Uh oh. The most dreaded side effect of all has appeared: I'm losing my hair. When I first started the treatment a friend of mine told me that she lost a lot of hair in the last three months of her treatment with Interferon. This woman has a lot of hair -- much more than she needs -- so possibly she just didn't notice the loss until nine months into her treatment. I, on the other hand, have extremely fine hair of medium abundance, and I noticed almost immediately that it was thinning in the front. I've got male-pattern baldness, with that uneven receding hairline that some men get. Soon I'll just have a patch of hair on the top and a horseshoe shape on the back and sides. Actually, the hair seems to be falling out all around the edges, so I have an all-around receding hairline.
I'm not really all that upset about it. If I had long, beautiful hair I would probably be plunged into deep mourning, but my hair is very short and very bleached. There's not enough of it to mourn. Probably when it gets really thin I'll just shave my head and have fun with wigs and hats. Well, with hats, anyway. Wigs are too expensive. The American Cancer Society web site has reasonably-priced wigs for sale, but nothing I would be caught dead in. They're all much too matronly. I talked to a couple of people about it at the meeting last night, and when I said I might buy a wig, one of them said, "No! You don't need a wig. You have a beautifully-shaped head. You should just let it be bald." I thanked him for those few kind words but explained that I'm a bit long in the tooth to walk around with a bald head. I've shaved my head several times in my life, but I was young then. What looks good when you're twenty doesn't look so hot when you're forty-four. I like having bangs. They hide a multitude of sins. The man steadfastly disagreed with me, telling me that I would look good with a shaved head at any age. Well, I suppose we will find out which of us is right before we're much older.
I've dealt with this before, the loss of hair caused by medication. One side effect of thyroid replacement is hair loss, but only in the first few months of treatment. When I started on Synthroid I had shoulder-length, dyed-black hair, and I noticed right away when it started falling out because it was all over everything. There it was, in the bathroom, in my car, on my clothes. I swear I left a little trail of hair behind me wherever I went. I never did have to shave it off, though. I decided, after examining it in the mirror and seeing how pathetically thin it was, that it might be a good idea to cut it short and bleach it. Short hair can be volumized and bleach makes each individual hair thicker, so I could create the illusion of hair. So I went to my stylist and had her give me the haircut I had for most of the eighties: short and bleached and spiky. I liked it so much that I've kept it ever since, with frequent modifications as I get bored with one style or other. That episode wasn't overly traumatic, but I have a feeling that this time I'm in for a lot more hair loss. I've already lost more hair in the front this time than I did last time; I'm having difficulty styling it so that the sparse patches don't show. Also, the texture is different. Each hair seems thin, dull, dry and brittle. Continued use of the blow dryer may have fatal consequences to the little hair I've got left. The man I talked to last night has a pair of clippers, and he told me to call him whenever I'm ready. We shall see.
Apart from that, side effects have been minimal this week. My lungs are okay -- not perfect, but good enough. The farther away I get from my last cigarette the more I see that smoking did contribute to the problem, because even when I'm feeling breathless now it's not anywhere near as bad as it was when I was still smoking.
I can't think of a damned thing to add to that. I seem to have nothing on my mind this evening. I'm just waiting for it to get dark so I can get cozy and watch the movie I rented. Ah, well, maybe I'll be more entertaining next week.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Regret and redemption
The weeks are flying past. This particular week wasn't distinguished in any way except that I've had quite a few bad lung days. It rained for a couple of days and that moist air is the worst weather for my lungs. When the rain stopped we were treated to an incredible heat wave: on Friday I drove home from work in my lovely air-conditioned car, and when I got off the freeway at about 5:45 I noticed that the outside temperature was 91 degrees. Ouch! The heat dried things out and left me with dry mucous in my chest and my sinuses. My nose has taken to bleeding daily, and occasionally I'll blow a chunk of dryish, bloody snot out of it, after which my sinuses feel clearer and I can breathe better for awhile. Excuse the crudity. But that dry mucous won't come out of my chest. It rattles around in there and won't budge. I've been jumping on my trampoline the last two days and my ankle has been fine while my lungs have not. I keep feeling lightheaded and I don't have much stamina.
