Boobs!

Most of you who follow my blog already know about my boob issues - but just in case, here is a quick overview:

In Oct of 06 I was 3m preg and found a lump in my left boob - in Feb I had an ultrasound done of it. The dr could feel the lump but didn't see anything in the ultrasound so the weren't sure if they should do a mammogram or not (since I was 7m preg by then) After consulting with the area specialists, they decided to go ahead and do one - those findings were inconclusive and eventually chocked up to possibly and clogged milk duct and pregnancy hormones. Once I gave birth and my milk came in, it wasn't noticeable anymore. Fast forward 1 year and I was done nursing and my boobs returned to normal (well somewhat) :) and I again felt the lump only it was twice the size now.
This past Sept, I developed an additional large mass that hurt to touch and was raised and red. I went to the dr and they diagnosed it as mastitis and put me on antibiotics for it. With in a few days, the redness and pain went away - however once I finished the meds, the mass was still there - so my drs ordered another mammogram be done. Shortly after, I received a letter from the breast center saying:
"Your recent mammogram showed an abnormality that warrants further evaluation by your physician or healthcare provider. Please contact your physician as soon as possible to discuss the results of this examination." I already had a follow up scheduled for Wed (15th). It had started to hurt again so I must admit that I was and am curious a bit scared as to what it could be.
At that appt, the breast center faxed a letter to my dr saying:
Ultrasound Findings
Sonographic study of the left breast limited to the upper breast in area of a palpable finding was performed. the study showed a solitary hypoechoic nodule measuring 1.35cm in its largest diameter. It is fairly well localized but sharp demarcated especially posteriorly. it shows minimal distal shadowing. It does show low level homogeneous internal contents. Its nature is uncertain and biopsy would be recommended.
So we scheduled a biopsy for today. Which I just got back from a few hours ago. I'm not sure if I'm upset or relieved. They didn't end up doing a biopsy after all. The Dr was so busy with other patients that the resident (student?) did most of the exam. He kept leaving to consult with the dr and would come back with more questions. Eventually, the dr came in and did an exam then left to consult with a breast specialist.
So the deal is, my boobs are really fibrous - which I'm told is normal for someone my age. This usually changes with your montly cycle but since I have an IUD, I don't have a monthly cycle to compare it with. The concern is that it is tender to touch. So it could be an infection still hanging on or ??? No one seems to know! So after 2 hours of sitting there in a robe showing people my boobs, the dr comes back in and says - we can either start a stronger antibiotic or schedule an appt to remove it. I asked him if he was going to do a biopsy and he said that if he removed it then he wouldn't need to - so i'm still confused as to if they were going to do it if I chose antibiotics? Anyway, I told him to just take it out. I'm tired of dealing with this and not knowing what it is. Its been 2 years now that I've had issues with my boob - I don't want it to be weird and hard and hurt and possible be something that I should have dealt with so I told them to just take it out. So by the time all this was decided, everything else in the hospital was closed so I left my info with pre op and they are suppose to call me. The procedure is suppose to be on the 6th of Nov - but I don't really know anything about it - not even the time! "Sigh"

New Background

So today, I noticed that one of my friends had a cool background for her blog so I went to the site and downloaded my own - very cool - they have 269 backgrounds to choose from. I found a few I liked and was playing around with them - thus the mess my page now is :(

I got most of it to work but now my pictures are too big - which is one thing I liked was that I could have big pix - I resized the last post but am leaving the rest for now - I may still play more later but for tonight, I'm tired, zac wants to watch a movie and I still have a sink full of dishes to get to - why can't things just be easy!

Kids

Here are a few of my favorite pictures that I took of my kids at school this past week:



And a picture depicting something Gryphyn said last week:

Fun Times - New pix added

This past weekend was a good change of pace for us
On Thursday Night I finished up some Pumpkin tie-dye shirts for the kids at school - (I just did the faces - someone else tie dyed them)

Here they are hanging up to dry


Fri morning, I worked on my lesson plan for school and Zac caught up on some editing while we were waiting for my new phone to be delivered.
Then we packed our bags and headed to Tenn.

About 15min into the drive, we stopped in Woodfin at a park that Zac had found recently:
Here are a few pix of the men playing:






After that, we piled back in the van for the drive. We ended up taking a very indirect route thru a very curvy mtn in the dark AND our gas light came on! Luckily the men fell asleep but I was trying very hard not to throw up as Zac did his best to conserve what little gas we did have and coasted as quickly as he could! God was watching out for us because we made it to town and Zac got gas (at 60 cents less than we pay at home) while I walked around getting some fresh air - although it was dark you could tell it was fall. The air was crisp and there were crunchy leaves on the ground. We made our way to the hotel and ended up going to bed early since we weren't really sure where everyone else was (for the rehearsal dinner) and we didn't get very good cell phone service.

The next morning, we got up had breakfast and headed to the B&B where the girls were staying - Zac started his day there getting pix of them getting ready:








(I took the above pix out of the slideshow folder Zac put together to play at the reception)

While Zac was working, the boys and I headed to the farm (where the wedding was) and played and explored while we were waiting for the wedding to start.

