My desk has moved, temporarily to my boss' office. Which means that I have real natural light as I type this, it also means that the usually cramped 10x10 Ft of office are now REALLY cramped. It's lucky I have a nice, compact iMac desktop, so that my computer can perch on the front half of this desk. The entire back half is stacked (thankfully, neatly stacked) with all the binders of product info and protocols from the lab, and my notebooks. One of which I optimistically put in a box, then had to run to retrieve two hours later.
The lab is being renovated next week, so this week has been the week of packing, trashing, and frantically finishing as many experiments as possible before we're cramped into a much smaller space for the interim. It's a bit tiring. I am taking off week two of the fortnight of chaos, not going out of town, but officially unavailable to pop in to the lab and keep things going. I am hoping that I will also be unavailable to regular phonecalls asking where things are, or what stage x y or z experiment is at right now. This hope may be a little unrealistic, but we'll see.
This morning I finally got back to the gym, it had been nearly 2 weeks since my last swim. At about 5.30 I realized that was MY alarm going off, and leapt to a sitting position, somehow making the bed make a fantastic *SPROING* noise, which scared the crap out of one sleeping cat and one sleeping husband. Things went much more smoothly after that, however, once I had reassured them both that it was just me waking up violently. I had baklava and yoghurt for breakfast (I know, horribly decadent), pulled on my swimsuit and jeans, and made it there in time to fit in a 20 min swim and 10 min in the sauna before I had to get dressed and escape the impending workmen in the women's changing area. The gym is being renovated too.
My swim felt really good, I swam 3 laps more than my previous standard for 20 minutes. This time I remembered to put my goggles on squarely before getting in the water, so they remained mostly un-fogged and I got the fun of watching my hands under water and the shadow I cast on the pool bottom as I swam. I don't know why, but that's always a really fun aspect of swimming to me. Stuff looks different and mysterious under water, especially my own hands, trailing a few bubbles, with my silver rings glinting in the blue green light filtering through the water. Nail polish looks extra shimmery under water too, but I'm not wearing any today. I may paint my nails a frosty blue and pretend I'm a mermaid on my next swim.
I had been thinking of using part of my week off to paint the bedroom, but I'd probably better not add any form of home renovation to the mix just now. Too much chaos!
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Sunday, August 06, 2006
work in progress
Marble is relishing a rare opportunity to check out the work in progress. When I was winding the wool for this scarf into balls, she got hold of one and ate a fair bit of wool before I caught her. So now I know I can't leave it unattended in between working on it. Real wool seems to have a magnetic attraction for cats. They're not nearly so interested in the synthetic or cotton yarn I've used previously.
This is hand dyed and spun wool that I treated myself to before I even knew what I'd make with it, there's a lot of variegation in the colour that is not showing up in the photo, little streaks of violet and cobalt blue. It's a little strange knitting myself a scarf in the hottest months of summer, but I look forward to chillier weather when I can start to wear it.
This is hand dyed and spun wool that I treated myself to before I even knew what I'd make with it, there's a lot of variegation in the colour that is not showing up in the photo, little streaks of violet and cobalt blue. It's a little strange knitting myself a scarf in the hottest months of summer, but I look forward to chillier weather when I can start to wear it.
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Foiled
All afternoon I have been stewing over what might have been a decent post about depression: managing it, reducing it, breaking old bad habits without dropping the ball of day to day life...
Then I sat down to post, and Marble the wondercat leapt into my lap like a bellyflopping kitten-bomb of love and started grooming my arm while purring. She has now settled down to a nap, still purring, with her chin resting on the desk.
I can't channel my angst effectively in this position, so you will have to take my word for it. I was going to be deep and meaningful and full of fabulous metaphor.
But I got distracted by something fluffy.
Then I sat down to post, and Marble the wondercat leapt into my lap like a bellyflopping kitten-bomb of love and started grooming my arm while purring. She has now settled down to a nap, still purring, with her chin resting on the desk.
I can't channel my angst effectively in this position, so you will have to take my word for it. I was going to be deep and meaningful and full of fabulous metaphor.
But I got distracted by something fluffy.
Friday, July 21, 2006
Spl-ugh
Sticker shock: I weighed myself this morning, I'm "only" about 5lb up, but it puts me over an important threshold I had not wanted to see again. The Scale Demon has also recently taunted Matt.
The Grooviest Gym [TM] is a well timed addition to my routine. I'm currently trying to get hold of the membership guy so we can get signed up this month, while there's no evil registration fee.
The Grooviest Gym [TM] is a well timed addition to my routine. I'm currently trying to get hold of the membership guy so we can get signed up this month, while there's no evil registration fee.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Sploosh!
Continuing in the "spl-" theme today.
