Loss of Taste & The Anticlimactic End Days of Chemo

Tongue Neuropathy

It is strange how distracting it can be to have lost most of one's sense of taste. This is my newest chemotherapy symptom and with any luck, it might be the last new symptom. I noticed that the taste of some foods, like M&Ms, changed early on in the treatment, but fairly suddenly a few weeks ago I started losing whole categories of taste, starting with the taste of meat.

I've been working on this sculpture for weeks and weeks.

As of right now, I can't taste meat or cheese; apples, milk and peanut butter taste funny; and lots of things just have far less flavor than they used to. I had a tuna sandwich with veggies from Subway and the whole thing tasted like water (the tuna, the cheese, the bread, the mayo, the salt and pepper, the tomatoes, the peppers). The only thing I could distinguish was the one lone onion (I didn't order onions). The other night I made twice baked potatoes. (I appear to be getting over my lactose intolerance, as I can handle cheese now, though I haven't yet tested it with ice cream.) The potato, cheese, and broccoli all tasted about the same. I pretty heavily salted the skin of the potato, but even so, I mostly distinguished texture rather than flavor. Even water tastes funny.

I'm having real trouble getting into the studio regularly enough to work on it, both because I don't always feel good and because of motivation

Tuesday, when I saw my oncologist (for the last time before treatment ends!), she said that it was probably neuropathy. Tongue Neuropathy, I did not know that was a thing. This makes sense, as my tongue has felt numb for a while. She recommended I chew on ice during my taxol infusion this week, which I did, but the symptoms don't seem to have improved. They may have gotten a bit worse.

I've now let it go long enough that I'm battling against the surface which is drying out on me between sessions.

My mouth feels dry and strange, so I try to have a snack, but then my mouth feels dry, strange, and has a funny taste. I tried some watermelon one morening and though it tasted ok when I ate it, the lingering flavor was strange, and didn't go well with the fuzzy numbness. The feeling makes me want to remove my tongue from my mouth, really, or maybe just find a way to bring moisture back. I did discover last night that pears are tasty and didn't leave a lingering funny taste or feeling. Of course the timing (how far away from treatment) might impact my results.

Around the top I planned to add enough catheter-like tubes to look like a whole separate texture, but as I added them when the work was drier than planned, I'm struggling with them a bit.

Just Two Infusions Left (but more blood draws)

I have now officially finished 10 Taxol infusions, for a grand total of 14 chemo infusions and 18 weeks of treatment. I have two more Taxol infusions and then my chemotherapy journey will be over (or, perhaps I should say a week or a few later, once all the symptoms fade, my journey will really be over). I am very, very, very, very ready to be done. I've been having a bit more nausea, and that plus the dry mouth/numbness/taste just makes me more and more anxious to have this part of the journey be over.

I haven't given up on the sculpture yet, but I'm less confident in this one than in most things I make.

Last week, during my blood draw, I was chatting with the nurse and said that I only had 2 more blood draws after this one. She responded by pointing out that I would have to continue to get blood draws after chemo ended. Party pooper, she is. Sean, my husband, thought I should have realized that I would still need blood draws, but it caught me by surprise. Apparently I'll have to check in with my oncologist every 3 months for a while (I forget what she said) and then every 6 months after that for a while. And she'll want to check my blood. Boo!

The surface looks really rough now, but I still kind of think I can bring it back.

I tried to ask if I could keep the port-a-cath in my chest (because blood draws out of the arm are icky), but she seemed to think I was asking for it to be removed. Understandably, I suppose I should want it out, but the port draws are less icky, in my experience, than the arm draws. I suppose a blood draw from the arm won't be as bad as having an IV in, but I don't relish the idea. Sean though I would get used to needles during this experience; I'm not sure I've progressed quite that far.

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Carli drove over from Olympia to take me to chemo. It was delightful to visit with her during the treatement. We had to wait longer than usual for the blood tests to clear me for chemo, which just gave us more time to chat. I can highly recommend having a friend you don't get to see often bring you to chemo.

