wooohooo normal PET/CT scan

Woohoo, good news! I had a normal full body PET/CT scan. That definitely lowers my tension level about the lump removal next week. I am so happy to hear back from the NP and know that everything looked good on the scan. Nice to get some definite good news as opposed to the maybe kind of news I sometimes get.

Waiting is no fun

I am sick of waiting but I understand these nurses and doctors have to prioritize. No matter what did and didn't show up on my PET/CT scan, my knowing about it isn't a top priority. I am coming in anyway on September 19 to get the lump off my back. I will be so glad to get at least that particular monkey off my back. I wouldn't mind so much that the NP didn't call back if I thought they didn't know anything yet. I know that my doctor and the NP can look on their computers at the slides as soon as they are done and that they get the radiologist's report by the same day or early the next. I waited 5 days to call so I know that they have the report. I'm not even comforted by the thought that they would have called if something showed up. That's not how it works. Normally I have an appointment right after a scan (within a few days). When I don't and I call the NP, sometimes it takes longer not less time for me to hear back if there is an issue. As my mother always said, you pay a high rate of interest on borrowed trouble. I am trying very hard not to borrow trouble.

Cool Mornings are a blessing

I love cool mornings. Maybe if we had a longer winter or a shorter summer it wouldn't be so exciting to move into the time of year when we have cool mornings but as it is, I rejoice in the slightly chilly air. It's nice to have the option of going on a walk a little later in the morning too. In the heat of the summer here the only decent time to walk is before 8:00 am and I'm not an early riser anymore. I used to be. I went years where sleeping until 6:00 am was good and I was often up by 5:00 am or earlier. Now I frequently sleep until 7:00 am and it often takes me several hours to feel like doing anything. I hope we have a long stretch of time where I can open the windows and not use heat of air conditioning. That's my favorite time of year. It's more than one time and generally falls between seasons. I really ought to plant lettuce in my garden boxes. They won't take much prep work. I could dig out a little compost from my untended heap, mix it in and I'd be set to go. Although I'm not actively composting any more, underneath a big pile I throw leaves and the occasionaly clippings on, I am please when I run a shovel underneath that there is rich black broken down compost to add to my boxes. At least that was the case this spring when I did plant a few things. Even something small like planting lettuce is a sign of hope for new things yet to come. I was pleased to note, when I walked up to my garden boxes yesterday, that I had some volunteer broccoli and kale plants. I generally let a few plants bolt and voila, they set seeds and I have a volunteer garden. I should have some volunteer lettuce also but I want to plants at least one box with mixed types of lettuce and another with spinash. Now that I think of it carrots, radishes, cauliflower and a few more broccoli and kale plants would be good. I love thinking about something besides melanoma. In many way melanoma has replaced gardening for me. Weird as it sounds it's true. The time I used to spend gardening as well as with physical activities (running, swimming, etc.) is now spent researching melanoma. It's almost become an addiction. I don't feel like I obsess that badly about my own situation but I do tend to keep gathering information, and to what end? I already have a pretty good idea of what my options would be if I have a recurrence. I keep thinking that in time I'll move on to other things but that doesn't seem to be happening. The hardest part for me is that my situation keeps changing. I don't think every little thing that happens to me signals a melanoma recurrence but I am having trouble turning off the voice which is screaming inside of me, this isn't right. I have always had good instincts. I have always known when something big was going on that couldn't be ignored. Even with my nodular melanoma which was on my hip for decades, I knew something wasn't right with it. I had such a bad experience going to a dermatologist when I was pregnant who dismissed it as nothing because it was symmetrical and made me feel dumb that I swore off dermatologists but even so I knew something wasn't right. When I had an ovarian cyst, I knew I didn't have the flu and I got the tests I needed to end up having surgery to remove a fast growing cyst in the early 1980s. Fortunately that was benign but it was huge and would have been a problem has it not been taken care of. I knew when I had endometriosis that I wasn't just PMS ing more than most people and when I had laporoscopy laser treatments it turned out the out of control endometrial tissue had bent my falopian tubes into v shapes which was why I wasn't getting pregnant. Fortunately, that time they could be lasered off and I conceived my daughter. I have that same kind of feeling now. I know something is seriously wrong with me and it's different and changing. I don't know what it is. Hopefully it's not melanoma but it's SOMETHING and as long as I can, I will keep pushing for answers. As long as I do that I won't become depressed and hopefully I will be thinking more and more about gardening and less and less about melanoma as time goes on.

