My skin thing has a name

The changes to the skin on my left breast are definitely morphea, a type of scleroderma. The biopsy sample was good: it was 0.5cm by 0.4cm and went down into the fatty tissue below the derma, or skin layer. There were areas of sclerosis in the derma that went all the way down into the fat so the changes are quite extensive.

No one really knows what causes morphea. It's thought to be an autoimmune disease and it shows up as a long-term side effect of radiation. The cases I've seen have shown up much sooner than 11 years after radiation like mine did. I can imagine a scenario where my immune system was wonky because of the cancer and sarcoidosis and the denosumab just added enough strain to my already-weird system for the morphea to take hold.

There aren't really any treatments for morphea; pretty much everything is done off-label on an experimental basis because nothing really works. The best treatment is a systemic one - I think it's cyclophosphamide, a type of chemotherapy, and it works by suppressing the immune system - but my system is fragile enough that we don't want to introduce a new systemic treatment until or unless we have to do it.

There's another topical treatment I could do but I'd need to see him every two weeks and there's no guarantee it will work. I don't think he thinks it's worth trying, partly because I'd have to travel so far. If I lived in Oakville, things would be different. Before I make a decision one way or another on whether to try this treatment, he wants me to talk to my oncologist and family doctor to get their thoughts. So we'll see. I'm not convinced that it's worth trying to get rid of it, especially since it's not life-threatening or anything. Besides, if chemotherapy clears this thing up, it'll get cleared up when I'm the "lucky" recipient of chemotherapy for the cancer - whenever that happens (which hopefully won't be for quite some time yet).

Oh, and the dermatologist thinks that the incision is healing up quite well. He told me that sometimes infection will take hold and be tough to get rid of so if there are any signs that the infection is returning, I need to get to the ER right away. I'll definitely do that: I don't want to wind up in the hospital with IV antibiotics.

Healing but tired

I think the anitbiotic is working. There's still some fluid draining from the holes where the stitches were but it's lessening and looking less infectiony. The redness is also fading and the swelling is going down so the area doesn't look quite as angry and swollen as before. I'm happy that it's getting better and that I don't need to go back to the hospital for IV antibiotics.

I am finding that I'm extremely tired since I started the antibiotics. I feel like I'm so tired all the time and the slightest activity leaves me exhausted. I assume that the antibiotic is forcing my body to heal and that's what is making me so, so, so tired.

Tomorrow afternoon I see my dermatologist and hopefully he'll agree that the biopsy site is healing well. I also hope that he'll have meaningful pathology results so that we know what's going on with my skin. I'm not looking forward to the drive tomorrow but I'll sleep in, load up on caffeine, and take it easy so that I'm not too tired. I don't know what we'll do about supper, exactly, but I'll deal with that tomorrow.

Adventures in (non)healing

For the last few days my left arm, underarm, and breast have all felt heavy, achy, and sore and I was having a hard time lifting my hand up high because it hurt in my underarm. I figured that the biopsy and my previous surgery taking out lymph nodes caused a buildup of lymph fluid in those areas so I massaged them. I'd been taught how to do the use massage to move the lymph fluid and get it flowing better way back when I had the lymphedema in my arm. I'd noticed that the area around the stitches was a bit warm and a bit red but I figured that this was related to the swelling and buildup of lymph fluid.

Imagine my surprise when I was having a bath and I noticed that the area around the stitches was bright red and there was that particular yellow crust around the stitches that signifies infection. My dermatologist had told me to call if anything looked strange and so I called right away. He would have liked it if I could have gone to see him this afternoon but he was leaving in an hour and it would have taken at least an hour and a half to get there because Ian had the car.

He told me that in this case, I should go to the emergency room and have them look at it since he couldn't prescribe something over the phone. I asked if I could go to a walk-in clinic and he reluctantly said yes but preferred the emergency room.

I called Ian right away, told him what was going on, and he came home to take me to the emergency room. I was worried that I'd end up there for at least six hours... and I almost did. The main treatment area was not moving at all and was really backed up. They were able to get me into the minor treatment area where I was seen by a nurse practitioner. She took out the stitches, gave me a prescription for Keflex, and we were on our way in just over two hours.

If the Keflex doesn't work I need to go back to the ER and they'll put me on IV antibiotics. That's one outcome I'd like to avoid but if it does come to that, it's actually a good thing that I went to this ER - the one associated with the cancer center. As much as I'd wanted to go to a walk-in clinic, going to this ER meant that they had more information about me and my cancer treatment. Ian was right to make me go to the ER even though I was whining about having to be there for six hours.

I see the dermatologist on Monday. He expects that the infection will be cleared up and I hope he's right.

Streams and rivers and frogs, oh my!

The person who cleans our house had to bring her kids with her today. They're 10 and 7 and both boys and I offered to take them and Gozer for a walk. We ended up out there for about two hours.

Mostly the walk went well: we went through the woods and down by the river... and by a stream and through the stream and beside the stream. The boys decided that they wanted to look for frogs so that's what we did. Unfortunately, all of us got our feet wet... including Gozer. She was doing ok walking through the streams - it was when she stepped into much up to her chest that things were bad for her. She became a little panicky after that because she wanted out of that area right that second.

When Ian found out that Gozer smelled like fish and was absolutely filthy, he gave me a choice: keep her outside until he got home, or give her a bath myself. It turns out that I can bathe her all by myself. I thought I did a good job but I detected the faintest scent of fish when she came in from her short evening walk so I think I'll have to bathe her again tomorrow.

I don't think my cleaner was too, too upset that both her boys came back with filthy, wet socks and shoes (and two frogs). If there's a next time for this, we're not going for nearly as long and we're going to go frog-hunting closer to home. Preferably without actually stepping into a stream.

A whole lot of work

With my cholesterol higher than it should be I know that I need to make some changes. Diet-wise, we're looking more carefully at what we're eating and making healthier choices that involve more fruits and vegetables. However, changing my diet isn't enough: I need to exercise more.

With it being so hot this summer I haven't been walking Gozer during the day and I haven't been getting much other exercise. Weeding is some exercise but it isn't cardiovascular exercise so it isn't helping my heart at all. Somehow it does seem to be increasing my flexibility, however: for the first time ever I can bend at my hips, keep my legs straight, and put my hands flat on the ground. I used to have to strain to touch my fingertips to the ground.

Today I got more exercise than I'd bargained for because we decided to seed some of the bare patches on our front lawn and the top of the back lawn and overseed the rest of those lawns. We - by which I mean I - de-thatched these areas first which was a LOT of work. Using the rake doesn't just involve my arms but my upper- and mid- back, core, shoulders, and legs. Fortunately, by using my core and upper back, my lower back didn't hurt while I was working and it's still feeling good..

I haven't done that much work since I was paddling! Unfortunately, because I haven't done much exercise lately, I wasn't able to quite finish de-thatching everything and Ian had to finish. Even though he only worked for an extra 20 minutes or so after I stopped, I knew that if I hadn't stopped I would have crossed the line into overdoing it and I would have paid for it for the next week. I'm proud of what I accomplished today. Afterwards I had a lovely long, hot bath to soak my muscles.

It's going to be nice this week so I plan to take Gozer out for an afternoon walk. It'll be good for her chubby bum as well as mine. And maybe next weekend I'll be able to do some physical work in the yard again - after fully recovering from this weekend, I expect (ok, I hope) to have more stamina.

Everyone gets a new diet in our house

For the last couple of months we've known that Gozer had gained weight. We were feeding her the recommended amount and she still gets two walks per day but for some reason her weight has been increasing.

How much has it increased? She went from just under 20 pounds in the spring to 25.8(!) today. In other words, she's increased her body weight by over 25% in just a few months. That's a huge weight gain for a person, let alone a dog. I knew she was bigger but I didn't know that she was that much bigger. I don't think she's obese because I can see her waist from the side although I can't see it from above and I can't feel her ribs without pressing hard into her sidess.

Gozer is going to be groomed on Friday and because she's over 25 pounds I think she'll be considered a medium instead of a small dog as 25 pounds is the cutoff. Of course it costs more to groom a medium-sized dog because they require more handling.

Tomorrow I'm also going to call and make an appointment for Gozer to see the vet. Clearly she's going to need to reduce her weight and I need to get some hints for that. I also need to be sure that she doesn't have some condition that's causing her to gain weight. She's gained the weight so fast for no real reason that I can see that I'm a bit concerned.

Doctor's appointments

Today we got to visit some doctors.

