Sheesh. 5+ months with no entries, after one about a possible medical problem. That's smooth.

To wrap that up and set the record straight, the OB/Gyn had me see an OB/Gyn radiologist for yet another ultrasound; they determined that the echogenic spots were indeed my essure. They just looked like they were inside the uterus; they're where they're supposed to be. The soft mass was a pedunculated (sp?) fibroid. The doc is convinced there's nothing at all actually wrong. He thinks the lengthy bleeding was a result of the prior ablation. It hasn't happened a third time, but if it does, he's willing to have me:

1)take bc pills
2)get another ablation or
3)get a hysterectomy

I think if it does keep happening regularly, I'll probably repeat the ablation.

In more recent news, my birthday was Monday. My parents called a few hours ago, thinking they were one day late (mom copied it into the calendar wrong, somehow). They were apologetic, and it really is OK with me. I know that mom's the one who has *always* remembered these kinds of things. Always. Dad has never had to think of this stuff. But now, he does, because mom just plain can not be relied upon. He's still not used to having to keep track of this kind of thing. I understand how hard it is for him, so it really is OK. On the upside, this year my sister remembered. She had amazon send me the complete far side collection. 20 pounds of funny comics! So incredibly awesome. I've read 2 years worth so far. Love it.

In even more recent news, Tom's DMAT team (OR-2) is going to American Samoa to help with the tsunami recovery. He's not slated to go, partly because he's so far away and they're taking a charter plane out of Portland at 4am tomorrow morning, and partly because his research lead wants him to get to a better stopping point before leaving for 2 weeks. He's a little bummed. This year is his only real chance until he's an attending to be able to deploy. He did throw his hat in the ring as a backup; if they need relief teams in 2 weeks, he might be able to go with another team, if the relief team is short of communications people (which is actually pretty common). We'll see. I know he'd love to go, and wanted him to be able to, but the timing really would have been bad; his parents are visiting for several days next week, on their way back to Missouri from Germany. I love them dearly, but I can't take vacation time, and really really don't want to have to entertain them on my own if it can be avoided.

I've blathered on too much already. Need to eat lunch and get back to work.