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Guess What I Had For Dinner Last Night? July 31, 2004

This if for all of you non-Southern folks out there. I had fried alligator. My hubby and I tried a new Cajun restaurant for dinner last night, and it was yummy.

In non-food related news, yesterday was cycle day 1 for me, so I start birth control pills tomorrow. I get to go pick up all my IVF info on Monday including my protocol. I do know that I start Lupron on Aug. 19th, and my estimated date for ER is Sept. 15th and for ET is Sept. 20th. Wow. This is actually happening.

Peaks and Valleys July 30, 2004

Warning: mother-in-law vent below.

Wednesday was a pretty good day for me in the grand scheme of things. We had a great IVF consult, and I experienced a sense of nervous anticipation and excitement all day long. Yesterday, not so much. It didn’t help that my day started with a blood draw, and for some reason it hurt more than the previous ones.

Then I received an email from my mother-in-law. She had sent me a poem entitled What a Baby Costs. I’m not going to post it here, but the gist of it was that having a baby in your life is worth all of the work that they comes with them. This is what she wrote at the opening of the email: “I had been looking for this poem that I read many years ago. Just a little inspiration to know that what you are going through will be worth every penny and every moment of doubt and disappointment.” Really? Do you think I would put myself and your son through all of this if I didn’t think it would be worth it? This email just made me ball. I’d give anything to be a mom. I want it so badly. I don’t need anyone telling me it will be worth it.

This morning I had two more emails from her in my inbox. The title line of one read: “A prayer was sent for you.” I guess she had sent it from some site that sends out prayers, I don’t know. Anyway, it was St. David’s Infertility Prayer. I had never heard of this. Here it is:

Thank you, Lord for all the blessings in my life. Help me to remember them as I face the challenges of infertility. I pray that I can surrender myself into your hands. Let me accept the reality of this situation and have the wisdom and coura
ge to take action where I can. Strengthen my body, mind and spirit to endure the trials of infertility. Keep me ever mindful of the needs of others and grant us your peace. Amen.

No offense to anyone , but having this sent to me is not helpful. It makes me feel like shit, to be honest. The first two sentences make me feel guilty to feel mad, sad, depressed, etc. about infertility. Right now, I need to let it take over my life. I know that doesn’t work for some people, but I just can’t focus on “happy things” when I’m dealing with something of this magnitude. About the third sentence, I’m not surrendering to anyone. The only way I’m staying semi-sane is to take control of the situation as much as possible. Oh, and the last sentence, it just sounds like, “Your problems are not significant enough to focus on over everyone else’s needs.” I’m sorry, but I need to focus on me and others going through the same thing (ie. my blogging friends) right now. I know I’m probably over analyzing this whole thing, but that’s just where I am right now.

The second email from her this morning was a link to Resolve of Houston and a note saying that this might be of interest to me if I hadn’t heard of it. Um, yes. Resolve is one of the first sites I went to when we were first diagnosed with infertility. How could anyone as research driven as me, not know about Resolve? The other thing is, there’s a link to Resolve’s site on the new blog I created for our families.* If I’ve linked to the site, don’t you think I’ve heard of it?

* Yes, I started another blog just for our families. (I’m not about to send out the link to this one, am I?) Here, about a month ago, I was debating this very subject. I decided to go ahead and do it, and I’ve been very impressed with our families. The amount of support we’ve gotten has been amazing. No one’s been judgmental. They’ve all just send kind words, and want to know if there’s anything they can do to help. I may regret my decision to keep them all up to date on this whole IVF mess, but right now it’s working for us.

I know my mother-in-law means well and has good intentions in all of this, but her emails are just reminders of the pain. I guess these emails are better than the one’s she sent before. After I emailed my hubby the latest this morning, he emailed me back and said that he’s going to email his mom about all of this. I really don’t know if that’s the best thing to do. I don’t want to get these kinds of emails anymore, but I don’t want his mom to be pissed at me. My relationship with my mother-in-law got off to a rocky start, to say the least. Let’s just say, that at one point in time (many years ago when my husband and I had only been dating a couple of months) she threatened to call the cops if I didn’t leave her house. The first few years of our relationship did not go well with respect to my husband’s parents. They hated me. Then my mother-in-law got breast cancer. She’s ok now, but it totally changed my inlaws. Ever since then, our relationship has been much better. So, after all that, I don’t want to go back to them hating me. It’s a tough situation.

