All signs point to "yes!"

So today I went for my follow up visit to the surgeon. He gave me very good news regarding the pathology results from the tumor. He said that all of the margin areas (the extra tissue around the tumor itself) and the 4 lymph nodes (not 3) he removed showed no sign of any cancer. Hooray!

He was very pleased with the results. I was also very pleased. My friends Jackie & Marci, who were kind enough to accompany me, were also very pleased. It was just a bonanza of happy people. Heh.

We celebrated by having tea and monster-sized scones nearby at the East 64th Street location of Alice's Tea Cup. (They also have 2 other locations.) I had the organic orange ginger peach tea with the raspberry & white chocolate and apple-triple berry scones (it was a package deal) and my friends both had the pumpkin and tea-infused scones (x 2). One pair of the pumpkin and tea scones are shown above, after our attempts to eat them. Each of us took home more than half of each of our 2 scones. (urp!) All of them were moist and delicious, not at all dry & crumbly like most scones.

But back to medical stuff: since it measured over 1 cm when they removed it (1.1 cm), they will now run some genetic testing (Oncotype DX) on the tumor to see if it is the type which will respond to chemo. Yes, in the 1 month between diagnosis and surgery, it grew in diameter by 4 mm. EEK! Apparently the words "invasive" (as in: invasive ductal carcinoma, stage I) and "aggressive" were not exaggerations.

Anyway, chemotherapy is not effective against all types of cancer cells. If the results indicate yes, I get to add that to my 5-wk. radiation + 5-yr. tamoxifen cocktail. If not, just drugs and radiation treatments. The test takes 2-3 weeks to complete (on the excised tumor) and costs $2K-$3K (!) which most insurers will pay for because chemo costs $30K-$50K (!!!) so it's worth it to them to spend a few thousand to potentially save a few DOZEN grand. Yikes! (Repeat after me: thank heavens I have health insurance!)

And no radiation treatments can begin until after all of the incisions have healed (another 3-4 weeks) since radiation by definition is aimed at killing cells, not growing them.

Also today I found out why my upper left arm has been painful the past few days. Apparently the nerves near the lymph node biopsy fully "wake up" a few weeks after the surgery, so while it didn't hurt last week, I will get to enjoy the pain for the next few / several weeks. Sigh. Oh well. At least I know it's not something I did, like strain a muscle or wear irritating clothing.

Warning: icky/graphic boob & medical news ahead.

So I may or may not have previously mentioned that my breast has been swollen, bruised, and sore after the surgery. This is not so surprising, considering what went on in the operating room while I was mercifully unconscious. Looking at it kind of freaked me out since it looked so... grotesque.

Apparently, only 10% - 20% of lumpectomy patients have large hematomas (i.e., large blood clots under the skin). I am one of the lucky winners. The clotting has resulted in the swelling, which not unnaturally, was somewhat painful since it not only pulled against the stitches, but also took up more space under my skin than regular blood. (Bonus round: my period has been an unwelcome surprise visitor the past few weeks [yes, WEEKS], which as female readers may know, results in some tenderness and swelling anyway.)

The hematoma also made my boob feel truly alien, since it was not only purple and asymmetrically large (visibly so), but, well, hard -- like a baseball.

Is this what a breast implant would feel like?! I mean, when I lie down, it doesn't. (That last comment got a laugh out of the surgeon and nurse today.) Ick!

So the surgeon aspirated it today. This consisted of using a large needle to draw out about 1/4 cup of clotted blood. Since the clots didn't cooperate much, this resulted in (a) him squeezing the relevant tissue area (you know how you use a juicer to extract orange juice? yeah, like that. FUN. not.) and (b) another appointment this coming Monday for more aspiration. The aspiration did relieve the swelling somewhat though, so things are less painful & sore. Yay!

I studiously avoided looking at what he was doing during this entire process, however, as needles freak me out at the best of times, never mind when large ones are being jabbed into me. Has anyone noticed how fascinating ceiling tiles are, when one is properly motivated?

Okay. It's safe to read again.

In work related news, I found out that they laid off several folks in our division yesterday. Since we've been transferred to a different unit of the company, their jobs were redundant as they performed finance, IT, and admin functions. So far, our department has been spared, as we perform specialty functions, but we're still under evaluation, so I'm just hoping nothing major happens for another 3 months (i.e., until after I finish the radiation).

And my boss has been great throughout all of this. Since there is a nasty flu/virus making the rounds at the office, and since I am still so wiped out, we agreed that I should take the rest of this week off as well. The tentative plan is for me to return to the office on Tuesday, after the holiday.

In flower news, the lilies from my friends Sarah and Sam have kept on blooming vigorously all week, while kindly remaining fragrance free. See?

And this weekend, we went down to visit my engineer's parents. (By the way, have I mentioned how calm and supportive he's been during all of this? He's been FABULOSO! Thanking my stars daily that I did NOT accept the transfer to HK last year, for oh so many reasons: physical, financial, and psychological.)

His mom makes an annual Chinese New Year's feast, which she kindly put off this year due to my surgery. (My sweetie's mom is a sweetie herself.) Due to his dad's weekly chemo treatments, we were able to persuade her to make fewer dishes this year. By fewer, it means one dozen dishes instead of TWO dozen. I took a few photos (these photos by no means show everything she made & fed us!) and she gave me a care package for my mom. :-) [My mom also likes his mom. It's a lovefest all around! Yippee!] This is separate from the Chinese New Year duckfest I had with some friends on the actual date itself (1/26).

Okay, time to go see which doggie wins this year's Westminster Kennel Club dog show. I find watching the frou frou grooming vastly entertaining, especially when some of the smaller dogs look like they're levitating, since you can't see their legs under their meticulously styled fur.

