Across and Inside my Universe

It Could Be Alot Worse

I'm having some anxiety over my mammogram results, but it could be much worse.  So, I had my first baseline set May 13th; they wanted me back for a closer look at one, which they told me was pretty common as when they have no baseline to compare to they need to nail down the particulars of various structures, like lymph nodes in weird places or whatever.

Due to various things like vacation, forgetting, and such, I didn't get back for my followup mammograms until today.  After the mammograms, they made me sit around for a long time, and eventually ultrasounded me trying to see what they are trying to nail down, that way.  However, neither the ultrasound tech nor the radiologist doctor could find it.

The doctor told me that "it looks benign" and that "it is probably a lymph node".  Then he said, "We need to see you back in six months, to see if it has grown.".  

Urgh . . .  that doesn't sound like a lymph node?

However, I get the impression that this is MOSTLY a dot your i's and cross your t's situation; that there is a slight possibility it could be something that grows, and is/becomes a problem, but that the probability is so low they are not even needing to look at it for half a year.  No one actually came out and SAID these things though, but it's kind of what I gathered from how they were and what they said.

Still, I've also gathered that there is a possibility it COULD be something bad; they don't just shoot you with x-rays for the fun of it.

My grandmother had breast cancer twice, however, it was not premenopausal, and her five daughters, most in their 70's, have not gotten breast cancer, and none of their female children have gotten it either as far as I know.    

It has also been close to two months since the initial mammogram; yes, they needed a closer look, but they probably have an idea of size from May to compare it to (maybe they don't, but the thought is comforting, and it doesn't hurt anything to think it) and they didn't say that it had grown or anything . . .

So, I am doing some CBT to try and calm down a bit, but this is something that is there, in the back of your mind . . . 

I DID ask the doctor where the 5mm oval . . . white splotch/lymph node . . . that we can see on the mammogram was; they took some funky angled mammograms, so seeing the images wasn't necessarily showing me where it was because I didn't know the angle/frame of reference.  Not more than a very rough idea.  He told me where it was, but he also said I'd not be able to feel it.  I responded by saying I figured breast self-exams weren't a bad idea anyway, and didn't say more, knowing it'll help MY peace of mind to know where a lump MIGHT possibly show up, if this . . .  splotch/lymph node thing isn't a lymph node and isn't benign.  

See, just KNOWING this information, makes me feel less helpless, and like there is something I can DO, aside from just waiting six months and going in for the next mammogram and/or ultrasound . . . perhaps these things are so unlikely to be bad that aside from practical experience and getting more familiar with how things feel WITHOUT lumps in them, it is not likely to help me find anything where the splotch is, but it sure helps me out psychologically . . . so I'll take it.  Knowing more just . . . I don't know, it helps.  I think sometimes too much info can be too much, but at this point, I'm glad I thought to ask things that make ME feel more in control, even if that control is an illusion . . .

Gee, I may be talking myself into a hole about this; I'm already poorly enough off in so many other ways, emotionally, right now.  Well, at least I can feel good about having gone and dealt with this, which I really hadn't wanted to do . . .

What's My Problem?

Why am I so upset about the group therapy?

It's not the end of the world if I'm faced with something unpleasant about myself, however awful it feels or seems.

It's not the end of the world if I feel as though I was manipulated by the psychiatrist.  Would it have been better if she hadn't done so? (If she actually, intentionally did; manipulation is in the intent.)

Sure.

Is it any surprise to me that she's insensitive, dominant, strong in her opinions, outspoken about them, and has a definite idea of what she feels is best?

Put that way, no, no it's not.

It's never fun to be receiving such things, from a doctor no less, and even more difficult to bear, from a psychiatrist.

Still, I can discount some of her "authority" by thinking of the above things that should not surprise me anymore.  Why would I put alot of weight on what someone like that says, if it's not specifically medically related?  Ie, if it's not medical advice she's giving me but therapeutic (both are medical in their way but I think you know what I mean).

So regardless of how she was, as I discussed in my last post, I can follow the chain of thoughts that led me to a very bad place, to a very . . . difficult view of myself to approach, let alone investigate.  That makes it hard for me to discount anything, and so leaves me with a feeling similar to the picture up above.

