no more jack-o-lanterns

This is the first year in all the years we've lived in this house, I think -- 13 years -- that we haven't carved pumpkins. It was always my job to rustle up some candles from somewhere so I could light them and put them in the pumpkins out front. And then I had to remember to go out later, much later than the last trick-or-treaters, to blow out the candles and bring in the pumpkins, before they got smashed in the street. This year no one in the house wanted to do it, so we didn't.

DS1 opted out this year, knowing he'll be able to share his younger siblings' candy. DD and DS2 are wearing sensible footwear (as opposed to the pre-teen in stiletto heels who just left the door) and will probably be out with DH for another hour, hauling back more candy than they will even want to eat.

While at home things seem less stressed than usual, I'm dreading the rest of this week at school. Children on an all-candy diet don't listen or learn well. Best not to think of that, and enjoy watching Alice's excitement with each new group of children at the door.

She's very patient, and only occasionally
tries to fish a lollipop out of the candy bowl.

pilfering trifles

Today I discovered the latest in an ongoing series of minor thefts from my classroom: the toy cars I'd bought last year for the 8th graders to use in our physics unit. So far this year, I've "lost"

- Basher Science: Rocks and Minerals: A Gem of a Read

- FOR BIG MISTAKES ERASER

- a set of 4 fine-tipped dry erase markers... one at a time... from my desk

- a lovely brain coral specimen that was given to me by a student

- a gallon-size ziploc bag of more than two dozen Sharpies and other permanent markers

- 18 Matchbox cars

The bag of Sharpies was in one of my desk drawers, all the way in the back, behind a divider. The Matchbox cars were in a plastic lunchbox from Disneyland, in a closed cabinet by my desk.

Somehow, I made it through the school year last year without losing these things (well, not the dry erase markers).

Every time this happens, I get upset. It's not the money. I have these things so that my students can use them, and so they are just stealing from themselves. It makes me very sad.

I need to figure out how to let this kind of thing go, but I'm not there yet.

Q2

Tomorrow begins the second quarter of school, already... fall break was just a week but seemed like more.

DD & I flew into Boston for a quick trip out to see how Mom is recovering. In a word: splendidly.

Mom with one brother & his family

We were very lucky to hit the end of Indian Summer. There's something glorious about swimming in the Atlantic in October, when the water is tolerably cool and incredibly clear. We walked clear to the tip of Chapaquoit, with crowds of sandpipers fleeing before us.

Non-plussed, they'd just scurry a few feet away and wait for us to catch up to them.

We packed a lot into a few days: beach, shopping, cupcakes, Woods Hole... best of course was seeing family, including my newest grand-nephew.



Then home again, for piano lessons and assorted appointments and two days of a debate tournament. That left just today for getting ready for the week to come. Second quarter -- I'm taking a deep breath now because I won't be able to get another until Thanksgiving.

round peg, square hole

I cleaned up some graffiti in a girls' bathroom at work today, and now it seems as if I may catch flak for it.

The question keeps arising: what am I doing there?

Only two more days of classes until fall break, and a quick trip out to see Mom, who is nicely recovering from all her procedures. Yay!

being a philosopher...

... I have a problem for every solution.

That's one of the quotes I heard -- the topic for an Impromptu speech -- at the speech & debate festival I attended with DS1 today. It was a long day, but very satisfying in many ways. I don't get too much intellectual stimulation during my normal routine. Today I remembered how I felt as a college freshman, surrounded by other people who weren't ashamed of the fact that they were smart, or beyond smart. When I got out of school and started working, it took a while for the expectation of brilliance to wear off. I ran into all sorts of problems, usually minor, because I wasn't taking into account the fact that not everyone thinks the way I do.

I still get hassled by my students when I throw some unusual (for them) vocabulary their way (I think everyone should know, for example, what wretched means). They don't see the point, and when I try to explain to them that limited vocabulary means a limited ability to think, the majority of them don't see that as a downside.

