Whimsically Crazy

Just to close this whole sock saga for good, I returned them to the store today. I realized it must have been a small miracle that there was actually someone to check me out when I bought them in the first place, which let me temporarily forget that Macy’s is also the store I began to hate because there is never anyone to help you – and I mean when buying. I remember once I got so frustrated I wanted to walk out the front door, clothes in hand, so that when the alarm went off I could say, “I wanted to buy these, but nobody would take my money.”

So I went to the empty hosiery department thinking I should return to the same place I bought them. Paced a while with that ‘I’m looking for someone to help me’ look, then when I gave up on that I wandered around the store finding five more empty departments before I went back to mine. Settled in for a wait, leaning on the desk with backpack on floor, for five minutes (I timed it with my phone), occasionally glaring at the security cameras because someone must see what’s going on in their store. Finally I set out again and managed to get in line behind someone else who was returning things, someone who must have found the secret key to summoning an employee.

I didn’t let myself browse the store afterwards, lest I get tempted by something else that no one would let me buy.

Selina, Michael, and I have joined up to get in shape, lose weight, and keep each other accountable. A sort of late New Years resolution. A sort of I Want To Look Good Pregnant (oh, and be healthy too) resolution for me. (Actually I hate the concept of New Years resolutions and there’s no reason you can’t decide to make a change for the better at the end of February.)

Being in the mall meant resisting an Auntie Anne’s pretzel, chocolate and banana-filled crepe, bubble tea, and an easy takeout dinner from the food court, even though I was suddenly starving when I hit the parking lot. I have to remind myself it’s okay to be hungry. Also eating a 340 calorie pretzel won’t mean I’ll eat that much less for dinner. Meanwhile the bakery is going to be my downfall. I made crack brownies last night, so good that I’d keep eating them even if I was standing on the scale while doing so.

I learned today that you should not go to a place like Macy’s to look at socks. That leads to a moment of ‘I’m spending HOW MUCH?’ at the cash register, and too much embarrassment to admit it’s a little out of the budget for foot coverings and tell the cashier you changed your mind. The same goes for thoughts of returning them. “Oh there’s nothing wrong with them. They just didn’t match my… feet.” I mean people don’t shop at Macy’s if they have to worry about their sock budget.

I’ve even thought of asking Andrew to help me out and return them. He could pretend he’s in an old TV show and make up a story about how his wife went overboard on the shopping and…

Okay that’s not exactly made up is it?

The other thing that popped into my head that first night, haunting me from the back of the closet, was my boxes of unsorted photos. I have a lot of pictures, mostly because I needed a digital camera before its time. I liked to take artistic shots wandering the city, and used entire rolls of film on things like street signs, or the produce department in QFC. (The funny thing is every boyfriend I’ve had here has indulged this for me, understanding when I have to stop to take a picture of the walk signal or the different bathroom signs in every Disneyland area.)

I pulled out the boxes when I got home. First I threw out all of the negatives, because when have I ever used old negatives? I got rid of most of the individual folders and undid what I thought was organizing years ago when I put some into unbound photo pages. In the end I was content that they all fit neatly into a single shoebox, without worrying about any kind of order, which I can throw back into the closet and forget about again.

Then Andrew walked in while I was filling up a laundry basket with the contents of my sock drawer.

“Socks?” he asked.

“Yep.”

“Holey socks?”

“ALL of the socks!”

“It’s okay, I’ve dated someone who’s OCD, you’re not that bad.”

Now that the sock thing has been resolved, and I’ve said the word ‘socks’ so many times it’s starting to succumb to semantic satiation, it feels rather anti-climatic. Maybe it would feel like more of an accomplishment if I could actually get all of my clothes put away at the same time. Already I’m showing what a horrible mother I’ll be – I live out of my laundry baskets for weeks at a time, and how am I going to convince a child to make their bed when I myself never got an acceptable answer to the question of “Why? You’re just going to sleep in it again.”

My interpretation of the pregnancy drug categories:

Class A: Perfectly safe. Yeah right, no one’s going to take the liability to so much as say water is safe during pregnancy. So hydrate yourself in moderation, just in case. Don’t want to risk that fetus floating away.

