HP again

On Friday I went in and Dr. Silva put in a seroma catheter to drain the fluid I seem to build up continuously. I now have a Jackson Pratt drain, again. It was/is interesting.

That evening my students had a performance of our play, Gary Grinkle's Battle with Wrinkles and Other Troubles in Mudgeville. There was lots of drama! I guess that is the name of the game with middle school girls and has to be expected. We had a broken hand and lost a narrator among other exciting developments.

Today Chris and I went to the UTMB graduation. My nephew Jason became a M.D. today, as did a lot of Chris' friends. Chris was a part of this class and had to postpone graduation for me and the whole cancer thing... It was a nice ceremony and a number of us (family) were able to be there. Patrick took all 9 of us out to eat afterwards. It was nice to just sit and chat with Lauren, Patrick, Jason, Nate, Donna, Michael and Carolyn.

Que seroma sera

Lucky me. My seroma (fluid under my mastectomy scar) is building up again. I have an appointment with Dr. Silva on Friday AND this time she wants to put in a drain. She has been using a syringe each time, but this "drain" is an implanted thing that drains continuously. I guess it is kind of like the JP drains I had before. I'm not looking forward to that. I guess this is the solution, maybe it will finally heal the "pocket" closed.

My chest hurts. It has become a superficial pain, like a bad sunburn. Hard to wear anything. Nothing is soft enough.

Got in to Central (my closed due to hurricane school) and got my stuff today! Yay. It is hard to do one's job without one's tools. I now have my resource books, art supplies, and many of my pertinent files. I had to leave the costumes, puppet theatre, files with scripts... Hopefully I will get back in again at some point. Only 6.5 days of school left this year!

Funny Bunnies

Here, let me give you a kiss....

It is hard to believe that eight months ago the bunny on the right, Coinin, would have been biting the one on the left, Haas. This is the only good thing to have come from Hurricane Ike. The two bunnies finally bonded and are good friends.

Haas: I'm King of the World!!!

Coinin: Yeah, whatever, I can still bite your butt if I want to....

I don't think we ever wrote about the flood we had here about a month ago. We had about 6" of rain in an hour. Our street backed up with water in some places up to my knees. The water in the middle of our street was about one foot deep. My little white Honda Civic got 6-7" of water in it. It cost $250 to get it cleaned. Seats and carpet had to come out to keep it from molding under the carpet and inside the seats. It was a mess. It also caused all the window tinting to bubble up from the humidity and it had to be peeled off. I had to drive it without it being cleaned for two weeks. It smelled like a sewer. Which is, of course where the water came from. It was high tide when the storm hit. Luckily there was no water in our blue Honda CR-V.

Last day of Radiation Therapy

Here is Selena and her Radiation Therapists: Kwame (L) and Mary (R).

They were really kind to her.

Long Weekend!!!

I moved back in with Chris (you know, my husband?) last night! Yay.

Yesterday, went shopping for groceries. Boring, life stuff. Tried to hold off on the pain pills. I have been taking them every 6 hours, and the skin looks lots better, so I tried. Turns out I still need 'em. I had to take off the binding yesterday evening for a couple of hours 'cause I was so uncomfortable. I got Chris to bind me up before I went to sleep... My chest is reminding me that I need some more now!

My students' performances and "tour" have been rescheduled for this coming week and things are crazy at work. I FINALLY have an appointment to get in to Central (my old, now closed due to hurricane damage, school) to get my belongings on Tuesday. Yay. Too bad I was forced to teach without those things this whole time. I don't know how much I can get, but I only have a few hours and it took a couple of years to cart in everything!

This is getting old...

Called Dr. Silva and had my seroma drained again today. 121 cc's of fluid! I was then wrapped, again. Although it hurts I think I can stand it. Dr. Silva said that if it builds up again she may need to implant a drain. I will do my best to keep pressure on it and hope that it finally heals the way it is supposed to. She gave me a prescription for more pain pills AND a script for some topical cream that may make it so I don't need to take the pain pills so often. I like the idea of that.

Chris is slowly getting better.

We had a rehearsal after school for the play my kids are doing, Gary Grinkle's Battle with Wrinkles and other Troubles in Mudgeville, and half the cast was missing! We are touring it to three elementary schools on Thursday and then performing for our school on Friday. It is AMAZING how diva-esque some of these kids have become.

Weekend? What weekend?

As is usual for us lately, Chris and I have slept the weekend away. He's sick (getting better) and I'm sick (getting better) but it equals lots of sleeping. It is said that one's body heals during sleep... Since I moved into the other room to avoid getting whatever he's got, I've seen him about 3 times this weekend... We did watch some TV together last night, and I can swear that it was him who waved at me from the doorway late this morning. Hopefully we can move in together soon...

Skin is getting better, but since I haven't been binding, I'm building up the seroma again. I'll have to call Dr. Silva on Monday. She has been great about squeezing me in to her schedule for a quick draining. I think my skin may be able to take being bound again afterwards.

13 days left of school, and I still don't officially have a job for next year yet. I was called to a meeting to discuss scheduling for next year, so I anticipate being there. It is just not confirmed, which makes me a little stressed.