Margo's Blog

A few weeks ago we took the ferry across Lake Michigan to Wisconsin to visit my sister and the family. Even though we are a short boat ride across the lake, or a bit longer car ride through Chicago, it’s been six months since I’ve seen them. Of course its not like there hasn’t been good reason… like me being sick and all, and them being busy.  During our visit they took us to a garden nursery where they were going to pick up some day lilies for their yard. This place was lovely.. such a natural garden setting and I loved walking through the pots of flowers, exploring the greenhouse filled to the brim with exotics and pottery and finding feathered friends… roaming chickens and peacocks. So many picture taking opportunities…..

That was a song by Perry Como that I used to sing to when I was a kid, about 3 or 4 years old, and amazingly still remember the words, most of them anyway.

“Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket,
Never let it fade away!
Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket,
Save it for a rainy day!

For love may come and tap you on the shoulder,
Some star-less night!
Just in case you feel you wanna hold her,
You’ll have a pocketful of starlight!”

Even though we didn’t catch any falling stars this morning, we did go out and watch them.  We were up at 4am, drove out into the country away from the city lights to watch the Perseid Meteor Shower.  This annual shower brings meteors from the area around the constellation Perseus, hence the name.  While we didn’t lie down in the middle of the road or field, we opened the sunroof and looked up.  We may go out again tonight for a second look-see.

Dog Days refer to the hottest, most sultry days of summer. It can also define a time period or event that is very hot or stagnant, or marked by dull lack of progress. This coming from Wikipedia. While we haven’t had the sultry hot days the description claims, but one of the coolest summers in a long time, these pups aren’t acting like it.

No, we’re not selling garages, but it’s filling up quickly with stuff we are selling.  As we’ve been redecorating room by room, we wind up with tons of stuff that isn’t going back in to that room.. furniture, rugs, lamps, decorative knick knacks, etc.  Then add the furniture and what have you’s that were my mom’s and aunt’s , things that we just don’t need or want anymore and our house is becoming crowded…. the garage is becoming crowded.

Why have we been holding on to  these things? Maybe we’re trying to hold onto family, or maybe thinking someone would need something down the road, or the fact that we paid good money (as what? bad money?) for it. Whatever the reason… it’s going. A Big PURGE.  Lighten the load!  Unfortunately, boxes upon boxes of garage sale items have been stored for a couple of years and honestly I don’t even know everything that’s there.  I’ll attempt to get rid of… ahem, sell… the big pieces like the furniture and maybe later this summer we’ll do another sale that will have ALL the other stuff… once it gets unburied.  What’s left will go to Goodwill or some other charitable place…. it’s NOT coming back in the house… or the garage.

A couple of weekends ago we got hit by a horrendous storm with tons of rain and high winds. Our street turned into a river and our city was as the mayor put it, “Underwater’. Rumor had it that people were building an Ark. Roads were washed out, fields became lakes and basements were flooded including many of our neighbor’s. A house around the corner had its empty in-ground swimming pool collapse under the pressure of the water logged ground.  Fortunately our home and property were safe. Not so fortunate was the home of my good friend. A large oak tree in their yard split in half and landed on their house caving in the roof the ceilings and walls. Branches speared through ceilings coming dangerously close to the family inside.  The torrential rain poured through the non-existent ceilings drenching everything inside… mattresses and furniture became large sponges. The next couple of days brought temps reaching almost 100 and mold started to build.  The house is totaled… whatever could be salvaged was packed away into storage and precious possessions ruined tossed into dumpsters.  Now the house will come down and get rebuilt and in the meantime, the family is spread around.. some staying at a hotel and some with relatives.

What would you grab if you only had 5 minutes to leave your house? Do you know where all your important papers are? Are they all in one place? What would you take?… photos, medications, computer, insurance papers, other documents, family treasures? Granted your family and pets are first… but after that… what? It made me stop and think and start to take inventory.

and it’s on the upswing…. thank goodness. Radiation is complete, side effects from the treatments are over and I’m celebrating day #6 of feeling good. I actually had a very full day yesterday, so today I’m taking it easy… can’t overdo just yet. I know my time will come. My first follow-up appointment with the gyno-oncologist and the radiation specialist is later this month, but I know everything looks good… and the good news is that I’m cancer free.. at least have a less than 1% chance of recurrence.

