Some progress
Just bullet points. I’m still really sick/whatever. But:
- tests came back totally normal, so we have to do different kinds of tests. Thyroid function is a-ok. You could have knocked me over with a feather, and then I cried. Why can it not be straightforward for once? I also have to have the growths monitored.
- Have signed papers for a brand! new! Elantra! But we still have to get through the whole trade-in process, so it’s not completely a done deal yet.
- Noah’s party redux is tomorrow. Original guest list: 27 attending. Tomorrow: 9. Oh well, there will be cake. I am so tired that I am not doing half of what I’d done last week.
- Noah’s word for museum: See-um. As in “can we go see-um?”
14 years
Tomorrow I will have been married for fourteen years. Technically.
And I’m still just as much in love with Carl as the day I… fell in love with him, about five-six years into our marriage, after I screamed down the stairs that I was going to go on a massive cheap-sex rampage. (Good times, good times. Who says life with a multiple isn’t exciting? Plus, never let it be said that I capitulate gracefully.)*
I’m sure that’s not the only reason that fourteen years seems impossible, not that the number itself is, but it’s just that that sounds so - long. And settled. Qualities I have come to appreciate more than I would have thought.
Even though I had to draw a line in the sand this year about focus and time and priorities, I am very very glad for the fourteen years and want more. So there.
* I realize most of this is lost in the diary-x archives I have never successfully imported, so if anyone wants to ask, ask away.
The power of positive thinking
Actually the title is quite misleading. And this blog is getting really boring. Onwards.
I’m now at the point where I didn’t go into work today because I’m too sick, particularly with the dizziness and headaches. I am working from home though because I’m taking vacation days later in the week and I need to get things done before then.
But… since Thursday I have felt progressively worse. I mean really, seriously bad. All day I feel like I’m choking and my joints ache.
But the rest is odd in the timing: every day for the last 5 days at 4 pm I get vertigo, to the point of not being able to navigate stairs well and almost passing out. Then it passes.
Then from about 2 am to about 4 am I get a migraine that makes me want to die. And then it stops. And then I get shooting pains down my body for about half an hour. During the shooting pain part I have an anxiety attack. Then at about 4:30 it all goes away and I can sleep until I have to get up, no problem. Then when I wake up until today I felt ok, but today I feel like shit (but I think it is duh, lack of sleep). I pled stomach flu at work, for now, which was plausible as Noah had it. I just don’t want to get into it.
I think some of how I feel is related to stress and worry, and also I think the choking feeling has just kicked my body into hypervigilance, the kind that (seriously) can kill you over time. I drank a root beer on the weekend (we had party stuff around) and the first swallow almost killed me; I had to lie down on the floor. I felt the cold root beer go all the way down my digestive track like lightening, it was extremely weird, like it was glowing (in a sensation way) and burning all the way.
And I honestly think it was that I am that extremely sensitive just now. If someone touches me it feels like an assault. I feel every stitch of cheap thread in the waistband of my pants, every tag, every imperfection, every fold of the sheet. It’s what sensory processing disorder is, and I vaguely remember that during my entire adolescence this is how I lived every day, every nerve waiting for something.
This is why sensory kids won’t eat. I don’t feel like it either. The food assaults my mouth, and then I feel it getting digested and it makes me feel heavy and tired. But I know as a teen I would stuff food into me to get that feeling, because it would at least cancel all the other feelings out. It’s a weird flashback to my former life.
For the rest though - the only times I’ve felt this bad were a) during Noah’s pregnancy (but I just finished a heavy period, so no worries there) and b) the time I got the mysterious vertigo in university. Which makes me wonder if maybe I’ve had thyroid problems for a long time? Or something else that is coming back.
I’m thinking/conjecturing/hoping that my thyroid function just crapped out and as soon as my doctor gets back I can get magic pills, and that the lymph node things are unrelated. Because if this is some chronic weirdo disease, then I am going to be totally fucked over. I realize there are many options here.
Meanwhile I’m starting yoga and about to be really really strict about healthy foods. I figure the yoga has to help with the pain and the sensory stuff. (If not I’m seriously going to look into things like weighed blankets.) And the food has to be good for me and might help with the tiredness after eating.
So things are not good on the western front today. But there is still some good stuff, more on this later.
On the continuation of this month’s theme…
Today’s Noah’s party. Except, he threw up 3 times last night. So I spent my morning calling 3 year olds’ parents and disappointing everyone. So far no one can come next weekend ’cause it is, of course, Labour Day.
Sigh. Noah himself doesn’t really seem to care; I think I’m the one disappointed.
Although it’s good in a way because in a disturbing new health development I keep passing out. And having no energy. And although I thought this was related to not sleeping due to the constant choking feeling, it’s getting worse and so - bah.
