Now for something completely different

I got these from the Holiday in July RAOK list on Crochetville.





The sunshine elf from Arizona sent me the above bamboo yarn. It is sooooooooo soft and huggable. I love it. and in one of my favorite colors too. Now I have to find the perfect pattern for it. I'm thinking maybe a scarf?






And the above beauties came from an elf in Brooklyn New York. They arrived the same day that we got my biopsy results. Such perfect timing has to be in God's hands.

I have discovered that I love crocheting with cotton. Oh dear.. do I feel another addiction building? probably.

Look at what my OCD has led me to buy now:





These I ordered from the Knitting-Warehouse (yeah I know.. the K word, but they have awesome shipping rates).






And these came from Elmore-Pisgah. Can you believe that those cones (1 lb of lovely cotton each) only cost 5.99!! They're a special run and when they're gone, they're gone.

The blue/tan variegated is called Mountain Sky. I love it.

The other variegated is called Passion. Just yummy.

The only problem is that I can't use the stuff fast enough .. LOL.

Now I only have to decide what to take with me to work on in the hospital (in case of abdominal surgery instead of the lap).

Decision made

Can't I just crochet my way out of this? Give me my hooks and some giant balls of yarn (pounders.. lots of them) and let me crochet myself a cocoon .. let me sleep away all this drama, emotionalism and HARD decisions.

The biopsy came back. It wasn't positive for cancer, but the news isn't perfect either like it has been in the past.

I have "complex endometrial hyperplasia with moderate atypia and squamous metaplasia". Basically what that means is that I have a 30% chance of the atypia turning into cancer. My uterus needs to come out. And everything I've found says that Atypia is a precursor to endometrial cancer.

I have no problem with them taking my uterus out. It's the fact that they also want to take my cervix and ovaries. I have had very little symptoms of menopause... and I'm very worried about being thrown into menopause with no help.

Also my cervix has never been a problem, every pap I've ever had has been negative. New studies suggest that the cervix is important for maintaining support of the pelvic floor (delaying or preventing prolapse) and may also play a role in sexual satisfaction.

I'm emotional and obsessive thoughts have taken over my brain. I can feel them, but I can't control them.

And I'm terrified. My doctor offered to send me to an Oncologist for a second opinion. An oncologist. Everytime I think about that I want to cry. I just want to wrap myself in a blanket and hide.

I go back to my docs on July 2 to ask my ton of questions. Surgery is scheduled for July 23.

To surgery or not to surgery

This is a very much non-crochet post.

I am going to post about my recent health difficulties regarding my menstrual cycle, so if this type of information bothers you, or it's not what you want to read right now, you may want to move along to another blog. Please come back later, I don't plan to focus on this exclusively. And while being sick this past week, have made lots of dishcloths and will have pictures up shortly.

Now, back to the health issues.

I've been dealing with irregular menstrual periods for several years now. It started maybe 5 or 10 years ago? I really don't remember how long ago, it's been a while. At first I'd just miss a period ...and I'd get all excited thinking that God had blessed me with another baby (even though my husband has had a vasectomy. Sometimes those don't work...I personally know a couple who have had a post vasectomy baby).

After wasting money on pregnancy tests a few times, I finally went to the GYN and she told me it was probably due to my being overweight, that fat tissue stores estrogen and since I have an abundance of fat tissue, I have more than enough estrogen for me. Joy.

At that time, I don't remember that we started any treatment, my periods were just irregular, and not unusual for me (my normal cycles are fairly heavy, lasting about a week).

A few years later, I am continuing the missing periods pattern, up to missing 3 or 4 months in a row and then when I do have one, it's a monster. Not painful, just heavy flow and clots. Unfortunately, the doc I had been going too moved away, so I had to find a new one.

I did find one, and she was ok at first. Put me on provera 10mg/day/ for 1st 10 days of the month. This was to fool my body into making me have a regular monthly period. This worked, but like the idiot I sometimes am, I didn't continue to take the medicine. I'm just not a good patient sometimes.

Things rock on, I get to the point where I'm 6 months between periods, but now I'm spotting almost all the time and when I do bleed.. whoa Nelly. My doc decides I need an endometrial biopsy. I agree.. not knowing what I'm in for.

OMG talk about pain!! I was completely unprepared for how much that hurt. And of course it came back negative (which I could've told her in the first place.. but she was being a good doc. and doing what she's supposed to do.. making sure I don't have cancer).

I keep going to this doc for a couple or 3 more years, still having spotting between periods. She knows this (or is supposed to) and yet she prescribes antibiotics once for a bladder infection that I don't have. Turns out they think I have a UTI because of blood in my urine. I'm spotting DUH!! of course blood is going to show up in my urine!! That ticks me off a little, but I let it go.

