Category Archives: Health

MRI Prep Work (or Vampire Victim and Nerves)

Posted on November 5, 2019 | Comments Off on MRI Prep Work (or Vampire Victim and Nerves)

I’ve got my liver MRI coming up this week. I haven’t had an MRI in a year, and I’m glad that I decided to do one this year. My liver surgeon gave me the option of waiting 2 years instead of 1 after my last appointment, but I think that would have been too long to wait. I’m still wondering what is going on with my tumors and I couldn’t imagine how I’d feel if I still had to wait another year before I found out.

I’m trying to not be nervous about the MRI, but I can’t help it. I still am scared that for some reason my tumors will be bigger. I know that it’s a really tiny chance that could happen, but I know that I’m also the person who gets the 1 in a million situations. I’m nervous about the MRI itself. I know I’ve done so many of these by now, but they still aren’t routine for me yet. I have been very lucky that my claustrophobic hasn’t been an issue while in the MRI machine. I think it helps that I can tilt my head back and see the room behind me. If I was in head first, I think that would be much worse. I’m nervous about getting the IV as well. I hate needles and that is always something I struggle with.

But I did get one of the needles out of the way last week. Before getting an MRI where they use contrast, you have to get bloodwork done. Because of the contrast they use, they have to make sure that your kidneys can filter it out of your body. I’ve never had kidney issues (although I have been told that I have a small cyst on one kidney, that’s never been discussed more with me other than telling me it’s there), so I know that I shouldn’t worry when I get my kidneys checked before my MRI. But I do worry because you never know when things will change. And of course, because it’s bloodwork, I have the needle to worry about.

I decided to do my pre-MRI bloodwork on Halloween this year. I happened to have that afternoon free so the timing was good. Plus, I was able to make the joke that my costume was a vampire victim. I know that the needles don’t leave a huge mark, but I do usually have a bruise when it’s done.

The last time I had bloodwork, there was a huge line and a long wait from when I checked in until I was seen. That time it was also worse because I was nauseous that day. This time, I was feeling good so I wasn’t dealing with nausea. And when I checked in, I barely had enough time to take a photo of my number before I was called to one of the stations.

Since it was only one thing they were checking with the blood, they only had to collect one vial. I warned the nurse like I warn anyone putting a needle in my skin about my issues with them. I let her know I might pass out or get very tense but that it was ok and she didn’t have to call anyone to take me to urgent care or the ER. I think the warning freaked her out a bit, but I know when I don’t warn the nurses that things are worse. Even though the nurse decided not to warn me about when she was going to stick me, I did ok. I did have the blacking out/tensing up moment that I’m used to, but it wasn’t as bad as it’s been before. And only a few minutes after I got to the hospital, I was already on my way out.

I’ve been trying to not think too much about the MRI this week, but it’s hard not to. For some reason, it seems like I get another thing from the hospital every day to prepare me. I have gotten appointment reminders, text alerts, and paperwork with what to expect during an MRI. I didn’t review that paperwork since I’ve done this before and I know I still have to fill out a form confirming I know all this information when I go in for the MRI. I won’t find out for a while about the tumors due to when I could get an appointment, so I know the time between the scan and my appointment will also be nerve-racking. But soon I’ll be past this and hopefully, everything will either be the same or better and I won’t have to worry about it again for at least another year.

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Default ThumbnailBack To Focusing On Health (or Back To Back Doctor Appointments) Default ThumbnailA Boring Tumor Check In (or Still A Miracle) Default ThumbnailAnother Liver MRI (or Not As Routine As Always) Default ThumbnailMRI Time (or I Think Being Calm Is Helping) Default ThumbnailTime For Another MRI (or Still Trying To Stay Calm) Default ThumbnailGetting Ready To See My Liver Surgeon Again (or My Annual MRI)

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3 Years Knowing About The Tumors (or I Forgot An Anniversary)

Posted on October 25, 2019 | Comments Off on 3 Years Knowing About The Tumors (or I Forgot An Anniversary)

I am always telling my friends that I love my blog for many reasons, but one reason is that it reminds me of when things happened. I can look up a blog post and get an idea of when something happened. But I only see that when I look something up. But social media can remind people of things too when it tells you what memories come up. And the other day, the memory photo that came up was from my Disneyland outing right after I found out there was something wrong with my liver (before I knew they were tumors). So I realized that my tumor anniversary was around now.

