Yesterday I received the preliminary results of the autopsy of the mass which was taken out of my groin last week. It’s benign. No cancer! I am meant to check in again in two weeks for the final pathology report, but it’s usually very unlikely that a final report differs from the preliminary. So I guess there’s a remote chance that I’m not out of the woods, but I think that the likelihood is sufficiently small that I don’t need to worry about it. In the same way that there’s a minuscule chance that I may be run over by a bus, die in a train crash, get killed in a terrorist attack or be struck by lightning.
I celebrated by going to a Holly Throsby concert tonight, which was great, but more on that later.
Thank you to everyone who’s wished me well during this health scare and has put up with my pre-occupation with this during the last month and a bit.
This has been a very unusual week. My operation was last Tuesday. Since then, I've had a rare experience where I have been given permission to rest, to do nothing constructive, to whatever I like – so long as it doesn’t interfere with the recovery of my wound. I’ve had a lot of sleep, I've been able to play a fair bit of World of Warcraft (WoW) and watch DVDs. The only thing is that I’ve needed to vary my position a little bit: cycling through sitting and reclining and lying down.
I’ve had so much of this leisure time that I’m bored with it. I feel like a kid who's wolfed down so much chocolate he doesn't want any more. I go to work tomorrow, Tuesday, and I'm quite looking forward to it. It was very nice that my co-workers sent me a get well soon card.
On Wednesday I will find out the results of the biopsy of my lump. There’s a chance that it will be bad news and I will need to focus my energies on surviving cancer. I think it’s more likely that it will be good news – that the problem was just limited to this lump and now that the lump is gone, it’s all over.
And then it will be time for me to get on with my life. I want to be prepared for this possibility, because from my experience, it can be quite disorientating to actually get what we want.
[This post will only be viewable to the public for a month or so, then I'll restrict it to people in my Vox neighbourhood]
I've had a lot going on in the past six months – I lost a job that I loved when the library was closed. I went to a job that I hated – and left very early. Since then I've moved houses and found a new job.
During this time I've had one other worry that's been with me, mostly under the surface.
A little while back I found a lump*. Next time I went to a doctor, I asked him to look at it. He said that it was probably nothing to worry about, but to be safe, he thought I should have an ultrasound. So I did that – and the results were inconclusive. So the next thing was to have a biopsy of this lump. This came at a really busy time when I was in the middle of moving and about to start a new job. I was meant to make an appointment with my doctor to talk about the results, but in all the chaos, I forgot about this. Then I received a letter in the mail saying that I needed to make an appointment with my doctor. This from a doctor who's often busy and booked out. This never happens – at least to me.
So I saw my doctor again and I find that they're a little worried about the results of my biopsy. I can't say that I recall or understand everything that was said, but It turns out that the lump is actually a lymph node that is enlarged and has some atypical cells. As in pre-cancerous cells – or worse.
Anyway I've been referred to a specialist, a haematologist. Guess where this specialists offices are? The local cancer clinic. My doctor told me not be alarmed by this factoid.
I tell myself that they're just being cautious, which is a good thing. If there are atypical or pre-cancerous cells in that lymph node, that node can be removed and that might be an end to this.
But I also have this feeling of dread about this thing. I have been blessed with pretty good health for the most part, other than the occasional cold and bout of depression. So I don't really have any context for dealing with this type of health scare.
I don’t want to be overly pessimistic or dramatic about this. I think there’s a very good chance that things will be ok. I will feel that I’ve dodged a bullet or had a wake up call, and maybe that’s what I’ve been needing. But right now I just don’t know what’s going to happen, and that’s what’s bugging me.
*The location of this lump is kind of embarrassing. It's in my groin. Not actually in my genitals but very close by. A part of me wishes that it was located somewhere else, easier to talk about in polite conversation. But then I remember that that there’s no good place for something like this.
first time I tried this, it kind of froze - here's hoping for better results
It was Saturday. I wasn't really in the mood for a walk, but one of the other "exciting" things happening in my life right now is that the place I'm renting is for sale. There was going to be a viewing at 4 pm. I didn't really want to be around for that, and my car was temporarily out of commission, so I decided that I'd go for a walk into Sassafras Gully, one of the very nice places which I can reach on foot from where I live.
