It has been a bit since I actually published a blog. I have written a few. I have even finished one. It just didn’t seem worth it. After all, I am editing this entire thing with the intent to weave it together into some kind of cohesive whole. That is a huge task. I can’t believe how much and how long I have been doing this. I have never, ever been so regular about a diary than I have about this very public one.
I mean I have diaries: tons of them. They are filled with poetry and anguish, and hormones and tears and all sorts of things I had before Prozac.
Yeah, well… I still have some of those things post Prozac. I think at this point I am often too tired and too jaded for those things. I suppose we all are after a certain age.
But, lest I go off on a tangent here…. (I never do that!) I should actually write the blog post I meant to when I came downstairs and left the bed with the sleeping dogs and sleeping husband and my white noise machine and my earplugs and my pillows just so…..
Good grief! I sound so neurotic. Oh yeah, I am. Oh well.
What I meant to write about is the fact that I broke my vow to not go into a hospital. Before this last 24 hour episode, I had not been in a white, sterile, prison with bad food, people trying to find my non existent veins, ask me questions, follow me to the bathroom and all the rest, for 20 months.
This past Saturday I had to face the fact that parts of me are still falling apart and that I needed help. I went to the fancy, doctor owned 24 hour ER down the street out of fear of the pandemic (Covid) and because I am blessed with amazing insurance. I had a CT scan and the doctor said it was up to me but he recommended I be admitted for observation, comfort care and further testing. I almost told him to stick it and that I was going home, but the idea of having to come back or go through the regular ER, probably full of patients with the plague, made me go ahead. From the fancy ER they can admit you straight to a room in the hospital of your choice. You get picked up by exhausted ambulance drivers and they drive you to your overnight accommodations and you skip a lot of trouble.)
It took hours for all of this to transpire. I was in pain, sick, and nauseas and on the verge of a panic attack the entire night. And of course, I never slept.
I will not go into detail, but sum it up by saying that the surgery I had in 2017 that led, 24 hours later, to emergency surgery, really screwed up my innards. Nothing is in its place and nothing works normally. The last consult I had with the gastroenterologist ended with him saying, ” I think it may be best to remove your colon entirely.”
As shocking as being told such a thing was, this past Saturday night, I was ready to go for it.
Lately I have been fighting repeated infections and repeated issues of the nature I mentioned above. The chase one another. The medicine that fixes one makes the other flare and so on.
I have been unwilling to even acknowledge this is happening. I go through each day sucking down whichever pills or what-have-you that are appropriate and I just keep moving. I work from home, like we all do now. On the days I don’t work, I find plenty of things to keep me busy. I talk to my kids on the phone, I cook, I clean, I write, and I exercise until I am really tired. Sometimes I dream of a simpler time. A time when I could wander through discount stores looking at stuff just for the hell of it: I miss that. But we all miss things we used to do before the pandemic.
Oh, and I read the news. But, that gets depressing quickly so I try to pull myself out of it and read about royalty and movie stars I have never heard of and special interest bits. Or, I really extend my mind and watch a BBC show about a bunch of young people competing to be make up artists with a contract to a major company or something… . It’s terribly important.
I spend in ordinate amounts of time talking to my dogs and my cat. They like it: I think. I also talk to my husband a lot when he has headphones on or he’s looking at his iPad. (If he isn’t working at his desk and is “available” he is usually with his iPad). He doesn’t really hear everything I say. That’s ok. He doesn’t understand why I have so much to say.
All of this babble is my way of saying, I DO NOT WANT TO THINK ABOUT MY HEALTH AND I DO NOT WANT TO GET LOST IN THE RABBIT HOLE OF ONE DOCTOR, ONE DISEASE LEADING TO ANOTHER DOCTOR AND ANOTHER DISEASE AND FINDING THE NEXT BEST THING SO I CAN GET FIXED.
I don’t know if I feel this way because I am battle worn and have PTSD or if it’s because I now fundamentally believe that I can’t get fixed and that the Almighty and I, in concert, are the only ones that can truly have an effect on my health.
And that, dear reader, is why it has taken me so long to write this damned blog entry.
I am scared. I was hoping to keep up this charade of the new me; a lot leaner, much more fit, streamlined for the rigors of 2020 and able to put up with just about anything.
I just can’t. I can be all of those things: leaner, more fit, careful diet, and the rest, but I am still me. I have a really broken body. And if I want to keep going I have to keep pushing myself to doctors’ appointments where I have to be active and in charge. There isn’t anyone else to lean on here. It’s all me. I have to be organized and ahead of things: write down the questions and keep the answers, tell dr. whosit what dr. whatsit said and remind dr. fullofhimself that I have a brain and can read (but in a nice and non confrontational way). Oh, and I need to remember it is ok to fire Asshole Mysoginistic Doctor who thinks he is god or at least remind him I don’t want to be called “sweetheart” and “dear” and he can stop touching my leg.
I still can’t get over the fact a doctor (that I kept seeing!) slid his hand inside my pants and rubbed my hiney and I let him do it. No, wait, that happened with two doctors. Maybe getting older is a blessing…
Whatever. I have to do this again.
I cannot expect to stay in some sort of health stasis.
I think this means I am going to have to do what I know I need to. I gotta work on the PTSD thing.
I am going to make a promise here.
I think I might actually follow through if I write it down here… pubically… (ha! did you get what I did there?)
I am going to find someone (a therapist type person) with whom I can work on the PTSD over hospitals, doctors and the rest and see if I can’t deal with it a bit better.
I might as well get started.
In a few hours I head to an infusion center for a shot in my leg that I have to stay and be monitored for because I once had.. you know.. not breathing.. happen.
Ok. that’s it.