front yard 2014 - mulch project

Three shifts of about 3 hours each, with 2 kids helping today, and we have...

 The center planter relatively weed-free, irises significantly thinned, and a skim layer of mulch.  We had three bags left so that's what it got.  One more bag would've been OK, but not strictly necessary.

 These two are the biggest bed in front of the house.  Took out most of the irises here (I know they'll be back...) along with everything else that's not supposed to be there.  This year, I layered newspaper under the mulch to try and keep the weeds down.  The mulch is very thick here; this planter took six bags.  I transplanted a bleeding heart and some hydrangea volunteers to the empty space by the stairs, but I have no expectations there.  If they live, they live.  I should be able to tell by the end of our stay here.

Last, the pathetic little bed on the other side of the house.  Took out all of the irises that were basically a big weedy mess (again, they'll be back...) pruned the azalea and the hydrangea, and layered newspaper under the mulch.  This bed took three bags and it is quite thick. 

Here is a close up of the new hydrangea reviving itself.   Just to the left of it is the little rose bush I discovered during my clean up.  There's one bud slowly opening now -- we may get a flower yet if it doesn't get eaten by a squirrel.

Now that the front beds are done, I'm contemplating what else is strictly necessary.  The side yards are a mess, and the back is covered with leaves.  I'm seriously thinking about having a yard cleanup company come in and do it -- it's basically raking and mowing, now that the beds are done.  If my kids were more ambitious I'd have them do it, but that's not likely.   We'll see.

_vacation_

It's 10:20-ish PM, and I'm simultaneously exhausted but also contemplating doing the 7-minute workout I haven't done since I got here, Mom's house, midday Wednesday.

We flew in on a red eye, landing in Boston at 8ish.  I thought that I could nap for a bit, and then I'd be in the East Coast time groove.  That didn't work, partly because I didn't nap but also because by the time I go to bed, my body is rejecting my exhaustion and refusing to let me sleep because let's face it, 9PM is never my bedtime.

In the best news so far this week (and hey, it's Friday), the raised-and-growing mole I had removed on Monday (thanks to the dermatologists who let me take an appointment someone else cancelled) came back benign.  *whew*  One should never read the Melanoma Education Foundation website when you are covered with weird spots and have been your whole life.  It's terrifying.  This particular mole I noticed but didn't worry about because it was colorless, but then I read this page and realized I shouldn't be so casual about a mole with EFG characteristics.  It's a good week when you find out you don't have melanoma.

At the same time, I have this big chunk shaved off just under my sternum, which is a really irritating place to have a wound like that.

Most of the last three days has been helping Mom manage her medical stuff and feeding my family, with brief sojourns for random other shopping.  Yesterday was rainy but today was cool and clear, a good day for a hike but I spent most of it with my mother at the hospital for appointments that should have been about an hour combined but stretched out into three.

The deck is clear of those for now, so I'll have time to work on the yard.

This was at the end of May.  Presently, it resembles a jungle.

 

It needs work, but for once we don't have any big family events planned, so I can take my time and figure out a plan of attack.

This year, I'm going to using newspaper mulch and see if it can keep the yucca from popping up again in the front flower beds.  I need to mulch this year anyway.

end of an era

I deleted my hosting accounts and released the domain names of the websites I've had for more than a decade.  Less than ten minutes time to undo all that work.  Not really, of course I have backups -- but now no one can see that content except me, unless I put it back up somewhere else. 

I'd been thinking about this for a while, and then received an email from my hosting company that some of my files had been infected with malicious scripts.  How ridiculous,  I thought -- what's the point of infecting dead sites?  But I also realized that I didn't want to take the trouble of cleaning up that mess, so: motivation to just delete them all.

Lots of thoughts -- should've done this a long time ago.  Mostly trying to figure out if this is sad, but not really feeling much of anything.  All of that happened so long ago, before I got into teaching and decided to go that way. It's from a different life, but I find myself strangely nostalgia-free.

Perhaps it's because I've applied to that master's program at NAU for the fall semester and have too much future to think about. 

best vacation ever! (so far)

Better write it down before I forget...

First of all, DH started planning this trip around the beginning of the year some time.  There were many times when I thought he was spending too much time on it, but he always said he was enjoying it and wanted to do it.  I was so swamped during the school year that I was no help at all, but when I was finally finished and got to dive in, I finally understood.

Disney World is about the size of San Francisco -- and growing.  You cannot just show up and wing it when you have 3 teenagers traveling with you who expect to do things like eat and sleep on a regular basis.  If you're traveling without kids, you could probably get away with much less planning, since reservations for 2 for dinner are relatively easy to get, or you could often eat at the bar of the nicer restaurants. You absolutely cannot make a dinner reservation for 5 people at the desirable restaurants during normal dinner hours the same day or the day before, unless you're very lucky.  So we didn't trust to luck, except on the last day, and that's not something I would repeat.

My school year ended a week before the kids', so I had time to shop for things to eat for breakfast in the room (protein bars, beef jerky, half-n-half for the coffee), emergency rain ponchos (less than a dollar at Wal-Mart, much more expensive in FL), and everything else we needed.  Two of the best things we brought were body glide, kind of like wax that you could use on your heels or any place that was chafing to prevent blisters or rashes, and moleskin to help prevent blisters from forming in places where the glide wasn't doing the trick.  One thing we wished we had with us was a decent pair of scissors to cut the moleskin; we ended up borrowing a pair from the concierge desk, and they were adequate but just barely.