Second thing that makes me unhappy with this doc is that a year later she wants to do another endometrial biopsy. I ask for pain meds before hand.. they don't have anything to offer. I have some vicodin in my purse from a dental procedure. I ask if I can take that. The nurse checks with the doc and comes back and says unless I have someone to drive me home, that no. I can't take it. I don't have anyone to drive me. Phooey. The nurse gives me my med back and I take it anyway. I KNOW how the vicodin affects me and it's not too strong for me to drive while taking it.

The difference is amazing. This time the biopsy doesn't hurt. I drive home just fine. And again the biopsy is negative.

What really tore it for me with this doctor is something she didn't do. Along with endometrial biopsies, she's been having me get pelvic & transvaginal ultrasounds. I get them done in the town I live in because the cost isn't too bad. My doc is in another town an hours drive away. Well, she asks me to get them done in her town.. her reasoning being is that she knows the technique they use and is more comfortable with their radiologists interpretations. I think, ok, that's reasonable and agree to get the U/S done there.

Until I go to schedule and find out what their fees are. OMG, no way. You see, our insurance on me has a very high deductible so I end up paying most things out of my own pocket. Fortunately, except for this ongoing menstrual problem, I'm generally very healthy.

I'm not going to pay this other clinic this huge fee for the U/S when I can get it done much cheaper in my town. So, I get it done where I want to do it and go back for the follow up appointment. Doc says NOTHING to me about my not following her directives. This makes me think she's lying and I decide not to go back to her.

Fast forward 2 years. I'm still having monster periods and the spotting in between is nearly continuous. I decide it's time to start getting things done and besides our community has a new female GYN. I won't have to drive an hour to see the doc. This is good. (we've had a male GYN for a while, but I don't like going to male GYN's.. I generally find them to be MCP's and unempathetic. I said generally. I know there must be good ones out there, I just haven't run across them.)

So, went to see her June 5. Had regular checkup.. including pap. She also scheduled me for mammo and U/S. Mammo because it was time for another and U/S to check the bleeding problem. I know I have fibroids and maybe they had gotten really enlarged to cause the continuous problem. The doc and I discuss me trying the provera again.

Mammo & U/S were scheduled for June 20. In the meantime the docs office calls around the 10th or so and says they need to repeat the pap.. they couldn't get enough cells because of the bleeding. I'm no longer spotting now.. I'm having a real period.. inspite of taking the provera. I tell the docs office this and they schedule me to come in on the 21st.. thinking that my test results will be in and I'll probably be through bleeding. I could tell them that I won't be finished.. I hardly ever finish.. just slow down, but it will still be a good time to talk to the doc about the test results.

Come June 12th.. I start bleeding super heavily. I'm soaking a super plus tampon every few hours, and wearing a pad. I get up one morning and the tampon I put in the night before falls out of me into the toilet along with huge clots. Grosssssssssss. I've never had that happen before. Thank goodness for those toilet wand things where you change the scrubber out between uses. That worked to grab the tampon out so it didn't go into the septic system. Sheesh.. hubby would've been furious about that.

I'm thinking that this will only be a day or so of super heavy bleeding.. I've done that before. And besides, I have to take my son to orientation at his college in a couple of days.

Orientation doesn't go the smoothest, but I get through it. I posted about it a few days ago. I think I got overtired at orientation because since I got back home, my cycle continued on, very heavy.. having to change every 2 hours (which really disrupts your sleep pattern, let me tell you) and now I'm also HURTING. My abdomen is cramping, and my back and my hips ache. What is this? I haven't had dysmenorrhea in ages. I mean, it's bad enough that ibuprofen isn't touching it, vicodin isn't helping. Skelaxin WITH motrin helps some.. what works best is vodka martinis. But I don't like to drink during the day.. and don't really think alcohol is the remedy.. but it gets me through till I can see the doc.

With all this bleeding and now pain, if someone would have offered me a hysterectomy at that point.. I'd have said.. when and where. I'll be there.

Finally by June 20, my bleeding is beginning to slow a little. I can occassionally go 3 hours between changing. I get mammo done.. there's a spot, but it clears on compression. Technologist wants me to come back in 6 months, but the radiologist says 1 year. Maybe I'll split the difference and do 9 months?

