happy halloween...

The Grim Reaper, Pretty Witch, and Batman raked in all sorts of loot.

So begins the Holiday Season, which doesn't end around here until Easter -- between calendar holidays and birthdays, we won't go 3 weeks without having something to celebrate.

Recovery continues apace. Killer headaches attack me when my meds wear off, but other than that, things are OK. We'll see how I do at physical therapy in the morning.

in the now, nearly normal

I planned my day like this: housework, lunch, nap, shower, church, dinner, whatever.

And that's exactly how it went. The morning was very busy but DD (!!!) was an amazing little helper, and between the two of us we did what I would usually do on a typical Friday cleaning day frenzy. She dusted and ran the stick vaccuum, and helped clean the bathrooms and change bed linens, and helped bake the cake, too.

The nap was good. The shower was better. Funny how a shower can be scary, not knowing what's going to hurt, and worrying about incisions and whatnot. Exhausting on multiple levels, too. I hate that. Just being nervous is exhausting. Having (new) chronic pain is exhausting, too. The old ones, I'm used to those and they don't wear me out so much.

My neck feels like it's being squeezed sometimes, other times it feels as if it's paralyzed. Most of the time swallowing is easy, but every so often something mis-fires and it just doesn't work properly. My head/neck mobility is better without the drain, but there are all sorts of new ouches to contend with. Somehow I hadn't thought about that. Oh, and more of my ear has normal sensation, but my right neck and the side of my head behind my ear are still totally numb, unless they're all tingly and oww-ie.

Sorry to whine. I don't really feel whiny. I actually feel pretty OK, I have just a bit of a headache from muscle tension. I'm coming up on time for meds so that will dissipate soon...

I sang a little bit in church, not too much because my voice gets tired and sometimes plain just spazzes out. The woman sitting next to me made a point of telling me, You have a lovely voice, before she left our pew at the end of Mass. That was really nice.

a familiar place

I'm pretty sure I was here last October around this time, too. Post-operative, realizing that the surgery I have just been through was pretty serious, after all. I manage to get through these things by repeating a mantra of "It's not so bad, it's not so bad," because it helps me to not think about how bad it really is.

Of course, there are a lot of things that are worse.

Still, it has been a little over a year now that I have been dealing with this cancer thing, and in all honesty I still don't want to believe it. Parts of me just reject the notion outright. Cancer? How absurd! How could I possibly have cancer? I'm too busy, too fit, too healthy to have cancer! I have a life here, could I please get back to it now?

Not yet.

Maybe whatever lesson I am supposed to learn (if any) from this didn't make enough of an impression last year, and so I am enduring essentially the same thing all over again, only worse. ("Once more, with feeling!")

I don't believe in karma, however much I enjoy My Name is Earl, (warning: audio on the link) but even if I did, I would have to call the karmic overlords on the carpet and give them a good chewing out. What's going on here? Did they err on the side of "too many blessings" and so have to even things out with this repetitive surgery theme? I didn't think it was supposed to work that way, anyway.

So here I am again, offhandedly contemplating my mortality. It makes no sense whatsoever for me to be given three amazing children only for me to be taken away from them. I understand, though, that it's not up to me to make sense of things like that. But if it's going to happen, it won't be because I gave up.

I had a Cancer Talk with DH last night. I don't think I ever told him before that sometimes in the past when I have been sick, I have thought that it would be easier to be dead. (Key sign of depression, right there.) I don't feel that way now, and can't imagine ever feeling that way again. I suppose I might get tired sometimes, but that's not the same thing at all. Today was a very hard day, perhaps the hardest since my surgery. Today was a day when a lot of realizations started sinking in: I really do have cancer, and my cancer is doing unexpected and quite serious things. That surgery was major, no matter how I want to spin it as "only moderately invasive."

I think it is a self-protective tendency, not to admit these things to myself until after they have been addressed. Aggressive cancer? Extensive surgery? Too scary too contemplate, and so I minimize them until it's over. Now I can start the alignment of my understanding with reality, and it's never easy. But it is easier knowing that one of the hard parts is over, at least for now.

Other difficulties remain, of course. How will what comes out of this surgery affect my life going forward? I like that the doctors at MDA take a pragmatic approach. When I asked about being tested for the breast cancer gene, they asked me why, would it change any part of my life? I answered no, since I already get an annual mammogram and do the self-exams as well. So they said, what would be the point?

