Category Archives: Physical health

Recovery is fun!


Especially when your boys are willing to spend many hours playing card games with you to break up the time spent reading on your new kindle or in front of the TV:

Phase 10

 

We’ve had this game for awhile but at first our brains hurt or we were just too tired or something to want to figure it out. But with a long weekend looming for 16 and considering that he was (shock!) feeling a little bored with his Xbox, he brought this out. We’ve since played 6 games, one with 27 and had a damn fun time smack talking and laughing at the whole thing.

Meanwhile, I made the mistake Thursday afternoon of thinking that I could take a walk in the beautiful warm weather we are having. Since that was scarcely 24 hours after my surgery, it was not the best plan. It wasn’t awful, but I did feel some cramping happening as a result so I shut it down completely the rest of the day and on Friday. Saturday I ran some errands with 16 and felt no side effects. Renee checked in to see how I was doing and if I wanted to just walk on the trail while they did our usual longer Sunday run. They had to be out there for 90 minutes. I figured even if I could only stroll for a bit that since it was on my favorite birding trail – especially in the winter – then that would be a great test plus I could enjoy the sunshine.

I strolled for a mile. I mean, really STROLLED. Did stop and try to ID birds from memory. I didn’t carry binoculars or a bird book because I had put on my running shoes and was prepared just in case I felt well enough to pump up the walking pace.

Which, I did, so miles 2 and 3 I sort of started into my previous fitness walking pace of close to 15 min miles. That took a 65 mins and they would still be on the trail for another 25 so I decided to start alternating some light jogging segments with the walking. By the time 90 mins was up I had gone 5.3 miles and felt 100% FINE.

So how about that? I went from doing the K9 5K last weekend under a bit of duress from the fibroid symptoms (36 mins) – evicted the pesky buggers on Wednesday – and then today, a week after the 5k and 3.5 days after surgery – I walked/jogged for 5.3 miles in 90 mins.

I like that kind of recovery a LOT!

Oh, and new habit check in – I added $5 to the total this week so I have $21.55 saved.

After I get into finishing taxes this week I’ll put my mind into coming up with something fitness related. Even though the recovery has been encouraging, I am being honest about my limits to come up with something else until I am totally cleared after the 2 week post-op visit and once the larger tax chore is mostly completed since that will take up time and mental capacity :-)

*Croak*


A morning of talking while I caught up with my parents and did their taxes. My dad is doing great and has been cleared to start his rehab to build back his strength. Follow that up with a lovely, slow, yappy lunch with Jax. Combine that with the cold I was fighting, and this is now how I sound:

frog_flash_placeholder.jpg

Sigh. I *always* lose my voice when I get a cold!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think I will try the tactic of Sayesha from American Idol, the gal who lost her voice in the first day in the Hollywood round. She walked around with a notepad the entire second day and refused to speak so that she could sing on the critical day 3. So I am shutting it down. Don’t call me. Just email or text. I’m not talking the rest of today or tomorrow unless totally necessary so that my voice will be back for Monday. Good thing SportsBoy has no games this weekend.

A different perspective


And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom

     – anais nin

First of all, welcome to Day 1 of NaBloPoMo the bloggers challenge to post at least once a day in the month of November. Yeah, not sure why I am trying this, but what the heck. As a result there may be some new readers which is a tad nerve wracking, but it will also be fun to find other sites myself. Like a few of my friends did last year. I also promise to comment on those I stumble upon to say a quick hello. IOW, I am committing to giving up sleep this month!! So driving in to work this morning I was listening to one of my many alanis morissette cd’s and I got this idea to use her lyrics as a source for my opening quotes this month. Really, I could easily find 30 from her songs! So I go to her homepage to skim through her lyrics and right out front was the quote above. Perfect! For the new readers, that about says it all for me. I will be talking about anything and everything, uncensored. Unless I need to get something out which touches on a few personal stories which I will then protect, but generally those will be stories about other people who would not want things ‘out there’. Stuff about me? Oh, it will be OUT there!! Here’s one for you now.