Matt and I are checking out a new gym. New to us, that is. We've got a free trial 7-day pass this week. It's a historic San Diego location, ON THE BEACHFRONT, with a lovely covered swimming pool, yoga classes, aerobics classes, the usual cardio machines, free weights and isolation machines, all in well- lit pleasant rooms with nice wooden floors. Except the pool, which has astroturf around it. Weird, but completely non-slippery. There is also a hot tub, with a view of surfing machines. I haven't gone to look at the surfing machines, but my understanding is they're tanks with a wave-maker, and people ride skim boards or small surf boards on the wave (one at a time). So at some point I will be hanging out in a hot tub overlooking the Pacific, watching surf monkeys skimboard on a specially made wave machine. I love California.
I swam yesterday and today before work, only 20 minutes each time, but my muscles are feeling it. The really great thing is that driving to the gym, then from the gym to work is actually LESS total time in my car every morning. I leave early enough to miss the West bound traffic heading to the coast, then the stretch from the gym to work isn't that busy. I do have to get up earlier, but I think it's pretty cool that I'm adding in a workout, and actually spending 10-20 minutes less time driving per day.
Matt and I are checking out a new gym. New to us, that is. We've got a free trial 7-day pass this week. It's a historic San Diego location, ON THE BEACHFRONT, with a lovely covered swimming pool, yoga classes, aerobics classes, the usual cardio machines, free weights and isolation machines, all in well- lit pleasant rooms with nice wooden floors. Except the pool, which has astroturf around it. Weird, but completely non-slippery. There is also a hot tub, with a view of surfing machines. I haven't gone to look at the surfing machines, but my understanding is they're tanks with a wave-maker, and people ride skim boards or small surf boards on the wave (one at a time). So at some point I will be hanging out in a hot tub overlooking the Pacific, watching surf monkeys skimboard on a specially made wave machine. I love California.
I swam yesterday and today before work, only 20 minutes each time, but my muscles are feeling it. The really great thing is that driving to the gym, then from the gym to work is actually LESS total time in my car every morning. I leave early enough to miss the West bound traffic heading to the coast, then the stretch from the gym to work isn't that busy. I do have to get up earlier, but I think it's pretty cool that I'm adding in a workout, and actually spending 10-20 minutes less time driving per day.
Friday, July 14, 2006
Splurge/Splooge
OK, the gig's up. My jeans are officially getting tighter. I suppose this is pretty good considering that I have not exercised in anything close to a consistent manner for at least 6 months, though really, more like 3 years. Also considering that I don't feel like I'm paying much attention to what I eat, this means I have ingrained new, more realistic eating habits along the way somewhere. We can just gloss over the 2 or 3 times in the past 6 months that I bought a 100g Ritter Sport, then ate a whole 100g Ritter Sport in one sitting ("just two squares" does NOT work for me).
Why does the cheapest good European chocolate have SPORT in the name? This is a cruel joke. I need to stop looking at the website too, it's making my mouth water.
I had a gym membership, and I wasn't using it enough. I made a valiant effort to go to the Sunday Yoga classes I love every week, and for 4 straight weeks it was cancelled at the last minute, only one of those times I managed to find out beforehand. Then they "cancelled" the instructor. She's started a new yoga studio, which I could go to I suppose, but Matt and I made the decision to try to exercise outdoors more. Use our feet and our bikes. Which means buying a bike rack. I gleefully cancelled both our memberships, freeing up $62 a month. Three months later I have still not bought a bike rack. Those things are expensive! Especially if you have a spoiler on your car, which I do.
Exercise helps combat depression. I resisted starting counselling for a very long time because I kept telling myself I was going to work on the exercise thing, and that would help more than talk therapy. So now I am working directly on the depression thing, I have to remind myself that progress will most likely be slow, now that I'm out of hair-trigger meltdown mode and back into my much more normal state of "moderate" depression. This realization is scary in itself: that "normal" for me actually falls somewhere between mild and moderate depression. I've always joked that I'm so practiced at navigating minor life crises that the real challenge for me is normality. I'm not sure if that means part of me knew that the depression wasn't just due to circumstances, but went deeper, or if, by saying that, I have somewhat created this emotional state for myself.
This is hard.
I need to exercise. I want to feel better. I NEVER want to go back up to a size 18 (though I realize that it won't be the end of the world if I do).
I'm stuck. I'm disorganized enough at home that Matt and I are still stumbling about with no real routine. Meals are not planned until 5 minutes before they happen, I waste half an hour every morning trying to decide what to have for breakfast, for 25 years I managed to fall out of bed and just eat a decent breakfast, now for some reason I need to THINK about it first.
Correction.
I FEEL stuck. See? Therapy = good. Therapy helps me spot these negative statements and edit them to a more optimistic version.
I'm still disorganized though, and it's making everything harder than it needs to be.
