...

It’s Samhain tonight. 

I did two things tonight that were kind of festive.  One, I watched It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!  And two, gorged myself on bread and pumpkin butter.  That’s it.

No ancestor table, no decorations, no pumpkins, there was candy to give to kids, but the only two who showed up didn’t have a costume, and had sacks that were very, very full.  Must have grabbed a lot from the bowl set out in front of the apartment below us.

Last year, I was recuperating, and was too doped up and depressed to try to put something together. 

I had put something together many of the years before, or went and participated with wonderful people in Boulder.  There is something I love about Samhain.  And it’s different than the triclk or treating, or the parties with some of the most fucked up energy of the year.

It was about honoring, and moving into my favorite time of the year.  From Samhain all the way into January.  Just had the best feelings for me.  Some down times, but good feeling.

Last year kicked my ass during this time.  And this year, just not…

Here’s an update.  I am seeing yet another endocrinologist on Tuesday.  I am still so fatigued, all I do is walk and go to therapy and acupuncture and chiropractor and work. 

And I don’t want to deal with people.  I’ve overwhelmed myself that all I want to do is hide until things make sense again, but that is a luxury I just don’t have.

I have the two people around me who care the most for me.  But I don’t even want to be around them. 

It sounds so wrong to say that, and I have been wrestling with so much self-hatred because of it this week.  And its going to be a lot more time before I get a handle on it.

I write this blog having so many things pushing at me.  Who is going to read it?  Will they like what I say?  Will they react badly to it?  Should I give a fuck?

Is the writing sound?  Is it interesting?  Am I writing good sentences, or is it boring?  Should I give a fuck?

Are these my real feelings?  Am I grandstanding because I know people are reading it?  Am I just trying to make people feel sorry for me?

Should I give a fuck?

Seriously, at what point is this just about me getting out all of the stuff that is in my head?

This week has been very hard for me.  Hard enough that I scheduled another appointment with my therapist, because I didn’t know how I was going to make it through the week.

That was hard enough.

I thought I had balanced out, but today, at work, I found myself sliding and sliding.  And its over some of the same fucking familiar ground.

There is something commendable when a company does a gesture to its employees.  However, most of them are a hit-and-miss.  How does one plan something that will take into account every single employee?  So, yeah, I get it.  You’ve got to catch as much as you can.

But today, when the free stuff consisted of nothing I could eat, and the whole prize giveaway is not for every employee, but only the employees chosen at random. 

Could be all petty.  But when you are left out of so many celebrations, you begin to wonder if they are not for you.

I worked at another place that had an employee appreciation party.  Pizza party.  Where the owner stood up and blathered out the thesaurus entry for ‘appreciate’, and we spent money getting him a thank you gift. 

I worked through it, because I didn’t want to sit there and watch everyone eat pizza.

People mean well, mean so well.  But when I hear everyone else talk about how wonderful, did you try, and wasn’t this so good, so great, that tune in my head starts going “One of these things is not like the other…”

And I start to sink.

And there were many other reasons to sink today.  Not just that. 

Its Samhain, and I could care less about ancestors, and the mystical veil being lifted between worlds.  I used to care, it used to be my favorite time of year.  Now, get it the fuck over with.

And the one thing I could have participated in- there was a palm reader.  People lined up, excited, how grand, how intriguing, titillating even.  I heard from many that she was good.  Very good.  Insightful.  Why didn’t I do it?

Because I was building a business quite similar to hers when the shit hit the fan?  And I have just recently shut down my website, and tried to eradicate the whole thing so I don’t continue to think of what I ‘should be’ doing with it?

Because I may have never been really capable of doing readings?  Sure, the intuition was there, but maybe not the coping skills?

Because my last reading was before my first surgery and given by a woman I trusted, a woman I admired, and she and another woman told me that I could overcome this without it being cancer?  That all I had to do was be on the right level, the right wavelength, and then everything would fall into place?

Who knows.  I didn’t do it.  And I worked right next to the room where it was going on.  And I had someone single me out, in what would be perceived as a good way, to ask me why I wasn’t doing the readings? 

