This is photoblog!

You have to read that title in your best County Fair Demolition Derby Announcer voice. You do have one, don't you? Doesn't everyone?

I am too lazy to do a real blog post, but need to exercise these writing muscles just a wee little bit. NaNoWriMo will be here again before I know it and I have no idea if I am going to go for it again this year or not, but I need to get into a much better writing practice.

So let's dive right in, shall we? With a photo.

Looks a piece of bread with jam on it, right? It is. But this is why it's a big deal for me tonight: I drove alone to the grocery store wearing no makeup at all on my face to buy that bread. While I was in the store shopping I went from one entire side of it to the other, stopping to go up one middle aisle for oatmeal. I stopped by the alcove for the bathroom to put my palm flat on the wall for one second and then checked out and came home and put my home canned jam on this bread and am now sitting here eating it with wall germs on my left hand. Because I can't wash my hand yet. And when I do finally wash my hands? I have to make a tally mark on in my notebook of banned behaviors to keep track of how often i wash my hands. Because on Thursday? It was 18 times that I remembered to mark it. And that didn't even seem like a lot to me at all.

Why do I have to do these random weird things? Because before July 2, 2013 my driver's license had been expired for 5 years. Because I didn't go anywhere by myself because I was too frightened. And then I stopped going anywhere at all pretty much for around 2 years. And I don't ever want to get back to being that sick again. So I touch walls. I make random small talk with strangers. I eat pretzels from a bag that my husband put there for me because he isn't a good hand washer and I don't like to eat food he has touched unless I have inflicted my OCD on him. I don't get to ask him to wash up before he touches the pretzels, and he can't do it right after he showers. I mentioned before that these are my troubles, and this is how I am tackling them. One weird task at a time.

Also? I'm not allowed to knit in public for the time being. Coping mechanism, ritual, barrier...blah blah blah words. I get it. I don't like it, but I get it. When I sit in a waiting room all I want to do is knit, the calming motion of the needles, yanking yarn up every row or so with my right hand. Instead I sit there and let the awkwardness just roll over me. I look at the magazines and mentally alphabetize them. I imagine them being in a tidy pile on the table. Or at least not left wide open on the table, Jesus Tapdancing Christ, people, REALLY? Close the magazine for fuck's sake!

If it's really bad, I can knit. But I am suppose to dole out the knitting in public like Klonopin: sparingly on an as needed basis. And I am tenacious and don't like to give in, so I just knuckle down and don't whip out the knitting. Sometimes I take it in with me in case I need it, sometimes I leave it in the car. Or even leave it at home.

But there has been knitting. I actually feel a renewed interest in knitting at home, possibly fueled by excellent shows on Netflix. I finished my Shalom. I love it. If I get my shit together tonight I may also finish my September Swing cardi and then can see how fast I can knit up Juliet.

Oh and while I am here, my liver seems to have passed muster as of earlier this month. I still have to be careful, but my numbers were within normal range for the first time this year. It's promising.

I'm still swimming.

So where to really go after that last blog post, right? Yeah, I don't have any answers either. All I really know is that motherhood looms large in my thoughts and has for the past several months. We still don't know exactly what we want, but we know that if motherhood is something I need to do, we will find a way to focus some of that energy, there are so many ways to nurture beyond giving birth. It's a pretty confusing time for us, so much has changed. Yes, I change the rules we had laid down. But the entire game was turned upside down for me. And there is a timer running.

A small red and white sundress hanging on a rack the other day at Target hit me like a physical blow, just knocked the wind out of me like a belly flop off the diving board. A small boy with reddish curls in a tee shirt with a homemade cape sewn to his shoulders crossing a parking lot in front of us has been on my mind for weeks. Sassy tweens no longer repulse me (much). I no longer see a baby and think that is what I want. I see a child and think I want to parent, to nurture, to help create a grown up. And this is new for me. Maybe it's a result of having such a tumultuous six months. Maybe my biological clock finally kicked on. Maybe it's some cockamamie notion that by being a decent mother, I can repair myself in some way. I don't know. These are things I need to get to the bottom of as I work on my mental and physical health. All we are sure of today is that we aren't making any major decisions for six months.

