Awkwardly Social

It’s taken me quite some time to write this and now all the details seem hazy.  They seemed hazy as they were happening, to be honest.  I wanted to get down the gist before I forget things, but things are already forgotten.  I will however never forget how scary surgery was for me.  I still get teary and choked up when I think about it.  Anyway, here it is, at least what I can remember.

On July 9th, I had a 9:30AM 40 week appointment with my doctor and got my blood pressure checked, low as usual, and my doctor came in to do an ultrasound to check my amniotic fluid.  She hunted around for a while, quiet, which is kind of unusual for her, then she said, “Oh, here’s a pocket.”  And she hunted some more.  By the time she was done she looked at me and said, “Well, your fluid is low.  You are 40 weeks 1 day and I’d love to let you go home and let labor start on its own, but I can’t. Anything below a 7 is considered dangerous and you’re between a 3 and a 4.  You’re going to have a baby in about 48 hours.” I was pretty excited and nervous, but mostly relieved that we were going to be getting this show on the road.

We went home with a stop at an equipment house to drop off some equipment for my movie (producer to the end!) and finished packing my bag and headed back to the hospital.

We had to wait about 20 minutes before a room was ready for us, the lobby was abuzz with a family of loud talkers.   They were excited about Kourtney Kardashian being in the hospital with her new baby.  It was obnoxious but it kept my mind off the fact that things were about to get real.

We finally got checked into my room, they got my IV started and put the monitors on.  Torture began with the most uncomfortable labor bed in the hospital being in that room.  And continued when the nurse midwife (Cedars uses nurse midwives on call for private practice doctors and residents for Cedars’ in house doctors) checked my cervix and placed the Cytotec to get my cervix opened.   It was about noon by the time that fucker was jammed next to my cervix and believe me, I know labor was painful, but cervix checking and suppository placing were on my shit list.

At around 4pm the nurse midwife came in to check me, I was only a little more than a 1, which was about what I had been when we checked in and because the Cytotec was causing me regular and frequent contractions, she made the decision to not put in another pill and instead go to pitocin.  Which, as it turned out, was the exact opposite of what my doctor had ordered.  Cytotec ripens the cervix and a side effect is contractions, Pitocin causes contractions and a side effect is opening the cervix (I think).  At around 9pm, my doctor called and was talking to the nurse and from the nurses side of the conversation, you could tell my doctor was unhappy.  The pitocin was immediately turned off, and another Cytotec was placed.  At this point I was about a 2 and super uncomfortable, and grumpy and confused and just wanted to be in LABOR labor already.  5 hours of cervix ripening wasted.  I was starving and my doctor told them to let me eat and my doctor showed up and told them to get me a tray immediately that I had a long road to go and I should eat.  I had Jerry’s chicken noodle soup (my medical issues comfort food of choice) and a lot of Italian ices.  They gave me a shot of Fentanyl and I fell asleep.  When I woke up, my doctor ordered pitocin and I was almost at a 4 and really feeling it.  I got the epidural and as soon as they were about to check me again, my water broke.

And it REALLY broke.  I remember my nurse saying, “We have a gross rupture.” Which cracked me up.

During all of this a second nurse midwife had come on duty, she seemed confused about my treatment plan and was saying things about what needed to be done that sounded counter to what my doctor had ordered.  When you’re in “early labor” for that long, you get a stream of different nurses.  Shift changes, lunch breaks, it all starts to wear on you and I totally took it out on this nurse midwife.  She didn’t really deserve it, but she clearly hadn’t read my chart and I was extremely uncomfortable from the labor bed of doom and I might have scared her a little.  I can be mean when I’m in pain, and I would feel more badly about how I treated her, but whatever, it’s over now.  I’m sure she’s fine.  Pregnant ladies be crazy.

A few hours later a new nurse midwife came in and she moved my monitors around and she told me to move to my other side and she watched the monitors again and she ordered oxygen. Apparently, Moe’s heart rate had really dropped and he was showing signs of distress when I was on my right side.  This is the problem with low amniotic fluid and long labor, “cord accidents.” And now that my water had broken (gross rupture) he was probably pretty dry in there.  They finally felt comfortable with me on my left side and taking oxygen, but I could sense things were getting more serious.  Even though my awesome nurse, Niambi, was totally reassuring and keeping me calm.

