It seems like winter came overnight

We had a nice warm sunny fall with almost no snow. The ground was totally clear. Then, all of a sudden, we had almost three feet of snow on the ground. OK, I admit it. We were out of town for a week and a half. When we left it was still fall and there was no snow on the ground. By the time we got home winter had arrived and there was lots of snow everywhere. And that was before the big storm we had for Christmas. We're still digging out.

Back to the out-of-town thing... I was defending my dissertation and finally earning my PhD! Yippee, that is finally over. I put a lot of time into writing my thesis this fall and I am really glad to be done with it and to get on with my life. And my knitting :) I plan to do a bunch of skiing this year to make up for not being able to ski last winter (due to the big bone tumor scare).

Drama is over...Woo-hoo!

Oops, I have taken longer than I meant to to update the blog. It took a while to recover from the emotional roller coaster this year started with. And we've had guests, and other life stuff.

The trip to the orthopedic oncologist went better than we could have imagined. The oncologist disagreed with the local docs and said that my tumor was not a GCT, and was not even serious at all. It is just an Enchondroma, which is a chunk of cartilage and nothing to worry about. All I have to do is get x-rays every six months for a couple of years and make sure it doesn't change. He doesn't think it should even be biopsied! From the beginning, I was told that I would need to have the tumor removed and get a bone graft, no matter what kind of tumor it was. This guy said there is no reason for that. He said I have probably had this thing most of my life, so if the structure of the bone was compromised, I would have broken it by now. I am FINE! Well, I still want to get the meniscus fixed, but for now, I am enjoying the fact that nothing has to be done.

And, Jack's diabetes is coming under control. Of course we have to keep an eye on him, and poke him with needles, but he is doing really well and has regained all the weight he lost.

Life is good!

The Drama of 2008

Well, this year has begun with plenty of drama. Let's hope we are just getting it out of the way early!

My last post was just prior to a trip to the doctor to get my MRI results, which was the beginning of the first drama. The MRI did show the suspected (medial) meniscal tear. It also had a (lateral) surprise. There is a tumor in the head of my fibula (2cm x2cm) just below the knee. Before I get into the details, I want to point out that my tumor is probably not malignant. I went to the orthopedic surgeon, and he took x-rays, scheduled a biopsy, ordered a bone scan, got the results of the bone scan, canceled the biopsy, and referred me to an orthopedic oncologist. There are only 3 orthopedic oncologists in northern California, so it is kind of hard to get in to see them. I'm not sure if it is good or bad news when an oncologist reviews your records and accepts you as a patient, but I have been accepted by the clinic at UCSF. They suspect that I have a Giant Cell Tumor (GCT) which is locally aggressive but rarely spreads elsewhere. The bone scan showed that my tumor is fairly active metabolically, which is why the ortho canceled the biopsy and sent me to the specialist, but doesn't appear to be as aggressive as a cancer. Following the appointment with the specialist, the first week in March, I will have a much better idea of what kind of tumor I have and what the treatment will be. I will need surgery to remove the tumor and bone grafting to fill the hole, which I expect to have by the middle of March. I have no idea how big a deal all of that is and how long the recovery will be.

Concurrently, we started to notice that something was wrong with our bad dog, Jack. We had been very worried about him, because he was terribly ill and had lost significant amounts of weight (muscle). He was heading downhill rapidly, when we found out that he is diabetic. We were thrilled that he had something treatable. Jack has been on insulin for 9 days now and is doing much better. He has even gained back a pound and is up to his old misbehaving tricks. Jack doesn't seem to mind the twice daily insulin shots, and even puts up with the blood glucose monitoring. He'd rather not get his lip pricked for the blood sample, but he really will do anything for food. When I asked the vet, he told me that if left untreated, Jack was days to weeks from dying. Wow. Even if it had been been caught later, he would still have been treatable, but he was a pretty sick dog.

So, yes, we have our share of drama around here.

Happy Skier!

I finally came out of denial and had an MRI on my knee last week and will go get the scoop from the doctor on Monday. So, what have I been doing lately? SKIING!! Maybe the MRI was like a major magnetic therapy session, because the knee isn't bothering me too much, even after skiing the last couple of mornings. Yippee!

I hurt my knee while wake boarding over the summer. It hurt to walk for at least 3 weeks, but eventually felt better. Unfortunately, it would flare up throughout the fall, when I tried to do fun things, like hiking. I really wish I had dealt with it back then. But I didn't. I was in denial. In December, once we had gotten a bunch of snow, it was time to go skiing. It was the Saturday before Christmas, and Homewood was going to operate the brand spanking new lift. The ski area had been open, but not the upper part of the mountain. This was a big day, and I've got pictures of the new lift below. Well, it only took 3 or 4 runs before I started to feel pain in my knee. As I continued to ski, it got worse. It hurt me to walk (a lot) for the next two weeks! It wasn't the walking thing that upset me so much, it was the fear that my ski season was already over. That was when I realized that I had to do something ASAP! I really don't know what's wrong with it, but the doctor suggested that it is likely to be a torn meniscus. With that in mind, Tim and I went skiing yesterday, because I just had too. Well, it hurt on the first turn, which was depressing and worse than the first time I went skiing. Then I started to play with how I made my turns, keeping track of how and when it hurt. I figured I could at least relay this to the doc on Monday. I realized that it hurt when I unweighted my ski, which is consistent with a torn meniscus catching. So, I tried to stay low and not straighten at all. Problem solved, but thighs burn. It felt a little stiff the rest of the day, but no pain that wasn't overcome by the 4 ibuprofen tabs I took when I got home (just to make sure). When it still didn't hurt this morning, I took more prophylactic ibuprofen and went skiing. My knee is no worse and my thighs are working extra hard. Of course we were only out there for an little over an hour. When you have a pass and only live a few blocks from the hill, you don't ski all day. There is no way I could ski powder, bumps or anything very challenging, but at least I can get out there and have a little fun.

I mentioned the new chairlift earlier. It is really quite comfy and very fast. It is even roomier than before. They replaced the old "Quad" chair with a new high speed lift, which they oddly named the "Old Homewood Express". I have a few pretty pictures below: