ying and yang

We’re so incredibly black humoured.  Jamie and I have been sitting on our collective hands (not literally – that would just be weird) doing nothing about his ass thing and about my head thing.  So today I took him to the doctor.  We went to the general doc ($28USD) who said, “hey you have a fatty mass deep in your ass.  You should have someone look at it.  Here’s the name of a doc.  Go see him.”  So we sat on the referral and did nothing as is our standard mode of inactivity.  Jamie would nag me about my ‘brain cancer’ and I’d nag him about his “ass cancer” and I’d tell him that if my brain cancer comes to fruition he really needs to remarry and I want him to figure out a wife to replace me.  So we figured that Deb (I don’t think she reads the blog anymore so I’m sure the secret will be safe to share with the internets) will be the the winner in the repalce-me-as-mom category, the only problem is that we’ll need to do away with Jeff (it won’t be too messy, I promise, but hey, I’ll be dead, so I wouldn’t bank on that promise).  Details, details.

So, I keep nagging him about ass cancer and how I’d much rather have brain cancer and even die than have ASS cancer – I mean, what a horribly embarrassing cancer to have, ASS CANCER?!!!??  And we finally got his ass to the doctor this morning.  This referral doc ($35USD) was a gastro doc who verified that the tumor is really not anywhere near the gastro devices (well, geez, *I* could have told him that) and that it is hard and fixed and since it waxes and wanes in size related to Jamie’s cycling, is probably cycling-induced and benign and maybe a fibrous tumor.  But we definitely need to get it checked out.  So he refers us to an orthopedist (which is who we should have gone to in the first place if we’d been thinking and all, but what with my brain cancer…) and tells us while we’re at it to get a pelvic x-ray and take that to the ortho.  He called the ortho and explained the whole situation and I left a message with the Ortho to get an appointment in the next couple days.  We hope.  So we’re on top of the ass cancer situation.  Except we really don’t expect ass cancer.  I mean, cancer is bad enough, but to say you have ASS cancer would REALLY suck.  If it were me, I’d just change it to something less laughable.  If you’re unfortunate enough to have cancer it would really suck to have people laugh at you when you told them what kind.  And ass cancer isn’t really something people are going to respect.  I told you our humour is dark.

While we were out doing our doctor tramites we decided to try and follow the very vague directions the receptionist gave me for the ENT referral and see if talking in person might give some insight into the exam and prices.  After the last doctor visit, I called the ENT I was referred to, was told the consult fee was $500MN (but depending on what he did it could be $500 or $700 but I really had no idea what made the difference).  They gave me vague directions to find the place – 5 blocks from Bodgea look to the left, something about 2 green houses, something maybe about Plaza Chihhuaha, something I obviously missed – and strangely enough we could NOT find the place!  I know!  Surprised me too!  So we stopped at Bodega and got some groceries and headed to Hospiten to see if they have an ENT and what they charge.  Their ENT is at a congresso (I’m guessing a convention or something) but they have an ENT coming down from Cancun on Tuesday and Thursday to cover.  Their charge is only $495MN and I took the bait.  The boys have a dentist appointment tomorrow so I’m sure we’ll be bleeding pesos really soon.

The vertigo is getting really really bad but I’m pretty sure it is bad-attitude vertigo and not brain cancer, though jamie has his money on brain cancer.  Considering that SSD would pay my dependents about $3000USD/month and I have a $300K USD life insurance policy on my head, he’s picked the winner.  I think it is time to knock-off the mommy.  I’m worth MUCH more dead than alive.

In other news, due to the Grito and my vertigo getting incredibly worse, all our routines pretty much fell apart.  I stopped tracking my food intake (but am hanging solidly at 79 kilos – didn’t check this morning – could be I’ve regained all 11 kilos overnight – you never know), stopped exercising (vertigo much worse towards the end of day and due to the heat, we always exercise at the end of the day), stopped reading to the kids, stopped all academics, and yesterday decided to start getting back on track.  Pikey, however, has been motoring right along, continuing with his math, copywork and reading.  I can’t tell you all how incredibly proud I am of that boy.  He learned to read around 10 (just didn’t put it together well until then) and then only read for information; never for pleasure.  I accepted that; I didn’t really like it as I really would have loved to share the joy of reading with him, but accepted that it was just different for him.  The last couple months, however, he has developed a joy of reading.  He picks out books and enjoys them.  I am so happy he has found this little world of reading good books – it just warms my heart.  And he continues to methodically work through his math, even when it is difficult, and strives to understand and master the concepts.  He’s not just going through the motions.  I am just so very very proud of him.

We do a Tuesday Tea Time each Tuesday (or Wednesday or Sunday – however it works out) and a Friday Freewrite (where the boys and I write for 10 minutes straight – no editing, no composing, a free-flow of words) for a few months now.  Last Friday (or whatever day it ended up that we did it) Jesse wrote some lovely prose about fireworks.  I’ll have to see if he’s interested in sharing, but it was so beautiful to see the writing come alive in him.

We’re still slogging through Japan and today I think we’re starting on Korea (but I’m not exactly sure).  I’m finalizing the plans for our stuides of the Ancient Cultures and can’t wait to begin and at the same time, wish I’d done a better job on World Cultures.  If nothing else, I’ll be able to do a better job with the girls on their 2nd go around.  I need to update the homeschool blog but that means I’d have to organize stuff on my end and that’s just not going to happen.