Peaceful

It's weird without Bob here. I'm pretty used to him being gone for the odd weekend here and there, but being gone for this long (nine days) is strange. One thing that happens is that I'm not as anxious to leave work at night; I never leave before 6:00 anyway, but I do try always to leave pretty soon after that, and if I haven't called Bob to let him know that I'm in the car ready to go home by about 6:15, he'll call me. It's not like I'm staying 'til midnight or anything, but I've been here 'til 6:30 or 7:00 most nights.

And then I go to the gym, so by the time I get home it's been after 8:00, and sometimes closer to 9:00. But last night I left work and went straight home (well, I stopped for gas and food, but that's it), and got home right after 7:00. I picked up a salad for dinner, and ate it sitting in front of the television watching Law & Order (is it just my impression, or is Law & Order on almost continuously every night?), then I got out the sweater I'm knitting, and worked on that for awhile.

We were having a thunderstorm, so at about 10:00 I went and shut down the computer and took a book upstairs to bed with me, and read for a half hour or so until I got sleepy. It was a really nice, peaceful night.

Tonight I was going to go to the gym, then as I was driving home I was thinking how tired I was, and I decided to stop and get something to eat and then go home. I went to Chipotlé and took a book, and got a burrito bol, but I couldn't resist getting chips, so then I felt guilty about eating too much, and when I got home I changed my clothes and took a walk. A five mile walk.

So I don't feel guilty any more, but I do feel sore.

We're on summer hours now, which means that if we can--if we don't have any urgent client business--we leave the office mid-afternoon on Friday. So last Friday I went by the license bureau and got the license plates for my new car. And while I was there I decided to order new personalized plates.

They issue new personalized plate designs every five years, and this was the year for the new ones, and I had decided I was kind of tired of the old "WEBGRRL" one, so I had decided to just let it go rather than getting (and paying for) new plates. But when I mentioned that to Cello, he suggested I get ones with "WILLA" on them, and I liked that idea. I'm not sure why I didn't do that in the first place. I'll get them in two to three months, depending, I guess, on how long it takes the inmates to make them.

I'm not sure about the buffalo, though.

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Paranoid v. foolhardy

Last night at about 11:00 I decided I wanted to knit a sweater, so I went down to the basement for some yarn, and stepped into water.

It's been raining for several days here, and it looked like the water had just seeped up through cracks in the cement floor, but it was kind of hard to tell. It was pretty much everywhere. I think it's been a couple of years since that's happened, and we had most of the stuff up off the floor on bricks or other things that water wouldn't hurt, but there were some boxes on the floor that I had probably put down there after the last time, after enough time had passed that I had forgotten that it was possible.

The basement is unfinished, but we had a bunch of old throw rugs down there, so most of those were sodden, in addition to the boxes. Although I suppose that might have helped keep the water contained. Hard to tell.

It was so late that I couldn't face doing anything about it last night, so I just got my yarn and came upstairs, and started the sweater, and went to bed at about midnight, figuring I'd get up early today and take care of it. So I spent most of the day down there, mopping up water, filling trashbags with things that were ruined, lugging the trashbags up the stairs and out into the garage so that I could drag them down the driveway tonight for trash pick-up tomorrow.

Bob's out of town.

This kind of thing is a lot easier when you have help.

And also, man, it's hard work. My back started to get tight, and the last few bags were pretty hard to get up the stairs. I could, of course, have left them for Bob to bring up when he gets home, but he's going to be gone all week, and I didn't want wet things sitting down there that long. I kept the cell phone in my pocket all day, as I do almost all the time, even at home, if Bob's gone.

I know it's silly, but when I'm at home by myself, I can't help thinking what would happen if I fell down the stairs--as I've done before--or hurt myself some other way (like the time I pulled the vacuum cleaner down on top of my head on the stairs) or locked myself out of the house or something. I realize that that's paranoid, but I figure it's better to be paranoid than dead.

