Ulcers.

I really should have known.

All the discomfort, my abdomen swelling up out of nowhere, just two weeks after Vally passed. The coinciding with all the other symptoms. The tightness in the muscles that kept me from bending at the hips for months at a time.

I definitely should have known.

The procedure was fine, even if the circumstances around it were fucking garbage. No food for a day or two ahead of time was no fun. All the pills and powders and liquids I had to guzzle down the day before were awful. Having to wake up at 3am to guzzle the last acrid swill did not help. I figured I wouldn't be able to wake back up if I tried to sleep again before my 7am arrival time, so I planned to just stay up. Went to bed at 11. Woke up at 1am. Couldn't get back to sleep. Ugh.

The worst part of all was having to ask someone to pick me up after. They wouldn't let me drive after the general anesthesia, so somebody had to be on call that morning to come fetch my doped-up self out of the wheelchair they used to roll me into the parking lot. I'm sure there are a handful of people that would have said yes, but how many people around here am I actually comfortable asking?

I'll tell ya - None many.

I wound up sending a very sheepish ask to the neighbor across the street. A good guy, always looking to help, and retired so he'd be around. He agreed. Didn't make it weird. Seemed to understand how uncomfortable I am asking for help and jumped at it.

Thank God for neighbor across the street. I had a gift bag with a thank you card and two of his favorite six packs ready to go for him on the day of the procedure.

Running on fumes does not begin to describe the feeling of walking out my front door into morning darkness and freezing temps on zero food and almost zero sleep in the preceding 24 hours. I felt drunk trying to focus on the paperwork they pushed my way at check in. When they walked me into the prep room, complete with the 90s tile floor and the drawn curtain dividers you see on every medical drama, I was actively looking forward to being put under just to finally be asleep. Medical gown on. Nurse put in my IV with some much needed electrolytes. A warm blanket over me.

I was half asleep when the team of doctors and anesthesiologists came to introduce themselves. Yeah yeah great CAN WE GET ON WITH THE UNCONSCIOUSNESS PLEASE.

I remember being rolled in on my stretcher to the operating room. A bunch of machines I couldn't recognize even if I were fed and rested. The team I had half-met bustling around. Rolled into the middle of the room and rolled onto my side on the stretcher. A pillow to help prop my head up. The smell of nitrogen (I think?) in the tube under my nostrils. Welp, here goes everything…

…

… I opened my eyes. Still here. Should I still be here? Why am I still here? The gas smell was strong but didn't seem to be having any effect. I opened my eyes wide and looked at the lead anesthesiologist in an attempt to make sure he knew I was still there. He didn't seem to notice. Instead, he was fiddling with the IV machine. He turned something and I could feel a cold sensation rush into my wrist. Then my whole arm. Then a sensation that defies any coherent description I'm able to give. I specifically remember thinking at the time that the whole world suddenly “felt spicy”. And then…

Dreams. I was dreaming. I can't remember what I was dreaming about, but I distinctly remember dreaming.

When I woke from my dream I was still on my side on the stretcher. The blanket was still over me. IV was gone, with little speckles of blood on my gown. A nurse was standing at the table just a foot or two away in my drawn-curtain cubicle.

“Well good morning.”

I remember getting dressed. From the drink menu offered I asked for a Sprite. I don't know why - I hadn't had a Sprite in some fifteen years. I sipped my Sprite out of the can through a bendy straw until the doctor came to see me.

Ulcers.

I asked him what that meant. What should I expect? What does that imply? What do I do now? He looked at me with a grin that did not fit the circumstances at all and said, “… we’ll see what the pathology says”.

Great. Thanks, Dr. Vague. Good talk. How much do I owe ya?

They rolled me out to neighbor’s truck with a folder of mostly useless info and a mysterious print out about blood clots. Wait, blood clots?!? The fuck does that have to do with me!?! Am I okay?!? I put it aside and told myself it was a mistake on their part. Assholes just trying to mess with me now.

