Category Archives: The innards

March 23, 2014

Frolicking in Limbo

By May

Hello, Gentle Readers. Went the week well? Shall I tell you about my week? Of course I shall, it’s why I started the blog – to babble into the void, whether the void liked it or not.

Item – Last weekend I went to stay with Hairy Farmer Lady, who fed me cake in epic quantities, and then ice-cream in epic quantities, and having done that, booze in epic quantities, and then let me rant in epic quantities and took me to the theatre to boot. It was beyond awesome. And I felt, well, I felt wanted. And funny and cute, but above all wanted. Worthwhile. Worth making an effort for. Wanted. Excuse me, I must just attend to a face-leak.

Item – I don’t think H ever consciously meant to make me feel worthless and unwanted. But! People of the World! If your partner continuously complains that Behaviour X makes them feel worthless and unwanted, you have to deal with the motherfucking fact that persisting in Behaviour X sends a very distinct and hard-edged message to your partner that actually, yes, they are not as important to you as Behaviour X. It doesn’t matter if X = having a meths lab in your shed or X = just being obsessed with golf to the point where you are never available to go to Sunday lunches with the In-Laws and run interference. (Caveat, obviously, sometimes, Behaviour X is no big deal and you may feel partner is being a dick about it. Then you have to ask yourself ‘do I want to live with a dick who is less important to me than X?’). But to do something dinosaurish, and to lie to your partner about it, even though your dinosaur is making you behave in a boorish way and your partner is crying about it again, HUGE WARNING WHO’S BEING THE DICK NOW KLAXON.

Item – More limbo, in that my mother is experiencing delays in her finances, which means I am experiencing delays in my mortgage-planning, which means I am still living with H, which is a colossally awkward life experience which no doubt is vastly improving to my character and morals at the expense of my fingernails and sleep-habits.

Item – Living with H does not suck, because we are both being very adult and polite and we are both trying very hard to remember that the situation is fucking awful for both of us. Well, it does suck, but it could suck so very much more. I do remember, I must remember, that H is bearing a burden of his own and it’s galling, chafing and wearying him too.

Item – H does artistic things from time to time. I went to one of these events this week. I had been looking forward to it, you see. H came over to say hello at one point, and when he’d gone back to The Art, the person next to me said ‘oh, is he your husband? You much be so very proud of him!’. ‘Yes,’ I said. Yes. And no. And, oh God, no.

Item – I got into a bit of a panic about moving out, about not being able to move out, about renting instead for a bit, about how I couldn’t really afford to rent unless I shared, about how very much I did not want to share, about money, and was I doing the right thing? Was I? Was I? I went to see my counsellor and flailed at her for a bit. There, there, she said. Baby steps. It’s OK to take baby steps. It’s OK not to know quite what to do. It’s perfectly OK for this all to take ages and ages. If I’m more comfortable sharing living-space with H until I can sort my own place out, even if that takes months, that is OK. As it would be OK if I ran squeaking into the night carrying nothing but my laptop and spare knickers. If stability is very very important to me, that is also OK. If I am phobic about moving house at the best of times, guess what? It’s OK!

Item – Also I am strong and intelligent. It’s a thing people keep saying to me, but when my counsellor says it she means just that, rather than ‘so stop crying because you’re making me uncomfortable’ Thank you, beloved NHS, for this woman and her well-trained kindness and the fact she laughs at my jokes.

Item – I went out again this weekend (see? Frolicking!) with more people who laugh at my jokes and make me feel wanted. So there’s that. Which is good. Which is very good. There is life at the end of the tussle.

Item – And now for a quick bitching – I am baffled by the small, (very small, not you) quantity of people who have attempted to ‘comfort’ me or ‘cheer me up’ by telling me anecdotes about their own lovely children/spouses/four-bedroom houses with gardens. It’s one thing to tell me about children and spouses and houses in a spirit of ‘well, this is what is going on in my life’, because I do actually give a damn or indeed several about my friends and their offspring and belongings. But to offer up a ‘look at my adorable child! My splendid spouse gave me a present! I have walk-in closets!’ anecdote to cheer me up, when I am childless, getting divorced, and soon to be homeless does not strike me as classy.

