All Sold Out!

Hello lovelies!  Here is something I never thought I would say...Kajal's Malas has been sold out!  In the past couple of weeks since I re-opened, sweet dear previous customers, and some newbies, dropped by and so graciously supported my shop's re-opening with a purchase (or two!), culminating in the last mala (one of my favorites, the yellow jade and garnet) shipping off today to lovely and sweet Niki (thank you again Niki!). 

Tomorrow I will be attempting to create a 27 bead pocket mala, a request from a dear friend to give as a gift.  It will be a good way to see if I will be able to begin knotting again.  I am a little concerned as my hands are a little shaky, I think from the pain medication (hopefully I will be off it very soon).  In any case I hope I am able to focus in the way that I feel I need to in order to create these sacred pieces (many of you know just how picky I am about my knots, and the kind of energy that goes into them and the mala as a whole).

So I am hoping to fill the shop up again with many more malas very soon!

I hope everyone has an absolutely wonderful holiday season, and the happiest of new years!  Thank you all for your generous love and support, kindness and compassion through such a difficult time.  I am so blessed to be on the road to recovery, and 2011 is so full of promise.

So much love to you all, kajal

Starting to feel more like me...and other good (really good) news

So I am just going to come right out and say it...my oncologist is not recommending chemotherapy!  Of course this has been hanging over me since my diagnosis...whether chemotherapy would be necessary for me, even after the surgery.  During the surgery a sample of the tumor is sent away for an "oncotype test" which is a very special test.  It's complicated but lets just say that it comes up with a number that represents the possibility of the cancer returning.  I am so relieved, grateful, blessed and excited to report that my number fell in the lower area of the midline, so the recommendation is for me to take a drug called Arimidex for five years, instead of a full course of chemotherapy.  In my case the benefits of chemotherapy do not outweigh it's risks.  The Arimidex is a drug that lowers my estrogen, since my tumor was very estrogen sensitive, so they will be monitoring me for the short and long-term side effects, but it will protect my other breast and help prevent a recurrence.  It is apparently being used now in place of Tamoxifen as studies show it to have better results.  I have been on it for about a week now and so far I have not experienced the joint pain that affects many...so far I have just felt like I have been PMS'ing for the past day or two, feeling emotional for no apparent reason (and snippy too, you can ask Eric about that).  Uncomfortable but certainly tolerable compared to chemotherapy.  So amazing to me...I will not have to endure the devastating effects of chemotherapy for a second time in my life.

Yesterday was my last day of home nursing care.  I had the loveliest nurse ever, sweet, kind and such an excellent, professional nurse.  As I mentioned, I've been feeling hormonal so I got a bit emotional as we said goodbye.  She helped me through such a difficult, challenging time.  I will always be so grateful to her.  But the good news is...I don't need home nursing care anymore!

So I am starting to feel more like me every day.  A feeling that I would have never thought possible the day after my surgery in the ICU and for many days after that.  I wake up every day and feel the most immense gratitude to just be in my bedroom, in my apartment, and to be free of cancer, and working on being free of the infection in my sternum.  So, so grateful.  At some point soon I will be on my yoga mat and I am so dearly looking forward to that.

The infection in my sternum...I don't think I've written about that.  My excellent thoracic surgeon removed areas of my sternum that had been affected by the radiation I had as a child and so were damaged and prone to infection.  Of course when they tested these samples, bacteria popped up all over the place.  So while the infected, damaged areas were removed, in order to make sure it doesn't return I will be on a heavy duty antibiotic called Levaquin for about six months.  I take it at night so I can eat during the day, since it does make me a little nauseous.  Again, a small price to pay to be free of  this awful infection that had affected my skin and made me unable to move very much for the past two years.  I thought I would have to live this way for the rest of my days.  I can't begin to say what this means, to have my sternum free of this infection and my skin to be healed.  To say I will have a better quality of life is such an understatement.  I will have a life!

