It Has Been a Day

Jim is very fair skinned, and develops a lot of growths that require freezing with liquid nitrogen.  Up until today, there have been two squamous cell carcinomas that required removal.  Today was number three, and was done via a Mohs procedure.  Basically, they excavate until they see clear margins with no cancer cells.   Thank the gods and goddesses there was only one excavation required, there is a lot of waiting on the part of the patient while they prepare the tissue sample and then look at it.  Worse, it was waiting in a small room, with other people, on terrible furniture, no air circulation and no HEPA filter.  We were masked, they weren't.  It was on the scalp.  Scalp wounds bleed like stuck pigs under the best of circumstances, but Jim is on blood thinners, so it bled a lot.  So, he's on house arrest for a few days to clot thoroughly and not ooze.  Next time, we're holding Plavix before doing one of these.  Please make a note of it.

This is Jim with a pressure bandage on his head.  I have decided to spare you all the picture of the later bleeding, even though it was impressive.

On the way home we saw this.  It's blurry, moving car and the phone could not decide where to focus.  The question is always, how do people get up enough speed to do this on busy streets with stop lights every block?  How does this happen?  This car is totaled.

Yesterday we rode from the house.  The weather was not all that inspiring, and so we did not load the bikes and drive them up to the ball fields.   This is the entrance to Christopher Columbus park, it's a nice looking tree.  Notice the cloud cover.

So, that's what we did today, it was exhausting.

RV Storage Bays and Random Photos

As you know, we're in Issaquah, which backs up to the Cascade Foothills.  It rains a fair amount here.  After a dry couple of months we got a toad strangling rain at the end of August, along with a lot of wind.  The storage bay on the forward driver's side slide had an INCH of water in it.  An INCH!  I didn't get any pictures of that event, unfortunately.  Using our wet/dry shop vac, we were able to get the water out, and then dried it out over a couple of days.
A few days later we had more rain, which wasn't as heavy.  However, we did take on more water.  Here is the front corner of the bay with water in it.

There was water coming up underneath the heavier items.

The whole bay was damp, and had to be unloaded and dried out again.

Here comes the weird stuff.  See those boxes?  The top of every single box is dry. 

Our trusty shop vac, full of water.

This is the top of the bays.  Dry - dust everywhere.  No evidence of water infiltration anywhere.

It is so weird.  Water appears on the bottom of the bays.  It's not dripping down from the top or the sides, they're totally dry.  I need someone to explain to me how this happens.

In other news, here are a few interesting things we've seen.  I took this in the parking garage of the surgeon's office.  This is a very informative sign.

We've been walking a lot (when it's not raining).  This is a morning glory.  It's the second most invasive plant in Washington, right after blackberry bushes.

This is one of the local bunnies.  They like to hang out by our back tires.  I saw on the news that Langley, a small town in Washington, is being over run by rabbits.  Apparently a few escaped from a county fair 10 or so years ago, and they have been fruitful and have multiplied.  Their tunnels are wreaking havoc with foundations and football fields. I was unaware of the fact that rabbits tunnel.

Jim had his second squamous cell carcinoma excised this morning.  We had to be there at 8:00 am, so we were up very early.  It's making the day very long, since we've been awake for so much of it.  We're having sort of a down day while he recovers from the stress of the scalpel.
Monday I see the surgeon again.  I believe it will be the unveiling of the ear drum.  I'm really hoping it will be the end of showering with a plastic cup over my ear.  Tuesday we're heading to Oregon to see Erik about the storage bay leak and some other stuff.  Of course, the RV knows it's going to Elite, so even though it's raining today, it's not leaking (yet).

Squamous Cells

Tuesday morning we were up and out early to take Don and Jaime to the airport.  They were flying to Miami to attend the annual meeting of the Americas-Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association.Their son, Elijah, is the outgoing society president.  He'll also be presenting a paper at the meeting.
As we were leaving the airport we saw this.  These riders are from the Air Force Academy.  They come out in the spring to ride the hills and train.  We've seen them before on Gates Pass.

We spent yesterday running errands.  There was a trip to Camping World, Target, Trader Joes and Costco.  There was much time spent in the truck driving driving driving.  We had planned to do a hard ride today, but noooo.  A late afternoon phone call from the dermatologist changed those plans.
We were at the dermatologist's office early this morning.  Jim's little bump on the arm turned out to be a squamous cell carcinoma.  Here he is receiving mass quantities of local anesthesia.

The treatment is to scrape the site and then burn, also known as curettage and electrodesiccation.  It was a new little cancer, it popped up about 4 weeks ago. Larger carcinomas can require surgical removal, but since Jim's was so young and tender it was amenable to this process.  Here we are scraping away tissue.

This is the electrodesiccator.  It is emitting low-power high-frequency high-voltage AC electrical pulses, via an electrode mounted on a hand piece.  You can see the the spark at the end of the tip, burning away Jim's flesh.  Ewwwww!

The dermo-dude did three scrapes and three burns.  It went quickly.  After leaving the office we went home so Jim could rest.   Then we did laundry, defrosted the freezer, vacuumed the bus, noticed the vacuum cleaner was smelling really hot, cleaned out the the vacuum cleaner filter (which is a pain) and then went to the grocery store.  We're tired!