Homecoming

S has been a good patient and the nurses have shown me how to help him into his neck brace. The stitches come out on Friday. Saturday morning I get a crash course in how to wash his hair around the brace and then they say he can come home if he promises to stay in his futon for a week or two. He's considering using a taxi instead of his original plan to get one train to Shinjuku, walk through one of the world's busiest stations to catch another train out to our station. I'm grateful that the doctor, nurses and our friends who have visited him have encouraged him along this line.

S is Stable

I went with S yesterday with my lists of questions which the surgeon seemed pleased to be asked and then we listened to all the other nurses and personnel explain their jobs and what to expect for S's surgery today. I was able to get the kids off to school, run a few errands, go to my old oncologist to demand (for the 3rd time) that cell samples from my tumor from two years ago be sent to the National Cancer Center before going to S's hospital downtown and waiting for the morning surgery to be finished. I turned out that the samples had been sent the very day of my appointment earlier this week so I'll take the package of blank glass slides back to the NCC when I go in January. I managed to arrive at S's hospital before the surgery was finished.

The surgeon leaned out the consultation room and called my name around 11:45 so I went on in to find that he had entered from the sterile operating theater side of the room, leaving his sterile shoes behind the heavy door where they wouldn't pick up consultation room germs or so I assume. I had to smile at the effect, a bare foot surgeon in his green cap and scrubs confirming that the surgery went well and that 4 of S's vertebrae had been "improved" with titanium spacers and screws. A search for laminoplasty revealed many illustrations of the procedure.

The doctor was all smiles and happy to comfort me that I'd be able to see and accompany my dearest husband as they wheeled him by in his bed back to his 6 person room in a few moments. S was fairly groggy and in a little pain, as expected, but seemed to relax about half an hour after the morphine drip finished.

I stayed most of the afternoon as my former host mother was home with the kids (Thank you K.Y. san) and I wanted to make sure he was breathing OK after they took him off the oxygen later in the afternoon. Feet and hands are all in working order so there was no nerve damage from the surgery. He was disappointed that the feeling in his hands (the reason he was so concerned about getting surgery in the first place) didn't return immediately after the surgery. I have trouble believing he really thought that the compressed nerves would bounce back to tip-top shape within minutes of surgery. :-) I expect that he'll always remain a little numb, but less so than before and that the numbing will not progress now that he's had the surgery.

It'll be Tuesday before he can get out of bed and go to the bathroom and I think being immobile may be almost as hard on him as surgery. I'm relieved things went well but the image of the barefoot 50 something surgeon on the clean white floor outside the operating theater will remain in my brain as one of those "Japan Moments

200th Post!

According to blogger dot com, this is my 200th post.

S came back from his consultation with the cervical spine specialist (who also happens to be a neurosurgeon ) at the downtown hospital my downstairs cancer survivor neighbor (who happened to be the chairman of the Tokyo Nursing Education Association years ago and is a treasure trove of knowledge) recommended. He said that the doctor "saw through" him right away, saying that the condition was not from a softball injury and scolded him for abusing his body through macho overexertion over the years, telling him that he probably had bad teeth too from the looks of his spine in the MRI and CT scan images. BINGO! S immediately trusted him and opened up about how much help he is hoping to get. I know that he always tries harder than he should if anyone is watching when he does things like judo, softball, pounding rice cakes or rescuing damsels in distress by lifting their cars out of ditches.

The doctor did tell him that with surgery, he can expect much recovery of the lost sensations in his arms and he even called around at the hospital to arrange all the necessary personel to go ahead with the surgery as early as possible. S and I will go next Thursday to check him in and he'll have surgery to decompress the nerves in his 3rd and 4th vertibrae on the 15th. He should be able to come home on the 25th (which isn't a holiday here). I have many questions for the doctor when we go on Thursday.

I expect I'll be quite busy for a while and may not be posting much but I will try to keep in touch.

I am so THICK!