Item – Oh, yes, Cerazette! Some kind souls have asked about Cerazette and Shark Week (or, Shark Festival Fortnight, as it insisted on becoming). I am still on said pill, I plan to stay on it until I am very elderly and menopausal. I do have a slight ‘issue’ (ho ho ho. Hee hee hee) with spotting, as it comes and goes unpredictably and hangs about for weeks, but it’s light and unobtrusive, by and large. And no periods. No burning pains in the uterus and bladder and cramps in the bowel that go on for most of the month. I’ll take the spotting, ta.

43 Comments | posted in All the rest of my life, Breaking up is hard to do, Dinosaur-wrangling, Pass the hankies, The innards, There is a husband, Tom-fool nonsense, We are not alone

January 23, 2014

Fussbiscuiting

By May

Yesterday, I left my dear friends in a state of mild panic, as Cute Ute decided Cerazette be damned, she was Cute Ute The Despoiler, Hear Her Roar. HFF commented on our uncanny bad luck in matters reproductive, and there were reasons… whereapon H confessed that he was a bit freaked out and had been all week.

You see, while I was staying at my Dad’s, I forgot to take my pill one night. I realised as soon as I woke up, and took it straight away, and the next one just before bed as usual, and was then back on track hurrah. When H and I finally got home, we were so pleased to have survived the Parental Oblations with only a few scratches, we fell into our own lovely bed with cries of joy and reacquainted ourselves with the boinginess of the mattress.

I think it was about then Satsuma was twinging, but she twinges at changes of diet, changes of weather, and frankly changes of underpants so I ignored her.

This past week, I have handed a cup of half-drunk tea back to H, asking which tea was it supposed to be, because it tasted weirdly metallic. I have felt sick more days than not. I have had an upset in my lower bowel. I was cheerfully putting this all down to eating stupid things I shouldn’t eat at Dad’s (the wine! There was relentless unavoidable wine! In food! I may as well have eaten the wire-wool pan-scrubber, it’d’ve been gentler on the linings).

Then the bleeding and Christing fucknuts vicious back-ache started, and as you know we all collectively freaked out. Because it would be just like Satsuma and Cute Ute to gang up on me and throw all my carefully thought-out decisions about the FET to the winds in a careless rapture of cruelty, while Bitter McTwisted kicked my head in about being a careless, careless, careless little idiot and this is why we couldn’t have nice things.

In my defence, the Cerazette leaflet suggested the pill had to be more than 12 hours late to be ineffective and this one was 8 hours late. To my horror, various frantically googled websites have suggested it need only be 3 hours late to lose effectiveness. Fuckittyfuckfuck.

So I scrabbled about on the bathroom shelves (Good Lord, the collection of empty moisturiser jars I’ve built up) and found a lone lorn remaining pregnancy test. I peed on it this morning, and it came up resolutely negative. Negatively negative with extra negative, which as you know negates the double negative and sets it back to negative again.

Um. Yes. Putting this one down to ‘hormones, they fuck with you. Even on the pill’ (as suggested by Dr Spouse (see yesterday’s post’s comments)) also Cute Ute’s absolutely vile personality.

Or it could’ve been a chemical pregnancy. Oh, who the fuck cares. Either way, it’s Not A Thing and we’re back to waiting and taking folic acid until the official spotting that signals the beginning of FET, The Maddening, in approximately three to four possibly five weeks’ time. Yes? Yes. Righty ho. Nothing to see here. I’m going to get a large drink, mind.