$800 richer!

The cable guy fixed the TV!

Hooray!

I don't need to buy a new one!

Yippee!!

I feel like a dummy: I had accidentally switched some settings (duh).

Oops...

To celebrate, I will go wash the dishes and prepare dinner for tonight's knitting klatch: crispy cornflake chicken (baked, not fried), sauteed veggies, and biscotti (flavor to be determined) with some monster pumelo slices on the side. (That is a 1.5 liter water bottle for scale, by the way.)

Pumelo is a mutant grapefruit variant, which is less acidic and goes for $4-$6 each in Chinatown, and who knows how much at Whole Foods. They each weigh a minimum of 3 lbs. Yes, THREE POUNDS.

Mom sent me home with 2 pumelos, since her friend gave me two as a get well gift, along with an entire beef shank! (It could fill up an entire rice cooker!) Mmmm....Mom's beef soup...!

Sunny delight

Look at Sarah & Sam's flowers! Isn't it kind of freaky (but cool) how cut flowers can still keep blossoming?

Now where was I?

Oh yes, coming to in the recovery room -- well, I will spare you all the unhappy details of recovering from anesthesia. Those of you who have, don't want to revisit, I'm sure. And those of you who haven't, no need to share the laughter and the joy. Let's just put it this way: green is not just the color of my healing bruises, ok?

Yes, I will just sum up my recent discoveries this way:

• my skin was blue from the radioactive dye for a day or two -- ack!
  
  
• my um, left upper quadrant, is still swollen -- though no longer scarily so -- and bruised (just think: this is what it's supposed to look like!) so since it unnerves to see what my body looks like there, I try to avoid looking at it except twice a day, when I change into/out of my jammies
  
  
• there are now two 2" incisions from the surgery, one on my left boob (thank gawd I'm right handed!) and one an inch below my left armpit, which leads me to my next comment...
  
  
• I am discovering just how many actions involve my left arm & pecs: walking, sitting up, lying down, rolling over in bed, reaching, putting things down, picking things up, knitting -- you get the idea (ow, ow, ow...)
  
  
• yes, this also limits my knitting a bit, alas, but since I had limited reading materials and only basic cable at mom's, I was able to finish the following projects:
  

1. a pumpkin hat for a baby (my fellow Princetonian alums, watch out: I have finally found a use for the bundles of extra orange yarn from the Harf! buwahahaha! oh, and also for the leftover green Lion Cotton from the baby reefer jacket)
   
   
2. the garter cardi I started with the wonderfully fluffy (machine washable!) Gedifra yarn I bought on eBay. This is for the co-worker whose baby outgrew the sweater I originally knit for her, during her maternity leave.

Here she is, wearing my "I.O.U." apple hat. Isn't she a cutie?

Oops! The cable guy's here. Gotta run.

I will just leave you all with a shot of my belated birthday cake last month, which my sister made (did I post this already?) Yummmmm...

Home sweet home

Hooray for home!

I love my mom (when she's not driving me crazy -- part of her job description, I know) but after a week away, I am glad to be back in my own apartment, revoltingly messy as it is, though it is brightened up greatly by the flowers which awaited me from my friends Sarah and Sam. (Thanks, guys! The arrangement is pretty and looks to bloom shortly, see?)

Actually, mom & I got along surprisingly well this past week. We watched lots of Food Network (and I could tell I wasn't feeling like myself because my reactions to the shows were along the lines of "that recipe looks interesting -- I'll have to try it sometime" rather than "Hungry! NOW!") and chatted about knitting, our family, my engineer, his family, and my upcoming treatment, when I wasn't sleeping for 8 or 9 hours at a stretch.

Speaking of sleeping, I plan to go get reacquainted with my fluffy flannel sheets shortly, but wanted to update y'all on recent events. (Apologies in advance to the guys who are reading this for the graphic boob discussions to follow -- will try to be at least somewhat discreet, since I'm not one of those let-it-all-hang-out chicks.)

My surgery Friday went well but it was a long, loooong day.

[Note: re-reading this post, it occurs to me that I should tell everyone now:
cancer go bye-bye! not in the sentinel lymph nodes -- hooray!]


7:50 am -
For once in my life I arrived VERY early (40 min. prior to my 8:30 check in), met my sweetie there, and changed into the oh-so-glam hospital gown, robe, and non-skid socks which I wore for the next 9 hours. (Soooo sexy, dunno how my engineer kept his hands off me -- not.)

My sister could not pick me up as planned, since the early appt. time would have left my brother-in-law alone in the house for 2 hours prior to his daily pick up by River House, and nobody wanted that. (My older niece & her younger son would go have dinner with him, since he would be home before my sister came back from the hospital.)

8:15 am -
Started reading my trashy paperback thriller from the library as I waited in the pre-surgery room to get my IV put in, blood pressure taken, etc. I think I was back in the waiting room by 9ish.

10:00 am -
The multiple morning mammograms were eventually eased by the arrival of lidocaine (YES! let's hear it for painkillers!) prior to the insertion of a wire to guide the surgeon. (Why can't we always get lido before a mammo, I ask you?! Imagine an extremely delicate part of one's anatomy being squashed like a panini sandwich. Repeatedly.) And no, I didn't look while I was being "threaded" which was just as well, since I discovered wire + mammo = bloody imprints on machine. Ick.

11:00 am -
The hospital called my engineer on his cell to let us know that my surgery was being pushed back from 1:00 to 2:15, at which point I told him and my sister to go to lunch at noon: there was no point in ALL of us being hungry. By this point I was 2/3 of the way through my trashy thriller, Bloodline.