I got all the way to the Cancer Center, arriving a little early even, only to have the reception computer reject my card as "no appointment on record." I waited until 8:30 when the nice people at the reception desk started fielding questions. They showed me that I'm scheduled for next Wednesday, not today. In retrospect, when I'd spoken with Dr. F on the phone to reschedule I remember hearing "December 6th" and making a memo on the calendar but then deciding that the 13th would be safer in terms of making sure my cell samples had arrived and been re-examined. Our calendar has appointments penned in on both dates and I, anxious to hear what he has to say, didn't even think of calling to reconfirm which was correct. It was a wasted 2 hours there and back on the train, but I did find a better way to get a seat on the subway; get on a train in the opposite direction, go one stop away from the center of the city and change to the train going back through Shinjuku and on to Tsukiji. Everyone and their cousin seem to get the train at Shinjuku, so the platform is very crowded, but the platform one station away in the "wrong" direction was deserted.

When I arrived home much earlier than S expected me to, I found J sleeping in her futon with the same stomach bug that L and then N had last Friday and Sunday respectively. She seems a little better than they did, but not well enough to go to school today or tomorrow. Who's next? Nobody, I hope.

S Brought His CT Scan & MRI Images Home

He hasn't said much about what he was told at his appointment today other than that the doctors at that hospital admit they are not spine specialists. When I told him about a better hospital in downtown Tokyo with some cervical spine specialists and that he should get the images from his test so they could look at them instead of starting from scratch should he decide to go for a second opinion, he must have been listening. He came home and pulled out my horribly written memo with contact information for the better hospital and called to make an appointment there on Thursday afternoon. I hope that the new place will have more specific information for him and that he will let them help him.

Blech!

Friday found us with a sick boy but L's stomach bug cleared up by Saturday afternoon and nobody else caught it, or so we thought, until N began throwing up at 4a.m. today. She was very disappointed to miss a field trip to the local mayonnaise factory with her class. J and M raved about how exciting it was when their classes went.

http://www.kewpie.co.jp/know/openkitchen/ok_02.html

shows some of the fancy machines that her classmates are watching as I type.

I called the factory to inquire about openings for a family tour later this month and was able to reserve 5 spots on the last tour of the year at 1:00p.m. on Christmas Day. They close the plant for 2 weeks from the 26th. Natalie is very happy that she'll get to do the tour after all even if it's on Christmas Day. The elementary school children have school in the morning that day and are expected to help with the year-end cleaning and pick up their report cards to bring home. I think that J finishes for the year on the Friday before, but I may be mistaken. No photos are allowed within the factory, but we may take our Tarako Kewpie costume for a shot at the gate as this is the manufacturer of that product.

S is off getting results for his spinal CT scan this morning and I postponed my head ultra-sound to next Monday morning so poor N wouldn't have to be all alone in her misery. She's very good about using her bucket. Here's hoping that nobody else gets this bug so I won't have to postpone my Wednesday onco. appointment yet again.

Thankful for Good Friends and Good Food Today

U.S. Thanksgiving happened to fall on a Japanese holiday this year, so the kids were out of school for the day. An American friend a few stations away offered to host a Thanksgiving get-together at her house so I took the younger two children (J has mid-terms tomorrow and needed some quiet time and M had other social plans), a big bowl of mashed potatoes and a smaller bowl of Japanese pumpkin to enjoy the day. Other multicultural familes brought homemade cranberry sauce, coffee cakes, pumpkin cheese cake, salad with feta cheese, and really good wine. The hostess procured and prepared the turkey, made stuffing and baked a pecan pie. It was all delicious but now I want to order a case or so of the Australian Shiraz that was so smooth. Mmmmmm, antioxidants are good for me, right?

The relaxing day was just what I needed after the first half of the week, which was a little busy. I resolved my problem of having to be in two places at once by calling my new oncologist to confirm that he had all the data he needed for my next consultation and learning that the cell samples hadn't arrived yet. That meant I would have no reason to truck all the way downtown and rush back to check S out of his hospital so it made the day a little less hectic. The strategy meeting has been rescheduled for 9 a.m. on the 6th of December (2 days after I go there for an ultrasound of my head to confirm the absence of cancer there and, hopefully, the presence of some form of brain) so I get to take the early morning trains with six million other people. I think I'll wear a disposable mask.

S has an appointment on the 4th of December too, to discuss treatment now that the tests have been completed. He wasn't too confident of the doctors' style while they tested him; he thought they were bumbling more than they should have been indicating that they were unfamiliar with the process. From his description, it sounds like they gave him a spinal tap but they may have just been injecting the contrast for the imaging. He's sure they've permanently damaged the nerves in his lower back when they should have been working higher up. He did admit to feeling much better when he returned to his own futon some of his discomfort is most likely from his general dislike of hospitals. He was well enough to take J out for sushi for lunch today and hold a study session at our classroom for the students who have tests tomorrow. Whew.

