what nightmares are made of

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/27/baby-brain-tumor-teeth_n_4866624.html

holy crap!!  not ok!  not ok at all!!

By Rachael Rettner, Senior Writer
Published: 02/26/2014 05:07 PM EST on LiveScience
A 4-month-old infant in Maryland may be the first person to have had teeth form in his brain as a result of a specific type of rare brain tumor, according to a new report of the case.
The boy is doing well now that his tumor has been removed, and doctors say the case sheds light on how these rare tumors develop.
Doctors first suspected something might be wrong when the child's head appeared to be growing faster than is typical for children his age. A brain scan revealed a tumor containing structures that looked very similar to teeth normally found in the lower jaw.
The child underwent brain surgery to have the tumor removed, during which doctors found that the tumor contained several fully formed teeth, according to the report. [14 Oddest Medical Cases]
After an analysis of tumor tissue, doctors determined the child had a craniopharyngioma, (for those keeping score - this is the same tumor i had!!) a rare brain tumor that can grow to be larger than a golf ball, but does not spread.
Researchers had always suspected that these tumors form from the same cells involved in making teeth, but until now, doctors had never seen actual teeth in these tumors, said Dr. Narlin Beaty, a neurosurgeon at the University of Maryland Medical Center, who performed the boy's surgery along with his colleague, Dr. Edward Ahn, of Johns Hopkins Children's Center.
"It's not every day you see teeth in any type of tumor in the brain. In a craniopharyngioma, it's unheard of," Beaty said.
Craniopharyngiomas commonly contain calcium deposits, "but when we pulled out a full tooth...I think that’s something slightly different," Beaty told Live Science.
Teeth have been found in people's brains before, but only in tumors known as teratomas, which are unique among tumors because they contain all three of the tissue types found in an early-stage human embryo, Beaty said. In contrast, craniopharyngiomas have only one layer of tissue.
The boy's case provides more evidence that craniopharyngiomas do indeed develop from the cells that make teeth, Beaty said.
These tumors are most often diagnosed in children ages 5 to 14, and are rare in children younger than 2, according to the National Cancer Institute.
The boy is progressing well in his development, the researchers said. However, because craniopharyngiomas are tumors of the pituitary gland — a gland in the brain that releases many important hormones — they often cause hormone problems.
In the boy's case, the tumor destroyed the normal connections in the brain that would allow certain hormones to be released, Beaty said, so he will need to receive hormone treatments for the rest of his life to replace these hormones, Beaty said.
"He's doing extremely well, all things considered," Beaty said. "This was a big tumor right in the center of his brain. Before the modern surgical era this child would not have survived," Beaty said.
The teeth were sent to a pathologist for further study, Beaty said, and generally, these types of tissue samples are saved for many years in case more investigation is needed.
The report is published in the Feb. 27 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

carpe diem

 i went to NY for work at the end of january.  i haven't been to NYC in a long time, like i think maybe since 2009?  so I was kind of looking forward to it.  i was getting there on wednesday and then flying home on friday.  and i was doing some training with our NY team in between.  while i was there, NJ was getting ready to host the Super Bowl.  NY kind of hijacked the whole thing and pretended like the Super Bowl was happening there instead, but really it was in NJ.  regardless, the seahawks were going to play and seattle was going NUTs over it.  i had even fallen victim to the bandwagon and almost bought a 12th man jersey since we were celebrating our 12 year anniversary during all of the play off games.  i decided that was a little excessive, so instead i got a running shirt.
  so i was pretty excited when we got into NYC and saw things like the empire state building being lit up in seahawks colors and these crazy seahawks colored dunkin donuts.  i didn't get around to eating it, but i did enjoy my favorite blueberry cake donut!!

 on that first night there i got to see jen.  i love jen.  she is awesome.  she was tired, i was tired, we all felt like crap, so she obliged and took me to the pro shop happening at macy's and then we just had some dinner at the macy's cafe.  we both had THE saltiest potpies imaginable.  like, salt with a side of potpie.  gross, but we powered through it joking the whole time how we were going to be so puffy in the morning that our eyes would be swollen shut.

this is the entry to the office building.  i decided when i am a bazillionaire, that this is what my hallway will look like, complete with that statue.