2:15 pm -
After all of the waiting (in the mercifully TV-free waiting area) when the surgical nurse came to get me, I practically leapt into her arms and gave my glasses to my sweetie. Since this left me practically legally blind,
(a) I took her arm as we shuffled down the hall, and
(b) the surgeon was very amused when I informed him that all I could see was that he was some white guy.

I asked the 2 nurses whether the blue terrycloth socks (with non-skid rubber stripes) reminded them more of Grover or Cookie Monster, a thought I had been contemplating all day. They both promptly replied "Grover!" (Evidently I was not the only person to ask this question.) The anesthesiologist introduced himself and...

4:30 pm -
I woke up in the recovery room and thought:
(1) "Oh, I guess the surgery is done"
(2) "uh... thirsty" and
(3) "Ow! Want. Painkillers. NOW."

My doctor magically appeared, assured me that the cancer had NOT spread to the lymph nodes [HALLELUJAH!] smiled at me at left.

To be continued... I have a date with some pink flannel sheets.

For now, I leave you all with the pretty tulips my sweetie brought for me & my mom on Saturday. :-)

Cloudburst

Timing is everything and this morning, my TV seems to have decided that NOW is the time for the picture tube to go bye-bye.

Granted the 21" Toshiba is at least 12 years old, so I'm not really surprised, it having originally started out at my sister's home, before being given to my mom, who after a few years offered it to me in 2002. So really, it's served our family well and faithfully for quite a long time.

However, when the screen looks like this, but the audio still works, and TiVo still works (I can see glimpses of the menu faintly, behind all of the snow) well, I'm guessing it's time for me figure out how to legally dispose of a big hunk of electronic equipment (environmental issues, ya know).

All of this is pretty ironic, given that my friends Jackie and Sam have been yearning to upgrade their sets to flat panel nirvana, while I was perfectly content to use my old big butt, cathode ray TV.

My engineer, however (did I mention he's an electrical engineer by training?) did help me with various product reviews and pricing comparisons, so I am contemplating a 37" Panasonic Viera TC37LZ85 1080p LCD HDTV which got very favorable (there's that word again) ratings from Consumer Reports.

All of this is easier to think about than my upcoming surgery. While I have every confidence in the surgeon and the follow-up treatment, this whole situation has apparently stressed me out, as the unfortunately placed zit (I almost never get zits!) on my forehead can attest. And since my cancer is estrogen positive, the doctor wants me off birth control for the moment, with the result that my cycle is now HAYWIRE, a/k/a the reason I started using it in the first place. Crazy cycle = crazy mood swings.

So tonight, I watered my poor engineer's shirt and shoulder copiously before we ate our tasty delivery from Thai Market for dinner. He was calm and understanding (I am very grateful to have met such a mensch), practical (where was my box of kleenex?) and gently teasing (to make me laugh a little, not to be dismissive) -- all examples of why I find it easy to love him.

I guess today's administrative paperwork at the office so that I will officially be on short term disability, plus starting to pack up my desk, has left a little emotional residue. Bleh.

(Okay, semi-off topic complaint: why does my company consider 8 calendar days off work to be the threshhold? I mean, it's not like we normally count weekends as vacation days! Plus they will unenroll me from various minor services such as...direct deposit! Is this their way of encouraging an early return to work??)

Enough blathering for now -- I need to go pack for an indefinite stay my mom's. I may haul this gigantic (i.e., heavy) 17" laptop with me but since I am not sure whether I'll be able to mooch any free wifi from her neighbors -- everyone has a secure network these days -- I may be offline for a few days.

In any case, I will update my Facebook status using my cellphone, as in: "...is now enjoying her mom's chicken soup."

Medical Update, part...?

Okay, quick, before my lunch hour is over and Blogger times out again:

• Friday was the MRI. As promised by my friend Margaret, and my engineer, I almost fell asleep during my 40 minutes in the tube. Only the somewhat painful IV needle in my forearm kept me from dozing off completely. I was lying face down on the conveyer belt-type tray which moved me back and forth, in and out of the tube (mercifully, feet first, so I didn't have to find out if I really was claustrophobic or not).
  
  Amusing sidenote: the trolley/conveyer belt had a headrest area, like a massage table, and [ta da!] cutouts for my boobs, so it was actually much more comfortable than a massage table!
  








• Monday was pre-surgical testing: blood work, x-ray, mandatory EKG (ah, the joys of being over 40), and basically stuff to ensure I was healthy enough for surgery. A mere 2-1/2 hour visit, followed by a half hour meeting with the nurse to review the surgery & wound care procedures, etc.
  
  When I asked he if she thought I could go back to work on the following Monday, she looked at me like I was deranged and reminded me to bring the disability paperwork to my post-op visit on the 10th.
  

  
  Or as she put it in typically succinct NYer fashion, "I would plan on at least a week off. Some people need 4-6 weeks to recover, averaging around 4 weeks. And if you aren't going to take time off for CANCER, when ARE you going to take time off?!"
  

  
  Er, well, when you put it THAT way...
  
  

  
  
  

• Thursday afternoon will be radiological lymphatic mapping - I will either be injected or dosed with (I forget -- this is why they advise bring a companion to these meetings) a blue radioisotope, told to wander off for 2 hours while my body absorbs the dye, and return at 4:30 for the lymphatic mapping scan thingie, which will take about 30 minutes (note: this does NOT include wait time, only 30 minutes from when they actually start the process)
  
  During the 2 hour wait, I am to call Admitting to find out my surgery schedule for ...



