Nerves

As I approach 50 (I have exactly 9 months as of today left for those who are counting) I feel that my body is conspiring against me.  Plotting.  Planning to decompose as quickly as possible.  I keep noticing things that make me nervous, worry me in the middle of the night and distract me.  My cycle is changing - ok, so I am probably in perimenopause and changes are pretty much part of the game.  I have a patch of weird looking skin on my left breast that occasionally itches and sometimes hurts a little and of course I am trying hard not to think about what that might mean.  Don't yell at me - I have a doctor's appointment on Thursday.  I'm going, I'm going.

My mother had multiple sclerosis and every time I have a toe fall asleep or I get a twitch in my thigh I start to worry a bit.  There is some evidence that MS runs in families so I have another added level of worry.  My dad had microvascular disease and congestive heart failure and high blood pressure and when my ankles swell up - which they do with alarming frequency - I start to get scared and remember when my dad's ankles looked very similar.

So I am a good girl and I take my 4 pills a day for various conditions and I see my doctor and I try to eat properly and I'm going to Curves 3 times a week and I try to get enough sleep but... but.  These are some of the demons who come to disturb my sleep and keep me up at 2 AM and project scary pictures on my inner screen.

But there is one bright spot in all of this.  I know now that when/if things go south for me, I won't be alone.  I know with a certainty that cannot be shaken that David will be at my bedside when I need him.  That is a fear I carried for many years, that I would be alone in illness.  How many times have I been in the hospital alone?  More than I care to count.  I was alone when I was hemmoraging from a very bad miscarriage.  I lost over 1/5 of my blood supply laying there alone on a gurney in the dark corner of the ER.  Where was my husband?  He went home.  He was tired.  I was alone when I had 7 hours of microsurgery for a nerve graft in NYC.  I was in the hospital for 5 days.  He never came to see me, never called to see how I was.  When it was time for discharge, he said it was too much trouble to come into NYC to get me, couldn't I take the train home?  When I had an emergency C-section for the birth of our first child, where was he?  Home sleeping.  He'd had a hard day, don't ya know.  When I had surgery to remove my gall bladder I lay on the gurney feeling that this was how it would always be - I would always be alone in times of personal crisis.  The sympathetic nurse who thought I was scared of the surgery tried to comfort me, but I was too embarrassed to tell her what was really wrong.

But now I know that won't happen.  I won't be alone.  I'm not alone anymore.  And that makes all the rest of my worries seem less threatening.

Nerves

As I approach 50 (I have exactly 9 months as of today left for those who are counting) I feel that my body is conspiring against me.  Plotting.  Planning to decompose as quickly as possible.  I keep noticing things that make me nervous, worry me in the middle of the night and distract me.  My cycle is changing - ok, so I am probably in perimenopause and changes are pretty much part of the game.  I have a patch of weird looking skin on my left breast that occasionally itches and sometimes hurts a little and of course I am trying hard not to think about what that might mean.  Don't yell at me - I have a doctor's appointment on Thursday.  I'm going, I'm going.

My mother had multiple sclerosis and every time I have a toe fall asleep or I get a twitch in my thigh I start to worry a bit.  There is some evidence that MS runs in families so I have another added level of worry.  My dad had microvascular disease and congestive heart failure and high blood pressure and when my ankles swell up - which they do with alarming frequency - I start to get scared and remember when my dad's ankles looked very similar.

So I am a good girl and I take my 4 pills a day for various conditions and I see my doctor and I try to eat properly and I'm going to Curves 3 times a week and I try to get enough sleep but... but.  These are some of the demons who come to disturb my sleep and keep me up at 2 AM and project scary pictures on my inner screen.

But there is one bright spot in all of this.  I know now that when/if things go south for me, I won't be alone.  I know with a certainty that cannot be shaken that David will be at my bedside when I need him.  That is a fear I carried for many years, that I would be alone in illness.  How many times have I been in the hospital alone?  More than I care to count.  I was alone when I was hemmoraging from a very bad miscarriage.  I lost over 1/5 of my blood supply laying there alone on a gurney in the dark corner of the ER.  Where was my husband?  He went home.  He was tired.  I was alone when I had 7 hours of microsurgery for a nerve graft in NYC.  I was in the hospital for 5 days.  He never came to see me, never called to see how I was.  When it was time for discharge, he said it was too much trouble to come into NYC to get me, couldn't I take the train home?  When I had an emergency C-section for the birth of our first child, where was he?  Home sleeping.  He'd had a hard day, don't ya know.  When I had surgery to remove my gall bladder I lay on the gurney feeling that this was how it would always be - I would always be alone in times of personal crisis.  The sympathetic nurse who thought I was scared of the surgery tried to comfort me, but I was too embarrassed to tell her what was really wrong.

But now I know that won't happen.  I won't be alone.  I'm not alone anymore.  And that makes all the rest of my worries seem less threatening.