Thankful

She plays coy....but we know her strength

First off I would like to thank the people who are now following my blog.

I have written here for years and in the last 6months I have been "discovered"....in fact the first time I realized I had "followers" I sat and stared at the screen and cried. I am not totally sure why. I think it was a combination of feeling found out, and feeling found.

So thank you ladies for your OVERWHELMINGLY kind words and love.

I do so feel it.

Yesterday was a stop at the NP, I wanted to talk about my plans, and desires for my body.

My primary care doc chose not to call to followup on the results of my MRI from December so I took control and booked an appt with the NP who treats me like a person and hears what I say.

So long crappy primary care doc...and thanks for nothing

When she came in I told her that I wanted to go over my latest results and find out what it really meant. She moved her chair all the way over to me and went thru each of the four lines of findings slowly. 

I pointed out that the cyst had shrunk between the ultrasound and the MRI (one week apart) and she mentioned that it might have ruptured a little after the ultrasound.

She also thinks that the "plucking" feeling I have is most likely Mittleschmerz or middle pain, the feeling of ovulation.

I told her I had not gone back onto the BC pills since I saw her last in Aug (for a stressed tummy) and that although she prescribed them to me, it took months to fill it and then pick it up from the pharmacy.

 It now resides in the cabinet of my bathroom....forgotten most of the time.

I told her the emotion of having to go back on them was too heavy.

I wanted to avoid them for as long as possible. I felt better off of them.

Seeing that I was still doing nothing to shrink the fibroids or the cysts, I was aware I was at risk for torsion and wanted to assess the real facts involved in making this decision.

I also told her I have been fed so many scare speeches, that if she could please simply tell me if I am acting risky. No need to stand in front of a dragon if I don't have to.

After a cyst gets about 3cm she likes to keep a close eye on it. Mine are around that size but I am feeling fine. She said she would prefer to treat me, then the cyst...if I feel fine, then we just keep an eye on the cyst and not go on the pill. I get to have ultrasounds every 4-6months instead.

She told me the warning signs of fallopian tube torsion and I understand the risk.

She told me to that I need to take vitamins and that we will assess my needs as they appear, she will do my annual and we will work together to keep me feeling good!

and that my penchant for chai or green tea is not a caffeine risk.

I felt like a person when I left, I felt normal and ok...I was so empowered that I came home and took a nap!

I awoke from a dream about two weeks ago telling my husband that I have just slain the devil...I slid a sword down its back. It fit into its spine like a sheath, it was not a triumphant feeling, but simply something I knew I could do.

He told me I was a bad-ass, and was glad I was sleeping next to him.

Wordless Wednesday

decisions and choices

Calm

I was calmly walking up and down the fully loaded aisles this afternoon on a break from work.

Well, in between having to make a deposit at the bank and return to a pile of invoices.

I was shopping at my favorite Asian Market this afternoon,

I have known the family since I was 13. Their market moved in next door to our little restaurant way back when and after all my travels in Asia, I have made their shop a monthly ritual for stocking up on long loved items that the grocery store just doesn't have.

I went to high school with the families daughters and we have always been friendly with one another.

Today I was lost in pottery and figuring out which packages of soba noodles I wanted.

I was the only one in store, besides one of the daughters who was running the register. 

( they are twins and I have never been able to tell them apart...I don't hang out enough with them to hear a nuisance in a voice or see a difference in a mannerism) 

Anyways, I am lost in noodles when I hear her say

" You never had kids, huh"

I slowly looked up and said..."we tried for a long time, but it just never happened."

She told me that she is hearing a lot of people tell her recently, and she wondered what was happening.

I casually said, maybe it was all the processed food we were raised on or something.

She said "Yeah, I mean our parents clearly didn't have the same problem"

I am aware of the difference in cultures and the manner and ease that a serious topic can be addressed so casually and this came to mind as I tried to loose myself again in the aisle of bulk spices.

When I finished finding a new variety of miso and loading my basket with bulgar and the like, I took it to the register. We looked and each other and I found myself compelled to complete the thought that she had started.