One thing I brought that DH and I liked but the kids did not were chill ties.  They look like bandanas, but they are tubes filled with a water-absorbing material.  You wet them in cold water and tie them around your neck, and they keep you cool.  We only ended up using them the first day in Epcot, which was brutally hot and sunny (World No-Shade is my nickname for World Showcase).  They do work, but the kids thought they should work better and so they gave up on them after a while.  I appreciated having it, but on other days went without because it was more overcast and/or I was going on rides where I got wet, so I didn't need it as much.

We stayed at the Port Orleans - Riverside resort.  The grounds were beautiful; I was completely in love with the lush landscaping and all the cypress and magnolia trees.

One of the great things about the resort is it felt quiet even though it was absolutely packed. There was noise by the pool, but we were far enough away that we couldn't hear it.   We had about a 5 minute walk to the lobby and the bus stops, and I enjoyed those walks to and from our rooms as much as anything else.  It was so well-cared for, and all I had to do was enjoy it!

We had a lot of family time, and miraculously, there were no fights or shouting matches.  We wisely booked two rooms or we all would've been ready to kill each other.  There were some rolled eyes and meaningful sighs but for the most part, everyone remained positive.  I warned the kids before we left that a bad attitude was not going to be tolerated. They didn't have to like everything, but they certainly did not have complain about it and ruin everyone else's time.   There were times when they chose to do their own thing, and that was fine, too -- they are all old enough to get around on their own, especially with the Magic Bands.

These are awesome.  They work as your door key, your park ticket, your Fast Pass+,  and you can charge things to your room with them, also.  We had a tiny hiccup the first day when we weren't able to charge things to the room with it, but after that they were reliable, easy to use, and most important, very hard to misplace.  They are not uncomfortable, but if you're not used to wearing something on your wrist they will feel weird at first.

Ah, the parks.  We did two days each at Epcot, Magic Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios, and 1 day at Animal Kingdom.  The last day, we did Animal Kingdom in the morning first thing, then Epcot for rides and lunch, and then Magic Kingdom after supper!  The boys were too tired but DH, DD and I made it back for one last set of rides before our early flight out the next day.

We did Epcot the first day, and I did something I'd been wanting to do for a while:

I got a henna tattoo in Morocco.  DH told me that it's traditional for brides to get these tattoos for their weddings, and they're not allowed to work until they fade.  The woman who drew mine said it would last from 7-10 days, and that was accurate.  There wasn't much left by the time we got home.

"The Brick", DS2's test track car design.

At Epcot, we all loved Mission Space: Orange (my favorite ride of all) and Test Track, although the latter scared the heck out of me the first time I rode it, since it was at night and dark on the really fast part of the track.  I discovered that I can enjoy fast rides if I can see where I'm going, otherwise I get whipped around too much (since I can't brace myself) and end up hurting my neck (which is why one ride on Space Mountain was enough for me).  We also liked Spaceship Earth, Living with the Land, and of course, Soaring, which is identical to the one in California Adventure and is just awesome.  We had a last look at Captain Eo, describing it to DS2 thus: "Star Wars plus muppets and pop music, with Michael Jackson."  (He agreed that is an accurate assessment after he saw it.) The word is that theater space is going to be re-purposed, so the captain is being permanently retired.  

We also really enjoyed World Showcase, even if we didn't do much shopping.  I think we saw all the movies and did all the rides, but that's probably not true since I didn't even check out Morocco or Italy. We did love the food, though!  DD and I had lunch in France both days we were there, we liked it so much, and we used our extra snack credits at the bakery there to get delicious things to eat on the plane ride home -- I don't think I've ever enjoyed a chocolate almond croissant as much!  We wanted to eat at Norway but the current insane popularity of  Frozen nixed that idea, since every meal there was a character meal with Princesses Anna and Elsa. Lines for hours, no way to make a reservation for a meal that wasn't a character meal -- and thankfully all the kids are way too old for that.

We did see the fireworks at Epcot the first night we were there, after a great dinner at Chef du France with more family!  One of my brothers was there with his wife and son, and one of my nephews was there with his girlfriend, so the 10 of us had a wonderful time.  That was our first day and it made it even more special. 

I loved Animal Kingdom, it's gorgeous just to walk around, but there weren't that many rides there we were interested in.  Expedition Everest is too much for me, but DH and DD loved it.  The boys and I liked the Dinosaur! ride and enjoyed the Finding Nemo show, which had amazing puppetry. It would be nice if they could make the shows just a little longer -- they squish them down to 30 minutes, which means they have to leave a lot out; just an extra 10 or 15 minutes could add some coherence to the narratives so if anyone in the audience didn't know the story (ha!) they could make sense of what was going on.   The first thing we did at Animal Kingdom was the safari ride, which was excellent but I'm not good enough with my phone's camera to do it justice. Here's a baobab tree, looking pretty much exactly the way it did on the Little Prince's planet:

The road was very bumpy and the bus was moving pretty much the entire time.  Not an easy photography shoot for me, anyway!  DH got much better photos.    The cool thing about Animal Kingdom is they have a couple of different walking trails where you can see the animals at a more leisurely pace.  It was feeding time for the meerkats when we got there:

 

We saw dozens of other animals, most of which I didn't photograph adequately or at all.  Our only disappointment at Animal Kingdom was the Cali River Rapids, which, while fun, seem like less than half as long as the rapids in California Adventure, which is my favorite ride in that park.  We once went on it 4 times in a row, it's such a blast.  The rapids at Animal Kingdom served mostly to get everyone soaked, which was OK because it was very hot out, so being wet helped.  ( I wore a poncho but the hood got pushed back, so a lot of water went down my back - better than the front!)

