Ahhhhh.

OK, picture this: You start out with a lengthy tube that is inserted into your abdomen somewhere in the region of your navel. A few weeks later, feeling as if you are at death's door, you find out that you have not one, but two abscesses, one each side of your abdomen, that need to be drained of the fluid in them because it contains a potentially lethal infection, so two more tubes are inserted into these, attached to plastic drainage-collection bags that have to be emptied every four hours or so. Now you have three tubes sticking out of your abdomen.

As of today, all three tubes are gone. The center one was removed about three weeks ago -- or was it only two? Seems to me it was three, but I know I haven't been sleeping in a bed that long -- when the incision became so small that there was nothing left for the wound vac to suck off. That is continuing to shrink, and I will know its status when I return to the wound clinic next Tuesday. The two side tubes came out today.

Relief is spelled "Ahhhhh." I'm trying to imagine what it will be like to lie down to sleep, something I've only been able to do in the past ten days, with no tubes to be careful of. I have yet to conceive of actually being able to take a shower, instead of a sink bath -- that won't happen till all the holes are closed over, and that will be at least another week.

But oh my gosh, THE END IS IN SIGHT. There is light at the end of the tunnel, and it's not an oncoming train. Time for a prolonged happy dance!

Well, Shut My Mouth and Call Me -- Something

After a day of doctors’ appointments, I have to share this:

1) The incision that opened up after surgery is finally closing up. I am off the wound vac, and the depth has gone from 4 cm to 0.3 cm! And the length has gone from 8 cm to 5.2 cm (that’s 5” to something like 3”).

2) Also saw the infectious disease control doc this afternoon, who says that I may have to take antibiotics for just one more week, and no more than two – the MRSA I was hospitalized for in September appears to be dead. All my most recent blood work is in the normal range, except for my albumin count (protein) – she says I need more protein. Since I’ve been consuming hardly anything but, that was almost laughable. So I guess I’m not giving up my breakfast eggs any time soon.

I am absolutely floored. Was it three or four weeks ago that the wound-care doctor said healing would take a lot longer than originally projected, and now -- he says it will be completely healed in 2-3 weeks, which is pretty darn close to his original projection. The drains that I have in place to drain off the two abscesses are a little dicier, at least till I have another CAT scan, but the last CAT scan looked pretty good, so I'm hopeful the next one, later this week, will show that both abscesses have collapsed, and that will mean they can take these drains out at last. You have no idea how "interesting" life can be when you have three lengthy tubes coming out of your abdomen....

Now, if I can just start going to church again! I've only been once in the last two months. But I'm hoping to go again this coming Sunday. And once everything is closed up and healed, I will be able to receive Communion again -- how I have missed that.

xx Years Ago I....

Cribbed this from Philippa's blog http://philippaalan.blogspot.com.

25 years Ago I...
- Was 34
- was living in Waltham, MA
- had a 2-year-old and a 6-year-old
- experienced my first real New England autumn

20 years Ago I...
- Was 39
- was working at Harvard University
- together with my husband, bought our first (and to date only) house
- moved to NH

15 Years Ago I...
- Was 44
- became Orthodox
- watched the fall of communism in the Soviet Union with a feeling of utter disbelief
- worked for an educational assessment firm

10 Years Ago I...
- Was 49
- was attending college, at long last, to become an accountant
- was stunned to learn that my mother-in-law had died suddenly
- was thanking God that 1995 was over

5 Years Ago I...
- Was 54
- was struggling with depression
- was dealing with the loss of my mother, the transfer of my spiritual father, and the marriage of my daughter
- was fired for the first time in my life -- from a volunteer job!

4 years ago I...
- Was 55
- rediscovered cross stitch
- finally figured out the sequence of Matins and Vespers
- broke my wrist in a fall down a flight of stairs, and had it healed by the Kursk Root Icon of the Theotokos

2 Years Ago I...
- Was 57
- lost my son when he moved to PA
- went to Jordanville for the last time (there's always next year!)
- had the kitchen updated and renovated, at long last

1 Year Ago I...
- Was 58
- took the train to PA to visit my son
- started a cross-stitch piece as a gift for him, a steam train rolling through the mountains at evening
- finally realized that it was OK to power down on activities -- I've earned my retirement!

