The Po Show

Finally, The Answer:
It's Not Cancer!

I can't believe how long and drawn-out this process has been. As I said before, I have been waiting for over two weeks for my biopsy results. I kept thinking that that must mean it was negative, because if it had been positive wouldn't someone have gotten ahold of me? Unless (and I'm very good at finding low probability possibilities), the test results had come up scarily positive, and they wanted to test them again. Or they had to culture something, and that took longer, or the results had been inconclusive the first time.

Anyway, I went in last Monday to have a follow-up transvaginal ultrasound, which was so bizarre that I didn't even post about it at the time (since I was still waiting on the biopsy results, and figured I'd update the whole shebang together). The tech who did the U/S was obviously VERY new to the equipment, so it took forever and the tech observing her kept having to explain things, and step in and help (it's not good when someone has a big wand up your vagina, and says, "I don't understand what you want me to DO.")

Anyway, after a really really long time, they were done and I could sit up. I asked, "Could you give me the measurements on the polyp?" and the experienced tech said, "It's not there anymore."

Yes, that's right. It had performed some kind of vanishing act. She said that it was probably from getting bumped around during the biopsy, and then it must have passed out during my period. Very surreal, but okay. That's good, I guess. Actually I didn't know if it was good or indifferent, because I didn't know the biopsy results yet.

So this morning I got an email back from the doctor's office, saying that my ultrasound was normal. Ooookay, again, that's great, but what about the BIOPSY? I called again, left another message stating very explicitly that I had received the results of the ultrasound, but would really like to have the final word on the biopsy. A nurse just called a few minutes ago, so the all-clear klaxon can finally sound.

Whew. It's almost anti-climactic at this point. But now I do feel fully free to book our flight to CA over spring break in April. I had said it tongue-in-cheek, that we would go if I wasn't in chemotherapy, but I really had wanted to know for sure before I bought tickets. And thus the curtain draws on this thoroughly strange experience. Knock on wood that the next medical scare ends as nicely.

Basketball and Vomit

I did not sleep much last night.

The UCLA-Cal game didn't start till after 10:30, so I knew we were going to be up late anyway. Actually, let me backtrack, all the way to yesterday morning and the events that would foreshadow the night to come.

Just before it was time to get dressed for school, Tessa went to take her temperature, which was normal. She said she didn't feel well. I said that she had felt fine just a few minutes ago, that she was fine last night, and that she had no fever. I gave my usual line, which is "If you really feel sick later, ask to go to the nurse and I will come pick you up." She went to school and I was able to run my 5000 errands (already this week I had had Matthew home sick and a snow day).

For dinner she had a hot dog and Goldfish. Later in the evening, she started to complain that her jaw hurt. I expressed my sympathy, as I rushed to prepare 67 ebay auctions. Around bedtime, she started to complain that her stomach hurt, so I gave her some Pepto-Bismol. She claimed that her stomach and jaw always hurt when she ate a hot dog, which was certainly news to me. She went to bed without event.

At 11:15, Tessa came out of her room, squinting against the light. She took a tissue from the desk and blew her nose, and said that her stomach still hurt. I went over to her and she was all sweaty and clammy. Ugh, I thought, this is not good. She still did not have a fever. She went back to bed. Since you've read the title of this post, you can guess what happened next.

Around 11:30, Ross and I retired to the bedroom to watch the rest of the game. About midnight, Tessa came into the room, covered in vomit. Her bed was an absolute disaster (considering what she ate, plus Pepto-Bismol). Ross stripped her bed and carried it all down to the basement to wash. I got her in clean jammies and put on fresh bedding. She went back to sleep.

We watched the rest of the game, went to sleep, and were awakened by Tessa coming into the room. She climbed onto the bed and promptly threw up again, less massively than on her bed, but still an impressive amount. Ross stripped our bed, went to take the bedding down to the basement (and put her stuff in the dryer), but realized he could not find the basement key (you'll recall that to get into our basement, you have to go OUTSIDE, walk across the patio, and go in through an external door). He was sure he'd put it back on its hook, but it wasn't there, and tearing the cabinet apart did nothing to turn it up. He got the spare key and finished up the laundry. I got Tessa in more clean jammies and put her on the couch while I put fresh bedding on our bed. She fell asleep on the couch. Finally, at like 4:00, we put her back in her bed and went back to bed ourselves. Ross had to get up in less than an hour for work.

