The Saturday before Christmas, I took a really splendid walk with Elea near her place in the avenues. We strolled and talked for two and a half hours, passing by Ocean Beach, and then later above the beach, where the expansive view was inspiring. C. and I had a nice visit in the evening, Sunday I did my cooking, and Monday Tom and I went to Sacramento.
Paul, Eva, Chris and Sarah went to Sweden for Christmas this year, so we went instead to Ann’s (Tom’s mother), and had dinner, opened gifts, admired the tree, and generally enjoyed each others’ company. It was lovely and cozy. Here’s who was there: Ann, Steve, Julie, Dan, Jim, Melinda, Abbie, Tom and me.
Tom and I slept over, and Steve and Julie returned the next morning for stockings, I think done entirely and generously by Santa Julie and Santa Steve. In the afternoon, Tom and I drove home in a tremendous downpour.
Normally biopsy results come in a couple of days, but because of the holiday, I knew I wouldn’t hear anything until the day after Christmas or even later, which was sort of a long time to wait.
I had the day after Christmas off work and spent it doing chores at home, and didn’t get a call with the biopsy results. I also worked from home on Thursday, because I was going to work from home until I got the results because I didn’t want to have that conversation while sitting in my cube with others within earshot, and on Thursday morning—finally!—I got a call from Sarah G. with good news: what was seen in the biopsy was benign changes. What a relief! I'm glad I wasn't so sure I was going to die that I stopped brushing my teeth and showering.
While the radiologist said the calcifications appear to be new, as they are just a bit outside the lumpectomy site, they are not malignant. I was sorry to hear they are new because I’d just as soon that part of my body wouldn’t be creative in any way, but of course delighted it appears I will live on.
I told Sarah that last year’s biopsy was painless, but there was a lot of bruising and swelling afterward, whereas this biopsy was painful throughout, but resulted in almost no bruising. Weird. It would have been a year until my next mammogram if this hadn’t happened, but now I will have one in six months.
That evening, C. and I had dinner with his roommate, Juan, at El Majahual. Juan insisted on treating us, which was nice of him.
On Friday, C. and I had dinner at Esperpento. On Saturday, Carol Joy came to town and we had lunch at La Santaneca and then saw The Impossible, about the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which was my choice and which I bitterly regretted. I felt almost nauseous sitting through all the scenes of punctures and other injuries. The sound design was remarkable, making it that much harder to endure. I don’t know if that is actually how it sounds when a tree branch goes into someone’s flesh, but it was revolting. Saturday evening, C. came over to visit and on Sunday morning, he visited again. We had lunch at La Santaneca and then I went to Rainbow and did my cooking. C. came over to visit yet again in the evening and, while I did my chopping and stirring, he read me some uplifting stories from a publication for teachers.
Last night—New Year’s Eve—C. and I dined at We Be Sushi, but got into a mild conflict, so I spent a bit of time with him at his place afterward, but we parted company by 9 p.m. or so. Today we went downtown and saw Life of Pi and then we went to Sunflower and split an order of vegetable fried rice and an order of garlic noodles with tofu and they were both extremely delicious. This evening we went to Howie’s and walked home together.
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