My doctor came in again and did a check.  With the epidural, checks were so easy! (DUH.) And I was a 7!  Hurray! I was finally moved out of my tiny early labor room of torture and depression and into the best room on the floor.  The room with the view of all of LA.  It’s pretty spectacular.  I was moved back on my right side again, and Moe’s heart rate dropped again and I was put back on oxygen and put into a seated position.  I fell asleep for a couple of hours and at about 3:30 I woke up feeling like I needed to push.

My nurse checked me and I was a 10!  She called my doctor and while he hadn’t moved lower (station something or other?) she told the nurse that I could do some practice pushes.   This nurse had a shadow with her.  Some dude.  You guys, he was holding my leg while I was pushing (and pooping!) on the table.  It was awful.  And my Moe started having variables.  His heart rate would drop dramatically after each contraction.  They told me to stop pushing, put me on my right side and called my doctor.  I had been pushing for about 30 minutes and he hadn’t moved any lower.

At this point, I was exhausted.  I had had enough of the chipper nurse with the dude shadow.  I wanted my doctor there and a nurse who wasn’t coaching me like I was in AYSO.  Another shift change happened, my doctor arrived, and I was back with Niambi and told I could push.  An hour and a half later, his heart rate dropped dramatically and my pushing wasn’t helping things.  They needed me to turn on my left side to see if the cord had been compressed.  On oxygen and turned onto my left side I felt the kind of pain I imagine natural child birth feels like.  My epidural couldn’t cut through it.  I started to sob.  And dry heave.  They called in the anesthesiologist and he was concerned if he upped my epidural, I wouldn’t be able to push.  My doctor was concerned that if she didn’t keep me in that position, his cord would be compressed again.

So they upped the epidural, I tried pushing for 30 more minutes all the while sobbing and dry heaving and having a nervous breakdown.  And then they took my temperature.  100.1.  Moe was dipping with every push.  His head was caught behind my pelvis and it is arched in a way that if I couldn’t push at full capacity and in some different positions (ones that would probably compress his cord again) he wouldn’t get past the position he was in.  And she was seeing meconium when I pushed.

My doctor came to the head of the bed and said, “I don’t want to do this, but you are exhausted, your temperature has spiked, his heart rate is showing extreme signs of distress and the amount of meconium I’m seeing means he’s pooped because of stress.  We can keep pushing, but you’ll have to be on your left side, or we can try some other positions, and if you can move him down lower, we can do vacuum extraction, but we have to get this baby out soon and our last option is c section.  Do you want to keep pushing, do you think you can?”

Now, you guys, my doctor is not pro c-section.  She was upset that we had gotten to this point.   I started to sob.  My upper body was shaking out of control.  I was so scared.  I howled, “I don’t knooowww!” I thought I might die. It sounds so dramatic now, but all I could think about was me dying on the table and Moe being raised without a mother.

Seth tried to talk to me, but I couldn’t stop crying.  I just didn’t know what to do.  I thought about my mom and how she was dead and I was going to be dead soon too.  Seth called my doctor over and asked her what we should do.  She said, “It’s up to you, but I think with as stressed as the baby is, and with her temperature spiking, the amount of meconium  that’s present, we need to move relatively fast.”  She said if I kept pushing and got to vacuum extraction and we still couldn’t get him out, then we’d really have a bad situation on our hands.  She leaned down and said, “I know you’re scared, but we’re going to take care of you.”  And we decided to do the c section.

The room came alive with activity.  Nurses flooded in, I was shaved, I was prepped, I was asked if I had an advance directive.  Seth changed into scrubs.  All the while I couldn’t stop shaking or sobbing.

