August update

Hi Everyone.

Been awhile since I wrote, life has been hectic, with many back and forth trips to Bandon etc. Ken and I are finally back together in the same place AT the same time.

We are on our way to Llamapalooza, which is a small "festival" some friends of ours have out at Middlecreek (east of Coquille). It is at the studio that we recorded our first cd at. We are looking at recording another cd out at this studio in the fall as well. We are performing again at Bullards Beach amphitheatre on August 21st at 7pm.

As far as my health, last time I posted I described the increased takeup on the PET scan from the base of my tongue. One of the faithful readers of this blog just happens to have a husband who has just completed chemo and radiation for tongue cancer, so she urged me to at least have it examined by an ENT (ear nose and throat doctor)

So I did.

In order to see the base of the tongue, you need a special scope that uses the same technology as for a colonoscopy, fiberoptics.

They numb the back of your nose with spray, then insert the tube down the back of your nose. ( its not as bad as it sounds). I had the same thing done a few years ago, to make sure I was not abusing my vocal chords with my singing.

He looked down and said that the base of the tongue and the area around were red, but he said it did not look like cancer. (he could not say for sure)

So he basically gave me 4 drugs to treat the problem (whatever it is) and then suggested he have another look in a few weeks (this next Friday)

Well the drugs were an antibiotic, a nasal steroid, an oral steroid and mucomyst which thins secretions.

I took the antibiotic for 4 days and developed severe diarrhea, the nasal steroid gave me nosebleeds.

We went out for dinner the 4th day of the diarrhea and I stopped at the pharmacy on the way to pick up some lomotil to stop the diarrhea. It occurred to me that this whole story is somewhat like the song:

There was an old lady who swallowed a dog, I don't know why, she swallowed the dog, she swallowed the dog to catch the cat she swallowed the cat to catch the mouse, she swallowed the mouse to catch spider that riggled and jiggled and tickled inside her.............

SO hard to know when to say "enough already!!!"

I have noticed that I do wake up during the night often with what seems to be drainage down the back of my throat. I have never thought that I had allergies, but perhaps I do, after all Eugene is the allergy capital of the country apparently.

If this is due to allergies, then what I have is what is known to most as post nasal drip and the constant drainage from the sinuses causes inflammation at the back of the tongue and throat.

So I have started to take the allergy meds, just to see if this improves the situation and clears up the redness at the back of my tongue, so I can forget all about cancer.

On the endometrial cancer front, I had a followup CA 125 done 6 weeks after the one that was a bit elevated and it was back down to 7, which was a huge relief to me.

The rectal bleeding is pretty stable, it is not getting any better, but it does not seem to be getting any worse. I have not heard back from the hyperbaric doctor yet, but he DID say he was going on holiday. That suits me well, as Ken and I have a trip up to Canada planned for the first few weeks of September.

My garden really is a dream come true, I just love watching all those different things grow. I recently purchased a canner, more as a defensive move than anything, seeing all of those tomatoes starting to ripen. I just know that one of these days there is going to be dots of red all over my yard and I am not going to be able to keep up. I have used the canner once, as we had so many green beans, we decided to situate ourselves squarely amungst the group known as canners BEFORE the tomatoes ripen. SOoooo much harder to perform new tasks under pressure. So the beans were the dry run. We pickled them.

I feel that I am at least at "a tie" with the zucchinis finding many recipes to use them up with all the basil I have grown. The zucchinis I have are seeds from Italy (where they can guarantee no GMOs) and are much more tender even when they get to be huge. The skins are still tender too. Monday I have set aside to make zucchini/turemeric bread. Hope it is not too hot.

I have been meaning to post garden pictures, but with all the back and forth between Bandon and Eugene, the camera always seems to be elsewhere when I am ready to take a picture.