Yesterday ended with me balling my eyes out in my husband’s arms. It just all hit me at once. I’ve been trying so hard to be so strong and determined, that I haven’t been dealing with the underlying feelings of sadness and despair. Plus, I don’t think that dealing with some hard core PMS has helped any of this. I feel a little better this morning. Sometimes it just helps to get it all out.

Checklist July 29, 2004

I bought The Couple’s Guide to In Vitro Fertilization a while back and was skimming through it again last night. I like this book, because it is written from a patient’s perspective as opposed to a doctor’s. Anyway, I came across this checklist near the back of the book that’s supposed to help you evaluate your level of preparedness for IVF.

Before we first starting trying 2.5+ years ago, we definitely had many frank discussions about whether or not we were ready to have kids. By that point we had been married 3.5 years and together a total of 6.5 years and felt that we were finally emotionally and financially ready to have a family. But after we made the decision, it’s not like we really dwelled on it. We did what everyone else does, we “tried.”

Once we were diagnosed with infertility, everything changed. I feel like that’s all I’ve thought about since then. Now pregnancy is just such an abstract, unobtainable concept to me. I’ve always wanted to be a mom. It’s my biggest dream. I think dealing with infertility, at least for me, involves conditioning yourself to not expect to actually get pregnant. It’s the only way to protect yourself from sheer and utter heartbreak month after month. After all of this time of never having a chance of getting pregnant, to actually have a real chance, even if it’s not a great one, is just mind boggling to me. It’s just so much to adjust to. I couldn’t sleep last night with all of this floating around in my brain, as evidenced by the time of night (morning) that I last commented on this blog. I guess I better get my brain to wrap around the concept that this could work for us. I don’t want to get my hopes up, but would I really be willing to go through all that is about to come if I didn’t really think it could work?

It’s Official July 28, 2004

I’m officially an IVF patient now. Before I get to how the consult went, I just want to take a moment to say that Houston traffic sucks. It sucks even more when it’s pouring down rain. Anyway, my IVF consult went very well. We got to meet with the IVF coordinator, the RE, and the financial person. I thought surely they would think I was crazy for having my IVF binder all stocked up with records, questions, etc., but I heard several times, “Wow. You’re making my job so much easier.” I really liked our RE. She answered every one of my questions.

So here’s the plan:

Wow. It’s really happening. I’m really nervous but also excited. I know better than to get my hopes up too high. There’s a possibility that this won’t work for us, or at least the first time. But the way I look at it is that we actually have a CHANCE to get pregnant. For the last 2.5 plus years we’ve had a 0% chance of getting pregnant each month. Now, it could actually happen.

Can Anyone Recommend a Good Steam Cleaner?

Because I’m pretty sure my head exploded all over my beige carpet this morning. I called the RE’s office first thing to make sure Nurse A had faxed the rest of my records yesterday afternoon. Surprise, surprise, she hadn’t. I called back my OBGYN’s office once again and spoke to Nurse A. I explained that my appointment was in a few hours, and she said she would fax them this morning. She wasn’t going to fool me again with that one, so I suggested that I just come pick them up instead. I figured that was the only way that I could make sure ALL of my records got to the RE’s office.

So, I showed up at the OBGYN’s office, and they let Nurse A know I was there. She came to the waiting room shortly thereafter and handed me some copies. I took a quick look to make sure they were all there, and sure enough my HSG record was not included. I followed her to the back and made sure I got copies of everything. It sure was a pain getting all of those records, but I feel better now that I actually have copies in my possession.

Well, I better go make copies of those prized records before I leave in half an hour to go to our appointment. Thank you girls for your well wishes. It means a lot to me.

