Category Archives for art

more dr grissom

more dr grissom

dr grissom gave my keloids a onceover today, and gave me some stuff to use called “scarless”. i’m going to try this stuff for six months, then i go back to see her. if there are still red lumps, she said she’d just excise them right in the office.

i asked her if these caused any other problems – like problems with mammograms – and she said no. she said the scar probably iches, which i confirmed! at any rate, the lateral incision is healing nicely, and this medial one won’t look like this forever, it seems.

the wierd thing for me was this: i sat in the waiting room, more crowded than i had ever seen it, and while i gazed around at the collection of blue-hued paintings i had not noticed before, i heard her voice coming from the office, her calm southern-kind-of drawl talking with another patient, and the voice carried a strange sort of flashback appeal. i must have heard this voice throughout the biopsy, while under anesthesia. when i was in her exam room on the table today and she was standing to my left, i once again tried to remember more from my surgery, during which i must on some level have been conscious of her voice and everyone who stood around. i can’t remember a thing, of course, or as far as i know… but that was an odd, hazy, grey dusty flashback… it’s really got me curious – this remembering, not remembering …

the peak of summer

the peak of summer

judging by the deep grey color and smooth texture of the fog cover outside my window, and by the fact that it was at least twenty degrees warmer before i started home tonight, i’d say it’s the peak of summer. the perseids are on their way back, and apparently mars is approaching as close to the earth as it ever has been in recorded history!

all of this rivals the excitement of getting to see dr grissom again tomorrow morning. i was due there last week, but her office called to reschedule, and did not confirm today, so it’s possible i will have slipped through the cracks. if not, i should get a better read on what’s to do with my medial scar. i took some new pictures of it yesterday, and perhaps i will be in the mood to post them and compare with those i stopped posting – oh – may or so? it looks like two hard red knots on either side of the incision – basically, where the knots of the sutures themselves were. it’s really quite odd — because before i started all this breast mammography and biopsy business, i never had lumps like this. and now i have definite lumps – something that should strike fear in any woman, even if just from a scar.

best wishes go out to elaine, blake’s mom, who began aggressive chemotherapy today in albuquerque. she visited san francisco last week, giving us the opportunity also to see the lovely whirlwind that is blake, to get a second opinion from the folks at california pacific medical center. she’s apparently got a really very serious, nasty inflammatory cancer. blake has gone out to join her (having successfully procured new car keys after slipping her old ones down the elevator shaft). we are thinking of them both and hoping for the best things… the best in western and holistic medical attention, the best friends and support systems, a little oasis here and there, the assistance of a bright visiting planet, a little magic, some refreshing coolness now and then, like yesterday’s creamy coconut sorbet from mitchell’s, a blanket of fog under the summer heat.

“hey, nice pelvis!”

“hey, nice pelvis!”

it’s time to bring some female reproductive parts back into this weblog, since that’s what’s advertised. i hope searchers don’t arrive disappointed and mumbling about ‘truth in advertising’, and that the links on the right do prove useful to people searching for info about calcifications, mammograms, and breast surgery (which site stats show people arrive so doing). hopefully, the search engine helps a bit too.

currently, i’m beaming about my pelvis. my pelvis feels strong and complimented. i got to see the lovely dr madelyn kahn for my annual scrape today, and though my breast may not be healing as nicely as hoped, my pelvis, said she while palpitating, is in fine shape! she told me i should pass it down.

on the other hand, she was able to verify that my medial breast incision had, in fact, keloided — hmm, is that the proper tense? i suppose there is no verb form, but the idea should come across. to those regular visitors who search for weekly breast updates who have been disappointed since the promising start: that’s pretty much why. it doesn’t really look any different from the last picture i posted months ago. i gather that is because it is ‘a keloid’, and that i now know that i have ‘a tendency to keloid’. i’m not sure what, if anything, it has to do with the irritation caused by my internal sutures, but she said dr grissom would be able to fix it. that’s the next in my spate of maintenance visits: dr grissom, july 15. summer of doctorly-love.