Yesterday I...
- read Matins at home
- finished the last of seven books lent to me by our priest's wife
- listened to the rain
- cooked my first meal in two months (dh has been cooking since my surgery)

Today I...
- hope to get back into cross stitch
- plan to wash towels
- need to find something else to read
- gear myself up for marathon doctors' appointments all week

Tomorrow I...
- visit the Wound Care Center w/r/t the healing of my incision
- visit the Infectious Disease Control doc to see what's up with MRSA
- get ready to visit a doctor I no longer have any confidence in (on Wednesday)
- try to remember that at some point, all this will end

Tag: To anyone who wants to pick it up.

Mrs. A., I Presume?

Uh, not exactly. More like MRSA, which stands for something along the lines of methicillen-resistant stapholococcus something-or-other. It is a particularly nasty staph infection, highly resistant to all the usual antibiotics, and it lurks in, of all places, hospitals. And it is what I have been coping with ever since September 6th.

Yes, I am just back (actually got home two days ago) from yet another hospital stay, this one rather longer than the first. A nurse friend of mine maintains that if I'd been kept longer the first time, the hospital may have caught this thing, but I don't see how, since it only just surfaced a month after the hysterectomy. The Infectious Disease Control doc maintains that the germs implanted themselves in my body during the surgery (leading me to wonder about asepsis at this hospital!!!), and have been quietly growing colonies ever since. Be that as it may, when I went into chills and fever on September6th, my husband took me to the Emergency Room, I had a CT scan at midnight (talk about an ungodly hour!!!), and was admitted early the morning of the 7th. The CT scan showed two abscesses in my belly. Those have been draining ever since the 7th, though I think they are beginning to peter out, and once they do, at least those two holes can be closed off.

Wait, it gets better. Because IVs can't be left in place for more than a couple of days, and I would be in the hospital for 10-14 days, they inserted a PICC line into my right arm, which is basically a very long IV that goes right up through your vein. (Yes, they use a mild anesthesia, thank goodness.) Four days after inserting it, they did an ultrasound to make sure that all was well with the PICC line, and -- it wasn't. I'd developed a blood clot.

I'm telling you, between staph infections and procedures that create more problems than they solve, hospitals are dangerous places. Now I am on two more medications: Bactrim, the one oral antibiotic that can overcome MRSA (the other antibiotic, vancomycin, is given intravenously), and Coumadin, a blood thinner that is supposed to keep the clot from getting any bigger. My question: Why don't they just bust up the clot?! Doctors make no sense whatever.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas...

...before I will ever see the back of this affair. After the latest examination, the wound-care specialist said, "What was my original estimate? 4-6 weeks? I probably shouldn't have said that." "Meaning," I said, "it'll take longer." "It'll take longer."

Actually, it's beginning to look a lot like never at this point. I think I will just give up hope of ever having a normal life again -- that's the safest route. Well, I see the oncologist this Friday for the final (presumably) exam, and we'll see what he has to say about anything. With my luck, he'll recommend a few rounds of chemo just to add to the overall misery. Why not?

Meanwhile, I've come up with a scenario for my little sucky buddy, though it only works if you're into sci-fi, as I discovered when I pulled it on the nurse today, and she had no idea what I was talking about. I decided -- this all comes from the appearance of my navel, with this big black THING sucked into it -- that the "vac" is actually a tricorder that is recording all kinds of information about me, and when I plug the vac/tricorder into the wall outlet ostensibly to charge the battery, it starts relaying the info back to the Mother Ship. These particular aliens aren't into anal probes, but prefer navel probes -- one thing to be thankful for, at least.

Hey, I need some kind of self-generated insanity to keep me sane.

Moving Right Along, or In, or....

An anonymous poster to my blog asked about the reasons for my father-in-law's moving in with us, whether for health reasons or practical. The short answer is, yes. ;-)

It's a little of both. He's 94 years old, for one thing, with macular degeneration and substantial hearing loss, and he should not have been living on his own all these years (ten, since my mother-in-law's death). Try to convince him of that, however, and it was only this past June that my husband got his father to agree to move up with us. Sure, he lives in a retirement community, and sure, the ideal thing would be for him to live in his own place and us nearby. But we don't live nearby, and are not about to move down to NJ, and -- well, he really shouldn't be on his own.