Next: Surgery

I have an MRI and a meeting with my surgeon in Seattle scheduled for the end of the month. It is the day after my last chemo, which seems a bit strange to me, as that last infusion won't have had a chance to do it's job yet. At that meeting, or after it, we'll get my surgery scheduled. My notes from the conversation with the nurse navigator say that the surgery will be 4-6 weeks after chemo, though I don't remember that part of the conversation. My calculations, then, put the surgery in late May or the first half of June. The surgery will be an outpatient procedure in Seattle at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (which is changing its name to Fred Hutch).

Last week I attended a Zoom meeting during chemo. This was the first time scheduling forced me to do this. It went ok, but it's a bit odd to have ones attention divided between what's happening the room and what's happening on the phone.

How I'm Feeling

I have been feeling pretty good over the last few weeks, much better than at the end of the A/C chemo. I've been noticing more of an upset stomach after chemo in the last few weeks and I finally did have to take some medicine for it, but it's still pretty mild compared to before. Going to bed early also seems to help.

My hair is growing back soft and white, but I'm really looking forward to the scar on my face (that's been there since at least January) finally healing. 

 

The other day I did a full grocery shopping trip in a store for the first time since December. I've been buying groceries via curbside pickup at Fred Meyer or letting my husband get the groceries, but they've been out of stuff or weird about bags and substitutions lately. I figured my blood work is good, COVID case counts are down, and if I went to the store early on a weekday, the store would be pretty empty. Well, apparently 9am on a Friday is prime grocery shopping time because the place was a lot busier than I anticipated, but I also felt like I was able to stay distant from folks pretty easily. The thing that surprised me was that I got winded putting the groceries on the belt to check out. 

Another view of this interminable sculpture

I've been walking every day and doing yoga and doing a modified workout on Mondays and Tuesdays when I'm feeling best, but I can tell I am still not where I was before the chemo, especially on Fridays and Saturdays when I tend to feel the nausea and fatigue. I'm hoping that my stamina will come back fairly quickly after chemo ends. I suppose I've got a month to get some of it back before surgery.

a heart shaped nearly port-a-cath bulb

I've also been noticing that my anxiety is cranked up a bit lately. I'm not teaching this quarter, which is a decision I made right about when I was feeling the worst. For the past month I've alternately felt like I could teach and like I'm glad I decided not to. Wednesdays would be tough because I have my chemo treatment, which takes a few hours, then I tend to feel groggy for a few hours (except for the day they gave me the anti-anxiety meds) and slightly nauseated or uncomfortable by the evening. Thursdays I tend to feel pretty great, but then Fridays and Saturdays (and lately Sundays) my tummy and my chest hurt and I feel uncomfortable and I get tired pretty easily.

a port-a-cath bulb with branching catheter tube

I try to schedule all of my tasks on Thurdays and Mondays and Tuesdays and give myself permission to rest, read, and nap on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. I've noticed that if I make an effort to rest those days, I feel better by evening. I've also noticed that, even though food is less enjoyable lately with my reduced ability to distinguish flavor, I seem to do better if I eat certain foods with the aim of passing my weekly blood tests. 

my spinach smoothie look disgusting but taste fine

I've been drinking smoothies with spinach most days. The goal of the smoothie is to consume spinach, wheat germ, fruit, and water with the aim of staying hydrated and fighting anemia. I also have Dave's Killer bread (the kind with lots of seeds and nuts) every morning because that was recommended to help with the liver enzymes. Both of these measures have been generally better since I started adding these things to my diet. And as long as I can't distinguish flavor very well, it kinda doesn't matter what I make for breakfast. The good news is that fruit and vegetables so far have seemed to retain the most normal flavors.

