NaNoWriMo 2008

Another November, another novel!

I've decided to jump back onto the novel-writing wagon and have signed up for National Novel Writing Month again. However this year I have signed up to be the Municipal Liaison for Saskatoon and area, which means that I am organizing things like coffee get-togethers, write-ins at the public library, and parties to kick-off and celebrate the completion of NaNoWriMo. I'm hoping that this will provide the following benefits:

1. It will create increased incentive to fight through and finish the novel.
2. Having more to do will make me more productive in my leisure time.

If you would like to see how I'm doing you can come back to this post.

This is my current wordcount:



Saskatchewan has also challenged a couple of other regions in our annual... challenge against other regions called the Incredible International Challenge. This year we're competing against our annual nemesis, Montana, and a new one, Edinburgh. However, we've tried to lead them on to thinking they're each teaming up with us against the other one. This way we're guaranteed to win!

Soon Melbourne, Australia found out about our plan and declared war on us. Then their nemesis Nashville, Tenn. jumped to support us! It's like a World Word War! Here's the overall wordcount for these regions so far (SK, MT, Edinburgh, Melbourne, Nashville):





During the Incredible International Challenge participating regions will contend for these awards:

• The"We Are The Champions" Award goes to the region with the most winners.

• The "We Are Also The Champions" Award goes to the region with the highest percentage of winners (take the number of winners and divide by the number of people who signed up and posted a word count).

• The "Carpal Tunnel Award" goes to the region that writes the most words in total.

• The "Loquacious Grandeur Award" goes to the region with the highest average number of words written (take the total words written and divide by the number of people who signed up and posted a word count).

• The "Everybody Gets An Award" Award goes to any region who has not already won an award. In the spirit of Nanowrimo, every region who participates will be a winner!

To help raise money for NaNoWriMo I'd like to ask people to use GoodSearch for their websearches in November, and choose to support the Office of Letters and Light (which organizes NaNoWriMo). Every time someone searches through that Yahoo makes a small donation. If you would like to goad me on by making a donation, you can do so through my page on Firstgiving.

All in all it's looking to be another fun NaNo!

The Outlook GPS Scavenger Hunt

Next weekend I will be hosting a scavenger hunt here in Outlook for fellow geocaching enthusiasts. It will involve teams of 2-5 participants with no more than 1 vehicle, at least one GPS receiver, and at least one digital camera. Teams will receive a list of items they need to find, mark coordinates on their GPS receiver, and take a picture of someone from their team near the location. I'm hoping people will have fun with this! It's a little challenging, because everyone will be from out of town. I've chosen some relatively easy items and some pretty challenging items for people to find. Afterwards we'll be meeting at CJ's Java Joint to eat, hang out, hand out prizes, and drool over the cool old map they have hanging in there!



Special thanks to the sponsors for supplying prizes:



www.gpscity.ca

www.gpscentral.ca






www.landsharkz.ca






www.cacherstoybox.ca







www.worldcaching.com



Northbound Trading Company

Fibroid update

Last week I had my first hormone shot. I jump when I get shots unless I am able to watch it pierce the skin, so I was happy to receive it in the arm! I haven't noticed any crazy menopause-like symptoms, but I have noticed that my fibroid feels less hard and isn't tender anymore. In fact, a stretch that I have found uncomfortable to do for the last couple of years causes me no discomfort at all now! I didn't expect that to happen until I felt the fibroid shrink quite a bit! I can't quite tell if it has shrunk at all yet, but I think it might have a little bit.

Fun with Fibroids!

Okay, well, they're not really that fun, but I couldn't think of a good title for this entry...

So anyway, I've known for about 8 years that I had a fibroid. I had volunteered to be in a research study looking at follicular development in the ovaries at the time. On the first visit they did an ultrasound of my uterus and found a 3 cm fibroid. Fibroids are non-cancerous tumours that evolved from the muscle of the uterus. I ended up being excluded from the study for another reason, and attempted to go for follow-up like the head researcher had recommended. Got shrugged off by the gynecologist at the appointment (it's a little more complicated than that, but don't want to go into the details).

In the next couple of years I took a pathology class and found out that a large fibroid is 1 cm and larger.

A few years later my doctor retired and I got a new doctor. When I asked her if I should be having any follow-up about the fibroid, she didn't think so. In spring 2006 I started being able to sometimes feel a small mass about halfway between my navel and 'down there.' I was wondering if was my uterus, bladder, or what. In May I had my annual check-up and mentioned it to my GP, but she didn't examine it (must not have brought it up the right way).

It continued to grow. By spring 2007 the mass was feeling pretty big, so I mentioned it to my GP at my annual check up again. This time she examined my abdomen and sent me off for an ultrasound. Results: a 7cm fibroid. When I went back for follow-up she told me how big it was and asked me if I wanted surgery. No discussion about my symptoms, possible consequences or anything! I'm sure I looked confused - I mean, what the heck was I supposed to be basing that sort of decision on? Anyway, she ended up giving me a referral for a gynecologist. I saw him in August and he examined me and we discussed different options and possible scenarios about surgery and its consequences. He said I'd need to get an MRI before any sort of surgery would be undertaken. And so I waited for that. The Saskatoon Health Region's website said it was about a 2-3 month wait for MRIs. That should have meant about October or November. And I waited...

Finally, the MRI happened towards the end of April. About a month later I called the gynecologist's office since I hadn't heard any results. I ended up getting in to see him again a few days after that. At the time of the MRI the large fibroid that I can feel was 10.2 x 9.3 x 6.8 cm... which turns out to occupy a 645 ml volume! That would be about the same length as a baby at 13 weeks. ...And would also explain why I feel so huge all the time. I can't breathe very well when I bend down to put on my shoes. I'm pretty lucky with the location of this fibroid. It's on the outside of my uterus, so hopefully not too much normal uterine muscle will be damaged during the surgery.

So now the next phase is preparing for the surgery. Once I find out if my medical coverage has kicked in at work I will go out and purchase my first monthly Trelstar shot - a hormone which after the first couple weeks will induce temporary menopause. This will decrease the amount of estrogen I have in my body and should shrink the fibroid to about half its current size. This will decrease the invasiveness of the surgery I need to remove the fibroid. I should be getting this just three times, then have my surgery afterwards.

So overall it looks like I'll get to 'enjoy' fake menopause over the summer, have surgery in the fall and have a little recovery time after that. I'm not sure how it compares to something like a hysterectomy where you are unable to lift anything greater than 10 lbs for 6 weeks. I'll have to learn what sort of activity limitations will be imposed... then I guess I'll be off of work (unless I specialize in hand therapy for a few weeks!).

So yeah, that's the big thing in my life right now...