" We have tried for close to 6 years now and it just doesn't happen"

her response

" Do you know who's fault it is? "

then a voice that was so calm and sure came from my mouth, before I even realized that I had responded

" it is no ones fault. We simply can not stay pregnant"

She said she had seen a science show about infertility and that a woman was talking about miscarriage and that she had lost four pregnancies before deciding that it was too much to bear emotionally and she adopted instead.

I looked at her and said, "yes, it is a horrible experience."

He brother-in-law entered the store with a sleeping baby in a carrier and quickly whisked it off to the back of the shop.

I watched him with my eyes and she looked and me and said, that her nephew takes his nap in back with her parents watching over him.

I paid for my stuff and she said, your brother has kids right? I said yep, I have three nephews and a niece.

At that I wished her a great day and to say hello to her parents for me.

I got into the car and buckled myself in, I decided The Barreness can take care of herself.

a horrible possiblity

I am still on a slippery slope...but feel I am at least moving upwards.

At dinner last night I was feeling lighter then I have been in a few days and then something brought up the topic of acne....and my hubby said " you know the article about accutane " my head stopped and I dipped back below the surface.

I was just 11 or 12 when the dermatologist wanted to start me on the trials of this drug...being 12 I was afraid of needles (the drug required regular blood work while taking it) so I waited until I was 17 to take it. I had HORRIBLE cystic acne, I was on antibiotics for years for it, as well as all sorts of topical creams and dealt with invasive procedures all in hopes to reduce my acne. This acne had already wiped away all my self-esteem and still has it lasting effects to this day with me trusting people.

I was teased horribly for YEARS as an elementary kid, jr high kid and then high schooler.

I had one friend, and she was considered the fat girl that no one talked to.

 I also had braces and glasses...so my image of myself was not a bright one.

I was the stereotype they had in movies.

At 16/17 I finally had had enough and went on the drug, it worked great but after the first round was over my acne came back again...I was told "this only happens in 3% of the cases" well meet miss 3%

so I went on another round and that knocked it all away.

My boyfriend at the time was also on it and we would get our blood work done at the same time,

romantic I know.

So after last nights reminder, I was shot back to being a little kid and my bullies telling me to put my head in a bag as "you are not worth looking at"  that bullies name was James. I remember you.

I wonder if I would have made different choices if I had known that I was possibly taking away my chance to become a mother.

wordless wednesday

Crap

I am currently fighting a case of the blues.

Well, I don't really fight them anymore really. I simply let it come and be...I have found that my past methods of brushing them aside simply piles it all up into a corner and then then tumbles down onto me later when I am feeling like myself and under control.

*

Maybe it is the new years arrival, maybe it is the presence of birth control pills in my house.

The birth announcements, or the season.

Maybe it is something else.

*

Regardless, I am sad and am trying to figure out why

*

I am wanting to turn my life upside down again, like a strong shake will make the last pieces fall into place or something. I go thru these phases of wanting to cut my hair, wear different clothes, become a different person.
These usually fade away with a few baths and I remember that I have not won the lottery so my plans to run away and join the circus are not really do-able yet.
I actually use to practice balancing acts as a child in case the circus needed someone
(but that is another story)

Until I can figure this latest round out, I am quiet, moody and weepy.

Surviving

Santa at the mall

I have been quite moody as of late.

I have been having panic attacks, and sleeping poorly.

I have been dreaming of bugs, and roller skates and babies and waterfalls and all of them have me searching.

I am exhausted when I awake.

I have found myself overwhelmed by the simply things in life, like deciding what to eat for dinner.

I need a break, but I am trying to find a time when that can happen.

I tried to see Santa at the mall with my father; it is a new tradition that we have started. Being a Jewish kid, we were really never part of the magic that is Santa, and my father and mother simply fed us what they were taught too. Now my dad and I try to have a picture taken with Santa, I have told him that it simply means we believe in magic, nothing more nothing less.

He called me and asked if I wanted to go I was delighted by the idea, blinded by what I might encounter.

My parents arrived and we headed to see the bearded man, there was a LONG line filled with babies, toddlers and mothers. I looked at my dad and said " I don't think my management skills are gonna cover me" he looked at me, my mother looked at me...I stood there for a moment longer, assessing the crowd again...and feeling the primal need to run, run away fast and hard....I swallowed hard and said again " I can not do this right now" totally heartbroken.

