*snip snip YOINK!*
Aug. 12th, 2004 10:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperThis should have been posted yesterday, but such is the inevitable consequence of being on dial-up for one's Internet access at the moment and sharing it with two other people, not to mention being out and away from the computer for most of the day. A great deal of this out-and-away-ness had to do with going to get the stitches out of my neck--and going over the pathology report about the extracted lump with my doctor.
First and foremost: it wasn't cancer.
There are a great many things it might have been--an alien parasite, or perhaps the product of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
smeehrrr's theorized spontaneously developing Russell-Crowe-mind-controlling hormones in my system--but hey. It wasn't cancer.
And I'm good with that.
Yesterday was almost... normal, really, just a matter of getting up and Dealing With Things. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't necessarily have thought twice about everything I did, but the circumstances have been so abnormal as of late that it was almost a relief and a blessing to be able to be able to just have things and be able to more or less deal with them.
First up--solarbird and I went to the Polyclinic to get the stitches out. We seem to be getting known as regulars there; the way that clinic works is that you go through a little queue to pay your co-payment and get signed in, then you go and see your actual doctor. The lady who signed us in recognized our surname from having been the person who signed in Dara on her last visit, and while she took our new address and phone number for their records, she lamented that our name was in the system something on the order of five different ways. We assured her that this happens to us a lot.
When we went around to see Dr. Stickney, the wait was mercifully short. I was starting to feel a little wobbly at that point, as I'd already been up for several hours and had only had a bowl of cereal for breakfast and a pop-tart on the way to the clinic by way of nourishment. But we got in, got seen, and I told the doctor about Sunday night's adventure in the ER. She told me the good news about the path report, and gave me her tips on how to take care of the scar. I mentionedchamois_shimi's recommendation about the vitamin E gel, which she was okay with, though her actual recommendation was for a product called Mederma, which is clinically proven effective for scar treatment. So I got some of both.
She also said, by the way, that the scar is healing ahead of schedule. So that was good to hear.
And it was weird indeed when she pulled off the tape on either end, and basically did this *snip snip YOINK* thing, and I felt the wire rippling out through my flesh. Dara made a joke to me later about feeling that in certain other areas which reflect her own surgical experience, which made me squirm in uncomfortable and sympathetic ways. But right then, at least, I told the doctor that my friends had been impressed by her stitch work, and that I'd had people peering up close at the scar and boggling that they couldn't find the stitches. She told me that a tailor had even marvelled at her work--and had told her that he'd recognized what she was doing. "It's a hem stitch!" Hee.
The doctor also recommended that I make an appointment with a Dr. Murray, who's an endoc, for followup testing on how my remaining half of a thyroid will function. This guy will be the one to tell me whether my remaining thyroid levels will be appropriate for my system or whether I'll need any tweaking with tiny doses of the synthroid stuff. And Dr. Stickney cleared me to drive, as well, so that'll be another good thing that'll mean "getting back to normal".
After that, it was around to the University Village shopping center for lunch and errands. I was desperately wanting a smoothie, though it had dropped a little on the system priority scale since I'd gotten some other craved nourishments. Jamba Juice had been what I was going to aim for--but since I was in major need of actual food, we went to World Wrapps instead and got food and my smoothie there. I think I actually like Jamba Juice smoothies better, but hey, World Wrapps had food.
On the way in I happened to notice all the cute little children playing in the play area, and got to thinking about Dara and me and a wee elfling doing the same. Heh. Maybe this time next summer we'll be starting to think about that, for next year's medical adventure.
Anyway, after food, we ducked into Barnes and Noble as I wanted to pick up a copy of the new Elfquest book, The Searcher and the Sword. I'd seen enough positive commentary on this come over EQUEST-L and from an off-LJ friend of mine that I decided what the hey, and picked up a copy. (I read it last night--it was pretty good, actually! More on this in another post.) At the same time, I picked up three new paperbacks--including the new Jim Butcher book, Blood Rites, and the new Kristen Britain, First Rider's Call, which I'd been waiting for in paperback for some time.
Dara picked up a couple of manga she wanted as well. Then we ambled over to the Bartell's and got the stuff to tend to my scar as well as some household-y, hardware-y kinds of things Dara wanted.
It turned out that Dara had an appointment of her own to get to downtown, so we decided to part ways for a few hours so that she could take the bus to that and that I could crash and rest at MurkSouth for a while. This turned out be a very good idea, as I needed some downtime, and I sorely missed our comfortable green couch. We still need to get that thing moved up to MurkNorth.
