Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Happy New Year! Here is a Post-Holiday Update . . .with cool photos!





Hello All!

I hope each of you had a wonderful holiday with your families and that you are looking forward to a wonderful new year! I am looking forward to turning 45 in ten days . . .never been more excited about a birthday :)!

Haven't written here in well over a month so I have much to catch you up on! First, Jason and I spent a lovely Thanksgiving in Alabama with his parents, eating great food and touring the soon to be done new house. Charlie spent Thanksgiving with his Dad in the NC mountains and also had a great time. The three of us then traveled to Chattanooga TN on the weekend before Christmas to exchange gifts and eat more great food with Jason's brother's family and his parents. The Todd Christmas celebration was a huge success (complete with some major Nerf gun wars and a sweet potato souffle that was to die for!) Christmas picture turned out awesome considering we had a whole 6 minutes of preparation and shoot time (Thanks Auntie April!) Home for Santa (who dropped off an Xbox 360 for Charlie, a new camera for me, and an iPhone for Jason!) and then off to Virginia on Christmas afternoon--with both dogs-- for the Oakes/Martin Christmas extravaganza. This marked the 45th time that I have had Christmas dinner at my grandmother's house surrounded by all my aunts, uncles and cousins. Amazing! I still sit at the kid's table with my sister Mariea, and cousins Toby, David and Shell. Now though, the table seats 9 or 10 because all our spouses are squeezed in too, and all of our kids sit at a coffee table that is in the back bedroom (moved there from the living room where there is now a second overflow table!) When it is just our family we are at 35 people but we always add an extra 2nd cousin or two, or a new boyfriend or girlfriend here or there so the crowd is rarely smaller than 40. Awesome. Crowded, but awesome. Spent some really fun time with Mariea, Anna and Jimmy and of course my parents. Everyone tried out the new Band Hero that Anna got for Christmas. Check out the pics of Bobby and Vicky on the drums!

Now at last we are home and settling in for a few days of peace and tranquility after taking it all down, packing it all up and putting it all away. Amidst all of the holiday chaos I worked a couple of real estate deals . . .sold a lot on December 23rd and CLOSED it on December 30th . .cash deal for $600K--SO much fun, and have another house here in the neighborhood that is set to go to contract next week. I am having a BLAST selling again! A little bit crazy though because of my other big news.

I have taken up submarine diving. I'm not kidding. Really.

Well, not really, only sort of.

Let me explain.

If you have been keeping up with this blog, you know that I had a serious scare back in October when some persistent pain in my throat sent me to the doctor, CERTAIN that the cancer had returned. Dr. Kamerer, my amazing surgeon, assured me that he didn't see any indication of that, and that I likely had a cold, or a virus, or a non-cancer something, but that I shouldn't worry and should come back if the pain didn't go away.

So . . . .the pain didn't go away, and during the week of Thanksgiving I discovered the reason--a HOLE in the side of my throat, just in the place where they cut out the cancer and aimed the radiation! REAL paranoia this time. Back to Kamerer's office and low and behold, HE can see it too! We know that it is one of only 2 possible things, the cancer IS back, or I have something called radiation necrosis. Only way to find out is to go in for a little outpatient surgery/biopsy and see what happens. (Did that on the Wednesday after Turkey Day and woke up from the anesthesia to see which of the bad things it was.) Obviously, the cancer being back would be really, really, really bad while the radiation necrosis would just be really bad.

And, really bad it was, or is, or whatever. What a relief.

Turns out that about 5 % of people who get radiation to the head and neck get this thing called radiation necrosis. It is a product of how radiation works. In general, it kills the cancer cells by destroying the blood flow to them and their ability to get oxygen. It does this to the healthy cells too, but usually most of them are able to repair themselves. In the case of necrosis though, the "healthy" cells are so damaged by the radiation that they can not repair themselves and they begin to die. Problem is, it's really tough for the body to repair things in this area on its own because now, the whole area doesn't get much blood flow or oxygen, and it becomes a vicious circle (or in my case a vicious HOLE the size of my thumb) of non-healing, dead, and dying tissue that hurts like hell. Gross. Painful and Gross. Did I mention gross? And painful?

Anyway, the ONLY treatment for it is to try to force oxygen into these tissues so that they can begin to repair themselves. The way to do that is by spending time in the Hyperbaric Oxygen Chamber. This is the "dive chamber" that they put divers in who don't decompress properly. It is effectively like diving in a submarine. They put me in an acrylic tube filled with 100% oxygen, then they pressurize it and take me down to 2 atmospheres below sea level and leave me there for a little over 2 hours and then, they bring me back up. I go every weekday. If you include commute time, dressing and undressing, and the time it takes to "dive" and "surface" then the whole thing takes just under 4 hours. But the good news is I only have to do it for forty days. Yes, I did say 4 hours a day and 40 days . . .but, I mean, really, Noah managed it in an ark with what must have been thousands of animals, and he had to build the  damn thing first . . . I can do it. . . . I know I can . . . It won't be that bad . . . there aren't even any animals in there . . . . . . BUT, there's not ANYTHING else in there either! Crap! You can't take anything in there with you . . . .no cell phone, no computer, NO BOOK!, no paper or pen, no iPod, no-thing. There is a TV screen outside the tube that the technician can adjust for you and it has a DVD player attached. Over the holidays, I watched every Christmas movie known to man and this week I began re-watching the ENTIRE series, yes, every single episode, of LOST. Plan to be finished just before the final season begins in early February! (Oooooh, how I love that show!)

However, you can not possibly imagine how frustrating it is to have all these THINGS TO DO and then be isolated from doing ANY of them for 2 1/2 hours at a time. It's crazy. But I am going to learn to appreciate it. I am taking up meditation, and making mental lists, and counting my blessings, and remembering that it could certainly be worse . . . .and it is supposed to be REALLY good for your skin. (I am looking younger every day!) And when it's done, and the pain is gone, I might really believe that I am cured! Hell, I might even BE cured!

So,that's all for today. Thanks, as always, for your continued prayers. Please keep 'em coming.

Cool pictures included of much of the stuff that I mentioned . . .The tube, Christmas pic (yes, my hair really is that color) and . . .  Can my parents jam or what?

Please take the time to email me at tjoakes@bellsouth.net, call or text (my text function works now!) to 704-905-0189, or comment here when you get the chance. I love hearing from you!

Have an amazingly blessed day!









3 comments:

  1. Don't mind me, I have a hole in my head? You poor baby, that sucks. Especially the doing N-O-T-H-I-N-G in the submarine part. Love you sweetie!

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  2. Tam, two parts sound good--watching "Lost" (I just finished last season so that I'd be ready for the new one) and the great skin part! Hang in there. Thinking about you.

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