this week.

this week is not good news week.

first, my older sister, the eldest in the family took back the good news about a clear CT scan when she was sent to the oncologist instead of being sent back home immediately. somebody forgot to have the scan of her lungs printed and that's where they found the very small, "immeasurable", she said, thing. it's her first anniversary of the phyllodes diagnoses and eventual mastectomy of her left breast. it was jsut 4 months after she had given birth to a daughter, a first born. she's just turned 30 that time. she has actually written an article about her medical condition on an online magazine and you can read it here (but that didn't work...eeehh, i can't find the site).

(okay i cannot find the article so i will just direct you to her blog.)

second, almost three weeks ago a colleague mentioned to me in passing about feeling a lump on her right breast. instinctively, i told her to go to her gynecologist and have it checked as soon as possible. any lump, especially on the breast, is always something that has to be checked. having been a caregiver to her family members who have had cancer she immediately went to get the series of tests, see the necessary specialists and prepare herself for the news. yesterday she finally had it confirmed: carcinoma. stage 2 breast cancer. she said she was willing and prepared to die. she has been thinking about it, she said. it is sad but i think she'll be happier that way.

she sighed as she took a spoonful of the vegetable soup. she's not so much into vegetable, you see.

this week is just cancer news week.

last night my younger sister told me her gynecologists also requested for a series of tests because the lump she has been feeling pain in the area where her second lump was. she's had two lumps taken out at separate times of the year. the second one was bigger and deeper than the first. the other younger sister also had a lump in her areola taken out about 2 years ago. i had nothing taken out of me except maybe for my sanity, but that doesn't give an excuse for me to be complacent. there is a very large possibility that i'd have what my sisters have/had, apparently because of our very immediate/direct relationship. however, the difference is that i was vegetarian for 10 years, beginning when i was 16 and ending when i was 26 for pregnancy reasons.

my family is not very fond of eating meat. in fact, my parents and siblings are pecto-ovo-vegetarian but my sisters and i thought that my almost vegan diet (i still ate dairy products, except for cow's milk, from time to time that is why) and my regular running program did much to lessen the possibilities of me contracting these kinds of diseases.

my grandmother died of breast cancer when she was in her mid 40's. before my mother started having children and none of us even got to meet her.

my grandfather died of colon cancer in 2005 (i think). but he was alcoholic and smoked a lot. he lived a very hedonistic life until he encountered his very first stroke and it was downhill for him from then on.

and we are of the third generation.

i have to go back to being vegetarian. really.

and get new shoes for running. really.

post scripts

i wrote the otic discussions (see below or click on the title i mentioned -- yes, that's the one, the underlined one -- if you can't find the post and want to read it) entry while waiting for my turn with the ear doctor. very old school, as i scribbled it on my notebook making sure it's not readable enough for the people sitting to my left and right to read, but making sure it's legible enough in case i'd have time to return to it, type and post it in my blog. i just realized how hard it is to write peacefully in the waiting room (how did i even manage to write in public places years years years before? -- but i'm digressing).

Well, one night Keith (who also has a blog on his renderings using sketch up together with other rendering tools but is not updating it) did actually try using the psychology of fear on me. He told me as a matter of factly that Regina Spektor suffered from ear infection. Regina didn't know and she just fainted one day (during her show? i forgot) as a result of that ear infection.

Well, he said, i sometimes talk and write weird like Ms. ReSpekt but sing really funny and i know i am no Regina and her fainting from an ear infection wasn't enough to scare me yet the next day i decided to go to the ear doctor because i was actually more afraid to tear a hole in my eardrum and go deaf. if i go deaf i could no longer listen to music or watch/hear alfredo's sarsuela or listen to his ideas and your ideas and my friend's ideas and i can no longer make this world a beautiful place.

such an ambitious reason to see an ear doctor for a mere ear itch.

Otic Discussions

Keith gives me a look of disapproval as i grab a sheet of bathroom tissue and roll it tightly into a nice thin, tightly packed piece of paper stick.

He tells me to go see my ear doctor, the way he reminded me to go to the dentist last month. This weekend i'll go, i tell him but when my body parts stop hurting I forget about it and go on relaxing the Saturday away.

I tell him it's just a simple ear itch and this paper stick can easily make it all go away. and i scratch and scratch to the deepest recesses of my right ear, far as the paper stick could reach, tickle and roll my eyeballs in what could be the best ear-poking orgasm ever.

Keith shakes his head, in disgust maybe. or because he couldn't believe how stubborn i'd be after going through a terrible ear infection 5th month into my pregnancy. and because i was pregnant my medication came in low dose of antibiotics for an extended period. 14 days. jesus.

