Textual Healing

Last night Joe and I went out and met up with a friend of his who was in from Montreal. During our visit she created some drama and got angry at Joe when the two of us were unable to accompany her to a persons house for a fire. We were under-dressed and exhausted. She called Joe some pretty mean names and hung up on him.

Needless to say, this left Joe angry, hurt and annoyed.

"She always does this!" he exclaimed to me, as she hung up.

"Always?" I asked. Story after story ensued of his continual run ins with Michelle and her temper, clinginess and erractic behaviour. Another mutal friend of Michelle and Joe, Jodi, recounted similar behaviour.

"Then why do you hang out with her?" I asked.

"Because she's our friend." That was all they said. All they needed to say.

Lately, I have been a little bit unlovable. Life has a way of overwhelming me, especially since my dual diagnosis of hypothyroid and depression. I have withdrawn a bit from people, and developed a habit of doing thingd that need to be done at the last minute. However, I have never lied, backtalked, called friends names, or anything like that. I don't feel my behaviour has been deserving of the treatment I've been getting from some of the people in my life who mean the most to me. Some of this treatment is making me rethink my commitments to some of the most important things in my life.

Right now I'm rethinking my most important friendships. To me, good friends, true friends, are the people who are running in when everyone else is walking out. They are the people who love you when you are unlovable and you do the same for them. The treatment I've been getting lately, since about October or so, is letting me know how people feel about me.

I sm a procrastinator, and I am sometimes antisocial. I can be loud. I can be opinionated, and some times, I can be a little slow on the uptake. I acknowledge I am far from perfect. However, if Michelle can be the way she is, and still have people who love her, protect her and care about her, I wonder if it's time I started desiring - or demanding - the same.

It's been confirmed. I have Hypothyroidism.


For everyone who doesn't know, hypothyroidism is a condition caused by an under active thyroid gland. Your thyroid regulates a bunch of important things, like how your body uses fats and carbs, your heart rate, body temperature, and even, in a sort of tertiary way, how much calcium is in your blood. Having hypothyroidism leads to all kinds of unfortunate symptoms like fatigue, depression and weight gain

The rate at which the hormones that control these things are released are controlled by both your hypothalamus and your pituitary gland. Your hypothalamus signals the pituitary gland to start making something called Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH). Based on how much of the two thyroid hormones (T3 and T4) are in your blood the pituitary releases a given am mount of TSH.

Now some of you may remember that I was worried about my thyroid last year. At that time I had not received a definite diagnosis. The reason it has taken a while to be diagnosed is that my TSH levels are what is called borderline, and my T4 levels have always been fine. It took a doctor who was willing to look at ALL my blood work to see that there has been a steady increase in my TSH levels since April of last year, and that I am starting to show one of the antibodies that signals the onset of Hashimoto thyroiditis, an auto immune disorder where the body attacks the thyroid. My thyroid is slowly shutting down.

I know this probably wont be a big deal after a while. It's simply a case of taking one pill once a day. However, according to my doctor this is a process that will take a while to refine because it's a matter of adjusting the replacement hormone in increments so that my thyroid responds with out sending me into night sweats, palpations, nausea and insomnia (symptoms of the opposite disorder; hyperthyroidism). So now I embark on a four month journey of doctors visits and monthly blood draws. Joy.

Although, it may just give me something to write about here...

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Because I have nothing better to do....

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When I wrote that last post, I thought it was over.

Then he called me back home.  I went.   We spent three wonderful days together.  We spent a lot of that time in bed.  He promised me he loved me.  That he would try his hardest to come home.  I believed him...

Tonight, he told me that he no longer loved me, that he didnt miss me.

He said he wished he'd had the guts to say this in person, but that he was never coming home.

He used me for...whatever...for those three days and then just left, saying I love you but knowing in his heart of hearts he wouldn't come back, and that he didn't love me at all. 

I feel so stupid.  I feel so broken.

How can someone take your love, and use you like that?  I thought I knew him.  I didn't know him at all.