So all of this... intellectual stimulation is setting of a cycle of introspection regarding where I am now and whether or not it is the kind of place I really should be in. I am feeling very square-peg-in-a-round-hole after today, because at the festival, I felt as if I belonged. At my school, I belong only because I've carved out a space for myself and everyone else just has to accept the fact that I'm there. I acutely feel how different I am from everyone else, both faculty and staff.

Not that anything is changing. This is just me spinning my wheels again, finding the problems where they don't exist.

Speaking of: Mom's pace maker was implanted without any incidents, and she is back home again. Her case for valve replacement as part of the clinical trial goes before the review board this week, and her doctor is hoping to schedule her for the procedure before the end of the month. She sounds good but tired, and I have been distracted and disturbed all week by being so far away. Talking on the phone doesn't help that much, and even though I know she would tell me to stay home and take care of my family and my work, I still want to be there, with her.

My u/s report came back OK, I guess. The lymph nodes they saw on the left are gone, replaced by lymph nodes on the right. The catch in my throat when I swallow appears to be the result of scar tissue. I'll ask the ENT about that when I see him in a couple of weeks.

So, it's good. I have to stop thinking past the good to the potential bads lurking behind it.

today & tomorrow

It's the sixth week of school, and some days are heaven and some are... more like today. Today was one of those days when, in a less-than-ideal situation, you find yourself making less-than-ideal choices. And having started down that path, I found myself pushed along it, prevented from taking another by all of the other people around me. Specifically, in dealing with a particularly needy student, all of the other students piling in didn't help, and in those moments, the sense of everything slipping away was quite real.

The reality is, a student who won't work, won't hush, and won't leave the classroom when told to do so leaves me very few choices, and waiting for the dean of students to arrive to escort the student out still leaves my class ground to a halt. There has to be a better way, I just haven't figured it out yet.

Part of what made today difficult was waiting for news about my mom, who was scheduled for a pace maker. And then later un-scheduled, or re-scheduled, as the OR was booked for an emergency, or something. All of this is happening hundreds of miles and 3 times zones away. I feel like an amputee waiting for nerve sensations that literally can't happen.

Tomorrow I'm handing off one of my classes for an appointment with my endocrinologist to get the results of my September 1st ultrasound. I have been vaguely unsettled since then, probably for no good reason, but -- I've had a lot of these ultrasounds. I couldn't see the screen, so I have no idea what the tech was seeing. But I do know what the little tapping noises + beep means: measuring something,and taking an image. The tech measured a lot and took a lot of images. Of what, again, I don't know, but I do know that there was roughly twice as much measuring and beeping as last time. Maybe that's just a personal preference thing with the technicians (although I wouldn't think so.) I see what I'm doing here, which is making myself crazy, and I'm trying not to do that. There's no reason to think I have a recurrence.

I'm going to stick with that thought, at least until tomorrow morning when I find out that there is no recurrence, and that Mom's pace maker is in and she's fine, and we're all as all right as we can be.

here lies the difficulty

I'm finally on antibiotics to rid myself of nasty little sinus infection, but that's not the problem. And I'm on a regular dose of NSAIDS to help calm the (likely) tendonitis in my shoulder, but that's not the problem, either.

The real problem is this sense of wanting, needing, to be in two places at once. Of having way too much time on my hands while at the same having way too much to do.

I haven't figured out how write here, either. There are things I could say when I wasn't working and my children were a lot younger and I could afford, frankly, to sound a bit off. When one is recovering from cancer, people tend to make allowances if you're overly emotional from time to time. But as I continue my fairly convincing impersonation of a healthy person, that sort of thing doesn't fly anymore.

On Talcott Mountain, experimenting with the camera's self-timer

Anyway, summer's almost over and I haven't written a word (here or anywhere else) about last year, or this year's vacations, or anything. I hope to, when I figure out how.

"Everything happened so fast"

I think it's funny that's it's summer again and there's still a post from last summer on the main page. At this time last year I was dealing with intractable headaches and getting my kids ready for summer school. I was still working on my teacher certification courses but in employment limbo. The only thing I knew for sure was that all three kids would be on the same school campus again in the fall, and that freed up the possibility of me working again during the school year.