We left the line and I was shaken to the core.

We walked and really said nothing much more, I found myself apologizing.

Asking for forgiveness for my weakness.

I really wanted to feel the magic, I really wanted that photo with my father, his act of rebellion against all that he was taught. I couldn't have it this year.

As strong as I thought I was, I found myself just as weak.

I did manage to fight back tears, and not cry in front of them.

I am still not sure why I choose to not cry, I am always crying in public places...

but not this time.

Christmas came and went and the new year is around the corner.

We still need to make our holiday cards...

worm hole

I had dreams that I was turning into an earthworm, but couldn't finish the transition as I was stuck at some stage of the metamorphosis.

I called my doctors office yesterday as the waiting was too heavy to continue to carry.

My doctor was not in the office, so I asked to speak with the nurse that has been so so wonderful to talk to on the phone. She came thru again like a magic maker. She looked thru my doctors papers and called me back with results.

She told me that I had a cyst on my ovary, but more importantly, it was fluid filled, no solid mass and did not appear to be malignant or questionable.

Great news....it doesn't look cancerous.

My uterus is tilted and they could see my fibroids.

No new news, or new bad news.

I am back to looking at my prescription for the pill and seeing how I feel about filling it.

Modesty

After a night of childbirth dreams, which I am sure were spurred by my overnight cramping;

 I awoke to my period.

A week early and on the day of my pelvic MRI.

I know now The Barreness is pulling no punches.

I am not going to take any pain meds before the MRI so that all is shown it is glory, no abridged story here.

My sense of modesty has flown out the window, as I called to ask if I can wear a tampon for the MRI.

I feel like I did in Jr High when I got my period at school and had to run home to change clothes.

I am fighting the nausea that the pain brings....I am shaking from the nerves, I am visualizing my ovary surviving its hostile takeover. 

Mellow

© The Barreness
all rights reserved

I have my MRI on tomorrow morning. The location only offers a closed MRI machine so I am being prescribed a "mellow the hell out" pill to make me not think all those horrible things, or at least not care about them while a powerful magnetic field is used to align the magnetization of some atoms in my body, which will create a radio frequency field to systematically alter the alignment of this magnetization. This will cause my nuclei to produce a rotating magnetic field detectable by the scanner—and this information is recorded to construct an image of my uterus, ovaries and pelvis. 

really it is quite scientific, nothing to be emotional about, 

nothing to be freaking out about.

I had an MRI once before, of my brain though 

and I was in an open MRI 

while my hubby held my ankle 

so I wouldn't cry from fear of what they might find.

Hubby has made arrangements to be at this one too, hopefully he can hold whatever part of me is still sticking out of the thing so I don't feel so lost and scared. I don't think I am scared of small spaces, but when I think of it, under the conditions I am there I want a " I don't give a fuck" pill, followed by a long nap of forgetting all my concerns with magical make it all go away dreams.

During my recent panic attacks I have been mad at myself for wanting to try and live off the pill, as this is the reaction. I continued to wait and tempt the Barreness with more opportunities to build new fibroids and cysts and she took that chance and moved in. Now I have something growing in me that is causing concern. I just hope I can get the wheel to start spinning in the other direction and save my ovary from her.

I will know more as the week passes.

I really don't like the feeling of doctors making passing glances at my films and making life altering suggestions for me. The long history of being in this place has left me feeling skeptical of them, I really wanted a healer, a compassionate healer. 

Last Night

Last nights dream was filled with symbols it was like a crazy decorated room:

I was wandering around in a room when my cat came racing in with something in it's mouth...I stopped it and found that he was carrying a kitten, a newly born kitten. I took it from his mouth and handed it to my husband and said "hold this I am going to see where he got it from". Then said that maybe this is why our cat has been so freaked out lately.

