Get those tests, people.
At times I’ve heaved a heavy sigh at my doc’s insisting on another mammogram—like, what could go wrong? Well, that did. After years of clean tests, I got the prize. Small, thanks to my doc’s insistence on me keeping schedule….and probably only a lumpectomy. Genetically unrelated to the colon cancer I beat. So THAT is very good to know. Only the size of a pencil eraser and undetectable by other than the scan.
So I know what *I’m* doing for the holidays. I’m only lacking an MRI (next week) before they set a date for surgery, and there’ll be a (slight ouch) recovery period.
And another PET scan and yet one more MRI for my OTHER doc—I tell you, I get away with nothing. She’ll have that test and me back in her office possibly the week I get surgery for the lump…which I hope will be minor. Modern science—wonderful only if we use it! And I am using it!
Anyway, we are doing ok. My cardiac doc asked me if I had any trouble climbing stairs, because having anaethetic is like climbing two flights of stairs when it comes to stress…nope. I informed him that I CAN actually run—and I can, but its dangerous to do because of the neuropathy (and a tendency to mistake where my feet are)—but I can, all the same. Pretty good for my age.
And it rather well threw me off my writing for a bit, but I’m getting back to it. And Jane, as ever, is my rock. She’s taking good care of me, or will, when we’re in that period when she has to. She’s worked hard getting the house in shape, really in shape, after all that’s happened to make that a hard job.
Snowtires are on the car. The mystery car glitch traced down to a short in the dome light. The weather is turning. The pond is put to bed. The surviving bonsai are all in for the winter, with grow lights. I now know not to trust them to Spokane weather, no matter how I’m told that it’s ok….
Finity is a young cat now, and we’re trying to teach them all the ‘talking buttons,’ —look up cat buttons on the internet, and you’ll see what I’m talking about.
From CJ’s Facebook page a few hours ago:
“Just a note: the koi: they’re doing fine, both the larger ones and the flock of fingerlings we got to fill out the herd. They’re eating like pigs now as fall is approaching. The bigger ones are stout and happy, the fingerlings are now approaching palm-sized, and likewise happy and I have plans which should protect them from a Return of the Great Blue next spring. The misdirection in the waterfall is now amended, so we don’t lose water; and over all we are approaching fall in good form as our weather begins that slow stutter toward cool temperatures. High of 80 F [26.6 C] and cool nights.”
And then she added (in the Comments section): “I can’t get a pic of them: they’re too shy still. But we’ll get them friendlier next year.”
CJ just posted on FaceBook that Alliance Unbound is available (sequel to Alliance Arising, which I think I will reread first and then buy the new book from my local Sci-Fi bookstore in Boston, Pandemonium). She and Jane are working on the 3rd (& final) book in this Alliance series.
And, also posted by CJ on Facebook about 10 hours ago:
“Jane and I took the CdA lake cruise, just us, last night—I wanted to, after the crash I took on my birthday cruise—emergency room, three stitches, swelling still hasn’t gone all the way down 30 days later—I mean, that was a good one.
And we had a very nice evening, totally uncrowded boat, though the food was kind of, well, not their best. But—the scenery always is. And the Mishannock is small enough you can feel the waves from a passing jetski, so it’s my favorite of the cruise boats. Maybe 40 people aboard. Designed for 100+. So—yeah, nice.
I told Jane what precipitated the fall was a lean on the chair arm. She thought not, until she tested same last night, and, yep….since I’ve had neuropathy issues, I do rely on chair arms as I get up, and because I was managing baggage and a cane with one hand, I leaned on the other, and those light chairs—do give way, with a tendency both to tip and to skitter backward on the deck. So we now agree, I think, that the cause was a combo of the cane which is to HELP my balance, plus pressure on the other side of the chair, and the chair fled backward, just as I tried to get up. I’m still bewildered as to the source of the blow to my head, but I tend to suspect the table rim on the way down.
Anyway, it was an interesting and still slightly unresolved question.
Meanwhile we had a lovely time, if not that great a dinner.
Getting to the lake, however—was a nail-biter. We left home with 90 minutes to make a 30 minute drive. And the traffic on I-90 between Spokane and Coeur d’Alene was absolutely crazy. We got into the 3rd-over lane, the I’m-going-through Lane, and even so got slowed to a crawl both by construction and by traffic piled up by construction. I used the number on our tickets to phone the cruise and advise them this was not the night to have the boat leave early, please: and we did make it with a little breathing room; but the traffic on the OTHER side of the highway was stalled as we came into CdA, so it’s not just the construction on the west-east side. What a mess! Feel for the people who commute for work!”