They wheeled me into the operating room and I was surrounded, 3 anesthesiologists, my doctor and 2 resident surgeons, 3 NICU pediatricians, and a cadre of nurses.  Everything moved really fast and I couldn’t stop crying and shaking. I was a mess.  Everyone kept asking me if I was ok and I kept saying, “I’m really freaked out.” I was worried about Moses, but also about me.  I just kept thinking about my dead mom.  And how I was going to be dead soon too.  Then I started to puke.  The anesthesiologist was so nice, he held a barf tray by my head and told me everything was going to be ok, that his wife had had two c sections, and finally Seth came in and I kept crying and shaking.  And they did the touch test to see if I could feel anything and finally they started the surgery.  I felt some pushing and tugging, but nothing like I had imagined.  It wasn’t really that bad, and finally I heard my doctor say, “Oh, he’s really cute!” They told Seth to get his camera ready and he took some shots.  Shots that I can’t look at because you can see some of my gore (I think, I can only look at them through my fingers over my eyes).  And they whisked him over to the peds and began assessing him.  “Oh! He has dimples!” was the next thing I heard.  Then one of the doctors came over to me and began to tell me that they were a little concerned about his breathing and that there were going to take him to the nursery, run some tests and monitor him for a bit to make sure there wasn’t any meconium in his lungs.  They let me look at him once before they took him away.  Seth went with him.  And I was alone on the table with doctors examining my guts.  It seemed like things were taking a long time and I started to cry again.  I whimpered out, “Is everything ok?”  My doctor said everything’s ok, we’re closing up now.

And what seemed like hours later, and is a total blur now I was closed up and wheeled into recovery.

It wasn’t the birth I had imagined.  But I’m not traumatized because I didn’t plan for a c section, I felt traumatized (the feeling has lessened quite a bit now) because I felt so helpless and out of control.  I felt like I wasn’t doing anything right.  I felt like I wasn’t enough to bring him here without a serious medical intervention.  I know all of those feelings are silly and get a person nowhere, but there you go, I felt them.

My hospital stay was less than stellar for my recovery, more fear, more uncertainty about my own health.  But I’ve been home now for a little over a week and I’m starting to feel the edges of normal.

Yesterday, I had to brave the mall to find some pants that fit over my strangely large thighs and hips.  I was looking at a long sleeved shirt and the sales girl (I’m not being pejorative, she was like 12) asked me what size I needed.  I said, “Probably a large.”  She squinted, and said, “Really, because I was going to say a small.”  I almost took her home and made her my child bride.  But instead I blurted out, “I’m pregnant, so this [motion to my stomach area] situation is going to get bigger.”  And as soon as I said it I thought I had cursed myself.  She sent me upstairs to maternity, cleverly located behind miles and miles of adorably sparkly holiday clothes for children. I stood around feeling like a fraud, and hoping I wouldn’t have to return my first maternity shirt the next day.

This morning we got our favorite ultrasound tech.  She doesn’t do the monitoring appointments, only the OB appointments, so it was like we had already graduated by getting her.  She positioned the wand and said, “There it is! And there’s the heartbeat,” and she turned on the sound and woah.  That thing is really speeding along.  And like I said in my tweet after the appointment, it made my heart stop.

I pulled on my pants (the last pair of my fattest pants that I think are too tight now to wear) and high fived Seth.  I do not high five.  This is not a thing I do.

We met with our doctor and he told me this was it.  I’m graduating.  He said, “Now you’re just like every other pregnant person.  Not high risk.  Just pregnant.”  He walked us out to the nurses station and we shook hands and I swear to god you guys, I think he was tearing up.  I know I was, and Seth definitely was, but yeah.  We did it.  I hugged my favorite nurse (twice! I don’t hug people, you guys!) and we were on our way.

So, this is what it feels like to have a little bit of hope.  It’s weird. I hope it lasts.

So we waited about 45 minutes to get into ultrasound this morning.  I think anything that isn’t just an IVF monitoring appointment is guaranteed to be late at this office.

I thought it was a bad sign that they put us in the ultrasound room where we learned there was no heartbeat last time. But instead of flipping out about it, I quietly hoped that our luck had changed.

The ultrasound tech told us it would be very unlikely to see a heartbeat this early (I’m either 5w6d or 6w, I have no idea how they figure it out with IVF, because my doctor insists I’m 6weeks and I insist I’m 5w6d) and that they would just be checking to make sure the embryo and yolk sac were in the right place.

It took her a while to find something, I think she got a little distracted by the giantitude of my ovaries, but she finally focused in on a black blob with a little crescent in the center and pointed out what it was. Embryo? Yolk sac? The beginnings of a fetal pole? I was too busy freaking out that we were in the bad news room.

