Good News

Received good news last night from my doctor: my lymph nodes are benign. No cancer. No nothing.

Rejoice as you see fit.

It's finally sinking in, as I had seriously schooled myself for bad news.

Still Nothing

Although my doctor's secretary did tell me today that the report was in and "I shouldn't worry."

But, here's something else to tide us over, a poem.

"What We Want" by Linda Pastan

What we want
is never simple.
We move among the things
we thought we wanted:
a face, a room, an open book
and these things bear our names—
now they want us.
But what we want appears
in dreams, wearing disguises.
We fall past,
holding out our arms
and in the morning
our arms ache.
We don't remember the dream,
but the dream remembers us.
It is there all day
as an animal is there
under the table,
as the stars are there
even in full sun.

Family Fun & Total Randomness

Mom (who is still here pending results of my biopsy) and I went out to dinner this evening with family, some others of whom are also visiting from out of the area. It was a very nice restaurant and a very good meal with excellent company. My family. is. awesome.

I bought some fun things at Paper Source, which I will tell about later, perhaps. Probably the neatest thing, to me, was something I didn't even plan on buying, a little package of fill-in business cards, where you can write your name, telephone, and email. Here's why I think I need these: when I go to MHC-type events, people hand me their business card. Despite being a professional, it's a profession that doesn't use business cards, leaving me feeling empty-handed and dumb when others start handing theirs around. I actually own a sterling silver business card holder engraved with my name from my Girl Scout days, but haven't used it since 2003, when I left that job. Now, new thing to use it with!

Back to School

And boy, was I tired by the end. It was interesting to see people's reactions to the incision in my neck. An entire group of eighth graders stared and I nearly got them to believe that I had been in a knife fight.

Surgery Recap

So, I had two lymph nodes removed from my neck yesterday. Recovery from anesthesia took a very long time, no big surprise there. My surgery finished at about noon, but I slept with no knowledge of anything for at least two hours after that, and then it took me another almost three to leave the hospital. Everyone at Johns Hopkins was awesomely nice and competent. No one spoke to me like I was an idiot incapable of understanding everything. And, my anesthesiologist was Superman. No, really: his name was Christopher Reeves.

Pathology will hopefully be back in 3-5 days and I'll hopefully feel well enough by this afternoon (i.e. not exhausted still) to want to go back to work tomorrow. It's not like there's a lot to do, what with the freshmen being out and all, but just the same. My incision has been sealed up with tissue glue, which means that there are no stitches, but it sort of looks like I got in a knife fight or was an extra in a slasher film.

I bring the funny.

The Weather & "How You Doing?"

First, let me say that the weather in southern Maryland is completely, absolutely perfect today. It's about 70 degrees, dry, breezy, and sunny without a cloud in the sky. Our internet, TV, and phone got hooked up today, which is excellent for so many reasons.

On the other hand, the question that everyone has been asking me for the past week is "how are you doing?" The reflexive answer to this one is "fine." With friends even, though they are also getting the followup, "No, that's a lie, I'm having a shitty week." Truly, I'm not actually sure if people want to know the answer, most of the time.

4 weeks of school left, thank goodness. Surgery, and hopefully news, on Tuesday.

So Done

Because, on top of everything else, my grandmother died last night. (Dad's mom.)

for SKH

An article on the Hirshorn from the NYT -- remember when it confounded us?

Placeholder

Isolationism & students. Will come back to this later -- there are good thoughts to be typed, but not when I really need to take apart the dining room table in preparation for moving instead.

Countdown to News

Playing the waiting game is difficult at best, no matter what kind: job, personal, health, financial, etc. I am currently waiting for my lymph node removal on May 20. The lymph node needs to be removed so that it can be tested for Hodgkins. What I really need to do for myself in the midst of the waiting is avoid reading anything about cancer and resist the temptation to Google. Articles like this (towards the end) and searches like this can only bring on the freak out. Just one of those cases where avoidance is going to be better than information. If I get diagnosed with such a thing, then I can look up all the information I can handle.

I really hope that the pathology on the lymph node comes back ASAP.

Ah, TV

Roommate and I came home from a well-deserved trip to Rita's to flip on the TV in the middle of the movie gem "Coyote Ugly." That film is a guilty pleasure, so please say nothing. I know it is not quality, yet it has a happy ending, so I like it anyway.

We sat through the credits to see what was on next: "Star Trek" (original). And there we have the ultimate in TV opening credits, where the language is both sexist and grammatically incorrect: "to boldly go where no man has gone before."

Why was the Rita's well-deserved, you ask? Two car loads of stuff to the new townhouse... boxes carried down a flight of stairs and then up two flights at the new place. Mostly books, phew!

Classtime Funny

So, the kids were working on an assignment in class today. The assignment was for them to take a blank piece of paper and write/draw what they knew about China.

One of the kids looks up from his work and says the following:
"Who was that guy? We play him in the pool..."

Yeah, he was referring to Marco Polo.