Haiku writing block
No good ideas tonight, thoughts stuck.
But check back later!
Secrets under bed
Mostly dust and mismatched socks
No stories today
Hello sunshine, bright
Blue skies, I feel happy, good
Energy today.
Lily barks in her sleep
High pitched woof, with movement in
Her feet. Oh so sweet.
Good night, good night, we
Turn out the lights. Sweet dreams, sleep
Tomorrow comes soon.
Thanks everyone for reading!
Organization
Not my best trait! How do I
manage my haiku?
This is serious
A haiku each day makes for
poorly indexed posts.
Recommendations
welcome, please, leave me a note
or send email, thanks!
Some haiku from very early this morning, conversing with the talented Scorchy Barrington of the fab Sarcastic Boob.
As you might guess, the subject was knitted dishcloths. Anything is suitable for haiku, you see.
A dishcloth a day
Keeps white coats away, although
No time for much else
I’m very worried
All this talk of nice clean things
Domesticity
Another useful tip – we often cast about for suitable haiku endings – here are 3 I can rely on if in trouble….
Refrigerator
Non sequitur
Domesticity
First there was a bout of insomnia and this:
Outside creepy fog
Oddly bright, envelops night
Is evil lurking?
Yeah, ok, a bit
Serious, past time to sleep
Refrigerator.
And then, I thought… whoa, I’m having trouble writing. So here’s a goal for the new year…. A haiku (or more) a day for the rest of the year.
and here we are:
I love haiku, an
Art form of minimal rule
And non sequitur
In 2 0 1 3
A haiku per day i will
Post here to amuse.
the indignities of breast exams.
Two weeks ago I had my yearly mammogram. Squish and zap. No deodorant. Stretch that boob onto the shelf. Squeeze the armpit in there. Yeow! Three images of each boob. The radiologist was happy with them, I figured nothing warranted a second look, so I left there, and then, figured I would breeze through my gyn/post surgery appointment. No problem. It’s nearly two years since my diagnosis.
But, it’s not seamless. Turns out there were two wonky spots on the mammogram. It gets weirder. The spots each appear on one view only, and my doctor, an imaging expert can’t find a thing on the ultrasound. Ugh. I’m sort of scared, sort of hopeful. My doctor is hopeful but can’t dismiss it. Once you’ve had breast cancer, it has to be monitored carefully. I’ll write a more serious post about the feelings I experienced, but the whole medical testing process as it relates to breasts is surreal. Is it like this for testicles? I have no idea.
Next step in the process – a breast MRI. Do I know how to have fun or what?
A long time ago, when I was a chemistry student, I probably could have told you what an MRI does. All I remember now is that it creates a magnetic field and causes the hydrogen nuclei to align, and with repeated images and computer processing – voila – you have almost 3D images of structures. It’s a good thing that we have so much water inside, and that different tissues have different amounts of water. That’s what makes the MRI so useful. All those different water concentrations help to create representations of our internal structure.
But because it’s a giant magnet, you first have to remove all metal from your person, and make sure the staff know if you’ve got metal/electrical bits inside you such as hearing aids, pacemakers, artificial joints, shrapnel. And tattoos. Do tattoos have metal in them?
So anyway, there I was, undressed for success and in a lovely hospital gown. I have a blood test to make sure I can pee out the contrast medium. This too shall pass. A needle is placed into my arm so they can insert the contrast medium. Contrast medium is absorbed at different rates by different tissues. I can only guess that cancer cells light up the image, so it helps identify the buggers.
Have you ever seen movies where criminals receive lethal injections? Contraptions consisting of multiple bottles mixed into a single IV? When I saw the contrast medium/saline dispenser, that’s the first thing I thought about. But wait! I’m not a hardened criminal!!!! Not yet anyway!
Hooked up to the dispenser, I go into the MRI. Since this was an MRI of my boobs, I was positioned face down and my boobs fit into two matching square-ish receptacles that I can only describe as a bizarre duo of cake pans, lined with something similar to cupcake liners. Hands behind my back, they tell me to relax (As If!) and hand me a rubber ball to squeeze in case of emergency. Oh, and i have earplugs, too.
It’s a tight fit in the MRI, but not uncomfortable and I can relax a little. I’m glad I took that omeprazole, because the machine digs right into my diaphragm. Fortunately, I didn’t feel like eating, so there won’t be any barfing, because reflux would really suck in there. As it is, the whole thing provokes some anxiety.
Now the noise starts. All sorts of sounds. Pounding and banging, high pitched whirring, stopping and starting. The earplugs help. I’m thankful I’ve practiced meditation, it helps me relax and concentrate on the different layers of noise. I must have been in there for half an hour, I really haven’t a clue. It’s not comfortable, but neither am I fighting discomfort. And at the end, the noise stops and I hear water rushing, cooling the magnets.
I get up awkwardly. There’s no other way. I’m dizzy and have very little leverage. They remove the IV and I get dressed. I was supposed to find out my results then, but they were running behind. So I went home. A little numb, and very tired.
But that’s it. And everything turned out fine. My doctor called me the next day on her afternoon off to tell me the good news. Next post, i’ll talk about my feelings and the outcome.
