oohhhh (slow dawning of truth)

I'm obviously not my sharp self (ha).  I thought the blood pregnancy test was funny since they make a huge fuss that you have to pass a urine test the day of surgery when you are having a D&C (one can understand).  But I didn't realize the truth.  I keep joking about looking pregnant.  Except that I really do.  So much that a word-renowed gynecologist thought there was some chance of pregnancy.  I bet that they figured there was a tiny chance that the reason I was up for clots and  bleeding to death a couple months ago could have been a miscarriage and on that tiny chance (always considered greater because I'm bipolar and we have been known to be promiscuous and lie about it) they needed to be sure I wasn't pregnant or carrying the remnants of a miscarriage causing my pregnant look.

Cute.  Understandable and responsible, but cute.  So now I've had my first (that I know of; usually they sneak urine pregnancy tests) blood pregnancy test in the 15 pregnancy tests I've had to date.

Fun stuff......

I guess this is good news

I just got back the results of my pregnancy test.  We'll all be shocked to know that another virgin birth is not pending.  And I get another pregnancy test next week!!!  YAY!

Pre-op was......a lot.  A lot of questions asked repeatedly.  A lot of pain from sitting upright.  A lot of being told things I already know but have to be told again.  A lot of nice people, a few really cranky ones.  I still know nothing about anesthesia as I didn't actually meet with anyone who will be working with me and they did not seem to even like this protocol I'm on, or approve or something.  I apparently had to have the approval of one particular person based on my psychiatrist stating that I am at risk for self harm if off medications.  I don't think today's anesthesiologist thought that was a good idea or something.  However, he did play "guess endotracheal tube size" by having my open my mouth for the resident to guess and then concurring.  Yippee.

I saw the surgeon I hadn't met before; I heard her talking on the phone to the other surgeon and referring to my big old belly.  I hope tomorrow when I see the other surgeon, the one who knows me, that she can explain the belly.

And now I shall enjoy my evening of doing nothing.

God works in mysterious ways-a real post

So part of what I've been dealing with/talking about for the last few months is knowing that even if I could have a baby and manage my bipolar I very likely have been infertile for years and assuming this is endo and that it can be removed the only chance I'll really have to get pregnant ever given my age and the nature of endo would be in the next few months before it can recur.  I don't know why that makes it seem harder; I've known for nearly 10 years there would be no children and Dr. Brain and I have had a few very honest talks about right now I'm stable enough that if I desperately wanted a baby she would support that although she will not say it would be GOOD for me, but that (Even before all this) it needs to be a NOW thing as I'm over 35 and this is as stable as it gets for me and we have no way to know that this will last forever.  But not only am I sticking to my promise to myself to not raise a child with my moods, that would require donor sperm and all that this entails and I am not interested.

I don't know how many of you have faced wanting children more than anything in the world and knowing they aren't going to come.  It's a pain that I have experienced separately than most of the things I have never had that I thought I would.  But children are not something that fall into a category, maybe just because of anything I won't have because of illness I believe this has been the most painful, even though I know ultimately it comes down to my having made a responsible decision instead of doing what my heart longs for.  And so the closest I'll come to a child is my niece and any siblings she may have, and the closest to pregancy would be a combination of the 6 months of puking from lithium toxicity and the rumors I was pregnant as a teenager because I was playing a pregnant woman in a play.  Oh and in grad school I was a pretend patient for a final exam for the class behind mine and played a pregnant teenager who had been paralyzed in a car accident.  The belly was annoying over 2 days in a wheelchair.

Part of what is hard about missing out on having children is that there are a zillion stages that you don't get to go through.  Missing out on getting a PhD merely meant that for a time I was sad because I knew I couldn't do that.  I don't feel jealous of my sister who will be Dr.Anne's Mommy in about a year's time.  But her pregnancy was very hard to watch.  I think this is all because having a baby has so many physical changes and things you can only experience with pregnancy.  I can love and watch Anne grow and learn so much and love her with all my heart and it does take away the no baby ache some.  But watching my sister grow through pregnancy hurt.