16 Comments | posted in FET, The Maddening, The innards, There is a husband, Tom-fool nonsense, We are not alone

January 22, 2014

Reassure me, damn it

By May

A few days ago, I started spotting, and I thought absolutely nothing of it, as since I’ve been on Cerazette, every month I spot for a week or so, and it had been a month, more or less, since the last bout of spotting. Since when it escalated, to cramps and red blood on Sunday, the Dire Rear, cramps and a lot more blood on Monday, and today, more Dire Rear, cramps, vicious backache, nausea, dizziness and headaches. Hurrah! I stayed at home, hell, I stayed in bed, and let Bitter McTwisted point out all the ways this wasn’t nearly as bad as my ‘real’ periods and therefore I didn’t deserve a day in bed, while The Positive Thinking Fairy went ‘wheeee! This isn’t as bad as a ‘real’ period! Why are you still in bed?’

So there’s that.

(I had an inkling things were in an ongoing direction of increasing unpleasantness on Tuesday, and made sure I’d got to the end of every single pile in my in-tray. I am such a responsible adult. Which is why all my houseplants are dead).

I was getting used to my schedule of regular spotting. And in fact am now relying on it, because FET, The Maddening, is supposed to kick off when I next start spotting. The regular nature of the spottingness being some kind of indication that my hormone levels are rising and falling in a way that will be appropriate for beginning Extra! Added! Hormones! when I next start spotting. So, naturally, I am convinced this heavier bleeding will mean shenanigans, and ye gods and little fishes only will know when FET, The Maddening, will be commencing to start. Oy vey. Is this a thing? Am I fussbiscuiting?

12 Comments | posted in FET, The Maddening, The innards

January 20, 2014

Plan, wait, J? Are we at J now?

By May

Today, H and I went back to the Riverside Clinic, to see about setting up a Frozen Embryo Transfer for Frosticle.

I felt very calm about this. And sensible. And calm. Right up until I was sitting in the waiting room. All those hopeful people, with their brave blank faces.

(Oh, God, and the woman with the toddler – obviously, there was nowhere else for toddler to be while mama got one with making his sibling. Obviously. No one is so fucking oblivious as to take a toddler to a fertility clinic unless they have to, right? Right. Still. And nevertheless. I actually read The Times therefore. I dislike The Times. I am a raging leftie and I don’t give a TUPPENNY DAMN about celebrity affairs and cellulite. But I read it, because I’d forgotten a book and I didn’t want to look at the toddler).

And then Dr George called us into his office and we discussed the FET at length, while he flicked repeatedly through all the letters from my various haematologists.

Plan, therefore:

  1. Start taking prenatal vitamins with folic acid again. Also, take 75mg of aspirin a day for entire duration of shenanigans, starting about now.
  2. Even though I am on Cerazette, I am having regular, if extremely light (spotting, basically) bleeds, about once a month or so. Satsuma is definitely refusing to be suppressed. Irrepressible ovary. I’d say bless, but there were all the times I wanted her to ovulate and she sodding well wouldn’t for months. Anyway, as soon as the next bleed starts, stop taking Cerazette, and call the clinic to arrange a scan.
  3. Start taking Synarel. (We have a bottle of Buserelin in the fridge, left over. Is this the same thing? Or not? Are the dosages different? Should I just shut up being clever and get a bottle of Synarel?).
  4. Between Days 2 and 4, get first of many many scans.
  5. Start taking Progynova tablets (this is oestrogen, yes? Yes. I’ve checked. It is). THEREFORE AND IMPORTANTLY, also start taking TWO (2. Two. TWO) needlefuls a day of Fragmin, so the extra oestrogen doesn’t promptly turn my blood to porridge.
  6. Steroids again.
  7. When Cute Ute’s lining looks good and plumptious, stop taking oestrogen and start ramming progesterone bullets up my various private orifices instead.
  8. Hang on, when do I stop taking the Synarel? *scrabbles through notes, to no purpose*.
  9. Intralipids.
  10. On day seven of the progesterone, thaw out Frosticle and pop it back in.
  11. HOPE LIKE HELL.