So even though I can't drive yet (still on pain medicine), I think it's time to re-open my sweet little mala shop.  Eric doesn't mind driving me to the post office if I sell any so I can ship (I asked him, which he thought was funny.  I told him that he's not my chauffeur, and he said yes he is.  I said okay but I don't want to take that for granted!).  I really don't even know how many malas were left when I had to put the shop on inactive, I know it's not very many.  But it will be a start and hopefully I will feel up to knotting again soon.

So Happy to Be Home

Hello everyone, I'm so sorry for the "radio silence" that began here on the blog a couple of weeks before the surgery.  I became so overwhelmed and it was really all I could do to keep it together to get myself to the operating room.  Up until the day before the surgery was scheduled for I wasn't even sure if it was going to happen...my plastic surgeon (you may remember him as Dr. D & G) became unavailable (probably for the best) and there was some difficulty in arranging for another surgeon of his caliber to step in.  I was very blessed in that an amazing female surgeon arranged her schedule so she could be there.

The surgery lasted around ten hours, and I did have some "bumpiness" afterward that kept me in the ICU for a few days.  Thankfully though, it was all a success, and the pathology came back showing that they, my amazing team of three surgeons, removed every trace of the cancerous mass.  I have so much to be grateful for.

Nine days later I was on my way home with my Dad at the wheel, who came all the way from Florida to be with me through it all, spending every day at the hospital with me and even staying overnight my first night in the ICU.  Like I said, there was some bumpiness and it was a very difficult night.

I have been back to SK twice since, to see the plastic surgeon and the thoracic surgeon, and they are both very happy with how I'm healing and how the skin grafts are taking.

I will probably write more about it all at some point, but I'm still on pain meds that make it hard for me to focus, and I at least wanted everyone to know that I am home and on the path to recovery.

I have so many people to thank...my lovely friends and sisters for rides to SK, visits to the hospital, amazing meals brought to my home, everyone's love, support and prayers, cards, flowers, balloons...you have all made me feel so loved and cared for.  "Thank you" will never be able to express the depth of my gratitude.  Thank you all so, so much.

Good News!

I have such good news...I just received a call from the nurse in my oncologist's office with the results from my crazy PET/CAT scans on Friday...everything is stable, nothing has spread, and the lymph nodes on my left side have calmed down so I won't be needing the ultrasound guided fine needle biopsy!  Happy dance, oh happy dance!

I will be seeing a Thoracic Surgeon on Thursday, then all the surgeons will be putting their heads together with my oncologist, who I will be seeing a week from today, and hopefully on that day she will be presenting me with a plan for my surgery.

Moving forward!

Broken, then Mended, then Broken, then Mended Again...but Always Whole

Warning ~ long, and not for the faint of heart

Sutured Heart, by Lyndsay of  idlehandsdesigns 

There is much to catch everyone up on...I left off many days ago on the day of the fire, a week ago Monday...and I have had many challenging days since.  I had to go back to SK that following Friday, and I was so grateful for the few days in between, I was so, so tired.  On Friday my friend K so graciously drove me into Manhattan, it was going to be a very long day - four appointments.  It was originally going to be three appointments that day...I got a call the day before from SK to let me know that the Breast Surgeon who I had been scheduled to see the following Tuesday had had a death in the family, and they were looking to reschedule me with another surgeon on October 6th...sorry, too far away I told them...they called me back with a "can you be here at 9:30am tomorrow?"  Of course I said yes, and then had to call K and make sure she didn't mind getting up at the crack of dawn to get me there for the earlier, additional appointment.  I am so blessed that I have friends who are my sisters and will do whatever they need to in order to help me through this.