 

Fun with Anxiety Meds

trying out some different approaches to my port-a-cath bulbs

This week marks 75% of the way through my 20 weeks of chemo. On Wednesday I had my 8th round of taxol, my 12 infusion overall, and my 16th week of chemo. Just four more Taxol infusions after this one. All my remaining infusions are on the same calendar page. I also got the results of my ultrasound. No evidence of cancer in the lymph nodes (we already knew this) and the tumor has shrunk from 2.7 x 2.4 cm in November to 1.3 x 1.1cm! The MRI coming up will be more precise, and hopefully also smaller since I'm still doing chemo.

twins

When I started Taxol, they were concerned that I could have a reaction to the chemo during the infusion. For the first several weeks they monitored me for that reaction. I did have some discomfort, but it was during the premeds (antinausea, steroids, and pepcid in the IV and a Benadryl pill to swallow). The discomfort was a pain or pressure in my chest, but as it was happening before the Taxol, it didn't seem to be a major concern. I was pretty uncomfortable, though, and I brought it up to the nurses who suggested that it was indigestion. I was having similar discomfort, though not as severe, pretty much every day, so on the nurse's suggestion I started taking Pepcid daily. Later I switched to Omeprazole which seemed to help a lot more with the daily discomfort.

underglazed and ready to fire

By the fourth week of Taxol, the pain in my chest during premeds was pretty intense, causing me to be unable to read or talk or watch a video until the pain subsided, so I brought it up again to the nurse. My nurse that day said, as they all have said, that there really was no reason I should be having pain during premeds. I indicated that it had been a problem for all of Taxol but not during A/C. (Telling me that I shouldn't have pain during premeds is like the nurse telling me I should calm down when I came into the hospital in labor. I was holding onto the bed rail and she told me it wasn't that bad. Then she did an exam and told me I could hold on to the rail all I wanted as I was further along than she thought. Let's maybe just assume that I know when I am in pain and how intense that pain is).

first layer of underglaze for the sculpture in progress

The next week I brought it up to my oncologist who saw that one of my antinausea medicines had been changed from when I was doing the A/C, so she changed it back. When I told my mom about asking for help with the pain and then getting something changed to address it, she laughed at me for being surprised that the issue could be resolved. I just figured discomfort and pain during the infusion were normal. (Read on to see who was right.)

partway through the second layer of underglaze

The next day during my infusion, I felt no pain during premeds. That was the case for weeks 5 and 6 of Taxol. Excellent! I thought, changing the antinausea medicine took away that unpleasant part of the process and things are going to be smooth sailing for the rest of the infusions. Mom was right! (Spoiler: Mom was not right.)

second layer of underglaze complete

But, of course, that's not how these things go. Last week, during week 7, I was feeling really great. I had done a more intense workout the day before, was still feeling a bit of a high from that, was feeling really cheerful about getting nearer the end of the chemo, and was chatting away with my nurses. Everything was humming along, when suddenly, during premeds, I started feeling the same pain and pressure in my chest. I'd taken Omeprazole that morning and the Taxol hadn't started yet. I called my nurse over and asked if maybe they'd accidentally switched the antinausea medicine back to what it had been before.

the top broke, so I'm firing it separately

She checked and confirmed that the medicines were all the same as the two previous weeks (when I'd had no symptoms). I talked to her about the pain and what might be causing it. She said it was strange to have the pain during premeds and determined that I must be "special." She offered to stop the infusion, but I didn't see much point in that, as I'd already experienced this same pain 4 times before, so it would probably go away shortly after Taxol started. And it did. 

port-a-cath bulb

Tuesday of this week, before my 8th infusion, I met with the oncologist and told her about the pain during premeds happening again. She checked the medicines and confirmed that they were all the same as during weeks 5 and 5 (when I had no pain). She said there was no reason for pain during premeds and asked if I was feeling anxious before the infusion. I can honestly say that I was feeling really calm and cheerful, unusually so, before the last infusion. So she said it must be the Taxol causing the pain. 