Why does the cheapest good European chocolate have SPORT in the name? This is a cruel joke. I need to stop looking at the website too, it's making my mouth water.
I had a gym membership, and I wasn't using it enough. I made a valiant effort to go to the Sunday Yoga classes I love every week, and for 4 straight weeks it was cancelled at the last minute, only one of those times I managed to find out beforehand. Then they "cancelled" the instructor. She's started a new yoga studio, which I could go to I suppose, but Matt and I made the decision to try to exercise outdoors more. Use our feet and our bikes. Which means buying a bike rack. I gleefully cancelled both our memberships, freeing up $62 a month. Three months later I have still not bought a bike rack. Those things are expensive! Especially if you have a spoiler on your car, which I do.
Exercise helps combat depression. I resisted starting counselling for a very long time because I kept telling myself I was going to work on the exercise thing, and that would help more than talk therapy. So now I am working directly on the depression thing, I have to remind myself that progress will most likely be slow, now that I'm out of hair-trigger meltdown mode and back into my much more normal state of "moderate" depression. This realization is scary in itself: that "normal" for me actually falls somewhere between mild and moderate depression. I've always joked that I'm so practiced at navigating minor life crises that the real challenge for me is normality. I'm not sure if that means part of me knew that the depression wasn't just due to circumstances, but went deeper, or if, by saying that, I have somewhat created this emotional state for myself.
This is hard.
I need to exercise. I want to feel better. I NEVER want to go back up to a size 18 (though I realize that it won't be the end of the world if I do).
I'm stuck. I'm disorganized enough at home that Matt and I are still stumbling about with no real routine. Meals are not planned until 5 minutes before they happen, I waste half an hour every morning trying to decide what to have for breakfast, for 25 years I managed to fall out of bed and just eat a decent breakfast, now for some reason I need to THINK about it first.
Correction.
I FEEL stuck. See? Therapy = good. Therapy helps me spot these negative statements and edit them to a more optimistic version.
I'm still disorganized though, and it's making everything harder than it needs to be.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Still ticking, and starting to have more fun
Busy busy busy.
The month started with Boss and Grad Student away at a conference, a conference for which we just barely managed to get the data in time to put into posters to present at the conference. Evidently there was also in incident where Grad Student's poster got THROWN OUT by the person cleaning his hotel room, and he had to go dumpster diving in the basement of a large city hotel to recover it. I'm told it wasn't even sticky when he found it. *shudder*
After they got back from conference #1, we had to get going on data for conference #2, which is right now. So for the past 3-4 weeks I have been at least up to my neck, and frequently up to my eyebrows, in all things work. Last week I stayed till 7pm one day, and 8pm on Friday, this was because the buttload of data we'd generated needed to be organized and categorized and made to mean something exciting.
Oh, and in the middle of this up-to-the eyebrowsyness, my parents were in California, so one Thursday evening after work I hung out in La Jolla, got a haircut, got Matt to drive up from our flat to meet me for dinner, then at 8pm I set out Northwards to pick up the parents from LAX (at 10pm) and drive us all to Granny's. All of which went very smoothly, no evil traffic, no delayed planes, no lost luggage (hooray). Matt took the train up to LA the next day, which did no go so smoothly at all. What should have been a journey of 4 hours door to door, with 3 of those hours spent on a comfy squishy train seat turned into 9 hours door to door, with 7.5 of those hours spent in a mysteriously too-narrow train seat that caused Matt to have interesting back and shoulder spasms the rest of the night.
That Sunday was my Granny's 90th birthday party, which went exceedingly well. She's a bit resistant to fuss and attention, but it was a low key enough affair that she was really happy. I got the bonus of finding out that the pearl earrings I'd bought her were extra appropriate because pearl is June's birth stone. Who knew?
The NEXT weekend, my parents and sister came down to visit with us, on the train (only 50min late this time), and in between trips to Marshall's and Designer Shoe Warehouse we watched a World Cup game in the bar of a casino, got pedicures involving a hand-painted flower on each big toenail (that was just me and my sister) and went to a cousin's university graduation ceremony.
That was also the weekend of Matt's and my first wedding anniversary. We went to the Wild Animal Park, with the aim of riding on a hot air balloon, but the wait for the ride was far too long, so we went back the next week. It was fun.
It was nice having a sort of re-tread of last year, with family around, a cousin graduating from UCSD (different cousin), and everybody reminiscing about our wedding day. The year has gone FAST, particularly the 2006 part of it. I hadn't realized how worried I was about my family's response to my scar, but Mum and an Aunt were pleasantly surprised, my sister found it more obvious than she'd expected, and my uncle enthused about how great I look, and how whatever I've been doing, I should keep doing it. I managed to avoid saying something about "oh? having cancer and getting a big chunk taken out of my face? I should keep doing that?".
