The One Thing

Inspirational song: Always Look on the Bright Side of Life (Monty Python)

All day I have fought off a migraine. And nausea. And a lot of stabby pain in the neighborhood of the lymph nodes under my arm. I barely had an appetite all day. And I was particularly sensitive to insults. I don't want to find good things to write about. I want to be cranky and negative. I wanted to skip writing altogether, and I didn't even pick up the laptop until one in the morning.

I suppose if I have to find one positive thing about the last week, it's that I have managed, for the first time in my life, to keep an orchid alive long enough for it to rebloom. Yay?

Well-Behaved Woman

Inspirational song: We Can Work It Out (The Beatles)

The ship has been righted. My head is screwed on straight again today. At least it is for now. I pulled on my big-girl pants and made some phone calls that tamped down some fears for a few days. I called the liaison and asked about the second lump I found right next to where the biopsy needle went in. She consulted with someone on staff at the place where the biopsy was done, and said it was most likely a bruise from the needle. It's very rare than cancers suddenly spread that quickly. So I'm feeling a little less agitated than I was yesterday. The rain on the parade was that the radiologist who will read and interpret my MRI is off this week (or maybe more than one are because of spring break?), so I won't have results until Monday at the earliest.

The other call I made was to my insurance, to find out what the deal was with my copay for the biopsy. I had gotten a notice from the hospital that I had a balance due when I had paid my usual amount at the window at check-in. Turns out the biopsy was considered ambulatory surgery, and it cost double what I expected. And this amount is more than double what the "procedure" copay was last time I had anything big done, like the colonoscopy a few years ago. What it boils down to is that I've just learned that cancer is going to be even more expensive than I expected it to be, and it is going to cost me forever. Maybe I ought to revisit that conversation I had with a younger computer-programming-savvy person who suggested she could put a donation button on my page. I had signed up for a Patreon account years ago, but I never applied it to anything, both for lack of understanding exactly how, and for the hurdle of needing to offer extra content when I am already wearing myself out by writing every single night for six years.

I'm trying to step up my healthy eating game, now that it's more important than ever. I've never had a problem convincing myself to eat vegetables. They're the best part of any meal, and I've believed that for my whole life. But fatigue and inertia sometimes keeps me from making the healthiest foods all the time. If easy food is available, I have been known to take that route. I have to cut it out. No more skipping lunch, and no more letting lunch be french fries and a coke from a drive through window. (The only foods I am able to get from fast food establishments, and even then, not from every chain.) I had a boeuf bourginon simmering in the crock pot for dinner, and discovered I was hungry enough that waiting was uncomfortable. I forced myself to make an easy salad, with a little goat cheese and walnuts thrown on top, to make it through the day. I should be eating greens at every meal, but I haven't convinced myself to expend the energy yet. I'm getting better about being better, but I'm not all the way there yet.

The Other Kind of Identity Theft

Inspirational song: The Band Played Waltzing Matilda (June Tabor)

Don't be surprised. I had a bad day again. I have a lot of these now.

It started so promising. My favorite gluten free bakery was celebrating their fifth anniversary, and they made special versions of their divine breakfast rolls, filled with things like raspberry cream cheese, maple and bacon, and Nutella and marshmallow fluff. I had gone for sandwiches yesterday, and swore an oath to go back and get some of the special treats for breakfast. I did as I promised, and skipped a shower, just throwing on jeans and a t-shirt before heading down early. The rolls did not disappoint. They were, however, super sweet, and we each barely ate one whole one. I have more for tomorrow.

Breakfast was the highlight of my day. I had no energy. I had long periods of pain, interspersed with periods of pressure. I ached from my collarbone to my waist on the left side. Sometimes I felt like I was being stabbed. Anxiety washed over me fresh repeatedly, every time I remembered that I found a new, smaller lump last night, about an inch to the right of the original. I don't know whether it's just a bruise from the biopsy needle or an outgrowth of the tumor. I tried to reach the patient liaison to ask whether I should be concerned, but though I had been assured I could email my questions, I did not get an answer. I have to conquer my phone terror tomorrow and try to call. At least the MRI was yesterday, so if there is a change, they should be able to see it.

Waiting is agony. I have so much time to get up into my own head, and unravel every single one of my fears and hangups. I mourned my youth and beauty that seems far behind me now. Each time a piece of me gets cut out or cut off, I lose more of what I thought made me me. I spent a great deal of today miserable.

Many of the people who read this are close to people who have gone through surgeries like I'm about to, or they've gone through them themselves. Be kind to those you know. This is deep, difficult stuff. For all the people I've known who lost bits of themselves to cancer, I don't believe anyone opened up to me about the sense of loss. A year and a half ago, I stopped recognizing my own face when my nose stopped being symmetrical after they cut "a carat and a half" from it, and that was hard enough. Now I will lose a significant quantity of my left breast. This is a lot to work through, and it is going to take me a lot of time to figure out who is left inside this scarred shell.

My only photo was of the trio who held me down in my chair most of the day. I didn't move much.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Inspirational song: Heart of Lothian (Marillion)

We weren't sure that this morning's procedure was going to happen on time. I got a call yesterday on the way to Costco saying that my prior authorization for the MRI hadn't gotten submitted in time, and I could self-pay or reschedule. They had talked to my doctor before calling me, so I suggested the third option was to give Tricare overnight to process my referral, and decide what to do before it was time to head to the hospital. The nice lady who called yesterday woke me this morning to let me know it would be paid for, and I could go ahead and come in.

I didn't sleep well last night. Frankly I was not looking forward to lying face down in an MRI machine. It wasn't for claustrophobia. I don't mind that so much. It was the position. The arthritis in my low back has made it impossible for me to arch backwards at all, whether I'm lying down or standing up. They did what they could to make this comfortable, but it wasn't enough. I was sore for several hours from it. For a breast MRI, you lie on a wedge from knees to ribs, your breasts dangle into a box with two windows on top, and your face is in a cradle like on a massage table. They put a pillow under the ankles too, but that's just a minor comfort that doesn't offset the rest.

Feet go in the machine first, so if anyone were to panic in the tight space, I suppose that would help alleviate it. You really can't see the machine behind you, and there is oxygen piped in below the face cradle to keep you from overheating. This particular machine was brand new, having been installed last fall. I don't know whether older machines have the exact same amenities.

I was offered my choice of Pandora stations to listen to during the procedure, and so naturally I requested Marillion. There was some sort of flamenco music playing when they first put headphones on me, and as they moved the bed back into the tube, it switched to Heart of Lothian. This was from side two of Misplaced Childhood, the album I used to listen to in its entirety every time my stomach pain woke me up in the middle of the night in college. It was right about the point when this song started that I was trained to relax my abdominal muscles and start the process of falling back asleep. How ironic that as something physically challenging was kicking off, this was the music I was offered. I was quite pleased and grateful for it.

