all the pain and the truth i wear like a battle wound
my fucking life update! content warning: infection update, breast imaging, grossness / dog bite, local politics & the french revolution, physical/emotional state: SPOILER ALERT: in the end, all's probs well.
So Monday Trav and I made up from the fight with the world's weirdest inciting incident, which seemed like it would not have gotten out of control if he and I weren't terribly terribly stressed.
Monday is also when I spoke with my GP, who put me back on a psychiatric class of drugs at roughly daily levels that I thought I'd left for emergencies only. Guess that's where we are: emergency meds. (Fucking daily benzos. FUCK.)
GP also told me he'd put in a referral to surgery and that I should go to urgent care because I may need IV antibiotics. Urgent care doc did NOT think I needed to be there and brusquely told me to go home, take some aleve for the pain, and HEAT the fuck out of the infection.
Heat causes swelling, and while my nipple still had sensation, that hurt. I'd done stints of heat but had previously not been able to tolerate the heating pad more than twice a week. 'Luckily' at this point I feel nothing but pressure, itching, and excruciating pain when applying direct pressure, so heat treatment is now possible. Felt chastised, cried during the appointment, then pissed by how cavalier and lacking in bedside manner the doc was (but recognizing he was probably right), I returned home and began applying heat. This seems to have finally begun to break the infection.
Then Tuesday, after we tried to relax for a couple hours and I scheduled a mammogram/ultrasound combo on Thursday, we went on a walk with Teyla. Then Trav went on a run alone, no Erika or our dog Teyla, where Trav got bitten by a dog! WtF, dogs, he loves you!
He didn't know the dog; basically he took a walking break, passing a house where the dog was in the yard, and then this miniature poodle came after him. Glancing blow because he didn't know the dog was there and was walking away, but the dog was really going for him and definitely broke the skin. Two decent size tooth marks, bruise the size of his knee, and of course we had to go to the Emergency Room and contact animal control.
Plus I got a great night of not sleeping until 3am as every time I closed my eyes, I saw him suffering terribly from 100% fatal rabies and here I had wasted days being angry at him for his reaction to my reaction about something he literally couldn't help.
(Fuck, I HATE IT when I really let my brain weasels out sometimes and then they go on a biting spree. Closest family gets attacked first, unless I fence them off entirely, and that SOMEHOW hurts people's feelings too. Then I have to apologize over and over again for fencing people off AND for having weasels in the first place, when I was given the weasels against my will as a child, did NOT agree to house the weasels forever and they also bite me WAY more than everyone else so that's kinda frustrating too because like, I'm not complaining even though I'm covered in weasel bites and this metaphor has officially gotten away from me.)
Wednesday we found out that the owners were very apologetic and all the dogs were registered with the county and regularly vaccinated. So really best case scenario.
We also rearranged the entire fucking kitchen for my new Aerogarden! It's not done because I still can't really be on my feet for longer than 20 minutes at a time, and Trav usually has to sit on me to get me to stop doing things so he's reluctant to let me start. (I am very frustrated about my health right now, plus I tend to ignore my limits at the best of times.)
Thursday I had a motherfucking mammogram AND a breast ultrasound. Hey! The infection's getting better, right, so the results were good? Hahahaha, you haven't been reading my journal very long.
For the left breast with the infection, yes! No liquid pockets means whenever my nipple starts playing along, I may actually be clear from this infection until it recurs next time.
When it recurs, they recommended I go to a surgeon immediately before starting antibiotics. That is what I fucking wanted to do, but last week they also said no non-essential surgeries and told me if I wasn't DYING from it, it could wait. Which it can! But it's shit to find out the surgeon's probably would've done it because they are bored AF right now.
Then I found out that the mammogram found 'something' at 8 o'clock in my right breast. Every characteristic the doctor named pointed towards a benign mass but apparently it 'bears watching' every 'six months' for 'a year or so'. I have no family history of breast cancer and no pain or abnormal discharge in my right breast so... yeah.
They also did not entertain my request to show me my scar tissue on the mammogram, which seemed RUDE. I WANT TO SEE. It's my giant fucking internal scar! Hmph.
Okay so now we're up to ... halfway through yesterday. I had a committee meeting, that went fine, it's public record so I'm not going to say anything that's not already out there. The Board of Supervisors re-appointed me for three years and the Advisory Board re-elected me as Vice Chair so that's cool.
So as it turns out, taxes are massively down. I mean, I knew this stuff, I knew we're headed for a Great Depression, I knew the stimulus check was basically a tax rebate and I knew that wealthy people got an even bigger one but-I didn't realize the ramifications.
Very clear that mental health services are going to take a cut, you know, like nobles during the French Revolution had a cut. Considering the people that need county level services-low SocioEconomic Status, declared Disabled, nuttiest of the nuts, criminals-you know, people just like me, who is all of the above-we are urgently in need at all times of more services, more support, more funding to save lives... and now cuts.
Guillotine level cuts. Fuck. FUUUUUUCK.
After that meeting, I got to unbox my Aerogarden, which arrived Thursday. I did it on a video chat with Sasha, because she was understandably worried about both of us after this freaking week.
Today has been much better. I gotta go to bed but maybe I can talk about Friday and Saturday tomorrow and actually catch up.