I’ve missed out on so much of life these past several months…. symphony, theater, parties, family celebrations and hanging out with my knitting and scrapbooking friends. I can also get back to the house redecorating process. Art to hang, furniture to rearrange and old furniture to sell. On the list is replacing the bathroom counter tops with granite in 3 of the 4 bathrooms and getting the master bath painted., but the very next project is the front sitting room. We did buy a sofa sleeper and ottoman in paprika red and fortunately it’s a 6 week delivery date, so that gives me time to contact the painter and get that room emptied out and ready. I also have my yarn cabinet (actually a chest of drawers) in there and I’m considering replacing it with something else… so that’s more furniture to buy and sell. Bob ordered a new computer system for himself.. which includes a new scanner/printer for me and more shuffling around of computer equipment putting a workable unit in the rec room for scrapbooking purposes… which means selling a small computer desk and moving a larger desk down there.  I need to get someone in here to help move furniture… that’s a job NOT for me.

..and it’s not what you think…. that’s how I referred to my surgery…. de-cluttering, removing of things not being used, Spring cleaning.

It’s been almost 2 weeks since my surgery and I’m home recuperating.. slowly, but getting better each day. I relish the small milestones, my first shower, putting on my socks, making my own breakfast and able to sit in this chair long enough to write in this blog. I still am tender and sore, still hard to get up out of my chair, still hurts to laugh, sneeze or cough and still hard to roll in bed… but even all that is improving.  A bed pillow across the abdomen helps to hold things in when coughing or sneezing and acts as a great barrier for my uber-exuberant dogs who want to jump and sit in my lap…. no!! bad dog!!

Bob has been wonderful being my nurse and caretaker, but I sense he’s getting tired of the fetching and I’m getting tired of him doing it. I want to be able to do for myself already. My friends have been amazing in keeping their distance  (at my request) as I hate the hovering.  I tried really really hard in keeping a positive attitude through this…. at finding the news of the cancer,  during the surgery and hospital stay and recuperation at home.  Making jokes, keeping a stiff upper lip and all that.. mostly because I hated the pity, and the ‘sorry’ eyes. I couldn’t however, keep it all in much longer and last Sunday I had a minor meltdown. It hit me how very afraid I was, how the cancer scared me especially since my mom died from it, how the thought of surgery frightened me and the possibility of  not being there for my family.  I was terrified, but still put on a good face and kept it together.  Because that’s what I do.

I don’t have a lot of memories of the actual surgery.. as it should be. I was in the pre-surgical room getting all the vitals taken, the nurse asking me those important questions, like “Am I pregnant”… yeah, I’m in there for a hysterectomy… duh…. I guess it was something the anesthesiologists needed to know. And speaking of them, it took two of those guys to find an artery to put in a stint.. lots of poking around from one arm to the next. That was  in case I needed an emergency transfusion, I was ready to go. (blood type B+, just in case) . I kind of resembled a marionette with tubes and strings coming out of both arms.The other arm had the IV with the knock out drug.

I remember being wheeled down a very long hallway and into the operating room and coming face to face with the surgical robot, Mona. I remember saying something to the doctors/nurses there and then nothing until I woke in recovery with people buzzing all round. But even that was a faint memory… I think. I don’t remember going from there to my room, but I woke up in the room with a nurse and Bob there. The next couple of hours was fuzzy.. in and out of sleep being pumped with pain meds and I really hated that feeling.  It wasn’t until the next day that I was up and walking the hall and then walking to the bathroom… huge accomplishment.  The first night I slept in the bed, but by the second night I was so uncomfortable,  I spent most of the night in either of the two chairs in the room. Needless to say, I was so happy to get home.

The surgery went well, so I hear, it lasted longer than the doctors thought and the tumor was bigger than they anticipated. It was 6cm by 8cm and had reached into the cervix, so they removed that too.  During the procedure I was on a bed tilted with my head downwards which cause fluids to flow into my head and apparently my face was so swollen, it resembled a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade balloon. Fortunately, after a week , my face and hands returned to their normal state and I was happy to get my jewelry and wedding rings back on.

At the end of the month I see the gyno/oncologist again for my  post-op follow up and he’ll determine whether I will need to go the radiation route.  Pathology reports from the lymph nodes showed negative for more cancer but because of its size and location, it was considered grade 2 and makes me a likely candidate. We shall see.

I’m just happy to be home and have this behind me.

Back in the day when I was in college and grad school, and even some when I was first married, I kept a journal. I didn’t write everyday or about every thing… mostly I wrote when I was sad, lonely or depressed. I still have those journals and every once in a while I read back and wonder why I never remembered the good. My journals, I think, were for me, to be read by me and no one else. They were my therapist, best friend, confidant all rolled into one.

It’s different today with blogs. We write and the whole world reads and sometimes we put things out there that should not be shared with the eyes on the web.  That’s why my blogs are filled with the fun and good things that happen to us. I still keep the not-so-good to myself….. until now.

It took me some thinking whether I was going to write a post concerning the last week and finally decided that if my story helps even one woman, it would be worth it. First of all… women listen to your bodies. If you think something isn’t right or have that ‘feeling’, act on it, and don’t wait.