twin port-a-cath bulb

I reiterated that the pain consistently happens before the Taxol begins and thus I really don't think the Taxol can be the cause. With kind of a shrug of not knowing what else to do with me (I am clearly a wierdo patient on this), she decided to put some anti-anxiety medicine in my premed. I felt a bit like this was by way of telling me I was imagining the pain, but what else could we do? My husband thought I shouldn't read this as her saying my concerns were imaginary, just as a different way of approaching the problem.

new earrings from Like the Moon (Ellensburg artist)

So the next day, while I was getting my premeds, I asked what all was included this time. As usual, they started by giving me a Benadryl pill, then started a series of syringes of pepcid, anti-nausea and steroids, into my IV machine. So, knowing that I've been having trouble with pain during the premeds, did they give me something for that first? Nope, they gave me all the regular premeds, THEN the anti-anxiety medicine. Because? Cause and effect? No? What do we think is the point here, folks?

my IV stand

While the saline rinse was running between premeds, I walked to the bathroom with my cool rolling IV stand and on the way back felt a sudden stab of pain low in my left chest and in my sternum (this pain has usually been in my sternum). I told the nurse who seemed a bit alarmed and asked if I'd had an EKG or echocardiogram. I said I had an ultrasound of my heart, which seemed to alarm her more and she asked why. I'd had it before the A/C because the adriamycin is supposed to be bad for my heart, which seemed to calm her down. 

still trying to get a photo that captures the soft little white hairs all over my head

So the upshot is that they gave me the premeds, which I think are the cause of the chest pain. The premeds appeared to cause the chest pain again, as they sometimes do, and then, after the pain started, they gave me the preventative anti-anxiety meds. Now, what is, I think, relevant here is that the pain, though significant, usually lasts just 20 -30 minutes. So I would probably be roughly as happy if I were told to just deal with it because it isn't causing damage and it will be over soon. I can live with 30 minutes of pain as long as I know that it has a fairly quick end time and as long as I don't need to worry that the pain is a sign that something is breaking inside me.

the IV tube during chemo

But instead, once I got back to my chair, the nurse gave me the anti-anxiety medicine and told me it would make me feel woozy, so just be prepared. Hoo Boy! did that stuff make me feel loopy. I'm still laughing at myself from Wednesday. It's been a long time since I've been drunk, but that stuff got me quickly and gently drunk. 

the part of the IV tube that goes in the machine

Exhibit A: My camera roll from Wednesday. I've been thinking about how to incorporate cancer and chemo imagery into my sculpture, so I decided to take some pictures of the IV stand and related parts. 

the part of the IV tube where the syringe can go in (I think)

The tube that goes from my chest to the stand has sections that split off to allow a syringe or different tube. There's a flat thing that goes in the machine, and there's a lot of extra tube that curls up and gets caught in the arm of the chair when I move around. So I figured I'd take some pictures of this.

the little drippy things that I can watch to see the Taxol bag is lamost done (it isn't)

I took a whole bunch of pictures of the tubes and of me. Ok, no big deal. This is research and I'm bored, to boot.

more silly selfies

But then, for some reason that I no longer remember, I decided to take a whole bunch of pictures of the bag of ice that I used to ice my fingertips during Taxol to preven neuropathy.

icing

No idea why I was taking all these pictures, but these don't appear to be "oops dropped the camera" photos. For one, there are 7 separate pictures of the ice bag, with and without my hand in the photos. For another, they aren't all in a row. I took a break to take pictures of the IV stand and then came back to the bag.

not icing

I must have been intereested in the spot where I'd been gripping the ice and the way the ice bag stayed clumped in a hand shape when I let go. 

more ice

Then I started taking selfies from inside the ice bag. There are five of these, plus more selfies with the IV tube coiled up in front. I'm ridiculous.

peek-a-boo

Now I find this hilarious. I'm not sure what I was thinking then. This anti-anxiety medicine is pretty fun. By the time my husband came to pick me up, I had forgotten how to tell time. My text to him says "I think I'm 15 mins from done but I've forgotten how clocks work" Except I misspelled clocks. I was having some trouble distinguishing the minute hand from the hour hand. I also texted my friend Carli, though the next day when I woke up I thought, "I better text her" (and was surprised to see the evidence of the conversation we already had on my phone).

why am I doing this?

