Squirrels Are Fiends, And Melanoma Really Sucks

This post title is pretty much my morning in a nutshell.

This morning, I woke up to find that my newly-filled large bird feeder by the sun room windows had been recently vandalized by a marauding band of squirrels.  Seeds were everywhere and the inner seed tube was seriously askew.

I know that it was our local gang of evil squirrels because they were in the process of stuffing the spoils into their already overflowing cheek pouches when I looked out the window.

Cheeky little beasts.

I swear one of them grinned at me and waved.  Our westie was not amused.

At the moment, our house is filled with the scent of meatballs in a spicy sesame Korean barbecue sauce that are cooking in the crockpot.  It is International Day at The Peanut's school today and her class is doing South Korea as their country.  I wanted to do beef short ribs in a spicy-sweet sesame Korean BBQ sauce, but I decided that short ribs would be too much of a pain for kids and parents to try to eat.

But meatballs?  Way more munchable at a buffet with plastic silverware and scanty napkins.

I've made the sauce a bit on the mild side given that kids are going to be eating them.  But I'm taking along a bottle of go chu jang sauce (it's a funky spicy red bean paste and chiles Korean sauce that is amazing with grilled meat), so folks can spice their plates up as they want them.  Will be making some sticky jasmine rice to go with them, and sprinkling the meatballs with some chopped scallion and toasted sesame seeds to serve them.

If the delicious scent is any indication, it will be nummy.  My tummy is already growling.  Here's hoping anyway -- I sort of jimmied this together on the fly in between pre-op appointments and teaching.  It's been that kind of week.

Speaking of pre-op, my more extensive excision biopsy surgery is tomorrow.

If everyone could send out some good thoughts and prayers, it would be very much appreciated.  If they do this full excision biopsy and are able to get a clean margin and shallow depth on the melanoma, then we may be done.

If not?  There is likely a PET scan and/or a sentinel lymph node biopsy in my future.   Which, honestly, may be in my future anyway just to be certain the cancer hasn't spread elsewhere.


This has been a long, drawn out emotional slog.  And it's likely to continue to be hurry up and wait as we'll have to again wait for pathology results and more medical consultations and back and forth about the next steps.

Having just gone through this with breast lumps that turned out to be benign, I really wasn't ready to have to jump right back on the emotional roller coaster for what turned out to be a cancerous growth on my back.  But it is what it is, right?  Nothing you can do but suck it up and deal and keep on moving forward.

Am trying to stay positive, but my gut is tugging at me that there is something more to this one.  It may just be emotional fatigue from the losses of the last few years and everything else.  I'm hoping that is the case.  But hope is a fleeting thing for me at the moment.

So if anyone has a funny or cheery story to share, please do.  I could use a really good belly laugh right about now.  Because honestly?  What I feel like doing is curling up in a little ball under the covers and having a huge cry.  But that doesn't solve anything, now does it?  And life keeps moving forward whether you are ready for it to or not.

Especially when you have an eight year old angel in the house to care for, who needs to see her momma strong and whole and not being scared.

I've tried to stay as upbeat as I can with her, because we've decided not to tell her any specifics until we know for certain what stage I am at (they can't peg that until after this next round of biopsy) and until we know what -- if any -- treatment can be done.  Then, if we get to that point, then we'll sit her down and talk a bit more about the whys.  No need to scare her prematurely, especially having just lost Grandma Smith, Aunt Amy and Grandpa Smith all in the last three years.

Sometimes, though?  Life is just really, really hard.  And I'm having that moment this morning as I sit here in our quiet empty house after everyone has headed out for the day and left me with my cuppa coffee and my scattered thoughts on this.

So share something funny or happy with me this morning, will you?  I could really, really use it.

(Photo via exfordy.)