Coming Up: Submerged in murky swamps and downward dogged into a corpulent creation, our ARTist waits... and waits... and waits... for euphemisms, Halloween thrills, and a final go ahead from that same snipey sassy soma that has lagged so long. A million moments hovering in space on a single IF and a companion WHEN. Will Sanguinity Now! nostrums coax the coagulated corpus to flow freely? Will craziness emerge from chaos in fresh furcations?
Only time (and the entries below) will tell.
The Interlude Non-Period And another merry (we hope) Monday!
Unleash a can of whoop-patience: it's time for the waiting game! I've torn off my patches and doffed my drug bottles. And now I have reached the "2-7 days" in which I let my intransigent body decide what happens next. Does it demand a repeat performance of orange barracuda lady-cocktail choice option A. Or do we amp up to mega-super-oh-my-oh-ova shoot 'em ups option B(aby trying)? Drums are a'rollin' in chambers of my heart.
In the meantime, the parts I can control shall be complying with the more rigid demands of the next phase. My mandate for the next few months: eat a bunch, work(out) less hard, chill the frig out, and pamper the crap out of myself. So, act more like the self-entitled Amurican upper-middle class brat I really am. In between the poking and prodding and endless commuting, that is.
Eating more. Check. Kind of challenging. I still haven't quite gotten the hang of it, but I'm getting a little better just doubling up portions of certain foods. More oil on the pan for breakfast. More fruit on tap throughout the day. Extra grains. Extra nuts. I've done this before, so I have a template. It's still kind of a gradual readjustment, but I'm getting there. And coaxing my body into increasingly tolerant states. Still can't stomach (har har) sugar, but fats are increasingly a-ok. I'm still ten pounds up on my wedding weight, but honestly could stand another ten just fine (hell, I looked cute twenty-five pounds up). And now, still not "just eating a cheeseburger." Just wait all you advice-offerers: it'll turn out that cheeseburgers are like the perfect diet food. Just give it enough time and there will be a study to that effect and a related diet book.
Chilling the frig out. Working on it. See below.
Pampering myself. Working on it. Through the largesse of some not-so-anonymous patrons, I am in receipt of a gift certificate for Massage Envy. Yesterday I scheduled a November appointment with somebody other than Nick during a weekend time that he doesn't have available. It's a full body swedish (read wimpy) massage. Then a real deep tissue cruncher with Nick for the next weekend. I'm also reviving my headphones for walking around with my meditative classical station all awhirl. I'm further determined to make this bath thing stick a little more.
Working (out) less. Oh boy. Andrew may say "well it's only really the one run a week, right" as if this will be no big deal. Compared to him having to to cut out his five billion hours of truculent and tightly tracked tachycardia, he's right. But it's a little more than just a half hour a week.
There really may be something to that exercise-addiction theory. I'm not saying I am getting full on DTs, but a good cardio rev up is definitely the quickest way to bliss back from a stressful surge of adrenaline. Not having that as a resource is definitely an adjustment. I may have gotten a pure high walking up the stairs this morning. Took all my willpower not to start charging up to the heavens.
It feels weird not to have done at least something a little heart raising. I may not do formal runs or workouts during the week, but I always do something a little challenging. Run up the stairs, sprint across a street. Especially on days where I haven't spent hours meandering in place on my treadmill desk. My body feels a bit backlogged with excess energy. Especially with the extra eating. Usually if I eat to the point of fullness, my body interprets this as "oooh fuel for movement! Let's move!" Loggishness is not a familiar one for me.
More than the surge though, it is a little weird. Being fit and in shape, running fast, having great endurance, being pretty strong and looking athletic... these are all parts of my self-identity. And part of our couple's identity. Being in shape is something we're proud of. Something that makes us the (W)rights. Something, quite frankly, Andrew loves me for... and that makes this scarier.
Watching Andrew sprint off yesterday, later hearing him blathering on about how hard of a run he'd done and how excited he was to amp his running up for the training season... kind of sucked.An immediate reminder of both something I'm missing out of and a minor drift between us to have lost a shared thing. Minor. No big deal. But harder. Even if I did join him for the warming up part, and take a nice walk when he sprinted off.