I don't know what's going to come out of the pathology report and how that will change my follow-up. For now I know what I have to do to continue my astonishing recovery -- keep up my physical therapy exercises, eat well, and get plenty of sleep. I love my naps, and today actually slept well. My post-drain-removal trauma subsided as the evening wore on, until I actually felt quite human by about 8PM. My in-laws are arriving in the morning, and I'll be leaning on them heavily in the next couple of weeks.

After my last 3 surgeries I really did too much too quickly, post-op. This time I honestly don't think I have it in me. Last year after my thyroidectomy I was driving by this time! Yikes. I'm nowhere near that, this year. I have to let myself believe that this is as serious as it is. I have to take this seriously, and let myself get better at a decent pace. I have help, and I will use it.

I want to say, I'll be OK -- I know I'll be OK in the short term. I wish I knew what the long term holds, though. For now it's enough to focus on getting back to a normal schedule.

all apologies

Please excuse my lack of posting lately. Bluntly, I feel like hell.

I had my drain removed this morning so I'm no longer a member of the Collective. That's good, but I had expected things to hurt less once the drain was removed, and that hasn't been the case at all. All the nerve weirdness along the right side of my jaw and around my ear has intensified. It's not the kind of thing painkillers help, either.

To make matters worse, I have a recurring dream (nightmare) in which I've gone back to MDA for my 4-month follow-up and they've found more cancer. I wake up from this dream both depressed and angry. Can't my psyche let me recover from the present surgery before torturing me with the prospect of more? At least I have slept better the past two nights.

I've spent some time on the phone getting those follow-up appointments in place, so maybe that's what fueled the dream. I'm still waiting to hear about the pathology report, and to perhaps get an update on my prognosis, which I now realize no one in Houston ever mentioned, post-op.

for the curious.

And for comparison purposes as the scar heels in the weeks and months ahead -- here is a photo of my incision and the bandage over my drain, at 5 days post-op. Don't click on the link if you're at all squeamish.

There's still a bit of swelling and odd puffiness in my throat, I'm sure it will take a while for that to subside. I know the front of my throat may look different when healing is complete because of the paratracheal dissection; the doctor removed some muscles from the front of my neck. He informs me that as a result I will no longer be able to sing vibrato, but I assured him that was no loss.

I haven't really tried to sing since the surgery -- just a few notes here and there, and it did feel weird but then again everything throat-related, including speaking and swallowing, feels weird now.

As DH was cleaning the drain site last night I said, I feel like something from a science fiction movie.

He didn't miss a beat: You mean like The Borg?



Yeah, well, at least I don't have a tube coming out of my skull.

taking it slow

This recovery thing is weird. See, right after surgery, there are a lot of things you don't feel, because nerves have been severed or shocked. But over time, the little nerves come to their senses (haha) or regenerate or whatever, and then you start to feel things more. Incisions, for example. Ouch, but really not any more of an ouch than Tylenol can handle. I'm avoiding the hydrocodone like the plague. Between the Tylenol and the Celebrex, I'm doing pretty well, but I can definitely feel when either med wears off.

Anyway, my head and neck mobility are a lot better, so that helps a lot.

Physical therapy (PT) tomorrow, but the drain stays in until Friday morning. I'd rather have it in for an extra day and have my ENT take it out, than try and find someone else to do it on Thursday.

Today was exhausting even though I didn't do much. I did get a nap for a couple of hours, which is what I should have done yesterday.

I'm waiting on the pathology report and wondering if it will change my prognosis. I can't imagine that it would change much, other than the likelihood of finding more cancer down the line. The surgeon feels he got it all, and I certainly hope he's right. The characteristics of my case are unusual in that my tumor markers were low, and I only had 3 areas of uptake in my neck following my RAI in June, but here October they found all sorts of stuff in my neck and chest. A couple of possibilities are that I have some cancer that's de-differentiated (no longer absorbing iodine) or that it is much more aggressive than papillary thyca is.

Whatever they find, they'll still follow-up with labs and ultrasounds and CT scans, so it's not really going to make that much difference, at least in the short term. I don't really want to think about possible future treatments right now. I need to focus on getting through this one, first.