But we all figured that once was enough for that ride.

At Hollywood Studios,  DH and DD took off to do Tower of Terror and Rock-n-Roller Coaster, neither of which interested the boys or me.  So we did Toy Story Mania and saw the documentary about Walt Disney's vision and the history of the parks, plus we did the backlot tours and watched the stunt shows.  DS2's favorite (it was very well done) was Lights Motor Action!, the stunt car show.  I used the pano feature on my camera for the first time and it worked out pretty well:

Star Tours is at Hollywood Studios in Florida instead of in Magic Kingdom's Tomorrowland as it is in California.  The changes to the ride mean that your odds of having exactly the same trip twice are very small.  I think we went on it four times and had a good mix of beginnings, middles, and endings, and all of them were really fun, even though none of us got to be the rebel spy. We all really enjoyed the American Idol Experience (we saw the finale show, with four excellent singers) and Fantasmic!, which I confess made me choke up a bit.  We had awesome seats because we had made lunch/show reservations at Mama Melrose's -- we would have preferred dinner, but there were no times available!

Finally, Magic Kingdom, which was the favorite for all of us.  There are just so many great rides - Peter Pan, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Splash Mountain, Space Mountain, Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean... I will confess that I like California's Magic Kingdom better, but that may be because all the times I was there, it was not under construction, and also because they have both Winnie-the-Pooh and Mr Toad's Wild Ride, which is sadly absent from MK in FL. Also, I really like how Magic Kingdom in laid out in CA, with New Orleans housing Haunted Mansion and Pirates, with Thunder Mountain just on the outskirts.  It seems more compact, while Magic Kingdom in FL seemed very disjointed to me.  We were there when the 7 Dwarves' Mine Train ride opened, but couldn't get anywhere near it.  The lines were never less than 90 minutes (even right at opening, it started with a 30-40 minute line), and the fastpasses were all gone already, so we didn't even try for it.

We did a number of old-time attractions and were fairly stunned by the Country Bear Jamboree, which we hadn't seen before.  What was up with that "blood on the sand" song?!  But we all still loved the Jungle Cruise and I did the Enchanted Tiki Room while everyone else was at Space Mountain (I think).  DD and I made an effort to see the Electric Light Parade and the Wishes show, both of which we enjoyed very much.  The boys weren't interested, so we left them to their own devices.  When we went back the last night, the Electric Light Parade was just starting and DS1 couldn't take it, so he bailed out with his brother and went back to the room.

You may hear talk of a snack called a Dole Whip.  It's basically orange juice or pineapple juice somehow perfectly transmuted into soft serve ice cream.  It's amazing, and I suspect it's nearly dairy-free because I ate it and it didn't make me sick.  Delicious and refreshing and worth waiting in the line for.

Delicious... overall the food we had was excellent.  The two favorites were Flying Fish and Cat Cora's Kouzzina, both on the boardwalk, and so kind of a pain to get to, but yummy.  Flying Fish was 2 dinner credits per person and while it was awesome I'm not convinced it was that awesome, because my whole snapper at Kouzzina was divine:

Now the kids are encouraging me to learn to cook Greek food, at least this dish and pastichio.  Also baclava,but I think if  you buy the phyllo dough that's not too bad.

We had sit-down dinners every day (Mama Melrose's was at lunchtime), and ate at: Chefs du France, Whispering Canyon, Boma Flavors of Africa buffet, Kouzzina, Flying Fish, Raglan Road, and Wolfgang Puck's Grand Cafe.  The last was the most disappointing, both in terms of service and food, and that was our last night there, so it was sad that we didn't end on a high note.  Everywhere else  the food and the service were excellent.

About Boma: if you're with someone with a food allergy, be very careful at the buffet.  DS1 accidentally ate a pistachio from the nut-crusted salmon which was at the same table as the carving station; he thinks nuts might have fallen into one of the sauces he took.  We ended up spending 4 hours in the emergency room, but the staff at the Animal Kingdom Lodge were wonderful about getting us transportation, and the Celebration Hospital quickly admitted him and got him treatment, to which he responded right away.  His breathing was never compromised but he did have brutal hives everywhere and he did throw up a few times...in the cab on the way to the hospital.  He was mortified, but I tipped the driver basically all the cash I had to try and compensate him for his troubles.  Fortunately he had those floor coverings that 1) catch spills and 2) you can just hose off, but still, it wasn't fun.  

The hospital was beautiful, and I asked the cabdriver who took us back how old it was, expecting him to tell me it was only a year or two old.  He told me it had been there at least 20 years, but it was managed by Disney.  No surprise that it should be so well-appointed and have such excellent staff.

