The Pretty Yellow Road

 On the right was a program Naomi used to predict what their child would look like. On the left, is what their child actually looks like. About the only thing that is similar is the head shape.

The storm dumped about 2 inches of slush not the 6 to 8 inches predicted so that's good. Still I am taking a day off of running.

Back in the day when I was biking all over Hell (sometimes literally: riding to Hell and back. Hell is a small town about 25 miles northwest of us), one of my favorite routes took us through rolling fields of rapeseed. Now rapeseed seems to have a negative name so marketers renamed the oil from the seed 'canola'. The flower is bright yellow and is very pretty from a distance. Yesterday I found myself on that same road going to my hair dresser's but the fields this time of year are brown. Still it brought back pleasant memories. As an added bonus, I drove the car with  the satellite radio. My hairdresser (and Shanna's) left the Ann Arbor salon where she was based to raise her new baby. Once she discovered what a good baby he is, she opened her home  to a limited clientele. Her little dumpling is now 4 months and already weighs as much as Ms. Maya when she was a year. It was fun to hold a little one again. And I like my hair, now curl free excepting the ends which curl under. No more roots for a while.

On the route that took me past my hairdresser's house, years ago we happened upon a winery in pretty stone building (the area is full of pretty stone Lutheran churches from the German settlers). Of course we tried the wine. Drinking and biking do not mix!

The mill complex that used to house the winery, now closed.

The calm before the storm

At some point this evening, we will receive our first 'big' snow for the year. It won't last long as the temps will be above freezing later in the week (and now). I tried to get some last minute running in this morning. Hopefully Baby Girl won't try to make her escape any time soon. She already weighs 7 # but by dates and measurements, has 3-4 weeks to go.

Before the storm, I will deal with my hair. My hairdresser lives at the  western farthest edge of the county. My chemo curls are gone. I will revert back to the bob (see old picture on side..I can't update it without buying more space from Blogger) I had before cancer but it will be a bit longer. Having straight hair makes my roots all that much harder to hide. Fortunately I am taller than most people so they can't see the top of my head. And the roots are multicolored ranging from black to brown to blond to white so they aren't that obvious but maybe I am a bit delusional on that.

Maya at the Indoor playground

I took Ms. Maya to the indoor playground yesterday, one of my Groupon deals, one more visit left! Now many school systems are out so I was afraid it would be crowded but late in the day, only one family was there, one that is trying to give the Duggars a run for the money. Pregnant mom already has ten kids all running all over the place there. The older girls were dressed in long skirts and had names like Charity, Faith, Chasity etc. There is a family like that in Josh's neighborhood (often seen running laps around the neighborhood) but no, they were from a different community. Most of the kids had red hair; the oldest girl was especially sweet to Maya. The boys were hellions though, especially one of them. At least Grandma was there to control him; mom looked away.

Love her face here. You can see that she is gradually getting some hair. The place has dress up clothes thus the yellow and green skirts.

The Pain of being a Teen

My teenage years were quite painful, both literally and figuratively. For about 4 years, every morning I would  get what felt like a knife through my right eye. It rarely lasted as long as an hour but it hurt quite a bit. I was quite sensitive to sound while I had these headaches. And once a  month, I was in for 6 hours of end stage labor pains. I had researched the latter in textbooks (out of date ones) and was upset to find that dysmenorrhea was a figment of my imagination. Fortunately I read in my grandfather's medical journal that it could be cured with birth control pills. My mother refused to help me get them. As soon as I went away to college, I got them. An added bonus, the headaches disappeared around the same time.

I was reminded of this on my cruise. One night, we ate with a BC survivor. She said the one bright spot in her journey was that her extremely painful migraines stopped when they told her to get off hormone replacement.

75% percent of migraine sufferers are women. Modification of estrogen levels either increases the headaches or decreases them. Pregnant ladies rarely get them. Before this cruise, I never linked my migraines disappearance to the Pill. Fortunately they did not return once I went off the Pill.

