Trifecta

Yesterday was my last day as an employee. (I took the day off.) On Thursday, my coworkers gave me a very nice send off, which was totally unexpected and very much appreciated.

"Farewell, Bossy Pants"

We sold our house. 

Empty House

We moved to Massachusetts, where we spent the night with Christina and her family.

So, That's Where The Furniture Went!

Three major events in one day. That's a lot.

 

GIST This!

As of yesterday morning, it had been one week since my endoscopic ultrasound and biopsies, but I still had not received my pathology results. The doctor told me it would take three weeks, but other people said that was ridiculous. They claimed biopsy results should take five to six days.

As the doctor was so dire about the need for this tumor to be removed, whether it was benign or malignant, I thought I would get ahead of the game and start lining up a first and second opinion now. I lined up an appointment at Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston fairly quickly. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City was not as easy. There, I was told that no appointment would be made until they had the pathology report. (Dana Farber has direct access to my local records and, therefore, had the report already -- even though I, the patient, was not given any access.)

Imagine my surprise when Sloan called yesterday to schedule an appointment for me. When I told the scheduler that I did not yet have the pathology report, she replied: "We do." My heart sank. Is this how I'm learning that my tumor is malignant -- through a third party? I didn't ask her to tell me the results. I was so upset, and I was nearly certain that she was not "authorized" to tell me.

About two hours later, the local doctor who conducted the ultrasound and performed the biopsies called me. To my surprise, he told me that the GIST is BENIGN, as is the enlarged lymph node! Praise be to God. Then, despite his dire warning a week earlier that this tumor absolutely has to be removed, he told me that, due to its size, it need only be watched -- just like my former coworker's lung nodules. I thanked him for getting my retirement off to a good start rather than the bad start I had feared. 

Despite the good news, I have been blocked from accessing MY own pathology report. Nevertheless, I'm keeping my appointment at Sloan, as these types of tumors can be complicated, and they have so many variants, and putting my Dana Farber appointment on hold. As for my life, it's 

The GIST Of The Matter

 In 2010, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, had a massive surgery, followed by lots of complications. I took a little pill for the next ten years, and all was well. Twelve years later, it looks like it may now be my stomach's turn.

Last Wednesday, I had a routine colonoscopy and endoscopy. I was a bit concerned about what the colonoscopy might find, for reasons I will not go into. Imagine my surprise when I woke up to learn that I don't need another colonoscopy until 2032, but a nodule had been found in the submucosa of my stomach. Submucosa is below the surface of the stomach lining, which is called the mucosa.

As I listened to my GI doctor's verbal report, in my post-anesthesia fog, I distinctly heard him say that I would need to undergo an endoscopic ultrasound of my stomach but that it could wait until I was settled in on the Cape. OK. I remembered a former coworker of mine had some nodules in one of her lungs many years ago, and all she had to do was have them looked at every six months for a year of so, and that was that. She's fine. So, I was wheeled down to the exit of the hospital where Jim was waiting for me, and off we went to Ponzio's for a very late breakfast. All was well. Until the next morning.

On my way to work last Thursday morning, my doctor's office called. I was told that my doctor said I needed to have the endoscopic ultrasound now. It was scheduled for this past Monday, the day of the Queen's funeral. I had to arrive at the hospital at 9:45. Now, this was excellent news, as it meant that I would be able to watch the Queen's funeral and the London procession before we had to be on our way, which I did. Thank you, nodule!

A different doctor performed the ultrasound, but, like before, he delivered his findings to me while I was in the recovery room in a post-anesthesia fog. He said the 6 mm nodule is a 14 mm stromal tumor. I remember asking him to repeat the name of the tumor. He said stromal again and spelled it. That's the only reason my brain was able to remember that term. He also found an enlarged lymph node. He needle biopsied both and told me the pathology report would take about three weeks. Nice. 

The doctor said that the tumor has to be surgically removed. I think he said soon. I told him I'm moving to Cape Cod on September 30th. He said, with a tone of knowing parental concern, "oh, you're not having this surgery done on Cape Cod." Hmmmm. Then he said something about five days, which I think was the time I'd spend in the hospital after the surgery, which seems impossible in this day and age, followed by something about my GI doctor's office calling me or my calling the office. He concluded: "It's a good thing we found this now, or this would have been a real mess." I was given an envelope with his report inside and wheeled down to the lobby where I met Jim. I was on clear liquids for the rest of the day, so no Ponzio's this time, but Jim had recorded more of the Queen while we were at the hospital, so I was able to see the Windsor procession and the committal service in St. George's Chapel. (He said that, when they lowered the Queen's coffin beneath the floor of the chapel, he couldn't help but think of the Wicked Witch of the West melting. Don't put those optics in my head with my dear Queen!)