So, slip and sink.  Down, down. 

Do I do it to myself on purpose?  Am I just making it worse?  Am I being the victim here?  Am I refusing to see any positive in anything?  Am I just a narcissist who has to do everything in a format that someone may or may not read?  Am I OK, and just making all of this stuff up in my head?  Am I actually selfish and cruel and cold and don’t give a shit about anyone, and will just toss them away after I’ve used them?

And right now, should I give a fuck?

October 24th, 2012

Got up early.  Early surgery. 

The whole morning blurred into motions, actions- getting to the hospital, checking in, going into the pre-operation room, a very tall woman with a key card opened up double doors into the rooms.  I was one of the first in there, got a corner room. 

I was told that only one person could be in the room with me, as they were small rooms.  I chose Steve.  I felt guilty about it, but Steve was the one I wanted there.  Steve has this brilliant ability to make intense situations feel more normal.  He has a social instinct that I admire a lot.  I remember the times he went with me to see my grandmother in the hospital.  I’d get so tongue-tied, but he would talk.  He would talk about normal things, things that took it away from the situation, and so would be a huge relief.

That’s a big part of why I wanted him there.  Although, its not like we could pretend something else was happening. 

There were bags for my clothes and shoes, and I put on a hospital gown and those socks with the gripper bits on the bottom.  There was a place to attach some sort of tube on the hospital gown, and I don’t know if it was a surgery thing, or a way to keep one warm.  The pictograms showed some sort of blowing air hookup. 

Anyway, Steve was there, and the pre-op nurse showed up, going over details.  That’s when I first learned the number system for pain.  And I also started the repetitive question- the simple name and birthday, so simple, but turned out to be such a grounding thing to do all the way through.  I thought it was annoying in the beginning, because I had to repeat it over and over again.

Some switch outs.  My mother in there for a bit, Steve in there, and the nurse and the anesthesiologist.  Never my father.  I believe we contrabanded both my mother and Steve in there.

It was an unending beginning.  Like this beginning.  I was hysterically social, coming up with jokes, and beaming and smiling- doing my best to cover up the terror that was leaking out of everything.  I had to pee every five minutes, and then try to resituate myself in the bed. 

The anesthesiologist was going to be there, monitoring me for the whole thing.  I never knew that, never knew exactly what an anesthesiologist does.  He was warm, human, and it put me at ease a bit.  He also told me that the moment they get ready to take me to the operating room, he’d inject me with something… that’s right- the IV was already set up at that point.

The time came.  I don’t know if I was ready or not.  He injected the stuff, and by the time the bed was mobile and going down the hall, I wasn’t feeling anything bad.  Fuzzy, fuzzy, fuzzy good. 

I was wheeled into the Operating room, which, I believe was one of those observatories… not sure exactly what they’re called, but I didn’t see people really.  I saw some lights close to me, and round object set up high, and I have a vague recollection of maybe counting down.  And that’s it.

When I was young, hell, even to this day, I have this memory that I push at.  It’s a memory of just dark.  Maybe its all just made up, but even from a small age, I believed that it was something to do with before I was born.  Whenever I pushed at it, to try to make sense of it, I’d get this feeling, deep down in my gut, like butterflies or anxiety, but deeper, and more… I don’t know… more subtle.

I try to nudge a the dark time that happened here, and the same feeling occurs.  No real images or memory.  Just dark.

And then conversation.

It sounded like an argument.  Three women in intense tones, and who knows, they might have just been bitching about something.  “O.R.” was mentioned.  And I thought it had something to do with me.

Although I was still pretty far away at that point.  It took me awhile to be able to do anything but listen.  It’s hilarious to think of all of the hospital scenes about people waking up from surgery- about blurry light, and then pop!  Awake. 

No.  I was hearing things for awhile, not putting anything together, still feeling… you know, that’s the thing.  It was one of those few times in my life where I wasn’t trying.  I wasn’t pushing myself to wake up, to get coherent.  I was just letting things be as they were.  And, hell, I probably couldn’t have enough anything to muster up some sort of fight or whatever.  It wasn’t about that.  It was about ease.