Tomorrow I'll make up a list of questions for my patient advocate and I'll try and get the ball rolling for getting my records (including labs, operating report, and pathology report) and scheduling my follow-up visit in February. Once that's all set and the drain is out, I can stop thinking about what happened last week and look to the future. For a few months, anyway.

a productive day

Today, I:

- slept a lot more than I slept in Houston
- got the network working on this PC again, thanks to two different online chat sessions with the LinkSys support folks and a quick call to my ISP support line
- got caught up on last week's Rome and got all psyched to watch this week's only to find out there was no new episode this week
- watched last week's "Lost" instead
- did my physical therapy exercises twice, as directed

Feel like I've been hit by a truck and nearly decapitated in the process. The weirdest is the sort of painful numbness of my right ear and jawline, a result of nerve trauma. Sometimes it itches but scratching it does no good. Having nerves misfire is a very uncomfortable feeling. I'm hoping when the swelling goes down in my neck it will subside. It's not keeping me from doing anything I want to do, it just feels weird.

And now, for the fourth time today, it's off to bed.

home!

Safe, mostly sound, very tired. YAY!

out, about, and going home soon

Somehow I still can't believe it actually happened, even though I now have this huge incision around my neck. I also have a drain, which is kind of icky, but DH is a total trooper and is taking good care of both me and it. (I suppose that's kind of the same thing.)

Surgery took about 4-and-a-half hours. Since I had to repeat the procedure names about 12 times pre-op, I now know them by heart. I had: a complete right neck dissection, a central compartment dissection, a superior mediastinal dissection, and a bilateral paratracheal dissection. Doesn't that sound creepy? Now that it's done I can handle rattling that off a lot better. Anyway, the dr said he found a lot more cancer than he expected even from the ultrasound and the CT scan, so it is a very good thing I had this surgery now. I don't really like to think about the alternatives so I will just move right along...

I woke up in recovery feeling pretty OK and able to talk right away. I couldn't move my right shoulder or upper arm, but my hand and forearm were OK. Later that evening I could move both my shoulder and upper arm. Now the only numbness I have is along my right jawline, and my right ear. It's weird. I do have swelling on the right side of my neck, and I'm sure that has a lot to do with the numbness. Plus the poor nerves have been shocked all to pieces, I'm sure.

The staff kept a watchful eye on my calcium levels and my parathyroids seem to have come through OK. Even so the endo has bumped up my calcium to 3 grams/day. I had thought that I was only doing 1g/day before surgery but then I looked at the bottle and realized I was taking 2g/day, so no wonder I was low post-op -- I missed my 2g dose on surgery day.

Now I will tell you something you probably won't believe, but the food at MDA is quite good. There is a "room service" menu and you can order anything you want (depending on what diet you're on per dr's orders, of course -- but I was on "normal diet as tolerated"), so I had some pretty decent meals. One of the drinks they offered was peach nectar, which is a favorite so I had that more than once. Hey, if you can't indulge post-op, when can you? I also had some really amazing homemade granola with plain yogurt, which I think may be one of my all-time favorite breakfasts.

The nurses were terrific. I probably had 10 different people working with me between recovery and my room, and they were all very kind and helpful. And especially good about keeping the good pain management drugs flowing. Speaking of which, I am doing well there with minimal pain and only taking Celebrex for now. I have some hydrocodone (heavy duty stuff) to take if it gets worse, but it does make me feel very loopy. I don't sleep right on that stuff either -- I took one last night and drifted in and out until it wore off, when I finally fell properly asleep.

The physical therapist came in to see me and gave me my shoulder-strengthening exercises, and was amazed at my range of motion. I knew there was a reason for taking up yoga and swimming this fall. I have been a good girl and already done one rep of my exercises this morning.

So we had a late breakfast and now DH is seeing about our transportation to the airport tonight (our flight leaves after 8PM) and also about getting a duffel bag or something, because we have a lot of stuff we didn't anticipate getting -- both paperwork and supplies for caring for my drain. We need another bag! But all will be OK.

I am tired and my right arm feels like I played tennis all day with it. My incision around my neck is probably 9 inches long but doesn't hurt (yet) as the nerves are still shot, I'm sure. The surgeon placed the steri-strips perpendicular to the incision so the effect is one of a fringed collar. It would be funny if it weren't so freaky looking. I hope it doesn't scare the kids!

DH says he doesn't notice the swelling in my face but I do. All in all I don't look too bad considering what I went through, and I certainly feel better than I expected to. I am still nervous about the flight home but really looking forward to getting there. I know with DH I will be all right even if I have a little more pain or discomfort, it will only be for a short time.

Thank you everyone for all your thoughts and prayers. It has really been a tremendous help. This will probably be the longest update for a while since I know my mom will not let me sit at the computer for this long at home (hee!). That's OK, I'll pop in with little updates when I can. I'm doing well and going to be fine, both dr and physical therapist say back to normal activities after 4 weeks. That'll go by very quickly.

the Great Unreal

I'm having an after-dinner coffee (vaguely wretched, but I've had worse, from a styrofoam cup) and sitting here in "the internet room," not really believing any of this. Any second now, I'll wake up, right?