Speaking of, physically, it's been a mixed bag. After beginning to treat my shitty thyroid and settling into the diabetic lifestyle, a lot of my health numbers have improved. And then there is my liver. My liver is once again a little pissed off about things. I need to have another hepatic panel drawn in a couple of weeks. That is fairly concerning. My doctor speculates that I took ibuprofen a bit too often in June. I maybe took 5 or 6 gel caps over the course of a week, this is hardly taking much of it at all, that is how persnickety my liver has been since the pancreatitis. It's an angry liver. I don't know why it has to be such a dick about everything, it's had a pretty cushy life. I haven't had a drink in probably a decade and I never even was a big drinker, I just never got any good at it and then I decided that with my genetics, getting good at drinking? Was a very Bad Idea. I have never done recreational drugs, either. And I have been eating pretty clean for years. So a few advil might be enough to piss it off. I don't even know.

And why did I take all the ibuprofen? For cramps. Because (TMI WARNING!!) one of the meds my endocrinologist put me on was The Pill. Specificaly he put me on a 91 day cycle pill, the kind where you only have a withdrawal period every 3 months. It is anti-androgenizing, so would help to counter balance some of my excess masculine hormones. Which seemed to help right away with the hair loss. My hair was coming out by the wad pretty much since I got sick. I was going through a very large amount of 10-minute hair clog remover, about a gallon a week. Even after chopping all my hair off into a 2-inch pixie cut. But the perk of keeping some of my hair came with the price of a really painful period that began in my second week of being on the pill. And continued for the next seven weeks. Much of it was more like spotting, but it was still seemingly endless. After going to my GP/GYN (she does both, and she has tiny little hands, WIN) for a thorough rummage in ye olde junk drawer and getting the all-clear I finally had to wave the white flag of surrender to Quasense. The endless bleeding was really the least of the side effects I was experiencing. My depression was right back up where it hadn't been for weeks, I started getting zits, lots of zits. I was a raging bitch pretty much nonstop, I had more intrusive and alarming thoughts and compulsions, and then sexual dysfunction joined the party. There is only so much I can endure even in the face of keeping more of my hair.

So I went off of that nearly three weeks ago, took a course of progesterone to try and reset things and have a new Rx for a new variety of pill with a traditional 21/7 day schedule. I am hopeful that it will work for both the hair loss and to help regulate my cycle.

None of this was particularly helpful for my mental well being and balance, let me tell you. Keeping the cheese on my cracker has been a job this summer. I am doing cognitive behavioral work for treatment of panic disorder with agoraphobia, with a surprise guest star of OCD. I didn't expect that one, either. And much to my chagrin it's not the tidy kind. It's the all or nothing kind where I have to be perfect label-maker organized, or everything just goes to shit. It's exhausting being terrified of pretty much everything in the world and having to obsess about whether or not my spices are still in alphabetical order (they so are). So, I go to therapy. I do homework. I conduct exposures where I have to read, or say, or look at, or do something that upsets me over and over again (spoiler alert: everything upsets me.) to try and wear down my panic response. I watched Cameron Diaz barf into a dancing trophy around 45 times this morning until seeing someone vomit didn't make me look away from the tv or even flinch. My silverware drawer would give Joan Crawford an aneurism.

 

The yellow thing is a citrus reamer, not a marital aid.

I have to open that and look at it 5 times or more today while recording how I feel about it. How I feel about it right now is twitchy. I want to nest them all together properly in their own cubbies. But I want to not feel this compulsion even more and today it's winning.

I have what feels like a million things going on like this around me. Things are half cleaned, half painted, and half put away. It's harder work that I thought it would be. But it's also more rewarding. And this is why I do it.

Well, this is a thing that happened.

So since I was sick in January, I have acquired a fair number of medical professionals that I tend to think of as Team Annie. I have a new GP, a psychiatrist, a therapist and as of May, a new endocrinologist. It isn't a secret among those close to me, but I have struggled with anxiety and panic attacks for most of my life. In my thirties, it got worse. While in hospital for my evil gallbladder, I requested a psych eval while I was essentially stuck with no place to hide. Kind of a roundabout way to do things, I know, but I suppose desperate times call for desperate measures. All that matters is I finally asked for help. And I am getting help. And I'm no where near better, but the world is a tiny bit less scary than it was for me 6 months ago. I am sure I will talk about this more in the future, but it's some background on how these particular members of Team Annie were involved in this latest chapter of WTF Theatre.

