The Manolo

The Oasis says, the Oasis she thinks the Manolo Shoe blog, and all the Manolo blogs, are super fantastic!

The Oasis wonders, would the Manolo approve of her only fancy shoes?



The Manolo, he is always good for the lifting of the spirits, even when the crispy oatmeal chocolate chip cookies do not work.

I hope the Manolo knows his writing style is imitated with great fondness and respect. This post is to remind me to update my blogroll and include a link to the Manolo Shoe Blog -- that way I will remember to read it often, and not have to be reminded by other people's links.

crispy oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

Ingredients: Chocolate chips (sugar, chocolate liquior, cocoa butter, butter oil, lecithin, vanilla), unbleached wheat flour, butter, sugar, oatmeal, brown sugar, eggs, vanilla, baking soda, salt.

Serving size: about 5 (30g)
calories: 150
total carb: 19 g
fiber: 1 g

Distributed and sold exclusively by: Trader Joe's, Monrovia, CA 91016

Servings consumed: about 4 (120g) 5 (150g)

bad habits

The Ruthless Editor is perhaps not as ruthless as she once was, but she is definitely back in residence. I was just noticing some of my weak (or weird) writing habits.

The one that I really have to watch for is using a colon (":") to connect two sentences. It's completely wrong, and I do it all the time. I use it as a gesture, "see, there --" almost like pointing to something. Or sometimes I use it as a replacement for other phrases or words, like "for example," or "while" or "then." It's just lazy. I would love for it to become my endearing trademark when I ever decide to publish something creative, but I'm pretty sure that any editor would dispense with it immediately.

Other lazy things: too many "so"s, to many "anyways". I am bad at transitions.

Way too many adverbs. (hee!)

Over-writing. I am always over-writing. (see?)

Last, always being in too much of a rush.

ups, downs, upsets

Today was Mom's last day here. She spent most of the day packing and puttering around, figuring out what to leave and what to take. She is quite disciplined with her shopping when she's here because she knows she has to take everything back home again, and she's almost totally averse to shipping.

Since it was her last day, I have been asking her all week if she wanted anything, how could I spoil her? Could I make her some muffins or something? No, no, she always demurred. On the other hand, we do have to eat something, so, since she's not keen on eating out, I made a nice dinner of things Mom never makes herself: sesame steak, fresh bread, cucumber salad. We had frozen peas, too, but I'm pretty sure she has those from time to time. The bread was my stroke of genius; she really, really likes it and never makes it for herself. So I did. It was quite a nice dinner, and I'm glad I figured out a way to pamper her a little that she would actually permit. (She's stubborn that way.)

DS2 is more fragile than ever today, because Gramma is leaving in the early morning. He is not very good at transitions, so we'll have to see how this one goes. He cried and cried when I wanted to take a picture with all 3 kids together with Gramma. Mom thinks it's because I interrupted his television program, but I'm not so sure. He's definitely going through something, since we've been having to feed him to get him to eat lately, and he keeps asking to be carried around! He's regressing! It's a phase. (I keep repeating that, hoping that it's true, and the phase will be short.)

I've been completely spoiled these last 2 months, and have not had to get up in the mornings at all to see the older 2 off to school. That's one of Mom's bailiwicks while she's here, part of our division of labor. It is a huge help to me, because even when I get to bed at a decent hour, I am still having tremendous trouble getting out of bed. I'm awake, I just can't get myself to move. This is a relatively new thing (post-RAI) for me and I hope it goes away with some tinkering of my medications.

Things will be different without Mom here. We had a tiny taste this afternoon. While Mom was still packing, I took DD and DS2 out for new sneakers for the girl. Her old sneakers still fit her, but the insole developed this weird lump near the toe, and it's not the kind of thing that's fixable. Not to mention I get as many of their shoes as possible at Payless, so whenever they need new shoes, we just buy them. We're lucky in that we can usually score sneakers for about $12 to $15, shoes for the same or even less. They're cute, they last long enough to be outgrown, what more could I ask for? DS2 came with us and had no problems entertaining himself while we shopped. Starting tomorrow, he'll no longer have the choice about whether to stay home!

Things will take a bit longer, I'll have to load them up when it's time to go pick up DS1 after school. But it's nice, too, to spend more time with them, all together and separately. I like being in the car with my kids. Slightly more hassle, but a little more closeness. It's a good tradeoff.