Probably not. DH is en route now, and should be here in a few hours. It will be nice to see him. Everything appears to be set -- hotel room, flights home, physical therapy for when I get there. Everything will work out.

Just none of it feels real right now, none of this has felt real for this entire trip. I will be very happy to go home.

it's a go

Surgery tomorrow, check-in at 11AM. The dr will do a right neck dissection, plus 3 other things that involve polysyllabic words preceding the word "dissection."

However, Dr C doesn't do the huge incision, he'll just make my current scar longer.

Expect to be in hospital over night, discharged to the hotel the next day, and OK to fly home as long as I am not puking -- so hoping to get home Sunday.

Feeling a little insane but also relieved now. My BP finally registered its normal (low) usual when they took it in pre-op: 88/54. Funny how I seemed to relax when I finally know what's going to happen, even though it's surgery.

DH is making arrangements to fly in tonight. I think he's worried and feeling a little harried right now, I hope he's OK. Haven't managed to get a hold of my mom or the kids today, but there is still plenty of time for that.

Now R & I will figure out what to do with my remaining hours of freedom (hee). Yesterday we spent a long afternoon at the zoo and had a good time. The weather here is really lovely.

"they'll clean it out for you"

I had my ultrasound this morning and another fine needle aspiration (FNA) biopsy. Ultrasounds are fine, they don't hurt, but having an already lumpy-feeling throat get pressed on is always a little discomfiting. The u/s identified some things, I didn't ask how many or how big -- but one was big enough that they wanted to biopsy it.

So then the radiologist came in and gave me a local (ouch - a poke then a burn then stinging). Then she went for the node/mass and in spite of the local it still hurt exactly as much as every other un-anesthestized FNA I have had. She was extremely and sincerely apologetic, and since I didn't have any expectation of numbness, I wasn't upset anyway.

The best thing was she then took the slides and read them right away. It took about 20 minutes (I had a little nap, it was nice and quiet) and then she came in and told me she was seeing papillary cells. That's when she said, They'll go in and clean it out for you.

I said something like, so I need surgery, then? and she replied, You want surgery.

I know what she means, but I really don't want surgery. I'll do what I have to do, though.

Tomorrow morning I have an appointment with Dr. C and we will go over all my test results and I will hear his recommendations. I know I'll be going under the knife again, I just don't know when.

Now, we're going to the zoo!

cancer center, day 1 - EoP

End of Procedures, that is.

Got to bed staggeringly late, as I was too wound up too relax or sleep. Got up at 6AM, was over in the Head & Neck Dept by 6:30, where R & I waited, and waited, and waited. It seemed to take forever to call me, forever being approximately 45 minutes. 45 minutes is a lot of time, you know -- in which I could have been sleeping or doing something like getting some breakfast. But, that was not to be.

After paperwork, another more moderate period of waiting (that first time was the longest wait all day, all the others were maybe 10 minutes each), then to see a triage nurse who took vitals. I'm 170 cm tall, I'll have to convert that to inches later and figure out if I am as tall as I say I am! Then the triage nurse went over my record. Then I briefly met Dr. C's nurse. Then Dr C's intern examined me. Then the good dr himself came in and did the exam. Having to do the "stick your tongue out and say EEEE" test twice in the space of 15 minutes is icky. (It wouldn't be so bad if not for the little mirror they have shoved into the back of the throat.)

Dr. C says he will be astonished if the tests do not show abnormality. The question is, what will be the size and nature of anything they find. Those two factors will determine the basis for his recommendations. I am not a candidate for radiation treatment now. I am being evaluated for surgery. It is very unlikely they will identify anything that requires immediate surgery, but I told the doc I'd like to get it over with asap if it's necessary.

After Dr. C, over to the endocrine neoplasia specialist, Dr. W. Only before I met him, I was raked over the coals by his nurse, S. She had a strangely confrontational manner, and I found myself quite literally defending my presence at MDA ("This last biopsy says it wasn't cancer. What are you doing here?") and my health history ("What is this 'precancerous' thing you've written for your mother and grandmother?") Anyway, she did a very thorough exam herself, and gave me a breast exam tutorial. Then Dr. W came in and we discussed my Cytomel issues, and he told me it was OK to drop it back down to 5mcg/day. Hallelujah! I did push back at him a bit on the quality of the combined t4/t3 therapy studies as it is one of my pet issues. But I personally have no dog in that hunt now, I have no idea how I'd feel on just T4 and am willing to give it a try. I'm very happy to be knocking my T3 dosage down a bit and hope it will help my digestive system slow down.

