Bavaria

This is completely cheating but I copied part of the e-mail I sent to Mike yesterday and I'm using that for the blog. I just have so many hours in a day and not many of those include hours I can spend on the computer (nor do I want to really, I'm not a sit in front of the computer type girl).

Oh, I do have a little something to share that I have been meaning to put on here for a few days. Two weeks ago I was finally able to have a mole on my calf removed. Mike had not so kindly nicknamed it "the tick." and while I wouldn't mind having a Superhero as a constant companion right now, The Tick would not be my choice. This was a new mole which started growing this spring and while Mike was worried about cancer and such I thought it was ugly (obviously he did too or he wouldn't have named it something so gross). So... after the whole process of having my OB refer me back to my doctor (stupid policy here) and then my doctor referring me to a dermatologist and me waiting about two months to call back for an apt. I was finally able to go into the dermatologist. He takes a look at my mole and says "well I normally wait until after women have given birth but this mole is new, dark, and oddly shaped. Let's take it off." Great. After he removes said mole and stitches up the little skin punch with the darkest, ugliest thread known to man (is there something so wrong with flesh colored thread or white or light pink- if a nurse is so blind she can't see the more discreet thread I don't really want her working on my incisions anyway) he mentions that they will have it biopsied and call me with the results in a week or so. "Okay," I say and promptly forget about the ugly mole test.

Fast forward to last week. My Catholic friend is over at my house interviewing me for her world religions class. The phone rings and I answer (no phone call is ever ignored when a spouse is deployed).

Me-Hello?

Dr.- Hi, this is Dr. H. We have the preliminary results back on your mole. The tests came back abnormal.

Me-Abnormal (what tests, oh yeah, the biopsy)?

Dr-Yes, the mole doesn't fit into the perameters of being considered normal according to our tests. We don't have a dermayadayadayada here so we are going to have to send your mole to Walter Reed Medical Center.

Me-Walter Reed? At this point I am picturing "the tick" in a petri dish, swirling around in clear liquid, it is being loaded into a red Coleman cooler and packed with dry ice. A soldier in class A's is running across the tarmac with the cooler in hand as a plane awaits, engines running.

Dr.-Yes, they will do further tests there and determine whether or not it fits into their criteria for being normal. We should know more sometime in the next week or two. If it is just abnormal we will wait until after the baby is born and then do a little surgery and remove more tissue from the area, if it is malignant we will do a bigger surgery, when is the baby due?

At this point I am picturing a chunk of my leg being removed the size of a shark bite, or laying on my bed telling my kids goodbye.

Dr.-Either way I will need to come back and do a full body check (Fabulous, they are going to have to fly me to some marina where they can float me on my back and then on my stomach while a team of divers inspects my whale like body for "abnormal" moles. So, as soon as I get those test results in the next week or two I will let you know.

Yeah, it's been over a week and instead of having completely forgotten about the stupid mole I get to contemplate daily whether or not the Lord would really let me have skin cancer on top of everything else. I'm also quite certain that I'm going to look like the teeing off point at a golf course with all the divets they are going to take from my skin because right now even the smallest freckle is stretched to the size of Russia. So that is my mole story and the rest is my e-mail to Mike about Sadie's first day of kindergarten. I love you all.
Can not tell you how exhausted I am and how much I have to do. Three kids in school wipes me out. Sadie had a fabulous day today. The only low point is that she didn't have anyone to sit with on the bus on the ride home, but...she still wants to ride the bus. I'm at the school every day picking up Ellyn but she wants to ride the bus. I told her she could always change her mind. They invited parents to come eat lunch today so Ellie Boo and I went in and ate lunch with her class. She was so grown up about taking care of her lunchbox and she was waving to just about every kid on the planet. There are so many from our primary and a few from FRG. She is just a social little butterfly. Last night she went into the kitchen and got out an apple and the apple slicer and proceeded to slice apples and put them in a bag so she could have them for her lunch today. It was too funny. When she got home from school I asked her what she learned today and she told me they learned how to line up their toes on the piece of tape. Academic Genius.


Jane's homework has finally kicked in. She spent almost the whole evening doing homework and piano practicing. It was funny though, she said quite good naturedly "I guess my days of playing are over." Right now she doesn't mind it, it is still a novelty, and hopefully by the time it gets to her she will be a little bit faster. She also has a pretty mature attitude about her schedule. She has a math teacher that is supposedly really hard and pretty strict but Jane doesn't mind her so far and she really likes the rest of her schedule and doesn't want to mess it up. She can be so logical at times and so not at others. She's a sweetheart though.

Ellyn had a fairly good day. We had the whole morning together and with more one on one time I made her do more things with me, like unload the dishwasher. One glass was great, 6 made her ornery. She also got really used to me being right with her and threw an absolute fit when I went upstairs to get her socks by myself. The nerve. Her limp is still there and seemed more pronounced today. So frustrating. I think I will call Dr. Lukezic and have her take a look. The good thing is that it doesn't seem to be bothering her today.

Okay, we had the most insane weather all day. One second it would be clear blue beautiful skies, 55 degrees, crisp and pleasant with some dark clouds on the horizon. Ten minutes later the wind would kick up the clouds would rush in and pouring rain would absolutely drench everything. It was alot of fun to deal with.

Finally, the end. Love, Brooke