Now we wait.

Sooooo...I celebrated my 6 month birthday on Sunday. It was a nice day, and it happened to coincide with a dinner hosted by the Buck Foundation that we were invited to at a fancy restaurant in DC, so that was kind of fun. As far as my 6 month milestone, it came with a 6 month bone marrow biopsy, which I had yesterday.

NOT FUN.

I know I've already ranted at length about how awful they are, about how it's a "10 out of 10" on the pain scale, about how I'd pretty much rather do anything else than have one, but seriously, it all came flooding back yesterday. It was awful. I don't like conscious sedation (fentanyl and Versed) because while it does take the edge off during the aspiration/biopsy procedure, it makes me feel like sh*t the rest of the day. The alternative being having the procedure done with no drugs at all, or some very light oral meds. I ended up taking 1 mg of Ativan and 5 mg of Oxycodone. In other words, I was basically doing it on NOTHING. Because 1 mg of Ativan is child's play at this point, and 5 mg of Oxycodone, while slightly taking the edge off the pain I feel after the procedure, does nothing to help with the pain during the actual procedure. It wasn't pretty.

There's this waiting area right outside the room where I was having the procedure, with a few padded benches where outpatient people can sit and wait (what for, I'm not sure, but I know it's not for a bone marrow aspiration, probably chemo or some IV meds). The room I'm in is not a padded vault - in other words, you can basically hear everything going on in the room. I can only imagine what those poor people in the waiting area were thinking! The NP told me to "breathe in slowly, hold your breath at the top, then exhale very slowly". Sure. That's all good and well when you're just sitting there, but start drilling into someone's pelvic bone and that becomes pretty difficult to do. So I'm breathing fast and loudly, and screaming, and crying, and the NP is saying, "You're okay, we're almost done, I'm in, okay, you're going to feel some pressure," and Gus is saying, "You're doing great, it's almost over, you're okay," and I'm screaming some more - it totally must have sounded like I was giving birth in there! There's a little bit of residual soreness today, and I've had some slight nausea all day (not sure why), but otherwise, I'm fine now. NOW WE WAIT.

Waiting - it's the worst part - I'd say it's as bad as the aspiration itself, only it lasts MUCH longer. The aspiration is over in 5-10 minutes (I lost track of time, to be honest), and the waiting lasts a WEEK. I get my results on Monday the 23rd. Now I have a good feeling - I think it's going to be good news - but that doesn't really diminish the fear. Nothing does. My blood work yesterday was the best it's ever been - everything is completely normal. Like if I walked into a hospital and they took my blood, I'd look like a completely normal, healthy person. This is reassuring, but as I've learned from past experience, cancer defies logic and reason, so there you go. All I can do now is wait.

Now for something other than cancer talk! Last week it was so beautiful outside that Gus and I decided to go for a drive in the country. Luckily, we live so far friggin' north that that is easily accomplished. We drove out to the Monocacy Aqueduct, and it was so beautiful. I'll let you read the wiki page for more info - it really is an interesting place, I'm just not qualified (or in the mood) to do the explaining myself. In any case, it was beautiful, here are a few pics:

The next two are from our Indian feast - we had chicken tikka masala with basmati rice, naan, and some bastardized (and really unappetizing and not at all tasty) version of palak paneer. The chicken was awesome - the spinach was awful. For dessert I had rose Falooda ice cream with chopped pistachios - it was so good.

Another night I made a spinach frittata - eh. It was good, but nothing to write home about. Although apparently I am writing home about it, so whatever!

But this next dinner - this was totally worth writing home about. It was soooooo gooooood. So so simple, and so, so good! Barefoot Contessa's shrimp scampi, which we had with homemade sourdough-ish bread and a green salad with vinaigrette (actually Barefoot Contessa's vinaigrette, hehe). And just for reference, if anyone plans on making it - cut the butter in half. You'd have a coronary if you used 12 Tbsp of butter - we used 6 and it was more than adequate.

Another night I made a ratatouille tart from Ellie Krieger's cookbook The Food You Crave, which was so so so good! And healthy! I highly recommend the cookbook - everything we've made from there has been really delicious. And it's healthy!

And last but certainly not least (anyone else notice I used a lot of italics in this post?), here are photos from my 6 month birthday. Like I said, the Buck Foundation hosted a fancy dinner in DC, so we got all dolled up. Unfortunately the photos are from the end of the night, when we got home, so I'm a bit shiny and well...full of food! Here's one full-length of me in my dress:

And here's one of Gus and me:

Hopefully we'll be celebrating again soon - after the 23rd. :)

In other quick news - I had my first haircut! You can tell in the 2nd pic especially - I now have a proper pixie cut. Jennifer was there with me for the big event - and I even saved a lock of my hair (although I do think that's a bit weird). I LOVE my hair! Short hair is awesome - I highly recommend it. So low maintenance! Who'd have thunk it - Jessica with a pixie cut. Hunh.

Thank you to everyone for the thoughtful emails, voice mails, texts, and Facebook messages yesterday (and today). They make me smile, which is a good thing. I think that's all for today - we just finished salmon with basil and lemon with Gus's awesome asparagus, and there's a pumpkin apple pie cooling on the counter (more on that later), so I'm going to go digest and get ready for pie! Which I swear isn't that bad for you - you can see the nutritional info on the recipe page. ;)