A strange day today -- not a bad day, in fact it was pretty good as some things got done that needed doing. And I got paid today! That was a nice surprise. It's just hard, knowing things are going to be different, and that's just how it is. How life is. Even when we're looking forward to the change, it still takes some getting used to.

sotto voce

My eight-year-old has a new thing going, a kind of constantly running commentary on his day, barely audible. I've gently teased him before about it, telling him that people who talk to themselves like that are considered crazy.

He's not crazy, as far as I can tell. All the usual indicators point to "happy, well-adjusted, bright." The fact that he refuses to blow his nose when he has a cold doesn't mean he's crazy, just that he doesn't like to blow his nose. The constant wiping of said nose leaves it all chapped, though. I keep waiting for something like a self-preservation instinct to kick in: what's worse, the discomfort of a few seconds while blowing your nose, or having to constantly wipe snot off it, leaving it all red and sore? I know which one I'd choose.

But I'm not him. We butted heads a few times today, once over the nose blowing, but several times over some in-class work that his teacher had to retrieve from the floor today, incomplete. He finished it at home, but was muttering under his breath the entire time. I drifted off to let him finish it, because sitting there I was getting more and more irritated, and couldn't figure out why.

At supper I finally realized how the muttering was getting to me. I told him to do something inconsequential (perhaps even to get a tissue!) and the muttering started. I have no idea what he was saying, but the obvious thing for me to think was that he was cussing me out or at the very least grousing about what a nag I am.

There is no way I'm putting up with that kind of disrespect, even if it's all in my head! I told him, "I have no idea what you're saying, but I can't help but think that you're complaining about what I just told you to do. Stop it. You can think whatever thoughts you like inside your head, but they need to stay there."

Serious consequences were promised for repeat offenses. We'll see.

too tired to be clever

If you open my freezer, something is likely to fall out and smash your toes, so be careful. Between shopping and cooking and wrapping and packing, I feel as if I have devoted the last 2 days to the freezer.

That's not strictly true, but I am exhausted by all this prep. It's not the shopping that kills me, it's all the processing of the purchases once you get them home.

I'm in a minor flare... I have to resolve to take the Ambien if I don't fall asleep right away. I can't afford to go back to waking up with that hit-by-a-truck feeling. Grrrrr.

daily funnies

Sometimes, my Mom and I remind me of a couple of comic strip characters.

She's had a cold lately and has some lingering congestion, and her hearing aids give her an earache. So she hasn't been wearing them lately.

I've had surgery in my neck, particularly around my laryngeal nerves that control voice production. My voice gives out really easily, in fact it seems to be getting worse lately, as right after the surgery it was actually pretty good.

Imagine: one woman who can't hear well + one woman who can't speak very loudly...

Some days it's annoying, most days I just laugh about it. It's life.

I've had a major attitude adjustment since the rant I wrote about my relationship with mother last October. My sister told me I was harsh. I re-read it this evening and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, because I was not dealing well when I wrote it. I was just a few weeks post-thyroidectomy, and the newness of my cancer diagnosis on top of the recovery process made for a very difficult time in my life.

What has changed since then is I've actually talked to my Mom about some of those things that bothered me so much. I've been able to hear some great stories about her life, growing up, first married, stuff like that. Her reluctance to drive finally makes sense! I've always known she doesn't have very good peripheral vision. Consequently, she has a lot of trouble changing lanes, but I had no idea that it really traumatized her. She told me, "When I used to pick up your father at work, I'd get in the right lane on the SE Expressway and just stay there until I got to my exit." Now, this is decades ago! I had been thinking that Mom's objection to driving around here was a recent thing. It's not; it's part of something she has been resistant to ever since she learned to drive: multi-lane roads.

Mom's been coming out here for 8 or 9 years now, and this year, when I asked questions and really listened, do I finally understand. This probably reveals what a rotten daughter I am, but now I have, at last, let go of my "why won't she drive?" resentment.

I am making an effort to let go of any resentment at all, actually. There is a kind of negotiation that happens when she's here, figuring out her niche. She takes over some things, and I just let her. It's best that way, and I'm not about to tell her how to make a salad or do the laundry, even though I do both things in very different ways than she does. The clothes look great and the salad is tasty, so I have nothing to say.