We took our usual long summer vacation back East.

I got a job teaching 7th and 8th grade general science.

The kids started at their new school.

I switched to Rio Salado's Teacher In Residence program so I could finish my courses without having to do practicums and student teaching in another classroom.

DH's business partner was lost in a freak diving accident.

Mom went on a two-week cruise which was lovely until she came down with some kind of intestinal bug. She spent the last four or five days unable to eat or drink and ended up getting IV fluids. Then she basically didn't eat or drink for several more days and ended up needing two (3?) emergency surgeries for severe dehydration.

At Christmas, we visited with Mom at my brother's in New Orleans for a week, and then spent all the rest of our time off working diligently on all three kids' projects: DS1 built a scale model of a medieval castle, DD did a science project with dry ice, and DS2 did a research report on the Temple of Caesar.

I finished my last class for my teacher certification program.

I survived my first science fair. My RE students all made their sacraments. DS1, DD, and DS2 completed their next levels of the Arizona Study Program and made purple belt with black stripe in karate.

I had my final classroom observations for my teacher certification program.

In the last full week of May, the kids played brilliantly in their graduation recital, DS2 had a chorus concert, my 8th grade students graduated, and DS1 graduated.

School has been out now, for me, a week -- for the kids, that will be tomorrow. I picked up my Institutional Recommendation from Rio and now have my provisional teaching certificate. (That's what the Dept of Ed calls the full certificate the first two years you hold it.) I have a contract to teach next year.

Mom's home, and while she recovered from the effects of the emergency surgery well, she is still not very strong. We're heading out soon to spend the summer with her.

That is, of course, the bare bones. DH took over getting the kids their breakfasts and lunches during the school week, although often DS2 and I made a huge batch of pancakes on Sunday to get them through a big chunk of the week. Grocery shopping became a shared task, too, as DH did errands on the weekend while I was busy with school work. There were a lot of things that happened every week: lesson planning, grading, talking to parents, teaching RE, checking my own kids' homework, piano lessons, karate. More sporadically, thyroid cancer support, although that is really tapering off as more and more people look to social networking sites for their support needs.

It feels as if all this happened to someone else.

4 weeks to go

It's May, suddenly -- and I'm just about through with my first year teaching full-time. I would have to write a book about it to avoid understatement, but I'll settle for more blog posts over the summer when I have time. Extraordinary amounts of time were consumed by lesson planning and grading and things I hadn't even imagined I'd have to do, like moving furniture (don't ask).

I'm really, really looking forward to a true summer off -- from teaching and from my own classes, too. Two more observations and a bit of writing and I'm done! Took me long enough, hmmm?

slogging through

Very, very busy -- so busy we still (still!) haven't sent out the Happy New Year cards we had made up, since we were so busy we missed the window for sending out Christmas cards. Perhaps we'll get them out this weekend.

We've built castles, researched Roman architecture, investigated dry ice, pretty much completely redone DD's room, and took a family trip to New Orleans. Personally, I finally finished my last teacher prep course at Rio Salado, now all I have to do is survive my student teaching gig (through this year) and I'll get my institutional recommendation from Rio, and I should be all set.

I don't think I've ever worked so hard in my life, and given that I used to be a software developer, that's saying something. Next year will be easier, because I'll have all the lesson plans, notes, and materials already. This year, though, I have to write up every content lesson's notes, assemble all the worksheets, make the word walls (thank God for 3M's $30 laminater.) And develop all the quizzes and tests... not to mention the grading. And calling/emailing parents.

As I said, very busy. Looking forward to the upcoming long weekend.

success

At times this year it seemed as if we wouldn't even get the tree up.

whoa

mid-November -- how did we get here?

Anything I say will sound like whining, even if it's meant to be a simple factual statement of what's going on. So, briefly: I'm busy to the point of being overwhelmed. I was holding up OK until last week, when Mom went in for emergency surgery and some other things cropped up, too.