A funny aside to all this: Just before my surgery, I got a frantic phone call from an old family friend, landing on us about how he shouldn't be alone and what were we thinking, not having him with us, etc. etc. When I could get a word in edgewise, I explained that his moving in with us had been in the works, till my own health became an issue, and that it would be back in the works as soon as I was recovered. Oh. Then the Old Family Friend explains that she has been Talking with my FIL's next-door neighbor, and I see what's really going on: The next-door neighbor is the one he depends on for rides to church and to the doctor's, and she's getting sick and tired of carting him around! And well she should, but this has been his "escape route" for not having to move!!

It gets better. Last week he mentioned to the Next-Door Neighbor that he would be moving up to NH before the end of the year. By the next day, he had offers for his house from all over Leisure Village (the retirement community)! At least we know it will sell easily....

Sometimes I think about moving to a retirement community. My in-laws were younger than we are now, when they did that. It was just the thing for my MIL, lots of Activities, and not having to take care of their property but still owning the roof over their heads; bus access to church and shopping; opportunities for travel, which incidentally my FIL hated. But then I think about being with a lot of other geezers, and being pressured to Take Part in All the Activities, and would we have bus access to stores and church -- plus, I would hate to be a part of the trend up here, which is the ruination of Maine by people moving up from Massachusetts.... And then there are all the people we know here, and we know all the short-cuts around heavy traffic....

I think we'll stay put as long as we can. Hopefully, till it's our turn to move in with a kid. :->

It Sucks, It Really Does

I'm referring, of course, to my wound vac, "vac" being short for Vacuum-Assisted Closure. I got hooked up today. It looks like I have the navel of a space alien, with this big black blob (that's the sponge) compressed by the "negative pressure" (read vacuum) over my more normal human navel. A tube leads out of that and into a canister, and through vacuum pressure the drainage that is keeping the wound from closing is sucked out and deposited in the canister, which is changed when it's full and disposed of as medical waste. At the same time, the vacuum sucks up healthy cells from elsewhere in the body and deposits them into the wound cavity, which speeds up healing (by how much, I'm not entirely sure. Weeks, anyway).

The rest of the machine consists of a large battery pack that has to be charged up twelve hours out of 24, which leaves me with quite a bit of freedom, providing you don't mind toting the battery-pack-cum-canister everywhere you go. I'm most concerned, at this point, with how to manage the drainage tube when I settle down for the night, since I'm still sleeping in a recliner, and I don't want the tubing to get caught up in any of the chair mechanisms -- if it does, I run the risk of breaking the vacuum seal, and I don't want to do that because I'm not sure, yet, how to fix it.

It's not particularly painful, thank goodness, just a definite sense of pressure in the area of my navel, but I guess I'll get used to that. Nor is it especially noisy, which was one of my concerns; however, the noise it does make resembles nothing so much as, well, a quick fart. Do I really want to tote this thing into church with me??? ;-)

The alien-navel sponge gets changed three times a week; the canister is changed whenever it's full of drainage (they think that might happen once a week, with my wound); the whole healing process is supposed to take two months tops, which is just about the time I should be completely healed from the hysterectomy, or, as I've taken to calling it, the "hystericalectomy," because it just gets weirder and weirder. And once the procedure is complete, and I can confidently expect to resume what passes for my own life:

MY FATHER-IN-LAW WILL MOVE IN WITH US!!! Ain't life FUN!!!

My Life is a Soap Opera

In the ongoing saga of post-surgical sub-existence, my mind is still boggling. I'm beginning to wonder if this will be its permanent state.

Today was supposed to be the day when I got hooked up to my vacuum cleaner. The doctor comes in (not, thank goodness, the same as my surgeon), takes a look, and shakes his head. Apparently there are two little tunnels, one at either end of the wound, and they are still draining, and he can't get them in contact with the dressing that covers the wound and creates the vacuum that sucks all the bad stuff out and pulls up all the good stuff. He says either they need to close -- by next week -- or he will need to open the wound further to expose the tunnels so they can come into contact with the dressing. Can this get any more complicated, d'ya think?!

I met with my gynecologist today, and needless to say, it was not the happiest moment of the day for either of us. She wanted to undo the dressing that the Wound Care Center had just put on, and yes, she knew I had been there, and I wouldn't let her; her dressings are nowhere near as thorough as theirs are. Finally I just walked out. She also tried to tell me that the wound would not have closed over in any case, and yeah, that's possible, since I'm not the skinniest woman around. But I would like to have the feeling that my doctor had done everything possible to see this surgery through to an uneventful conclusion, and that's not how I feel; and then to have my feelings discounted - well, now I'm not sure if I should even go back at all, and if so, when. (I should add that the post-surgical exam will be done by the surgeon of record, a gynecological oncologist; the woman in question is my gynecologist.)

