I have to chase down medical records and MRI results this week for Daughter No. 3 who has an appointment Friday in Houston with a new GI specialist who will hopefully tell me something beyond:

“She has a stricture in her right biliary tree but it is draining.  Just take her home and watch her.  If she doubles over in pain again or turns yellow bring her back.”

Really?  Well call me crazy, but I would like to hear a 2nd doctor give me that treatment plan before I go home and wait for her to turn yellow.  If she has a stricture it will eventually have to be stinted and I would like to get her into Texas Children’s in Houston before that has to occur.

I have done my last GI procedure in this town if i can help it.  The GI lab folks at North Central Baptist were top notch, but the moment we went into the pedi ward it was like entering the Ghetto.  Disgusting rooms which had moldy bathrooms and nurses with their heads lodged firmly up their asses.  We only ended up there because there was a mass exodus from Methodist Texas Children’s in their GI lab so my doc doesn’t do surgery there anymore due to inexperienced staff causing their instances of post-op pancreatitis to reach about 100%.  That said, the wards are Methodist Children’s are AMAZING and the nurses are the best ever.

Hopefully they will have another course of action with regard to her treatment and I am certain I am going to end up back there for more tests because they always want “more tests”.  I just need to feel comfortable all is being done for that can be.  Twenty grams of fat a day really blows.

On that note, there is good news on the birthday cake quest for a kid limited to 20grams of fat a day or less.  After hours scouring google and recipe sites I have found you can take a Betty Crocker White or Yellow Cake mix, which has 1.5 grams of fat per serving (2 cupcakes) in the dry mix, and mix it with a 12 oz can of diet sprite or ginger ale baking as directed and get amazingly great cupcakes that are so moist you do not even need icing.  I do have plans for icing though; italian meringue has no fat and neither does fat free extra creamy coolwhip mixed with chocolate syrup!  Go me!  I even managed to… wait for it… BAKE THE FUCKING CUPCAKES SUCCESSFULLY!

Yes you read it correctly… I successfully baked something.  Miracles never cease.

This is never good. Now I am twice as pissed as I would have been and feeling extremely disrespected. Only woe lies there…

Eyebrows?  Check!  New Shoes?  Check!  It is a good day.  Dinner?  Not so much…  I would rather spend the day ready my latest smutty book on my Kindle.

One final thought…

Obama is a wanker!

Who knows maybe I can get a few friends to post some more lengthy stuff here as well!

-The Demure One

1. The Boob Saga exhausted me.

2. I have been working alot

3. I have been obsessively reading.  Kushiel’s Dart, Kushiel’s Chosen, Kushiel’s Avatar.  OMG i love them.

4. I am so fucking disgusted with the world that I literally cannot write about it right now without being engulfed a cold rage

5. Blame my Kindle

6. I am depressed by the abysmal lack of red shoes available and what the fuck is up with all these fucking wedges.  I fucking hate wedges.

7. I am a horribly lazy bitch on the weekends and just cannot open my laptop

8. I am emotionally traumatized at having to pay 7k to the IRS. fucking shitbags

9. I am addicted to Say Yes To The Dress or at least the psychology and drama behind selecting wedding gowns.  I would tell half the gals, “you look like a cow in that, honey.” oy.

10.  I have no time!!!

Who knows, I have my annual pelvic exam coming up tomorrow so you might get another post about female stuff.  God help me if my pap comes back abnormal!  Fucking take all that shit out!

I call the Doc the next week because I have heard nothing and they say, “Oh, they were suppose to contact you they need more films on your left breast you have a suspicious calcification.  Call them…k?  Bye now!”

WHAT!?  Let it be stated for the record that I medicate for anxiety and I am Mexican.  We think we are dying whenever we have a hangnail.  I call the xray place they say, “We made you an appointment for next month.”

WHAT?!!  I obviously have a gigantic tumor eating at my breast and you want me to wait a month?  I said, “No, how about tomorrow?”

“Well, we are booked so how about two weeks?”

“No, how about tomorrow?”

“Well, ma’am we…”

“NO, FUCKING DO IT TOMORROW!”

“Oh, ok… 9am?”

So I go back and get another smash on Friday and the gal shows me the little calcification she is going to reshoot magnified.  OH GOD.  More discoveries… a 38H can be smashed to 1/4 inch if needed.  By this point I am beyond sore, PMSing, and having a nervous breakdown every ten minutes about my impending death by flesh devouring breast tumors.  She was bright enough to say, “Please wait so the Doctor can look at the films incase i didn’t get what he needed”

She comes out a little while later says I am good to go and they will get the results to the doctor.  I said, “Today?”

