Street cred

curried tempeh and mango salad

Originally uploaded by Xao_T

Dinner: curried tempeh and mango salad over greens and quinoa. I really recommend Isa Chandra Moskowitz to anyone taking on becoming vegan: her recipes are fantastic.

I’m probably biased, because we were roughly in the same punk scene (Lower East Side) at around the same time, and ‘cuz she’s the host of PostPunk Kitchen. She makes me feel like I’m still a rebel, and not Da Man, even though I am certainly Da Man these days, as I mused over the stock market’s queasy leaps. I don’t think anyone ever thought I’d have a bank account, let alone a 401(k).

In other news, the Horrible Cold is STILL kicking my ass. I wish it would find some other poor soul to torment, I’ve had enough of it. I’m even sick of knitting, after doing hardly anything else for the last 5 days. Blah!

People think I shouldn’t be getting sick, since I’m on the new diet, but I’m finding something very interesting: while I had cancer, I had very mild colds. Whether that was some freaky thing from the radiation, or what, I don’t know. But it wasn’t until the oncologist said,”Goodbye!” that I came down with the worst cold I’ve had in 2 years, at least. Maybe my defenses finally came down, and let me be ordinary, bog-standard sick, now that I’m not Sick anymore. Who knows.

More DIY, less die

The focus of the blog is clearly shifting away from my cancer exploits & I’m okay with that. It’s a welcome development, and I am amazed to think of all the things I’ve yet to do, that have been waiting for me to get better.

As I write this, I’ve got a big gloop of watery indigo “dough” on my head: I’m on Day 2 of my hair-coloring adventure. Yesterday, I did the henna part, that makes it orange-y, and today, I do the dark blue part, that makes it brown-black. It’s still a fascinating process to me, after well over a year of this method. My hair’s longer than ever, and straighter than ever, and much healthier than it was during the years of chemical processes. Yay.

I’ve got an art project brewing, one that is more high-tech than you might be used to, coming from me, but tied in to craft, so please bear with me as I feel my way with this new idea. It’s QR codes. Right now, I I’m knitting a simple one that I made in black & white fair isle colorwork, aided by the wonderful chart generator at microrevolt. When it’s done, you should be able to take a photo of the block with your cellphone, and if your cellphone reads QR codes, you’ll be taken to diynotdie.com: the URL is embedded in the information in the knitting. My next one will be intarsia, and contain a John Baldessari quote, I think.

This isn’t new technology by any means, but it’s caught my attention, and I want to try doing some art-craft stuff that brings technology and craft together. Companies are using this technology for promotions and stuff like that, but I see huge potential to spread code, patterns, poetry, artwork, prose, etc.

In other news, I’m still struggling with my horrible cold, which has invaded my head & chest, despite repeated doses of Thai food, which usually does the trick for me. Hmmm.

More later…noses to blow, hair to de-goo, you know.

A parting gift from the oncologist:

She gave me her cold!! Can you believe that shit?

(Ahhh, I’m not really mad. Getting to stop going to the oncologist is the real gift. I do wonder, a little bit, if I got sick because I finally, after 1 1/2 years, got to relax for a second…)

Out of the woods

I am now an ex-patient of my hematologist/oncologist.

The CAT scans, X-rays, and quarterly blood tests are now history, rather than future. My blood test was in the normal range, and we all happily said “goodbye! Hope I never have to see you again!”

The mystery lump is still a mystery: doc’s parting words were to keep an eye on it to see if it gets bigger, but she doubted it was anything to worry about. As she put it,”Oncologists aren’t necessarily great lump dectectives…we usually see people after the lump, after the biopsy, after the surgery. It’s all determined by then.” So, I’m to keep a perfunctory watch on it, at the most. Whew!!

We ate tons of sushi & tried to celebrate by shopping, but came home empty-handed (no luck on the sales racks of Century 21).

As we drove home, I realized that I have no appointments scheduled for 6 months. That hasn’t happened in a damn long time.

Excellent!!

yayyyyyyyy!!

One more test down, and one more to go (tomorrow). All my biopsies for my stomach & esophagus came back negative for cancer/precancer, and also negative for H.pylori (the nasty organism responsible for ulcers and [I think] stomach cancers, too)! Yay! Of course, the abrasion in my esophagus is no laughing matter, and I have to take those damn Prevacids every day, but…oh well.