Both Ian and I were called in to see our family doctor about our cholesterol results. Fortunately, the rest of both our bloodwork was fine but he has issues with the cholesterol levels. My HDL (good cholesterol) was 1.92, my LDL (bad cholesterol) was 4.81, and the ratio of my total cholesterol over HDL is 3.7. Because my dad had a heart attack at 39 and died after surgery to correct serious vascular issues in his legs I'm considered to be at high risk for heart problems and a ratio of 3.7 is getting to be too high. I think that the ratio should be under 4.0 - which mine is - but it's gone up since the last time I had the cholesterol tested.

Ian has different numbers and other factors and his cholesterol has to come down, too. Our family doctor gave Ian some new medication but he doesn't want to give me yet another medication. Therefore, we have to make some dietary changes: more fruits and vegetables, no more ice cream (including Blizzards and McFlurries), no more high-fat foods, no more fries and chicken fingers for dinner.

We'll be getting our cholesterol checked again in about six weeks to see if the steps we're taking are having an effect. I hope that the change in diet works that quickly.

After seeing our family doctor I had a biopsy done on the the skin on my breast. A new spot has actually shown up at the end of my collarbone on the left side; he looked at it but he decided to focus on the breast skin. As he was looking at the area to figure out where to do the biopsy, he asked if I had any kind of implant. Ummm, no - if I did, I'd have made that breast bigger to be more like the other one instead of walking around with one normal boob and one mini-boob. Apparently the changes to the skin have somehow made the breast feel like I've got implants.

The doctor was really good especially when it came to dealing with me. I'd been nervous all day and when I laid on the thingy I started to get a very woogly back and had trouble staying still. Mostly it was the thought of feeling him do the biopsy and put in the stitches that was making my back all woogly so I tried to do some breathing and focusing on other senses. It mostly worked and I was able to stay more still. I did not think about beetles crawling on my skin, as Ian suggested afterwards, because that's kind of what the woogly feeling is like.

The doctor put in two stitches which will come out in two weeks when I go back for the pathology results. If the results are inconclusive then he'll do another biopsy. I don't exactly know what kind of biopsy he did but he was worried about puncturing an implant (hence the question about implants above) so I think he took a fairly large sample.

Great news.. and sad news

On Tuesday I saw my oncologist and got some great news: my tumour markers are steady at 33. Yay for low tumour markers! My blood counts are all normal although my calcium was a little bit low (but still within normal). She cautioned me to always, always take calcium because two people have died while taking it. One person had low kidney function and the other had never taken calcium at all. I have a good supply of calcium pills and I'm taking them in the mornings.

I wanted to write about my oncologist's appointment but when I got home I discovered that four of my friends had died since last Wednesday and I was alternately in shock and grieving. I knew that two of the women were close to their end because they were in hospice but I was terribly shocked and saddened to know that the other two had died.

I'm still not finished processing these deaths. I slept until 3pm yesterday - I was tired before this terrible news but I didn't think I was "sleep all day" tired - out of the shock and grief. Today I had metalsmithing class but when I was getting ready to leave I just started sobbing ... at which point I knew that I couldn't go out and see people. I needed to stay home and cuddle my dog.

How can I still be alive when so many have died? It's so unfair.

Dermatologist appointment

You might remember that I had a biopsy of the thickened skin on my left breast a while back and the pathologist thought that I had grannular annulare of the interstitial type, maybe. Well, I saw the dermatologist today and he thinks that I have morphea, a type of scleroderma, instead. This condition, which is also thought to be an autoimmune condition, is quite rare and can be caused by radiation therapy. Who knew?

I'm sure there are differences between the two conditions but I'm not sure what those differences might be. The dermatologist wants to do another biopsy to confirm his theory that I have this morphea thing. That's scheduled for September 4 in his office.

He warned me that whatever is causing my ugly breast syndrome, it's unlikely that it can be treated so I'll be stuck with it until or unless it resolves or fades on its own. I'm a little upset about that because I'm very self-conscious about how ugly that breast is. The thickening has also changed the shape and position of the breast it looks more like a bolt-on (or breast with an implant) and it's quite rigid. The rigidity means that I'm not able to pad it out in a bra anymore, which is frustrating. The breast also hurts and the skin itches like crazy.

If the breast issue turns out to be a form of scleroderma, there's a research group in Hamilton for people with scleroderma. That's something.

What are the odds of someone having cancer and two separate autoimmune diseases? I wonder if there's something connecting all of these conditions. Where's Dr. House when I need him?

Another Olympics over

The Olympics is over again. I've spent the last two weeks watching various sports instead of working on this or that. Now I'll have no excuse for not getting something done!

I liked the coverage of the various events at the beginning of the Olympics but towards the end it seemed like they showed more and more commercials. For example, we could only see about two-thirds of the dives in the Men's 10m Diving Final because TSN aired commercials during the other third. I found this to be very frustrating. I was able to watch almost all of the Men's 10m Diving Preliminaries so why couldn't I see almost all the dives in the final? I know that the Final was on Saturday so presumably viewership was higher but I would have been happier if fewer commercials were shown. I might have even been a bit more tolerant of the coverage if they'd broadcast new commercials but they showed the same old ones that had been showing during the entire Games.

This Olympics was broadcast by CTV and its partners TSN, SportsNet, OLN, and other non-English station. CBC has the rights to broadcast the next Olympics and while I hope that they'll have as many partners broadcasting coverage, I also hope they show fewer commercials. I know they have to make money and all but there must be a better way to balance prime-time coverage with commercials.

The Closing Ceremonies, like much of the Opening Ceremonies, focused on music. There were quite a few live performances, including a surprising one by Eric Idle! He sang Always Look on the Bright Side of Life which was very well-received by the crowd: even Kate Middleton was swaying back and forth and whistling the whistling bits!

Rio, who will be hosting the 2016 Games, did a small segment to show the world what's coming in four years. As I recall, the London segment during the Beijing games was kind of lame. The Rio segment this year wasn't so much lame as it was kind of incomprehensible because it was so much like the rest of the ceremony except in another language. I'm sure their Opening Ceremony will be compelling in its own way.

Our long weekend

This past long weekend was very fun and productive for all of us. I met up with a friend and a couple of her friends for a delicious lunch at Yorkdale on Friday. When I'd said that Friday was better for me, it didn't occur to me that it was the Friday of a long weekend and that traffic might be bad with people heading up to the cottage for the long weekend. I've definitely driven through worse traffic but this was as bad as anything I've had to drive in for a long time. Normally the drive to Yorkdale takes about an hour and ten minutes or so and it took closer to an hour and three quarters each way.

Fortunately the trip was worth it. Lunch was delicious and I had a great time with my friend and her friends. I hit it off really well with one of them and we were in stitches laughing almost the whole time. It was great :) 

I also finally picked out a paint colour for my sewing room and we got the room painted this weekend! I chose Benjamin Moore's CSP-370 (Picket Fence). It's a light taupe colour, I guess. One thing I like about it is that it's a full-spectrum paint, meaning that it contains pigments from each colour in the spectrum and contains no black. Full spectrum paints read more like daylight colours and interact with the surrounding light and colours much more than regular paints do. As well, the shades are more luminous with subtle tones because all of the pigment colours are mixed in the final colour. 

We painted the ceiling and put two coats on the wall over the weekend. I love it! The ceiling has one of those california finishes with plaster scraped on and I think it looks so much better once it's painted. The shadows are softer. The wall colour looks fantastic even with the yellow subfloor and I know that once the floor is in it'll look just the way I wanted: welcoming and calming with some colour (but not so much that the colour would overwhelm the fabric).

Even Gozer had a productive weekend. We found her trying to eat a small rodent of some kind that had been dead for a while on Sunday. Then on Monday we found her with blood all over her face with a freshly dead mouse in front of her. I'm familiar with cats that kill and eat mice and birds but it never occurred to me that our cute little dog would kill them - especially since it seemed like she couldn't catch them. Apparently she has hunting skills we didn't know about.

In and around all of these adventures we watched the Olympics. I do love watching the different sports although I prefer watching gymnastics and diving. The timed sports like swimming and running are interesting but I like the sports that require some artistry. I'll watch just about anything, however.

Zucchini plant problems... again

Because we love zucchini, we planted another zucchini plant this year. It had three main stems and was producing lots of huge zucchini on each one. Then last week we noticed orange frass: the telltale signs of the Squash Vine Borer. (insert dramatic music here)

Yes, that damn SVB is back. We tried to poke holes in the affected stems and kill the larvae but the plant started wilting and we saw more frass. This sucks. Because the damage from the SVB was so near the root of the plant, the whole plant was about to go down. We ended up cutting off each of the three stems and sticking them into the ground. We did that last year and the plant grew; unfortunately, it was too late in the year to get an zucchini from it. We hope that at least one of the three former stems will bear zucchini before the summer is over.