“Uhmm probably Monday or Tuesday.”

“Today?”

‘Maybe Monday morning.”

“TODAY!!!!!”

“You should have your GYN call this afternoon if you do not want to have to wait.”  shuddering mammogram tech says recoiling from the medusa snakes writhing on my head.

Went back to shopping with Sarah and then headed over to the Tap Exchange for a beer.  God i needed a beer since no one was going to get back to me because you know, that is how these fuckers roll these days.  Hubby met us at the pub and another coworker.  Was on beer 3 when the GYN’s secretary calls and says, “Just wanted to let you know the radiologist called Dr. Chang and they agree you need a biopsy.”

“Ok… what did the report say?”

“Uhmm… dunno.  Just wanted you to know try not to worry.  Bye now!”

OMG, really?!  So what do I do?  Other than drink more beer and prepare for my death?  Call my mother.  She says, “Ok, call MD Anderson’s Undiagnosed Breast Center in Houston and tell them you want to be seen and biopsied there.”

Thankfully my kids were actually with my folks all week for spring break in Nederland.  I called Anderson on Monday they said it would be 3 weeks until they could get me in.  Ok… What do I do?  Other than have a meltdown?  Call my mother.  An hour later I have a phone call from MD Anderson and an appointment in three days.  Have I mentioned my mother is THE SHIT?

Well, something about having an appointment at probably the best cancer hospital on the planet has a calming effect on you, mostly.  That and zoloft/xanax/dos equis.  Over the next few days I read everything on the internet regarding clustered microcalcifications and the cancer they can be indicators of, DCIS.  I figured worst case I would have to have a boob lopped off and I would get a new one, right? I  mean by Wednesday I was determined to have them BOTH off and get a new set.  Why fret about it, right?  Just lop them off and take my ovaries and uterus and cervix too just incase they might get interested in acting up.  (God!  That appointment is in two weeks! If my Pap comes back abnormal just shoot me, I am done)

I was told to bring all films/digital files/reports with me to Houston.  I go that afternoon to get films etc and have them fax over the reports. I arrange to come back the next afternoon for the digital files.  The next afternoon i am going get the disk and get a call from Anderson.  “Ms Pifer, I know you have a right breast, don’t you?”

“Why, yes… yes I do.”

“Well we only received a report on the left one”

“Ok, I am on my way over there will have them fax everything again.”

Get to the place and get the disk and say, “I just got a call from MD Anderson and they only received a report on the left breast.”

Dumb girl secretary is already confused.  “Doctor Anderson didn’t get all the reports?”

“Not, Dr. Anderson, precious.  MD ANDERSON HOSPITAL.”  how is it possible to work in Healthcare, especially radiology in texas and not know what MD Anderson is?

“Uhm we faxed what we had, a bunch of reports on your right breast.”

“Uhm no, you sent my left.”

“This says the right one with magnifications for calcifications”

“Uhm no.. would you like to see the bruising on my LEFT one where you smashed me?  I need the right breast report.”

“This says it was the right.”

Ok, time to get loud.  “Honey, i do not give a rat’s red ass what that says i am TELLING you what was sent and what was DONE”

Enter office manager Mr. Chance who is very nice, i remember yelling at him earlier on Monday morning about needing a report right the fuck then.  “What can I help you with, Mrs. Pifer?”

“Well, Mr. Chance.  You can find my right tit because apparently it is missing though as i am sure you can see i clearly fucking have one and i clearly remember having it fucking smashed.”  He moves precious out of the way and says, “Of course, here they are” he gives said precious a dirty look and smiles at me hitting “send” on the fax.

By this time the entire waiting room is getting a show and these little old ladies are laughing and giggling at the crazy Latina in 5 inch heels talking about finding her tits.

Wednesday I left work midday and drove to Houston and the Crown Plaze at Reliant Stadium area.  Fuck me twice, it was Rodeo week.  The freakin traffic was insane and way too many men and women in wranglers who should NEVER be in wranglers.  My mom drove in later in the evening to join me and keep me from killing someone at the doctors office for not doing what I wanted immediately.  Mom got there at 730 and said, “We need a beer!”  We went to the bar had a few beers and I slept like a drunk baby.  Go mom!

The clinic at Anderson was amazing.  The place runs like  well oiled machine.  I was there all day and was examined and wait for it… HAD THE MAMMOGRAM REDONE!  Yes, seems the place in SA didn’t feel it was necessary to actually get the entire breast and nipple in the image.  Basically the images were useless and they were ready to biopsy me!  By the end of the day I was told they would need to biopsy the cluster and that is was very small and could not be felt so it would be a Stereotactic Biopsy. They explained everything and I was pretty sane until they said, “We can schedule this for next week.”