I never actually fell asleep; mostly, I just watched stuff on the Tivo, an Old Trek episode, some Invader Zim, some MacGyver. I tried the Mederma, and determined that indeed, as per the doctor's previous advice (she'd mentioned that if you're allergic to onions, you don't want to use this stuff; onion is on the list of ingredients), it smelled quite onion-y. But it also felt good on the scar. I'm supposed to massage it, too. This is supposed to help it heal more thinly and more cleanly.
And I puttered about the mostly-now-empty MurkSouth house and gathered a few things to take back to MurkNorth with us. The one downer to this was that I discovered that my hardbound copy of Tad Williams' The Dragonbone Chair had gotten 409 spilled on it, and now the back of the cover and the last 50 pages or so are kind of ruined. This depresses me--to see a book damaged always hits me kind of hard, and I think that it is possibly because I don't know of any way to fix it. The book will always be damaged, and nobody's going to want to buy it, because, well, it's damaged. I'm going to have to buy another copy, now.
Dara showed up a few hours later--unsurprisingly, since she'd shown up for a 4:45 appointment, pretty much the last of the day, they were running late. So she didn't get back to me until later. But we got our stuff together, and I did what I could with the ruined book, sticking some paper towels between the soaked pages to try to get at least some of the moisture out. It won't help the ruined back cover, but.
Then we stopped at the QFC to pick up some groceries--and then, home.
After all of that, we didn't get back to MurkNorth until 8pm or so in the evening. Dara made dinner--and I'd had some thought about how I'd pay some bills and get a few other things done, but I wound up mostly just curling up on the bed reading. I also thought about watching more of the second season of The X-Files on the DVD player thatmamishka has kindly loaned me, but the unit is making disturbing noises about the last disc it was playing, and not loading it. I am concerned that it might have damaged the disc, because day before yesterday, it was playing just fine. Sigh.
Now, it's Thursday morning andspazzkat is on the way over, having kindly offered to give me a ride to the dentist so I don't have to face driving there on my still uncertain strength. I shall treat him to lunch. And sign off, for now. More later.
First and foremost: it wasn't cancer.
There are a great many things it might have been--an alien parasite, or perhaps the product of
smeehrrr's theorized spontaneously developing Russell-Crowe-mind-controlling hormones in my system--but hey. It wasn't cancer.And I'm good with that.
Yesterday was almost... normal, really, just a matter of getting up and Dealing With Things. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't necessarily have thought twice about everything I did, but the circumstances have been so abnormal as of late that it was almost a relief and a blessing to be able to be able to just have things and be able to more or less deal with them.
First up--
solarbird and I went to the Polyclinic to get the stitches out. We seem to be getting known as regulars there; the way that clinic works is that you go through a little queue to pay your co-payment and get signed in, then you go and see your actual doctor. The lady who signed us in recognized our surname from having been the person who signed in Dara on her last visit, and while she took our new address and phone number for their records, she lamented that our name was in the system something on the order of five different ways. We assured her that this happens to us a lot.When we went around to see Dr. Stickney, the wait was mercifully short. I was starting to feel a little wobbly at that point, as I'd already been up for several hours and had only had a bowl of cereal for breakfast and a pop-tart on the way to the clinic by way of nourishment. But we got in, got seen, and I told the doctor about Sunday night's adventure in the ER. She told me the good news about the path report, and gave me her tips on how to take care of the scar. I mentioned
chamois_shimi's recommendation about the vitamin E gel, which she was okay with, though her actual recommendation was for a product called Mederma, which is clinically proven effective for scar treatment. So I got some of both.She also said, by the way, that the scar is healing ahead of schedule. So that was good to hear.
And it was weird indeed when she pulled off the tape on either end, and basically did this *snip snip YOINK* thing, and I felt the wire rippling out through my flesh. Dara made a joke to me later about feeling that in certain other areas which reflect her own surgical experience, which made me squirm in uncomfortable and sympathetic ways. But right then, at least, I told the doctor that my friends had been impressed by her stitch work, and that I'd had people peering up close at the scar and boggling that they couldn't find the stitches. She told me that a tailor had even marvelled at her work--and had told her that he'd recognized what she was doing. "It's a hem stitch!" Hee.
