Yesterday was a half day for US thanksgiving, and the last couple hours was spent doing crafty stuff (I went and helped). Today school finished early because of 75th anniversary celebrations (actually, elementary kids dismissed early, the rest had a special assembly, guess the little kids aren't so much part of the school community...)

Nicos' stuff came home today, with a note in his comm notebook thanking me for helping yesterday, and letting me know that he had a hard time focussing today.

fuck off, teacher - why is that a problem on a Friday in a week with multiple disruptions? didn't I say I only wanted to know about negative things if they were *unusual* for Nico?

Thought so. You can't help yourself. You just have to comment on the bad, and love to forget about the good.

aargh.

I'm on a distribuition list of parents at the school. It's for things for sale and stuff like that.

Yesterday we got this one:


( stupid email from a stupid person )

So in response, I sent this to the woman who runs the list:

( annoyed email from me )</div>

I've been feeling anxious a lot recently. I'm worrying myself, because I know that depression tends to manifest itself in me as anxiety.

And that anxiety has physical symptoms.  The last few days have been days of butterflies in my stomach, nagging dread, and all round verge of panic-ness.

Oh yeah, and insomnia.

Both the cat's tail and the landlady's crapness have been sorted, so why is it still here today?

This is still me, after 16 months. Read the part "One Woman's Symptoms" I have them all. Not as bad as a year, or 6 months ago, but still bad. And still embarrassing.

It's not my imagination

my fingernails are at their absolute worst now. I so hope it was the herceptin and not the tamoxifen. I don't think I can bear another 4 years of this. I'm hoping that since it's already more than 2 months since my last herceptin, and it showed up about 6 months after I started that I only have a little while left to go. But of course I started the tamoxifen at the same time as I started the herceptin. The interwebs isn't particularly helpful. in other words, it's not telling me exactly what I want to know.

I've got some "sally hansen hard as nails" stuff that I keep painting on in the hope that it will all get better. and I'm taking vitamin C and zinc supplements. meep.

I think it's making me far more harsh with Thomas's nail biting now as well. My own fingernails look as bad as his, and I keep harping on at him about it. I bought stuff to paint on his nails when we were home. Poor kid, he's so desperate to bite them that he's just dealing with the horrible taste. Not quite the effect I was hoping for. Of course that stuff didn't work for me, but maybe that was because my parents left it up to me to apply it? I'm putting it on T's nails every few days. I don't want him to use my method of stopping biting nails. I started smoking when I was 14....

I'm not really sure where this is going, but I've been thinking recently that while I *had* breast cancer, I'm not sure that I really got all that involved in it. You know, I had the mastectomy, reconstruction, had the treatments, had the scans to see if I still had it. But when I look back, I don't really remember being all that emotionally involved in the "cancer" part. I had moments when I was frightened, but I never worried that I was going to die, except for the morning of my surgery, and that wasn't the cancer, that was the anaesthetic I was scared about. I remember crying one morning as I used parcel tape to sticky the lost hair off my pillow. Did I only cry once about my hair? Or do I only remember the once?

I've still got to take a tablet every day for most of the next 4 years, but when I swallowed it last night, I don't think I thought "oh, this is my cancer drug". I just took it along with the voltarol and yeah, whatever.

I went out and celebrated with my friends after the last herceptin, and it was a big deal, I even made a little speech. I went out and celebrated again after the all clear CT scan. But I still don't really recall thinking "OMG CANCER!". I'm not sure that I ever did. Did I? You all probably remember better than I do.

Am I going to have a major OMG CANCER! moment a year next Tuesday and wonder where the hell all the emotion came from?

Did I get through it all with the positive attitude that you all congratulated me for, just because I wasn't *really there* with it?

Why am I bothering about this right now anyway?

And just so you know, Marks and Spencer's bras now have non-slip grippy stuff on the straps, which is very useful if you are a little lop-sided.

So, while I ma here, I intend to take full advantage of every opportunity to knit with friends.