I thought I'd get the side effects out of the way first, since they're sort of what this blog is supposed to be about, but they aren't what has been occupying me for the last week. Lately I've been consumed with regret over the past, which is very unlike me. I've always maintained that regret is a waste of time, which of course it is. What about the past can I change? Nothing. So what's the point of wishing it was different? All it does is rob me of the present, as I waste my time mooning over what might have been. I fully believe all of that, yet in the last week I've spent much of my time going over the past and wishing, futilely, that I hadn't wasted my life. I started using at fourteen and didn't get clean until I was 33, apart from a three-year hiatus in my mid-twenties, and during those nineteen years I jacked around, getting loaded, not working, not doing anything worthwhile. I went to college and came within three classes of my BA before I dropped out to pursue my addiction full-time. I spent most of my time and energy hiding from life and seeking out oblivion in one form or another, and now I look back at that and think, "What a fucking waste. Why did I not know what was important?" I even came up with a fantastic scenario of what my life would have looked like had I been able to oversee my own upbringing, had I been there to give myself encouragement and to teach me the joys of delayed gratification and the value of working toward something I want. I have experienced the most intense longing I've ever felt to go back and do it over, like a video game, taking with me what I've learned this time.
Possibly because of that, all week there has been something simmering under the surface which I think is starting to come up now. The other day I found myself arguing with myself about something and I suddenly recognized that I was inhabited by two different people. I recognized two distinct voices in my mind, and this set something in motion which yesterday's entry in Just For Today, about the fluidity of truth, kicked up a notch. It came bursting out of me at the meeting last night in an incoherent stream of consciousness which helped me to see where I'm headed. I think. When I opened my mouth to share I identified, as usual, and said, "I think I have something to say." I apologized in advance if I was incomprehensible, but I was literally thinking out loud, exploring new territory with my voice instead of my pen. What I'm coming to see is that I'm not one person but many, that I am a collection of selves and I have many distinct voices within me, not just two. I've always thought that I was working toward integration, that by working the steps and examining myself I would attain unity of self, if that phrase is possible. But it hasn't worked that way. Working the steps has allowed me to see that I am composed of many selves, and to be okay with that.
I've always been rigid. Too rigid. I've always wanted things to mean one thing and one thing only, for good and all. I want to pin things down and file them away because that makes me feel more secure. I desire an ordered universe, so I put the universe in order all by myself. I'm coming to see, though, that by working the steps I have developed enough faith and self-assurance that I can relax my paralyzing grip on continuity. Life is fluid. The truth is fluid. I am fluid. Flux is the only constant, and what was true yesterday may not be true today. All of my life I've been almost pathological about consistency. I carry around a mostly-unconscious assumption that I have a consistent core, an unchanging self which is expressed by my personality, and so if I deviate from the way I've always seen myself, I feel I'm being untrue to my essential self. But now I'm not sure there's an essential self to betray.
What if, when I disentangle all of the myriad strands of personality which make up what I think of as my self, I find that those strands are all there is, that there is no core? The thought is terrifying, but why should it be? What has my personality got to do with my essential being? I will shed both my body and my personality when I die, and my being will return to its ground, which, of course, it never really left. The person I think of as "I" is not a person at all but a complex of personae, some of which are at odds with others.
There's some sort of connection between that train of thought and the illumination I received this morning as I jumped on my trampoline, but I can't find it at the moment. As I jumped, my mind flitted from one idea to another, as it tends to do, and before too long it arrived at step eight ("We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all."). When I told my sponsor, after I presented my writing on step seven, that I have no one to put on my eighth step list this time, she insisted that I work it anyway, on myself, which annoyed me no end. It seemed like a waste of time to me, and I have an entrenched opinion that we shouldn't put ourselves on our eighth step list. Steps eight and nine are about other people. I make amends to myself by working all of the steps. I agreed to do it, however, because Kim is my sponsor and I take her direction, although I wasn't in any hurry to begin it.
So, anyway, as I jumped I thought about step eight and about what I might be making amends to myself for, and suddenly the light dawned. Illumination came flooding in. All of this grieving I've been doing lately, this regret I've been feeling so acutely over all the missed opportunities and all the years I wasted chasing after oblivion, it's all part of the process. I think I've arrived at step eight at last. I needed to go through that all-consuming anger at my parents, to purge myself of it and forgive them before I could get down to the slow-burning anger I felt toward myself, to the self-blame which lay at the back of what I shoved off onto my parents. My job now is to forgive myself for having wasted my life. If I don't, I will waste what time I've got left nursing this useless regret and not allowing myself to move forward.
I'm not dead yet. There's still hope. There are some things I can't do; some doors have closed for good. But there's no reason in the world why I can't oversee my own upbringing now, starting today, and give myself the good foundation for adulthood that I need and deserve. I may not be nineteen anymore, but the world is still my oyster.
