Be my Valentine

I know, it's late, but still...

Baking on a microwave

...was a fail, sort of. :-P

So we bought a cheap stand mixer (Philips kitchen appliances were 50% off in Manila shops), and were trying to come up with recipes we can do with it. First in our list was mocha frosting, which turned out quite well.

Next up was bread made from rice flour. But we didn't have an oven. I scrounged the internet for instructions, found a few gems, and made up my own recipe.

The bread was a bit too hard, probably because the microwave took out all the moisture, but it tasted like puto (native rice cake). It wasn't that bad.

Get disk size in Linux

Usually, you'll need root, like so:

sudo /sbin/fdisk -l | grep -E "^Disk"

But you can also use this:

printf "%.1f GB\n" $(echo "`cat /sys/block/sd*/size` * 512 / 1000000000" | bc -l)

Create a local EPEL mirror

We use some add-on packages from EPEL. Since we want to peg packages to specific versions only, and to reduce the number of servers that connect directly to the internet, we decided to build a local mirror for the EPEL repository.

1. Install dependencies.
   
   
2. Patch reposync to add option for "flattened" directories. (By default, reposync creates a directory named after the repo ID for placing the downloaded packages.)
   
   
3. Create the repository directories.
   
   
4. Start downloading the repo.
   
   
5. Copy the packages to staging first.
   
   
6. Create repo metadata.
   
   
7. Add the following configuration file to /etc/httpd/conf.d/.
   
   Restart Apache.
   
   
8. Use the following yum repo config in /etc/yum.repos.d/.
   
   

To test:

sudo yum repolist

Clinical

Now that the senti post is done, on to the heart of the matter.

We discovered a lump last October 21, and had the tumor excised immediately afterwards, on October 25. Peng was diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma last November 5.

We sought another opinion from a specialist in Metro Manila, and the initial diagnosis was confirmed on November 7. The oncologist scheduled another consultation on November 15, where we decided on the treatment: modified radical mastectomy.

The procedure was performed on November 19, and we stayed in the hospital until November 21. We left for the province on November 23.

The pathology report on the breast mass as well as the review of the first excision were released and discussed on November 29. There were no residues from the tumor, no lymphovascular invasion, and no lymph node involvement. The hormone receptor assay for estrogen, progesterone and HER2/neu turned negative, too. The diagnosis was stage II, triple-negative breast cancer.

Peng will undergo chemotherapy sessions every three weeks, starting on December 21, for six cycles.

The prognosis is quite good. We're very confident that we can effectively knock off this condition. The test results were great confidence boosters, and succeeding treatments will ensure that this will all be over and behind us soon.