Today, I found a positive side to the firestorm of ’07. A personal one. Ladies, you will particularly understand how perfectly this all came together. Today was my annual doctor’s visit. Yeah, that one. The one you mark on your calendar with a shudder and then, when it is over you think “Oh, thank gawd there are 364 days until I have to do *that* again!” Now, I have had the same ob-gyn for about 7 years now. He is great – fast an efficient. However, the small talk during the exam each year has been the same. “Where do you work?” “What do you do there?” “How long have you been there?” “How are your kids?” I swear it was like a recording. Of course, you answer as you stare up at the lovely paneled ceiling and florescent lights and try to make your answers interesting to keep yourself distracted.  But today, we were able to branch out! Today, the exam went even faster it seemed since we could all (he, the nurse and I) talk about the fires. Shoot, I even caught myself looking at the nurse instead of at the ceiling! Without a doubt that was one of the least awkward exams I ever experienced.  Whew. And yes, thank gawd there are 364 more days until the next one!!!

Surgery report


Lovely surgical attire eh? This was AFTER the morning portion which was h-o-r-r-i-b-l-e!
The people at SPC were awesome, but dangit if the cells were just not in the worst possible place I guess. We started in the regular digital mammogram room with the intention to have me seated while they had me positioned in the machine and using the images to direct where the needle (really a wire) should go. However, once they found the right angle to show the target spot the clearest, then it would mean an access point about as far away as it could be. So at 9:30 they gave up on that strategy and moved me to the table from hell. I was back on my stomach just as I had been for the first needle biopsy. Once on the table, they tried about 4 different views and positions before finally finding one they liked. I was seriously about to jump out of my skin at that point! Keeping perfectly still all that time was horrid. But they cannot sedate you as they need the patient to cooperate. The crazy thing is that once they found the right angle, it took about 10 minutes to numb the area and insert the wire!! As I finally got up off the table and looked at the clock I was shocked – it was 11:30!! I’d been on the table to two hours and at that center for 4! But, the radiologist was really happy with the end result and they sent me on my way to the surgery center. Thank heavens I’d been able to eat breakfast because mentally I do not know if I could had handled all that on a totally empty stomach.
From that point on it was easy! I checked in at the surgery center a bit late of course, but the two offices had maintained contact all along the way. I was wheeled into surgery at about 1:15 with the original time at noon. In between I got to recover a bit from the morning ordeal so I did not mind the break. SP and I had fun with the camera as I changed into my surgical attire as you can see. I needed that laugh break :-)
I was only knocked out for about 5 minutes. I came awake to the sounds of Gordon Lightfoot and the Wreck of the Edmund Fiztgerald! Too funny. I commented that it was perhaps not the best song to awaken to in an operating room. Very quickly it was over and they cleaned me off and wheeled me into recovery. I’d heard the surgeon say she could see the original biopsy point which was encouraging – meaning she was getting where she needed to be for sure. She has since called to confirm that she did indeed get it all – yay! Recovery was quick and I was discharged at 3:30. Since they had not had to give me much to knock me out, I had no issues with nausea. Once the localized numbing wore off, I was in some pain so I took the prescribed Vicodin to get me through the night. This morning though it felt fine. I took off the outer bandages and everything looks and feels great as long as I don’t touch the actual incision spot. I go back next week to have the stitches removed.
So, time to turn the page and think/write about something else again!!

Some good news about tomorrow!


The anesthesiologist called me at 9:45 tonight (clearly from home with his kids yammering in the background). He wanted to confirm everything and then tell me about what his plans were. Just a 4-5 minute sleepy drug then keep me ‘relaxed’ but conscious once the localized numbing is complete. He said that means nearly a zero percent chance of nausea with such a small dose. Then he told me that I don’t have to stop eating/drinking until after 7:00am!! IOW – I can have my oatmeal for breakfast!! Yippeeeeeeeee!! Since I don’t drink coffee anymore which was his only other concern, I can have my usual bowl of oatmeal and he wants me to drink a bottle of water to keep myself hydrated before the noon surgery. Whew! As odd as it sounds, the no eating/drinking thing (and they mean at ALL) after midnight tonight until I get home tomorrow was really preying on my mentally. Not eating for me is torture – it would have been doubly hard to deal with everything tomorrow without something in my stomach. At this moment, I love that guy for taking the time on a Sunday night to call and talk to me about it all. Finally – other than Donna at SPC – a person in this process who I LIKE :-)

Not so bad


Thankfully once I reached the surgical nurse she told me she had faxed the lab order already. I asked her to fax me a copy and went in with that today and got the blood draw done in less than an hour. Yay! Something went smoothly. Now, why do I have a pounding headache? Sigh.

