Last week, I went to the doctor to have the annoying growth along my right eye checked, and, because of my overwhelming vanity, removed. The doctor did a great job removing it, very clean. She sent the "skin tag" in for biopsy, out of routine.

Well, for the last few days, there were missed calls on my cell phone from "No ID." I finally was able to pick up on one today.

It was a call from my doctor. The skin tag is cancerous. It's not the agressive type, but rather basal cell carcinoma.

From skincancer.org:

The Most Common Skin Cancer

Basal cell carcinoma is the most common form of skin cancer, affecting 800,000 Americans each year. In fact, it is the most common of all cancers. One out of every three new cancers is a skin cancer, and the vast majority are basal cell carcinomas, often referred to by the abbreviation, BCC. These cancers arise in the basal cells, which are at the bottom of the epidermis (outer skin layer). Until recently, those most often affected were older people, particularly men who had worked outdoors. Although the number of new cases has increased sharply each year in the last few decades, the average age of onset of the disease has steadily decreased. More women are getting BCCs than in the past; nonetheless, men still outnumber them greatly.

Because the location is right next to something so vital (my eye!), the doctor recommended Mohs Micrographic Surgery to remove all the growth:

The physician removes the visible tumor with a curette or scalpel and then removes very thin layers of the remaining surrounding skin one layer at a time. Each layer is checked under a microscope, and the procedure is repeated until the last layer viewed is cancer-free. This technique has the highest cure rate and can save the greatest amount of healthy tissue. It is often used for tumors that have recurred or are in hard-to-treat places such as the head, neck, hands, and feet.

It's the most time intensive removal, but the best for me because of the location. I'll be heading in next week. The surgery should take all day because of the iterative process.

I'm already really good about sunscreen, but I now need to be even more diligent. I'm a bit surprised at my reaction, which was about 2 minutes of crying, then acceptance. It is what it is. I have work to do, and gardens to plant.

I had my car fixed a while ago (which I was at etech, actually), but hadn't taken a picture of it yet.

"Because my husband is so anal, and reports every score of every game in every competition we're in, we're the only team with enough scores to qualify for a ranking."

Kris wrote that part.

I would have written merely, "We're number one! We're number one! We're the only one, but we're still number one!"

When Kris and I first moved into our house, we were excited! Kris was a first-time home owner, I finally (finally!) had my house, how could we not be excited?

One week later one toliet was fountaining sewage, the tub followed suit by turning into a sewage swamp, and Kris was asking me what the hell I had gotten him in to.

Several years later, after we had built up some equity, the housing market went boom! and we received a nice tax return because of the mortgage interest, he realized that hey, okay, maybe this house thing isn't so bad after all.

But with the joys of home ownership ("Hey! I can paint the walls any color I want!") come the not-so-joys of home ownership ("Oh. Yeah, it's my fault the office is still decorated ala previous owner 60s style"), and we decided we're done having the ugliest yard on the block. Of course, using the yard as a landmark with driving directions makes them memorable: "Turn right, it's the street before the light, and drive until you see the ugliest yard on the block. We're on the right."

Before we spent lots of money on the landscaping, though, I thought it prudent to replace the sewer line under the front yard. The sewage fountain was, we were told, from the sewer line backing up into our house. When the house was built, the sewer line, we were told from by city employees, was made of tar paper. Over time, the weight and moisture of the soil squished the pipe, reducing the flow. We should replace the pipe. I asked for a name recommendation, received one, and stuck it up on the fridge, where it sat for 4+ years.

So, to do the landscaping, we need to replace the sewer line, so we did last weekend, which was pretty much the only day in the last six weeks when it could have been done because of the rain. Gene Beres replaced the sewer pipe, which was actually an asbestos pipe and not a tar paper one, as well as the water main, because it broke when they were digging up the sewer line. I was a little miffed that we replaced a line that didn't technically need replacing (it wasn't squished, the previous parkway tree's roots had grown into the sewer main at the junction of our sewer pipe), and a little concerned about the new water main (the replacement, we're told, is copper), but I feel better about growing edibles in the front yard since the asbestos pipe is no longer there.

Kris and I were out of town when the pipes went in, so we have no pictures of the machinery that growled in our front yard. But we do have one of the aftermath:

Yesterday, an ultimate player died at the fields.

Rumour has it, Ana Hammond had a heart arrythmia, and related to such, had a seizure on the fields yesterday. Players were unable to resusitate her, and she died. I don't know if she died on the sidelines or on the way to the hospital.

Ana was the third recent death of someone nominally in my life, someone I know at least peripherally. Gloria Henja died a few weeks, jumping from an over-freeway walkway into oncoming traffic, to escape the crushing torment of an ex-husband. Karen has been gone less than two years, but I think of her so very often.

Each death reminds me of mine, reminds me that, yes, my time here is limited; that I don't know what's next; that this isn't quite how I expected things to turn out (even though things are pretty good); that, no, I'm not going to accomplish so many of the ideas, hopes and dreams I've had.

Each death makes me rethink what's important, but so much I used to think was important really isn't and truly never was.

But I need to be careful. It's a fine line between deciding what's important and losing all hope.

Without a mountain to climb, life would be difficult, so hard to endure. Without a goal, more than just waking up in the morning, it's very, very hard.

God speed to the departed souls.

First day at the Davis Ultimate Invitational (DUI), and we had far, far too many players on our roster. Since last weekend was rained out, we needed to use DUI to run the tryouts through hard games, and so had lots of people. Since everyone pretty much knows how I play, I didn't go in on Saturday. As in, I didn't play a point on Saturday. There didn't seem any reason to go in: we won our games 15-0, 15-2, 15-5, 15-6.

Entertainingly enough, Paul managed to lose every part of the flip for the first game. When the disc is flipped, the two captains usually choose for shirt color, starting offense/defense, and which endzone to defend first (with a mirror at half for endzone and switch of offense/defense). Before the flip, we had already agreed with the opponent's captain we'd wear red. So, Paul flips, calls same (meaning, both discs thrown will land with the same side up), and loses the flip as one disc lands top up, the other bottom up.

The captain of the opponent team says "We'll receive," at which point Paul responds, "We'll go red." As we had already decided on jersey color, Paul's choice was irrelevant. I was watching the whole incident, and immediately piped up, "Paul! You just lost the entire flip! We're already red!"

Normally, the opposing captain would have said the same thing, then allowed us to choose sides, but I thought the story would be better if Paul lost it all, and continued, "Now they can choose sides!"

The other captain clued in quickly. She smiled at me, chuckled, then said, "We'll take that endzone."

I wandered over to the team huddle, lamenting that Paul lost the whole flip, and he was summarily banned from ever flipping for us again.