The Plan for Now

I packed a bag for S and he will go for his three day stay for the tests he needs and make any decisions about surgery or second opinions after that. What a relief! He filled me in on what his students are doing so I can take over his classes tomorrow, Tuesday and Wednesday so I guess I'd better get working on fixing some easy dinners for the kids for those nights. Fortunately J will be home right after school all week so I don't have to worry about her coming home in the dark while I'm not home.

I'll go with him tomorrow to make sure he gets checked in and ask a few questions.

More on S

Well, the MRI showed that his spinal cord is compressed in his fourth vertebra (C4) and the doctors say he should go stay for two nights for a CT scan with contrast and other tests to determine how they should surgically proceed at a later one month hospital visit. The administration called today to say they had a bed for him from Monday morning and he is scheduled now. The only problem is that he says he has never heard of the university to which the hospital belongs (he only acknowledges the top 3 universities in Japan and the rest are all inconsequential to him) and is suddenly considering cancelling because they might mess up and they looked terribly young to have a medical license...

This could go two ways:

1. He'll go to one of the two central Tokyo university hospitals which actually list themselves as having spinal cord specialists within their orthopedic departments (Tokyo U. or Keio U.)

2. He'll go to a local chiropractor or acupuncturist to see if they have any better advice.

If he refuses to go for the inpatient check-up nearby, I'm going to push for the hospital I found that is staffed mainly by Keio U. doctors and specialists. He is a Keio graduate so he can't complain about the dubious qualifications and it's easier to get to by train (on the way to the cancer center in fact).

If he needs to be in the hospital for a month, we may have to hire our top student to teach a few classes because I know I can't teach 7 afternoons and nights a week and still feed the kids. The student came over today and has indicated the times he will be able to fill in for S so it looks like we can manage.

I've been writing a list of questions I'd ask if it were my neck on the block but S is convinced it's an old sports injury and not congenitally narrow or arthitically induced so he may not ask. I doubt that he'll let me go with him to speak with the doctor, but I'll print out the questions anyway and see if it makes a difference. Maybe I can figure out a way to e-mail them to the doctor...

S Breaks Down and Submits to Medical Exam

S asked me "Where can I get a scan?" yesterday, making it sound like he wanted to scan some document or photo. "What's wrong with the scanner at the classroom?" I ask, to which he shakes his head and I suddenly understand that he actually has decided to do something about his increasingly numb hands and arms. I quickly pulled out a list of hospitals near here that have MRI and CT scan equipment and are within cycling distance. One hospital website even showed the number of surgeries in a year for neurological problems with the number of neck surgeries specified (500 total, 35 neck). I had written it all in the Chinese characters that I found on the various websites and he was impressed enough to choose one and go for a check up. Hooray!

He came home in a neck brace with a schedule of MRI scans, physical treatment and further exams. I think he was probably waiting for me to finish up with my treatment so he could have a turn but has finally understood that he'll never get a turn if he continues to think that we have to take turns taking care of our health. I hope that he will refrain from Sunday softball for a while until he understands what is causing his trouble.

The Consultation

I stopped downstairs at 9:15 to pick up my survivor neighbor and we walked to catch the train downtown where we got on the subway to the National Cancer Center. We arrived at 10:30, half an hour before our appointments, so she would have time to give her pre-consultation blood sample. It was very crowded though and there was a 50 minute wait in the blood test area where we met one of her friends who had arrived about 10 minutes before we did and was also waiting her turn for the needle.

The doctor called the first women while she was off giving blood so my neighbor went into the examining room first with a "She's off giving blood so you can see me now instead." So he brought her records up and they had a talk while I waited outside for the other woman to come back to let her know that her turn had arrived. He saw the other woman next while my neighbor went off to give blood. Both women are basically visiting to check that their cancer hasn't advanced and get their blood work so they can plan their diets for the next couple of weeks or months until their next appointments.

Then it was my turn to meet the infamous Dr. Fujiwara. I'd been expecting a 60ish guy but he was only about my age or a little more. He offered to write the notes about our consultation in English (they always write in duplicate and give a carbon copy to the patient), but I need them in Japanese for Shigemi so I thanked him and asked for Japanese.