The doctor also recommended that I make an appointment with a Dr. Murray, who's an endoc, for followup testing on how my remaining half of a thyroid will function. This guy will be the one to tell me whether my remaining thyroid levels will be appropriate for my system or whether I'll need any tweaking with tiny doses of the synthroid stuff. And Dr. Stickney cleared me to drive, as well, so that'll be another good thing that'll mean "getting back to normal".
After that, it was around to the University Village shopping center for lunch and errands. I was desperately wanting a smoothie, though it had dropped a little on the system priority scale since I'd gotten some other craved nourishments. Jamba Juice had been what I was going to aim for--but since I was in major need of actual food, we went to World Wrapps instead and got food and my smoothie there. I think I actually like Jamba Juice smoothies better, but hey, World Wrapps had food.
On the way in I happened to notice all the cute little children playing in the play area, and got to thinking about Dara and me and a wee elfling doing the same. Heh. Maybe this time next summer we'll be starting to think about that, for next year's medical adventure.
Anyway, after food, we ducked into Barnes and Noble as I wanted to pick up a copy of the new Elfquest book, The Searcher and the Sword. I'd seen enough positive commentary on this come over EQUEST-L and from an off-LJ friend of mine that I decided what the hey, and picked up a copy. (I read it last night--it was pretty good, actually! More on this in another post.) At the same time, I picked up three new paperbacks--including the new Jim Butcher book, Blood Rites, and the new Kristen Britain, First Rider's Call, which I'd been waiting for in paperback for some time.
Dara picked up a couple of manga she wanted as well. Then we ambled over to the Bartell's and got the stuff to tend to my scar as well as some household-y, hardware-y kinds of things Dara wanted.
It turned out that Dara had an appointment of her own to get to downtown, so we decided to part ways for a few hours so that she could take the bus to that and that I could crash and rest at MurkSouth for a while. This turned out be a very good idea, as I needed some downtime, and I sorely missed our comfortable green couch. We still need to get that thing moved up to MurkNorth.
I never actually fell asleep; mostly, I just watched stuff on the Tivo, an Old Trek episode, some Invader Zim, some MacGyver. I tried the Mederma, and determined that indeed, as per the doctor's previous advice (she'd mentioned that if you're allergic to onions, you don't want to use this stuff; onion is on the list of ingredients), it smelled quite onion-y. But it also felt good on the scar. I'm supposed to massage it, too. This is supposed to help it heal more thinly and more cleanly.
And I puttered about the mostly-now-empty MurkSouth house and gathered a few things to take back to MurkNorth with us. The one downer to this was that I discovered that my hardbound copy of Tad Williams' The Dragonbone Chair had gotten 409 spilled on it, and now the back of the cover and the last 50 pages or so are kind of ruined. This depresses me--to see a book damaged always hits me kind of hard, and I think that it is possibly because I don't know of any way to fix it. The book will always be damaged, and nobody's going to want to buy it, because, well, it's damaged. I'm going to have to buy another copy, now.
Dara showed up a few hours later--unsurprisingly, since she'd shown up for a 4:45 appointment, pretty much the last of the day, they were running late. So she didn't get back to me until later. But we got our stuff together, and I did what I could with the ruined book, sticking some paper towels between the soaked pages to try to get at least some of the moisture out. It won't help the ruined back cover, but.
Then we stopped at the QFC to pick up some groceries--and then, home.
After all of that, we didn't get back to MurkNorth until 8pm or so in the evening. Dara made dinner--and I'd had some thought about how I'd pay some bills and get a few other things done, but I wound up mostly just curling up on the bed reading. I also thought about watching more of the second season of The X-Files on the DVD player that
mamishka has kindly loaned me, but the unit is making disturbing noises about the last disc it was playing, and not loading it. I am concerned that it might have damaged the disc, because day before yesterday, it was playing just fine. Sigh.Now, it's Thursday morning and
spazzkat is on the way over, having kindly offered to give me a ride to the dentist so I don't have to face driving there on my still uncertain strength. I shall treat him to lunch. And sign off, for now. More later.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-08-12 10:57 am (UTC)glad you are getting your life back :)
no subject
Date: 2004-08-12 04:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-12 10:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-12 03:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-12 11:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-12 03:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-12 11:37 am (UTC)Even the oblique reference to Dara's stitches removal has got *me* squirming. oof.
But yay for getting back to normal.
I've just realized that we need to, um, start planning for the WorldCon! Eep.