After Dr. W (it's now about 11:30), I went over to get labs drawn: 6 tubes. Yikes. And I had a chest x-ray, too, my first ever.

Finally: LUNCH! We grabbed some sandwiches from the deli and ate outside in the warm sun. It's freezing in here!

After lunch, my head/neck CT, with contrast, and is it ever a strange feeling to get that rush of iodine heat. It's nice to be warm, though.

U/S tomorrow morning, with an FNA if necessary. And Dr. C says we'll have results from anything we do tomorrow pretty much immediately, which is cool. We'll discuss the CT scan results on Wednesday morning.

So: could be surgery, could be "wait and see." I will know more tomorrow, and should have a definitive plan on Wednesday.

greetings from Houston

Well, I'm here! The first parts of the trip went remarkably smoothly, which was totally balanced out by the 2-hour $20 tour of Houston I got on the shuttle ride over to the hotel.

Really -- got to the terminal in Phoenix, and within 5 minutes I had checked my bag, hit the ATM machine (since I forgot to get cash earlier), passed through security, and bought lunch. I then spent about an hour and a half hanging around the airport totally bored.

The flight was brief (just over 2 hours) and uneventful. I did some work -- wrote a column! edited my thyca-for-kids book! worked on some sketches! I even attempted the crossword puzzle in the onboard magazine. Before I knew it, we were landing (literally -- I was completely surprised by the bump.)

It took a while for my bag to come down off the plane. Clearly, it's a first-in-last-out system, which is just so wrong. But I understand why it happens. Then I easily found my way to the counter where the shuttles are staffed, and got my ticket. It was about a 10 minute wait, and then we were off.

That's when the trouble started. Tonight was game 4 of the Houston-St. Louis series. When I got on the shuttle, it was the bottom of the 9th with no outs, but Houston held on by getting an out at the plate followed by a double play. By that time we were just leaving the airport. Of course our shuttle route takes us right by Minute Maid Park, and of course our shuttle driver is on auto-pilot and takes us there, even though we were just listening to the game, and we all knew it had just ended -- the traffic was murderous. Really. We managed to survive it somehow, and all the passengers were either friendly or quiet, which amounts to the same thing in that kind of a situation.

A big smooch to the one Houstonian who piped up and asked why the driver was going all the way over to the Galleria when MDA was right down the street? The driver had forgotten about me -- that one comment probably saved me another 45 minutes. Some people are really, really awesome like that -- the other passengers didn't mind being put 10 minutes out of their way to save me a much longer drive. And they all wished me well when I finally climbed out of the van. So yes, it was an unnecessarily long drive, but it could have been a lot, lot worse.

Now I'm here and finished scoping out my room and the first floor guest amenities (I'll do the second floor & the restaurants when I'm done here.) The hotel is very nice -- this is their computer I'm using, it's part of the deal. The room is lovely. The pool is small but I may go splash soon anyway, after I get something to eat.

So I hit a little bump in the travel stuff, but nothing major or really even too unpleasant. Here's hoping the rest of the trip goes well.

don't bring me down, Bruuuuuce.

Another song from my formative years that I could never understand. Who is Bruce, anyway? I supposed if I google'd ELO and don't bring me down together, I'd find some fangeek page that would explain the lyrics, but I don't care enough to do that.

I heard this particular blast from the past on my after-dinner dash over to Fry's to buy some ice cream for dessert. (Note: very good, but also very sweet. I did not read the ingredient list before I bought it. Bad Mommy! Well, a little high fructose corn syrup every now and then isn't going to bring on Type II diabetes. I hope.)

I feel horrible (mentally), and tired ( physically). (Yes, I am using ice cream as a comfort mechanism -- do you have a problem with that?) Also, more or less unprepared even though the laundry is done, and all my paperwork is assembled. I've even printed out my boarding pass!

I have to leave here around 11 and I haven't packed a stitch of clothes -- I haven't figured out what to bring, yet. Yeesh. And since I'm up so late tonight, I won't have much time to figure it out in the morning. Oh well. At least everything's clean.