And especially when I'm working in the basement, I always have the phone with me. Today, when my back started tightening up, I was thinking, okay, if my back goes out, I can call 911, but they'd have to break in the front door in order to come down to the basement and get me. I have my neighbors' phone numbers programmed into my phone, but none of them have a key to the house. My parents do, but I wouldn't want them to have to drive all the way out here. Bob's parents do, too, and they're closer, so I guess I'd call them and have them come over the unlock the house. Or I could call my sister, and she'd have to drive over to my parents and get the key, and come out here, because now that I think about it, my dad couldn't drive over here anyway, because he just had eye surgery . . . The things that go through my mind!

Anyway, nothing happened except that I'm exhausted and my back is sore, but the basement is in pretty good shape, and all the trash is out at the curb. I decided to stop before I actually got everything done in the basement -- some of the boxes over by the wall look like they might be wet on the bottom, but I decided I wasn't going to tackle it. There's paranoid, and then there's foolhardy.

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Shuffle

It's kinda been one of those weeks. And on top of it, this morning two people remarked that I hadn't written in quite a long time, and since those two people were Bob and Dan, I figured I should probably listen to them and write something.

My dad had eye surgery this morning, and I was worried about that, but he came through it fine, and is at home. I don't know how long it will be until they know whether it was successful or not (he had something happen in one of his eyes that caused him to lose sight in that eye), but at least he got through the surgery okay.

And my brother-in-law was in a motorcycle accident over the weekend, and has several broken bones--ribs, his hand, etc.--but he's home, too.

And Bob's got something weird going on with a facial nerve or something that causes him to feel like--in his words--he's being electrocuted several times a day.

So yeah, it's been one of those weeks.

Bob went to the dentist this morning to see whether it might be a tooth-related problem, and the dentist said he wasn't sure what it was, but that he thought it might be an inflamed tooth related to overnight tooth-grinding, so he gave him a prescription for antibiotics and is going to order an appliance for him, and told him to get a football mouth-guard as a temporary measure. Bob's going on a fishing trip for ten days, leaving this weekend, so I'm not thrilled about not having the problem solved before he leaves, but one of the guys going with him is a doctor, so I guess, worst case, he'll have someone with him who can give him a pain pill or something . . .

We had a really good Memorial Day weekend. My Saturday was normal--running errands: bank, post office, grocery store, etc.--but Bob didn't have any plans on Sunday, and didn't have to work, so we spent the day together, which we don't do very often.

We went to the movies and saw the new Star Wars movie, Revenge of the Sith, then we went out for a late lunch at a Mexican restaurant, then went home, and I passed out for about three hours. When I finally woke up, we did some yard work and took the kitties out in the backyard on their leashes. So it was a pretty full day.

Bob got up early Monday morning and went fishing, so I slept really late, then got up and planted flowers. So there was relaxation, and production. A very nice weekend.

I've got the iPod on "Shuffle," and it contains 944 songs currently, which leads to some interesting juxtapositions. I wrote the first 20 down this morning while I was working. In turned out to be a really mixed-up selection. In order:

1. 1952 Vincent Black Lightning - Richard Thompson
   
2. Crazy Dream - Los Lonely Boys
   
3. Fruitcakes - Jimmy Buffett
   
4. What a Wonderful World - Keb' Mo'
   
5. Pipeline - The Routers
   
6. The Girl I Love - David Olney
   
7. Sabra Girl - Nickel Creek
   
8. Seuls - Les Choristes
   
9. Dig Down Deep - Marc Cohn
   
10. All I Want is You - David Knopfler
    
11. Clocks - Coldplay
    
12. American Roulette - Robbie Robertson
    
13. Casino Nation - Jackson Browne
    
14. Cannonball - Damien Rice
    
15. Half a Step Away - Paul Young
    
16. Joe DiMaggio's Done It Again - Billy Bragg and Wilco
    
17. Regresa a Mi - Il Divo
    
18. Memories of You - Ryan Adams
    
19. Right About Now - Paul Young
    
20. Somewhere in Your Head - Paul Carrack

(I especially liked "Regresa a Mi" following "Joe DiMaggio's Done it Again," although the segue from Robbie Robertson to Jackson Brown's "Casino Nation" was nice, too.)

