geezerchick's Open Salon Blog

A Maturing Web Artist

Tue, 29 May 2012 13:05:27 -0400

About ten years ago I web-met (is that a verb?) A young children’s writer and artist, Valerie Melville. We were both nominees for awards in EPIC (Electronic Publishing Industry Coalition) http://www.epicorg.com

Valerie has social skills that I lack. It would never have occurred to me to write her. She was obviously friends with many other EPIC members and she was obviously young. In my experience young writers who have fans don’t socialize with geezers.

But since she wrote to me, I wrote back. During these 10 years, Valerie has married, become the mother of two girls, moved to Alaska and now Texas. And her art style has changed. When we met, she described her art as “ugly.” But she willingly donated digital downloads to a charity I support. Read A Good Story, Do a Good Deed http://www.simegen.com/simecenter/

Her art style has gone through several transitions. Most recently, she created a zazzle account under the name AbundanceLoveTrip. Her art used to be representational. Now it is abstract.

Her life questions used to be simple – will I meet someone I want to marry? Will I find work that I love? Now she is part of the general soap opera. She has taken care of her husband in illness and helped her children with their learning difficulties. These growth experiences show in her new art.

I have seen her perspectives change from thinking she was a grown-up in her early 20's to knowing that we’re never grown-ups but have to play the part, now that she’s in her 30's.

Web-meeting someone by intermittent correspondence is often more indepth than working with them daily. We don’t have to be on good behavior when we write emails. I find this kind of friendship works.

An Argument in an Old Marriage

Tue, 22 May 2012 11:05:44 -0400

My husband, the alien, likes to carry things for me. It’s a hold-over from the way males used to be raised. And I admit, if it’s something heavy, I appreciate the help.

But he doesn’t only carry heavy things.

Recently, we were on vacation. Our hotel had a swimming pool. As we prepared to swim, I wanted to put my room key somewhere safe – not just wrapped in a towel. So, I put my room key and towel and goggles into my swim bag. Unfortunately, a bag is officially “something to carry.” We also carried our laundry sacks because we were going to the hotel laundry after our swim. On the way to the pool, we both had our hands full. My husband is okay with me carrying something if his hands are full, too.

We swam. The pool used a new form of sanitation – the water was salty. Afterwards we soaked for a while in the whirlpool, but I didn’t like it. The whirlpool reeked of chlorine. We got out. We dried off. We went to the laundry room. I put down my swim bag (now with damp towel, goggles and room key card) so I’d have two hands free to load up the washing machine. My husband was no longer holding a laundry bag. I still had my towel bag.

That’s when it happened. My husband grabbed my swim bag.

Normally, this is no big deal. I’m with him. He has a room key card. We’re not going to be locked out. But he was busy reading the instructions on the dryer. And the skin on my feet began to feel like it was going to crack open. I don’t know if it was the salt, the chlorine, or the combination. All I knew was that I needed to wash my feet with regular water and get hand lotion on them. FAST!

“Please give me my swim bag.”

He kept on reading the dryer instructions. Probably my request made no sense to him. We weren’t going back to the pool. He didn’t know my room key was in the bag. He didn’t know I wanted to go to the room. He was being a helpful male, holding my bag. And my feet were becoming more painful by the nano-second.

“Please I need my swim bag.”

He kept on reading the dryer instructions.

“My key card is under the towel in the bag. I need the key card. You can have the bag back. Please let me get the key card.” My feet felt like they were on fire.

Finally he turned to me. “Why?”

“I need to get to the room to put hand lotion on my feet.”

“Why?”

“My feet hurt! Please hurry! Please give me my key card.”

My husband thinks walking is hurrying. “I have a key card.”

He held it out. I reached for it. I didn’t care whose key card I used. I had to get that hand lotion on my feet before they cracked open and all my blood poured out.

“I’m hurrying.” My husband began to saunter towards our room.

I’m not supposed to run with my artificial hip. But I ran.