So I saw the surgeon that morning.  He felt that this would take a very difficult but very do-able surgery.  They would have to remove the cancerous mass, meaning my right breast, do the necessary work on my sternum to repair it, and bring skin from somewhere else on my body to cover the area (skin graft), since my radiated skin would not heal properly.  For anyone reading this that does not know my past history, I had Hodgekins Disease at the age of 14, a very large tumor in my right lung.  I had a tremendous amount of radiation to that area, and chemotherapy, and although some felt I would not make it, I went into remission at the age of 17 and was considered cured five years after that.  So, the very treatments that saved my life all those years ago are what has been causing me so many physical difficulties since, and they have a name..."late effects".

From the surgeon we had to go to the SK main building a few blocks away, where I had an EKG.  They need a baseline for anyone having surgery.  Then back to the first building for an MRI.

Anyone that has had an MRI knows that the sounds the MRI machine makes are loud and jarring...but that overall it is not a difficult test.  That had been my experience when I had one for my back last year when I was diagnosed with Peripheral Neuropathy, the reason why my left foot stopped working properly (probably from the chemotherapy, and also from the back surgery I had many years ago).  Well this MRI was not so easy.  They placed a white pad over my chest and said this is what would create the images, and that it would get warm.  They had put me in a hospital robe, which is a very light fabric, then covered the white pad with blankets since it was cold in the room.

Well, it did not just get warm...it got HOT.  And I tried to tell them this.  This heat over the area of my body where my skin is so unhappy and I live my life around trying to keep it cool and calm...it was so hot.  They took a blanket off, and rolled me back in.  I had to be in there for like an hour, feeling so afraid of how my skin would react to this.  When they were finally done, they pulled me out and had me sit up...I was dizzy, lightheaded and shaking.  They told me this was normal for some when coming out of the magnetic field.  Well it lasted all day and many days afterward.  More on that later.

I got to the changing area as fast as I could...the skin on my chest was so red and it was imprinted with the marks from the pad...at first I thought it had burned my skin!  It was not burned, but very irritated.  The marks faded by the end of the day, and I spent a long time soaking it in the magic Saratoga water as soon as I got home later.  I'll write more on the water from Saratoga, another post that's been floating around in my head that I haven't been able to get to yet.

So after the MRI I had been scheduled for another test, which thankfully got cancelled at the last minute.  K and I had been in the city all day...thank you so much K, thank you just doesn't say enough.

So, the good part of the surgery news was, as difficult as it would be, in the end I would be cancer-free, and I would have healthy skin over my sternum.  This would change the quality of my life in a way that can't be put into words.  I just can't begin to describe the pain and discomfort I have been living with for the past two years from my damaged sternum and how it has affected my already "damaged from radiation" skin.  They don't give people as much radiation now as they did back in the 1970's when I was treated...but there are many people like me that had gotten radiation back then which has damaged their sternums and skin...they apparently see it all the time at SK.  The price we had to pay for being radiation guinea pigs...but for me it saved my life.

Beyond all this, Bear was still not right...E had to take him back to the vet, so I was fielding calls from him, the vet, and then a strange call from the nurse in my oncologist's office.  They were scheduling me for an ultra-sound guided fine needle biopsy of my lymph nodes, the surgeon should have explained this to me, she said.  It turned out that this decision was made later in the day, I saw him first thing in the morning so there was no way he could have "explained it to me".   I was very confused.  Did they see something on the MRI?  She said the test would be "to save you from a difficult surgery".  Well honestly I want the difficult surgery, I want a life back and in order for that to happen they have to fix my sternum and my skin!  She said they were working on scheduling it and would call me again.  I was not happy and wanted to talk to the oncologist or the surgeon.   

I spent the weekend feeling like I had been through a war bombing.  The MRI had affected me in a drastic way... I felt like my my body had been pummeled energetically.  So, for another week there was no laundry or cleaning done, and I had to go back to SK on Monday.  And now I was thinking I may still have to live with my skin this way.

I planned to take the train on my own, I didn't want to ask K or J again, they had both just gone with me once each that week, and E had to work...besides us not wanting to leave Bear alone all day.  He was doing a little better but still not eating very well.  We were still very confused and worried about him.

