Tons of tennis, all around

Me with Donna and Deb at the U.S. Open

We had a great time but an exhausting one at the U.S. Open yesterday, Day 5 of the tournament, going by bus with a group from the Enfield Tennis Club.

With so many matches occurring, it was a little overwhelming, but it was fun to see all the scores updated like so many trains arriving and leaving from Penn Station. Our seats in Arthur Ashe Stadium were way up in the nosebleed section, giving us an aerial view of Novak Djokovic's easy match against   Benjamin Becker. It was so hot up there that I couldn't make it through the third set. I'd like to get the tickets earlier next year and sit closer.


We did, however, sit at courtside for a singles match between number 8 Angelique Kerber and Kaia Kanepi; sitting so close, you really get a sense of how hard they hit. We also saw a women's doubles match, which was good for us doubles players.

And at USTA member appreciation day, we paid homage to the trophies. ("No touching!" we were warned.) It was a little hokey, but we got into the spirit.

While we were there, I got a call from the dermatologist's office with the results of the biopsy of the spot on my lip. It turns out to be another squamous cell, and I will need to set up an appointment with a surgeon in Boston to get another Mohs procedure. A spot on my wrist was also squamous cell, but the biopsy itself took care of it. I need to return Tuesday to get the stitches out, and then I will get a call from a surgeon's office about scheduling the appointment.

The call was disappointing because when I saw my dentist Thursday to fix a chipped filling, he said he was almost sure it was herpes, not cancer. I am not too happy about this, but I tried to keep it from ruining my day.

Not being 100 percent, the running back and forth and up and down stairs wore me out. It might be tiring if you didn't just have major surgery a little more than a month ago. I fell asleep as soon as I got on the bus.

There is plenty of tennis to watch in the next week, and now I have a different perspective because I've been there.

Tomorrow, I might go hit a few with Donna.

Back in Boston for another biopsy

Well, I've made my last college dorm bed.

Any mother who's completed the ritual knows how important it is. Wasn't it just yesterday, you wonder, when you packed their Barbie or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lunchbox and put them on the kindergarten bus?

I'm past crying, but it still tugs at my heart.

The past few days have been very busy. My birthday Saturday in Wellfleet couldn't have been nicer. The day started, as usual, with me getting up early and going down to the Flying Fish for blueberry muffins and a cup of special Flying Fish coffee which I drank on the way home. Ben and Meagan went to the flea market and then later they went with Joe shopping downtown. Katie and I swam and walked, and Katie got in a run. We had a cookout and then – surprise! – a cake. I got a really nice pair of earrings and a little cutout of a dog on a plaque that read, "When all else fails, hug the dog."

While I have nightmares after watching "Breaking Bad," I had pleasant dreams after my little party.

Moving out the next morning went seamlessly, minus my notorious lollygagging and the usual subsequent nagging by Joe or Katie followed by digging in on my part. Maybe my birthday brought me some wisdom about the need to sometimes move along more quickly...or maybe it was just a good day.

We drove home Sunday and then Katie and I turned around Monday to move her back into school. It took most of the day Monday to get her stuff into her room. At night, we ate at Veggie Galaxy, which serves traditional diner food made with vegetarian and vegan ingredients. Since it was a diner, we felt like we needed to top off our meal with delicious Boston Creme Pie.

Yesterday I saw Dr. Lin, my dermatologist. She did a punch biopsy on my lip; she also did one on a spot on my wrist.

"You're like a garden," she said. "Of delights."

She thinks the spot on my lip is either Herpes or another squamous cell carcinoma. The results may be back by Friday, but in any case she wants to see me next Tuesday.

She said  I could drive back home, but as the novocaine wore off, I quickly realized that would not be possible. It hurt so much that tears sprang to my eyes as I sat in traffic on Route 9. I went straight to Diane and David's, took some pain pills, and soon felt better.