So, last Wednesday I made it to the elephant house and managed to see a few people who are now away on holiday. For the rest of our stay -

Tomorrow, Sunday - Double Dutch from 2pm, not that I expect to get there by 2, of course, but Iĺl be there!
Tuesday - Borders at Kinnaird park, whwnever the bus gets me there, Bill is working all day, so it won´t be at 6, but hopefully soon after.
Wednesday: back to the elephant house, earlier than this week!
Saturday: at double dutch.

We leave next Sunday.

Amongst the joy of being home I got bad bad news about another Alison. We shared a consultant and were in hospital a week apart. She´s Gone. We would drink coffee and talk about the consultants, and the nurses. Our sons were in the same class, and she had a daughter of 11. I think she died around christmas, I haven´t asked for details.

She had asked me not to tell anyone at school, the story was that she had had surgery on her back, From what I understand everyone was terribly shocked when she died. I´m terribly shocked too, because i expected to see her in the playground yesterday, but not by what caused her death.

I never expected her to die though. In her surgery they had taken all the lymph nodes in her neck and only found what they had with me - lympho vascular invasion, if I remember right, although my memory is sketchy from that period of my life. I don´t think she was expecting to die either, at least not back in October. But she told people about it over the christmas holidays.

This is horrible. horrible.

My machine knitted cardi is finally moving along. I've now seamed up three of the 4 raglan seams. I'm weaving them, I couldn't work out how to mattress stitch the slanted seam - is it just me? Won't get it done before going away on holiday though. Have been swatching with the yarn for ribbing and button band. I'm not liking it much, so I think that I will end up crocheting it all. I'm pretty sure there's plenty of yarn so it shouldn't be a problem.
This yarn felts if you look at it wrong, so what's the betting on the cardigan surviving its first wash?
Ravelry link is here

Trying to decide what to take on holiday. The february sweater is coming along nicely, but it's kind of big. I want to take something other than socks, though.  maybe I should start a kid's sweater.

Would anyone like any araucania sock yarn?

Just back from seeing the oncologist and getting the results of the echo cardiogram and CT scan.

CT scan of all vital organs totally clear - no signs of cancer! And the echo showed an ejection fraction of 63% - which is way good!

I'll do a proper post some day, I never even wrote about the final herceptin, did I?

But for today, I'm going to relax and not think about it for a while.

You all realise of course that I'm so indoctrinated into the Chilean style of doing things, that I will be greeting all and sundry with a kiss on the left cheek upon my return to Edinburgh?

Just sayin'

We are arriving in Edinburgh on the evening of Tuesday 30th June, and are expected in Bath on the afternoon/evening of 13th July. We're not *quite* sure when we're heading south, we might do it over two days. But we will have at least 11 days in Edinburgh.

We need to book a B&B for 2-3 nights, then we'll be house-sitting in Viewforth/Bruntsfield.

After Bath, we're planning a day at Legoland, then we fly home to Santiago on the 21st of July, getting back here the monring of the 22nd.

The boys start Grade 3 and Grade 1 on Monday the 27th. Next Friday, Nico has a sleepver at school - this is a tradition in his particular K2 class. The excitement is almost unbearable. And then, he's turning 6! 6! a week tomorrow.

I don't know if I can stand the excitement...

I've got two dreamwidth invites - happy to share!

Nico sang to me this morning. A song he has been learning in music class and in choir after school. Not one I recognise.

He got a bit breathless a few times, but he sang about 2 & a half verses and the chorus a couple of times. His phrasing and expression were great! And he sang louder in some places, softer in others. Good teacher, I think. Good singer, I'm sure!

Half an hour ago there was a 5.4 earthquake about 100 miles away. It lasted about a minute. I didn't notice it.

This is normal. I have only noticed 1 tremor the whole time we've been here, and it was when we were staying in the flat. Either I'm totally un-sensitive, or this house is built like a rock.

But, I@m getting a little tired of being the only one who doesn't notice. meep.

I'm off to pack my sink plug and hand warmers. Tomorrow morning I have the final Herceptin appointment! Hurrah!

