Back home and almost back to normal

It's funny how you get used to absolute strangers examining, mashing, and stabbing your personal parts. In this kind of situation, it becomes no more personal than your elbow. But I must admit that it's a little strange to be introduced to someone and exchange the usual pleasantries while you're hunched over with your boob clamped into the mammogram machine: "Hello, nice to meet you, Dr. N." "Hey, we have almost exactly the same glasses!" "Wow, yeah, ha ha." "So, where do you go to school?"

Surgery went more or less as planned. But as it turns out, the mass was not where they expected it to be. It's a bit hard to explain, but basically, they have to match up a spot on the side view with a spot on the overhead view. If you can see something in only one view, then it's just an area of increased density; if you can see it in both views, then it's a mass.

Before surgery, the radiologist uses an on-the-spot mammogram to insert a needle where the mass is; a wire is then inserted through the needle, and the needle is removed. (Yes, they do use lidocaine for this, and the needle jab isn't really worse than a needle jab elsewhere -- whew!!) A little bit of blue dye is also injected, so the surgeon knows exactly where to go, instead of slicing around aimlessly.

So when the radiologist had the needle and wire in place, he took additional images to confirm that they were in the right place. But -- he couldn't see anything there. After another look at the films, he guessed that the side view spot had been matched with the wrong top view spot. "Hmmm, I don't really think this is an area of great concern -- I probably would have recommended a follow-up mammogram in six months. But we've come this far..." So we had to do the whole injection/ needle/ wire/ dye routine on the other side.

I remembered seeing the lights in surgery, and Dr. Lim came in and squeezed my toes in greeting. Next thing I knew, I was in recovery. I couldn't believe it was already over! I was babbling quite a bit, but I'm sure they're used to that sort of thing. Later, I dimly recalled that just before I went under, the anesthesiologist was feeding me some positive suggestions: "When you wake up, you'll feel just fine, and you'll heal very quickly." Or something like that.

I was really amazed at how good I felt afterwards -- just perfectly normal (although one caller later reported that she could tell that I was impaired in some way). But in the morning, I felt like I had the Worst Hangover in the Universe. The most spectacular throbbing headache, along with nausea and the dry heaves. I slept it off and was finally able to get some crackers and ginger ale down by noon.

I wasn't sure if the nausea was an after-effect of the surgery, or the result of the oxycodone I was taking for pain relief, so I was reluctant to take any more pills. Actually, I didn't really need them the day after anyway, which is pretty amazing to me. I felt like maybe I had injured a muscle doing pushups (yeah, right), but I didn't feel any stabbing pains or anything.

Monday afternoon we'll get the results from pathology. I can't say that I'm not at all worried, but I sure am a lot less worried now. The biggest annoyances right now are that I can't take a shower or bath until Monday (ewww), and worst of all, I've been instructed to wear a bra for an entire week, day and night! What is this, the time of Charlemagne? Answer me! Answer me now!

Here's a quick snapshot of the surgical removal of the mass:

Going Under the Knife

I was hoping to avoid going public with this, because I kept waiting for good news. But it hasn't yet arrived. Earlier this month, I had a routine checkup at a new doctor (I switched because I left godforsaken Kaiser Permanente). She suggested having some bloodwork done, as well as a mammogram, just as a baseline.

I didn't think twice when they called back and wanted additional images -- I just assumed there was something blurry or left out of the films (even though they're digital and I actually saw them at the time). But when I found out that they were actually looking at a "suspicious area," I got a bit scared.

So they did a spot compression and asked me to wait in the waiting area until they were sure they had images of the area that they wanted. After a while, I overhead someone in reception say, "They want an ultrasound on that Heckman." Now my stomach dropped to my feet. And no one EVER came to tell me what they were doing or why; about 20 minutes later, someone came out and said, "Hi, I'll be doing your ultrasound."

And after that, no one told me if I should wait to talk to someone, or when I'd hear about the results, or if I should call back, etc., etc. I was too nervous to ask anyone about it when I was there, so I called them when I got home. They told me to call back in a few days.