So yeah. The looming depression that I have not mentioned much (if at all), and that led me to a lovely melt down at work last month, that depresion is being dealt with a bit. I'm in counselling, that helps, this time I'm not doing it as quickie crisis-fixing, I plan to do this for a while and really get myself on a more even keel.
The first half of this week I finished up two papers, and now I am taking the rest of the day off, starting with sushi for lunch with a good friend.
The month started with Boss and Grad Student away at a conference, a conference for which we just barely managed to get the data in time to put into posters to present at the conference. Evidently there was also in incident where Grad Student's poster got THROWN OUT by the person cleaning his hotel room, and he had to go dumpster diving in the basement of a large city hotel to recover it. I'm told it wasn't even sticky when he found it. *shudder*
After they got back from conference #1, we had to get going on data for conference #2, which is right now. So for the past 3-4 weeks I have been at least up to my neck, and frequently up to my eyebrows, in all things work. Last week I stayed till 7pm one day, and 8pm on Friday, this was because the buttload of data we'd generated needed to be organized and categorized and made to mean something exciting.
Oh, and in the middle of this up-to-the eyebrowsyness, my parents were in California, so one Thursday evening after work I hung out in La Jolla, got a haircut, got Matt to drive up from our flat to meet me for dinner, then at 8pm I set out Northwards to pick up the parents from LAX (at 10pm) and drive us all to Granny's. All of which went very smoothly, no evil traffic, no delayed planes, no lost luggage (hooray). Matt took the train up to LA the next day, which did no go so smoothly at all. What should have been a journey of 4 hours door to door, with 3 of those hours spent on a comfy squishy train seat turned into 9 hours door to door, with 7.5 of those hours spent in a mysteriously too-narrow train seat that caused Matt to have interesting back and shoulder spasms the rest of the night.
That Sunday was my Granny's 90th birthday party, which went exceedingly well. She's a bit resistant to fuss and attention, but it was a low key enough affair that she was really happy. I got the bonus of finding out that the pearl earrings I'd bought her were extra appropriate because pearl is June's birth stone. Who knew?
The NEXT weekend, my parents and sister came down to visit with us, on the train (only 50min late this time), and in between trips to Marshall's and Designer Shoe Warehouse we watched a World Cup game in the bar of a casino, got pedicures involving a hand-painted flower on each big toenail (that was just me and my sister) and went to a cousin's university graduation ceremony.
That was also the weekend of Matt's and my first wedding anniversary. We went to the Wild Animal Park, with the aim of riding on a hot air balloon, but the wait for the ride was far too long, so we went back the next week. It was fun.
It was nice having a sort of re-tread of last year, with family around, a cousin graduating from UCSD (different cousin), and everybody reminiscing about our wedding day. The year has gone FAST, particularly the 2006 part of it. I hadn't realized how worried I was about my family's response to my scar, but Mum and an Aunt were pleasantly surprised, my sister found it more obvious than she'd expected, and my uncle enthused about how great I look, and how whatever I've been doing, I should keep doing it. I managed to avoid saying something about "oh? having cancer and getting a big chunk taken out of my face? I should keep doing that?".
So yeah. The looming depression that I have not mentioned much (if at all), and that led me to a lovely melt down at work last month, that depresion is being dealt with a bit. I'm in counselling, that helps, this time I'm not doing it as quickie crisis-fixing, I plan to do this for a while and really get myself on a more even keel.
The first half of this week I finished up two papers, and now I am taking the rest of the day off, starting with sushi for lunch with a good friend.
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Whew!
I usually score "you have both male and female brain" on these types of things. I'm glad of it, I wouldn't like my brain to be so heavily influenced by the presence of my lady parts.
 | You scored as Either. You brain is neither specifically male nor female dominated in the way you perceive things and as bad as this sounds it can easily mean that you are capable of combining both limiting gender aspects to your advantage. Rather than being genderless you are possibly able think freely. This does not nec. mean that you are bisexual or androgynous or indecisive, though it might.
Should you be MALE or FEMALE?* created with QuizFarm.com |
Monday, May 29, 2006
What?
I'm the sappy one that dies young? Shish. Can't I be Jo?
Which Classic Female Literary Character Are you?
You're Beth March of Little Women by Louisa May Alcott!
Take this quiz!
Quizilla |
Join
| Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code
Which Classic Female Literary Character Are you?
You're Beth March of Little Women by Louisa May Alcott!
Take this quiz!
Quizilla |
Join
| Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Snow Day
Late February in Laguna, looking out over the Anza Desert. Brrr.
... See my Tabblo>
This is a test-post for a nifty new photosharing site called tabblo. I've had fun playing with it, it makes it possible to arrange photographs more like an album or scrap book, with different size prints and varied layouts. (I am not being paid to say this, I got forwarded an invite to try the beta and figured I'd give it a go. I got sucked in by two things: the ability to transfer all your flickr photos right away, and the fact it talks to my blog.