Unless you live under a rock, or outside the US, you probably know that since it’s October, it’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The world resembles a sea of Pepto Bismol, with sparkly, shiny things, dancing pink bows, cheery sayings and smiling victors over breast cancer by virtue of early detection.
Don’t get me wrong – as a person who’s been diagnosed with and treated for breast cancer, I’m glad we’re aware of it. But awareness does not go far enough. There’s a lot more to the story. We don’t talk about the (pink) elephant in the room – metastatic disease. And until we can prevent and/or treat metastatic breast cancer, it will continue to kill. We have to talk about it; we have to face the reality of it; we have to insist that research be directed toward metastatic disease. And, we have to do what we can to support women (and men) with metastatic disease and stop treating these people as “treatment failures”, or pariahs.
I’m not just a person who’s been treated for breast cancer – my mother died of metastatic disease almost twenty two years ago, in January, 1991.
Twenty-two years ago, my mother was anticipating her 65th birthday, and we were holding our breath, hoping against hope that her metastatic breast cancer would just slow down. But it was like wild fire – down one side of her spine and up the other, lots of pain. Finally, she was having trouble walking, and a scan revealed brain mets. Some rads and physical therapy helped for a while, but those damn mets continued on their relentless course. My mother turned 65 on October 25, 1990. She wouldn’t live another three months. They sucked the movement out of her body, she became unable to walk. Her motor skills went, as did her speech. She had tumors pressing on her spine, and in her brain. I can’t imagine what it was like for her. It was horrible for us. It was cruel. Death came as a relief in some sense…but it’s never really a complete relief – you always wish there was something more you can do – something different, if only there had been more time.
I suppose that every death leaves many things unfinished. Metastatic breast cancer – like many other chronic, debilitating, terminal diseases – is such a thief. It robs people of themselves, families of loved ones, time, energy, resources. Because we don’t really understand the why, we cast about for justifications to explain what happened. We blame irrationally and without sufficient evidence. But there is no rest – and there won’t be till there is more information. More research. We must focus our efforts.
I’m going to snark about Pinktober regularly this month. But I wanted to write a little about the cost of metastatic disease from a personal perspective. And I know it’s not just breast cancer – there are lots of thieves – I guess life is a little like avoiding robbery from the universe.
A good way to start the month. Pass the Pepto, please!
Lily the Pup. A dog of unknown lineage. Ordinary. But special to us. She smiles a lot when she sees us. Here she appears to be laughing, but she’s yawning. This is what I get to see every day – her sweet face, funny purple tongue, I feel a lick or a nudge from her nose, and get an expectant look and a wagging tail. She’s independent, but still follows me all over the house. When my husband and I are in separate rooms, she positions herself somewhere in between. She loves her treats. She loves her toys. She loves us too, in her own doggy way.
She sheds. A lot. She’s scratched floors, ruined seat belts and head rests. But it doesn’t matter.
I miss her terribly when I’m away from her. It’s funny, isn’t it? A pet can make a huge difference – even an ordinary dog adopted from a shelter during a half off sale.
I’m a little late. That’s fairly ordinary for me. Marie at http://journeyingbeyondbreastcancer.com challenged us to post a picture of something ordinary each day, and reflect upon it. More at http://journeyingbeyondbreastcancer.com/2012/08/26/celebrating-the-ordinary-day-one/.
I just returned from vacation and missed the first three days. Our trip back home was not ordinary, it was beautiful, filled with amazing landscapes as we drove from the Pyrenees in Spain through France and home to Switzerland. But this morning, I took Lily for a walk. An ordinary walk. We live in a large apartment complex, set against a hill…a maze of concrete terraces. At the back of the complex, the top of the hill is another hill where some ordinary cows graze. I don’t have a photograph, so I’ll just write instead on the amazing and beautiful ordinary cows.
Gray-brown ordinary cows. They have floppy ears with a fringe of lighter, yellowish brown hair inside – it makes their ears stand out. And their ears flap back and forth, batting away flies. Sometimes their ears move together, but often not. It’s comical and sweet. And their faces are beautiful, with their large dark eyes, and dark noses. But here’s the surprise – there is a ring of white around their nose and mouth. It softens their faces, I think, and enhances their beauty – maybe providing contrast to their eyes and noses.
I love to watch these cows…they are beautiful. Mostly they are placid, chewing away, or staring off into space, often all pointing in the same direction. Someone told me that the proportion of cows laying down in a field is predictive of the probability of rain. I don’t know if that’s true – I’ve never put it to a test. This morning, the cows were quiet, but sometimes, they are testy…pushing each other. And one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen – cows running across the field in full gallop, their spindly legs hurling their rectangular bodies across the field. Efficiently, and faster than you might imagine. And every once in a while, one cow will point a snout to the sky and moo, a deep, soulful sound.
In Switzerland, where I live, cows often graze on rocky, hilly, steep fields. I admire their ability to balance and graze on steep slopes and at high altitudes. One of the things that I love about living here is the diversity …dense housing, small towns and cities surrounded by farms, forests, mountains.
Time Flies Like an Arrow 