I called them last Thursday, hoping they'd tell me all was well (but not really expecting it). I knew I wouldn't be getting the all-clear when the receptionist told me the doctor would be on the line in just a minute.

The result was that they couldn't see anything on the ultrasound, but there was definitely "a mass" on the ultrasound, and they wanted me to have a biopsy. Okay, now I was in full-on panic. I had been reading about how many false positives there are for women my age (even if it gets to the biopsy stage), but I really, really didn't want it to get as far as the biopsy. Again, I was too scared to ask for more information. Later, I called back and found that it was a 1 cm. mass, so that sounded slightly less scary. But only very slightly less.

My immediate plan was to get and stay drunk until the biopsy, and Andrew administered margarita therapy Thursday night. I got all blubbery and gave him my detailed list of how he'd need to carry out my various missions once I was gone. But Friday morning, I knew I wouldn't be able to keep up that level of poison intake for another day.

I called the doc again to arrange to get my films for the surgeon, and they offered to call in "a little something to take the edge off." Friday through Sunday I spent alternating between absolute panic, watching movies and Strong Bad emails DVDs to distract myself, and sparingly dishing out the Xanax. I slept a lot, which is one of my avoiding-upsetting-things tactics.

I met with the surgeon today for a consultation, and basically, the news is neutral. There's something in there, but it's neither a cyst nor a solid mass. It is concerning enough that they want to get in there and find out what it is. I had my choice of a stereotactic biopsy (a kind of needle biopsy) or open surgical biopsy. I opted for the surgical biopsy, because there's a chance that the stereotactic biopsy might be inconclusive or not do-able for various reasons, which would mean scheduling a surgical biopsy anyway, and more of the dreaded WAITING. Also, with the surgical biopsy, they will remove all of the suspicious area, which makes me feel better.

So, on Thursday I'll be checking in at 9 a.m. for the surgery. This is an outpatient procedure, so I'll be home later in the afternoon (although probably not feeling so hot). Prep, surgery, and recovery should take about 3-3.5 hours. From there, well, we'll just have to wait for the pathology report. I'm feeling OK right now, because there are a lot of things in my favor:

• Whatever it is, it's only 1 cm., so even if it's something bad, this is the best possible time to catch it.
  


• I'm going to Providence Hospital, where Andrew had his hip replacement, and I think it's a good place. I would definitely be putting my personal affairs in order if I had to go back to accursed Kaiser Permanente.
  


• The rest of my routine bloodwork and physical exam showed me to be in ridiculously good health otherwise.
  


• The surgeon didn't find anything else suspicious. Just that pesky mammogram image.
  


• I wound up talking to three women in the waiting room who've had cancer, and all were raving about Dr. Lim (the one I'm going to). And, well, they're still alive and all.
  


• And ... it still might be nothing.

So, with all of that in mind, I'm feeling better than I have been over the past few days (especially since I didn't get immediate bad news, like, "OH my GOD! Look at the size of that lymph node! I thought it was a potato!"). The mood is precarious and I'm feeling exhausted, but I'm going to try to do something enjoyable over the next few days.

Now, I really like those before-and-after pictures (makeovers, house remodels, meth addicts, whatever). So for your reference, here's my picture before surgery:

Oh my, I'm really shocked by the results.

You May Be a Bit Obsessive Compulsive...

Meticulous and detailed oriented, you have some irrational obsessions. Maybe it's your super neat closet or washing your hands a gazillion times. You probably know it's weird, but you just can't stop thinking about it. In fact, the more you think about your quirks, the more you have to do them.

What Personality Disorder Are You?

iPod mini battery replacement

Yesterday I replaced the two-year-old battery in my iPod mini. I decided to risk a little cosmetic damage and do it myself, rather than pay $65 + shipping to have Apple do it (and not even get back my original iPod!).

iPodBatteryDepot had the cheapest price (about $20 including the shipping). The kit included teensy flathead and Phillips screwdrivers. The "skin" of the battery looked more papery than the plastic-y one on the original battery, and wasn't as skin-tight. Also, the wires were slightly longer than those on the original. Both of these seemingly minor details made it more difficult to get everything back into the case.