U/S also goes well. I do still have fibroids but they're very small. Unlikely to be the cause of the excessive bleeding. My endometrial lining is very thick though. Ovaries are small (normal for my age).

so, yesterday I go to the Doc, still bleeding. I tell the nurse and tell her I'd like to talk to the Doctor even if we can't redo the pap. The Doc comes in and says that the tests were good, nothing bad showed up and that in the light of my heavy bleeding she'd like to do an endometrial biopsy.

Lovely.

I ask if she can give me pain medication before hand. She says all they have is 800 mg of Motrin (Ibuprofen). I reluctantly agree (wishing I had brought my vicodin from home). Even with the motrin onboard, I'm scared. Upset, crying, nauseous and almost fainting at one point.

I get through it.. it's not too bad. Uncomfy, and the speculum kept coming out of me (never had that happen before) and then one time there was a quick sharp pain, as if someone had pinched me on my inner thigh.. but that was it. Not bad at all, thank goodness. One thing that helped is that I was already dilated a little from bleeding. Before, with the second Doc, she always had to dilate my cervix a little to get inside to take the biopsy. I think she also took a biopsy from the vaginal wall. I do know I'm not allowed to wear tampons for a week. ewwww.. I hate using pads.

Good and bad points about the biopsy:

Good in that IT IS OVER WITH until next time.

Bad in that I have to wait another week to get the results.

Good in that she's willing to do a hysterectomy on me

Bad in that my anatomy is such that a vaginal approach won't work.. she'll have to go through the abdominal wall.

They don't do endometrial ablation in that office (a burning away of the endometrium.. sometimes cures heavy bleeding.. sometimes doesn't), so my choices to cure the bleeding are either birth control pills or a hysterectomy.

I'm still thinking, and will have to see what the biopsy shows.. but.. if there's no cancer.. I'm considering giving the BC a try... at least until the first of the year.

Then if BC isn't working, in Jan or Feb have the surgery.. so my deductible would be met for the year.. and I'd have a whole year to get other work I need done accomplished.

I think I'm going to ask my hubby if he can come with me to the Doc next week.

New WM Uni's

Does anyone else think that the "new" walmart uniforms (navy polo's and khaki pants) look like the "standardized dress" that many schools now require?

I don't know whether to hate the new wm look (MUCH harder to find someone to help you) or to laugh at it and be thankful because it will give those of us who are fighting school uniforms just one more piece of ammunition.

Standardized Dress? You mean you want to program my child to work at WM?? Get REAL!!!!

It's scary though.. I found a website where WM serfs were posting about the new requirements.. and here's part of what one of them posted:

" I have been wearing this uniform for almost 3 years. ... You don't have to wonder what your going to wear, the expense is cheaper ... , and it doesn't make me feel inferior or superior to the management team. You can wear any kind of shirt that is within the colors as long as they don't have any writing or emblems that are not WalMart (they can be plain shirts).
...."

Sounds EXACTLY like some of the pro-uni arguments I've read. Someone (the walmart worker and the people in charge who instigated the new uni) bought the propaganda. :(

Orientation Blues

Well, the orientation visit to my sons university went well. For the most part.

He will be attending Northwestern State University of Louisiana in Natchitoches, LA (Natchitoches is pronounced Nack a dish or Nack a tish). NSU is a great small university (houses the Scholars College of Louisiana and has a very strong math & science department) and I love the town of Natchitoches too. The movie Steel Magnolias was filmed in this town.

We arrived Friday early enough to have a very nice dinner at The Landing and then made a trip out to the local WalMart to buy some things we had neglected to bring with us.

I had a hard time going to sleep Friday night.. finally dropped off about 1am and woke up at 4:24 AM.. and couldn't go back to sleep. Argh.

Got to the school in time to get a great parking place, got registered, turned in his Selective Service ( I kept wanting to call it Secret Service..lol) and vaccination info. Found that the Transcript that the HS gave us wasn't official (envelope wasn't sealed). I had questioned the person in the HS office about that, but they assured me it was fine. Sheesh.... That will teach me to deal with someone less than the secretary. But not a huge deal, they let him go on and register.

We then got to wander around and visit with other students and parents for 90 minutes until they were ready for us to go into an auditorium. There was a nice presentation, really cute routines and then they took the students off in groups to talk to them about the university.

Parents got to stay there and listen to other talk and we got to ask lots of questions.

Then they sent us all to lunch at the main dining hall. The leader of the orientation said it was only about a 1/2 mile away, but did advise us to drive because of the rain forcast.

Guess what? I didn't want to lose my great parking space so I walked. BAD decision. I didn't even get my unbrella out of the van. another BAD decision.

I saw my son at lunch.. he was doing the "if I ignore her, maybe she won't see me and come talk to me routine". Too funny. I sat a few tables away and alone.. and his new friends guilted him into coming to talk to me.