I thought I'd get the side effects out of the way first, since they're sort of what this blog is supposed to be about, but they aren't what has been occupying me for the last week. Lately I've been consumed with regret over the past, which is very unlike me. I've always maintained that regret is a waste of time, which of course it is. What about the past can I change? Nothing. So what's the point of wishing it was different? All it does is rob me of the present, as I waste my time mooning over what might have been. I fully believe all of that, yet in the last week I've spent much of my time going over the past and wishing, futilely, that I hadn't wasted my life. I started using at fourteen and didn't get clean until I was 33, apart from a three-year hiatus in my mid-twenties, and during those nineteen years I jacked around, getting loaded, not working, not doing anything worthwhile. I went to college and came within three classes of my BA before I dropped out to pursue my addiction full-time. I spent most of my time and energy hiding from life and seeking out oblivion in one form or another, and now I look back at that and think, "What a fucking waste. Why did I not know what was important?" I even came up with a fantastic scenario of what my life would have looked like had I been able to oversee my own upbringing, had I been there to give myself encouragement and to teach me the joys of delayed gratification and the value of working toward something I want. I have experienced the most intense longing I've ever felt to go back and do it over, like a video game, taking with me what I've learned this time.
Possibly because of that, all week there has been something simmering under the surface which I think is starting to come up now. The other day I found myself arguing with myself about something and I suddenly recognized that I was inhabited by two different people. I recognized two distinct voices in my mind, and this set something in motion which yesterday's entry in Just For Today, about the fluidity of truth, kicked up a notch. It came bursting out of me at the meeting last night in an incoherent stream of consciousness which helped me to see where I'm headed. I think. When I opened my mouth to share I identified, as usual, and said, "I think I have something to say." I apologized in advance if I was incomprehensible, but I was literally thinking out loud, exploring new territory with my voice instead of my pen. What I'm coming to see is that I'm not one person but many, that I am a collection of selves and I have many distinct voices within me, not just two. I've always thought that I was working toward integration, that by working the steps and examining myself I would attain unity of self, if that phrase is possible. But it hasn't worked that way. Working the steps has allowed me to see that I am composed of many selves, and to be okay with that.
I've always been rigid. Too rigid. I've always wanted things to mean one thing and one thing only, for good and all. I want to pin things down and file them away because that makes me feel more secure. I desire an ordered universe, so I put the universe in order all by myself. I'm coming to see, though, that by working the steps I have developed enough faith and self-assurance that I can relax my paralyzing grip on continuity. Life is fluid. The truth is fluid. I am fluid. Flux is the only constant, and what was true yesterday may not be true today. All of my life I've been almost pathological about consistency. I carry around a mostly-unconscious assumption that I have a consistent core, an unchanging self which is expressed by my personality, and so if I deviate from the way I've always seen myself, I feel I'm being untrue to my essential self. But now I'm not sure there's an essential self to betray.
What if, when I disentangle all of the myriad strands of personality which make up what I think of as my self, I find that those strands are all there is, that there is no core? The thought is terrifying, but why should it be? What has my personality got to do with my essential being? I will shed both my body and my personality when I die, and my being will return to its ground, which, of course, it never really left. The person I think of as "I" is not a person at all but a complex of personae, some of which are at odds with others.
There's some sort of connection between that train of thought and the illumination I received this morning as I jumped on my trampoline, but I can't find it at the moment. As I jumped, my mind flitted from one idea to another, as it tends to do, and before too long it arrived at step eight ("We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all."). When I told my sponsor, after I presented my writing on step seven, that I have no one to put on my eighth step list this time, she insisted that I work it anyway, on myself, which annoyed me no end. It seemed like a waste of time to me, and I have an entrenched opinion that we shouldn't put ourselves on our eighth step list. Steps eight and nine are about other people. I make amends to myself by working all of the steps. I agreed to do it, however, because Kim is my sponsor and I take her direction, although I wasn't in any hurry to begin it.
So, anyway, as I jumped I thought about step eight and about what I might be making amends to myself for, and suddenly the light dawned. Illumination came flooding in. All of this grieving I've been doing lately, this regret I've been feeling so acutely over all the missed opportunities and all the years I wasted chasing after oblivion, it's all part of the process. I think I've arrived at step eight at last. I needed to go through that all-consuming anger at my parents, to purge myself of it and forgive them before I could get down to the slow-burning anger I felt toward myself, to the self-blame which lay at the back of what I shoved off onto my parents. My job now is to forgive myself for having wasted my life. If I don't, I will waste what time I've got left nursing this useless regret and not allowing myself to move forward.