Of course, as soon as I got home, I went straight to the Google and looked up stromal tumor, and there it was: GIST. Gastrointestinal stromal tumor. A rare cancer that starts in the digestive tract. Some GISTs do turn out to be benign, but they will become cancerous, which is why they must be surgically removed. Another site informed me that there are exactly SEVEN hospitals in the country where doctors have the most experience "with a rare sarcoma with a wide variability in characteristics and behavior" are located. One hospital is Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, where my breast cancer was treated. The other -- PRAISE THE LORD -- is Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts. Can I get a witness? Hallelujah! Yesterday, I began the process of scheduling a surgical consult at both places, and I made the decision to stop reading about something that is much, much more scary to me than breast cancer. I had heard of breast cancer. I understood breast cancer. My mom died from breast cancer. I had it. My sister had it. But GIST? Get away from me.

I'll end this with a rant. Covid freakin' Schmovid. If a hospital won't let a patient's loved one anywhere near the procedure area, why can't these doctors find a way to communicate with the patient's loved one about the procedure? How can they seriously expect someone who has just come out of anesthesia to fully absorb and understand what they are reporting? Much of what the doctor said to me was not in that report, so, had I not been somewhat lucid, God knows what I would have failed to retain. 

Actually, I'm not ending this with a rant. I'm ending this with gratitude that my little GIST was found before I began having symptoms, that Dana Farber is experienced with this type of cancer, and that, once again, I will have my darling Jim, a/k/a The Sainted One a/k/a TSO, to see me through what I'm sure will not be much more fun than my breast cancer journey.

Oh, wait. One more thing. At my most recent appointment with my oncologist at Fox Chase, she transferred me to the "Survivor Clinic" for my future follow up appointments. L. O. L.

The Queen Is Dead. Long Live The King.

 

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
April 21, 1926 to September 8, 2022

Ta Daaaaaaaa!

 The garage is finished!

Before

AFTER!

I'm still patting myself on the back!

Of course, the storage unit is our dirty little secret. 😁

Our house went on the market yesterday. We shall see.

Lakeside Backyard 

Our House During the Golden Hour

A Room With a View

And, Of Course, A Garage To Die For!!

It's been hot here most of the summer. I'm sick of temperatures in the 90s and the blasted humidity. I once read that the awful summer humidity in these United States played a role in the eventual defeat of the British during the American Revolution. How about that?

Move It!

Oh my! Our house officially goes on the market this Thursday. What a drama it's been getting it ready for the big day. We just had the exterior painted and the roof replaced. Interestingly, neither had anything to do with selling the house. We decided to have the house painted back in April, months before selling had even occurred to us. The painters couldn't get to us until August, however! We already replaced the roof a few years ago, but it was damaged in a hail storm this past spring and, thus, had to be replaced again. 

We also had the horrible mishmash of shrubs out front removed and replaced with mountain laurel. Again, another project that had nothing to do with preparing the house for sale but turned out to come in handy. I really wanted to have blue hydrangea out front, but we have lots of deer in the neighborhood, and blue hydrangea is a popular menu item with them. 

Ugly Old Bushes and Ugly Blue Shutters

Cute New Bushes and Lovely Red Shutters

Of course, Cape Cod -- to me anyway -- is the hydrangea capital of the world. I'm excited about being there even though it won't be during hydrangea season. Boo!

A Cape Cod House with Cape Cod Hydrangeas

This is the second big move of my life. The first big move was 9 years ago when we left Haddonfield for here. At the time, I had lived in that house for 23 years, which was filled with 23 years of happy memories but also harbored 23 years of accumulated junk. We had 2 yard sales there and 1 yard sale here to get rid of everything that people were willing to buy. As for the rest, bits and pieces either lined the park strip in front of our house for trash collection for an untold number of weeks or was carted -- an equally untold number of times -- to Goodwill for donation. The Haddonfield basement was unfinished, but I just couldn't get over how much useless stuff had been stored down there for so many years for no justifiable reason.

Haddonfield House

We bought a ranch home because, while living in our 2-story Haddonfield home, I had undergone a major surgery, which prevented me from being able to climb stairs and sleep in my own bed for a few months. Of our current, "forever" home, I declared that I would never leave unless it was in handcuffs or a pine box. I was here to stay -- well, for 9 years anyway.  

Did I learn my lesson about "stuff" when we moved here? Did I avoid accumulating years of unnecessary stuff? Of course not! We don't have a basement here or an attic that is storage friendly. However, we do have a two-car garage. Do we park in that garage? No. Have we ever parked in that garage? No. Why? Because we "store" things there. When we moved in, Jim built shelves along one of the walls for that purpose. 

