Things I've Seen

Dispatch from Nicaragua

My friend M has been in the arduous process of adopting (now) 2-year old Gabriella from Nicaragua since the child was an infant. Last week, friends got this email recounting a part of her husband Jon's most recent journey there in attempts to move the process along.  He is traveling with M's brother Danny and Danny's wife Maria, who is a native Nicaraguan. (Names have been changed.)

Everybody slept really well the first night there. It cooled down enough that they were very comfortable, and even needed a sheet -- except Gabriella who refuses to have anything covering her when she sleeps.   :)

Jon and Gabriella slept until 8 a.m. and Danny and Maria slept until 10:00. They had breakfast and hit the road running. Thank goodness that Hema cooked them a nice breakfast, because they hadn't had another meal yet when I talked to Jon at dinner time. They never did get dinner their first night there -- they stopped to see Maria's friend at 8 .p.m. (10:00 our time) and ended up talking so long the restaurants were closed when they left.

They spent the day, for the most part, in doctors offices in Masaya.

Gabriella had a cold, which (her mother's) doctor thought had moved into pneumonia in the last couple of weeks. Maria and Jon took her to see a pediatrician that a friend recommended, and it turns out that she has a bronchial infection. So they got meds for her for that and then were referred to an opthamalogist because the ped had a concern about her eyes.

So then they went to the eye doc, who performed an eye exam and said everything seems ok. She's not cross-eyed -- which is what the ped was concerned about -- but has a bit more skin on one side of her nose than the other. So it creates a bit of an optical illusion that makes one eye look a bit crossed. They said as she grows and her nose gets bigger that should balance out. OMG -- WHO CARES!!!!!!  But I'm happy that they raised a flag when they were concerned about something.

The bigger issue that the pediatrician had is that he thinks that the injury on Gabriella's foot that's causing her to walk funny is the result of abuse. Sigh. She showed us her foot a few weeks ago, and it was supposedly a bug bite, or something. Apparently it's not actually getting better (which is what we were told), but is now causing her sufficient discomfort that she is favoring it and walking funny.

The doc thinks that it might be a burn or a cut. Perhaps a repeating injury. From what Jon told me, the doctor strongly recommended that Gabriella not be returned to (her mother's) care. I'm not thinking about it, because it's just too unfathomable right now. Total denial, I know, but right now I'm ok with denial.

Gabriella a bit taller, but is not gaining weight. She's 23 pounds, and the doc thinks she may be undernourished.

Their appointment at the Ministry of Families for (the mother)  to sign the paperwork IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!! It was scheduled for 9:30 this morning (11:30 our time).

Jon's doing ok. Gabriella seems happy, and is thrilled to see Danny.

More tomorrow!

Commencement

I would not have gone to commencement at all if not for the fact that I hired a photographer who was not familiar with Davenport University. So I thought I'd better attend so I could make sure he got the right people in the right shots.

It was billed the "first one-Du commencement ceremony," in other words it's the first time that grads from all of our 21 locations converged in one place for a single commencement ceremony.

Thirteen hundred grads walked, receiving master's, bachelor's and associates  degrees, plus diplomas. We also conferred two honorary doctorate degrees during the ceremony.

We took a chance by not setting a limit on tickets, and nearly filled the 8,000+-seat Van Andel Arena. But all came off without a hitch, and what I feared could be a long hard day-into-night turned out to be a wonderful afternoon to mark this very special occasion for the grads and their families.

Special kudos to the commencement team who put this grand, gargantuan event together, especially Director of Records Robin Kauffman, who (I believe) took on most of the logistics and planning, and to VP for Academic Services Dave Fleming, who accomplished the task of reading out all those names (impressively correctly!) with humor and flair.

Looking forward to next year when we'll graduate the first class to start as freshmen at the new main campus in Grand Rapids. And good luck and good life to all of you new grads of DU!

Photos:

Top: Waiting for Mom to emerge from the arena after the ceremonies. Center: School of Technology baccalaureate candidates wait to line up for the processional. Bottom: The web team's intern this semester, Jamie Intveld, who earned a BAS in Computer Information Systems - Web Design Specialty. We'll miss you, Jamie!

-Cross-posted at Davenblogger

Happy Earth Day

- Via Twitter

I don't follow this person - just got notice tonight that she's following me, so I checked out her Twitter page.  I'm sure she's earnest, and I shouldn't laugh. But this strikes me as funny. You too?

Paybacks are yum

I let Drew and Michele use my car while I was in Chicago for a couple of days. They don't have one and it can be difficult to get your friends to drag you around to where you need to be all the time.

They used the car time to get a few things done - they shopped for summer clothes, bought and hung curtains in the apartment, went out to dinner, got a manicure (well, Michele did anyhow), and just generally were "independent" for a little while.

So last night to return the favor, they came over with all the fixings to grill some fat ol' burgers on the grill - the first of summer. Mmmmm were they good.

They still have my car though. Hmmm. Maybe we'll get a taste of Michele's famous chicken Florentine later in the week?

Celebrate

Clay's birthday is April 1. And this year it was one of those "big ones." I made a reservation to spend last night at the new J.W. Marriott - just to do something a little special. We had dinner at Six-One-Six in the hotel.

So just as we were getting ready to leave home last night I got a text message from Drew and Michele: "We're lonely."