You will note no mention of Metformin. Dr George thinks it’s mostly for improving egg quality, really, and not necessary for a FET, and while I know the views on this in the States are vastly different, I personally am pleased, because Metformin makes me feel really disgruntled, and every single time I have taken it I have put weight ON. Yes, ON. I am pretty sure I am one of the minority of people who finds it screws their metabolism up even more, rather than sort it out.

You will also notice we are doing the same old same old protocol – intralipids and steroids and Fragmin – with the addition of aspirin. We are not doing IVIG. We all considered it, but my NK cells, while elevated, are not sky-high, and back in July 2012 while we were being Thoroughly Poked by Dr Expensive, we found that Intralipids alone massively reduced their activity (no idea why H is burbling about IVIG in that post – we didn’t have any results indicating IVIG testing had been done (everything about Dr Expensive’s testing and briefing regarding the tests was confusing and off-pissing, by the way. Everything. Which is why we quit him)).

There are no good theories as to why 6AA died. The higher dose of low molecular weight heparin mentioned above is for me, not Frosticle, and Dr George doesn’t think I could’ve clotted 6AA to death. Though the aspirin is for us both, given The Professor’s recommendation years ago that I take aspirin when pregnant. The steroids and intralipids are definitely all Frosticle’s, as are the cooter-bullets, because ew. We had those bases covered. So, 6AA may have had the right number of chromosomes, and yet still have had DNA of gibberish and codswallop. Maybe all my embryos do. H and I have both been karyotyped and we are both normal (no translocations, balanced or otherwise), but that doesn’t guarantee one or both of us doesn’t have a spontaneous fuck up in the gamete-making process that doesn’t show as a miscount in the chromosomes. And I am 38. My eggs are crappier than those of a 28-year-old and that is Mother Nature for you, the stone-hearted bitch. And it could’ve been just ‘one of those things’. We know so very, very little about conception and early embryonic development. So very, very, very little.

H and I snuck off for coffee before heading back to work, and to have a little think. I had actually started another round of spotting and light bleeding a couple of days ago, but we both decided we did not want to start the sniff-swallow-stab-poke regime today. We’d rather have the extra month. In which I shall take prenatals again and make sure I exercise regularly. And eat my greens. And have a couple more counselling sessions, and warn my boss about the scan regime, and cry and panic and flail about, because this is insane, Gentle Readers. It is nuts. Nuts. How can we possibly put us through this again? And yet, if we don’t, we both know we will regret it. And I can’t face abandoning Frosticle. The poor wee thing will probably die in my uterus, but it will certainly die in a petri dish otherwise. At least Cute Ute’s nice and warm.

P.S. – Cute Ute, the psychotic bitch, decided to make some unintelligible point or other very definite to me, by a sudden outbreak of seriously heavy bleeding with clots this evening. What? Why? I am taking Cerazette, damn it. At least I’m not in pain, she said cheerfully, practically begging Fate to smack her in the teeth for that one.

18 Comments | posted in Bad sad things, DVT/PE Yes really., FET, The Maddening, I visit the Doctors, Metformin, The innards

January 19, 2014

Parenting, UR doin’ it rong

By May

We went to see my Dad. It was simultaneously awful and liberating.

Awful, because my Dad is still, fuck-and-alas, a galloping narcissist and if the situation isn’t all about him by heck he will make it all about him. We did have a fight. His heartfelt apology, for which I was at first so very grateful and by which I was at first so deeply moved, rapidly turned into a ‘thing’ about his self-awareness and how therefore we didn’t get to mind when he was a tiresome old arse because he always had been and always would be and because he was aware he was a tiresome old arse, it was an endearing quirk rather than brutally rude and cruel to his children, and the fact we’ve all got Serious Issues from is behaviour over the years is… Not a Thing? I guess? Because reasons?

Liberating, because my heart, which has always lagged miles and years behind my head on this, suddenly realised that there is no magic combination of saying the right thing or doing the right thing, at the right time in the right way, that will unlock Parenting Level ‘Unconditional Love’.