My Head’s About to Explode July 27, 2004

Why is it so hard to get your medical records transferred to a new doctor? I signed the request to have all of my lab results faxed to our new RE during my last appointment with my OBGYN on the 15th. You would think that would be plenty of time to get it done before our appointment tomorrow. Oh, no.

When the RE’s office called yesterday afternoon to confirm my appointment, I asked if they had received my records. They told me they had not. I called my OBGYN’s office and was told that I would have to speak to nurse A, and they would have her call me back. I wasn’t surprised when I did not receive said phone call. So, I called back this morning, and nurse A said she had already faxed my records a while back. I let her know that they had not been received by the RE’s office, so she said she would fax them again. I just called the RE’s office to make sure they got them this time, and they had, but only my blood and culture results from my last appointment. No records of my pap, HSG, or previous blood tests. UGH! I called back nurse A and she is supposedly going to fax those now. I guess I’ll have to call back the RE’s office at some point to make sure they finally have it all. So frustrating.

I’m getting nervous. Our appointment tomorrow just makes this so REAL. I’ve been preparing myself for the possibility of IVF since last November, but it’s still hard to face. My anal-retentive self is all prepared. My list of questions is printed out, my husband’s records are photocopied (his nurse actually cooperates with me), I’ve got a map and directions printed, and I’ve assembled it all in a nice binder. My worrisome, anxious self is a little less prepared, however. I’m just glad my husband will be able to get away from work in order to come with me. I’m sure he’ll do his best to keep me sane.

My New Look

As you can tell, I’ve changed the background on my blog. The thing about using Blogger is there are only so many templates to choose from. I hadn’t run into anyone else using the same template with the same colors on any of the 40+ infertility blogs I read until I perused the list of infertility blogs that Julie so thoughtfully put together. I found someone using the same template. I had already tweaked my template somewhat, removing those pesky arrows from my post titles and removing some of those dotted lines around the posts (those drove me crazy). Well, I decided that my blog still looked too typical, so I added a snazzy new background. I apologize to anyone who saw my blog in its intermediate stage. It got a little ugly there while I was trying to figure out what worked.

Back in Action July 26, 2004

It felt weird ignoring my blog this weekend. I didn’t have much down time, and even when I did, there were people lurking in my apartment. It’s not like they were strangers or anything, but it made me realize how protective I am of my blog and the other infertility blogs I read. It’s like a private little world, that I have no interest in sharing with my relatives.

We had a good time this weekend, but I’m worn out. We went to the Astros game on Friday night (they lost), the Galleria, various other big city stores, and even to a movie (The Bourne Supremacy) Saturday night. The last time my husband and I went to a movie in a theater was in South Bend about a year and a half ago. I guess we should go more, but we’re Netflix junkies. I do have to say that the movie theater we went to on Saturday was the nicest one I’ve ever been to with the plushest seats ever.

Well, our RE consult is on Wednesday, and I’m getting nervous already. I’ve known it was coming, but it just makes this whole IVF thing so real. I guess I’ve just hoped that it wouldn’t come to that.

When my husband and I first started trying to get pregnant, I had no doubts that it would happen right away. My mom had made it very clear that she and my dad were super fertile. My brother and I are only a year and a half apart, and my youngest brother was a surprise. My husband’s parents are obviously extremely fertile as well as evidenced by the fact that my hubby was an “oops” baby. We were young and never had any doubt that we’d have the same luck.

When my husband was diagnosed with azoospermia (zero sperm count) this past November after we’d been trying to get pregnant for almost 2 years, I still had hope that we’d avoid IVF. Given the fact that we suspected that my husband’s azoospermia was caused by the hernia surgery he had as a young child, we had high hopes that it could be corrected surgically. We were right about the cause and even the surgery part. My hubby’s urologist told us that the last man he operated on with the same condition, had his wife pregnant within 6 months of the surgery. We figured, we could have the same. My husband had the surgery last month, and it was not successful due to the extent of the blockages, so here we are facing IVF w/ICSI. It’s the only option we have left in order to have a biological child.