He's reluctantly but dutifully going along with my request that we try yoga (double goal in mind: keep some sense of myself as "fit" while doing something that also forces me to chill the frig out) as a weekend substitute. Not exactly with gusto, and still after the run and the biking and whatever else is beating it to his training calendar. But it's something. Sure I want him to want to do the dishes, but I'll take just doing them after I nag!
It will be nice to have some something like that. I guess this is a time where I feel the need to have a sense of solidarity. Infertility is shockingly isolating and all the more so when your beloved frames it as "Adella's problem" with no malice or jugment, but a clear sense of distinction. So any little shared something helps that out. I even started suggesting we go on mellow bike rides together, which is pretty shocking. Clearly the lack of a run this weekend is driving me totally mad.
Yesterday was good practice for all of the above. I had an appreciably painful massage with Nick. Note to self: full body is even more painful than the back/neck ones sometimes. And holy crap what did I do to my calf muscle?!? I also took the aforementioned walk, followed by an additional walk around the Harbor with my mom and Favors, her frisky boy-toy.
I'm trying to slow down a little when I can. Maybe leaving a kitchen mess for longer. Maybe leaving a little more produce to handle during the week. Even downloaded a mindfulness meditation app that is (1) cheesy to the point of making me laugh, (2) still fairly effective for times when you've got a few extra minutes to kill while sitting around and waiting.
If yoga sticks, I might take more time out to do it during the week. Yes, now I see how yoga-moms are born. Women's bodies don't always tolerate the form of upper-middle-class-elitist-signaling-via-athletic-prowess that favors men. More importantly, it preserves my excuse to endue myself from head to foot in athletic clothes. As if I ever needed one!
My excuse today is pilates. Maybe tomorrow it will be... ok, tomorrow, I'll actually wear my real pants (which are far baggier and less attractive being as they're purchased for a weight I've yet to attain, and not stretchy). Wednesday of course for date night?
Happy Monday! I hope whatever ambiguities you are waiting on resolve themselves into workable paths, and in the meantime may you enjoy the interims with a heaping bit of self care and your favorite tunes!
A Tremulous Tuesday Declining and Paranoia Pining
The following morning-lesson may be noted in crimson ink and cinereal accent: gently touching the side of your hand to a sizzling skillet is ill-advised. Wearing dinky little latex food-prep gloves will provide an interesting puckering reaction to the immediate SSSSST, but will not necessarily prevent the formation of some irate little char on a high-traffic swath of the body. Makes me nostalgic for my teen years when I volunteered at a local movie theater and was constantly cauterizing myself making popcorn.
Then again, if you must burn yourself, definitely opt for the hands over more delicate areas of your epiderm. Feet, for instance. Trust me on this, you do not want to pour scalding tea water on a besocked toe. Yes the resulting blister does resemble an adorable little sea creature, but it's gross and painful and does not suffer shoes.
And if you must burn your hand, the side underneath your thumb isn't a horrible place to do so. Far less ornery than a frail fingertip or a multi-purpose palm. I'm not saying I'd do it again, but as morning burns go... well it could have been worse. With the oil I fling around sometimes, it could have been an eye. I really should wear more protective gear in that kitchen. Maybe a hazmat suit!
Today begins the official waiting window on my transitions between treatments (3-7 days after going off the crazy happy fun pharmacopeia). I am footloose and fancy-lady-cocktail free. I am, essentially, waiting for Aunt Flo. I am, as a result, simultaneously despairing (how many cycles has "she" failed to show) and hyper-aware of every last little twinge and cavil of my body.
My sassy souma been aroiling (and generally just a royal pain) since going cold turkey. That's to be expected given the massive doses of looby lady pills etc. previously flowing through my body. I'd be a bit cantankerous too at the dramatic shift. But, if these ninja cramp attacks and tremulous lethargies are to no particular end, I am annoyed. If it's all working up to going full on Carrie-doused-in-pig's-blood-at-the-prom on Halloween month, I'm far more tolerant. We'll see.
And I shall carry on my quest for fattening up and mellowing out. My grand gesture for today shall be decreasing my default "incline" setting on the treadmill from 2 mph at 3% grade to 2 mph at 1% grade. I really can't tell the difference, but there is a difference.
