Two down, one to go and other catch up bits

On April 14, I shared that my treatment plan might change based on these—I’ve got answer to two of them and so far, no change.

• If the MRI shows more cancer elsewhere, this plan will obviously change depending on where and how much is found. The MRI showed no cancer in my right breast. It did show a pleural effusion and I’ll be having chest x-rays this week to make sure nothing wonky is going on there. My surgeon isn’t concerned in the least and says this doesn’t require moving my surgery date. I will probably always be nervous about something that's potentially linked to melanoma so more to come once I get the radiologist's report.
• If the genetic testing shows I have the breast cancer gene, then I’ll have a double mastectomy. I’m all clear on the gene front so that’s good news for me and for my children.
• If the path report post-op comes back with cancer showing then I’ll be looking at chemo. Of course, no update here since the surgery isn’t until May 6.

And if you have any urge to call this a battle, well just don’t. A battle implies winning and losing and I especially dislike when I hear “Oh she lost her battle with cancer.” No, no she didn’t. She died from a freaking disease.

Also, no pink for me during this disease treatment. I love the color pink, it’s one of my favorites and I look good in it. But it’s such a breast cancer cliché and I don’t want to end up being “that breast cancer woman.” I also love the color blue and I’ve decided that’s my go to color for all of this.

In my Sunday school class this morning in a very strange coincidence, a woman who’s part of the fabric for faith group mentioned that she didn’t think the clergy realized that the prayer quilts this group makes are available and she wondered how to make that more known. The woman next to me, who knew about my situation, turned to me and said, “You need one of those!” I thought so to, and long story not so long I have a prayer quilt. She asked what color I wanted and I immediately and without any consideration, said anything but pink. This is what she brought me:

The group prayed for me and I cried. I need to tell my friend Shima she can stop praying that I’m feeling my feelings—mission accomplished.

You know you want an update

Here’s the latest update from our previous living situation in Boston. First, you might want to refer to the diagram in this post (in it, I described the neighbors and showed where they lived relative to each other).

OK now that you recall the players, here’s the rest of the update.

• The Super Nices broke up. We suspect it was the ongoing strain between them and the Hatefuls (I sometimes called them the Nasties) because they really did seem like a solid couple with a good relationship. But I guess being near the crazies took a toll on them.
• The previous owners of #6 sold in 2011. That shook things up only very slightly in the condo association. One of the new owners became a trustee along with Kent and an owner from #1.
• The new owners of our place, Mike & Molly, seem to be nice and normal people. Mike’s become a trustee also.
• Our neighbors in #1 sold their place last week. So now the remaining owner from #5 has become a trustee too.

Did you notice that the Hateful/Nasties and the Ferals still have no power in the condo association? That pleases me to no end.

On a creepier note, it was clear that both of the Ferals had looked at my Facebook profile. I found that disturbing, so for the first time ever I used the blocking feature on Facebook. Now they can’t even look at my picture.

I’m pretty sure with the most recent update to the condo (the owners of #1 selling) that our updates are over. And I’m fine with that. We don’t live there any more.

Every breath you take

I have even more good news to report this week. I feel quite selfish to be hogging all the good news, but there you go. God knows, I've shared plenty of bad news here. This should make a refreshing change.

I saw my doctor today to get the word on all the tests he’d run and to figure out next steps. Readers, I have zero allergies. Not a one, not even ragweed. Amazing! Even more, he thinks that I don’t have asthma proper but rather that my lungs had a big ol hissy fit over all the particulate matter in my living environment. (I suggested maybe I had delicate diva-esque lungs; he laughed over that description and said quite possibly so.)

What that news means is that I haven’t damaged my lungs—hurrah! Plus I can dial back the maintenance inhaler and may be entirely off it altogether—double hurrah! I’m to continue using my peak flow meter to track things but even that may stop.

I have only ever had serious breathing issues in Germany and here in Boston. Both environments have more air pollution than Kansas City. Guess my delicate dainty lungs do not want any crap in the air, thank you very much.

More randomness

I love our new floors. I confess, I was not at all positive that the unstained (finished) maple would work here. I’m happy to report I was wrong—they look fantastic and add more light to the apartment. Also I like the wider planks.

The dark Billy half height book cases from Ikea mock me now. I may need to paint them. We’ll see. I may need to have my head examined too.

Did I mention we ordered perennial ferns to plant in the patio this year? We got tired of buying pricey annual ferns. Of course, Boston can get hard freezes until about the middle of April so the baby ferns have been hanging out in a cardboard box. We set them outside for some dim light when the weather isn’t wretched and bring them in when it gets cold again.

I forgot to flip my perennial calendar to April this year. So I didn’t get a card sent to my dad and I also had it in my head that Eliot’s birthday was April 14. Really it’s April 11. I think I got fixated on the 14^th because of the Titanic stuff all over the internet.

The cats hated being kenneled at the vet’s last week. They’ve been home five days and the boys still cry a lot and need massive amounts of lap time. Chloe is an unflappable champ. Nothing rocks her world. The only change she’s made is she’s been sleeping all night at my left shoulder. That’s her only sign of insecurity. I wish I could say the same about the boys.

And now I need to finish the dress for Alison and the matching dress for her doll. I sound so very domestic, don't I?