I don’t know what date to consider my tumor anniversary because there are so many options. Is it when I was at the hospital and found out something was in my liver? Is it when I found out that I had a tumor? Is it when I found out the type of tumor it was? I honestly don’t know which day to acknowledge (similar to how my medical miracle anniversary is potentially multiple days). But I do know that about 3 years ago, I was in the middle of a crazy medical journey of discovering I had tumors and making a game plan about what to do with them.

And when I saw those first images of my biggest tumor, I was so shocked. It did mess with my head because I was having issues feeling disconnected to my body, but I tried to not think about that too much. I knew the risks I was facing with this tumor being in my body and made sure I wasn’t doing anything that added to that risk. And I looked at that first photo hundreds of times because I couldn’t believe that something that big was in my body that shouldn’t be there.

The months between discovering the tumors and discovering they shrunk were also crazy for me. I was dealing with the idea of having these tumors and making preparations to have major surgery to get rid of them. My focus was on that surgery and doing anything I could to get ready for it. When the surgery didn’t happen, that also threw me off a bit and I had to deal with those feelings.

3 years later, I still have the tumors in my liver. But they are all significantly smaller than they were when they were discovered. I will be doing my next MRI soon so we can confirm they are still shrinking. I have no reason to believe that they wouldn’t be. If they stay the same size, then I have to go over a few other options with my liver surgeon. But I don’t think surgery will really be discussed much at that appointment. I’ve already discussed when he would think surgery would be an option and it’s mainly if the tumors start growing again. And if I’m going to have gallbladder surgery (which is something I expect to have in my future), then my surgeon said we can combine the surgeries so I can have my gallbladder removed along with the largest tumor. But I’m hopeful that the tumors have continued to shrink and that will be the news I get in a month.

Like with so many things in my life, it seems like yesterday and a million years ago that I discovered I had these tumors. I’m glad that I don’t think about them all the time as I did right when I learned about them. I do think about them each day when I do some visualization, but that’s only a few seconds a day. Besides those moments, I usually don’t think about them unless I’m telling someone the crazy story of me and my tumors. And it is a fun and crazy story to share.

I’m glad I had a reminder on social media that this is about the time that I discovered the tumors. It’s nice to be able to reflect back on it and think about what has happened in the past 3 years. So much has changed in my life and there is also a lot that has stayed the same. But I think the changes outweigh any stagnation in my life and it’s nice to think about the positive improvements I’ve gone through.

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Default ThumbnailMedical Miracle Anniversary (or A Year Of My Liver Being A Badass) Default ThumbnailAnother Story About A Tumor (or I Guess I Was Misdiagnosed For Over 15 Years) Default ThumbnailSurgery Anniversary (or I Guess It’s Good I Almost Forgot) Default ThumbnailMy First 2017 Monthly Challenge (or Working On My Tumors) Default ThumbnailMy LA Anniversary! (or 13 Years Have Gone By Quickly) Default ThumbnailA Non-Surgery Anniversary (or Another Year Of Being A Medical Miracle)

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Figuring Out My Pain (or Staying Calm While Stressing Out)

Posted on October 4, 2019 | Comments Off on Figuring Out My Pain (or Staying Calm While Stressing Out)

I wrote about how I didn’t sleep much before I did the Dri-Tri and how much that affected my finish time. Not sleeping before the workout was a bad decision, but I was hoping it would just screw up my workout. I didn’t think about if it could cause any other issues. And while I don’t know if this story is really connected, I have a feeling that it is.

I know that as you get older, you deal with more random pain. I feel like I am pretty familiar with pain since I deal with it almost every day. But whenever I have new pain, I worry a lot about what happened. Especially when the pain happens to be with my back. Back pain concerns me a lot because I know that it can be connected to my hip issues. And when I was showering after the Dri-Tri, I had something happen in my back that was really concerning.

The pain started as I reached for a towel after my shower, but I know that it wasn’t due to that movement. I really do believe that it is connected to not sleeping and then doing a tough workout. I’m sure that because I was tired, I wasn’t using the best form and I probably was slouching while biking. Bad posture can cause a lot of back pain which is why I try to be very conscious of my posture, especially since I work at a computer for so many hours a day.

Once my back started hurting, it was excruciating. I was supposed to have fun that night at a party to celebrate my friends adopting their daughter. I made it to the party, said hi to my friends, and then had to leave because I was in so much pain just standing up. I hated that I couldn’t be there to celebrate with them, but I knew that I had to take care of myself and make sure I didn’t make whatever happened to my back worse.

I spent the next few days taking some painkillers, using heat and ice, and putting different topical treatments to help with the pain. And then my pain started to shift from my back to my hip. And then I started to panic.

