Coming Up: Stirrings of a stressful sort at Englettlaw derail a self-made promise. Lost in the paperwork, our heroine's chimerical "relaxation" mews and shivers. Will the almighty weekend ride to the rescue and unearth a gravely imperiled equipoise? Will Adella's massage assassion - smarting from the Swedish duplicity - put the quietus on her small flicker of life with a deeper-than-deep tissue rampage? Having depretzelled from their Bhakti Flow Follies, our couples try once more to meet the yoga hydra. Will the kundalini cross-fit caper finish them or will gems of sparkling sat nam soar? And the self-stabbings carry on without respite or coupons. Will those go-go-gonadotropins ever go anywhere beyond "stashed outside the garage?" Will Adella's mad dash rescue the errant elixers or will cottage cheese flow freely with her disappointment?
Bulk up on alcohol swabs, open up your chakras and cha cha through the paperwork to find the answers below....
Through to Thursday and Tip-Toeing to Freedom A Post-Date-Night Worksplosion in Wait
From the tip of my tippee toes to the base of my skull I am feeling the Thursday. Too much happening on Friday for which I am ill-prepared. Too much behind us to linger on the past. Thursday is just about right for me and my pixie-toes today. Although I'd take a Saturday. Or a next Tuesday is Veteran's Day day.
We've waged quite the war on the mediation/hearing horror that has been smacking its maws at me from its Friday morning perch. The deadline is fast approaching. Ever single document needs to be edited and thoroughly scrubbed, but we do actually have every single document. This is significant progress. And that was not easy considering how many documents are required to straddle the span of this action/mediation.
Yesterday was such a muddle that, by the end, I had to stand over mom-boss' shoulder just to make certain that she would accomplish the three remaining tasks required (billing, emailing docs for proofing, and shutting down) instead of trying to do any of the one-billion other things that her computer's bevy of icons and updates tried to tempt her into doing. It took a half hour. There were missteps. She may have kept forgetting which client we were talking about and what the remaining steps were. What email was. And how to type her name (Sincerely, Snoopy the Succubus!). Facebook, email, various file folders may have popped up and then been rapidly shut after a protest from the cantankerous associate attorney. It really was one of those days.
Today will be another one of those days, but in a slightly less paper-intensive manner. It's more that she's got a mediation in the morning and a four-way in the afternoon, so everything needs to be handed off and completed before 9:00 this morning. Needless to say, there's going to be some significant scurrying.
But quite merrily, my evening at least was quite restorative. A date night, yes! An interesting one at that. Andrew was tired from - you'll never guess - pushing himself hard on a ride that afternoon. I was a little tired after work, and then I decided to inject my go-go-gonadotropins before going out. I did this so I wouldn't be worrying about them on the way home, and I suspect it was the right call. But there are costs associated with the post-shot haze. The hormones may no longer shoot me into a perpetual emotional quagrmire, but I would still warrant that the hour or four afterwards manifest some pretty interesting states. Primarily I feel a narcotic buzz and droop. Variations may include moodiness or just plain spaciness.
Yesterday, I was particularly entranced by the bubbles in the koi tank at Panda Palace. Riveted. Enchanted. Unable to break my gaze, except to chuckle at the preposterously stoic koi looking oh so serious about his bubble stream.
I was also punchy and moderately incoherent. We shared streams of inanities and giggled a lot. We were not intoxicated technically, but perhaps drunk on love (or hormones, which is virtually the same thing).
And after a few pillowy toussles (and a long time refusing to leave the car once we'd parked in the garage), we were perfectly suited to snuggling up in odd postural variations for a Futurama. I don't think I actually nodded off at any time that evening, but I can't say for certain. The membrane betwixt the land of men and the land of fairies is ever so exiguous at such times.
I tore through the gates of horn and ivory upon hitting the sheets, though. And was not 100% certain about reemerging into the waking world this morning.
