Downlow on Doctor

Corgis at the beach - April 23

My visit with Dr. LePew was interesting and funny. He asked me how I was doing? I told him I was feeling a bit apprehensive. He said, "Because of ME!?!" And I said, "NO! shaking my head (like he was some sort of doofus) -- "because of the nature of this appointment." Rectal exam, pap smear, exam with crowbar, horseshoes etc. It feels as if the doctor sticks everything he owns up there. Everything he owns but one thing. It was funny that he thought I might be apprehensive because of him. I wonder what he would have said had I confessed that my apprehension was about him? 

He told me that I'd lost 30 lbs since I last was there in Oct last year. He was really pleased. I've lost just under 100 lbs. Although the urge to eat; the addiction was not surgically removed. I still feel the urge at times and feeling it is interesting which is one of those non-compliment compliments.

I have lost the ability to stuff things that I crave inside of me -- which so far is fine with me. It's sort of like being a smoker and having your lungs partially removed. The doctor comes back into the room and says "You can only smoke an inch of that cigarette and you can only smoke it 3 times a day." The way you used to cope no longer works. Sometimes I just sit and think about how I have to sit and be aware. That's all I can do. Though sometimes I knit. 

The doctor asked if I would be able to eat a hamburger, fries and a milkshake? I said, "No, why are you asking me on a date?" He was really only curious about the effect of the surgery and had told me previously that his wife has friends who've had the surgery and one of them had gained weight back. Maybe he saw her eating fries and drinking the shakes. If I ate that stuff, it could only be a bit of it and then I'd spend too much of my time on the toidy so forget it. Not worth it. The doctor felt nothing (join the club) and there was no sign of cancer. I got the lab report back too and they were "pleased to report..." For now, I'm living.

Another plus about the appointment is judging from the amount of skin hanging off my ass since having gastric bypass surgery, I don't need to use those paper covers they give you to cover up once you get into the exam room. Now I can cover myself with my own butt skin and I stay a lot warmer waiting for the doctor to arrive to quiz me about my apprehension.

Hip Hop with Hannah

Aside from these glorious photos of Hannah hip-hoppin, please go visit this blog to read the rest of the story.


Below Hannah is showing off some of her hippity-est hip hop moves to her student Bella. It's easier to show your moves to a dog than another human because the dog isn't going to critique you. Hannah has been shy about showing anyone her moves. I don't blame her. I'm more of an observer than a server.


Some day if Hannah discovers that I'm writing this stuff and posting pictures she will want to murder me. I'll wait until she's about 14 years old before I tell her. That should be the perfect age for the big reveal.

Fierce!

Stylin

When the student is ready...
the "student" will be sitting at your feet wearing a pink collar & sniffing your shoes

Bella carefully focuses on Hannah's fancy foot work in case there's a good smell on her shoes

Plenty more focus on Hannah's shoes - Bella loves shoes.
Especially on little kids.

Now Bella is eating Hannah's shoes.
Bella believes Hannah is a herd of sheep.

Hannah's over giving hip hop lessons.

Seriously over it.

I Met Shelley

Yesterday I had the pleasure of taking the afternoon off of work. Throwing Bella in the dry-crusty dog-barf & hair-beachsand mobile, I drove to Santa Cruz to spend time with Shelley  who blogs at My Journey To Fit. She's visiting her good friend in Santa Cruz all the way from Texas. She and her friend are run/walking the Big Sur Marathon next Sunday. Rots of ruck you two!


It's think it's fair to say that between our visit to the dog beach, a quick jaunt over to See's where we purchased a few goodies to have with our late afternoon cup of coffee, and Bella being on her best behavior except for that bout of massive puppy diarrhea at the beach, we had a great time. Shelley is dear and tolerant.


Shelley got a tattoo in honor of her mother. Whereas I only purchased a small box of See's to send.

A Dear Poo & Lizard Tale

My sweet lamb

Tomorrow I return to Dr. LePew, my French-speaking gynecological oncologist for a 6 month check-down. Hopefully there's no sign of cancer. I do not feel cancery though that's the bummer about cancer. You usually don't feel cancery until it's too late. That's when you finally feel cancery.







