Update – pretty slow last week. I spent most of my time on paid stuff. The big news is, a publisher I was considering for the detective book had an open call, so I put together a submission package (synopsis and first three chapters) and sent it out. I think they got it. The autoresponse email said, “Thank you for your interest” and discussed dates and general facts, but said nothing to confirm they’d received the thing. I sent a second copy just to make sure. I may be in, I may not. I won’t know until next year; that’s how long they said it’ll take to go through all the subs and make a decision. Which is fine with me, since all I have at the moment is a handwritten first draft and about a third of a typed second draft. But now I’m on a deadline. Whether I get chosen or not, whether I even made it in or not, makes no difference. By the end of the year I’d better have a finished product. Then I can decide if I want to wait for word or start querying agents and publishers. Or self-pub if I don’t hear back from anyone by the end of April 2025. I pretty much win no matter what.
My viewership still consists mostly of Hong Kong-based bots, though the Chinese contingent is growing rapidly. So have the views from the US; who knows, some of those may even be actual people. And my viewer from Switzerland is back. Hey, buddy! (waves) I’ve had a couple hits from Germany as well, and a big block of “Other,” which I suspect includes Russia. Well, we are coming up on a Presidential election. I did my bit at the primaries by writing in “Bozo the Clown” as my choice for Prez. No matter who wins in November, I’ll have been right.
And now, on a more serious note…
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This one’s mainly for the ladies, though you guys may want to stick around. If you have a significant other, it could concern you too. Two weeks ago I had my first follow-up to my hysterectomy. I have to do two of these a year for at least the next three years, to make sure they got all the cancer. So far, so good. The doctor told me I don’t need Pap tests any more since my uterus was removed. I haven’t bothered with Pap tests in years, so no loss there.
However, there was the matter of the cyst on my left ovary—the size of a grapefruit, so I was told—which, fortunately for me, turned out to be non-cancerous. Would that have turned up on a Pap smear? The doctor said no; Pap tests are only for uterine cancer. There are no preventive tests for fallopian/ovarian cancer.
I had to let that one sink in. Some form of pelvic cancer, possibly ovarian, killed my aunt almost 30 years ago. That’s all I could think of when I was diagnosed with the Big C. Pap tests only catch incipient cancer in the uterus. I’d been walking around with an ovarian cyst for who knows how long. I could have been getting Pap tests for years and it wouldn’t have saved my life had that cyst been malignant. Those tests don’t cover the ovaries. You need an ultrasound for that, which I was only given in the pre-tests before they did the D&C to check my bleeding womb. That’s when they spotted the cyst.
You’d think a growth of grapefruit proportions would have made itself known, wouldn’t you? That’s what I thought. But here’s the thing about the female body: that part of it is designed to expand because that’s where the babies grow. You get cancerous growths in the Easy Bake Oven and the Oven stretches to accommodate them. If you’re pre-menopausal, people will assume you’re pregnant. Or, because you’re a woman of any age, they’ll decide you’re just getting fat. Because there was no pain or bulging or discomfort of any kind, and me being sedentary to start with, that’s what I assumed. The pain, etc. hits when the cancer starts spreading beyond the reproductive parts, and by then it may be too late.
I was damn lucky. My cancer was a slow-growing sort, and my uterus warned me early on by trying to expel it, which is where the blood was coming from. The cyst only got found because they needed to examine the whole Easy Bake Oven to see what else was there. My aunt was clearly not that fortunate.
Ladies, I present this tale to you as a warning. If you’re getting regular Pap tests, see if your doctor will also perform an ultrasound, maybe every couple of years or so. Especially as you start aging and gaining weight becomes a fact of life. Yeah, it’ll cost extra and insurance may not cover it without good reason, but better safe than sorry. Or having to go through a hysterectomy and follow-up radiation/chemo. Or dead.
Sorry to be such a downer, but if this post helps even one woman, in Hong Kong or elsewhere, I’ll have done my good deed for the day. Who knows, I may have just helped save the life of my reader in Switzerland. That makes it all worthwhile. See you next week.
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