Catch-up of Doom 4: Real Life 1: Health stuff
Felix got his first wasp sting today. Not even outside, but in the house - a wasp had flown in through the open window and sat on the floor. Felix saw it, bent down to pick it up, and before I'd even finished my "No! Don't touch!", he was crying and throwing the wasp away. To be fair (to the wasp), he had quite badly squished it, so it was self-defense, really.
Still, poor little fellow was howling in pain and alarm. I picked him up and explained that we'd best put his hand under cold running water so the pain would get better, which he clearly understood, because as I turned on the tap he was already holding out thumb and forefinger and he continued to hold them into the water (instead of turning the tap back off as he usually does). At first, his thumb looked red and was swelling, which had me rather nervous because what if he'd turned out to be properly allergic (the way my mom and grandmother are)? Cue horror scenarios of trying to describe the way down here to the ambulance while making sure that Felix holds on until they arrive!
But luckily, under the cold water, the swelling not only stopped but actually receded. Felix was still crying, so I resorted to singing, and later I suggested that in the future, if he saw a wasp, he could tell me but not try to pick it up again.
He agreed, and a bit later (with his thumb and forefinger only a little bit red) he explained, very seriously: Wespe hat Stachel. Kann pieken. Dann ruft Felix Aua Aua Aua Aua! ("Wasp has a stinger. Can sting. Then Felix cries Ow Ow Ow Ow!")
So he definitely grasped the connection... now let's hope this is the kind of mistake he only makes once.
(By now, his hand looks entirely normal again.)
That wasn't actually what I meant to talk about, but as it just happened a few hours ago, it was sort of a convenient starting point to ease into what I was actually meaning to say.
Two months ago, I received a letter from the hospital, concerning the next date for the burial of the Sternenkinder, which is a euphemism for the results of pregnancies that don't end in a living baby (literally, it means "star children"; you may think of that what you will). The hospital has rented a patch on one of the local cemeteries and organises an actual funeral service every three months. There's only a collective tombstone, no names, but it's a place to go for mourning, which presumably helps because that's the way many humans spin. Now, as you may remember, there was nothing to actually bury in my case, but because it certainly felt like a real dead baby at the time, I had asked to receive the notification nonetheless.
At the time, it was the right decision.
I did not attend the ceremony, though.
Several reasons for that.
The first was that I'm basically over it, unless I actively have to think of it. Like, it's no longer hovering in my thoughts and weighing me down and stuff. However, when I got the letter, I did cry. I am crying now as I'm typing these lines. And I am very, very afraid that it might happen again. But I no longer start trembling and crying (yowling, to be honest) randomly. And I no longer feel like I need to say goodbye to an actual person that I lost.
I was also afraid of another break-down and another month of random crying bouts.
And above all, I was afraid of mingling with women who actually had carried a baby that didn't make it, with people who'd really lost someone. I would have felt like an impostor, an intruder upon their grief; and as, to be quite honest, stories about Bad Things Happening To Children Or Even Not-Yet-Children are terribly "triggering" at the moment, so going to a place and event where that sort of story would have been inevitable and real OH GOD... nope. Definitely not.
So. I didn't go. And I feel OK about that.
So I guess that is that.
What is hovering in my thoughts and weighing me down and stuff is the fact that a week after the abrasion, the gynaecologist discovered a myoma in my uterus. Naturally, that's a big old heap (or lump, as the case may be) of DO NOT WANT.
Now, myomata are benign. And extremely common, apparently, and only in very few cases do they actually cause problems or turn into something malign. (But of course, numbers like "only in 3% of cases" are not reassuring at all, considering that hydatitiform moles only happen to one woman in a fucking thousand and I was that one woman...)
It's not making me break down and cry. (It's not a person, real or imaginary, after all.) It's just at the back of my mind. But it does make me loose my sleep on occasion.
And it does make me look at the future with even more apprehension than I'd be feeling, anyway.
Yeah.
In that light, the fact that my period is ten days overdue is filling me with mixed feelings. I know now that one of them piss-on pregnancy tests is not necessarily going to be clear because of the goddamn myoma ARGH. So a visit to the gyn is definitely in order. But I'm afraid of the outcome, of course. Any outcome, right now. Right now, Just Not Knowing seems a lot more attractive. I guess I'll try to get an appointment next week. Unless my gyn is on vacation.
I would like to be cautiously optimistic, but right now, I'm just biting my nails. (Figuratively.)
The one good thing that's come out of the mole issue is that I no longer see any point in sticking to the twelve-week rule. Either all goes well, in which case they'll just know a bit sooner than usual; or it doesn't, in which case I sure as heck want them to know why I'm feeling down, acting thin-skinned, and the like. I won't be able to hide it, anyway...
Right. That's it. Thank you for reading (or skipping, that's OK too). Normal inanity will be back any minute now, I'm sure.