When Sean picked me up, I honestly considered whether I was going to make it to the car. I did just fine (I think), but I did use the wall to help me down the hall. At home, I was stumbling a bit and figured it was safer to sit down. It was shortly after lunch time, so I put some food in the microwave and came in to sit with my daughter. She showed me a game they were doing for her social studies classs and asked if I wanted to get my lunch from the microwave as it had beeped. I said I'd get it in a moment and about 15 minutes later finally got up to get it.

trying out some different impressions

Except by then somehow not 15 minutes but more like an hour and a half had passed. I had no idea so much time had passed, but my daughter seemed to think it was funny. By then it was about 4pm, and we had someone bringing food at 4. I was still wobbly when I walked and still feeling pretty great, really. 

port-a-cath with spikes

The anti-anxiety meds were really quite delightful. I felt absolutely calm and relaxed and cheerful. I had no hint of worry or anxiety about anything all evening. Granted, my daughter had to tell me all her stories again the next morning because I hadn't remembered them (she says she told me twice on Wednesday, but had to tell them again on Thursday), and I'm not sure I should have been allowed access to email in that condition. I even had a convesation with my boss, which now does worry me just a bit (her email follow up makes me think I passed myself off tolerably well, but I think it could have gone either way. The person who got an email from me just thought I'd meant to send it to someone else). 

twin twins

That night, as I was getting ready for bed, the effects having started to wear off, I kept catching myself thinking, a little sadly, that the next day I had to go in for my chemo infusion. Somehow the idea that I had already done chemo was feeling a little slippery. 

more tubing

So, I am left with a puzzle for next week. I should probably tell them that if they want the medicine to help, they might want to give it to me before the premeds that cause the pain. Giving it after the pain seems, well, ridiculous. The anti-anxiety medicine did feel delightful, but all in all, I'm not totally sure whether 30 minutes of pain needs to be counteracted with an entire day of being a total goof followed by mild amnesia the next day. On the other hand, it was a fun day.

Little Things in the Long Boring Middle of 20 Weeks of Chemo

cw: cancer

I've been ocassionally listening to a podcast called Breast Cancer is Boring. This week, I agree, or maybe I should say chemo is boring. To be clear, I think that being bored by my chemo is great news. It means I'm not experiencing serious symptoms and things are pretty predictable. 

tried to do yoga this morning, and this guy climbed up on my lap while we were suppsed to be focusing on our breathing

Wednesday was my 6th weekly infusion of Taxol. I have 6 more weeks to go. I've been doing this whole chemo thing for 14 weeks and that seems like a long time and I've still got more than a month to go, which also seems like a long time. To put that in perspective, though, the lady next to me at infusion this week said it was her last infusion; she'd started a year ago. I also know folks who've been doing this for 2 or more years. My nephew has to have infusions through 2024!

my daughter's friend gave me some stickers, so I used them to celebrate milestones in my planner

My nephew's situation is also much improved, which helps with everyone's worries and allows for boredom. His surgery was successful, he's healing well, and he's very active (he went from walking to running in seconds, by the look of things) and making huge progress on his motor control and all that. 

port-a-cath sprigs fresh out of the bisque

My symptoms from the start of the Taxol are much improved. I've only had two days of mild nausea during Taxol and the medicine I have was easily able to handle it. My appetite is back (with a vengance) and food tastes mostly normal. Ironically, the only thing that tastes funny to me is milk chocolate, I don't know why that is. Dark chocolate is fine.