• Friday, the main events, yielding 2 separate incisions: breast needle localization (I think that's the correct term, anyway) where they will insert a guidewire (ouch!) prior to surgery, a sort of "X marks the spot" approach.
  
  Then I wait for the surgeon for an indeterminate amount of time.
  
  [Note: from this point forward = minimum of 4 hours.] Then he (eventually) starts the procedure by injecting me with blue dye to locate the 3 sentinel lymph nodes he will be removing. [Note: I have been warned that my skin, and um, all bodily wastes, will be blue for weeks and days respectively. Funky!] The 3 lymph nodes go off to the pathologist while the surgeon removes my little 7mm malignant pea + safety margin.
  
  Before he closes me up, the pathology lab will call the surgeon to let him know if the cancer has spread. If yes, more surgery & an overnight stay in the hospital. If no, he closes me up and I stay in the recovery area for 2-3 hours while the IV anesthesia works its way out of my system.
  

  
  My sister (who, along with my poor engineer, will be stuck in the waiting area all day) will drop me off at mom's for some TLC and chicken soup, where I will stay for at least the weekend, possibly 'puterless. (The horror!)
  

So the upshot is that I will explore and experience the wonderful world of short-term disability & FMLA benefits from January 29th - February 10th, at a minimum, and will be away from my ceramics strewn desk (see misleading photo above) for almost 2 weeks. The post-op follow-up visit on the 10th will determine the length of my furlough. Which reminds me...

Today we were told that our entire division -- not just my department -- has now been reassigned to someone waaaay down the food chain in the US unit. Someone who probably has no idea what the heck it is we do. Someone who has probably been told to cut expenses.

This begs the questions:

1. will I even have a job to return to?


2. should I pack up my stuff before I go??

Now I know some friends are saying that I can't get laid off while being treated for cancer, because that might be considered discriminatory. Unfortunately my reply is that if they just axe my whole division, well, then clearly it is very egalitarian. Feh.

Sorry - no time for fun food sagas involving Chinese New Year duckfest, or goose-fest at my engineer's parents' house. Next post.

Not surprisingly, I have been stress-eating lately, and have gained a few pounds. Sigh. My grace peiod of stressed out metabolism = eat whatever is now OVAH. Like my lunch hour.

Rescued!

Hooray! I have been rescued from insurance hell!

This morning the hospital's patient financial services office (and these days, I have discovered you see NO ONE before you meet these folks) discovered that I have indeed been approved for the Cancer Resource Services Program at my insurer (translation: they can treat me now and get paid).

Therefore, I have now been scheduled for:

• an MRI this Friday at 5:30pm (tip from Erica at the doctor's office: don't eat or drink too much beforehand, as I will be lying immobile in a metal tube for 60 minutes -- no wonder those patients occasionally freak out on HOUSE! originally, they were all booked up until February, but Erica got me on the list)
  
• pre-op tests on Monday morning such as X-rays etc. where they make sure I'm healthy enough not to croak on the table (well, I had originally scheduled the 26th off for Chinese New Year, which I do every year, but I hadn't quite planned to spend it THIS way... oh well, at least I don't have to go to the office afterward)
  
• pre-op mapping on Thursday the 29th where I report to the Nuclear (!) Medicine Dept (I think this also includes a last-minute review with the patient, so they understand exactly what's going to happen; actually, wedged me in just now --> I *heart* Erica!)
  
• lumpectomy on Friday the 30th (depending on how many lymph nodes they will need to remove, I may be there overnight; otherwise it will be outpatient surgery)
  
• Chez Mom on the 30th/31st - TLC and homemade soup :-D
  
• Post-op follow up visit w/doc on Tuesday the 10th :-)

I've been working on my mom's healthcare proxy and living will lately, since my brother-in-law's health had reminded all of us to get cracking on those things, but it's a little disorienting to get those forms given to ME in terms of using them FOR me!

Okay, on to more entertaining topics, like last night's adventures at the pottery studio, where apparently, everyone was having so issues with trimming their foot rings (the bottom of the pottery, where it rests against the table, etc.) which you do while the piece is flipped upside down on the wheel.

I turned my bowl (above) from an "innie" [as is normal] to an "outie" [um, oops!] and after conferring with my ever patient teacher Sara, even re-tapping it into the correct shape would not be enough to salvage it, due to other factors.

It did gave me a chance to do a cross section and see how evenly (or not) I threw the piece, and while the walls were okay, the feet & surrounding area were way too thick. See how superthin-like-a-fashion-model the floor of the piece is? Not good if everything else is not the same thickness, as Bad Things may happen in the kiln during firing, due to the varying moisture levels.

One of my other friends went right through the floor of her bowl, resulting in a clay doughnut. ;-)

Yes, every week I am reminded of what one novice student once muttered years ago in bemusement: "Man, I never realized there were so many steps where you can f*ck it all up!"

Okay, lunch time is OVAH.

Insurance hell

My health insurer claims they have faxed the confirmation letter authorizing treatment to the hospital and that I am authorized in their insurance database.

The hospital claims otherwise.

The hospital is not an authorized service provider in my provider network. (Do these words ring a bell?)

This is after multiple calls to both sides from me.

Meanwhile, I have no way of checking anything and the hospital won't schedule the surgery.

My surgeon only operates on Thursday and Fridays, and I still need to schedule the pre-op blood tests and MRIs (which the hospital also won't schedule). The doctor wants me to have the MRI this week: for hormone-related reasons, this week is optimal, and other weeks are not so good.

Well, at least I don't have to "sneak" around at work -- since I can't really hide 5 weeks of radiation appts, I told everyone (left) in my group.

At this rate the insurance is going to cause me more stress than the treatment!