I know that both my hips will need surgeries in the future, but I don’t want to do them anytime soon. Recovering from hip surgery wouldn’t be an easy process and I know that it can take a year or so before I could get back to where I am now. I don’t want anything that prevents me from working out, so I have been careful with my hips. But I also know that I can’t avoid all activities that are potentially bad for my hips so I do take some risks. But I was starting to think that the lack of sleep/crazy workout combination was the thing that finally did the damage to my hip that would require surgery.

Every day that went by, the pain was less in my back and more in my hip. I started to struggle with sleep because I wasn’t able to find a position that I could sleep in and wasn’t painful. I was trying to not panic too much about the pain because I know that not every hip-related pain is about my hip issues. People without the issues I have can get hip pain. It’s not easy to remember that when I’m in pain, but I tried. And it did help that the pain overall was getting better, even if it was more hip-related each day.

Right now, I’m still in pain. It’s a weird, dull pain that doesn’t feel like how I remembered my hip feeling before surgery (that pain was sharper and more like little shocks). I’m trying to remain optimistic that this pain really is just about lack of sleep and the Dri-Tri (or some other innocent reason) and not a sign that I need to have hip surgery. I’m hoping that because the pain has been getting a bit better every day, that even if I did do something to my hip, that it is just temporary. It’s hard to remember sometimes that I am allowed to have normal hip pain and not worry that it’s something serious. And this past week has really tested me in working on not panicking about that.

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Default ThumbnailSleeping Away The Day (or Sometimes The Pain and Nausea Are Just Too Bad) Default ThumbnailDealing With The Pain (or Not All Pain Is The Same) Default ThumbnailAccepting Some Help (or Hope This Helps The Pain) Default ThumbnailTrying To Go With The Flow (or Staying Calm And Remembering To Breathe) Default ThumbnailPain Distracts From Other Pain (or The Rain Isn’t Too Bad This Time) Default ThumbnailStaying Calm With Changes (or Testing My Fear Of The Dentist)

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Refocusing And Getting Back To Me (or Doing A Bit Of The Same This Month)

Posted on October 2, 2019 | Comments Off on Refocusing And Getting Back To Me (or Doing A Bit Of The Same This Month)

Last month, my monthly challenge was to reset myself. I had been dealing with so much in my life over the summer and I really needed to get back to me. I felt like I was not in the best mental space and I was feeling the effects physically too. I knew I needed to get back to myself and figure out how to make it work again.

I did my best with the challenge. Where I had the most success was getting my sleep back on track. There were still some nights where I was up too late or didn’t get a lot of sleep (like the night before my Dri-Tri), but in general, I was doing much better last month with my sleep. I was getting to bed closer to the time that I knew I needed to and I wasn’t as tired when I woke up. I know I should feel lucky that my sleep issues didn’t include oversleeping, but when I was staying up late and had the chance to sleep in, it would have been nice if I could do that. But I guess it was better that I only had to work on my bedtime when I was working on myself.

I didn’t make as much progress in working on my food or self-care practices. Food is always going to be a struggle for me, I know that. But I wanted to do a little better and be a bit more structured. I think the structure is improving and I am not having extreme hunger issues, but the quality of what I’m eating needs to be worked on (like it always does). And my self-care did improve a bit with making time for myself. But I always wanted to work on self-care practices for my skin and appearance. That is still not back to my normal routine yet, but I have worked on some of it and I’m slowly getting back to what I know makes my skin look better and makes me happy.

After spending last month working on refocusing and getting back to my normal self, I realized that there are other places I need to refocus in my life as well. And the biggest one is my acting career. Lately, it has felt like I have been doing so much for my career because of all my work with the election. But that doesn’t help my career directly. I still work on self-submitting every day and networking when I can, but there is more that I can do and I haven’t been doing it.

Some of the things I should be doing are things I can’t do because of money issues. I’d love to be in an on-going acting class and I haven’t found one that fits what I’m looking for and my budget. But I want to keep looking to see if I can find the perfect class for me. And I know I need new headshots, but those aren’t cheap (or if you do them cheaply, they don’t usually look good). But I have been saving for those and I am going to try to find a way to get them done soon.

So this month, I want to work on refocusing myself on my acting career. I want to make some good steps forward with things that I can control. I have a lot working in my favor, and I just need to make the effort to take advantage of them. But I don’t always know what the path is to do that and I can work on figuring that out without spending money. I don’t have any specifics on what I want to do this month (I know, another abstract challenge), but I have some ideas of things I can do or focus on. And while I doubt I will see results with auditions or bookings within the month, doing these things are going to be setting me up for those in the future.