There are a lot of couples diagnosed with azoospermia who bypass IVF and jump straight to IUI with donor sperm. While this would be a much less costly proposition (by about $12 or 13K), we don’t feel like this is the right move for us. We want to try IVF first, while we’re young and have semi-good odds. If that doesn’t work for us, we feel that adoption is the right choice for us. I know that I would get to experience pregnancy with donor sperm IUI, but right now I’m in the place where I want my husband and I to have an equal biological connection. Either all or none.
- I just read that back, and I guess that’s not really true. I honestly wouldn’t mind using donor eggs (not that it would solve our fertility problems) but I don’t want my husband to lose the biological connection. I want to have his baby.

I guess I should compile all the questions I have for our RE, and I have lots. I’ve been scribbling them down when they pop into my head, but I need to get them into some kind of organized and legible list. I’m sure I’m going to annoy the heck out of my RE, but I like to know exactly what I’m getting into.

When Push Comes To Shove July 22, 2004

Well, I’ve done all the things I was procrastinating over. My apartment is spotless. I even cleaned the snot off of the walls. Not my snot, my cat’s. My oldest kitty is 16 and has some respiratory problems and thus is very snotty. I made our plane reservations for our trip to Michigan next month for my husband’s grandparent’s 50th anniversary. I’m not really excited about the prospect of going but know that we should be there, so we compromised. We’re going, but only Friday through Sunday.

My brother and sister-in-law are coming into town tonight. My other brother is stopping by on his way to Fort Worth tomorrow night. It’s rare that we’re all together. I think the last time was Christmas. Oh, and the best news of all about this weekend is that my husband is taking the day off tomorrow. This is a momentous occasion for a first year attorney. He works a ton, and rarely takes off, so tomorrow should be great. I think we’re probably going to go shopping during the day (at the request of my sister-in-law) and then go to the Astros game tomorrow night. Hopefully I’ll be able to get my mind off this infertility stuff long enough to have a little fun.

What Would We Do Without Family? July 21, 2004

I know my mom and mother-in-law mean well, but sometimes they say or do things that drive me crazy. Yesterday my mother-in-law emailed me a link to a Boston University online distance learning course entitled Issues in Assisted Reproduction. Is she kidding? Does she really think I’m going to spend $1300 to take an online course in ART?  First of all, all I have done for the past 8 months is research this topic.  When my husband was diagnosed with azoospermia, I delved into as much info I could find.  First I learned about his diagnosis and what could be done before reaching the ART stage, but I also prepared myself for the fact that we would likely end up doing IVF.  Like other infertile women out there, I have utilized the internet to the extremes to learn as much as possible.  Secondly, does she think I have an extra $1300 laying around?  We just spent $2900 on our cat (who, by the way, is doing better) and will be forking out $13-14K for IVF in just a short time.  I don’t know why she sends me these emails.  She’s also sent me links to a book list for children, a site for mother’s day presents, and some article about a shared risk program in California.  What would convince her that these are good links to send to a person dealing with infertility?

I spoke to my mom last night.  She had surgery on her foot yesterday morning.  Apparently, her nurse was an acquaintance of mine from high school.  My mom went on to relay that the acquaintance had one kid and was pregnant with another.  Thanks for the update, mom.  Then my mom told me that the acquaintance asked all about me and asked what I was up to.  My mom said that she told her what she tells anyone when they ask what I’m doing these days:  “She’s trying to get pregnant.”  WHAT?  When did I say it was ok to go around blabbing that to everyone and anyone?  Great, now when I see any of these people, I’m sure I’ll get asked about it.  What happens if IVF doesn’t work for us?  I really don’t want to have to explain that to the world.

I guess it all goes back to the fact that there’s no way to know what it’s like to deal with infertility unless you’ve been there yourself.  People, no matter how much they try, will never really get all that goes along with being infertile.  I’m just glad my mom and mother-in-law live in different states than we do.  I can’t imagine what they’d come up with if I saw them on a regular basis.

