An Emotional January

I have been absolutely horrible at blogging...and taking pictures for that matter...this year. It is already February and I have maybe 6 new pictures to record my life. I'm not sure why my camera has been forgotten in the bottom of my purse. Maybe me feeling like nothing was worth documenting. Maybe life being pretty normal. Maybe my mind has just been elsewhere. I'm going with the third excuse since I know the first two are not true.

The first day of the new year started off pretty fantastic but I don't feel quite ready to expose the details of why to the world quite yet. I'm hoping to in the near future...

The beginning of the year also came with a doctor's appointment that brought on much more emotion than expected. I have been waiting for my insurance to kick in so I could get a few random things checked out, just to be sure.

Random thing #1:

Quite a while I felt a lump in my throat just below my adam's apple that somewhat concerned me. My mom and I started researching lumps on the thyroid and I knew I needed professional medical diagnosis. The doctor felt my lump and decided it was solid enough and big enough that we needed to have it looked at under ultrasound. So a few days later I had that done. After the radiologist looked at the images, he recommended a biopsy to rule out malignancy. So a week after I went in for that. They numbed my neck and went in with a needle poking around to get cells to attach and be brought out for testing. After 4 passes of the needle we still didn't have a good sampling. So it was decided that they needed to go in with clippers and clip off a piece of the lump to test. The clippers are thicker than a needle and couldn't poke through my "thick" skin so the doctor had to take a blade and make a small slit to go in. I felt the tugging of the lump and then the SNAP of the clippers. They repeated this and clipped a second chunk to make sure they could get a good sample. My poor neck! And since it wasn't just the simple needle pokes and I was actually bleeding quite well they patched me up with a big piece of gauze and medical tape. I had plans to go grocery shopping after but with that thing on my neck I didn't want to be seen in public.

I was told that I would have a bruised, swollen neck for at least a week. I thought, 'Great, how am I supposed to hide that?' Fortunately the swelling wasn't terrible and the bruise stayed fairly light so no one noticed unless I pointed it out to them. And even more fortunate was learning a few days later that there was no sign of malignancy. So I just get to live with a nice lump in my throat! Thank goodness. I'm not ready for any more abuse to my neck!

Random thing #2

In Russia I noticed one of my small toenails looking pretty nasty. I credited it to the bad shoes that I wore the entire time and figured I just jammed the nail or something. But it wasn't growing out and still looked pretty nasty so I had the doc look at it. Turns out I had a fungus! Fabulous! Something else I didn't realize I brought back to the USA with me! He prescribed a cream that ended up costing me $60 with insurance to cure it. I sure hope it works. I'm still waiting to see if the nail will grow back.

Random thing #3

Right after I returned from being a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I had a red patch on my chest checked out and found to be positive skin cancer. I had it removed and have been aware that I will have other patches the rest of my life. I recently noticed a patch on my shoulder that looked a bit suspicious, so I had the doc check it out as well. He agreed with me that it looked suspicious so we scheduled to have it removed. So the day after my lump biopsy I went in and had this patch removed. I had no idea how much he had to take off! I was shocked when I saw the line of stitches longer than an inch. The little patch was smaller than a pencil eraser! Since we were both fairly sure it was skin cancer, the doc took the required 6mm radius of skin off. So even after being pleasantly surprised that my bruising and swelling wasn't noticable, I knew I couldn't hide these stitches and tape. It was an interesting two weeks trying to find shirts to cover my neck so my students didn't ask questions. I really just didn't want to go into the details and have all these blown out of proportion rumors going around about Miss Robinson having cancer. And I fortunately made it the whole time without comment. Phew!!!

So I realize this doesn't look that noticable but it was and you can also see the bruise and hole just above the tape from the biopsy.

There are many other things that added to my emotional January...both good and bad...but they will have to wait for another post. My month really should have been filled with this...

I am in the process of applying for MBA programs and really need to be putting more time into preparing for the GMAT as well as finishing my essays. I get so wrapped up in my own students and grading and lesson planning and somehow really enjoy socializing that I don't put in as much time as I should. But that will soon over on Saturday as long as I do well and I don't have to take it again (this is already the second time).

As far as upcoming adventures to look forward to enjoying with me...I am going to DC for Presidents' Day weekend in two weeks and I am going to Beijing, China for Spring Break in April!! I'm sure there will be other fun adventures to share in between and I can't wait to experience it all!!