Tomorrow’s the cyst-lump day, and my usual blood tests, to see if my hematocrit has come back down to normal numbers yet. Of all the tests I get, this test freaks me out the most, because I’m very pro-surgery, I think. I mean, getting things cut off is something I take in stride pretty well, at this point…the prospect of leukemia or multiple myeloma, which bow to no knives, scares the bejeezus out of me. Really, I’m hoping that they’ll decide that it’s not something to worry about anymore, and stop testing me. I keep hoping that. And so far, they keep testing.

I’m no seasoned veteran of this whole cancer thing yet, and you know, I don’t really want to be. I’d be content to not collect another hospital ID, or set of scans, or scars, or bills. I keep wondering when this will all be behind me. Maybe that doesn’t happen. I guess I have to be OK with that.

(And on that pensive note, I’m gonna go to sleep)

yummy dinner

yummy dinner

Originally uploaded by Xao_T

The feasting goes on, in spite of my stomach, which hasn’t felt right since the endoscopy on Monday, but who the hell knows why that is.

I ate a small mountain of baked tofu tonight, and feel all the better for it. I like eating a lot of raw veggies, but there’s something really appealing about food that’s both hot in temperature and spicy-hot at the same time. So, I ate a salad and a heap of cilantro, to get my raw in.

I’m 3 pounds away from my goal weight now, the stomach bug contributing 2 to that total. I don’t even need to hit that particular number, it’s just there as a milepost of sorts, and especially to act as a stopper. I don’t feel well if I get too thin, so if I get under 130-odd, I’ll have to start eating more avocados and salmon.

I’m still not vegan, by the way, and I don’t think I’ll go 100% vegan or raw or vegetarian…I love raw fish sushi waaaaay too much at this point. Especially salmon. I *love* salmon. Love it!

Size 5 jeans! And dumb-maybe-cancer-maybe-not shit.

Holy crap! I wanted to get some jeans that fit, since I now only have one pair that doesn’t fall off.  I took a bunch of size 7s, hoping they’d fit, into the dressing room, and had to go back and get 5s instead. Now, I’m pretty sure this company’s jeans run a little big, so it may be a paper victory, but whatever. Today, I wore size 5 jeans again.

I showed the maybe-lymph-node-lump below my ankle to my endocrinologist, who believes it is likely a cyst, but still thought that the oncologist should look at it, and get an ultrasound if need be. I’m pretty sure I’m being totally paranoid, but you never know. The strangest of lucky accidents got my cancers diagnosed & dealt with: I’ll be damned if I have a similar chance again, and blow it by ignoring this thing.  But obviously, I’m hoping it’s a cyst. Hope. Hope. Hope. Repeat as needed.

…Pilates and abs, abs, abs

I forgot to mention that I revived my Pilates practice: a little slowly for the time being, but it’s gratifying to know that most of the muscles are still in the right places! I’m just trying to get back into it without freaking out my temperamental lower back. So far, so good.

I’m going to try to do some mechanical work to alleviate my heartburn crap, too…lots of situps, in other words. I have to start taking a prescription proton pump inhibitor (Prevacid sort of thing) which reduces the amount of stomach acid being produced…I’m not crazy about that idea. So, I’m hoping I can work on resolving the hiatal hernia that is to blame for the symptoms, and situps will help tighten up the surrounding muscles.

(wish me luck!)

murk!

Back from the endoscopy…it went pretty well, I suppose, except that I’m now on Prevacid for some ulcerations due to my hiatal hernia. They did a biopsy, too, so I’ll be waiting to hear about that sometime next week. I have a bit of a stomach ache now, 4 hours later, which I guess is par for the course.

The new dumb thing in my life is a hard little mystery lump that popped up just below my right ankle: I went to the GP, and he wants me to monitor it, since it might just be a cyst, or it might be a wayward lymph node.  He said, “I’m very glad you came in with this: this is exactly the kind of stuff people with your history are supposed to do.” If it changes in size at all, I have to come back in for a biopsy.

So, we net out at: “neither here nor there”.

amazing!

I love Ravelry for many reasons, and here’s another one: I was just looking at people’s projects, and then followed a link to a Raveler’s website, and found this amazing site of a performance artist who has to be seen, not described:

http://www.lbufano.com/work.php?page=current

Check it out! Check them both out! Girlistic has a really interesting Winter issue out, which I’m planning to dive into later today.