We planted the zucchini in around the same place as we'd planted last year's zucchini so we're wondering if the SVB somehow overwintered in the soil and infested this year's plant. We're going to have to do some research on controlling and eradicating the SVB. I like zucchini and I want to grow it in our garden; the SVB, I can do without.

2012 Olympics

The summer Olympics have begun! Last night's opening ceremony was the vision of Artistic Director Danny Boyle with the theme "Isles of Wonder" and it was lovely. It included a bit of English history: from tranquil, pastoral English countryside to the Industrial Revolution to celebrating English literature to English music through the 20th century.

My favourite part was Emeli Sandé; singing "Abide with me" to only a heartbeat-like beat. I'm an atheist but the hymn sung only to the drumbeat brought tears to my eyes. During the song, dancers performed a moving tribute to the 7/7 victims. Apparently NBC cut that particular segment in favour of an interview with Michael Phelps. Why they did that I don't know - one would think that broadcasting the entire opening ceremony would be preferable to cutting out a segment in favour of an interview. Interviews can be broadcast anytime; a live opening ceremony cannot.

The parade of nations, which was only supposed to take an hour, took about two hours - and this was a surprise to no one who'd seen one of these parades before. Our Canadian athletes were horsing around a bit with some women riding on men's shoulders. It looked like they were having a great time.

I also loved that instead of having a celebrity light the Olympic cauldron, six young athletes lit six sections of a multi-piece Olympic cauldron. That cauldron was beautiful: each nation carried a piece of it during the parade of nations so it was like each country was a part of it.

I'm looking forward to watching the Olympics. I don't normally follow any of these sports but I enjoy seeing the competition.

The beginnings of the Penn State aftermath

I've still kept my eye on the Penn State sex abuse scandal over the last few weeks. I was so outraged about the whole situation that I wanted to follow its aftermath. Things are at a point now where lots has happened and it's going to be quite a while before lots more happens.

Penn State has removed the statue of Joe Paterno that was erected in 2001 after much debate. Interestingly, the day before Penn State removed the statue, sources from the board of trustees said that the statue would stay up, at least for a while. If that doesn't show how disconnected the university is from its board who is supposed to oversee it, I don't know what does. Clearly there are still some issues to work out there.

Penn State has received sanctions from the NCAA, basing their decision on the Freeh report instead of their own investigation: five years' probation, setting up new administrative oversight, a four-year bowl ban, a $60 million fine to go to an external charity for victims of child sexual abuse, vacating the results of the 1998-2011 seasons (making Joe Paterno no longer the coach with the most wins, aka the "winningest" coach), reduction of scholarships over four years, and allowing any player the ability to transfer to another institution and play right away. Apparently it was either these sanctions or a "death sentence" - no football at all - for up to four years. Clearly the university decided that a few years of reduced football was better for the community than no football at all.

The NCAA sanctions aren't the only punishment the university is facing. The Big Ten Conference has also sanctioned Penn State: Penn State will not be allowed to play in any post-season games and its share of the Big Ten bowl games will go to charity. Nike, Penn State's most visible and (some say) lucrative sponsor, took Paterno's name off of the child care center. State Farm is pulling their sponsorship from Penn State. The university's insurance company is trying to deny or limit coverage for anything related to this scandal because they were not kept informed of the liabilities that the university was facing in Sandusky; when the civil lawsuits start rolling in, the university will be on the hook for the entire amount. 

While the university is accepting the NCAA and Big Ten sanctions, not everyone is happy about them. Some feel that the Freeh report was written by the man who covered up the TWA 800 disaster. I say that if he did cover that up, he is the best person to recognize a cover-up when he sees one. Some others say that the Freeh report doesn't have enough proof that Paterno was involved, since only two "vague" emails were presented in the report as "proof". These people are conveniently ignoring the fact that the Freeh report also includes a thorough description of the culture that Paterno created: Paterno knew or was privy to everything that happened in that department. If you believe that this is true (and I think most do), you have to believe that he knew about the 1998 investigation of Sandusky. If you don't believe he knew about that, then he couldn't have known about everything that happened in his department. 

The Paterno family deserves a special mention of people who are struggling with the aftermath of the report. The Freeh report is inaccurate, they say, in part because the investigation didn't interview the family who knew Paterno best: their own family. They're determined to conduct their own investigation, which is fine. If they stopped there, I'd have no issue with the family. However, every time something happens, they issue a statement saying something about the Paterno legacy being defamed. There's only a token phrase in each statement about the victims; it's all about the family being victimized by the actions of everyone who believed that Paterno had done wrong. The more they portray themselves as victims, the more ridiculous they seem.


I do understand how hard it is for people to accept that their beloved grandfather-figure, Joe Paterno, and other university officials could have covered-up Sandusky's crimes. It must have been shocking for the people involved to realize that their friend was molesting boys, just as it is shocking for others to realize just how far people at the university went to cover up Sandusky's behaviour. It's almost too much for people to take in so instead they focus on small things and argue about them. Hopefully over time people will come to accept what happened.


If only it was so easy for Sandusky's victims to accept what happened and to heal. Everything that Penn State has to pay, all the hardships the fans and players will experience - that's nothing to what those boys have had to live with. I hope that some of the money being taken from Penn State ends up helping them.

James Franco movie weekend

Can a person ever get enough of the actor James Franco? Well, yes. I didn't think he was that great of an actor after watching his dismal performance during the 2011 Academy Award ceremonies. Fortunately, we managed to not overload our delicate James Franco sensibilities by watching one of his movies yesterday and again today.

Yesterday we watched the Academy-award nominated 127 Hours about Aron Ralston, a canyoneer whose arm was pinned by a boulder after falling in a slot canyon. He stayed in the canyon for 127 hours before freeing himself, hence the title of the movie. Apparently except for the bit with the two hikers, which didn't happen as shown in the movie, everything was very realistic and happened as shown. 

James Franco took up the screen for most of the movie as his struggle and experience trapped in the canyon was shown, and he was able to carry the movie and make it very compelling to watch. He was able to accurately show the range of emotions that Aron Ralston experienced during those five days: his despair, loneliness, anguish, and the realization that he would almost certainly die there alone. James Franco definitely deserved that Best Actor Academy Award nomination; had he not been up against Colin Firth in The King's Speech, he could have won it.

I wasn't expecting the cinematography and music styles used during the movie but they worked perfectly with the subject, helping to convey the stark beauty and isolation of the canyon country and the emotions Aron Ralston was feeling. The music and cinematography are perfectly balanced throughout the movie, working with and not against the script.

While some might think that watching one man trapped in a canyon for an hour and a half is a form of torture, this movie is interesting and compelling enough to make the time pass quickly. It's well worth watching.

I didn't expect as much from Rise of the Planet of the Apes. This movie restarted the Planet of the Apes franchise by providing a new origin story and although it had a huge budget, I figured it would be lacking in plot and believability. I was (mostly) mistaken.

Sure, there are some flaws. When shots are flying everywhere, I expect all the cars to be hit by bullets, and I thought all windshield glass was tempered safety glass. Those are small details compared to the success of the rest of the movie.

The most obvious plot hole was the lack of proper ethics at the pharmaceutical firm .... but really, how unrealistic is that? Aside from that, the sequence of events seemed to be believable. James Franco plays a researcher who is trying to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease. His research on chimps makes them smarter and looks promising but things go awry and he doesn't get the funding he expected. He raises a baby chimp who got the "cure" and resultant smarts from his mother but when the chimp attacks someone he's forced to put it in an ape care facility. From there, the apes begin to rise.

The movie is well-paced and beautifully shot. The real star of this movie is the computer generated imagery. The lead chimp was generated by motion-capturing Andy Serkis (who played Gollum) as he acted out the part and then applying the chimp characteristics. This CGI was flawless: the chimp looked real (with some extra facial expressions) and was fully integrated into the surrounding imagery. I actually thought that the filmmakers had used a chimp in the movie, and I knew better than that before I started watching.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes isn't an inspiring movie, or a classic movie, but it is worth a couple of hours if you've got it. Personally, I find the re-imagination of the origin of this franchise much more interesting than the original movies and I'm interested to see where things go next. 

So there you have it - two good James Franco movies. Who'd have thought?

Penn State scandal

Have you been following the Penn State scandal? In short, Football Defense Gerald (Jerry) Sandusky was tried and convicted on 45 of 48 counts related to molesting young boys from 1998 onwards. He recruited these boys at The Second Mile charity he set up in 1977 for young, underprivileged children. Sadly, it seems that child molesters are practically a dime a dozen, but what makes this case compelling is that several Penn State officials knew that he was molesting boys on Penn State property and didn't report it to the authorities or the Second Mile charity.