They gave me a sticker with a bubble of vitamin E to place on the side of my breast, to highlight the spot that has never been in a mammogram machine nor wanded by the ultrasound. Maybe -- just maybe -- we will now know what it was that has been causing pain there for two years.

While I was in the radiology waiting room, a friend of mine from Charleston sent me some photos as a gift. She knows how I feel about nature pictures, and how excited I get when spring starts opening up blossoms. She now lives in the northeast, and the trees were just beginning to open there. We haven't gotten any yet. She offered me these pictures and let me know she was thinking of me while I'm going through this. It was a lovely gesture, and it helped me get through the yucky test this morning.

They say now that I've been diagnosed with cancer, I can expect to have follow up imaging pretty much forever. I'll have a yearly mammogram and a yearly MRI, offset by six months. There are much more enjoyable things I'd rather do with a couple of hours of my time, but if it keeps cancer from coming back once I kick it out of my life, I'll do it.

Accommodations

Inspirational song: Interjections (Schoolhouse Rock)

It is generally true that you have to give a little to get a little. It always seems to work whenever I try it, anyway. Even if it doesn't produce desired results in the immediate transaction, banking a little good karma makes the times easier when you are in a needy rut where all you seem to do is take. I'm in that rut now, needing a lot of extra accommodations, and I feel guilty about it. But I'm always looking for ways I can give back, to keep some semblance of balance in my relationships. That might
be why I knocked myself out making dinners for the Wednesday game group for so long, investing in cosmic storage of good will, not knowing then how soon I would be in a position to hope others can take over and feed me while I'm down this spring. I also need the games we play to be local, at my house or next door. That's the battle we are facing now. One member is in Boulder, and he loved to host at his apartment building. But the rest of us live elsewhere, most in our town. It's a lot more of a logistical nightmare to get us all there, waiting at the locked gate to be let in to start the game (and the host is almost always late). I volunteered to make tomorrow's game down at his place, but as a forfeit of sorts, because I'm about to insist on months of them at my house or at T's. We just can't keep up with a young night owl when some of our group has to commute an hour into Denver each way, and some of us are about to be in another medical fight for our lives (okay, that's just me). We may have to have some sort of intervention tomorrow, about why exactly short commutes and early bedtimes will be the law for a while.

We have a lot of little old ladies needing extra accommodations right now. I'm not just referring to myself (I'm neither little nor old in this context). Elsa the dog has never fully recovered from her pancreatitis last year. She got super skinny just a few months after Bump did the exact same thing (although his was a pancreatic tumor, and it was fatal). We have tried to keep her calorie intake up, but her body is old now and doesn't want to be as chubby as she was most of her life. We had a huge Costco run today, and have stocked up on wet dog food. She hasn't had nearly enough of that in her day, mostly because she always ate so fast she wouldn't have tasted anything anyway. Now we're so interested in keeping her around and comfortable, we don't care how fast it goes down.

Rabbit is in the same boat. She's light as a feather and her bones seem close to the surface and fragile now. I bought her a vitamin paste in a tube from Petco. I wasn't sure she would like it, but it took her no time at all to recognize the sound of a plastic cap snapping in place. I put a dab of this stuff on the back of my knuckle for her to consume, so the one time I was applying hand lotion instead, she came flying out of nowhere and got a noseful of mandarin orange argan oil lotion. Whoops.

While we were playing mah jongg tonight, I got a video of my grandkittens staging a protest. Little old lady Smacky is officially toothless now, and I don't mean like the dragon in the animated movies. She has nothing left to chew crunchies with, so she's on wet food now. She still lives with Harvey's mother and a couple of the babies (two were officially "adopted" yet they haven't gone home with their human yet because she hasn't gotten a place where pets are allowed). Harvey's siblings threw a giant fit that Smacky was getting canned food while they were locked outside of the room where she ate. I was told that they continued to fuss for hours. The absolute injustice of it was written on their faces, and it was the cutest, funniest thing I've seen all week, and that's saying a lot because I have spent a week discussing with Harvey how cruel it is that he should be inside now that it is officially spring. I wonder whether the California siblings ever calmed down.

Harder to Live With

Inspirational song: El Dorado (IV) F E A R (Marillion)

Anxiety keeps sneaking up and slapping me in the face when I least expect it. Most of the time I feel somewhat normal. Brave, even. And then a little bit of the reality pokes through the denial veil I wear, and it occurs to me that they are cutting off the front half of my breast, and I don't know how to process that. I tried making a joke about the horizontal scar I will have on one side, telling my kids that I'm going to look like the winky-face emoji with my shirt off. At other times, usually when I'm alone, I totally freak out and have to work hard not to cry in fear. I've had plenty of surgeries--more than my share, really. All of those involved removal of things on the inside. The scars on the outside were tiny. Laparoscopic incisions are about a centimeter, and they heal nicely, both physically and emotionally. I'm not going to be able to hide from this and forget what I'm missing. I will be aware of it at every moment for the rest of my life. I'm honestly terrified of this.

When it's possible to distract myself, I do. I spent a week crocheting a pink bag to keep my notebooks in, and I finished that late tonight while watching season one of Game of Thrones yet one more time. It was nice keeping my hands busy, but now I need to find a new outlet for nervous energy. It has to be something I can stop and start with impunity, when I find myself staring out into space, trying to quash the rising panic. I need to make a fabric liner for the purse, so that the binders don't stretch it out, but that won't take very long. I have weeks to fill with something other than screaming.

Most of the time I'm fine, I think. I've convinced myself it is so, primarily because the doctors made it sound like it's all good, caught early, no chemo, yadda yadda. I just never gave myself enough time to get used to this idea. I knew for a year that I probably had skin cancer on the side of my nose before I was willing to have it biopsied and then removed. I never had time to think about breast cancer. It never occurred to me that I was at risk. I have no idea what made me imagine I was impervious. Did I think God would only give me a stack of autoimmune disorders, diverticulitis, arthritis, and reproductive system malfunctions, and surely that would be it? There couldn't possibly be more, right? Oh, was I wrong. I thought I learned this lesson a decade ago, when our military assignments got more and more remote, to crappier and crappier locations: Never, ever, ever ask out loud "How much worse can it get?" Fate takes that as a challenge.

Mail Call

Inspirational song: Thank You (Led Zeppelin)

Surprises keep showing up in my mailbox. It's a sweet, somewhat-forgotten feeling, getting mail out of the blue. Letter writing is kind of an old-fashioned skill, one that I've sort of lost, and when dear friends demonstrate that they still have these talents, frankly, I'm in awe of them. Me, I take a year and a half to get Christmas presents in the mail. No, I'm not kidding. Not exaggerating in the least. I have some sort of emotional hangup about the post office, and I never go there, even when it ought to be easy.