It's Wednesday morning now. I'm filling up on coffee and am about to try going home. If I get tired, all my favorite rest stops await me.

All's well in Wellfleet

Hello from beautiful Wellfleet.

Katie and I got here around 3 on Wednesday and did a lot. We went swimming in Great Pond, which we have nicknamed "the pond with the stairs" because of the long descent. There is no beach at the bottom of the stairs, so you have to just jump in. Once in, I was careful to stay where I could stand because I still don't totally trust my strenght, but as I floated on my back and looked up at the clear blue sky, I couldn't have been happier.

I made it up and down with no mishaps. Going up was actually easier then going down. Then we went out to dinner downtown at a fun place called The Juice, and from there to the harbor for ice cream at Mac's.

Ben and Meghan arrived late, and then Joe got here Thursday morning. Poor guy was stuck in traffic for an hour on Route 6 about 10 miles from here.

I've been doing my morning thing, going to the Wellfleet Market for bagels and the paper, then on to the Flying Fish for muffins and croissants. Yesterday I had to go down near the dock to get the sticker for our car, and since it was early I stayed down there watching the boats, reading the paper and having a croissant and a coffee. It was so pleasant.

Yesterday we all piled in and went to the bay beach for a while and then on to one of our favorite places, The Beachcomber, for dinner. The parking lot is smaller due to the damage from Hurricane Sandy, but the wait was no longer than usual, about an hour. It doesn't matter because it's fun to look down at the beach. You can see a lot of seals, which is not great because the seals are coming closer and closer to the beach, bringing sharks. All the beaches have "beware of sharks" signs, and one (Marconi) was even closed for a while. I went for a long walk with a tiny bit of jogging but only got my feet wet.

Helping hands are all around. Not only my kids', but also other people who notice me looking tentative. For example, today I was just about all the way up the path from the beach to the top of the dunes when I paused to consider the easiest last step to the parking lot. A man reached down and pulling me up the rest of the way.

The spot on my lip is still painful. Actually, it's not just one spot anymore but rather my whole mouth that is burning. It's hard for me to eat; last night, when I would usually order a hamburger or fish and chips, I considered a grilled American cheese from the kids' menu. Then I saw cheese quesadillas, so I had those, chased down by a strong Planter's Punch.

Dr. Lin wants to do a biopsy, so after I drop Katie off at Brandeis Monday, I'm going to spend the night in Newton and then go to Brigham and Women's for my appointment at 10 on Tuesday.

As much as try avoid worrying about something before you even know what it is (and for that matter worrying about it afterwards), it's hard to do. Plus there's just the hassle of having another biopsy.

When Dr. Alyea looked at it last week, he said he was unimpressed. I have to assume that if he thought it was serious, he wouldn't have joked about it. In any case, I hope they figure it out soon so that I can eat without pain.

The trouble with my tongue

It turns out that the problem with my tongue is thrush, a yeast infection brought on by all the antibiotics I have taken recently, both to treat my pneumonia and given routinely with the kidney surgery.

Dr. Goguen prescribed lozenges and a mouthwash. If it isn't gone in a month she will have to do a biopsy, but she seemed pretty certain that won't be necessary. This is a big relief because the surgeon who removed my tooth on Thursday wrote down that he saw signs of dysplasia: abnormal cells. Naturally that made me suspect that I might need more surgery on my tongue.

After that I went across the street to the Kraft Blood Donor Center for my "therapeutic phlebotomy," withdrawal of a bag of blood to help lower the amount of excess ferritin being stored in my liver due to all the transfusions I had. I am trying to schedule this once a month instead of taking a daily dose of the nauseating Exjade, which also lowers ferritin over a long time period.

So far, so good. The only problem left to address was the painful sores on my lips. Katie, who had driven me to Boston, went with me back to Dana-Farber so that Dr. Alyea and Melissa could take a look. The viral culture came back negative, so it is a mystery. I am going to try increasing my dosage of Valtrex, the anti-viral I already take. I tried this a couple of weeks ago to no avail, but they want me to try it again. In the meantime Melissa is scheduling me with one of their dentists who deals with this kind of thing.

