Howdy everyone! Wow,
what an eventful few days! I’m sorry I
haven’t been able to write since Friday but there’s been so much going on and
I’ve had to have some time to digest it all before I could share it with
you. Even those of us with a perpetually
sunny outlook on life have our rainy days and sometimes our rainy times of
life, it seems.
Friday started out pretty well. I went to the doctor’s office in Sheridan to get that darn
biopsy and found a parking place close by, that’s a plus, right? I was really relived when they had set up my
appointment that Diane, the nurse practitioner
I used to see there on a regular basis, had not retired. Well, actually, she had retired and the
office begged her to return. I was just
glad to see a friendly face, to tell you the truth. After she got me all ready for my biopsy, she
warned me that the biopsy was going to be painful but that it would only take a
minute to procure. Well, at least she
was honest! She plucked two punches from
either side of my interior vaginal wall, and I thought I was gonna actually
reach the ceiling! Afterwards, she
showed me the punches she retrieved and they sure looked awful small for all
the pain they caused! The good news is
that she says that the areas with dysplasia look small and diffuse so she
doesn’t think there’s a whole lot to worry about. I’ll have the results late next week and
we’ll go from there. There’s three
things we can do, depending on the results and it looks like I’m going with the
third alternative, which is going to see a specialist in Rapid City for treatment. The other two alternatives are really caustic
and painful and she’s worried about my immune system, so she wants me to see
this specialist to get his opinion. I
haven’t been to Rapid in years, so I’m game for that. They have great shopping!
I left there, a little worse for wear and hightailed it back
to Buffalo because I had promised Rob we’d have
lunch at the China
Garden
After dropping Rob back off at his office, I finally got
home to Miss Thistle and we had a nice little walk, although it wasn’t long
since the weather was a little icky and the wind was a little stronger than I
like to walk in. She didn’t mind,
though, as I had gotten her a new toy the day before, a huge long snake, and I
think she was anxious to get back to it.
We played with that for quite a while when we returned.
About 3 p.m., my phone rang and it was my regular doc,
letting me know she’d gotten the preliminary results of my MRI from the day
before. She didn’t want me to have to
wait to go over it so I headed over to see her and discuss the findings. The news was not what I was expecting. I thought for sure that my diverticulitis was
back since my stomach has been in such a tizzy for months. Well, that’s what I get for thinking! The MRI showed that my two masses are back
and that’s what’s been causing all the discomfort. I have a 6x7 cm mass sitting on my left renal
artery again and a 5x6 cm mass on the right again. At least it doesn’t show any signs being
anywhere else. That’s the great thing
about this type of tumor, at least. They
are usually very defined and encapsulated, which means they won’t spread. They are also very slow growing, so that
means it’s been coming back for a while.
She explained that the reason my stomach hurts so much is
probably because the tumors are sitting right on top of some of my intestines
(you know things don’t look like they do really in the anatomy books) and
causing pressure when I eat. That makes
sense, as that’s when I have the most discomfort, right after I eat.
So, here we go again!
I guess I should have known that I would never really get rid of those
silly tumors, but the last time I’d had an MRI they had shrunk to the size of
peas. I really have no one else to blame
about them getting large again, except myself.
I had been so good on the medical vegetarian diet the oncologist put me
on in 2006 for years, but then I started slipping in things, a little at a
time, that I really wasn’t supposed to be eating. The doctor gave me the usual spiel about what
I can do about all this as far as treatment goes. You know the drill. It’s too
risky to go in after them, though. I know that from the last time., they are
also snugly sitting next to my aorta, which is your main blood supply. I don’t
care how long people have been doing surgery, no one is cutting that close to
the main supply, at least not on me.
Chemo is out of the question, also. Radiation is just too risky and
doesn’t usually work for fatty tumors.