She had the doctor come in and she showed him what she saw and they moved the wand around and he said, “Yeah, and there, I think there is maybe a flicker of a heartbeat.” Maybe a flicker? The beginnings of something?

I got dressed and we sat in his office.  He was very calm and told me that everything looked good for this stage and that I should come back in a week. He thinks my vitamins might be causing the itching, but the hormone levels also could be to blame. So, I’m off the vitamins for the moment.

Maybe a flicker of a heartbeat would have been far more comforting if I had never had a miscarriage before. So, I remain unsure of the viability of this pregnancy.

I had to go into the world today and interact with people other than grocery clerks, medical professionals and mailmen.  It was not so easy to find an outfit to cover my new (and now another pound up again) girth, but I managed.  As it turns out, when I wasn’t wearing jeans, I was wearing really comfortable dresses that made me look like I was hiding a pregnancy, so my wardrobe is pretty much set!

I’m trying to figure out what is causing the mid-afternoon heartburn and I cannot figure it out.  I blame not being able to eat the potato knishes currently waiting for me in the fridge.  I want them, I really WANT them. But I am not eating them because then my protein will be all out of whack. I guess. I don’t really know how this works, surprisingly enough.  All I was told was to eat a lot of protein, but there were never any “don’t eat any carbs” instructions, but I figure that must be the implied suggestion here, right?

The good news is my ear drum has healed really nicely and my ear infection is really mild, so with drops and antibiotics I seem to be on the mend there.  That and last night I slept upright and didn’t have a horrible back ache in the morning!  My body can adapt!

So, first things first, I’m pregnant!

Ok, phew, that’s out of the way.  Let’s get to how I got here.

On Thursday, I started feeling pretty crappy, bloated, short of breath, and my ear which had been bothering me for about a week was starting to worry me.  Yeah, the ear I got a new ear drum in. So, I called my ear doctor and couldn’t get in until November 1. And I called my GP, was able to get right in, and began to play phone tag with my fertility doctor, the doctor I really wanted to see because I was getting worried about the increasing size of my stomach.  It basically looks like I swallowed a pillow.

There was a lot of phone tag and finally while I was sitting in my GP’s office my fertility doctor called and told me to come over as soon as I was done there.  Thankfully, they are right around the corner from each other. My GP listened to my lungs and didn’t hear any signs of pneumonia and talked to my fertility doctor on the phone and blah, blah, diagnosis stuff.

So I finally waddled into my fertility doctor’s office and the only person left to take my blood was the lab manager, the guy that usually handles the sperm and he took one look at my stomach and was like, “WOAH.”  I was like, “It’s not me! It’s water!” and he was like, “No kidding, lady, we might have to drain you.”  Which, ew.

After getting jabbed, I had an ultrasound, the kind where they put goop on your stomach and press really hard on your painfully bloated belly and take pictures of your fluid engorged organs. And tell you to hold your breath.  Your short breath.

By this point I’m getting a little freaked out about the possibility of a gigantic needle being put in my stomach and drawing out fluid, because seriously, as often as I get blood drawn and have injected myself with medication, big needles freak me the fuck out.

I was called back into another exam room and my doctor, who I think I’ve never mentioned before wears denim scrubs…, took a look at me and was like, “You look uncomfortable.”  He explained that this sort of thing usually happens when you get as many eggs as I had, but generally immediately after retrieval, not like 8 days later.  And then he casually mentions, usually this means you’re pregnant.  I was like, yeah, sure, I’m sure that I’m the rare exception to this rule and not actually pregnant just look like I’m close to full term.

He left the room for my labs and came back with a pregnancy test - PREGNANT.

I had another appointment this morning, they looked at my fluid-y organs again, and did more blood work.  I got the results back, and the numbers are good according to the doctor.

Now, more waiting while we see if I stay pregnant.  If you recall, I’ve been this amount of pregnant before.