I like the way the layout works for showing a bunch of shots of something at once.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Hmm...
Halfway between sociology and engineering lies...Neuropathology? Oddly, this makes sense to me, especially if you add in my long term goal to study epidemiology or something similar.
You scored as Engineering. You should be an Engineering major!
What is your Perfect Major? (PLEASE RATE ME!!<3) created with QuizFarm.com |
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Happy Easter *EDIT* NO CHOCOLATE RABBITS WERE HARMED IN THE MAKING OF THIS POST
My parents and sister are on their way to Rome today, for Easter and a conference. Not envious. Not in the slightest.
*sigh*
I remember seeing the biggest Easter eggs known to humanity in shop windows in Rome just before Easter, I was seven years old, so the giant eggs were as impressive to me as the Roman ruins and marble cathedrals. The price tags were incredible too, since Italian Lire are very small, all the prices were in the hundreds of thousands, they weren't actually expensive, but all the zeros made them look it. Maybe I will swing by Cost Plus and get some pannacotta and bacci so I can pretend I'm in Rome too. I'll skip the scary seafood pizza, complete with squid, my sister was a great fan, but I was traumatized by taking a bite of folded over pizza and having a rubbery tentacle FLOP out at me. Of course I immediately shrieked and flung the offending slice from my person. Poor Evie, deprived of her tentacle pizza.
Oh well. Happy Easter Week.
*sigh*
I remember seeing the biggest Easter eggs known to humanity in shop windows in Rome just before Easter, I was seven years old, so the giant eggs were as impressive to me as the Roman ruins and marble cathedrals. The price tags were incredible too, since Italian Lire are very small, all the prices were in the hundreds of thousands, they weren't actually expensive, but all the zeros made them look it. Maybe I will swing by Cost Plus and get some pannacotta and bacci so I can pretend I'm in Rome too. I'll skip the scary seafood pizza, complete with squid, my sister was a great fan, but I was traumatized by taking a bite of folded over pizza and having a rubbery tentacle FLOP out at me. Of course I immediately shrieked and flung the offending slice from my person. Poor Evie, deprived of her tentacle pizza.
Oh well. Happy Easter Week.
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Places I have been
There's a whole lot of empty space there. I need to get myself to South America, Africa, and some Asian countries.
create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands
create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Pancake Day
Tonight, while my party-animal American friends are whooping it up at a Mardis Gras party, with beads and hurricanes (no pun intended), I shall be marking Shrove Tuesday by making crepes stuffed with feta.
This is not through some stubborn refusal to take on the local traditions, Matt and I get up so early on week days that a late night drinking fest is a really bad idea. I think it is rather symbolic that I grew up thinking of Fat Tuesday as "Pancake Day", the day when we often had crepes for school lunch AND made them for dinner at home, with a vague idea that it's the last day before lent, and it's all somehow linked to Easter and Jesus and other random Christian stuff. Please note that I went to a Presbyterian school, but was raised atheist. Meanwhile, in the U.S., Fat Tuesday is Brazilian showgirls flashing their boobs at drunken frat brothers in the middle of a crowded street in New Orleans.
Pretty different.
Perhaps I should combine the traditions and make my crepes topless. Me topless that is. Or in a sparkly bikini and high heels, since the idea of making anything involving hot fat on a stovetop without a top on is a little scary. No photographs will be forthcoming. It might be worth it just to see the look on Matt's face. "No sweetie, I'm not starting to cook yet, I've just got to go change..."
This is not through some stubborn refusal to take on the local traditions, Matt and I get up so early on week days that a late night drinking fest is a really bad idea. I think it is rather symbolic that I grew up thinking of Fat Tuesday as "Pancake Day", the day when we often had crepes for school lunch AND made them for dinner at home, with a vague idea that it's the last day before lent, and it's all somehow linked to Easter and Jesus and other random Christian stuff. Please note that I went to a Presbyterian school, but was raised atheist. Meanwhile, in the U.S., Fat Tuesday is Brazilian showgirls flashing their boobs at drunken frat brothers in the middle of a crowded street in New Orleans.
Pretty different.
Perhaps I should combine the traditions and make my crepes topless. Me topless that is. Or in a sparkly bikini and high heels, since the idea of making anything involving hot fat on a stovetop without a top on is a little scary. No photographs will be forthcoming. It might be worth it just to see the look on Matt's face. "No sweetie, I'm not starting to cook yet, I've just got to go change..."
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
All Clear
EVERYTHING came back all clear. All five moles were normal, no melanoma in the lymph node, no melanoma left in the margins they took (which means they didn't even need to take out as much as they did, but it's done now so...oh well).