My step-dad is the king of packaging. My husband and I have a mutual understanding of how impossible it is to get into something he mails. I mean, for sure we will never lose pieces out of one of these boxes in the mailing system. If they arrive crushed or torn, then someone did it on purpose, and they expended a lot of effort to damage our stuff. Last week, my mother gathered up a few button-up shirts that they didn't need anymore, and they mailed them to me. I think I currently had one button-up shirt that fits me. I had been wearing exclusively pullovers for years. But my upcoming surgery is going to change how I dress for several weeks. I'm not going to want to raise my arms until things feel better, so I needed the loan. The box of shirts arrived on Thursday, and it took me until Saturday morning to have the (unit of energy) spoons to work past the tightly-taped brown paper packaging. It took more than twenty minutes this time. As soon as I started fiddling with it, I had four cats supervising every step of the way. They inspected every inch of paper wrapping, they sniffed the corners of the box, and once opened, they stood on it and smelled each shirt. My parents have cats and dogs too, and textiles that came from a home with multiple humans, felines, and canines they didn't know concerned them. I wore one of the shirts immediately when I went out to dinner last night, and Harvey paid very close attention to me. I think he eventually decided he could accept it.

In yesterday's mail, and in mail from about a week ago, I got some letters from women who mean a lot to me. My sister in law and one of my favorite military spouse friends sent cards to cheer me up after they learned of my cancer diagnosis. I also have gotten many electronic messages from friends and family in the last couple of weeks. These words of support are precious to me. I want everyone who has reached out to know that I appreciate it, more than I know how to express. I'll keep at this, trying to say it enough. For now, I'll start easy: Thank you. You made a difference. You gave me strength.

Bobblehead

Inspirational song: Evangelina (Hoyt Axton)

Maybe it was the muscle relaxers six hours ago. Maybe it was the exquisite Mexican food (bacon-wrapped, goat cheese stuffed Anaheim peppers with chutney and pumpkin seeds) from Cyclhops and the rocky road milkshake that filled my belly and slowed me down. Maybe it was the stress of almost two months of wondering what this latest health twist would entail, and the sudden relief of learning that it wasn't going to be as horrible as I really thought. Or maybe it was just how horribly I've been sleeping lately. I'm wiped out, and I'm afraid if I don't go ahead and post now, I'll fall asleep with the lights and TV on, and by the time I'm coherent again, tomorrow's basketball games will already be on.

My basketball bracket is still hanging in pretty well. So far in the second round I have identified seven of the Sweet Sixteen correctly, and if the second half of the Auburn/Kansas game goes like the first, I'll have all eight from today right. I've missed two automatically for tomorrow, from my errors in the first round of sixty-four teams. But overall I'm pretty chuffed about this bracket. I'm ranked just above 2200 on the CBS website where I entered it, owning 41 of 45 possible points. This means I can happily drift off to sleep, God willing and the creeks don't rise, watching Auburn stomp the Jayhawks. I can put off until tomorrow coming to terms with the fact that I selected Duke to go all the way. What was I thinking? Ew. But if I'm right, I'm right. Will know in a few weeks.

My March Madness cuddle buddy:

Incremental Progress

Inspirational song: Brave (Marillion)

Bump has been gone almost one full year now. The neighborhood squirrels have figured out now that he isn't coming back. Murray just isn't as diligent about chasing them off, although once in a while he remembers to. The bravest little girl squirrel, who I have officially named "Merida" (after the Scottish Disney princess), came to the door for breakfast this morning. She couldn't give a hoot that Athena and Harvey were glaring daggers at her through the door, nor that they're prone to swatting through the tiny gap in the door when the Mr passes almonds out for her to eat. I woke to the sound of videos of her being sent to my phone. She stuck around long enough for me to stumble out to the dining room to say hello. Apparently this morning she got seven or eight almonds, which she carried out to the yard and buried, before she was cut off. She stood on the porch, peering through the glass with her hands clasped together, wondering why the supply of nuts stopped flowing. I really wonder whether she will approach us directly when we are outside without dogs during the warm season. Will that end badly?

Today was a big news day, just not necessarily at my local level. I spent all afternoon and evening in front of the television watching political coverage, to the exclusion of doing just about anything else. I'm in a wait-and-see pattern, so I don't have a whole lot to add to the discussion yet.

Insurance authorizations are in progress for my upcoming surgery. A woman called to straighten out the auth for the MRI next week, because somebody in the centralized scheduling office doesn't know how Tricare works. They were suggesting that I had no insurance, that I didn't show up in the system, whatever. I've been in this system for almost two and a half decades--as a sub-set of my husband's account. People who have never been a military dependent don't understand how this works. My information doesn't matter, only the sponsor's does. My SSN might as well not exist. I've gotten hundreds of dollars in bills from doctor's offices that tried to use it. There's a reason I double- and triple-check the insurance before I set foot in a medical building. It's more stressful to get all the details ready in advance than it is to lie in bed healing afterward. Although this one might be a pretty traumatic healing process, compared to the others where the parts that were cut out were not visible from the outside. I'm having a hard time staying brave about losing a big chunk of my left breast. That's going to be noticeable.

Scene Change

Inspirational song: Play the Game (Queen)

For the first time in just over six weeks, I'm able to think about something other than cancer all day and all night. It was oppressive--wondering, fearing, not knowing, and then knowing but thinking it was worse than it was. After yesterday, I have significantly less trepidation. I can't say that I'm looking forward to this process, but it isn't freaking me out like it was a week ago.

I went almost five years without writing a Twitter bio on my account. I didn't know what to say, and I was ignorant of the hallmarks of bots and trolls, so I just left that off. Last fall, I put a blurb for the first time, that said something like, "Sometimes I use sportsball to distract myself from the dumpster fire of life. Don't try to take that away from me." Coincidentally enough, that's exactly how I can describe today. I thought about the cancer just long enough to make the appointment for my MRI, and to take one call from the physical therapist who would get me set up to make sure lymph node removal doesn't affect me negatively. I failed to call her back when she left a voicemail while I was making lunch. I failed to cancel my massage next month (three days after surgery). And I failed to call my PCP to tell her that I screwed up on one of my mail-order prescriptions. Instead, I sat on my bed, crocheting a pink and gray bag to hold my medical care notebooks, and watching basketball. The games were engrossing and I completely put aside my cares while I watched.

I fill out brackets most years now, ever since my older daughter was in basketball band at CU. I think I missed completely last year. I filled one out this morning, but it's possible I hit save fifteen minutes late for it to really count. The email reminder said to have it done by noon eastern, but once I clicked through, I thought I saw 11 eastern. When I saved the only bracket I made, it was almost 9:15 local. I didn't overthink it, knowing it was late. I just went with my gut and clicked on some names. I may have goofed, putting all number one seeds in the final four. I didn't intend to. Normally I'd be very careful not to.