For the past two weeks I’ve been on birth control to stabilize and sync up my ovaries in preparation for IVF.  This morning I had an ultrasound (Helen says my lining is good and it looks like I’ll make a lot of follicles!) and this afternoon I got the call from my favorite nurse saying I’ll start Lupron tomorrow.  Lupron is given as a subcutaneous injection once a day and it stops the natural production of LH (Luteinizing Hormone) which signals the ovaries to ovulate, this way my cycle will be controlled by outside forces only. After five days or so, I’ll start stimulating hormones that will make my ovaries produce a lot of extra eggs (we hope), and about 12 days after that, I’ll have a small surgical procedure where they’ll extract all those eggs, fertilize them in a dish and 5 days after that, put one back in and hope for the best. I’m exhausted just thinking about all the worrying I’m going to be doing.

I’ve been reading a lot of blogs, studying literature on IVF, and basically becoming a human encyclopedia of all that can and will go on with my body.  I’ve also started a paper diary of the process, it reads about as dry as one would expect, “Woke up at 6:30am, took the dog for a walk, ate a turkey sandwich” etc. I’m just trying to keep an accurate record of what I’m eating and doing and thinking and feeling during this time in case we have to do this again.  That way I’ll have something to compare to for the next cycle.  (Heaven help us and money find us if there is a next cycle.)

We’re staying with my mother-in-law this week because she can’t live on her own and my sister-in-law is on a much needed vacation.  It’s basically a glorified dog walker position, in which I walk her bitchy poodle and watch Law & Order marathons with her. I’m doing my best to not be a pain in the ass, but pretty much everyone is a pain in the ass to my mother-in-law, so I’m also doing my best to not stress about being a pain in the ass.

I’m also unemployed at the moment, dutifully looking for work while I wonder about what the next show will be like.  Freelancing, not my favorite thing.

So, in an effort to, ugh, I hate even typing these words because it seems so dorky, prepare my body for pregnancy, I’ve stopped dieting, and um, that has caused a bit of weight gain.  It appears that, to me, not dieting means eating everything in sight, which includes booze, which isn’t exactly preparing my body for pregnancy, now is it?

I have a few confessions, now.  Maybe they’re more like excuses.  Maybe you’ll judge me and think I’m a crazy anorexic who needs to go back to therapy, maybe you’ll think I’m over-reacting, maybe you’ll nod your head in recognition, maybe you won’t understand, I have to get it out so I can figure out why I am so unhappy with my body most of the time.

I am twelve pounds heavier than I was last year at this time.  I know this because I write my weight down every day in a little moleskin notebook.  Seriously.  I’ve been doing it for years.  Last year at this time I was the lightest I’ve been since high school.  If you haven’t been reading me for very long, you don’t know this, but in high school, I was using meth.  So, last year, I was as skinny as I was when I was using meth.  How did I get so skinny?  I was working out like a crazy person, eating next to nothing, using Adderall (and other various and sundry prescription drugs that weren’t prescribed to me) to help starve myself, having major mid-cycle bleeding, taking way too much xanax, trying to get a prescription for pain pills because I was in agony all the time, crying a lot, and not sleeping.  I was generally not good.

Why?  Because I have a disease.  It might not be as bad as you’d see in an episode of Intervention, but I do have an eating disorder.  I also have an anxiety disorder.  I also have depression.  Also, I’m OK right now.  In remission.

I feel better now.  I’d rather it not be 12 pounds that did that, but hey, not being a drug user and an insomniac have their price.  I think I’m at the top of the weight range that feels good to me, the low end would be five pounds less than this, after that, I need to take drugs, exercise too much and not eat.  Who needs it?

My mom told me I looked “healthy” over the holidays, I was too scared to ask her if that meant I looked fat or thin.  Then my sister’s mother-in-law told me my face looked very round in my Christmas photo, but in real life it looked narrower, or vice versa, her English isn’t perfect.

Over Christmas, I started to feel my pants getting tighter and my shirts didn’t fall gracefully over my flat stomach.  There appeared to be a new bulge here and there and instead of freaking out about it and not eating anything but salads with low fat dressing (gag, I never want to eat another salad with low fat dressing again in my life, ever) I named my new belly the toad.  The toad is a small sized thing, but she is there.

You might think this is negative body talk, and it would be if you don’t like toads.  I happen to have a frog tattooed on my ankle.  I used to catch toads in my back yard when I was a kid.  Frog and Toad are Friends was one of my favorite books as a kid.  I like amphibians.  They’re part of my spirit menagerie.  Some people have a spirit animal, I have a menagerie.

