crochet, and doctor stuff.

First, Hubby is employed! He starts the first job of his new career at 6 a.m. Monday morning! Whee! He's pretty wiped from the stress; we're both terrifically relieved that he has a job with a reasonable hourly rate, and a promise of a review and a raise after 30 days. I'm very proud of him; he's worked really hard in school and then in job hunting to make this possible.

I've just finished up the chemo caps and thongs for my friend. We have piccies, but I want to wait until she sees it first. Finally, I'm crocheting enough to warrant recording it!

I splurged and stopped at Barnes and Noble and picked up Crochet! Magazine today. I've gotten a few pages in, and am definitely enjoying it. I do need to re-up with the Crochet Guild of America again when our wallets ease up. I'm really enjoying crocheting again, after nearly a year off. It feels good to be making things again. I'm working on some market bags and a capelet for my daughter -- the market bags are easy, so I'm working on them for fun and on her capelet for beauty.

This is roughly the 3 month (plus a little) anniversary monthiversary(?) of my mastectomy, and thus I have seen the surgeon and the oncologist. I've skipped a month's menses, but as long as I'm not having odd bleeding, that isn't an issue. And I'm at that certain age anyway. The addition of the Tamoxifen has increased the severity of my hot flashes, which is good, according to the onco. It may well be involved in the irregularity of my menses, too. I did go through some PMS type stuff a couple of weeks ago -- got really hungry and craving chocolate, but it went away without, erm, issue.

The onco poked and prodded me in various places, including a clinical breast exam on the remaining one, and felt lots of different lymph node locations. He told me everything looked good. The surgeon didn't examine me this time, but plans to in three months, when I will also see the oncologist again. After that, I think it goes down to every six months for both doctors. The plan is for me to have my next mammogram next April, on schedule, and six months after that have an MRI. If the surgeon has her way, I guess I'll be going in alternating every six months for a mammogram and an MRI; if my size stays down where I am or less, that won't be a major issue, though lying on a table with holes cut in it for my breasts to hang through for a good picture is far from a comfortable position.

The surgeon, after checking me over, started to leave, then stopped. She said something like "I really appreciate your positive attitude. You haven't let this stop you or change what you are doing." A bit confused, I said, "Well, the chair really changed more of what I was doing. You told me I was disease free, so I didn't change much after I healed." She replied, "Oh, you are. But you continue to go forward, and plan, and go out and get things done. That's a nice change for me to see from a lot of my patients."

That surprised me; I'm not inclined to think of myself as Little Miss Sunshine. (Although Catherine once called me Pollyanna. A long time ago.) But she was quite definite that my cheerfulness was a welcome relief. I went home and talked to the husband, and his reaction was "Think about who she must deal with every day. It sounds like a lot of them have given up." Most of her patients are cancer patients, but with all the stuff I'd read about a positive attitude helping (although there are studies that say it doesn't really -- it still makes life more pleasant than moping) I didn't expect to be such a shining example, I guess. Plus, I'm told that this incident, while increasing my risk of recurrence, has not itself shortened my life. That feels like a gift, for sure.

So maybe I should become a motivational speaker. Wonder how you do that, and if there is some kind of an agency like a modeling agency for such a thing. That I could probably do for a living, as it's within my limitations.

I also finally pulled together the documentation on my cancer diagnosis and surgery to send to my disability attorney. In addition to that sheaf of papers, I added a form that Health and Human Services asked for from my doctor attesting that I was in fact permanently disabled and not able to work (or stand). I'm hoping against the odds that form might actually circumvent the hearing process and get me administrative adjudication, but I'm not holding my breath for it. On the other hand, this form should be sufficient for me to get my ID as a disabled passenger from the bus company. No one argues when I pay the discount fare from my chair, but the rules do say I need to have that ID -- and now I have a form that they should accept. That means a trip downtown is in my future. I think I'll wait till I have a bit of cash handy so I can at least play a wee bit.

Musings on paper, pens, and creativity

I have a fascination for blank books. My nicest one I haven't written in; although I suspect the beautiful leather covers a replaceable book and I should. use the book. It has completely blank pages, and I hesitate to mark them up with mediocre sketches and ragged looking writing. However, I noticed that the blank books I like to actually use contain grid, graph, or quadrille paper (same thing, name depends on your region, I suspect). I write in all caps most of the time because I spent so long as a programmer, and the graph paper resembles the coding sheets I used to use back in the dark ages when I wrote programs, then transcribed them onto punch cards. With graph paper, I don't put one letter per block, but I do prefer it for writing, I guess so I can make columns. I also like to doodle within the confines of the graphs. I have pads of paper with the graphs on it as well; Levenger, the really expensive "store for writers and readers", has paper with all three formats, and I got the graph version.

I don't write much except while typing; I type at about 60 wpm and it's faster and easier for me to write on a keyboard than on paper. So with paper, I mostly make lists, or jot down random thoughts and things I want to follow up on later. URLs, places that I want to research, that sort of thing. But as much a child of the electronic age as I am, I still like to have paper and pen around; in fact, though I'm not using them at the moment, I want to start carrying and using my fountain pens again. They've been languishing in my desk since I stopped working; I think it's time to take them out and start using them -- there's a definite pleasure to writing with a fountain pen that can't be matched by the gel pens that I use most of the time for check writing and filling out forms. Heh -- fountain pens require heavier paper, too, like the stuff I have from Levenger's. That's undoubtedly part of the pleasure in writing with a fountain pen; higher quality paper. The only time I want to use a pencil is if I'm doing math with the kiddo or sketching something, and I don't like my sketching well enough to do it often. I'd even rather doodle in ink -- though I do like colored pens for doodling. I also prefer a fine-tip pen, whether it's a ball point pen, a marker type, or a fountain pen.

The Squirt likes ruled paper, even though most of what she does is drawing. I know my friend Holly always carries at least one book with blank paper in it for her drawing and sketching pleasure. She will carry pencils and colored pencils or markers to draw things when she decides she wants to have paper around. She really loves the 0.7 mm disposable pencils that you can get fairly cheaply; she's hard on her tools (like her mom, I'm afraid) and these are durable enough to last through most of their lead before they get mangled. I prefer a 0.5 pencil, but at the moment, all I have are the disposable ones because stuff gets misplaced. I'll have to get some 0.5 lead and a pencil or two from the local pen and paper store in the next few months.

What paper do you like to use? Onionskin, copy paper, homemade, heavy stock? Do you like it blank, ruled, or graph paper? What do you like to use to write and/or draw? Do you like ballpoint pens, rapidograph, gel pens, pencils? How do you use your paper and pen/pencil? Do you enjoy the experience? I'm realizing as I write this that I do enjoy actually writing, though it can be hard on my hands. Definitely time for me to clean up and start using the fountain pens more.

On another note, I finally finished a shawl I've had hanging fire for a friend for over a year. I didn't get it done in time for her to take it with her this week to go up into the mountains, but I'm pleased it is done. I'll have pictures when she picks it up; it will look much better on her, as autumn colors suit her and this is a deep gold that made me think of her the instant I saw the yarn. I'm working on a couple of small things at the moment; when those are done I'll start on a Gothic style cape of black and hot pink for the sprog to wear. With some luck and persistence, I can get back into being productive on my crocheting again, and can actually put my other blog back into use as a cooking and crochet blog instead of just a chronicle of my ills.