6 Crazy Months..

Its been way too long, and yet so much has happened and yet nothing much has really changed either when you look back on everything.  But how in the world is it already September? Where has 2017 gone?

This year by far is a recovery year; I called it a leap year when talking to my friend tonight because it almost feels like so much has happened but yet nothing much really has changed kinda  like we have leaped through this year. I say that myself in my shoes I'm sure there is someone out there who would say that their 2017 is their worst year and my heart goes out to them truly.

But I guess I'll stick by recovery year for more reasons then one and without making this post a novel of an update in my life I'll try to share all of it since its been almost half the year (six months) since I last posted.

I felt like I may have unleashed a bomb last post and that my state of mind was not ok at best, however to be honest my writing was me trying to get back to change course to admit it all and move on or try. I had a few speed bumps with some colds over the two months that followed I wont lie, but nothing major like it had been back in Feb.

A lot of things changed and I was and still am going to the doctor more recently; not for mental health I actually feel like I'm in a such a better state then I was during my last post now then before so let me update you all (or the one or two people who actually read this) on the crazy last couple of months.

About 2-3 weeks after my last post I don't know if it was something I ate (after effects of some of the stuff I was doing in Feb.) but I went to bed after a late dinner and watching TV with an upset stomach; I didn't really sleep at all since I was up with this pain waiting to need to use the bathroom in one way or another. I think I may have ended up sleeping a few hours at best during the night and when my body wasn't getting better and I checked my temp and it was a little over 100.0 degrees I called in to work to call out sick (on the 2nd day of the craziest time of the year for us mind you).

I tried to eat things; and everything made it upset; especially a yogurt and my mom kept telling me if I feel that bad (making noises) I should go to the doctor. So just before 5pm I called and they had no appointments left I'd have to go to urgent care. I was there till about 8-9 at night waiting to be seen (they checked my vitals and had me go back to the waiting room) and once I had been I was reccomoned to go to the ER. We were there doing multiple testing till about 5am. (I had a small nap on the couch during the day before we went to urgent care for about an hour tops and then maybe doze in and out while we waited on test results in the ER) I ended up calling out from work with a doctors note for both the day of and the next day as well; and got meds from the pharmacy and went home (called out for another day). I slept and was starting to feel better in a few days. (which was important and I'll make a point about this later).

So about two days after the ER visit I was in for a follow up to make sure I was feeling better and they let me know that my iron was severally low and had me be put on iron and b12 and folic acid and to have my blood tested in a month ( I believe I know I've gone a couple times; and still need to go back in October to get it checked again; more on that later) to verify my levels were going up.

I was finally scheduled to see my primary doctor (that I admit I dont go to in generally unless I need to) and while there we did my pap smear (first one) and also talked about my low iron or my anemia rather and it was then I was also put on Birth Control to help my anemia when I explained how bad it could get ( I wont gore you with the details; but if you've ever used or heard of ultra tampons ... you'll get my drift). 

After taking all my antibotics for the ER trip and getting use to taking my supplements for my anemia and waiting on my cycle to start up again to start talking my birth control I celebrated my birthday with friends and family and got back into life and work being crazy with the summer time and more guests coming in.

Just after the start of June when my levels for my Anemia had only raised slightly and I was feeling better I figured I could start getting back into the gym that next week; however that is not what ended up happening.

Few days later in the morning I woke up with what I thought was really bad period cramps and just thought my body was getting use to the birth control still and it would fade and be done with in a few days once the period was done. However it lingered passed then and started to add more issues like bowel movements were either making me super bloated before going and nauseous when I'd finally go; and sometimes not for days at a time (when I use to go a little every day) and at times very painful making me sick to my stomach, and I started talking Excerdin to deal with the pain and nausea. However that every day and multiple time as it wore off (and the constant lower pain in my hip area under my belly button on both sides) I'd take more, it didnt help the bowel movements since too much of that will constipate you and then ruin your kidneys and liver.

I ended up making an appointment a few days later; they thought it was pelvic inflammatory; and also tested me for STDs (ironic if you know me.. like really know me) however when the pain wouldn't go away or change and I was still taking excerdin to function I made another appointment. This time they thought I had intestine infection like before; even though I was adamant about it being lower then that pain was back in April when I went to the ER. I got the same antibotics for it and they had me schedule a CT scan for a week later.

The antibotics still werent doing anything; the doc I had last seen advised me that if I felt my pain was bad enough 7 or higher to go to the ER so I decided the best thing for me was to stop taking the excredin and see how much I could deal with the pain. I did so and while I was at a 5-6.5 pain wise most of the time I was able to deal for the most part I just wasnt eating much since it helped me not get so bloated and be in worse pain. I finally scheduled a gyno exam a few days later since nothing was changing and I still had to wait at least a week for the CT scan; plus during my ER visit I found out through the ultrasound test I had ovarian cysts on both sides.