And then the edge of pain started to hit.  My neck started as uncomfortable, but then a creeping crick of pain in the back.  No incision pain, just probably how they had my neck placed to better get at the thyroid.

With the pain came my voice.  Barely audible, hoarse, but someone immediately noticed and came over to me.

Debbie.  Damn was she good.  She of course asked me the questions about name and birthday, and I don’t even know if I answered correctly.  I guess she spent all of the time on the computer right next to me, and did everything I asked.  I could not get my neck comfortable, and I don’t know how many times she got another pillow, or moved things around, or got another pillow, or a different pillow.  Not to mention ice shavings, and pain meds.  Oh, the pain meds.  Who knows how many opiates I was on.

This is the paradox of the whole thing.  The moments I started to become clear, and pain was under control, becoming less disjointed, less confused.  I started to feel more and more wonderful.  All of the edges were soft, fantastic.  I was fantastic.  I wasn’t worrying about a thing.  I was so filled with light,a nd happy at that time. 

Joyful.  I can count the times on one hand where I have been joyful.  And I cry now just to think about how pure that time was for me.  And yes, it was probably the drugs, but in the end, does it fucking matter?

I was so responsive to Debbie, and she was just doing her job.  I remember she had brown curly hair, frizzy, which gave more to the floating feeling.  Laugh lines.  She called me “a delight.”  And she was as well.  they were taking me up to my room, I was stable enough to leave, and I reached out my hand, and we kind of fumbled touching hands.  A touch, though.

I was radiant.  Every person I passed by I stared at, beaming, and every person smiled back at me.

And then I got to my room.  Bed lined up straight at the TV, perpendicular to the door and the window.  I wanted the window.  So, when the nurses came in, I simply asked them to turn my bed so I was facing the window.  It wasn’t how the room was set up, but they did it without thinking about it.

I had two nurses.  Two male nurses.  If I had one female nurse, chances are she wouldn’t have been as amenable to moving my bed around.

Paul and Ricardo were a dynamic duo- they were the best situation for me to start recovering.  They were like two sides to the masculinity coin.  One was like an anarchist Moby with glasses and a beard, tattoos and slight of build like ahipster.  The other was relaxed in that self confident way uber-masculin guys are- so self assured, real, he reminded me of pro-baseball player.  He was damned good.  And continued to have to leave, because of a woman down the hall.  He was the only one in the building who could speak Mandarin.

Setting me up in the room, the numbers system, basic stuff.  It was quite a bit of time before I realized no one had told my family that I was up here.  So, I mentioned it, and they got it working.

Then things started to blend into each other.  The uber joyful radiant stage was ending, and leaving me with pain and an increasing nausea.  Anti-nausea meds, more pain pills, and back to something. 

I had moved my bed, so the seating was not so great anymore.  Steve took the comfortable seat that could be unfolded into a bed.  My mother took the other chair, and my father leaned against the windowsill.

I do remember intitially speaking so levelly about all of my hopes and possibilities, so excited, so whatever, and then just drifting off and falling asleep.  Steve stayed with me a lot of the rest of the day.  So much talking to him about positive things, in any other instance I would get frustrated because he didn’t agree or disagree, but for then I didn’t care.

I was obsessed with something so simple.  I wanted to build.  It was so clear to me.  TO build, to build, just to make a strong foundation, and build off of it.

The only other things that happened that night were the head nurse on duty was so fucking Nurse Ratchett, she wanted to know why my bag was on the ground, as if I could bend over and get it out of her way, and she wanted to know why I wasn’t up and walking yet, like I was some sort of fucking lazy bum, and better just cut it out.  But, hell, her bitchiness got me up and moving.  I might hate her to this day, but it pushed me to get going. 

That, and, well, the incision.  It was stitched up, except for a drain tube, which looked like they popped a white balloon animal, and cut asection from the resulting balloon.  This was draining into gauze secured around my neck.  Secured until I started actually moving.  So, the whole night was spent watching another piece of gauze fall to the floor, and pressing the call button while the liquid oozed out of the tube and onto my chest and gown.  I ended up just putting a washrag there while I was lying down.