Procrastination 101 July 20, 2004

I really need to clean our apartment. My brother and sister-in-law are coming to visit on Thursday, and my other brother is coming to visit on Friday. They’ve never visited us in Houston, so I don’t want things to look like total crap. I’ve been slacking in the cleaning department, because I’ve been concentrating on nursing my kitty back to health lately. Plus, I don’t really like cleaning to begin with. I don’t mind doing laundry, dishes, etc., but I could do without having to do the deep cleaning and scrubbing.

The other thing I’ve been putting off is buying our plane tickets for next month. My husband’s grandparents are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary, and the celebration is in their hometown in Michigan. Every time I go to try to pick out flights, which can be quite complicated, because they live in a little town in the upper peninsula, I get nervous. I just get this really funny feeling about going. I don’t know if it’s because I don’t want to leave my kitty that I just spent nursing back from the brink of death, or something more.

I know I’m kind of dreading going, because it will be the first time we meet my husband’s cousin’s new baby. I’m sure their baby will be the center of attention. It was hard for me when I found out she was pregnant. They got married 4 years after we did, but of course had a baby first. Heck, we had already been trying to get pregnant for 6 months before they even got married. I guess it’s selfish of me, but I always wanted us to have the first grandchild on both of our sides, and the first great-grandchild on my husband’s side. We’re both the oldest children in our families, and my husband is the oldest grandchild on both sides. It just seemed right. I’ll really freak if any of our siblings have kids before us.

We’ve known about this anniversary celebration for over a year. I told my husband a while back that if I wasn’t pregnant by the time of the anniversary shindig, I wasn’t going. I’m not sure if I’m going to stick to that or not. Infertility sure does mess with your mind.

All Negative

I just called and got my husband’s blood test results. They’re all negative, and that’s a good thing. They’re the kind of tests where you want to have a negative result- HIV, hepatitis, etc. The nurse is going to mail me a copy, so I can add it to my collection of stuff to bring to our IVF consult next week. Getting those results officially concludes the medical intervention part in all this trying to conceive business for my husband. He’s been through enough. It’s time for my part now.

Fictional Flubs July 19, 2004

I read My Sister’s Keeper a while back, and something struck me as odd in that book. First a little background. The book is about this family who has a daughter who is diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia. The parents decide to have another child using IVF with PGD in order to provide a donor match for their daughter. I have no idea if that’s even possible with the current technology of PGD, but I’m not even going to go into that or the ethical implications of that. After their second daughter is born, they transplant the stem cells from her umbilical cord into the sick daughter. After the transplant, the mom is practicing subq injections on an orange, because she will have to give the sick daughter injections at home. Now if she had just gone through IVF to have the second daughter, wouldn’t she be a pro at giving injections? That’s what I found odd. I guess the only explanation would be if her husband had given her all her injections for IVF. Which is what I plan to do, by the way. That is if my hubby doesn’t pass out. He doesn’t have a good track record in that department.

Blog Confusion

I read close to 50 blogs, about 40 of which are infertility blogs. (Yes, I have no life). My husband introduced me to Bloglines a while back. It’s pretty neat. You subscribe to the blogs you read, and it notifies you when there are new posts. You can then read the new posts right in Bloglines without even going to the blog itself. It’s definitely easier than bookmarking 50 blogs, and checking each one periodically throughout the day. The thing I’ve noticed since adding more blogs to my repertoire is that I’m having trouble keeping people straight. With the blogs that I’ve been reading for a while, I don’t have any trouble, but the newer ones are giving me fits. I think the main problem is that without going to the actual blog to read each post, I lose the association between the actual look of the blog and who’s writing it. For me, seeing the design of the blog, triggers my brain to know exactly who I’m reading. I think the solution is to use Bloglines as a notifier, but then click through to the actual blog. Hopefully this will straigthen things out. It’s important for me to read these blogs and get to “know” these women. It helps me deal with all this infertility crap when I can identify with others out there in blogland.

Lucky Ducky July 18, 2004

I was perusing one of the message boards I frequent and found a post by a woman who was awaiting her last period before starting her first IVF cycle. She was getting frustrated that it was late and throwing off her schedule to begin IVF. Well, low and behold, she’s pregnant. She managed to get pregnant during the last possible cycle before going down the IVF road. Talk about lucky.