Awful, because there were good bits about having this man as a father – the love of words and books, the stories he used to tell, his wit, his humour, his good days when he was delightful and delighted with us – and as soon as you open yourself up to the good bits, you’ve made yourself vulnerable to the bad bits. And if you shield yourself from the bad bits, you’ve cut yourself off from the good bits. This is not a dance I can do well, or at all gracefully.

Liberating, because this is not my problem. I am not my father. There was enough balance and good example in my life to save me from this ugly inheritance, this inability to see people as people, as equals, this inability to empathise, this raging fear that someone else’s gift (brains, knowledge, money, charm) is a direct threat to him and will somehow annihilate him. And that is not me. And does not have to be me.

And then we came home again, and I went and discussed all the above with my counsellor.

It would seem that a life-time of being shamed for having the wrong sort of body/hair/eyesight/attitude/artistic talent*/height/academic aptitude/pubertal development/sized breasts/menstrual problems can leave a girl feeling profoundly inadequate. Being treated as a flaming nuisance and being repeatedly accused of hypochondria and whining every time I was ill or having a bad time with my periods left rather a tiresome selection of psychological scars. And therefore, when it came time to have a baby of my own, with a body I’d been taught was flawed (and its being flawed an act of perverse rebellion on my part), my inability to make a baby was for me a great source of shame – bitter, bitter shame and guilt. My brain knows this is fucking ridiculous. My brain always knew it was fucking ridiculous. I am quite bright, after all. My poor silly heart, which has the IQ of a golden retriever and a similar desire to love all the grownups even when they kick it, needed more time to realise that I am no more ‘flawed’ than anyone else.

All humans have issues, health problems, non-Barbie-dollness, scars, lumps, wonky bits and hormones, and are nevertheless lovely, loveable, wonderful creatures. I have just had bad luck. Not as bad as some people’s obviously. But definitely worse than other people’s. This was not because I brought it on myself, in any way. Why would I? How could I? It’s not even physiologically possible.

I cannot fathom the guilt, shame, embarrassment, and self-loathing that lead my parents to take a child with obvious health problems and frantically alternate between blaming her and insisting nothing was wrong with her rather than, say, take her to a decent gynaecologist and Get That Seen To, Because Poor Kid, It Sucks. But I know I’m not the only woman who has been shamed for having menstrual problems, fertility issues, and miscarriages. And I don’t know what is wrong with our society that this happened and keeps happening, but it needs to stop. And if you have ever tried to dismiss, down-play, shame, or judge a woman over these issues, I hope you get your pubes caught in your zipper and have to be cut free by a paramedic.

*Writing instead of drawing. Yes, my family went there.

19 Comments | posted in All the rest of my life, Bad sad things, I must empty my head now, Pass the hankies, The innards, Tom-fool nonsense, We are not alone

December 15, 2013

‘Tis the season. Hi.

By May

Gentle Readers, Season’s Greetings. How have you been? How are you all doing? Me? Oh, fine, fine. It’s a long story. Have a cup of tea. Or coffee. Or cocoa. Or wine. I don’t know what you like. I don’t know what I like. Excuse me, I shall just go and stare into a cupboard for a few minutes.

Anyway (I went for tea. I’m British) anyway, (I see you were serious when you asked how I’d been. In that case, I shall tell you. In Items. Because Items are traditional.

Item – Working from the toes up, my left leg, the one that developed the big fat DVT. How is that? Well, I had a final ultrasound scan of it, during which the sonographer kept a poker face to out-poke all poker faces. Then a week later we saw the haematology consultant (a third one. Consistency being a thing that huge NHS hospitals can’t actually do on the budgets they actually get). I had been somewhat bothered by the way my leg is still more likely to cramp, to get tired, to ache, than my right leg. It was weird and I didn’t like it, and I was somewhat concerned that despite all the walking about and trying to get fit again the stupid thing was not cooperating. And, well, of course it isn’t cooperating. Third Haematologist told me that though my popliteal vein was no longer completely blocked (yay?) the clot hadn’t completely dissolved and had now scarred over. So my left leg will get oxygen starvation if I over-do it, and will ache and swell if I stand about for too long, and is at risk of another socking great clot if I push my luck. Fucking A, man.