Well, I know now what I would look like pregnant.  I have no idea what good this does me, but there is no more wondering.  As I've been saying my belly is huge.  I bought pajamas a good size or 2 bigger than usual because I will need them post-op.  I'm wearing them tonight and because of the bagginess and style if someone saw me in them they would be absolutely certain I'm quite pregnant.  (Plus I have the PMY boobs that mean I'll have a period sometime in the next 3 weeks; I miss that so much.  Used to be big sore breasts meant 3 days until my 4 day long light period.  Now it means nothing except that sometime soon I'm gonna bleed like crazy. When I get home I'll take a picture so you can all see and congratulate me on my belly.  I'm a bit scared of what it will look like post-op because it will be full of this gas they use to make space to work and so I supposed could be even bigger than now, depending on whether they figure out why it's so big as is.

So, I guess that after making the decision to tell the dr. that if she believe I will need a hysterectomy within the next 5 years and if one will prevent some of the problems from being back in a few months then I would like her to consider doing it now on the basis of my inability to handle the usual hormone treatments, God is letting me know what a very pregnant Jen would look like.  It's as funny as I ever thought it would be.  I actually look frighteningly like my sister did just because of how she carried and these pajamas look like something she wore a lot near the end of her pregnancy.

eee

I know what happened really is nice, but I just spent hours in the car (ie hurting, am just getting settled into a motel, and will be sharing a wall/adjoining door with some very loud people.  I heard them complaining during checkin about noise last time they were here and they are annoying me greatly.  I am, however, cranky).  The truth is that I have a nice enough room given the cost and free parking/free shuttle to my appointments.  I'm just anxious.

I have no idea how to handle the pain tomorrow.  If I take a whole vicodin I could get really sleepy.  That has not been happening though but it still sporadically does.  Half does little.  I have some higher dose ones that I could take half of but have no clue what the potency of that would be.  I had emailed Dr. Body who told me last week he'd help with the pain as much as he could but I think forgot to mention he was leaving town this week.  I think I actually knew that at some point but he didn't mention it this time.  I also had a question about the blood I always have in my urine; I know it was worse last week and that the dr. needs to know this.  I do not know what my baseline amount is and I'm not sure she she does because when I was referred Dr. Body had just changed practices and we didn't have the records.  He would have access to this from the last 18 months of urine checks but I don't.

So his partner answered me.  That was very nice and she had at least been briefed to expect to hear from me and help if possible.  However, she just made me more anxious by telling me she won't help with pain management, that Dr. Body can when he returns.  Um, I'll have had surgery by then.  I needed specific help for tomorrow and Wednesday, which maybe she couldn't pick up easily from context but I don't think she wanted to help on that one no matter what.  understandable, but say that instead of giving a condescending (cranky on my part) answer.  Then she told me the dr. doing the bladder test would have that information before the procedure.  That's just making assumptions and this is why I'm frustrated.  That's not true.  For one thing I was referred for this procedure a year and a half ago.  For another Dr. .Body had little to do with  because of his pratice change; I don't know that anything was even sent up here.  And while I realize Dr. Sub isn't familiar with me at all it felt just a bit condescending to tell me that things were handled differently than they were given that I was there.  A much better answer would be to either check the labs and give me an answer or tell me that she did not know.  I'm not stupid and I think the vast majority of patients know whether information was exchanged when seeing a specialist; she does not know what it took to get me to do this or of the horrible experience I had in the midst, but still.

Yet it was nice that she answered.  I'm a bit interested what she would do if my pain worsened this week since I'm supposed to wait for Dr. Body to get back, but whatever.  I'll have to get someone up here to write for more vicodin anyway since I'm almost out.

Weird.  The loud women next door must not have liked their room.  Now there is an equally loud man next door but I think he's talking on a phone, so that at least will end.

