can direct things still to try to reduce the impact on the parts they don’t need. 

    The appointment was in the mask department down in radiation. A team of two therapists welcomed me. They were incredibly kind, as I explained my high anxiety and fear about this. They let Blair stay in the room with us for the majority of it. I’m not normally a claustrophobic person, but my anxiety and fear of the unknown was in overdrive. 

    You lay down on a bed of a CT scanner. They put a little beanbag like thing behind your head to settle in. Then they place a warm plastic mask over your face. It has lots of holes in it so breathing is no problem, and they make sure its cool enough so it feels more like a warm towel on your face. The therapists have to work quickly to mould the mask to your face before it cools off too much. They make it form fitting so that it will hold you tight in place, and latch it down to be sure its tight.

    Once that’s done, they take CT scans to make sure they can reference them later during treatments. Just so they know you are for sure in the right spot. They both (and Blair) had to leave during that part.

    I asked if I could cut my hair, and they said no because it would change the fit of my mask. So that I left until after my last treatment.

    And that was it! They unlatched me and said they’d modify the mask so it had eyeholes. Then sent us on the way.

    Treatment

    For something so big, treatment actually feels small. 

    Ringing the bell at my last treatment.

    You go to your appointment. The radiation techs welcome you, you lay on the bed of a CT scanner. They put your headrest and mask on and latch it up tight. It did have eyeholes, but I mostly kept my eyes closed (both to help my anxiety but also I can’t see anything anyway). They will talk to you through the mics if you just need a reassuring voice to tell you what’s going on.

    First they do some CT scans to make sure you are absolutely in place. They can adjust the bed using tech, so you feel some adjustments as they get you in place.

    Then they run the radiation. It was like a blue light shining in different places. It also smelled like chlorine in my nose. The machine made a small vibrating sound as it worked its magic. For me they zapped from two different positions.

    And that was it. The process took 10-15 minutes, for five days. Like I said, it felt so small for something that is going to do so much. So much so that I was having doubts about if the treatment was even doing anything (we actually had to ask the radiation oncologist because I just wasn’t really having side effects). She assured me that this was totally normal.

    You’d better believe at the end I rang that fucking bell.

    Side Effects

    Rashy forehead side effects.

    But, speaking of side effects, there are some. They tell you they will get worse about 2-4 weeks after treatment because the radiation is still doing its work in your head. So even though you might not get side effects right away, they can come and find you later.

    As I’m posting this I’m only one week out from my last radiation treatment, so I might not have been visited by all the side effects yet. But here’s what I’ve gotten so far.

    • Fatigue. My energy during treatment hits me low sometimes. And I can definitely feel it regularly that I don’t quite have the energy before. I am sometimes huffing and puffing from trying to do normal things. Overall it has been manageable so far.
    • Loss of balance. This catches me off guard. I think I’m totally fine, but then I’ll find my body pulling to the right as if the world is just doing its thing and not me. Especially if I’m bending over. I wiped myself flat on my face in a moment of running to get my phone.
    • Insomnia. I’m on a sleeping pill for my anxious squirrel brain, but I wake up in the wee hours of the morning and can’t go back to sleep. Not every morning, fortunately.
    • Forehead rash. I look like I’m 13 again, as my forehead has gone all rashy and acne filled. It itches, but alas. 

    That’s it so far! I buzzed my hair anticipating that it will fall out this week. I’ll report here on my symptoms should they arise in the next couple weeks. After that they should start to get better, with me being back to ‘normal’ by the end if summer.

  • Fiction: The Jaunty Tune

    Fiction: The Jaunty Tune

    I thought choosing some of my old writing to share would be an easy task: pick something old and post it! Do it lady! Alas no. My pesky brain is enjoying reading the old pieces, and wants to maybe write some more of stuff?

    I’m still going to make my brain post the things instead of being precious about it. But it’s nice to be given that motivational kick to keep going!

    For this first fiction share, it’s the very first RPG post for a Star Trek RPG character named Trinalla. She was the right amount of silly, never took herself seriously, but smart as a whip.

    “Abraham de Lacy, Gieuseppe Casey, Thomas O’Malley……” 

    Strains of a jaunty tune could be heard coming from the research facility. It was a lone female voice, quite loud and mostly on key but it wasn’t intentionally trying to be. There wasn’t any background music the voice was singing along to, no other singers. Just the one voice singing without self consciousness. 

    “O’Malley the Alley Cat…. I’ve got that wanderlust, gotta walk that scene….” 

    Trinalla was pacing her corner of the research facility, PADD in hand, trying to unfurl the newest bug in her pet project. There had been a few deficiencies reported in Utopia Planitia’s latest upgrades to their standard warp drive. Sure, it wasn’t the end of the universe if things weren’t performing quite at the levels that Trinalla had set out in her findings document. But sweet, beautiful Great Bird, if it didn’t get under her skin that it was off by two percentage points.  

    “Gotta kick up highway dust… feel the grass! That’s! Green!”

    Scratching her head, Trin turned and started pacing in the opposite direction. She’d walked this route many times since she’d taken a billet here on Utopia Planitia. Just the latest in her career, she’d been attracted to the posting by the prospects of a more efficient warp drive. The project was mostly starting to wrap up. 

    “Gotta strut them city streets…Showin’ off my éclat, yeahhhhh.”