It’s so easy to call yourself an actor because you don’t have to prove that you are doing anything. I know that I’m not just claiming to be an actor, but I also know there is so much more I can do for my career while I am not fully living as an actor. And this month, I want to add more of those things into my life and see where it takes me. I can only benefit from doing this, so it will be worth challenging myself and seeing what’s possible.

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Default ThumbnailRecapping A Few Challenges From Last Month (or Getting Ready Stop Going Easy On Myself) Default ThumbnailI’ve Been Slacking (or I Need An Easy Challenge This Month) Default ThumbnailIs This A Year Of Being Selfish? (or A Month Of Saying No) Default ThumbnailNot Perfect This Month (or Challenged With The Monthly Challenge) Default ThumbnailA Challenge For A Weird Month (or French And Deep Breaths) Default ThumbnailTaking A Month To Reset (or This Doesn’t Really Feel Like A Monthly Challenge)

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Staying Calm With Changes (or Testing My Fear Of The Dentist)

Posted on September 27, 2019 | Comments Off on Staying Calm With Changes (or Testing My Fear Of The Dentist)

It has taken a long time, but I finally am at a point where I don’t fear the dentist as much as I used to. I still have a fear of the dentist and it makes me panic a bit, but it is nothing like what it was just a few years ago. I’ve had better appointments in the recent past which helped, but I think it is also due to something in my brain chemistry changing that has helped.

For a while, my dentist appointments have been very consistent with the care I was getting as well as the people that I saw. Then, the last time I was there, I discovered that my dentist retired and 2 new dentists took over the office. This caused me to have a bit of panic, but it ended up working out well for me. The new dentists were very understanding with my fear and they were willing to work with me and try to make things easy.

While having new dentists was a big change, since I only see the dentist every 3rd appointment, it wasn’t too bad. As long as my dental hygenist was still there, I was happy. I used to joke to her that I would switch offices if she ever left because she really does work hard to make my panic attacks as minor as possible. But she said she had no plans to leave so I didn’t worry about it.

Then this week, I went to the dentist. My appointment was on Monday and it was just going to be for a cleaning so I would see the hygienist and not the dentist. Things were running a little late, but that wasn’t a big deal. Then one of the dentists came out and said she would get to me as soon as possible. I was so confused since I wasn’t going to be seeing the dentist for a cleaning. And that’s when I discovered that the hygienist was no longer at the office. I couldn’t follow her to another office because she switched careers. I am glad she is going to do something that she has always wanted to do, but I was sad that it was another change and it was causing me to panic a bit.

I ended up having to reschedule my appointment to yesterday because of how late things were running. And while I tried not to think about things, I spent a few days panicking that things were not going to be good at my appointment. I knew the new dentists were very understanding and they said they would work with me and my fear during the cleaning, but I have gotten so used to having my routine and not needing to worry too much. I knew that there was a good chance my appointment was going to be harder than the past few cleanings, but I also knew that I would be fine and that my fear and feeling of panic wasn’t a sign of things to come.

I’m aware that I’m a bit of a pain in the butt at the dentist. It’s not easy to have a patient who is scared and it took a long time to get comfortable with the hygienist who I had been seeing. Fortunately, things went much better than I expected.

I discussed with the dentist about how things had been done in the past to help my fear. And she did explain why those might not have been the best choices. I was willing to take a chance and try her plan, but I asked her to modify a few things. For example, I wanted her to confirm that my teeth were fine and there was nothing she saw that looked concerning. I don’t think that’s a normal part of the cleaning, but I really needed to hear that in order to feel better. And once that part was done, things were easier on me.

The only hard part was not knowing how much longer I had in the appointment since things were being done in a different order. Thankfully, the dentist was very understanding and answered all my questions and explained where we were in the appointment at each step. I kept apologizing for asking a million things, but I don’t think she minded. She was saying that it’s better that I’m aware of what’s going on and making sure I take care of my teeth instead of letting my fear take over and keep me away.

The appointment was a bit longer than I’m used to, but I think that was because the dentist and I had to work together to figure out how to make the appointment the best for me. But in the end, it all worked out for me and I didn’t have any panic attacks while there. My nerves were still affecting me, but that’s something that I don’t think will ever go away. And hopefully, when I go back in 4 months it will get a little easier for me.