Thankful

That’s me.

Irene sped up and moved further inland which was awful for those in western Massachusetts, parts of Connecticut and all of Vermont. But we were spared and only had torrential rains and wind gusts. We never even lost power and that right there is pretty amazing.

I thought the South End didn't get any damage, but when I walked home today after taking my car to the auto body repair place, I saw a lot of downed tree limbs.

The picture shows how Wally spent most of the day yesterday. He's in a box from Costco and he loves to sleep in it so much that we haven't had the heart to pitch it.

Updates

We’d hoped that the letter from the condominium association’s attorney regarding his opinion on any liability from the pending lawsuit might mean we could put our apartment up for sale. We’d really like to get out of here and are more interested in renting for a while than in buying. But the update is not good: our realtor (I refuse to capitalize that word) consulted both the mortgage company and the real estate attorney he uses, and neither were optimistic. He said we’d either need a cash sale (which seems unlikely) or we should wait another year. Alas, patience is not my strong point.

Remember the job application I wrote about two weeks ago? They continued to impress me with the way they conducted their search and in fact I did make it to the final round. Ultimately they chose someone with extensive SAP experience over me. I appreciated how quickly they moved and how they did exactly what they said they were going to do each step of the way. I still had a number of concerns about the job and my main feeling yesterday after getting the no thanks call was not disappointment about not getting that job but frustration that I am stuck where I am. That’s a pretty good sign this probably wasn’t the best job for me.

In other news, it continues to be rainy, cool and cloudy in Boston. We haven't had 100% clear skies since May 1, at 1 PM when I wasn't here anyway. I’m considering doubling my daily dose of vitamin D.

An update and why we can’t sell

The update:

The burst pipe is in our ceiling/neighbor’s floor over our walk-in closet at the back of the apartment in our bedroom. The water came in through the walls and ceiling and reached the living room. We currently have some holes in our ceiling and will need that to be replaced along with portions of the walls.

Our wood floors are the hardest hit and are already bowed and buckling. Since we live in a sub-grade space, the floors are wood over engineered wood and they float (can't really put normal wood floors on top of concrete). Since they float, there are ready-made channels for water to flow and that's exactly what it did. When we step on boards in the living room, for example, we see water seeping up. It should dry out quickly—this is winter after all, and the driest time for Boston. But the floors are ruined.

Next steps involve figuring out if the condo association makes an insurance claim or goes with a special assessment. The risk in another claim is that we had a huge claim from 2009 and apparently there was another water situation in 2004 (don’t know any details about that). The condo association runs the risk of not being renewed next year if we file yet another claim around water. But a special assessment won't go over well with the owners either. Now I'm really glad I won't be at the condo association meeting. I would have a hard time biting my tongue.

Once the financials are settled, then the painful reconstruction starts. With three cats in the house, it's a chore to make sure contractors shut the door so they don't get out. And all the commotion freaks them out anyway. Add in my travel schedule and Kent's travel schedule and well, I get overwhelmed just thinking about managing this mess.

Why we can’t sell:

The very technical picture (fear my mad PowerPoint skills) shows how the seven apartments make up the condominium association. Originally, 1 and 3 Claremont Park were two separate brownstones, but the lady who owned both buildings ended up making a one floor apartment that spanned both buildings.

So we have two buildings joined by one apartment which means we have one condo association. The blue units are the garden units and both flooded last year (we live in number 7). The Ferals live in apartment 2 and they are the ones who had the frozen pipe for three days and refused to let the plumber open any walls to find the leak. In fact Mr. Feral spent an hour yesterday morning lecturing the master plumber on how to do his job. As you might imagine, that didn’t go over well.

The Hatefuls live in apartment 4; they are the ones who are suing the condo association and the people in apartment 5 (for proper serial construction, we'll call them the SuperNice).

Until the lawsuit is settled (and it has nothing to do with our 2009 flood and everything to do with their sense of entitlement about other issues), no bank will underwrite loans for apartments in our building. The potential risk of a huge special assessment is just not one any bank will take. So we are stuck.

Once we can sell, believe me we will. And we are seriously considering renting. Given how we haven't yet landed someplace we believe will be our home for decades, and how volatile the job market is, we think we need to stay flexible with housing.

Updates

Creating and sticking with a budget takes a lot of time, especially the food budget. Who knew grocery circulars could be so fascinating? We kicked off our official budget on June 1, even though we haven't yet finalized all amounts for all categories. We'll save all our receipts for at least a couple of months so we can find out what we spend in some of those not-yet-finalized categories, and also get a real-time idea of where our money goes. We can do that when we get our credit card statement but then the information is a little dated.

I made the most amazing pork chops last night. I'd read a blog post about how to decide if a cookbook is worth buying (yes I know, I should have read that prior to my last cookbook purchase). That spurred my decision to more fully use the cookbooks I have on hand before caving in to buy more. So I pulled out my Food & Wine Fast cookbook and made chili-dusted pork chops. Wow, just wow. They took less than 30 minutes to make, had enormous flavor, were tender and just all around fantastic. If you're interested in the recipe, holler and I'll send it to you.

Finally, lest I neglect the namesake of this blog, here's a funny picture of the boys. They are riveted by some small flying bug on the wall.