Last but not least, a word for Mary, Queen of the Universe Shrine where we attended mass on Sunday evening.  The shrine was built for all the tourists, and the mass was well-attended.  The cantor had a gorgeous voice, and it was a lovely mass.  I don't think the kids have ever been in a real cathedral before.  It's funny, because I hear "shrine" and I automatically think "tiny", but this was an actual cathedral with gorgeous stained glass and other artwork.  We didn't get to see the JPII rosary garden because it was pouring rain, but I got a decent photo of the rose window:

We were home for mass the next Sunday, so only attended once.  Other than the trip to the ER, this was the only time we went "off campus" during the entire trip, but the cabdriver (amazing fonts of information, these Florida cabbies) told us that Disney had donated substantially so it could be built.  Again, no surprise. 

If only our government were as well-managed as Disney... I am in awe of how they continue to scale up, enormously, and yet maintain their standards.  Oh, sure, occasionally you'll see a cast member who isn't cheerful, but for the most part? You don't.  Everyone's on board with the mission, and since the mission is to make sure that the guests are happy, pretty much everything goes well.  I love it especially because it shows that it can be done.  We don't have settle for less-than-adequate, or even merely adequate.  Identify and solve problems before they happen.  Do the work, reap the rewards.

last day

We're down to our last few conscious hours in Disney World, after 7+ very full days here, like today. We arrived at Animal Kingdom before it opened (just), then trekked over to Epcot for space missions, test track, and international cuisine, then back to the hotel to pack and rest up.  Pretty soon we'll head out to Downtown Disney for dinner, then it will be Magic Kingdom for our last rides of the vacation, but that will be painless: we've saved up our FastPasses - only 3 a day now, and all must be at one park - for tonight.

DH spent so many hours planning this trip that I wondered what could possibly be taking so long, but now that it's over, I appreciate every minute even more.  We had the shortest walks and the most minimal wait times, and got to ride every single ride we wanted.  Well, except for the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, which just opened, and for which FastPasses are un-gettable.  We just don't see the point in waiting 90 minutes for a 3-minute kids' rollercoaster ride.

Our stay in the Port Orleans Resort has been lovely.  The magnolias are blooming and lush green surrounds you everywhere outside. It will be hard to leave (especially as our pick up is at 4:30AM!).

 More, with photos, from home.

retirement, of a sort

This evening was my last RE class, possibly ever, certainly this academic year.  DD came along to help, and one student's mom stayed too, so tonight's class was easier than most have been, this year. 

I've done enough of these end-of-the-year-pizza-party classes to know exactly how to handle it, so there weren't any problems, and now I'm done. 

That looks very low key, that one word, "done", when in reality, I'm doing the Snoopy happy dance in my head and mentally rejoicing that it's over.  Then I feel a twinge or two of guilt that I should be so delighted (the most apt word) to be finished, then I swing back towards letting myself enjoy it. 

Funny thing is, we finished everything I wanted to do this year, even though I scaled back my expectations substantially.  Some of the work requirements for the students were revised this year by the RE department, and that made things easier for me, sure.  Earlier I had a sense of futility, that none of the students were learning anything, but today I realized that we did cover what I had said we would, and most of them actually had fun doing it.

Next year, I expect to be in grad school, and won't have my own class.  I did toss out the idea of being on call to substitute, so I won't be out of the system entirely.  But dropping in for an hour or two here or there is a lot different from being responsible for a class's formation.  

Yesterday I filed my last set of lesson plans for this school year and finished up my grading.  The next assessment I'll have to grade is my students' final exams.  After struggling to keep afloat since August, I'm ecstatic that I can actually relax after school for these next few weeks.   It's nice to finally have some breathing room.

it's all about the texture

Had a meeting this evening at school, then piano lessons, so finally home at 8:30PM and starving, since my protein style In-n-Out burger was consumed at about 5:15PM.  The kids had bought themselves some frozen yogurt which put me in the mood for something frozen, but not dairy.  Today was a little better on the arthritis front, but my rings still wouldn't go on, so I have to stick to clean eating.

So:  1 frozen banana (peeled), 1 tablespoon of peanut butter, and a good shot of chocolate syrup in the  small food processor yielded the most awesome chocolate peanut butter banana "ice cream" ever.  Tasted awesome, perfect mouth feel, like very rich soft serve or frozen custard. 

Have to remember to keep a supply of frozen bananas on hand, now.  I wonder if I make a bigger batch and freeze it, will it maintain that delightful texture?  That might be dangerous.  If I have more around, I'll end up eating more, and even though there's nothing inherently bad there (OK, there's some sugar in the chocolate syrup, but I didn't use that much), I still can't go eating hundreds of calories of frosty treats every night without there being consequences.

coasting

Only 3 more weeks of school after this one.  I have literally no new lessons to plan -- just review sessions next week, then finals, then it's the last week of school when we'll just do fun things.  Tonight, with all my lessons prepped through the week and all my grades up-to-date, I realized I didn't actually have to do anything school-related, and it was a nice surprise.

It's odd how something you already know can be a surprise, but it was, nevertheless.  I'm so used to plopping down on the couch with my laptop and putting in at least an hour or two (if not 3 or 4) hours of work, just to keep up and make sure my weekends had some free time.  That's not going to be a problem for the foreseeable future.

Eating has been exceptionally good in one way and bad in another, lately.  The weekend before last, DH and I had a lovely dinner al fresco at Postino, consisting entirely of a bottle of good zinfandel and various bruschettas and meats and cheeses and other things to nibble on.  Plus, really good coffee to finish.  It was all so delicious, I wanted to re-create it at home, and have, twice, brought home really good bread and sliced it up and had bruschetta for dinner again, out on our patio.  Delightful.  Except after Easter's eating many things I know I shouldn't, I'm paying for it.