What could I do but invite them to dinner with us? Good times, great dinner: a bottle of wine signed by the winemaker, a sushi appetizer (I finally got my husband to try sushi!), baby spinach salad, scallops with a creamy risotto, the house specialty hand-rubbed steak cooked to perfection, after-dinner coffee. And the special birthday greeting above.

>>>

Our room was on the 16th floor of the hotel. I requested "river view," and it was a great view in spite of the cold, rain and clouds. Everything there is first rate (there are only 6 of these hotels in the world, afterall). Very fitting for a birthday - whether it's a "big one" or otherwise. (Click to see larger photos.)

The Van Andel Museum from the 16th floor of the hotel

Another view from our window

 

Room 1617 at the J.W. Marriott

 

Lighting overhead at Six-One-Six

 

Looking down into the lounge from the 3rd floor

 

Well, yeah, it's the restroom in the restaurant

 

Lily centerpiece

Did I mention I got a car?

Picking up my new car at the Meijer headquarters. I bought it sight-unseen after my friend's employee husband won the bid on two cars - he only wanted one.

You'd think I was 16 years old. But with all the car trouble we've had over the last 12 months (oh - and one more car - the "ugly van" - was lost since those three met their tragic fates), you can hardly fault me for being a little giddy at the prospect of having a car to myself that's reliable and isn't full of dings, dents and rust.

It's only a 2001 Chevy Malibu with 98,000 miles  - but it has brand new tires, no rust or body damage and it's CLEAN INSIDE! It was a fleet car for Meijer Stores, so I know it's been well-maintained. And honestly - it's the first car that's been "mine" since the '76 Dodge Aspen SE that I bought with the promise of my first teaching job out of college (which I loved, but way overpaid for). So like I said, you can hardly fault me ...

Nobody here

Wow. Has my traffic gone down over the past year.  I guess I don't wonder why.

To get readers, a blog needs content - regular updates, too. But I've been busy on Facebook and Twitter and just generally anything that keeps me from paying attention to -  caring for and feeding - this blog. Will I fix it, especially now (great timing!) that I've added AdSense, which, of course is earning exactly $0.00? Well, that's the question now, isn't it.

Update: April has brought me about a buck and a half in AdSense earnings. Woo!

What it isn't

You can see the yellowing bruise caused by the biopsy needle - just edging into the shadow.

Almost two years ago Kellie, my physician's assistant at the OBGYN, felt something on my thyroid. She told me to have my primary care doc check it out, which he did. But he said he felt nothing. Last year Kellie felt something again and ordered blood work. Nothing. This year, the "nodule" had become noticeably bigger. "Yep," she said. "We need to check that out. I don't usually overstep the bounds of the primary care doctor, but in this case I'm going to."

She set me up for blood work and referred me to an endocrinologist. When the blood work came back normal again, she called and said she wanted to do an ultrasound. But by that time the endocrinologist's office had called and I had an appointment in a few days (Kellie said it could take months to get in.) My appointment was last Monday.

Dr. K, the endocrinologist didn't feel a nodule at first, but did feel quite an enlargement on my thyroid. When I laid back and extended my neck, however, he did feel it - about 2 cm by 2 cm according to his measurements.  "I want to do a biopsy on this now," he said, and explained to me what that would involve.

Biopsy. Isn't that  more of a surgical procedure? Iwondered. Don't they have to put you under for that? Slice into you?  At the very least I'd have to be lying on a gurney in one of those backless gowns, freezing cold, waiting for ... something. Right?

"Is that to check for malignancy?" is what I actually said.  Dr. K explained that the procedure was simple. (The needle is smaller than the kind used in a blood draw, he reassured.) And that it was done to find out just exactly what is going on with the nodule. Most nodules are nothing to worry about, he assured me. Fewer than 10 percent are malignant.

So OK, but still - right here, in the examination room - wearing my jacket and blouse and pants - even my shoes?

It really was nothing much - four long pokes of a single thin needle. Lots of noisy scraping on what must have been 25 glass slides. An assistant standing by dabbing at whatever blood flowed at the needle's piercing. One of those little round adhesive bandages covering  all four needle entries. Fifteen minutes lying quietly afterward - to ward off any residual wooziness.

Then I went back to work.

Over these five days, I've turned the idea over and over in my mind in every way. I could have cancer.  What if this is cancer? How would I weather treatment for cancer? How long would I be off work if I had cancer? How might my relationships change with those around me - if I had cancer? What would change in my life - and theirs - if it turned out that I had ... cancer?

Honestly, even though the thoughts and questions ran through my head all week, I don't think I ever really, seriously entertained the idea and all the accompanying what-ifs. I mean to say that I wasn't really, truly fearful of a cancer diagnosis. Maybe I was naive. Or hopeful. Or taking at face value what the doc had told me and the little bit of reading I'd done on WebMD. Thyroid cancer is pretty rare. And when it is diagnosed, survival rate is high.

Today I got the call. "Your biopsy results are normal," the nurse, Liz, told me. "Oh, thank you," I said, relieved,  grateful. "Just keep your appointment in six months," she said. "So we can keep an eye on things."

"I don't have cancer," I IM'd a friend of mine after I got off the phone. "Yay," came the answer. Neither of us ever really thought I did.   But it did give pause these past few days.