Cancer Gene

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6668727.stm

"His team studied tumour samples from patients with ovarian cancer. Some of the cancer patients had been treated with chemotherapy prior to surgery, and some had not.

Only 30% of the chemotherapy patients who had normally functioning p53 were alive five years later, compared to 70% of those with mutated, non-functioning p53."

I'm paranoid about health, to a degree. I like doing what I can to make sure I stay healthy, especially when it comes to things relating to womens health. My great-grandmother died of ovarian cancer, my grandma had something go wrong with something and had to have a full hystorectomy (she never told anyone what happened, but she did tell me once that she had been bleeding profusely), and my mom had precancerous cells on her cervix. I myself have had abnormal cells on my cervix... So I think I have a right to be proactive on this sort of thing. I worry about my baby if it's a girl. Caayn's mom and sister have problems with reoccuring cysts, I can't remember what the thing is called though... Yuck. Combine that with my own bad history and this child would be crazy.

But that study sort of freaked me out. I'm not really worried about ovarian cancer, since it is so far removed, but it does stay in the back of my mind as something that could be a remote possibility... but the fact that 30% of patients who were treated with chemotherapy were alive 5 years later (with the functioning gene) means that 70% died. Hmm. That really makes you think.

A Very Super Long Post

Chris broke our computer. I think I got him a little too excited about handy work. See, I had just spent a week convincing him to talk to his dad about how to fix our lawn-mower, and then additionally convincing him that he could indeed fix it. He'd also recently fixed my vacuum, which I tend to break frequently, and attempted to put up a swing in the backyard for Sully. Oh, and he had managed to put a new RAM card into the new computer so that it could happily play WoW...

We went to Best Buy to buy a new RAM for the old, regular comp. We spend a lot of time in Best Buy now. It's kind of weird, since its been in town for like a year... Anyway, we had a plan. March up to the nearest guy, maybe a Geek Squad guy if he was in the area, and ask them which RAM was right for a Dell. Enter the store, and instead we head straight to the RAM where he picks one out. He says, "This should be the right one." I'm like, well, whatever, let's go.

Then sometime later at home, he's doing his thing, I'm sort of just hanging out. That's when it happens. Caayn says, "I think I broke the computer." This is followed by me asking why he thinks that. "Oh, it won't turn on anymore."

Hmm. Well, that would do it. Jimmy came out on Monday to take a look. After he was nearly mauled by a 40lb dust bunny, he informed us that the RAM channels were broke (or some technical term for that) and that the motherboard had also left the building. Oh, and that the fan in the computer was so clogged with dust that it couldn't rotate. Hmm. Apparently you're supposed to take the cover off these bad boys and vacuum them out every once in awhile. Who knew? So he opened a window on the other comp and showed us the parts we needed to buy to get it fixed. They only cost around $75 which was way better than the $300+ I was imagining! We're hoping he can come out tomorrow to put them in (he said Caayn isn't allowed to, lol, and was also very amazed that Caayn had managed to get the card in there to begin with, since they are apparently different sizes)... If he can't, it's not the end of the world. I don't much care for this new comp. The screen hurts my eyes, the mouse is weird. Or, well, I could just admit to having a thing about computers. I like MY computer and I dislike using any others. I'm just weird like that. And so the main comp being broken is allowing me to NOT spend all my time on the comp. Which is nice. I managed to finish reading The Stand (after starting it like a month or two ago?)... I'll have to dedicate another post to that book, lol. I was reminded of things that I want to share about it. Maybe now I'll get a chance to finally read more than 18 pages into these new Tad Williams book I picked up on suggestion by a good friend.

Few other things, since I haven't posted in awhile.

