Dentist and Chemo

I went in for my usual oncologist appointment and chemo on Wednesday. To my surprise when I told my doctor about my cavity she decided that it was best for me to skip treatment that day until the cavity had been filled. She said that as long as they didn't have to do a root canal I could have chemo on Friday.

Thursday I went in to get my tooth fixed. It took an hour because the decaying on the tooth was so bad. My dentist was surprised that the root wasn't exposed (because of how far he had to drill). He was able to get rid of all the decay and it appears that I don't have to get a root canal done. He did say that I'm not out of trouble yet though...the tooth could bother me in the future. I'll keep my fingers crossed that that's not the case.

Friday I went back to Stanford for my chemo. Like the previous treatments I had a night full of fevers and this morning I woke up feeling terrible. I had fevers again throughout the day today as well as flu-like symptoms. I've also been experiencing some sharp shooting pain in my chest everytime I take a deep breath.

The shingle symptoms seem to have gone away completely. My fevers are still a problem however. I seem to get them everyday now. My doctor wants me to see the infectious disease specialists again and she also wants me to have another CT scan before I see her again.

A Bad Week

This week was not one of my best. It all started with the whole shingles thing. It was definitely shingles, because as soon as I started taking the medication for it, my pain started to dimish and I started feeling better. My pain is pretty much all gone now and I never ended up getting any lesions, which is really good. My oncologist thinks it's best that I stay on the medication indefinitely while I'm on chemo since I seem to be so susceptible. Two more pills to add to my daily regimen :(

Towards the middle of the week I started getting a sore throat and the usual fevers. Friday I felt pretty miserable at work, but stuck through the day since we had a work dinner planned. By 4pm I felt so awful that I decided to go home instead.

To make things worse, Thursday I went in for my scheduled teeth cleaning and found out that I have a pretty bad cavity on one of my molars. Apparently it looked really bad on the x-ray and my dentist was suprised that the tooth hasn't been bothering me. I will have to get it worked on next week and the hope is that I won't have to have a root canal, but he won't know for sure until he drills in.

A couple of you have been asking about how things are going at Oracle as well as with the house...

I haven't actually transitioned to Oracle yet. All Siebel employees who received offers will become official Oracle employees on March 1st. I still don't know exactly when I'll be transitioning into my new role or moving to the Oracle campus. Hopefully I will know more soon.

We haven't done anything with the house yet. We're waiting to have a swinging door installed downtairs first to keep the kitties and Pebbles from having access to the rest of house. Once this is done we can start on everything. I think we will start with re-doing the hardwood floor, carpet, and painting. We would also like to get a new dryer, get a new garage door, change the front door, and get a gas stove (that is my dream), but it will all have to be done very gradually.

Shingles Again!

Yes, it's hard to believe, but I may have shingles yet again. Yesterday I started having some sharp pain on the side of my hip, which I thought was either bone pain from my Neupogen shots or muscle pain from wearing my new MBT sneakers. By night time, the pain was still there and it hurt everytime my clothes rubbed against it. Throughout the night it hurt a lot and when my PJ's or sheets touched my skin in that area, the pain would be excruciating (like a hot shower with a really bad sunburn). This morning I still saw no sign of lesions/blisters, but I decided to call my nurse practioner right away. As always, we're not 100% sure it's shingles yet, but she's decided to start medicating me right away. We don't want it to get to the point of where I have to be admitted again and it escalating to another fungal infection or infection of some other kind. I think the shingles bug is just trying to send me a Valentine's Day kiss :P

Happy Valentine's Day to all of you!!

Goodbye Siebel, Hello Oracle

After a tough weekend of thinking things through, I made my decision to accept Oracle's offer. In my heart I always knew this was the better option for me, I just was so excited with the opportunity to possibly be able to work for Google. I was so impressed by their campus, people, and of course perks. I am however, very excited to have the opportunity to work for Oracle and are looking forward to the change. I can definitely say that my employment with Siebel was by far the best experience I've ever had and I have the most respect for them. They are definitely one company that knows how to treat their employees well.

I want to thank all of you who posted a comment and/or sent me an email with your opinion on my employment decision. It meant a lot to me to hear what everyone had to say. 90% of you thought I should stay with Oracle. I guess you were all thinking in my best interest and how important the benefits aspect of it was for me. For those of you who thought I should go for Google...I don't blame you, if I wasn't under the current circumstances I would have taken that offer instead.

Job Opportunities

As many of you know from some of my previous postings, Friday was the day that I would find out the fate of my current job situation. The merger between Siebel and Oracle became official on Jan 31st and today Oracle distributed either term packages, offer letters, or transitions to all US Siebel employees. It was a very difficult day for us in HR, because of all the termination/offer questions that we had to refer to all day long. We also had to see many of our colleagues pack up their things, as it was their last day. I have been through several merger/acquisition and layoff situations in the past and this was by far the most difficult.

Ever since I learned that my job was in jeopardy a months ago, I immediately started job hunting. One of the complications that I found out early on that could happen was the loss of my health benefits. If I was to be laid off due to the merger I would be eligible for COBRA, however due to my eligibility for Medicare, COBRA would most likely decline me and I would be in the same situation that I was a few months back when COBRA suddenly terminated my health coverage. This gave me the incentive to look for a new job as soon as possible. Not to mention that we were in the process of buying my dad’s house and I knew that I couldn't be without a job in order to make the monthly mortgage payments.

One of my biggest fears in starting to job hunt and going to interviews was what people's reaction of me would be. I wanted to be as honest as possible with all the companies I interviewed with in regards to my health issues and the special accommodations I might need. Fortunately I've been able to able to continue working 40+ hours/week, but there's no guarantee that this could continue on forever. There are definitely days when I can barely make it through a work day due to fatigue and fevers.

I can honestly say I was shocked at the opportunities that I received and how nice and understanding people were during my interviews. The past few weeks have been a great experience and I’ve been so lucky to interview with such great companies…Symantec, Google, Oracle, and Yahoo.

Early on I received an offer from Symantec and accepted, but later on turned it down due to it being a contractor position. It was a tough decision, since I connected so well with the people, the position appeared exciting, and the pay was great. This weekend I have to make an even tougher decision…I’ve received both an offer from Google and Oracle. For those of you who don’t know, the hiring process at Google is quite a long process. You go through a phone interview, several in-person interviews, a hiring committee, and then an executive review. I’ve been told by many that it would be an honor to work for them and a great opportunity. Indeed, I found it to be a great place. The people were beyond nice, the environment was so neat, and the pay offered is about $20K more than what I make now (and would make at Oracle). The one downside – it’s a contractor position with no benefits. I could go on Chris’ benefits now that we’re married, however his coverage is terrible and we would easily have to pay the $15K out-of-pocket maximum. There’s also the risk that if I had to go on leave for some reason, I wouldn’t have disability to fall back on.

At Oracle on the other hand, I would be a regular employee with full benefits. The drawback is that I don’t exactly know what I would be doing (although it is an HR Ops position) and the pay is terrible. Many people that I’ve talked to think I’m crazy for not taking the Google opportunity, however they don’t realize that my situation is a little different then the average person’s. In my head I keep going back/forth as to what to do…a decision has to be made by Monday since I need to give Google an answer by then. So what would you do if you were in this situation? I would love to hear from any of you as to what you would do!! I need as much input as possible!!