Most disturbing in all of this is my poor husband, who thought he would be running the household for maybe 4-6 weeks, till I got on my feet, and now there's no end in sight for him; and he's still trying to hold down his day job, working half-days from home and spending the other half on the household stuff. At work, they keep bugging him for updates, and he's in no position to give them, because I'm in no position to give them; this is almost a fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants situation. So anyone who has any spare prayers lying around, please send them our way; my husband's name is Jim. Thanks.

Incredibly, Hope

I don't know if I mentioned in yesterday's blog that I had an appointment at a Wound Care Center in the next town over, people whose job is (in my not-so-humble opinion) cleaning up after other doctors' messes. Actually, they deal with severe wounds that just won't close.

I was sitting at the table, trying to force down a soft-boiled egg, when one of the visiting nurses showed up to change my dressing, despite my having told everybody and his uncle from day one that my dressing wouldn't have to be changed today, since that would be done at the Wound Care Center. My husband went outside to try to chase her off -- we get billed by the visit, and our insurance will only cover 25 visits per year -- while I attended to various personal chores. When I came out, she was standing in the kitchen, talking to my husband. Sigh.

And for some reason -- I found out later that she and dh had discussed this outside -- she mentioned that in a circumstance like this, the body takes a terrific hit. Dealing with the emotional trauma takes all the body's reserves, but after surgery and then a complication, there are no more reserves.

Do you know how incredibly helpful it is to hear someone say this?! That that awful helpless feeling of not being able to cope with even life simplest tasks is physiological?! I can't describe the lift I got from hearing it put that way. No "Stop feeling sorry for yourself," no "It'll be fine, you'll see," none of that phenomenally brainless optimism that leaves you feeling as if you have to Get Into the Spirit of the Thing, rah rah!! Just, "This is how it is, and it takes time to get off Point A, let alone actually making it to Point B."

I kept this in mind all day, and had proof of it later in the day, when I went to make a medication log in my planner, just something that would help me keep track of how much of what I had had -- I wrote it out for today, then what I'd had for breakfast and lunch, and I was absolutely exhausted. How can you get wiped from making a list?!

Oh, yeah, the Wound Care Center. Apparently they have this vacuum thing that sucks up healthy cells from other parts of the body and deposits them in the cavity of the wound. I asked for a worst-case scenario, since I can't function with Optimistic Prognostications, and was told, "Worst case? Two months."

Two months?! I was sure I was looking at 6-8 months!! Of course, I'll be hooked up to "Ginny" 24/7 for those two months, but hey, it beats 8 months. ("Ginny": wound vac = WV = West Virginia = Ginny. I need to do at least one weird thing per day to stay on keel.)

Setback :-(

Well -- I survived, as most of you know by now. The surgery actually went very well (I'm told), and I came home last Monday, slept for half the week, and was all set to move on to recuperation.

Yeah, right.

On Friday, I went to my gynecologist's office to have the stitches taken out, something they used to do in the hospital back when I was having kids. And back then, the stitches were in for 8-9 days, and those puppies HELD. Not this time, they didn't. So now I'm walking around with a 5" slit in my gut, which needs to be dressed twice a day by Visiting Nurses (and our insurance will only pay for 25 visits).

To top it all off -- my doctor is on vacation. I really liked this doctor, and I can't get over the fact that she scheduled someone for major surgery the week before she went on vacation. And I can't get past wondering if she wasn't in such a big honking rush to get the stitches out so she could go on vacation -- and now I have to live with the consequences of her being in such a rush.

Honestly, if I had known? I don't know if I would have gone through with it, I just don't know. But what I do know is that my life is now what I swore it would never be: I have no life. It's taken up by medical procedures and consults and pills, 24/7. And this is what it will be, now that I've chosen this semi-"life" instead of letting nature take its course: As you age, you become more and more of an income for the Medical Establishment.

70 is a good age. 80 can be a good age. 90? I have people in my family in their 90s. 90 is not a good age. Nor do I want to do that to my kids ("When the heck is the old bat finally gonna give in?!"). No one in his 60s should have a living parent.

I can only hope now that God takes me before then. Now that I've chosen "life."

Blogthings - Where Should Your Inner New Yorker Live?

