Margins

two of the 4 amaryllis flowers are finally in bloom plus another head of blossoms is about a month away from blooming. A bit of brightness during these drab days

stylized clay cat bought today. Will go in the kitchen with my other red stuff

I read yesterday that they have this new device used during breast lump incisions that can distinguish between cancer cells and normal cells. It will beep if it detects cancer cells so the surgeon can keep cutting until the beeping stops. The device costs $1000 and can only be used once. There are no false negatives (good) but there are some false positives. Insurance will not cover the cost of this device even though it drastically cuts down on re-incisions. The current rate of re-incisions is 30%; the average cost 9-16K. Even if ignore the human costs, the usual risks involving anesthesia and surgery and the stress of and pain of going through it, from a pure economic sense, using this device would make sense.

I was one of the 30% who needed a second surgery as poor margins were obtained in the first surgery. My tumor had doubled in size since it was first detected a month prior. If they had just ultrasounded it right before surgery, then she would have known to cut more. A few years later, UM said they would do a pathology of the excised tumor and surrounding tissue on the spot to determine whether they should keep cutting. that would make sense. What took them so long to consider that? And it the second surgery, they took so much tissue I didn't have more than half a breast left. If I knew they were going to do that , I would have gotten a mastectomy.

So the Orange One has lived up so far to thinking people's worst fears. OMG. Why do people vote for someone who does not have their best interests? The Hidden Brain podcast had a good story on that.  woman from the most liberal corner of the country (Berkeley, CA)went to the opposite end of the spectrum (rural Albama) to try to figure out why people who needed and got so much federal aid would favor someone who would cut it? And those liberal Berkeley folks, why would they vote for someone who would be against their self interest (higher taxes for so-called entitlement programs). She concluded there must be a deeper reason, which she dubbed the Big Story. The poor look down the social economic ladder to find the source of what they perceive to be the source of the ills: poor blacks and Mexican immigrants. The liberals look up to find the source of evil: big banks, deregulation. Sort of simplistic. I always wondered how the few slave owners managed to get the many poor white sharecroppers to fight for their cause.

What have I been up to during my absence from the Blogsphere? Not attending to the many little things I should be doing. After a weekend of eating maybe like a normal person, I am back to deprivation so weight loss continues. I know it is not recommended to weigh oneself daily as one misses the big picture, but for me, skipping a day turned out to skipping a decade to no good effect. But I get sad when the numbers are bigger and happy when they get smaller. At the moment, they are smaller so for the moment, I am happy.

I went back to yoga. I met the instructor a few weeks ago and she promised to be reasonable. Alas, she was ill last night when I went to her class but the sub was good. I hope to work on flexibility and balance. I saw the Pats win at a Super Bowl party Shanna had. Actually we left when it looked like the had no chance in hell but continued to watch the game at home. Boston was our adopted home for a while. No love for Atlanta.

The ice finally melted on our street so it is somewhat safe to run there now until another snow hits. I have not been able to ride my bike since late January.  If it is suitably warm, it is raining.

I bought more stuff during super senior day. This time I went too far so I will take a break. I have the stuff hidden in the garage for now.

Today I make the long trip to the opposite corner of our big county to have my hair fixed.