I said that I felt really badly, that I'd made her go to school when she was obviously sick. It's so hard to know, but I really should not be dismissive of her, because she is not the kind to fake being sick in order not to have to go to school. This has just been such a terrible month, with so much sickness. I'd like to hibernate till cold and flu season is over.

Oh, but UCLA won their game handily, so there's that to sustain me.

Informationally Challenged

So what am I supposed to think when Ross suddenly calls at 4:30 yesterday afternoon, and I hear the sounds of PA announcements in the background, so I know he's on a train? I ask how he is and in a tight voice he says, "Not great. I'll explain when I get there." I ask if he's okay, and he says, "Yeah," and then we hang up. And I'm left with 35 minutes of wondering what's going on.

My first thought is that someone has died. He got a call at work, and now he's coming home and making arrangements. His dad? His grandmother? His other grandmother?

The next thought is that he fell and really hurt his knee. Is it the same knee? The other knee? Does he need to go to the ER? Will he need a more major surgery now?

Is it job-related? Did something blow up at work and he just walked out? Is the firm in huge trouble? Did he get pissed and quit?

So I scurried around trying to keep occupied till it was time to go pick him up. Then I drove to the train station and there he was, walking fine, so it wasn't his knees. That left someone dead or the firm in financial chaos.

He got into the car and I said, "So, what's up?" and then I noticed that the side of his face was all puffy. He explained that he'd been to the dentist for a cleaning and check up last week, and they took some x-rays and didn't like the look of one of his teeth, so he'd gone back for a follow up. The whole tooth was shot, with internal infection, so they pulled it and rebuilt it. Before the rebuild, though, they'd had to do a full bone graft. The whole bill was $4900 (!), but it looks like we're only going to have to pay $1000 (!). He had them call his prescriptions for antibiotics and mouth rinse into the Rite Aid in Grand Central, then once he got them he realized that it was 4:20 and there was a train leaving in 10 minutes for home, so he decided to just leave rather than going back to the office.

I'm glad he's okay and the tooth got taken care of, but WTF??? Why did he neglect to tell me that any of this was going on? I didn't even know he'd gone to the dentist last week. I certainly didn't know that there seemed to be a problem, and that he was going back yesterday. Is this classified information? Why didn't he consider this worth telling me?

He said he was sorry, he just didn't think of telling me. And he said that this way, I didn't have to worry about him, and I was left free to continue to worry about why the hell my doctor STILL has not gotten back to me about my biopsy results. I finally emailed last Friday, and got no response, so I called (yes, CALLED!) and left a message yesterday morning, and still have not gotten a response. It's been over two weeks now. It was supposed to take about a week. For the first week or so, I was trying to remain optimistic, since my doctor had said that if it was negative, she'd just send me a letter in the mail. So since I kept not getting a call, I kept thinking that meant the news was good and I was getting a letter. But no letter has come, and no calls, and frankly this surfeit of information is starting to get to me.

Facebook Just Got Very Surreal

I just got a friend request from the guy I lost my virginity to.

I haven't had any contact with him since 1983.

Whoa.

Labels

Yesterday I went to a quickie CSE (Committee on Special Education) meeting. It was basically administrative, to change Matthew's IEP qualification.

Back in the spring, during the CSE Annual Review, the chairperson said that they wanted to change his IEP qualification from Autism (which was done back when we first came to the district in order for him to get services. We didn't care what they called him, as long as he got services, so his official designation as far as the district is concerned has been Autism) to Asperger's, since they felt that better reflected his level of functioning. We were so happy that they had agreed to his out-of-district transfer that we didn't care what the IEP said.

