Live chaotically!!! ~ Refashion #2 ~ and a buried lead from weird, wacky, melanoma world!!!!

In the (lately) ongoing series of posts that are the height of crunchy, artiness combined with the mother of invention (necessity) and a bit of elbow grease (often icky effort) there is this ~ Need something to hold your music now that you're gonna revive your piano skills???

Well, you have this slightly moldered and faded basket (now cleaned and left in the sun for a couple of days)!!!

Apply some stain.  Let dry.  Rub (repeatedly) with a clean dry cloth when it doesn't "dry"!!!!

And there she be!!!  Quiet, unassuming, utilitarian.  But pretty and useful just the same!

Have an asparagus fern outgrowing its previous situation?  Got an old stool?  This one was from a local yard sale.  Failed to get a pic of the original. But, a couple of coats of blue paint and you are set!!!

In the refashioning of me ~ I've been out of work in Greenland for two weeks!!!  There was a to-do list!  You would not believe the stuff that's been accomplished around here!!!  I was so excited that it had only two more items left to complete before an amazing Italian vacay...leaving several weeks of reading, music and sewing!!!!  Well, when you live in weird, wacky, melanoma world, you never know what might happen next.

Monday, I had my now ANNUAL brain MRI and CT's of neck, chest, abdomen and pelvis.  I didn't even have to go ballistic on some A$$hole at BCBS!!!  All studies were approved with no talk of, "These studies are not needed due to your history of 'skin disease'!"  Three sticks and one sluggish lab tech later - while driving home after a late breakfast that included a large hair, unlike mine,  laying across the potatoes that accompanied a bacon, egg and avocado sandwich from First Watch, I got a call from my local oncologist.  "Hello!  Oh my goodness!!  Ummmm.  I mean, your scans were fine and your brain was fine in regard to melanoma, but you have an acute appendix."  I'm like, "No, I don't.  I don't even have a stomach ache (and that's saying something after a lot of contrast medium and the late breakfast I just had!!), much less a fever, vomiting, diarrhea...".  "No, really", she replied.  "I'm calling the surgeon now."

So, yesterday....I saw the surgeon.  The same dear one who set things straight years ago after a botched job with my initial primary in 2003 and dealt with my next melanoma crazy in 2007.  Now, just so you understand the wacky world that is melanoma follow-up, ditzelville as B calls it, after all the scans that I have had for the past 15 years, I now know that I have:
1.  Sparkly nodules in my thyroid.
2.  A shit ton of gall stones.
3.  A hole in the back of my head that no one can explain.  You can choose sequelae from a really bad fall down the stairs vs a brain met that resolved before it was noted.
4.  A uterine fibroid.
5.  Along with a few other bits and bobs that wax and wane over time.
BECAUSE....when you get scans....while looking for things that may do you harm, you inadvertently find doo-dads that may be important or just red herrings, that - if you lived in a normal world - you would never deal with at all, since you were not having any problems that warranted investigation!!!

Lots of folks in melanoma world freak the F@CK out when they get news of such things!  (Hell, lots of folks with nothing wrong with them or their lives stay in FREAK out mode!!!)  I've been here a long time.  And, I'm weird.  I don't freak out.  It's not fun to work through these things.  But, freaking out requires energy that I don't possess.  So, when Dr. Weber freaked out about my gall stones when I developed rectal bleeding and diarrhea - I had them evaluated.  They were fine and so was I.  In that vein - today I saw the surgeon.

He noticed the gall stones.  With no problems, didn't want to touch 'em with a ten foot pole.  The appendix, well....  Probably should come out.  It's bigger than on prior scans.  Probably a mucocele.  Often caused by 'nothing'.  Sometimes related to another icky, though less aggressive cancer.  And with my history, possibly related to melanoma...though...still...unlikely.

So, appendectomy scheduled for Thursday.  What the heck?!?  I'm between jobs and countries.  Let's get her done!

Refashion.  It's a thing.  I'm gonna miss you my dear little mucoid appendix!  Planning on some quality time together tomorrow!!! - c