And the best thing of all...my room has a chair and footstool in it that let me sit fairly comfortably for a bit.  Now I need to get meds and sleep so I'll move to the bed in a minute, but for the time I'm here tomorrow afternoon/night and Wed. morning I'll get to sit up some.  I've not done much of that lately..........

What not to do when you are a suicide risk

Thanks to mania I was awake pretty late last night.  I got hungry and sliced up some watermelon.   Which is when I got stupid.  I used a sharp but too small knife because I was hurrying/not thinking and it slipped. The result is not pretty.  I took off a nice sized and deep chunk of skin.  It didn't cut deep so stitches were out, but to put any dressing  on it requires folded guaze for protection (it hurts and bleeds with pressure) and then a big strip of tape around my wrist.  It's so very cute....It also is very likely to scary Dr. Mind to death as it looks like I've been cutting myself when you see the bandage.  That makes it also extra fun that I'll be seeing a zillion doctors who will all ask about this in the next few days.

Being a constant suicide risk has some downsides....Also, why don't I do these things in winter when long sleeves cover my work?????

Excessive anxiety --->Mania

I barely slept last night because of agitation.  I hoped it was thunderstorms.  It was not.  I needed to keep busy and that has continued through today. Unfortunately busy leads to sore and when I'm manic I ignore pain until it's too late to just slow down and recover from it.I got a lot done today.  That is good.  However it has all had a cost and so I hurt, but I'm still agitated.  I hope that if I can sleep tonight that things will improve. We'll see. Tomorrow I have to drive back to Cleveland to spend the night for my early morning pre-op Tuesday and Wednesday.  I really wish I were seeing my doctor first; as it is the one I haven't met is first and will therefore be the one who I need to help with a few things, like a couple of medications, and who is going to encounter my huge belly first.

I hate this feeling.  I am waiting until pain med time to take my other meds so I don't sleep through pain med time, assuming my psych meds do their thing and make me sleep tonight.  If it weren't for pre-op I'd just take some more to sleep but I don't want to have a repeat of last thursday when I couldn't wake up to save my life--at 5 pm when I needed to leave to see Dr. Mind at 6 pm.

At least I can be pretty sure that if I weren't so anxious I wouldn't be manic, and that anxiety is normal.  Those are good things.

Upcoming

So please pray for me over the next 10 days.  I have 2 days of pre-op this week.  That involves a lot of testing, a lot of question asking, and probably 2 pelvics.  I can't explain how painful those are at this point.  Well, I don't KNOW at this point, but bad based on the last one.  That is with her trying hard to not hurt me because I think she wants to avoid negative associations with something I'm only really learning to manage.  I fear it will also include a pulmonary function test and I can't tell you how much I hate those.I'm too goal-oriented and so I wind up trying to score normal and then gasping for air.  I get confusing results too as I push so hard that I score in the low end of normal when my asthma just isn't that well controlled (although being housebound/bedbound does help in the asthma department so maybe it won't be so hard).   Because of long-term antipsychotic use I'll also have an EKG which means more nudity with another stranger, etc.  I also can't be zonked on pain meds the day I drive up, the next day which is 8-9 hours of testing, and the day after that is one appointment and driving home.  Not good.

Next week is surgery and while  I'll be thankfully unconscious I'll also be very naked for a very long time with a lot of observers (and participants come to think of it).  I still don't know and probably will not know how long I'll be in the hospital; it may be 23 hours, it may be a few days.  Apparently for insurance purposes they'll decide that day instead of the protocol dictating as I'd been told before.  I like to know what is happening so am less than fond of this although I understand.

I'll just be so glad to have this over with.  I hope the pain has a very obvious source and is gotten rid of easily and permanently.

And on that note I need to get some food, more pain medication, all my psych meds and get to sleep.  I hope.

I'm on drugs but this still was weird

I went to see Dr. Brain today. We'll talk another day about how little I enjoyed missing pain meds to do that.  But, I had a very, very weird experience.