I'm also putting some extra focus into walking up the stairs slowly. Which, when done with a cynosure on continuous gradual motion, actually becomes a challenging strength and balance exercise in and of itself.
Yesterday I demanded a bath of myself. Yes, the bathtub was muckier than a moat. Two days of post-mountain-biking-boyfrianceband ablutions will do some pretty nasty things to any bath. Yes I had to start the bath by fishing out several hairballs from an uprotected drain (the bike-and-chain likes to rinse his jerseys and shorts off in the bathtub; he then will take the drain cover off to let the shower drain "more quickly" when the detritus on his clothes starts to back up the drain cover ... I will not elaborate on the long term effects of this, except to say my solution is to keep the drain cover on and to empty the drain or drain cover drain of soapy hairballs regularly and his solution is to buy a lot of draino). Yes, I got home at close to six, after a nice long pilates class and slower jaunt back to my car.
But I was going to take a bath, goshdarnit! With friggin' soothing friggin' classical friggin' music. And epsom salts (mint and eucalyptus negates pebbles and twigs, right??) And and and... and I did. And, having accepted the baths are always disgusting and one need merely shower off afterwards, I managed to origami myself into a temporary holding pattern of OOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM.
It didn't hurt that Mr. (W)right had decided to go off on another bike ride upon his return home. The dilatory dinner plans allowed me to pull out the rice cooker and let it pip and pipe away unattended while I had my little cleansing ritual. How I love modern technology that lets me step away from the kitchen or even the house! It gave me plenty of time to finish pruning, dry off at a leisurely pace, prepare for the next day and snuggle into a crossword by the time he returned to re-clog the drain and re-smutch the basin.
In our dream house... The one we will be able to afford once we given up on this whole reproducing thing and after Andrew invents something to be featured in Skymall (the real engineering profit is definitely in "weird unnecessary gadgets for rich people with too many weird unnecessary gadgets")... In our dream house, I will have a bathtub the size of a human being. A large human being. It shall be ergonomic, self-heating, and deeper than the fathomless ocean. I shall be able to fully submerge without pulling a shoulder and a hip out of socket. And Andrew will have a mud room. With huge and hearty drains. In the entryway to the house. Possibly next to his special temperature-controlled bike mansion.
And I will have a wall of rice cookers and slow cookers with their own water faucet.
With speakers in every room piping in music set on a remote to follow me about the house with soothing classical toonz.
In the meantime, I'll take my mud-bath and my ultrabook and call it excellent.
And then I'll poke the side of my hand where no blister has yet emerged. Because who can leave well enough alone?
Let the Craziness (Um, the Other Craziness that Isn't The Norm Craziness) Commence
It begins. As you may have sussed, I've been in a bit of a holding pattern this week. One does not simply walk into a bar with a duck on one's head and ask the bartender to order up a slew of medical tests and crazy shots. One waits. One sees if the body is willing to accept such a challenge. One perhaps starts going a little crazy with impatience and spending her "sleeping hours" mindfully meditating "Sanguinity Now!" messages to her hepetudinous hustera.
In between running downstairs to rescue the incubating yogurt down below, that is. Yoga? I was saying I'd like to try yogaaaaaa? Ooops, I guess I got confused last night and opted for jiggly white goo instead. I set up the yogurt machine overnight on a blustery evening. Nary a thought for the potential power lapses. Our house is well protected, but occasionally it surges off for a tick. Long enough that I heard a plaintive little beep at about 3 a.m. last night. Upon opening my eyes, I noticed our alarm clock was flashing 12:00 a.m. A speedy somnolent resetting of the the alarm, and maundering downstairs for the yogurt.
Actually, when I make yogurt with whole milk, I think that 9-10 hours is better than the 11 I'd budgeted, so it stopped at a fairly decent time. But once you're done making yogurt, it's usually better to put it in the fridge. And my innards could wait long enough for me to finish that up before returning to my chanting and coaxing.
Yesterday, Andrew finally got jealous of all my special medical attention and decided to grasp some for himself. He's had a never exactly defined "weird liver thing" for years. Back in 2009, it led to some uncomfortable tests, some gross ones, and some zinc supplements that made him nauseous. When he graduated, he switched insurance and seemed less than enthusiastic about ever going back to a doctor again. We've discussed the sagacity of this stance, but (given my tangos with the medical system) I certainly understood his hemming and hawing.