Soon enough time had passed that had I turned back, I would have definitely missed the real estate agent and prospective buyer. But I had just passed Clarinda Falls, which actually seemed like a real waterfall today and not a pathetic trickle over a cliff. I wanted to go further in. Because of the recent switch to daylight savings, I could walk for at least another ninety minutes before the sunset, and then there'd be some twilight before it got really dark.
Soon I was deep in Sassafras Gully, which is a rugged twisting valley. The floor of the gully is broad, and is a mess of hillocks and ridges, rainforest and creeks and ponds. I was thinking of this one lovely waterhole which was possibly half an hour away, which would be a good place to turn around. I heard a strange sound, could it have been somebody yelling or a crow or lyrebird? I stopped, waiting to hear if the noise repeated. Within a minute it did, it was definitely a person, but I couldn't understand what was being said. It repeated again, I decided to call out, "Hello?" Most of the time I am soft spoken, but my voice can be very loud when it needs to be. There was an immediate response - I thought I caught the word "lost" in there. I now had an idea where this person was, towards the top of a ridge off the track on my right. I wasn't going to be able to have any sort of conversation like this. I decided to leave the track so I could climb the ridge a little to see what was happening.
I did not do this lightly - when I walk, I never stray far from the track. Especially in a place like the Blue Mountains, where the twisting valleys and creeks make it really easy to lose one's sense of direction. I have heard more than one horror story of experienced walkers losing their way, and still being lost at nightfall. There are so many cliffs and ridges in the area, the Blue Mountains is definitely not a good place to be at night.
It was not easy going to reach halfway up the ridge where the voice came from, the vegetation was very thick and treacherous to walk on. But I made it and yelled out again, I could see a young man wave at me from the top of the ridge. He said that he'd been lost for seven hours and asked if I knew where the track was. I told him that it was 200 metres down the slope, and that I could show it to him.
So that's how I met Josh. He had started walking at 9 am, and had been planning on just walking for an hour. He hadn't even had breakfast, he had planned to get that in Springwood after this walk. But he left the track to get a different view of Clarinda Falls, and then got disoriented and then completely lost. At some point the panic must have set in and then he wouldn't have noticed the track even if he'd stumbled upon it. He had exhausted himself from seven hours of scrub bashing, and of course he didn't have any food or drink with him. Oh, and he hadn't told anyone where he'd gone. Josh had broken just about every single rule of safe bushwalking. I wasn't going to judge him too harshly, because I break a couple regularly - such as not walking alone - but I try to keep the most important ones.
I guided him back to the track. Early on, I still felt a little leery of this stranger, but he seemed genuine and as somebody said to me later, "muggers are lazy and are not likely to walk for two hours to a ridge in the middle of nowhere to find somebody." I could see how exhausted he was and there was no way that I could just leave him on the track to make his own way home. He wouldn't make it before nightfall and he'd get lost again. Luckily he was just exhausted and dehydrated and hadn't been injured. He was still able to walk, albeit slowly and with frequent rests.
On the way back, we came to a creek. Ordinarily I would be quite entranced, it was a lovely spot in the filtered late afternoon sun. Today it was a good place for Josh to have a drink. I've been warned off drinking from Blue Mountains creeks. Because all the population of the Blue Mountains is on the ridge top, it is not recommended to drink from the creeks in the valleys because run off from the developed areas. I mentioned this, but Josh decided to take this chances because he felt so dehhydrated.
I had a real effort to engage him in conversation during the long and slow walk out of Sassafras Gully, hoping to calm him down and distract him from his exhaustion. I found that we had a few things in common with me. He was new to Sydney, was originally from Hamilton in New Zealand but had spent a number of years living in Perth. He worked in IT and lived in Penrith, but was thinking of buying a place in Springwood. He was really into lawn bowls, and reckoned that I should think about getting involved in the Springwood bowls club.