Of course it was raining, and I couldn't get a cab and had to walk in the rain up to 53rd street and Third avenue.  Again, not a far walk for some, but for me, in the rain, and with my lungs and physical condition the way they are, it might as well have been 50 blocks.  And I was still feeling compromised from the MRI.  My appointment was at 10:15am and I was there by 9:45am.  I had a few minutes to sit and wait in one of SK's nicely appointed waiting rooms. 

My appointment that morning was with the plastic surgeon.  From here on I will call him Dr. Doom and Gloom, or Dr. D &G for short.  I would add "Scare the Pants Off You" but that would make it too long.

The plastic surgeon is going to be one of the "main men" as far as my surgery goes.  He will be responsible for removing skin from an area of my body that has not been radiated, for repairing my sternum, and then positioning the healthy skin over the area to cover it up.  I realized I had had an expectation about Dr. D & G...every other doctor I had met at SK so far was positive, kind and compassionate...so I wasn't prepared for the demeanor I was going to encounter.

He examined me and basically explained that this was going to be a very difficult surgery, "as difficult as they come" were his words.  It would all depend on the depth of work needed to be done on my sternum, which they won't know exactly until they get "in there".  Now of course there are great risks with any surgery, but he made it clear that, well, there were significant dangers that went along with this one, and I don't even want to repeat how he phrased that.  At least a week in the ICU, in the hospital 2-3 weeks.  He felt the skin should be taken from my legs for the skin graft, and that so much skin would be needed that he would take it from one leg, then more from my other leg to help the first leg to heal.  He made sure to tell me that this "would not be cosmetic", and the scars on my legs could be bumpy.  He also made it clear that the breast reconstruction would also not be cosmetic, that more cosmetic reconstruction could be looked into six months after the surgery, but probably would not be advisable.  What he was trying to tell me, and not very delicately, was that I would be lucky to live through this surgery with everything covered and healed...and so of course I felt like "okay I am going to have a big, scary life threatening surgery and if I come out with Frankenstein scars I should just be grateful to be alive and have healed skin".  And I will be, I have so many scars that I have lost count, but did he really have to make me feel this way?

And I asked him about the reason for the ultrasound fine needle guided biopsy...he told me that something showed that it looked like the cancer had spread.  I assumed the MRI showed this.  I was devastated.

The kicker was, he zoned in on a mole that I have had on my abdomen for like, forever.  It has gotten larger as I have gotten older, and as we all know, skin stretches.  Even on me.  (I am very little, for those of you that don't know what I look like.)  So Dr. D & G announces, "you need to have that looked at, it looks like a melanoma to me".  Yes he really said that.  Not, "this is concerning to me and I want it looked at as soon as possible".  No.  He didn't want me leaving the building without having one of the dermatologists seeing it, so I left Dr. D & G at about 11:15am, and literally waited until 2:00pm to see a dermatologist.  And yes, the whole time I was thinking I not only had breast cancer or a glandular skin cancer that now was spreading, and I was going to need a very long and risky surgery, but I also had a melanoma. 

When I finally got to see the dermatologist and he told me it was NOT a melanoma and would not even need to biopsy it, I burst into tears.  Here was a kind and compassionate doctor who held my hand, and then gave me his cell phone number.  He promised me he would see me immediately if I find anything else concerning on me (which I will probably have to take him up on since I found something else on the side of my head, but I just can't deal with that right now).  He had the staff photographer (yes they have a photographer) take pictures of all my spots and splashes, and I'm to see him in three months so they can follow them all.  He also recommended I see the SK doctor that follows adults who have survived pediatric cancers and all that goes along with them, and he was going to set me up for that.  After D & G he was like finding a heavenly angel.