I followed iPodBatteryDepot's instructions, and also referred to Tim Coyle's blog post for some detailed photos.

Overall, getting the thing disassembled was not as difficult as I had expected; getting the guts back in was the problem.

I had pictured the glue under the endcaps as being a few dabs here and there, but it actually seems like a solid sheet of rubber-cement-like material. Once you can grab one part of the endcap, you can peel it off of this glue easily. Try removing the bottom end first; you'll be better at it by the time you remove the top end, where cosmetic damage will be seen more.

I found that squeezing the sides of the iPod gently made it much easier to wedge in the flathead screwdriver and pry off the ends. In fact, I was able to pop off the bottom endcap in about two seconds using this method. Too bad I found out after I had removed the top!

The included tools were not of very high quality, of course, and the tip of the Phillips screwdriver was not up to the task. It was worn down in short order, so I finished the job with a better screwdriver of my own. It would have been easier if I'd just started with that one.
You might be able to save even more money by using your own tools, removing the battery, and taking it to a local store to find a replacement. It never occurred to me that I might be able to find a stock battery in the neighborhood!

Swapping out the battery was simple. I thought I was home free, but then it was time for reassembly. That stuff just did not want to go back in there. I gently tried different angles and amounts of pressure for a good 15 or 20 minutes. Finally, I managed to wedge it in, but when I flipped it over, there was a big, black something across the entire screen.

After removing the guts again, I found that the black tape around the inside of the screen had been torn off at one corner, and a strip got bunched up and peeled back over the screen when I had mashed the guts back in. I did eventually get things back in place, but you can see that the black tape is still out of place along the bottom edge of the screen.

But now the click wheel wasn't working properly! I opened the top up again, and found that one of the screws wasn't quite tight enough. After I fixed that, the click wheel was fine.

And I found this nice little case on clearance at Fred Meyer, so the minor surgical scars won't show much anyway.

Back on the Ubuntu wagon

I've enjoyed playing with Linux for several years, but I didn't start using it on a daily basis until last summer, when Ubuntu saved my bacon in Germany. One day, my Windows laptop magically stopped seeing the school's network, and no amount of troubleshooting (even completely re-installing the OS!) would help. So I picked up an Ubuntu CD with a magazine at the local grocery store, and just as magically, it worked perfectly with the network.

Back home, I didn't stick with Linux for very long. Ubuntu was noticeably slower than Windows on my machine, and the 5-minute boot time drove me bonkers. Shutdown took nearly as long, and sleep/hibernate wasn't an option, since my network card wasn't recognized when I woke the computer. There were a lot of simple things that I had to spend a lot of time and effort on to get them to work, so I started to feel silly for bothering. I went back to Windows.

For the heck of it, I decided to check out Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake) when it came out recently. I figured the promised "improved speed and boot time" would be relatively minor, and I'd wind up uninstalling and giving up for good. But wow -- my boot time went from >4 minutes to 1.5 minutes! I'm sure it could go lower if I did some tweaking, but this is quite sufficient for now. Performance speed is definitely zippier, too.

For the past few years, I've been saying that Linux is almost ready for your grandma to use, but not quite. I think with Dapper Drake, Ubuntu is ready to pass the Grandma Test. Or maybe I should call it the Steve Test, because it's about ready for the bazillions of computer users out there who are like my brother-in-law. He just wants to email, do a little surfing, listen to a little radio, maybe a little word processing or spreadsheeting here and there, and I doubt if he would ever bother with using software other than the provided defaults.

That's not to say that there's not specialty software -- you can get MIDI sequencing/loops, audio and video editing, graphic design, and just about anything else you could possibly think of. And of course, practically all of it is free.

Don't get me wrong; I still love my PowerBook, and GarageBand especially. Everything is pretty and easy. But I could definitely see myself doing all of my everyday computery things in Ubuntu now.