A tale of resourcefulness and responsibility: Oddly, this is about DS2! The kid who makes his dad and I shake our heads in wonder that he gets through the day unscathed quite a bit! Today is baseball practice for him and we normally drop him off to school in the morning with his gear bag since the practice is at his school (love that!). Today though, his dad forgot to do that. It was also a big field trip day to the Maritime Museum and there was some question as to what time the buses would return to school. At 3:00pm I get a call from childcare asking if DS2 was on that field trip and I confirmed that he was. At that point he had not checked in with them. Normally he is at childcare for about 45 mins before he signs himself out to go to the baseball field. I warned them that he might forget to do that today so maybe they could peak out onto the field around 3:45 and see if they spot him. At 3:30 I get a call from his dad who was heading to the house to get the forgotten bat bag and drop it off. He just wanted to confirm the practice time. While we are on the phone he says “Wait, there he is!” Huh? I ask him where he is and he says he is about a block from his house and he has spotted DS2 walking towards the school with his bat bag! Apparently he got off the field trip bus and walked back to his dad’s to get the bat bag (probably not trusting that his dad would think to get it for him – heehee!) So, Ex2 tells me he will rescue the little guy and drive him back for practice. I call childcare back to let them know we have located DS2 for sure. They inform me that at 3:15 he checked in and signed himself in and then out! Wait a minute! He *remembered* to check in before taking the initiative to walk home and get his gear?? WOW!! When I said “wow” on the phone the childcare rep stated that DS2 is pretty reliable so they were not surprised. Well now, whaddya know?? I guess there is hope for the little Space Cadet after all.

But wait! There’s more!


I should probably not ask “what more can they screw up?” because they will surely show me!! Yes, I am referring to the *brilliant* and *utterly efficient* staff at the surgeon’s office.  Nurse calls this AM asking for me email address and to confirm all the previously mentioned arrangements. Surgery is still on for noon. Yes, drive straight to them after the needle procedure. No other instructions or comments are made at this time, and – as I have written before – no FURTHER instructions are given over the phone (I’ve now spoken with nurse B regarding this surgery 4 times including the original call to schedule it). She emails me the pre-op instructions. Here is line one:

You will need some tests done before surgery. (oh really?)
Blood work: Lab Corp in La Jolla (what?! I need to have blood work done sometime between now and the 14th at a facility in La Jolla that is in the same building I was in on Monday morning?!! And I am just finding this out NOW?????)

Unbelievable. Not only that, but I call Lab Corp and they don’t have any instructions from the surgeon on WHAT tests to run! Most likely it is a CBC which means no fasting or anything and I can just walk in with my lab order from the surgeon and get it done anytime between 7-5:30pm tomorrow or Friday. Should only take 20 mins and they don’t close over lunch. However, that teensy detail about the lab order….I am now waiting for the surgeon’s office to return from lunch so that I can find out just how I am supposed to acquire this lab order and why the hell didn’t they talk to me about this one of the other 4 times we spoke over the last week???

Might as well laugh


Let’s review, shall we?

Dec 23rd ’06 – receive call that some calcifications were spotted on the left breast in recent mammogram. Schedule second set of films.

Dec 28th ’06 – get second set done. Radiologist on the spot confirms a spot they want to test. An order for a needle biopsy will be written and I will be called within a week.

Jan 6 ’07 – Receive call from Scripps Polster Center in La Jolla (where films are done) and schedule needle biopsy at their facility for Jan 24th at 1:00pm.

Jan 18 ’07 – Receive call from referring physician’s admin that insurance not going through. Go through about 4 phone calls between insurance and admin to straighten out.

Jan 24′ 07 – Receive call from SPC technician – machine needed for needle biopsy broke during morning procedure! Repairman on the way, but most likely need to re-schedule for following week. They will call by the 26th to confirm.

Jan 26′ 07 – Received promised call. Machine not fixed. May take weeks. They issue order to refer me to their Chula Vista facility where same process can be done. Call Chula Visat and sonnest available that I can make is Feb 13 at 1:00.

Feb 13′ 07 – Biopsy actually done! It’s hell. Results promised on the 16th which is the Friday before a 3-day weekend.

Feb 16 ’07 – no call by 2:00pm so I start calling around. Results were sent to my PCP who did receive them but had already left for the weekend! Call Chula Vista and plead with sympathetic nurse who gets doctor who ran the labs to call me. No cancer, but a-typical hyperplastic cells. More work to be done. PCP will call me.

Feb 21 ’07 – PCP calls with surgical referral. Gives name, I call, and find out they don’t take HOM insurance. Call PCP back and get different name. Call surgeon’s office. They wont make an appointment until the insurance auth goes through. Call PCP’s office – they promise they are sending the insurance auth out that day.