At bedtime Thursday, I have done pretty well at my stab-in-the-dark bracket. I listened to the voice in my head that said Minnesota would win. I wanted Belmont to upset Maryland (mostly because I once lived on a Belmont street when I was in grade school), and they almost did it. It was the first nail-biter of the day, but Maryland won 79-77. And then I struggled choosing the 8 v 9 game, selecting Syracuse over Baylor. I watched that game and others tonight at the neighbor's, and while he was cheering on the superior athleticism shown by Baylor, I was bemoaning the damage to my bracket. I ended the first half of the first round with 14 right and 2 wrong. I can be pleased with that.

They gave me a bright pink reusable grocery bag at the breast care center. It's too big for how much literature I currently have, and while these are great to carry boxes of cereal home, they're not great for three-ring binders. That's why I am making a sturdy crochet one. Besides, this one is way too much fun for little white kitties to fight over.

Consultation

Inspirational song: A Little Good News (Anne Murray)

I met my surgeon today. She went over all of the pathology, gave me a rundown of what my treatment will be, and gave me all the space for questions I could possibly want. Suddenly I am feeling confident that this is really going to be okay. It's never going to be fun. But it absolutely will be okay.

I woke up before sunrise this morning, and reached over for my notebook on the bedside table. I never had written out all of my questions, so I did that as soon as I was certain that I wouldn't be able to fall asleep again without them. I filled up two handwritten pages, double spaced, front and back. I then made sure that I'd completed my medical questionnaire that I'd been given, completing the medications list and a few checkmarks I'd missed.

The staff at the breast surgeon's office were every bit as wonderful as you would want them to be. They were supportive and friendly and they inspired confidence in their expertise. I knew I was in good hands. There was an advocate who came in and introduced herself while I waited for my turn with the surgeon, and she went over the services they offer, and she volunteered to take notes during my consultation, so that I didn't have to divide my attention.

The surgeon managed to be both self-assured and approachable. She seems perfect. I trust her but I don't fear her, nor am I put off by her. We went inch by inch through my entire pathology and treatment plan. All along the way I got good news, like this is officially considered Stage One, as I had hoped. I qualify for a lumpectomy rather than needing a radical mastectomy (or at least they believe now, before an MRI). Unless something hidden comes back in the MRI or surgical pathology, I will most likely only need radiation, not chemotherapy. And they assured me that reconstruction will be a covered benefit.

I'm still not happy about the whole situation, but the biggest fears are quashed.

Warm Embrace

Inspirational song: You've Got a Friend (Carole King)

Every week, when there is occasion for it, we have a person whose role in the Rotary meetings is to announce news personal to individual members: births, deaths, illnesses, accomplishments. I missed last week's meeting for having the biopsy, so I had to make the decision today whether to tell this person about my diagnosis. I waffled a while, both before the meeting and during the lunch before the announcements began. I finally settled on yes, I should tell her my news. I asked her whether I ought to let her announce it, and she offered the advice that I have a ready-made support group if we speak up. So I told her yes, let the group know. It was the correct call.

I had a handful of hugs and hand-holding, especially at the end of the meeting. And then the real reward came: several people came to me and let me know their personal experiences with the cancer center here at our local hospital. I had not yet done my research about the practice, and I have had a little fear about how small my hometown is. What if it was just too small a population center to have much medical talent? I mean, so far my experiences with doctors have been primarily excellent, but I still worried. My Rotary friends, whose opinions and expertise I respect, assured me that there are world class doctors here, at an integrated practice. The surgeon I meet tomorrow works very closely with the oncologists who I meet in two weeks, and with the imaging center where I had my biopsy. They have a tumor board who meets every Friday to brainstorm and consult the best course of care for each patient. I will be in very good hands.

I also met with a good friend on a one-on-one basis about her experience going through this process, six months ahead of me. She saw the same surgeon, went to the same imaging center, and the same cancer center (different oncologist). I learned so much from her. The main thing I got from our talk was the speed with which they approached her care. She said from the surgical consult to the operation was about 9 days. The main delay was to get her off of her medications before she went in. I was allowed to see her pathology, and the proliferation index of her tumor was significantly lower than mine (hers qualified as low, mine as high). Once I saw that, my gut said this is going to move remarkably quickly.

I had a very painful weekend. I was pretty sure I was bruising heavier than I was supposed to from the biopsy. I had gone off of my NSAIDs on time, and waited two days to go back on them. I felt that was a mistake, and stopped them again on Sunday. My pain is a little less today, so I think that was the right call. But then today something occurred to me. Since December, I've been absolutely obsessed with drinking golden milk. This is made with a paste of turmeric, ginger, and other spices. I have had it almost every day for months. I've probably had three or four cups of it since the biopsy. It wasn't until just now that I googled whether turmeric is a blood thinner. Turns out it is, as well as ginger. Well, damn. Now I just feel dumb.

Room for Activities

Inspirational song: Empty Spaces (Pink Floyd)

This is really weird. It has been at least thirty years since I last intentionally put a mattress and box springs directly on the floor, intending to leave it that way. I know that when I was in college, I didn't own a bed frame right away. I bought one by the time I was a senior, and have had some sort of lift to where I sleep ever since. The last one was really high, just the way I like it. Now, as I recline in my room, watching TV while I rest my aching feet, I feel like I'm practically sitting on the floor. My eyes are at the mid-point of the vertical space, and I don't think I like it.

When I went to bed last night, my room was a study in chaos. Now it is 95% tidy, with all surfaces wiped down with Simple Green, Windex, or wood cleaner. Enormous piles of detritus are in the living room, waiting to be shredded or donated. I pray none of them end up back in here. Now, to paraphrase the movie Step Brothers, "There's so much extra room for activities!" I had to have help to get it to this point. My kids came over and helped me move big things and they did a lot of the cleaning too. I fed them, but I let my daughter do most of the prep work for salads too. At least I made the spice cake we had for dessert without needing reinforcements.

So far the fatigue and pain of cancer are increasing rapidly. I think the pain was exacerbated by me going back to taking my NSAIDs too soon, making the biopsy bleed horribly inside. I hope that's all it is. The fatigue is crazy now. I walk so slowly, even just carrying a small handful of trash from the bedroom to the can in the kitchen. I have to stop and sit frequently. Unfortunately, I didn't do that enough today, and now my feet feel like I hiked barefoot across gravel for miles. I am writing as early as I can so that I can allow myself to fall asleep in front of the TV without guilt.

As I write, I have about 40 hours until my appointment with the surgeon. I have no idea how this is going to go. I'm starting to get nervous. Like really nervous. I am hoping having one big thing done--having the bedroom ready for all eventualities--will be enough to help me calm down. My blood pressure is probably climbing just thinking about everything.

Re-Arrangements

Inspirational song: Oops, I Did It Again (Britney Spears)

Okay, look. This was actually important, I swear. I needed to completely tear apart my room and start moving stuff around. I needed to do it now. I'm running out of time, really. Did I need to do it all day today while I was home alone and the Mr was on his mountain, so that I couldn't move the heavy furniture? Yes. I had to start, anyway.