Item – Compression socks. I hate them. They have a purpose and their purpose is excellent and my ankle is not swollen on a regular basis with thanks thereunto. They still suck. I still hate them.

Item – Cerazette! Still my bestest friend in the universe. Every few weeks, I spot painlessly for a week. Otherwise, my pelvis is filled with peace, calm, sunshine and dancing rainbow unicorns.

Item – Cerazette! Demon! My hair is falling out. I have a metric fuckton of hair to start with, so it will take a great deal of falling-out-ness before I start to look so much as wispy, let alone Leonardo da Vinci, and yet I am not amused. Not at all. Sodding hormones. On the other hand, I’d rather be spear-bald than spend three weeks out of five in so much pain I can’t really function, so fuck it. I have hats.

Item – Wheat. I ate some. Within 24 hours my oesophagus was so swollen I was having trouble swallowing (and had to go retch a few times when I had not chewed obsessively 27 times before swallowing, as ‘stuck’ is a thing). This is an official food allergy thing, apparently. I also got gut ache and wind and mild runs (trots?). I decided I hate delicious yummy wheat with a passion. Not trying that again. Damn it all to hell.

Item – Trying again. We were waiting for the all clear from the Haematologists (many and varied). The consensus is I will have to be on low molecular weight heparin AND aspirin from conception to six weeks after end-of-pregnancy. Also, I will have to wear stockings on both legs, and will probably be a physical wreck throughout. Hurrah! But, I can try again if I like. So we will go see Riverside Clinic in January, and see what can be done about tucking Frosticle back in me. On the other hand, a fresh IVF cycle? Possibly a really bloody silly idea, as ovarian stimulation/hyperstimulation is in itself a damn fine way of triggering blood-clotting. We shall see. My current feeling is, if Frosticle doesn’t ‘work’, I am getting seven cats and a pet owl and a horse called Horse.

Item – To my fury, Third Haematologist went on about there being no genetic ’cause’ for my thrombophilia, therefore I didn’t technically ‘have’ a thrombophilia, and I rolled my eyes, and what I would like to say is, actually, I don’t have a currently recognised genetic cause that you can test for. I ABSOLUTELY FUCKING DO have a thrombophilia. You fucking idiot.

Item (secondary, diversionary) – I much preferred First Haematologist, who was sympathetic and sensible, and Second Haematologist, who was actually The Doctor slumming it while evading the Family of Blood or somesuch. (I am perfectly serious. He referred to ‘eight of your Earth weeks’ at one point and H got the giggles (yes yes yes, so did I)).

Item – Work. I am back at work full time. It’s fine. I’m coping. Leg is not being so much of an arse as it were to interfere with my day-to-day duties.

Item – Family. Oh my God I have had it up to here with my family. I will no doubt get back to you all on this.

Item – Counselling. My NHS-provided counsellor, who I see once a week, is lovely and wonderful and has made me realise I spend an inordinate amount of time beating the everlovin’ shit out of myself for everything and anything from untidy hair to being a vile antisocial Bitter McTwisted of Doom. If anyone spoke to a friend of mine the way I speak to myself I’d disembowel them. I am practicing being sweet to myself. It is weird and hard. Also, she keeps reminding me, my family’s hang-ups are theirs, not mine, and I don’t need to take them on board at all. Build Team May! If people are not on Team May, skip briskly away into the distance singing ‘la la la’!

Item – Marriage. H and I are not happy. H has dealt with the Summer of You Must Be Fucking Kidding Me, well, badly. I have also dealt with it badly, but H has taken the proverbial biscuit, bless him. Communication has gone to hell. I will let H tell you about it. That is my revenge upon him, ho ho ho. Hi, H! Stage is all yours! So!