ARGH.

Resisting the urge to cry. Leaving for weekly ceramics class now instead.

Time management

When under stress, find comfort in food -- thankfully, nowadays, more the making of than the consuming... although lately, I've been stress eating a bit, I confess. (But as has been said before, stress has apparently also ramped up my metabolism lately.)

So tonight, in order to thank my friend Marci for traipsing uptown, in the snow, after dinner, I offered to make muesli bars. This time I substituted crunchy Arrowhead peanut butter for tahini (didn't have any), and used dried cranberries and toasted pecans and seasame seeds for the nuts.

At least I remembered why it was important to make sure the ends are square, since my last outing was tasty but a bit visually disorienting. These are still a little, um, suggestive, but more recognizable as something to be eaten, and not something that had BEEN eaten.

And I made the following dinner for my sweetie last Wednesday, using some EatingWell recipes:

• Pork tenderloin w/ shallot sauce (I skipped the roasted grapes, simply because I didn't have any on hand, and whaddayaknow -- it still tasted yummy)
  
• Brussel sprouts w/ bacon-horseradish sauce - Steamed brussel sprouts w/ (lowfat) sour cream horseradish sauce & (super-high-fat) bacon (mmm.... bacon!)
  
• Mushrooms sauteed in bacon fat (so NOT from EatingWell, but oh so tasty!)

While the instructions were not difficult, the timing was: how do you get everything to the table at the same time?! Such advanced planning and time management is beyond me at the moment.

And finally, a shot of the scrumptious Antipasto Bella Napoli plate from Ottimo Restaurant, which is one of my engineer's favorite places (and dishes).... yum!

One last comment: beware of slippery slopes, in the literal sense -- ouch!

Today I fell on my a** in the Pavonia/Newport PATH station: in their infinite brilliance, the PATH folks thought it would be good to have completely slick pavers installed on a descending ramp-walkway to the platform. We had snow today. Connect the dots.

Their solution? Put down rubber mats... with no traction AND with treads pointing in the same direction as you'd slip. Geniuses.

While not just painful to my dignity, it is also STILL painful, hours later, to my a**! I suspect I will be remembering that no-so-little slip for days, as I walk like an old lady. OW!

Speaking of time management (and my skills lacking in that arena) I should go to sleep, so that I can continue to remain employed (until the next round of layoffs in march, at least) in order to maintain healthcare coverage for my MSKCC treatments. (Sidenote: said treatments are all on hold until my insurance company issues an authorization / confirmation letter. Good thing it's not URGENT, eh?)

5 x 5 x 5 (a/k/a MSKCC rocks!)

Central Park today, courtesy of my phone.

Okay, so really, I am posting these pretty pretty pictures as a distraction from my cancer update (which actually is positive, but still freaks me out a bit, nonetheless).

My engineer went with me today to Sloan-Kettering to meet my surgeon, the very pleasant Dr. Cody, who is their principal investigator for sentinel lymph node biopsies. (In fact, he teaches this procedure to other surgeons -- yay!) We had our initial consultation during which the word "favorable" was used several times, as in "the outcome looks very favorable" and other such positive statements. I have officially been diagnosed with stage 1 invasive breast cancer, which generally has a very favorable outlook/ survival rate/ prognosis, etc. (See? There's that word again.)

The tumor itself is 7mm, which when asked to self-describe it by the doctor (as in "can you feel it? how large does it feel to you?" which I suppose you can also translate to mean, "are you in complete denial?") I compared to the size of an M&M candy. It is spiculated which sort of means "spiky-looking".

After reviewing all of my tests, slides, x-rays, and examining me, we agreed that I would have a lumpectomy, and not a mastectomy, since the outcomes are generally identical, and hey, there's much less surgery involved, and to me, less is more. (One of the nurses seemed surprised during my pre-screening that I had managed to avoid any surgery whatsoever during my 41 years on this planet.) Putting aside the whole psychological aspect, let's face it: it is desirable to avoid major surgery if at all possible.

If all goes well, I will be having outpatient surgery (most likely next Thursday or Friday, the 30th/31st), and if things turn out to be more serious, then it will be an overnight stay. (I am skipping past all of the pre-surgery testing, and MRI for next week.) Dr. Cody will first remove the 3 lymph nodes closest to the tumor during the surgery (during which I will be under local/IV-anesthesia, not general), and then the tumor. While he is removing the tumor, the lab will be examining the 3 lymph nodes to see if the cancer has spread.

If the cancer has gone out and partied like an overactive frat boy, then he will proceed to remove all of the lymph nodes in area. If not, then not. The extra surgery would result in an overnight stay at MSKCC. If no extra surgery is needed, then I would be released that afternoon.

The immediate aftermath: my sister will be waiting for me, and probably drive me off to my mom's, who will be waiting with homemade soup and fussin'. My engineer's mom says he will want to be there anyway, and I'm thinking at least that way he and my sister can chat, since I will be off somewhere else, unconscious.

The longer term aftermath: 5 minutes of radiation daily, 5 days/week, for 5 weeks. (What's with the 5s? Did they speak to Cantonese patients who explained that FOUR is a homonym in Chinese for DEATH?!) And tamoxifen for 5 years, which thankfully looks NOT horse-pill, multivitamin size.


And now, back to pretty pictures from my cellphone: a tree this morning, outside of the Newport Center Mall's parking lot (yes, in lovely Jersey City).


And the final photo of the day from my phone: the playground across the street from my engineer's apartment, in Hamilton Park.

Pure eye candy

I visited my sister and brother-in-law last weekend for some belated birthday cake (mine) and preemptive birthday cake (his) and thought it'd be nice to take photos of CLEAN snow, as in: white, as in: NOT snow in NYC.