We took Sully to the zoo. He was so excited. His favorite thing was the geese, which aren't technically part of the zoo. They just come to the zoo when they are in the area and then migrate out when the weather changes. They come for the corn. Then he also liked the deer. Our zoo is weird--you can feed almost ALL the animals. The only other zoo I've spent quality time with is the Santa Barbara Zoo, and I can tell you, you couldn't feed the bears or warthogs or deer or anything like that... But yes, we fed some fallow deer and some other type of deer corn. They licked it out of your hands. It was very very cute. Of course, I didn't let Sully do that because it's gross, but oh well, lol. He loved it. And he really liked the otters. I like otters. They make me think of my beach, where if you were lucky, sometimes you could see a sea otter. And they also make me think of Erin, or Fae as she's known on Neopets. I met her through a really swell guy named Josh. They just got married last year, and she is just the sweetest girl you could ever meet. (Not that I've met either of them yet, but whenever we get a chance to drive out to PA next, I swear that I am stopping at their comic book store in Oberlin, OH to meet them.) She LOVES otters. She gets all goofy when she talks about them, and apparently does an otter flippy thing with her hands when she gets excited. (Funny side story--we actually went to the zoo and saw the otters here in Minot last year on the same day the two of them got married, which is sort of special to me since I couldn't be there. It was my own sort of tribute to that day.)

Also, we have a swing in our backyard now. Caayn had to rig it up special, since the ropes were like 3 feet too short, but Sully loves it. He is always asking to go swimming. Which is how he pronounces swinging. He spends great amounts of time just blissfully swinging.

For anyone not interested in poop, now is the time to stop reading. :)

Sully hadn't pooped for like a week. We aren't sure how long exactly, since this isn't something we generally keep track of. He spent two days grunting and screaming and attempting to poop. We gave him some baby laxative stuff that we have and cut him off his milk supply. (Our dr is always telling us he drinks too much of it, but whatever, it's healthier than juice...) No dice. We did the bath tub thing, which is gross, but sometimes that helps him get the urge. No go. The next day was serious. He had sort of stopped eating for the most part and was cranky but who wouldn't be?! We agreed that if he hadn't pooped by like 6, we were going to have to go to the hospital and see what they could do. He needed to poop. At around 1pm, one of us had an idea to go downtown and see if we could find an enema or suppository or whatever those things are. We did. It's a baby Fleet Enema. Which is totally bizarre. Who sat around thinking, hmm, I'm going to stick some glycerin and mineral water up my butt and see what happens? Seriously. That sort of worked. Not like I thought, but then again, I've had no experience with this sort of thing. Since then, each day he will spend a good portion of the day trying to poop and not poop at the same time, but managing to get some out. So hopefully we won't get to this situation again. Apparently I have to monitor this sort of thing and not let it get so bad.

OH! And one other thing. We took Sully to the dr. He has some sort of weird growth in his cheek, which kind of concerned me. You can't see it, and its just under the skin. According to the doctor, it's a piece of his lymph node. She said that right under your jawline you have a bunch of them, and that part of his must have just wandered up. Nothing I can do about it but keep an eye on it. If it gets bigger, we have to go in right away, but if not it's fine. Eeks. It still freaks me out.

I have my next appointment tomorrow. Yahoo! And my brother left California today. That's a big deal. He's moving out to Colorado to work with an old friend... thats a story for another, not quite so long already, post. But he's hoping to get there by the 20th, I'm sure he'll get there sooner... then hopefully, HOPEFULLY, he'll get a chance to come out here and visit me. I'm so looking forward to this. I miss him! He's never seen Sully, except for a few baby pictures from like 2 years ago. So that will be awesome.

And we've made the decision. This is the last baby. We're done. Caayn will probably get the old snip done after the baby is born (my mom suggested doing it before, so that he'd be healed and I'd be healed at the same time, etc, but that's too jinxy for me--I may not be very superstitious, but that is just too close for me). And you know what my last baby present is going to be? A tummy tuck. Yeah, that's right. I am so excited. If you know me, you'll understand. This is something I want very badly. I feel giddy and bouncy inside just thinking about it. I had a consultation with a doc while back, so I know what I'm looking at price wise and surgery wise... now, to have this baby and get it done! WHEEE!!

OMG. If you are still reading, you deserve a prize. Sorry, I've been feeling very chatty since I've been locked away from all my blogging pals. All my blog sites that are saved are on my old comp... so for now, I'm stuck with my basic few. That's okay, those guys are worth reading any day.

Cheers!

Taking the Greyhound

My dog kicked my ass. It hurts.

When Caayn comes home and the garage door opens, Sully goes running to our connecting back door and opens it up. I usually let him do this, because I like that he can open doors and I know he won't go running out into the actual garage.