Class B: Pretty safe. This is as good as it gets as far as drug categories go. Tylenol is a class B so if you trust Tylenol then go for it. However if your child ends up with a birth defect, even from the bad luck of ending up on probability’s bad side, don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Class C: Not really tested so we’re going to assume it’s bad, but not tell you not to take it either. “Take only if needed,” but without any guidance on “needed” (needed for life? needed for quality of life?) I think it comes down to, ‘Are you willing to tell your future child, “I’m sorry you fail at life because I couldn’t give up my _______.”?’

Class D: Not safe but necessary if you’re one of those selfish people (like me) who insists on procreating despite all of the bad genes you’re obviously passing on.

Class X: Contraindicated, a fancy word for saying, “Don’t even think about it.” Also a paradox in the making with a government that wants to outlaw both abortion and birth control. I guess if they outlaw acne medication next we’ll be okay. “God wanted you to have bad skin!”

The new gastroenterological patient, upon hearing words like ‘rectal meds’, breaths a big sigh of relief when the doctor says she doesn’t think those will be necessary.

The experienced IBD patient (Ulcerative Colitis in my case) who has gone months and months without any improvement is willing to say “I’ll stick anything wherever you want, as long as it helps.”

And that is the story of how I ended up with a scarily large box of medicinal enemas in the bathroom cupboard.

These aren’t the kind of enemas you’d buy at the drug store by the way, which is what most people (including myself in the past) would think of.  They’re meant to be used before bed and the medicine absorbs overnight.  They’re not horrible if you can keep a sense of humor about the situation. But since I got to near remission without using them for a while I’m hoping I can keep ignoring them in the future.  It’s not actually the sticking what/where that I have an issue with, but how I seem to feel it rumbling around the next day, until the leftovers find their way back out, which in my mind falls under causing the same problems it’s supposed to fix.

So I’ve been going around the apartment looking for all of my drugs, things like prescription face wash for my rosacea, to see what is and isn’t safe for pregnancy. I keep a newer, stronger one from the dermatologist (pregnancy class C) by the sink, and my old one in the shower so I didn’t waste it after it was replaced. I grabbed the shower bottle this morning to check what exactly it was and the label says Perrigo.

Wait that sounds familiar…

I checked the other bathroom and yep, it’s the same brand that makes my enemas.

I don’t think I wanted to make that connection.

I was originally going to start this blog on the same day I stop my meds – possibly with an illustrative picture of my empty birth control pack, but I hadn’t decided whether I should stop the pill at the same time to give my cycle time to reset, or use the next three-month pack as a convenient timer.  That was answered by the endometriosis specialist who told me to stay on them until I was ready.  (“That’s why you have to take it every day, it wears off so quickly.”)   But that’s just one piece of the information overload I received this week…

Starting over a bit, I just had the followup appointment after my laproscopy that was looking for endometriosis. I got pictures of my insides to keep, which is fascinating (my uterus looks so small!) except for the part he referred to as “bowel fat”. I wanted to say, “Couldn’t you have taken that out while you’re in there?” like a mini liposuction.

I found out that while I don’t actually have Von Willebrand’s, I do have some kind of platelet disorder because I bruised internally at the slightest touch.

I found out that I did have endometriosis, on my bladder and I forget where else but it wasn’t on the worst spots (ovaries and faliopian tubes) for fertility issues. Also two small fibroid tumors (‘tumor’ sounds scary but they’re benign’) and one larger one on my uterus. Everything was lasered away except the larger fibroid which he didn’t want to touch with my platelet issues.

However endometriosis grows back and he told me that I shouldn’t put off trying to get pregnant. At all. I got the feeling I should run out and get knocked up today if possible. Then he started talking about the success rates of various fertility treatments while my head was spinning – why is he acting like there’s a problem before I’ve even tried??

The rest of the day thoughts kept going through my head like, ‘I can’t get pregnant yet – I still have to start a blog and plan a sushi party!’

That night I was able to talk to Andrew and find out we’re still on the same page. I’m going to start my body’s three three month preparation later in March when he’s done with school.

It’s March. Suddenly this all feels very real…

But knowing I have a little bit of time to prepare for… preparing helped until I went to bed. Then suddenly the thought pops in my head, ‘I can’t get pregnant yet – I have socks with holes in them!’

I’m pretty sure that was my mind’s translation of ‘My life isn’t in 100% perfect order.’

However getting new socks now feels vitally important.