I'm not dead yet. There's still hope. There are some things I can't do; some doors have closed for good. But there's no reason in the world why I can't oversee my own upbringing now, starting today, and give myself the good foundation for adulthood that I need and deserve. I may not be nineteen anymore, but the world is still my oyster.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
All tomorrow's party dresses
It's been a busy weekend, and, alas, it will soon be over. I didn't have time to write yesterday morning because I had plans all day, so here I am, on Sunday afternoon. I think Saturday morning is not the best time to write my blog in any case. Usually I don't feel like sitting at the computer because I've spent all week in front of one, besides which, usually I've already written myself out in my journal. So I may write on Sunday or Monday night from now on.
I went to the ophthalmologist on Tuesday, and, as predicted, he said the blurred vision is a side effect of the Interferon. He added that it's caused by dry eyes, and he gave me some artificial tears, which I've had a hard time remembering to use. I talked to him about my Horner's Syndrome while I was there, expressing the opnion that at the rate it's drooping, my right eye will be completely closed by the time I'm fifty. He said, "You know you can have that corrected, don't you?" I said, "Yes, but I can't afford plastic surgery," and he stunned me by saying that the procedure would probably be covered by my insurance because it's corrective and not simply cosmetic. Oh my God. Please let me have this! Have I mentioned the Horner's Syndrome in here? I can't remember if I have or not, so, at the risk of repeating myself, I'll describe it. Horner's Syndrome is a condition which affects the eye and is caused by a pinched or damaged nerve in the chest or neck. Mine was caused by the Graves' Disease: when my thyroid went into overdrive and swelled, instead of growing plump it grew tall, thereby pinching that nerve and causing my right eye to droop, swell and generally make a nuisance of itself. The symptoms are better now that my thyroid levels are back to normal, but the damage has already been done. The eyelid swelled and shrank so many times that it's stretched out. I have a little nest of wrinkles in the corner which makes it difficult to apply eyeliner. Also, the lid is puffy and droopy, making me look cock-eyed. Last but not least, the lid is distorted on the lash line, so that I have two levels of eyelashes on that eye. It looks odd. The ophthalmologist gave me a referral to an ocular specialist, with whom I have an appointment next month. I'm sure the procedure will cost me a fair amount even if my insurance covers it, but I'm willing to make payments in order to have my eye fixed, and it's a fairly simple procedure which can be done in the office, so it can't be too expensive.
On Thursday afternoon my ankle swelled up like a football and was so painful that I could barely push in the clutch to drive home, so I went back to the Urgent Care and talked to another doctor, who spent more time with me and explained my injury more clearly. He expressed the opinion that I was slowing the healing process by moving my ankle too much, and he gave me an "air cast," which I've been wearing every day since, and it's done wonders. The pain is nearly gone and the swelling is way down. I've finally begun to believe that it will be healed someday and I will be back on my trampoline at some point. I have exercises to do when I'm not wearing the cast, to stretch the muscles and keep the ankle from stiffening in one position, but apart from that I'm doing my best not to move it at all or cause it any sort of trauma. The doctor I talked to on Thursday said he's seen ligament injuries take as long to heal as a break, so I've stopped cursing and have settled down to wait.
Of course, my vanity and my desire to play dress-up are at odds with my desire for healing. My friend Rebecca had a party yesterday, and I wanted to wear a mini skirt with black tights and boots, but I can't wear heels unless I want to add an extra week or two to my healing time, so I went to Nordstrom and bought a pair of combat-inspired boots by Steve Madden. I'd seen them there a few weeks ago and salivated over them, but decided reluctantly that I could buy either them or the cut-out booties, and I went for the cut-out booties. But then I injured myself and have been unable to wear the damned cut-out booties! I thought it over on Friday night and decided that clothing and shoes are more important than CDs, so I'm going to sell my entire CD collection to pay for my shopping habit. I have over 300 CDs, so even if I only get $1 apiece for them, I'm doing pretty well. I'll just rip them all to my hard drive and get rid of the lot. With that in mind, it was a joy to walk into Nordstrom and buy the boots I'd been coveting. I wore them to the party but was unable to stay longer than an hour because my ankle was killing me. When I got home I kept wearing the cute little outfit I had on, but took off the left boot and replaced it with my air cast. Ahh, relief! It's not a thing of beauty, but it is a joy forever.