But, well, it would be nice to get through Thursday and on to the weekend. And oh boy, the construction noises are coming from somewhere else today! Always a variation or twenty to keep it spicy!
The Gale-ing Dervish Drives it Home to Friday (and then back to work again)
Ok, so that pledge to myself about being less active, fattening up, and chilling the frig out has been a bit hit or miss. I'm eating more, but I'm not sure that my mind-body-spirit quite grogs that gaining weight in any sort of timely fashion requires a pretty decent quotidian surplus. Like, say, more than an extra handful of food here and there. I'm told (by the INTERNETZ) that the 3,500 = a pound adage is perhaps mythical, but at the very least it seems to capture the kind of volume we're talking about here when I contemplate raising the ante another ten pounds or so in time for it to be relevant.
Weight weight weight, yadda yadda yadda. More apropos of this particular week, STRESS!!! AGH. Adrenaline! Whew. What a week! As I mentioned, we're just at the crest of a sheer tsunami in our most (currently) aggravating case. Several things happening all at once. Five bajillion dueling expert opinions. Court requirements. Which touch similar issues but require different handling than mediation preparations. Insane other parties being bolstered by disengaged tantrumming babies of attorneys on the other side. All to be put together while slalomming through a series of other mediations and four-ways and client meetings that must happen RIGHT NOW. May I proffer one large YAWN?
Good. Here it is: Yawn
Just as I was coming down from a job well-sped-through, we turned back to the ongoing matter of those mysterious medications I'm jabbing into myself every day. So, as the story goes in legend and in life, I kind of shot away the majority of a vial of highly active gonadotropins two weeks back. Because I suck at decimal points (37.5 versus 375? No difference! Let's try 3,750 next time!). Anyways, having gotten back on track on a drastically more conservative dose, I was a bit concerned about how long the remaining vial would last. Especially when I was finally bumped gingerly up to the actual "lowest standard dose" earlier this week.
As of last night, I am out of syringes. I suspect I do not have enough in the vial for a full dose tonight. This could be fine, of course, because today was the day for another blood test! (WHOOOOO), which may or may not garner a call with instructions that may or may not involve (1) upping my dose of the fully tapped medication, (2) continuing on my dose of the fictive medication, (3) stopping immediately and fleeing to Chthonia before my belly bursts forth with little spider babies. Somewhere in there, there might be an ultrasound or blood test order.
Given the above options, it seemed like I'd more likely than not need more medication by this evening. And my pharmacy for these drugs is located in California. So I need a little notice. The RE had been chary about telling me to plonk down more money on a third vial, but given where we are, I finally got the go ahead to go ahead and order more. Phew.
By the earliest estimates, my package was scheduled to arrive at the office to be received with signature only and by Friday at (gulp) 8:00 p.m. Feeling unnerved about that late window, I requested tracking information and have been happily stalking my little package since then.
To my delight, I discovered the package was out for delivery yesterday! Hoorah.
To my subsequent confusion, I then discovered that my package had been delivered. At a garage. Without a signature.
Of course, odds were good that they'd somehow confused my shipping instructions and sent it to my house. Of course. But what if they actually left it at the Bellingham Towers' Parking Garage, those bowels of barren dust and dullness? What if it went to 123 instead of 1203 Somethingorother Parkway instead of Boulevard. What if somebody else has my gonal??
And, given the pulchritudinous pence these teensy itsy bitsy vials cost, I was a little bit less thrilled about the prospect that my Lilliputian package of go-go-gonadotropins were merely lolling outside my garage on a blastedly blustery day.
Naturally, I discovered all this roughly forty minutes before my date with the DRC. And I considered merely waiting it out until the evening. But given the potential necessity for an overnight shipment order and some very exhausting customer service calls, I really wanted to know where my essentially epicene elixir gravida had gotten itself to.