    Trinalla found the pacing helped to keep parts of her brain occupied that could sometimes get off track, so that she could really focus on the meat of the problem with these deficiencies. 

    “Tellin’ my friends of the social elite….Or some cute cat I happen to meet that I’m….”

    The singing. Well, the singing was because she liked it. 

    “That I’m Abraham de Lacey, Gieuseppe Casey….

    Exiting the lab, Trinalla restarted the route that took her towards her quarters. Sometimes just pacing the little lab wasn’t enough to really keep her busy. Sometimes her thinking walks took her all over the station. It mostly amused folks, and typically resulted in a solution. 

    “Thomas O’Malley…”

    Ah ha! There you are you little…. She made a notation on her PADD, finding where there was a slight variance in her calculations. A copying error perhaps? Whatever it was, Trin felt validation as she was certain this was the cause of the problems. 

    “O’Malley! The alley! Ca-” Before she could finish the lyric, Trinalla rounded the corner and collided with a person. The collision threw her off balance, sending her sprawling to the deck in a heap of Kriosian in engineering gold. Her PADD went skittering off several meters away. 

    Pushing her warm brown hair from her violet coloured eyes, Trinalla looked up. “Oh, hello. Who put a person here?”

  • The Light in the Middle

    The Light in the Middle

    One of the most diffcult things I’ve found in living with stage 4 cancer, is the lack of stories of each other. 

    Don’t get me wrong. I know how this story ends: I know the timeline, I know the side effects, I know things are going to suck. I’ve done plenty of raging and crying against how unfair it is. There’s a lot of bad stories out there. Because yes this does entirely suck and its entirely unfair. Nevermind that a hard story is sexy and that’s what sells and gets donations. Nobody wants to hear the success story.

    But there is so much life in between the diagnosis and the end that we don’t talk about. There’s just no stories of people like me and what it’s like to go through this. We don’t talk about managing symptoms, of the new treatments and the new meds. Of what getting a week of full brain radiation is actually like. The hope and the hardship. The things that become normalized like having to get IV treatment every three weeks. Or the fear every three months brings you.

    We don’t just talk about how this is also a normal piece of life. 

    It could be some other disease I had. Diabetes, MS, a stroke. And they all suck. But life is still happening. Our son is still growing up. Our business still needs to keep moving. The last 12 months were admittedly a bit of a reprieve from this all, lulling me into a soft blanket that I was stable. 

    And I was, until I wasn’t. 

    Life didn’t end a year and a half ago. I still got to do so much. See so much. Be so much. And I still can be. We can take adventures, and try new things, and just live our lives around the symptoms and side effects. One day, one moment, at a time. 

    I’m still here for as long as I can be. Living with cancer. Living.

    I’ve just decided to fuck it and try to post here regularly. Share some of the fiction I’ve written instead of hoarding it. Share some of the lessons I’ve learned in TTRPGS, small biz, communications, and community building. Share a slice of life of what it’s actually like to be living with cancer.

    Because maybe there is someone else like me going through this huge diagnosis. Knowing the end is coming. But life is also coming. Life is here. And we’re going to live it for every day.

    Because there is light in the middle of this.

  • Rage Against the World

    Rage Against the World

    This is not the news I wanted to share today, instead it’s a flaming hot pile of bullshit. But here we are.

    Last week I got CT scan results back. Apparently the cancer has metastasized into my brain. It has caused my right hand to go numb, and causes a bit of tension in my neck. Otherwise I feel totally fine and normal.

    We were lucky to catch it. Apparently the type of cancer I have doesn’t usually go into the brain, so they didn’t think to check. And because brain fluid can be very difficult for chemo meds to penetrate, the meds I’m on have been working fabulously against the other tumours in my body but not well in my brain.

    I go for full brain radiation starting next week. They will figure out if I stay on my current chemo meds or if they will tweak it to something that will do a better job in the brain. It’s all a wait and see situation until after radiation. We just have to get through this next step. The oncologist is confident that I will make it through.

    It sucks. So bad. I am devastated by this news. But I’m going to keep fighting as long as I can because I have so many things to fight for including myself. I am HERE and I’m not going to give up on this. I’m scared out of my mind, but I am full of hope and determination. I WILL get through this. I will see Miles’s second birthday, I will see our 10th wedding anniversary, I will reach 40, I will take Miles to Disneyland again. I WILL FIGHT.

    Send us all the emotional love, prayers, and healing thoughts you can next week while I go through this treatment. If you need a physical way to help, a homemade meal goes a long way. Please also consider a donation to Andrea’s Adventurers and help us continue to fund cancer research.

CHARACTER SHEET

Hi! I’m Andrea (she/her). Welcome to my little corner of the internet.

Conduit for nonsense and delight. Mama, storyteller, RPGer, board gamer, bibliophile, writer, tea drinker, introvert, hybrid Jeep owner, living with cancer. Pan and Ace. Boss lady at Adventure Dice and (on leave) Terminal City Tabletop Convention.

Here you’ll find some of my fiction, slice of life stuff, TTRPG and community building insights, and life with stage 4 cancer.

WAYS TO SUPPORT ME

All the writing you find here you’re welcome to read free of charge! I just want to get my words out in the wild. But, if you enjoyed my work and you’d like to buy me a cuppa tea… here’s a few ways you can support me.