Nothing to be done but pray, and wait, and manage what I can.

flow

Last week was the seventh week of the school year. It amazes me that much time has gone by already -- much of it was a blur. But it was a turning-the-corner week. Even though I don't know why, I won't question it.

I think even though I didn't admit it to myself that the thyroid cancer panel was making me nervous. I had no need to be, Thursday evening was just a very good event. The three doctors spoke knowledgeably, the sizable audience asked great questions, and they all went so late that I didn't have to speak much at all. I said a few words at the end about the group and the work we do, inviting everyone to come for help and support. It was off-the-cuff and quick, but it seemed to fit, and everyone was pleased. Especially me, and not just because it was over.

At school, I'm finally relaxing enough to slow down, and we're trying new things to help improve retention. I am not proud; I make mistakes -- and one big mistake I made was thinking that, in taking their notes, that the students would be getting a fair ways up the learning curve with their content material. Not so, at least not at the pace we were going. Test scores were pretty discouraging, but class averages are still C or above, so it's not a complete disaster.

Still, I'm getting a better handle on discipline and relaxing into the material more. I know the kids a lot better now and am beginning to better understand what they need (as opposed to what I think they need) to actually learn. So we'll keep trying new things, and we'll see how it goes.

As for the post title -- it's a near-mythical state, when work is effortless and everything just ... flows. I hit it nearly every day this week. It's awesome, especially when the majority of the class is there with you. Then the bell rings...

Yeah. I'm still working on time management, but I bought a timer and that's really helping a lot.

Living with Thyroid Cancer

So, in addition to teaching full time now (!), volunteering in my church's religious ed dept, and co-facilitating a monthly thyroid cancer support meeting, I'm on tap later this month to get the patient's perspective on living with thyroid cancer as part of a panel discussion. (whew!) Here are the details, from the official flyer produced by The Cancer Center at Chandler Regional Medical Center:

“Living with Thyroid Cancer”

A Community Event


The Cancer Center at Chandler Regional Medical Center is pleased to host “Living with Thyroid Cancer”, a community educational event where the latest medical information regarding thyroid cancer will be shared by leading experts in the field. We are fortunate to have gathered physicians in the field of thyroid cancer to speak and share information about the latest medical treatment and management of thyroid cancer. In addition, a thyroid cancer survivor will share her experience living with this lesser known, complex disease.

When: September 23, 2010 6-8 pm

Where: The Cancer Center Lobby at Chandler Regional Medical Center
1875 W Frye Rd
Chandler, AZ 85224
(SE corner of Dobson and Frye Rd)
480-459-7342

Target Audience: Anyone interested in learning more about thyroid cancer including current patients, survivors, family members and friends.

Cost of event: FREE

RSVP: Please call ResourceLink at 877-728-5414 or email resourcelink@chw.edu to register (required).


Audience will be provided the opportunity to ask their topic related questions of the physicians during this event. Light refreshments will be served.

--------

Me again. We'll have an endocrinologist, a radiation oncologist, and a head and neck surgeon (and me) speaking and available for questions. I'm already collecting my thoughts and building up the outline of what I'm going to talk about: adjusting to post-thyroidectomy life with a "new normal", tinkering with medications, some common side effects, like salivary gland issues and voice problems... I get 15 minutes, which seems simultaneously infinite and way too short.

summer's gone

Poof! It's over, faster than I could have believed -- I have a job (!!!) and it starts tomorrow. So, before I forget it all, here's the recap of vacation that was, picking up where the last post left off.

Definitely too much sugar.
We went for ice cream at Smitty's Homemade Ice Cream in East Falmouth several times. Their ginger ice cream was fantastic, I only lamented they were out of peach so I couldn't get a ginger-peach combination.

The not-so-big-anymore Rock
We made our annual pilgrimage to Beebe Woods (pdf),but this time made the much longer hike to the Ice House Pond. It was OK, but we decided that next year we'd wear our bathing suits and go swimming in the Punch Bowl instead. The 300 Committee has done a fabulous job making trail maps available.