The Penn state-commissioned Freeh report showed that Joe Paterno, beloved head coach for the football team; athletic director Tim Curley; Gary Schultz,university vice president responsible for overseeing the university police, among other duties; and university president Graham Spanier knew about two molestation incidents and did nothing to punish Sandusky or prevent future crimes from occurring. Worse, during the grand jury investigation of Sandusky, Schultz and Curley lied about what they knew and are now under investigation for perjury.

I remember when Paterno was fired in November 2011 after Sandusky was formally charged and the students rioted. How could their football leader, the one who made the university what it was, have anything to do with Sandusky's crimes? Now we know: he had a lot to do with them. By all accounts, he was the most powerful person at that university because he ran football and football brought in the money. Therefore, he could call the shots when it came to his players and his team.

He clashed with Vicky Triponey, former head of student affairs, over how football players were disciplined. He didn't want the public to know about football player's crimes (does that sound familiar?) and he wanted football players to receive gentler punishment than everyone else. And who supported him? Why, Curley and Spanier, of course. Winning at football was more important than ethics and honesty. Football was more important than anything else, and it forced Triponey out of the school after she was threatened and shunned.

Paterno died in January, 2012, of complications related to lung cancer. Before he died, he wrote a letter that said that the Sandusky situation was not football-related. In another university, that might be true, but not at Penn State where football ran the school. If football wasn't so important to the university, Sandusky's crimes would never have been covered up and that makes this situation very much related to football.

Clearly there's a problem with Penn State's culture and it's going to take a long time to fix that culture. The "Penn State way" is wrong. Some are speculating that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), a member organization that creates rules and policies for a number of university sports, and who could punish Penn State for organizational failures - the ones that covered up Sandusky's crimes and then lied about it. Those punishments could include the "death penalty" or preventing the team from playing in the league for a full season or more. It's also possible that the NCAA could ban post-season play or levy any one of a number of other punishments.

I'm outraged by the entire situation. How could football - a sport - be more important than ethics? How could keeping players on the field be more important that those players completing their punishments? How could fans maintain that Paterno had done nothing wrong when it's clear that did? I know, I know, football brings in money and everyone loves money. At Penn State, they also loved Paterno who had been there for 61 years. Bringing in a ton of money in no way justifies the kind of insular, "football is most important" views that Paterno and others shared.

The priorities at Penn State are a mess and will stay that way unless the university takes gigantic steps to fix them. The culture is just too deeply entrenched in the minds of people connected to Penn State for real change to occur easily. I don't think that the university should wait for the NCAA to dole out punishments; I think that Penn State should prevent the football team from playing for a year. Anything less than that will say that football is still the most important thing at Penn State, that it's more important than ethics or morals.

At the same time, Penn State needs to bring in new people from outside the community who have experience  guiding change in a large organization. Penn State needs to finally step up and do right by its students and its communities.

Heat wave

Our little dog was groomed today and she looks so much littler! Apparently she screamed during the drying process again so we really do need to work on desenstizing her to the the sound. I hope she'll be more comfortable with shorter hair in this terrible heat. It's supposed to stay above 30C for the next few days and even though the nights will be cool, those daytime temperatures make life pretty unbearable for her.

The only things that seem to love the heat are those lupine aphids. They've found their way to the other plant and they're starting to really take over. Every leaf cluster has a set of baby aphids on it and every single leaf on some clusters has a set of baby aphids. I killed as many as I could but I know that the population is about to explode. It's heartbreaking because that plant was doing so well and had a number of flower buds on it and now the leaves are crinkled and misshapen, all of the flower buds have died, and the plant appears to be dying due to the aphids. I wish there was a way to get rid of them.


The heat had sent most of the grass into dormancy so it's yellow everywhere. The weeds really show up against the dormant grass but the soil is so dry that it's hard to pull them out. Not that I'm spending a lot of time outside. Hanging out with the dog in the basement is more fun.

Well, hanging out in the basement is mostly fun. I've been feeling a bit restless lately because I want to be doing more than just sitting around. But then when I try to think of what I could do, nothing comes to mind. Do you ever have that happen? Where you know you want to do something and then when you have a chance to do it, nothing comes to mind? Maybe I'm just getting old. Maybe the heat is reducing my ability to think.

I'll be happy to see the end of this heat wave so that I can start feeling more productive. Gozer will be at least as happy as I will because then she can spend more time chasing chipmunks, birds, and squirrels, and getting to watch the outside world.

Adventures in weeding

It's been so crazy hot this past week that Gozer and I have spent most of our days holed up in the basement. While I love having no responsibilities or plans or anything, after a couple of days I started feeling really restless because I wanted to be outside doing things but it was just too hot.

Today the weather was slightly cooler - below 30C, at least - and so I went outside and spent about three hours weeding. I wasn't weeding in that relaxed way I usually weed; no, I was finally able to get outside and weed and I was going to make the most of the time I had. I was in some kind of weeding frenzy and I weeded with wild, reckless abandon.

I'm paying for being those hours. I felt so young and alive, being out there under the sun and working in the dirt and now I feel positively decrepit. My lower back is throbbing with pain no matter how I sit or lie down or stand, my legs are sore, and I'm bone-tired. I'm not sure that this back pain is worth those hours of happiness weeding under the sun - it's a higher price than I wanted to for those hours, even though I know that I overdid it.

Wishing that my body didn't betray me doesn't seem to be getting me anywhere, unfortunately. It would be better if I could remember that I can't do four days worth of work in three hours because then I wouldn't overdo it (and pay for it) like I did today.

Home from Edmonton

I arrived home from Edmonton on Sunday after a happy but exhausting trip. I'd gone to see my niece and nephew graduate from high school and to celebrate the occasion with my sisters and their families. Although I'd planned to call some friends while I was there, I ended up seeing only one friend and spending the rest of my time with my family.

I felt honoured to celebrate the graduations with my sisters. Watching both my niece and nephew walk across the stage to receive their (fake) diplomas, I felt so proud of each of them: they made it! I also realized that finishing high school was a rite of passage not just for my niece and nephew but for the adults in their lives, too, who'd watched them grow into adults. It seems like just yesterday that they started kindergarten and now here they were, finished their public schooling. They're basically adults, now, and they get to choose whether and where they pursue further education.

While I was there we had a family gathering to celebrate my niece and nephew's graduation, which is something we haven't done for quite some time. It was a ton of fun and I really enjoyed myself. It felt relaxed and casual and it seemed like everyone had a good time. One of my sisters hosted it and I got to see her beautiful garden in the summer for the first time in I don't know how long. She has a number of sweet-smelling, very healthy roses and lilacs and has planted gorgeous sweet peas lining her fence, as well as some other ground cover and a healthy ash tree (side note: I didn't know that ash trees grew in Edmonton. There are oak trees now, too, and I didn't think they grew there either).

The trip wasn't all good, unfortunately: my cell phone battery refused to charge so I wasn't able to use it to send or receive texts about halfway through the week. My Kindle was also starting to misbehave with the buttons not working properly and now only every other line is displayed. 


I wasn't able to rent a car at all, either. I tried to, I really did. My plane was late arriving into Edmonton so I changed my booking for an office near my hotel. To my surprise, I discovered that that particular Avis doesn't take Sears cards. I thought about going with my backup plan but then I decided that I didn't need a car... I just wanted one. so I did without and it worked out just fine.

Also, while my hotel was lovely - and it was; in fact, I highly recommend staying there if you're in Edmonton - the only alarm in the room was a radio and I don't easily wake up to a radio because the voices end up being incorporated into my dreams. Usually I use my cellphone as an alarm but since it was in paperweight mode, I had to rely on the radio alarm in the room. Yes, I could have called for a wake-up call but I needed to wake up from naps, too, and multiple wake-up calls in a day seems a little silly. Therefore, I ended up not sleeping so well for the latter half of the trip because I was so worried about waking up on time.

Even with these technical issues, I really enjoyed myself in Edmonton and I was sad to have to leave. Edmonton is beautiful at this time of year: the weather is warm but the light wind makes it bearable, everything is blooming, and the air smells so clean and fresh. Every time I walked outside I'd just stand there, breathing in the air. I'll be going back to Edmonton in a couple of months as one of my sisters is moving to the UK this fall and I want to see her in Edmonton before she moves away.

Car rental update

I'm still a bit upset about having my identity stolen but I'm feeling better than I did yesterday about it. Happily, Expedia canceled the car from my bill with no problems. I explained my situation and how the car rental companies' policy prevented me from picking up the car and after double-checking the policy, they canceled the car rental and are refunding my money for that part of the trip. I'd been prepared to eat the cost of the rental car and I'm happy that I don't have to do that.