However, to go to his school, he has to have a designation of Emotional Disturbance on his IEP. Last summer, during the craziness of trying to find him a placement, and after we'd decided to send him to Clear View, I was told by the admissions director that that was a state requirement for them. She said that he had to have an Axis I diagnosis that supported that designation. So I had to get ahold of his psychiatrist, from CA, and fax her a release, and get her to fax the school a letter giving him an Axis I diagnosis of Impulse Control Disorder NOS (which certainly applies to him). The school was satisfied and I promptly forgot about it.

A couple of weeks ago, I got a call from the new chair of the out-of-district CSE, saying that Clear View wanted his IEP officially changed. I had sort of assumed it already had been, so I was surprised. But again, it seemed like a formality so I agreed to the scheduled meeting.

The meeting was short, and I ended up being the one arguing for the change in designation (but not really arguing, since the district chair didn't seem opposed to the change). I said that while Matthew could have a lot of designations, and Asperger's was his official diagnosis, Emotional Disturbance certainly was not an inappropriate designation as well, based on his Axis V score of 45, indicating a severe impairment in school functioning. The school psychologist at his old school (she is still his service coordinator since the public school is still his district home school) was in attendance and she backed me up by stating the difficulties with impulse control Matthew had demonstrated last year. Anyway, it was all approved and over with quickly.

Now I'm feeling kind of sad. Through all these years, from when he was five and we were working on getting him diagnosed for the first time, I've always said that I didn't care about him being labeled. I've said that they could call him a blueberry for all I cared, as long as someone helped him. Strangely, though, having his IEP qualification now listed as Emotional Disturbance somehow, well, disturbs me a little. It sounds so dire, like a big iron gate being slammed shut. Will this be a problem later in his life, trying to convince someone to give him a job, or accept him into a program, because he was once officially Emotionally Disturbed? Is it a label that will really matter? They're just words, and should not define him, but will they?

A New Tale

As all the headlines have trumpeted, it's a new beginning.

For Matthew, this fall has been his own new beginning, with a new school, a new therapist, a new chance. Today was his parent conference (which included his teacher, Mr. Fox (very sharp dresser, very white teeth, nice hair), the supervisor of the classroom unit, Mrs. McGrath (classrooms are divided into units, 4-5 classrooms each, with a supervisor), and Matthew's therapist, Pat (all teachers and staff are called Mr. and Mrs., but the therapists all go by their first names), whom I see once a week for our private session.

I can't quite think of what to say. He's doing so well. He's made so much progress in all areas, and they all just think he's wonderful. He's participating, he's contributing in class discussion, he's doing his work in class (with a lot of prompts still, but he responds right away when he's redirected, rather than getting upset about being told to refocus). He's doing fine in all subjects.

They are scribing for him when it comes to paragraph writing, and he has an Alphasmart to use for shorter writing, but they are trying to get him to try and manually write out single sentence answers. We talked for a long time about his processing disorder and I think I got them to understand what's at the root of the issue (as I see it). Mrs. McGrath said that she had another student with a very similar set of processing issues. We talked about figuring out how much to back off and how much to push, and that it might really be unproductive to push all the usual methods of sounding out letters and developing phonemic awareness. It might really be better to figure out methods for circumventing his disability, like giving him more word lists to copy from. This is so much better than last year's special ed. consultant teacher, who kept telling me that she didn't want to stop pushing him to write because she didn't "want him to get to be an adult and not be able to write a grocery list." OMG, like that's what's really important. So they are so on the same page with me on this.

Socially, he's still holding back a lot, but at least he's getting along okay with all the kids in class (with the exception of one kid, but apparently that is true for all the other kids in the class as well). During the daily free time period, he used to grab a book and sit by himself everyday, refusing to talk to anyone or play games (he was choosing to read textbooks, which his teacher found very amusing). Now he sits on the couch and watches the other kids play games. I asked if he's really watching, or if he was in his own head, and Mr. Fox said that he was clearly watching and following what they were doing. So maybe he's preparing, figuring out which kids he may want to play with or which games he may want to try playing with them. He's also probably still getting comfortable in the class, period.

