Just Eva

[just-eva]

Visanne Brain

My body insists on still having a strong hormonal cycle despite the medical industry's best attempts to crush it with synthetic pregnancy hormones. On a good day, the medication that stops the physical signs of my menstrual cycle just leaves me feeling depressed. On a bad day, it can cause my poor confused hormonal brain to come up with some spectacularly bad attempts at comfort. Last night my thoughts started running around fretting about how I was going to die a sad, lonely, old person. Shortly after that, good old brain pointed out that wasn't going to happen because I'm both in poor health and older than most of my friends and loved ones, so I'd most certainly die before them! Nothing to worry about! You tried your best, brain. I'm so sorry I can't stop taking the medicine that makes you like this.

[just-eva]

Mansplaining Championships

Today Facebook decided to show me a memory where I complained of a migraine and asked how people I knew dealt with them.

One commenter chose to inform me I didn’t likely get migraines because his were so debilitating mine must just be a headache.

Flash forward to now, when I have a diagnosis of migraines with the caveat that I get many of the symptoms that aren’t pain (most times but not THAT one). I also know that at the time I was living with one diagnosed but not properly treated mental illness (general anxiety disorder) and two undiagnosed physical ones (one chronic, endometriosis, and one curable and now cured, hyperparathyroidism).

What a jerk that guy is. I’m glad in the intervening time I’ve decided not to keep him around.

[just-eva]

I found out yesterday my surgeon wasn’t totally honest about the “temporary” nature of my upcoming illeostomy.

Now I have to get in touch with him and find out how likely it is that it’ll end up being permanent and decide if the surgery that might stop my pain (but might just leave me with new, slightly lesser pain, he says) and might leave me permanently unable to use my large intestine, is worth it.

Endometriosis is a horrible, bullshit disease.

[just-eva]

Nope

Walk into a room containing 5 visible or audible people, realize two of them think you're worthless garbage. That's a nope.

[just-eva]

Logbook, day 13919

Did not develop teleportation power after getting "sweet" private messages from a person who was a jerk to me in public. Still not angry enough for magical murder, apparently.

[just-eva]

I'm not mad, I'm just dissapointed

I don't know if it's "wisdom" coming with age, knowledge coming from research, or just a chemical reaction in my brain caused by the massive doses of progestin I'm on to treat endometriosis, but I have no patience for patriarchal assholes or people who defend them right now. I've been on a blocking and unfriending spree on social media today and while I'm actively disappointed about 1/3 it's still someone I've known was problematic for some time, but wanted to think better of.

[just-eva]

I'm scared to get ready for work because once I'm ready I have to take the first dose of a new med that I don't want to start but have to in an attempt to regain quality of life.

[just-eva]

It's been a rough couple of days, but my friends have been so magnificent. I am loved, and that's awesome.

[just-eva]

Anxiety

Anxiety doesn't even look like a real word today, but it's still telling me I need to work out, be social, cook, clean, and smile all the time while also making sure to keep a constant refrain of "No one actually likes you and you'll never be good enough at anything to change that" droning through the back of my mind.

[just-eva]

The place I can be my whiny-est

This week I found out: * I can't get a flu vaccine until November (the nasal mist form that hopefully won't give me an anaphylactic reaction isn't ready yet) and if I want it I have to have it administered at a specialists office due to the previous bad reaction. * I need to make an appointment to see my surgeon if I want the stitch that didn't dissolve like it was supposed to removed so it's not just sticking out of my neck. * One of my post surgery blood tests came back with a high parathyroid hormone count, which I need to go see my nephrologist about to determine if anything's wrong. * I have osteoporosis thanks the the parathyroid problems, but I can't start taking supplements to try and help that until the nephrologist figures out what's going on with that hormone level. * I have a head cold. You win week. I give up. I'm going to bed.

[just-eva]

Panic attacks suck

I wasn't aware until tonight that I've internalized feeling like if I say anything that may be a "spoiler" I am a worthless human being.

[just-eva]

Parawhatnow?

Did you know you have four small glands called parathyroids on/near your thyroid gland? Their job is to regulate the amount of calcium in your bloodstream. When they malfunction they leech calcium out of your bones and saturate your blood with it, leading to fragile bones and kidney stones.

Excess calcium in the blood, in high levels, can also cause fatigue, muscle and joint aches, anxiety, depression, confusion, memory problems, irrational behavior, and hallucinations.

The cure for this condition is the surgical removal of the affected gland(s) through an incision across the lower front of the throat. 

Time to start coming up with entertaining stories to explain my upcoming neck wound, I guess.

[just-eva]

Lithotripsy isn't fun, but it's very effective. I had it done Tuesday morning.

Much of the pain is gone and I need far fewer painkillers than I did a few days ago. My body is starting to work right in several ways it had not been for the last four weeks. 

The biggest hurdle now looks like it's going to be getting enough rest to be sure I'm recovered properly, as my body seems to be taking feeling better as a sign that I should immediately return to my normal activity levels, no matter what logic dictates.

Photo Credit: http://instagram.com/deervertebrae/ , who was kind enough to get up ridiculously early and take me to the hospital, because she is awesome.

[just-eva]

I miss dancing the most

Pain medication, when it is actually needed regularly, is not all it’s cracked up to be. Everything I’ve been given thus far works for about 4 hours, meaning that I’m woken up every night when it wears off. It takes at least half an hour for the next dose to take effect, and by then I’m often firmly awake. In the three weeks since my adventures in owning a body with an expired warranty started I’ve had one night where I got 6 straight hours of sleep, and it felt like a miracle. I want to start thinking about all the fantastic things this year will hold. I want to appreciate, without reservation, how awesome things are…my job is great, my partner is the most fantastic and generous person ever, I’m loved by and allowed to love so many brilliant, wonderful people…but I hurt, I can’t ignore it, and it feels like it’s taking over my life. Thankfully, this is temporary, and I'll be better by the end of January. I need to remind myself of that more often.

[just-eva]

It's been a week full of new experiences that I would have preferred not to have. First overnight stay in a hospital, first morphine, first kidney stone, first general anesthetic, first surgery.

They blew a few old familiar bad experiences that happened before them out of the water, really.

I'm not good at being ill. Medications often give me more side effects than benefits, and while this isn't the case right now with everything I'm on, it's trying hard to be. Forced inactivity makes me feel lazy, and I was taught as a child that any pain could be "walked off" so I feel like an utter wimp when I encounter some that can't be.

I need follow ups with doctors for future surgeries to finish dealing with this, and it's not that easy to get in touch and make appointments with specialists during the holidays, especially when they forget to tell their offices that you're a new patient and they have to be reached to be asked if it's okay to book you despite their names being all over every form you were given while hospitalized.

So yeah. Sorry if I'm dismal company the next little while. The surgeon promised me this would likely all be over in a month, and that would be very nice.

(Photo courtesy of Erin Keaskin)

[just-eva]

Last night my phone successfully navigated me across a highway, through a fence, and down an unlit road to this ridiculously isolated bus stop in time to catch a bus home. It used a detailed map, a GPS, and a colour coded route showing what way to go and gave a fairly accurate estimate of my walking time. I think I sometimes forget how cool technology is.

[just-eva]

Today my hair became the kind of colour that women my age get when they tell a stylist “I want something trendy and daring and vibrant” and their stylist, generally wisely, dyes it a variant of auburn. It was intentional, there’s good reason for it, but it makes me feel mighty boring. The picture of a Catbeard the Dire is here for the sake of assuaging my guilt about feeling whiney. The internet always accepts kitties as apologies, right?