But there are still a few things I don't get, like "I mean, as I said," which is her favorite conversation space-filler, and her "phone voice," which is so different from her regular speaking voice that she's barely recognizable. That's Mom, though, and I love her so, and really do appreciate all her help. It seems pretty impossible to convey that. I say the words to her, and hope they are enough (and that she actually heard me!).

I wonder what things my kids will be complaining about, about me, when they're all grown up? I hope they'll love me, just the same.

today's inventory

The salivary glands are holding steady at "might annoying", occasionally (afternoons, usually) ratcheting up into the "making me feel sick" range. I've discovered that the Altoids Sours that I used during my RAI are a help now, too. It's difficult to explain but it's like when your nose is stuffed up, sometimes menthol and eucalyptus can help free things up. With the salivaries, having something very sour near my taste buds just makes the glands go crazy, and it pushes through the congestion. Then I end up with a mouthful of salt, but at least the glands feel better.

I'm seeing the ENT on March 11 about all this, and I will also quiz him on the lump I'm feeling mid-throat (way, way above where any scarring should be from the surgery.) Also my weak & raspy voice. One of the folks on the Yahoo ThyCa forum suggested an ultrasound might be the way to go, and I tend to agree. We'll see what the ENT says.

Monday bright and early at 6:45 I report for the MRI of my lower spine, which has been killing me lately. Probably because I from time to time do something like pickup one of the younger kids, or a bag of groceries or something. You know, I have a life to get on with here, and being super super careful wasn't netting me any improvement. Of course it's stupid to think that doing whatever I want won't make it worse; I do not, in fact, think that, and am very careful about when and how I decide to lift something.

Dermatologist's office called today to say that both biopsies showed regular old compound nevii -- no melanoma on my feet. Yay! I actually put some heat on them this morning to encourage circulation down there. The last thing I want is for these things to get infected -- I went through a really terrible time with the biopsy on my ankle, and the dr said these were in just as bad a spot, even though it doesn't seem that way to me.

My ThyCa advisor has sent me the information for getting my pathology reports from my surgery redone. I don't know whether or not there's any need for a second opinion, but it's nice to know the option exists.

tossing a kid glove

I wouldn't exactly call it a gauntlet, but I just sent an email to the editors at LCL Magazine asking for a more formal relationship. The March issue came out today, without my column. Since I have filed my column last-minute-late before, I am free to assume that it's because they didn't receive it -- which is probably because I sent it to the same (temporary?) email address they told me to use in February, because they were having some problems. They never told me not to use the new address, or when the problems were resolved, either -- so I figured the new address was the one to use.

Our "arrangement" has been anything but professional -- I started the column as a way to repay them for all that I've learned from the site, and all the support they've given the Low Carb community. But that was a year ago, and the little things like not telling me that the person who had handled my columns was no longer with them really start getting on my nerves after a while.

I laid out some specific requests, including (gasp) cash. We'll see how it goes. It could be a relief to let this go, after all.
Update: I got a very speedy and positive reply to my email. I'm pleased but also wary... is this too good to be true? I need this formal arrangement, though, to legitimize the work in my own eyes. Hopefully this will give me the kick in the butt that I've been needing with respect to this!

diving in

I posted at the ThyCa Survivor's Yahoo group today -- that was like diving into this whole (thankfully limited, but still large) world where everyone knows what's like to have thyroid cancer and terms like TSH and Tg are tossed around effortlessly, not to mention LID and WBS and T4, etc etc etc.

I also continued my email correspondence with the Phoenix ThyCa rep, who is just awesome.

I feel as if I have uncovered a huge treasure trove of knowledge... the temptation to swim through it endlessly is very strong, but I'm limiting how much I get involved because I know me, and I can't let myself get obsessed with it.

I spent a good deal of time this evening answering emails about my history and treatment so far. Everyone has been helpful but it is hard going over the old ground again and again. I feel a little worn down by it, but I've also gained some new knowledge and perspective, and that helps a lot.

There are people out there who've been living with Stage IV for years -- sure, it's there, but it's not really causing problems and they can just get on with their lives. Even if I do have an aggressive cancer, the tracking and treatment protocols are the same -- so there isn't anything else I can be doing right now.

At least, that's how it seems, and that's a comfort. I may need more treatment down the line, but for now I'm going to just keep swimming.

Yes, the peewees did watch Finding Nemo today -- I recommend it. It is a nearly perfect movie.

