A Quick (and Very Tired) Update

God. I am so tired. I was finally re-prescribed Eliquis last week and it was like turning off a faucet–within 12 hours of the first pill, I swear to God. One which is still kind of leaky. But the leaking is slowing down a lot (like a lot a lot) so I’m going to start tapering down on the progesterone tomorrow. I’m just exhausted. I am still anemic–my hemoglobin was at 11 just before my appointment for my final Injectafer infusion....

November 1, 2022 · 6 min · 1131 words

Hot Minute

It’s been a hot minute, hasn’t it? A lot’s been going on. Let’s see if I can summarize. Health Stuff: It took a bunch of insurance ping-pong to get the Mirena ordered; my insurance uses CVS Specialty for those things, but for some reason they bounced it to AllianceRx, which is Walgreens’s specialty pharmacy. Then two days before the Mirena was due to go in, the Liletta apparently yeeted itself out of my body and let us just say that there was more blood than I ever want to see ever again....

October 6, 2022 · 5 min · 933 words

It's Been a Week

My biopsy on Tuesday went surprisingly well. I took an Ativan and a Percocet beforehand (yes, I know you’re not supposed to take both at once, but as we’ll discuss later, the Ativan dose was not very large) and had a very good conversation with the doctor about the potential forks in my path depending on the outcome of the biopsy: Benign: replace the Liletta IUD with a Mirena IUD; I would like a D&C but the doctor feels like that’s an unnecessary surgery but then again she’s not the one who’s been bleeding for a month, either....

August 28, 2022 · 7 min · 1288 words

Misbehaving Meatsuit: Part I Don't Even Know Anymore

This is one of five paintings I made in early 2016, after I had a cancer scare. And I’m having the same scare again. At the beginning of July, I started a new blood thinner. My insurance wasn’t going to cover Eliquis anymore, so my hematologist switched me to Xarelto. He said it shouldn’t be a big deal. About three weeks after I started on the Xarelto, I started bleeding–I thought I was getting my period....

August 18, 2022 · 6 min · 1154 words

The Art of Losing

The art of losing isn’t hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Four years ago today, I almost died. And while I didn’t lose my life, I have had to master the art of losing nonetheless. First The first thing I lost was my health. I’d been almost rudely healthy up to that point. I’d never been seriously sick beyond a couple of bouts of flu in my 20’s....

July 20, 2022 · 11 min · 2273 words

This Meatsuit is Annoying

I am just not feeling the thing this week. I had a mere 2.5L drained last week1 and you’d think that would have helped and–nope. I feel bloated and I basically haven’t felt hungry so there’s been a lot of forcing myself to eat and then I feel like I overate and it’s just not pleasant. And I’m having weird random pain in my gut, but not enough to actually call my doctor or go to the ER about....

July 13, 2022 · 3 min · 516 words

Random Thoughts (June 9)

Oof. I went in for my monthly-ish paracentesis yesterday morning. If you don’t know what this is, here’s a handy explainer from Wikipedia. First of all, I was up entirely too early for my own good. But it did mean I was able to take my meds and eat breakfast before having to leave for the hospital, so that’s something, yes? Normally, it’s not too bad, but the doctor doing them yesterday was a resident and while she was very nice and perfectly competent, she was also still a resident, which means that she wasn’t as skilled as some of the doctors who have been there for years....

June 9, 2022 · 3 min · 550 words

A Ridiculous Day

Today’s been a day of a lot of ridiculous all over the board. ...

June 2, 2022 · 8 min · 1693 words