No news

I don't know yet what the results of my test are.

I went Friday for the ultrasound, and it showed that the lump (not that I can feel it, but I guess it is a lump) is a solid mass, not a cyst. I guess a mammogram showed that there's something there, but not the composition of it; an ultrasound can show more clearly what it's made of. Or at least that's how I interpreted it.

I don't actually know how this all works, whether the radiologist who reviewed the mammogram films had my whole file or not, but I mentioned to the ultrasound technician that I had had a biopsy on a lump in my left breast several years ago (I actually said it was about two years ago, but looking back, I can see it was almost exactly four years ago), and I got the impression that she mentioned that to the radiologist when she took him the ultrasound results.

She came back and said that it wasn't a cyst, but that it was probably the same mass that I had last time, since I hadn't actually had it removed. She said "probably" because they didn't have my full file to compare it with--she said my file indicated that the hospital still had my old mammogram films, plus their test results. So they're going to have to get the films and the rest of the file from the hospital, and compare them with the current one and see if they're looking at the same thing. If it is, then it's all well and good and everything's fine, I guess, since I already had that spot biopsied and it was benign.

If not, I don't know, I guess we start over.

I was telling a friend about it after I got back from the doctor on Friday night, and he said, "So basically they just scared you to death, and then left you hanging?" and I guess that's pretty much it. I'm not scared to death, but I suppose I'm a little bit worried. The thing that worries me the most is, if it's the same lump, where has it been for the past four years, you know? I mean, why hasn't anyone remarked on it before? And if they had my earlier films to compare it to, so knew it was nothing to worry about, why don't they have them now?

It's just kind of weird, but probably nothing to worry about. The technician said since it was Friday, probably nothing would happen until Monday. She said they would go over to the hospital and get the file, then call my doctor with the results, so I probably wouldn't know anything until mid-week.

I went out to see my mother today. We had lunch, then she and I went out and dug in the yard while Daddy did dishes and cleaned up the kitchen. I came home with a trunk-full of plants--a big hosta, some Bishop's Weed, a big clump of chives, and several different kinds of ground cover.

I didn't get everything put out, but I did finally pot the geraniums that I bought a couple of weeks ago, put the hosta in a big pot, and cleaned off the back porch a little bit. We have a maple tree, and the patio was covered with those little "windmill" seeds. I tried blowing them off the patio with the hose, but they stick, and since it rained today, we really didn't need a lot more water out there. I guess I'll let them dry and try sweeping them off. I picked up big handfuls of them and put them in a trash bag, but there are still millions of them out there.

I had another one of my multi-anxiety dreams last night. I dreamt that we were on vacation in Florida, and I decided to go walk on the beach, but after I'd been walking only a few minutes, I patted my pocket and realized that I didn't have my keys. Which made me worry that I hadn't locked the hotel door. I thought I'd better go back, and turned around and started walking back up the beach, only to realize that I couldn't remember where I'd parked the car. Or even what kind of car it was, since it was a rental.

At that point I thought, well, I guess I could just go back and walk on the beach some more, but no, I figured I'd better take care of the car/keys thing. As I reach the street, I see that there has been a car accident, and I worry at first that they've run into my rental car, but I finally find it--a cream colored SUV--and somehow, even though I didn't have my keys, I have the car keys, and I drive away.

And then I'm back in Kansas City, and it's snowing, and I can't figure out what highway I'm supposed to get on, and I can't remember how to get back to the hotel, and not only do I not have my keys, but I don't have my purse, either, so I don't have my phone, and can't call Bob.

Man. I just can't get my subconscious to give me a break.

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More flowers

Sari Robins liked her new website so much, she sent me flowers:

That doesn't happen very often. In fact, never.

Sharon wrote and asked for a picture of the tulip geraniums that I talked about the other day. They're really unusual and, I thought, really beautiful. The one on the right in the second photo was called an "Apple Blossom" geranium because of the white and pink color. They are all still sitting in my living room in front of the window, because it's still too cold to put them outside. Soon, I hope.

I took the day off yesterday and had a day's worth of medical appointments: my annual ob/gyn checkup, a mammogram, and a new one, a bone scan. I had no idea what to expect from that one, but it turned out to be no big deal, and the technician was kind of a character. Very sunny and upbeat and cheerful; all the nurses at that office are, really. The reception staff is kind of dour, but as a rule everyone is pretty nice.