I'd say there is a special corner of hell reserved for men who trick women into sexual acts with false word of love and longing, except that this whole thing has left me so stripped of any belief in any merciful God that there can not be any divine realm at all for anyone.

I wish i believed in Karma.  In divine retribution.  But I don't.  There is no one and nothing that will make him hurt like I am hurting. 

I want to disappear forever.  I feel like my soul has be ripped out and stomped on.  I feel like nothing is worth doing or saying.  

The sun will rise tomorrow, and I will still be trapped in our apartment with all his left over stuff.  Stuff that smells like him, and reminds me of him and belonged to him.  

How do I handle this?  How do I stop the pain when I wake up in the bed we shared, under his sheets,  with his pillow at my side.

And the worst part?  I still miss him.  I still ache to hold him, and hear him laugh.  I miss his guitar playing and his singing, and I miss him tucking me in at night.  

I want to believe that this too shall pass.  Right now though, it feels so dark that dawn can not possibly come.  

I'm sorry if I'm over sharing.  I just needed some place to vent, and doing it in the online world makes me believe that there is someone out there listening, which I desperately, desperately need. 

 

It's over.

And all I can think about is how much I'm going to miss sleeping with someone, and how lonely the apartment is going to be.

I feel like a cliche, but I can't sleep, and I don't eat,

I wanted this so much...

And he just...didn't.

I wish I could figure out how NOT to internalize this.

I'll stop now.

In other news, my hamster died yesterday morning...



Oh, and If you ask your boyfriend of a year and a half if he'll stay by your side if you find out you have cancer (and this is not just a merely hypothetical question) and he says "I'll try", what do you do?

A lot has happened with my health in the last little while, and I figure I should update with a full explanation.

Some of you may know that I was recently sick with non-acute mono. That is really only about a quarter of the saga of my on going health problems.

Starting in September I began a downward slide of not being able to keep up with my homework or classes. All my assignments were (and are) being handed in late. I was sleeping through alarms (which never happens), and when I did get up and go places I was so incredibly tired that walking from UCC to North Campus building seemed like an unconquerable task. Regardless of these feelings I avoided doctors because, well, I just plain don't like them. However, by the time February rolled around I was maybe attending 3 hrs of class a week out of my 15 hr schedule, so I dutifully made an appointment at Student Health to get myself checked out.

The Dr. there examined me, ordered some blood work and palpated my thyroid gland. He felt what he thought might be a little lump there, but he wasn't sure. He informed me that it is pretty standard for a doctor, when he/she thinks they feel something - anything at all - on the thyroid, to order an ultra sound. He did so, setting it up for two weeks down the road. He also asked questions about my diet, exercise and sleep habits. He said that there was probably nothing wrong with me, that I was experiencing 3rd year burnout, and that i should exercise and take a multi-vitamin, then check back with him when the course of vitamins was complete. He was very reassuring, and so I thought nothing of it. I left my appointment and walked straight to the campus pharmacy to buy womens one a day.

As soon as I started taking the multi-vitamin things were fine again. I was still far far behind scolastically, but I was coping better, and was making some headway on projects and stuff. I began sleeping regularly and enjoying my walks across campus again. Meanwhile, the blood work came back from the Lab at Western. They told me I had a nasty - but non-serious - conjunction of non-acute mono and a b12 deficeny. This, they said, was why the vitamins were working so well, and I should just continue on them.
I was comming down with the worst cold of my life, (which turned out just to be a plain cold), but regradless of that, I was happy with the diagnoisis. I went to my ultrasound extremely untroubled. I hadn't even thought any more about it until yesterday.

Yesterday I had a standard follow up appointment with my Dr. to discuss the results of the ultrasound. I was told by the nurse that it was non-urgent, and so assumed they hadn't really found anything. Imagine my surprise when my doctor told me there were not one, but two nodes of extra tissue growing on my thyroid. He then proceed to tell me I shouldn't worry or lose any sleep, but that he was going to set up a nuclear imaging test for me at Victoria hospital. I was told to call the hospital because the test can be thrown off by a number of factors and they need to make sure I'm doing everything correctly.