(very) small regrets

A few days ago, a friend posted this brain teaser on a board I frequent. He asked, "Can you figure it out?"

Petals Around the Rose

I am very slow on the uptake on these sorts of things. I tried some simple math tricks, but none of them worked, and I knew better than to try and devise something very complicated. The answer would be simple, I knew -- I just had to leave it alone and come back to it enough times and eventually I'd "see" it.

So now I'm kicking myself, because another friend posted the solution and I allowed myself to read it! What was I thinking? (Well, I was probably thinking that I might as well read this now because it will save me wasting time over this silly thing.)

Now I'll never figure it out, and I'll never know whether or not I could have. Rats!

However, I fully plan to torture my oh-so-smart older brothers with this game, this summer. (cue evil laughter)


... knowing them, they'll all figure it out in 3 rolls or fewer. I will have to shame-facedly admit that I had the answer given to me, but I can plead "cancer treatment recovery" as my excuse. Hopefully they won't mock me too badly.

much work

Today had an aura of unreality about it, simply because so many things got done.

I first woke up around 7:30AM; DS1 shuffled into our room and announced, "Dad, Mom! I finished my report!" He has been working on a report about Gila monsters. These are exceptionally cool animals, and I'm really glad he picked it for his report topic, because I learned a lot about them, too. He had finished all but the copying-over-neatly part and DH had told him "No computer games or TV on Sunday until it's all done, we don't want you up late doing your copying." So when DS1 woke up at 6:30, he got up and finished his report.

Second grade penmanship is really a trip. Each individual letter is really nicely made, but the spacing between the letters is where DS1 gets a bit tripped up. To look at his report, you'd think it was all one huge word. There are ever-so-slightly bigger spaces between words than within words... it's a skill. He'll develop it eventually. At least his printing is readable once you figure out where the words start and stop! I am sure he will get a good grade, too. He was so happy to be done with it.

After that brief interruption, I drifted back to sleep and didn't resurface until 10:30, and my hands were killing me: I had overslept to the point where I could feel that I needed my meds. I hate that. I finally managed to get out of bed sometime before 11, but it wasn't easy. I figured it was going to be a puttering-around kind of day since there wasn't anything that really had to be done, now that DS1's report was finished -- I had planned on saving my energy for pestering him until he was done! What a relief not to have to do that.

I did spend a little time proof-reading and having him correct some very minor capitalization and spelling mistakes. Then I had him review the instructions one more time, and we made sure we put everything into the report binder in the proper order. He was very pleased with himself. When DH came home from church he (DH) gave a "dramatic reading" of the report which we all enjoyed. The kid can write! Wonder where that came from?

After proofing, I was toodling around on the computer when a minor ruckus erupted outside; the beloved Hover Copter had been lodged unfortunately on the roof. Not the roof of the patio (only about 10 feet high); the roof of the house. The high-ceilinged, two-story house. It must've been at least 25 feet up there. I hauled the 6-foot ladder out of the garage and made a hook out of a wire coat hanger, and taped the hook to the long extension pole we have for changing impossibly high light bulbs. The kids gave me (rather inept, but funny) directions, and eventually we succeeded in getting the thing off the roof. Next time -- there better not be a next time! -- it can stay up there, I told them, even though I would do it all again if I thought it would work. We were lucky in that it had crashed right at the edge of the roof, so I could reach it without having to get out the much-too-heavy-for-me really tall ladder. I was very glad to have resolved the situation before DH came home! I was also exhausted and figured, OK, that's it, my accomplishment for the day!

Nope -- it went something like this:

-- finished working in the ends of the wrap I made for the silent auction next Saturday

-- cleaned off the kitchen island counter

-- filled out and assembled funds for DS1's permission slip for an upcoming field trip, an optional buy-this-thing-for-the-kids (OK, yes, I did), DD's dance recital, and latest school fund-raising donation

-- made bread to have with dinner: when you're going to have leftovers, it helps to have really nice herb bread. Dinner was so quiet! Everyone was busy eating.

-- Wrote up the last set of descriptions for the silent auction program

-- Wrote the March MILC column for LCL Magazine.