March 6th ’07 – Surgeon’s office (okie dokie girl) finally calls with insurance auth. Schedule appointment for 3/23 to consult on pathology results from biopsy. Receive directions from okie dokie girl. No further instructions given.

March 22nd ’07 – Receive call from okie dokie girl to confirm next day’s appointment. For the first time she tells me that I need to bring my mammogram films with me. Multiple phone calls all around the place later, films are located in Chula Vista and a courier request is sent to transport to surgeon. Unfortunately not in time for scheduled appointment so I reschedule for 3/30 at 9:30am

March 28th ’07 – Call to confirm films were delivered. Yes!

March 30th ’07 – Consult with surgeon. She recommends surgical removal of all atypical cells. Informs me that marker supposedly left during Chula Vista biopsy is in the wrong spot so more films are needed. She puts through insurance order for diagnostic films at SPC. No further instructions are given (see a theme here?)!

April 5th ’07 – Receive call from surgeons office at 11:00am that the order has gone through and they want me at SPC on the 6th at 9:30am. Oh, can take your films with you. Huh? The films that YOU have? That you never mentioned I would need to take back again? Inform them that no, I cannot just be told when my appointments are and they are doubly insane to think I can drop everything (hello, I work!) and drive up to encinitas then back to la jolla! Call SPC and make appointment for 4/20 at 2:30pm.

April 10th ’07 – Drive to surgeons office and pick up films. Vow to never let them out of my sight again!

April 20th ’07 – Diagnostic films done. Radiologist checks them out and tells me he sees the original spot and he circles it on the films – about 2 inches away from the marker!! I insist they print out films and give me the packet back. They say they will transmit report to surgeon who should call me.

April 27th ’07 – Surgeon calls. She has the report and can see where to go to clear out cells. Tells me her nurse will call to make an appointment.

April 30th ’07 – Nurse calls and we schedule the surgical biopsy for May 14th and she tells me I will need to take off the next day as well to recover. I contact SP and he arranges to take the day off on the 14th. DS1 will be able to stay home with me on the 15th. I tell them I will bring the films with me – she had the grace to laugh :-)

May 3rd ’07 – Receive call from surgeon’s nurse. She wants to see if I can go back to SPC for a ‘dry run’ on the procedure the next day. Huh? I say no, cannot ditch work on such short notice. She says the surgery time is still scheduled but there is some concern about their ability to find the cells again with the type of procedure they want to do, so they want to ‘practice’ at Scripps at no charge. Yeah, no kidding no charge, but now I have to find time for another appointment! Fine. I call SPC and tell nurse that I cannot be there on the 4th so she finds a slot first thing on the 8th for me to come in. She does not know how long it will take. I should bring my films with me :->>

This is why I was so pleased when I heard that an August mom going through something much worse – actual breast cancer lump found as well as spread to one lymph node – had films on the 25th, biopsy the next day, labs already in and surgery set for the 9th. Chemo to start 4-6 weeks later depending on the results of the labs on what is removed in surgery. Thank gawd her insurance and doctors staff’s and equipment are a helluva lot more competent and efficient than mine!!

TO be continued……hopefully with a surgical biopsy actually happening on the 14th!

Healthy cat, Atypical Hyperplasia, & other stuff.


He passed all his lab tests with fling colors. Yay! Now he wont have to have labs done before his fixing on the 10th :-) I already checked and that entire procedure with follow up pain meds should only be $150. The vet is guessing that Chip had a puncture wound that became inflamed internally so I never saw it. Hence his favoring his hind quarters on Friday. Could have been from just playing with Amber and she got more of a grip than usual. The wound triggered the fever while his body fought off the local infection and so he got lethargic. The vet suspected that Friday and gave him an anti-inflammatory shot and sure enough by Friday night he seemed 100% fine. It’s good to know he is healthy too!

I did a little more digging on my own condition – specifically called atypical hyperplasia and came up with this excellent series of questions and answers:

If I am diagnosed as having proliferative breast disease, should I worry?
Obviously, you’d rather not have any abnormal breast condition at all, even if it’s benign. However, knowing about the proliferative changes would put you in a fortunate minority of women. Nearly one-third of all women will develop a proliferative overgrowth during her lifetime, but few will ever be aware of that condition. Knowing about such a condition alerts you to your risk. You can counteract that risk by getting annual or biannual physical examinations of the breasts and, depending on your age and profile, more frequent mammograms. Decisions about screening for breast cancer should be made by you in conjunction with your doctor.

