Springtime in the Valley

I'm tired of bad news. So, I'm going to report on springtime sprouts:

I see more and more patches of daffodils blooming around town. Our own daffodils are slower to bloom as they are planted on the north side of our house. I see two blooms so far.

Lots of patches of crocuses, mostly purple and lavender, but also white and yellow here and there.

I saw a patch of dwarf irises on campus last week.

The lilac bush outside our dining room window has some new sprouts on it!

Yay! It's getting warmer! And, it's lighter later!

National Geographic Flashback

A couple of months ago, a writer for National Geographic Magazine asked me for information on the Wolf Dance (the subject of my dissertation) for their regular feature called "Flashback". It appears in March's issue and includes a picture of the Kawerak Wolf Dancers from about 1914. I thought I'd share it with you all:

Wolf Dancers

Have a great Friday! The sun is shining and I can hear someone mowing the lawn on the baseball field outside my office! : )

Signs of Spring

Last week (or was it the week before?), I spotted these pretty purple crocuses on my walk to work from Eddie's school. The sun was shining and these blooms were so brilliant - and my phone took an excellent, nicely focused shot of them. I love spring here in the Willamette Valley. Plants start blooming in stages - first crocuses, then the daffodils, then . . . fun stuff!



Pretty, eh?

I'm in Bergen!

So, Scott and I arrived in Bergen yesterday afternoon. We were both really tired. We checked into our hotel, took a shower, found dinner, and then came back to the hotel and fell asleep by about 9:30pm. We slept in until 8:30am Bergen time, and then had breakfast and decided to wander around. We had a great day. It rained yesterday and through the night, but we ended up with mostly sun all day. It was chilly, though. We took the funicular (a kind of cable car) to the top of Mt. Floien today and wandered around the hilltop. Parts of it were still covered in snow. Things are just now blooming here - dwarf irises, some daffodils, and crocuses. It was a beautiful day. I think I got a bit of wind burn on my face. It feels okay now, but earlier today, it was red.

Tomorrow, the conference starts. I may be at the conference all day - maybe not so much on Wednesday. I hope to spend more time wandering around.

This evening, we went to a place called the "Harbour Cafe" and had dinner and a beer or two and found out that our wait staff were from Italy and Morocco, originally. The two guys from Italy were married to a Norwegian (who he met in Florida) and Kenya. They've both worked in the states, Dubai, and now Norway. Both of them say that they don't like Bergen so much - it's way too cold for them. They're both from Sicily. It was fun chatting with them.

Well, I need to get settled in ... gotta get up in about 8 hours! Yikes! I think my body is still on West Coast time!

Ah, my Xeloda

I'm doing okay on the Xeloda. Had a brief stint of light-headedness yesterday but overall the nausea seems nonexistent. I think I figured out what exacerbates the nausea and what doesn't. But, I already started getting mouth sores - on the inside of my cheek and another on the tip of my tongue and some of my gums are bleeding again. I had a salad last night with vinaigrette and although not too spicy, it did burn my mouth and my lips. Swished with the aloe vera juice and that seems to help. The tips of a couple of my fingers are tingling and/or getting number. So, I'll call my doctor today and just ask him about decreasing my dose even more.

Slept okay, although I woke up early. I think the melatonin is helping. The skin rash and the skin mets continue to slowly disappear! So, I can't complain too much. And, more of my daffodils bloomed yesterday! Yay!

Back on Xeloda

Today, I started taking Xeloda again, although at a slightly reduced dose than last time - I take 3 in the morning and 2 at night. I really loved last week, when I didn't have to take it. I felt much better since some of the nastier side effects - the inflamed mouth, red zits, and slight nausea - were not present. On Tykerb, I just seem to have little white zits, and of course, trouble sleeping.

So, I stalked up on sweet-tasting carbs to help me counteract the nausea, as well as some diet Sierra Mist. I'm still using the aloe vera gel on my face and I plan to swish with the aloe vera juice tonight to maybe fend off the mouth sores.

I have an acupuncture treatment this week, which I'm sure will help me cope. But, so far, so good. No nausea today, just thirsty, so I'm trying to drink lots of water.

I was depressed earlier today - because I knew I was starting Xeloda again and also because I didn't sleep well last night. I'd slept well the night before, so I hoped that I would sleep well again. Being tired really does affect my mood.

I like being productive - I don't usually like to sit around watching TV all the time, especially when there's stuff to do around the house. I really wanted to be lazy, today, though. But I hadn't vacuumed in a couple of weeks and the cat is beginning to shed more hair, so I really wanted to get it all cleaned up.

I did get in a good walk today - it was gorgeous here - partly sunny and 60 degrees. The daffodils in front of my kitchen window started blooming yesterday and I saw some little pink buds on the flowering plum tree out back today, too. That's always good to lift one's mood!

Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine

I saw my acupuncturist today. Her name is Brodie Welch and she runs Life in Balance Acupuncture here in Corvallis. She's the one who has prescribed some herbs and a five-mushroom pill for me. It was while using the five-mushroom blend (three of the five have anti-cancer properties) that I noticed that the red rash on the mastectomy area stopped spreading.

I'd heard previously that acupuncture can help with nausea, but I didn't seek out an acupuncturist for the chemo treatments five years ago. I told Brodie that I have had a few episodes of nausea with Xeloda and Tykerb, but that they usually went away if I ate something - usually something bland and sweet (those Girl Scout Trefoils are great for that!) - and if I made sure to drink lots of water.

In addition to the nausea, I told her that some of the other symptoms I have are: feeling thirsty and waking up in the middle of the night with a dry mouth, a couple of mouth sores (nothing that interferes with my eating), hot flashes, other menopausal symptoms like vaginal dryness (sorry for being explicit, gentlemen!), and acne. Her interpretation: that I have a lot of toxic heat in my system between the cancer and the chemo drugs and my body is trying to let it escape. She suggested that I drink peppermint tea - it has a cooling effect and can help with nausea - and that I swish with aloe vera juice for the mouth sores, both because it has a cooling effect but also antibiotic properties. I decided to try the aloe vera gel on my face for those same reasons. I'll let you know how that experiment works.

But amazingly, since the acupuncture treatment yesterday, I haven't had any nausea! My stomach and digestive system feel just about normal. Although I had a little bit of a pastry with my toast (since I figured I needed more in my stomach when I took the Xeloda), I don't feel dizzy or nauseous. She also put these carrow (I think?) seeds on my ear, at a few acupressure points. They are taped onto the ear in places that relate to various energetic parts of your body - the liver chi, the stomach chi, the kidney chi, I think one for my lower back (which has been sore since I heard the diagnosis). She also gave me magnets to put onto stomach/nausea pressure points above my wrist. I asked her how they work and she said that the pressure reminds the body to dial into (divert healing energy?) that system to relieve the nausea. Two of the seeds do kinda hurt when I press on them, so maybe that means that they are working to help with the nausea and maybe even the worry and tension.

I bought a book on acupuncture yesterday so that I can understand the whole system better. As an anthropologist, I am interested in how different cultures conceive of health and healing, so I find it fascinating. It's helping, that's all I know, and I want to know why!

Have a great day! I saw this really nice large rhododendron bush blooming on the quad near the MU on my walk to campus today. Big pretty pink blooms! Yesterday, while walking to the acupuncturist's office, I saw lots of miniature daffodils, dwarf irises, crocuses in all colors, and this little white flower that looks like a blue bell. I love spring! It was warm here, too, yesterday - partly sunny and 63 according to my car. Yay!