You know, sometimes I like to think I'm a smart person, and then...
Since I had an appointment at 9:30 this morning (yesterday, now) at Dana-Farber, we thought we'd go out to breakfast in the area. It took me two days to figure out that the reason there aren't any good breakfast places near the hospitals is that all the hospitals have cafeterias. ~_~
Anyway, the Dining Pavilion at Dana-Farber has very nice corn muffins. And the surgeon doesn't want to see me for a year!
Also, by popular demand, March Hair with Spit-Curl.
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Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Sunday, March 18, 2012
First HAIRCUT!
The Bravest Man Alive gets his hair cut every six or seven weeks. When we first got married, I was a Wild Thing -- No one was gonna touch this magnificent mane, nossirree! But then, his usual barber was closed one week, and we wandered into Irina's, a salon owned by a Russian lady.
Who gave him a really great haircut.
I watched Irina cut hair for a solid six months before I let her touch mine. I'd had a really bad experience with a Brookline hair salon early in our life there, and I was sick and tired of people letting out their artistic visions on my head. (Also, I don't drink in the daytime, and the mild discussions about family and vacation spots I hold with hair stylists could barely be called gossip, so the wine-and-celebrity-trash-talk scene was unappealing.) When I finally sat down in Irina's chair, she went at my head like a contractor who's just been waiting for the final bit of paperwork. Clearly, she'd had a plan in mind for months.
The results were pleasing, and I've worn my hair on the shortish side ever since. It worked because I have (or had) very "Russian" hair, thick and wavy.
Fast forward 13 years and we're settling into our new home in Malden. Obviously, schlepping to Brookline was not feasible, so we began shopping around. Unfortunately, Malden and the surrounding towns are full of places devoted to big, puffy 'dos in unlikely colors on people who are significantly older than I am. So, I asked a church friend whose hair I admired for a referral.
Enter The Hair Cafe.
The Hair Cafe would be an impossibility in Boston. It's huge. It takes up the entire second floor of a major business block in downtown Malden. And it's staffed entirely by kindly ladies (old and young) who keep track of birthdays, decorate the place for every holiday, and serve coffee and cookies to all comers.
I wouldn't trust most of the stylists anywhere near my head (see comment about big hair and unlikely colors, above), but Debbie is different. She's not into trying to make my head into an artifact. And yesterday, yesterday, she applied scissors for the first time to my "after hair". I was getting a Kewpie-doll cowlick on top. She also gave me good advice about managing the hair while it grows out -- comb most of it straight back as I used to do, but comb the edges right around my face forward.
And, sure enough, people at church could not stop talking about my hair. It was kind of bewildering to hear about how cute and curly it was, until I got home and discovered that the hair which was wet when I left the house had formed itself into perfect Betty Boop spit curls around my cheeks and eyebrows.
Who gave him a really great haircut.
I watched Irina cut hair for a solid six months before I let her touch mine. I'd had a really bad experience with a Brookline hair salon early in our life there, and I was sick and tired of people letting out their artistic visions on my head. (Also, I don't drink in the daytime, and the mild discussions about family and vacation spots I hold with hair stylists could barely be called gossip, so the wine-and-celebrity-trash-talk scene was unappealing.) When I finally sat down in Irina's chair, she went at my head like a contractor who's just been waiting for the final bit of paperwork. Clearly, she'd had a plan in mind for months.
The results were pleasing, and I've worn my hair on the shortish side ever since. It worked because I have (or had) very "Russian" hair, thick and wavy.
Fast forward 13 years and we're settling into our new home in Malden. Obviously, schlepping to Brookline was not feasible, so we began shopping around. Unfortunately, Malden and the surrounding towns are full of places devoted to big, puffy 'dos in unlikely colors on people who are significantly older than I am. So, I asked a church friend whose hair I admired for a referral.
Enter The Hair Cafe.
The Hair Cafe would be an impossibility in Boston. It's huge. It takes up the entire second floor of a major business block in downtown Malden. And it's staffed entirely by kindly ladies (old and young) who keep track of birthdays, decorate the place for every holiday, and serve coffee and cookies to all comers.
I wouldn't trust most of the stylists anywhere near my head (see comment about big hair and unlikely colors, above), but Debbie is different. She's not into trying to make my head into an artifact. And yesterday, yesterday, she applied scissors for the first time to my "after hair". I was getting a Kewpie-doll cowlick on top. She also gave me good advice about managing the hair while it grows out -- comb most of it straight back as I used to do, but comb the edges right around my face forward.
And, sure enough, people at church could not stop talking about my hair. It was kind of bewildering to hear about how cute and curly it was, until I got home and discovered that the hair which was wet when I left the house had formed itself into perfect Betty Boop spit curls around my cheeks and eyebrows.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
First follow-up!
Today we rose before dawn, ate breakfast, and I took off through the early rush-hour traffic to Dana-Farber, where I barely had time to fasten on my radio-tracking button before I was led to an examination room.
Dr. Lin is friendly, fast, and thorough. She tells me that in the next couple of months the left breast, as the radiation-induced swelling declines, may feel lumpy or uneven -- good to know, as otherwise I might be freaking out.
Otherwise, nothing. I can come back in July for a mammogram and a visit with the nurse practitioner. I will be seeing one or the other of them, alternately, every six months for about three years, then just annually, then... not.
In other words, I am as cured as I can be at this point. A trip next Tuesday to let the surgeon admire her handiwork, and I am DONE. Or done-ish. Or something.
It's never really over. I can't call myself a cancer survivor unless I die of something else. Not that this depresses me, mind you! I always wanted something more than "She was a survivor" as my epitaph, and now I have more of a chance to earn something more interesting.
And I will, because as I was checking out, I asked if I could go see the people in the Patient Advocate office. The nice woman at the check-out desk couldn't find their location in her directory. She sent me to the Patient and Family Services office (home of the Volunteer Coordinator), but that wasn't the right place -- and though I did obtain the Patient Advocate phone number there, I was not told where they were located.
I did, however, find out that there is a Patient Advisory council. They like you to be out of treatment for six months to a year before you join it, so that you'll have a sense of objectivity again (instead of being an object). But if they think that's going to make me less persistant about fixing some of these systemic things, they have another think coming. I may not be steaming from both ears and the top of my head any more, but I still have all my notes!
Dr. Lin is friendly, fast, and thorough. She tells me that in the next couple of months the left breast, as the radiation-induced swelling declines, may feel lumpy or uneven -- good to know, as otherwise I might be freaking out.
Otherwise, nothing. I can come back in July for a mammogram and a visit with the nurse practitioner. I will be seeing one or the other of them, alternately, every six months for about three years, then just annually, then... not.
In other words, I am as cured as I can be at this point. A trip next Tuesday to let the surgeon admire her handiwork, and I am DONE. Or done-ish. Or something.
It's never really over. I can't call myself a cancer survivor unless I die of something else. Not that this depresses me, mind you! I always wanted something more than "She was a survivor" as my epitaph, and now I have more of a chance to earn something more interesting.
And I will, because as I was checking out, I asked if I could go see the people in the Patient Advocate office. The nice woman at the check-out desk couldn't find their location in her directory. She sent me to the Patient and Family Services office (home of the Volunteer Coordinator), but that wasn't the right place -- and though I did obtain the Patient Advocate phone number there, I was not told where they were located.
I did, however, find out that there is a Patient Advisory council. They like you to be out of treatment for six months to a year before you join it, so that you'll have a sense of objectivity again (instead of being an object). But if they think that's going to make me less persistant about fixing some of these systemic things, they have another think coming. I may not be steaming from both ears and the top of my head any more, but I still have all my notes!
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