One area that's gotten a lot better has been specials, which started out very difficult at the beginning of the year. He was refusing to participate, would go into art and put his hands over his ears and make high-pitched sounds to drown out anyone talking to him. Now he's participating in everything, art and music and gym, with no hesitation at all. He's actually eager to go to gym, which is just worlds away from the last two years. I said that I think that the problems he had at the beginning of the year were probably residual trauma from all the horrors he had in specials last year, and it looks like he's adjusting and accepting that things are different here. Just wonderful.

I asked if they thought there was a difference since he went back on meds, and it isn't clear if there is or isn't (he started back on Abilify during the second week of Dec.). But he's had a lot fewer outbursts than in Nov., and they said it's been quite awhile since he ended up "in the hallway" (which is what happens when a child really loses it and needs extra help, so then the supervisor can assist). It's so hard to know, and his dosage is so slight, and there are so many confounds, like the fact that there was the long break. But I think we're sticking with the current dosage, since there doesn't seem to be any reason to change.

One of my favorite moments of the conference was when Mr. Fox said that during the inauguration (they brought all the kids in the whole school into the auditorium to watch on a big screen TV), one boy had complained that it was getting boring, and Matthew immediately chastised him by saying, "Don't you realize what an historical event this is? This is wonderful!" OMG, that's my boy :). It seems that I've not only turned him into a science fiction geek, I've turned him into an historian :).

So there it is. Matthew's best conference, well, ever. I can't express how happy I was when I left.

Of course, I got knocked down a peg when he came home in a total rage because there had been an accident on the road and the bus was really delayed (they came home about 45 minutes later than usual, which freaked me out a little, so he was on the bus for an hour and a half). He calmed down eventually, but it did remind me that while things are much better, and I'm inexpressibly grateful for that, he's still Matthew, and the work continues. But this was not a Tale of Two Conferences, as it has been every year since Tessa was in nursery school. It's a new chapter for Matthew.

Hope

The day did not begin well. When I went to wake Tessa up, she moaned and said immediately, "I don't feel good." No no no no no no! Not again! I had Matthew's long-awaited parent conference today, and I needed her to *go to school*.

In the hope that she was just tired after the long weekend, I let her stay in bed a few minutes longer. Then I carried her out to the couch and got her some dried blueberries (instant sugar! perk you up!). Then she agreed to try and eat a couple of waffles, which she did, lying on the couch, silently, looking very hangdog. After she ate, she looked very pale ("How can you tell?," my niece once asked me when I said Tessa looked pale, considering how fair she is normally) and said her stomach hurt. I gave her Pepto-Bismol. She was very congested. I gave her Mucinex and Sudaphed. I got her dressed. I helped her to the bathroom. I got her toothbrush ready.

After she finished going to the bathroom, she looked at me, tears in her eyes. She looked awful. "All right!," I snapped. "Go lay on the couch!"

"I have to wash my hands," she said weakly.

"Go ahead!," I yelled. And then I started to cry. I mean, she was FINE all freaking weekend. She was fine all last week, if residually snotty. So today she feels sick, once again messing up my plans? It's just been one thing after another, since our trip. I called to reschedule the conference.

Matthew went to school (a little freaked out because I'd cried. He tried to rub my shoulders, poor boy :( ). I left Tessa on the couch and told her I was going back to bed. I got up at 10:30, took a shower, put a load of laundry in the washer, made myself coffee, then got ready for the inauguration.

And then, you know? I was really glad she was here with me. She didn't want to watch the inauguration *at all*. She wanted to finish watching The Kids Next Door movie on Cartoon Network, but I told her she didn't have a choice. This was historic, and someday she'd tell her children that when Barack Obama was sworn in as President, she was home sick with her mom, and we'd watched it together.

"Is it almost over?," she kept asking, during the hour and a half I made her sit with me and watch, as I sobbed and sobbed and felt my heart swell to bursting. I can see her point; most of the proceedings showed a bunch of people walking through hallways and outside to a balcony. But for me the whole thing was magical. (An aside: Can we just BOTTLE Yo-yo Ma? The sheer joy and humanity that man exudes. If we could sprinkle his essence over the earth, there'd be no war.)