It was 3:00pm when I was finally free to leave.  It had stopped raining but I was way too tired to walk to Grand Central, and this time I caught a cab.  Word of advice...when not dressed in business clothing, don't ever ask a NYC cabby to take you to Grand Central.  Give them a street number, or they think you are a tourist and you don't know where you are.  This particular cabby tried to take me all the way around to the Vanderbilt Street entrance, instead of just driving up Lexington Avenue to the Grand Central Terminal entrance there.  I had him drop me off on Park Avenue near the Helmsley building, and I was icy about it, and he realized his mistake.  But that meant more walking for me.  Somehow I was able to grab something to eat for the train home and caught the 3:30 express, and when I got into the car with E, who was waiting there for me at the station, I had another meltdown.  Another challenging day.

Remember, I warned you that this would be long.

I had called the oncologist's office on the train on the way home.  I told the assistant that I needed to speak to her, as soon as possible...why had no one called me if this had spread?  I finally got to speak to her on Tuesday.  It had not spread.  The MRI had showed that it was basically in the same position that the PET scan from August showed.  What happened was, the radiologist who I guess just got around to reviewing that first PET scan I had done at Columbia, found that a couple of my lymph nodes on my left side were enlarged (my cancer is on the right side).  They want to make sure there isn't anything going on there.  They want to do an ultrasound on that side, and if they are still enlarged, do a fine needle biopsy, so we know exactly what we are dealing with.  She said they could have been enlarged because of anything that might have been going on in my system at the time.  So, good news, the cancer hadn't spread, bad news, something could be going on somewhere else.  I felt so depleted.

I am going to try to be brief for the rest...I was still feeling somewhat like a vegetable on Wednesday, from the MRI on Friday and my wonderful day on Monday, and the news on Tuesday...so I pulled out my "Energy Medicine" book off the shelf.  I had been to Donna Eden's workshop at Omega several years ago, when I was still healing from the bone infection, and this work had helped me tremendously...then the divorce, and my mom's illness and her subsequent passing, among other things, had me put it aside.  I still get her newsletters and when I got one on Wednesday I had a eureka moment...I knew that my energy fields were scrambled from the MRI, and I realized I already knew how to unscramble them, and I did.  She has since revised her book to add more work including what to do before a surgery or invasive procedure.  I dragged myself out of the house Wednesday to Borders to pick up the revised edition.

After I left Borders I decided to head over to Panera's to have a little lunch, read my book, and try to feel somewhat human.  I was halfway through my lunch when my cell phone rang, the assistant from my oncologists office.  They wanted to schedule me for another PET scan.  Again, no doctor had called to tell me about this or explain why.  Apparently, since there have been so many cluster-blanks and things have been so delayed that it has been nearly two months since the one I had done at Columbia, that they want another...which may (hopefully) do away with the need for the fine needle biopsy.  (please, please let those lymph nodes on my left side be back to normal...I have been doing a tremendous amount of lymphatic massage and energy work in that area and everywhere else).  So it was scheduled for Friday, meaning yesterday.

E drove me to SK...such a relief to have him there with me and not have to take the train.  My appointment was at 3:15pm.  We didn't get home until after 11pm.  I had a reaction to the IV contrast they gave me, it turned out it was a CAT scan AND a PET scan, and my heart did not like the IV contrast for the CAT scan.  I started having palpitations as soon as they sent that stuff through my veins, and no one heard me trying to tell them this...I tried to hold still anyway, I wanted them to get the test done and get their films, I want to know what is going on too...but by the time it was done and they got me out, and I told them, my heart rate was up to 130 and my blood pressure was up.  It was scary to say the least.  It took quite a bit of time and some xanax to calm it down, they had hooked me up to heart monitor machines and gave me juice and crackers, covered me in blankets.  You can't eat for six hours before this test, and so I hadn't eaten all day, was injected with radioactive material for the PET scan, with the IV contrast for the CAT scan, and I had had to drink an iodine mixture for the CAT scan too.  I felt like a combustible chemical stew, and I just wanted my heart to calm down so I could get out of there.   I will not let them do that to me, ever again.

