my wife’s mri results

hello,

i wanted you to know that my wife got back some results back from an mri last night and there is at least some cause for concern. not much is known right now, but this is what I know.

my wife has a mass about 1x1x2 near her knee. it was found by an astute pt. the mass is “suspicious” in nature. it could be what is called a liposarcoma or cancer contained with a fatty mass.

we are, no doubt, scared but hopeful. my wife’s sister had something very similar and it ended up to be a mass of baby fat. thankfully my wife sleeps peacefully next to me as i tap this out about 5:30 am, tuesday morning.

a needle biopsy is next and currently not scheduled since we got the results about 8:00 pm monday night. i will update you when there is more news.

keep us in your thoughts and prayers,

thanks.

edmonds sunset

the boyz

here a a few picturesof the boyz, jimmy and sherlock, from Mary and i’s recent trip to snoqualimie falls.

sherlock & jimmy trying to sun themselves on the rock.

jimmy gazes into your eyes.

jimmy looking stately.

the st. valentine’s fiasco?

here’s how my valentine’s day went. don’t worry, it has a good ending.

dental crash

i have a long and not so illustrious history with the field of dentistry. the first dentist would drill through the pain. The second believed in shame based dentistry. The third was my only saving grace. The fourth ripped the dental damn out of my mouth with the look of frustration on his face because i was unable communicate through the damn with a partial numb tongue.

1 for 4, that barely keeps me in the big leagues. hopefully, that explains while it has been twenty years since i last saw a dentist.

changing the definition of late

i hate dentistry, brought on by 3 out of 4 bad dentist. isn’t the dentyne ad? 3 or 4 dentist recommend dentyne for their patients who chew gum. if not, it’s some where close but reversed. for that reason, it has been about 20 years since i stepped in a dentist office. tomorrow is root canal time. i’ve had one root canal done by the 1 out of 4 dentists who actually knew how to practice dentistry. supposedly i have a good dentist tomorrow. we’ll see. i’m still not looking forward to it.

Mary, knowing of my dental anxiety, announced she is taking the day off tomorrow in support of me. do you think i could put her in the chair instead of me? just asking. that would be great support. wouldn’t improve my mouth, though.

last week, with her statement of support, also made the gleeful declaration, “since i don’t have to go in early i can stay up late! which brings us to tonight.

Mary said she was a little bit tired. that might of been a bit of an under statement. her eyes closed for good at quarter to eight. even though sherlock has been up and down a few times moving between the couch and the floor, there still is no movement.

so, by the power in vested in me by no one in particular, since Mary gleefully wanted to stay up late, and since she was asleep by quarter to eight, i officially change the definition of late to quarter to eight. please adjust your clocks accordingly.

thank you.

note: 3 out of 4 people who appreciate off kilter humor will appreciate this post for the humor that it is. 

sink…sunk

no, i’m not trying to conjugate a verb…
about a month ago, i notice our under the counter mounted kitchen sink starting to separate from the counter. i figured we’d have a while before things would get serious, so i just let it be. Mary noticed the gap and I told her we’d have to do something about it.

i did some research and under mount sinks. when mounted correctly, there is silicone to fill the gap between the sink and countertop and then clips to hold the sink in place. the thing is many installer, like ours, leave off the clips. then, when 7-10 years go by, it’s way past any warranty and the sink drops.

i woke up to the hopes and expectation to watch the rose parade. instead, i woke to, “stephen, the sink has completely fallen!” I when to check and indeed the sink had completely fallen. well, there goes the rose parade. I had done some research, so I went about the business of remounting the sink. i emptied all the stuff from under the sink and disconnected all the plumbing and freed the sink.

i wondered if maybe the sink got bent in the process of falling. yep, on the long axis it got bent about 5/8 in. holding in the center and pulling up on one end, i got the bend down to 1/8 in. try as i may, i couldn’t get the 1/8 in bend out of the long axis. i didn’t expect any bend in the short axis but i checked anyway. it too had an 1/8 in bend. since there would be no good pivot point on the short axis, there would be no way to bend it back to true. with the bend in both directions of the sink, even after i got it remounted, it would be always pulling away from the bottom of the counter. inventually, the continued pressure of the bend could cause another gap. the sink was toast.another $300 later, i had secured the same model of the sink. i wasn’t going to be like the previous installer, so i went about finding fasteners to physically attach the sink to the bottom of the countertop. a little bit of internet search and i discovered my options and went about finding the clip. on news years day, the existence of those clips turned out to be far less than a dime a dozen. maybe i just checked the wrong source but by the ned of the day, i hadn’t found any clip.

