" you certainly usually find something if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after. " a quote from the hobbit, by j.r.r. tolkein

generally i love the month of august. i get to celebrate my birthday near the end of august, and i am still enough of a child to delight in the celebration of my birth. this year however, while i enjoyed my birthday very much- thanks to my family, especially my grandchildren, all three of my six month cancer check ups became due in the month of august.

at the first of august, i had my thyroid cancer checkup- ultrasound and blood work. everything was fine here- just some adjustment to my thyroid medication dose, which is always a slippery slope, as every thyroid patient, cancer or not, well knows.

towards the end of the month, i had my breast cancer check up- blood work and office visit. you may be wondering at this point if i have any blood left. my endocrinologist ordered 5 tubes taken, while my oncologist only needed two tubes. that left a little left over for me. my tests all came back fine, i suppose. my oncologist was on vacation, and i saw a nurse practitioner. not that i have anything against nurse practitioners, but this one was grumpy and needed a nap i think. i will be seeing my oncologist in february- along with everyone else now, i guess.

my third" six monther" ( i made up a  new word, spell check hates this) was with the dermatologist. i do not consider myself a skin cancer survivor, but i have had one basal cell removed from my face, and two squamous cell carcinomas removed from my leg, so i guess that technically i am a skin cancer survivor,too. not to insult skin cancer survivors- far from it.  basal cell generally does not cause too many problems, but squamous cell can be very aggressive, and people can die from this if it is not diagnosed early enough. i have mentioned the importance of wearing sunscreen in one of my earlier blogs. of course, the skin cancers most of us adults are seeing now were caused by the sun exposure that we received when we were children. you know, back in the day, when we put baby oil on our skin and baked our poor bodies in the sun for a few hours or so. of course, in my case, i did not tan- just freckle and burn. also, one of my college  roommates' dad was a plastic surgeon. my roommate told me that some of his best customers were those people who had had too much sun exposure. in fact, her family never went to the beach on vacation- they always went to the mountains. my roommate had very white skin when it was not fashionable. since i generally  learn by example, i stopped torturing my skin and tried not to get sunburned- at least not as much.

still, i was very surprised when my dermatologist had to take a biopsy of (what he thinks is ) another skin cancer on my face. of all of my six monthers i was not expecting to be concerned with my dermatology check up. i am not supposed to get the results for about two weeks. if it is not skin cancer, then i am done and no worries. if it is, then i am in for another mohs procedure on my face. hopefully that will be all that i will have to have done. i have had the mohs procedure for the basal cell on my face, so i know what to expect with that. not fun, but as my dermatologist told me: " well, what do you expect? you are a redhead in the south!"

i have one of those small circular band aids on my face, and apply some antibiotic ointment daily. i did not think that my grandchildren would notice it, but even my nearly two year old granddaughter said. " mimi, what happened to you?!!" i told her that i just had a boo-boo on my face. she was o.k. with that, but i had to go into further details with my grandsons. i could have said, well if you pick a fight with a dermatologist, you will not be the one to win, but i did not want to scare them. after all, they are" nearly redheads" in the south,too.

so now, somehow, i have all of my six monthers on the same schedule! i am not sure if that is a good thing, or a bad thing. i guess it is good that i can get them all over with and have a six month break. hopefully soon, they will all graduate to one yearers. sorry, spell check.