I often fantasize about achieving one of those miraculous “freebie” pregnancies but know that, in reality, it will never happen. There are some people out there that have conditions that require assistance getting pregnant, but they still have a chance, all be it slim, of conceiving on their own. Since my husband has a zero sperm count, (azoospermia) we have a 0% chance of that happening for us. That’s hard for me to deal with sometimes.

Wow July 16, 2004

I just got the statement from the hospital for my husband’s surgery.  Thank goodness we have insurance, because the total bill was over $20,000.  There’s no way we could have afforded to pay for that and then turn around and pay $15,000 for IVF.  We pay a lot for our insurance, and it totally sucks that it doesn’t cover IVF, but I guess we’ve gotten our money’s worth so far.  I would have hated to fork out $20K for a surgery that did not work.

Parenting Styles

It’s amazing how different people’s ideas of raising children are.  My parents have temporary custody of their great nephews (my cousin’s kids).  My mom called me yesterday, seemingly to check on my kitty, but she had an ulterior motive.  She’s having foot surgery on Tuesday and wanted to know if I could come watch the kids while she and my dad are at the hospital.  First of all, I don’t have any way to get there.  My parents live 2.5 hours from us, and we don’t have a second car (trying to save $ for IVF).  Secondly, I really need to be here to take care of Salvador to make sure he continues to get better.  It’s a full time job attempting to get him to eat throughout the day.  My biggest problem with her request, however, is that if they were willing to take in these kids, then they need to be responsible enough to find adequate care for them during the times it is not possible to be with them.  I asked my mom why she just didn’t hire someone to take care of them for the day, and she said that that had started to get expensive.  Um, yeah.  Didn’t you think of that before agreeing to take custody of those little boys?

I’ve been to visit my parents a couple of times when they’ve had the boys, most recently for July 4th.  It amazes me the things they do that I would not.  They let the boys (who are 21 months and 3 1/2) run around the house with balloons.  Hello- choking hazard.  I was like, mom they could choke on those, and she just said oh, we take them away if they pop them.  What happens when they pop the balloon with their mouth and inhale it?  They also let the boys go to bed with sippy cups filled with juice.  When I mentioned that was bad for their teeth, she just blew it off by saying that they wouldn’t sleep without them.  I suggested water instead of juice.  They also don’t get the nutritional needs of kids very well.  Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t eat as healthily as I should, but I’m going to try to make sure my kids do (if I ever have them, that is).  While I was there, one of their lunches consisted of fish sticks.  That’s it.  I know kids like things like that but how about adding some fruits or veggies?
 
I guess when you deal with infertility and have years to think about having a child before you ever get a real chance to, your perspective changes.  I know that if I’m ever fortunate enough to have children, I’m going to try my damnedest to be the very best mom possible.  I’m sure I’ll be overprotective and my kid(s) will be a tad spoiled, but I doubt I’ll ever take them for granted.  I imagine infertility makes you appreciate parenthood that much more.
 
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On a side note, Salvador continues to improve slowly.  The past couple of days he would lick at the food I gave him, but wouldn’t really eat bites of it.  I called the vet yesterday to let her know that I was concerned, and she called out a prescription of an antihistamine that increases appetite in some cats.  We started him on that last night and it seems to have helped some.  He’s actually taking bites now, but still isn’t eating as much as I’d like him to.  I’m hoping his appetite will increase more after he finishes the prescribed doses of the medicines he’s on.  Right now he has to take a pill twice a day and liquid medicine 3 times a day.  We’re all ready to stop that routine.

Bloodletting July 15, 2004

I’m back from my appointment with my OBGYN. I had some oh so fun cultures taken (gotta love that speculum) and 5 vials of blood drawn. These test results will all be forwarded (hopefully) to my soon to be RE (reproductive endocrinologist) before our consult on the 28th. I’ll have to have a couple more tests done on day 3 of my cycle and a sonohystogram at some point, but hopefully that should be it for the pretesting for IVF.