“No, tomorrow or better yet, NOW!”

She smiled and said, “Let’s see what our scheduling girl can bully the folks across the hall into.  She is good.”

The scheduling gal gets them on the phone and says, “Let’s start bumping and moving I have an out of town patient and we need he in either this afternoon or first thing tomorrow.”

20 minutes later I have an appointment for 8am!  Go team !  Yay!  Then it occurs to me they are going to be harpooning me in the breast at 8AM!

This is what is involved in a Stereotactic Biopsy:

You climb a ladder to this table that is about 5 feet off the ground.

You put your boob in a hole and lay flat on the table with one arm down one above your head.  They raise you higher off the ground so they work under you.

They YET AGAIN start jerking/twisting and eventually smashing the breast in this mammogram thing.  Take more pics so they can see what they are aiming at.

The Doctor, who was fabulous, said he was gonna numb the skin, then make the 1/4 inch incision then numb again as he places they needle/machine.

Did I mention this entire process is done by a computer once the needle/gun is in the incision?

I actually didn’t feel anything  until the machine got to the location and shot several more numbs-it shots and he said it was because of the proximity to the nipple.  (calc was left breast at 2 o’clock 2 cm from the nipple.)

Once he had the needle/gun were he wanted it, he said hold still for the 1 millionth time and the nurse on the ladder beside me rubbing my back aka making sure my shoulders were immobilized I hear this loud noise like a sewing machine and realize it sort of is like one.  A needle was sticking and taking little wormlike bits of tissue etc.  He took two rounds of samples and said he had what he needed.   They put a titanium marker in my boob and took some more pics then it was done.  I really felt nothing at all.

However, my shoulder was numb and my neck was killing me.  The most uncomfortable part was the “dressing of the wound”.  The tech, “Jennifer” says, I am just going to apply pressure to stop the bleeding we are done just relax.  OMG  I swear to you she must have twisted my left tit a full 180.  Fucking shit.

After that I had to get another image in the mammogram to record the location of the marker which looks like a little grain of rice, but it is really much smaller because the images was blown up to roughly the size of a basketball.  I sat down after that and had a total adrenaline dump and starting shaking and crying because, well it was done and stress, nerves and fear finally just catch up with you.  I wasn’t hurting or even freaking out it was just like I couldn’t stop myself.  they were great, got me something sugary to drink and a warm blanket.  They are big on warm blankets there and I am a fan of warmed blankets.  They told me they would call me by Wednesday the next week and I could leave.

I spent the rest of the day with an ice pack shoved in my shirt but for the most part it was really painless and I didn’t even bruise.

I called them Tuesday to say i couldn’t make it to Houston wednesday for the followup and my Nurse called and said they had good news.  Everything was totally benign.  The calcification were not interesting and all tissue sampled was benign breast tissue and fibrous stuff.  The doctors did my risk assessment and said i do not need to do 2x a year mammograms I can do annuals.  She said to go back to the local xray place for my mam next year and if anything else appears to come back.  Calcifications happen and should be looked at and they would be happy to take me back into the practice if I have any other issues.

In the end, it was horrifying and frightening and eventually very alright.  I cannot say enough wonderful things about MD Anderson and their staff, facility, and professionals.  They make something very scary and stressful as easy as possible.  I thanked God, Mary, and whatever Saint I could think of that Obamacare wasn’t my reality.  I cannot imagine that I would get the speed, quality, and level of care if I was dealing with the HMO from hell. I bet I would be waiting a good 8 months for another mammogram and biopsy after going through 8 referrals and whatever else they medical overlords feel I need to do to hopefully die before they have to actually pay for any sort of treatment.

1.  I have been working too much

2. I had an abnormal mammogram on my first try out of the mammogram gates so to speak.  I have a cluster of microcalcifications and have been sort of having a mini nervous breakdown between work, kids, and doctors.

I finally stopped jerking around with the local dimwits here in town when they wanted to biopsy me.  Oh no… I am 2.5 hours from the nations leading cancer hospital, if anyone is going to poke me, it will be the good folks at M.D. Anderson in Houston.

I should have results back on wednesday and will post the insanity that is non-Obama healthcare and what it would have been had i been living under the rainbow of obamacare.  I am keeping good thoughts, most calcifications are benign and what i have going on is very small and if something horrible, hopefully very early horrible.

Keep me in your prayers if i might be so bold as to ask for them and we all know I am a bold broad.

will update you all soon…

jen

Today was good and above that interesting. Marco Rubio owned the morning and rightfully so. He was funny, humble, and said some great things. Stating the obvious, which you all know I am a fan of.