On Saturdays everything except Dr. Brain's clinic closes at noon.  I see her at 1 as the last appointment.  I got there today about 12:45, when there are usually very few people around.  I went to the bathroom and when I pushed open the door it hit someone.  This scared me enough I yelled.  I apologized profusely and got a sarcastic "that's ok, it's not like you'd expect someone to BE in here or anything".  Which was weird enough.  But the weirdest thing?  This woman was in the corner behind the door.  There is nothing there and you wouldn't want to go there because that's how you get smacked by the door.  There's no way she was stepping away from the trash or sink or anything; she was purposefully standing behind a public door, facing into the corner, and expecting nobody to open the door to the public bathroom.  Chances are reasonable it was another psych patient, although most people seen on Saturdays are severe depression pts.; I'm the exception to the clinic's purpose because most people don't drive 2 hours each way and need monthly visits for life and I've been a Saturday pt. for nearly 10 years now.  Not that you have to be a psych pt. to be weird, but this was beyond weird, and it frightened me enough that I will be using the bathroom on Dr. Brain's floor from now on.

Weird, weird, weird.

Hmm, I may be awake

I don't really trust myself when it comes to wakefulness right now.  I am asleep so much and when I have thought I was awake and sent what I thought were perfectly reasonable emails I have later discovered that nearly every word needed to be decoded.  Or I respond to something and find out that I was so far off base in what I thought I was responding to that I made no sense.  Right now though I think the risk is lowered.  I am certainly under the influence but a little less so.

The only problem I may be slightly less groggy but I don't have much to say.  I left the bed for a few hours Monday to see Dr. Body and a few hours Tuesday to see Dr. Mind.  I tried to go see Dr. Mind yesterday but even though I stopped taking vicodin at noon I couldn't get awake enough to drive safely.  I hate doing that because he loses money when I cancel that late but I truly thought that was enough time to get clear-headed.  Tomorrow I am going to see Dr. Brain. She said we could do a phone session but I have too many questions to make that efficient and I have to get out of here to get food anyway.

My cat is driving me crazy.  She seems to think that if I am home she needs to eat every few hours.  I  get tired of her misbehaving (scratching things to make noise) and given in and then it just gets worse.  I am hoping to get somthing like tuna that I can throw a tsp or 2 out when she pesters.  It still reinforces bad behaviors but she does get very hungry sometimes from kidney failure and frankly if it lets me sleep right now I don't care.

Otherwise, not much to say.  I found slippers I really liked only to find out they were boys'.  But then I realized that I could fit into them, so I  ordered a pair and am in love.  Nothing I need for the hospital matches; my robe and slippers and pajamas if I start wearing those all clash.  I couldn't care less. It has made for some interesting choices though; however I just couldn't find the slippers I wanted in a color that didn't clash with my robe and I know I'llwant my warm robe in the hospital since it is going to be cold unless it is unlike any other hospital ever.  Even wearing real clothes on the psych until I was constantly cold and mad because I didn't pack nearly enough sweatshirts.

Good news is pre-op is only 4 days off and surgery only 10. Finally.

Drugged

It's gonna be pretty quiet around here for a while I suspect.  I saw Dr. Body and as I had assumed was taken off work so that I can take vicodin every 6 hours around the clock.  I am therefore sleeping around 20 hours per day and the hours I am awake have a lot more to do with forcing myself to be awake for a little bit than anything else.  Even during my awake hours I can be pretty heavily affected by grogginess; I sent Dr. Brain an email today that had so little in it that made sense that  I'm amazed she got the meaning out of it. But the pain is much better and realistically I couldn't have handled another week of working in the pain I was in prior to the bladder spasms.  Those seem to be resolving and good riddance as well.  That was not a pleasant experience.

Not much else to say.  The end of my pain med break is near and so I will post again when I am awake again. Sometime.