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Default ThumbnailSurprises At The Dentist (or Guess I Have A Few More Appointments) Default ThumbnailGetting Used To A New Dentist Routine (or This Wasn’t The Appointment I Expected) Default ThumbnailAnother Dentist Visit (or Panicking About Panicking) Default ThumbnailMore Prepared Than Necessary (or Splitting Up Dentist Appointments) Default ThumbnailSurviving At The Dentist (or When Will I Grow Out Of My Fear) Default ThumbnailMy Fear of the Dentist (or Why I’m a Faint Risk)

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Another Annual Appointment (or At Least I’m Getting Used To These)

Posted on September 20, 2019 | Comments Off on Another Annual Appointment (or At Least I’m Getting Used To These)

I’ve written about having to get mammograms before on here. I’ve been doing them for several years now and it has become routine. There is a bit of debate with my doctor if I do really need to do them each year, but if they are questioning it I’m fine with doing them. Fortunately, they are free so I don’t have to worry about paying for them. And I know that there is a higher risk of getting a false positive with doing them when I might need them, but that’s a better option than not catching something.

But I’m also not expecting to get bad results from them. If my mom’s cancer is genetic (which is still a possibility), the type of breast cancer she had is not caught on mammograms. It also would likely be post-menopausal so I am not in the phase of life that it’s a higher possibility. But I know that my insurance doesn’t really see that information and just that I have a mother who had breast cancer.

I wasn’t sure if anything would be different this time since it would be my first mammogram since I was considered high risk for breast cancer. But I was prepared for some changes and went into the appointment curious to see what would happen.

As usual, I had to wait a bit for my turn, but it wasn’t too bad of a wait. And then I was faced with the infamous mammogram machine.

The only differences I noticed this time at my appointment were some of the questions they asked before they started. They wanted to have some more information on my mom’s cancer and when she was diagnosed. All easy things for me to answer since I have had to share that information a few times lately. They also wanted to clarify all the cancer screenings I have done before and wanted to know if I’d be doing an MRI this year too. Even though I have been approved for annual MRIs, I don’t plan on doing them that often unless something changes and my doctor or the geneticist recommends that.

After the questions, it was time to get this done. I don’t think anyone really likes getting mammograms, but they aren’t the worst either. I think some of the pain I experience is more the anticipation of pain and not actual pain. It’s not painless, but I would describe it as more uncomfortable than anything. I experience a bit more pain than other people I know because I bruise easily, but that’s just a me problem.

And while I haven’t had a bad technician do my mammograms before, I have to say the woman who did my mammogram this time was extra awesome. She understood how uncomfortable this is and really tried to make it easier for me. When something didn’t feel right or the machine was pinching me, we worked together to try to place everything in a different way so it wouldn’t hurt. And once we got everything right, she ran to press the button so it would release quickly. I really appreciated her wanting to make this easier on me and taking the time and extra steps that she did.

There have been times where the images weren’t clear enough and they had to do them again, but this time all 4 images came out perfect the first time they took them. So it was easy and quick and I was out of there in no time.

I was told all the standard things like how it can take a few weeks to get the results back, but I’m not worried about it at all. These screenings are just preventative and what I do as an extra precaution and not because I’m worried they will find something. And if they did contact me saying there was something suspicious, I know that there are lots of things that can look odd that have nothing to do with breast cancer. So I’m not too concerned about how long the results will take or what they will say.

I know the first time I had a mammogram, it was so much more stressful waiting on the results and making sure I was fine. I had a similar feeling when I did the MRI the first time. But now, at least mammograms are feeling normal and routine and I don’t worry about them. Just like I don’t worry about what my cholesterol or other annual blood tests say. I’m glad that these are becoming less stressful since they will be something I have to do for a long time. I don’t know if I will be getting another mammogram next year, but at least it’s good to know that if I do have to do it in another year that they seem to be getting easier.

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Default ThumbnailGetting Another Mammogram (or This Is Getting Easier) Default ThumbnailBack To Focusing On Health (or Back To Back Doctor Appointments) Default ThumbnailFinding A Way To Be High Risk (or Playing The Insurance Game) Default ThumbnailMRI Time (or Another Type Of Cancer Screening) Default ThumbnailOrange Goes Pink (or The Week In Workouts) Default ThumbnailHoping For Some Normal (or Fingers Crossed That This Was This Easy)

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Another Quick Therapy Appointment (or Video Appointments Make Things Easy)

Posted on September 12, 2019 | Comments Off on Another Quick Therapy Appointment (or Video Appointments Make Things Easy)

When I had my last therapy appointment, I was put on a new medication that would hopefully help me with recovering from my eating disorder. The plan was that I would try the medication for 6 weeks with increasing the dose each week and then I would have an appointment with my therapist to discuss how things were going and see if the dosage was correct.