(I just found out that David is going to be playing some dates next week with Donovan, which makes me want to go download Sunshine Superman . . .)

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Dodged another bullet

Nothing seems to go smoothly for us anymore. Maybe that's not true, but it seems like everything that happens has to be complicated in one way or another.

I called the surgeon for an appointment last Friday, and the person I talked to in his office said she would call both my regular doctor and the imaging center, and get all of the various files and x-rays and have them for the doctor when I came for my appointment yesterday. But when we got there, not only did they not have the x-rays, but no one had requested them. Maybe it was because I hadn't signed a release--she had me sign one when I got there, which she faxed to the imaging center--but if that was the case, they should have known that ahead of time, and they could have faxed it to me and I would have faxed it back.

But whatever, be that as it may, they didn't have them. We talked to the doctor, and he had a file which included the radiologist's report, which must have been sent over from my doctor's office. The report basically said that the mass that they saw "wasn't significantly different" from the one that they had seen before, which begs the question, so why am I here? And the second question, so why has no one been worried about it in the four years since it first appeared?

The answer to the first question was what Bob had predicted: ob-gyns aren't breast cancer specialists, and they get sued a lot for failing to diagnose breast cancer, so if there's any possibility of being wrong, they err on the side of caution and get a second opinion. Which I am totally in favor of, of course.

In answer to my second question, the doctor just shrugged and said it depends on the radiologist, probably, and maybe we just got an especially cautious one. Again, I have no problem with that.

The doctor said there was probably nothing to worry about, that it was probably the same mass that we saw, and had biopsied, in 2001, but of course, without the x-rays, he was just guessing. He said he would wait until he got them, which would probably be the next day (today), he would look at them, and call me. There didn't seem to be anything else that we could do, so we thanked him and left, but then when we got back down to the car, Bob said, "Didn't we hear someone say that he wasn't going to be there tomorrow?" and I realized that he was right.

So once I got in the car, I called back up there and asked, and they said, yes, the doctor was going to be gone tomorrow. I asked when he was going to be back, and he wasn't going to be back until the following Wednesday! So we would be waiting ANOTHER week, and I didn't think I could take that. I asked her if she thought I could go over to the imaging center and pick up my file myself, and bring it back, and she said I could try, and she suggested I call first.

So I called the imaging center, told them that I wanted to come over and pick up my file and bring it back to the doctor's office, and she said, "Right now?" I said yes, that the doctor was leaving the office for a week, and I couldn't wait another week to find out. She asked if I could give her a half hour to get the file together, and I said no, that the doctor's office would be closed by then, so I would really appreciate it if she could get it together in the new few minutes. I waited until I had hung up the phone to yell, "Why the hell would it take her 30 minutes to get my file together?? Why would it take any longer than about two minutes to pull it out of the drawer???!!!"

I called the doctor's office back and said I was going to drive over to the imaging center and hopefully pick up the file and bring it back, but that they had asked for a half hour to get it ready, so I wasn't sure if I'd be successful. The woman in the doctor's office said, "Are you kidding me? They should be getting it ready anyway, to courier it over here!" She told me not to worry, just to get over there, and once I was standing in front of them, they'd get it for me, and she would stay until I got back, and leave the door unlocked.

I guess we had to wait about 15 minutes at the imaging center until the woman from the records department came out with the file. Bob paced out in the courtyard for about ten of those minutes, then came in and stewed, and threatened to explode, and if it had taken another five minutes he probably would have, but fortunately she came out with the file before that happened. I had to show her a photo i.d. and sign a release before she would let me have them, but once they were in my hand, we raced back out to the car and drove back to the doctor's office, where I parked in a no-parking zone, put the car in park, and jumped out of the car with the file, leaving Bob to re-park it.