Snow. It should melt soon but it makes running too slippery today. Fortunately I made great progress in making my photobooks and calendars..all done now. Baby Girl hopefully will hang in there another week. I also started sorting my thousands of non-digital photos which are in no order. I am taking out my favorites of the kids to scan.

These pics are Josh and Shanna when they were 6 and 8. My pretty babies! Yep they look like they could be twins. Shanna hated the short hair though.

Naomi really doesn't look like them. She is about 15 months here.

Wild Turkeys Won't Keep me away

From a year ago-note beards

Today on my long run (temp 23 deg but no wind and sunny), I ran past a flock of wild turkeys, about 15 of them including a white one (domestic escapee?)in a farmer's field. This was the first time I have seen them near (3 miles) my house. What I don't see any more are pheasants. When I lived in the township, often I would find them in my front yard but I think it has been 5 years since I've seen one. There used to be a preserve of Sichuan pheasants on my run but that is gone.

In the past few months, I signed up for all these LivingSocial and Groupon photobook deals. They are all set to expire in a week and I could be called away at anytime. Ugh! I am so disorganized.It is not even clear which ones I have used.

I have boxes and boxes of photos not in any particular order. I want to digitalize them and make books for the kids.
And my computer is a mess with subfolders of photos all over the place..it will take forever to clean this all up.

A Return to Reality

How I miss the deep blue skies of the week before!

I've been back now nearly a week. Most of winter is gone with a possibility of just a few bad weeks. We are awaiting Baby Girl's birth. At 39 weeks, she is coming out, ready or not but with Shanna's early birth history, she'll probably come early. Just stay in there 10 more days Baby Girl for all our sakes! Shanna is hoping for 37 weeks. She is nearly at 35 weeks right now so Baby Girl's lungs should be in better shape than Daniel's (see Wimpy White Boys). Everyone is eagerly waiting to meet Baby Girl who the OB reports is 'not small'.

Steve thoughtlessly signed up for working the Republican Primary (we get robocalls from Romney daily driving me crazy..wish I could opt out of them somehow). If he does not show up at this point, it is a misdemeanor. One is allowed a documented 'medical excuse' but it is not clear whether the birth of a grandchild counts. On the day of the primary, Baby Girl will be at 36 weeks. This is a  preventable worry that I didn't want to have.  Magical thinking on his part. It takes all my willpower not to hound him about this beyond what I did already when a notice came in the mail. Why!!?!

Much of the week has been spent trying to straighten out a particularly annoying situation that I won't go into. Suffice it to say, it didn't go away without throwing large amounts of money at it. I tried to block it out of my mind while on the cruise.

I have been running faithfully though in less than ideal conditions. A business park nearby is fairly reliable about clearing its drives and parking lots (unlike the city streets..it won't plow unless there is 4 inches so the three inches turns  into ice wreaking all sorts of havoc leading to the 'big worry' alluded to above)so I went there.

One of the days I was running on the bike path that is along the now busy street that goes behind my house (it was a small dead end when we moved here, not the major conduit to the freeway for all these new subdivisions-cars drive as if they are already on the freeway) and a car slams its brakes stopping beside me. I assume it is someone wanting directions but instead of rolling the windows down, the driver gets out of the car and runs towards me to hug me. It was an old friend who had recently returned here but slightly racist me just saw an African American man coming quickly towards me and for a second I was taken back .. technically he is African). It was fun catching up with him though we were blocking traffic and my t-shirt is warm only if I am moving not standing still when it is only 30 degrees.


I have also had lots of Maya time in part to the 'situation'. One day I took her to the indoor playground. She is such a cute little thing. She did well in her therapy, at least with all her signing. Actually spoken words still aren't forthcoming..she may have only 2-3 words depending on how one interprets them. One shouldn't compare kids but I diligently recorded Shanna's milestones. At this time, she had a vocabulary of 150 words. But Maya is eager to learn and tries to copy us. She now has the hair of an average 6 month old. Good thing for her that she has an especially attractive head shape. The hair is growing more quickly in back than in front. She seems to have a mix of hair types. She looks much more like her daddy than her mom. Fortunately for us all, she has his mellowness.