I've also booked a new car rental reservation for my arrival tomorrow. I checked and it seems that Avis takes Sears credit cards. I think Budget used to be the company that accepted this card, but both Avis and Sears websites say that it's Avis that accepts it now. I didn't prepay this reservation so if it doesn't work out I haven't lost any money. If the rental doesn't work out, one of my sisters has generously offered me a backup plan. I'm touched and very grateful for her offer of help. 

I used to carry both a Visa and a MasterCard but dropped the Visa a few years ago. There's definitely an advantage to having more than one major credit card... but at the same time, having more than one could possibly open me up to being defrauded on the second card. Having had this second set of fraudulent charges on my card and having had my identity stolen, I'm feeling paranoid that it could happen again.

I'm looking forward to going to Edmonton tomorrow and seeing my sisters and their families and my friends. Hopefully everything will go smoothly while I'm there.

My identity is not my own

Yesterday I was looking at my Mastercard statements online and I was shocked to see that my balance was in the neighbourhood of $13K(!).  I was expecting a much lower balance because I pay it off every month or so and I know I haven't run up that much in charges considering I haven't used the card much.

I might not have used the card, but someone did. They purchased over $10K in camera equipment from a Toronto camera shop. I was a little upset because I'd had to change my card number within the last year because someone was booking flights on Vietnam Air. I filed things to dispute the charges and let it go. After all, I'm going to Edmonton on Sunday and I wanted to think about what I needed to do to get ready.

The BMO fraud department called this afternoon and I was surprised that they were contacting me so quickly. After the person identified herself I made some comment that she must have been calling about the charges and she said that she would get to that.

She would get to that? Why else would she be calling?

She would be calling to tell me that someone went and changed my address to someplace in North York (part of Toronto) and that I'm the victim of identity fraud.

While trying to reassure me that this happens all the time, she instructed me to cut up my card (which I did) because it's already been cancelled and they've put new security measures in place for the account. I also had to call Equifax and TransUnion (the credit reporting agencies) to report the identity theft and to take steps to prevent my identity from being stolen again or other people from getting credit from being issued in my name.

The person from the fraud department also instructed me to run virus scanners on our computers because whoever took my information (including information that would allow me to change the address for my credit card) could have done it through a virus on my computer.

This has all freaked me out quite a bit and I'm feel violated. What else does this person know? What else could they do?

This situation has also complicated my trip to Edmonton a bit. I've prepaid for everything - flight, hotel, car - so I hoped that not having the physical card anymore wouldn't be a problem. It isn't a problem for the hotel but it's a huge problem for the car company. It's such a huge problem that I will not be able to pick up the car at all. Not having a car isn't the end of the world, but it's annoying and frustrating that I won't be able to use something for which I've already paid. Tomorrow I'll try to contact Expedia (where I booked the trip) and see if I can get a refund for the car without messing up the rest of the trip but I'm not holding my breath.


Identity theft sucks. 

Sewing room progress

This past weekend, Ian finished laying the subfloor for my sewing room. Yay! It was a ton of work but he managed to finish it in one day. I'm very pleased with the way it looks and feels underfoot. It'll make the floor so much more comfortable than if the floor were laid directly over the concrete. Having the subfloor in place will also mean that we won't need to worry so much about leaks damaging the flooring as there are channels incorporated into the subfloor allowing water to move.

The top of the subfloor panels have some kind of wood composite on top that is yellowish so the light in the room looks very yellow. This will make it more difficult to choose a paint colour for the room so I think we'll have to lay the floor first. We'd planned to paint first so that we didn't need to protect the floor but I just don't think that I'll get a good read on the paint colour without the floor in place.

So now I need to go floor shopping. As much as I'd like to get it done before I leave for Edmonton, I don't think it'll happen. I'm already feeling a bit stressed about my available time and I don't want to add to that stress at all. I'll do that shopping when I get back

The idea that my sewing room is almost ready is very exciting... at this rate, I might have a sewing room before the end of the year. Oh, how I'd love that!

Catching up

I've been really, really busy this past week. Even though the aprons are done I'm still working on the gifts for my niece and nephew. Of course they're taking longer than I thought they would because that's how these things go, right? :) I'm very pleased with my designs and how they're coming together.

On Wednesday I saw a friend of mine that I haven't seen in ages. She and her husband made a beautiful purple knitted sweater with hand-made buttons for Gozer. I was touched by their generosity in making something for our little furchild. The sweater fits her perfectly and is a welcome addition to her fall and spring wardrobe.

I had a wonderful time visiting with my friend. We spent some time looking around the garden and then did some catching up over lunch and while walking Gozer. I'm so proud of my friend; she's been through a lot and has come out a stronger, happier person than before. She's in school in the process of starting over with a new career and is doing very, very, very well. Clearly she's found her calling and it makes me happy to see her happy and doing so well.

Yesterday I was finally able to spend some time in the garden. I wanted to get out there but I've been much too busy on other stuff so I decided that no matter what I was going to work out there yesterday. I did some puttering around and then got down to doing some serious work. Over where the birch trees were taken out things had been going a bit wild. There was Virginia creeper everywhere, a small sumac tree, three small ash or prickly ash trees, and a huge assortment of weeds. I got the trees and vines out along with anything that looked like it might possibly grow into a tree or bush. My muscles are all stiff now so I know that I worked hard.

This weekend I hope to get some work done on the gifts and maybe do more work in the garden. It's going to be really hot over the next few days so it might not be fun to be working outside. We'll see what happens.

Biopsy results

When I got to my surgeon's office the biopsy pathology results hadn't yet arrived. The receptionist called and was able to have the hospital fax the results over before I saw my surgeon. The results were both great and strange.

The great news is that the sample contained no malignancies, so the changes in my breast are not caused by any kind of cancer. Even though I figured that this was the case, it's nice to have confirmation that I don't have more or another cancer.

The strange news is that there was no sarcoidosis in the biopsy sample. Huh? The pathologist said that the changes are more like granular annulare of the interstitial type (whatever that means - could it be interstitial granulomatous dermatitis? I couldn't really find that part), which is apparently just a group of white blood cells that form and rise to the skin. This condition usually causes raised red rings to form on the skin, which is definitely what my thing looks like although it doesn't look the same as the pictures on the interwebs.

The report says that it's also possible that the breast changes are due to an interstitial granulomatous drug reaction. From what I can gather, this means that I`m having a rather unusual reaction to one or another of the drugs that I take. The most recent addition was the denosumab so of course I wonder if it's the one causing the problem.

How crazy would it be for me to have two distinct conditions characterized by granuloma formation: sarcoidosis and this other thing going on in the breast? Pretty darn crazy, I'd say. I'm fairly certain that I do have the sarcoidosis because it was confirmed by biopsy in my mediastinal lymph nodes and my elbow scar. Of course apparently sarcoidosis can look like these other conditions but apparently the pathology is usually different for each of them.

My surgeon is referring me to a dermatologist in Oakville because we need to figure out what`s going on with that one breast. The biopsy raised more questions than it answered, which seems to be par for the course. Hoepfully I'll be able to get some answers and maybe even some treatment.

Long week

I've been crazy busy lately what with finishing up the aprons for my metalsmithing class and working on my metalsmithing projects. I think that I've got up early every weekday for the last two weeks and I'll be doing it again this week, at least until Friday when I have absolutely no plans. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to not having a single thing to do that day. It'll be so wonderful, especially since I've had commitments every other day.

I know that this doesn't sound like I'm working all that hard, having to get up around 8am instead of 10am and do one thing per day, but it's more than I normally do. Fortunately, I've managed to keep myself from feeling too overwhelmed this whole time, which I think of as a big accomplishment.

Speaking of accomplishments, I've finished the aprons - finally! If I get orders for more I'll make more but for now I'm happy that they're done. Ian's also got the drywall done in my sewing room, has primed the walls, and is ready to lay the subfloor. I'd love to be sewing in my sewing room because everything will have a place and there will be space. Right now there isn't enough room for both my sewing machine and my serger and I have a hard time finding needles and other useful things. I bought a new pair of snips because while I know I have a pair, they're hiding somewhere.

I've also made progress on the gifts that I'm making for my niece and nephew as graduation presents. I hope to finish both gifts before I leave for Edmonton on June 24 - really, if I'm stressed about anything, it's finishing those gifts. It isn't the end of the world if they're not finished but I really want to have them done when I head out there. We'll see what happens.

Tomorrow I'm seeing my surgeon to get the biopsy stitch taken out and to hopefully get the pathology results. I'm not anticipating bad results or anything and I expect that the results will come back as sarcoidosis or maybe as insufficient sample. If I can get a confirmation that the skin changes are sarcoidosis then maybe I can get it treated. The skin is still changing and I'd like that skin to go back to normal.

So there's a summary of what's been going on over this last week or so. I'll let you know what happens tomorrow.