I don't want to go. Somehow that flat declarative statement fails utterly to convey how deeply I do not want to go. I keep asking DH, How would it be if I stayed home and didn't have cancer, instead? He does not appreciate my sense of humor, I think -- I can't honestly assess since I am so agitated that everything annoys me. It's like every nerve is extra-sensitive now. I have that "need to cry" feeling and it has been there most of the day. But I don't cry because nothing changes when I cry, except afterwards I feel really sick. So my not-crying has nothing to do with being brave and stoic and "doing what must be done" and all that crap. If I could cry without feeling worse afterwards, I probably would.

Except in front of the kids, that's way too much for them to handle. Only happy tears from Mom are allowed in front of the kids, unless someone died or something. Since I'm trying to minimize how much they freak out, I'm holding all my emotions in check around them.

Today was way too busy and not at all the kind of "last day home" that I would have scripted for myself. I could be pissy and blame DH but it is not his fault. If I had wanted things to be different all I needed to do was 1) speak up and 2) have my act much more together than it has been. Not that my act has been incompetent lately, not by a long shot -- but I keep letting things fall through the cracks and then when I rediscover them I have to attend to them right away, and that pushes something else off schedule.

It rather helps to have a very hard deadline, like the departure time of my flight out. I really don't care if I don't get much sleep tonight. Once I get to the airport tomorrow the only person I'll have to look after is myself, so I can nod off in the terminal and fall asleep on the plane, too. And take a nap at the hotel before R comes in (much later than me.)

I'm scared for myself and worried about my family, and trying not to be either one. It's kind of a recursive worry -- I worry about my family worrying over me. It's kind of silly, and completely unproductive. Part of the worry is non-recursive, straight-forward worry about how the kids will deal if I am gone more than 2 days. There's nothing more I can do to make sure they're OK, though. I just wish I knew what's going to happen over there in TX.

Uncertainty, it's a bitch.

managing

I have all sorts of stuff to talk about, but now is really not the time to do it.

I managed to get just about everything done today, leaving tomorrow a lot less hassled, I hope. The day was fraught with stressful situations, including being very late picking up the kids from school because of 1) bad planning on my part and 2) bad traffic in Phoenix.

However, I have all my records, and we made it to the airport at exactly the right time, just a few minutes before my Mom came out of the secure area. We had pizza for dinner (I could eat pizza every day, lately -- I don't know why I'm craving it so!) which was just fine with me.

The house is clean, and DH and I did the grocery shopping after dinner. Now all I need to do is laundry, packing, and paperwork -- oh, how I detest filling out medical questionaires!

All in all I spent about 4 consecutive hours on the road, with breaks no more than 15 minutes (and usually much less) at each of 5 stops. Over 100 miles on the van, and totally loving the new tires. We have some awesome freeways out here.

Everything hurts -- crawling off to bed now...

packed schedule

Things will be very busy over the next few days.

Tomorrow, I have to run up to Phoenix and pick up records at two hospitals and my endo's office. The fact I requested my records about 3 weeks ago is irrelevant. Not one of these places makes it easy to get a copy of your own information. It's very annoying. At least I called today to make sure I can actually pick it up tomorrow. I'm not sure how useful it will be in Houston, but I want to bring all that information with me. Of all the requests I sent out, only Banner Good Samaritan came through in a timely manner. Unfortunately I didn't realize I needed to request my scans separately from the film library; this fact is not documented anywhere. In fact, there's a checkbox for "films" on the form I filled out; I didn't check it because I figured that films would be included in the "all" box I did check. Wrong!

Tomorrow's also housecleaning day, but that only takes about an hour or so, no big deal. I do have to straighten up the guest room for Mom, though, so that will add another half-hour...

Speaking of Mom, I'm on tap to pick her up at the airport just before 5PM. So I think I will take the kids for a quick snack after school before we all head up to the airport. DS2 and I will be spending an awful lot of time in the car tomorrow!

Saturday, I'm hoping for a date, actually -- Mom is super about that sort of thing, and it would be really nice to go out with DH before heading off to Houston.

Sunday, travel day -- whee!

Monday: register at 6:30AM, then see the surgeon, then see the endo, then have labs done, and that will be the entire morning, I'm sure. I also have a CAT scan scheduled for the afternoon.

Tuesday: ultrasound scheduled for mid-morning... and who knows what, after that?

yet another bad news/good news scenario

This morning DH had to leave early, so I was on kid duty. Got 'em up, fed, and all packed up for school, and we trekked out to the garage for the quick drive over.