The other night we had a Mom's Happy Hour, which was fun at the $2 cosmo place.

One of my skills is being able to recall maps and quickly became oriented. I would not have even called this a talent until I was made aware that many around me seem to lack this sense of direction. And it must be an inheritable trait, one that did not penetrate the genome of my offspring as they are like Steve, especially Naomi and Josh. (basically, my kids did not inherit squat from me other than certain personality traits-each one having a different one) Even around Ann Arbor, Steve needs to be reminded how  to go. I get a call Friday night from Josh. He had to get off Lakeshore Drive in Chicago and was completely turned around despite the city having key landmarks and despite him making 5-6 trips/year  there since he graduated. With a lot of long distance help, he eventually got back on the right track. Yes he has a GPS thingy but he didn't bring it. Assuming he does not get lost going out of Chicago, we'll meet for a late lunch later today.

Just how fast does a tumor grow anyway?

This question was foremost on my mind when I perceived a too big of chunk of time going by between when my tumor was discovered and when it was finally removed. At that time I could only find one paper addressing this, a woman who refused to have surgery yet agreed to have her tumor measured periodically. Hers did not grow fast. I would hear things like "Don't worry, you had the tumor for years, 4 weeks shouldn't make a difference.'
But during that time, the tumor went from 1.6 cm to 3 cm and developed a 1 cm sidecar. I went from Stage 1 to Stage 2 more than doubling my chances of death. Yes, thanks for that. When I confronted the surgeon, she said something about the original measurement must have been faulty. How hard is it to measure something by ultrasound?
Yes I know I received "The Standard of Care". My surgery date actually was moved two weeks forward but I think the Standard of Care needs to be revised. Anecdotal as my evidence may be, many women with TNBC cite similar growths.
Why do I bring this up now when it finally looks like this whole BC business is probably behind me?

On my cruise, I read the story of the physician who was assigned to the South Pole and developed breast cancer during their winter when rescue was not a possibility. She had to treat herself. I found her story fascinating on many levels.

Her personal life: Jerri grew up in an ideal household with loving parents and brothers who fostered learning yet she married an abusive, manipulative man and stayed in this awful relationship for far too long. This man to teach some sort of lesson, strangled their pet dog in front of her and her daughter yet stay she did. How come someone so smart could be so dumb? Does growing up in a perfect environment make one too trusting?

Her description on life in the dome from a scientific standpoint. How being in a very enclosed space for so long impacted relationships, how this all affected their bodies.

Her breast cancer: She documented its growth. In one 2 week period , it doubled. Apparently it was quite easy to feel. She could not perform surgery on herself not could they determine its cell type. The fact that she was 47 and the tumor was growing so fast led them to conclude it was estrogen negative, probably TNBC but that terminology wasn't used in 1999. Taxol was air lifted to the Dome.( Planes could not land when the temp was below minus 60) and dropped. She taught some of the personnel how to access her veins.. Initially she responded to the Taxol with the tumor shrinking, then it was at a plateau, and then started growing alarmingly fast again. Apparently not all BC cells are equal. The Taxol sensitive ones quickly died but the few resistant cells started growing. Her veins by that time were a mess. They did not want to give her cytotoxic agents (such as the Red Devil) that would lead to neutropenia as she could not be readily treated.
She was rescued during a small window of relative warmth and survived the whole ordeal (at least I think she did). By publishing her e-mails during her ordeal, one can tell what was going through her mind at the time.

Since I was treated, it seems that the standard of care is shifting to chemo first, then surgery regardless of the size of the tumor. This makes sense in that one knows if the tumor actually responds to that particular chemo or not.