On turning around to see where he had run from I saw a pocket in the carpet that had a mama cat and a pool of kittens. She had crazy eyes and pulled the carpet back over herself while asking me to bring back her kitten. I wandered into the next room, that was filled with bathroom stalls, and the largest had the door swing open, and inside was another mama cat with a pool of kittens; as well there was a woman I know (I have just reconnected with) that was in a 50's style dressing gown (sheer puffy sleeved top that separates in front for breast feeding, something I have seen mothers wear in 50's movies while sitting in a hospital bed after having a baby) anyways, this woman was pacing and rubbing her hands, clearing concerned. I asked what was wrong and she described how she had been measuring her belly button so it was big enough for an amnio,something with the number 9 and started to cry. She had had her baby (this woman in awakened life tried IVF several times and never conceived) I hugged her and she whispered to me that she would have to give him up for adoption.

I remember rubbing her back and then leaving her and heading out a door, only to walk over more kittens.

I started to run....up a steep hill and then the hill turned into a series of staircases....and I started running up the stairs and running I said to myself, "I have run a marathon before I can do this"

and then was trying to remember when I had run this marathon....

at this I awoke.

Ode to The Barreness

Is there anybody going to listen to my story
All about the girl who came to stay?
She's the kind of girl you want so much it makes you sorry
Still you don't regret a single day
Ah girl, girl
 

When I think of all the times I tried so hard to leave her
She will turn to me and start to cry
And she promises the earth to me and I believe her
After all this time, I don't know why
Ah girl, girl

She's the kind of girl who puts you down
When friends are there, you feel a fool
When you say she's looking good
She acts as if it's understood
She's cool, oh
Ah girl, girl

Was she told when she was young the pain would lead to pleasure?
Did she understand it when they said
That a man must break his back to earn his day of leisure
Will she still believe it when he's dead?
Ah girl, girl

I finished.. .

I blogged all month long, I finished NaBloPoMo

I never thought I would have so many reflections on being infertile or how it has touched me daily.

I got a call from the doctor's office...I need an MRI to determine what kind of monster we are dealing with.

In many ways I am glad to know I will finally get a picture of my questionable uterus, in other ways I am afraid of what kind of fear-speech I will get next. 

All I know is that things have grown and they have grown fast.

Soooo I am back to waiting for more information and being my own best advocate.

Initiate brave face....and smile

I might be mad at my reproductive system, but I have no desire to have it removed, or strangled or harmed.

It is mine and I am dead set on keeping it.

Only time will tell

I made it thru the exam. I drank as much water as I could, but it was not enough....

My poor uterus was slumped over my bladder for the abdominal portion of the ultrasound...so she had to push down quite hard to see all around it.

I ignored the discomfort and tried to not beat myself up about not drinking more water.

The tech was once again incredible and sympathetic and kind...I thanked her for that and it made her blush.

She is also kind enough to say out loud what she is seeing, or doing...another reason I travel out of my way to have her do the ultrasounds.

All seems to still be there, some are harder to see than others but their presence is known, the details lost.

She said very kindly...." I think I will be seeing you again soon" which is code for all is not gone.
She said under her voice that it appeared that one is quite camped out, and the cyst on my ovary is so much a part of its host that she can not tell where one ends and the other begins.

The doctor's report will state more details and measurements...I simply must wait and see.

Wait and see if this two year run is over, and for the sake of my messed up repo system I go back on the pill or I continue the wait and see. Sometimes I think, just go back onto the pill...but then I remember all the things that bum me out about it: handfuls of hair falling out, loosing the curl in what hair remains, the loss of my newly reclaimed sex drive, the mood swings...the fact that I am back on the pill.

I have been to this crossroads before and as sure at times as I am, I am just as unsure.

I know I only get this time around in this life...and I have waited a long time for this spin and have spent a lot of time waiting...simply waiting for a period, a pain to leave, a vision to come....for things to make sense.

I am still having to be patient.

I can see The Barreness, she is smirking at me...wondering which choice I will make now. She treats it like a chess match and has already calculated her moves based on my know responses.

My desire is to fool her this time.

Follow-up

I have an ultrasound at 7:45am tomorrow.

It is a follow-up to one done in July, where a complex cyst was found. The NP seemed concerned and wanted to get me in ASAP, but after she saw the date realized that we needed to wait 4 months before doing the next one.