But things didn’t turn out that way. I tried the medication for about a month before the side effects just became too much for me to handle. I really was hoping I could keep going, but it was affecting my life too much and the benefits weren’t worth it. I emailed my therapist to let her know I wanted to stop the medication and we worked out a plan for me to ease off of it. I’ve been lucky and the side effects I was experiencing went away very quickly. I haven’t been dealing with vertigo or numbness for a while now. And I don’t know if my period is going to be affected again this cycle, but at least it should be normal again soon.

Even though I stopped the medication already, I kept my appointment with my therapist. I figured that it would be good to keep it in case she wanted to talk to me more about stopping the medication and see if I was ok. And since it was a video appointment, it was easy to keep it and not have to worry about if the appointment wouldn’t be worth my time. I figured it would end up being a fast check-in and I was doing work at home while I was waiting for my therapist to get online.

And as expected, it was a quick check-in. She wanted to confirm that I was off the medication and that I was doing better. I think she was relieved that most of the side effects went away almost immediately. Unfortunately, the medication is very strong and a lot of people have reactions like I did. But it was worth trying it to see if it would help. We had no way to know how I would react until I tried, and now we do. And it did make me feel a bit better to find out that so many people have side effects. Even though I don’t feel like a failure for having them, I still felt better knowing that it was so common and not one of my medical weirdo moments.

Going over the medication was the main reason for the appointment, and we didn’t have much to discuss since I was off of it. She did want to check in with me to make sure that I’m doing ok emotionally and with everything else, and I was honest that I’ve been exhausted and dealing with a lot lately. But nothing that seems unmanageable or that I needed extra help with. It’s mainly something for me to be aware of and make sure that I take care of myself. I think my therapist was understanding with everything going on in my life and she was ok with me having a few extra things to deal with as long as I was handling them.

The last thing we went over was how I’m doing on Vyvanse. I know that she typically doesn’t prescribe it to patients and she’s following the protocol that my last therapist had. But I appreciate that she understands why I’m on it and wants to make sure that we don’t have to adjust anything. She did mention that we could increase my dosage, but I don’t want to do that right now. I feel like it’s a good amount for me and I do feel it helps. And I don’t want to increase until I feel like I do need more to get the help that I’m used to.

And that was pretty much it for my therapy check-in. We did set up my next appointment for 6 months from now and it will be another video appointment. Because my appointments are mainly medication check-ins, I don’t have to go as often as I used to. And every 6 months is pretty standard now for making sure I’m still doing ok and I don’t need anything to change. And of course, if something changes in my life and I need to go in sooner, I know I can make another appointment and go in person. But for now, I continue to be grateful for video appointments because they are so easy for me to do. And considering this appointment ended up only being about 5 minutes, it was nice to not have to drive 30 minutes there and back to do it.

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Some Random Medical Tests (or At Least Getting Blood Work Was Entertaining)

Posted on September 10, 2019 | Comments Off on Some Random Medical Tests (or At Least Getting Blood Work Was Entertaining)

Something I didn’t post about when it happened was having some extra medical tests done recently. It wasn’t anything urgent or needed, but I like to try to get as much done at one time as possible. And I knew that I would have blood work done after my annual appointment. So I figured that would be the perfect time to ask about doing a few other medical tests that I had been curious about.

Even though I don’t want to have kids right now, I’m aware of the biological limits of my body. And I don’t know if people are more open about infertility or there is more infertility out there now (I honestly feel that it is a mix of both), but I have dozens of friends who are struggling to get pregnant. Some of them are due to age, but some are because they didn’t know that they were in pre-menopause early or they had another fertility issue going on. And many of those friends have been telling everyone they know to try to test your fertility just to see if there is an issue you can be aware of before you spend money on fertility treatments that might not work.

For me, fertility treatments might not be an option because of my liver tumors. And even though being pregnant is a higher risk for me, my tumors are small enough that it wouldn’t be life-threatening. So if I get pregnant in the future, that is fine. But since fertility treatments aren’t necessarily an option for me, I know being aware of my fertility and what the realities are of my body is a good thing. So when I was at my annual appointment, I asked about some of the tests that my friends said they wished they had done sooner. Some of them aren’t really a good option for me right now (I could be fine now and in a month things would be different so the results don’t matter), but there were 2 tests we could add to my blood work that would at least give me a baseline idea of where my fertility is right now.