I'm realizing now that I didn't leave the house today, but I was so busy it didn't matter. When you don't have to leave, you can get all sorts of stuff done. It was almost like I was a healthy person today. I would've been just like a healthy person today except that the salivaries have really been misbehaving, to the point where I actually took ibuprofen this afternoon just to see if it would help -- it seems to have.

I have a recommendation for an ENT; I think I'll call in the morning to see when/if I could get an appointment. I think it will be good to have one on my roster given all that's happened in my neck. DD noticed my voice was scratchy yesterday afternoon. I can hear it, too. It's very much like the scratchiness I had before my surgery, only that little "burr" was there all the time, and this one isn't. But it's there more often, now. Could it be from scar tissue, or is there something growing in there, stretching out the nerves again? See, this is why I need an ENT.

But today was a very good day, even with sleeping late and all. Days like this give me hope.

late breaking realization

I've posted before about toxic friendships, people that I've "lost" over the course of my changing life.

I can't pinpoint exactly why this thought popped into my head yesterday, but I finally realized something about the most toxic friendship I ever had. Let me see if I can articulate this in a way that makes sense.

E was my best friend in college, and saw me through my first horrible marriage and through the breakup and then through my next serious affaire and that broken engagement, all the way up through my meeting and marrying DH, and us moving West and me getting pregnant. That's when things went awry, pretty much permanently, because she said to me:

Just because you think you have everything you always wanted doesn't mean you're really happy.

Mmmm, yeah. Being accused of being delusional when, for the first time ever, you're in a great relationship, enjoying your work, and just really loving life, is just not going to endear you to a person, especially a person who has made a habit of cutting you down at every possible opportunity. That's the point at which E and I began to drift apart, and we never reconciled.

So now it's more than eight years later and for whatever reason, I finally figured out why things collapsed so completely between the two of us: I had upset the balance of power, so to speak. All the years that we had been friends, I was the screw-up, the one that was struggling with my grades, the one with the low-paying job, the one with major self-esteem problems. She was self-assured, she was brilliant, she studied for a semester in France... she was the one who had it all together, whereas I was pretty much a basket case socially, romantically, financially -- you name it.

So by the time I meet DH, I'm making as much money as she is plus more because I'm consulting on the side. I own my house, and I've had more marriage proposals in one year than she's ever had, period. Then DH and I get married and move and build our own house and I get pregnant, and at this point even E can't continue to deny reality any more: I really do have my act together, and things are great.

But that can't be right, because I was supposed to be the screw-up! E was the one that was successful and all that jazz. She was the type that relied on pushing those around her down, to raise herself up. (Isn't it funny how you don't realize this while it's happening, but looking back it's so obvious?)

So, E did the only thing she could do to sustain our relationship's status quo: she filed me under delusional, but made the mistake of telling me that.

I think there are a lot of people out there like this. We all love to riff off that "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful" commercial, but these people do the opposite: they love us because we're failures in some way, because they feel, by comparison, they look better.

Shortly before E and I fell out, I had the opportunity to go to a Red Sox game with her boyfriend (very uninteresting story as to how that came about, suffice it to say it was all on the up-and-up.) I was left sputtering at one point (about the 4th inning) when he said to me, "You know, I like you a lot more when you're not with E."

It was good that I didn't know what to say, because that made me take the time to think about what he said, and what he could possibly mean by that. It didn't take me long to realize that E brought out the competitive side in me, that we would find ourselves one-upping each other constantly in an effort to be the most witty or smart or something. My immediate reaction was: Ick. I don't want to be that way.

It was such a gift to be told that, under certain circumstances, I was a jerk, but generally I'm a nice person. Kind of like getting smacked up side the head with a really huge bouquet of flowers. The flowers are beautiful, but the smack still hurts. I consoled myself with the realization that it was apparent to E's boyfriend, where the competitiveness came from, that is, not me.

So after that I started watching myself around her, and feeling myself respond to cues she would set up, and buttons of mine she would push -- and I stepped back from that game and stopped playing, because, as I said, Ick.

This is how you realize a friendship is toxic: you don't like how you feel/act around the "friend".

The simple test for whether or not someone is a friend? Do they support you and help you feel good, or do they just suck all the energy out of you to make themselves feel better? Sometimes there's an ebb-and-flow in a friendship, and that's OK, unless or until you sense that the tide has ebbed permanently. After a certain point, it didn't matter that E had been there for me during some of my worst early break-ups; what mattered was that she was never there for me at all by the time we drifted apart -- it had all become about her.

