Lots on My Mind

I started a post last night about my SL work with U2inSL all weekend long on my stay-cation but didn't get it finished. I'll try to finish that up and share it later in the day.

My post was interrupted last night by a phone call from my mom who is spending most of the summer in Flagstaff, AZ where it is much much cooler (7,000 ft elevation). By now you might have seen the news. (NBC Today Show clip here) Mid afternoon yesterday two medical helicopters collided in town near the hospital. 6 of the 7 passengers/crew/patients were killed. Our good friend is a fireman/EMT who just recently began working on the rescue helicopter. Thankfully, I was able to contact his wife - one of my best friends from Flagstaff and teaching days, and he is ok. He was on the unthankful duty though of rescue and putting out the brush fire. We are still waiting word for who the crash victims were. I'll hold my breath. Even though it is a town of 60,000 - it is still the size where you tend to know so many. Having taught there for 10 years, and lived there for 17, I worry that the names will be familiar. Either way, no matter what the names are, it is a horrific tragedy.

Then, my morning this a.m began with another doctor appointment. Sometimes it seems like that's one of the purposes of stay-cations, don't you think? Get all caught up on everything you put off the rest of the year? Anyway - I saw the dermatologist. It has been about 10 months since I was there. I finished a 8 month series of Accutane ending last September. Having battled with acne my whole life, it was an incredible solution. Super intensive with scary side effects - but I have been so happy with the results - it was totally worth it. Anyway, I went not because of that, but because I had this weird mole thing that just appeared one day near my temple but up in my hairline. It grew almost overnight and Dave and the kids teased me I had an antler coming in! We all laughed and I got my butt to make an appointment right away. It never grew bigger than the size of um...the size of a small pencil eraser - in fact it was probably 1/3 of that - and hidden in my hair. But - last week... it just fell off!! LOL TMI? Grossed out? Sorry - couldn't resist sharing that :) Anyway I kept my appointment.

The good news - this silly thing that was there and now gone is... "all a part of the aging process!!!" GOOD LORD! EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! "Ok... so how long do I have to wait for the next horn to grow?" was the first thought running through my mind. Then, since I was wearing a sleeveless cami/tank, I noticed she kept looking at my left shoulder. I asked her to look at a spot that she had once told me was nothing - just all part of having babies and hormones... about the size of a dime on my left shoulder... red and white and shaped kinda like an upside down pear. She freaked out. Well, freaked out in a doctor-type way. "How long have you had that? That must be a scar? Are you sure that isn't a scar? You've never had any injury there?" After I reminded her she had looked at that about 2 years ago and told me it was nothing - when it was about 1/2 its size, she said "Well, it needs to come off. It could have 'finger' type things under the surface of your skin and we need to biopsy it ASAP." Well... reassuring huh? I went from having an antler to being a natural aging 39 year old to having something that is hideous and needs to immediately be extracted from my body. The part that scared me was learning the procedure they will biopsy it with had the word chemo in it.

So... I await the results of my head CT to see what in the world is living in my sinuses and if I truly do have a brain knocking around up there. I will have to wait for the biopsy until July 17 and then results days after that. But in the meantime, I have to just be thankful for all I have and remember that life is short and I suppose I could be hit by a bus at a moment's notice, right? Ok - I'm on my stay-cation not near any busses - but you get the idea.

Thanks for listening. I added a new sidebar addition called Punkymoods that I thought was a perfect compliment to my blog on a day like today. Cheers to finding good news and blessings in the rest of my day - and for you doing the same.