After a probably unrelated bit of stomach discomfort finally pushed him over to schedule an appointment (and then re-schedule it, because there was a design review on the day of his first appointment), he made it to a doctor. And now he's got homework too! Mine is more of a constant uncomfortable barrage, but his is, at least, a little gross (the word "sample" is involved, and this is a man who hasn't owned a lot of pets or babysat too many children in potty training age brackets, so he's a little less than thrilled).
I'm hoping our little lab test lulus will coincide at least once or twice! I think maybe a blood test might at least! Although I am allowed to eat before my blood tests bwahahahaha. Gee, this is fun. Tandem medical stuff. It's like we're elderly and swapping stories about our goiters and carbuncles!
And that brings us back to today and the mad dash now upon me. I have several bajillion things that need to be handled immediately.
Naturally, my first step is to try to schedule several things that are likely all booked up. So my second step will likely be "travelling down to Kirkland!" Why do I see this commute becoming kind of a regular thing? Maybe I'll just start sleeping at EI(eeeeeiiiiioooo). It's closer anyways.
Schedules are about to get a lot more plastic, and I'm ready to say "to hell with my usual DINK priorities" (whatever those may be). Time to fully embrace the "run around to various medical appointments and spend any remaining waking time focusing on lazing, fattening, and ooooommmming happy thoughts right into my viscera."
Oh but the socks and blathers are here to stay. Possibly even more virulent than afore!
Happy Humpday. I feel like I'm over one in more ways than one.
A Red-letter Rumpus of a Webby Day
Word-nerd side note: "red-letter" or "scarlett" has been used to highlight days of special significance for an indeterminate stitch of time. At least as far back as classical Rome, days of special significance were marked in vermillion. The phrase itself can be traced back to at least a few hundred years ago. Most think in relation to the ecclesiastical calendars. Apparently "Scarlet Days" in UK academia denote days in which doctors may wear their fancy-schmancy festal dress gowns instead of their ho-hum black robes. I see no particular reference for why exactly red and not sparkly silvery gold with rainbow hues and stickers, but red certainly makes a statement.
And it looks nice strewn with enough webbing to scream Spider-girl! And/or celebrate a belated second or third maidenhead (at 14, then 28, then now 32 years old) for this sockonista. And/or feel like a goth kid in a particularly good and chirpy mood.
Today is a good enough day so far. Perhaps not quite time to break out the regally ruddy robes, but time enough to be happy that (1) I have a working calendar for the next week; (2) my body - when sufficiently provoked - actually will do the logical thing that is expected of it by a medical professional - I was starting to think it was just being contrary for the heck of it; (3) I don't have to drive down to Kirkland and battle 405 traffic today. Tomorrow, yes. Today though, I'm all good. Small mercies.
I do get to receive a special biohazard of a package - presumably from The Umbrella Corporation - today. I'm told that it will require refrigeration, so I thought having it come to work instead of languishing on my porch (or worse, getting bounced back to LA, because nobody was home to sign for it) all day would be preferable. Of course I'll be in and out with various commitment.
Mom-boss seems to think it would be hilarious to announce that whoever signs for the biohazards will have to subsequently use them. I'm not sure the follicular stimulation is high on everyone's list of awesome ideas. But by all popular lore, I guess it will help one appreciate wrinkly pug puppies, LOL cats, and screaming scrunch-faced infants...
I still see very few takers.
Since I'll be driving myself a bunch tomorrow, and thus out of the office, today feels quite a lot like Friday. It's not. I have the DRC today. I have two days' of work to slog past evasively. And tomorrow is not Saturday with all its promises of sleeping in and awkward attempts at yoga (oh yes, first try will be Saturday). But today is still a very good day, and I'll ride on that wave through our thundersturms und drangs. SOmebody's got to, because mom-boss has back to back appointments all day, and Leslie may be ducking under her desk at each tremor of tintinnabulation from our door chimes (considering what might happen if she's forced to sign for any packages today...)
No comments:
Post a Comment