how to capture everything that is happening and not happening. so much waiting. There are things in my life that are not about being sick, but it just takes over everything.
July. Cancelled a work trip because everything got really bad. Finally accepted i needed to start the hormones and couldn't just hold off anymore waiting for some magical pregnancy to happen. Ultrasounds. MRI. Hematologist. Gynecologist. Gynecologist-Oncologist. Hours and hours spent in the hospital getting iron infusions. I'm not even that sick, that's the worst of it. I'm just NOT WELL. Hours and hours lying in bed just resting because everything wears me out. Hours and hours of just waiting to feel better. Hours and hours of trying to interpret the ultrasounds and scans. Hours and hours trying not to think about time going by. Hours and hours of trying not to think about whether the D&C triggered all this.
August. The euphoria of feeling better as my hemoglobin rose and i had energy and we could go camping, then the absolute depression and fatigue when it plunged again. Nearly fainting the day before the wedding at my last dress fitting. The stress of losing so so so much blood and reading every possible article and talking to everyone I could, trying to decide if i should follow the treatment plan from the toronto ob/gyb or the washington gyn-onc surgeon; and then the stress of trying to work the system to find a doctor who would prescribe for me the washington doctor's treatment plan. I wrote my wedding vows in the ER. That beautiful beautiful wedding day... i was so tired and so sick but it was still just about perfect, and i love that we did it and one day soon i'll write about it.
September. how to capture the hopelessness and helplessness and shame and rage and anxiety and pain and franticness of being frozen in place on the floor of a meeting room across from the minister of health and his entire delegation, all men, with blood running down my legs, on the floor, soaking the chair i was sitting on. Instead of celebrating that we'd managed the complex dialogue more or less seamlessly after weeks of preparation, I was stuck there, waiting for them all to file out, so i could check my situation, wrap my jacket around my waist, run to the bathroom to rinse everything out, and then put myself back together and head back out there for the stupid formal lunch. Legs shaking from the shock of it. Hollowed out from pain and stress but still somehow holding it together. I took a Lyft home and crawled into the shower and lost it. I just lay there waiting for the painkillers to kick in and the hot water to ease the waves of pain. I'm so over this, but I have another month to go before surgery and then all that recovery still to come.
*
This all feels like something layered over top of me, the real me. But in fact, this is now the real me and maybe if i accept it I won't feel this disconnect between me and my body.
Anyway. tomorrow R will wake up early and pack the boxes in a uhaul and drive it to the border and hopefully they'll let him in, and then he has another 8 hours to go and then finally he will be here with me. It's been so long that we've been planning this, I can't even really imagine anymore what it might look like. It was hard to say goodbye to that apartment where we made BLTs on our first inside date after months of talking at a distance, and then made out on the couch and looked at each other in wonder because it was all so electric. It became such a haven when i'd been locked in a COVID bubble with my parents. Where i really looked into R's beautiful blue eyes for the first time on the weird astroturf of his balcony. Where i said, offhandedly, "you know I love you, right" because i was too afraid to say it properly and also he'd lit candles everywhere and planned a romantic evening and i was too cool and awkward to appreciate it for the gift it was. Where we took care of each of other when we were sick, except for the time i put a tomato and squeezed a tiny amount of lemon into the dal i was making when he had hand foot and mouth disease and it was like razorblades on his 16 canker sores. Where R rubbed my legs for me when I got restless legs syndrome from the iron deficiency. Where we decided to get married (initiated by me with terrible timing right before leaving for Christmas lunch). Where we got married, our little legal ceremony in the sunshine. Goodbye apartment. I couldn't process it, just ran out the door. Moving on.
*
These are lovely and weird and terrible and disorienting times.
1:42 a.m. - 2023-09-28
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