And now that I've remembered where my photostitch app for the camera is on my 'puter:

Cozy lights from the house at twilight... if you look closely you can see my footsteps tracking across the front yard


The front yard the next morning, with a bit of the driveway showing on the left. No one ever uses the front yard though, because...

...we all hang out in the backyard (though not in this weather... my sister did build a snowman here though, with my older great nephew, Senor Lamborghini).

Speaking of the next generation, the (now closed for the winter) pool sprouted a new fence over the summer, for safety reasons (even though the older tyke is a waterbaby). My insurance-warped, risk-averse little heart approves.

He's a cutie, no? Not like I'm biased or nothin'... ;-P As expected, he was fascinated by my present, which has doors that opened upward.

Space aliens

Consider the size of this crab. Consider that my engineer's mom is almost 6 feet tall (she is a tall lady, yes indeed). Consider that NYC's Chinatown may one of the few cities in a developed nation where your food can eat YOU.

The previous photo was sent to me by my sweetie's niece, and was taken during our dim sum outing over the haoliday break. She is a very sweet young lady who brought me (handmade?) chocolates from a local shop in Florida for my birthday. Consider that she had never met me before! (Okay, okay, also consider that I am going out with her favorite uncle, so really, it's a transitive thing.)

Speaking of mutants (the crab! not the niece!!) I have come up with a solution to the potentially harmful effects of plastic leaching into the 64 oz. of water I try to drink daily at the office (yes, that is one gallon -- I do trek off down the hall to the loo quite a bit: or as one wiki suggested, it's hard to fall asleep at your desk when you're going to the WC every 30 minutes): a glass bottle is my friend!

Yes, a 750 ml green San Pellegrino bottle (coincidentally, the size of a wine bottle, no?) now is my constant desktop (furniture, not PC!) companion. However, since it holds only 25 fl. oz. this means quite a few trips to the UV-filtered water fountain in the pantry.

Oh, and in case you are curious, here is a link to a chart from Mother Jones which delineates which grades of plastic are preferable for food / water / microwave use. Haven't actually read the accompanying article yet.

And since we're on the topic of food-related info, here is a link to the Mayo Clinic's listing of caffeine content in different foods and drinks.

I now return to paid informational research, now that lunch time is OVAH.

Rubbernecking

Today's post is dedicated to rubbernecking, both fun (my co-worker Dennis sent out this cute shot of 2 panda cubs frolicking somewhere in the snow... dunno if it's in China or a US zoo), fascinating (genomes!), and frustrating (ah, the stupidity of [hu]mankind).

This guy SO deserved it, since he had to climb over a 5 FOOT TALL fence to "accidentally" wind up in Gu Gu's enclosure: Giant panda in China bites third victim (the hospital photo is particularly fitting) -- I mean, HELLO! You are entering a bear's home habitat. DUH.

I guess with 1.3 billion people (and counting) sometimes the DNA gets a little thinned out...

Hmmm.. pandas have SIX fingers per paw?? Who knew...?Chinese unlock panda's genome The shrewd reasoning of the Beijing Genomic Institute is hilarious, and the ranking of China's greatest scientific achivements in 2008 is bemusing/ amusing.

And oh yeah, baby pandas are ridiculously cute, especially with / despite goofy tags around their necks. They look like waaaay fun, animated, stuffed Gunds.

Man is stupid; don't mess with nature: Removing cats to protect birds backfires on island

FINALLY, someone who has a more balanced view of the current mess (yes, I am tired of being bashed): Unfairly Rewarding Greedy Bankers, and Why It Works Thank you, Washington Post. As he says, it ain't great, but consider the alternative (or, a I sometimes think: Joe Sixpack is a moron).

And I know I should stay away from possible carcinogens, cholesterol (SO not WW points friendly), and fast food in general, but sometimes, I just CRAVE a burger: 5 worst fast food value items. (My personal favorite on the list: Wendy's jr bacon cheeseburger has everything possible -- magical animal AND cheese!) I advise you NOT to get between me & my monthly salt craving if you know what's good for you.

(Sidenote: called up my friend Sam this week, and we checked out BRGR in Chelsea, whose turkey value burger was spectacularly unhealthy looking: gruyere + herb mayo... but I got it anyway, since I wasn't into beef that evening. At least it's free of steriods & hormones... my diagnosis has me evaluating organic food in a different light, but then, this burger just goes to prove organic does not necessarily mean HEALTHY.)

I guess basically today's post was (mostly) dedicated to how pandas are great and people are dumb. ;-D

One for me, one for you...

Yes, it actually happened: I finally finished The Sweater, a/k/a the Debbie Bliss Baby Reefer Jacket from Cotton Knits for All Seasons, a/k/a the sweater I started years ago for my friend Kieran's son... who's now FIVE.

This weekend, I finally, FINALLY finished everything, including weaving in the 5 gazillion ends of the endless balls of Lion cotton yarn knitted on size 5s (do not get me started on how much I loathe weaving in -- seaming, by contrast, is fun fun fun), sewing on the 8 nifty brass buttons I got from my mom for this nautical outfit, and actually sewing in the label I had made with my name on it.

Shocking, I know, but it actually happened! I did everything I was supposed to do... well, except, um, blocking. Oh well.

Best of all, my older great-nephew (who is almost 3) can wear it for quite a while, as it is gigantic, and then his younger brother can use it. Yippee!

(Side note: I brought him a little toy car... and he could tell me what manufacturer it was! Both his dad and paternal grandfather are car nuts, so the brainwashing started in the womb. Imagine a pre-schooler saying, "Lamborghini"! Freaky!)