I fastened DS2's seatbelt and as I was closing the door, I noticed that the left rear tire had lost at least 60% of its air. Yikes! I took a long look at it and decided that I could drive it a short distance without trashing the rim, so I took the kids to school, and then drove it over to the tire store.

I've been driving this van for close to six years now, and we've had our share of problems with the tires. I think the biggest mistake I made was letting the guy (at the same store) talk me into putting a narrower tire on the same rims -- the rims are for 225s, and he sold me a line that 215s would be just as good.

Now, about 25K later, just over half of the tires' expected 40K road life, they were showing such uneven wear that they were just not safe. When the tire jockey explained this to me, and showed me the wear on the treads, I immediately realized something and said, "Oh, so that explains all that vibration at highway speeds."

The car used to vibrate something fierce right around 70 mph. Since everyone here drives at least 70 mph unless there's a huge traffic jam, I used to feel that vibration every time I hit a freeway. We've had the tires rotated, balanced, pressure-checked, you name it. We've had the alignment checked. Everything checked out fine. D'ya think, maybe, that it was all caused by having the freakin' wrong size tire?

Well, I will say it did take a while for the problem to develop, but still.

So I shelled out close to $500 today for 4 new tires (225s, of course), and an alignment. Tire jockey extracted promises from me that I would rotate the tires frequently. Yes, sir!

Honestly, I'd say I don't know why I went back to that store since they sold me those bad tires in the first place, but I do know why I go back. Because they'll fix a flat for free, and they're always very respectful and accomodating. I'm sure the guy who sold me the smaller tires was just trying to save me some $$$, because I recall that the 225s were a lot more expensive than the 215s a few years ago.

So, bad news: had to spend a minor fortune on new tires.

Good news? Nary a wobble on the trip up to the doctor's today. How pleasant it was to feel rock-steady while cruising up the 101. Hooray for safe cars!

Other good news: when DH called this morning just to check in, I told him about the tire/alignment situation and gave him a ballpark estimate of $475. Can you guess the first thing he said? It surprised even me, but also re-affirmed my belief that I have the best husband ever: Oh, good. Then we talked about the uneven wear pattern, the highway wobble, and the need for more frequent future rotations. Not a word about the price -- but how could anyone quibble? DH insists that we be safe! I'm driving his entire family around, after all.

what do I know?

Since I have a serious -- treatable, but still serious -- medical condition, I tend to relate everything that happens to my health to either the condition itself, or the medications I take to keep everything under control.

Lately I've had a sore throat and trouble swallowing, and since I know that there is a mass on my thyroid bed (or there was on June 2), I just figured that was it, you know -- the Persistance of Cancer. It's hard to completely eradicate, and if you leave even a little bit in there without whacking it with radiation or chemo, it will come back and haunt you.

Today I saw my ENT, Dr. O, and let me just take a moment to gush: He listens. Really! And he doesn't talk to me like I am an idiot, which is way cool.

Dr. O looked at the red spot on my tongue, which is still around even after that course of Nystatin. (Ick) He declared that it doesn't look fungal to him and in fact it looks exactly like something that is in the process of healing on its own, and he advised just letting it go. He did take a sample so it can be cultured, which is nice, and of course he'll call me if anything shows up that I need to do anything about, but he said it really was missing several of the key characteristics of a yeast/fungal infection and he would be very surprised if that's what came up.

So that was cool, and then he asked me about the thyca situation, and I filled him in on going to MDA. Then I complained about my sore throat and he took a look -- this is always bizarre, you know: mouth wide open to accomodate the dentist-style mirror that is stuck waaaayyyyy in the back of my mouth, and then having to sing/say "A" in a sustained note, or take a deep breath, or say "E". But it is also very cool because so many of the structures are visible if you do these simple things, so good docs like Dr. O can actually see what's happening.

He didn't see any signs of infection but he did see signs of chemical irritation on my lower esophagus. It's the dreaded acid reflux!

I should have known. Really, I should have. I have been through this a few times before, usually around stressful times -- stress? who has stress? -- and yet I never seem to connect the heartburn or gurgling stomach or just bad digestion with needing to take a proton pump inhibitor.

Dr O has me on a 3-month course of Prilosec (we're giving it a try first, since it's OTC and inexpensive) to settle things down and let my poor throat heal.