Into the breach! Or at least the car. Through some highly resistant rasps of old Aeolus in all his dithers. Holding a bowl of cottage cheese with fruits and seeds piled high and gusting off into the breeze. I was hungry and had just started my meal when all the confusion erupted. The bowl spent the remainder of the afternoon in a sullied state on my passenger side seat. Fortunately, no major contamination occurred and no accidental passengers encountered my slobbery.
Even more fortunately, the package was outside my garage door. Phew! It hadn't blown away or been shuffled off onto the black market somewhere. At this blessed reunion, the clock tolled "10 'til", so I leapt from the car, grabbed the box, and slammed back into the car with my quarry. Plowing along the parkway back to town, I naturally had to risk life and wheel by ripping open the package to assure myself that the medication itself was the correct one. No school children were harmed in the making off this cardboard-to-car candombe, though some school busses might have been displeased with my driving chops.
But oh phew again a thousand times. It was the correct medication. I made it back to the DRC just a few minutes late... to wait around because it had been a wild day there as well and everyone was otherwise occupied.
Ommmmmm. I am devoting the rest of my day to coming down.
Well other than my morning "whoops!" when I realized that the alarm clock had blipped out in a power flicker and that my attempts to reset it all had left an alarm set for 5:15 p.m. Fortunately I was awake before then anyways, but it took some blind blundering about in the dark to set it for Mr. (W)right before skidding down to the kitchen.
Reset. Rush to the Vampire's Den for yet another blood draw. Hop right onto my eternal IRB meeting. And OMMMMMMMM. Ummmm, really. I swear.
And a little eensy Hip Hip Hoooooray!!! It's Friday!
Things are getting better by the second!
Stabby McStabberson's Maybe not-so Massive Misdose Afterall?
Another week, another spate of blood tests and phone calls. I'd more or less resigned myself to a continued "up your dose an eensy bit and let us tap you again in five days" instructions, so I figured my next instructions would be something very dramatic, like "come down here for an emergency splenectomy immediately!" Just to shake things up.
Good news, bad news.
Good news: I get to keep my spleen.
The downer: I am not responding to the go-go-gonadotropins yet. I would have preferred just a minor modification of "enough" on there. The sort of absolutism of just not makes me feel a mite dissuaded, considering my body otherwise thinks it's responding with dizzy spells, strange feelings "down there", and a general weakness that I had hoped was a positive sign of something working and not just my body otherwise being a nag about all this lady hormone stuff.
My RE wrote me an email letting me know it was a frustrating process, but she strongly believed it was just a matter of finding the right dose, so hang in there cute little kitten (ok, she didn't quite go there, but it was implied). On a follow up, we discussed what happens if the unthinkable "never respond" happens (another cycle of the high dose HRT, which has the benefit of not including several days of self-stabbings, favoring sticky patches instead that are slightly cheaper and at least partially covered by insurance).
More to the point, we discussed what she thinks is likely: at least 8 more days of injections. So back to the pharmacy. Alack no non-responder discount, so I'm rapidly cleaning out a year's worth of HSA allowable contributions in the matter of a few months, Gosh darnit, L'oreal tells me I'm worth it! And hey, we did just set up another transfer that isn't 100% eaten up by the cost of double orders from a fortuitous surplus in our joint account.
Of course, there's a general patina of frustration immanent in hitting yet another plateau of non-responsiveness so briefly after finally hitting a bit of momentum. The ghost of Christmas "two and a half years of 'gain weight, have some small doses of hormone pills and call me again in four months, it all should work'" is rattling his chains in my addled brain. My silly soma is just so doggedly intransigent. Yeesh what did I do to you body? Maybe I should have rested on my laurels and just tried for a few more white-pants-on-beaches anovulatory cycles, just to feel accomplished.
The rosier hue to all this: as my dose increases, the relative "big f'ing waste" factor of my initial misdose merriment plummets. From ten days of medication shot to waste down to three days of medication currently. Given my current optimism, I'm getting to an easy one day. Given that I'll likely be on these for at least three weeks, the significance of those days shrinks too!