To his credit, my husband almost kept up with me.

Then he put his key card in the slot upside down. It didn’t work. He pulled it out and put it back again, still upside down.

“Let me try.”

He tried a few more times. My feet burned.

“You’ve got it upside down.”

He turned it over. It still didn’t work. A few more tries and the door was unlocked. I pushed past him to the bathroom.

“Why are you angry?” He looked at me totally puzzled.

As the hand lotion soothed into my feet, I couldn’t believe we were having this conversation.

“You took my swim bag. It had my key. I needed my key to get in the room to get the hand lotion because my feet hurt. You wouldn’t give me my bag. You wouldn’t give me a key. You had to be in charge and I was in pain.”

“I like to help you.”

“It wasn’t helping to take my bag.”

“Okay, I’ll never carry anything for you again.”

“You’ve promised that before.”

If he’d grabbed my bag on one our first dates, I’d have stopped seeing him. And I’d have missed out on a lot of good experiences.

But after more than 45 years, this is just one of the arguments we have over and over. I just bought one of those key pockets that goes on shoes. He has never taken my shoes. Maybe this time I’ve got the problem solved.

I Have no Nipple and I Must Squirt

Fri, 18 May 2012 17:05:52 -0400

When I was nursing, my breasts were often full of milk. When my husband, the alien, said something off-the-wall in the privacy of our home, I would squirt him. I also appreciated the comfort of nursing.

After the mastectomy my breasts again filled with fluid. I knew it wasn’t milk. Not only did I not have a recent childbirth, all my milk ducts were gone. There are only two other bodily fluids that can be in breasts: blood and lymph. Blood tends to discolor the skin and it clots. My skin was blue from the dye to detect the sentinel lymph nodes, during the lumpectomy the week before. It’s a blue that might look good on a blouse – not a bruise blue with green and yellow borders.

The only other fluid I figured it could be was lymph. Lymph has its own circulation system that carries proteins, white blood cells, and fluids that move between cells. It’s a major part of the immune system. But since 8 of my lymph nodes had been removed, part of that system had been damaged and the excess lymph was pooling where my breast used to be.

The day after my mastectomy (this is an out-patient surgery unless you want reconstruction) a woman called from the hospital to ask how I was doing. I told her about the lymph building up in my breast area. She asked, “How do you know it’s lymph?” I had no desired to give this woman a course in biology. I wanted to know what to do about it and I wanted her off the phone. So, I said, “I don’t know that it’s lymph. For all I know it’s soup.”

That seemed to pacify her. She told me to wrap an elastic bandage around my chest when I’m not in the shower, and to show it to my surgeon at my one-week checkup.

The pressure built and built – like a breast that needs to nurse. By the time I saw my surgeon, my missing breast was a big as my remaining breast. It filled the cup on my bra. My surgeon took one look at it and got out a huge syringe with a thick needle. I freaked. She made no comment – just jabbed the thing into me below the incision line. All I felt was a little pressure. No pain.

“Did it go numb?”

“Of course it’s numb.”

Then I remembered – my shoulder is still numb in areas affected by the collar bone repair and my thigh is still numb near the hip replacement scar. While my self-image is that I’m one of the healthiest people on the planet, my insurance company would tell a different story.

I watched. The surgeon kept poking that syringe into me, filling it up and draining it. “Why are you watching?” asked the surgeon. “Why not?” I asked. “Men don’t look,” said my surgeon. “They always look away.” I looked away. When she finally finished, she’d removed at least a cup of fluid.

The same thing happened the next week. Another cup.

The third week it was down to half-a-cup.

Even if I can’t feel it, I don’t like needles going in instead of fluid squirting out.

I went for my vacation. About 2 weeks into it, my breast was huge again. I wasn’t sure I could make it 3 weeks. Then the fluid started to thicken and my former breast began to shrink.

I had expected to be flat where my breast was removed. Now it’s sticking out about an inch from my chest and the edges of it feel like scar tissue. I guess it’s time to go get fitted for a mastectomy bra.