Today, things didn't go according to plan. Garage door grinds up, Sully runs screaming to door and opens it, Achilles comes galloping along behind him (the dogs usually are also excited by the sound of the garage door opening), Caayn starts yelling about getting them back from the door and pushes the button to make the outside garage door close. Achilles rockets out into the garage and under the door. I go tearing after him, with just enough space under the door to spare (I think at this point it was starting to go up again though, from the thing being tripped)... Greyhounds are NOT good dogs to allow outside without being on leashs. They are like your normal dog in that some like to chase things, only they can reach top speeds of 40mph which no human can ever hope to achieve on foot. Achilles loves to chase squirrels, dakrats and Yorkies. **Yorkies are Achilles' very favorite type of dog in all of the dog kingdom. If they weren't so unappealing, I would buy him one. So, as life has it, a squirrel was sitting on the sidewalk. He chases it up a tree. I'm running down the street after him, probably scaring all of our neighbors by my icky appearance and pants that are like 8 inches too long. Luckily, he stopped there. Plus, he happens to like me a lot, so he generally doesn't run from me unless we're playing a game.

Anyhow, as I was walking him back to the house, he saw the open garage door and started running towards it. With me in tow. I somehow managed to do a 180, flipping head over heels, and landing on my back. Ouch. That was not comfortable. Especially not when combined with the fact that I already have pubic bone dysfunction from being pregnant.. so now I'm all popping and crackling and in about 10 times more pain than I was before. Ugh. I actually took a Tylenol to ease that a little, and I never take meds. Geez. I'm lucky I wasn't further along, that would have been really ugly.

Thought I'd share my lovely adventure with everyone.

Zombies is out to get you!

I have an fear of zombies. And the end of the world. I admit it. I also fear the two of those occuring at the same time. It's totally silly, but I can't help it. This is one of those things where most people look at the situation and say, one isn't real and the other you can do nothing about, so quit worrying. But my mind is very active and very hard to pry off of one topic or another. So sometimes I lay awake at night wondering what I would do if some rampant disease or war or whatnot came through the world and killed most of us off. I, of course, always assume I'm living... And you know what weighs the heaviest on my mind? The Mayan calender. That's right, I am one of those who wonders about December 12, 2012 (or whatever day it is, because I seem to remember something also about May 2012)... I catch myself thinking, well geez, why am I having babies when the world is just going to end anyway?

Oh, and the zombies thing totally came from reading Max Brooks' book, The Zombie Survival Guide. Umm, yeah. I plan on building a house totally zombie proof. With stairs that are either retractable or just have ladders, I haven't decided which yet. I've also been considering building a bomb shelter. That just seems like a good idea. I don't understand why we don't bring those back anyway. I mean, they were way prevelant during what, WWII? I'm not sure when, but seriously, there are way more countries with nucs and the ability to create them, and seem more likely to NEED bomb shelters... So I propose we start building houses with them again. I could use it as like, a secondary zombie shelter, should my house fail me.

I also dream a lot about zombies. Or the world ending. I usually wake up from the zombie ones totally freaked out. Once, I was actually killed by a zombie (in a dream). I thought you weren't supposed to be able to die in your dreams. :P Night before last I had a dream where the military was after Caayn and I... there was something about everyone running and while we were packing bags, I stopped to admire a pie server thing and thought 'but what about the family heirloom pie server?' (which my family totally does not have, by the way)... And then we were running up and down streets with cops chasing us, where I passed a bar that was owned by a guy I used to know named Alex... weird... Jumping over a fence, we ended up in a graveyard. Somehow Caayn got way ahead of me and I saw that he was surrounded by zombies. I, of course, go to help him even though its obvious he is dead. So then I'm running and I get bit, and then some lady grabs me and is giving me injections into my brain to stop the zombie disease. Which works, but then makes the military be after her and me, so we're also running...

Geez. I run a lot in my dreams.

Anyway, yeah. I have twisted weird dreams. Every night. They are often more twisted and more vivid during pregnancy, which is sort of annoying. I guess it wouldn't be bad for someone who isn't me... My dreams are always vivid, and involved. One day I'll have to start a dream journal, just to be like, "OMG what a total freak" 10 years from now when I read it.