Blogthings - Where Should Your Inner New Yorker Live?

You Belong in Brooklyn

Down to earth and hard working, you're a true New Yorker. And although you may be turning into a yuppie, you never forget your roots.

Where Should Your Inner New Yorker Live?

OK, I had to post this one. As most of you know, (a) I'm seriously addicted to BlogThings, and (b) I am actually a native New Yorker, who grew up on the border between Queens and Brooklyn. So this quiz was a must-take for me, and finding out I'm a "true New Yorker," who "never forgets her roots" -- ahhh. Newtown Creek still runs in my veins! =:0 (That's a Screaming Mimi face -- if you ever had the misfortune to have to cross Newtown Creek, you'd scream too.)

There's No Place Like Home

As of today, we have been in our house exactly 20 years. It's the longest we have ever lived anyplace, including both our childhoods. We've done a lot to the place, put in double-paned windows and new siding, remodeled the kitchen (which was original to the house!), and revamped a lot of the plumbing, not to mention the usual paint-and-paper cheapie remodels of all the rooms.

Twenty years. It's hard to believe. Our daughter was 11 and our son was 7 when we moved here. Now she is 31 and expecting her second child, and he is 27 and just yesterday, passed his practical test for his Transportation license, which means he can now haul freight and passengers with a diesel locomotive. The last hurdle is another 200 hours on a steam engine; then he will be licensed to do the same thing with steam, which is important on a tourist railroad (New Hope and Ivyland is both tourist and short-line freight). He's extremely nervous. That's a good thing, it will keep him from doing anything stupid.

*****

In other news, yesterday I went to the hospital for an intake interview prior to having a hysterectomy. Why do hospitals treat their patients like a product?!?! The machinery kicks into gear and churns out yards and yards of labels with your name on them, reams and reams of forms asking the most phenomenally personal questions ("What in life makes you happy?" "What is important to you in life?" The answers to both would be enough to get me committed!). The thing that got me the most, I think, was being told that when I went to the hospital on Wednesday (the surgery is Friday), a red label would be attached to my wrist that isn't supposed to come off until I leave the hospital -- oh, and "don't get it wet." That's two days of walking around in public with the Scarlet Letter!! Not to mention two days of wearing plastic to shower and wash dishes?! "That's not gonna happen," I said firmly, and she changed the date of my lab test (it's to identify my blood type) to Thursday. "Don't get it wet"?!?! I will come home, snip that puppy off, go about my business, and reattach it with tape on Friday morning. "Don't get it wet," give me a break!!!

And I look back over the past 20 years and so help me -- and I never thought I'd say this -- I want my old life back. It had its drawbacks, believe me -- for one thing, my son's 12 years in school were unmitigated misery -- but the four of us were happy together, and healthy, my husband wasn't commuting six hours a day to and from work, and we had our own house, our very own house, something that had seemed so unreachable back in the days of 18% interest.

Somebody Pick Me Up Off the Floor

Feeling at loose ends today, and slightly masochistic, I guess, I got into my Xanga account and from there went over to Chris's ex-girlfriend's blog, just to see what was up with her. I'm still reeling.

Out of curiosity, I paged back through her blog, back two years ago, when they were together. And nearly all of it is gone.

All but one photo of him.
All the references to the week she spent with us.
All the references of the trip they took together into northern New Hampshire.
Nearly every reference to his first winter in PA -- she had a cute blog up about how much fun they'd had while shoveling out the driveway. Gone.
All the references to what it was like to have a railroader for a boyfriend -- she liked trains, too, and those were very cute. All gone.
The post she had written about her first Pascha as an Orthodox Christian, gone. (Interestingly, the post about her baptism is still up.)

He loved her so much. For their first (and last) Christmas together, he walked twelve miles to buy her a present -- he was a bus driver at the time, and had driven a charter to Atlantic City. Having several hours at his disposal, but no transportation other than his bus, he walked six miles to the nearest mall, and six miles back, to buy her a DVD she'd been wanting. No reference to that. No reference to their Christmas together at all.

I guess I'm having a hard time believing that someone who loved her so much that he left home for her, has ceased to exist in her mind. And why? Because once he moved closer to his railroad job, she felt "abandoned." He told us that that was why she dumped him -- she didn't feel as if she "mattered" in his life anymore, probably because he wasn't driving an hour and a half to her house every single evening.