In retrospect, it really cracks me up to realize that I was the screw-up. Nearly nine years later, the only thing I've always wanted that I don't have is my health, and I'm exactly as happy as I think I am.

on tiramisu

How are you supposed to pronounce this, anyway? Tear-a-meee-soo, even stresses on all the syllables? teer-AH-me-soo, stress on the second syllable? That's how I say it.

The most important thing about tiramisu (no matter how you pronounce it) is the balance between the sweetened mascarpone cheese and the espresso-moistened lady fingers (or sponge cake). Too much of either one is a not a good thing, but when in balance, the combination is just divine -- of course retraint must be used when dusting with cocoa powder as well. Tiramisu should not taste like chocolate. It is not a chocolate dessert. The cocoa powder is an accent, not a dominant flavor.

The tiramisu from La Stalla last night was disappointing in that, for all its overly generous portion, it was disproportionate. Way too much marscapone, far too few lady fingers. And the lady fingers that were there were not gently holding their lovely espresso, ready to yeild to the tongue -- no, they had been drenched, leaving me with a puddle of espresso in the bottom of the dish.

The final indignity was over-zealousness with the cocoa powder shaker. An inadvertant inhalation too close to the dessert could lead to a coughing fit; it's hard to clear cocoa powder from your lungs.

So it was a disappointment and I didn't finish it last night, mostly because of how overwhelming the mascarpone was. None of these faults will deter me from polishing the remains of it off today, however!

procrastinator extraordinaire

That would be me.

All sorts of stuff going in the real world that don't compel me to write. I finished knitting up the wrap, just have to work in the ends... but haven't. Just like I hung up the new curtains two weeks ago and haven't fixed them properly yet. I just ... haven't.

I did write up all the descriptions for DS2's school's silent auction program. I haven't written March's column yet. I have at least four ideas but am lacking in "oomph".

The salivary glands act up from time to time, but generally are better. I contacted the head of the local ThyCa Support group and she has been wonderfully informative and encouraging in her emails to me. She has been dealing with this condition for 30-something years. Hearing her story is both comforting and enough to make me feel like such a whiner, that is, even more of a whiner than I usually acknowledge being.

My feet are not bothering me too much, finally. I just hope they heal up properly. I have a very nasty scar on my ankle as testimony to how difficult healing those lower extremities can be.

I have been doing pretty well with getting to bed at a decent hour. Even though I stayed up late writing up the program, I was still in bed about 12:30. Last night I totally blew it and didn't crawl upstairs until well after 2:30. Ack! What is wrong with me? Perhaps I was influenced by the humongous margerita I had at Rockfish with dinner (coconut shrimp with insanely good wasabi dipping sauce, crab cakes). Or maybe the tiramisa from La Stalla just put me over the edge? I have no idea. I caught up on all my TiVo'd shows (Monk, Clean Sweep, What Not To Wear [a total waste, it was a guy, just ff'd through the entire thing], DeGrassi, and RFR -- aside: other than 24 and In a Fix, that's pretty much it for my "regular" television) and then flicked on the Guide... what's this? Married to the Mob!

For some reason eighties movies fascinate me. The clothes and hair are so outrageously ugly, but I can remember thinking how stylish and cool they were at the time. I like Michelle Pfeifer as an actress, and I think she had great chemistry with Matthew Modine. Whatever happened to him? I guess he has been busy making forgettable movies.

Anyway, I stayed up to watch it for no good reason, thinking, When I'm dying, I certainly won't be thinking, "Oh, I'm so glad I watched Married to the Mob one last time.".

Fortunately I do have some reasonable instincts on occasion -- DH and I both decided there isn't another movie currently in the theaters that were willing to make a dash for after dinner, and so we just came home. In retrospect it probably would've been better to stay out!

blurrrrr

As in, today went by in a...

Rheumatologist is sending me for an MRI after all, just waiting on the insurance company's OK on that. She seconds the ENT recommendation. She also thinks I should have an oncologist to manage the whole cancer thing. I dunno about that.

GYN confirms there's nothing wrong with my "girl parts." (Hee!) Suggests if it keeps bothering me that I take it up with my gastroenterologist. The g/e is cute and funny, but he (by nature of his specialty) always orders nasty invasive tests, so I avoid him unless I have no choice. He did dx my bad gallbladder. I have to give him credit for that, I suppose!