Landscaping done

The landscapers finished all of the work in our backyard last Thursday. I'm thrilled that it took them only four days to do the work. Overall, we're very happy with the results. The workers were very neat and tidy, cleaning up the patio and removing all traces of their presence on the driveway before they left each day. Contrast this with our neighbour's approach, which is to leave equipment and product he'll be using later on the road.

The workers also worked very fast and from what I can tell, they did a thorough job. They all seemed to take a lot of pride in their work and tried to make the new landscaping look nice and blend in with the existing landscaping. I trusted them to plant all of the perennials in the garden wherever they thought they should go because they knew more than I did about these plants. We've done some research on the plants and I think we might want to move them at some point but we'll leave each plant in its current position this year.

Of course not everything went perfectly. In particular, we had issues around communicating with the company owner. We'd have been better prepared for them if the owner had confirmed when the work was starting. As well, when the owner discussed the job with us, he said that when it came to planting the perennials he wanted us at home so that we could tell the guys where to put them. On what could have been planting day, I called him and asked when planting would happen as I thought he'd wanted us there and in response he said that the guys would lay out the plants where they would go and we could move them. Later on, I talked to the foreman who hadn't been planning to do that at all. That's when I told him to plant them where he thought best.

These were small communication problems and we were so happy with the work that we'd definitely recommend Lawrence Lawn Care for landscaping jobs. We have to check but if they have experience with permeable paving like grasspave2, we'll hire them again to make our driveway narrower so that our neighbour can see where his driveway ends... and hopefully stop driving and parking on our driveway.

Now for some pictures:

Before. This picture was actually taken last year; the bushes on both sides of the waterfall are much larger this year. The area to the left of the waterfall and bridge is where the landscaping was done. 

After. Even though this picture was taken at a slightly different angle and includes more than in the Before picture, the differences are obvious. The new landscaping extends from the waterfall over to the about the lilac tree on the lower left of the picture. They put the cedar mulch over all of the backyard plant beds to unify the look and while I don't love dyed cedar mulch, it does look nice. We're not loving the aluminum rails on either side of the path between the steps and bridge so we'll be wanting to cover them with creeping plants.

A second After view, taken from the other side of the bridge and waterfall. That little tigerseye sumac on the right, there, is going to grow up big and strong. It'll look great once it's fully grown to its 6ft high by 6ft wide self. Behind and just to the left of the sumac is our tulip tree. 

Yesterday's biopsy

Yesterday was biopsy day for me. Ian took the day off so that he could do the driving which I appreciated. I could have driven myself there an back because it was just a skin biopsy but biopsies of any kind are stressful and it's better for me (and everyone I guess) to not drive when I'm stressed.

We didn't want to leave Gozer crated in her kennel for the whole time we were gone so we decided to bring her with us and take her to his parent's house for a visit. I'd hoped that Gozer could visit with Ian's parents because they like her and she likes them but she spent most of the time looking out of the patio doors. Ian's parents get a lot of chipmunks, squirrels, and bunnies - not just fully-growed versions but baby-sized versions too! - and Gozer likes to watch them go by and bark at them when they get too close.

After dropping off Gozer, we went to the hospital for the biopsy. It wasn't busy at all in that department and I got in right away. My surgeon looked at the affected breast and noticed that the reddened, thickened areas had changed since he saw me last week. Yep, it's changed, because it really done change that quickly. He injected local anaesthetic in two locations (the slower that stuff goes in the less it hurts), waited a minute, sliced off a skin sample, and stitched it closed with one stitch. Even though I couldn't feel what was happening and it didn't hurt at all, I could feel the whole breast move and that creeped me out a little bit. Fortunately, the whole thing didn't take long so I didn't end up freaking out too much.

The area bled a little bit for the next 24 hours or so but it seems to have dried up completely now. I haven't had any pain at the incision site although I have had some pain and throbbing in the areola today. I think I'll live :)

I'm to call the surgeon's office on Monday to request an appointment on Monday, June 11. My surgeon will remove the stitch at that appointment and check how well the incision is healing. If the pathology results are back, we'll talk about them at that appointment; otherwise, he'll call me with the result.

Young Frankenstein the Musical

Last night we went to see Young Frankenstein The Musical. We were excited about seeing it because we love the movie and wanted to see how well the adaptation worked.

It turns out that the Young Frankenstein story adapts very well to the musical format. In fact, I'd say that the musical was better in some ways than the movie, at least in my opinion. The songs were punny and catchy and the music was upbeat. The story moved along quickly and was very entertaining; even though the show was almost three hours, I didn't notice how much time had passed.

I especially loved the way Igor was played in the musical over the way he was played in the movie. He was really the star of the show and definitely added (more) comic relief. The actor playing Frederick Frankenstein, our protagonist, was very good and sang very well.

The production wasn't perfect, of course. We didn't love the actress playing Elizabeth, Frederick's fiance, or the character herself but she was unfortunately an integral part of the story. The dancers in the chorus weren't very crisp in their movements and they all seemed to interpret their steps slightly differently. That's ok; this was a touring production, after all, and no one expects them to be perfect.

Overall, we very much enjoyed the show and were thrilled that we got a chance to see it. If you like Mel Brooks' work, Young Frankenstein the movie, or musicals in general, this show is for you.

Backyard landscaping

Earlier this month we signed a contract for a company to do some landscaping in our backyard. We wanted steps added going up the hill as well as new perennial beds created between the steps and the waterfall. The contractor we picked showed up yesterday morning, much to our surprise. He'd said that he thought the work would start this week but he didn't confirm that with us so imagine our surprise when the workers showed up yesterday morning at 8:20am!

Of course I hadn't ordered the plants yet because they needed to know when the contractor wanted them and he hadn't told us that. It turns out that he really wanted them yesterday which wasn't going to happen but I think they were able to get them ready for him today. They won't need the plants until at least tomorrow anyways because planting is just about the last thing to be done.

Those guys work fast! Yesterday they took out the sod where the steps and bed are going, destumped all of the huge birch stumps left over from when we cut them down, placed a few large rocks, and dug out the trench for the french drain weeping tile. Today they built and covered the french drain, placed more rocks, and got most of the steps in place. At the rate they're going, we can most likely decide where the plants are all going tomorrow and they'll be done by Friday at the latest. The workers are also careful to keep things tidy when they leave for the day which is something we appreciate. Had we hired our contractor neighbour to do it, it would have taken ages for his guys to finish the job and they would have left a mess.

We're very excited to see that it isn't going to take long to get all this work done because we're going to get to enjoy our new landscaping all summer long. How amazing is that?

Creating and organizing

A little while ago I went on a spending spree, buying cabochons and faceted gems in lots of different colours. I'm not very good at planning out what I want to make and then finding the stones I want to use in those designs; I like to be inspired by different stones. Of course I can design something and then find stones to fit but it can be hard to find a stone of a particular size and colour. I buy on eBay and etsy; I don't buy the volume of good stones to be able to place an order at one of the big gem supply places. I also don't want to pay those prices!

Anyways, I bought all those stones and have been carrying them around in their original packaging. This has made it difficult to look at the stones and be inspired by them. I bought some watchcases a couple of weeks ago and this weekend I finally put all the stones in the watchcases. I haven't yet finished putting all of the information on the cases about the stone (in particular, not every case has the price I paid for the stone), and I haven't organized the stones aside from separating faceted stones from cabochons, but now I can open up the cases and see all my beautiful stones.

Hopefully I'll start being inspired soon. My niece and one of my nephews are graduating from high school this year and I'm making each of them something to celebrate. I actually have ideas about what I want to make for each of them and now that I can see my stones, I can look at them and make these ideas into drawings into actual things.

Each one already knows they're getting something so I don't mind saying that but I'm not going to tell you about my ideas. After all, I might change them and even if I don't, I want the final products to be a surprise. :) I'm very excited about making these gifts.

Speaking of making things, my instructor loved the sample apron I made. I need to adjust the neck strap slightly but she loves it otherwise... as do two of the other students. They're buying aprons, too, which is kind of cool. I won't make money on these but I'm happy that I can make something useful for the studio and my classmates.

Doctor's appointments

I spent the last two days driving to and from doctor's appointments. Ian finally convinced me to see our family doctor about the changes in the one breast. There's a ring of red, raised skin just outside the aerola which makes my breast look like a big bullseye. Above that ring there's a recessed red area with white spots in it. I'm fairly certain that both areas are sarcoidosis.

I saw my family doctor yesterday. He took a look at the breast and immediately said that while it doesn't look like cancer, he doesn't know what it is so he wants a biopsy (which I also wanted). He got me an appointment with my surgeon this morning: he looked at it and will biopsy it next Thursday at the hospital. I guess the plan is to freeze it, take a sample, and put a stitch in it so it shouldn't be too traumatic.