Thirteen years ago I was diagnosed with a genetic disorder called Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia. There are different forms of it, if you have ever heard of it before it's probably been  the classic form where girls are born with ambiguous genitalia and the sex of the baby cannot always be determined by looking. It's more than that, though. The classic form can be fatal because it can cause salt-wasting. The non classic form, which I was told that I had, has symptoms like irregular menses, hair loss, weight gain and other delights. The symptoms are very much like Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome but PCOS is based in insulin resistance while NCCAH is based on a body that doesn't make enough of the hormone cortisol and in trying to stimulate the adrenal glands to make enough, too many other hormones are produced and things get out of whack.

So I was told I was essentially infertile on my own, and my husband and I would need genetic counseling if we did decide to have children with fertility assistance. CAH can be fatal in infants and children if there is salt-wasting or an adrenal crisis occurs. I was twenty six years old and had been married for three years. I grieved. I always wanted a baby, maybe two. My husband was less certain, I knew he was a fence sitter. But this seemed to close that door for me. But my husband, I think, was in some way relieved, he could now freely state that he was positive that he did not want children.  Ever.

For several reasons it was a rough patch for us at that time. There were growing pains for us. Some typical of young marriages, some maybe less so. And then we found this out and it seemed to help us find some common ground again and we worked out  some issues and moved on confident that not having children was the right course for us, the only course, really, since I was defective.

Fast forward to December 31st, 2012. As I am being triaged in the emergency room I have to make sure they know I have CAH, because I will probably need steroid support to keep me from having an adrenal crisis after vomiting more than I ever thought was possible for one human to vomit. It is noted in my charts, the next few days were a blur for me between dehydration and massive amounts of dilaudid for pain control. Things got more clear after a PICC line was started and I began to get hydrated for real 48 hours after I was admitted. CAH was not brought up again and I kept forgetting to ask. I assumed at some point, I was given steroids.

Seeing my new GP once I was sprung she noticed that I had not been given steroids, she asked some questions and we focused on the issues at hand. It kept kind of popping up in the back of my mind. So after a couple months, I asked my psychiatrist and therapist if it was possible that my adrenal issues could be affecting my anxiety levels. Their answers were a resounding YES. So I asked my GP if we could test that. We did, and holy wow did I open a can of worms. My results were not what we expected. So she referred me to a new endocrinologist.. Which made sense anyway, since I am now diabetic and have a thyroid that has decided to crap out on me as well. So I go. More blood was drawn. Saliva was collected. Again,the results were not adding up. He decided on one more test, an ACTH stimulation test, which would be conclusive once and for all.

It was conclusive, and the conclusion was that I do not have this genetic disorder. I never did. The labs all indicate that I have healthy and functional adrenal glands. My CT scans from pancreatitis were reviewed again to look at my adrenals glands, no lumps or bumps on them. Healthy. Which is good, do not get me wrong, one less thing that can kill me? Yeah, I am more than happy to take that.  Bring that shit ON.

But also, I was probably never infertile. I was never at risk for passing along a fatal disorder. I had choices that I never thought were going to be available to me. But I'm not 26 anymore. And my health has taken a serious hit this year. And my husband is more convinced than ever that he doesn't want to share his life with children. Just when I am realizing it's something I might have wanted after all. But if that door is still open at all, it's closing fast. And there is only one person I would want to have children with, and he is positive he doesn't want them.

How did that happen? There was a shitload of blood work to get that diagnosis, it's a fairly straightforward process. It's not really something that could be accidentally interpreted. And even if it was, I had follow up labs. I had followups after she began treating me with steroids. For a year. I was on corticosteroids for a year. For nothing. Steroids that can impair your insulin response. And that reproductive endocrinology clinic has since closed down and my records were lost in one of the floods in my house, and my new doctor could not get ahold of my original labs to see why I ever would have been misdiagnosed.

So that's where I am now. I have known this for nearly a week and the shock of it all still takes my breath away and makes me cry. What I am most angry about, I think, is that with proper treatment I might not have ended up diabetic at age 38. That we could have treated my insulin resistance and I could have implemented lifestyle changes 13 years ago that would still be benefiting me today. And I also feel like I have some more grief about choices I never had the chance to make. I am sad and I am angry. I am so angry.