I've taken Bella on two walks so far this morning. Due to a lack of spring weather we're under the constant threat of sprinkles, the ground is always wet. Bella's belly gets soaked - good thing she has a double fur-coat. First thing this morning my sister petted Bella and declared "She's all wet!" I said, "Well, we went on a walk!" She said, "Where? Niagara Falls?" You probably had to be there.


During our walk Bella feasted on deer poop and part of a dead lizard. She ran away from me with the lizard dangling out of her mouth. When I got close to her, I could hear crunching sounds. She wanted to gobble the lizard before I could get it away from her. Eventually I can stop buying dog food altogether. Who knows? Maybe deer poo and lizard are part of a real diet. They're part of Bella's.

Mistress of Spices

I had a couple of good choices for Saturday night fun though I put those fun choices aside to go to the ER for an infection that felt as if it sprang up out of nowhere aka my bladder. I left Bella with my son's gf, and my son drove me to the ER. I became sick quite suddenly  -- thinking the infection might be cellulitis which is more common in some lymphedema patients. I didn't think I could drive myself to hospital and thought I might have to call an ambulance. I recall the nurse saying my thoughts as I repeated them to him, were all red flags. I was released after a few hours to a waiting room filled with other misfits. I certainly know how to add excitement to an otherwise uneventful weekend.


Antibiotics under my belt (so to speak), Bella and I visited the dog beach on Sunday morning. She loves the ocean though watching her dive head first into the waves makes me kinda nervous most especially at 8:30 am. But she is a brave girl --very much a tomboy dog if that's possible. I don't know what I was expecting - maybe a Dream Barbie corgi.

Because in the dream I touched on briefly when I wrote the other day, the Pioneer Woman complained about my needing to use more deodorant, I went to her website to check out some of her recipes. Yesterday I made her recipe for Spicy Shredded Pork and nearly croaked when I took my first bite. It The meat was far too spicy for me and I have been known to enjoy lots of spice in my food and elsewhere. If you make her recipe, use a smaller can of the chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. 


What might be funny to someone (anyone?) is I go to a lot of effort to cook a spicy scrumptious meal just so I can eat about two ounces of the meat after which my gastric bypassed stomach pouch is full. No way can I eat the tortilla, all the fixins the PW has photographed so beautifully throughout her recipes. After I'm done cooking and I've taken the three minutes required to eat the 2 oz of meat protein,  I have enough left-overs to feed a small homeless encampment or better yet I could feed that man I saw jump (or get thrown) suddenly over the twelve foot retaining wall -- flopping face first onto Highway 17 early this morning carrying a plastic bag with all his worldly goods. Bet he has room for spice in his life or at least inside that bag.


I guess there's no real point to this post except to let you know (as if you cared) that sometimes I'm not allowed the opportunity to make the fun choices when deciding what I'll do on a Saturday night, even if the male nurse was cute, and despite the doctor, upon my telling him that I had lymphedema (when asked about my condition(s) and while he was staring at my creepy toes), "Oh, is THAT why your legs look like that?!" I thought my physicality would improve when I got to the ER, and it did though I'm thinking I'll need to go someplace else to gain back some self-esteem after his comment. Granted there are some real weirdos in the ER in Santa Cruz so maybe my lymphedema-ed legs slipped me into the weirdo category from this doctor's perspective -- though I'm guessing it was the splash of pink in my hair AND the creepy toes and now that the Pioneer Woman says I need to use deodorant, I fit right into creep.


We have a 60% chance of rain and throughout the week the weather folk say to expect more of the same. The skies are gloomy. I've already taken Bella on three walks just this morning and watched a gopher eat a whole freshly blooming tulip out of my garden. Can't gophers look go someplace else to spice up their lives? Like maybe the middle of highway 17?

So Much Pretty

I had a dream that The Pioneer Woman told me I needed to use more (or better) or some deodorant after she gave me a hug. I don't read her blog that much though I think my sister visits her blog almost daily. I cannot figure out why I'd have this dream unless I had really stinky armpits though I know dreams aren't so literal. 