This all might be interesting, and it might not.  Its more about me taking myself through this again- looking at what I wrote, and remembering.

What I remember is that even after surgery, I felt in better health than I am now.  Of course, then, it was only half my thyroid, and they still had to do the biopsy to see if it actually was cancer.  So, in the grand scheme of things, there was a lump that wasn’t there anymore.  I was free from it. 

I was free.

I was free from action, free from doing anything but being there in the moment, getting better, staring out at the window, where I could see my favorite thing to look at- trees in fog.  Blue and green and hints of gold and dark, dark brown.  Just stared and stared and stared until I couldn’t see it anymore.

I was unstuck from the world.  Until Nurse Ratchett came along.  Then I walked to the end of the hallway, and looked out the window- Sunset highway, overlooking Cedar Hills.  Our first apartment was over there, just beyond some trees.

I can’t believe how idealized this is coming out.  Nausea was intense.  Pain spiked.  But if I had a chance to go back to these moments, I would.

I wasn’t worrying about being a selfish brat.  I wasn’t trying so hard.  I was just being.  It was the only time during this whole process where I just allowed myself to be. 

 

October 23, 2012

The night before my first surgery.

I was terrified.  So nervous.

I had been through a lot in my life- casts, hospital stays, almost surgeries, but never an actual surgery.

I had been spiraling down so many scenarios of what could go wrong.

Actually, it was one fear-based fantasy that continued to play over and over again in my mind.

Something would happen with the anesthetic, and I wouldn't wake up.  I would be in a suspended state for years, and then wake up, and everything would be different.  I wouldn't feel like I was older, but I would be, and everyone else would be too.

Of course I was also afraid I'd die on the table, I'd have complications and be disabled, or the most likely, one little slip, and my vocal chords would be damaged.

Or that nightmare about being immobilized by anesthetic, but still hearing and feeling everything.

Lots of fear.  All about the time that I wouldn't have control over.  Time that I wouldn't be conscious.  Where would I go?  Would I come back?

Both of my parents came out for the surgery, and, well, the last time they met up with me, our dysfunctional dynamic came back.  And I didn't want that to happen this time.  I found the courage to bring it up to both of them.  That this is about me, and not about them, and the moment they make it about them is the moment I ask them to go home.

To be honest, I worried most about my father.  I was so surprised he was coming.  Me and my father never see eye to eye, and I already knew he didn't like the Portland area, so...

But he came.  And give credit where credit is due.

they were staying in a hotel, so they left for the night, and it was just Steve and me.  Lots of holding, close, close.  I am not a big fan of spooning, I tend to have trouble with that much confining contact for more than a few seconds.  But we held on for awhile.

I think I slept a bit.  Just a bit.
 
    

sometimes

I am sick.  On top of the not being well thing.

What this means is that even though I'm not that sick- no coughing, sneezing, terrible sore throat or anything... I do have the tendency to pass out, which I had never had before.  Sunday was a lot of that, not so much yesterday or today.

It makes me go a little easier on myself.  And that, in turn, allows my sense of humor to creep out.

I also made reservations.  Not at Breitenbush.  Somewhere else.  It will be in November.  Of course, I did this without telling anyone.  Here's the money- there you go.  And then I started to get this nervous feeling that I had forgotten something.

I found out what at work.  I had completely forgotten that I was going to work for another person that weekend, and, well, lets just say in a department of three people, it is stupid to think you can take your vacation the same time as the other two.  I wasn't thinking of them.

I wasn't.  And I went in thinking that I've got to do this- I never do this, and I've already cancelled on a trip already, one I should be on right now.  And who knows when I'll ever do anything like this again.

So?  A mess I made at work, but my boss is an incredible woman, who was so frustrated, as well she should be, but she is doing everything in her power to make sure it happens for me.  So, I start breaking down.  At the beginning of my shift.  I open my drink and drink, one of my ways to keep myself bottled up.   