Going to the OBGYN was not that fun of an experience. Besides the whole poking around business, there were tons of big bellied pregnant women in the waiting room who sole purpose, I assume, was to remind me that I was not pregnant. Then when I got in the exam room, the nurse began asking the standard questions:
“When was the first day of your last menstrual period?”
“Are you taking any medications?”
“Any previous pregnancies?” Hello! Look at my chart. I’m here for INfertility. Fun times.

What a Morning July 14, 2004

So I got out of bed this morning only to learn that we had no water. I called the “resident service center” of our apartments and was informed that the city was working on a water main. Then I asked how long I’d be out of water and was told until 3:00. Wonderful. I can’t take a shower until 3 fucking o’clock. Can you tell I’m a little ticked off by that? The lady in the office said they posted signs on the gate entry thingy where you have to swipe your magic card to get in the complex. Since I didn’t drive through the gate last night, I was left in the dark. I emailed my husband at work about it, and he replied that he had followed someone through the gate last night, so he didn’t even look at the thingy where you swipe your card. This sucks. I have enough bottled water for drinking purposes, but I sure would like to be able to take a shower.

The stress of the past week (having my cat almost die, etc.) has caught up to me and is currently being manifested in my face. I have this lovely zit in the crease where my nose meets my cheek, some kind of dermatitis thing on my eyelid making my skin red and flaky, and the beginnings of a cold sore on my upper lip. I’m not sure why, but these monstrosities are all on the right side of my face. I hate getting cold sores. I only get them once or twice a year and only when I’m REALLY stressed out.

I can’t stand when my face looks ugly. I could have bruises up and down my legs and arms and it not really bother me, but when something’s going on with my face I freak out. Of course this only contributes to the stress which started things to begin with. I guess it all goes back to the whole body image thing. I studied ballet for 18 years. It was my life growing up. You get a real sense of your body when you dance. I can tell when I’ve gained a pound or two without even stepping on a scale. I’m sure I have issues to work out about the whole “being skinny” thing. When you grow up looking at your body in a leotard and tights every single day, it effects you. Even now, after I’ve worked hard to get my body back in shape and the scale says 103, I can still look at myself and see “fat parts.” Maybe it’s just a girl thing, I don’t know.

I just read back through this post, and I am really grumpy. I think I need a vacation. (Like that’s going to happen.)

My kitty, Salvador is doing a little better. I’ve been getting him to eat several small meals throughout the day. When I say small, I mean a few bites. I got his biopsy results from the vet yesterday afternoon. His stomach, pancreas, and small and large intestines came out clean. No signs of cancer, pancreatitis, or infectious diseases. His liver biopsy suggested hepatic lipidosis. It’s a pretty serious condition that happens when a cat stops eating for an extended period of time. The vet was almost certain that this occurred secondary to whatever caused his illness in the first place (probably the fecal hairball they removed during surgery). It’s a good sign that he’s willing to eat on his own, no matter the quantity. We just have to be diligent about getting him to eat, so that the hepatic lipidosis will resolve itself. Below is a picture of my little guy from yesterday.


Salvador resting on the balcony showing off his battle scars.

I’m glad I got that all out. I hate being a bitchy person. Hopefully I can cheer up a bit now (after I get a shower, of course).

Progress July 13, 2004

We’re making progress on a couple of fronts. Salvador ate a little bit of canned food last night and ate 6 bite sized pieces of ham this morning. He’s taking all of his medicine like a champ and is being the big sweetheart that we know and love. We should get his biopsy results back today, so hopefully that will bring good news.

My husband finally got his blood drawn to test for all of those lovely infectious diseases they make you test for before you can start IVF. I’m glad that was the last poking and prodding he’ll have to endure. He’s been through his fair share. Now it’s my turn. I have an appointment tomorrow morning with my OBGYN to get some cultures taken and have my blood tests ordered. I also have a dentist appointment tomorrow, so it looks like a fun day awaits.

Correction: My doctor and dentist appointments are on Thursday. That’s pretty bad when I don’t even know what day of the week it is.

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