He told me that they are still waiting for a sample of my tumor from two years ago to arrive from Kyorin so they can re-dye and re-do the cell work to confirm the lab results before outlining a specific course of action. He did say though, that from last month's CT scan results he could see several "shadows" ranging from a few millimeters to 2 centimeters (in my left lung) and that further treatment is necessary. The CT scan showed that other organs are all healthy and the bone scan confirmed that there are no metastases to my bones. The electrocardiogram and heart ultrasound showed I have a strong and healthy heart.

Basically, he needs to reconfirm the cell work on the original tumor before he recommends the next step. He looked me in the eye and explained that at this stage, when breast cancer recurs, there is no cure and that all treatment is geared towards living a quality life with cancer. My neighbor told him indignantly that Kyorin hadn't even taken a sample of cells from my lungs but he concurred with my Kyorin doctor that a lung biopsy would be more trouble than it's worth as the CT scan clearly showed the breast cancers metastases.

I mentioned my concerns of possible genetic tendency to blood clotting (Factor V Leiden) and he immediately looked at my bloodwork from last month and confirmed that the platelet count was a little high and that he would check for Factor V Leiden next time to see how it might effect my treatment options. He suggested basically the same thing as my Kyorin guy; induce menopause and prescribe anti-estrogens or aromatase inhibitors and constant vigilance. Then if that doesn't keep the shadows in check, the next step would be Herceptin alone or Herceptin with more chemotherapy, probably Taxol or Navelbine.

I'll get a head ultra sound and then an ultrasound of the radiated area sometime in the next couple of months as well as having my veins in my legs, especially the leg that had the clots last year, tested.

We three survivors finished at about 1:00 p.m. when we proceeded to a nearby restaurant where we met another survivor friend for a delicately presented Japanese 10 course lunch. The other women are inspiring and deserve their own posts sometime.

One had lungs mets and was told that she'd exhausted treatment options and should contact a hospice. She went home and dug up her garden to plant vegetables and started eating only genmai, the vegetables she grew and tofu products and gave up coffee, chocolate, dairy products, fish and meat. Eight years later, she goes for check-ups every 3 months and is doing fine. She doesn't mind a little fish now and then, so I think that she enjoyed lunch today as an occasional treat. She handed me a bag of genmai and black rice cooked with beans and packed into balls (rice balls are sort of the Japanese version of sandwiches; a convenient finger food) and some dried radish and freeze dried tofu to make for dinner tonight so I could try her diet. I told her how I had considered genmai (brown rice) capability when buying our most recent rice cooker but that I hadn't managed to convert the family from white rice yet. She said I should go ahead and cook a batch and freeze portions for myself and let the rest of the family eat whatever rice they like.

The other woman is a retired genome researcher but will be going to London next year to work again upon invitation by a genome research lab there. She asked to see my CT scan results and was sympathetically worried for me.

The kids are begging for computer time so I won't delve into the sensory pleasure that lunch turned out to be but it was certainly worth a trip downtown and a morning in the hospital for...

Halloween Party

The weather cooperated and the party on the lawn with a live brass quintet was a lot of fun, as usual. The quintet got a kick out of J's costume and played the theme song from the series of TV commercials where she got her idea.

A Pod of Codfish Eggs

Tarako

Tarako

Tappuri

Tarako...

The local coven attended the annual Halloween party.

Costumes

Two of M's classmates came over today to work out some witch costumes out of our pile of old clothes and accessories. We invited them to come with us tomorrow to the annual Halloween party held in a nearby botanical garden. They want to go as a trio of witches but N, of course, wanted to be included so we had to get four witch outfits ready to make a quartet. L will wear the bat costume that J wore a few years ago and J will be a Kewpie doll dressed as a large red pod of codfish eggs. She and her friends like a series of commercials for a codfish egg spaghetti sauce that uses this character. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoUq16ql9sE shows the original Kewpie, J will probably just use her own face unless she wants to make a mask tonight or tomorrow morning.
With the leftovers in the dress-up box and a little black eyeliner, I'll probably be a pirate (probably more like Smee than Sparrow). I'm looking forward to seeing many of my foreign wife friends and their families. This party seems to get bigger and better every year.