Whew.
So now I can just focus on trying to look after my healing incisions. No chemotherapy or further excisions needed! I was actually very surprised that I didn't even have a whacko mole, they've been following a trend of being "abnormal", I'm glad they're gone now so I don't have to be super vigilant of 5 different odd looking moles on my face. That was making me a little crazy already.
On Friday, when the stitches came out, I wasn't too happy with how it all looked. I was also pretty busy being relieved that I got off so lightly, and celebrating with Matt (there was wine, and congnac, and chocolate, on saturday there was peach lambic and more chocolate) But by Sunday the upper half of the loooong incision had healed and is already starting to vanish. It's just a LINE now, a thin line at that, if that's what it looks 1.5 weeks post op, it'll pretty much vanish over the next few months. The lower half...I'm not examining too closely yet, it's still healing up, and I know it'll be more visible, a thicker line, but it'll probably look a lot better than my paranoid imaginings.
Sunday, Matt and I went up to the nearby mountains in search of snow, on the way up we took an offroad trail, so we got MUD and SNOW in one day trip. Yesterday was a public holiday, and I was in bed, napping and reading until about 10.30. With both cats flaked out keeping me company. Then my parents called and I spoke to them for about 2 hours. Lazy day.
My whole family is breathing a lot easier now. I'm so lucky to have been going to a dermatologist regularly and caught it early enough.
Whew.
So now I can just focus on trying to look after my healing incisions. No chemotherapy or further excisions needed! I was actually very surprised that I didn't even have a whacko mole, they've been following a trend of being "abnormal", I'm glad they're gone now so I don't have to be super vigilant of 5 different odd looking moles on my face. That was making me a little crazy already.
On Friday, when the stitches came out, I wasn't too happy with how it all looked. I was also pretty busy being relieved that I got off so lightly, and celebrating with Matt (there was wine, and congnac, and chocolate, on saturday there was peach lambic and more chocolate) But by Sunday the upper half of the loooong incision had healed and is already starting to vanish. It's just a LINE now, a thin line at that, if that's what it looks 1.5 weeks post op, it'll pretty much vanish over the next few months. The lower half...I'm not examining too closely yet, it's still healing up, and I know it'll be more visible, a thicker line, but it'll probably look a lot better than my paranoid imaginings.
Sunday, Matt and I went up to the nearby mountains in search of snow, on the way up we took an offroad trail, so we got MUD and SNOW in one day trip. Yesterday was a public holiday, and I was in bed, napping and reading until about 10.30. With both cats flaked out keeping me company. Then my parents called and I spoke to them for about 2 hours. Lazy day.
My whole family is breathing a lot easier now. I'm so lucky to have been going to a dermatologist regularly and caught it early enough.
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Question
This morning the glue on my dressings loosened enough for me to take off the surgical tape and replace it with fresh tape. So I got my first look at all the stitches and everything. Quite honestly I think it'll heal up really well but it freaked me out for the rest of the morning seeing so many stitches all over my face, and especially realizing how LONG the incision is from the melanoma.
I took a couple of photos for posterity. I think it will be good to be able to look back in a few months or a year, if I get down on the whole scarring issue. I think it will be good (if a little wierd) to have a photo I can look at and say "yeah...but I survived looking like THIS!".
So here's the question: you wanna see my new, temporary, bride of The Creature look?
I took a couple of photos for posterity. I think it will be good to be able to look back in a few months or a year, if I get down on the whole scarring issue. I think it will be good (if a little wierd) to have a photo I can look at and say "yeah...but I survived looking like THIS!".
So here's the question: you wanna see my new, temporary, bride of The Creature look?
Friday, February 10, 2006
We Love General Anesthetics
I spent a significant portion of yesterday unconscious, and when I came out of it I was filled with much happy love for the world (including the nurse who came over to me every once in a while to remind me to breathe properly because I kept dozing off and not breathing enough apparently). Highly preferable to lying on a table feeling no pain but being intensely aware of every tug and pull as a doctor fiddles about with your skin and stitches you up.
Now I'm a bit headachey and my face feels a little swollen, but I think that's pretty good for one large, one medium, and FIVE small incisions on my face. I'm also a little tanked up on vicodin, so I'm probably fairly incoherent.
The coolest part is that the dye they injected into the site of the tumor (so they could locate the correct lymph node) was bright blue, and now so is that part of my face! Yesterday the entire under-eye circle was this amazing bright cerulean blue. Like the height of 1980s eyeshadow tackiness, only UNDER my eye. It's already faded to a mere wash of turquoise, Matt got a photo about halfway between the peak of blueness and where I am now.
Biopsy results next Friday. I'm really glad the surgery's done with, I shall probably worry more about the results as Friday approaches.