So I think I might give in and spend the rest of tonight winding a hank of that lovely araucania yarn and swatching. Even though I should be knitting the current sweater instead. I'm cheating on my knitting. With knitting.

And this is posted in the new dreamwidth account. And should be crossposting to LJ.

...looks like this:



I got dragged away from a really nice get together this morning by a call from the school. I was needing to leave soon anyway to go home and catch the kittens to take them to the vet to get neutered, but still...

Nico had fallen from the monkey bars and hit his head. He seemed fine, hadn't lost consciousness, and was resting in the nurses station. So I head up to school to get him. He's happy to see me, and ready to go. He gets up, walks just fine, no dizzyness, his head only hurt if you touched the lump on the back of it. We went and got his rucksack, spoke to the teacher, and left the school.

He seemed fine to me, but since the school has an insurance policy with the local clinic, we might as well go and get him checked over, since it's free (hah, still not used to it *not* being free!). The last time he had a head injury was when a loift door sent him flying in the National Museum, and we went to the sick kids then, so I figured we might as well this time too.

We got to the car and he was cheerful and chatty, he called his dad and told him all about it. Given all that, I decided we could pop home, snare the kittens and take them to their appointment with the surgeon before taking N to the clinic.

So, cats caught, deposited at vets, some Spanish spoken at the vets, and then a lot of English when the Vet who speaks English came out, and N and I head for the clinic.

Where after not too long we are seen. He didn't want his blood pressure checked, in case they took all his blood, but after a little persuasion he relented. Then we waited to see a doctor. Pupils were checked for responsiveness, his reflexes checked with the little hammer, and we were sent off to have his head examined, I mean x-rayed.

Then we went back to the exam room, and waited, and waited. And watched some youtube videos on my ipod. Finally, the doctor came back, and told us his head looked fine, there was no fracture. But then he started telling me about all the dangers that can come from head trauma, and the signs i needed to look for, in case his brain started to swell, in 4 stages:

1: Headache and Dizziness
2. Nausea & Vomiting
3. Seizures
4. Unconsciousness

OK, I can do that. *THEN* he tells me to take him home and put him to bed for 24 hours with *no visual stimulation at all*, no TV, no computer, not even reading a book. Then in 24 hours, while he still needed to be in bed, he could have "his computer or his television in his bedroom" (what planet this doctor lives on I'm not sure). If he was ok, he could go back to school on Friday. And he's not to play any sports for a week. He then gave me a slip of paper with all this written down, and asked me eleventy billion times if I understood. I just looked at him and said "He's 5 years old!" to which the Dr replied, yes,and a very intelligent 5 years old, so don't let him read a book. Oh, and I could only give him bland food. In case his food made him sick and we didn't know if it was the head injury or the food. The quack was speaking spanglish all this time, by the way.

So... I smiled and nodded and we made good our escape.

Came home and I tried to make N a quesadilla while ranting to Bill on the phone about the quack, so I burned it. So I made him a cheese toastie. Then we raced to school to collect Thomas. And while we were waiting, I took scientific poll of all the other mothers on whether the Dr was totally full of shit, while N raced around, jumped off picnic tables, rolled around on the grass and generally behaved like a 5 year old who had had the afternoon off school.

Then Nico took me and Thomas to his playground to show us where it happened, and what he was doing at the time. Then we came home, and after Thomas did his homework, we watched TV. Spongebob. Which is probably the worst in terms of visual stimulation (for me at least).

So, did I do the right thing?

OK friends, please recommend me some music. What's your favourite right now? Trying out blip.fm, it's playing me Geraldine, Glasvegas. Don't know why I love it, but I do. "My name is Geraldine, I'm your social worker" http://blip.fm

But one song does not a playlist make. I need more. Plus, the ipod dock is fucked. So i needs me some internet music.

Bill made me a cutting and drafting table! Well, I bought the legs at Ikea before we left home, but Bill built it! It's 92cm high. No more backache and sore hips from cutting or drawing.

Lucky me!