National Cancer Center

I should get to bed now but I just wanted to post that my visit to the center went well yesterday and the ball is now rolling to get all the necessary information for a consultation on November 7th with the head of the respiratory and breast cancer divisions about the status of my cancer and the treatment options. Tomorrow I catch an early train to be in time for an 8:30 appointment to get a shot of isotopes to illuminate my skeleton for a scan at 10 or 10:30. That means S gets to make sure the kids make it off to school on time and I get to wander around the fish market and vicinity while I wait for my bones to absorb the radioactive stuff. It isn't dangerous to people around me and I don't expect people will notice any glowing, even if I feel like I glow. :-)

NCC Appointment Set

I picked up the documents I needed from my oncologist at Kyorin to apply for an appointment at the National Cancer Center across from the fish market in Tsukiji. I faxed the cover letter, my doctor's request, my request (with contact information) and a brief history of my case written by my doctor on Tuesday afternoon.

I got a fax today informing me that I should be at the NCC by 10 a.m. on October 25th and that the doctor I had requested (breast and lung specialist who takes care of my downstairs neighbor) would be seeing me. My neighbor wants to go with me, so I took the fax downstairs to show her. She was pleased that I got an appointment so soon.

She looked a little confused when she saw the examining room number on the fax. "That's not Dr. F.'s room." So she called the center and got Dr. F., a very important and busy man, on the phone and asked him if he had me in his schedule. It turns out that he'll be away that morning but colleague, Dr. Y, will check me out. He asked her to give me the phone and apologized directly to me about the misinformation in my fax and told me to be sure to tell his colleague that Dr. F would be on my case thereafter.

My neighbor was happy about it and is hoping that I'll have a second appointment that coincides with her November 7th check-up so we can go together and then have lunch in Tsukiji with three other stage IV survivors from her treatment days (many years ago) when we're finished at the hospital.

I checked the NCC website and downloaded the first time visitor forms so I can fill them out and take them with me to save a little time at the reception desk. I also checked their policy on second opinion consultations. They charge about 100 dollars for the service which isn't covered by the public health insurance. I see that my doctor at Kyorin deliberately left out the words "Second Opinion" on his paperwork so it looks like he's referring me to the NCC for treatment and my consultation will cost about 5 dollars. I do have a November appointment at Kyorin, but if I decide I can get better treatment at the NCC, then I can call and cancel my Kyorin appointment.

In reading over the history, I was surprised to see that my cancer is HER2+++ which means that it makes too much of a protein called HER2 and that infusions of Herceptin (trastuzumab) might be effective in shrinking the cancer and keeping it away. I asked last year about whether or not I might benefit from Herceptin. The reply was that it wasn't applicable in my case. I took this to mean that I was HER2 negative so I didn't research further.

It turns out that Herceptin has only been approved for stage IV use and I was only stage III when I asked. I should have asked "Am I HER2 positive?" so I could have tried to get into a clinical trial back then. I'll be sure to ask questions in as many ways possible from now on.

I wrote to (e-mail) Chugai Pharmaceuticals (the Japanese supplier of Herceptin) yesterday with details of my case and asked if they had any applicable trials. I got a sincere but regretful reply this morning. They have a trial going on for possible use in stomach cancer and two trials for the effectiveness of treating early stage breast cancer with a year, in one study, or two years, in another study, immediately after breast surgery. The man did write encouragingly that Herceptin has become available for treatment of stage IV HER+++ patients and that I should speak with my doctor and go for a second or third opinion until I find the right therapy for my case, whether it be Herceptin or not.

The reason I'm looking for trials is that I really think Herceptin may be just what I need, but from what I've read on the internet, it costs about 60,000 dollars a year after the national insurance deduction and some women take it for one or two years while other woman expect to take it for the rest of their lives. Also, with my luck, I'd get a placebo in the trial, so I'd really love to find a trial like " Comparison of Effectiveness of Herceptin with or without Aromatase Inhibitors" where I'd be sure to get the good stuff. I will ask the NCC doctor about the possibilities and also try to meet a social case worker to find out how to qualify for a little (or a lot) of assistance.

Of course if the prognosis will improve only slightly with the drug, it may not be worth it. Women in a survivors group with similar cases even older than mine say that they're continuing with hormonal therapy and regular CT scans to monitor the progress or, hopefully, lack there of, of the cancer like what my Kyorin doctor is considering. I have to start writing down a list of questions for my NCC appointment. Let me know if you have any that you think I should ask.