Originally posted at Dreamwidth. Comment there (
), or feel free to comment here.
So Monday Trav and I made up from the fight with the world's weirdest inciting incident, which seemed like it would not have gotten out of control if he and I weren't terribly terribly stressed.
Monday is also when I spoke with my GP, who put me back on a psychiatric class of drugs at roughly daily levels that I thought I'd left for emergencies only. Guess that's where we are: emergency meds. (Fucking daily benzos. FUCK.)
GP also told me he'd put in a referral to surgery and that I should go to urgent care because I may need IV antibiotics. Urgent care doc did NOT think I needed to be there and brusquely told me to go home, take some aleve for the pain, and HEAT the fuck out of the infection.
Heat causes swelling, and while my nipple still had sensation, that hurt. I'd done stints of heat but had previously not been able to tolerate the heating pad more than twice a week. 'Luckily' at this point I feel nothing but pressure, itching, and excruciating pain when applying direct pressure, so heat treatment is now possible. Felt chastised, cried during the appointment, then pissed by how cavalier and lacking in bedside manner the doc was (but recognizing he was probably right), I returned home and began applying heat. This seems to have finally begun to break the infection.
Then Tuesday, after we tried to relax for a couple hours and I scheduled a mammogram/ultrasound combo on Thursday, we went on a walk with Teyla. Then Trav went on a run alone, no Erika or our dog Teyla, where Trav got bitten by a dog! WtF, dogs, he loves you!
He didn't know the dog; basically he took a walking break, passing a house where the dog was in the yard, and then this miniature poodle came after him. Glancing blow because he didn't know the dog was there and was walking away, but the dog was really going for him and definitely broke the skin. Two decent size tooth marks, bruise the size of his knee, and of course we had to go to the Emergency Room and contact animal control.
Plus I got a great night of not sleeping until 3am as every time I closed my eyes, I saw him suffering terribly from 100% fatal rabies and here I had wasted days being angry at him for his reaction to my reaction about something he literally couldn't help.
(Fuck, I HATE IT when I really let my brain weasels out sometimes and then they go on a biting spree. Closest family gets attacked first, unless I fence them off entirely, and that SOMEHOW hurts people's feelings too. Then I have to apologize over and over again for fencing people off AND for having weasels in the first place, when I was given the weasels against my will as a child, did NOT agree to house the weasels forever and they also bite me WAY more than everyone else so that's kinda frustrating too because like, I'm not complaining even though I'm covered in weasel bites and this metaphor has officially gotten away from me.)
Wednesday we found out that the owners were very apologetic and all the dogs were registered with the county and regularly vaccinated. So really best case scenario.
We also rearranged the entire fucking kitchen for my new Aerogarden! It's not done because I still can't really be on my feet for longer than 20 minutes at a time, and Trav usually has to sit on me to get me to stop doing things so he's reluctant to let me start. (I am very frustrated about my health right now, plus I tend to ignore my limits at the best of times.)
Thursday I had a motherfucking mammogram AND a breast ultrasound. Hey! The infection's getting better, right, so the results were good? Hahahaha, you haven't been reading my journal very long.
For the left breast with the infection, yes! No liquid pockets means whenever my nipple starts playing along, I may actually be clear from this infection until it recurs next time.
When it recurs, they recommended I go to a surgeon immediately before starting antibiotics. That is what I fucking wanted to do, but last week they also said no non-essential surgeries and told me if I wasn't DYING from it, it could wait. Which it can! But it's shit to find out the surgeon's probably would've done it because they are bored AF right now.
Then I found out that the mammogram found 'something' at 8 o'clock in my right breast. Every characteristic the doctor named pointed towards a benign mass but apparently it 'bears watching' every 'six months' for 'a year or so'. I have no family history of breast cancer and no pain or abnormal discharge in my right breast so... yeah.
They also did not entertain my request to show me my scar tissue on the mammogram, which seemed RUDE. I WANT TO SEE. It's my giant fucking internal scar! Hmph.
Okay so now we're up to ... halfway through yesterday. I had a committee meeting, that went fine, it's public record so I'm not going to say anything that's not already out there. The Board of Supervisors re-appointed me for three years and the Advisory Board re-elected me as Vice Chair so that's cool.
So as it turns out, taxes are massively down. I mean, I knew this stuff, I knew we're headed for a Great Depression, I knew the stimulus check was basically a tax rebate and I knew that wealthy people got an even bigger one but-I didn't realize the ramifications.
Very clear that mental health services are going to take a cut, you know, like nobles during the French Revolution had a cut. Considering the people that need county level services-low SocioEconomic Status, declared Disabled, nuttiest of the nuts, criminals-you know, people just like me, who is all of the above-we are urgently in need at all times of more services, more support, more funding to save lives... and now cuts.
Guillotine level cuts. Fuck. FUUUUUUCK.
After that meeting, I got to unbox my Aerogarden, which arrived Thursday. I did it on a video chat with Sasha, because she was understandably worried about both of us after this freaking week.
Today has been much better. I gotta go to bed but maybe I can talk about Friday and Saturday tomorrow and actually catch up.
Originally posted at Dreamwidth. Comment there (
), or feel free to comment here.