I just feel less profligate than if I really were a super-responder who could have gotten away with half the lowest minimum dose for eight days (making my first misdose exceed the entirety of my actual need). This reminds me that I'm still at a relatively low dose so far. And I still have plenty of time to be one of those exceedingly "rare cases" (I'm not sure if this is my RE's attempt at being reassuring or just covering all downer bases) who goes from producing zero eggs to fifteen and suddenly has to move into IVF or emergency egg donation programs not otherwise specified.
And as I move into week three of self-stabbings, I can say I'm becoming a pretty confident little expert about all this. I mixed another vial last night with an audience. That's how confident I feel. I'm at the point where I'll just clear my food away, spread my crap out, and inject midway through everyone else's dinner. Pretty soon, I'll be doing it at restaurants or on the bus! No stabbed eyes or anything!
Since whatever flattened me last week has abated, I think it's time to try another tangle with yoga this weekend. This one is Kundalini Yoga. Which sounds like some kind of hearty red smoothie to me. We shall see!
Taste the Yogas of the Rainbow Ko-ko-kachu-ka-Kundalini to the Rescue
I have a new theory that I'd be a lot better at my "gain weight, be less active, and chill the frig out" game plan if there were more weekend days and fewer work days. At least all the crushing "side effects" and exhaustions of the work week seem to evaporate by late Saturday. I've been continuing to channel my inner husband around the house. To a limited degree, at least. Sure I still spend a few hours doing things in the kitchen. Sure I go shopping. But I spend a lot more time forcing myself to not do these things. More relevantly, there's a lot more down time. And in between the down time, the commitments are things like "go on a walk at the Harbor" or "try out this yoga class" and maybe "go out to dinner."
And instead of burning my stress and churning my work out workout style by walking for hours at a time on a stationary tread-desk, my walks are half hour nuggets of brisk outdoor breathers. Mornings by the lake. Afternoons by the ocean. Plenty of driving time in between. If I could just eat like it's the work week (3k calories a day give or take) and live like it's the weekend, I'd probably reach my aforementioned goal state in no time. Yes, that's got to be a new motto for some self-help mantra somewhere along the way. I see it on t-shirts and tote bags, or maybe just a book blurb.
At least so long as I keep my kitchen crazies under control. And just so long as I stick to yoga classes that are not trying befuddle me in a panicked irretrievable pretzel.
After our taste of flying acrobatic Bhakti bonanza, I was a wee bit gun-shy on the yoga. It still felt good afterwards, but the panic and all the flailing definitely harshed my spiritual meditative buzz. Also, fifteen bucks a class is a little hard to swallow. I don't care that I've placed three separate orders for $450 drug vials in the last week, $15 for a yoga class offends me, because I'm special like that. Also organic peppers costing like one dollar more per pepper? Excuse me, I don't think so! Don't get me started on those berries. I'll take my blackened 37 cent "cut bananas" from the discount shelf, thank you very much. They'll be great to eat after my fourth $150 blood test this week!
Nervous as we were, we did not back away from the yoga challenge. This time out we tried a return attempt at Inspire Studio. On the weekend in which we Bhakti'ed our butts off, we had initially attempted to attend and Inspire offering of Kundalini Yoga. Unfortunately our timing was a mite muddled and we arrived late enough that we cowered at the concept of shuffling in late. So the Sunday 9:30 a.m. emerged as an alternative to our Saturday at 10:30.
Yesterday, our timing was much improved. I joined Andrew on the pre-run warm up, and finished out an early morning walk, returning with just enough time to pack up some food and a bottle of water that never made it to the car. Andrew returned shortly after and reoriented with shocking celerity to set us back on our way.
This was a totally, absolutely, 100% different experience. The Anti-Bhakti-Flow. Andrew had commented that at 8 Petals, he swore that everyone had the exact same tattoo somewhere on their bodies, as if they'd been initiated into a secret club. They really did conform to a certain signalling code so well that they appeared to be in full uniform.We were warily welcomed, but so clearly not of their numbers.