Explore Monogamy

Remember in the 80s when George Michael's video for I Want Your Sex had him write that on his beard girlfriend? Or, remember in the 80s when that song was still shockingly risque and was banned from the radio in a lot of places? That seems so quaint now.

Anyway, this post is about monogamy. Sort of. But not that kind. I mean knitting monogamy. Picking just one project and plowing through until it's done. I go in starts and fits with this practice. On the one hand, I can see that when I am faithful to one project then I actually end up with finished knits instead of 85 in progress. And since it's going to stay winter here all damn year this year, I might well be wearing these handknits in July. On the other hand, I get enticed by new yarns or patterns and cannot help myself before I am casting on just one more cowl. Or sock. Or cardi. Or...you get the picture.

Last weekend I looked at my Color Affection and decided it was Time To Finish that bastard. I was sick of the sight of it, so I knuckled down and knit hours and hours on it while watching tv or listening to an audio book. And to my great surprise, I got it done.

Madtosh sock in Kelp, Twig, and Mansfiel'd Garden Party

And now that it's done I went to rummage in my other UFO's and started to think maybe I should really give knitting monogamy a serious try. Maybe I should try and stick to one project and one sock for riding in the the car and sitting in waiting rooms. Which I realize isn't totally monogamous but it's not always practical to haul my my main project around with me.

So today is a rainy, cold and generally crappy day and I am on my last dose of antibiotics that seem to give me heartburn. I decided there is really no better day to grab one of those UFO's and see how much I can churn out while snuggled up with some hot tea and a good book on my ipod. So today I will be forging ahead on my Helleborus Scarf and seeing how far I can go before getting bored with it and picking up a cardi. I have around 8 inches of it worked up so far using these yarns. I'm really looking forward to having it done and being able to inject some color into my life while Milwaukee is muddy and grey.

Well, that was awkward.

So I had to do bloodwork today. I thought it was fasting. So of course, it was not. And I fasted for naught. Which is no big deal, but I also did not eat enough yesterday at ALL by accident. I got busy doing stuff and never felt hungry. The end result was I only got in just over 450 calories for the day. Which is not at all ideal and something I try to avoid. And I was concerned about fasting because I sometimes get a low from a calorie deficit with Metformin. But I also knew my anxiety would raise my blood glucose so I was probably going to be just fine for a few hours into the day even with no food at all.

Since The Man has to cart my ass there, I wanted to get there early to get it done with as little disruption to his day as possible, they open at 7 so the plan was to get there soon after. I woke up at 4:30, and didn't really fall deeply asleep again. So I got up as planned at 5 and got ready for the day. Trying to use my mindful breathing as the panicky feelings about going to the doctor's office would bubble up.  Trying to not bite The Man's head off everything he spoke to me. Trying to think calming thoughts and focus on it being over soon. I'm not scared of needles or blood at all, it's just being there that I don't like. Because I know they have to touch me. And I know it's the doctor's office. And so...panic.

But I was powering through. We got there. The lab wasn't open yet, but I had knitting. So it was good. I sat down and got the knitting. The lab opened. They called me in. I babbled about my shitty, shitty veins and apologized. They looked over my chart and saw I only needed thyroid and liver panel today, so I totally could have eaten some breakfast. DUDE. Dammit. Whatevs. Once again, I don't know what magic this place has but they got the first vein in one stick again like a motherfucking boss. WOOT.

Then they handed me a cup and pointed me to the bathroom for a urine sample. Now, for the people who have spent more than 15 minutes in my presence you already know this, I can pee. I usually always have to pee. I pee all the goddamn time. When I gotta pee, it's all my mind can focus on and can't unfocus it until I just go. I have a walnut sized bladder, I swear. I had consumed extra extra water yesterday to try and plump up my veins for the draw. I drank a full glass this morning with my morning meds. I walked into that bathroom and everything just went to hell.