Item – Couple-counselling. We tried to find a counsellor. We had an initial visit in which the man would NOT. STOP. TALKING. When I bought up the whole ‘children now seriously unlikely’ thing, he had to stop me there to tell me ‘I didn’t know that’. Which, actually, was the first red flag. A good counsellor does not tell you what you should and should not be thinking about this sort of stuff on the first visit and before he knows any of the medical history apart from ten mother-fucking miscarriages in a row, you absolute 24-carat gold clotheared dickwhistle. And then tried to slut-shame me when I said I had a higher libido than H and the lack of sex and more specifically communication about sex in our marriage was making me sad and angry, by explaining to me as if I was very stupid indeed that in normal marriages, it was normal for both spouses to lose interest and get ‘too’ used to each other. Well then, I’m abnormal, as I haven’t lost interest in H at all, as I just explained, and the issue is the lack of communication, not the lack of sex per se, so sod you very much. And then, he never turned up to our second appointment. He made his excuses the next day via the practice manager. His excuse was not per se stupid, but his not getting in touch himself to grovel just a bit? Was a great fat honking flashing neon sign saying ‘this man is Not The Counsellor For You, Also, Has No Fucking Manners Whatsoever’. So. Start again.

Item – I have a disgusting cold. So there’s that.

Item – Christmas. Every card I write, every Christmas decoration I hang (or get H to hang), every present I buy or plan I make, I drag kicking and screaming from a black, angry, pissy abyss of raging misery. Just so you know. The only thing keeping me going is a) H’s various concerts (it’s a good thing, being married to a musician) and b) the prospect of the Doctor Who Christmas Special.

20 Comments | posted in All the rest of my life, Bad sad things, DVT/PE Yes really., Gluten avoidance therapeutic bitchathon, I must empty my head now, I visit the Doctors, Pass the hankies, The innards, There is a husband, Tom-fool nonsense

October 22, 2013

Hello, hi, well… um. Hi.

By May

There comes a time when chunks of the brain just shut down in the face of Too Much To Process. There’s the part that is ordering you to grieve (‘Go on then, cry. Feel awful. Cry, damn you! You lost a baby, didn’t you?’) and the part that will not go there (‘But it feels awful! I don’t want to! And there are endless CSI reruns to watch instead!’), and the part that is still being struck amidships by the whole ‘and then I nearly died’ thing, and the part that has decided the whole business is ridiculous and we should just get three cats and an Alpha Romeo Spider, and the part that is nevertheless planning a FET in January.

And – how could I forget? – the part that was dealing with H’s looming redundancy, and thereby putting on a cheerful face of unconcern and trust in a)H’s general excellence and b) the benevolence of the future [Based on what, you absolute lunatic? — Bitter McTwisted]. In the event, H was not made redundant. It was only when he came home at the end of last week announcing he was transferring departments merely, and not being slung out on his ear by Christmas, that I realised just how bloody anxious and, frankly, angry I’d been about the whole thing; and how ready I’d been to march in there and punch H’s various bosses in the collective groin for doing this to him all over again (we had a major redundancy scare a couple of years ago as well, you see).

Which was not helped by the part that has just been told that the rent is going up 20%. Which is all very well, as it hasn’t gone up for several years and the landlord just noticed that every other comparable property in the area costs many many lots. And not at all very well, as H’s pay has been frozen for the past five years and I earn somewhere between diddly and squat. (OK, yes, as a perk I get to be ill for two months solid and not get fired. So there’s that).

We may be moving house next year.

AAAIIIEEEEE.

So, yes, a lot of Being Very Anxious While Quietly Watching Far Too Much Daytime Television was going on.

And that is why I was not writing. I did not want to sit down and look any of it in the eye. For similar reasons, I was staying away from blogs. I did not want to read another word about loss, or pregnancy, or fertility treatments, or adorable children. It was all anxiety-inducing, good news or bad, happy or sad, reminding me of what I had been through and what I had lost alternately, and I decided that actually I was well within my rights to pull the metaphorical duvet over my head and pretend to be a Scotch Egg for as long as I cared to.

