Today was a good day. Exhausting, but good. It actually feels good to feel exhausted because of physical exertion rather than emotional trauma. I taught the second day of my class and it went really well. I got much better vibes from the students than I got yesterday, when I had an I'm not sure how I feel about y'all feeling. I took a prescription strength naproxen last night and a meloxicam this morning for my poor, tired hips, and that definitely helped. I'm still in a world of pain, but it is much improved over yesterday.
I surreptitiously condensed the day's lessons and semi taught to the test (which is tomorrow) because I had an appointment with Dr. A, my PCP, at 4:00 to discuss the results of my blood tests, which I requested a few weeks ago when I felt that Dr. T wasn't moving quickly enough. It was the latest appointment they had, and I figured I just had to make it work. I figured no one was likely to complain about getting out early, but if they did, I would just tell them I had cancer and had a really important appointment to get to, and they would probably feel sorry for me. LOL. Bless the Cancer Card. Fortunately, going into my seventh year of teaching, my gut feeling was right: no one complained when we were finished by 3:30.
Apparently having the last appointment of the day means you get two providers for the price of one, as both Dr. A and his new NP met with me. He made small talk with me, then finally I couldn't stand it anymore, and asked him if he had test results for me. He did. And... they are all normal! This is a HUGE relief for me. Even though my results have been trickling in from my appointment with Dr. AC, it's good to have confidence that everything is going to be normal, and that this surgery CAN happen. I do have two proteins that are high, protein C and protein S, but apparently high is okay; it's low that is bad. I verified this with Dr. Google promptly after I got home, and it appears to be a true story. I feel so much better knowing this, and continue to remain hopeful.
Sort of out of the blue, Dr. A said, 'You can't lose anymore weight. You need it for healing.' He commented that I had lost a few pounds, which is not good. Argh. I'm trying soooo hard to keep my weight up and even gain weight, but I am so f-ing stressed I think I must burn a thousand calories just thinking about having a slab of my gut fat sliced out and stuck onto my chest. Add a thousand more if you Google pictures of this process. We talked briefly about the type of surgery I was having, and I mentioned that I was very nervous. Dr. A said, 'You know, you don't have to do it.' I said I knew, but implants freaked me out. He said, 'I know. You don't have to do those, either.' I said I knew, but having just one boob freaked me out. He said, 'I know.' LOL. Then he mentioned that his mother had had a double mastectomy without reconstruction at age 80. I said if I didn't do reconstruction, I'd be inclined to lean toward the double without recon, but that also freaked me out. So basically everything about this freaks me out.
Dr. A also asked me how my hip was doing, and I said terrible, as I had been teaching all day for the past two days. We talked a little about teaching and how amazing it is my students can pay attention for so long. I told him I had no idea how they did it, but they really do, even when I start to lose interest in myself, haha. He asked how sleep was going. I said terrible, and told him my Ambien zombie story, which he got a real kick out of, then he told me a few of his own. So he gave me a prescription for something else - temazepam. I'm going to try not taking it unless I'm in a dire situation - and I'm definitely not going to take it for the first time before I have to teach an all-day class. It's good to have another weapon in my ever-increasing arsenal, however. I've actually been sleeping better using just melatonin for the past week or so. I think it has to do with resolving some tension with my parents; I really didn't understand just how much they were stressing me out until they weren't anymore. Of course, better = about 4-5 hours of sleep, which is still not enough, but at least I'm not, like, crazy anymore. I mean, I am, just not sleep-deprived crazy. I was actually doing pretty well last night, sleeping very soundly from about 11 until 2, at which point I woke up with a horrid cramp in the weirdest spot - the side of my lower leg. Not the calf or shin - the side! It was so bad, my foot was all twisted so I couldn't really even walk it off. But, I actually managed to go to sleep after I dealt with it, and slept from about 3 until my alarm went off at 6.
All in all, it was a good day, and I feel like August 26th is finally a visible blip on the horizon. And so we continue to creep forward.
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