Gyno found them and said it wanted me to set up consult with an active sugeron (he was only part time and mostly retired) for a few weeks later and then also a week after my CT a more detailed ultrasound test (then they had in the gyno's office). I also got in contact with my primary doctor and asked his advice and tried to get a sooner date to consult about my cysts and options to get removed however after talking over the phone with another surgeon who didnt have an availablites I was stuck playing the waiting game.

My CT scan ended up showing the cysts and nothing else wrong and then the ultra sound showed that in April my left was 5 cm and my right was 3cm and now a few months later the left was 5.8 (considered 6cm) and the right was 4.5cm. They had grown, and probably would not go away without sugery.  So finally my consult came at the beginning of July, and we tired to reach out to other doctors for quicker openings after we talking through everything (syptoms, test results etc) and I thought I'd have to keep playing the waiting game (while seeing if I was gonna have to cancel an already booked and planned trip to visit family at the end of august).

The monday after the visit the surgeon I had met that day's office called me to set up a sugery day for the first part of august (2 days shy of a month post op as I type this), to get my cysts removed. My surgeon also thought I might have Endometriosis with all my symptoms.

At work we are updating some of our stuff to reflect the education standard changes and learning new material so that kept my focus for the most part and while I waited I dealt with seeing a pattern of my pain being less a week after period was gone and then picking back up during my next till a week afterwards. I dealt with not taking any excedrin as much as I could to help with not adding to my bowel issues.

The day came and went and while a little nerve racking going in that morning; they got done with the person before me so quick and everything kinda just ran after check in I really didnt have much time to think the day it happened, my recovery the first few days was ruff and I felt a little overwhelmed when seeing work stuff but I couldnt not keep in the loop the only way I knew how and rest as I could (while doing daily walks and not sitting around "too much" as my doc suggested).

I went back the day before my 2 week post op and faired ok and my doc was impressed with how I was healing and called me a rockstar and is having me come back for a check in November.

I found out the cysts were benign, and I do have endometriosis but my birth control should help keep that from being too big of a concern. With all the blood testing I had to go through the day before sugery I had my anemia tested again (I was suppose to get it tested then too but I had postponed it during due to the sugery; however since I found out I dont "need" to fast they did it anyway) and while my levels are back in the normal range they want me to as I said test again in Oct.

I'm slowly getting my engery back and feeling more myself when out doing things and at work then I did the first week or two back in society. The whole ER visit with the antibotics being a good thing they ended help me feel better was a bit of a issue too since they had mentioned that if they didnt it might be a sign of Crohn's diease; well when my surgeon heard this she told me to go see the GI doc to run a test and explain my symptoms too. Turns out the person who read my CT scan at the ER was the over night person who miss read it *was corrected - no Crohn's* and my intestines in April looked fine just as the ones in June did; but as the GI doc said the pelvic area was a whole other issue. (Do have a follow up phone appointment with him to check in Oct as well)

I'm still feeling the twinges here and there of pain mostly in my insides as they continue to heal especially my belly botton area since they did the sugery laparoscopically. Turns out my cysts had taken all the space that is suppose to be under my uterus *near my rectum* and stared to come together and be pals and stick to each other. Since their removal (minus post sugery waiting period to have a bowel movement) its like night and day; I still have some gas pains here and there and senstivity but thats gonna take time to heal and get back to where it use to be pre cysts.

I did end up having to move my trip to see family out to a week from today; southwest is awesome and letting you do that by the way. And I'm still dealing with work changes and sign offs for the new content and ironcially the now slow period at work since summer is over and kids are back in school.

I wanna get back to the gym when I get back from seeing family; but I'm just taking this day by day and moment by moment right now. I think 2017 is my healing year, even if it didnt start out that way.

Come what may..

I wish I could say that in the last few months I have found motivation, I have been inspired to live my life for the person my dog thought I was. Though I've had my moments of trying, I've had my moments of feeling like the floor fell out from beneath me and made me realize I hadn't gone far enough down, my rock bottom still wasn't found yet.  And yet it didn't scare me, part of me for a hot minute wanted to test it; wanted to see how far down it could go.

Though my over analytical mind with a flair of wild imagine starts to work out the scenarios and make my logical side stop me in my tracks. Though not without some damage, and yet at the same time I feel like I'm over dramatizing this in my own head.  Not the pain or the grief but the things I've done in the mean time since, and the things I haven't.

