Annus Medicus Horribilis: No New Dramas, Part Deux

So yeah. About that proverbial "other shoe?" Yeah. It dropped.

It was premature to say "no new dramas" in the previous post. Monday night I got the call from the gastroenterologist regarding the possibility for a colonoscopy before year end, and on Tuesday I got an email from my nephrologist that my protein is high in my urine and he might want to biopsy my kidneys. So ix-nay on the o-nay ew-nay amas-dray. 

I follow up with my gastroenterologist in a week or two, and when I do I'll spitball an idea to him about possibly having him coordinate with the nephrologist, as well as the NP at the bariatric surgeon's office, and see if I can get an upper and lower abdominal CAT with contrast done, rather than go through the renal biopsy and colonoscopy. I can hope, can't I?

Had a good session with my therapist today about everything, and even against my initial reluctance to do so, discussed what happened with the sociopath. How I handled everything seems to be an improvement over how things like this would destroy me for days or weeks (or months) after. It made me appreciate that I *do* in fact have some pretty wonderful friends. 

Intentional cruelty is a trigger point for me, and one from which there is no turning back. Once that line has been crossed, I'm done. I go into insulation mode, and do the fade to black, distancing myself until that person is in obscurity. Only in this case, it was a full on verbal assault. No gradual fade. It was a verbal strafing, a strafing for which I am glad I have witnesses.

So rather than turn my anger inward towards myself, being angry that I was stupid or gullible or my judgement was dodgey to befriend someone who turned out to be someone capable of intentional cruelty, I reminded myself that THAT same judgement was also responsible for the cultivation of some pretty lovely, loyal friends. As I said to the therapist, it was all useful information. Unpleasant? Hell yes. But useful. He asked me how did I end things? I replied, "I took away his power. I stopped talking." 

Honestly, I don't know how much of what transpired was really his doing or if it were all brought about by booze or drugs. At its core, I am sure, resides the nugget of truth. That he IS truly a cruel person, and the booze/drugs just exaggerate it. No apology, weak or strong, has been forthcoming, which also is useful information in and of itself.

Annus Medicus Horribilis: Ultrasound Done... Hurry up and Wait

Nothing new to report; however, the ultrasound was done early this a.m. So I'm hoping that my internist will contact me with the results. I'm fairly confident NOTHING is going to show up, nothing out of the ordinary, and that either the pain was a fluke due to the fiber in the Arctic Zero, or perhaps it was an ovarian cyst that went 'splodey. 

Made for a bracing morning... bracing, like taking an icy cold shower, that type of bracing. When I scheduled the ultrasound I had no idea there'd be an intra-vag part of the diagnostics, and also I had hoped my onset day would not be until TOMORROW.

Yep. Trans and intra-vaginal ultrasound on a heavy flow day. I don't recommend this. But fortunately it was first thing in the a.m., and the technician was neither disgusted (outwardly) or nasty about it.

Hurry up and wait.

Annus Medicus Horribilis: Quasi-Amazing: Difference a Day Makes

Being in chronic pain just grinds away at you, and can turn you into someone you hardly recognize as your SELF. After the summer I've had of non-stop medical drama, mess, disappointment, existential angst, and outright active, debilitating pain, I'm hoping today's the precipice of the tipping point, and (dare I say) hoping things are going to start to improve (at least until my next menses hits).  

Last night I went out to knit night with my friends, even against that inner voice saying not to. Not because I do not enjoy their company (which I do enjoy, immensely), but because I've been ground down to the point where I felt like I had nothing to give and nothing to gain from going, and of course, because I've been (perhaps justifiably so) a whiny bitch lately. So I went. And I'm glad I did. I'm glad because it felt good to be with friends. 

Humans are social creatures, even the most antisocial of us need human interaction. We're HUMAN. We laughed. Exchanged info. And in the course of chatting, I had an epiphany of sorts. And perhaps this epiphany is just enough to keep me from entering a realm I haven't wanted to enter: feeling sorry for myself. Feeling sorry for myself is an easy enough trap to find myself. 

Afterall, I finally did something proactive about losing weight and getting healthy, and get healthy enough to attempt to conceive. And while I liken this process I've gone thru to someone training for a Couch-to-5K, only to realize they overslept or the big race was cancelled.

So I've spent the summer feeling as if all of this effort was pointless, given the nature of the path my life has taken. Like why did I radically alter my body and my life, if the reason I did so isn't a driving force anymore? For weeks I've been thinking about the Big M (menopause) and how it waits for every woman, and thinking about how I can have a different peri and post-menopausal experience/narrative than my mother. 

Hells-bells! Losing a lot of weight goes a long way towards working towards the goal of having as stable or uneventful menopausal experience possible, and hopefully also ensures I'll be a lot happier and healthier and more mobile experience for the second half of my life. So last night during knit night, I had that a-HA! moment, where I connected those dots, and all that work and effort isn't pointless after all. However, the pointlessness of my very existence is always debatable at this point! At least all my hard work thus far hasn't been for naught. 

It's been a tough summer, and very hard for me to make any sense out of what I'm going thru at all. So at least I'm able to see some positivity in this. And I think today is the first day where I can say I see a marked change in the "blood situation." But then again, my uterus has a mind of its own. So who knows if I'll end up having to go home today to change my clothes. Because yes, I felt well enough and dared enough to wear light colored pants today.