Jim the Builder

Despite Jim's hard work, our items requiring "storage" quickly exceeded the shelf space until our garage looked like it belongs to hoarders.

Two-Car Garage Turned Hoarder's Hovel
(Note Path Leading to Entrance to Inside of House) 

To prepare for an interim move has been worse than packing up 23 years of life in Haddonfield. It seems to have made no difference that, when Jim and I left Haddonfield, Christina was all grown up and married, which granted us the luxury of giving her custody of everything of hers that I had saved over the years. Every time we went to visit her and Lou and the children, we took a box of stuff, which promptly went into her own basement, until we had no boxes marked "Christina" left. Yet, the absence of "Christina" boxes has not made this move any easier.

Rather than the standard 3 categories dubbed "Trash," "Goodwill," and "Keep," we have 2 additional categories: "Cape Cod" and "Storage." Because the Cape house is furnished, and our residence there will be temporary, we aren't taking everything we own with us. Therefore, we have rented a local storage unit. We make almost daily trips to the storage unit, as well as Goodwill. We've donated a lot of stuff to Goodwill and moved a lot more to the storage unit -- SO FAR -- but we still have a way to go. 

 

Does This Look Like the Garage?

As we drove from Goodwill to the storage unit, I lamented that we were repeating history and suggested that, once we're settled in our next "forever" home, we should spend a week every year, pretending that we're selling our house and moving to another location, and get rid of stuff. Before he could share his opinion on the subject, I followed up with "That'll never happen." 

Leaving This Behind

We live in a tiny little borough that is 1.2 square miles in size, yet has a country club with 18-hole golf course and 22 lakes tucked in between 1500 homes, 150 of which are genuine log cabins (chinking included). Indeed, our little borough claims the highest concentration of original log cabins in the world. 

Here, there are no streets or roads -- only trails, most of which have a Native American name, be it that of a nation (Apache), animal (Mishe Mokwa [Mama Bear]), or famous person (Sitting Bull). Yes, the trails are paved. 

We live on one of the 22 lakes, though not in a rustic log cabin. Our lake's called Lake Mushkodasa. Thanks to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha, we know that Mushkodasa means grouse. 

 

A Grouse

This is a partial view of Lake Grouse:

A View of Our Lake

One of the best things about living here is the Canoe Carnival, which takes place on one of our largest lakes on the first Saturday of August. This year's 90th (!) Annual Canoe Carnival was held last Saturday, August 6th. We took our 9-year-old granddaughter Penny. She's been coming to visit us at the lake since she was born, and she loves it here. How much does she love it, you ask? Well, Penny loves it here so much that, although her first spoken word was "hi," her second and third words were "Mishe Mokwa." True story! 

Anyway, Canoe Carnival takes place on one of the largest lakes. It consists of themed floats that sail around the lake competing for prizes. The rules require that a float be supported by no more than two canoes. Each canoe must be hand-paddled by one person only. No motors permitted! The floats -- or those that win anyway -- are typically quite large, light up, and have moving parts. They can weigh thousands of pounds. If there is even a hint of wind, many of them become sails and wind up careening into a dock or a beach and have to be towed. This year was no different. 

The parade of floats does not begin until it gets dark. Before then, the public gathers on a swimming beach where, earlier in the day, they were given access for the purpose of setting up their chairs.

People Waiting on the Beach for Darkness

We watched Canoe Carnival from the beach of a lakefront property. While we waited, Jim and Penny waded in the water.

Biding Time

Watching the Boat Patrol Take its Position

We were seated in the area where one of the floats set sail. The group that built the float is called the Scrub Pines, and the theme of their float was "You Should Bee Dancin.'" The float was propelled by two canoes. It was large and had lights and music. The float itself consisted of a giant bee hive with bees flying around it, and a dancing queen bee inside the hive, which opened periodically to show her dancing away. There were other people on the float, including a beekeeper with a smoker.

Waiting For Darkness to Fall

As you watch the video, you will see the two paddlers, each paddling a single canoe, in the lower left of the clip. They must "bee" strong!

Other floats included The Blue Caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland, which sailed to The Who's "Who Are You?," and Medusa.

When all was said and done, "You Should Bee Dancin'" was declared the overall winner. Great job, Scrub Pines!

It was difficult to time the filming to see the hive open and the Queen Bee emerge, but Jim did manage to catch her dancin,' as she should "bee."

It was a great night! Penny loved it, and we loved sharing the experience with her. When I think about the charm of our little Land o' Lakes and life in the Great State of South Jersey, where I've lived my entire 61 years, it's hard to believe I'm about to trade it all in for life on a big sandbar.