After the GYN, went to Staples and exchanged the laser printer cartridge for the right one. Then picked up DS2. Came home and had lunch. Went to Hi-Health for EFAs, then to Trader Joe's.

Hey, guess what? The garage door opener is well and truly broken now... they'll come fix it tomorrow, I don't know what time, yet.

Slept for about an hour or so this afternoon, that was necessary.

My feet were really bothering me last night so I ended up taking Ambien and wow, what a difference! I really felt good when I woke up, but I still had trouble getting out of bed... Today the feet are a little tender (to be expected) but generally OK. I'm surprised they don't hurt more. The constant dosage of ibuprofen is probably helping...

Spent 3+ hours writing up the program for DS2's school's silent auction fund raiser. Once I got into the groove it went well... at least I think it did. There is surprisingly little I would choose to bid on. Oh, and the wrap I am making to donate is just about finished -- that's the other thing I did today: knit.

Tomorrow should be easier, I think? Just the garage door opener people, and a quick trip to the bank to sign some paperwork, nothing major. I hope it stays that way!

well, that was stupid

I had the dermatologist take the biopsies today from my feet, so I'm in serious pain right now. If you've never had any kind of foot injury, be grateful. If you have had one, you know what I'm going through. It could be worse, though, as both biopsies were taken from fairly high in the instep, meaning I don't actually step on the stitches. If that were the case, I would've only done one at a time. As it is, they're pretty obnoxious. Walking is possible but must be taken slowly. I'm being fairly diligent about keeping my feet up. It minimizes the throbbing pains.

I'm hopeful that this is the worst of it. They only just started bothering me about an hour ago, and I'll be in bed soon -- by tomorrow the worst should be over. It has to be, because even if it's not, I have to do some grocery shopping and other errands, not to mention my two doctor's appointments first thing.

The appointment with the endo went well -- she reviewed the labs and was a bit concerned about the WBC being low; she'll recheck that in March when I get my other labs drawn. She suggested I go to an ENT to have the salivaries checked out but she also said that if it is from the RAI, there isn't anything that can be done. I don't think I'll bother with the ENT just yet. I had a very, very bad afternoon -- after lunch my entire face felt as if it were throbbing, but eventually it subsided. I'm just going to have to ride this out... or add salivary gland weirdness to the list of things I just deal with every day.

The endo did say there was a possibility of a viral infection being the cause of salivary problem, and the depressed WBC would be consistent with that. I am not convinced. She dismissed as inconsequential the protien in my urine, which was OK. I'm expecting to hear more on that same topic when I see the GYN tomorrow.

As usual, I'm wiped out. Biopsies do that to me. I even took a nap this afternoon. That is to say, I passed out on the loveseat while DS2 was watching the SpongeBob DVD we have. It was maybe 40 minutes, but it helped. I still feel generally yucky so we'll see what the other doctors say about all this tomorrow.

further thoughts on Constantine

It was quite a silly movie but dealing as it did with profound themes -- sacrifice, redemption, etc -- it has found its way back into my thoughts periodically ever since we saw it.

There's one particularly interesting discussion, about faith. Constantine is a faithless man: he doesn't believe in God, or Satan, or heaven and hell, any of that. He doesn't have to believe, because he knows. He was dead, once, for two minutes; he has seen what comes after this life. So, he knows. There is no possibility of doubt, for him.

He is denied the gift, and the burden, of faith. He is immeasurably diminished by this, somehow, to me, made less than human in some respects, but more than human in others.

I'm thinking that the Hellraiser comic books on which the film was based would be a great read. I'll have to check them out.

ticked

I felt better today. The throbbing on the right side of my face has subsided a bit, or maybe I'm more adept at ignoring it until it flares up, which, come to think of it, is pretty often. Like now.

The rest of me was not so bad... stomach wobbles mostly calmed, lower back faring well due to my extreme diligence in moving about (or sitting still) properly today, the gut pain only calling attention to itself... periodically.

Oh, who am I kidding? I am just as miserable today as I was yesterday, but until I sat down to write that today was better, I didn't realize that I was deluding myself.

The NP from the gynecologist's called and all the tests they ran last week -- blood, urine, ultrasound -- came back just fine. Well, I had them fax over the blood and urine lab sheets and it turns out my white cell count is low (lingering after-effects of my RAI? likely) and I've got protein in my urine. So they want me to go in and see the doctor himself (he's awesome)... Oooo-kayyy.

