Entries tagged with body issues

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Good (sort of) news!

Thanks to everyone who left me comments on my last entry, it's really lovely to know there are so many people out there who care!

I had the ultrasound exam. I always find it easier to trust technicians than doctors, they come across so much more competent to me - and they see the same things every day, unlike the consultants, so I'm happy to accept her opinion that the lump in my armpit is a reactive lymph node (quite why it's reacting now when I seem to be done getting sick, rather than say, when I had flu and then mastitis for months, well that's beyond all of us to know, but that's fine. They also found what they suspect to be a fibroadenoma, which is also a benign thing (and may or may not be related to the having had mastitis)and very efficiently, took a biopsy on the spot to make sure - I should get the results next week.

A biopsy, for those of you who don't know, means sticking a bloody great hollow needle into the side of my boob, and taking a 'core sample', so i'm a bit bruised, and have a bandagey thing that I'm stuck with for three days. The peace of mind will be nice, though.

Busy week this week, and then somehow it's Christmas week already. It's been one hell of a year. Hopefully I'll get a chance to write a bit of a restrospective before it's out.

M.

Current Mood: exhausted

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Good News, Bad News

My life is a game.
(Subtitle: Why I Haven't Posted Regularly for the Last Few Months)

Good news: Polyday happened.

Bad news: I get sick immediately afterwards

Good news: If it was swine flu, it didn't kill me!

Bad news: I immediately get something else.

Good news: A holiday makes me feel better.

Bad news: Travelling sets me back to square one.

Good news: I finally get around to registering at a doctors surgery.

Bad news: It takes weeks to get a referral.

Good news:Having mastitis (and sleeping 12+ hours a day - twice my normal amount) for two months finally flags up that I have an underlying problem, so I can get it treated.

Bad news: Autoimmune thyroid disease means I'll be on medication for the rest of my natural life.

Good news: The treatment works (and I'm on the way to feeling better).

Bad news: When I finally get referred for an ultrasound exam (for the mastitis), I'm out of the country, so have to wait two weeks extra.

Good news: While I'm away, the mastitis finally clears up on its own.

Bad news: The day I get back I find a lump in my armpit.

Good news: I haven't cancelled the ultrasound appointment.

I guess I'm due some bad news next... Anyone fancy taking a guess?

(If I'm really lucky, the bad news is just that I have to get up early on Monday morning to get to the appointment. Cross fingers for me? )

Hoping my next good news is worth celebrating!

- Maxine.

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Going out, running around, coming out, and (finally) staying in.

So I've been overdoing it a bit lately with the socialising. Having barely caught my breath from Polyday and aftermath I was a bit silly over the weekend of

werenerd's party, and did far too much despite having the lurgy. Then I took the chance on travelling to Italy with my love plus close poly family as we'd planned for an extra birthday treat, in the hope that sitting in 'hot ponds' (volcanic spa pools) on the island of Ischia would help me recuperate. It did, but travelling back again set me back by about the same amount, so in health terms I guess it wasn't worth it. Ischia is beautiful, though, and the volcanic spa thing is wonderful, so I'm glad I went.

The party itself was wonderful -

weegoddess wrote a lovely account on her journal, including the couple of miracles that got her there. Masses of fun, affection and cuddles were had by everyone, especially the birthday boy, and several of us as a result decided to start a 'cult'. Check out the Order of the Wand - a virtual temple dedicated to the pleasures of the Hitachi Magic Wand. Join us!

Apparently today is 'Coming out day'. Like a lot of people on my friends list, I had many comings out - the first one to my friends, and brother, about being bi when I was roughly 14, the most recent actually to my parents a couple of weeks ago, having decided I was only going to tell them about being bi, poly, kinky etc. when it was 'relevant' - and up til I was running Polyday none of it really was, though I think they had a fair idea about most of it already on an unofficial basis. I'd never gone out of my way to hide it, it just hadn't been an active enough part of my life to be worth telling them about (sadly).
To their credit, my parents took it really well, especially considering my dad's previous history of crass/homophobic comments, and have now met all of my partners (including my 'half girlfriend' which I hadn't planned on, but she happened along at the right moment). Not that I needed it, but apparently they actually approve.