And on the distaff recipient side, the apple hat I made for my nephew's daughter found great favor with said nephew. She does look pretty darn cute in it, I have to admit.

And then, 2 of the balls of the Debbie Bliss alpaca silk dk I had was also finally finished, with beads woven in even! (Granted I retrofitted some extra beads by sewing through a knotted strand of yarn, but hey, it looked okay I thought...). It will become a belated Xmas gift for a friend who I don't think reads this blog, but just in case I am not naming names.

The final ball of dk I extended as long as humanly possible, using a drop stitch on size 11s, for a scarf for moi.

Since it's in stockinette, it really wants to curl up along the sides, so it might be nice to extend it by knitting a backing side to fight the curling.

I'm now starting a baby cardigan from Jill Eaton's Big Fish, Little Fish, which has adult and child-size versions of the same patterns. Heh.

It's made me realize I rarely post photos of works in progress, preferring to show completed projects.

Like this one, made from some of the leftover green cardigan yarn (note to self: sell the other balls on ebay -- never want to see them again!) -- needed a camera bag and thought, "Hey, why pay for neoprene? All I really need is some cushioning, so a garter stitch bag with a drawstring should do it."

Lord of the Flies

Okay, so remember how I said there were actually FUN things that happened over the holidays? One of those events was a mother-daughter outing (and in the case of my sweetie, mother-son-niece/granddaughter).

On Monday, December 29th @ 11am, I wrangled everyone down to the usual vast tea house, Jing Fong Restaurant, which as some of you know, can seat 1,000 simultaneously. (No I am not exaggerating -- my father's social club rents it out every Chinese New Year and sells tickets fo 100 tables of 10.) It is so vast that the wait staff communicate with walkie talkies.

The gang included my friend Jackie, her mom, my friend Marci, her mom (her dad had to work), MY mom, my engineer, HIS mom, and his niece.

I was able to introduce my sweetie's family to the cholesterol extravaganza that is deep fried, bacon-wrapped shrimp, with a side of mayo. See it in the first photo?

There was also chicken feet (too much work for not enough reward, I say), shu mai, meatballs, taro-wrapped savouries, chopped spare ribs, tofu-wrapped shrimp, all of which can be seen in these photos. There's more, but at 25 plates, I lose track. Can you blame me?

My engineer paid for the whole table (!) as he had been permanently impressed/ traumatized with the importance of the Chinese cardinal sin of being cheap prior to meeting my mom for the first time -- by me, my sister, and his Chinese (as in: from mainland China) co-worker.

I explained that my mom understood about going Dutch for dim sum, but he insisted, and was also "extremely generous with the tip" according to my mom (well, and me too, but yes, my mom was watching, poor man).

Afterward, all of us except Marci & her mom (her mom had to get back to work) wandered around Chinese grocery stores, asking my mom her opinion on everything from which brand of mochi flour to buy, and the best wonton & egg roll wrappers to get, to which type of dried shiitake mushroom is best.

We also wandered across Wilbur's relative here, which I memorialized for my boo's niece (who was visiting on winter break from Florida). I have to admit that the oddly lively eye sockets creeped out even me. It also brought up vague memories of reading Lord of the Flies, where the kids run wild with animal masks/ skins (to the best of my recollection anyway -- haven't read it since high school).

By the way, I have WikiHow one my iGoogle homepage, since I am frequently amused by the random assortment of "Tips of the Day" it offers. Today's pairing is How to Be Feminine, right above How to Dig a Ditch (okay, it says "How to Excavate a Trench" but really, isn't that the same thing??)

I can't make this stuff up.

Okay, lunchtime is over. Back to the salt mines (for as long as they'll employ me, anyway.)

Orders of magnitude

One of my doormen was trying to teach me, the hopelessly unhip, new slang. Well, let's put it this way -- it's new to ME, even if the rest of the world was wise to it long ago. So one synonym for sweetie, or beau, is boo, as in, "My boo was kind enough to say it tasted okay, even if it was as heavy as a rock."

So my boo was telling me that some urban planner (Robert Moses?) once said that people get bored with the view quickly, so it's a waste to plan for that (which would explain some spectacularly ugly highways attributed to him). After 4 years and 6 months, I have yet to tire of my view. I also think having this open vista is psychologically ... freeing?

I mean, let's face it, NYC is crammed full of tall buildings (although Hong Kong still takes the prize for ingenuity in cramming in sliver buildings with, say, 600-700 sq. ft. -- yes, for the whole building, including elevator and fire stairs) and living and working in a sea of skyscrapes, your view is frequently of another building if you're lucky, or an airshaft if you're not.

So being able to enjoy sunsets like this is really a tonic.

Other tonics are excellent friends and loving family members, all of whom have called or e-mailed since reading my super-nifty (not) news. As a tribute to one of them (and also because I was going through some old photos while avoiding filing and sorting mail) I give you the photo below, which was taken in a Jersey City marina in September during a stroll with my boo.


Said friend also asked/pointed out that I was a bit unclear (I suspect probably because I was so freaked out) when I posted about the dimensions of the tumor. It is not 0.6 mm, but 6.0 mm -- like the size of a pea, or your pinky fingernail (unless you're Yao Ming or Shaquille O'Neal).

Speaking of orders of magnitude, one theory as to why my baked goods have been superdense & un-fluffy lately (angel food cake, coffee cake, and now...this one!) is that my baking powder has lost its oomph. So when I make stuff they taste okay (or at least everyone is too kind to say otherwise) but their density is a bit startling.

Like this simple sheet cake I made for my fella (his birthday is manana) which tastes okay but is only about half as high as it should be. DOH!

