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All posts for the month January, 2018

Even Netflix isn’t safe

Published January 3, 2018 by Malia

Have you noticed the new thing Netflix is doing? When I pick something to watch, they’ve started running previews for other things that I could be watching. I can, and do, skip the preview but they still start the preview before I actually get to start the thing that I picked.

Now, I understand the thinking behind this marketing. They want to make me aware of these other programs that they have, ones that I may not know about. But, I have a really hard time making decisions and if Netflix would just check their data, they’d see I spend way more time digging through their offerings trying to pick something, than I actually spend watching anything. So, these little previews that come up as soon as I’ve made my decision are almost like Netflix is saying, “Yeah, we don’t think you made a good choice. Here, watch Dave Chapelle instead.”

Because this is such a new thing, I keep forgetting that I’m going to have a preview come up. So, I’ll make my selection, and then am confused and surprised (and not the good kind of surprised, it’s more of a, “This really doesn’t look like Fuller House. Did I select the wrong thing? Why can’t I operate a remote correctly??? THE SKY IS FALLING!!!” panicked surprise) when something else starts playing. It’s not until I notice the little box in the lower corner of the screen with my show in it that I realize I’m watching a preview.

So, yeah, it’s very much a first world problem, but I swear Netflix has figured out how to make my constant indecision even worse.

You take the good, you take the bad…

Published January 2, 2018 by Malia

When we driving home from my in-laws on Christmas Eve I had this thought enter my brain, “Next year, there might be three of us.”  And for the next 48 hours I was in a pretty happy, pretty hopeful place.

No, I’m not pregnant.  I didn’t think I was.  But, there was this smidgen (and boy ,do I mean smidgen) of a chance, that in the next year I might be.

So here’s the deal, last Wednesday, I was supposed to have a surgery.  My doctor was going to shrink my stupid giant ovaries down to normal size by cutting wedges out of them.  There was no guarantee, but there was this chance that it’d undo a lot of my PCOS mess.  There was a chance that I’d actually be able to make some progress on the weight loss front.  There was even a chance that it’d make me a little less insulin resistant.  There was a chance it’d make the mystery pain go away, and that it would lessen my mood swings.  And…there was this chance that I could get pregnant and stay pregnant.  I was so excited.  I was weirdly calm.  I think I was so desperate for just one of those many things to be a little bit better that it outweighed the anxiety and fear I was also experiencing.

And then I went to my pre-op last Tuesday…

Picture it…9 a.m. the day after Christmas.  I got to my appointment, and things promptly went downhill.  My first warning sign came when I was going through my paperwork, verifying that they had my info correct, and noticed that they had down the doctor from my work’s employee health clinic down as my primary doctor (she’s nice and I have seen her in the last year, but she’s not my primary doctor, or even my ob-gyn).  I pointed this out, and the receptionist told me that she wasn’t able to change that, and that someone in the surgery center would need to fix it on the day of my surgery.  I remember feeling confused as to why she’d asked me to check to make sure everything was correct if she couldn’t actually change any of it.

I then got taken into the exam room.  Both the nurse and the anesthesiologist were either really annoyed they had to work the day after Christmas, or were super hungover, or both.  I just know that they were both in bad moods, and every time I tried to be even a little funny I got death glares from both parties.  First, the anesthesiologist was upset with me because of my diabetes and my difficulty keeping my blood sugars down.  Then, she was annoyed that I’m overweight.  To make it a trifecta, I frustrated her because I snore so I must have sleep apnea and I really need to be getting that treated.  I should probably be undergoing a sleep study (at least, according to her).  If I hadn’t been stressed and anxious before, I was at that point.  A great way to feel the day before surgery.  More than once the anesthesiologist informed me that I was ONLY having an elective procedure and I really wasn’t in any condition to have any elective procedure.  I kept thinking, “I’m not here for bigger boobs.  You know those things that you’re really frustrated and annoyed with me about?  This is a procedure that could actually make those things better.”

They drew my blood.  The anesthesiologist gave me many print outs (all about the health problems that she had concerns about), gave me another lecture about how I really shouldn’t be having an elective procedure, and I went home, my calm now tinged with a small amount of dread.

That evening, I was about to go flush out my system (yeah, that’s as nasty as it sounds), and I got a phone call.  From my doctor.  And it started with her saying, “I’m so sorry, I was so sad when I heard about tomorrow.  I was really looking forward to seeing you.”  (I should mention here that my doctor is a beautiful, kind, sweet woman who genuinely gives a crap and actually listens to me and I kind of love her.)

To which I replied, “What about tomorrow?”  Dread amount was no longer in the small category.

“Didn’t the hospital call you?  They said they called you.”

“No, they didn’t call me.”

Turns out that blood draw (the one that a week later I still have a bruise from), sent a result back that the anesthesiologist didn’t like.  And just like that, my surgery was cancelled.  The hospital called my doctor  while she was performing someone else’s surgery, and left her a message regarding the cancellation.  They gave me no chance to redo the tests, or to fight to stay on the schedule.

I felt like I’d been kicked in the gut.  The sliver of hope that maybe, just maybe something was finally going to get fixed in my body, was gone, at least for now.  I cried all that night.  I cried the better part of surgery day.  And then, I think my body just ran out of tears.  It’s now been a week, and I’m still hanging in there.  I’m disappointed that I have to shelve the surgery for now.  However, it’s not like it’ll never happen, and even if it doesn’t, it’s not the end of the world.  I have an amazing husband, adorable pets, precious nephews and a niece, and a collection of graphic novels that should keep me entertained for the next two years (possibly more, it’s amazing how cheap you can get them on Ebay.  The boy need not know how much I’m adding to our already large collection…).

And for now, I’m going to refuse to give up hoping that someday, in the future, I’m going to be a better, healthier me.

Dear 2018, I refuse to make a pile of resolutions I’m just going to break in a day. So, let’s just promise to be kind to each other. Okay?

Published January 1, 2018 by Malia

I have been standing in my kitchen, washing dishes for the last 20 minutes, thinking about what I could say as we head into 2018.  Did I come up with anything wise?  Well, if you think that, “at least it’s easy to turn a 7 into an 8, so when I write 2017 on everything for the next two weeks and have to change it, it won’t be that difficult,” is wise, then sure, I’m super wise.

Actually, I’m feeling grateful.  Things were bad a year ago.  The boy was working a nightmare job.  His only income was commission based, and he worked 12-14 hours every day, 7 days a week.  To make matters worse, he rarely had sales, so more than once we went an entire month with him not having a paycheck.  Our bank account more frequently had a number that was red with a little minus in front of it, than it had a number in black.  It didn’t help that I had this constant mystery pain on the left side of my abdomen that no one could give me an answer about.  The worse things got, the more frozen in depression and anxiety I got.  I got to the point I was having trouble functioning as a human.    Things were bad, and dark, and I spent most of my time feeling completely and utterly hopeless.

Now, it’s January 1, 2018, and the boy no longer works the job from hell.  Our bank account, while not super healthy, hasn’t had bright red minus numbers in months.  I still have my mystery pain, but hey, two out of three bad things aren’t bad anymore.

So, here’s to 2018.  Here’s to starting a year with a bit of hope and a lot less fear.