So, another specialist. Sigh.

Meanwhile, Dr. Alyea said he might consider a topical steroid if it comes to that.

Back home, I could barely eat my dinner...again. I open my mouth wide enough to get food in without touching my lips, and then I nibble with my front teeth like a little rabbit. Last week's extraction makes it difficult to chew on the right side, which is sore, and the left side is already missing three teeth.

In a mother-child role reversal, Katie said I had to eat something. She pulled the applesauce out of the refrigerator, brought a bowl and spoon over and asked me how much. Washing the applesauce down with ice cream, I am feeling better now.

Boston bound again

Katie is going to drive me to Dana-Farber tomorrow to have my tongue examined. I am glad I got an appointment so soon. Melissa said the area that seems to have dysplasia, or abnormal cells, is so small that she didn't make much of it when she saw it at an earlier appointment. She said not to worry, so I am trying to go with that.

I still have major tooth pain. If I went by myself I wouldn't be able to take anything, so that is out of the question.

I also tried to schedule an appointment for therapeutic phlebotomy to get some more of the excess ferritin out of my system. Nobody called me back, so I'm unsure if it will happen.

Just another summer day.

One more thing

The tooth came out fine, with one big yank, but then I had a feeling of dejá vu when the surgeon looked at my tongue and said he saw some dysplasia on the left border where I already had a piece removed.

The dejá vu is from another dental surgeon two years ago who was removing two teeth and saw signs of what he thought was cancer on my tongue. (Picture me, zonked on Benedryl and Ativan, jumping out of the chair...or wanting to.) I later had surgery to remove a scoop of my tongue; it turned out to be precancerous but something that needed to come out anyway.

Is that going to happen again? Luckily I won't have too much time to gnaw on this (SORRY, I just needed to amuse myself with this awful pun) because Melissa scheduled me for an appointment Monday to see the doctor who is responsible for my tongue. Up to the head and neck oncology department I will go, feeling once again very strange to be there.

I told Margaret about this while she was pruning her garden. I tend to think of all these intrusions on my body as one doctor after another chipping away at me.

Margaret said to think of myself as a plant being pruned so that new healthy flowers or foliage can grow. As I sit here at my kitchen table looking at my garden, I am comforted by that image.

If I am a plant, then I need to be fertilized, and this morning I am having the perfect thing, being sure to chew on the side that doesn't hurt: A piece of Evelyn's freshly-baked blueberry crumb cake, with a side order of fresh blueberries that are melting in my mouth.

Good news day

It was a busy day in Boston as usual, with running back and forth between Dana-Farber and "The Brigham" and fitting in two appointments, my post-op with Dr. Steele at the hospital and my check-up with Melissa at Dana-Farber.

Both went very well. Dr. Steele said that my incision was healing nicely and that I'd be able to wear a bikini next summer. So kidney surgery will end up miraculously giving me a bikini-body? That's nice.

He did a quick ultrasound, which looked fine, and said I should come back in six months for a follow-up ultrasound. I was glad to hear him say that this incident was a fluke as opposed to being connected to everything that was done to my immune system. That kind of frees me up from looking over my shoulder.

I was also glad to hear that I can return to my activities. He said, however, that I should expect to be tired, not only because of the trauma to my body but also because it takes at least six weeks for the anesthesia to get out of your system. (It's been three weeks since my surgery.)

As for my check up with Melissa, she did another viral culture on my lip because the last one was inconclusive and the blisters still hurt a lot. My counts are good, especially my platelets, which are a whopping 140.

I'm grateful that my friend Claudia gave up her day to take me. It was a good opportunity to catch up, because we don't see each other that often. We met Katie for lunch and then got back in the car, where I immediately conked out.

Tomorrow is tooth-pull day. Can't wait.