First of all, the towelette they gave me to use first had coconut acid as the second ingredient. FUCK. I am allergic to that. But rules is rules. I used it, hoping that somehow I would not be dosing the hoo-ha with too much coconut. And then....nothing. Really nothing. I couldn't go. I thought calm thoughts. I did diaphragmatic breathing. I thought of waterfalls, rivers, drips, and still nothing. I ran warm water over my hands in the sink. In the end I managed about a teaspoon. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Well, shit...what do I do now? I can't go back into the lab, I can't just leave. I shamefully walked to the checkout area and tried to hide my container from view and just said "I can't pee." She said I could drink water and wait. I said "No, I mean I can't pee here. I just...I can't." She sent me back to the lab where I had to explain myself and my performance anxiety, and my lack of usable sample. So they gave me a to-go bag and instructions for when to bring it back in to them. So awkward, but not nearly as much as the time I had to collect...umm...other samples. While living in a dorm and sharing a bathroom with many, many women. And then when I took it to the hospital to drop off the lab tech knew me from classes. So it was "Oh hi, how are you, you're in my such and such class, aren't you? yadda yadda yadda...." And then there is me "Ummm, so here is my poop, ok thanks bye." There should really be an unspoken rule about lab workers, they should just pretend they don't know you. No matter how well they might actually know you, you should get to pretend that you're anonymous at that moment of handing over the paper bag with your name on it.

So now I am home, pretty much chilled out for the next several hours thanks clonazepam being my co-pilot, already showered again to try and negate any residual coconut acid poisoning and of course, now I have to pee like every 45 minutes from all the damn water I have consumed.

I've been getting more fiber these days....

Mostly wool. I was infected with the Color Affection virus going around the knitting world and I am really making progress. Probably because I do a lot of sitting around on my ass.
But I have finished the first two sections and though i don't have a pic yet, I have begun the short row section. I screwed up and forgot to do a row of main color in the stripes, so my count is going to be off. But I am going to roll with it. It will look fine, right?

My Color Affliction

And I decide that spinning should count as exercise so I did an hour on the spinning wheel working on some leftovers from Tour de Fleece 2012. I have a whole stash of GORGEOUS new fiber to spin from the fall, but I want to finish up some leftovers from TdF before I begin working on anything new. Hopefully I can finish the spinning of this tomorrow, so I can get around to the plying which will go crazy fast.

I also finished the entire season 3 of Downton Abbey and am just about fit to burst because I want to talk about it but it's not done on PBS yet. Le sigh.

I'm OK!

I have had it on my mental to-do list to come back and update that I'm OK! I got out of the hospital on January 9 after kicking my evil gallbladder to the curb on the 7th. We had to wait for my pancreas to stop being upset. Which took, like, 8 days. It was very very angry.

And then, well, brain fog and fatigue have pretty much been my companions. And meds. Oh, soooo many meds. in my intake paperwork they asked all the meds I use. They were: aspirin when I get a migraine and vitamin d. That's it. Now I have thyroid meds (surprise!), proton pump inhibitor (which I think is temporary to just reduce stomach acids in case my pancreas tries to digest itself some more), metformin for the beetus, cholestyramine powder which is like Tang FROM HELL and I have to drink it over the sink in case it won't stay in because it is so amazingly foul, and antidepressants. It's a whole box of stuff. So that is super good times. And none of these meds play well together so my day has to be planned around how and when to take them so they can actually be absorbed. And also taking my blood sugar 4 times because it has to be over a certain amount to take the met...and OMG MY ENTIRE LIFE REVOLVES AROUND A PILL BOX. Half of them cause the shits and half of them cause constipation, which is AWESOME and needless to say, it keeps me on my toes. Sorry for poop chat, but whatevs, everyone poops and if you ever have your gallbladder removed you should know that your innards are going to be adventuresome for a while.

But mainly things are good. I'm just about 4 weeks out which means next week I can lift things over 10lbs again. And my energy levels should improve now that I know my thyroid was being a lazy arse. And the brain fog forgetfulness confusiony stuff. And the whole being freezing cold all the time thing. This week I have kind of given in to the exhaustion and just let myself nap. So today instead of hanging out with The Man, I basically slept. Which makes me feel bad because I am neglectful. But apparently I was also tired. So tired. I took a morning nap and an afternoon nap. And really, I could have slept through, but I had to get up and take meds at some point.