I am taking it easy on the strenuous exercise because of the connection I see with my mid-cycle bleeding.  I’m also taking it easy on the chocolate and wine.  I am not dieting.  I am eating normal portions and drinking lots of water.  The toad seems happy where she is, she doesn’t have anywhere to be at the moment so she’s sticking around.   The toad and I knew each other before, but back then she was the enemy, and I was ashamed of her.  I covered her with baggy flannels (ah, the 90s!) and high waisted jeans.  Now I’m just wearing what I usually do and hoping my circulation isn’t too terribly cut off.  I’m fine.  The toad seems fine.

I figure if I get pregnant (IUI this cycle, my expectations are not high, just hoping for the best, not expecting too much, the usual) the toad will fill out and carry a tadpole, but for now, I’m just trying to get enough movement in my day so the toad stays at her relative size.  Mostly I don’t want to have to go jeans shopping.  It is hell, and I don’t want to do it.  I don’t care if that makes me “a Cathy.” Ack, I say.  ACK, ACK, ACK!

So anyway, this might very well be the year of the toad.  You will see me and notice I’m not as skinny as I was last year.  Maybe you’ll think I’m slipping.  Maybe you’ll think I look better.  Maybe you won’t notice because we’ll just hang out and laugh and sing karaoke.  Maybe I’ll stay in remission.  Maybe I won’t.  Maybe I’ll get pregnant.  Maybe I won’t.  There are no guarantees.  Let’s just take it one day at a time, shall we?

Also, do me a favor, if you comment, let’s all try to be gentle with me.  Remember, I have brain chemical problems that aren’t being medicated with anything but love right now.  Love and the occasional cookie.

I wouldn’t necessarily say I’m having “trouble” getting pregnant.  I mean, I’m not pregnant, but it’s not really that much trouble.  And for some reason I get really irritable when I have to say, “I’m trying to get pregnant.”  Because that makes me feel like a failure.  There is no try, damnit!  Do or do not!  So when my friend told me I should do acupuncture and that she has a really great person, I was like, ok….  Skeptical glasses going on.

I called the acupuncturist a couple of months ago, and we traded phone messages, but I never actually booked an appointment.  So when old Aunt Flo showed up this month, I was like, fine, I’ll do your magic, lady!  I’ll puncture my soul to bring forth good baby mojo. Bring it!

Which is not what I said to the acupuncturist.  She asked why I wanted to try acupuncture, and I told her, begrudgingly, “I’m trying to get pregnant.” I booked my appointment.  Filled out a long questionnaire that had a lot of questions about the color, density and frequency of my stool, my vaginal discharge (oh mercy) and my stress levels.  Anger, check!  Depression, check!  Anxiety, check, check, check!  And fearfulness, check baby, check baby, one two!

When I got to her office, I was sort of bedraggled and tired.  I laid down on the treatment table, told her about my sex life and my mood swings and she told me a few things about diet and my exercise regime (no more Shredding for me!  yay! I still get to jog, though, so not completely off the exercise hook) and she said that from what she saw on my questionnaire and provided my gyno will do a little blood work and a fallopian tube procedure to rule out anything hormonal or mechanical, my stress levels are probably the most detrimental thing to my fertility.  That and the fact that I have an old husband.

Then she told me I had to quit drinking coffee.  Hmmm.  I might have felt all of these emotions at that moment - rage, anxiety, depression, fearfulness.  Coffee and the occasional margarita are my only vices! I am squeaky clean, lady, don’t take away my coffee!  She smiled and said, “I know, it’s very delicious, I drink it myself.  But I have 2 children at home, so I am allowed.”  Bitch.

Then we got to the low acid diet, and the herb and vitamin regime and I was like, enough!  I get it, I get to have no joy in my life, just poke me with the needles already! And she did.  She poked me with what she called the “tiny baby needles.”  And the only one that hurt was the one on the right side of my stomach.  Sort of a pinching from the inside kind of hurt.  It was unpleasant and weird but not terrible.  Then she poked my head, told me to close my eyes, relax and breath.  And she left the room.