As I was getting out of the car, he said, "Don't wait for the elevator, take the stairs!" but I didn't. I took the elevator. The receptionist met me at the door, took me back to the doctor's office, and practically before she shut the door, Bob was there. He did take the stairs.

A few minutes later, the doctor came in. He took the x-rays from 2001, and the x-rays from last week, stuck them up in the lightbox, got out his little magnifying/measuring viewer thing (no idea what it was, really), looked at them both, and pronounced them the same--same spot, same size ("about the size of an M&M Peanut" was how he put it) (the mass, not the breast).

He said there was no reason to do anything about it, that they (fibroadenomas, which is what the biopsy showed that it was) do sometimes get larger, but that I don't "have enough estrogen running around in there" to make that happen, and in any event, the biopsy showed that it was benign, so as long as it wasn't causing me any problems, it didn't need to come out.

We were practically giddy with relief when we left, Bob probably more so than me, actually. I think so many times it's harder on other people than it is on the person experiencing the problem--just like it's easier to be an advocate for someone other than yourself, it's harder, sometimes, to worry about someone else than it is to worry about yourself. You really just want to take the worry and pain away from them, but there's no way to do that, so you internalize it, and it seems larger, as a result.

When we left the doctor's office the first time, Bob had said, "Well, we can't go to Joe's Crab Shack, because we don't know it's okay yet. And I was really looking forward to it!" So after we got the all-clear the second time, that's where we headed. We had appetizers and shrimp and crab, and dessert--a huge piece of chocolate cake for him, and an ice cream-and-bananas dessert for me, and I had two of the drink special--something with Strawberry Daquiri and Frozen Margarita swirled together--and as we got up from the table, I handed Bob my keys, because I was in no shape to drive home.

When we got home, I basically passed out. Most of it was the drinks, of course, but some of it was, I'm sure, relief at dodging another bullet.

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Stuff

I like my horoscope for the coming week:

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): It's the beginning of the upside-down and backwards time of year for you, Sagittarius. As long as you cooperate with the unusual flow of fate, you will thrive. Here are some exercises to get you in the proper frame of mind: Picture yourself having the body of the opposite gender. Hold a pen with your non-dominant hand as you write about your taboo fantasies. Gaze at yourself in a mirror that reflects your image from another mirror. Consider the possibility that there's something you really need but you don't know what it is. Make up a dream in which you change into an animal. Compose a prayer in which you ask for something you think you're not supposed to.

~ Freewill Astrology

I'm enjoying having a new car. There wasn't anything wrong with the old one, so it was kind of annoying to have to get rid of it, but it's always fun to have something new. It kind of shakes things up to have something different, with different buttons and knobs and things to learn and figure out.

The CD changer is kind of weird. It's a six-CD changer, but it's in the dash, so you feed the CDs in one by one and there are all kinds of mechanical gyrations going on behind that scenes. Bob said, "That sounds like a recipe for disaster" when I showed him how it works. But I've got a good warranty, so if it breaks down, it shouldn't be a problem getting it fixed.

The moonroof* is nicer than the one in the Escort, too. In the Escort, when I had the moonroof open, if I was driving on the highway, my hair would fly up and get caught in the mechanism, and sometimes pick up grease. Ick. So I tended not to use it unless I was just driving around town. With this one, my hair still flies up, of course, but there isn't anything for it to get caught in. It slides back smoothly . . . okay, as I write that, I'm wondering how it actually works. I think it must slide into a panel inside the car, above the headliner. Hm. In the Escort, it folded up over the top of the car, but not in this one. I guess they figured out a better way. Cool.

 

*I found out why it's a "moonroof" and not a "sunroof:"

"Sunroof" is the generic term used to describe an operable panel in a vehicle roof which can let in light and/or air. "Moonroof" is a term created by Ford in the 70s, yet is now used generically to describe glass panel inbuilt electric sunroofs.
(Ask.Yahoo.com)

So there you have it.

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