Good afternoon everybody! What’s a good thing to do in Seattle while recovering at home? I mean besides looking for a new job. I mean, you can only look at employer career sites, and call and ‘bug’ all your contacts so many hours day: READ
I love reading. I have used the King County Library so much these past few months. Its great, cause they have visiting libraries in my neighborhood and you can order ahead of time, and they bring it to you!
Our generation has definitely changed the way we communicate. I think its great, because you can get information so much more quickly, and you can check it out for validity and make a decision. There is a new book coming out in January, that I am looking forward to. This book is called From Pigeons to Tweets, by retired US Army General Clarence McKnight. McKnight was in Korea, where he was instrumental in utilizing pigeons to communicate; and later in Desert Storm where he was instrumental in implementing technology on the battle field. Wow how our country and world has changed just in my life time. This book is available 1/15/2013 at your local book store.
I remember my brother and his pigeons. He would wrap a little paper note around the leg, sometimes sealing it in a metal wrapper. Now that was a long time ago! Now, I am communicating and attempting to help others with cancer but I am finding out: they are helping me! We are all so lucky to be in a world, that can share information so quickly. Technology is just fascinating to me. Of course, I have been a software engineer for a long time and I love every new techie thing that comes out.
But during my treatment, I watched in amazement the technology that they used to track my cancer. Its so fresh to talk about all this, its hard. Everyone did their best to make me comfortable. However, technology isn’t always comfortable.
Okay, I guess I can tell you about one funny thing. Turquoise pee! During a Sentinel Node Biopsy they injected me with radioactive dye, right in the you know where. Well, okay I am a grown up, I can say it. nipple. There I said it! (I just got use to saying breasts!) This procedure is done while you lie on your back and this ‘huge’ machine is over the top of you and it takes an xray of where the dye goes. You want it to show up on the monitor screen that is right there. It identifies the first of your lymph nodes. This is very important because later this will tell the doctor, where lymph fluids go ‘first’ in leaving the breast. If it appears some color, it goes on to the next lymph node, its not good. I don’t know all the aspects of this, but basically…it tells them which one to track. If you have cancer in the first one, they keep taking them out until they get them all. Fortunately, mine only went to the first couple, and no cancer. Afterwards, my urine was bright turquoise for 3 days. One of the nurses told me not to get it on anything, and clean my toilet thoroughly. Oh…. and it was coming from me.
Sometimes while doing the sentinel node biopsy, they cannot get the radioactive stuff to move. This is where the embarrassing part comes in because you have to do something to make the breast respond. I am not going in to details. I will let your mind imagine. I thought I would die from humiliation. Oh well, nothing like playing with yourself in public. It wasn’t public, it was only me and the radiologist. God grant me the serenity.
The good news is, nothing went to my lymph nodes. All cancer was contained within the left breast. This is all good news!
I think I will go back to reading my latest book, which I can recommend highly “Just Get Me Through This” The Practical Guide to Breast Cancer by Deborah A. Cohen with Robert M. Gelfand, M.D.
I will periodically recommend books I am reading. I hope they help. This book was great. Available at your local library!
Till we meet again!