When President Obama spoke of the bravery of Americans, the usual brave selfless souls, the firefighters who tumble into the smoke-filled corridors, but also the parents who nurture their children, I grabbed Tessa and thought YES, that's right. It takes bravery and selflessness to be a parent. Hearing that made me want to pledge to be a better person, to roll with the punches more gracefully, to not see the sick child as a thwarting of my plans.

He spoke of trust, and the strength we all share, and finding meaning in something greater than ourselves. I was filled with hope, for all of us, and for myself, that I could.

Buggy

How sad to find that I was not immune to the virus or whatever it was that Ross had last week. Is it flu? Does it matter? All I know is that I feel like crap nobody bothered to warm over.

Flu-like ick (since I'm not really sure it's really flu) is so much less straight-forward than a good old fashioned cold. Sneezing, coughing, stuff like that sucks, but is somehow more tangible than the vagueness of flu-like-edness. And vague really is the best way to describe it. I feel...not all here. At times, not very here at all. It's like someone removed my head and placed it elsewhere, and my body is still trying to figure out how to deal with the situation. Stoney, but without the fun. Plus lots of aches and pains and sweating and freezing and insomnia. Party on.

Plus I had to read a Jonathan Lethem book today, Amnesia Moon, which was good, but definitely not something to combat hallucinogenic states of mind.

Now I'm afraid to go to bed, since I hate just tossing and turning, plus Ross is still congested from his own sickness and has been snoring like a snorting bear for the last 3 nights, and it's too damn cold for me to come out and sleep on the couch. So here I sit with my tea and my spinning head and the vague feeling I wanted to say something.

Alone Again, Naturally

I'm all alone in the house, for the second time in 23 days. Other than Jan. 5, the first school and work day we were back from CA, I haven't been alone here since before we left for our trip.

Ross' knee feels great and he got the stitches out yesterday. As he said, the whole knee surgery was nothing compared to the flu he contracted right afterwards. He was sick as a dog most of last weekend and the beginning of this week. The irony is that this was the first year in a long time in which he'd gotten a flu shot. The last time he had the flu? You guessed it: the last time he had a flu shot. Sensing a pattern here... He did go back to work last Friday, but Tessa was home for Superintendent's Conference Day.

I was sure that I was going to be still not-alone today, since last night the forecast showed snow coming in after midnight and intensifying around 7:00 AM. The timing seemed to indicate that there was going to be snow on the roads during prime school bus hours, after it had fallen but before the plows could do their work. Matthew's school is particularly prone to canceling or delaying the day's start when that happens, since they have kids coming from all over the county.

So I got out of bed at 6:15 this morning to drive Ross to the train station (snow falling steadily and 10 degrees...THIS is the morning he decides to go back to work??) and checked the school closures page on the WCBS website. There were a number of schools showing 2 hour delays, and a couple of closures, but our school district was not listed, nor was Matthew's school. I kept checking, thinking maybe it was too early for them to have called it, but no. So off to school they went, after I had brushed the snow off the car to drive Tessa. Have I said lately how much I loooooooooooooove my car, my AWD Suburu that just backs right out over the ice and snow like it's nothing?

Once Matthew's bus had carried him away, I went back to bed. And I stayed there till 11:30, absolutely unable to get up. Now I've had coffee and am planning on cleaning the bathroom and running errands. Not exciting, but so much easier when there's no one here to complain about cleaner fumes or having to get out of the car at the grocery store. No one asking me to get them stuff. No one asking me to get off the computer.

Sometimes alone is pretty nice!

Testy

I finally had my biopsy today. I've been waiting for over a month, and was not happy about that waiting time. And now I'm really not happy that I have to wait for the results, for about a week.

All in all it went okay, which was a relief, since I have that uncooperative cervix, the one that made all of my interuterine inseminations sheer hell. My GYN shot it up with lidocaine first, which probably helped, and the cervical structure itself probably changed from having two enormous heads squeezed through it. (Matthew may have been a c-section baby, but that was after the four hours his head was lodged at +5 station. Ross could actually see his hair!) Those kids were actually good for something :D! Anyway, it still hurt some, and I've been very crampy since then, but not bad overall.

