Brittle

So we moved to wonderful Portland, Oregon, and I broke my finger at the Boston airport as we were leaving. With my purse strap! Hooray for the stewardesses and stewards of Continental who brought me endless cups of ice to stick my broken finger in. I worship Motrin like a god, because it kept me from making loud noises when I banged my finger on the tray (screw the upright and locked position). It also kept the many little kids on our aircraft from learning a whole new vocabulary of VERY bad words.

Turns out it's a benign bone tumor that made it break, so for a week I felt BRITTLE, like any bone in my body could break, without any warning. Felt so surreal, I've never really trusted my body to work well, but this is a little excessive. I felt like a collapsing building, in need of gut rehab. The codeine they gave me did not help the general weirdness. Nor did my husband unwillingly having to leave on two sequential business trips the day after the movers arrived. Eek--unpacking one handed in a new city where we know no one. Plus my husband is my best friend, so I was without best friend except by phone for two scary doctors' appointments. Hooray for all my Boston friends, at least one of which called me every day, plus my parents who did the same. And as always my husband, who is a cool cat, even when I felt very (unfairly) abandoned. He works hard for us, and misses me almost as much as our Tempurpedic bed when he is on the road. :) When he gets home, we'll both be happier.

Since my whole collapsing building period, I have seen many orthopedists, including an orthopedic oncologist at OHSU. It's very likely a benign one-off cartilage tumor called an enchondroma, which they will fix on Jan 5th by scooping it out and filling it with donor bone graft. (Cue Six Million Dollar Man theme music, we have the technology...) Then it will heal again, just like a nasty fracture. And the pathologist will carefully study it to make sure it really is benign. Which it is. And my bones feel a little more solid, though who knows about my brain. I miss our friends, and I almost cried when I got Samuel Kijima's Hanukkah baby picture. However, Portlanders are kind and friendly, and I will shortly land on my non-fractured feet. The city is full of books and weirdness in a way that I think will suit me very well, even if right now I desperately want to buy a house next door to one of our friends back in MA. However, I kid you not, I think the quality of life is better out here in Oregon--it really is beautiful. Hmmm, perhaps it's not just my finger that's fractured! :) We will thrive here.