While I was out running around yesterday I'd also intended to get a cheap black denim mini skirt and a pair of black leggings from Forever 21, which is the ultimate teeny-bopper store. I hate going in there because the music is awful, it's full of children, and I wouldn't touch most of their stuff with a barge pole, but their prices are amazingly low. I seriously doubt that their sweatshop workers are making ends meet. After scouring all three levels, however, I was unable to find the mini skirt I'd seen online, and they didn't seem to have any leggings left, either. I wandered through Paseo Nuevo mall, looking in various shops to see if they had a black denim mini skirt, but was unable to find one, so I determined to buy it and the leggings online and pay the shipping. I was grumpy, though, when I got home and I didn't want to deal with Forever 21 and its bad photos. I couldn't tell what the skirt really looked like from the photo, which is why I'd wanted to try it on in the store, so instead of buying it I went to the Topshop web site and spent $50 on their black denim mini skirt. My CDs had better sell.
Later I learned that I could have got the boots for half price because my friend Melissa's boyfriend works at the Steve Madden shop in the Mall of America, and she would have been willing to get them for me and ship them to me. But it's too late now. The two of us sat on the phone for a couple of hours yesterday afternoon, shopping online together. After drooling over everything we can't afford at Shopbop, we looked at all the Steve Madden shoes, and I decided that I have to have a pair called the Wrappp bootie. They're adorable. So, when my CDs sell, I'll send her $85 and she can get them for me. So it all works out.
I have to take a moment to express my gratitude that what's occupying my mind these days is the frivolous absurdity of fashion and not the host of side effects I could be experiencing. When I think of what my friend Shawna went through on Interferon, I'm inexpressibly grateful. Each week that passes with minimal side effects is a triumph.
Just one last thing before I sign off for the week. I've noticed that my emotions have intensified quite a lot since I quit smoking, which is saying a lot because they were pretty intense before, thank you very much. Also they fluctuate wildly: one minute I'm giddy with inexplicable elation and the next I'm prone on the floor in the throes of suicidal despair. I don't feel like I'm on a roller coaster so much as in a pinball machine, ricocheting all over the table in the most disconcerting way. I've noticed it all along and have even commented on it here, but I didn't connect it with having quit smoking until the other day. Because it hasn't been difficult for me not to smoke I suppose I just sort of assumed I wouldn't have any of the other symptoms associated with quitting, but now that I know I am, I have to say I'm glad of it. I'm always happy when what I do is "typical," when I have the usual symptoms of this or that, because I'm sure it means I'm doing it right. I know that I value things I have to work for much more than things that come easily to me, and I was afraid that if it was too easy to quit smoking, I wouldn't have enough protection against it if I felt the urge to smoke. So, according to my friends who have quit, I'm in for about two years of steadily decreasing emotional symptoms, which is okay by me. I went through a couple of years of changes when I got clean; I can do this, too.
I went to the ophthalmologist on Tuesday, and, as predicted, he said the blurred vision is a side effect of the Interferon. He added that it's caused by dry eyes, and he gave me some artificial tears, which I've had a hard time remembering to use. I talked to him about my Horner's Syndrome while I was there, expressing the opnion that at the rate it's drooping, my right eye will be completely closed by the time I'm fifty. He said, "You know you can have that corrected, don't you?" I said, "Yes, but I can't afford plastic surgery," and he stunned me by saying that the procedure would probably be covered by my insurance because it's corrective and not simply cosmetic. Oh my God. Please let me have this! Have I mentioned the Horner's Syndrome in here? I can't remember if I have or not, so, at the risk of repeating myself, I'll describe it. Horner's Syndrome is a condition which affects the eye and is caused by a pinched or damaged nerve in the chest or neck. Mine was caused by the Graves' Disease: when my thyroid went into overdrive and swelled, instead of growing plump it grew tall, thereby pinching that nerve and causing my right eye to droop, swell and generally make a nuisance of itself. The symptoms are better now that my thyroid levels are back to normal, but the damage has already been done. The eyelid swelled and shrank so many times that it's stretched out. I have a little nest of wrinkles in the corner which makes it difficult to apply eyeliner. Also, the lid is puffy and droopy, making me look cock-eyed. Last but not least, the lid is distorted on the lash line, so that I have two levels of eyelashes on that eye. It looks odd. The ophthalmologist gave me a referral to an ocular specialist, with whom I have an appointment next month. I'm sure the procedure will cost me a fair amount even if my insurance covers it, but I'm willing to make payments in order to have my eye fixed, and it's a fairly simple procedure which can be done in the office, so it can't be too expensive.