I called them as ordered only to find out that I have to go back off of my vitamins, because the idoine they contain will muddle my test results. My test is now scheduled for April 23rd so that my body has a chance to get rid of the idoine. So, now everything is back to where it was in February. Today is my first day off the vitamins, and I awoke at 10:30, dragged myself to campus at 1:30 and barely made it to class in time because the trek seemed utterly herculean. I am in the process of untangling all the red tape that needs to be untangled in order for me to be able to get a doctors note. If I contiue this way, exams will be a hopeless shambles and I want to be able to have medical backup if I end up too incoherent to take a test properly.

Not trusting my doctor's casual demenor any more, I did some reasearch myself. This test, in which I have to drink Barium, will determine if the nodes on my thyroid are hot (have increased activity) or are cold (decreased activity). If it turns out that either one (or both) of these nodes are cold, a needle biopsy will be performed to determine if I have cancer.

Now, I understand why my doctor told me not to worry. Thyroid nodes are very common, and people can live their whole lives without every knowing they having one. Out of all the nodes people have, 95% of nodes are benign, with only 5% of nodes being cancerous. It has also been said that if you have cancer, you should hope it's on your thryoid because the cure rate for thyroid cancers is 90%. However, just because a thyroid node is not cancerous, it doesn't mean it won't affect my body. There are plenty of other things these nodes could be. At best they could be harmless, and vitamins will continue to fix them for the forseeable future. At worst, I will be on hormones, or other kinds of oral therapy for the rest of my life.

Needless to say, this all has me a little freaked out. I know it is most likely not cancer, but the idea of it, of that horrible, dreaded C word which so often has reared its ugly head in order to splinter my family has me unable to focus on pretty much anything else.

So I ask you, if you are a person of faith, pray for me. If you are not, do what ever it is you do when your friends and family members undergo a hard time. As for my part, all of this is kind of falling during a crisis in my faith, so I will be trying to sort out whether or not this kind of bad timing and psychological cruelty can be the work of a benevolent, loving God I so desperately want to believe in.

--Go to urbandictionary.com and type in your answers to the following questions.
--Post the first definition it gives you.
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You can blameiris_alantiel for this one!  Just kidding, although I did steal this one from her,

There are many ways of doing this meme, so I bolded the books I've read and added a ** to the ones I love.  I also italicized the ones I want to read, but they don't count in the totals.

Sorry I couldn't cut this.  I tried 5 different way and none of them worked so i settled for having the list out in the open.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien**
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling**
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee**
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman**
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
Total so far: 6/10

11 Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger**
9 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger**
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
Total so far: 10/20

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams**
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
Total so far: 14/30

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis**
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
Total so far: 17/40

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
Total so far: 22/50


51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley**
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon**
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Total so far: 26/60

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tart
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Total so far: 28/70

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
Total so far: 28/80

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker**
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
Total so far:32 /90

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams**
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

 

Final Total: 37/100 or 37%. Not too bad. I’ll have to do an updated version of this when I finish all of Waterstone’s 100 best of the century.

In other news, did you notice the Beatles mood theme?  I wish I could say I had created it but it's from demeterqueen , one of the Goddesses of Beatles Slash!  you should check her out! (if you're into that sort of thing anyway...)

44 Odd Things About You! Meme

If you opened this, FILL IT OUT! Learn 44 things about your friends, and let them learn 44 things about you! Tag the person that sent it plus others.

Thieved from iris_alantiel 's LJ.

1. Do you like blue cheese?
Nope. I’ve never tried it, but the smell and the fact That it is technically mouldy puts me right off

2. Have you ever been drunk?
Tipsy yes. Have I ever been so drunk that I fell down/passed out/was hungover/forgot part of the night? No.