Waiting for lunch, why not pose for a family photo?
We did rent bikes again, and this time made it all the way to Woods Hole. The Shining Sea Bike Path is spectacular. The only real glitch was that DS1's bike got a flat, but I took it back to the shop and exchanged the bike for another, and then caught up with the family later on. We had a great lunch at Pie in the Sky, then wandered around Woods Hole before biking back. Just a lovely, lovely day all around.

Orphan?
This tiny rabbit hopped across the backyard. He was so small that at first I thought he was a chipmunk. Clearly destined to become some predator's evening snack, this little guy was so clueless he was actually hopping towards us. We scooped him up in the container and dumped him back into the woods near where he had hopped out, hoping he would find his way back to his family. We seem to have some kind of futile baby-animal rescue attempt every other summer or so. We know it's pointless, but we have to do it anyway.


Because everything is hysterical when you haven't had any sleep
We let the kids have a sleepover downstairs. You would think that, since they're spending weeks together, they wouldn't have anything left to talk about into the wee hours of the morning. You would be wrong. DH & I got to sleep upstairs while the kiddos stayed up till all hours, playing Truth or Dare and repeating endless Chuck Norris and Yo' Mama jokes.

Another summer classic: Jump!
I lost track of how many times we went to the beach! It was just enough to have fun, nowhere close to getting sick of it. I finally remembered to take out the camera and get some pictures, including this now-mandatory shot of everyone jumping off the block at Chapaquoit.

Dear friends
I took DH up to Boston so he could catch his flight back home -- sadly, he couldn't vacation as long as we could. We had a fantastic lunch at Erewon of Siam, a Thai restaurant in Waltham -- coincidentally the same restaurant we went to when we were discussing whether or not to move to Arizona, fifteen (!!!) years ago. Absolutely the best pad thai I've ever had. After lunch we drove to Logan and switched the cars, and then DH headed off, and I struck out for Sudbury, to meet my old Marsoft co-workers. It had been a few years since we'd been able to get together, but it never matter with friends as close as these. I think we've known each other for 20 years now.

One of the top sunset spots on the Cape - Chapaquoit Beach
I'm not sure what else was going on this particular day, but we went for a night swim. Maybe this is the day we went to the movies? We went to see Sorcerer's Apprentice because we thought it was going to rain, but it never did. The days are all mixed up now, not that it matters. Anyway, we were all restless so after supper we went to the beach, and it was hands down the most epic night swim ever. There was a wedding party finishing up photographs on the beach, with the incredible sunset and surf behind them -- what a fantastic idea, although luck had a lot to do with it. The water was warm, the tide was very low so there was no problem with anyone being over their heads, and the waves were fine for jumping. An amazing night.

Atop Big Blue
We took two cars up to Canton and hiked up Big Blue -- the red dot trail, which has a few challenging spots, but nothing too difficult, at least for walkers. There were a couple of mountain bikers coming up behind us, and those guys were really an inspiration, they way they muscled over those rocky trails. The weather station at the top was closed, so we came right back down again, and then drove out to Saugus to have lunch at the Hilltop Steakhouse. The kids loved it, and it seemed just the same to me as it was when I was a kid. That was our only trip across the bridge the entire trip, except for to and from the airport.


Pummeled, but loving it
Another beach day, excellent waves again. On this day the kids all decided to let the waves pound them as they lolled in the surf. It did not look like fun to me, but I'm not a kid anymore.

Millstones, etc
My brother took his family to the waterpark in Wareham for the day, so we were on our own. We had a low-key day, a visit to Spohr Gardens, and then a trip to Mashpee Commons to get a snack at Cupcake Charlies, featured on Cupcake Wars, one of the reasons why DD is obsessed with cupcakes recently:

Yum
That's a red velvet (DS1), a chocolate cupcake made to look like a Hostess cupcake with a cute name I can't remember (DS2), a peanut butter chocolate cupcake (DD), and a lemon drop for me. They were delicious, and as is usually the case with cupcakes, left us wanting more.


