Minor Setbacks

We all have a few of those bad days, and unfortunately mine turned into weeks.  I had a mystery illness that caused me to gain 6 lbs. in two weeks, have trouble sleeping but have all this energy.  Here I was willing to accept the consequences for diving into the French Onion dip after New Year’s Eve.  That wasn’t the case.  My clothes didn’t fit, I lived in yoga pants and leggings for weeks.  I refused to buy new clothes, I knew this was temporary whatever it was.  It was also frustrating, it was painful to workout. I was on the brink of losing it, my doctor was baffled.  He put me thru blood work, pregnancy test, x-rays, and finally an appointment with a specialist.

 

I eat healthy, I stay away from processed foods, soda, white flour, fast food.  Yes I like my carbs, I like my French fries and the occasional piece of chocolate cake (as long as I know what it’s made with).  I don’t overdo it with supplements or those over the counter gimmicks.  I drink detox tea, water like it’s going to run out and keep a regimented workout schedule.  Maybe my body had enough, it was telling me something.  I know what the feeling of being ‘burnt out’ is and this wasn’t it.  Something was wrong.

 

At the Specialist I get to hear those great words people of my age want to hear or don’t want to hear depending on how you look at it: “You’re too young to be going thru this”, and the ‘this’ was still to be determined. Now the Specialist is thorough,  he asked me a ton of questions to diagnose and at the end of the appointment I now have another appointment for more testing a week later.  “Now I’m a guinea pig, he has no idea what the problem is.” I think to myself, another $60 co-pay I’ll never get back. 

 

There’s never been 4 weeks I’ve gone without exercise of some sort, I was frustrated, angry, actually getting bored since I caught up on my recorded movies, Netflix and magazines, and getting organized around the house.  Things I’ve put off for a rainy day that would get done eventually.  Preparing for the tests was interesting, I had to have my last meal a day before the test.  Chicken, ½ of a sweet potato and left over Orzo pasta, if I wasn’t going to eat for that long I better carb up.  Now three hours later I have to drink this stuff that tasted like watered down lemon jello, by the gallon.  Yum!

 

I try to sleep in, and since my appointment isn’t until lunch time I still can’t eat anything or drink anything but water.  I’m cold, I’m freezing at this point, and it is February but for me to sleep in sweats and walk around in a robe and blanket during the day is nuts.  “It’s almost over” I try to remind myself.   In the waiting room I now realize I’m the youngest person in the room. Lovely.  Now I’m counting the hours since I last had something to eat, I’ve got a slight headache, I’m freezing, just get this over with.  It was 24 hours since my last meal, so of course when the nurse calls my name next and asks me how I’m doing, the first thing out of my mouth is “Feed me!”  It’s not her fault I’m here, but it made her laugh, she said no one has ever said it that way!  She was great, we actually had a nice chat because somehow in the midst of me answering questions I brought up I was going to write about this experience.  She was a great nurse who made this comforting and I probably made her Friday. 

 

She puts me thru another pregnancy test (this is test #2), let me just clarify that I’m on a pill that I could get my period or could not get it so dates are never accurate.  Just to be sure, yet again, I have to go pee in a cup.  Now that’s over with again and they put an IV in my arm and I’m being wheeled into another room where the Specialist is and so is the anesthesiologist.  Here’s the best part, they tell me I’m going to get Propofol and that my vision is going to get a little blurry and within seconds I’m out.  When I wake up, my first words to the nurse are, “What are you doing in my house?”  I guess it sounded like I left the TV on and fell asleep, I have no idea, it was funny, I still laugh about it.  I might have made her Friday as well, she did say I had an attitude about it.

 

Now I wait for results, otherwise I feel great.  The 6 lbs. are gone, no more French Onion dip just in case.  I have learned a few things thru the last 5 weeks.  Never be afraid to talk to your friends when something is not right with your health.  They are your biggest supporters (and uplifting card senders, texters).  When your doctor conducts a pregnancy test, at least for my insurance the cost is $45 a pop, $5 of which is not covered by insurance.  Setbacks, are just that, a minor setback.  Nothing should get in the way of your goals. Just keep going, get over that obstacle and continue the routine.  It might be frustrating to start slow, but every little bit helps.  It takes more motivation for you to get off that couch and get moving than to just sit there and press the next button on your remote.  Results don’t happen overnight, everything is a process we work hard at, we strive for.  And I don’t falter easily, I just felt that something was being taken away from me (like a child whose toy is being taken away).

 

So I wait a week to start exercising and on day three I break my toe.  I banged it pretty good, but that’s not stopping me, I can still do most of my work out until I can run comfortably.  Just another minor setback that I cannot blame on the French Onion dip.

Pregnancy from the Mind of a Clock that Once Ticked

Most of my friends got pregnant early on in their marriages, they had one, they had another, some are still reproducing today.  After an influx of marriages and babies my clock ticked.  My ex sister-in-law had 4 in a row, and that was a nice dose of birth control for me at that time.  In a past life, the subject of raising kids was always easy to talk about with my ex-husband, planning it had to be around softball season, at least at the end of the season to start trying.  And that one time when I was surely ready to forego the pills and try, the response I received was one of hesitation (he hesitated!).  As if his mind was preoccupied with something else at the time, and then that’s when it was no longer on the table.  I wiped the thought from my mind and went on with my life. 

Now some of my friends and family are still having kids, just starting to have kids, not having kids and my sister and her husband just welcomed a baby boy, my nephew.  Out of all of my friends who have gone through this once, twice, multiple times I never knew what they told you in Lamaze class, at the OBGYN, etc.  I never took into consideration how insensitive asking a pregnant woman certain questions could be.  I became one of the fearful insensitive ones and started phrasing my questions to my sister as ‘you could add this one to your list of things you shouldn’t ask a pregnant lady…’.    Being an outsider, knowing how many strangers are in the delivery room is enough to keep my legs crossed (give or take a dozen strangers), they do come in to your prep room and meet you first, but they haven’t been with you through the 9 months and you find yourself saying ‘who are these people? They are going to see my va-jay-jay and who knows what else!’. 

My sister had a c section which is quite painful and can take weeks to heal, I’m not sure if natural birth would be any better.  Picture this as I did: You’ve just ‘scheduled’ your c section to deliver your baby similar to scheduling a ‘meeting’ at work.  You show up on time, you’ve fasted from the night before, then you are told to wait because they’ve ‘had a busy morning of deliveries’.  Oh really? What happened to scheduling this?  So you wait, having not eaten for the last 12 hours and counting, patiently for them to come in and give the green light.  Then after the baby is born, you are supposed to ‘rest’.  I had difficulty in understanding the ‘rest’ portion of it when numerous visitors lingered for hours.  Something in me snapped, the protective older sister kicked in. “It’s time for Mommy  who has just been through major surgery to rest, say hello and meet the little man and be on your way” I felt like saying.  I truly didn’t know how to react, if only to think if it was me, they’d be banned until I was home, it’s how I always pictured it.  There wouldn’t be a parade of visitors lingering for hours in a hospital room looking at me with a bad hair day, no makeup, in a hospital gown without anything to eat or drink in the last 12 plus hours.  I would have a list at the door of who’d be allowed in and they’d have to answer to “Are you on the guest list?”

I sat in the waiting room for quite some time prior to meeting my new nephew, so I had plenty to absorb.  After watching all the new mommy’s  and daddy’s leave the hospital with the look of ‘OMG what just happened’, I can only express the same for myself if that day ever came to pass.  My nephew is my little all-star, and my clock isn’t ticking again as it did once before or screaming “I want one of those!”