Bird walks to come

I went on a walk this morning. It was a slow walk but felt good. I am going to have to start taking my camera with me when I walk. Being NED (no evidence of disease) is fabulous and I am well aware of how lucky I am. I have to find a way to live with the chronic junk I've had since a few months after my LND for melanoma and hopefully get better. I am starting a whole new P.T. set up and the rheumatologist is looking at various issues, having already identified one problem which is fixable, HOORAH! Walking this morning, the birds were everywhere and I wished that I had my camera with me. That will take the edge off how slow I walk these days if I can combine photograhy with walking. When I got home I did take a few pics of one bird on my deck. As long as I am satisfied photographing the birds which hang out on my deck through the glass door, I can at least get a little practice photographing birds. They are harder to capture than the flowers but it's worth the effort or rather will be if I can get better at it. I'll have to see what's hanging out at the lake near my house. I hate to drive to walk and my walks and runs around the lake were always part of my extended walk or run from my house. However, it's too far to make it to the lake on foot these days. It's only a little over 2 miles to the path that begins in the woods and winds around the lake but it's a good 5 miles and longer depending on the trails I choose to do the whole loop. That used to be my normal morning trail, even when I was pregnant 22 years ago, and I worked back up to that trail after my LND when I still had the surgical drain in. However, I have to accept the fact that I can't do that now, hopefully eventually I will, but not now. I can however, jump in my car and drive to the lake trail in about 2 minutes and walk to where I can see the lake and what's hanging out these day. I've spotted a blue heron there before although that may have been in the spring. I'll have to take my camera and see what I can find. Maybe I'll even try that tomorrow.

onward and forward

My checkup today went great. The tumor removed from my back was consistent with a lipoma and no maligancy identified was the magic phrase. It was well over twice the size when it was taken off from what it was a month before on the MRI which verified what I could feel. I knew it was growing pretty fast so great to know I had a fast growning benign tumor not a malignant one. Onward and forward.

Cardinal posing for me

Apparently if I settle for photographing the birds through my bedroom door, they will pose for me. That's how I managed to get photographs of a baby bird. I got photographs of a mocking bird through my den door which also looks out on the deck, as my bedroom door does. The ones I took of the gold finch were through my kitchen door which faces the driveway; I have puple cone flowers (echanasia) on the other side of the driveway which lures the finches and butterflies. The humming birds like lantana but so far they are too fast for me to photograph. This group of pictures I took this morning of the cardinal worked out pretty well considering how fast he was moving. I need to clean the panes on all of my doors. I think about that everytime I photograph the birds because I can only use one or two panes as my window out since most of them have spots. My what lovely subjects I bring up on my blog. I could keep my dirty window panes to myself. I am so excited about tomorrow. I can't wait to find out that my lipoma was just that, a lipoma. Not melanoma, not liposarcoma, not any other nasty. Just an irritating lipoma that sprung up quickly and irritated nerves. I can't get over how much better I feel now that it's off. It's not like it has solved all of my problems but it has taken care of one of the newer issues. I suspect the vitamin D suppliments will take care of the other new issue which was bone pain. Then I can go back to the chronic junk I'm okay with. What bugged me so bad was that I had finally gained an equilibrium after almost a year from when the chronic pain and neuropathy symptoms began. I could live with that and had a pretty good perspective about it. What was hard for me was when a few months ago new sypmtoms began. We are supposed to watch out for new symtoms. The we could apply to everyone but specifically for a melanoma survivor. I know I was a broken record about fearing that a new problem would be lost in a sea of symptoms but I think that is a real concern. The goal with chronic pain is to stop listening to your body. Turn it off and get on with it. I did a pretty good job of that for a while. The problem was that when new problems began I needed to start listening to my body again. Hopefully now that the lump is off my back and the vitamin deficiency explains the balance issues and bone pain I can regain my equilibrium. It would be nice if the symptoms of peripheral neuropathy, lymphedema, and some of the ongoing nerve pain could get better but I'm not going to whine about that. It is what it is and I can live with it. I am so incredibly fortunate in so many ways and I intend to remember that.