The Inspire crowd was a heterogenous olio of all types, personalities, and athletic enduement. Droves of disciples across a dance floor about two to three times the size of the compact and modern room of 8 Petals. At 8 Petals, we confirmed our online registrations at a reception desk. At Inspire, there was a slim line up towards a check-in book.
We were almost immediately greeted by Ruby, the instructor (who had spent much of our time there hugging various students, and winking at the invisible pixies and elves that trailed about her in a tittering fairy dust aura). She hastily showed us the water, the bathroom (the most important things) and a place to set up, instructing us to return once we were all settled in to fill out her little form and to handle payment. There was plenty of space, plenty of water, and several kinds of specially mixed teas for after class.
The class itself was markedly different. So much so that I'd not have recognized it as "yoga" from a first glance. Much more emphatically a spiritual discipline rooted in physical mindfulness and movement. Far less of a fitness class with Eastern window dressings.
There was little to identify it with the stereotypical yoga. No sun salutations. No asanas. A couple of downward dogs or child poses. It was almost the crossfit of yoga (other than otherwise being antithetical to the crossfit ethos): a selected physical movement synchronized with fast and deliberate breath (maybe shaking the wrists, maybe flapping the knees, maybe twisting, or alternating extending hands) for a period of minutes; this was followed by a deep breath, a straightening, and a relaxation In between, there were chants and even songs.
More like a very physical religious service in terms of how I felt afterwards. Apparently my lymph system has been thoroughly purged and I've repeated that god's in me, and god and I are one (whatever my interpretation of that concept is, as Ruby happily explained in some metaphysical detail). And I've indulged in many positive metaphorical movements for casting off negative energies, past illnesses, and self-criticisms, while pulling in the good. Totally hippy-dippy, for sure, but in a credibly effective and challenging way. And very grounded despite the starry-eyes and world-hugs. The number of decompressing snapping and crumpling noises my back made suggests I needed this kind of movement.
Andrew has challenges with sitting on the ground. Something about tight hamstrings or discomfort in in his lower back. It made this class (which spends much time seated in lotus/bent knee either doing isolated movements or mediating) possibly more difficult on him than our flailing pretzel Bhakti flow. I'm guessing it won't be our couples yoga thing. But I may try the weekday women's group. It's on Tuesday (our Veteran's Day holiday), and right after my next blood draw, so I'm sure the stress-purger will be appreciated.
Today may not include any yoga, but I am following up with a massage. Less relaxing Swedish and more full on massage assassin deep tissue. It's time to start pansying around and stage an incursion on the heavily fortified shoulder sediment creeping into my neck! Only Nick dares tread those areas. Others would never survive!
And once again, a bit of a husband channeling followed by a bit of not-walking-and-stressing-all day. Now will I channel my inner work appetite and actually take measures to plunk that scale in an upwards direction? Hmmmm, I do have a shelf or two of leftover Halloween candy that needs to be cleared for all the candy cane and eggnog novelty flavors and chocolate truffles!
I suppose the good news is that, either through sheer power of psychosomatic thought or just a really restful weekend, I am feeling almost none of the previous "side effects" I'd attributed to the injections. My body, finally clear on the fact that we were returning to low estrogen levels, decided to just go ahead and purge itself of quite the agglomeration of water retention. By by needing actual support up by the decolletage (ah well, pert ballances better with my general impertinence). And I'm generally capable of focus and emotional sanguinity. A bummer, granted, that perhaps this is a sign of more stalling (if it weren't for the strictly physiological signs, I'd say this was all in my head, but cup size and similar things can be measured), but being more emotionally equipoised, I am capable of handling "bummers" with grace. Who knows what the future holds? Oh, I do! A massage! Whoooooo whoooo!
Happy Sunday! May it be peaceful and full of frolicking faeries!
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