Very Long Post

Maybe I ought to write more often. I have a friend with a Caring Bridge page for her husband, and she updates it constantly. By 3 pm the day she started it, she'd had more posts than I have here. And as much as you can enjoy reading such a thing, I enjoy reading her updates. Anyway, Darren is going through a lot, so we're thinking of him, too. And then there's Hugh's blog. He's my cousin and one of the followers of this blog, and he's a brilliant writer, incredibly funny. He updates all the time, especially about his beautiful new baby girl (my newborn cousin Sophie Sterbakov). If you can get to her birth story from here, and you're not sensitive to reading about lots of poop, it's worth the read.

The truth is, I've an interesting, overly full week. On Monday I went to Penn for my pre-op appointments. I went with my mom, who had wonderful news when she got into the car: a job offer! I'm so proud of her. She went on an interview, and got a job. This was the first time in my lifetime she's done that, and for those of you who know Esther ... well, her esteemed reputation in the court reporting community played a role, I'm sure. I digress. We got to Penn with NO PROBLEM, thanks to Ken, who knew I needed a GPS. What a difference! The Penn Tower lot had a line a mile long, while everyone ignored the signs for the new Perelman Center lot. Czerniecki's office just moved to Perelman, so I figured I'd park there. Beautiful, EMPTY lot. I hope nobody finds it. My mom was suitably impressed with my knowledge of the buildings, as I went from appointment to appointment. I tell you, I'm good at HUP's campus, as long as I'm inside.

I didn't see any surgeons. At Wu's office (I'd been spelling her name wrong) I met with the nurse practitioner, who assured me I will be able to type on my laptop and even read a book after surgery. I will have some use of my arms right away. Yay! Once again, the negative nodes thing helps me. They don't have to remove anymore nodes, so the surgery is less involved. After two months I can start doing arm work at the gym. Amazing! And my stomach will feel like it did after my c-section, which was bearable. I'll be in an ICU for a couple days, but that's just because of drains. I didn't ask exactly what are drains. And don't tell me, I'll be surprised.

My trip to Czerniecki's office was easy, because I was the only appointment of the day. Who else wants to go when the guy is on JURY DUTY. That's right, Dr. Czerniecki got jury duty. I really think he should be above such a thing, but apparently so does he. Maybe that's why he ignored the first three "invitations" and was going to be in serious trouble if he didn't show. Luckily he wasn't retained, which we all figured. Just a formality. Anyway, according to Nancy (the NP) because I have the best kind of invasive breast cancer (er positive, node negative), I'm eligible to have this new test called an Oncotype DX. This will help determine the future likelihood of recurrence. If the likelihood is very low, chemo might not really help me. I don't know quite what to make of that. I lean toward wanting to be as absolutely cautious as possible. On the other hand, someday I'd like to be like Frances, whom I met at the synagogue last night. She looks like she's about 75, but she told me she's "93 and a half." She has glasses to match each of her outfits, and she can't hear a thing. I don't know how chemo decreases my life expectancy.

Speaking of last night at the synagogue. Rabbi Bossov is so much like me sometimes, it's scary. He was impressed that I made it to services so soon after my procedure, which he announced to the congregation. He'd gotten it stuck in his head that I was going in this past Wednesday, to the point that he called 5 hospitals, and some of my friends, looking for me. Even though I obviously look perfectly fine right now, he was convinced, upon seeing me, that I'd had a bilateral mastectomy and reconstruction and made it to services two days later. It was a good laugh, and nice to share it with my friends, including the rabbi.

Is anyone still reading? Boy. I still have to, HAVE TO, thank Barb for coordinating schedules for me. She's so freaking organized, it's mind boggling. She just has to shake her head at me (and the rabbi) as she has all of my family's meals planned out for weeks after the surgery, and an army of people bringing dinners. Barb, and of course Civia, who's getting all three of my kids off to school on Wednesday, including Jonah (who will be with her until the start of PM kindergarten). Civia is there for me everyday, every good day and every bad day, and I'm blessed to have her as a friend. Thanks to everyone who is reading this, for being there and keeping me in your thoughts and prayers. I hope you never go through this, but if you do you'll learn how incredible people really are.

Finally ... a plane crash in the Hudson and all those people have reason to believe in miracles ... best news story of the century.

No, that wasn't finally, this is: GO EAGLES!!!!!!