So here it is, the last day of September, which is Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month. Before everything turns pink tomorrow (and I do mean everything – I saw pink tortillas the other day), I feel the need to make my annual soapbox speech.
YOU GUYS. PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR OVARIES.
Did that work?
Okay, let me be a little more specific.
Here’s more.
I have an entirely different perspective on this than I did a year ago, when I wasn’t paying attention, conveniently ignoring “persistent pressure or pain in the pelvic region” I had waxed poetic about for years. Little did I know that my annual screening (which I didn’t get around to until it was nearly three months overdue) would show a cyst in my ovary and an elevation in my CA-125 level, results that led to a laparoscopic surgery the following day and, eventually, a complete hysterectomy.
The good news is, as you know, I didn’t have cancer, but it scared the living daylights out of me.
The other good news is that for the 200,000 women who are diagnosed with ovarian cancer each year, they are making progress.
So here are the takeaways.
Know your risk.
If you are at an increased risk, take precautionary methods and have an ultrasound and a CA-125 screening each year, and do what you can to decrease the risk.
You guys. It’s FALL. Like, officially, according to the calendar, not just according to white girls who loves scarves, boots, and OHMAHGAH PUMPKINSPAHHHHCCCEE!
Or so I’ve heard.
Little known fact about me: FALL is my favorite season. I love the weather, I love the boots, and scarves, and dangit if ORANGE isn’t my favorite color, I don’t know what is!! I freaking love ORANGE. I even like Pumpkins. I mean, they’re adorable fruits you can eat or decorate. Except I don’t actually like to eat them. But their seeds? I do love to eat some baked-up pumpkin seeds. What I don’t like? PUMPKIN SPICE. Pumpkin spice is the orange-colored, clove-scented, RUINATION OF FALL! I know you are all gasping in one accord and your heads are collectively SPINNING with rage on your scarf-clad necks, but please take a breath and maybe a huff of your pumpkin-scented Yankee candle and hear me out. I will explain. Once upon a time a few falls ago, I made the mistake of innocently posting on Facebook how much I hated “Pumpkin Spice” and had therefore never been a fan of pumpkin pie or that disgrace that’s come to coffee, the PSL. I say “mistake” because this resulted in an immediate torrent of pumpkin spice-related pictures, memes, comments, and tags on my Facebook timeline. This pumpkin torment has been going on for at least three years, I’d say. It’s KIND OF annoying. BUT!! But…today I’m here to say, the joke is on the jokers. By tormenting me with all things pumpkin spice on my timeline, you’ve given enough ammo to prove that this country has lost it’s damn mind over all things pumpkin spice to a REEDONKULOUS degree. Allow me to demonstrate:
Ummmm….no. YOUR CAT NOW HATES YOU EVEN MORE THAN IT ALREADY DID! Why would your force it to defecate in pumpkin spice-flavored litter? Way to go, Nestle, I just THREW UP IN MY MOUTH. I pity the kids that bite into a cookie made with these and think they are chocolate chip. Have fun paying for the years of therapy caused by THAT violation of trust, parents. Things in the United State of Pumpkin Spice have gotten SO very out of hand that my friend and loyal reader Allison, grocery shopping in sunny California, was compelled to make a lovely photo collage of the pumpkin parade at her local grocery. This is just the stuff on the END CAPS! God knows what other horrors are lurking in the aisles…
Seriously…Oreos? Milanos? Hostess cakes? WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO THESE DELICACIES??? It’s like junk food treason.
That’s right America, you have gone so COO-COO for Pumpkin Spice, I think that stuff must be laced with crack, or more likely, a mind-controlling drug invented by the purveyors of Pumpkin Spice, the Pumpkin Spice Kingpins if you will, to make you crave MOAR AND MOAR AND MOAR PUMPKIN SPICE. I know this is a joke, but I have no doubt that if it were real, people would actually be lining up at the corner drugstore to purchase this so they could squirt pumpkin spice up their hoo-has. (This is another gem from my FB timeline that a “friend” shared with me.)
And, in case you’re period just isn’t unpleasant enough ALREADY, have a pumpkin spice tampax! The warm scents of cinnamon and pumpkin will ALMOST make you forget your constant state of hormone-induced homicidal rage.
This is FUNNY BECAUSE THIS IS HOW CRAZY YOU PEOPLE ARE! You guys. Put down your Pumpkin Spice Latte, pick up a Salted Caramel Mocha, (because we ALL KNOW that CARAMEL is the REAL FLAVOR OF FALL), and umm…get a life. (And if you can’t control yourselves, please hide in secret with your pumpkin spice Oreos and do not sully my timeline with that blasphemy! )
It’s been quite a while since I’ve blogged about anything the ol’ braces. With having my insides removed and everything, that’s gotten lost in the fray.
But – good news – I am getting my braces off in exactly 20 days! Can you believe that? It seems like only yesterday my doctor told me my tongue was too big for my mouth.
The past year and a half has been, ahem, an interesting journey. First I had to wear this hideous retainer-like contraption for several months, then I became a metal mouth, but now there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
And you know what? This is totally crazy, but I can actually breathe better.
I mean, I had no idea I couldn’t breathe well before, seeing as how I have always had my tongue. But now that my mouth is big enough to fit that monstrosity, I understand how the human respiratory system is supposed to work. I don’t get out of breath at all the way I used to, and due to the aforementioned inside-removal, my cardiovascular activity level has been fairly limited since May… so it’s not that I’m in better shape. It’s that my airway is no longer blocked. I know how weird that must sound, because it feels weird. Every time I climb up stairs, I am surprised by how not winded I am.
Crazy.
So now that I am at the end of my braces journey (with the exception of the tooth-positioner and retainer I’ll have to wear at night for, like, ever), guess who is starting hers?
Yep. Kate is at the beginning of the same treatment plan I’ve undergone. She is currently wearing the retainer-like contraption, and let me tell you, she is whining way less than I did handling it like a champ. And just a few days after my braces are removed, she’ll get hers on. I was really hoping we could be twins for a while, but no such luck. She was really hoping for that too, trust me.
The orthodontist is loving us, though. I hope he enjoys the luxurious European vacation he can take courtesy of the Berry family. Seriously, my grandparents paid less for their first house than we have paid this dude in the past 18 months. Which brings me back to the title of this post… and now that I think about it, I’m not so sure not being able to breathe was a bad thing!