The nurse who did the bone scan said my bones were in great shape. She said I had "the hips of a teenager," and, in fact, when I looked at the printout she gave me, I saw that my bone density numbers were better than the ones listed as the comparison point. I take calcium every day, and eat a lot of dairy, and do some weight-bearing exercise, all of which she said were obviously doing the job. I asked her if I needed to take more calcium, because I'm taking 1200 mg, and I though you were supposed to be taking 1500 (the pills are so large that I can really only force myself to take two at a time). She said no, that what I was doing was working, and I didn't need to change anything.

After that happy news, though, I got a call this morning from the radiologist's office where I had the mammogram done. They want me to come back in for a sonogram to check something out. The nurse stressed several times that it wasn't anything to worry about, that the radiologist thinks it's probably a cyst, but he just wants to be sure. I'm going in late Friday afternoon for that. And I'm trying not to worry about it.

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Whew

Last weekend I went to the nursery to pick up some geraniums for the front porch. I found some really beautiful exotic ones, called "Tulip Geraniums." These particular ones are hot pink, with each individual "flower" in the cluster forming sort of a cup , i.e., the "tulip" of the name, I guess. They're really unusual, and after I told my mom about them on the phone, I realized that she would probably like to have one, so I went back yesterday to get another one.

While I was there, I made friends with a cat.

I had picked up the geranium and was heading up to the check-out when I saw a little black and white cat dart under one of the tables. The greenhouse is huge, and I just kind of followed him from table to table, and he eventually ended up in a room in the back where they have various containers and pots for sale. He was pawing at a door that was almost closed, but he couldn't get it open. I didn't know, of course, whether he was supposed to go through the door, so I didn't feel like I could open it for him. I crouched down and talked to him, and got him to come over close enough so I could touch him.

He was a little skittish, but I just stayed down there, talking to him, and after a few minutes he came close enough to be stroked, and I sat down on the floor and he crawled up into my lap and purred. I guess I sat there with him about five minutes, then reluctantly, had to leave. It always feels like such a victory to make friends with a cat. I'm not sure why, but it just feels very special.

I asked the girl at the check-out counter what his name was. "Oreo." Not exactly unique, but I guess it fit him. The other girl on the counter turned around and said, "We have a cat?"

When I had been there the weekend before, I had been amazed at some of the people who were there at the same time. There was a big crowd, and a long line, and while I was waiting, I was listening to a woman complain about the high prices, saying that she had been to another nursery, and "everything" was cheaper, everything was a dollar cheaper. She counted the plants in her basket, saying, "I could have saved, one, two, three, four dollars! Enough to buy another flower!" She said she wasn't going to come back there again until they lowered their prices! And after she left, the man in front of me turned around and said the nursery she was referring to was 20 miles away! "She's going to drive forty miles to save four dollars," he said, shaking his head. Makes sense to me.

There was another woman complaining that she had gotten a plant home, then noticed that it had a broken stem. It was some kind of a small bushy plant--I couldn't tell what kind--but certainly not a tree with a broken branch or anything like that, just a plant. She said she wanted to know whether it had broken off, or whether it had been cut off because the stem was dead, or what, and the clerk was saying she didn't know, but the plant looked fine, it looked healthy. The woman wanted her money back, and they wouldn't give it to her. She said she was just unhappy because it wasn't perfect, and I thought, lady, the plant's going to grow! It's not like it's an inanimate object . . .

And then the people in front of me wanted to know if the peonys they were buying were guaranteed, and I thought, wouldn't it be nice if everything in the world were guaranteed?

I finished three websites this month, and put the third one live this weekend.

Number 1, for Terri Farley:

Number 2, for Melinda Rucker Haynes:

And number 3, for Sari Robins:

All I can say is, "Whew."

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Saying yes

This has been the most incredibly busy month that I can remember. It's not over yet, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I've had three freelance web design projects go live this month, plus the usual small updates. I've been working at work all day, then going home and working a couple of hours at night, plus working several hours on the weekends. It will be good for the bank account, of course, but I would prefer to be just a little less busy. I try never to turn down or discourage business, because that just always seems like a bad idea.

