Wild Hares

I went to my doctor yesterday and he looked at my chart. I was sort of nervous as I waited to hear what he was going to say about my most recent scan. If you recall, when I had the scan, the guy kind of freaked me out and told me I had to make an appointment with my doctor to hear the results. I was surprised and couldn't really imagine what I needed to make an appointment with my doctor for. Luckily, I already had an appointment set up for other stuff sort of related to the cancer, but not related to the scan and knew my doctor would be fine with just combining it and telling me at the previously set up appointment. He looked at the scan notes and said he had no idea why I needed an appointment. The nodules are still there in my lung, but the same size and shape, and they are stable. I just need to repeat the scan in a few months, just as we had planned anyway. So, that is good news.

The other good news is that I got my blood work results and the cancer marker (Tg level for anyone who knows about thyroid cancer) is low so I do not need to do a radioactive scan this summer. Hooray!

Changing subjects now, I have written many times about how my kids and I send packages to
. I really think it is important to not only tell my kids what I think is the right thing to do, but to involve them in it as well. I am really proud that they are such generous caring people, and I think that has a lot to do with the things I show them as examples by the way that I live and the way that I help others when I can. I know that Dave sends things too, as I am sure a lot of other people do.

Anyway, we have one soldier that we have been writing back and forth to for a while now, and I have sort of been putting off writing back to him because I haven't had a chance to sit down and really write a good letter. I write awesome letters, and sometimes I think maybe I should have written suckier letters so it would be easier to keep up! Last night, I got a wild hare (I think I used the right form of hair/hare) and decided that we needed to make stationary right now and start working on a good letter. Of course the kids were all over that and helped me make a huge mess all over the kitchen with the stamps and stamp pads. I took a picture of the finished stationary, but forgot to document the mess and stamped fingerprints all over the chairs that I have since cleaned up. I bet if you click on the picture you can tell which ones my 4 year old made and which ones the older kids made.



Switching topics once again here. I have a neighbor that I think might have cancer or something. It is sort of a tricky situation since I barely know her and don't want to assume anything. But last night, I could not sleep because it was bugging me so much that a person I live near might be going through really rough times and because I am afraid to or can't figure out how to reach out to her, I may not be helping her when she needs it. She is the kind of neighbor I talk to when she is outside, but we don't do anything social together. My daughter used to have a huge crush on her son, and they used to play together all the time. The boy is 3 grades older than my daughter and now that they are in different schools, they don't really see each other anymore.

She lives a few houses down from me, and a few weeks ago, I thought I saw her in her backyard with a chemo turban thing on. I called my friend who lives next door to her, and asked her. She said she had noticed the same thing. We discussed what we could do, but settled on doing nothing until we figured out a way to ask her without intruding. We can not figure it out. But I can't help thinking that she might need help and I am letting fear stop me from reaching out to her. I haven't seen her outside except to wave to her from several backyards away. If I saw her, I would obviously just ask her, but should I call? Is that really intrusive? Some people are way more private than me and don't share every single detail of their lives with everyone. What would I say if I called? "Hey I saw you outside and it looked like you had no hair is everything ok" sounds really horrible! (and obviously also not how I would actually word it!)

I just keep hoping I will see her outside so it can be natural, but it isn't looking like that will happen. Meanwhile, my stomach is all tied up in knots thinking that what if she is sick and I am just sitting here wondering and not supporting her? Any ideas? I'd love to make her cookies and stop over to drop them off, but I feel like that would look really strange. And what if she is fine and just had an unfortunate hair cut? It is hard work being me.