After talking with Rob, I’ve decided to buckle down and
return to the Gerson diet. It worked
last time and it will work again. It’s a
difficult diet but, hey, the alternative is even worse, right? Now, if you are going to look it up, be
assured that I do not do the coffee enema portion of the therapy. Nothing goes up my butt, it’s for things
going the other way! But the diet is
very restrictive, especially for the first 6-8 weeks. I’m going to be sort of chained to the house
again because I’ll be drinking my fruits and veggies every hour for a
while. This is really going to be
helpful, though, as having much stuff in my stomach at once has been one of my
main problems. At least we’re coming into warm weather so drinking “smoothies”
will be refreshing this time of year and I shouldn’t have too much trouble
finding the fruits and veggies I need at a reasonable price this time of
year. We need to get that veggie garden
moving outside so all I need to do is pluck stuff from there!
So, anyway, after delivering the news to Rob and having a
little pow-wow, we adjourned to the Moose for Happy Hour where I made the
foolish decision to act like half the population of the world and drown my
conundrum in booze. Well, that was a
huge mistake! Silly girl, let’s take an
already upset stomach, frayed nerves and an aching crotch and pour booze all
over it, right? I swear, I don’t really understand how people can have an
alcohol problem and by that I mean drink too much! I’m not one of those people, I make a lousy
drunk…. After just two drinks, I thought I was gonna die! It probably didn’t
help that I had an empty stomach. But,
silly Lisa, was just thinking that she was having her “last hurrah” with the
booze before the diet. I think I’ll
remember that evening for quite a while! Not one of my smarter moves.
Anyway, Saturday, after recovering from my stupidity and
having a big bowl of oatmeal to coat my poor raging post-alcohol tummy, we set
out once again for Sheridan
to go buy all of our flowers and veggies for the garden. I think we got too much stuff and we’re going
to be spilling over again, but we just love flowers and I don’t think you can
have too many. I found some amazing
black and yellow striped pansies that are going to look awesome in my hanging
porch pots, too. We also got 16 tomato
plants, eggplant, and jalepenos.
Everything else, we already have as seeds to plant. Now the weather just
needs to start cooperating so I can get all these flowers and stuff outta my living
room, hopefully next weekend.
Saturday evening, we went to the Rocky Mtn Elk Foundation
banquet. It’s always a lot of fun and we
were amazed to find out that Wyoming ,
even though it’s the least populated state, is the biggest fundraiser in the
nation for elk! I even won a really cool
sweatshirt that has a graphic on it for “Outlaw Rodeo”, whatever the heck that
is. Rob put in for a zillion guns and an
energy camp but didn’t win anything. The
food was yummy as usual, catered by Peter John Camino, who makes the best
ribeyes I’ve ever had. And, yes, I had a
ribeye, as that will probably be the last meat I’ll eat for years, I figured I
might as well go out with a bang! The
foundation raised well over $10,000 during just the live auction, who knows what
they actually made with all the silent auction items! I tell you, Buffalo people really know how to support
their elk habitat!
Yesterday, to top off my weekend, I got to perform my first
wedding ceremony! It was so much fun but I am really glad it was a small
wedding party for the first one because I was a lot more nervous than I
expected. Beckie, the bride, was just
glowing and John looked very handsome.
We got very lucky that the weather, which has been not so great, decided
to cooperate with us. The ceremony was
out in a pretty open area and the sun shined beautifully! They even had all of their children pour sand
into a vessel along with them, to symbolize the melding of their new
family. I hope others ask me to perform
theirs, too. It was so neat to be
involved. The great part is that I’ve
known Beckie almost as long as I’ve lived in Buffalo and except for a few people, knew
everyone there.
So, today, I’m going to relax. My car died last week…the battery and we are
just waiting to get a new one as well as a tune-up and a few other things. My appointment isn’t until tomorrow, though. So,
since Rob’s well enough to drive himself, I told him to take the truck and
Thistle and I will just have a relaxing day.
I hope your day is relaxing, too!
If not, just close your eyes and take yourself somewhere nice anyway!
Have a beautiful day and a beautiful week. Sometimes, our lives change directions and we
have to adjust our sails. That doesn’t
mean things are bad, just different. I
hope you can face your challenges with a smile, too!
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