She also makes me face the possibility of staying home now, to take care of being sick, which makes me start breaking down all over again.  I'm in the aisles at the store, though, and no one is really looking.  It's amazing what could be happening around people at grocery stores, and no one really pays attention.  I do this to- we are so focused on getting our own stuff, unless we recognize someone, people are just obstacles.

Not everyone does this.  Not Johnny.  He sees me, stops, and calls out my name.

I've connected with him before, only now I'm not the cheerful cashier bobblehead, so I feel like I can talk to him like me.  I tell him what's really going on.  He tells me whats really going on.  Shit is going on in both of our lives, and we're able to connect. 

He sings me a bit of his "one foot in front of the other" song, and I tell him that has been the exact mantra I've been repeating to myself this whole time.  over and over.

I turn to go back to work, and he starts walking away with his cart.  He stops, and says,

"Jacob."

I turn around.

"thanks for telling me what's going on.  I'm honored."

I stop for a second, and say,

"Thanksfor this connection." 

And I point to him and me.

He leaves.  I, of course break down.  But I'm in the frozen section, so I just open a door and stick my head in with the fries and hash browns.

Sometimes things are moving in just the right way, and, for a moment, it's gliding, hydroplaning, sliding along, and its not as hard as it has been.  It's not magically all better, of course, but I get to feel something else for awhile. 

Then the sliding stops, and its back to it.

Dark space right now.

It's either the cold that's going around, or my adrenals just shoved me into detox mode.  I'm so fatigued I keep on falling asleep, but only for a few minutes.  My throat is raw and achy and its just...

I was lying/sitting ont he corner of the couch, passing out, and my hands felt like they did when I was going through radiation, and severe hypo- just like weights at the end of my arms, hard to do anything with them but keep them half closed.

Sitting in the exact spot I sat for months.  I slept there for months as well- terrified about sleeping flat.

In my most tired moments today, the hopeless thought was there.  I'm never going to be healthy again.

And just the feeling of shame that washes over me.   I'm so weak.  Others are going through so much, and they aren't sniveling around.  Buck up and get going, you selfish dope.

There's been so much, so many suggestions, so mcuh real and tangible help.  And I keep on coming back to this feeling like why the fuck should I rebuild when its all going to fall apart again?  Who am I fooling?  i'm just not that strong- never have been, so why the hell should I even give it a go?  So fucking worthless.

And then I start to think about people who are going to read this, this negative whinyness that is me. 

And I want to delete this now, but fuck it. 

Alone SOC

I have had the place to myself for hours.

I am sitting at my computer, on my desk by the window, with african violets, overgrown orchids, and a begonia that hasn't decided yet if it wants to live or die.  They all need water.

There's a pile of papers, business cards, notes to myself on what to look into, like "Ifa-Yoruba Divination" and "Allan Kaprow- Black Mountain College in North Carolina".  Bills I need to file, to organize finances, coupons, empty prescription bottles next to an empty color ink cartridge. 

I'm kicking shoes and socks out of the way with my feet.

Change, including a Canadian quarter.  two pensants on chains, one of tiger iron, one of blue kyanite.  Neither of which I've worn for months.

I'm alone here.  This was a hard won alone for me.  i had to back out of going to the Harvest Festival in Hood River, and go on the "Fruit Loop"- the loop that takes you around to the different farms in Hood river.  this is the time to buy twisted gourds and pumpkins and multicolored decorative corn for seasonal decorations. 

I just don't want to decorate.  There's no room. 

Refer to the crap above scattered around my computer.  Oh, and more- lip balm, moleskin, cracked casing for my phone charger.

It used to be when I'm alone, I was more productive.  I'd clean and organize.  I'd cook.  I'd get to doing things.  Now, I've read a bit, fell asleep, got on the computer, and watched TV.  The Voice, primarily.  Lets see what Cee-Lo does.  I think he's the only reason I watch it.  That, and the whole "ordinary people finding out they're extraordinary" angle.  It makes me cry, then cry harder, because I don't really believe that anymore. 

But of course that's only when I'm alone.