Yesterday my wedding rings sliced open my finger, so I can't wear them on my left hand anymore until it heals.  (Too much cleaning and cooking, and washing dishes, without wearing gloves, which I hate...)  This morning I couldn't even get the rings on my right hand, so I wore them on a chain instead.  If swollen hands were the worst of it, it wouldn't be so bad, but the swelling has companions that are more painful, like creaky joints and aching muscles and overall fatigue even though I've been getting decent sleep.

Here's hoping a few days of clean eating will tamp down this flare.  I hate being reminded I have arthritis. I can cheat for a day, or maybe 2, but I can't ever be the person who eats wheat and dairy every day without major consequences.

Segue... I also hate being reminded that I have cancer, but that didn't stop me from signing up for a research study involving patients with metastatic thyroid cancer.  My "homework assignment" was to create a timeline of significant events and describe how I felt at each step, which was excruciating.  I felt like I had to unpack everything that had ever happened and try to make a coherent story out of it.  By this point, it seems both interminably boring and utterly weird to me.  The actual study was an hour interview (well, we went 90 minutes) about my experience.  It was easy for me to talk about it because I have a lot of practice at it.  I hope it's helpful.

In a way, it's good that I don't have much after school work these days, because we have many, many after school and evening events scheduled.  It's a bit crazy, but good.  I was a bit wound up (actually, depressed) by the work I had to for the research study, but now that it's over, and I had a massively productive Easter weekend, I am better. 

I know what caused that little tail-spin, and I'm glad I was able to get out of it once the study was finished.  I have been so anxious about this latest recurrence that I think it helped to wade deeply into the thyroid cancer swamp and live there for a while.  Now I can wade out again, thinking, that has nothing to do with me right now.   I'll go for my whole body scan in October, and we'll see what's up.

A couple of things to mention here, just to have some way to keep track of them.  I had a random nosebleed on April 8, and ever since then, I've felt that sinus passage is congested or partially blocked.  I've done sinus rinses but they don't make a difference.  I'm thinking I should probably get that looked at, if it doesn't resolve soon.  Also, I'm having my usual ovarian cyst symptoms, and have been for at least a month now, but I'm so irritated by the process -- go to the gyn, get a referral, get an ultrasound, wait a week, get the results, by which time my symptoms have been resolved for 3 weeks -- grrrr.  So I'll just wait it out, even though I feel bloated and have several other classic symptoms of ovarian cancer.  I don't have the time or energy to pursue it now, so if it's still bothering me in 3 weeks when school is out, then I'll make some calls.

Other than that?  My biggest problem is that my laptop usually doesn't connect to the internet when I wake it up, which fades to such insignificance that it is not a problem at all.

negotiated settlement

So after all this time, the nurse-manager of my endo's office finally called.  The MRI was denied, of course. I imagine the doctor throwing up her hands in frustrations (she's wonderfully expressive). The insurance company would approve a whole body scan now, but not Thyrogen, so I'd have to withdraw from my thyroid meds for 6 weeks or so.  The last time I did that, I was post-thyroidectomy, and it took me literally months to recover.  Plus, we have summer plans made and paid for, and a low-iodine diet and a nuclear scan would seriously get in the way.

I was able to move my next scan to October, though.  That means I can do the LID and get the scan during my fall break instead of over Christmas, because having to do the low-iodine diet over the holidays is just cruel.

It was hard to think about this situation again after shelving it for so many weeks.  It was hard to decide not to go ahead with the scan, too -- what if something horrible is happening and kills me because I decided to put off the scan for 6 months?  I scoff ("die-with", not "die-of" disease, remember) but at the same time, it bothers me.

In the rest of my life, things proceed apace.  I love my job, which of course has its blips but overall is so vastly improved over my last job that comparisons fail.  Apples, oranges, etc.  The kids' spring recital is this weekend, and they're all very well-prepared so I'm actually looking forward to it.   Next week, my students have their state standardized tests, so I basically have a week of baby-sitting which will give me a change to relax.  Even though I love my job, I'm still burnt out.  It's just too much, what with the vocabulary, website updates, notes, powerpoints, labs, handouts, etc.  But then after the tests, there are 2 weeks of instruction, then review for finals, finals week, and promotion week, then summer!

forget it, for now

Insurance company denied the appeal.  Endo decided, OK, we'll settle for an MRI.  The MRI was also denied.  Whatever.  I am not apathetic to this situation but realize I have zero power so I'm not going to spin my wheels about it.

Plans are made for the summer, and I've found a master's degree program that I like, so I'll be looking into that, to start in the fall.  I'm looking forward to taking the summer off, well and truly.

Next year's school year will be busy, as my team has all agreed to take on another class (7 classes each! no prep hour!).  We'll get more pay and supposedly more help in the way of aides, but we'll see how that actually shakes out.   I'm looking forward to just having to update lesson plans and materials rather than creating them from scratch.  It means I'll get my weekends back  -- so of course, I'm going to use them going back to school myself.  I should be able to manage one class at a time without feeling overwhelmed.

(Later) I decided it wouldn't hurt to send an email to my doctors at MD Anderson and see if they wouldn't mind documenting that I don't need whole body scans anymore. They could refuse, and it would not harm my situation, but if they come through with documentation, that will help me to appeal MedSolutions' stupid decisions.