they had these funny hollowed out football players all through time square.  you climb up inside of them and pretend like you are the football player.  they were totally sketchy and i swore it was going to fall down but it didn't  at least not with me in it.

we spent thursday evening in time square and managed to get ourselves on TV back in seattle.  i texted eric a few minutes before and told him to turn on channel 4 news at 6pm.  he responded right away asking what i did now.  sure enough, he and the kids got to watch my television debut as i did the robot directly behind the sports guy.  then the above photo was in the seattle PI newspaper. we were famous!  for like a second!  but really i was just loving the excitement of it all!

i didn't pull it

 like i said earlier, i was coming home on friday. however, when i got off the plane on wednesday night, i started thinking... one of the girls i was traveling with was staying the weekend with her sister and was going to the game.  when i got off the plan i texted allie, who had tried her darndest to help me get tickets to one of the playoff games in seattle, even tho she is in north carolina, asking her to help me see what it would take to get my return ticket changed to monday.  apparently it would take me like $500, so that was that.  i wasn't disappointed, it just wasn't meant to be.
until thursday when i wondered aloud if i might be able to use miles to get a return ticket.  sho 'nuffs there was one available!  i was quite surprised, but with eric's blessing,  i took it and canceled my original flight home.  then i told my boss i was staying and next thing you know i was now committed to going to the super bowl. except i didn't have a ticket yet.

this cat slept in my bed with me on friday night. 

 after work on friday i had to get to where it is that doug lives.  brooklyn i think?  he told me to take the subway and i said that was the most terrifying thing anyone had ever said to me.  but he gave me good directions and my co-worker liz got me headed in the right direction in the subway station and i was off to it.  i had a train change but doug was there when i got off the train and i made it all in one piece!  it wasn't scary at all.  i wasn't afraid of getting lost, just afraid of scary people.  doug said i would see people who seemed scary but really they aren't. i hung at dug's for a bit with him, his two kids and his lovely wife!  i hadnt seen doug in like 6 years maybe?  maybe 7?  i don't know.  it had been a really long time.  so it was fun to see him!  but then we piled into their car and drove to Liz's!  different liz than who helped me find my way on the train, but LIZ liz. i haven't ever been to her house, and although we tried to go see her when she lived in toronto in 2007, we never did. i knew that liz was pretty awesome, but everything about her place is amazing.  there are so many things to look at there, each one more amazing then the next.  i could have spent days just checking it all out.  alas, i did not have days, but she made us all an amazing dinner and we hung out and chatted and then despite grand plans for in the morning, we just hung out some more.  it was fab.
then i got on the subway to go to harlem.  yikes!  turns out that wasn't scary either!!

sirus showed his seahawk spirit with some art at school.

the tickets were purchased from a reseller on friday and picked up on saturday.  there was that ever present concern of "are they real?" super extravagant?  yes.  once in a life time opportunity? yes.  epitome of carpe diem? most definitely! 

saturday, aly, blair, raul and i went out to dinner.  we had to take the train i think.  there were lots of discussions as to why it was called a train and not a subway.  its a subway.  its not a train.  it goes above ground but it does not go choochoo.  we went to a pizza place and had some fancy pizza.  i went to use the bathroom.  the resaurant had a tiny one person bathroom.  i flushed and the water started to rise.  and rise.  and rise!  and then spill over the edges and onto the floor!  i panicked, fumbled with the lock and ran to host and told him what was going on!  then i went back to the table, told them the story and realized i had not washed my hands!!  luckily we were done with dinner, and i suggested we get outta there ASAP.
as we were walking, we came accross this banksy!  it is my 2nd banksy out in the wild! my first was in iceland and was not covered in protective plastic. 

but we eventually made it back to harlem.  i don't want to go into it too much, but let's just say there was a moment of sheer panic when we were packing up all of our stuff getting ready to make a run for it, but then all was well again in the world.  we narrowly escaped spending the night in the dorms at columbia, which would have been fun in its own way, but then we played candy crush for a while and all the girls squashed into one bed and passed out.
in the morning we went up towards columbia for bagels.  i had to ask raul if columbia was one of the ivy league schools.  i knew it was fancy, but i wasn't sure. but then a couple of these guys walked into the bagel place so i had to ask.

i did a google image search of "ivy league hair" but wasn't able to find what i was looking for, so i changed the search to "ivy league douche" and voila!! 