The reason Ian convinced me to see our family doctor was that I've started feeling pain in the affected breast. It almost feels like whatever is going on in the skin is spreading inward, if that makes sense. If the thickening and redness is sarcoidosis then it's possible that the sarcoidosis is starting to affect the scar tissue inside the breast. We're not going to do a mammogram to see what's going on in there because we can see and feel that the breast skin is affected.

As I say, I expect that the problem is sarcoidosis and if we confirm that, I hope that we can treat it somehow. The usual treatment is steroids and of course they're not good for the body. At this point I'd rather not leave it alone because it's so ugly and it's becoming painful. Besides, if we don't treat it, it could show up on my next mammogram - and if it does, I can imagine we'd have to do a more involved biopsy. I don't want to have to go through that, you know?

I found driving back and forth each day to be very tiring. I didn't sleep well the night before last or yesterday afternoon but last night and this afternoon I slept like a baby who sleeps through the night. I'd hoped to do some dishes and get my sample apron done (I was able to work out a way to make the apron the way I wanted) but both will have to wait for tomorrow.

Mostly restful weekend

I'm still tired so I didn't do much this weekend. Plus, it was crazy warm out there with temperatures reaching near 30C and we decided that hiding in the basement was a better choice that working outside.

We did manage to get out and do some stuff. Today, for example, we sprayed nematodes on the lawn. Our lawn is looking patchy in part because of the grubs and we'd wanted to try getting rid of them. Applying nematodes is faith-based lawn care, in a way, because the nematodes are microscopically small so we can't see them and it's hard to tell if the application is working. I guess I could take a look at them under a microscope and see them if I wanted to do that. I could also, I suppose, try to estimate the number of grubs under  the grass both before and after the treatment. However, I'm much too lazy to do that so I'm going to assume that we didn't apply the lawn care equivalent of snake-oil to our lawn.

My lupins are starting to bloom and wow, do they look great! Well, one of them does: it has nearly 30 blooms coming up right now and every leaf stalk is standing straight up. There are two little ones that are growing from last year's seed and they're doing fine as well.

The other large one has only about 15 blooms coming up and many of its stalks are bent over. It's got aphids and it doesn't get quite as much sun as the other big one gets so the aphids have affected it to a huge extent. Thankfully, there aren't nearly as many aphids on the plant as there were last year because I've been killing them. Now that the flowers are out I'll have to keep a very close eye on the aphids because they love the flowers most of all. At least the lupins will look good for a couple of weeks.

I've made some progress on the aprons as well. I decided to use a good-quality cotton broadcloth for the neck and waist straps: I'll just make a one-inch wide bias strap for the neck and make one-inch wide straight-grain straps for the waist. I'd like to extend the neck straps down to the waist as well because I think it would look awesome but I need to cost it out and make sure it doesn't take too much fabric or time to make. I thought I had everything figured out and I was good to go but then I realized that I'd made a mistake in my calculations (an apron needs two waist straps, not one). I think I can still make it work but I need to do some figuring.

The rest of the weekend we spent watching tv or playing video games. It was very relaxing and I'm feeling a bit more well-rested - just in time for a busy week.

Overdoing it

I think I might have been overdoing it lately. I've been getting up a little bit earlier than usual and working outside in the garden for a couple of hours every day or every other day and on top of that I've been walking Gozer. I was obviously tired and so Ian told me to be sure to nap today: to not do too much and to nap.

So I did. I went to sleep around 11am, thinking I'd lie down for a half-hour or an hour and I sort of half woke up around 1pm and woke up more fully around 4pm. I wanted to go back to sleep because I was so very tired but I dragged myself out of bed and took Gozer for her afternoon walk. I felt so weak and so tired and short of breath that the walk was a huge ordeal for me. I'd really, really wanted to go to metalsmithing class tonight but there was no way I could make it since I was so tired.

I hope that I'm feeling better for the long weekend because it's supposed to be so nice and I want to enjoy the beautiful weather. My previous plan for tomorrow had been to go out and do some weeding but now I think I'm going to sleep and rest as much as possible.

Oh, Gozer

Gozer is an adorable dog most of the time but she can go a little overboard. Did you know that dogs can get grass stains on their fur? No? Me, either. I know that clothes get grass stains but those clothes are made of things like cotton, not dog fur. I guess Gozer wasn't satisfied with her her cow-spot markings and wanted to add a little colour to her look. She's got a new greenish yellow spot in the middle of her back and smaller spots on her shoulders and chest.

I think she got the grass stains on her shoulders and chest from bracing herself while rubbing her face on the ground. I used to think her eyes were itchy but now I wonder whether it's her sinuses or nose that are itchy. Either way, bracing her shoulder or chest against the grass while rubbing her face gives her grass stains. I have no idea how she got the grass stain on her back, however. Sure, she's a dog and she rolls around like all dogs do... but I didn't think it was possible for her to roll hard enough to grind her back into the ground.

I'm sure I should be grateful that she's not adding poo or rotten vegetable stains (and smells) to her formerly lovely coat. Funny, though, I don't feel grateful. While I love that she's comfortable being a dog, I also feel a bit annoyed that she's so determined to make herself look and smell as awful as possible. Is staying away from the grass too much to ask?

Edited to add: it's hard to stay mad at her when she's licking my feet. That's one doggy behaviour of hers that I'd like her to keep. :)

Working in the garden

We spent last night and part of today in at Ian's parent's house to celebrate Mother's Day and Ian's mom's birthday. We went out for dinner last night and had a lovely, if huge, meal and then this morning we ate a very delicious baked spiced apple pancake thing. The rest of the time we hung out and watched tv, just enjoying each other's company. Ian's dad stole Gozer again, of course, but since she loves spending time with him, I figure it was as good a weekend for her as it was for us.

Ian's mom gave me some more seedlings to plant in our garden. She gave us a total of 54 impatiens plants - half shorter ones that will cascade over rock and half taller ones - that we planted in our front garden. Somehow we found room for all of them! Next year we hope to put in a flower bed on the other side of the path in the front yard but we can't do that this year so having the impatiens in the main bed will add some colour to the front yard.

She also gave us a whole bunch of plants that will attract hummingbirds. I put some of them - red salvias - up at the top of the waterfall and planted another type of plant in a pot for the patio. She also gave us some climbing plants that we planted on the kitchen side of the house where we get the morning sun. Hopefully they'll do well there and add some colour.

Ian's mom also gave us some vines for the gates on the side of the property. I love the way they look on her gate and I've been wanting the plants on our gates to add some interest and softness to ours. The fact that they'll add a bit of a visual barrier just adds to their appeal :) I'll be planting those in the next couple of days.

I've been looking at the lupin in the lower bed. It's got some aphids and it's not doing nearly as well as the lupin up by the waterfall. I've been thinking that I'd like to pull it out and put something else in there because it just doesn't get quite enough sun to thrive in that spot. I'll give that lupin one more season and if it's destroyed by aphids, out it comes.

Having such a huge garden is a lot of work but I'm finding that I love the work. I find it very satisfying to take care of the garden and to add more colour and variety to the different planting beds. I'm very excited to see how everything looks when it all takes hold and really starts growing.

Working on a project

I'm working on a project and I feel like I'm stuck at the moment. I'd promised my metalsmithing instructor that I'd make a dozen or so aprons for the studio at $15 each (including my sewing time). She wants the aprons to be black with turquoise or red straps. It sounds simple, right?

Somehow I'm making this a bit more complicated than perhaps it needs to be. Finding the fabric is fairly easy because she wants something like a black denim that isn't too stiff or heavy or that feels harsh. A 100% cotton bottomweight twill fabric will do nicely for the aprons: the fabric is soft and smooth to the touch, isn't too heavy, and is woven tightly enough to provide some fire protection. Since these aprons are for the studio they need to provide some protection against fire and this twill should do the trick.

The more difficult part is the straps. My instructor and the students want straps that are soft against the neck and not too stiff or crinkly or plasticky. I'd thought about using 1" wide cotton twill tape for the straps - well, the neck strap, at least - but the only red and turquoise twill tape I can find anywhere is 3/4" wide, which I think might be a bit too narrow. As well so far I can only find it online and I don't really want to pay extra for shipping as I'm trying to keep costs down.

I could buy 1" twill tape and dye it the right colours. But then the thought occurred to me today that the soft twill tape might be a bit too soft and flimsy for the waist straps. I'm not sure what would be the best choice  for those straps - maybe bias tape of some kind?

If you have any advice about what would work for the straps for these aprons that is soft on the neck and strong enough for the waist ties and is available in red and turquoise... and is fairly cheap, I'd love to hear it. I'm open to pretty much anything that would work.