Because I was doing some fertility testing with my blood work, I couldn’t just do my blood work that day like I normally do. You have to do the tests on the 3rd day of your period. Of course, my period was late and I had to wait even longer, but I finally was able to do the tests 2 weeks ago.

The blood draw lab was being remodeled so it was temporarily in a weird place in the hospital. And they had fewer stations than normal so things were getting backed up. And because I hate needles and I already have issues with nausea during my period, I was pretty miserable while I was waiting. The staff noticed how sick I was looking (nausea makes me break out in a sweat and I guess my coloring was super pale), so they started to worry about me. I tried to tell them that I was fine and sadly this was normal, but I don’t know if they believed me. They kept giving me weird looks as I was waiting.

Finally, it was my turn for blood and I was really worried about how it would go. I was feeling light-headed and weird and I didn’t know what was causing it. I have been doing much better with needles lately so I was trying to tell myself that it had nothing to do with the blood. But I still let the nurse doing the blood draw know about all my issues so I didn’t scare them if I passed out. And I mentioned that I was dealing with some hormonal pain and nausea so that wasn’t a shock if I mentioned it after the blood work.

I guess I didn’t think about how it would sound when I said I was dealing with nausea because they started to worry that I had the flu, measles, or some other disease. They started to ask me about what immunizations I’ve had and if I had been exposed to anyone sick recently. I kept saying that this is normal for me during my period and explained I had to do day 3 blood work. Finally, they relaxed a bit but I could tell they were still a bit suspicious about what was making me sick. And when the blood was done (I didn’t faint which made me happy), they asked me how I was feeling and I just said the same as before so they wouldn’t worry. The nausea was awful while I was there and I was terrified I could need to throw up during the blood draw. I’m so glad that didn’t end up happening.

It took a bit of time to get the blood work back (I was warned it isn’t as fast as the normal blood tests I had to do), but I did get my results back last week. And everything with me is in the normal range. There is one fertility test where I am on the lower end of normal, but that’s actually normal for my age. If I was trying to get pregnant now, I should be fine. And I know that this can change rapidly because of my age, but it still was good to know a baseline for now.

And the fact that things can change quickly for me is something my doctor brought up when she gave me the results. But she understood I was doing the tests more to see if anything was really abnormal and that it’s good that everything is in the normal range. I’m trying not to keep my age and fertility in my head too much because I can’t do anything to change my situation. And I’m not going to date or marry someone that I don’t feel right about just so I can have a biological kid. I have to just hope that I will meet someone and my tests will still all be in the normal range. But for now, I’m just glad that there isn’t anything I should be worried about.

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Remembering A Year Ago (or Still So Grateful My Friend Got Help)

Posted on September 5, 2019 | Comments Off on Remembering A Year Ago (or Still So Grateful My Friend Got Help)

About a year ago, I wrote a post about a friend who I had to force to get help because I felt they were a danger to themselves. That night was one of the most terrifying nights of my life. I have shared a lot of what happened with my friend because he doesn’t remember much about it (which I’m grateful for because I said some harsh things to him to force him to get help). When I wrote that post a year ago, I had no idea what my relationship would be like with my friend. Now, I’m so grateful that it hasn’t changed. If anything, we have gotten closer.

That night will stick out in my mind for so many things. I feared what would happen if my friend didn’t listen to me. I had threatened to call the police to get him if he didn’t go to a hospital, but I was so worried he would drive somewhere else and I couldn’t call for help for him. I didn’t think he would do anything to hurt himself while he was in the car, but I was still scared he would get in an accident because he was acting very irrational. I had no clue if my friend would talk to me again but I had to realize I was willing to sacrifice our friendship if that meant his life would be saved.

But some positives came out of that night. First of all, my friend got the help he needed. He has told me since that night that his doctors believe he might have harmed himself that night, so he needed to get help and he did. He has done some amazing work with his doctors and in therapy in the past year and I’m so glad that he has taken those steps. If that horrible night was what needed to happen for him to get the help and medical care he needed, that’s a good thing. I also witnessed so many friends coming together to help, both that night and for the days after it. We pulled together to help our friend with things like moving his car to a place where it won’t be towed, picking him up when he was coming home, making sure he had things he needed, and looking into options for paying for his medical bills.

My friend has also become much more open regarding this since this happened a year ago. I think that’s a good thing because more people can learn from what he has gone through and that can support him if they are going through something similar. I’ve shared on here several things that I battle with, and I have only seen positive things from being open. I hope that that’s what my friend is experiencing as well. From what I’ve seen, he has only gotten good things from his openness.