The MDA website has all my medical records from my visits there.  It's funny what I remember and what I did not -- for example, I don't remember my Tg being over 5 when I was there in August of 2006, and the endo there telling me it could be micro-metastatic disease.  My Tg dropped like a rock over the following months until it finally became undetectable, until it became detectable again. I remember so clearly Dr. C saying he got it all.... clearly, we remember only what we want to remember, even if we think we're remembering everything.

laissez les bon temps...

Today was a day of many whacks, if not to the head exactly, at least to the pysche.

In chronological order, then: One of my dear students very casually mentioned that many students really don't like me.  While I would love to be able to say it doesn't bother me, it does... and of course I would love to explore the reasons and discount whatever tween-age logic is dominating their thoughts, but the reality is, I have a job to do, and doing my job is exactly the kind of thing that some 7th- and 8th-graders are going to resent.

Some short but indeterminate amount of time later, I was meeting with another teacher and recapping events from our recent science fair, which was mostly horrible but ended on a somewhat high note.  The downer from this meeting was learning that many of the elementary school parents think, "We had all this new science fair stuff because we have a new science teacher," me.  Reality: we had all this new, and barely workable, science fair stuff because our district imposed it on us.  I had a chance to look over the packet briefly, but not to give any input, and can honestly say it had nothing to do with me: don't shoot the messenger.

Of course, I'm left with ~320 assessments to do, so if I spent only a minute on each it would still take me more than 5 hours, but given the rubrics I'm supposed to be using, it will be more like 5 minutes each, and I am (not so strangely) resistant to spending a  huge chunk of my upcoming spring break on grading science fair projects.  I need to come up with a solution, but I'm not sure what it will be.

Today was a testing day for my students, and my 8th graders continue to underperform, with a dismal 45% passing rate on a unit so easy they really should have been able to pass in their sleep.

And last but not least, when I finally left campus at about 5PM, I had a voicemail from my endo: my appeal for the PET scan was denied.  No other information, just that, and if I had any questions, please call  What are the next steps?  I have to call to find out.

Today is Mardi Gras.  I defrosted jambalaya for dinner and mixed up some Kentucky mules when I got home, and then moved on to Pancake's Big Day White.  Some part of me warns against self-medicating with alcohol, but it's not as if I'm actually drunk... it just took the edge off.  And now I'll go finish grading my tests and putting those grades in, and preparing lesson materials for tomorrow, because even though I have about 30 hours of grading hanging over my head, curriculum instruction continues.  Friday can't come soon enough.

we'll just pretend that never happened, then

Various calls to insurance companies and doctor's offices finally resulted in a call back telling me that I should have an answer by February 24, but that it was likely to be no.  February 24 came and went and I still have no news.

The suits at the insurance company are unlikely to approve my PET scan because I have not had a negative RAI whole body scan in several years.  It doesn't matter to them that my WBS are always negative unless I get a treatment (much, much larger) dose, and that my tumor marker is already half of what it was when I had my recurrence.

So I'm just going on the assumption that they'll refuse it, and when December rolls around again, I'll have the WBS (which will be negative) so they'll approve the PET scan.  Next year.  This is, after all, a slow-growing, die-with-not-die-from (usually) kind of cancer I'm dealing with.

I would feel a lot more relaxed about this if I didn't have an on-and-off pain by my collar bone, right by my scar.  It's probably an adhesion but it hurts, when it hurts, and it's different.  Still,  pain has nothing to do with metastases.  Usually.

In other news,  I am completely buried in work because we are in the midst of the science fair, which looks amazing -- the entire school's projects set up in the gym.  So much work on display, and much to be proud of (and quite a bit to inspire all the students who were lacking in motivation this year, for next year.)  On top of that, student-led conferences kept me at school until 7PM tonight, but DH grilled steaks for dinner so the evening was actually delightful.

Tomorrow DS1 heads down to Tuscon with his class for a field trip to U of A; he has to be at school at 6:30AM.  Last night was his performance in Antigone, a truly stellar production by his drama class. Sometime I'll find time to grade the 160-odd display boards and reports my students have turned in... spring break is only a week away and God knows I don't want to spend my entire break grading.

At the rate I'm losing time, I won't even notice until it's half over.

adventures in health insurance

When I got my new job in July, I got new insurance.  For the first time in my adult life, I am not covered by Blue Cross/Blue Shield.  While I know a few people who have had major problems with BC/BS, they never hassled me, even when I went to M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston for treatment of my first recurrence.

But now I don't have BC/BS anymore, and I'm finding out what life is like under Cigna.  Up until now, there haven't been any issues.  Thursday afternoon I got a call from AZ Molecular Imaging, the facility where I'm supposed to get my PET/CT scan, telling me that my pre-certification for the scan was denied.

Friday I spent about an hour on the phone, first with Cigna proper, who had no record of any request. Then back to AZMI, who told me that Cigna contracts out these approvals to a company called Med Solutions.  So then I had to call Med Solutions to find out why the authorization was denied. That's 3 sentences, but it took about 45 minutes.

Med Solutions has a checklist for cases like mine, and since the "negative RAI whole body scan" box could not be checked, they denied the authorization.  They don't know my history of perpetually negative scans, even when I had my recurrence in 2006, even though my doctor included her notes on my case.   My endo doesn't order WBS for me anymore since they are expensive and disruptive, requiring 2 weeks on the low-iodine diet, and if they're always going to be negative anyway, what would be the point? 