Introverts will get it.  Or maybe just agoraphobes.

The feeling of letting everything go.  Just being able to relax more fully into myself.  Taking off the mask, the fear of communication with people- that I have to give and give, and just don't get the taking thing, maybe because everyone has the best intentions, but I just can't take what they're giving me.

I guess I should feel lonely.  But that feeling, like a lot of others, isn't as present or palpable right now.  All I feel is the low grade anxiety of "they are coming back anytime now", and regret for the pizza I got, the idea that sounds so damned good until i get it, and realize its always just a poor substitute for the idea I get in my head of pizza.

This one was pretty bad, though.  I called the company, and they gave me an account credit.  "Just call us whenever you want another crappy pizza, and it'll be free!"

Life sucks. 

I'm finding in these quiet alone spots, that I can sit with that.  I can be where I'm at, without feeling I need to be anywhere else.  I don't have to skew everything towards the positive, the but-I'll-get-over-it yoke that I just put on and keep on trudging.  Right now it doesn't matter what happens later.  It sucks for now.  And I can live with it.

And then the sounds of footsteps, and the door opens, and I'm back into what-must-they-think-of-me-and-what-do-you-want-from-me mode.

 

Shut it down.

"Am I shutting everything down?"

"Yes.  You are."

I'm still laser focused on this question and answer.  Because it's true.  I am shutting everything down.

And fuck if I'm going to stop right now.  I'm way too angry, and I think that's one of the major ways it comes out.

I mean, hell, I just cancelled out on a trip tomorrow because I just want the time alone. 

It's been a fucked up week for me.  Just stress, and not having any down time, and I was supposed to go to Breitenbush for a week starting Sunday, and that fell through, and...

and I am feeling like a brat.  Like an inconsiderate, selfish person just being difficult for the sake of being difficult.  Oh, poor me... poor me... now leave me the fuck alone while I wonder why no one will talk to me.

I am just not that good at being angry... in the moment.  I don't really know how to do it... I mean, I guess there's no fucking manual or procedure or anything, so I guess I'm just afraid of what will happen- who I'll hurt, and what will be the repercussions, etc., etc...

Although even that feels like a smoke screen.  Maybe its that I just don't want to stick my neck out that way.

I took a quiz on facebook the other day... which sounds like an updated version of all the crap in Cosmopolitan.  Well, nerdy Cosmopolitan...

The quiz was which Star Trek character you would be.

And my match- over 80 percent:  I'd be a red shirt.

A red shirt.

(For those nerd-impaired, a red shirt is the one on the show who you had never seen before, and who always went on the missions away from the spacecraft.  They were also the ones who got killed within five minutes of landing wherever their mission took place.  You could spot them by the red uniform shirt they'd be wearing.)

I am Mr. Reliable.  I am Mr. Understanding.

I help others so I don't have to focus on myself, and the fact that I don't have much of an identity at all.

I sacrifice myself for others, because I believed there was some sort of identity within that sacrifice... which is bullshit.  Its just a way of saying CODEPENDENT.

So, ever since that stupid quiz, and giving myself a lot more time for thinking, I am shutting things down.

I shut down my website.  Helping others is great, especially for money!  But... not until I'm clear with who I am and what those boundaries are.

And then I started to get into a spree of shutting things down.  Online, mostly.

No more LinkedIn.  No more Twitter.  And cleaning up all the different accounts I no longer want to have to deal with.

If I can't isolate myself by going to Breitenbush right now, I can start shutting down all of the things that push me into an identity that may or may not be me.  I'll have time later to open things back up.

Here's the thing, though... the question and answer weren't even about these things.  It's about how I shut down help.  Advice.

If you're already angry, and doing a damned good job of covering up your anger, advice is like a solar flare. 

Even if its good advice.

You can imagine what my therapist is going through.

(Guess where the whole shut down question and answer came from...)

Rocking the boat

In college, I lived in an apartment that was right across from the complex's pool.  Lots of pool parties kept me awake, but I was close enough to see when there was no one there, and that's when I would go swimming.

