Post by chicagosandy on Dec 28, 2015 14:53:47 GMT -5
Over on the AGF, we were reminiscing about members who have left this world, but also about those who still walk among us but don’t post. I was delighted to find out the Wharf still exists. On the off chance that someone’s reading this, let me fill you in on what’s happened since last I dropped by:
I can finally honestly call myself an “award-winning songwriter:” I was named 2013 Songwriter of the Year by Songsalive.org. (Had nominations in the JustPlainFolks awards but never won). My last band, SASS!, broke up in 2009 and I am still with Andina & Rich, though Stephen Lee Rich & I are touring together less widely and often these days. He’s doing a lot of solo stuff, mostlu senior centers. I’ve had to cut way back due to personal considerations (travel & health). We released our CD Two Guitars, a Dulcimer and an Attitude in 2011 and our holiday EP Merry Humbug last year; we’re putting the finishing touches on our next, Chasing Lightning, due out this spring. My next solo project, Candy Apple Red Herring, is about half done--but being more and more persnickety these days I want to re-record some of the vocals. Was planning to go down to our engineer in Sparta, IL last May to take care of the latter two discs, but fate intervened.
On May 8 my husband Bob went in for a routine colonoscopy and came out with a perforated bowel. Three admissions later, they took out a foot of his colon. (Fortunately, that was where both the polyps and diverticular disease were, and he didn’t need an ostomy). As soon as he healed from that, his hernia became incarcerated and he had to have emergency surgery to repair it. In April, we had booked a Mediterranean cruise for the week before Christmas. We knew we needed it because of all that had happened, but worried because upon discharge from the colon surgery, his CT scan revealed a 2cm lung lesion, which had to be followed up in November.
Then on Aug. 17 I had my annual screening mammogram. The next morning I got an e-mail in my health system patient portal informing me I had a “focal asymmetry” on the right, not present in the previous two mammograms. I got a call later that afternoon to schedule a diagnostic mammo and ultrasound if necessary, Well, the ultrasound turned out to be necessary. Upon my return from a music law conference & gig in New Orleans, a senior show in PA and a local folk festival, I had a biopsy. The next night, Sep. 9, I got my diagnosis: invasive ductal carcinoma. Made an appt. with a good surgeon, and she staged the tumor tentitavely as 1A. I told her about our plans for the cruise, and she agreed to get me in for a lumpectomy at her next available date (Sep. 23) so that I could finish my radiation in time to recover and set sail. Fortunately, the surgical path report confirmed it was Stage 1A, hadn’t spread to the lymph nodes, and the surgeon got clear margins. The oncologist had a sample sent off for genetic assay, which determined chemo would not have worked (at least not well enough to outweigh the risks). Luckily, because of the tumor’s siize, type, and location--as well as my advancing age--I was a candidate for a shorter, more intense protocol of radiation just to the tumor cavity. I finished radiation a month ago, and last Tuesday we returned from our cruise, which was wonderful (Bob’s lung lesion had disappeared, BTW). Starting Friday on an anti-estrogen medication to keep any residual tumor cells at bay for at least the next 5 years, and if the side effects are tolerable I will be resuming performing in Feb., traveling to London, Paris & Lausanne in late March for a CLE trip (still keeping my law license though the cancer made me bow out of the Bar Show this year); and Bob & I will return to Italy in July to visit Rome & Florence, with three lazy days in a Tuscan resort in between. And another thing I go on this Friday will be Medicare.
Guitar-wise, my last acquisition was a hand-built Gramann Rappahannock OM in Engelmann spruce and fustic, made by Bob Gramann in Fredericksburg, VA. But most of the time, I’m playing my 1980 Martin M-36, which was the first good guitar I ever bought.
I can finally honestly call myself an “award-winning songwriter:” I was named 2013 Songwriter of the Year by Songsalive.org. (Had nominations in the JustPlainFolks awards but never won). My last band, SASS!, broke up in 2009 and I am still with Andina & Rich, though Stephen Lee Rich & I are touring together less widely and often these days. He’s doing a lot of solo stuff, mostlu senior centers. I’ve had to cut way back due to personal considerations (travel & health). We released our CD Two Guitars, a Dulcimer and an Attitude in 2011 and our holiday EP Merry Humbug last year; we’re putting the finishing touches on our next, Chasing Lightning, due out this spring. My next solo project, Candy Apple Red Herring, is about half done--but being more and more persnickety these days I want to re-record some of the vocals. Was planning to go down to our engineer in Sparta, IL last May to take care of the latter two discs, but fate intervened.
On May 8 my husband Bob went in for a routine colonoscopy and came out with a perforated bowel. Three admissions later, they took out a foot of his colon. (Fortunately, that was where both the polyps and diverticular disease were, and he didn’t need an ostomy). As soon as he healed from that, his hernia became incarcerated and he had to have emergency surgery to repair it. In April, we had booked a Mediterranean cruise for the week before Christmas. We knew we needed it because of all that had happened, but worried because upon discharge from the colon surgery, his CT scan revealed a 2cm lung lesion, which had to be followed up in November.
Then on Aug. 17 I had my annual screening mammogram. The next morning I got an e-mail in my health system patient portal informing me I had a “focal asymmetry” on the right, not present in the previous two mammograms. I got a call later that afternoon to schedule a diagnostic mammo and ultrasound if necessary, Well, the ultrasound turned out to be necessary. Upon my return from a music law conference & gig in New Orleans, a senior show in PA and a local folk festival, I had a biopsy. The next night, Sep. 9, I got my diagnosis: invasive ductal carcinoma. Made an appt. with a good surgeon, and she staged the tumor tentitavely as 1A. I told her about our plans for the cruise, and she agreed to get me in for a lumpectomy at her next available date (Sep. 23) so that I could finish my radiation in time to recover and set sail. Fortunately, the surgical path report confirmed it was Stage 1A, hadn’t spread to the lymph nodes, and the surgeon got clear margins. The oncologist had a sample sent off for genetic assay, which determined chemo would not have worked (at least not well enough to outweigh the risks). Luckily, because of the tumor’s siize, type, and location--as well as my advancing age--I was a candidate for a shorter, more intense protocol of radiation just to the tumor cavity. I finished radiation a month ago, and last Tuesday we returned from our cruise, which was wonderful (Bob’s lung lesion had disappeared, BTW). Starting Friday on an anti-estrogen medication to keep any residual tumor cells at bay for at least the next 5 years, and if the side effects are tolerable I will be resuming performing in Feb., traveling to London, Paris & Lausanne in late March for a CLE trip (still keeping my law license though the cancer made me bow out of the Bar Show this year); and Bob & I will return to Italy in July to visit Rome & Florence, with three lazy days in a Tuscan resort in between. And another thing I go on this Friday will be Medicare.
Guitar-wise, my last acquisition was a hand-built Gramann Rappahannock OM in Engelmann spruce and fustic, made by Bob Gramann in Fredericksburg, VA. But most of the time, I’m playing my 1980 Martin M-36, which was the first good guitar I ever bought.