My doctor will be back soon, and trust me, I am taking everything seriously. The blood work came back that I don’t have a crazy bad thing but the white cell count was elevated (not typical for thyroid issues) and I need to be thoroughly examined. The thyroid blood tests take longer.
This is probably not coherent. But man. However, not dying of leukemia so this is always good. :)
3! Oh my god three!
This morning: Hey Noah, how old are you today?
Noah: 2… no 3! It my birthday!
Me: It is!
Noah: I’m not 2?
Me: No.
Noah: When I’ll be 2?
Me: You won’t be 2 again, sweetie (!!!!!)
Noah: Rock me in the rocking chair?
Awww.
Noah woke up to a cupcake and Lego, but opted solely for the Lego. He has a cake at camp today and then his party Sunday. I wish I had a picture of him this morning but (to continue the trend) the digital camera’s lens “mysteriously” got broken (Noah, looking at you, not that we weren’t a bit careless to leave it where it could be climbed up to). I have a new cheap-o camera so will take cheap-o picture later.
I did interview Noah on our (analog) video camera, which I hope to do every year from now on. It was fun. He said what he wants to be when he grows up (an astronaut) and who his best friend is (Piang) and what his favourite colours are (red and blue). He wouldn’t sing though. And then I videotapped him and Carl playing with the Lego a bit.
He is amazing at this age and I want to write a post about it sometime. The focus today is on his birthday as far as I’m concerned.
Except… and here’s the egoistical part I’ll just stick in this blog and let go of…
I sent Noah off to daycare with Carl and then I went down to pick up my requisition and go get some tests done. This scare, which I think it will turn out to be, is - well, scaring me. I mean occasionally to tears. The thyroid stuff is a worry but the lymph nodes are what bother me. I know there are a thousand reasons for lymph nodes to swell, but I also lost a friend to leukemia she didn’t know she had until 9 hours before she died.
One of today’s tests was a blood count, so that should be ruled out pretty quick (which was why I had to go get the tests even though my doctor’s away). Which is why she brought it up at all, because she knows me, and she knows I would have waited until she was almost back to get the tests otherwise. :)
So, having heard “leukemia” and “lymphoma” lately, I think I’m having a new-age experience (and I mean that in the vaguely snarky sense) with my own mortality, especially as it relates to being a parent. Here is what I’ve learned:
I’m suddenly eerily glad that I went back to work full-time. You would think it would be the opposite, that I’d hate the wasted time. But the thing is that going back to work re-jigged our family so that Carl has become an equal caregiver. And it’s also taught me (and Noah) that other people will love and care for my son, in that professional love and care way. And also it’s expanded Noah’s world beyond me. And although I am pretty sure I’m not dying, if I were dying, that would be a really big advantage right now.
I’m suddenly outraged at myself for not finishing my book or starting the next. Ha.
I want to make a list of all the books I want Noah to read in HIS LIFE. Because that would be kind of fun and not morbid, since it’s useful if one is alive, and I think if I were to be dying that would be the kind of roadmap I would want to leave behind. Letters from a dead person are fine, and video a la Michael Keaton whatever-that-movie-was are fine, but nothing is so good for an adolescent soul as a little Chaim Potok, right? So I’ll start the project at some point (I have to go work, go get Noah and go to Chapters since we always pick a book out on his birthday, and then fete my son right now)… and I think I will make it a meme. So start thinking now. :)
It got a bit worse
So after writing that post my doctor called. I have two nodules on my thyroid, both pretty small… but also enlarged lymph nodes next to them. So I need to have blood tests, which I needed anyway.
But what this also means, brief version, is that there is a possibility - not huge, but not tiny - that they are cancerous, and if so, the lymph nodes being involved would not be good. Unfortunately I have seen too many ABC afterschool specials, so - bah.
It will take a few weeks to continue to get tests and things. Today is work and tomorrow, dammit, is Noah’s birthday and I am going to work from home and suddenly that does not bother me at all.
Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad…
I have been reading your comments all and they are really helping me. Now I remember one big fat reason I blog (of several). So thank you.
The good news is that Noah had a 24 hr flu. He didn’t throw up again, was just a bit queasy and out of sorts on Monday, and went back to camp today and had a grand old time including spaghetti and meatballs. So that is good. He is amazing. I cannot believe he turns three on Thursday.
Me though, not doing so well. First of all, still feel like there’s a knuckle being shoved into the base of my throat. Which is constantly triggering. I feel exhausted not freaking out. (Unsuccessfully, see below.)
I went for the ultrasound yesterday, after having to change clinics because the small-but-good one messed up my appointment time/date so I had to go three subway stops over to the large-and-disorganized one. Then I had to hound that one to get the results to my doctor, today. She goes away tomorrow.
However she hasn’t called (reception warned it might be as late as 10 pm) and I was not able to get an appointment so I didn’t have to wait to be called.