Thankfully, between my friends Jackie & Marci, my guy, and my massive sweet tooth, we killed off half of the cake by tonight, including the insanely sweet vanilla buttercream frosting I made (which looks like Fluff in this photo). And just think: this recipe had 1 WHOLE CUP LESS of confectioners' sugar than most recipes! Jeez! Americans are crazy! No wonder my sister always uses about half the sugar called for in a recipe!

Alas for my friends and myself, my technique is to usually stick to the recipe for my initial try and then adjust accordingly in the future . Now I understand why people adjust recipes drastically and append notes in their cookbooks, or on cooking websites such as MyRecipes.com (if only I had found THAT recipe, which used a more sane amount of sugar).

Experienced cooks may know all this but I am new to the game. Or as my ex Matt put it (while enjoying my pumpkin bread pudding and leftover roast beast w/ honey roasted root vegetables during his visit on New Year's Day) "Who are you and what have you done with S?"

Some things never change though, like my propensity for procrastinating, avoiding filing, and generally letting paper pile up and overrun my apt (resulting in a call to a commercial shredding company last summer). Witness: I am blabbing here instead of dealing with 2 mounds of paper currently spreading across my carpet!

What a maroon

...as Bugs Bunny would say.

I appear to have lost my NYC $400 property owners rebate check.

Wonderful.

Okay, I have been just a wee bit distracted this week, but this is still f*cking stupid on my part. I distinctly remember putting it into my purse on Wednesday morning when I left for work. The bank was insanely crowded after I left work, so I decided to skip cashing it, and it is now NOT IN MY PURSE.

Idiot.

Yes, I am dumber than Homer Simpson at the moment, apparently.

Not surprisingly, I am not the first person have have experienced such a moment of utter frakkin' brilliance, for on the NYC government website is a FAQ: "What do I do if I lost my check?"

Of course, my other problems make me less distraught than I would normally be since (as the trite saying goes) it's only money. Granted, it's a nice chunk of money, and money does help grease the wheels on certain problems, but compared to what's been happening, it's still just money.

My neck (i.e., where all of my stress and tension usually manifests itself) still hurts though.

Good riddance

Just because the end of last year sucked mightily, does not mean I didn't send it off with a little flair. (Take THAT, double negative police!)

Yes, I -- who once received a letter from the gas company (while living at my old apartment) asking me if I wanted them to turn off the gas since I had not registered any usage for the past 3 months -- I decided to make a roast beast, with roasted veggies.

The beef eye round had mushrooms, onions, and green peppers which were left swimming in their beer braising sauce while the slab of meat (with its lovely layer of succulent fat) was being carved by my fella. The roasting pan had sweet potatoes, red bliss potatoes, turnips, parsnips, red onions, and shallots -- basically, anything left in my vegetable crisper -- in a light honey glaze (which took me half an hour to scrub off today). Both recipes, are available, by the way, on Recipezaar.com as "Beef 'n' Beer" and "Honey Roasted Root Vegetables".

The only unfortunate experiment was the WW coffee cake I attempted to make for dessert. As the Brits would say, it all went horribly wrong somehow. Since the baking powder is still active, my friend Ellen suggested I perhaps overbeat the batter (whoops) since the cake was half as fluffy as it should have been.

Both my sweetie and my friend Sam were kind enough to say it wasn't inedible (*snarf*) but merely not what one expected. I, however, did not dig it at all, unlike my last (cappuccino angel food cake) misfire. So today I turned it into a much tastier "easy pumpkin bread pudding" (which I edited to 2 cups of 1% milk, down from 4 cups of whole milk, since other readers claimed 6 cups = runny pudding = eeeeeww! and, um, I don't have any whole milk in the house. ever. and oh yeah, I threw in 1/3 cup of dried cranberries).

I also had the urge to make pistachio goat cheese bites (you can once blame Recipezaar for that idea). Tasty but rich -- needs to be eaten with wine, grapes, or something else to offset the cream factor, even though I changed it to 1/3 less fat cream cheese for the "binder".

The goat cheese bites were originally supposed to be for last night (NYE), along with creamed spinach, but (a) I ordered the wrong type of goat cheese from FreshDirect -- the one with a rind -- and (b) even I figured out that perhaps I was channeling my mom and making way too much food.

Well, since it's 3am, I suppose I should quit avoiding sleep....

A river in Egypt

As the title indicates, I am still not quite grasping my diagnosis, so I am going to burble on about other things instead... although everything reminds me of bad things. Perhaps that is why I am avoiding going to sleep, even though it is insanely late. (At least tomorrow is not a work day... which does not mean I am wanting to be laid off...!)

For example, the goofy golf club covers I knitted for my sister from a combination of (lavender) eBay yarn and (purple) wool I bought in Shanghai, while amusing, reminds me of my brother-in-law.

(Sidenote for the knitters out there: using frogged yarn* for the pom-poms created poms with 'fros. Funky. Gives 'em more texture though.) *[yarn unravelled from another project]

And I finally, FINALLY finished the second hat for my engineer. The Brown Sheep yarn was remarkably forgiving of being frogged 3 - 4 times. I unwittingly photographed the back, which has the color jogs (oops) which are the points where the different rows meet when switching colors.

I am not unhappy with the jogs, and my engineer does not care/notice, so all in all, I'm fine with it. However, thinking about him reminds me of how he came over and held my hand while I freaked out about my diagnosis.

So yeah, all roads lead back to depressing thoughts.

And on that note, I will leave you all with a goofy business ad I saw while we were shuttling my guy's mom & niece back and forth from Toms River to Chinatown.