so, at the end of day 1, i have a sink, a hole in my counter were i want the sink to be, no way to physically and properly attach it, with the hope i’ll find it the clips at a local plumbing supply store. in absence of that, i know of a source of clips but i’d like to avoid the hour and half round trip, especially since jimmy has also earned a trip to the vet today.

day 2: after a grand total of 9 trips to different stores, i had secured clips. Mary got home late, so we’ll reattach the sink tomorrow.

tonight i realize i’m certain that i’m horrible as a depressed person

today Mary, my wife, wanted to make a special dinner in thanksgiving for a wonderful christmas we had. things didn’t go as planned.

the pears at the store weren’t ripe enough to make the dessert she wanted make. she texted me saying saying the house will smell great when i got home. it didn’t. it smelt like something had seriously burnt in the oven. insert foot in mouth, i vocalized that. the rib roast she got, from the butcher no less, turned out to be far less than stellar. at least the brussel sprouts turn out scrumptious. okay, call us weird; we both like brussel sprouts.

tonight, she turned into a true, died in the wool, inconsolable mop monster. she seem incredibly disappointed and sad. though i realize i’m suppose to be there, her mood is an incredible turn off. this will probably last all the way until morning.

compare and contrast to the deep part of my last cycle that lasted about 4 years. instead of day of mopiness, there were 1460 days of mopiness equivalence! that’s a long time of being down and out. it’s also a long time to be around someone who is down and out. no wonder she’d got short with me at times. it’s understandable. she really needs to be put up for sainthood for seeing things through to the other side.

no wonder wonder she took every opportunity to escape the hell hole that is my depression. mopey days that stretch on for far too long.

frozen (in)

my friend had a tough time with her sprained ankle. the pain impeded her ability and she self-admitted she was isolating.

it got to the point where she seemed to be coming out of her shell. we even planned to do something together. the next day, she came down with a cold. this ended up to be one of those horizontal colds. you might know about those; it’s a cold where not only is horizontal the preferred position, but it’s the only position. needless to say, our get together got postponed.

the brother i never knew

the brother i never knew – i’m sure i’ve talked about my siblings. and more specifically, brothers, but this brother is different. micheal was born and died almost exactly 7 years to the day of my entry into this world, for obvious reasons, i never got a chance to meet him. on his passing, he got buried with the most basic of children’s headstone. since that day, he was and seldom is ever discussed by my family.

i don’t know if that is weird, but Mary’s family honors the siblings they never had. family celebrations always had a vase of rose with eight roses. six red roses signified the living children and 2 white roses signified the children that had gone before them.

fast-forward some nearly 60 nears. and i found myself smack dab in the middle of my hellacious depressive cycle. i went to a funeral and the internment happened to be at micheal’s cemetery. after the solemn proceedings, my uncle Ed approached me and we went over to micheal’s site. micheal’s cement headstone with his name stamped into it stood in stark contrast to some of the surrounding, nicer marble headstones.

Ed made a kind and generous offer. he offered to contribute to an updated michael’s headstone if my family contributed to it. i kindly thanked him for the offer and took some pictures so i could explain the options to my siblings.

depression ruled, so days turned to months and i still hadn’t sent and the email to my siblings. you could rightfully say, “how much energy does it take to write and send an email?” there were literally hundreds of times i had composed the email in my head. unfortunately, the pathway from the brain to the keyboard and screen never cleared enough to make it happen. to answer the question from the beginning of the paragraph, “more than i had.” believe me, the many times i thought about the uncompleted request, i felt some combination of bad, sad, and a feeling of letting Ed down. even today, i still struggle with these feelings.

though i still hang around the periphery of depression this story has a happy ending. my uncle Ed took it on his own to purchase the upgraded headstone of his own resources. Ed sounds like a cool dude, huh? well, let me tell you, he is that and then some. oh, the stories i could tell, in a good way mind you.

(btw, the cemetery didn’t blur out my last name, i did. :^) )