I have been feeling awful for more than a year. More awful than just the usual lupus fatigue. I had written about it occasionally, and I'd proposed theories as to what was happening. I was missing the obvious for a very long time. While this was brewing in my breast, I was increasingly unable to work, either in real estate or around the house. I stayed home a lot, but I didn't keep up with housework at all. The only rooms I'd clean on a regular basis were the kitchen, the upstairs bathroom, and the dining room table where we played D&D. In the last few months, I'd slowed down on vacuuming the living room and keeping up with my bedroom.

The bedroom was particularly problematic. Things had really piled up around the periphery: papers, craft projects, receipts, books, and boxes that hadn't been unpacked for years yet ended up in the bedroom when we had emptied the craft room for the foreign exchange student to live there... It's entirely possible that some of my increased insomnia wasn't cancer related at all, but just a result of the emotionally draining nonsense of having a cluttered bedroom.

There are several compelling reasons for attacking this right now. First, if I end up having surgery sooner than I am anticipating, then I will not be able to ask family to handle this while I'm in the hospital. That will be too late. Second, my bed is super high off the ground. The frame it sits upon is something we built when we first bought the mattress in Charleston, and we actually had to cut it down because we felt like we were on stage, it was so tall. If I'm either having surgery or chemo, I need not to climb in and out with my arms. I'm going to disassemble the wooden frame and set it flat on the floor, so that the box spring is just two inches off the floor. And on that theme, I'm also going to swap which side I sleep on. I'm usually rolling out on the left side. That's the side where the cancer is. I need to be able to just drop my legs to the right and stand without using my arms. I'm going to swing the bed over to the other window, so that I will have a more direct line to the bathroom from there.

When we first moved into this house, we had the bed on the north window, leaving an enormous open space on the south side of the room. I don't remember why I found it so disconcerting, but I insisted on moving it to the east side fairly early on. Now that open area would be of benefit. I'm going to borrow a recliner for a few weeks, so that if I do have surgery and can't sleep in a bed at first, I have a place to put it that isn't in a living room. If I only need it for a day or two, I can leave it in my room so that I can have visitors, like if my mom gets to come help out for a while. And, not for nothing, if this happens at lightning speed, then I'm going to want company in my room to watch the final episodes of Game of Thrones. Gotta put people somewhere.

The final consideration at the top of the list is cleanliness. Even if I avoid surgery, I'll still probably go through chemo. I will need a much cleaner environment to avoid getting sicker. My room was covered in a thick layer of dust and cat fur. I started dusting at the ceiling and worked my way down. I threw the curtains I made into the washer and prayed. They came out in good shape, but even the dryer couldn't remove all the Athena hair off of them. It took me hours to iron them, going over each section with a lint roller before and after the iron. I had to take several breaks to rest my back.

I worked all day, from mid-morning until late night. The picture I took was about 10:15, as I was trying to figure out how to clear off the bed so I can sleep. I have to start back up again as soon as I have a cup of coffee in hand tomorrow morning. Maybe the people who promised to help me move the actual bed will be available by the time I'm ready for them.

Purple Nurple

Inspirational song: Carry On (Fun)

A day and a half after I got the confirmation that this is indeed cancer, I think I'm wandering backwards through the acceptance phase. It feels less real tonight that it did yesterday. I'm not used to the vocabulary, and it's absolutely weird to use the actual word. I'm not ready to be treated differently, even though now I'm going to have a very visible disease. Before everything I was going through was invisible, unless I wore a t-shirt announcing my chronic illnesses. It's going to be hard to pretend everything's normal with a bald head or flat chest when everyone knows me very differently.

I don't know yet what they will expect of me (the doctors, that is), so no, I have know idea whether I will have surgery or chemo or what. I need to pinch myself to be sure this is really happening. No, actually I don't. The pinch in my left breast never lets up. It feels like someone clamped a heavy plastic chip-clip to me, and then let it dangle. The bruise from the biopsy is spectacular. They had me stop taking my NSAIDs five days before the procedure to prevent heavy bleeding. Yeah, nope. It still got sloppy in the clinic, and the bruises afterward are ginormous. It hurts like heck. I still haven't gotten a good answer about what the story is with the underarm, but it's getting increasingly uncomfortable too, more than a month after I gave up underwires.

I learned lessons from a close family member who went through cancer. (I don't know whether I have permission to identify, so I won't.) This relative's spouse kept thorough, detailed notes of every single doctor visit, test result, etc. I honestly believe this had a huge influence on the successful outcome, with my relative now considered cancer-free by the doctors. I am following this example, and while I was out buying a giant shopping cart full of salad fixings (another health tip I gleaned--side salad at every single meal), I picked up a pink three-ring binder and some pocket pages. I had a spiral notebook that I put in there, plus the folder they gave me from the breast surgeon. I'm going through the appointment reminders in my phone to get the dates from this year, from all the process so far, documenting everything I can remember. There will be way too much information for me to keep in my head, especially since lupus brain made that difficult if not impossible to juggle on my own.

I wonder whether I've been looking at something from the wrong direction. For months, Rabbit has been staring intently into my eyes, purring like she was giving me a message, reaching out and patting me on the chin while I'm napping, and refusing to be more than about four inches away from me round the clock. I thought she was telling me that she was ill. We went to the vet, had a thorough exam, including bloodwork. She's fine, other than turning into a skinny old lady. What if it wasn't her own self she was concerned about? What if she recognized that I was unwell sooner than I did? I think maybe she was worried about me, not trying to get me to worry about her. She has always acted as my nursemaid, after each of my previous surgeries. She always wants to give me belly time when I'm laid up in bed, where she drapes herself across my midsection and purrs to comfort me. Why would now be any different?

The C Word

Inspirational song: I Will Survive (Gloria Gaynor)

I gave everyone as much warning as I could. I knew a few details that didn’t make it to the blog, that were relevant but just too personal. So there was a reason I was working so hard to wrap my head around an eventual diagnosis, and telling people not to ask me to pretend it would all be fine. By the time I was sitting in my doctor’s office, getting the specifics, I was calm and down to business.

There is still a ton I don’t know. I know that it is breast cancer, and that there is no “wait and see” on this one. As for all the kinds and values, I know some of it, but not what it all means. I will learn over the next two weeks, as I consult with a breast surgeon and an oncologist, separately.

This is invasive ductal carcinoma. It’s hormone receptor positive. The HER2 growth factor test takes time to run, and hasn’t come back yet. The worst result I have seen is for something that describes how aggressive it is, that indicates it is growing quickly. But on the other hand, we caught it very early. It seemed like it just suddenly showed up because it did. This is why you need to pay attention to your body, and get tests run as soon as you think it’s behaving badly. I started thinking I was overdue for a mammogram back in October, but didn't go until I noticed the lump in late January. That doesn't seem like much of a delay, but how much smaller would it have been had I gone before there were symptoms?