On Thursday afternoon my ankle swelled up like a football and was so painful that I could barely push in the clutch to drive home, so I went back to the Urgent Care and talked to another doctor, who spent more time with me and explained my injury more clearly. He expressed the opinion that I was slowing the healing process by moving my ankle too much, and he gave me an "air cast," which I've been wearing every day since, and it's done wonders. The pain is nearly gone and the swelling is way down. I've finally begun to believe that it will be healed someday and I will be back on my trampoline at some point. I have exercises to do when I'm not wearing the cast, to stretch the muscles and keep the ankle from stiffening in one position, but apart from that I'm doing my best not to move it at all or cause it any sort of trauma. The doctor I talked to on Thursday said he's seen ligament injuries take as long to heal as a break, so I've stopped cursing and have settled down to wait.
Of course, my vanity and my desire to play dress-up are at odds with my desire for healing. My friend Rebecca had a party yesterday, and I wanted to wear a mini skirt with black tights and boots, but I can't wear heels unless I want to add an extra week or two to my healing time, so I went to Nordstrom and bought a pair of combat-inspired boots by Steve Madden. I'd seen them there a few weeks ago and salivated over them, but decided reluctantly that I could buy either them or the cut-out booties, and I went for the cut-out booties. But then I injured myself and have been unable to wear the damned cut-out booties! I thought it over on Friday night and decided that clothing and shoes are more important than CDs, so I'm going to sell my entire CD collection to pay for my shopping habit. I have over 300 CDs, so even if I only get $1 apiece for them, I'm doing pretty well. I'll just rip them all to my hard drive and get rid of the lot. With that in mind, it was a joy to walk into Nordstrom and buy the boots I'd been coveting. I wore them to the party but was unable to stay longer than an hour because my ankle was killing me. When I got home I kept wearing the cute little outfit I had on, but took off the left boot and replaced it with my air cast. Ahh, relief! It's not a thing of beauty, but it is a joy forever.
While I was out running around yesterday I'd also intended to get a cheap black denim mini skirt and a pair of black leggings from Forever 21, which is the ultimate teeny-bopper store. I hate going in there because the music is awful, it's full of children, and I wouldn't touch most of their stuff with a barge pole, but their prices are amazingly low. I seriously doubt that their sweatshop workers are making ends meet. After scouring all three levels, however, I was unable to find the mini skirt I'd seen online, and they didn't seem to have any leggings left, either. I wandered through Paseo Nuevo mall, looking in various shops to see if they had a black denim mini skirt, but was unable to find one, so I determined to buy it and the leggings online and pay the shipping. I was grumpy, though, when I got home and I didn't want to deal with Forever 21 and its bad photos. I couldn't tell what the skirt really looked like from the photo, which is why I'd wanted to try it on in the store, so instead of buying it I went to the Topshop web site and spent $50 on their black denim mini skirt. My CDs had better sell.
Later I learned that I could have got the boots for half price because my friend Melissa's boyfriend works at the Steve Madden shop in the Mall of America, and she would have been willing to get them for me and ship them to me. But it's too late now. The two of us sat on the phone for a couple of hours yesterday afternoon, shopping online together. After drooling over everything we can't afford at Shopbop, we looked at all the Steve Madden shoes, and I decided that I have to have a pair called the Wrappp bootie. They're adorable. So, when my CDs sell, I'll send her $85 and she can get them for me. So it all works out.
I have to take a moment to express my gratitude that what's occupying my mind these days is the frivolous absurdity of fashion and not the host of side effects I could be experiencing. When I think of what my friend Shawna went through on Interferon, I'm inexpressibly grateful. Each week that passes with minimal side effects is a triumph.
Just one last thing before I sign off for the week. I've noticed that my emotions have intensified quite a lot since I quit smoking, which is saying a lot because they were pretty intense before, thank you very much. Also they fluctuate wildly: one minute I'm giddy with inexplicable elation and the next I'm prone on the floor in the throes of suicidal despair. I don't feel like I'm on a roller coaster so much as in a pinball machine, ricocheting all over the table in the most disconcerting way. I've noticed it all along and have even commented on it here, but I didn't connect it with having quit smoking until the other day. Because it hasn't been difficult for me not to smoke I suppose I just sort of assumed I wouldn't have any of the other symptoms associated with quitting, but now that I know I am, I have to say I'm glad of it. I'm always happy when what I do is "typical," when I have the usual symptoms of this or that, because I'm sure it means I'm doing it right. I know that I value things I have to work for much more than things that come easily to me, and I was afraid that if it was too easy to quit smoking, I wouldn't have enough protection against it if I felt the urge to smoke. So, according to my friends who have quit, I'm in for about two years of steadily decreasing emotional symptoms, which is okay by me. I went through a couple of years of changes when I got clean; I can do this, too.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Deaf, dumb, blind and lame, but strangely happy nonetheless
Oh dear, two weeks have passed without a post from me. What a slacker. My excuse for not writing last weekend is that I was planning and throwing a party. My landlady was out of town for three weeks, and she said it would be okay if I had a small party while she was gone. So I invited about twelve women to come over last Sunday for food and games. It was a lot of fun, but I've decided that next time I have a party I'm going to make all of the food in advance so I don't have to spend half the party in the kitchen, cooking the pasta, dressing the salad, heating the bread. Even with that inconvenience, though, the party was fun. I love Victorian parlor games.