The bad news is I may be someone that has to take this more or less forever. My mom has a hiatal hernia and is on a ppi of some kind, has been for years -- and it provides her a lot of relief. I've long believed that adhering to a controlled carb diet (not necessarily low carb, but way lower than that Standard American Diet allows -- say 75 to 100 g carbs per day) would keep my acid problems in check and for the most part, that has been very successful. However, sometimes I just stress out and all of a sudden, I'm pumping out more acid than I can properly metabolize. Eww.

The good news, however bizarre that may sound, is that being diagnosed with GERD was a profound relief. Maybe now I won't need surgery! I thought my throat was sore because of the cancer, but it's not -- or at least, not entirely. Thinking about it a little more clearly now, that makes sense. My suppressed Tg was only 1.7 last time, after all, that's pretty low, certainly not reflective of an out-of-control, growing cancer. Yes, there are indications that something's still there, but the somethings are still very small. And who knows, by the time I get to Houston they may be smaller still, as the RAI has an effective period of up to 6 months. It's entirely possible, although I have no idea how probable it would be. But it's nice to have another possible pathway for my thoughts to wander down.

Dr. O agreed that a positive ultrasound was not definitive enough evidence on which to recommend surgery, and was pleased to hear that they would be testing me at MDA. Dr. O also knows the guy I'm seeing, and has a high opinion of him. Everyone is so encouraging, but Dr. O in particular focussed on one specific thing: positive outcome. He told me about a patient he had consulted on who had even more significant local metastases than I had, and whether or not he was a candidate for surgery to remove some junk that had adhered to his recurrent laryngeal nerve. We are very grateful that we have the option of the RAI treatment for the well-differentiated cancers. This patient, he told me, has had an excellent outcome, and he also told me that my age is working in my favor to insure that I have one, too.

This happens from time to time, I get the "I have a bad feeling about this," vibe -- but I'm wrong. Oh, how I love it when I'm wrong! Well, maybe I'm not entirely wrong -- I mean, I do have something that needs treatment, and I'm on a new round of drugs, but hey -- it could have been a lot worse. This, I can deal with. I don't feel in the least bit embarrassed or annoyed over "why didn't I think of that?" I'm not a doctor, after all -- that's why I pay these guys the big bucks. Believe me, with a $40 co-pay, it really does amount to big bucks pretty quickly. Visits like today's are totally worth it.

by the way

To everyone out there that's praying for me, pulling for me, sending good karma my way or just rolling your eyes at me because you know I'm crazy but I'll really be OK: Thank You.

A couple of people in my yoga class know about my upcoming trek, and all my kids' teachers, too. The administrator in the Church office knows, as do the folks in the office at my kids' elementary. Without exception, everyone wishes me well. Nearly everyone says, "I'm praying for you," and not a few say, "I pray for you every day."

It's really overwhelming. It's impossible to say how much I appreciate it. I know there are people who are skeptical about the power of prayer, but I am not one of them. Because even though I have been through an ubelievable amount of medical crap over the past four years, in all honesty I can say it could have been a LOT worse.

I've had 3 major surgeries but snappy recoveries from each. I've had a jillion skin biopsies, but not one came back requiring anything more serious than a little more cutting, and what's a slightly bigger scar in the grand scheme of things? It's nothing. I have rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia but I can still haul all 3 of my kids to DisneyLand and around DisneyLand and have a great time and not be bed-ridden for a week in recovery.

I have cancer but I still have all my hair, and my hair is awesome. I don't have a thyroid but I also don't have a weight problem, which is something of a minor miracle. Yeah, the cancer is still hanging around and being a pain in the neck (ha! I joke, but no.) But I am the most blessed woman in the world, because even though I have these "issues," I can still take care of my family, my husband and I love each other more than ever, and there's a whole future out there in which I know cancer will play a much reduced role.

I say my own prayers, of course, and thankfulness for what I have is always right near the top of the list. I also petition and rail and bargain. I have a rich and varied (some might say deranged) prayer life. What I ask for, for myself, is just this: to see the path that God has set for me, for the wisdom to recognize it for what it is, and for the strength to follow it. That about covers it for me -- for everyone else, I'm much more demanding. Since I have a whole amazing group of people who pray for me, I kinda think I'm covered.

So, thanks, everyone in the pulling-for-Joan pool. You're awesome.

p.s.
I'm not going to bring the laptop but the hotel has free 'net access on their own PCs. I may have to camp out in the lobby at odd hours to get access to a machine, but I can deal with that. It's not like I'm going to have much else to do. If I knew there would be wireless access, I'd go ahead and bring the laptop -- but I don't know about it that, and I don't want to deal with dialup for a few-day trip if I have other options. It'll be OK! Really.