So now we wait for the test results. I have another ultrasound scheduled for the 26th, to check to see if the polyp has grown. I'm trying not to think about it too much, *despite* the commercial on the radio I heard just this morning for an informational meeting on gynecological cancers :p. Too many of these kinds of coincidental references have been popping up for me, though I do recognize that it's like when you break up with your boyfriend and ALL the songs on the radio seem to be all about breaking up with your boyfriend. What, you mean the universe *isn't* out to get me? How absurd!

Company

It's been strange this week, getting back into the swing of things, since I've only been by myself one day (Monday). On Tuesday, Tessa was home sick and Ross had his surgery. I had to leave her at home and quickly drop him off, and then later quickly pick him up, rather than waiting at the surgery center as I'd planned.

On Wednesday, we had freezing rain in the morning, so Matthew's school was cancelled and Tessa was on a two hour delay. Ross was at home, trying to work on his laptop with his leg propped up on a Pilates ball and frozen peas on his knee.

On Thursday, Tessa was home sick again (continuing her two week pattern of getting better, overdoing it, then feeling sick again). Ross was at home, again trying to work, giving himself a blinding headache because he couldn't find the info he needed on the 'net. He still managed to write two papers (one of which will result in about $50K for the firm) and about four proposals. So he was deep into Work Like a Dog, the home game.

Today, Tessa has the day off (someone please explain to me why they scheduled a Superintendent's Conference Day, which means no school for the kids, during the very first week back from break).

So it's been a week of kids' shows and the sounds of video games being played, and a bunch of people incessantly asking me to get them stuff. In other words, it was like a holiday or weekend, only not. I've been happy to have the company, but it was kind of odd.

Back in the Saddle

I'm back, at least physically. Mentally, I'm in that odd limbo state that I inhabit while I'm transitioning from CA to NY or NY to CA. I'm a little sad, a little relieved, a little unsettled, and a lot tired.

We got back at 7:00AM on Sat., after a red eye that took a lot out of me. The kids both slept, extremely fitfully, on each side of me, leaning and pushing and squeezing me into painful and unnatural contortions. We had to drive our friend home (he was kind enough to pick us up in our own car) and then drive home ourselves. The kids were perky-ish, having slept; Ross and were not, having not. The kids didn't want to eat anything, so Ross pulled me into the bedroom, not for nooky, but for a nap. After an hour, Tessa came into the room, cleared her throat, and announced that now she wanted breakfast. The rest of the day was a haze.

All in all, it was a great trip. Tessa was sick on and off the entire time, starting with a 102 fever on Christmas Day. She kept rallying, because when it comes to parties, she's a professional, but then she'd feel poorly again. Deb, it's actually really good that she didn't come over to your place for the sleep over, since she woke up the next morning with a fever again. I hope she didn't infect anyone!

Matthew was intermittently anxious and angst-y, and he was a little surly with people who tried to talk to him at parties, but he loved being there. He was so sad when it was time to leave. He ate well, as usual, as Grandma reintroduced him to fried eggs. Then on our last morning there, he was running around and banged his toe on the corner of the couch, splitting open the cuticle and pushing the nail back. It was *nasty* and still really hurts. He had to wear flip flops home on the plane.

Ross and I had a wonderful time on our "date" to L.A., staying at the fabulous Sofitel Hotel (it actually wasn't as fabulous as I'd hoped, and I would have been pissed if we were paying the usual rate of $325 a night). We ate chili dogs at Pinks for the first time in 15 years. We walked around campus at UCLA on a perfectly gorgeous afternoon. We had a truly remarkable dinner at Lucques, which was in walking distance of the hotel, and saw two movies, which was as many movies as we'd seen in the last 3 years. It was so nice.

All the parties and all the visiting with beloved family and friends was lovely, though much too short, of course. I felt so warm and loved and happy. I wish there was a way of bottling that feeling, to be opened and relived when I'm here and alone and sad.

But there's no time to stay in limbo, as Ross has his knee surgery tomorrow, and I get to play nursemaid. Maybe I'll even get to play the kind of nursemaid that Glenn Close did in "The World According to Garp."