Back to the one who got away

The one who got away this time was a cardinal. I quietly followed Mrs. cardinal from a distance, trying to capture her with my camera. Alas, I need a telephoto lens that allows me to be just a little bit farther away. My new digital camera has a stronger telephoto lens than my old camera which I left on top of a mountain in May. Since my old camera was duck taped together it was no biggie to leave it on the mountain. Hopefully someone found it and took it so it wasn't litter. The place where I left it is in the area where the NC outward bound school is located in the western part of the state. I'm sure someone picked it up and either kept it or threw it away. My new camera has a built in telephoto lens and the option of adding on a stronger removable one but that's not in my budget for awhile. I have to buy a converter as well as any new lenses. I did manage to get my first fall leaves photo this morning. The pictures I've posted of my oak trees fall leaves are from several years ago. The photo in this entry of my dogwood leaves was taken this morning. The dogwoods are among the first to bloom in the spring and among the first whose leaves change colors in the fall. The oak leaves are still very green and lush. I can't wait for them to start changing. However, my hope is that I'll be stronger by then so I can gather them up and shift the leaves to where they are needed for mulch. I also hope I'll be able to do some major chopping. My current lawnmower is rather labor intensive when I use it to chop leaves or even to mow for that matter. I used to have a gas powered mower but when it stopped working I decided to go for a manual one. At least 90 percent of what used to be lawn is now garden, or at least a wild life habitat to put the mess I have at the moment in a kind light. I don't like the noise of my old gas mower or the hassle of maintaining it. However, at the time I bought a manual mower, I was in great physical condition. At the moment I not able to do much with it at all. This too shall change.

I hope the final word will come Monday

I hope that I will will find out Monday that my lipoma was a lipoma and nothing else when I go for my surgery check up. I have been doing oh so much better mentally and somewhat better physically. Finding a fixable answer to part of my physical problems was huge. Kind of funny that I'd be so thrilled to find out I have a vitamin D deficiency but the point is that it's something that can and is being fixed. I will even be glad if the other lab work the rheumatologist is doing explains the rest in terms of peripheral neuropathy, frozen shoulder, etc. As long as it's not lupus but that is not one he thought even remotely likely. The thyroid and/or hypoglycemia which would fit with the vitamin D deficiency are more likely. Both of those are probably correctable if I do test positive. Which brings me to my biggest fear. I have assumed the lipoma will come back as just that, a lipoma. I am basing that on my doctor saying "from the naked eye" it looks like a run of the mill lipoma, after the surgery. I am superstitious enough that it worries me to be too certain of anything. It will certainly be a shocker at this point if it turns out to be melanoma. Ironic because my gut has been telling me something was seriously off for over a year and I have been expecting bad news at every scan. I strongly suspected I had paraneoplastic syndrome and my body was attacking its self while trying to attack the melanoma cells. The problem was lately I've felt like I was losing. Ah the mind is a dangerous thing. Where my superstitious side plays in is I've been so happy this week and I'm afraid that's when the hornets going to dive bomb on in with the stinger. I feel like benign answers are lining up and to top it off, the lipoma looked like a lipoma after it was excised. I'm almost afraid at this point to become too optimistic and that's not me. I've always been great at optimism. I've also always had this slightly superstitious side and am a little fearful of jinxing myself which is silly. Murphys' Law, supersition, whatever you want to call it is just at the surface tonight and to hell with that. I'm not going to let it bring me down. I guess it's time to stop researching. Yep, I just couldn't stop myself from reading more. Digging up those cases with differentials. I know better. I know if I google with lipoma and melanoma and differential in the search string, I'll find something to make me worry. Stupid, stupid, stupid. That's okay. Just a few more days and I'll get good news and then onward and forward. I may even start limiting my computer time to work and email for a while. It's a thought. I'll want to check the MPIP and blogs to see how everyone else is doing but I need to seriously limit it. Sarah was right when she suggested on a comment a few days ago that I might try taking a few weeks break from the boards. I know I should do that. For one thing my eyes are giving out on me. Between work, the BB, blogging, and email not to mention reading and TV my eyes are being asked for a lot and they are failing me.