Last Thursday I met my friend Sarah for lunch. She had been up to work the week before but didn't call me to tell me she was there so I could go downstairs and meet the newest man in her life. She found out through the grapevine (because I whined so much to her sister) that I was disappointed not to have seen them, so she graciously offered to give me a private viewing of her son, Sammy. It worked out for the best because I got uninterrupted snuggle time.
Sammy was six weeks old the day we had lunch, but he was born five weeks early. Sarah had to have an emergency C-section on Valentine's Day because her uterus had ruptured. Luckily, she and Sammy came through the trauma beautifully and they're both doing very well. He looks so tiny in his car seat:
And those little tennis shoes are adorable. Sarah said she put them on him just for me because she knows how much I like shoes. That I do. Hopefully we'll be able to do this again before she comes back to work. He's so precious.
Over Easter weekend, I went prom dress shopping with my four nieces. Thankfully, only two of them were looking for a dress. Anissa tried on several, but didn't buy one so I couldn't take her picture in any of them. The cranky lady who owned the shop had a sign posted and I didn't want to cross her. But Jessica found a dress, which is remarkable. She's a jeans and t-shirt girl and I can't remember the last time she voluntarily put on a dress, so it's really big news.
As her friend Amy said, "She looks good in everything." And she does. The next picture is of my nieces Victoria and Jessica and Jessica's friend, Amy (seated) after the dress was purchased.
Now, I hope that Anissa finds a dress soon because her prom is less than three weeks away. Katie's dress is being made for her by her brother Christopher. He also designed the dress as part of his minor in costume design at college. Last time I checked he hadn't started sewing it yet. I'm hoping he gets it done in time so she doesn't have to go nekkid.
Spring is truly in the air this week. Must be the combination of spring break and the week before Easter. Not to mention the fact that it's just after 8 p.m. and there's still a bit of daylight. Also, I have green stuff growing in my flower beds again! All of these things are signals to my brain that spring is nearly here. And I'm ready to admit it...it's time for winter to be over. It takes me longer than most to tire of the cold, windy, snowy, sleety, slushy, icy days than most other people. But I'm finally ready. So, bring on the spring.
I know you don't really care, but I've been SO busy lately. Just last night I finished a four-page story about a family at my church for the parish newsletter. Yes, I said FOUR pages. They are a really neat family and I had so much fun interviewing them. I could have easily done another page, but deadlines were looming and I have to sleep sometime!
Speaking of spring, I installed a new shower head (and hose) in my bathroom over the weekend. I went to my local Sutherlands store to buy a replacement hose because my old one sprung a leak last week, but they didn't have just the hose. So I bought the whole she-bang and installed it all by myself. Nary a leak in sight. I'm so proud I could just burst.
I swear I don't know where all my time goes during the week! This past week was a whirlwind of activity and it was set upside down when I found out I was working two nights to fill in for the 2nd shift operator. That always screws up my internal clock. Add Daylight Savings Time to the mix and it's anarchy.
Last weekend my Mom and my sisters came to my house for our annual girls weekend. They leave their spouses and kids behind and the four of us hang out for a long weekend doing whatever we feel like doing. This tradition has been around for almost 14 years. My Mom wanted to start doing it after her oldest sister died as a way to spend more time with us. Sometimes we take our show on the road (whoever has the newest vehicle drives), but a lot of the time we just meet at my house because it's easier and cheaper than staying somewhere else. There really aren't any rules other than those already stated.
Our weekend got a little bit of a late start this year. Teresa came down with the flu on Friday and went home from work early. Luckily, she works at a doctor's office and they sent her home with a package of Tamiflu. She went home and slept it off Friday afternoon and Saturday. By Saturday afternoon she was feeling a lot better and only missed about 24 hours of the fun. We discovered a new favorite place to eat breakfast: Egg Crate Cafe. It's incredibly yummy. We went there two different days because we liked it so much.
On Saturday before Teresa got there, we went to a pawn shop and Mom sold a gold men's ring that she'd won at a church raffle on one of our other girls weekends. She has been holding onto that thing for about 7 years and finally decided that the price of gold was high enough to sell. She got $114 for it. She pocketed $10 which is how much she'd spent on raffle tickets that day. And we each got $26 because she split the remaining money four ways. Not a bad way to get some mad money, huh?
We did a lot of shopping and the highlights of that for me were some new sheets for the bed and some flip flops and sleep shorts at Old Navy. Jenny bought some paint for her bathroom and lots of silk flowers to make some centerpieces for Anissa's graduation in May. She also bought some clothes for work and lots of pork at Sam's!
Funny story about when we went to Sam's. While in the checkout line, Jenny was talking to one of her kids (I think it was Kyle) on the phone. He was telling her how much he missed her and she was making the same noises back at him. As the cashier finished the transaction of the guy ahead of me, she handed him his receipt and said, "Love you" because she'd just overheard Jenny say that on the phone. He just looked at her and said, "Thanks, I guess." She immediately blushed and profusely apologized. He laughed it off and left. Probably to go tell his wife.
On Sunday afternoon after some light shopping, Jenny and Teresa went to Newkirk, Oklahoma, to do some gambling. Mom and I stayed home to have a nap. Well, Jenny didn't win anything, but Teresa ended up leaving there with $800 more than she went in with. And she was playing a penny machine! This is how she looked with her loot:
She paid for dinner that night.
