there's a lesson here somewhere...

i am so frustrated right now.

i am here in southern california visiting my friends and family for the holidays and as usual, i've been taking lots of photos. i just uploaded them from my camera to my laptop, or so i thought...apparently only about half of the four hundred plus photos made it into my computer. and all of the photos were deleted from my memory card.

so photos of my niece and nephew when i spent the night are all gone. photos of lunch with my aunts, breakfast with cousins, ej and the salsa he made, christmas day...

i am perhaps absurdly attached to photos, so i'm very grouchy right now.

and while i'm wallowing in my misery, the imaging center where i had my scan done informed me today that my medicaid is inactive. this is after i was recently issued a medicaid card.
sigh.

ps: my hysterectomy is now scheduled for feb 3.

results

today i got the status of how the cancer responded to treatment.

very well, thank you.

my lungs, my abdomen, and the rest of my body are clear. my doctor did remind me that this doesn't guarantee that there aren't teeny tiny cancer cells that don't show up in scans, but he was very pleased with the results. he was witness to the lung biopsy i had in august, and he said there were quite a few nodules hanging out in both lungs, and now there are none. there is still work to be done as far as making sure that cancer's ass is properly kicked, but for now, we celebrate.

i don't know what you were all so worried about.
i knew it was going to be fine.

thanks to all my friends, family, and the kind strangers who have reached out and held me up for the past six months. whaddya doin' next year?

ps: hysterectomy jan 27.

playing the waiting game

i spent this evening organizing my small mountain of pending hospital bills. this made me sleepy and grouchy.

i wish it were snowing instead of raining.

i ate too much at lunch.
all by myself, i finished off a pizza the size of a steering wheel.

we have heard evidence of another, um, rodent. in the pre-dawn hours, it was making a racket in our ceiling right above the metal plate that holds our light fixture. now our light doesn't work. tomorrow the exterminator comes. i hope he's bringing an electrician.
sigh.

ok. i'm done complaining for the moment.
i think i'm nervous about tomorrow. no photos for that.

nuclear medicine or, how i became radioactive

i had no idea that today was supposed to be so cold. it must've been in the teens when ej and i left the apartment early this morning for my PET/CT scan appointment. and can i just say how odd it is that poisons are used so often in the pursuit of health?

today, i was given an iv full of some radioactive liquid. "radiotracer" it's called. the better to scan me with. i was told not to fly today (they might arrest me) and not to hang around any small children (i might inadvertently poison them). apparently, i'm oozing gamma rays or something. sheesh.

so this scan will reveal if those nasty cancerous nodules are still hanging around in my lungs. i have an appointment with my oncologist on friday to get the results. i didn't think i was nervous about it until last night when i didn't sleep a wink. well, maybe one wink, but certainly not enough. i guess i'm nervous.


i didn't catch this guy's name, but he was fantastic. skilled, experienced, really talked to me...i felt completely safe in his care. i wish all health care workers were like that. someone give this guy a raise.



the pink smock is not mine. they made me remove my jeans because of the metal zipper. i'm so glad i was wearing longjohns underneath. my iv is prepped and i'm drinking contrast. banana flavored. yum.


afterward, we had breakfast at a diner with ej's aunt ellen and uncle skip. hanging around with them is like hanging around with the mayor of 5th avenue. they know everyone in bay ridge.


scan results on friday...