Comfort

As I mentioned last week, the surgeon saw an extra something on the post-chemo MRI which merited a biopsy. I should apologize for referring to it a "mass," since that sounds, well, massive. Let's call it a "spot." The spot was slightly anterior (in front of) and lateral (to the outside of) to the existing tumor.

Unfortunately, the radiologist didn't feel that an ultrasound-guided biopsy would work, since she couldn't see a match between the images produced by different imaging techniques. She recommended an MRI-guided core biopsy. That meant coming back on Friday and spending nearly five hours at the hospital. I received an MRI to establish the biopsy target, received the biopsy, and then went through additional tests.

Nurses continue to rock, especially the ones I've encountered during my cancer treatment. On Thursday, I was attended by Nurse J., and Nurse S., a short, stocky guy who cheered me by recounting his favorite Dave Chappelle sketches. "You were an ideal patient!" Nurse S. said as they wheeled me out of the MRI room on a gurney. "Really?" I asked, "What do other patients do?" "They get all frightened and start thrashing around inside the tube." While he spoke, he rubbed my bald head. I found it soothing. "How is my Elisa?" asked Nurse J. with her heavy filipino accent. She dressed my incision, and piled warm blankets on my legs and chest. I felt like a baby, but in a good way. The radiologist came over to see how I was doing, and noticed the blankets. She became nostalgic. "When I was doing night call, sometimes those warm blankets were the only thing that kept me going. I'd finally get a break at 2 or 3 in the morning, and I'd just go to the storage room and wrap myself in one of those." Light-headed from hunger and a small reaction to the epinephrine added to the local anesthesia, I was released in the wild at about 2:00 p.m. As a free woman with a hole in her boob, my first act was to buy a latte and cookie.

Today, I rewarded myself with a bratwurst and duck fat fries at Hot Doug's. Then a friend and I went to Dusty Groove, a record store which specializes in soul, hip-hop and various world music genres. I bought a compilation, Tropicalia: A Brazilian Revolution in Sound and Forever Changes. Love. Here's Gilberto Gil and Os Mutantes performing Domingo no Parque (Sunday in the Park), one of the songs included on Tropicalia.

Cancer + Not Cancer =

Here's one of those messy non-narrative posts that I hoped to avoid. We not-so-proudly present the following mix of news and administrativa:

A friend mentioned to me that when he saw posts titled "Not Cancer!" he at first thought it meant my diagnosis had been a mistake. He's got a point: from now on, I'll use the tag "not cancer" when I'm posting something unrelated to my illness, but will omit it from the title.

Also, I recently discovered that people without a Blogger account were blocked from commenting. I corrected that setting, so comment away as yourself, or as your evil twin.

A couple of recent FAQs about my illness:

When is your next chemotherapy session?

We're going in tomorrow (Monday) morning. They scheduled the rest of my treatments for every other Monday.

How's the nausea/your appetite?

The drugs do a great job, but it does come and go. Last week the odor of garlic salami, which I normally love, induced gagging. Also, I can't drink more than two swallows of beer before something in my body (probably my overtaxed liver) says "enough." Then, I have my good days. Yesterday, we went to Hot Doug's, possibly the only hotdog stand in the world with a reputation among fine-dining gastronomes. FYI, the Catalonian pork sausage with saffron rouille and 12-month Montelarreina Manchego cheese was excellent, as were the duck fat fries.

Someone else's photo set from Hot Doug's