By anxiety-inducing, I don’t suppose I need to explain myself to anyone who has ever suffered badly from an anxiety disorder, but to the rest of you I need to say, no. Worse than that. Much worse. It’s like poisoned.

So. I am now bored of being a Scotch Egg. Hello!

And how am I? Let me count the ways:

Item – I went back to work on a part-time basis last week. It is exhausting. I spend a lot of time, by-and-large, being tired, what with the chronic pain issues and occasional bouts of anaemia, but this is something else. I used to be tired, but I could still trot up three flights of stairs or walk two miles across the centre of town without getting out of breath. Now? Nope. Can’t walk for ten minutes without my stupid DVT-affected leg beginning to ache. I go up three flights of stairs slowly, puffing ‘I… think… I… can… I… think… I… can…’. Work is not the problem – I am on ‘limited’ duties and therefore don’t have to do anything particularly strenuous just yet. Commuting is the problem. Commuting is a fetid pile of dingo’s kidneys.

Item – Speaking of chronic pain issues, let me tell you about my new best friend in the entire Universe: Cerazette. This is a progesterone-only pill which prevents ovulation as well as thinning the uterine lining. Some women don’t care for it at all, but, Gentle Readers, I love this pill. Yes, OK, I started spotting after two weeks, and then near the end of the first packet I started bleeding and carried on doing so for two weeks solid. But it was light bleeding. Bleeding containable with regular tampons. And there were, get this, there were no cramps. I was not in pain. Not. In. Pain. I am not in pain. Cute Ute is perfectly comfortable, my bowels are regular and cheerful, and Satsuma is quiet as a wee mousie. [Ticker-tape parade, marching bands, majorettes, and a 24-gun salute].

Item – Meanwhile, after six weeks, my haematologist lowered the dose of Fragmin (these is a kind of low-weight-molecular-Heparin) I am on. I will be spending six weeks on the lower dose, and then we will double-check the clot behind my left knee has gone, and then I can stop injecting myself every evening. My belly is covered in bruises. I thought for a while there I’d found a way to prevent the bruising (as soon as you remove the needle from your flesh, press down hard on the injection site for 30 seconds with your thumb. Do not rub) but it doesn’t always work, alas. And the worst bruises leave hard lumps under the skin which are showing no inclination to go away at all. Heigh ho, fuck and alas.

Item – I do not like my compression socks. They seem a tad loose in the ankle, and they are frankly gigantic in the foot (‘Oh, just tuck it under!’ said the twatwhistle nurse who fitted them for me. This being the same nurse who wanted to know when I was due, and when I, my eyes filling with tears,said I’d actually lost the baby in August, proceeded seamlessly into her ‘Losing Weight Is Good For You!’ perky lecture). The thing is, I have stocky peasant calves and dainty little princess ankles, and I am not a 70-year-old varicose-vein sufferer. Yet. So. Point of socks, to prevent me becoming a 70-year-old varicose-vein sufferer. Onwards.

Item – Mental state: very anxious, insomniac, and sad. I see a therapist on Thursday, courtesy of the NHS. Our local hospital has a counselling service attached to the gynaecology and obstetrics wards, and I ever so qualify for its attentions, according to my GP, who insisted on referring me. Given that my attempts to find a private counsellor ended in a big fat blank because the people I contacted never got back to me, I’m taking it. Not that that stopped the counsellor having to cancel on me once because of ‘bureaucracy’, but she had warned me she might have to, and then called at once to apologise profusely and have a bit of a chat right there and then just to see how I was. (Note to self: stop being polite and cheerful to counsellors. Not helpful).

21 Comments | posted in All the rest of my life, Bad sad things, DVT/PE Yes really., I must empty my head now, I visit the Doctors, Pass the hankies, The innards, There is a husband, Tom-fool nonsense, We are not alone