Hiding from the rain
I wanted to take all the kids on the Discovery oceanography cruise, so we piled in the beach car and drove into Falmouth, then took the Whoosh down to Woods Hole. We had lunch at Pie in the Sky, and while we were there, the sprinkles became light rain became heavier rain, and our trip was cancelled. We were disappointed because it wasn't really raining that hard, but everyone else had backed out, and there weren't enough passengers left to take the boat out. I put the boys back on the bus to town after arranging for a pick up for them, and the girls and I checked out the shops and galleries, and got a coffee at CO2 (the second Coffee Obsession) before we headed back ourselves.

There's no such thing as too much cream cheese frosting
DD had been talking about making red velvet cupcakes literally for weeks, and I was fortunate to find the no-taste red food coloring at Wal-Mart. They came out fantastic, and disappeared within 2 days.

Wing's Island
The Louisiana Contingent left, and the kids were at loose ends with themselves. We drove to Brewster in surprisingly light traffic, and visited the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History, which is charming. But even more charming was the easy, beautiful trail hike across Wing's Island. I wish they had been in a better mood, but they were more up for lunch at Kate's Seafood than the hike. Me, I liked them both just fine.

Early sign of fall's approach
Oftentimes the hips are more beautiful than the roses, to me.


Last beach day
The day before we left, I practically had to drag the kids to the beach. They were spent, especially since we had already visited my friend R's beach for a long afternoon just the day before. But when we got there, all that resistance was forgotten -- the waves were huge! My sister was with us, and we had a blast. I treated the kids to one last splurge from the ice cream truck, and no one wanted to leave.


Sand, sea, sky

Of course there was a lot we did that's not shown here, but really, this will be plenty to stir the memories. Tomorrow I dive into the new job -- by this time next week, my first day as a full-time teacher will be over!

on Cape

Arrived Wednesday, had ridiculously delicious fried seafood at McMenamy's. Put the screen door in the kitchen door and marginally improved the air flow upstairs -- the house was like a hot box. No air conditioning! Yikes. We all slept down in the basement that night, it was too hot to sleep upstairs.

Thursday was getting settled in, and beach in the afternoon. Friday was spider patrol (downstairs), shopping, laundry, and beach in the afternoon. Saturday I was up early and raked the side yard, and it was nice when my oldest sister came down early and kept me company, and convinced me to use the tarp to drag the leaves into the woods instead of raking them down. Then I did spider patrol (upstairs) and a lot of other straightening-up things because there was a party: a bridal shower for my nephew's fiancee. It was a nice, low-key affair.

Three sisters

My older sister came a little late, after work, but stayed much later. I had great visits with both of them.

Today I was up early with DH -- he went to play with golf with one of my brothers. I decided to make blueberry cake as the rest of the house slept. It was a generally lazy day but in the afternoon we went into town and rented bikes, and hit the Shining Sea bike path.

It was gorgeous.



We just got the bikes for an hour, a sort of trial run -- DS2 has just learned to ride, and DS1 was very reluctant (if not downright negative). Still, we all survived, and for the most part had fun -- I hope we get to do it again.

recapping CT

Absolutely breathtaking -- second place winner
Blue Ascension, Robert Noreika, Rocky Hill, Ct

We just got in from an after-dinner trip for ice cream to Bloom Hill Farm, where a small (small?!) dish of Reese's Madness more than satisfied the chocolate/peanut butter lover in me. We're heading to the Cape tomorrow, and the kids noted that "we've only been there once this year," so of course we scheduled it in.

This has been a pretty busy week, with a special focus - but here it is in a nutshell.

We arrived late Tuesday after a long and uneventful travel day. Perhaps the only thing of note is that National Car Rental service does not automatically include your husband/wife on your rental contract, as most (all?) of the other companies do. If you wish to be listed as a driver, it's an additional $10/day. I wasn't happy to find this out at the counter when we were picking up our car. I didn't yell or anything, but I guess I was sufficiently annoyed ("Well, hon, I guess you're driving, and we're never renting from National again...") that they waived the fee and enrolled us in their Emerald Club for free. I didn't ask for or expect anything and I certainly wasn't making a scene, they just proactively handled it.