I can’t remember whether I wrote this part already on Wednesday. While I waited for tests to come back, I watched basketball with my neighbor. Barley the dog pouted at me, and I reassured him, “Don’t worry, Barley, Auntie is hard to kill.” It’s absolutely true. I have survived so much that ought to have taken me out. This will be just another hurdle that I will clear. Parts of it will suck, but I got this. Just watch.

Just Peachy

Inspirational song: Ain't That Pretty At All (Warren Zevon)

So this day has gone pretty much straight in the crapper. How was your day?

Ever since I gave up wheat, I made far fewer pies than I once did. I used to be great at them. Crusts were pretty good, fillings were set properly more often than not, and they were as pretty as they were delicious. Now I'm out of practice. For Pi Day I tried a new crust recipe that used Greek yogurt and apple cider vinegar in it. It wasn't easy to shape. I ended up just slapping it together and throwing it in the oven. I wasn't trying to impress anyone. When the peach juice that overflowed onto the tray started to burn and smoke, the center of the top crust was still soft in the middle. Whatever. I ate it anyway. And while I waited for it to cool, I burned my finger pretty solidly on the skillet where I was frying okra. I swear I'm a better cook than this.

In the shower today, I removed the outer bandage from the biopsy, revealing the Steri-strips over the bruised flesh, pulling a giant dent into my breast. I have felt much more attractive in my day. This was not fun to look at. It still hurts a bit too. I can't get comfortable, no matter what position I'm in. Nothing to do but wait it out.

I got the phone call I was expecting this morning. The office manager from my primary care doctor's office called to ask me to come in Friday afternoon to discuss test results. I had said out loud, not an hour earlier, that it would be exactly this scenario, even getting the inflection of her voice correct. I didn't expect a quick "all looks good" call. I knew she would want to have me in, even if the news was good. So I suppose that there is still a chance they'll tell me it's benign and we can watch it for a while. Or even that it needs to come out but isn't malignant. That window for good news is getting smaller, though. This is why I didn't stick my head in the sand days ago. I am feeling like I am emotionally prepared for whatever I learn tomorrow. I'm not hoping for bad news, but I feel strong enough to face it if that's what I'm presented.

Well, at least that ugly peach pie tasted good, even if the crust was underdone and the filling was runny. Maybe I need just a little sliver more.

Missed Again

Inspirational song: Shelter from the Storm (Bob Dylan)

Theoretically, blizzards are more about the wind than the snow totals. So I suppose in that respect, it means that my part of the county was swept up in the big blizzard that swamped Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, and Kansas today. Unfortunately for me, the weather reports weren't wrong when they carved out a notch from the storm warning maps for us. We are still striking out on the snowpocalypse that I keep craving. I think there was a lid over my house.

There was only rain when I woke this morning. The predictions were adjusted slightly, and as rain started to change to snow mid-morning, the potential for accumulation was increased for my town. It looked for a while like we really could get something. And then as the day wore on, they pushed it back down again. When I walked next door to watch basketball with the neighbor, it was a little breezy, with a little snow, but it was obvious the brunt of the storm was over. Snow didn't even get in over the top of the slippers I wore over there.

The whole state was shut down. Everywhere but here, it made sense. Everyone I know had their work canceled, classes canceled. The Mr didn't go in to teach today, and his college will be on a delay tomorrow. I'm frankly interested to see how many people can make it in tomorrow afternoon, as big a storm as this was everywhere else. I had sent him to the grocery store this morning (for milk, of all things -- how unoriginal am I??), and he said conditions weren't bad at all. He still sometimes does his side-hustle, and I am really glad he didn't try to go out and drive today. It would have taken no time at all for someone to ask him to drive to the airport or to south Denver, and he would have still been stuck on the road even now, at bedtime. That is, he would have been stuck in a drift if he wasn't stuck in a multi-car pileup. It's nasty out beyond our city limits.

We canceled our regular D&D game, because not everyone could drive into town. Instead those of us who are local gathered at my house and played mah jongg. It turns out that the medical professionals were not lying when they said I would want to take it easy after yesterday's biopsy. I smugly imagined I'd be milking it for attention, but wouldn't be in all that much pain. Leaning over a table to reach for mah jongg tiles caused a lot of jostling and chafing. It was quite unpleasant. How does that compare with what's to come? I can't imagine yet.

Core Samples

Inspirational song: Respect (Aretha Franklin)

Today could have gone worse. It could have gone a whole heck of a lot better too.

I watched the needle going into the breast tissue on the ultrasound monitor. That was a mistake. I wasn't able to separate the images on screen from what was happening on my own body, and it made it where I felt the procedure more than I ought to have. I also have a bad habit of conquering all lidocaine/novocaine/etc that is injected under my skin. Same thing happened when I had the skin cancer removed from my nose a year and a half ago. I felt way more than I should have then too. There was a lot of pressure while they went in and took the three core samples from the roughly inch-long oval mass in my left breast today.

The procedure itself went fairly quickly and fairly well. The tech and the doc were exceptionally nice and reassuring people. They projected an air of confidence that I found comforting. That doesn't mean that I enjoyed it all. I managed to keep myself distracted, telling them about my plans for my D&D game night tonight. After they took the core samples, I had to wait and have a follow-up mammogram, so they could mark where the small tag implant was compared to the surrounding tissue and to make sure the images matched the mammograms from two weeks ago. Then I had to wait again while they looked at stuff, to clear me before I went home.

They didn't let me leave the building without pulling me aside and having a private conversation. Pathology won't be back for a while, but the doc made serious comments about what he saw on a preliminary exam of the slides. They had a front office girl make me an appointment with a breast surgeon for next week in advance of the test results, just in case. I don't know how alarmed to be. But that leads right into my next paragraph...

Everyone reacts differently to things like this. If it's just a scare and it turns out negative, then great. Crisis averted. But if it isn't, I DO NOT WANT people to try to placate me while I wait. I don't like being babied and I don't like being told I'm overreacting. I've been through way too much "blood results are fine, there's nothing wrong with you" BS in my day. I want to be prepared emotionally to face bad results by understanding the risks, and if I'm pleasantly surprised, then I've dodged a bullet again. I need a plan, and I need to be aware of the possibilities. This helps me understand when they do give me the pathology results how seriously I need to take it all. It makes me far less afraid when I game out the scenarios. If it makes you feel better to tell yourself nothing's wrong, that's fine. You do what comforts you. You have every right to it. Me, I believe knowledge is power, and I want to receive the respect given to adults who are aware of potential consequences.

If this goes badly, as I said yesterday, I trust medical science. It would be work, keeping up with numerical values and learning a whole new language. I'm a strong adult. I can handle it. If it is a benign lipoma, then I will have a newfound appreciation for what people go through and I'll be a more evolved human who can offer comfort and respect to people whose results are less encouraging.

Results due at the end of the week. I'll be open about it, as I have been about everything else.

