Last week, I saw my kidney guy. All in all a good visit, though full disclosure, I have avoided getting on a scale for nearly three years. At the beginning of the pandemic, I thought to myself, if the world was ending, FUCK IT, I'm eating corn chips and potato chips after a decade and a half of denying myself.
I avoided the scale all this time, as I knew I gained weight and I could not handle the defeat if I gained 20-30 lbs, which thanks to menopause, it certainly feels like it. Turns out I gained only 6 lbs, which to me might as well be a hearty bowel movement away from maintaining my weight. So not as big of a failure as I thought.
I informed my doc I am not going to see my internist, as I am in the process of finding a new internist and a new gyno as I feel both are not supporting me the way I think I need to be supported. So far it's been over two years of me flying without any adequate support regarding menopause. I've been on my own, left to figure out how to navigate around issues that all seem unrelated but could be: after 5 decades of no UTIs, I've had a UTI each year. I have a weird itch in a specific spot on my foot, my foot pain and elbow pain are off the charts. Insomnia. Anxiety. Depression. Weight gain. You name it, it's an obstacle course for sure.
Anyway, as I said I wasn't seeing my internist, I asked my kidney doc to run all my annual labs: lipid panel, thyroid panel, metabolic panel, cbc/chem 7, and toss in a ESR, CRP and uric acid for good measure. So glad I asked for that last one, as my numbers are the highest it's ever been, and NO ONE has been monitoring me since my reproductive endocrinologist retired in 2017.
So I'm making some changes to my diet, eating cherries every day, and trying to eat oatmeal 3x a week (on days I'm in the office). Try to hydrate more. And changing some of my dietary supplements back to things I was on before and had tinkered with in the last year or so. This morning, I even managed to get on my recumbent bike for 10 minutes, and hope I can do this every day for a week, then bump it to 15 minutes next week.
Another shift I have noticed is my ability to accept some things. I'm quick to discount these things as they aren't BIG ITEMS like accepting that mom, my tormentor, is physically gone, or accepting I was misunderstood & abused for a half century, or accepting I've lost my family due to mom's smear campaign. But all in all, I managed to accept the doctor's appointment as USEFUL and not a failure.
Additionally, I scheduled my annual mammo at my usual place which has since been bought out by a larger hospital. The day of the appointment I got a call informing me I'd need to reschedule, as the technician was sick. Rather than get bent out of shape due to the inconvenience of it all, I paused and realized this is all for good because ultimately I want to consolidate all my care & imaging in one place, and I have a consultation at a gyno practice close to home that is associated with another imaging center, and well, the universe made this choice for me. Better for me to have all my stuff in one place.
And the last thing that I managed to accept was a dear friend calling me a snob during a conversation. And right in that moment I stopped him and said, "I'm so glad you feel that comfortable to say that to me." He immediately apologized & and I said no apology necessary--you didn't say it to be mean, and I clarified my comments which led him to say I was a snob. This is a huge change for me, as my normal response would be to recoil and feel wounded. But this is a trusted friend, and we both had a good laugh in the end.
I was hoping to go the remainder of the year without any more doctors, as I don't feel it is safe to go to medical settings during a COVID surge with a new variant on the horizon, and the new vaccine boosters don't come out for another 2-3 weeks.
Additionally, in mid-June, without discussion, I discontinued my regular chiropractic appointments, and interestingly enough, my chiropractor who I have seen for 18-19 years hasn't zapped me a text wondering when our next appointment is. I just don't feel safe there anymore, as he doesn't require his patients to wear masks, he doesn't have an air purifier, and doesn't have the windows open--plus I am usually the last appointment of the day, so I'd rather not be bathing in the vapors of dodgey, unmasked strangers.
Anyway, this is what my life has become in the last 1269 days: work, food shopping, acupuncture, minimizing medical appointments wherever possible, dining outdoors (from Spring thaw to First Frost), farmers market on Sundays. My world in many ways has gotten smaller than it was, and I've lost what little sense of community I had. It's a good thing I'm an introvert at my core, but even introverts need to feel some social connection some of the time.
Rome wasn't built in a day. I'm lucky I still have choices to make, and I'm making the best choices possible, and trying to appreciate the little things, like good sleeping weather on a cool August night with the windows open and the curtains flapping in the breeze. My world has gotten smaller, but my life is good.
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