E and I left the city around 6:30pm.  We have started to make a ritual of stopping at the TGI Friday's in Tarrytown on the way home to eat, I like their salmon and mashed potatoes and we know what we are going to get.  After SK appointments I just want to get out of the city as soon as I can.  So we headed that way, ran into traffic on the way out of the city, of course, it was Friday...and when we finally got to Friday's, at around 8pm, it was closed.  Now how can a Friday's be closed on a Friday night, you might ask?  When their ceiling has collapsed, that's when.  By now I'm just so hungry, and I feel just so terrible, it's so easy to feel like the universe is just messing with you, that all of this is just happening to me and has no impact on anyone else.  We had had so much rain in the area the past couple of days that it was causing havoc everywhere, including flooding and collapsed roofs.  Not just me, I am not the center of the universe. 

E was starving too, and we made it to the Friday's in White Plains, where there was a very long wait, so I told the hostess how I had not eaten all day because of a test, and she was a sweetheart and told us to be quiet as she scooted us to a little table ten minutes later instead of a half an hour.  We didn't get home last night until after eleven pm.

So there you have it.  You have to realize that I am writing this as much for myself as I am to keep everyone updated...if you have read this far, thank you.  I am processing everything as best I can as I go along, and writing about it does help a little.

About the "Sutured Heart" by Lyndsay at idlehandsdesigns ...it is Lyndsay's words, from her product description, that grace the title of this post.  "Some see this piece as broken and others prefer mended".  Her Sutured Heart jumped off the screen at me, and so did her words.  They describe how I feel about myself, my life, how my journey continues...I am broken, then mended, then broken, then mended...and on, and on...full of sutures, scars, punctures, patched here and there, everywhere, bloody.  Throughout though, I continue to move through it, knowing I am in this body but I am not this body...and I will continue to do what I need to do to keep this patchwork of skin and bones and flesh and blood together, so I continue to have a vehicle to move through this physical life with, for as long as I am meant to.  And hope that sometime soon, I will be back on my yoga mat and knotting malas again.

One of Lyndsay's Sutured Hearts is on its way to me as I write this...thank you Lyndsay. 

A Very Challenging Day

Fire under the 138th street bridge, nyc, September 20, 2010

The challenges began on Sunday, when my 12 year old golden retriever, Bear, who is my baby, did not want to eat, started drinking huge amounts of water, and was having trouble getting up and down.  He had developed a "hot spot" on his hind leg, which is a sort of skin infection commonly found on goldens, so at first I thought he was just uncomfortable from it.  We decided against bringing him to the veterinary emergency clinic (of course these things always happen on Sundays).  Monday I had my next appointment at SK, so I called the vet's office before leaving for the train.  They felt he should be seen, and so the main person in my life (I will call him "E" henceforth), who was not taking me to the city so he could work, was now going to have to get our dog to the vet in the afternoon.