One of those swimming days was cut short because a kayak lesson was beginning in the pool.  Instructor and student and two kayaks.  In my memory, I'm actually sitting by the pool, watching this lesson, instead of in my apartment.  i have a very close view of the lesson that was going on.  And this lesson makes me feel very, very nervous to try kayaking.

The lesson was about what to do if your kayak flips over. 

Because you are basically snapped into this boat thing up to your hips.  So, what happens when the top part of you in under water?  Well, there is the technique with your paddle, which will automatically flip you right side up again.  It has to do with maybe physice or engineering or something that I can't really understand, and really didn't understand as I was watching it.

That might have been because the student didn't understand either.  He would flip over, and that paddle would be sloshing around for as long as he wasn't panicking, then he'd rip off the part keeping him in the kayak, and escape to air, to breathe again.

Twenty, thirty minutes of this.  Lots of encouragement, but the student never got it.  When he was flipped over, he stayed flipped over.

I am easily flipped over right now.  I don't have a paddle, either, or I just can't remember how to use it.

Today, I picked up a prescription that was the wrong one.  Back in August, my Endocrinologist gave me tons of samples of Synthroid, and said he sent off a prescription to the pharmacy I use.  I have had quite a bit of time lapse because of the amount of samples he gave me... if I was thinking like a proper end-of-the-world-paranoid, I would have kept the samples and just got the prescription.  But I didn't.  i burned through them, and now have just a few days left before I am out of samples.

So, I called my pharmacy on Friday to fill the prescription.

They never received it.

This infuriated me.  Even more, when I called the Endocrinologists office...

Let me give you a tip about Endocrinologists as a rule-- THEY DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO DEAL WITH YOU.  Unless you have an appointment, you rarely get to talk to them.  Their first line of defense are the receptionists.  I have been on the extreme end of them, when I tried to get in to see the Endocrinologists that people still recommend to me to this day.  She is supposed to be the best.  But... My primary sent over my information to them THREE TIMES.  Every time I called, I got a receptionist who said "Who?  No, we haven't received anything... let me check... nope.  Sorry, but we have to have that information before we can even consider you as a prospective patient..."  So, fuck them, and fuck her for having such a staff, deliberate or otherwise.

Then there are the assistants.  And I have no real clue how they differ from the receptionists, other than they are sort of the Oracles who actually speak to and interpret the words of the GREAT ONE.

And they are never there, so you have to leave a message.  

This is what I did.  I left a pointed message about how this prescription should ahve been there, and I need it VERY SOON, and they should call me when it is filled.  Only the Assistant's voicemail wanted me to be as specific as possible, and I was, oh, I was.  So specific that I made sure I told her what drug the prescription was for.

Cytomel.  Also known as Liothyronine(Generic version).

I said the wrong fucking drug, and did not see my error until I got the prescription today, Saturday.  So I have to wait until Monday.

Here's what's worse.

A little lesson in Thyroid drugs.

Cytomel is a T3 drug, which is what the chemical, or hormone is like after it is broken down for the body.  Basically, it's like speed, because the body can use it right away, and not have to do anything in order to change its chemical structure.  It cannot be stored in the body, so when its gone, its gone.  It is used in smaller doses, only as a transitional drug, or used as a supplement to the other drug.

The other drug, Synthroid, is a T4 drug.  It is stored in the body until it needs to be used.  But it needs to be processed into the T3 state so the body can use it.  This is the main drug for those of us with thyroid 'issues'.

This Endocrinologist I went to intimated that there was no real practical use for Cytomel.  the only use he saw it as was like a security blanket, a Dumbo feather for those of us anxious about the transition.

So, the fact that I got a prescription for Cytomel from them without a peep is infuriating.  It just goes to show, yet again, how fucking clueless they are with their patients.  They don't give a damn, don't want to look into it, just here you go.  Medicine at its fucking best.

Mind you, I made the mistake, and I am still beating the shit out of myself for it.  But the whole thing has been ... just ridiculous all around.

It's flipped me over.  And I get flipped over so fucking easy these days. 

