Snowpocalyspe in Tucson?

Well, up until this morning I was quite happy to be in Tucson.  I was laughing at my northern friends' Snowpocalypse facebook updates, while enjoying the 60 deg.-ish temps here.  I was laughing at the locals who were freaking out that it was only 36 when we left work yesterday.

I'm not laughing anymore.  Tucson was not designed for below freezing temperatures.  This morning all our pipes outside were frozen, so we had no water.  Around 6:00 this morning I became convinced that a pipe must have burst somewhere in the walls of our house and so Jake called a plumber.  Around 11 or so, I began to think that maybe I just needed to go take a heat gun to the pipes and that would fix our problem.  Well, about the same time, the plumber showed up and charged us a couple hundred dollars to thaw our pipes with a blow torch. :/  One of our pipes did crack, but it was an outside pipe that is used for the hose hookup.  The plumber did replace this, which made it worth him coming, I suppose.  I have now wrapped all our outside pipes in towels and duct tape in anticipation of the chilly 22 deg low tonight. *sigh*

Well, the plumber ended up getting our water running again around noon... which just so happened to be about the time the gas went out!  Apparently our gas company didn't have enough gas to cover all of its customers in such cold temperatures, and in running the lines so hard, the one that controls our subdivision broke and 14,000 people are without heat!  They say they might not have it back up and running until Tuesday!!!  I don't understand what should take that long.  They have to apparently come to everyone's house individually and turn off the gas, then fix the problem, and then individually turn the gas back on. *sigh*

So... I've been bathing with water boiled on the stove.  I'm wearing two pairs of socks and a hat in order to try to keep warm.  I've tried every little trick I can think of to keep the house warm.  I turned on all the lights in the house (I think I've read studies showing that that can increase the temperature in your house by a couple degrees) and I'm baking cookies just to have an excuse to have the oven on.  So far our house temp is still at 68 deg. (although I think it's probably a few deg. colder in the living room, which is where Jake, the doggies, and I are all hanging out).  Hopefully it doesn't get much colder over night.  I don't want our doggies to freeze!

So it was my friend's birthday earlier this week...

Ok... first things first...  Yes, the biopsy showed that my sore a few weeks ago was benign.  I am continuing to do well health-wise, aside from a little cold that I had for the past week.  Jake isn't doing quite that well.  His back pain seems to be resurfacing, although he's had a few appointments with the pain specialist, and it seems his pain has spread one facet joint above where it was before.  He'll probably be having another nerve cauterization procedure done soon.  Also, I decided to share my cold with him.  How nice of me!  Poor guy. :(

Anyway... I really don't have much to write about these days, but last weekend I made some pretty awesome cookies and I've been wanting to share pictures with everyone, so.... voila!

It was our good friend's birthday this past Monday.  I've been trying to start the tradition of making people their favorite type of cookie on their birthday.  Well, our friend had once mentioned his favorite type was sugar cookies, and since I also knew that he was quite into video games, I decided this was the only logical conclusion.

I am quite proud of the way the cookies turned out both looks and taste-wise, so I figured I'd share it with you all.  Enjoy!

What a relief

So, as suspected, my ENT took one look at my bump and said, "Let's do a biopsy." As he was getting things ready I asked if the blueish/grayish spot indicated anything. He said it could be an old stitch trying to work itself out.

Anyway, he did the biopsy and guess what came out? A knotted piece of stitch! From over 2 years ago! Crazy!

He's still going to send out the biopsy and call me with results, but we're pretty sure it's nothing.

You can't even imagine what relief I feel! I feel lighter & just elated. Also, I got to stop at Dunkin Donuts for breakfast, so I am just in fantastc spirits!

Maybe I spoke too soon...

I realize it's been quite a while since I last posted.  I'm very sorry about that.  For starters it just seems that I'm always so busy with something or another, even if it's just housework.  Secondly, since I started this blog as a way to communicate my health issues and I haven't had many of those, I just didn't have the motivation.

So... maybe one of these days I'll tell stories of this Christmas or New Years, but for now I'll just stick to the subject of health.

It would seem that I may have been a bit optimistic in my last post.  I've been going through quite a rough patch this past week or so, although I really hope it just turns out to be nothing.  Last Friday night, as I was brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed, I noticed a bump on the side of my tongue.  I played it cool and abided by my 24 hour freak-out rule.  Well, 24 hours it was still there.... and tonight, 5 days after the fact, it is STILL there. :/

I haven't been sleeping well lately and my thoughts are constantly preoccupied about this stupid thing.  I feel like my coworkers have noticed something is up.  I don't think I'm being quite my bubbly self.  I also seem to be taking it out by freaking out on my husband.  Poor guy....  I haven't really told anyone about it.  I don't want to jinx myself or something.  Who knows.  Anyway... I already had an appointment with my ENT scheduled for tomorrow, so I just decided to wait this out for then.  My guess/hope is that we'll end up doing a biopsy tomorrow and then wait the week for the results.  It's this whole not knowing part that is just so horrible!  At least if I knew it were back I could start planning and preparing myself for this.  It's so nerve-racking not knowing.