I'm thinking along the lines of:

1. Do I need a lung biopsy?
2. Would more chemotherapy eradicate the lung metastasis like it did for the lymph metastasis?
3. What is my prognosis if I have more chemo? If I have Herceptin? If I have chemo and Herceptin? If I wait and watch with torimifene only?
4. Wouldn't it be better to surgically remove my ovaries instead of stopping them with regular Zoladex injections?
5. It's possible that I have Factor V Leiden (another protein thing!), a genetic tendancy toward blood clotting problems. Can you test me for this and how might this effect cancer treatments? (Kyorin never followed up on this request.)
6. Is stage IV breast cancer in a lung treatable with proton beam therapy (only offered in about 3 places in Japan, all connected with the NCC and it seems that it offered to a select group of lung cancer patients)? If so, how much does it cost and how soon can I get it?
7. How often should I get CT scans (with iodine contrast), bone scans, MRI, other tests.
8. Are there any clinical trials that would help me get the medications without putting my yet to be born grandchildren into debt?

The goal is to live long enough to worry about knee replacements and Alzheimer's so I can forget all about cancer and dance (thus the new knees) on the sidewalk like my great aunt Millie. She knew what a good time was!

And now I'll give up looking for the spell checker on this page (I don't know where it goes sometimes or if there ever was one) and correct any major bloopers later.

An Experiment

Do you think I'll get a Nobel prize for proving that sound is actually faster than light?

Cancer Management

I took my neighbor with me today to see the results of last week's CT scan. The spot in my right lung is still there and maybe, but very slightly maybe, a little larger than it was in my end of July scan but smaller, definitely smaller, than it was in my spring scan.

My advocate neighbor asked why they didn't want to take a sampling of cells and the doctor said that because it was too small to see on an x-ray, it would be difficult to get cells from the spot and very uncomfortable and expensive to get information that we already know (that it's breast cancer).

Then she asked him why he didn't send me along to one of the two or three places in Japan where they could treat me with protons to zap the stuff in my lung for good. He replied that my case would not pass the eligibility requirements as breast cancer in a lung is not so life threatening as lung cancer in a lung.

Then she asked if I should go back on chemo right away to deal with it. He reiterated the need to balance cancer management through vigilance and hormone treatment with blasting cancer with possibly debilitating treatments and that I should expect to be watching and treating for the rest of my life and that my current condition was not especially drastic or immediately life threatening.

We asked for records for me to take with me for a second opinion and he was very encouraging about any actions I might take to be reassured or to help me make decisions on how to manage my cancer. I'll go back next week to pick up the records and he'll send my request form from his hospital administration to the hospital of my choice (the National Cancer Center) to get the ball rolling. My neighbor will also call the National Cancer Center and try to get me seen by her specialist, the head of respiratory and breast oncology (I think it's actually two departments that he heads) when he returns from a symposium in the States.

In the meantime, I continue with the daily toremifene tablets and feel fine enough. I guess living with cancer is better than not living with cancer but still feel that living without cancer would be best...

A Day at the Zoo

We decided to take a picnic and go out to enjoy the windy but otherwise beautiful weather today. We ended up at the small zoo in Kichijoji where we saw Hanako, the first elephant to be sent to Japan after WWII (a gift from Thailand). She is 59 years old this year and has only one of her four teeth so her keepers feed her large amounts of very finely chopped sweet potatoes, bananas, carrots, apples and other things and chop her grass into 2 or 3 inch lengths. She played with a long hose, tossing it over her back and wrapping herself in it and then pulling it off and starting all over again. One of her teeth which came out a few years ago was on display. It looks like it must weigh 5 or 6 pounds.

L and N enjoyed the squirrels. They were given a bingo sheet with pictures of squirrels in various states of activity. They had to observe carefully to check off as many of the squares as possible. L found the most (or said he did) and was awarded walnut shell that had been expertly broken into two halves and emptied by a hungry squirrel. The zoo employee showed us how the pieces fit together and where the squirrel had scraped a hole along the seem to break it apart. L may have been expecting a more luxurious prize for his efforts but he did remember to say thank you. He looked much happier when all the observers were given badges for completing the tour. The walnut is in a box with some cotton to take to show-and-tell on Tuesday (tomorrow is a holiday).