I know that my friend has been a bit anxious about this anniversary and I can understand that. He has gone through so much in the past year and I have only seen a fraction of it. I have tried to remind him that this is also an anniversary of him getting help and starting a new phase of his life. I’m sure he is remembering things from before and it’s not always easy to see the difference in your own life sometimes, but I see the difference. I know he isn’t the same person he was a year ago. I don’t worry about him the way I used to because I know he is in a much better headspace than he was before. I know that he is more comfortable reaching out and asking for help if he needs it. He has more resources than he had before and can manage things differently. I’ve only seen positive changes in him and that makes me hopeful that things are just going to continue to get better.

A year ago, I had no clue what would happen or if my friend would be ok. I’m so glad that things turned out the best that they could. I know that not everything is perfect, but they are being worked on. And seeing all these positive changes in my friend makes me feel better about forcing him to get help because that was something I really did struggle with. But now, there’s no question that it was the right thing to do and I hope that anyone who knows of someone who is at serious risk of harming themselves would do the same. It’s not easy to do, but it was the right thing to do.

And if you are struggling and want help, there are many resources out there. Going to an emergency room is an option if you don’t feel safe. They will help you and make sure that you are safe or get the help that you need. But I know that some people can’t or won’t do that for a variety of reasons. So if you don’t want to do that or are not sure if you need help, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. There are available 24/7 and can offer resources or just be someone to listen to you. Getting help isn’t easy, but hopefully, you will see the good that comes out of it by hearing a little bit of what my friend accomplished since he got help.

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Taking A Month To Reset (or This Doesn’t Really Feel Like A Monthly Challenge)

Posted on September 3, 2019 | Comments Off on Taking A Month To Reset (or This Doesn’t Really Feel Like A Monthly Challenge)

Last month, I challenged myself to celebrate more often. That made sense since August is my birthday month, but it didn’t quite go the way I expected it to go. A lot of things didn’t go the way I expected them to go because of how much energy the election took. I did try to celebrate as much as I could and appreciate the little things in life, but I really had a bigger expectation of what I was going to accomplish.

I thought I’d be celebrating my birthday and bigger things like that. I ended up celebrating nights that I was in bed before midnight or didn’t wake up multiple times to get more work done. And I celebrated when I had the rare moments last month that I wasn’t nauseous. Those are still things to celebrate, but not exactly what I thought of when I originally started the month. But I guess I have to allow myself to be flexible and I did celebrate how I was able to do so. But like many of my challenges, this is one that I want to continue and remember that it’s important to celebrate even the little stupid things sometimes.

Because of how crazy and hectic August ended up being for me (and because I know that October is going to have a bit of craziness too), I wanted to figure out a good monthly challenge for September. I had a list of ideas that I created before the beginning of the year, but nothing really felt right to me. I wanted to find a way to be centered again and not feel like I am living from stressful moment to stressful moment. I also can feel burnout creeping up on me and I want to do what I can to stop it.

So I had to let go of the challenge ideas that I had because none of them would really accomplish what I want to do. Some of them might have ended up stressing me out even more because it would be adding something else to my life or only having me focus on one part of my life. I had to rethink about what the monthly challenge could look like for me. I realized I needed less of a challenge for September and more of a goal and plan.

So for September, my “challenge” is to reset my life back to normal. I have been doing horribly with some parts of my life that I know need to be regulated like sleep and my eating schedule. I need to spend this month getting back to a healthy place with things like that because if I don’t it’s going to be even more stressful for me. I need to work on getting to bed on time and not worrying about not being reachable in the middle of the night. I probably need to set alarms again to remind myself to eat because there were several days last month that I forgot one or more meals in a day. I know there are more parts to my life that I want to reset, but sleep and food are the big ones.

I also want to reset my free time scheduling and use it productively. I haven’t had a lot of free time lately so when I have it I usually nap or spend it doing as little as possible. I want to be productive and maximize each day. I want to get my spending and budgeting back on track because I haven’t been tracking it the way I need to. And I even realized that some of my self-care practices took a backseat last month and I want to get back to the regular routines that I have had in the recent past. Making sure I take care of my skin and appearance isn’t the most important thing, but it helps me feel better about myself.

Hopefully, by taking this month to get back to what I know to be my normal, I will feel less stressed soon. And maybe I’ll discover new habits I want to add to my day or old habits that I can drop or do more efficiently. While it’s not a challenge like most of the challenges are or what I want them to be, I am still excited to see what happens by the end of the month.

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