(My doctor’s office is atypically screwy about this, even for Canada. They have like, I swear, 4 appointments per day you can book in advance, which are typically booked up about 8 months in advance, so they work fine if you know in a year you need a pap smear or something. But all other appointments, you have to call at 9 am to get a “sick appointment.” The problem is, my doctor’s practice is almost all old people (i.e. people who need a lot of appointments), plus ‘legacies’ like me and Noah (child and grandchild of original patient). So they all call at 9:01, and the office does not have voice mail - or a computer, but that’s a whole other thing. So literally by 9:20 there are no appointments left.)
All this made me quite grumpy, because I had worked from home in order to be available for any time of appointment. I’m supposed to limit my days at home to one per week. But I am wafflingly still planning Thursday as a work at home day, see, 3rd birthday, above - that way I can go cut cake at the school.
And oh yes, on my way down my street to the ultrasound appointment my car experienced “unintended acceleration” again. (I parked it there, and there it sits.) This makes it official: there is no fucking way in hell that I am keeping it. But the financial setback is going to be steep, because I really cannot sell this car privately. So I can trade it in (assuming Volvo can fix it enough for that), but as I still have a balance owing, I’m going to have to pay that cash.
This sucks, and I hate cars. Volvo will give me a great deal on another Volvo. Right. When hell freezes over. And I am not saying that only because my car is trying to kill me and the service has pretty much sucked. I’m saying that because I don’t really want a luxury vehicle. It was/looked like/was (because I do believe these problems were not there when we bought it) a good deal at the time but just - no. No no no no no.
I even went to test drive a Honda Fit, even though it’s too small in many ways, under the theory that we don’t need a big car Right Now and Carl’s car will need replacing by the time we do. You get an environmental rebate and hey! It’s cute! But there are none left! Because I like the cars Canadians like: the Mazda 5 mini-minivan for a big car, and the Honda Fit or Civic for a small car (would love hybrid or Prius but it’s out of our price league). Or Corolla. What can I say? In my defense, the Civic, at least, is manufactured here in Ontario.
Anyways, for the Fit the ’08s are sold out and the ’09s have a waiting list for Sept. Joy. I might jump for Civic. Or I might jump for a 5. What I really want is a used something (Civic? There are like, no used 5s) except… I don’t want to be burned again. It would have to be certified warrantied used or something.
Anyways, I can’t deal with it though. I can’t deal with part of the reason our savings is depleted (has everything to do with Carl) and I really, really needed to have a car paid off by next year. That was the plan for a reason and it bothers me. It kind of bothers me I moved out to the edge of Toronto where really practically I pretty much do need a car if I don’t want Noah in extra hours of care (I don’t). The money and carbon footprint of it bothers me.
And I can’t deal with this death-trap of a car because, possibly due to thyroid and possibly just plain old me, everytime I even think of that car I have this vivid picture of Noah burning to death while I try to get him out of the carseat (THANK YOU THE GARGOYLE for all the burn ward detail). I don’t know. Something about this latest unintended acceleration after they ASSURED me I could put my toddler in the car has just made me irrational. I haven’t even had the car towed or called them yet because I honestly think I am going to become a raving psycho about it. There’s some rationality in being upset, but I know myself and I know I am far, far over that line inside my head.
Both these experiences, the no-appointment-for-you and no-car-for-you thing have made me feel like I did about Emily dying and the way I felt being abused growing up, that I am saying things are Wrong and NO ONE IS LISTENING.
And I know that there is a tiny kernel of perhaps not responsibility, or maybe it is indeed, which is that when I get crazy like this I shut down. I continue to be polite on the phone and not go off on reception for not squeezing me in because I called at 9:18. And to deal with Volvo as if they were not being completely incompetent.
And I know on some level that if I would up the yelling factor I might, just might, get a little something I want. In the doctor’s case I wanted an appointment before she goes away for 2 weeks while I feel like I am being strangled, which did happen to me in a dorm room in 1990. And in the car case I want Volvo to accept the vehicle with my gracious thanks and write off the remainder of the loan, which would be half the value were the car working (which they say it does, except, you know, when it has unintended acceleration, which is when they suddenly say “well you didn’t DRIVE it did you?”)
But back to me. I know that if I would up the yelling level I might get through to someone. But I rarely do (only if Noah is directly in danger). A small part of this is the ENFP/J part of me that thinks that the world should not work like that and I will not contribute to it, the little fairness maker.
But the vast majority of it is the fear of that rage, the fear that my anger outweighs me by a factor of a million and if I loose it into the world the skyscrapers will fall and the volcanos erupt and the skies turn to ash and the seas to salt. And I know, thanks to years of introspection and therapy, that of course this is not the case, and it’s a little narcissistic, and that it’s in fact the ass-backwards way to deal with it; instead boundaries should be set, anger should be expressed, and that is what paradoxically brings it to heel.