I was diagnosed this week with uterine cancer. There are no real outwardly symptoms.. for me it was erratic bleeding and clotting.  I pushed this aside because I’ve always had irregular periods all my life and going through menopause, I figured it was just part of the process. It usually is.  I mentioned this a couple of times to my regular doctor, who didn’t seem too concerned, but when I said something again this past fall he just said to see my gynecologist.  What an idiot! There is no love lost between this patient and her doctor… I’ve always thought he was a moron, but really…. the insurance I have requires one primary care doctor and any other medical professional needs to be referred. You’d a thunk he would have checked my records to see that there was no such referral ever made.  It took a good 6 months to see the new gyno… which I did last week Wednesday. By our conversation and a pelvic check, she does a tissue biopsy and immediately gets concerned. I go to the hospital on Friday for a pelvic ultrasound (with a mammogram thrown in for good measure).  I patiently wait all weekend,   but know in my heart that something is wrong.

Monday the results are in that I have the cancer and by Wednesday I’m in to see the specialist, a gyno/oncologist, Dr. Keven Brader at St. Mary’s Lacks Cancer Center.  From what I’ve been told, doctors in this specialty are a rare breed. He says that there is no indication that the cancer is anything but a grade 1, meaning that the cancer is contained within the uterus and has not spread to other areas. This is good. This means that after I undergo a total hysterectomy (scheduled for Tuesday morning), I hopefully will be fine and no radiation or chemo is necessary. They are also taking lymph nodes to test, just to be sure.  The surgery is being done laproscopically by a robot… one of only a handful of special robots in the U.S. and aren’t I lucky that there’s one in Grand Rapids. daVinci, as the machine is called, will drill a couple of holes in the abdomen and work from there. This makes surgery easier on the body and recovery much quicker. Hospital stay will be only be 1-2 days and I’ll be home be taking it easy for a while.

If I had to pick a cancer to get, this would be the one considering it’s the easist to cure and the least evasive. It’s the most common of cancers that women can get and usually happens in caucasian women in their menopausal years. The ultrasound also found that I have cysts on the ovaries and they’re coming out too. The cysts may have been there for years and years and may have been the cause of a polycystic ovarian syndrome, that if diagnosed when I was in my twenties would have prevented me from getting many of the health issues that I deal with today.  Again….. doctors that are clueless.

So I write this in hopes that someone reading will listen to their bodies and question everything… including your doctors. I tell you what…. from now on, any doctor I deal with will get the third degree… I will come armed with information that I research myself, I will insist on tests that aren’t being performed and demand to be treated with respect and dignity.

Back from our cruise to the Panama Canal and can I say what fun we had… not just being in places we haven’t traveled to before, but enjoying our time on the boat. Not that in our current retired life we need the rest and relaxation, but it was nice to get away and enjoy sunshine again and warm ocean breezes in the midst of a cold and wintery Michigan winter.  Yes, I can see the possibility of a yearly trip away from snow.

We celebrated Bob’s birthday on board with a cake and champagne around the table, and special birthday songs by the wait staff which included an almost cake in the face.  His gift from me was his name in lights…. literally.. I had a star named for him.. so somewhere in the cosmos (we have the actual location), there’s a sparkling light named, Bob….. well actually his full name, but I chuckle at the Bob Star.

Among other things we did, we traversed the top of the rainforest in an aerial tram car in Panama, shopped for emeralds in Columbia and coffee in Costa Rica. Did a little (very little) gambling, played daily trivia games, and drank a lot. So now it’s good to be home and get back into sleeping late in the mornings, picking up after the dogs,  being on the computer and enjoying the benefits of a large bathroom.

Here is some of what we saw…..

Its a whole new year ahead of us and for some a new start to making goals and resolutions… neither of which I do. My thought is that if there are changes I want or need to make, any day on the calendar is good, why wait for once a year? I know I wouldn’t keep a resolution if I made one, so why bother. What a year to look forward to beginning with the inauguration of a new president… how exciting is that?

We had a lovely Christmas visiting my sister and her family in Wisconsin. It was the first time since last year that all seven of us were together. My niece flew in from L.A. on Christmas morning, and sadly we only saw her for the day since we left the next. The braided shawl I knit for my sister was received well, however I don’t think she’ll wear it.  The vest I made for Bob got finished Christmas Eve as everyone else was watching a movie. I think he did like it and I know he’ll wear it. We got the ‘kids’ Flip Videos and they enjoyed playing with them. Next year though, I think  I’ll make it easy on myself and get everyone gift cards.. not personal I know, but then everyone can be happy with what they get.

Here are some glimpses into my Christmas holiday….. Hope yours was wonderful!