port-a-cath sprigs in use

Last week they switched one my premeds in the infusion and that helped a lot. I'd been experiencing a pretty painful indigestion (or, Idk, pain in my chest) during the premeds while on Taxol, but the new stuff isn't painful at all. I also switched from Pepcid to Omeprazole to deal with the daily indigestion and that seems to help with the permanent feeling of pressure on my chest and back. The amazing thing about medicine that is preventing pain is that you start to forget that it's doing anything because not being in pain starts to feel normal.

new port-a-cath bulb with a bit more complex layering of the catheter

I still have, just random aches and back pain a lot of the time. Apparently one of the side effects listed for Taxol is pain in the joints and muscles, so I assume that's what I'm feeling. It's one of those symptoms that is more annoying than really disruptive, and pain killer takes care of it when I remember to take it. My weeks have developed a distinct pattern--or maybe its fairer to say this is the same pattern as during A/C but less dramatic. 

I wanted to play around with the idea of a heart / port-a-cath because I am aware the the port-a-cath is a bit creepy to some, but the heart is far cuter than I usually do in my work

On Wednesdays after infusion I'm tired and feel drowsy, dizzy, and kinda yucky. Thursdays I generally feel great. Fridays and Saturdays I start feeling a kind of undefinably badness that sometimes rises to mild nausea, but it has more often been presenting as soreness and depression or worry. I finally started labelling it to myself a few weeks ago and last week I make a consious decision to spend much of the day reading on the couch. I went for a walk in the morning, but avoided the computer and didn't try to clean or do work or even get into the studio. My mood was much more stable and by 6:30pm I wasn't in pain (usually I've been hurting by evening). I plan to take it easy again tomorrow.

I took a picture as soon as I started noticing discoloration on my hands so that I could compare later if the discoloration got worse. (When I was having hand symptoms before, I thought it would be funny to tell my oncologist that the neuropathy had caused my pinkie finger to not straighten--a symptom I've had since the 80s.)

Other symptoms have also improved during Taxol. My hands are in really good shape. The neuropathy / hand and foot disorder of the first weeks of Taxol seems to have gone away entirely. The skin on my fingers is smooth with only one broken bit on my thumb and I haven't had pain or stiffness in weeks. My fingernails have an almost imperceptible amount of discoloration (something they tell you to watch out for), but I don't think it even shows up in a photo. I've been icing my hands during the Taxol infusion every week to help prevent neuropathy or damage to my nails.

icing my hands (well, the one not holding the camera) during chemo

A lot of my symptoms are really mild and stupid, though a few are annoying. For several weeks I've had a pseudo bloody nose in the morning. I say "pseudo" becuase it isn't dripping, but I discover the blood when I blow my nose. But even that's improved; today I woke up without this problem. My mom says that the bloody nose might be related to the anemia. My oncologist says it isn't something to worry about. 

chemo this week. I'm sure these weekly pics are sooo interesting with the mask on

I didn't talk to the oncologist this week, so I didn't get much detail on my bloodwork other than it looks fine. That means that both my anemia and my liver enzymes must be improved from earlier in this process. I don't know if they are still "watching" these numbers or if I'm just fine. They always offer to give me a print out of my numbers, but I think having it would just allow me to obsess about something I don't need to obsess about. 

All through the pandemic online teaching the cats showed no interest in climbing on my lap during class, but now they love to climb on my lap while I'm typing or in a Zoom meeting. I guess they needed 2 full years to get used to the idea

I have noticed that I am mostly able to walk more without getting my heart rate too high. I even started walking all the way around Franklin park a couple of days in the past week, though I have to take a break partway up the hill on the 19th Ave side. I've been trying to keep my heart rate below 140 on the doctors orders. I'm using my fitbit watch to monitor it, but I do sometimes wonder how accurate it is. I went for a short walk with my husband the other evening, just about 6 blocks total (there and back) and when we got home my heart rate had reached 166. Oops.