After lunch, I started walking back to the auditorium (by the way.. NEVER believe a skinny person when they say a walk is only 1/2 mile.. that was at least a mile walk if not further) and the bottom fell out of the sky. I walked halfway back and all kinds of cars passed me by.... I didn't expect any help as I didn't know anyone there, but it was discouraging. I got about 1/2 way back and was as wet as if I had stepped out of the shower when a car with NSU emblem on it stopped and gave me a ride. It was almost useless at that point, but I took it anyway.

I spent the rest of the afternoon freezing in the auditorium. I did try to go to the ladies room and dry off with some paper towels, but they were out of towels. No one had thought to make coffee for us freezing people either.

One lady came in the restroom and stripped down to her underwear and wrung her stuff out before she put it back on. I didn't bother.. no use.

They never told us where to find out kids again. I was so frustrated with the university by this point that I would've left if I had been able to find my son. I looked at the schedule for the kids and went to the building they were supposed to end up at. I was so tired.. and there was NO ELEVATOR from the ground floor to the 1st floor. arrrrggghhh.. I thought the Disabilities Act made elevators required?? so I climbed stairs, exhausted. Still couldn't find kid. Sat and waited and called hubby and griped and waited and son FINALLY showed up.. he dumped all his papers on me.. and he went to get his ID made.

We were finally finished at 4:30pm. Starving. Decided I was too wiped out to drive 2 hours back to camp (where son is working) then another hour home. Besides, road to camp is red clay road and with the downpour of rain.. that road scares me. Tried to get room at HI.. all they had was smoking.. so went back to Hampton. Sweet talked girl at Front desk into AARP rate even though I couldn't find my card. Went to dinner.. slept.

When I drove son back to camp yesterday, I was right about the red clay road. It was almost washed out at one point.. to where there were two water filled holes at the bottom of a hill.. and the holes were catty-corned to each other and couldn't avoid either of them (right hand side of the road had a sheer drop off and the left side, trees were down). I could fell my van sliding as I went through them at 5mph.

On top of all this, I have had bad menstrual bleeding since Tuesday.. and it's not getting better.. (yes I am seeing a doc about this). Just difficult dealing with HAVING to visit a bathroom at least every 2 hours if not more often. And pain.

I am tired and I think I am going to go order myself some cotton from elmore-pisgah as a reward for all this.

Son is signed up for 18 hours (including 5 hours of band) and wants to join a band fraternity. We still have lots of things to do, like setting him up a local bank account in that town, buying his meal plan, reserving books, finding SOMEWHERE to get a menningitis vac.(I've been battling with our doc's office for at least a month over getting one... this is a whole another blog post..later).. but at least he's now an official student.

I don't know whether to be happy for him or sad for me. A little of both I suppose.

A bedroom WIP

( WIP stands for Work In Progress for those who aren't familiar with the crochet lingo.)





Old border coming down













Some of the Junk from the bedroom,
currently in my living room.


I had to be out of town for two days, so this is where we sit right now. Painter is due back today (Monday) to work some more.

I'll be very glad when this project is done and I can have my LR back.

FOUND!!

This month I've been trying to clean out ds's bedroom, it was a horrific mess (stepped in a rotten apple core recently when trying to find something in there...AND found an open (and full) coke can next to the laptop we bought him for college.. laptop was taken up and I resolved to clean this room, no matter how bitter the complaints).

We've gotten the floor clean, the dresser repaired (there was a broken drawer guide) and now have started to pull stuff down off the closet shelf.

This was in a giant garbage bag on the top shelf. It's a giant bear nap mat. It's made in two pieces with thick quilt batting inbetween.






I made this for my daughter when she must've been about 2 (She's 20 now). I remember making the bear playfully "growl" at her while I was working on it..then after I embroidered the smile on it, she told me "Good, now it can't growl at me anymore". Bless her heart.. I had no idea I was scaring her.

It's in pretty rough shape, having been through two kids and washed in the machine.

I still have the pattern book somewhere.. I remember there was also a bunny rabbit.

And here's the wallpaper that my son wants to be rid of:






I think at 18, he's outgrown it a bit.

We're going for black baseboards and black trim around the doors. The door to the hall, the door to the bathroom and the closet doors will be red. We're going to try to paint over the wallpaper with Dover White (an eggshell color) but if it won't cover, we will paint that one wall red.

There's also astronaut bears border wallpaper around the top of the room. If the dover white won't cover that either, we'll have a red and black stripe around the top.

That's the plan so far anyways...we'll see what happens next.