And this was how the challenging day began.  E got me off to the train station, a friend would be meeting me on the train at a stop a little further south.  I was so grateful for the company, and while not the best way to spend the day, for the time I would get to spend with her.  We chatted away as we caught up on things and I explained about my appointment, how it was with the surgeon who specializes in glandular skin cancers.  I think we got a little further than Tarrytown station when we started hearing somewhat garbled announcements over the PA, something about a fire and not being able to stop at 125th street station, at least that's how it sounded.  Well, we were not planning on getting off at 125th street, we were headed right into Grand Central, so that didn't apply to us, did it?  We continued to chat.  Finally, a different conductor made an announcement...and it became clear...EVERYONE was going to have to exit the train at either Marble Avenue or Yankee Stadium....WAIT...what did he say?  Did he say what we think he said?  We were going to have to WHAT?  Exiting the train before it reached Grand Central had only happened to me once before...back in the 80's (now I'm dating myself) when I worked in advertising and had to exit at 125th street (again for a fire, on the tracks somewhere).  I remember that was not fun at all.  This time they were directing us to head to the subway, and take this subway train or that, a list of confusing numbers...and before we knew it we were getting off the train, with Yankee Stadium in the distance, part of a moving sea of people on their cell phones calling to change appointments and say things like "I'm going to be stuck in the city for a long time".  For me it was a very long walk to the subway, it may not have been for some others, but when you've got terrible asthma and limited lung capacity in your right lung, along with being out of shape from having limited movement over the past two years for various reasons, it was a long walk.  Along with stairs, lots of stairs everywhere.  Of course the subway station was a chaotic scene.  The woman in the token booth directed people from the train to head right through the gate, and told us which trains to take to get to 53rd street and third avenue, where I needed to go for my appointment.  We would need two trains...one to get us toward Manhattan, then a change to a local that would get us to 51st street.  I am not familiar with the subway system, I used it rarely even when working in Manhattan for many years.  I preferred to stay above ground whenever possible, hailing a cab when necessary.  I was so grateful that my friend had come along to keep me company, we managed this "detour" together, complete with a poor soul pleading for help, anything, some change, a little leftover water in a water bottle, part of a sandwich, help to get to a shelter so he could clean up.  It was heartbreaking.  "I don't steal, I don't do drugs, I don't drink...I lost my job and have nowhere to go, I don't hurt anybody"...he looked exhausted.  I can still hear him, he was a young man and looked so sincere.  Am I a bad person because I couldn't even imagine letting go of the pole I had a death grip on as the train careened around turns and bounced us around, let alone try to take out my wallet to give him a couple of dollars?  And taking my wallet out, in all places, the subway?  I hope not. 

We got off at the 51st street station, (again, steps, steps and stairways everywhere) and it took us a minute to figure out which way to walk to get to 3rd avenue.  It turned out we weren't too far away.  My appointment time was at 2:15, and by some miracle, that was exactly when we walked into the front door of the building.

I met an amazing group of doctors, and was there for quite some time.  The surgeon, I'll call him "Dr. C", was so compassionate, and very positive.  He told me I've kept people like him in the medical field far too busy for far too long, and that they were going to take care of this, figure it out and get it done.  He said it was completely do-able, and that I would be making lots of new friends at SK, one doctor smarter than the next, which I have already seen for myself.  It turns out, as usual, I'm a conundrum...I either have a breast cancer with certain markers of a glandular skin cancer, or a glandular skin cancer that managed to arrange itself on my breast, with certain breast cancer markers.  Either way quite rare, and I will most probably be needing a difficult surgery, complete with moving some skin around as my radiated skin will not be the best for healing.  Because of that, I will be seeing a very talented plastic surgeon on Monday, I will be adding him to my team. 

So to keep everyone up to date on my appointment schedule, this Friday I'm having all the test type appointments (MRI, breast imaging, EKG), Monday will be the plastic surgeon, and Tuesday the breast surgeon.  Down the road a bit is my appointment with the head and neck specialist, so we can eventually remove this ticking time bomb of a thyroid.  I have a nodule there, and because of the tremendous amount of radiation I've received to this area, I'm at extremely high risk for thyroid cancer.  I've tried to avoid surgery in the past, but now my feeling is, get it out now, I'm not giving cancer any more chances in this body than it already has.  

We headed back to Grand Central.  Luckily the waiting area at SK has free wi-fi and we were able to determine that service on metro-north was back on schedule.  What a relief that we weren't going to have to make our way back through the subway system to get home. 

I had called E to check on Bear...he was not doing any better and was going to leave soon for the vet.

My friend and I quickly picked up sushi rolls and edamame for the train ride home...I was starting to feel light-headed, I realized all I had eaten all day was a kashi granola bar (my favorite is the honey almond flax).  By the skin of our teeth we caught the 5:31 express, and we had a sushi picnic on the train.  I was exhausted, and made sure to put food in my stomach before I called E to find out what was going on with Bear.  Upsetting news would make it impossible to eat.