On Monday before Teresa and Mom left, Teresa and I went to get pedicures. Mom had gotten us gift certificates for Christmas and since the weather's been a little nicer we were both itching to get our piggies done. The spa chair that Teresa was in bounced her up and down a lot and I was entertained greatly by that. I must have had mine too kneady because my back's been hurting ever since.
Jenny left Tuesday morning and drove to Hutchinson to attend a meeting for work, so she stayed with me an extra night. We watched "13 Going on 30" Monday night because she'd never seen it before. Strangely enough Anissa's class has a group of girls who call themselves the "Six Chicks" like they do on that movie.
We're always sad when our weekend comes to an end. We laugh a lot, but this year nobody shot liquid out their nose. That's definitely an improvement over last year. Sorry Jenny!
Four years ago this May my doctor started sending me for testing because she suspected something was going wrong in my thyroid. In May I had a sonogram. In June I had a CT scan then a fine needle biopsy. On July 27 I had a total thyroidectomy and two days later on July 29, I got the phone call from the surgeon and the diagnosis: follicular carcinoma. The diagnosis wasn't a shock to me. I had about six out of the eight symptoms that usually indicate cancer.
Part of the post-surgical routine for a thyroid cancer patient involves letting your TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone, which is produced by the pituitary gland) get high enough to administer a radioactive iodine dose, which kills any remaining thyroid cells in your body. That means you go into a state called hypothyroidism. Everyone has different symptoms and handles the hypo state differently. For me it was not very pleasant. It's hard to know what your thyroid does until it's gone. It quietly goes about the work of regulating so many things: your body temperature, your heart rate and your metabolism. I missed mine almost immediately. I got extremely lethargic. I slept fitfully at night, but couldn't stay awake during the day. And one day I rolled over in bed and fell on the floor. My perception of where I was on the bed just wasn't correct. It basically made me gain weight, get dumb and move incredibly slowly. I can't attribute all of the weight gain to my missing thyroid, but that's another story.
Anyway, I went through the treatment. I had the RAI (radioactive iodine). I was able to start taking thyroid hormone replacement (Synthroid) daily shortly after that. I went back to work after eight weeks. Eventually I got to where I could make it through the day without needing a nap or resting. My TSH came back down and is now suppressed nicely. But that took months. And the psychological strain was really hard.
Hearing that their youngest child had a form of cancer was difficult for my parents. Much harder than it was for me to hear. It was especially difficult for my Dad. On some level I had known and getting the confirmation from the pathology report was expected. It's hard to watch your loved ones go through something like that. It's much easier most of the time to be the patient, not the loved ones. But it's hard to describe to someone how it feels to be diagnosed with a disease that will follow you the rest of your life. It was a delayed reaction. It was the following January when it hit me and it took me a while to come to grips with it. I have to stay on top of getting things tested and making sure that the cancer has not come back. I've accepted it. It's just a part of my life. But it didn't come easy.
I decided to attend the thyroid cancer survivor's conference in Denver in October 2005. It was a chance to meet other people who had been through the same things I had and to hear the country's thyroid experts discuss treatments. It was a good experience. My sister, Jenny, went with me and attended a couple of the sessions with me or on her own. It was a catharsis of a sort for me. And I was able to see that lots of people have had thyroid cancer and that it's rarely life-threatening. To celebrate this fact, I wanted to get a reminder of the tough times so that I'll always remember. But it was time to move on and get past it. I had lost quite a bit of weight by this time and I was ready to reward myself with something.
A tattoo seemed a perfect permanent reward. So before I went to Colorado I got the name of a tattoo artist in Englewood from my friend Heather who knows Chris J'Tot. He owns the Phantom 8 tattoo shop with his wife. I was lucky that Chris had an appointment available that Saturday.
I had already decided the tattoo should be a butterfly. The thyroid is a butterfly-shaped gland just at the base of the neck. So that was a no-brainer. The colors of the tattoo needed to be the colors of the thyroid cancer survivor ribbon: pink, turquoise and purple. They stand for mind, body and spirit, but I don't know which color is which. It needed to go on my right side because that's where the cancer nodule was. I chose to have it put on my torso so I could see it, but it's not visible on a daily basis to everyone I see. I left the decision on where to put what color to Chris. I think he did a fabulous job.
This photo was taken on the day it was done right after it was finished. Notice how angry and red my skin looks. It hurt a lot, mostly on the ribs.
So, there it is. The story of my tattoo. It has truly helped me psychologically. Not that I could ever forget that I had thyroid cancer, but it helps to keep it in perspective and remember that things are so much better than they could be. I'm lucky and I have a really pretty butterfly to remind me.
Sammy was six weeks old the day we had lunch, but he was born five weeks early. Sarah had to have an emergency C-section on Valentine's Day because her uterus had ruptured. Luckily, she and Sammy came through the trauma beautifully and they're both doing very well. He looks so tiny in his car seat:
And those little tennis shoes are adorable. Sarah said she put them on him just for me because she knows how much I like shoes. That I do. Hopefully we'll be able to do this again before she comes back to work. He's so precious.