Yay -- The Cancer is Gone

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 13:04:16 -0400

Cancer raises many kinds of questions: the ones I have and the ones people ask me.

Mine:

Will I have to cancel my vacation?

How much medical stuff do I have to put up with?

What exactly is the pathology lab report and what does it mean?

People ask me:

Did you smoke? Anything?

Did you take hormone drugs during menopause?

Did you take Vitamin E?

Did you exercise?

Did you eat a healthy diet?

Do you meditate?

Do you have a high stress life?

Did you nurse your babies?

Basically – what did you do wrong?

In my case, I can go on my vacation. The pathology report from the lumpectomy meant that I had more than one site of DCIS, so I needed a mastectomy to get it all. The pathology report from the mastectomy meant that they did get it all and I don’t need radiation. One of my docs (you get a bunch in the cancer world) suggested I take anti-estrogen drugs. But the table she gave me showed that there is no survival advantage to taking them. There is a slight reduction in recurring tumors in women who take them, but the side effects are so awful, I’d rather risk another mastectomy. It’s 4% recurring without the drugs and 1% recurring with the drugs. Not a huge difference.

As for the questions from others – I really think the docs set the bar high because they think nobody can do it all, and then they can blame the victim. But in my case, I did nothing wrong. This blame the victim stuff is nonsense. There is nothing you can do to guarantee that you won’t get cancer. All anyone can do is self-checks every month and then if you do find a lump, see a doctor who can help.

I’m getting on with my life. I don’t yet know all the cancer checks I’m going to have to fit into my schedule. I know I have to go twice a year for the doctor’s hands-on boob check. I’m sure there will be more unpleasantries. From what I’ve read, I’m only considered high risk for 5 or 6 years.

I really hope the science wizards out there come up with a quick urine test kit for cancer like they have for pregnancy. Part of what makes cancer so scary is all the tests to figure out who has it where. It would be great if the test part could be simplified and pain free.

The Pathology Lab is Slooowwwwww

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 16:04:08 -0400

The pathology lab is sloooowwwwww.

The more they drag things out, the more ornery I feel.

Meanwhile, the radiation doc is propagandizing me about anti-estrogen drugs. She wants me to take them. She says many women tolerate them well. And they reduce the chances of getting another tumor.

Okay, that’s one side of the story. But the paper she gave me about women who took just the anti-estrogen drug, just radiation, or both, showed that the survival rate is the same for all three groups. The women who took both did have slightly fewer tumors. Not enough fewer to make the side effects worth while.

Radiation doc didn’t mention that 35% of women who take anti-estrogen drugs experience short term memory loss, painful joints and brittle bones. That’s easy enough to find on the web. When I told her about them, she said, “If you get these side effects, you could switch to another drug or stop taking them.” I said, “There is no test for brittle bones, until you break one.” She agreed but thought the bone density test was helpful. I don’t see why. There is no connection between brittleness and density of bone. Women who took Fosamax to increase bone density also increased their bone brittleness.

I would way rather have my other breast removed if necessary than live with those side effects for a week, let alone the recommended 5 years. I went for a mastectomy to save my life. A life with those side effects would not be worth living. I couldn’t write. I couldn’t exercise. I couldn’t fix computers. I couldn’t do most of the things I enjoy.

Then there’s the question of radiation. My surgeon said the fascia was clean – no cancer cells. That means no cancer cells got outside of the breast. Since radiation is used to kill cancer cells, I don’t see why I’d need it. The entire breast is gone.

But Radiation doc says that there were some cancer cells near the margin of the breast. I don’t know why that matters. But she says the number of cells near the margin do matter. So, we’re waiting to find out what that number is.

The longer I have to wait, the more ornery I become.

Meanwhile Balance Guy gave me a great visualization to do:

Think about something that makes me smile. Then transfer that smile to my breast and to the area where my other breast used to be, to help heal.