I had my taxes done (finally). Walked out of the tax office on the Alameda in San Hoseh and a woman was walking her beautiful sable-colored corgi (named Caleb) down the sidewalk. We had a quick, lovely chat and I didn't even have my dog with me. I don't dare take Bella to the tax guy's office. He is very weird. He's got googly eyes and always looks off in the distance when he's speaking to you. I'm getting some money back so if I owe you anything now's the time to let me know.


The week is slow at work. I'm blaming it on Spring break even though the temps around here have been unseasonably cold. I had to build a fire two nights ago to warm up the house. Today offers more sunshine and the promise of warmer temps over the weekend.

There's a book give-away at Wild Mountain. Sign up for the book so that when you win, you'll be reminded of me and Hannah.  The book is called So Much Pretty. Read more about it here.


This weekend and next is a film on forgiveness that you could watch. I'll be watching Forgiveness: a Time to Love & a Time to Hate on my local PBS station. Forgiveness is something I'm constantly attempting.



Over the weekend I'll be working on forgiving myself for having a dream about The Pioneer Woman's weird comment about my stinky pits. Since it was my dream, I've got to start my forgiveness at home as usual. Hope your weekend is warm and rich with forgiveness.

My Social Media

Me vene quase 'na malincunia

Man the harpoons!

I like to pretend I'm a solitary sort of person and enjoy spending time alone hanging out with Bella and my anti-social cat, Luka. In recent months I have rekindled some neighborhood friendships - more kindled than re yet still, I'm actually speaking to humans that live nearby, (I rarely spoke to them when I was fatter, living behind my girth-fence) - my neighbor Kaffy (& her husband Mike) come to mind. We have a friendship (almost). A woman and her husband who live at the last Willows resort - her name is AnnMarie, and I like him because he laughs at everything I say and what's not to like about laughter? The reason I can remember her name is because when she first introduced herself to me, I thought, Oh, THAT Girl! (get it?) Her name stuck. She usually takes her walk near twilight so that 


while I'm driving home some nights, I nearly ram her "bumper" with my bumper because it's impossible to see her in the dusky forest light (sounds so romantic, huh). Hopefully I'll stay on her good side which is another way of saying the opposite side of the road and we can continue our chatting when we meet on walks.

A young couple I talk to occasionally, a woman & her husband, Robert and their dog who's a cheee-who-a--who-a mix of some sort are turning into frequent visitors. Their dog is trained to understand Spanish commands only. "Donde esta Bella?" he barks. Their dog walks with his head smack under Bella's butt - he fits in that space as if he were the car made for that garage - there must be a Spanish command;  Bella's butt as Mr. Minidog's sombrero. The woman's name escapes me -- Victoria, Vanessa, Vagyna. I can't recall though she's very nice as is her husband though he does not speak much except to his dog. (It must be their little secret - the "garage" parking command.) We've walked our dogs together. One day they took Bella on some sort of provocative dog walk without me - I guess they didn't want me to witness the shenigans so I stayed home, using my time alone wisely by vacuuming up dog hair, worried that I'd never see my dog once they reached the border.

It's all I can do to remember these people's names (these folks that walk my dog yet know her butt intimately). I think it's because I have early onset age. Yet I'm becoming more social with my surrounding community through my dog. Maybe I can blame part of the challenge of remembering on chemo-brain though it's been 4 years since I had chemo and most of my brain is still slightly functional around. Had I not had chemo, would my brain be the same or better, more brainy or would it have changed as drastically as it seems to change (even though I can't remember if it's really changed or not) or does it matter because the point is moot. The damage is either done or not done. I haven't a clue.

There was a birthday party held at my house over the weekend. There were (too many) people there (for my taste) so I had to physically get away from the house which meant I had to be sober. I tried phoning my neighbor Kaffy but she must have used caller id and refused to pick up when she saw who was calling. I tried my sister who's phone went straight to voicemail - she must have been forewarned; a premonition.