The next step is, my endo's office will appeal.  The insurance company has 30 days to respond, which I fully expect them to take, so I'll have this scan pending for another month, at least. If I'm lucky, I'll be able to make some plans for the short-term future by mid-April.

So, for now, I'm just trying to keep this whole "rising tumor marker, need a scan, can't get a scan yet" situation compartmentalized so it doesn't make me crazy.  Some days I'm more successful at that than others.

recurrence, again, eventually

I had my endo appointment last week.  As I feared, my Tg (tumor marker) went up again,  to 5.5.  That persistent node in my right cervical chain is still persisting, but doesn't look suspicious.  I think it's basically the last functioning node in my right cervical chain, so it gets enlarged trying to do the job of all the nodes that were removed in earlier surgeries.  It is, in a sense, a superhero node working permanent overtime.  Of course, it could also be a cancerous node, but even after all these years it doesn't ever present as one.

The tech also imaged a new, totally innocent looking smaller node on my left side.  Weird.

Since I had an MRI last year, we're going with a PET scan this year.  I intensely dislike these annual reminders that I have cancer, but we can't find it.  Nothing we can do, just have to wait and see if it ever gets big enough to treat.

I am slightly depressed over this.  I want to stay in bed and do nothing, but that's really not an option, so I end up not doing some things and choosing to do other, more random tasks, and just being extremely grumpy all the time, which is exhausting.

I don't like not knowing what's going to happen, and for now, I don't even know when the PET scan will be, so I don't know when I'll know what's going on with me.  I feel fine, mostly, just a little congested and chronically tired, but both are mostly caused by lack of sleep.

Here's the thing: there is literally nothing I can do about this.  I  dislike having so little control. I fully expect a negative scan, and to keep on getting negative scans, for at least another 10 years or so.  Eventually, something may light up and we'll have to go cut it out, but I don't see that happening any time soon. 

And on that happy note, it's off to bed.

other people's photos

Mom was in much better spirits this morning, a good rest and a little ibuprofen helped tremendously.   My sister was there, and that helped most of all.  My level of upset yesterday was only a half-notch below 'panic', and that was worse than useless.  I'll have to try to moderate those responses when things like this happen again, because I know they will.

Now that I can think again, there were a couple of things I wished I had taken photos of when I was in Falmouth, but I didn't get a chance.  So, with appreciation, here are some other people's photos.

 I. Unconventional Christmas Trees on Main St.
 Main St in Falmouth is, as my sister perfectly put it, right out of Currier & Ives.  They wrap pine boughs around the street lamps and put wreaths around the lamps themselves, and the effect is incredibly charming.  The Village Green is a little wonderland of set-pieces, including Santa and his reindeer, a creche, a choir, a train, and a half-dozen other lighted displays.  But the most captivating decorations on Main St were these two trees, which were simply stunning.  Words don't do them justice, and the photo below only gives you an idea of what they are like.  Simply amazing.  I can't imagine how long it tool to wrap these two trees so thoroughly!  They are as I imagine Faerie trees would be.

 Photo by Nelda Hoxie (Christmas Lights, Main St in Falmouth).

II. Nature's Thermometers

My Mom doesn't have any rhododendrons of her own (the one I planted in the past few years didn't make it through the fall), but there are several in her neighborhood.  I love how they droop and curl up when it's cold out.  When DD and I got up on Wednesday morning, they were rolled up tight, but by the time we were leaving (and thus, driving by and able to take a picture or two), it had warmed up enough that they were all flattened out again.  I'd say I was disappointed but not really -- who needs to be out in sub-freezing temperatures? This adaptive behavior is one reason I love rhododendrons.  Among the others?  They are evergreen, they love the shade, and their flowers are gorgeous.  Now if I could just manage to plant one so it will survive at Mom's...

Frosty Rhodys from Viette's Views

waiting for the call

We left Massachusetts on Wednesday, worried about Mom staying alone with that big storm and Arctic cold coming in.  But Mom promised to stay safe and said she wouldn't try to tough out a power failure.   I tried coaxing her up to Boston to visit her 6-day-old - and only - great-granddaughter.

DD and I had a quick visit; I couldn't pass it up.
There's nothing - nothing -  like holding a sleeping newborn. 

 

But she wouldn't budge.  She started knitting a beautiful pink blanket for the baby as soon as she found out it was a girl, but the blanket is not finished.  Her hands are not working well, and some of her fingers won't straighten. 

So DD and I flew home, and I keep obsessively checking the weather report, my phone, my email, my facebook page, and just generally feeling uneasy.


This morning, my Mom fell between the table and the microwave, trying to warm up her tea.  She doesn't know how it happened, but the generally accepted theory is that her knee gave out and, since she wasn't using her walker, she fell.  She refused care from the EMTs and since she was completely rational, there was nothing they could do. My sister is there, and all of us have been calling and texting all day. 

She has a big bump and a small gash on her head, and a headache.  She landed on her good shoulder and can't move her upper arm, so she can't use her walker.  She is considering going up to stay with my sister in Boston, tomorrow.  But she won't go to the doctor today, she doesn't want to be stuck in the hospital. Ever.

The fact that the sooner one receives medical treatment after an injury, the better, is irrelevant.  She could have, probably does have, a concussion, since she can't remember how she fell and has a persistent headache.