The bump seems to have stayed the same size this entire week and I just had my PET scan less than a month ago and it was all clear and it just doesn't seem like cancer.... I can't explain it.  I don't have that same feeling I had the last two times I had cancer show up.  Even so, something about this is not settling.  Bumps in my mouth do not normally take over a day or two to make a significant reduction in size.  I guess I just have to wait and see what my ENT says tomorrow and then possibly wait for some biopsy results.  Hopefully blogging about this and knowing I see my doctor tomorrow will help me sleep a little bit easier tonight. :/

Good night!

Given the all clear!

I'm writing up a very quick post tonight, but I just HAD to share that I went to see my RO to get the results of my PET/CT this afternoon and was given the best Christmas gift ever... a negative scan, with my body being completely unremarkable!  Two clear PET scans in a row dramatically decreases my risk of a recurrence, so I am very, very happy.

That's all the time I have to post for now, but I figured whoever still reads this is entitled to hear about my good news. :)

Cookies, cookies everywhere and not a bite to eat!

As the holidays approach, I like to bake... and bake... and bake.  Now, I don't like eating a ton of cookies or anything, I just love baking.  I do enjoy eating a couple of my creations, but for the main part I like bringing them into work or giving them away.  Today I brought in 4 packed containers with peanut brittle, peppermint bark, ginger cookies, and nut cups.  I put half of it out on a tray in a break room at work and it was gone in less than 10 minutes!  I brought the other half to an afternoon meeting and pretty much got rid of the rest.

Anyway... that's not really the point of mentioning the cookies.  The point is that I haven't even had a chance to really sample all I made and I am REALLY in the mood for some cookies right now, but I'm scheduled for my 6 month PET/CT scan tomorrow and I'm not supposed to eat a lot of sugars, carbs, or caffeine 24 hrs prior to my scan.  I haven't eaten any cookies all day even though I've been giving them out to folks.  It's torturous!  I actually only remembered the rule about not eating sugar.  It wasn't until a little bit ago when I went on-line to look it up that I saw the carbs and caffeine bit.  I actually had a coke zero and rice at lunch and a small serving of potatoes with dinner.  I hope that doesn't interfere with my test.  I guess the reason they tell you to restrict your diet the day before is to starve your cancer cells of sugar.  Cancer cells uptake and metabolize glucose much faster than regular cells, which is why the PET scan works.  When I go in for a scan, the first step is to get injected with the radioactive glucose.  I then sit in a room for 45 minutes or so.  If I were to have any cancer cells, within that 45 minutes, those cells would uptake and start metabolizing that glucose.  Regular cells will take much longer to do that.  So, if there were any cancer cells, when the scan takes place, they would light up on the screen.  If the cancer cells are starved of glucose for 24 hours, then they're even more likely to uptake and metabolize the radioactive glucose when it is injected.  If they're full of glucose already, then they probably won't.

So anyway....  I guess I'll sit here drinking water and just look forward to the fact that the place where I'm having my PET scan is right next to a Dunkin' Donuts.  haha

Happy Thanksgiving

I can't believe it's been a month since my last blog post.  My, oh, my... where does the time go.

I hope all of you are having a fabulous turkey day!  Jake and I recently evaluated what made sense as far as traveling to see our families meant and decided that it made a lot more sense to travel for Christmas this year than it did to travel for the short Thanksgiving holiday.  Hopefully we can rotate every year since Thanksgiving is the big holiday for Jake's family and Christmas is the big holiday for my family.  So... that being said, Jake and I had a nice quiet Thanksgiving here at home.  I made a fantastic meal to which Jake said sarcastically "Do you think you made enough?".

I was pleasantly surprised that my roast chicken, stuffing, green bean casserole, sweet potato latkes, cranberry sauce, and rolls all turned out great!  Usually I end up messing up at least one or two little things... maybe I'll overcook or undercook something or a new recipe (like the roasted chicken or latkes) just won't turn out right.  In the middle of dinner I turned to Jake and said "Wow.  Everything turned out so good!" to which he replied, "Yes it did.  I love you."  Ahhh.... so the saying must be true.  The quickest way to a man's heart IS through his stomach. 

So now we sit, letting our stomachs digest our feast... I'm blogging.  Jake's playing video games.  Soon we get dessert, though, homemade pumpkin cheesecake!  The cheesecake turned out pretty great this year too.  We had a Thanksgiving potluck at work last Friday which was awesome!  There was a huge turkey and ham and a variety of stuffing, potatoes, vegetables, and desserts.  I made 1 1/3 recipes of my cheesecake this year, leaving the mini one at home for Jake and I for today.  The whole one I took into work for our potluck.  It competed against 3 pumpkin pies, 1 apple pie, 1 french silk pie, 1 pound cake, and pumpkin bread for 40-50 people.  My dessert was the only one that disappeared completely.  The rest had a slice or 2 gone, but my plate was clean!  I'm so glad I made the extra to keep for Jake and I.

Anyway...
I suppose the reason many of you visit my blog is because of my health, so I suppose I should touch briefly on that instead of going on and on about all this food!  Well, things are going well.  I can't believe that almost a year ago I couldn't hardly even eat anything let alone taste it and appreciate it.  I'm just so thankful this year to be relatively healthy again!

I wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving!  May you all take this time of year to reflect on all the things in your life for which you are thankful too.  :)