How common is proliferative breast disease?
Nearly one woman out of three has some proliferative overgrowth at some time, but few of them ever find out about it. This condition does not cause a lump and is rarely visible on a mammogram. The only way we know that 25-30% of women have these changes is through autopsy studies on women who died for reasons unrelated to breast cancer. Because proliferative disease-with or without atypia-sometimes regresses and goes away on its own, more women are likely to have some of these changes at one time or another than current estimates would indicate.

How is proliferative breast disease discovered?
The women who do learn that they have proliferative disease or atypical hyperplasia generally do so by accident: their mammograms contain calcifications or other irregularities. Although calcium is generally found in bones and blood, tiny speckles of calcium sometimes migrate into other tissues as well. When calcifications do appear in breast tissue, they more commonly appear in the cells that are the least average. For example, such deposits are found more frequently with atypical hyperplasia than with PDWA, more frequently with proliferative disease than with nonproliferative disease, and so on. And even though proliferative cell changes themselves don’t show up on mammograms, the calcifications are visible on mammograms. This is an extremely lucky circumstance, because doctors are then able to identify an increased risk of cancer by way of a secondary consequence of the condition. This alerts women to the fact that they have a higher risk of breast cancer. If you are diagnosed as having this condition, you will probably want to adopt a more rigorous schedule for screening for breast cancer. Most women who have a current proliferative condition but are not aware of it are less likely to be careful about annual breast exams. Of course, most of them will not develop breast cancer or a precancerous condition over the next several decades in any event, but a few may miss the opportunity to identify a precancerous change when it first occurs.

This matches pretty much with what the surgeon told me so I am pretty comfortable with things. Women who ended up taking Tamoxifen to prevent cancer cells from developing also had many other increased risk factors such as a family history. Certainly in the future if these things keep developing I would consider the drug therapy, but I will also hope very much to avoid that.

Meanwhile this first gorgeous spring weekend was as usual filled with baseball for DS2. Lost on Saturday but won today. Also had a nice dinner/visit at my parents with cousins from New Orleans. Lunch with SP today who is being a typical American Male. Oh here, let me share what the ever brilliant and truthful Bill in Portland Maine posted last week which perfectly describes my man this weekend:

JEERS to headthrobs. One of my upper molars—which has already been root-canaled—is starting to act up again. I shall ignore it until it turns into a blast furnace of pain, probably in the middle of the night on a weekend, which will require an emergency call to my dentist, who won’t be there so I’ll have to call the guy who’s filling in, and several hours later I’ll finally get my pain pills, which I’ll try to skate by on, hoping the pain will go away on its own, but it won’t, so finally, having driven everyone in the house crazy with my incessant moaning, I shall break down and make a dentist appointment at the last possible second. For I…am an American male.

Yep, SP has a tooth that needs a root canal and he is avoiding it. His excuse (other than being a wuss) is that he is not eligible for insurance at his new job until tomorrow. Uh huh. Let’s see if he a) gets all the paperwork in tomorrow and b) makes an appointment.

Anyhow, the house is clean, the laundry is in process and groceries bought. Ooh – so nice to have DS1 working at Henry’s! He hooked me up on a great deal on some steaks, then I got to use his 15% employee discount so the groceries were $77 instead of $90. I love his new job!! HIS benefits kicked in last week and he is all signed up (you hear that SP?!) I am ready for a week with DS2, only one LL game on Wed since spring break is coming up, but more importantly, our game at Petco Park on Friday night!!

Sick cat and surgeon update


Ugh! Only slept 3 hours last night. Chip the pootie fell ill this week. I noticed he was low energy on Wednesday night, but he was eating and drinking and all those other good things and not sneezing or anything. Last night around 11:00pm though the boyfriend called me into see a very limp pootie. Scared me good! Called the vet and determined that it could wait until morning to bring him in, but I had to keep Chip drinking water as he was feverish and probably dehydrated. $500 of tests later and we wait. He is much better now though still largely resting. Perkier though. Playing with Amber and sitting at the open window watching birds fly by again.

I finally got to see the surgeon about my atypical breast cells. Another mammogram and probably another biopsy are in the future, but it’s all preventative stuff and as long as we keep it moving along I’ll be fine. I really liked this lady which is what matters.

Very happy to have a flexible workplace that could handle me staying home on short notice today so that I could take care of the morning appointments and then come home and sleep on the sofa with my cats!

We are on the one week countdown to Opening Night at Petco Park! Yay!! I didn’t renew my season tickets, but I did get these from a friend who does still have a plan. We are pumped.