Now I'm a bit headachey and my face feels a little swollen, but I think that's pretty good for one large, one medium, and FIVE small incisions on my face. I'm also a little tanked up on vicodin, so I'm probably fairly incoherent.
The coolest part is that the dye they injected into the site of the tumor (so they could locate the correct lymph node) was bright blue, and now so is that part of my face! Yesterday the entire under-eye circle was this amazing bright cerulean blue. Like the height of 1980s eyeshadow tackiness, only UNDER my eye. It's already faded to a mere wash of turquoise, Matt got a photo about halfway between the peak of blueness and where I am now.
Biopsy results next Friday. I'm really glad the surgery's done with, I shall probably worry more about the results as Friday approaches.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Poor Taliesin. They didn't find anything wrong with him at the vet, so they decided to give him all his boosters while he was in there. I'm not sure this was a good idea, since I got him home last night he's been all sulky and out of sorts. Not even the mighty pull of a spoonful of yogurt tempted him out from under the bed this morning. So I left him to carry on hunching in dark corners looking miserable. I know how he feels.
I can't just muscle through this, I can't get up the day after surgery, pretend nothing happened, and go back to work and be PRODUCTIVE. I'm not allowed, in fact I've been told I might need help walking to the bathroom, and that I should not be left unattended for 24 hours afterwards. Probably it's the general anesthetic that will have the effect of making me groggy etc. Matt has to work, and luckily one of our closest friends, who also lives in the building, has that day off and will be on supervisory duty. I'm not sure if he'll be hanging out at our place, or just on call. I left Matt to sort that out because the thought of asking for that kind of help makes me feel sick. I hate helplessness, absolutely hate it. Realizing how much I wanted my boss to give me work to take home with me for while I'm resting up was quite a shock.
Somehow in the past 5 years I have become the kind of woman who will keep pursuing work when she's sick, even if it might make her sicker longer. I think of public holidays as a great chance to catch up on household chores, I have actually caught myself considering "doing extra laundry" as a good way to spend a "me day". I'm sure I used to be much more of a skiver, any chance to get away with not doing stuff. I used to be so bored with school, or I couldn't see much importance in getting projects done, that I'd procrastinate until the last minute and then tearfully cobble together some crap, making excuses to myself all the way.
After I graduated and met Matt, and especially after I moved jobs to this one, a job well done became such a great rewarding feeling. Perhaps I learned that hard work does pay off. Hard work paying attention and learning on the job, and also hard work fixing myself up after a long bout of depression. I'm coming to realise that work, doing stuff, being proactive, becoming a go-getting let-me-at-it kind of person is what pulled me out of the hole I was in. It also made our whole wedding planning thing work pretty well. Now all of a sudden I'm faced with a huge challenge: being able to stop.
Even as I type this I realize it's pretty ridiculous. I'm not loosing a LEG. this isn't a permanent stop. I have to face being a gibbering wreck for about 24 hours or so after surgery. Maybe not even gibbering, just disoriented and sick feeling.
I feel that I've spent far too much of my life already hiding under the covers feeling sick. I wasted somewhere between 2 and 5 YEARS not taking care of myself, crying a lot and feeling sick to my stomach just existing. Often it was helplessness that I felt. Helplessness to "fix" my life. Yay anxiety. I hope I'm just spaced out all day after surgery, the fear that is looming is that it will feel just like the pit of depression and then somehow I will get stuck there again.
Of course, I was feeling depression rear it's head before I got this diagnosis. I could go all Medium on the facts and try to convince myself that I felt this coming and was mourning it in advance... or I could skip the BS hokey pokey and admit that maybe go! go! go! go! go! go! go! go! go! go! wasn't working that well as a long term life solution and I'm getting overdue for seeking a little, you know, balance.
One of the signs of this need for balance is that the day I learned the biopsies had shown melanoma, after about an hour of freaking out I started to feel good about the new challenge to overcome, because it would distract me from the lingering depression that had started to really scare me. You know something's wrong when a cancer diagnosis turns into a welcome battle with the world.
I know I will need to give myself some "me time" (sans laundry folding), to figure out what I need once I'm done with getting carved up and biopsied. Right now I think it's ok to huddle under the covers seeking comfort. Hopefully Tali will forgive me for taking him to the vet and come and sulk with me instead of at me.
I can't just muscle through this, I can't get up the day after surgery, pretend nothing happened, and go back to work and be PRODUCTIVE. I'm not allowed, in fact I've been told I might need help walking to the bathroom, and that I should not be left unattended for 24 hours afterwards. Probably it's the general anesthetic that will have the effect of making me groggy etc. Matt has to work, and luckily one of our closest friends, who also lives in the building, has that day off and will be on supervisory duty. I'm not sure if he'll be hanging out at our place, or just on call. I left Matt to sort that out because the thought of asking for that kind of help makes me feel sick. I hate helplessness, absolutely hate it. Realizing how much I wanted my boss to give me work to take home with me for while I'm resting up was quite a shock.
