10:29 a.m. - 2010-01-06
Too many thinks
Thank you for all the nice comments and emails. I am better today, and the sun is out. I had lunch with my work friend and we enjoyed ourselves. I am so lucky to work with her. When I was first diagnosed at the end of the summer, she sent me an enormous bouquet of smiley face baloons - it nearly filled my office, and when I first saw it, I laughed out loud. I kept them all in my office for several months, until eventually, they just hung around on the floor and drifted over to me every now and then. I finally had to throw them out at the beginning of December. But she knew it was exactly what I needed then, and I am grateful. There were many times I was sitting in machines or waiting for a test result or to speak to a doctor and I would be sitting on that crinkly paper in the examining room feeling awful, and then I would think of those dozens of smiling yellow faces and it got me through.
So.
Just got off the phone with my SIL. As I expected, my brother's biopsy came back positive for thyroid cancer, so that is probably where it all started. She asked me to let the family know so that's what I've just done. My brother's wife's father is a pathologist and he says that the kind he has is the one to have if you have to have thyroid cancer. I'll just hang on to that thought for now.
Here are the things I'm noticing:
Someone has made a snow bunny in a yard I pass on my way to and from work. It is about 3 feet high and very cute.
There are lots of mysterious hot holes in the snow (about 9-10 inches in diameter) in the campus grounds. It is supposed to be a field - no sewers, manhole covers, conduits, etc., but there are definitely many of them. What are they? The snow has melted, and there are all these circle-spots.
I think that's it.
Did I already write that I've now started the "boost" phase of my radiation? Now I lie on my side and the radiation just treats the "tumor bed." What an ugly phrase. Anyway, the doctor said yesterday that there would be less of an insult to my breast. That kind of makes me laugh.
I am now fretting that every lump or bump on me is cancer. I've heard that this is pretty normal. I think however, that I'll ask my brother to ask his doctor if any of us should be tested.
My sister took three days off from work this week. She can certainly do it - she owns the company, but I am worried about her. She has been our rock, and I know that we've all leaned on her. Here is a list of things she's sent me since I was diagnosed:
Lobster risotto, chocolate and cinnamon rugelach, molten chocolate cakes, a hickory farms box with cheese and summer sausage, a gorgonzola/pistatio cheese torta, brie en croute. She says there is another package on its way. She is also sending treats to my brother now.
And for now, that's all I got.
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