But i deduce the infection worsened because of the incompetent lady ENT who diagnosed my left ear trouble as a mere "pimple about to burst but it's really not a big problem so i'll just prescribe you some eardrops to help reduce the swelling of the pimple." how unfortunate of that pimple to land inside my ear canal. she told me further to "lie on my left side when i sleep so the dirt (what dirt, the earwax??) can gradually trickle down and help me hear better again."

lo and behold after 5 days of ear-dropping and left-side lying i didn't feel any better. in fact nothing trickled out of my ear, making it one of the gravest-disappointments-of-my-life-while-waiting-for-something-great-to-happen. in this case, for something to trickle out of my left, almost-going-deaf ear. i was half expecting the alien that Sigourney Weaver killed with all her might in Aliens would come crawling out but nothing. nothing happened. nothing came out.

it was later diagnosed, this time by a different ENT, to be a really bad ear infection. the pus and the ear wax decided to have a hell of a decadent party ever, group hugged and turned themselves into balls of disgusting ear matter as big as a kernel of an imported, and disappointingly bland, corn (yes, because the native Philippine corn has smaller, definitely much tastier kernels).

when i asked the ear doctor, a receptive, really good male doctor (NO EMPHASIS ON THE "MALE" PART. I'M NOT TRYING TO INSINUATE THINGS HERE AND I AM NOT INTERESTED IN ANY GENDER-RELATED ARGUMENTS. NO NOT THIS TIME. I JUST NEED TO DISCUSS THIS EAR OF MINE) with a comfy clinic about the possibility of the pimple growing inside my ear canal and subsequently infecting it (as i was told by the former ENT), he simply brushed it off and said that it's mostly because i cleaned it too much. My incessant use of cotton buds pushed the dirt and the ear wax and everything in between far inside my ear they couldn't move out to the outer ear anymore. A spic and span ear canal is not so good because th earwax provides protection to the very sensitive walls of the ear canals. They protect it fro the germs.

oh.

And i giggled and grinned as he suctioned all those disgusting kernels of earwax and pus, and thought about the possibility of having my own ear suction machine at home because it really really really felt good.

Keith said if I had my own suction machine, I'd use it so often I'd have my brains suctioned out of my ears, too. And he'd end up with a dumb, mega brainless partner. QUE HORROR of his life.

So with the itch coming back again, I go to my ear doctor. The itch keeps coming back, at the interval of 30 minutes and it's either we run out of toilet paper at home or I'd go deaf from a busted eardrum form too much poking of that paper stick.

Inside the clinic the doctor smiles and glancing from my records asks about my left ear, says (yes, says, not asks) I have given birth already. I should, because it's been more than 2 years since i visited him, unless of course, I am an elephant whose gestation period, we all know, lasts 10,000 years.

I tell him my left ear is doing great and I now have a 2 year old boy.

He asks which ear this time.

Right, I say. But I think I'll also have my left ear checked, just in case, you know. It itched also. yesterday.

he smiles and probably thinks Oh, you cotton buds addicts you really don't have nothing to spend your money on but to ear doctors, do you? Well, i am a reformed cotton buds addict. in fact i've made the switch to paper sticks which are pieces of toilet paper rolled into thin paper sticks and poked into my...okay. And actually, I don't have that much money, in fact i need more money to buy me a lot and a house with a front lawn and a backyard to plant my fruit trees and grown my herbs on. It's not what you think it is.)

I sit on his examining chair and he inserts this apparatus and says that my ear canal is clean, in fact, again it is over-cleaned (do i hear him ask if i used Lysol on it?), it's irritated. And he goes to get his small tube camera to show me how my ear is doing, points to the red spots where i apparently poked and scratched too much. And i have pushed the earwax too deep again, almost near the sport where my ear drum is. And that i should not even try to be so ambitious on taking that one out because it'd be too painful and dangerous; i might poke and tear a hole at my eardrum (yes, that shiny object, I see it). And i should really really stop poking the insides. Of my ear. Limit the cleaning to the outer ear.

He says this ear drops can help loosen that earwax that's stuck to your canal and help the itch go away but again, don't poke. wait for it to reach your outer ear.

I thought it's time i put up EA to rehabilitate my self. EA for EARWAX ANONYMOUS. Yes. But that kinda sounds disgusting. EPA. Maybe EPA is better: EAR POKING ANONYMOUS, where we'd ask each other what we use to poke our ears and if we are all similar in the eyeball rolling look of satisfaction each time we do so.

Jesus H. Christ.