Pretty Gozer

We had Gozer groomed today because she was looking quite scruffy. After grooming she looks so little! Her little spindly legs barely even look strong enough to hold up her body. Her hair is so soft now: it looks and feels just like velvet.

It's actually amazing that she looks as good as she does, considering that the grooming didn't go well. She was a little fussy while her face was being trimmed but that's totally normal. What was abnormal was that while she was being dried under the dryer she was screaming and screaming and screaming. I didn't know that dogs could scream but it seems that they can - there are videos out there, apparently, although I didn't watch or listen to them because I didn't want to freak out my dog.

I know that Gozer doesn't like the hairdryer at home or the sound of the dryer at the groomers but she's never screamed like that before. We're going to work on getting her comfortable with the sound of our hairdryer with treats. We'll start by just turning on the hairdryer and giving her a treat and we'll work up to actually blowing the dryer on her for a while before she gets groomed next. I don't want my furbaby so scared that she's screaming at the groomer's.

Fortunately, even though she obviously had a trying time at the groomer's, Gozer is doing just fine. She was quite cuddly today (or maybe that was me?) and also quite playful. She had a great time running around the yard while chasing her outside ball. She also saw one of the neighbourhood's black cats and wanted to chase it or play with it. In other words, she behaved just like she normally does - and she looked great while doing normal dog-like things.

Gardening all weekend

The weather was absolutely gorgeous this past weekend: highs of about 18C or so with a light wind and sunny with only wispy clouds in the sky. It was the perfect weather to be outside working in the yard so that's what we did.

I spent quite a bit of time pulling out weeds. There seem to be an infinite number in the yard: I can think that I've finished a particular area only to discover more and more weeds. I'm not even pulling out all of the weeds because there are so many! The low-to-the-ground weeds with pretty, small flowers are staying until I've got all of the dandelions and thistles and others (I don't know their names) out.

I also spent some time dealing with that damn vetch. I'm not sure it's an actual vetch plant - it's most likely Everlasting Pea, which isn't technically vetch - but it's certainly invasive, just like vetch, so I just call it "that damn vetch". Whatever it's called, I trimmed it back and trimmed the roots of the bigger plant so that it (hopefully) wouldn't grow more up than out. I tried to pull out the smaller plant by trimming it right down and digging out its root. I was only able to dig about five inches down where the plant's taproot was still a full inch in diameter. I cut it off there and I hope that it won't grow back. We'll see.

In addition to all that weeding, we finally planted all the plants that Ian's mom gave us. There were a ton of them and we used them to fill in the beds where the previous owner had put annuals. We started by putting a few of the hostas in the bed that's just in front of our front porch after reshaping that bed a bit. It looks like it was originally a corner bed which was then extended the length of the porch. Ian pulled out the stones defining the previous corner bed and used them to make a short retaining wall thingy. Between that change and the added hostas, our front yard looks so much better than it did before.

In the backyard we planted all the different plants where we thought they'd thrive and look good. If it turns out that they don't look as good as we think they will then we'll move them next year. We did realize that we missed one spot that we had wanted to fill in at the top of the waterfall. It gets full sun all day long and there's a hosta up there that just doesn't thrive. Hostas are shade plants, after all, and there's no shade up there. Next spring (or this fall) we'll divide one of our tall sedum plants that has grown quite large and put a clump at the top of the waterfall; it'll go nicely with the large lupin and small bush that are already there.

Speaking of lupins, one of mine has aphids. Sigh. I spent some time killing as many as possible but I suspect that it'll be a losing battle. I love lupins, I do, but I really don't love the aphids that feed on them. They deform the plant's stem, leaves, and flowers, and make it ugly. And once they've overrun one plant they head straight for another one. Hopefully the aphids will stay confined to the one plant and won't be as bad as they were last year. If the aphids take over again I'll have to get rid of those beautiful lupins.

After all that work in the yard and a couple of long Gozer walks, I was (and still am) physically tired but quite content. I love puttering around the yard when it's warm - but not too warm - and sunny. I can hardly wait to see how much better our backyard will look with all these additional plants.

Oncologist appointment

I saw my oncologist this morning for my bone and CT scan results. They're all clean, as usual: my mets are still visible and they're about the same size they were before, which is good news. The bone scan will show any area of bone that's active for any reason, so it'll show where the person has arthritis and other bone things in addition to cancerous areas. My bone scan showed activity in my big toes, knees, various spots in my spine, and some other places I don't remember, which would point to arthritis in those areas.

Interestingly, I met with my home care case manager yesterday and after I told her that I had this sarcoidosis which is an auto-immune disease, she said that many people with auto-immune diseases also develop arthritis in places like their big toes. I've had pain there and in other places that I thought could be arthritis and it was interesting to have that confirmed, along with a possible reason for it appearing there (other than getting older, of course!).

I talked to my oncologist about what I think is the sarcodosis that's going on with my left breast. It's still spreading and it looks rather ugly. It looks like a purplish rash, mostly, but it's raised and flat and hard to the touch. My oncologist looked at it, said it wasn't cancer, and when I suggested that it might be a good idea to confirm that it is sardcoidosis, she said that it would be good to get a biopsy done for peace of mind. I'd kind of hoped that she would refer me to someone to help me deal with this but she's not from the area so I guess she doesn't know anyone.

I did some research online and it seems that even though sarcoidosis is an auto-immune disease, there's no one primary specialist that deals with the disorder: when symptoms come up a specialist treats those specific symptoms and that's it. I guess that means that I'll need to see my family doctor to get a referral to a dermatologist (unless my surgeon, who I hope can do the biopsy, can refer me to someone) and that my sarcoidosis specialist care will be in Mississauga.

While I'm not thrilled that the sarcoidosis is going nuts on that one breast, at least my cancer is stable. This is some kind of great news, right? :)

Home again

I got home last night after an uneventful day spent traveling. Ian and Gozer picked me up from the airport so I had a chance to get lots of hugs and kissies from Ian and Gozer right away. Even though I had a wonderful time in Edmonton - and one of, if not the, best trip I've ever had there - I was very happy to come home because I missed home. It seems Gozer missed me, too, given that she's been cuddling up to me a lot since I got home.

I didn't do all that much while I was there: everything was kept fairly low-key this time around. I'd been a little nervous about being there for the first time in a year, especially since the last few times I'd been there had been so stressful. Being able to spend time with my sisters without freaking out or getting upset or hearing that darn voice tell me I was unworthy was something my psychologist and I had been working on and I'm pleased to say that all that work paid off because I had a great time with my sisters.

I visited with my sisters individually and with all three of us together and each visit went really well - better than I could ever have imagined. The atmosphere during each visit felt relaxed and easy-going and I found myself truly enjoying the time I spent with my sisters. Sure, sometimes we got quiet or tired or whatever and where before that might have turned into some kind of argument, this time things stayed calm. It was wonderful and I can hardly wait to go back there.

The main events I was in Edmonton to see were my niece's IB art show and her dance recital. The art show was amazing! The students, including my niece, are so talented. There were paintings, sculptures, murals, and interactive art pieces all done in different media and I could have spent quite a lot of time looking at each piece. Well, I did spend a lot of time there with my niece and one sister but I could have spent even more. I especially loved my niece's art which was unique and very much her style. I am buying one of the smaller pictures she did because it inspired me.

My niece danced in a bellydance recital and she was very good! I was thrilled to see how well she danced: she's a beginner bellydancer and her movements were quite good. I was so proud of her, too, for getting up and dancing on-stage because I know how hard it is to do that. I enjoyed the rest of the show as well because I do love bellydancing! I especially liked a burlesque/tribal/bellydance troupe and one of the soloists. This recital included two performances by Dr. George Sawa playing the Qanun, a traditional instrument. He's very good and it was a pleasure to listen to him.

When not doing something with other people (I got to see some friends of mine, too), I spent some time wandering around the university campus and area. I was staying right on the edge of campus and I wanted to revisit areas I remembered and to see how things had changed. On one lovely day I did a huge walk over a route that I used to take late at night one summer. I did the walk during the day, of course!

Being able to retrace my steps, revisit old haunts, and visit new places turned out to be a good thing for me. I'd had a couple of really bad years back around the time I finished my first degree and somehow seeing all of the changes and things that were the same let me see and remember all these things with new eyes and to think about them in a different way. There's a lot more work to do around those years throughout the city but I feel like I've made a start.

The best thing about this last trip is that I don't dread going to Edmonton the way I did before. I'll be going back there at the end of June because my niece and one nephew are graduating high school and I want to celebrate that by doing something yet to be determined. I know I'll miss home with Ian and Gozer and my bed and all my stuff but having such a happy time in Edmonton will be worth it.