I kept meaning to write during the week this week, but somehow it just didn't happen. I don't like sitting at the computer because I've done something terrible to my ankle, which has kept me off my trampoline since Monday. It started the week before last, and was just a twinge, so I ignored it and kept jumping on my trampoline every morning until it became too painful to do so. Since it seemed to be getting worse, I went into the Urgent Care on Monday for an X-ray, fearing that by continuing to jump while in pain I may have done crucial damage. The doctor said I strained some ligaments, gave me an Ace bandage and told me to keep off it for a day or two. Well, okay, but it's been five days since then and the ankle is no better. It doesn't feel like ligaments to me. It feels like something is wrong with the joint, inside. Of course, my idiocy in having worn my new four-inch cutout booties to the meeting on Tuesday night probably didn't help. I felt no pain at all while I was wearing them, though. In fact, the pain was better when I had them on. And they're so cute that I just couldn't resist. The next day, though, when my ankle was worse, I vowed to eschew heels in favor of flats and to stay off my feet as much as possible until my ankle is healed, and that's what I've done ever since. Not that it's helped. The ankle is more swollen now than it's ever been, and a bruise has formed. If it's not significantly better by, say, Tuesday, I'll probably have to go back to the doctor. I really want to get back on my trampoline. I've noticed an increase in my irritability since I haven't been jumping.
I'm extra broke this pay period, but I'm not sure why. My only real extravagance, the cutout booties, I paid for with my credit card, so that didn't affect my bank account. I did buy a ticket to see Grizzly Bear at the Hollywood Palladium on the 20th of this month, but that wasn't enough to create dire poverty. I'm not sure what the cause is, but I'm on such a strict budget right now that I can't even afford the traditional post-ASC breakfast with my friend David tomorrow. ASC stands for Area Service Conference, and it's the monthly meeting of all of the local NA groups. I always have some sort of Area commitment, and at the moment I'm sitting on an ad hoc committee for the purpose of doing an Area-wide inventory, to see if there are improvements we can make in our efforts to serve NA and its members and groups, as well as the larger community. This means that I have to show up at the ASC every month and give a little speech. I always look forward to breakfast afterwards, and it's too bad that I can't go this month. Maybe David will take pity on me and buy me breakfast this time.
I would be able to go if I didn't have to go see the ophthalmologist on Tuesday to have my blurred vision checked out, but I need my breakfast money for the co-pay. The last couple of weeks I've noticed that my vision has been blurry, not all the time but often enough to be bothersome, so when I refilled my Interferon prescription last week I talked to a pharmacist about it. Sure enough, blurred vision is a side effect. The pharmacist said I should have it checked by an ophthalmologist, just to make sure it is, in fact, a side effect and not something else. I think it's a bit pointless, myself, but I talked to Judy about it and she insisted that I make the appointment. So, there goes another $20 co-pay and three and a half hours of missed work, just so I can be told that the blurred vision is a side effect.
The other side effect I'm having is that I bruise easily. A few weeks ago I started noticing little bruises all over the place, but I couldn't remember having bumped myself hard enough for a bruise to form. I thought I must be extra clumsy lately, but eventually it dawned on me that the slightest bump results in a bruise forming. I talked to Judy about the bruising and she said that it might be from taking Advil, which I take two or three times a week for headaches, and more often lately because of my ankle. I suppose the headaches must be a side effect as well because I never used to have to take Advil. I'm not sure why that only just occurred to me. Anyway, Judy said that if I don't mind going around looking like a battered woman, it won't hurt me to keep taking the Advil.
Since I didn't write last week I wasn't able to crow over the fact that I am now past the halfway point in my treatment. The second half began a week ago yesterday, so it's all downhill from here. Now that my lungs are behaving themselves, for the most part (I still have a bad lung day every so often, and my voice is still pretty thrashed), I don't really mind the treatment so much. And now that my thyroid levels are perfect, and have been for some time, I can see how much of my recent misery was caused by hypothyroidism and not by the Interferon treatment. Because I feel so great, physically, I have an irrepressible sense of well-being, most of the time. The well-being may also have something to do with my having completed step seven, but whatever the cause, I'm grateful for it.