I have four doctor appointments in the next two days. Ka-ching! That's $160, since they're all specialists.

Tomorrow: the endo first, then the dermatologist, who will slice off two more suspicious spots. I was completely unflappable with the endo's scheduler today: "Dr. M told me to see her on Tuesday." Flat statement, no questions allowed. Through the magic of scheduling, she got me in at 9:30AM. I'm sure it's things like this that make Dr M. at least 20 minutes late for every single one of my appointments, but honestly? I don't care.

Wednesday: The rheumatologist, for back pain management... I have to grill her on why she didn't order an MRI. Is she so sure I have no disc problems? I was dx'd with mild degenerative disc disease a few years ago. Criminy. I'm betting she's going to go with physical therapy. That'll be fun. My PT will probably shoot me when she sees me crawling back in there... I should've been back in there months ago. OTOH, I also adore my PT. The only problem will be finding times to get in to see her.

After the rheumatologist, back to the gynecologist to see what he has to say to me. If the u/s is clear and the labwork says no infection, why didn't he just say, Keep track of the pain and if it gets worse or doesn't go away in X time, then we'll do some more tests. If he's bringing me back into his office to say these things to me I will be quite annoyed. Still there is a small niggling thought in the back of my head that's saying he's going to want to order more specific tests now. What is he looking for? No idea -- ovarian cancer is unlikely since the u/s came back fine.

I am so annoyed right now. What is the point of all these doctor's appointments, all this money and time and inconvenience? I have no confidence that any of them will tell me anything I don't already know, or that they will be able to do anything to help me feel better. In fact, I'm pretty sure that by Wednesday afternoon I'll be even more ticked, because by that point the hope of something good coming out of all these appointments will have been completely dashed.

But I have to at least try to get better. I think coming into this evening I felt today was better because I pretended to be well today. We took the kids out for lunch and did a little shopping and had a low-key day, but I didn't let myself mope around or let all the stupid never-ending failings of this body give me any more than momentary pause (although some moments were longer than others). I can do that some days.

I'm thinking now of this summer when I was well -- I really wasn't, I was full of cancer but I didn't know it yet -- I felt really good. I had energy and I could move and I did a lot of really fun things. And now I'm just useless, pretty much. I had plans for what I wanted to accomplish before the end of last year and they all went out the window.

I'm sick of being sick. If being pissed off were enough to get me through all this trauma, it would all be in the distant past.

ick, again

Today I just did not feel good. The parotid gland acts up from time to time but isn't as bad as it was at first -- it mostly bothers me when I'm eating, or cooking. The other salivaries kick up from time to time as well, which continues to be disconcerting.

I realized that everytime something new goes "sproing!" that it just takes me a while to get used to it, and then it sort of fades into the background -- that is the story with my lower-back pain, and with my right-sided pelvic pain, too. They're still there, still annoying (about 4 on that pain scale), but the face/salivary stuff is getting all the attention these days because it's new and more immediately annoying.

My digestion continues to be shot, and there are any number of reasons why that could be so. Could be my supplements -- too much Vitamin C or too much magnesium? Could be the thyroid meds. Could be the lingering dregs of that stomach bug (DD came down with an extremely mild case today.) Could be related to the right-sided pelvic pain. Could be something else altogether. Occam's Razor would suggest... what? Any of the first 3 theories is completely legit. But I've cut down on my cal/mag/zinc supplement just the same to see if it helps.

In spite of feeling completely horrid today, I managed to do a few errands with Mom; we visited both Michael's and Joanne's in search of yarn and supplies to make the knitted teddy bear. I'm finding it's impossible to find size 17 double-pointed needles, and I'm balking at spending upwards of $40 in yarn for a bear! So I may downsize the entire project and work it up on smaller needles... it is generally better to do that after having completed the project at least once, as written, but I'm much too stubborn and too cheap to let that deter me.

DH brought home strawberries yesterday and said hopefully, "Maybe we could have strawberry shortcake for dessert this weekend...?" It was by no means anything more than a wistful hope, but when he had the kids out at the park this afternoon I made some cream scones and sliced the berries and even whipped the cream. They were awesome, and so far they haven't made me sick. Here's hoping.