This pic is from a week ago, but I already had a gap in my top lashes. now I have gaps in the top and bottom

A new symtom I noticed a week or two ago is that my eyelashes are falling out. It's very strange to experience because each one seems to start by going sideways and poking into my eye, so it is uncomfortable. My husband says he doesn't yet notice the difference, but I have several gaps along my eye lids (top and bottom) where the lashes are gone. Also, it is very difficult to take an in-focus photo of one's own eye lash gaps. My daughter thinks my eyebrows are also thinning, but I notice those changes less than the lashes since they don't insult me by first poking me in the eye on their way out the door.

peach fuzz does not photograph clearly

A new "symptom" I noticed today is that my head hair has apparently been replaced with super soft white/blonde peach fuzz. I say white/blonde because I'm trying to avoid considering the possibility that my hair grows back all white. I don't know if this peach fuzz is temporary or indicative of what will grow back eventually. The soft peach fuzz is mostly on the sides, but I still have very short dark stubble infrequently interspersed throughout. I assume this is the hair that didn't fall out when the rest did and thus got shaved.

I got some glazing done last week, I'm using the Mt. St Helens Ash mix on the sprigs

Today I had an ultrasound on my lump to determine the size. We knew the tumor had shrunk because the oncologist said so. I can't really distinguish it anymore which also makes me think it shrunk. The ultrasound person today said that they'd have someone else read the images and give the official measurements in a week or two. I, of course, already forgot the tentative numbers she gave me anyway. They seemed a lot smaller than what the MRI said and only a bit smaller than what the first ultrasound said. (I was kinda hoping she'd say "gosh, I can't even detect a thing. You must be full cured!") The only thing she really told me, which we already knew, is that the tumor has shrunk, but it's still clearly there. Today's ultrasound person also was unable to find the clip in my lymph node, but tried to find it in a bit of friendly competition with SCCA.

This guy is in the kiln now, I though it woud be easier to keep the glazes separate if I fired between applications

I wasn't able to see the ultrasound of the tumor during the first ultrasound in November, but today the screen was at an angle I could see. I had asked about getting a picture of the tumor, with the idea of maybe including the imagery in a sculpture. As it turns out, I have no idea how I would translate the image to a sculpture. On the ultrasound the tumor looks like a blank, black space between all the interesting bits of breast tissue. My tumor looked like a black, featurless gap in the shape of a tall isosceles triangle with fuzzy edges. It just seems like, for all the stress it causes, the tumor should look a lot more like something, rather than nothing.

The sculpture above with the sprigs fully glazed, before firing.

The other thing  was reminded of this week is that the staff at Northstar Lodge are so utterly, consistently wonderful to work with (or be worked on by). When I went in this week, the nurse asked about the heaviness in my chest I had complained about the week before. The other week a different nurse asked about my nephew because I had talked about him the week before. It is so nice to know that the nurses actually have a clue who I am. Of course it also helps that they are all very competent, efficient, and kind. I was chatting with a colleage who had experience there and she was effusive in her praise, but I have also been following the cancer progress of someone in a different city and it is just heartbreaking that folks have to deal with medical staff who don't know them, or give unclear information, or don't seem to care. And that's not even to mention the awfulness of billing errors. 

I under glazed the first batch of port-a-cath bulbs and I'm enjoying the brightness

We dealt with plenty of billing errors at Regional/Astria over the years, so I know where the baseline can be (sending the bill to collections instead of insurance, for example). I know our cancer billing experience has been helped by the fact that I have such a popular/well studied cancer and the care is pretty standardized, and also by the fact that we met our out of pocket maximum on January 13 this year (those growth factor shot's will get you), but stuff has simply been covered by insurance and the folks at both Ohana and SCCA have been quick to help us navigate billing errors or insurance rejections. And, amazingly, we've only had one billing error this whole time! Northstar hasn't had to talk to us about bills or rejections because all that's been smooth sailing.