I just can't conceive of such cold-bloodedness.

An Answer, At Last

Just heard from the oncologist -- his lab confirms that it looks enough like early-stage cancer that they are recommending surgery. So he will call me on Friday to set that up.

Thanks, everyone, for your support in this matter. I was never of a mind to fool around with hormones, I've wanted it out. Now I don't have to argue with this character.

St. Marina Goes to Work

Yesterday was my name day -- apparently, Margaret is another name for St. Marina of Antioch. St. Marina/Margaret used to be a saint on the Western calendar, too, until the Catholic Church threw her and several others off in 1969, noting that they were "probably myths brought back by the Crusaders from the East" -- since those "myths" include St. Christopher, St. Barbara, and St. Catherine of Alexandria, we will say no more about that, except to note that icons are not made of "myths." In other words, :-P~~~~~~~~~

However, sometime last year, this article came into my inbox, a translation from a newspaper article that appeared in a Greek newspaper. I was thinking of it recently, during my recent surgery. You draw your own conclusions.

*****

A few years ago, a family from Lemessos, Cyprus, named Vassiliou received the following miracle. In Greece they are well known from the televised requests they made in order to find a donor for their young boy Andrea, who suffered from leukemia. The donor was indeed found and the parents began preparing for their trip to Texas, U.S.A where the bone marrow transplant was going to be performed. Meanwhile, they also prayed and begged Jesus Christ to save their boy. Before they left for the U.S.A the parents heard of St. Marina's miracles and they called the monastery of St. Marina located on the island of Andros in Greece to ask for her blessing. The Elder of the monastery, Archimandrite Fr. Cyprianos promised that he would pray to St. Marina. He also wished the parents for St. Marina to be with Andrea in the operating room, to help him. With Elder Cyprianos' blessing and with strong faith that St. Marina would help indeed, the Vassiliou family went to the U.S.A.

After the necessary pre-operation tests that Andrea had to undergo, he was taken to the operating room. A short time before the operation was to begin, a woman came to see the surgeon who would be operating on Andrea. She said that she was Andrea's doctor and asked to be allowed to observe the operation. The conversation that ensued proved that the woman was indeed a doctor. However, the surgeon replied that 'outside' doctors were not permitted to be present in the operating room and that his medical teams' policy was that no doctor other than those on the team be involved in such delicate operations. The persistence of the woman however, convinced the surgeon to allow her in the operating room. But before, he asked her to leave her coordinates [presumably, credentials] at the administration desk. The unknown doctor did as told and then entered the operating room with the surgeon. During the operation, she gave several directions regarding the progress of the procedure. The operation went well and in the end the surgeon thanked the woman and exited the operating room.

Andrea's parents immediately went to inquire about the outcome of the surgery and the surgeon replied that all had gone very well, adding that he could not understand why they had brought Andrea to him when they had such a fine doctor. The parents were surprised and responded that they had not brought any doctor with them. The surgeon insisted, however. He also told them that when he came out of the operating room Andrea's doctor had remained there for a little longer with the rest of the operating team and therefore, she would probably still be around. He recommended that they look for her. The search, however, proved pointless, as the 'woman doctor' was nowhere around. The Vassiliou couple then concluded that it must have been a doctor from Greece or Cyprus who had decided to travel to the U.S.A and contribute to the delicate operation. They expressed the wish to know who she was so that they may be able to thank her, and at the surgeon's recommendation they then went to the administration desk to ask for her coordinates.

It was with utter surprise that they read that the unknown woman had signed with the name "Marina from Andros". Tears of gratefulness and joy filled their eyes as they recalled that the Elder at the monastery had said to them that he wished Andrea to have St. Marina in the operating room to help him. Andrea's parents shared with the media their joy both for the successful operation and Andrea's recovered health and for the miracle they received. The Vassiliou family made the vow that the entire family will be present at the saint's monastery every year on the saint's feast day (July 17) and Elder Cyprianos reports that the family has been making the annual trip from Lemessos to Andros every summer to thank Saint Marina for saving Andrea.

Miracles performed by the saints have never ceased to take place in the Orthodox Church. With these miracles, may our Lord Jesus Christ help us build our faith.

Ayuh.