Tomorrow is that next one. I go to a hospital, and check in to have it done, as it a tiny town and that is the way things are done. Plus the tech there was the first to be kind, compassionate and did not give me the "keep tryin" speech.

Tonight I am just working on not being nervous, I am also trying to drink more water so the AM chug of 40 ounces will not seem as extreme.

Every ultrasound has revealed a new finding, and I just hope this one reveals that the "questionable cyst" is gone or normal.

I have been experiencing new ligament discomfort, in fact most of last week was either the rocks in my bladder or the tight plucking sensation over my right ovary.

On another note, I have been off the pill for almost two years and in that time I have not had one ER visit.

One victory.

Aside

I spent the day working and avoiding work..it is a delicate balance.

The neighbor ordered a bouncy...It is parked outside my workroom. It started as white noise...a dull buzz.

Then as my distractions dropped, it came into focus of sorts.

I became more and more aware of it.

I worked as I heard squeals and jarring voices from jumping.

Then came the parent that was pretending to be a monster, chasing the children...roaring and more squealing.

Then came me mentioning a movie, a way to get out of the house.

The rain arrived shortly afterwards and the jumper fell silent,

I was thankful to Mother Nature for providing us a break from our own daydreams.

It is that time of the year

So now that Thanksgiving is a thing of the past, it is time to focus on Christmas.

At least that is what I am being fed everywhere I go

I usually watch a lot less television this time of year, as the commercials get so so hard to ignore.

There are families and traditions and colors and emotions.

It becomes harder to go the store to shop for simple things like toilet paper and salsa. There is Christmas music everywhere and children in tow. School is out and the patience level of parents drops as they mow thru stores and life trying to get things done and presents wrapped and food made.

All the while I float and bare witness to mothers yelling at their children in SUV's and fathers screaming at their kids to listen.

I caught sight of myself in the reflection of the car window today and I look tired.

 I wonder how I can get my zip back...

what can I do to pull it all together again?

I want to have a holiday, feel like everything is happy and festive.

Special and memorable, like I am creating a memory for just ourselves and that that is ok,

not just something we have settled for.

Present

Don't let yesterday use up too much of today.

 ~Cherokee Indian Proverb

I tried to keep this in mind today, I wanted to have an old fashion thanksgiving.

One where I wasn't reminded of the long road that we have walked.

I awoke early to make my great Aunt's sweet potato recipe.

Alone in the kitchen I washed and cut the tubers and put them on the stove to boil.

As I mashed them up I thought of my Aunt making the dish so many times in her life, I thought of my grandmother making the dish many times in her life and I thought of how I am now making it.

For a moment, I felt like I was connected to my past.

At the table I was asked about the sweet potato dish and as I am the only one who still makes it, I said:

I need to make sure someone can make it besides me, and in that same moment I said...

I will teach my nephew...

it was quick and I felt no pain about it.

It was like I was normal for a moment.

I am thankful for that.

Warmth

This morning before the sun was even up, we got back into our car and drove out of the ice and snow back home. Our 36 hour trip had come to an end.

Before leaving we knocked on my sister-in-laws door and were directed into the warm dark room, where we found little quiet lumps in the bed. 

I could see their little bodies, curled into soft curves, hair all disheveled.

I dreamt of this moment for myself, many time over...

walking into a dark room, smelling the soft scent of their breath in the air.

Hearing them quietly breathe and knowing that they were safe and mine.

This is the closest I can get; a welcomed visitor into a family members room.

It was heartbreaking.

I wanted to whisper into their ear during their early morning dreams; but all I could do was rest my hand onto their head feel their silken hair in my fingers and quickly kiss their cheek.

Hopefully I was able to let them know I loved them, even if I still wasn't strong enough to sit and watch them sleep.

A Quiet Moment

After a loud morning, filled with conversations about coloring,exploding trucks and mini fridges being flung open and their contents spilled across the floor of the room...we are enjoying a quiet afternoon with adults only. All afternoon we have enjoyed the simple company of family and adult conversations.

My nephews are running around in snow with cousins.

tonight they will simply sleep.