3. Do you own a gun?
No. Guns are silly.

4. What flavor of Kool-Aid was your favorite?
Um…Strawberry Kiwi, and any of the kinds that changed colour

5. Do you get nervous before doctor appointments?
I haven’t been to one in over two years. I honestly forget.

. . . somehow, there is no #6.

7. Favorite Christmas movie?
The Christmas Story. It’s a tradition around our house. “Scut Farkis! He had yellow eyes!”

8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning?
Tea

9. Can you do push ups?
Yes but not well and precious few

10. What's your favorite piece of jewelry?
My sapphire and Diamond necklace from my dad.

11. Favorite hobby?
Um…Cross stitching I guess, although I’m not too good at it yet. Also gaming

12. Do you have A.D.D.?
Not officially, but - hey, look, a blue thing! <- stealing Sara’s answer here. It's very tru- Hey...SHINY!

13. What's your favorite shoe?
Um. I hate shoes. They make me sad.

14. Middle name?
Paige. Why? Who knows! My confirmation name is Mary.

15. Name 3 thoughts at this exact moment?
Ice tea is yummy. I’m tired, Where did I leave off playing Harvest moon?

16. Name 3 drinks you regularly drink?
Tea, Water, Juice

17. Current worry?
How am I going to make it forty days without “giving up”? And why does that make me sound so pathetic?

18. Current hate right now?
Exams, because they make Aaron grumpy

19. Favorite Vacation spot?
Um…The domican Republic. I miss the sun and the sand. I think if I ever win the lottery, I might move there. Only during the winters, of course. The summers are ridiculous.

20. How did you bring in the New Year?
At the Poacher’s Arms with Aaron, Meghan, her brother and Rick Mcghee

21. Where would you like to go?
England/Ireland/anywhere in western Europe

22. Name three people who will complete this?
If I had to guess . . .kopah , her_tenor (please?) and um, well no one else really reads here…

23. Do you own slippers?
yes. They are light blue with pompoms and her_tenor bought them for me
24. What color shirt are you wearing right now?
Baby blue and sliver

25. Do you like sleeping on Satin sheets?
I’ve never done it, but in my experience high thread count cotton is the best.

26. Can you whistle?
You betcha!

27. Favorite color?
Take a wild guess…

28. Would you be a pirate?
Only if I, too, was one of the pirates who don't do anything.
*Sings*
We are the pirates who don't do anything
We just stay at home and lie around
And if you ask us to do anything,
We'll tell you....we don't do anything..

(seriously, those are the lyrics...)

29. What songs do you sing in the shower?
Whatever's on the radio

30. Favorite Girl's Name?
Honestly? I don’t have one. I don’t plan on having kids

31. Favorite boy's name?
See above

32. What's in your pocket right now?
Nothing

33. Last thing that made you laugh?
The song of the Cebu

34. Best bed sheets as a child?
Starwars! Obviously!

35. Worst injury you've ever had as a child?
Sprained my Knee at Chicopee, having been run over by my ski instructor. I was 11

36. Do you love where you live?

It’s décor leaves a little to be desired, but mostly yeah.

. . . no #37, either. I think I got ripped off.

38. Who is your loudest friend?
Tough one. I’m going to say Adam, provided he’s been drinking. *lol*

39. How many dogs do you have?
One, sort of. He lives with my Mom

40. Does someone have a crush on you?
I’m going to go with aaron on that one.

41. What is your favorite book?
Good Question. Anything by Robin Hobb is a safe bet

42. What is your favorite candy?
Swedish Berries

43. Favorite Sports Team?
Toronto Maple Leafs

44. What song do you want played at your funeral?
Ave Maria Or something pretty and slow by Celtic woman.

 

Lately I’ve been feeling pretty down. I guess it must show, because I keep getting asked if I’m okay, or if I’m tired. The truth is, I’m not particularly okay, but I can’t put my finger on what the heck is wrong with me.