Figures

Inspirational song: Paint It Black (The Rolling Stones)

Sleep will probably be elusive tonight. It's the night before the biopsy, and I made the mistake of calling in to reset my access to the hospital internet portal where the mammogram results had been lurking. I read the report, googled the terms that I didn't know, and looked up things like how big should underarm lymph nodes be (since there was a measurement for the one she looked at during the ultrasound). Until tonight, I was still leaning heavily on the idea that it was just a cyst. I'm significantly less confident now, but my faith in medical science is no less strong. As long as it's not "it's all in your head" or "just wait and see over the next six months," I'll work with whatever it is.

To pass the time, I prepped ahead the dinner for this week's game nights, of which there will be two at my house this time around. I don't know what tomorrow's dinner will be. That will be up to someone else. I'll be following doctor's orders and taking it completely easy tomorrow night. Wednesday will be the casserole that my grandmother taught me to make, consisting primarily of ground beef, white rice, tomatoes, corn, and okra. I don't know whether it has a name. For that matter, I don't know whether she invented the recipe or whether it's something so common that you just absorb it through your skin by virtue of growing up in Oklahoma in the 20th century.

I spent the last two nights catching up on painting figurines for the games. It takes a long time to do it right, and I found that it's way easier now that I bought a craft lamp with a giant magnifying glass on it. I'm maybe halfway through, maybe just a third of the way. There are still lots of layers to give the colors depth and life. It takes a long time to get through them, especially when someone on the other side of the table is banging away on his computer keyboard, and nosy Stuff Inspectors come through to sniff the paintbrush rinse water and to knock things over with their tails.

Creepy Memories

Inspirational song: The Jeep Song (The Dresden Dolls)

The TV in the other room was left on a channel that appears to be devoted to true crime stories, all night long. I’ve been too lazy to get up and turn it off. For all that these things don’t interest me much, the low droning noise is comforting. I’m only catching fragments of sentences here and there. I’ve heard about several different affairs, alibis that fall apart, cops arriving on crime scenes, and jailhouse snitches. None of it means anything to me, however enough of the random words entered my consciousness, and dragged up a memory that is incomplete. I sort of want to write about it, to see whether any new details fall into place in the retelling.

Last week the topic of “dragging Main” came up, and I was amused to learn that my husband used to come all the way out to our current home town to do this when he was a teenager. I admitted to the assembled group that I used to ride along with a young woman who did this back when I was way too young to drive or date. I had no business dragging Main at age 13, yet there I was. Between this conversation and watching the true crime Netflix series set in my hometown, I started thinking about those days, and now I’m a little curious who some of the characters were in my own drama.

I’m pretty sure it was the year I was in 8th grade that we rented out a room in our giant old house to a college student. My brother had already moved out, so there was a ton of empty space upstairs where my room was. I don’t remember much about the girl who stayed with us briefly, other than she had dark hair and thick glasses. I want to say her name was Brenda, but that is less reliable than the memory of her hair color. To me at 13, she seemed like a grownup, but she was probably only 19 or 20 herself. We got along well enough, but I couldn’t tell you about a single conversation we had. That’s long gone now. I do remember that she loved to drag Main, and she and I went out often to ride around in slow circles in downtown Ada. She talked to a whole lot more people than I did. I was horribly shy back then, and I guess at some level I was protecting myself by not engaging with the older kids much.

At some point she met a guy who lived not far from us (maybe six or seven blocks, but this is a pretty hazy part of the memory). I do not know whether they met on Main or somewhere else. I don’t know whether they dated or interacted on a more confrontational basis. What I do remember is that he started stalking her, and it ended up being traumatic for all of us, not just her. The guy drove a beat up car with a loud motor. I remember it as a light blue Jeep, but it could have been a Land Cruiser or something else, some other color. Whatever it was, the engine sound was distinctive. You could hear it coming down the street, and he would slowly chug around the block, down the alley, and back around again. I felt hunted, hiding in my house, even though I didn’t factor into this equation at all.

I don’t know now when or why she moved out. As I sit here, I’m taunted by wisps of information: she might have been a little older than I thought at first, like 23; she might have had a child living with her parents that she went back to. I don’t know anymore. I think she had been gone a while before the Jeep stalker stopped coming around.

Now that I’ve seen the Innocent Man Netflix series, I am wondering about that guy. Who was he? This would have been somewhere between 1980 and 1982, not that long before the Debbie Carter murder that is featured in the series. Did this guy know the creepy people from the bar scene where Debbie hung out? Did our college student boarder know them? Where did she meet the stalker? It was a super small town, especially then. I’m just so curious how close we really came to that world, and how lucky we were that none of it touched us at the time.

Credentialed

Inspirational song: Tangled Up in Blue (Bob Dylan)

To get to the ultimate goal, that of making it all the way to a national nominating convention once in my lifetime, I have to work my way up the ranks. One doesn't just waltz up to the front of the delegate line. They have to know who you are before they'll let you go to the big dance. At least, that's how I assume it works. I didn't really do a whole lot of research on this topic. I did volunteer to be a delegate to the state reorg in Denver this weekend, and for the one in the ginormous congressional district that takes up the eastern third of the state.

I ended up getting knocked down a peg to alternate rather than delegate, but I wasn't upset. They read the instructions wrong at the county meeting, and rather than selecting four delegates and four alternates for a total of eight, they chose eight of each. I volunteered for the demotion. The two people who carpooled with me in my car met the same fate.

We left town at 7:30 this morning, to be checked in early enough to get seated if not everyone showed up. There were lots of delegates who didn't make it, but not all of us were able to be seated. Something about them being elected officials who failed to turn in proxies. The room was loud and I didn't ask the woman to repeat the explanation. So my happy little trio went off to brunch to wait until the afternoon session for our opportunity to be seated in the CD meeting.

Not even waiting half an hour for the kitchen to remake my omelette (I specifically asked them to omit mushrooms and add green peppers, and on the second try, at least they got the mushrooms out; I never saw a pepper once) took up enough time. The state meeting got out early, and we sat in the back listening to the first woman secretary of state in Colorado, and the first openly gay governor elected anywhere in the country give short, rousing speeches. Then we had two hours to wait for the next appointment. Two of us zipped down to the parking garage and napped in the car where it was mostly quiet, but distinctly chilly. The third member of our carpool hung out in the hotel bar. I think we each made the right choices for our needs.

We were all seated in the congressional district meeting. I think our only purpose was to create a quorum. It didn't feel like a whole lot of difficult decisions had to be made. Every officer was elected by unanimous consent. There was only one topic brought up for debate, and it lasted for about three sentences, and then was also unanimously accepted. The best I can say is that we got our faces out there, so that as things progress, we can lobby for moving forward as delegates in the future, because enough people will recognize us and maybe support us when we volunteer.