I went for a walk today and they weren't after me

I went for a walk today, wooohooo, first one since Monday and I did okay. I was distracted from the fact that it wasn't that easy to walk when I noticed a code enforcement truck parked in front of one of my neighbors, whose house is behind mine. This was the same neighbor who called to complain about my composting set up attracting mice almost a decade ago. Back then I had a well maintained garden and a productive and neat composting set up and the city inspector basically commended me on what a good job I was doing of re-using my garden waste and kitchen scraps. At this point I'm not even bothering to try to continue composting other than big leaf piles with a few clippings periodically thrown in. My habitat garden gets wilder and wilder and is best viewed in close ups of individual flowers except when there is a lot in full bloom. I was relieved to get home and find that there wasn't a notice stuck on my door saying - WEED OR MOW by order of the City of Raleigh code enforcement division. Perhaps they did come by but couldn't maneuver through the gates on either side of my back garden and for that matter couldn't fit their truck in between the dinosaur azealeas. Sometimes my garden is too wild even for me and I have a high threshold for wild. I have to remind myself that even when I had more energy for weeding and working in my garden that certain times of year make me wonder if I'm going over the top from habitat garden to abandoned yard. Then the seasons change, new plants flower, winter does it's major weeding job. Generally in spring I'm amazed that I ever despaired of my garden and it's not til late summer that I start to wonder if the city enforcers will be sicked on me by my neighbors. Then fall comes and the little white daisy like flowers are everywhere and the marigolds continue blooming as the grasses die back and the gerber daisies will sometimes get a second wind before they are hit by a strong frost. Sometimes my irises and lillies are confused by the cold then warm then cold then warm weather we often have in NC and will bloom again in late fall and somehow still bloom in the spring. The fall leaves also dazzle and distract me from so much left undone. Hopefully I won't let it get to the point where the city enforcer really do have to give me a hard time. In general, I suspect they want to leave someone like me alone who is really trying to be environmentally sound as opposed to people who have waist high grass that attracts mosquitoes and little else. Then again the waist high grasses are also environmentaly sound. If people would only mow twice a year they could end up with mini meadows in front of their houses instead of the uniform little yards most people seem to go for around here. Sometimes I see the benefit of having a uniform little yard. If that's what I had then I could occasionally pay someone to tidy me up but as it is I really can't. I'd have to find someone I could walk around and point out what's weed and what's plant and what to pull up and not pull up and it would cost a fortune. I was planning on waiting to see if anyone calls me about my PET/CT scan which is doubtful. Usually I have an appointment scheduled right after a scan or I have been told to call the NP for the results the day after a scan. This time I didn't have any instructions about the scan but I am scheduled for the lump excision (supposed lipoma) on my back September 19. I had originaly thought I would just wait and see if they called and if they didn't I might call medical records and see if they will fax me the report. I don't want to drive to Chapel Hill and pick it up if I can avoid it but I am more impatient to know something than I thought I would be. I'm also not sure if they will call if something shows up. I'm already scheduled to have the issue on my back removed so they may not want to call and say it lit up if it did since the final determinant will be the pathology after the excision. If my groin lit up more than the last scan, they may want to wait and discuss that with me when I'm there because I'm coming anyway for surgery. I'm not even sure they'd call in advance of the planned excision if something new lit up. Rather than agonize over all of that, what I should probably do is call them Monday. A plan is always good even if I change my mind.

Reminded of my breadcrumb trail

I was reminded of my breadcrumb trail when I was at Ace yesterday and saw bags of the river pebbles I hauled 600 lbs at a time to my house 6 years ago. The bags weigh 50 pounds a piece and I was told 600 lbs was max in terms of my cars suspension. It took quite a while to get 10,000 pounds home which was what it took to pour the trail from curbside in front of my house up and around and through the back garden. I knew when I did it that it was temporary which is why I called it a breadcrumb trail. I didn't dig or grade or do the things that would be necessary for a more permanent path. I know I talked about this in one of my blog entries before my first blog crashed but I think about it whenever I see river pebbles or when I'm in my garden and even the big stepping stones are starting to disappear in a sea of earth and plants. Everything is temporary. Even a carefully graded path would need to be replinished over time or at least the kind of path I made would. The most permanent seeming structures are only permanent in a finite way. I could still recreate my path with time and hard work for very little money. If I started digging in the areas where the pebbles and larger rocks which came from cultivating my yard as I turned it into a garden, I would have most of the material to lay a new path. The stepping stones are still there. Maybe that could be a physical goal for me. The goal could be for my body to be rehabilitated to the point where I could salvage my breadcrumb trail. It's not hiking from Georgia to Maine or the Appalachian trail, or running a marathon, or doing an outward bound trip. It's still a huge goal in terms of where I am now. I need to start forming new goals. I feel like my fatalism of late is unacceptable. I wan't depressed or sad or unhappy but I was growing increasingly fatalistic and I don't like that. One of the main components of my personality has always been an undying glimmer of hope no matter what the situation. After P.T. yesterday I am once again getting back that glimmer of hope that I can at least find a new normal which will include being able to do some of the things that I love. Maybe I won't be able to dig my trail again but I can have that as a goal for now and then as things go along, if necessary, I can adjust my goals to my situation. That's the important thing. If I can stay flexible I can remain optimistic, if I get rigid I may break and I'm not going to do that.