When I said 'nose,' maybe the dermatologist heard 'toes'

I went to Boston to the Mohs surgery center for what I thought would be removal of something on my nose. Instead, the doctor said to apply Efudex/calcipotriene, dermatology's "dynamic duo," to my face for five days, to in effect burn off this and other spots. Instead, she had the resident cut away part of my toenail and biopsy the dark area underneath it, "just to make sure it isn't melanoma." This was kind of as an aside. I have shown this gross big toe to many people who haven't had much to say about the dark area under it along one side. The consensus has been that it is scar tissue from my toe banging up against my shoe while running. She is the first person who seemed to give it a second thought.

When I said nose, maybe she heard toes...

The resident said not to worry. What, me worry? 

Here is something I wrote about being a worry wart.

It was not a pleasant experience and really hurt even more when the anesthesia wore off. I have not gotten the results yet. Boyfriend had to stand by when I took the Band Aid off in case I fell over in shock at the sight of it a partial toenail and hit my head.

A friend pointed out that it wasn't a good idea to write in October that my hypochondriac tendencies had led me to suspect pancreatic cancer...and then disappear.

I started a couple of times, as you can see if you scroll down to a post I wrote last month, and then I had blogger block, a version of writer's block that occurs when you are not sure why you are writing a blog. Also, I like to add photos, and my photos disappeared from my Mac. It took conversations with several Apple experts to get them back.

The pandemic has made it hard enough to concentrate on paid work. So I have put my energy into work that pays. I thought of revisiting the blog, however, when I wanted to look up one of the crazy things that happened to me and found it in my blog. It was the years that I had ferritin overload due to having so many blood transfusions, and having to drink a disgusting medicine, Exjade, to get the number to get down to normal. I found the blog, put in "ferritin," and voila, the posts came up. So maybe it is at least useful. Still, I got tired of hearing myself talk about myself. I'm not sure what I am going to do, but I thought I would at least check in and update.

Here is something about the increased mental health risks during the pandemic for those who have seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, and tips for coping. And here is another pandemic-related story, about the need for cancer treatments and screenings to continue. 

Here is what I started: 

Here we are with my Aunt Marge on her 100th birthday. I was very attached to her. My mother said that when I was three or so, and my head didn't reach the counter in a coffee shop, and my aunt hadn't gotten served, I said, as if out of nowhere, ""Please give my Aunt Marge  cup of coffee." 

When I moved to Western Mass for my job at the T-T (Transcript-Telegram), I stayed with her in Greenfield for a while. She was gracious, even when my dog Simon took a chomp at their little dog when he messed with Simon's food. Over the years when she lived in New York, I visited as much as I could. 

This photo  at left turned up during cleanup, in an envelope of old photos. Warren in front, my mother on the left, and Marge on the right...with the same sweet face.

As Bruce wrote in a beautiful tribute on Facebook, when Marge died on Oct. 19th, "she spent 101 years and 9 months on this planet and came in on a pandemic and left on a pandemic."

Bruce Byers photo, Lynne and Marge

Saying that I was sad when she died is an understatement. It is more than being the last link to the generation, to my mother. It is the love I felt for her. And not being able to go down to New York makes it worse. I have thought of doing it and would love to see Jeanne, Bruce, and Amanda, but it doesn't make sense now with the surge. 

The two of them were sooooo close. They called each other Bren. It came from an act that two sisters, Brenda and Cobina, did, which would start like this: "Brenda!" "What is it Cobina?" They apparently did this for a while and then when they forgot which one was which, they just simply called each other Bren.

Hopefully will all make it through and can get together in New York to celebrate a wonderful life. 

Here is another start. 

It sounds like an ordinary day...yoga, tennis, Odyssey bookstore on Small Business Saturday, coffee with a friend, dog walk... and in a way though part of it would have seemed abnormal pre-pandemic, it is the version that I have gotten used to. It was virtual yoga on the living room floor, for starters. Tennis, still at the Canoe Club, wasn't any different than in the past except for knowing that it is nearing the end because I decided not to go inside. At The Odyssey, one-way traffic, hand sanitizer, and a placard to take so they can keep track of, and limit, the number of people inside. And coffee sipped behind the mask, reminding me of how I did it after all of my transplants .

Triggers and more

Things are going well.

Yet it doesn't take much to push me off track into what my friend PJ calls The Dark Side. Yesterday's trigger was a New York Times story headlined "Transplant Patients Put at Risk By a State's Financial Distress," about a new law signed by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer eliminating Medicaid coverage of certain kinds of transplants as a cost-cutting measure.

Not everyone in need of a life-saving organ or bone marrow transplant is entitled to government money to receive one, but this was a case of patients in line to receive transplants and then denied them. For example, one man was prepped for a liver transplant and then told that his family needed to bring $200,000 as a deposit; he was discharged, and the liver went to someone else.

Despite how you feel about where to draw the line on government spending for health care, this was a heartbreaking story. The part that got me personally came when different sides started bandying about leukemia statistics. The state Medicaid agency had presented an analysis of the transplants that were cut, saying that 13 of 14 patients who received bone marrow transplants over a two-year period died within six months.

"But outside specialists said the success rates were considerably higher, particularly for leukemia patients in their first remission," according to the story.

So?

Statistics, except of course the really good ones, make me jittery. I know each of us is an individual, not a statistic. It was reassuring to hear specialists saying success rates are higher, but the words "particularly for leukemia patients in their first remission" made me shudder. What about patients in their third remission? The story implies success rates are lower, and I have no doubt that they are, but I don't want to hear about it.

I also started worrying about my Medicare services being cut. What if....? Everyone knows that asking "what if" gets you nowhere. But still, when you get stuck in the Dark Side, it's hard to stop.

While perusing the calendars at the Odyssey Bookshop before I read the story, I came upon a wall calendar with a few calming sentences for each month by Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. They are a way to help you focus on your breath, such as "Breathing in, I calm my body. Breathing out, I smile." I read them on the wall calendar but didn't buy it. I have them in a book; although they are helpful, you don't even need to say them. You can just count your breaths, for example up to 10 and back.

After the Times story got me going, I couldn't remember any of the sayings. My heart racing, I thought of taking an Ativan. Instead, I sat down on the couch next to the dog and read a book.

Meanwhile, due to having two teeth pulled, I didn't do much during the week except walk Maddie. I decided to go to yoga today, but there was no class that fit my schedule (read: too early) where I usually go. So I went to another studio where I like the teacher and the space.

I came out crankier than when I went in.

A kid yoga class (read baby-sitting) was going on in a walled-off space inside the studio. You couldn't see the kids, but you could hear them. They squealed and laughed and tumbled around while their instructor had them take monkey pose and such. I got more and more annoyed. I told myself to chill out. Hey, it was the sound of children laughing, not anything terrible like bombs dropping. It didn't work.

I asked a man on our way out if the kids bothered him.

"No, I didn't hear them at all," he said.

"Bad yogini," I scolded myself.

Afterwards I took Maddie for a long walk through the woods and around a field. It was a dreary day, cold and gray. But I stopped several times on the path and looked up at the bare treetops, dark against the sky. It was quiet and soothing. I had a few words with Maddie, who insists on grabbing big sticks and staying close to me, whacking my legs along the way. I finally got her to go in front of me, and she looked so cute trotting with her over-sized stick that I had to laugh.

This post is getting too long, but I have one more thing to say.

Several of us have written lately that we are unhappy about our looks.

We are not having a contest for most messed-up face, but still, I am going to lay claim to that title. The swelling has gone down on the cheek where the teeth were pulled, but I have a big black-and-blue mark reaching under my chin and over my lip.

I am not going to post a photo.