we started our trek across central park and saw this building.  i mistakenly told the young people that it was from Ghost Busters.  Gah!  How could i be so wrong!!

but we did walk right by this iconic television location and i made them all pose for a photo!

we made it to our destination - this bar.  i can't remember the name, but they were hosting a seattle based viewing party later in the day.  they have seattle sports viewing parties all the time i guess. so we stopped in and hung out with some other seahawks fans.  while we were sitting there, despite lots of talking and loud music i heard this bang, bang, bang.  i was just like what is that?  then i heard it again.  and again.  i turned and looked towards the back of the room and i could see a door back there that was bouncing out every time there was a bang.  there was a padlock on the door, so i jumped up, went to the bartender and told him someone was locked in the basement!!  he unlocked the door and an old man came running out, over to the bar and then back down. 

and then finally it was time!  it was TIME to get going to the game!!  we took the train, well, many trains.  and then got to penn station.  while standing in line waiting to get our tickets (which because of the crowds, we actually didn't really need), we ran into a guy who used to work at our company!  he only worked there for a few months, but was also recently diagnosed with a brain tumor.  crazy!  he didn't know who i was, but i introduced myself anyway.

this is the train to Secaucus, NY where we would get on another train like think that would take us to the stadium. 

it was sort of a cluster trying to get there.  they had people moving quite quicikly through penn station and getting onto those first trains quite quickly, but then we got smashed into a standstill waiting for the shuttles to the stadium.  it wasn't the worst, but just kind of meh.  it was a little scary to see the occasional police dude with a full on machine gun and then the hum-vs and other military vehicles along the sides of the rail way on the way in.  and then the one dude in the parking lot who was mooning us as we went by.  that was good too.

when we walked into the stadium, i gasped!  i was pretty sure our seats were WAY WAY up high and we wouldn't see a thing, but i was overwhelmed with excitement when i saw how awesome the whole thing was!!

team intros!!

these giant things flew over head.  the reminded me of the grasshoppers in the movie bugs life. that was a good movie. 

queen latifa sang america the beautiful and then an opera singer sang the national anthem which made it quite difficult to sing along, too.  then the kick off!!
i had to pee so badly, so i ran to the bathroom and when i got back i discovered that the seahawks had already scored!!  what the hell!!  how did i miss that??

bruno mars performed at half time, with red hot chili peppers for one song.  super excited to see that!!

again, i had to pee like a mo-fo, and my phone battery was dying, so as soon as the 2nd half started, i ran to the bathroom again.  while i was in there, the seahawks scored again!!  how is that even possible?  i missed the two best plays of the game!!!

eventually the seahawks won - by a ton!!!  it was such a brutal game that the bronco fans were leaving early.

which was kind of smart of them it turned out!  after the presentation of the MVP and the lombardi trophy, they got on the loud speaker and suggested that everyone stay in the stadium because of the congestion trying to get on the trains.  we stood in line for hours.  ok, it wasn't really a line.  it was a huge mass of people.  a huge mass of amazingly docile people.  all standing in the sorta cold, sorta rain.  my favorite part of the whole thing was looking at aly and seeing that she had her bright green jacket zipped all the way up, her hood up and yer eyes and nose peaking over the edge of her coat!  apparently because the first few trains were so jam packed and warm, people were fainting and they had to get them out.  but once the lines started moving, they moved quickly and we eventually made it back to harlem and into bed at like 2:30 or so.

woke up at 4am to snow!!! 

used a super fun app called HailO to summon a taxi, which is awesome for me because i don't like to talk on the phone.  and then made it to Newark with plenty of time to spare.

while i was sitting at the gate, a guy walked in carrying this big white box that said Live Animals on the side. i of course asked what was in there and he said it was Taima.  I was all intrigued wondering what kind of exotic animal at Taima was, but it turned out a Taima wasn't a what, but a who!  Taima the Hawk, as in the augur hawk that leads out the seahawks at every home game, flew out to NJ (on a plane!) and just like the rest of us, were headed back to washington after an exciting weekend!

and then THIS happened!!  since we were the first flight back from the NY area after the game, the airline staged this hero's welcome!  it was a surprise and pretty crazy to get off the plane to all of that excitement. 

i didn't take the photo, and can't remember where i found it, but an estimated 850,000 people flooded into Seattle on Wednesday for the celebratory parade for the Seahawks!  it was like 2 degrees, and something like 25% of the kids and teachers in King County were absent from school that day! 