I have my moments of clarity of feeling like I'm about to break through this to a new chapter to a new start. I see the light and I embrace it all, and yet I feel myself get pulled back to where I once was feeling like a ghost of myself and yet it's easy its peaceful even if I don't feel like myself or feel anything at all. But a small sense of shame that saves me from myself, at least for the moment.

Almost 4 months seems like a life time ago, and yet seems like no time has passed at all. I've moved up in my job and I've also done things and made plans for months ahead. Yet I sit here some nights when I should be going to sleep, thinking of how I could go back to what I was doing; how simple it was. Coming back from it is not easy, and I regret every moment. But it doesn't stop me, its easier and cheaper then over eating, and yet I tend to go to food when I try to stop myself from doing it again, its the one thing that I decided was better then eating at all for a bit when I first started, because it made it easier, it made it more intense.

Yet I knew better; but some how I don't think for a long time it will ever not be in my mind to do, regardless of the harm it can cause. It's not alcohol, its cough syrup. While all I can say is that a random bored night of wanting to feel anything but sober became a week long experiment on how long or hard I could go and points at rite aid that got me things for free made it that much more simple to do. I figured out how a different type would make it not as high and even weeks later when doing it again a set of only PM because the dose was stronger would make me sleep through all but the last thirty minutes of the high.

I would only feel ashamed when I had to deal with being high and try to hide it when my mom was home, and to plan out requesting days off in the future of when she'd be out of town to plan to do it without questioning when she'd be home. Those of yet to pass and plans have been made to keep me out of the house and doing things so as not to indulged.

I write this all down, and want to mention how I went from that to taking 40 pills of melatonin cause I read it could get you high but just left me zombified tired for a day and half. Then recently doing more of the drug (that was in the cough syrup) in what we had and eating a ton of nutmeg because again I read a lot of it would make you high. And yet I wanna take all this back, and get stuff tomorrow on my day off to just lay in the dark of my bathroom blasting music in my ears, and never tell a soul.

I won't say this is all because of a death and my grief; I was dealing with trying to escape in some form way before I had him in my life. To be honest I think he gave me a purpose in my life that kept me from doing these things earlier. Though as I have done since forever, I turned to food and in turn shared that food with him, but my issues were bigger then food and well bigger then any bottle of any substance.

Food is the easier one, for me to be addicted to. To abuse, your body gains weight but you deal in some way because well your complacent by the food for at least a short time. Though it runs out of its power or you get tired of the results and you turn to other things. I've mentioned in the past when I drink I can't stand the long effects of over drinking the hangover as it were. Plus alcoholism runs in my family and I'm always too fearful of that reality to get caught up in it; and the taste isn't my favorite either. But just as food or alcohol; cough syrup or any type of over kill on pills or spices is the same thing. You feel like a pod person, and yet when your dealing with everything in the world and the one thing (person or animal) you had to help you through it is now gone you almost feel like feeling that way is best.

I get in my head and think what is wrong with me, what makes me do these things. What event took place that I feel I need to do this to myself. And all I can think of or come up with is not feeling enough, not measuring up. But not to myself but to other people and I get angry at myself for still being obsessed with others view of me. Of wanting to impress to be loved to be accepted, to belong.

Though I know all in that instant its not enough if I'm not being me. I'm not even sure I know who that is anymore. I have all sudden felt as if I pushed under a rug all my issues and all of my work in weight loss in the past was more because I had the time to focus on it; not to fix anything.

I also question how am I able to promote loving yourself being yourself and accepting that, if I can't even do it for myself. I push to others that they are enough; and yet I don't even believe it half the time for myself. I keep saying when I get here or my mind set is I'll be here then and it will be enough. It's why I fear death so much, I'm afraid I'll fail at this thing called life and it will all be for not. Though as I said before, I know the only way I fail is to not try at all.

Life is meant to be lived, and how ironic its my greatest fear to live. Just because hey I might fail, may not get the timing right, or it just may not turn out like I envisioned it to be.

I've gotten pretty good at numbing myself down when I want to shut up all the brain noise in my head; when I limit myself to the container of life that I think I've got.

And I'm not even sure I know the answers now, or that I'm ok with not knowing them.
I'm always ok with being wrong, its part of life, and I guess in this moment I need to learn to be just be.

Let go of expectations, of myself or what I believe others have for me. To be present now, to basically say "Hello Darkness, my old friend," and not be at odds with what is.
Fixing things that aren't broke, doing the same thing over and over again (mind you with a few adjustments food for alcohol and alcohol for cough syrup) and expecting different results is truly the act of insanity.

Time to let go and let be, do the things to better my predicament and shape my future instead of ending it, and be in the now the best way I can be. The sober way.