So, what did I do?  I sat on the couch, so frustrated, wanting to scream.  I had already thrown my phone.  Ad ay of relaxing turned into a day of trying to calm down.  So I watched TV all day, and ate too much,a nd had caffeine and sugar.  All crutch responses to it-- just shove food in your face until you're painfully bloated and drift away on fake funny situations involving impossibly perfect looking people pretending to have problems.  Yeah.  That'll get me back to upright.

I mean, its worked so well so far, right?

what the hell am I saying?

There are a lot of things I thought I was good at.  

I thought I was good at getting to the point.  I thought I was good at being aware and in touch with my feelings.  I thought I was aware of just how much I was shoving everything down and away from myself.

And I didn’t think I had a great capacity for being numb or non-committal.

All of this is being challenged, in a very real way.  In therapy.  Yes, of course in therapy.

It makes me think of the song “What do you hear in these sounds?” by Dar Williams. 

“I don’t go to therapy

To find out if I’m a freak

I go and I find

The one only answer every week

And its just me

And all the memories to follow

Down any course that fits within a

Fifty minute hour”

Every time I think of all of the stereotypes of therapy, I think of that song.  It’s honest.  And it cuts through a lot of the traps in having those stereotypes in my mind.

Because Therapy is a quiet place.  Its not a raucous conversation.  Its more about what I’m bringing to it.  And, more often than now, I don’t think I’m keeping my end of things.

Last session, I left frustrated.  And it’s a common frustration.  I just can’t seem to get out what I want to get out.  An answer to a question requires a digging deeper than I anticipate- and maybe that’s a trap in itself too.  Maybe I’m wrong.  Yet, here it is.  I’m doing it already.

It’s like I type the question into Google.  And the answer comes up, for a split second, before my computer screen is inundated with pop-ups:

• You’re thinking too hard
• That can’t be the right answer
   
• Wait, is it?
   
• Shouldn’t it be this?
   
• I mean, isn’t that the answer he wants to hear?
   
• Who the fuck cares what he thinks?
• Why are you doubting yourself?
• Why are you still talking?  Shut up!
   
• You’re wrong
• Right?

And then another question is asked, and the course is repeated again.  I start just talking, and then going into useless explanation of what I just said, and then explaining the explanation, until I start to physicalize, with hand gestures, and then maybe a bit of comic routine, and then, at the climax, an explosive moment which usually comes out as an overemphasis on something not important at all.  Then silence.  On the outside.  Inside, its still a hive of angry bees.

But of course, I get it into my head… fifty minutes… what the hell can I accomplish in fifty minutes?  Damnit!  I’m wasting time!  Talk about something!  Anything!

I can’t not say something.  Believe me.  There have been moments where we have tried that as an exercise.  And all I get is frustrated.  So uncomfortable.  And anxious.  So anxious.

I feel like I’m caught up in that linear tidal wave that we all have to work under.  That rush hat we feel like we gottakeepgoingwithgottakeepgoingwithnotimetostopandprocessgottakeepgoingwith.

And you want to hear the most hilarious thing?  That thought was originally given to me.  By my therapist.

I love minimal things.  I love peace and solitude and being able to reflect.  Yet my life is not set up for that, and especially recently, my times are filled with noise, with work, with so many people I’m afraid I’m wronging, so many things that aren’t going well, and an overwhelming fatigue that is normalizing to the point that I have now an entrenched anxiety that I’m making it all up.

I’d love to have those fifty minutes to be the respite, the solace, the peace and tranquility that I am not finding outside.  But there’s a clock on the wall, facing me, and the whole GET RESULTS voice booms in my head.  So I talkandtalkandtalkandtalk and don’t say a goddamned thing.

Truth is, I’m still not trusting any purchase in this tidal wave.  Anything I hold on to for any sort of relief doesn’t last, and I am carried away again.  That’s why so much advice- good advice- is falling to the wayside. 

I am afraid to stop.  Ever since I was falling apart after the radiation, and the only parts of me that I could pull together were the one-foot-after-the-other-just-make-it-work parts.  So if I stop now, what is left?