Wednesday we had a bit of a late start, not surprising due to jet lag and general inertia, but DH and I took off for our annual trip to Mystic. On the way down we stopped at Saltwater Farm Vineyard, new this year and just delightful.

The hangar/winery and vineyards at Saltwater Farm Vineyard

We found Mystic as lovely as ever, with The Mermaid Inn as welcoming and stuffed full of delicious offerings as we could ever want. This did not prevent us, of course, from going to dinner at the S&P, where we enjoyed the splendid views and even more splendid seafood.

S&P Oyster Co, our dinner spot

The gazebo at The Mermaid Inn

After our three course breakfast in the morning, featuring the world's best granola and absolutely insane pecan-encrusted Challa french toast, we ambled into Mystic to peep at all the beautiful things in The Company of Craftsmen, which is my favorite store in the entire world, and to view the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts juried art exhibition at the Mystic Arts Center. We love that our annual visit coincides with this exhibition every year -- there are always extraordinary pieces to see.

Just one of the pieces I wish I could've bought

When we finally tore ourselves away from Mystic, we went straight to Maugle Sierra Vineyard, our favorite from last year and still deserving of that spot for their delicious and reasonably priced wines. From there, stops for lunch and shopping and finally back to the in-laws.

Friday was a lazy day until we realized that a huge heat wave was coming in, so we rousted the kids out and climbed Talcott Mountain again. It's a great afternoon hike, and the weather was perfect.

Heublein Tower, looking gorgeous as usual

Friday afternoon I piled (nearly) all the girls into the rental car to go see a matinee of Eclipse... my excuse: it's a cultural thing. How can we criticize it if we haven't seen it? Besides, I enjoyed the humor they injected this time around, and the fight scenes were much better. Friday night everyone went to hear the concert and see the fireworks at Talcott Mountain. The kids loved it, it was the first real fireworks show they had ever seen in person.

Saturday, we moved into full swing for the big 50th Anniversary party. DH's brother and his family had arrived from OH while we were away, so the house was full and we had plenty of help, tucking away all of the travelers' things in various closets and backrooms, dusting, vacuuming, and all the usual flurry of activity that precedes a big event.

The party was wonderful, with a big white tent and tables set up in their gorgeous backyard. The weather was very hot but fortunately the humidity held off, and the party was in the evening so the temps were moderate by then. We all feasted on lobster catered by Clambake Connection and enjoyed seeing all the friends and family. I took very few photos and won't bother posting any that I did take -- just a few of the kids and their uncles playing double ladderball while waiting for the guests to arrive. DH had prepared a really touching speech and delivered it beautifully -- not many dry eyes in the crowd! His parents were really pleased.

After the party, all the girls descended on the kitchen while the guys broke down the tables and chairs outside. There were an extraordinary amount of lobsters left over, along with huge trays of steamers and mussels, corn on the cob, and watermelon. The shellfish was all shelled while the corn and watermelon were cut from their cobs/rinds for easier storage. Many hands made light work.

That was Sunday, and ever since we've been in a bit of a daze. The OH folks headed out Monday, and the rest of us lounged around and went for dinner at DH's brother's place. Today was another low-energy day, reinforced by the nearly 100-degree weather. It was simply too hot to do anything outside. This afternoon we caught a double feature at the Connecticut Science Center's 3D theater, Wild Ocean, which was only slightly preachy, and Dinosaurs Alive!, a really neat overview of current work in paleontology, with nifty CGI dinosaurs. We were surprised to see feathered velociraptors and coelophysus, along with nimble postosuchus, which Walking with Dinosaurs had depicted as clumsy and slow. It's really interesting how much the thinking has changed in just a decade.

Tomorrow: packing, and driving to the Cape, and cooler temperatures, but not so cool that we can't go to the beach!

things work out

I set myself a task of "getting the word out" about ThyCa East Valley while the kids spent their mornings at school. I admit to some procrastination about it, but finally this week I put together folders with samples of the patient pamphlets we provide, the Low Iodine diet guidelines, the resource list, plus ThyCa cards and several of my own business cards. I used MapQuest, Google Maps, and my own insurance company's list of endocrinologists in the East Valley, and mapped out a route that took me to all their offices so I could drop off the packet and ask them to let their patients know we exist.