I don’t meditate.  I cannot relax when there is hippy dippy music playing.  My feet were freezing.  The sun was peaking in from the window at the top of the room at that annoying brightness level that isn’t too bright but is still bright enough and all I could think about is how I wished I could put something over my face.  I tried to adjust my body position and felt like the needles were ripping my guts out.  It was the opposite of relaxing for me.  But I laid there, counting down from 100 - the only way I know how to quiet my mind and my lady finally came back in.  She smiled and asked me how I felt.  I was like, oh lady, you have no idea what you’re in for with me.  “Not relaxed?”  Dude, so not relaxed.   She said, “Well, it’s a process.  We’ll get there.”  I was like, ok… If you say so.

The rest of the day I felt like a complete bumbling mess.  I dropped my computer bag in the nurses office while getting my blood work.  Like from waist height, just dropped it.  I tripped and threw all of my paperwork down while getting out of the elevator and then dropped my sunglasses and my keys trying to pick it all up.  When I got home, I couldn’t stop jabbering and Seth was like, uh, what happened to you, you’re a manic mess.  And I was like, I have all these herbs and I can’t drink coffee and you need to get your sperm tested!

I am still pretty manic today, but that might be the three green teas I’ve had.   I almost just wrote as a final sentence, I LOVE YOU!  But that would be weird, so, let’s just close this with, hey, yoga meditation people, how do you do it?!

It’s Friday the 13th, I almost stepped on a rat on the way to the City Hall, and as it turns out City Hall and The Courthouse aren’t the same thing!  But, as my muppet friends will tell you, somebody’s getting married!

I’m not a strong swimmer.  I tell people I can’t swim, when really I mean I can’t put my face in the water and swim a regular stroke that makes me look like I know what I’m doing, not like some crazy person flailing around in the water.  When one of my friends e-mailed me and a group of work friends that she wanted to sign up for the Malibu Triathlon in September as a relay team, I told her to sign me up, as long as I didn’t have to do the swimming part.

She e-mailed back that night saying there were no team spots available anymore, but if we still wanted to do it we could sign up individually through the Team CAF website.  The Challenged Athletes Foundation is an amazing non-profit organization that helps athletes without limbs, with physical disabilities and other injuries get the equipment and artificial limbs they need to return to the sports and activities they love. I signed up and hoped no one would donate so I wouldn’t have to swim in the scary ice cold Pacific in mid-September.

On Saturday night we got a phone call from Seth’s mom.  His dad fell and was taken to the hospital with a broken hip.  He had surgery on Monday morning and by Tuesday we were all sure something was going on.  Either he had completely given up and was prepared to stay in his hospital bed until the inevitable end or… we didn’t know what.  They took him for an MRI and discovered he had a stroke.  They aren’t sure when.  They know it wasn’t during the surgery, they suspect it’s what caused his fall, but it could have been the night after the surgery.  They know that it was minor and that part of his frontal lobe was affected, but that his recovery should be full.  No motor skills were affected, no language or cognitive areas were affected, he just feels really sad.  I would too if I was stuck in a hospital being told part of my brain was dead.

I signed up to do the triathlon, and agreed to raise $500 for the CAF foundation so I could participate in the race.  I can’t really swim, I haven’t been running lately, and my fear of biking in Los Angeles has me taking leisurely bike rides on quiet Sunday afternoons, but that hasn’t stopped me from being a complete moron and signing up for the triathlon.  Thank god my friend is doing this as well, because if I drown in the ocean all by myself I’ll be really pissed off.  But most of all, I know that if I don’t keep being active, if I don’t continue to use this meat machine I’ve been given by a higher power or a magic man with a beard or a chance firing of proteins coming together, I’ll be really pissed off someday laying in a hospital bed wondering why I never got off my ass and learned to do a stupid breast stroke.

You can donate to my efforts if you see fit by visiting my donor page - click here.  Or if you can only afford to cheer me on with your moral support I’d like that too.  If you live in the Los Angeles area and want to come see me on the day of the race, (September 12th, 2010) if for no other reason than to see my ass in padded bike shorts and a wet suit which is bound to be comedic, I would absolutely adore that.  I’ll keep you posted on my efforts.