Top 20 Reasons to be HAPPY in December 2007

Okay... So I have not done one of these in ages. and I could come up with a list of reasons of WHY I was not focusing on the positive, but I think that would sort of defeat the purpose.

Here are my (long overdue) Top 20 Reasons to be HAPPY in December 2007:

01) Finally getting a mammogram and ultrasound
02) Receiving an abundance of support and help when I asked for it
03) Being strong enough to ask for help when I needed it
04) Meeting The Boyfriends friends and really liking them
05) Visits from my Brother
06) Being able to give back all that I have received and possible make a difference
07) Trips to the tropics in the dead of winter
08) Getting older, but not really looking or feeling older
09) Creating my own "recipes" and having them be fantastic
10) Sleeping on flannel sheets
11) Waking up to a clean house every morning
12) Completing out my set of new dishes
13) Bargain shopping
14) Great customer service
15) Having great conversations on airplanes
16) Getting a totally cute yellow PT Cruiser as a rental car
17) Walks in the cool crisp air
18) Catnaps in the late morning sunshine that streams through the windows
19) Learning to do something totally new and foreign
20) Old fashioned body length wall heaters heaters that are perfect to stand in front of when it's cold outside

Look what I can do now...

So The Boyfriend has agreed to take on the monumental task of teaching me how to create my website. From the bottom up. Or perhaps I should say from the inside out. Or from the open HTML bracket to the close HTML bracket.

No matter which way you phrase it, it ends up equaling a huge, gigantic, mind boggling experience. Mostly for The Boyfriend who spent most of my first lesson scratching his head at my gazillion questions.

It only took a pair of mirrored closet doors, a red dry erase marker, and about an hour before I hit saturation point.

But I did manage to retain some of the lesson... I only needed a small amount of guidance to point out that I had left one dangling opener... (And no, that is not like the can opener hanging off of the counter by the cord, which is what I would have thought as recently as dinner time...)

All in all... Not too shabby...

At this rate, I will be able to create my website in no time flat. (No time in relation to the seven days that the creation took verses the age of evolution for the dinosaurs...)

Anything is possible:

I will really be able to say goodbye to sugar and chocolate for good this time...
I will someday stop dreaming of coffee...
I will finally take advantage of my gym membership...
I will go to Hawaii looking like a coppertone spokesmodel this spring...
and...
I will actually create and run my website in a reasonable amount of time...

Oh, and let us not forget the most important possibility of all:

The Boyfriend will not loose his mind while teaching me to be a sexy hot geek...

Yup...
Anything is indeed possible.
(And just to show a little proof to the above statement; the photo is a screen shot of my very first webpage! Just click on it to see what I did. It's cute, I know... Simple indeed... But I did it!) I guess this alluring nerd is on her way to becoming a sexy hot geek after all...




(Disclaimer: After the week I have had, I am totally rocking the hot, sexy, alluring, incredible vibe. In a week or two, all normal realities and perceptions of self should be shifted back into place...)

The trip went well...

I flew into Portland...
rented a really cute yellow PT Cruiser...
met many fabulous people...
went to the hospital...
had the Mammogram and Ultrasound...
got the results in the same day...
spoke at great length with the Radiologist...
visited with The Boyfriend's family...
and flew home in just a couple of days...

Oregon rocks!

The Mammogram (of course) showed nothing. My breast tissue is way too dense for even the new digital Mammogram machine that they put me on. (And the poor technician tried several times to get the shot to no avail.)

The Ultrasound showed a fibrous mass about 2cmx5cm... Not a cyst. (But we knew that already.) The Radiologist came in a spent a long time going over the images with me. He explained why he was very confident that I did NOT have breast cancer, that it was a fibrous mass.

The hospital staff was incredible! They called for several hours down to California to get my referrals faxed up. (Since after three straight days of calling and requesting them to be sent up for the appointment had yielded nothing. Par for the Californian course.) Finally after getting a barely readable fax, they whisked me right in to the tests. Then they processed the results and wrote up the reports so that I would not have to come back to speak with the Doctors. AND they are mailing a copy of everything, including a disk with all of the images to my home in California. No problem. And everyone was a sweet and kind and supportive as could be.

(And I am quite sure that the case manager that I had in Northern California was rather embarrassed by the whole thing. She actually called me to let me know that the hospital sent her the results and that she is sending them to a breast surgeon for review. I should be scheduled for a biopsy after the holidays, sometime in January. (Just to be on the safe side and definitively rule out the possibility of cancer.)

So the verdict for now:
No Breast Cancer.
Confidence is high that this will remain the same after the results of the biopsy.

And to top it all off...

The Boyfriend's Mother was wonderful. She was almost like having my own Mom there. She held my hand and walked me through the whole thing. And it was because of her that any of it was possible in the first place. (She was the one who got the cancellation and appointments for me. She took care of all of the paperwork and led my zombie body from one room to another until the whole thing was over. And then she cooked a fabulous home-made vegetable soup for dinner to make me feel better.)

Needless to say, the visit went so well, that I stayed chatting with her so long that I did not get a chance to drive around and see Portland like I had hoped to. But Portland will always be there, the chance to build a bridge or mend a fence is special indeed... (And I think she was rather intent on keeping me longer if she could. She even sent me to the airport with a package of ginger cookies... Yup... She is a sweet Mom...)

Question of the day...

Q.) What does a young woman in California have to do to get a Mammogram and Ultrasound?
A.) Leave the state.

I leave tomorrow for testing the day after that.

Really?
Yeah...

This is me with my head burried...

Too much is going on.
The world is spinning too quickly and I have talked until I am hoarse.
So I am going to be an ostrich and plant my head in the ground for the rest of the night.
This is me with my head buried in the sand.
And the photo is my happy place of the moment.