Liz Cheney and a surprise visit from her Dad made the crowd go nuts.

I grabbed a coke and some chocolate to make it further through the day and returned to my seat just in time to see this:

Who introduced Mitt Romney. I love Mitt. There were many murmurs of “How the hell did we ever let this guy bow out in 2008? We traded this guy for McCain?” Yeah, it blows.

Dick Armey spoke earlier in the day and made me giggle. A favorite quote that has been posted other places but I will post it again!

“You’re intellectually shallow, you’re a romantic, you’re self indulgent..You’ve proven to already to be, even to the recognition to your fellow Democrats perhaps the most incompetent President perhaps in our lifetime, you have no ability, you only have talent, and your purpose is income redistribution. You methods are transparent, you create the perception of a crisis in order to be able ride to the rescue and achieve your self indulgent purposes of controlling the distribution of income in America”

I just ran down to the hotel gift shop and paid too much for a chocolate fix, that said… the funniest thing i have heard in days comes from the mouth from the very nice lady working there when I asked for a bag.  She says, “I can give you one, but this is D.C. we have to charge for bags.  5 cents. It is all the stores in this area, even the CVS!”  i was laughing… hard.

For the record I am not even close to the oldest person in the room!

I think judge napolitano is speaking or something in a minute, but I am going listen to mitt at 130 after I have more juice.

I will blog later about Rubio because blogging on my iPhone is lame. Btw why didn’t I know how hot he is?

Let’s see if this iPhone app works.

I have a runny nose and need coffee in the worst way.

First impressions:

Lots of young people
Lots of women in “gasp” kitten heels.
Lots of dark blue suits and red ties.
No one is underdressed!

Good news though…

I am going to blog this weekend, God Willing and at the very least I am going to be in DC Mid Feb and I shall blog blog blog… kk? 

As an act of sharing I will show you FABULOUS shoes… I am going buy these over the weekend… the ones on in the pic are a tad big so I have to track them down at another store.  They are fucking bangin’ hot and all mine!!  Mine I tell you! 

Mami looooves

The Meal:

My drink: “Cosmo, Vince… make it sweet.”

Appetizer: Ahi Tartare which was OUT OF THIS WORLD sorry I didn’t get a picture before the waiter mixed it up and cut up the citrus.  That is raw ahi which was sitting on a bed of diced mango.  He cut up the avocado, blood oranges, and mixed it.  It has some sort of slightly spicy chile vinegrette.  God love a good piece of sashimi grade fish.

and of course… the Warm Wedge of Saint Andres cheese. The unequaled KING OF ALL CHEESE…

Yes that is the freakin butter/fat/oil whatever that comes off the triple cream Saint Andres when it is heated.  They put some sort of herbs or something on it.  Dunno what… do not care… it is outstanding.

Entree for me was the Jonah Crab stuff tiger prawns (4).  I ate one before i took the picture, sorry.  I was hungry and feeling the cosmo.  Hubby had the Ahi steak with wasabi mashed potatoes.  The picture of that dish was super blurry but you can see part of if in the picture of the Hollandais and Asparagus.

Now… for the real reason we are at any restaurant and the aforementioned Dessert to End All Desserts…  For my birthday I got the Godiva Chocolate lava cake which they spiffied up for me, yay Wildfish!  That said, my husband ordered the Pineapple Upside Down Cake.

It’s on FIRE!

This is a scoop of Butter Pecan Ice Cream, individual pineapple upside down cake, fresh whipped cream with a caramel sauce… but wait!  They then light a boat of 151 and pour it over the top!  Ahhhhhhh.  Once the inferno is done further caramelizing the sugars what is left is a cake which according to the waiter, Vince… the pastry guy pours into ramekins that have clarified butter poured in the bottom before it is baked so when it is in the over it bubbles up and over coating everything in this amazing crunchy browned sugar goodness.  I can only say, Holy Fucking Shit!  It was a certified FOODgasm.

My lovely chocolate cake with my little birthday message was also divine.  I like richer chocolate desserts so this was mmm good. They only thing it needed was walnuts.

Yeah… we are going to hell…

I was wanting to take a picture at the table but if you haven’t been to Wildfish before you should know it is the darkest fucking place ever.  I didn’t have enough light to take a pic with my phone because the iPhone blows without a flash.  So i stood in the lady’s lounge area of the restroom and took a picture of me in that somewhat better, but not much light at the sink!  39 was much better the third time around!  My nose looks huge in this picture, but who cares?  :)