AND THEN DO YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED???  SEAMUS TURNED 10!!  holy crap!!  how in the world!! 

the kids and eric made this crazy colored caked!  it was pretty and tasty, too!!

for the weekend, seamus had three of her friends come over for a slumber party.  three girls, none of whom knew each other, and they all got along swimmingly!  when they first got there, i had them bake a birthday cake from scratch.  then we bundled up and walked down to Mod Pizza.  On the way back it started to snow!!  We had cake and opened presents. As party favors the girls each got fuzzy socks, plaid flannel pajama pants and a pink long sleeve shirt with their name and a giant 10 on the back!  they all put them on, turned on the disco light, watched movies, told stories and who knows what.  i fell asleep around 10, but around 12 eric told them to settle down and he turned out the lights.  not sure when they woke up, but when they did eric made them cinnamon roll french toast for breakfast. they each decorated a picture frame and since it has snowed a bunch over the night, we bundled them up in all the snow gear we could find and sent them outside for a few hours!!  while they were playing i printed a photo of the four of them from the morning and put it in their picture frame to take home.  i'd say it was a pretty successful party!  way to be 10 seamus!  love you lots!!

rain drops on roses and wiskers on kittens...

These are a few of my favorite things!!

sad things and happy times

our 2013 xmas card

 today is the day after xmas.  we had a really nice xmas!  the kids were a treat, as always, and they liked their presents.  sirus received a ton of legos and nano-big things.  seamus wound up with 40 different kits to make differenty types of bracelets.  i am hoping she will make a few for me!  her big gift from santa was a pair of stilts.  she was super surprised and was a little afraid of them at first.  but once she practiced some she was trekking all over the house on them.  they are set on the lowest level so she has plenty of inches to grow!  AND her wish from santa came true!  when we went to go visit with santa she had asked that her big front tooth came in.  and sure enough on xmas eve, it just started coming in!  it is peeping out!  she had her surgery on the 9th, and the little chain is attached to that tooth and it is starting to work!  she was very excited and it seems as though santa was able to work something out with the tooth fairy afterall!
eric got me a scale...  ok ok, i asked for the scale, so he wasn't being mean, but my mom did get my a hair removal kit.  what?  i didn't ask for that!  what was she implying?  turns out it was a free gift with purchase thing that she got as part of something else and not a comment about my personal grooming.  later in the day, xtie and her bf and his little boy came over for dinner. it was fun to spend time with them all, and we brought out all of the fancy china and it was the one meal of the year that i contribute to, making homemade apple sauce and cranberry relish.  eric cooked up a turkey and grandma brought over some icelandic bread that she made, some icelandic butter and some icelandic skyr pie/cake thing.  it was a fabulous and fun day and evening!

 

all of the xmas goodness was welcome after the rough xmas eve we had.  we got up as normal, we started our day as normal, which meant i stayed in bed longer than anyone else.  i tried sleeping, but nadj was there in my face, purring and trying to get me to pet her.  so i lifted up the covers and she crawled in and cuddled and we slept for another hour.  then it was really time to get up.
we packed everyone up and headed to the gym.  eric and i did some gym stuff, i spent 20 minutes with a giant grin on my face while watching elf in the cinema room while on the elliptical.  love that movie!!  then we lifted some weights.  we did some of this and some of that and just took our time.  then i loaded up the kids into the car and we headed to starbucks for some hot chocolate and eric ran home.
at home, we got into the house and i went up to our bedroom to put some stuff away and then, that is when it all happened.  seamus mccat was on the bed next to nadj.  she stood up and started meowing the second i walked in the door.  nadj was making a terrible gasping / hissing noise which confused me.  i went to look at her and she was laying there limply, making that terrible noise.  i ran to get the cat carrier, yelling to the kids to put their shoes back on.  i quickly lifted nadj's limp, but warm body and set her on the towel in the box.  i called eric quickly asking him how far away he was and he said he would run right to the vet and meet us there.  it was xmas eve and i wasn't even sure if the vet would be open, but i went anyway, and we ran inside, i was crying and told them nadj was dying!  they took her right back and started taking care of her.  i sat in the waiting room crying, the kids sitting on either side of me not knowing what to do.  the tech came out and said they were giving her oxygen and trying to get her stable enough to transport to an emergency facility.  but by the time eric got there, the vet came out and said there wasn't anything she could do.  she was tearing up while telling us what she had tried and how nadj must have had a clot or something, but her lungs were full of fluid.  i asked if we could see her, so they went back and wrapped her up and brought her into a room for us.  i picked her up, hugged her, kissed her and cried.  the kids each petted her some.  then eric went and made arrangements for her, and then he and the kids left for a little bit.
nadj was my friend.  i was sad when pawpi died, 3 years ago, in december as well.  but nadj is different.  she and i were good friends, i loved her very much.  she was always there for me and went through so many tough times with me and was always there giving me purrs and cuddles.  these past two days have been strange, there is no one to chase me as i head into the bathroom, there is no one sitting on the bathmat while i take a shower.  eric offered, but its not the same.  no one walks all over me as i am falling asleep, or purrs in my face as i am trying to sleep in.  seamus mccat is alone, too.  she came up on the bed to sleep only for a little bit, but she has to know what happened, since she was there with her friend.  but now nadj is with pawpi. 

