* Had the blood draw yesterday. After I had left the office, got a message back from the doctor in relation to my updating her: she still wants me to get the more intrusive test.
Ugh.
Yesterday I had some minor abdominal twinges and of course my brain spent the day playing the game "after effects of a normal cycle, or symptom of something very wrong" though I suppose the more intrusive test will demonstrate. (I'm guessing there's a 90-95% probability the answer is "nothing is wrong"). Nothing I've noticed today. I don't remember that well what a "normal" cycle was in order to remember what was "normal" - with me they were always infrequent, anyway, and when I was on the meds to regulate them they were different from "normal."
One of the problems with being a fundamentally healthy person is whenever something goes weird, you are immediately hyper-conscious of it, and if you're anxious like me, you assume the worst.
I haven't scheduled it yet, I used one of my precious emotional spoons and called up the doctor's appointment-scheduler but she was away from her desk. I'll try again on my lunch break.
I kind of hate phone trees, even if I understand why they have to exist.
* I've told myself I am permitted to cancel class to do that. Not dying is probably a higher priority than getting all my classes met. (I'm hoping I don't HAVE to cancel, but my schedule is so tight this semester. I could do a Thursday afternoon - have someone to cover the lab if need be - or a Friday (could cancel my one class). Other than that it would be hard. I'm not sure how it might affect the International student who is apparently duty-bound to meet me in person EVERY WEEK if I had to cancel a Tuesday afternoon and I really hope it does not come to that. (I'm also hoping though I can do it at a time when I don't HAVE to run back to campus, in case I'm uncomfortable and unhappy afterward, and just want to go home and curl up in bed).
For serious, I wish doctors would do like some restaurants and take Mondays off, but have Saturday hours, would be better for a lot of the rest of us working stiffs.
* My porch light died. I had put a new bulb (an LED) in it and then a couple months later the bulb was out, and I grumbled about "long lasting bulbs my foot" but it was raining then and I didn't get around to trying to change it until yesterday....and found that the socket had broken.
I called the electrical place that came out for the GFCI circuit. They are booked up for "a couple weeks" but this isn't urgent, and it gives me time to go out and buy the fixture I want, but....it's just thing after thing isn't it?
I had no idea how much of adulthood is just a constant fight against entropy. I mean, entropy eventually wins, but as long as you are living you have to fight it and it's *exhausting*
If I had this to do all over again I'd have tried harder not to remain uncoupled, though I also know that a bad partner is worse than no partner but it's just so exhausting dealing with the stupid life-maintenance stuff AND working full time.
* Real talk: I suspect this is much of the reason why so much of the "canon" (in any art form) and so much of historical science was done by men, and particularly white men from the upper-middle or upper class: they were the only ones who had TIME to devote all their time to a discipline like writing symphonies or finding a vaccine against measles. They had servants or wives to attend to the mundanities of life. I suspect many of them did not have to cook or worry about how their clothes got cleaned. (Though also, it seems, some forms of cleanliness were not so obsessed-over then as they are now.)
But maybe the reason I have not done anything "great" is not that I'm not smart enough or not good enough, but that I have this constant low-level stream of distractions. I mean, yeah, if i wanted to I suppose I could send my laundry out (one of my colleagues does) or have a housecleaner....but that would also mean cutting back on my saving toward retirement. And because we can't optimize everything, for me, not being destitute when I am 75 ("If you make it that long," the goblin that's been tormenting me since last week says - though if I have some horrific disease I will also need money to fight that) is more important to me than making some fantabulous contribution to the literature.
But I do wish I didn't feel like, with both time and with money, the minute I go "okay, the bad stuff is over, now I can relax" as if there is a giant, cosmic "NOPE" uttered, and something ELSE goes wrong.
though I really, really hope the health thing was all a false alarm.
* I dunno. I just....I just need a few weeks of peace with nothing going wrong. I hope the 2 1/2 weeks of Christmas break wasn't that, and I don't get any more peace for a while. I know I will feel more peaceful once I've had the various appointments and (please God) found out nothing's wrong with me.
I know you can't feel like you're owed anything by the universe, but.....I would really like a couple of totally uneventful months to get my head back together and my life back together. This is gonna be a tough semester with three regular classes, all with labs, and two arranged classes, and having a lot of outside weight too is going to be really hard.
I just....I wish I were less alone, some times. Closer to family or something, or more willing to be open with the people in my immediate vicinity.
* I really hope....all of this, all since July of last year, isn't some cosmic lesson on "how to keep paying attention and keep working on stuff even when you're worried/heartbroken/upset" because this is a SUCKY way to learn this lesson. And I was good at working on stuff before, all the blows of the past six months have kind of destroyed my ability to work for extended periods.
* Anyway, ALL THE ANXIETY. I tried calling back after lunch and it turns out BOTH the people who could do that kind of scheduling are out today so I left a rambly message with the one the receptionist recommended I call and I'm hoping she calls back tomorrow. I have no idea if the ultrasound is done in that office (Oh I hope, I hope one of the nurses specializes in that because it will be less scary to go to a known place) or if I have to arrange with another doctor or if I have to go to the "women's center" at the hospital (and then have the anxiety that one of my neighbors works there and I really hope he's not the one sticking the thing...uh....where it has to be stuck) or if I have to drive to some office in Texas or whatever and that coupled with the anxiety over "what if there really is something bad going on in there" (never mind that the ONLY symptoms I've had are a 'surprise" and some little twinges that could be unrelated) and my mind is racing about "if you have to undergo surgery how will you finish the semester and how will you catch up and oh lord what if your insurance won't cover enough of it and you have to empty your savings account for this and, and, and...." and I am almost in tears because I have so many OTHER things I must do but this is dominating my thoughts now.
* I know a lot of my widely-scattered friends are sitting with me in spirit but man I wish I had someone to sit with me in person right now to distract me from all the bad places my mind is going to (like: "Maybe life is just gradually taking thing after thing from you,and is preparing you for a day - coming much sooner than you anticipated - where even your life is taken from you somehow, and it's trying to make you OK with it by taking various things over time." Yes, that's a very dark thought and I recognize that but I'm frankly scared by the fact that my doctor didn't simply brush the incident off with a chuckle and a "yeah, this happens a lot in women your age, if it happens again we'll look into it" and instead immediately went to "okay, we'll do some embarrassing and potentially uncomfortable testing" and doubling down on that when I said "maybe I don't need it after all, plz?")
* I did finally hear back from the office though: doctor never left orders so they can't do anything in re: scheduling until she gets back. So maybe it's not super urgent? The complicating factor is I have precious little time in my schedule I could fit in a couple-hours ordeal, coupled with maybe having to go home and lie down for a bit in a darkened room instead* - next week Monday is out, Tuesday is probably out, Wednesday is out unless I cancel my morning class, do the thing in the morning and tough it out for the lab, Thursday afternoon would be doable, and Friday morning is the appointment with my doctor, which I thought she wanted the results of this test for....
(*I will probably wind up just toughing it out and coming back to class even though I might want to go home and lie down in a darkened room, because a lot of the theme of my life is You Don't Get What You Want)
* I suppose the other answer is just...rescheduling the checkup until after I can have this done but crikey, what a mishegoss.
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