Now the only thing I have to wish for is that my ankle would heal quickly so I can jump on my trampoline again.
I kept meaning to write during the week this week, but somehow it just didn't happen. I don't like sitting at the computer because I've done something terrible to my ankle, which has kept me off my trampoline since Monday. It started the week before last, and was just a twinge, so I ignored it and kept jumping on my trampoline every morning until it became too painful to do so. Since it seemed to be getting worse, I went into the Urgent Care on Monday for an X-ray, fearing that by continuing to jump while in pain I may have done crucial damage. The doctor said I strained some ligaments, gave me an Ace bandage and told me to keep off it for a day or two. Well, okay, but it's been five days since then and the ankle is no better. It doesn't feel like ligaments to me. It feels like something is wrong with the joint, inside. Of course, my idiocy in having worn my new four-inch cutout booties to the meeting on Tuesday night probably didn't help. I felt no pain at all while I was wearing them, though. In fact, the pain was better when I had them on. And they're so cute that I just couldn't resist. The next day, though, when my ankle was worse, I vowed to eschew heels in favor of flats and to stay off my feet as much as possible until my ankle is healed, and that's what I've done ever since. Not that it's helped. The ankle is more swollen now than it's ever been, and a bruise has formed. If it's not significantly better by, say, Tuesday, I'll probably have to go back to the doctor. I really want to get back on my trampoline. I've noticed an increase in my irritability since I haven't been jumping.
I'm extra broke this pay period, but I'm not sure why. My only real extravagance, the cutout booties, I paid for with my credit card, so that didn't affect my bank account. I did buy a ticket to see Grizzly Bear at the Hollywood Palladium on the 20th of this month, but that wasn't enough to create dire poverty. I'm not sure what the cause is, but I'm on such a strict budget right now that I can't even afford the traditional post-ASC breakfast with my friend David tomorrow. ASC stands for Area Service Conference, and it's the monthly meeting of all of the local NA groups. I always have some sort of Area commitment, and at the moment I'm sitting on an ad hoc committee for the purpose of doing an Area-wide inventory, to see if there are improvements we can make in our efforts to serve NA and its members and groups, as well as the larger community. This means that I have to show up at the ASC every month and give a little speech. I always look forward to breakfast afterwards, and it's too bad that I can't go this month. Maybe David will take pity on me and buy me breakfast this time.
I would be able to go if I didn't have to go see the ophthalmologist on Tuesday to have my blurred vision checked out, but I need my breakfast money for the co-pay. The last couple of weeks I've noticed that my vision has been blurry, not all the time but often enough to be bothersome, so when I refilled my Interferon prescription last week I talked to a pharmacist about it. Sure enough, blurred vision is a side effect. The pharmacist said I should have it checked by an ophthalmologist, just to make sure it is, in fact, a side effect and not something else. I think it's a bit pointless, myself, but I talked to Judy about it and she insisted that I make the appointment. So, there goes another $20 co-pay and three and a half hours of missed work, just so I can be told that the blurred vision is a side effect.
The other side effect I'm having is that I bruise easily. A few weeks ago I started noticing little bruises all over the place, but I couldn't remember having bumped myself hard enough for a bruise to form. I thought I must be extra clumsy lately, but eventually it dawned on me that the slightest bump results in a bruise forming. I talked to Judy about the bruising and she said that it might be from taking Advil, which I take two or three times a week for headaches, and more often lately because of my ankle. I suppose the headaches must be a side effect as well because I never used to have to take Advil. I'm not sure why that only just occurred to me. Anyway, Judy said that if I don't mind going around looking like a battered woman, it won't hurt me to keep taking the Advil.
Since I didn't write last week I wasn't able to crow over the fact that I am now past the halfway point in my treatment. The second half began a week ago yesterday, so it's all downhill from here. Now that my lungs are behaving themselves, for the most part (I still have a bad lung day every so often, and my voice is still pretty thrashed), I don't really mind the treatment so much. And now that my thyroid levels are perfect, and have been for some time, I can see how much of my recent misery was caused by hypothyroidism and not by the Interferon treatment. Because I feel so great, physically, I have an irrepressible sense of well-being, most of the time. The well-being may also have something to do with my having completed step seven, but whatever the cause, I'm grateful for it.
Now the only thing I have to wish for is that my ankle would heal quickly so I can jump on my trampoline again.
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