So Bella and I took off for the beach by ourselves. We hiked the stairs down to the sand, passing the chronic exercisers, people who use the stairs for their health only rather than as the cheap free-way to the beach. When I was much heavier, you would have never caught me on these stairs, down or up. I would have died walking them. 

While on our way down the stairs some people remarked of Bella's cuteness. Some folks shy away though many women (and children) seem to take to her immediately. They ask if they can pet her. They ask me questions about her age. Some of these folks have dogs with them though many do not - yet they still want to talk and the talk isn't always about the dog. One lady asked me where I got my shirt saying she thought it was cute. She even looked at the label (maybe she was checking my size.) People are forward at times. I let this stranger read my shirt label (behind my back!)

It continues to amaze me how having this dog around has increased my sociability. Yet if you asked me a simple question about my hobbies or how I spend my time, I have to really think about what I do (other than dog doo). I walk my dog. I look at my vacuum collecting dust as it sits. I read. I am cleaning up the forest or at least my part of it while I'm living in it. By "cleaning" I mean, pulling out that damn scotch broom and those damn thistles. Last night I was heaving branches off the trail. It's fun and productive. It's exercise. I can do this work while Bella sniffs for deer poop pellets and waits somewhat patiently for me to heave a stick in her direction that she can chase until she sniffs some other wild forest animal poop.

At the beach two women using the stairs wanted to pet Bella. "Is that a corgi?"one asked while the other talked about how dogs extend your life though "being unemployed does not extend your life!" She volunteered that she had been unemployed now for over two years, owned two dogs and no one would rent a house to her with those two dogs. I heard her life story in less than five minutes. I gave her an idea for employment - how to make money by doing other people's laundry even though it's an idea I borrowed from my son's entrepreneurial-minded girlfriend.

Further down the beach I spoke to another woman who said she just got a chocolate (See's!?) lab. Her family had promoted the purchase. She mentioned that she is 70 years old though upon first glance I could have sworn we were the same age. I tried to get her excited about her puppy, show some encouragement. "Dogs add years to your life," I said, "it's a well known fact." She said "That may be but I'm not sure I want to live longer," adding that she had enough things to do without adding a dog to her daily list of commitments. We said our goodbyes. "Have a great rest of the day!"

In many ways, Bella has opened doors socially (or I've allowed her to open the doors or I've allowed myself to notice the doors were open) yet at the same time, some doors have closed. Doors have closed to casual things, to spontaneity, walking into grocery stores, a fruit stand, the farmer's market and restaurants (unless they offer outdoor seating) are off limits. They don't let you bring your dog into a store though some of the folks in the grocery store are easily as questionable as some dogs I've seen. A weekend get-away has to be planned in advance. It's expensive to put a dog at the kennel/boarder though I suppose there's a slight chance she could stay with Pepito, the chihuahua and his "parents."

Bella blurred

I'm trying to learn what things bring the most joy - the biggest bang for my buck. Am I happier walking my dog down the stairs at the beach to reach the sand and sea or would I rather be perusing the grocery aisles reading nutrition labels? Is it more important to walk, stopping for a chat with a stranger, watching shorebirds chased by crashing waves, and after one of the longest, wettest winters I can remember (if I  remember correctly), enjoying the warmth of the sun or buy a grocery item that I'm not going to remember I ate an hour later?

A Road Less Travelled

I can't think of anything to write. I think part of what has been preventing me from writing is I admit I am boring. (Bored and boring, Thanks, Claire Arand!)


The other thing I am blaming my lack of writing on is more obstacles in my path both manifested and un-manifested, and here I thought they had cleared during my last post.


These photos were taken by my b.i.l. using a cell phone. This road is my normal route to work though since the storms last week, I have to take the long way home. What any of this has to do with writing is anyone's guess.


I am blogging (very) part-time at sassybanana. Though I do not know what a sassy banana is. If you visit the blog, see if you can figure out my sassybanana blog moniker. I was very proud of it when I invented it. Today would be a very easy day to get that one right.