I officially came out as a geek in 2007, though I don't think anyone was surprised.

Also today I found my first couple of grey hairs. Since the hair on my head is dyed pink, of course the first place they show up is my pubes. I'm 27, do I now need to come out as an old fogey already?

I'm taking it easy at home for a few days now, with the hope of finally beating the bugs (and if I'm up to it, catching up on work), so won't be out socialising much. Next big party, Halloween - I damn well hope I'm on top form by then!

M.

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My body hates me, or Conversations With My Navel

I hate dieting.

I hate the mysogynistic attitudes pushing women into looking a particular way to please men, and the bitchy fashion crap perpetuated by women too. I believe that healthy bodies are beautiful, whatever the shape and size (and the range of shapes and sizes among my partners and exes demonstrates this just fine). Aesthetically, I love my own body just as it is, hips, boobs, bum, all of it. Unfortunately my right knee joint doesn't agree.

My right knee joint - the one that I've had dozens of operations on, and several accidents to boot. The reason I walk with a stick, however stylish - is complaining that I'm two, nearly two and a half stones over the healthiest weight for my height, and it's not happy. I'm not 'fat'(you probably wouldn't guess it to look at me, as it's pretty evenly spread), I'm not even clinically obese, but I am over the 'best' weight for my size, and my knee is reminding me it was happiest when I was a couple of stone lighter. Reminding me by hurting a lot, and locking or giving way at inopportune moments.

I don't have the option to exercise it off. Any attempt at jogging and my knee joint may explode. Serious swimming causes more pain than I could imagine before I tried it. Cycling causes noises that would make even the least squeamish amongst you grimace. I can get on with yoga, some martial arts, even belly dancing, but none of them is particularly the sort of cardiovascular regime I'd need to properly lose weight.

So controlling what I eat, or being unable to walk is the option I have.

My body doesn't like this either.

We have this conversation:

Me: "Hey body, I know you want me to be a bit lighter, so today I'm going to give you lashings of fresh fruit and veg, and lean meat, and lots of lovely fibre. I know how you love that."

Body: "Oh yeah, I do love that. But hey, where is the fat? Where are the starches and the fast sugars? You're cutting me down on carbohydrates too? You're... you're starving me!

Me: "But this is what you wanted, you want me to weigh less!"

Body: "Starving! You can't do this to me! Chop off an arm or something to get lighter, just give me MORE!"

And so on...

The thing that bugs me, which diet books and clubs and magazines always miraculously fail to mention, is that the whole point of dieting is to give your body less energy than it wants. It makes me feel tired, grouchy, run down, no matter how much healthy stuff I'm eating, because my body is simply getting fewer calories than I'm using - and that's the whole point.

My body, on the other hand, has the same attitude to calories that I do to money. It likes to have a little set aside for a rainy day. It wants to have a tiny bit extra each day to pop into the savings bank in case of emergencies. It asks me

"what if there's a famine?"

Me: "There's not going to be a famine. We're NOT going to starve. You have plenty of reserves, use some of those!"

Body: "But war, pestilence, plague, the death of all your loved ones! The sudden crumbling of society! There is no certainty!"

My body, it seems, has a rather pessimistic outlook on life. It is rather sceptical about the continuation of society-as-we-know-it, and insists that I might one day NEED these extra stores. However, where my little nest egg in the bank may one day become a house, or an investment of some sort, or one fine day in the far future even a pension, that nest-egg of stored energy that I'm lugging around every day is unlikely ever to become anything but a nuisance.

So I have my knee joint grumbling that I'm putting it under constant strain, and occasionally going on strike, and my stomach on the opposing side crying hysterically, staging all sorts of melodrama, wailing that doom and destruction may befall us, and I'm going to wish that I'd kept a hold of that extra icecream-portion's worth of podge. And here's 'me' caught in the middle with no way to win other than to accept that one side or other is going to keep on grumbling at me.

Apparently, I am at war.