The highlight of Gryphyns day was when his friend Tatum showed up - She is our Pastors daughter and Gryphyn absolutely loves her. A few weeks ago he said: "Tatum is my friend - I like her, she has soft hair" LOL



All Vahn wanted was his Daddy - which made it a bit difficult to keep him quiet during the ceremony



The following day, Zac had two more photo shoots in Tenn so the men and I drove around and found parks to play at.
Here are a few more pix of them at the park:







Now we are back home and back to real life - I wish we could stay on Vacation Forever!
Coming back home always sucks - piles of toys, mtns of laundry, never ending list of things that need to be done
SIGH - It was Fun to get away for a few days anyway :)

Rest in Peace!

This past weekend, the boys and I flew to AZ to attend my Dad's Memorial Service. The ashes weren't ready in time for the ceremony and one of his sisters couldn't make it, so we are planning on having an ash scattering ceremony planned at Apache Lake. He spent a lot of time there growing up fishing and water skiing with his family.

Its sort of bitter sweet. I know he is in a better place now and not in pain anymore but at the same time, I was just starting to have a normal relationship with him and my kids will never get to know him here on this earth.

It has been an emotional week! I'm exhausted from crying so much. Zac has been super busy with weddings and editing so I've pretty much been and single mom on top of all of this. Man I don't know how single moms do it - it is so much work not ever having a break - I guess you just manage and do what you have to in order to get by. I sure don't envy them!

In keeping with the theme of my week, on the flight back home from AZ, I missed my flight and lost my phone - Early Sunday morning we left for the airport to catch our flight back home - we thought 30min would be plenty of time to check in for an early morning flt - WRONG - You must check in 45min prior and they won't send your bag with out you - so even though I could have made it to the plane in time they wouldn't let me because they "couldn't send my bag on a plane that I wasn't on" So they gave us standby tickets for the next flight which we had to wait , 3hrs for. Although my bag still went on the original flight (go figure)

Once I finally get on the plane - we of course don't have seats together - no biggie someone moved for us so we are sitting in the very last row of the plane. The guy next to the window - never uttered a word the whole 5 hour flight but the super rude couple in front of us made sure it was well know that they weren't happy about having kids seated near them. Every time the kids would kick the seat or be loud they would huff loudly or turn around like they were going to do something - the flight attendant on the other had was wonderful - she helped a lot - so anyway - after 5 hours of trying to keep the men contained in a small space and quiet, we were all ready to get off the plane. I dug my phone out of the bag and placed it in the seat back pocket so that I could get to it easier once we landed. Then once we landed, it was too loud in the plane to talk so I decided to just wait till we got off the plane to call zac - by this time, I had 20min to get from B terminal to E terminal so the flt attendant called me one of those electric cars to take me - once I got us all situated on there, I went to get my phone to make my call and realized that I left it on the plane - MAN

So do I go back for it and risk missing my plane or rush for the plane???? The man driving the car called the gate for me and said he would go back and look for it and bring it to me so I went ahead and headed to my next gate - however, I had standby tickets from missing the first flt and there were already 6 others in front of me - so I didn't make the flight anyway. So I head back to the 1st gate and checked with the gate agent just in time to see the original plane taking off again.

Of course its a new gate agent and she doesn't know anything but I'm welcome to wait for the other to return from her break - after a few minutes, of waiting the gate agent tells me that if it HAD been turned in, it would be taken to the customer services desk - so I head down to the desk to check with them. They make a phone call back to the gate and are told that it was turned into baggage. By this time, I have about 30min. I think this will be enough time to get down to baggage and get my phone and run back to the gate to board - so I make the long walk (as fast as I can) to baggage - once there, they look thru their phones and don't have it so they call back to the gate who tells them "NO -we said IF we had it we would turn it in" AHHHHH!! So now I have NO phone and about 10min to make it back to the gate AND I have to go back thru security with the kids. So more rushing, I make it back to the plane (getting a blister on my foot from running in sandals) I didn't have a chance to find a pay phone and call zac back so he has no clue when my flt is getting in - Thankfully, the flt from charlotte to asheville was only 30min. We get off and call zac and then wait for him to come get us.

So, the next day, I call back to Charlotte and check if my phone was turned in - NOPE - so I get the list and #'s of where the plane went and call all of those stops - no luck - so I repeat the phone calls the following day still no luck - so I call Verizon to put a hold on my phone and find out if it is being used - sure enough, I lost it on the 5th and the last phone call was placed and 11pm on the 6th. So then I call my insurance and file a claim but still can't get a phone until they receive and approve my application. Meanwhile, Zac has to go out of town so I am phoneless for a few days

How did I survive before without a phone? I use it way more than I thought I did. I still can't get over that someone else took it and was using it - I guess I'm too nice - If I found someone elses phone (or anything else) I would do everything I could to return it to them. Well at least I get a new phone out of it - It is suppose to be delivered tomorrow during normal business hours - meanwhile it sucks not having one!