Towards the end of the track, during one of the final really steep sections, Josh didn't think he could go any further. I told him to sit down, while I got some refreshments from the nearby petrol station - which was only 5 minutes walk away (for me). That did the trick. He made it to his car, sat down, paid me back for what I bought and we parted.
I don't know what would have happened to Josh if I hadn't been there to help him out. On the walk back, at one point we came across a place which he thought he'd been to several times while lost, yet it was on the track! I think that in his in panicked mental state, he would have almost zero chance of finding his way out before dark. So it's quite possible that I saved this person's life - or saved him from injury. It made me feel good about myself.
My current job is winding up and so this is the last Saturday that I'll be working. After this morning's experience, I am so glad.
First off, they were doing maintenance on the railway tracks. This meant that instead of taking the one train from my village (yes, that's what they're called in the Blue Mountains) into Sydney, I had stop halfway and go in a bus. That happens from time to time on a weekend. Sometimes it works out ok, because the buses are a totally totally express coach service and use the freeways. They usually have more comfortable seats.
So this guy sat next to me shortly before the bus left. I didn't pay him too much attention because I was reading and listening to my iPod. It's my safe little bubble which makes the drudgery of public transport that more bearable. I was about to discover how insubstantial this bubble was.
5 minutes into this 45 minute bus trip, without any warning, SPLAT!, the guy sitting next to me throws up - getting vomit all over himself and my right leg and foot. It was absolutely terrible. The smell, which made my own stomach feel very queasy. Feeling the warm liquid seep through my pants onto the skin of my leg. The guy was very apologetic, and so he should have been. He offered me $20, which I didn't accept (in hindsight I wonder if I should have), but I did take some of his tissues to wipe myself. I don't know if he was drunk from the night before, or even worse, some type of bug or illness. He was obviously unwell.
I had to sit there, in this full bus, next to this guy for another 40 minutes. Fortunately he didn't throw up again, although sometimes it looked like he was about to and I would shudder. My protective bubble was totally gone and I was very aware of him.
I was due to work from 10 am to 6 pm and I had plans to go out after work. Normally I would have been tempted to go back home and get changed into clothes that weren't covered in vomit, even if it meant I was very late. But I couldn't do that on a Saturday. On Saturdays there are just two of us in the library, it's a very big deal to be sick or not around, because it means that the other person is left all on their own, this is not very safe and against our rules.
So I got off in the Sydney CBD area and wandered around a little until the shops opened and then I bought a new outfit, as well as a small towel. I was due to buy some new clothes anyway, so it wasn't a total waste. I was only a little late to work, and fortunately, there's a shower in one of the restrooms in my building. So as soon as I got in, I cut the tags off my new purchases, scrubbed my shoes clean, had a shower and scrubbed my right side all over with tea tree shampoo and then got changed into my new clothes. It was such a relief to be in clean clothes!
It seems that whenever I want to use it, I get the cute picture with the cat. I really like the cat, but it's been around too much lately.
What words make you giggle (no matter how old you are)?
Submitted by Margurette.
Dingbat would be one. For some reason I find that word hilarious. I also like the German word "kaputt". One word I heard over the weekend which made me laugh is "goona", one of the Australian Aboriginal words for shit (the "oo" is pronounced in a similar way to boofhead). There's a place in Brisbane which was called Goona - until they found out what the word meant.
Are you taking a vacation this summer (or this season)? Where are you headed and who's going with you?
This winter I hope to have a short 4 day weekend trip to Tasmania if I see a good deal with the airfares. I really felt cheated with the winter in the Blue Mountains last year - only a handful of wintry days. I'll have a much better chance of experiencing winter in Hobart. I'll be going on my own. After this breakup, it will be good to catch up with my family and friends down there.
What item(s) do you have to prevent yourself from buying at the grocery store?
Submitted by Places Unknown.
Savoury snacks like Barbecue Shapes (these aren't found in the US, and were one of the things I really missed when I was living in Minnesota), cheese stringers, and of course, chocolates.