When the signal was better and I had food in my stomach, I called...and found that he was still sitting in the waiting room at the animal hospital!  So many pet emergencies that day, he was there for nearly two hours before Bear was even seen.  A couple of calls later, and it was apparent that he would not be able to pick me up at the train station at 7pm, he would still be at the vet.  Again, luckily I was with a dear, helpful and amazing friend...whose husband picked us up at her stop and whisked me to the animal hospital, E, and Bear.

They had run a gauntlet of tests...thankfully his liver and kidney functions are good, and x-rays showed only the possibility of something suspicious in his stomach (it could be folded over from not eating).  They had shaved way too much of his hind leg, because of the hot spot.  After the day that I had it would have been easy to cry over the loss of his gorgeous golden hind feathers.  But I kept it together and paid the $500 plus bill, with the possibility of bringing him back the next day for more in-depth images, and left with antibiotics and wound cleanser.  We were able to get him to eat with some coaxing when we got home, which was after eight o'clock.  We had been so worried about a blockage somewhere in his system, but he gave us a nice poop yesterday and we were able to rule that out.  With the excitement that ensued you would have thought we hit the lottery!

To say Monday was challenging is really an understatement...I don't think either of us has fully recovered from it, especially still not knowing what is going on with Bear.  After talking with the vet over the phone, we decided to wait and watch another day, it could possibly be a "bug" of some sort...we are so thankful for this because we are so completely depleted, beyond description.  I have another trip to SK on Friday and I have to put myself together for that. 

A Mala fit for a Guru

 

My beautiful yoga sisters have asked to see pictures of this mala, which I created for my Guru, Yogi Amrit Desai (we affectionately call him Gurudev).  It is gold tiger's eye and red tiger's eye, hand knotted on gold silk thread, with a poppy jasper Guru bead.  As I knotted my Guru's mala, I chanted the Gayatri Mantra along with beautiful Amma's CD, as well as Hara Hara Gurudeva, and of course the Guru Mantra of our Lineage.  The love that went into this mala cannot be described...normally when I create a mala I can feel the loving energy coursing through me right into the mala, but this was nearly a loving pranic explosion!  I was so blessed to be able to give it to him personally while he was here at Omega in July, the day my beautiful sister and I picked him up, along with his daughter Kamini, from the airport.  To my complete and utter delight and surprise, he immediately placed it around his neck, asked if it was real tiger's eye (it is) and admired the knotting...words could not express my joy.  In another post I'll write more about the miracle of spending a yoga nidra week with him and Kamini as I found out about the cancer diagnosis.

I also created a special wrist mala for Kamini, who I am so blessed to have in my life as a teacher and mentor, I love her so.



Amethyst, Dogtooth Amethyst and Silver Om for Kamini



First Step

 

Evelyn H. Lauder Breast Center at Memorial Sloan Kettering

Yesterday was the big day...my first appointment with an oncologist at the Breast Center at Sloan Kettering, or as I've been referring to it, SK.   As it turns out, I may not have breast cancer.  I may possibly have a glandular skin cancer that ended up in the area of my breast (it is just amazing to me how they can see things like this).  This is what happens when your biopsy slides go missing for weeks, and then finally get looked at by the best of the best in terms of pathology labs.  In order to sort this out, I will be traveling to Manhattan to visit with my new friends at SK several times over the next couple of weeks.  I will be seeing specialized surgeons and having all kinds of imaging done.  I spent most of my morning today getting all these appointments scheduled, after not getting home until after ten pm last night.  As you can imagine I was feeling pretty spent today, a kind of "not quite here" feeling.  I am feeling very blessed though that I managed to make my way to SK, even if my journey there was quite long and roundabout. 

I was happy to be able to create this space for updates on my progress... I'll try to intersperse it with malas, yoga and anything else that feels right.