Whatever it is, I know that the feeling of being brushed off isn’t helping me, and that feeling has been happening a lot lately. As an example, a friend and I went to the mall the other day. I hustled through an assignment to meet her, caught two buses from home, only to have her show up 20 minutes late. That I can forgive her for; Saturday busses suck. But then she tells me she can’t stay because another friend had called her as she was leaving, and asked her out for a dinner and a movie, and she wanted to go, even though it wasn’t really a movie she wanted to see. So we ran around the mall to get what she needed, stopped quickly for me (while she pestered me to annoy the sales girl so we could leave faster) and caught the bus home.

Tonight, I’m supposed to be hosting a little pre-drink thing for another friend, and she calls me midway through the day (after I’ve been feverishly cleaning the house) to tell me that another friend of hers wants to host the pre-drink if she gets all her work done. Well, what am I supposed to say to that? I told her fine, just let me know.

Both these incidents have left me feeling pretty unimportant. Do these two girls not have time for me in their lives? Is the third party in both cases more fun than I am? I don’t know. I just know that it’s really not helping the way I feel.

Sorry for the gloomy entry, but hey, at least it’s not a meme, huh?

Edit: as I’m writing this the girl who’s party I’m hosting MSN’d to lemme know that the pre-drink is still on at my place, but she won’t be drinking tonight because she’s PMS-y. Some how, I’m just not as excited for tonight…

Edit II: Now Monica, Jackie, Leise and Khrystina have backed out. This is just getting worse and worse *sigh* I hope the boys show up.

Edit III: Okay, so a couple people showed, it wasn't too bad. It definitely cheered me up some.

1. Where is your cell phone? Floor
2. Your significant other? Aaron
3. Your hair? Messy
4. Your mother? Complicated
5. Your father? Talented
6. Your favorite thing? Literature
7. Your dream last night? Nonexistent
8. Your favorite drink? Alcholic
9. Your dream/goal? Stability
10. What room you are in? Living Room
11. Your hobby? Music
12. Your fear? Failure
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Successful
14. Where were you last night? Home
16. Muffins? Cookies!
17. Wish list item? Cash
18. Where you grew up? Brydges
19. Last thing you did? Television
20. What are you wearing? PJ's
21. Your TV? Computer
22. Your pets? Rodents
23. Friends? Amazing
24. Your life? Stuck
25. Your mood? Down
26. Missing some one? No
27. Car? Nonexistent
28. Something you're not wearing? Bra
29. Your favorite store? Sephora
30. Your favorite color? Blue
33. When is the last time you laughed? Today
34. Last time you cried? Recently
35. Who will resend this? Diana?
36. One place that I go to over and over? School
37. One person who emails me regularly? Adam
38. My favorite place to eat? Chinese
39. Why you participated in this survey? Bored
40. What are you doing tonight? Partying!

1. It's January; It's cold, It's snowy, but at least it's OSAP Season!

2. 3 Cheese Ravioli is what I crave most right now.

3. Cork and wine go together like a hat on a head...it's an unsophisticated comparison, but I don't actually drink wine.

4. Sleeping in is so nourishing.

5. Let us dare to love eachother in our words, even when the other is not around.

6. I love, but need to clean my home.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to my Dad's cooking, tomorrow my plans include Mahjong with Kate, Aaron and Tim
and Sunday, I want to go to Vox Humana Rehersal!

( It's TMI Tuesday )

The post from the last meme is upcoming. In the mean time feel free to

( waste time with a friday fill in )


In other news:

I think I might start trying to post here about things that actually matter. I promised long ago that this wouldn't be a journal about memes, but low and behold...

Now, to find a topic I actually care enough about to post about....hm....

(taken fromkopah )

Everyone has things they post about and everyone has things they don't. Challenge me out of my comfort zone by telling me something I rarely or never post about but that you'd like to hear about, and I'll write a post about it. Ask for anything (within reason): latest movie watched, last book read, political leanings, thoughts on yaoi, favorite type of underwear, graphic techniques, etc. Repost in your own journal if you are so inclined.

Read this...

That is all