There was a fancy fundraiser dinner there tonight. We didn't stay for it. I didn't even know about it until I was going over the email for directions this morning (I skipped over it on the first read a week ago). There was to be a silent auction, and big name speakers who I would have loved to have seen. But whenever I have to leave the house early I can never sleep the night before, and last night was no exception. I have been awake since 4:15, and so getting home and changing from jeans to jammies was way more important than paying money I don't have to see one of my favorite committee chairmen speak. If I make it to a national convention, then I'll try to rub elbows with him there. Tonight, I am a delegate for falling asleep in front of SNL, and not much else.

I didn't buy a t-shirt. Would be cool on a sticker, though.

SoS Griswald, as seen from waaaaaaay back in the ballroom.

Gov Polis, zoomed in a little tighter. We were still sitting at the very back table.

A silent auction in Colorado. Of course it's mostly beer. I would have bid on that Stranahan's, though, if we had stayed long enough for it to be set up.

Duck Duck Goose

Inspirational song: I'm Just a Girl (No Doubt)

There's a new baby in the house. No, not another cat. Nor a puppy. Nor another lizard. Nor a bird, rat, fish, um... rabbit, donkey, raccoon... No vertebrates were added to our family. My new baby is an aloe plant that my friend created for me. She also previously gave me a wandering jew that I was going to plant in the orange pot that I'd had next to the glass blocks in my room, but I discovered that the sickly jade plant in there was still clinging to life. So my friend brought me a small terra cotta pot too, so that the wandering jew can have a better home than the tiny water vase where it has resided for weeks. I'm so happy to have both of these babies. I hope they thrive here.

I got the plant when my friend came to pick me up to take me to see the new Captain Marvel movie. I am hopelessly illiterate to all of the storylines in the Marvel universe. I don't read the comics, and I've missed whole series of movies. People frequently refer to one character or plot point, and how it relates to three or four other movies, and I almost never grasp all the details. But this means that when I go to see some of the movies, I have zero expectations, and I can enjoy them as total stand-alone experiences, without worrying where they fit on the story arcs, or whether every line spoken is properly fitted into canon.

I had a blast at the movie. It takes a lot for me to hate them when I go, and I get mad when cranky-pants friends or acquaintances try to tear down the movies I found to be pleasant escapes. I know internet trolls have tried to do the same for this Captain Marvel flick, from a place that sounds like misogyny because the hero is a woman. I ignore the haters. I like stories that feature strong female characters, especially the central lead, and this had several of them. I won't give any spoilers. I don't do that. I get super angry when people do that to me. So I leave it up to you to go or not, without any specific urging from me. All I will say is that I liked it; at times I liked it a lot. Your mileage may vary.

Feed the Beast

Inspirational song: Alice’s Restaurant (Arlo Guthrie)

I let most of the night go by, not watching the time, not having anything to write about. I was tired when I got home from the monthly meeting at the brokerage, and conked out midday. Once I was functional again, I declined to apply myself to anything important, other than arranging future plans. Thus I found myself watching Colbert and playing games as the night ran out. I only half listened to a guest I didn’t recognize (if I had paid attention, I might have realized she voiced Bobby on King of the Hill). Colbert and this woman Pamela were talking about bad things happening to them, and not minding because they could be used as content for their respective television shows. Colbert said he broke his wrist, and his first thought was “content!” He went on, “the beast must be fed!” I have never related to people I didn’t know more than in that moment.

It’s so hard deciding what is gonna play well here. I’d love to be one of those Instagram girls, in filtered perfection, a romantic pose against a sunset with a string of inspirational hashtags. I could pretend everything was perfect, that I weighed 118 pounds, that my garage didn’t smell like Murray poop, that I had enough money to do anything I want, whatever. It’s not true, and I hate lying. I’d rather use real life as content. That could mean celebrating my achievements or wallowing in my disappointments. Sometimes content will embrace both at the same time (like getting excited about a modicum of professional success and a day later crying when a real estate deal falls apart in inspection, not that that happened to my first three deals or anything). I’m apt to provide TMI when I lay out my health woes, but I always believed that if my example gets someone else to a doctor to solve a mystery, then I have done a good deed. I spend most of my days looking for content wherever it can be found.

I’m slacking extra hard with my photos. It happens every winter. By the end of the month, the crocuses and daffodils will be up, and I’ll be back in business taking the kind of pictures that inspired me to start this ritual in the first place. For tonight, however, I’m composing on my iPad, where I can’t add pictures. (I really should look for an upgraded version of the app, rather than limp along on the Safari web page where half the buttons don’t work.) I didn’t really take any good shots today anyway. I’ll make up for it in the next few days.

Heavy Lift

Inspirational song: Sh-Boom (The Crew Cuts)

During the usual small talk that happens in line at the cash register at Costco, the cashier, girl who loaded the boxes of stuff for me, and I chatted over the 42 pound bags of cat litter on the top of my basket. I admitted I'd kept them up top, rather than on the bottom rack, so that I had a chance of picking them up and getting them in my car. The boxing girl said she had no idea who would even try to lift a bag that heavy. "Who can carry that?" she asked. I sighed. I used to, I said. I told her how we used to move ourselves through every single military move, and until I was about 45, I could lift giant heavy stuff without much difficulty. I didn't mention it, but I used to be a weight lifter by choice. It was my very favorite form of exercise. But today, after years of my body telling me to get bent every time I try to get fit, it was all I could do to move those stacked bags of cat litter into the trunk of my car. It took two tries to get the lower one lifted and rolled into the trunk. In fact, by the time I was home from Costco, via King Soopers for the things I couldn't get on my first stop, I had to struggle to carry in the ten pound bags of carrots and sweet potatoes. I left the cat litter in the car for the Mr to take care of. Eight trips to empty the car in multiple light loads wore me out. I ended up leaving frozen pizzas and bags of frozen okra on the counter, thawing slightly, while I lay on the foot of my bed, catching my breath.

Thank goodness my daughter came over to help clean house while I cooked for Wednesday game night. Walking around the two grocery stores, plus the half hour drive between the two on the Interstate, took a lot out of me. I still had to prep food for everyone, and I was still pan frying the meat for chicken Marsala when gamers arrived. I had a vegetarian dish in the oven, and I had glazed carrots reducing on the stovetop. I made the mistake of using too small of a burner to heat up water for brown rice pasta, so it took forever to finish up dinner. The game had been going for almost half an hour when I finally got to sit down with a plate to play my character. I had been going so long, my whole body screamed when I sat. Now, as I lie in bed waiting for a late afternoon burst of caffeine to die down, my legs from the knees down are still throbbing in pain. What happened to that strong kid who loved marching band and using the leg press machine set to hundreds of pounds of resistance?

The game was fun tonight. Dinner was really good, for the first time I've tried this particular dish (although yes, I picked all of the mushrooms out of my own and let everyone else have them). And my cats have decided they enjoy hosting and entertaining the crew. It's so cool having gregarious cats who consider my friends to be their friends too.

One last thought on Costco: I took a picture of something to discuss whether we need it. My daughter says she "NEEEEEED(s)" one. I think I might too. What do you think, bee hive the size of a bird house or no?