panic room
Oct. 2nd, 2018 07:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwynI've been busy adulting all over the place lately. After avoiding it for months, I finally called the insurance company to find out about getting the follow-up colonoscopy that's woefully overdue. It was just so awful last time, and my insurance is much worse than last year, so I was resigned to having to figure out how to pay for it. But they said that they have started paying for them as long as they're coded as being preventive, rather than diagnostic. Apparently that's a change from the last time I had this company for health care. (Of course, me being me, I'm completely convinced that there'll be a screwup and they'll code it wrong.)
So with that checked off, I called the office of the doctor--I can't say I was super fond of him (I still feel like you shouldn't smile when you tell someone they might have cancer) but of course I thought about it too late that I could have called one of the other doctors in the same office. Oh well. My big concern was actually if there was a possibility of another type of vile liquid to drink for the prep. I vomited so severely from the stuff before surgery that I think it made things worse, because it was like having done 1,500 situps beforehand. I never finished the jug. The surgeon said that it wasn't as big a deal for the surgery to finish as it is for the colonoscopy, so that filled me with dread.
They said that since I'd done pretty well in the first procedure last year, I could try this other stuff--it's two smallish bottles (about the size of a bottled iced tea or something) that I drink one at night and one in the morning, but I'll have to get up about five a.m. to drink the morning one. But it doesn't sound like it's as thick as cooking oil, which is what my problem was: everyone tells me about making it taste better, but I was like, the taste wasn't the issue, it's just like drinking bad stale Gatorade. It's the consistency that made me ralph, it's so viscous and thick and you're required to guzzle a more than two liter bottle within a few hours. Seriously, they keep trying to convince people that the prep isn't bad and that it's all easy peasy to get more people to do them, but the truth is, until they change this, they'll always have pushback from a lot of people. Some people are immune, but for people like me, it's almost intolerable.
They also require someone to come with you and stay there and drive you home, which just...angers me. This idea that all of us have someone who can do that for us is infuriating--they assume we all have family and it just reminds me that I don't, and that I have to wheedle friends into taking time away from their jobs. Not every clinic is this crazed about it, so I may have to look into something else next time, just because it's really demoralizing.
Anyways, that's what I'm doing the next couple days--it'll be so much fun. A clear liquid diet, no sleep, and living in the bathroom, yay. I just really hope that I come out of the sedation better this time than last, because the nurse was yelling at me for not turning over on my side when she asked me to, and that was not fun, then I got to find out about the cancer.
I've been thinking about that a lot too, lately. I've really struggled this year to do creative things, and some of that is just feeling extra special worthless lately (especially after the shit with my artist on the Cap RBB) but I think a lot of it too is that sometimes I find myself thinking about the cancer a lot. Many people have been "it's no big deal, my [insert person they know here] had it and now they're fine so big whoop." When cancer's been such a huge part of your life, and taken so many people who mattered to you, it's pretty emotional to find yourself going down that road, but there's just not really anyone to talk to about it for me at least.
Anyway. I'm considering signing up for the Stucky AU big bang as a way to force my hand into writing, though...I don't know. Writing feels like it has not just diminishing returns but no returns whatsoever, so it could be a colossal waste of time and energy. I have a couple days left to decide though. And soon it will be Yuletide decision time as well.
So with that checked off, I called the office of the doctor--I can't say I was super fond of him (I still feel like you shouldn't smile when you tell someone they might have cancer) but of course I thought about it too late that I could have called one of the other doctors in the same office. Oh well. My big concern was actually if there was a possibility of another type of vile liquid to drink for the prep. I vomited so severely from the stuff before surgery that I think it made things worse, because it was like having done 1,500 situps beforehand. I never finished the jug. The surgeon said that it wasn't as big a deal for the surgery to finish as it is for the colonoscopy, so that filled me with dread.
They said that since I'd done pretty well in the first procedure last year, I could try this other stuff--it's two smallish bottles (about the size of a bottled iced tea or something) that I drink one at night and one in the morning, but I'll have to get up about five a.m. to drink the morning one. But it doesn't sound like it's as thick as cooking oil, which is what my problem was: everyone tells me about making it taste better, but I was like, the taste wasn't the issue, it's just like drinking bad stale Gatorade. It's the consistency that made me ralph, it's so viscous and thick and you're required to guzzle a more than two liter bottle within a few hours. Seriously, they keep trying to convince people that the prep isn't bad and that it's all easy peasy to get more people to do them, but the truth is, until they change this, they'll always have pushback from a lot of people. Some people are immune, but for people like me, it's almost intolerable.
They also require someone to come with you and stay there and drive you home, which just...angers me. This idea that all of us have someone who can do that for us is infuriating--they assume we all have family and it just reminds me that I don't, and that I have to wheedle friends into taking time away from their jobs. Not every clinic is this crazed about it, so I may have to look into something else next time, just because it's really demoralizing.
Anyways, that's what I'm doing the next couple days--it'll be so much fun. A clear liquid diet, no sleep, and living in the bathroom, yay. I just really hope that I come out of the sedation better this time than last, because the nurse was yelling at me for not turning over on my side when she asked me to, and that was not fun, then I got to find out about the cancer.
I've been thinking about that a lot too, lately. I've really struggled this year to do creative things, and some of that is just feeling extra special worthless lately (especially after the shit with my artist on the Cap RBB) but I think a lot of it too is that sometimes I find myself thinking about the cancer a lot. Many people have been "it's no big deal, my [insert person they know here] had it and now they're fine so big whoop." When cancer's been such a huge part of your life, and taken so many people who mattered to you, it's pretty emotional to find yourself going down that road, but there's just not really anyone to talk to about it for me at least.
Anyway. I'm considering signing up for the Stucky AU big bang as a way to force my hand into writing, though...I don't know. Writing feels like it has not just diminishing returns but no returns whatsoever, so it could be a colossal waste of time and energy. I have a couple days left to decide though. And soon it will be Yuletide decision time as well.
no subject
Date: 2018-10-03 04:26 am (UTC)Gentle hugs.
no subject
Date: 2018-10-05 10:48 pm (UTC)After you drink it between 5 and 9 pm, if you're doing the split dose, you drink five cups of water over five hours, though they want you to drink more, and they give you a measured cup so you know you're getting enough. Then in the morning five hours before you leave, you drink the second bottle, and three cups of liquid, and stop drinking any liquds within two or three hours (the information I got was conflicting--the office's instructions said three, Clenpiq's said two). My office's instructions allowed for a breakfast day before (the day you begin the liquid diet) of smooth yogurt/dairy and eggs, which was nice so I could have cream in my tea, but only if you're doing split dose. I was incredibly dehydrated because of not having liquids before we left (for the obvious reason of losing most of my body weight in shit), so my usual difficulty with getting an open vein was made three times harder and wow am I a mess of bruises today. I was in a lot of pain from the IV attempts.
It's...the whole thing is painful because of certain health factors I won't go into, so I didn't feel super great but with a lot of sleep yesterday I'm doing better. If they won't let me do the over the counter laxative in gatorade thing that some people get to do, this would be the next best thing, and for you I imagine they'd recommend the second dose late at night, though maybe not. It's drinkable--not great, but drinkable, and for smaller women, I think it's a better option because all of this stuff was clearly done with larger men in mind, and it doesn't take into account women's health situations, and certainly not women with disabilities.