Cathy
no subject
Date: 2004-08-12 03:57 pm (UTC)It'll be good to see you guys at Worldcon this year! And yeah, it's coming up fast.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-12 06:32 pm (UTC)Cathy
no subject
Date: 2004-08-13 11:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-12 12:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-12 03:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-12 12:57 pm (UTC)Re: the stitches thing: a few years ago I had my sinuses reamed out & my deviated septum straightened out. A few days after, I had this tickly feeling in my nose that I was quite sure was a cat hair. I pulled out the "cat hair" - and it was a stitch going all the way thru my septum! GOD, that was the CREEPIEST. FEELING. EVER. :-P
Incidentally - I'm on a hiatus from work this week and next - if you need any help with anything, car-transportation, whatever - or just want to have lunch or something, let me know!
no subject
Date: 2004-08-12 03:51 pm (UTC)Re: the "cat hair"--EWW!
Re: visiting or any aid... company would be delightful. Now that I've got most of the big hits on my time out of the way, what's going to be on my schedule will be a lot of relaxing and recovering, probably until we take off for Worldcon on the 1st. Even a spot of lunch, though, would be dandy. :)
no subject
Date: 2004-08-12 05:33 pm (UTC)i used vitamin E gel and it seems to have helped my big abdominal scar. i haven't tried the other stuff so i can't compare.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-12 05:39 pm (UTC)YAY NO CANCER!
no subject
Date: 2004-08-12 06:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-13 11:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-12 06:56 pm (UTC)Assuming y'all are doing the Homeless Waifs gathering again this year (figuring you'll be settled in by then), I'm leaning towards coming up again.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-13 11:55 am (UTC)And YAY NO CANCER!
no subject
Date: 2004-08-13 10:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-13 11:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-16 11:58 am (UTC)Sorry for not being around sooner.. I am on vacation here and haven't thought of checking to see how your surgery went until Tina posted you are well over in Gruntland-- um well no, to be exact had checked and seen the surgery went well but I haven't checked again to see what the results were. Anyhoo... GREAT NEWS! (big smile)
And I 'd go for smeehrrr's "Russell-Crowe-mind-controlling hormones in your system" theory too! (winks & chuckles)
-- btw..Kudos to the sense of humor of the theory. I am still chuckling here (smiles)--
Anna about the books you got.. can you tell me? Is Kristen Britain's First Rider's Call anything of "a G-Rider Book 2"? A sequel? And if you read it by now, is it as good as #1? Though I'll probably get it when I am back in Athens anyhow. Love Fantasy books. (smile)
Oopps..Got to get now; almost dinner time here.
You take really good care of you Anna and my best thoughts to you for speedy recovery!
Oh and when you have no problems with internet connection, please visit us over in "G-land".. You and your prose are missed. (grin)
Love & many hugs,
Rusty5
no subject
Date: 2004-08-17 11:57 am (UTC)Yeah, I had email from Tina a few days back and asked her to go ahead and relay news that I'm recovering well, since my access is chancy at the moment. I will indeed be popping in on Gruntland again as soon as we have DSL online in my and my partner's new house--which hopefully will be tomorrow, but it may not be until the end of the week. But hopefully soon!
Glad to have made you giggle! Though I am thinking that
Kristin Britain's First Rider's Call is a sequel to her book Green Rider, if that's what you're asking--but I haven't yet been able to read it. I tend to have books sitting on my To Read shelf for a long time! And it's been long enough since I read Green Rider that I may need to re-read it just to remind myself of the story--so you may wind up getting to it before I do. But I'll be happy to swap thoughts with you on that book once I do actually read it. :)
Thank you for touching bases with me, and for the well-wishes; they're most appreciated!
no subject
Date: 2004-08-17 05:08 pm (UTC)Glad to hear all goes well and will be waiting to see you appearing in Gruntland one of these days. :)
Oh and Anna.. since I 've seen your good news, I took the liberty to post the link to your message here in lj over on the Saloon Forum, so the gruntmates will stop worrying about you. Hope you won't mind I did that.. but I thought it would be best to hear the good news from you.
and yeah I know what you mean.. I do the same with books too. Also.. yes that was what I meant. Just some silly typing where it was supposed to write Green Rider and a bit of a Greek way to ask a question. Sorry.. was in a hurry when I posted here. Anyhow.. when we both manage to read the book, I 'll be happy to exchange thoughts with you! :)
Until then, you be well!
Hope to see you on TOFOG-land soon!
Love & hugs,
Rusty
no subject
Date: 2004-08-17 08:47 pm (UTC)And thanks for the clarification! I try to post about books I read as I read them, and I enjoy discussing them with others. :)