The first day's driving around taught me I need to do due diligence before I start driving around. Some doctors have moved their practices, one seems to have completely evaporated -- and two addresses I accidentally put in Chandler when they were really in Mesa, which didn't help.

Eventually I got around to everyone that's still here, leaving Banner Baywood, the farthest out, for Friday. Banner Desert has a Cancer Center, and I met the ACS rep who works there -- she was delighted to get the information. I learned in one of my (long) drives that Banner Gateway doesn't have a cancer center - yet -- they're building one in partnership with my old friends, M. D. Anderson, that will open in Fall 2011. So before heading out to Banner Baywood, I checked it out on the web, which really gave me the impression that they had cancer services similar to those at Banner Desert.

The reality is, there is no Cancer Center nor are there Cancer Navigators or any other care providers specifically dedicated to cancer support at Banner Baywood, or if there are, no one at Banner Baywood knows they exist, including the people at two different information desks and in the HR department. I ended up leaving my information for the oncology data services guy, who for some reason was out of his office, but the staff that was there thought he was the closest to what I was looking for.

That was frustrating, and the frustration continued when I tried to locate the doctors that both the online directories and my insurance insisted had practices and offices at Banner Baywood: one doesn't exist, one is a cardiologist, who for some reason is showing up in various directories as an endocrinologist.

In all, I spent more than a half an hour there being bounced from office to office only to find out that there really wasn't anyone there for whom my information was in any way useful.

Except...

The signage at the hospital is not as clear as some I have been in. The first door I entered, I thought it was the main entrance, but it was in fact outpatient registration. The woman at the desk referred me to another woman in the office around the corner; she was helpful, calling HR to see if they had any information that could help me. As she spoke on the phone, I noticed she had a tiny little scar below her throat, from a fairly recent surgery. After I thanked her, I asked her if she didn't mind, would she tell me about her scar?

She had thyroid cancer, and was about to go for RAI. She had never heard of ThyCa, and never talked to anyone about what to expect from her disease or how to manage it. I gave her my card and encouraged her to check out the ThyCa website and to call me if she had any questions or just wanted to talk. She took my card and placed it very carefully in her wallet.

I ask, "What are the odds?" but I don't think odds comes into it, with something like this. There was no reason for me to walk in that particular door -- it was, in fact, a mistake. There was no real reason for the first woman at the desk to refer me to the second woman, either -- she should have sent me to the main information desk, which was one entrance over. But I did go in that door, and I was referred to the second woman, and I noticed her scar, and gave her my card.

An hour on the road, another 30+ minutes wandering around, redeemed.

no.

Amitriptyline helped the headache, but put me in a permanently pissed-off state. Plus, my throat is absolutely killing me -- the drug intensified my relatively mild dry mouth problems to the point where I have no saliva to swallow. Ick.

Very pleased, though, with the neuro's office. I called at 10AM and explained the situation, got a call back at 1PM with orders to discontinue, and a new prescription was phoned in -- we're giving Depakote ER a try, we'll see how that goes.

as usual

Every test came back normal. That's good news, of course, but frustrating since I don't feel well.

Today is my first day on amitriptyline. It's supposed to prevent the headaches, which the neuro is convinced are migraines. It's main use is as an anti-depressant, but off-label use as a migraine preventive goes back at least 10 years.

Main side effects: drowsiness and dry mouth -- check and check. I took it at about 10PM last night, hoping to abate morning drowsiness. I got up with the kids at 6:30 and got them off to school, and promptly fell asleep on the couch from 8:30 to 10. It didn't really help that much, I still feel background fatigue. I'm also grouchy but that could just be because I'm irritated that there's nothing "officially" wrong and that doesn't align with what I'm experiencing.

Apparently it takes about a month for the amitriptyline to actually do anything regarding preventing the headache. We'll see if I last that long with it.