Somehow in the past 5 years I have become the kind of woman who will keep pursuing work when she's sick, even if it might make her sicker longer. I think of public holidays as a great chance to catch up on household chores, I have actually caught myself considering "doing extra laundry" as a good way to spend a "me day". I'm sure I used to be much more of a skiver, any chance to get away with not doing stuff. I used to be so bored with school, or I couldn't see much importance in getting projects done, that I'd procrastinate until the last minute and then tearfully cobble together some crap, making excuses to myself all the way.
After I graduated and met Matt, and especially after I moved jobs to this one, a job well done became such a great rewarding feeling. Perhaps I learned that hard work does pay off. Hard work paying attention and learning on the job, and also hard work fixing myself up after a long bout of depression. I'm coming to realise that work, doing stuff, being proactive, becoming a go-getting let-me-at-it kind of person is what pulled me out of the hole I was in. It also made our whole wedding planning thing work pretty well. Now all of a sudden I'm faced with a huge challenge: being able to stop.
Even as I type this I realize it's pretty ridiculous. I'm not loosing a LEG. this isn't a permanent stop. I have to face being a gibbering wreck for about 24 hours or so after surgery. Maybe not even gibbering, just disoriented and sick feeling.
I feel that I've spent far too much of my life already hiding under the covers feeling sick. I wasted somewhere between 2 and 5 YEARS not taking care of myself, crying a lot and feeling sick to my stomach just existing. Often it was helplessness that I felt. Helplessness to "fix" my life. Yay anxiety. I hope I'm just spaced out all day after surgery, the fear that is looming is that it will feel just like the pit of depression and then somehow I will get stuck there again.
Of course, I was feeling depression rear it's head before I got this diagnosis. I could go all Medium on the facts and try to convince myself that I felt this coming and was mourning it in advance... or I could skip the BS hokey pokey and admit that maybe go! go! go! go! go! go! go! go! go! go! wasn't working that well as a long term life solution and I'm getting overdue for seeking a little, you know, balance.
One of the signs of this need for balance is that the day I learned the biopsies had shown melanoma, after about an hour of freaking out I started to feel good about the new challenge to overcome, because it would distract me from the lingering depression that had started to really scare me. You know something's wrong when a cancer diagnosis turns into a welcome battle with the world.
I know I will need to give myself some "me time" (sans laundry folding), to figure out what I need once I'm done with getting carved up and biopsied. Right now I think it's ok to huddle under the covers seeking comfort. Hopefully Tali will forgive me for taking him to the vet and come and sulk with me instead of at me.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Happy Birthday to Me
Sunday was designated stuff-your-face day, Matt woke me up by bringing me a Coldstone Creamery chocolate raspberry ice cream cake in bed. With candles that look like crayons! My initial plan was to have icecream cake and a bottle of zinfandel for breakfast, but since I wanted to go to yoga we saved the wine for AFTER the workout. We also had steak for dinner, followed by more cake. Yum.
Today we are "celebrating" by having the pre-operative consultation with the surgeon, getting the stitches taken out of my leg, then going home for leftover london broil steak and the last bit of cake. with super yummy framboise lambic to wash it down.
Oh, and Tali's getting checked out by the vet today, poor little bugger has been acting strange, like he might be about to scent-mark stuff, even though he's never been a spraying kinda guy. So he gets to have his nethers probed by a stranger. Being away from his sister will probably be the worst part of the day. They do much better going to the vet as a pair, so they can cower in their carrier together.
Today we are "celebrating" by having the pre-operative consultation with the surgeon, getting the stitches taken out of my leg, then going home for leftover london broil steak and the last bit of cake. with super yummy framboise lambic to wash it down.
Oh, and Tali's getting checked out by the vet today, poor little bugger has been acting strange, like he might be about to scent-mark stuff, even though he's never been a spraying kinda guy. So he gets to have his nethers probed by a stranger. Being away from his sister will probably be the worst part of the day. They do much better going to the vet as a pair, so they can cower in their carrier together.
Monday, January 23, 2006
All Is Vanity
While faffing about attempting to resize a photograph to send in for a passport I was seduced by the sparkly lure of airbrushing. First I used it to conceal the incision that will soon be replaced by a much larger one, then I dotted out a couple of obvious pimples. By that point I was far too mad with the new power to make up for my inexpert application of concealer and powder, and I zapped away the under-eye shadows too!I'm officialy a Californian. Or maybe it's just reaching 26.
If you go to the flickr page and flip back and forth between the two photos it's pretty cool, just like one of those "debunking the beauty myth" websites showing magazine covers.
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