But we hung out this evening watching Haven, which is kind of the shittiest show EVER because while the story is good, the acting is so so so bad. And I worked on my Color Affliction, which is in the never ending solid color stage and feels like it hasn't grown at all, even though i am now over half done with that part. I would like to finish it tonight so I can add the second color tomorrow.....
but who knows how far I will get!

Bringing some serious

And at least 50% typos that I am going to have to go back and fix later.
So if you know me in my real life, you know that 50% of my waking existence is spent just keeping the cheese on my crackers. And most days I only succeed at 25% of that. I am a hot, hot mess. I try, I use skills from many, many hours of therapy. My doctor phobia has kept me from seeking new therapy. See, that is kind of a problems. And I am very much aware of it. I have been a total agoraphobe for a while now. It's not lazy, I fear outdoors will kill me.

And then, I was suddenly sick. I thought it was a tummy bug. As grim hour after grim hour passed, it became clear that it was not a tummy bug. Whatever was happening to me was kiiiiiiind of a big fucking deal. So I evaluated my choices at that point: See if the vomity burning hole in my guts would stop, or see if the vomity burning hole would really just explode and kill me. That sounded rather unpleasant to me. So Ermergency room it was going to be. With blatant honestly. I could not stop vomiting. Or panicking. Or panic vomiting.

In the spirit of coming out, I'm still in hopstal right now. I am in my room at Community Memorial in Memononee Falls. I am awaiting surgery hopefully today to set free my gall bladder that decided to take against my wee little pancreas like a fucking BITCH from hell. Jesus. That is some very painful stuff there. The most physically painful event in my life.

Now another thing you know about me, or maybe think you know, is that I no longer speak to my mother.  Let's just cover the basics. I love her. I have tried my damnedest to love her, to be enough for her. This is not up for argument from a peanut gallery. I gave it my all, and there was no more of me left to give. It might be cowardly, but this is my story and I am allowed to be a big pussy in my stories.

So now it's out there. For real. She still contacts me. I just refuse to respond in any way. She has said appallingly hurtful things to be. Just hair curling. I felt them and fell apart and carried on. That's not working for me any more.

So this time, when it was clear that Shit was Bad, I reached out to two aunties to tell them there I was and what was happening. One of them thought it was be a good idea to tell my mother. I did not disagree with that at all, because I was seriouly ill! This was the result. I did get a phone call from her husband and I was quite frankly under heavy pain control and after his using his "now you listen here!" tone of voice I just hung up. I do know that no one asked WHY or HOW I was so sick during the call. My docts can't get it either, I'm actually pretty healthy. I do not drink. I have never smoked. I have done no recreational drugs. I eat breakfast on a Sunday and injure my pancreas so badly that now I'm diabetic for life?

So: read on. And wish me luck. I don't pray, but if you do I am happy to take any good thoughts.

---

On Jan 1, 2013, at 6:27 PM, JREDACATED wrote:

> Julie ... You may be aware of this, but if not you should know that
> Annie is in the hospital for pancreatitis. Went in last night I
> think. Has a stone that they will remove along with her gallbladder.
> Don't know when that will be. Phone # to her room is REDACTED
> She is in a lot of pain, but sounds like they will be able to remedy
> that. ...J

From: "Julia Fenner" To: "JREDACTED
Sent: Wednesday, January 2, 2013 12:41:58 PM
Subject: Re: Annie in hospital

Of course I am not aware of it. How could I be? You and Annie have
made it very clear that she does not want me in her life. I grieve
every single day. I have not heard her voice for over five years. Now
I get a phone number for a hospital room? What is the name of the
hospital? What is her cell number? What is Jeff's number? Did she ask
you to contact me? Our internet has been down. I would like to hear
from Jeff. Do you have any idea how cruel you are to tell me this and
give me no other information?

First, I want the name of the hospital. I want you to send me her cell
number, Jeff's cell number, and a landline number if they have one. I
need her e-mail address, too. If you choose not to do the right thing,
please let me know if she survives. It is the least you can do.

ANNIE'S NOTE: for all of this blathering, no move was made by my mother to contact me, her actual child. An awful lot of every was involved in demanding every other people way to contact me, though. Frankly, there is no good time to deal with shit like this, so I figured I might as well deal with it now, while it is happening.