Oh yes, I know that, but I can’t… quite… get there. Yet. Say it with me: Volvo service guy, I am VERY ANGRY AND UPSET that my car is UNSAFE and your department has NOT BEEN ABLE TO ADDRESS MY CONCERNS.
The thing is, I said this last week.
Also, icing on the cake: if this is my thyroid, one of the symptoms is heightened anxiety. AHAHAHA.
Anyways.
My goal this week is to enjoy Noah’s birthday. Hopefully by Thursday and his party on Sunday I can let some of these things go enough.
P.S. bed autonomy
Also, how do non-co-sleeping parents handle it if their tiny vulnerable preschooler has the stomach flu and sleeps in his/her own bed?
I need to know, because Noah chooses his own bed most of the time now, and tonight, despite the vomiting and so forth, he chose his own bed.
So like, am I supposed to go to sleep with the baby monitor pressed to my ear and assume he will SURVIVE if he wakes up sick and vomiting and it takes me a few minutes to wake up and get 12 steps down the hall? Or do I sleep on his floor?
!
Body autonomy
Noah’s sense of body autonomy is so strong right now. So when he came down with what I am pretty sure is a flu (could be too much sun, but a friend had the flu so - yeah, sigh) he was both upset and indignant. He wanted to go to the doctor’s right away. He wanted to know why he threw up and how to make it stop. He wanted to talk to his stomach and tell it not to do that. He wanted to make sure towels were everywhere so he wouldn’t get anything dirty. He wanted to know if his pyjamas will wash clean.
This is his second vomiting flu and the difference is enormous. Last time he didn’t really understand what it was and would throw up and then kind of ignore it and then throw up and so on.
~~~
Next week was already extraordinarily hard and this is just going to confound it worse, especially if I get it. I have to have an ultrasound on Monday because I am having some big issues that are probably thyroid related. The biggest being that I feel like I am choking, all the time, down in my throat. This started on Tuesday and it’s really triggering and gross, and it may be a cyst. But it may also be subacute thyroiditis, just an unusual kind.
Anyways I have to schedule that and then a follow up doctor’s appointment, my car needs to go in again (it didn’t even work long enough to trade it in!), and work is crazy.
At least it’s not a brain tumour. The possibility was discussed because of nerve issues I’ve been having, which probably trace to my back and my back injury low these 24 years ago. But then I have to follow up on those too.
And oh yes Thursday is Noah’s birthday and Sunday is his party. Whee! Seriously I am looking forward to both, except the attendent work involved.
~~~
If it was too much sun it was honourably earned. We - all three of us! - went to the arts festival in the park and it was fun. I was remembering how Noah danced there for the first time two years ago - his first unassisted standing, and he chose to bounce up and down to the music wildly. This year he ran back and forth to the wagon, proving that he didn’t HAVE to stay with his parents while still keeping us in sight. And he told me not to dance, but I did anyway.
Ban the books!
I have occasionally lowbrow taste in books. For example, the first Anita Blake mystery I ever read was Obsidian Butterfly, which I still think is about the best one, and it has pretty much no sex in it. Well maybe a little. But anyway, since then I have read more in the series, even when it has descended into polyamorous plotless oddly written orgy descriptions interspersed with drama instead of, you know, mysteries. Which only bugs me if I turn my brain on. If I don’t, I quite like it, since it is a little bit quite like some of the inside of my head. Cough.
And lately, since I am reading good fiction for work (by the way, Andrew Davidson’s The Gargoyle* is well worth the hype if you don’t mind a little magic realism in your literary fiction**, and yes, I mention that JUST because I read an advance reader copy in June and ARCs are still a thrill to me; excellent Globe and Mail story here), I have been reading trash at home, including catching up on Anita’s exploits, including books I hadn’t read before.
So tonight Noah wanted to hold one of the books as he went to sleep. That’s fine; he often treats books as lovies, probably because I kept falling asleep reading and nursing him and dropping them (gently) onto his face so he associates them with the early idyllic rocking chair.
As I’m sitting there I hear this:
“Kuh! Kuh ihh! Kuh ihh Luh! Klil!”
Yah, one of my son’s first spontaneous attempts at decoding: The Killing Dance.
Sigh. Does Ikea sell locking bookcases? :)
* P.S. You also must know that I am a sucker for any author’s story of “how I wrote this book” that begins with an irascible and mysterious female appearing to said author. Not only am I such a creature myself if you reach far enough back in the system’s history, but I am daily confronted by Lynn.
** P.P.S. And now that I think about it, the Anita Blake books actually are sort of third cousins to The Gargoyle in some ways. Not the orgies or indeed polyamory but there are some of the same underpinnings in terms of love, craziness, fate, and gore.