Home at last. I attempted to work that afternoon, but was almost useless. Half asleep and/or dozing, I managed to field a handful of help desk issues and accomplished nothing else. But that's okay. I had made it through. I asked for help and relinquished control and allowed myself to be vulnerable for a day and I had gotten through it. That felt significant.

But… ulcers…

The next few days I braced for the inevitable call telling me I had some new chronic bullshit to worry about. On top of everything else. Then I reached a point where I reasoned that I had already been dealing with the symptoms for over a year, what difference does it make it they give it a name? So I waited, resigned to my fate as a veritable leper in training.

And then I chatted with a therapist friend.

Not as a therapist, professionally, but just as friend that happens to be a therapist. She heard about my situation and brought up that studies have indicated many cases where diagnosed digestive disorders can stem from emotional traumas. I deflected a bit, feeling like it sounded a bit like hocus pocus voodoo healing crystals etc. And then she said something to the effect of “look, your body knows what to do to protect you from danger, but you're not in danger. It can let go now.” And…

… something shifted. I felt it. That subconscious nerve that gets tickled when someone says a thing and you know it to be true and relevant and important.

That's exactly what I've been feeling. Like I've been bracing for something. Some invisible impact that I can't see or predict but that I'm just SURE will be landing as soon as I look away. It's felt like I've been in danger of losing everything at any moment. For years now.

Car accident. Meningitis. Joints all locking up. Chronic thyroid infection. Trying to get answers to various mystery symptoms. Losing Vally. All while sitting at home alone while a pandemic rages around the globe. Over two years of seemingly nothing but existential threats. Of COURSE I'd be reacting to it. Of COURSE that would get built up inside of me. The ulcers made perfect sense. I had been through so much stress and pain and worry and sadness and hurt that it finally started taking a toll. Literally so anxious about my world that it's damaging my internal organs.

But… what do I DO about it?

For the next few days, I started stretching again. I attempted meditation, even though I'm terrible at it. I fell asleep to trancey atmospheric calming sounds and listened to light, upbeat, happy music during the day. I pushed away negativity as best I knew how and focused on trying to let that shit go.

Within 4 days, symptoms were better than they had been in months.

It's still not perfect. Iliopsoas is still all but locked up. I still feel that it's hard to take a deep breath without those tight hitches in my diaphragm. Symptoms are still on and off. But I still struggle with the positivity thing. With the acceptance thing. With the letting go stuff. Still, it feels like my proof of concept has already been tested, and now I just need to continue practicing this new way of interacting with the world to keep getting better.

No… that's not right. It's not a new way. It's a return to an old way. I need to get back to accepting the things I can't control. To not letting unavoidable risks weigh me down. To trusting that things are going to work out in the end. To choosing an ignorant joy over having contingencies for every conceivable pitfall. Trying to wrestle all of life's potential dangers into submission has been eating away at me the last few years, and I've now got pathology results to prove it. Time to practice being happy again, even when it means ignoring some of the bad shit that can and will happen.

Time to feel like myself again.

I have another series of exams scheduled for another medical issue entirely, but I'm not going to stress about them. They're just exams. It'll be fine, and likely lead to another answer. I'm gonna try instead to look forward to Steakster coming up. To the warmer weather and tennis outings it'll bring. To making more dumb YouTube videos, just for the fun of it. To learning to play this awesome Oud my mom brought up for my birthday. To the things I might do with this additional 10% raise I just got. To how well the keto plan I've been on is gonna work and how much better I'll feel for it. To all the new people Im gonna be meeting this year and the possibilities that could come of that.

I went to every doctor I could find to try and prevent my health issues from getting worse. I hovered over Vally constantly trying to protect her from everything. My health issues still got worse. Vally's heart still gave out on her. This isn't a choice between diligence or bad things happening. Bad things happen regardless. This is a choice between letting that knowledge ruin me or finding ways to be happy anyway.

I've made my choice.

-M