Nadjalene and Seamus Mccat Dec 23.

goals

i haven't been swimming.  i did really well and went 1 time a week for 3 weeks in a row, and then something happened and now its been like 3 weeks without swimming.  i think my coach is getting ready to fire me.  but this most recent week at work was super hectic and busy so i asked him to not even schedule a swim because i wasn't going to do it and i really didn't want the added guilt of missing another swim.  so he obliged and then put TWO swims on the schedule for this week.  so mean!!!  and he wants me to run outside!!  OUTSIDE.

this

that is all i have to say about that.
but what else has happened?  not a ton.  i did another 5k.  i did the same one back in 2008 and won my age group!  this year i came in 2nd in my age group AND was like 30 seconds slower than the mustache dache.  not making a ton of excuses, but it was a totally different coarse than in 2008, and it was freezing!  we had a big cold spell not too long ago and it was COLD that day.  so cold that i did my warm up in my Oiselle Lux Layer, my Oiselle race singlet, a heavy duty cycling jersey AND my puffy coat!  thankfully, i got too hot in all of that and took the two outer most layers off and was perfectly dressed for the race.  then i also did the Kirkland Christmas 12k.  I haven't ever done this one before and i hadn't planned to do it until the day before.  it turned out to be a lot of fun!  some friends and i just ran it, didn't race it, and that was the perfect thing to do.
now we are in winter vacation!  i don't go back until jan 6th!  that is 16 straight days of no work!!  sleeping in hopefully and relaxing! 
and xmas shopping.  too much shopping.  too too much.
and quickly approaching is december 29th.  the significance?  that will mark 1 year from the last time i drank alcohol!  and now i am trying to decide if i will continue to go booze free or if i will put it back in!

decisions decisions!

my new favorite thing

some of these are out of order

but there ya have the rest of iceland.

what else is new?  lots!  i raced the mustache dache on saturday.  i did this race last year and it was super fun.  i won a free entry earlier in the summer so i was pretty stoked to do it again, plus it was my debut race as part of the Oiselle running team.  the funny thing about this race was that somehow, magically, my finish time this year was the exact same as it was last year.  to the second!  how does that happen!  i have mixed feelings about this.  my ego is always like, why can't I pr and why am i so slow, blah blah blah, but then my logical self is like, wow,!  i am pretty bad ass!  i haven't been very consistent with my training, i have been tired, i haven't done any speed work, so yes, i am quite pleased with the race!  i was also really happy that i managed my temperature control well, i always over dress, but i dressed on the colder side and it helped! 
now we are watching Man of Steel and henry Cavill might just be my new boyfriend 
oh!  and janet and i took the girls to see selena gomez!  we bought the tickets back in april, so it was a long time in the making, but it was SO FUN!  i love selena gomez!  i didn't know much about her other than the whole justin bieber thing but she is really super cute and seems quite sweet and is quite talented!  love the show!!  although it was loud and janet and i spent a good portion of the concert texting each other!
other stuff new coming up, too, but for the most part easy going for now.  resting and gearing up for 2014, it is coming waaay to quickly!