I just hope she wakes up.

cancer stuff

DD loaned me The Fault in Our Stars some time ago, and I read it on the plane home yesterday.  (Lucky for me, my laptop battery only lasts a couple of hours, otherwise I would've had no excuse and done more work.)

TFiOS is a young adult novel about a 16 year old girl with thyroid cancer that has metastasized nastily to her lungs, and what happens to her over the course of her relationship with another teenager who has osteosarcoma.   John Green, the author, gets a lot right about all the cancer stuff, especially how it is to live with pain on a daily basis.  He is also exceptionally good at puncturing the ideal of the heroic cancer patient, which I appreciate because that trope needs to die. 

One thing that Green didn't get into, probably because Hazel is so young and only 3 years into her (albeit dire) diagnosis, is how we tend to forget all the details that seem so vivid, that we swear we'll remember forever.  How could we forget?  I don't know whether it's post-radiation trauma or just good old-fashioned repression, but our ability to forget is a good thing.  I don't need to relive all that stuff on a daily basis. 

I do, however, need to be able to recall details from time to time so that I can accurately complete forms and talk to ultrasound technicians, like I did today. Since I have one of the world's least-flexible work schedules, I've been cramming all my testing into winter break. Having spent the last five days in Massachusetts means I only have a couple of days left to tie everything up.

I had my Thyrogen testing done Christmas week, with injections on the 23rd and 24th, and then bloodwork on the 27th.  I won't get those results back until I see my endo on January 30th, unless I suppose it comes back more quickly with bad news. As usual, I have no idea what to expect, but I want to record a weird side effect I had after my second Thyrogen shot:  suddenly I felt exactly the same way I did, post-neck dissection, back in 2005.  The nerves in my neck/scalp/jawline responded exactly the same way they did to that surgery: numbness, tingling, headache.   My neck felt tight around my scar, too.  And yes, it did freak me out, because I don't remember having that reaction before.  The only reaction I remember is having a really sore arm one time.  I even looked back through the blog to see if I had written about any other reactions, but there was nothing... and there was nothing in a wider web search, either.  I took ibuprofen around the clock for a few days and it subsided, but it did make Christmas Eve a lot more emotional for me.  (Usually I can sing a few Christmas carols without bursting into tears.)

Of course I want to ask, what does it mean?  I'll find out if it meant something in another 4 weeks.  Today the ultrasound technician took a million pictures.  I couldn't see anything (it's the rare scheduling oddity that puts me in a room used more for prenatal ultrasounds so they have a monitor for patient viewing), so of course I have no idea what, exactly, was being measured and recorded.  I had the tech visualize that persistent node that is, yes, still persisting, but then after that, he spent time measuring and photographing something in my left neck, which is just weird. 

I'm going to stop thinking about this now, so I can forget about it until I need it again.  And next year if I have the same weird reaction, I'll have this year's information to go on.   People who live with cancer have to do this kind of compartmentalizing all the time, otherwise the disease takes over our lives.  I have way too much to do to allow that to happen.

winter beach

DD and I came East to spend a few days with my Mom.   The temps were close to 50 when we stopped at the beach, but the wind was crazy and we weren't really dressed for that wind, so it was a very quick trip.

The sky was never this blue last summer!

Chappaquoit stairs, sand, surf, sky.

 

The usual shoreline view at Chappaquoit.

Coming around Falmouth Heights.

Chihuly in the Garden - Member preview Nov 9

We arrived in the early evening, and walked the trails in the rising darkness.

The spotlights washed out some color but heightened the sense of other-worldliness. Some pieces evoked marine life, some flocks of birds or tangles of snakes.   I'll visit again during daylight hours, but these are my favorite photos from our first views of this installation.

Afterwards, we had dinner at the spectacular Gertrude's. A perfect evening.

well, that happened

Next year at fall break I'll be thinking, What did we do last year?  

Then I'll remember that fall break was basically three days of doing nothing, coming to the realization on Tuesday morning that I had a ton of stuff to do, and then a blur of work.  

I had some vague idea of working ahead so that my future weekends wouldn't be so swamped, but that didn't happen.  I did get my lesson plan templates set up for the rest of the academic year, though, which was tedious but will make my life easier going forward.  And I also researched easier ways to do things I'm already doing, like making PowerPoint presentations from my Cornell notes (yes, PPT can import documents from Word, but only if they're in outline format - no problem!)

The offspring had very few desires: go to Zia, sleep as much as possible.  My own list was similarly short: go to the Desert Botanical Garden, sleep, and catch up on work.  Unfortunately achieving the last did, in the end, take a chunk out of the second, but we did make it to the garden.

It was already early afternoon when we arrived, and the boys were starving.  We had a spectacular lunch at Gertrude's, out on the patio.  I was completely charmed by the families of quail that wandered through periodically, and the one cottontail who snacked on a nearby aloe.   All of them were un-photographable because of the interplay of light and shadow -- no fill-in flash I possess would've been enough to catch them.  Never mind the fact that they never stood still.

So by the time we started walking the trails (my favorite trail was closed!), it was close to 3:30 and the afternoon sun was gorgeous.  The cacti were glowing, and neither my little point-and-shoot (whose battery died about 30 minutes in) nor my iPhone camera could do it justice.

That was a high point, but not the only one.  I made a number of nice dinners and we ate outside as often as we could, just enjoying the food, the wine, the weather, and the company, and it was lovely.