Wow, look at those dates on the right! I've been blogging for over a year! It certainly doesn't seem that long. Of course, I don't blog all that much, but still. A year is a long time! I think about blogging a lot, though. Something will happen and I will wonder "should I blog about that?" I wonder if anyone outside of my circle of friends will read or care about what I write. I know I get annoyed when my favorite bloggers don't update regularly - I even check my stats and try to imagine who IS reading my blah blah blah! Is this being too self-centered? I do find jotting things down gets stuff out of my head and into the air. I have a tendency to brood, and I think I've noticed my brooding has decreased in the last year. Or, at least I feel as if my holding onto stuff too long has decreased.
What else has happened over the last year? A lot, I guess. As things sort of fall back into a normal place and/or routine, there are changes. I'm certainly fatter. This needs to be worked on. There are days I don't notice the new 'girls' at all and there are other days it's like carrying around a load of bricks. I honestly think it depends on the barometric pressure. Which makes no physical or biological sense, but it gives me a modest feeling of comfort. Of course, a big change is that every trip to the doctor or dentist has become an even scarier experience for me. I've imagined all sorts of scenarios every time I'm sent to another doctor.
This morning, I was sent to Dr No Bedside Manner (the above photo is the view from in front of his office building). I saw him a couple of years ago to check on my fibroids (yes, pretty much every benign female complaint has come my way at one time or another). That day, I believe he said two sentences to me: "please place this for me" (referring to the scary medical instrument he uses for an internal sonogram), and "you have fibroids" (in the 'uh, yeah, that's why I'm here' department). He isn't exactly Mr Warm and Fuzzy (actually, he's Dr No Bedside Manner!), but oh well. I figured I wouldn't really need to pay regular visits to him. But, Dr Pay in Advance is so hot for me to have my ovaries out so I can go into menopause right now that she sent me back to Dr No Bedside Manner. I guess she wanted him to tell me that my fibroids are out of control and that I should have my ovaries out NOW.
The last couple of days, I've been working myself into a frenzy over which horrible medical disasters were going to befall me. I've read studies that say once you've had any kind of breast cancer, you're at a higher risk for ovarian cancer. There are people who believe that cancer cells never leave your body. Oh, and one of the side effects of taking tamoxifen was a higher risk for uterine cancer. I didn't sleep much last night, trying to figure out when I would have time in my schedule to have a complete hysterectomy and still have time to get all my work done. Gah! Where was my usual modus operandi of denial and avoidance??? I hate being in worst-case-scenario mode!!!
So...today's appointment. The nurse was nice - we had a long conversation about how she liked my hair color and did I do it myself? She was cute. And at least I got more than two sentences out of Dr No Bedside Manner this time - I filled him in on last year's surgical extravaganzas, then he asked me questions about the tamoxifen, if I'm still on a regular cycle and if I'm having any other issues. I hardly knew what to say, I was so surprised he was speaking with me! He also pointed things out to me on the sonogram machine; he certainly didn't do that last time. So, either I'm way more charming and drew him out of his shell today (ha ha), or now that he thinks there's a real reason for me to be there, he can relate to me a little better. Regardless, it was nice to actually speak a few words. I can think of few things more uncomfortable than a prolonged office visit where the doctor says nothing. Happily, he saw nothing different on the sonograms - the fibroids are the same size as before and nothing else is going wrong. I knew that would be the outcome, so why put myself through the worry? I guess because now I know what can go wrong. Blech. But at least I can wait until my next annoying appointment with Dr Pay in Advance to fight over having my ovaries removed.
To celebrate keeping the ovaries for a few more months (lol), I will now post gratuitous old photos of me with Tony nominees. Did we ever decide if photo-dropping is worse than name-dropping??? Oh well...
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