A young lady whose chrismation I was privileged to attend on Holy Saturday, has written the most beautiful description I have ever read of why folks live in this neck of the woods -- click on the title to access the link. I should explain that she is not a New Hampshirite; she lives just over the border, in Maine, maybe about 15-20 miles from my home. I should also explain that "Ayuh" is how people in Maine say, "Yes" -- accent on the first syllable, pronounced with a long "a," barely vocalizing the "yuh." Try to pronounce it in the back of the throat with a slightly nasal twang, and you've got it.

But the geography is all pretty much the same, and in fact we were in Maine yesterday to attend church. Saco is much farther, 40 miles, about an hour's drive, but I go to confession to the priest of that parish, and the people have gradually opened up to me in a way I haven't experienced in a long time. Every time we go to Saco, I think, "If I ever had to leave NH, I'd want to move here," and Emily Michelle's post says why.

Blogthings - Are You A Control Freak?

I just had to post this, mostly for the benefit of any offspring who may (or probably not) read this blog, both of whom think I am the absolutely most controlling mother on the planet:


Blogthings - Are You A Control Freak?: "

You Are 24% Control Freak

You have achieved the perfect balance of control and letting go. You tend to roll with whatever life brings, but you never get complacent.

Are You A Control Freak?

I should probably take the test, "Are you addicted to Blogthings?" Yep! ;-)

"

Update

Well, I don't know what to make of this.

I saw an oncologist today, who read over all the paperwork -- and there was a lot of it -- then said the pathology report was "inconclusive," and he wanted to send the tissue samples to a lab he preferred in the middle of the state. (NH is not all that big a state.) As I was leaving the oncology unit (the most horrible place I've ever been), he rode down in the elevator with me and said that he had called the path. lab, and they had admitted to "hedging."

Meanwhile, I have a friend who's a nurse, who had offered to interpret the pathology report for me. Having acquired a copy of said report, I scanned it and sent it on to her. Her opinion: This does not look good, have the thing out.

Yes, I'm a trifle upset, to put it mildly. Those of you who are on the OrthWomen's list may remember my posting, last year, about my lack of trust in doctors generally. I was thrilled to have found a gynecologist whom I thought I could talk to. But she's the one who called in this oncologist, and I'm not sure now if she will abide by his opinion, or if she will listen to me (and my friend), and take the thing out. Let me make this as plain as possible: I do not want to mess around with even the suspicion of cancer.

But how hard do I push???

And the Answer Is....

For a variety of reasons -- mostly because whenever I'm out and about, I've been feeling a tad dizzy -- I went to see my doctor today (I also wanted to update my list of people to keep informed about my medical condition). As it happened, she had had a cancellation for an appointment, so I got right in to see her. As it also happened, she had just received the pathology report on my surgery. And the answer is...

(you gotta love this)...

they don't know.

There are more cells than there should be, which is indicative of cancer. But the cells themselves look normal, and not remotely cancerous. So the official diagnosis is "hyperplasia," meaning, hunh???

See why I love modern medicine?!

Holy Cow

Much to my amazement, I have actually survived. Yeah, OK, a biopsy isn't life-or-death surgery. But do remember, I have no faith in hospitals whatsoever, so I plan to enjoy my feeling of amazement for at least the next 24 hours.

The first thing we established was the First Name thing. My first name isn't Margaret -- it's something I loathe with all my being -- and when people use it, I generally go for the jugular. Which is what I told folks at the hospital. It got a laugh, and I got what I wanted: people calling me Margaret, which is my middle name.

Then, I think I set records for post-op discharge. I woke up at 10:02, and by 10:45 I was out the door. I had been insisting, from the moment I learned I'd have to have this procedure, that I should have been able to drive myself there and back, and they kept insisting that no, I had to have someone drive me; and the logical Someone was my husband. That isn't gonna happen again. You know the expression, "Nervous as a cat"? He makes cats look calm and placid. And yes, despite dire predictions of loopiness once I was out in the fresh air, I could have driven home with no trouble whatever.

Right now, I have sent him off to obtain some fish. I have a blessing to eat fish on fast days, since I really really need to lose weight and finally found a doctor who doesn't think a low-carb diet is a recipe for trouble. And when I finish this post, and send thank-you notes to all my other friends who promised to pray for me, I do plan to take a nap -- not only am I post-op, but I've also been up since 4:30 a.m.

I'm glad this is over with. For now, anyway. Results in 2-3 weeks. Many thanks to all who read this blog, for the prayers you have offered on my behalf; I'm very sure that they were largely responsible for my being this together and coherent! ;-)