For instance, I have a policy of always picking up money that I see in the street, even if it's just a penny, because if the universe is going to offer you rewards, you shouldn't refuse them. When you start saying "no" to money, even if it's just a penny dropped in the street, then, in my view, you're closing yourself off from larger rewards. I don't know, that's probably silly, but it seems to me to be a good policy.

That's not to say that I've never turned down business. I can remember a couple of times when, for whatever reason, an offered job just didn't seem right to me, and I declined. But for the most part, I try not to say no, because to me it just seems to set a bad precedent.

Anyway, once the third site goes live this weekend, I'll link to them.

Being so busy this month has kind of worked out well, though, actually, because Bob has been out of town a lot. I feel guilty about spending so much time on the computer when he's home, and I'm also more easily distracted.

He was gone last weekend, fishing with his friends at the lake, and this weekend he's at Disney World with his dad. I'm not completely sure what prompted the trip, I think it was just the cheap airfare, basically. It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing.

They left this morning, and will come back on Monday. I'm off tomorrow--it's my company's fourth anniversary on May 1, so we're closing on Friday--so I've got a nice, long weekend ahead of me. I plan to go out and see my parents on Sunday, but that's really the only plan I have so far. Probably go to the nursery, and the library, and a few things like that. And if it's warm enough, plant some flowers, maybe. I bought some geraniums last weekend, but it's been too cold to put them out. The Farmer's Almanac said the last frost was a few days ago, but I'm not sure whether to trust it or not.

Bob just called and said it was about 85 degrees in Florida. Sounds perfect. He's called me several times today--I told him to please call me a LOT, so I can live vicariously through him. He called me from the tram, and from the train, and while they were watching the parade, and just now, while he was waiting in line to ride Space Mountain. Oh, and once from the airport here, and twice from the airport in Orlando--once to let me know they arrived safely, and once to tell me that he'd lost his paperwork with all the confirmation numbers and things.

I don't think any of it was really necessary, but I'm obsessive about being sure I have copies of the hotel confirmation and rental confirmation and airline e-ticket confirmation. I had given him copies of everything, but at some point, probably when he was giving his dad his boarding pass (which we had printed out at home at midnight last night), he lost track of it. I imagine he was panic-stricken for a moment--I would have been--but it's probably not a bad thing, really, to prove that all of that is basically unnecessary.

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Poppies

It's my annual poppy entry! I know I write about them every year, but every year I'm just thrilled that they've come up, and I'm always surprised by it. As I pulled out of the driveway yesterday I noticed that I had one bloom, but I was running late, as usual, and didn't have time to run back into the house to get the camera.

This morning when I pulled out, I saw that there were two, and I was early, so I went back in and got the camera and took a couple of pictures. Aren't they the most gorgeous color?

Oh, and when I went back in the house to get the camera, I apparently surprised Dinah and Pyewacket:

See, what I think is, they really like each other, but don't want us to know it. They act like they just barely tolerate each other when we're home, but when they're by themselves, well:

That's what I saw when I came home last night, and I grabbed the camera and took a shot before Pyewacket jumped off the cat tree. It's fairly obvious what happened -- Dinah was sitting there, and Pye decided she wanted to sit there, but for whatever reason, Dinah stood her ground and wouldn't get off, thus Pyewacket crouching on the edge.

Of course, I guess in the top two pictures they aren't necessarily playing with each other, and maybe Dinah's hiding because Pye was going to thump her, but it looked more like playing. No one's back was up, there wasn't any hissing or growling going on. I prefer to believe they were playing. Of course, they can't seem to do that very long before it escalates into hissing and growling, but it's nice to see them at least coexisting peacefully. ("Sure, everything's fine until somebody puts their eye out . . .")

Dinah has started trying to get out the front door again every time we open it, so we've had to become more vigilant any time we go out. She got out night before last when Bob went out to get something out of the van, and since it was already dark, I was afraid we wouldn't be able to find her, but she stopped to eat some grass and I snuck up on her and scooped her up.

Bob would probably be just as happy to let her run out, he's said more than once we ought to try it and see what she does, and he's sort of kidding.

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