I feel kind of like it would be healthiest for me to set aside this difficult, painful view of self for awhile and just keep on plugging away, step by step, at improving.  It's hard though because this thing wants to pull out the rug from under me and just bring everything crashing down.

Perhaps I'll gain some more perspective and/or distance from it in therapy tomorrow.  I feel like I've already gotten a little, as I'm not flailing around emotionally, as much as I was.

Still, I really do not need another really bad thing to think about myself, when I get suicidal, to pile on top of the other really bad things I think about myself.

Life however doesn't care how many bad things come your way, it just goes on.  So I need to as well, hopefully putting this in a better place.

Bedroom Progress - Ribbons, Heroclix, Pandemic, & Neopets

Well isn't that an eclectic title!

One of my craft materials that needs much better organization are my ribbons.

So, I spent a few minutes pinning a whole variety of ideas to a pinboard for these ideas, on Pinterest.  Some are similar to each other, but there's some quite clever ideas in there.

See, I've realized that it's difficult or impossible to fully clean up the floor, without having somewhere in, on, amongst the cubes, shelves, and other parts of my craft organization "system", to put things that go there. 

Of course, if I don't have a place to put stuff after weeding, it's hard to settle on exactly what storage will work best, because I'm not sure what "space" it will "live in" once it's weeded and sorted . . . this is part of the problem in tackling this project, it feels like everything I do depends on doing something else that needs to be done, etcetera.

I'm not going to spend any $$ on anything organizational-wise until I have a better idea of what might go where.

AHHHhhhhh.  It feels like I'm stuck in a black hole, a vortex of doom.  What I need to remember is that's magnifying, that's catastrophizing, and if I take small moves, I can get this done.  No, thinking of getting it "done" is too much for me; I can make PROGRESS.  That is all I can think of.  Small moves = progress.

On the getting rid of my old Heroclix game figures front, I traded 2/3 of them with a fellow on Boardgamegeek.com for $80 worth of games that we wanted, and two that I wanted to try that take up no more space than a couple of envelopes (if I don't like them, they can be traded off just like the Heroclix): Pandemic, it's expansion On The Brink, and Alamo & Battle of 4 Armies.  These take up 1/4 of the space the Heroclix did.  If I can't find a trader for the balance of my Heroclix, then out they go, in the trash.

You can have BGG.com search for people who want in trade the games you have up for trade, while it also considers if they have up for trade games that you want in trade.  It's quite nifty, really.

On the Neopets front, we have some fond memories of the couple years my daughter spent on their site; we participated fully with her, as at that age we did not want her involved in anything on the internet without us.  We collected quite a few stuffed Neopets during that time, the bulk of which have been sitting in our bedroom in large bags for a couple years now.  All three of us collected; we each had our favorites.

Here are all the neopets we had, on my messy bed:

 

There are several PILES of neopets, 3 deep on there, so there's more than what you see.  On a queen-size bed. 

We weeded through our collection, with my husband keeping only a couple of Bruces; I kept the Shoyrus, the Flotsams, and one or two misc. others.  My daughter got rid of about 40% of her collection; not as much as I'd hoped, but enough.  Most of these Neopets, aside from my daughters, had been kept in a bag for their stay at our apartment; even out of hers, only two need cleaned.   Off to the thrift store with them.

What my spouse and I kept:

 

While it's embarassing to admit that we like Neopets; we're adults, after all, but they represent an age and time in my daughter's life that we all have fond memories of.  The ones we chose to keep also reflect our personalities; I like dolphins & strawberries, and the Shoyrus seem to be pleading to be loved.

What all three of us got rid of: 

 

Bedroom Progress - Small Moves, Ellie

I started in this corner of the room. Floor only, as I'm doing a mostly garbage pass, although if something's on the floor we'll put it to donate, chuck, or find a home or temporary home for it until I can tackle everything on top of everything, which is pretty much taking up the space that needs to be homes for (organized) things. These pics are the same as the previous post, pre-cleaning, but they're a visual aid.

I cleaned just about up to the small child's chair you see in the corner of the room in this picture; a bit over a quarter of the room's circumference. That small chair, by the way, was made by my dad for my daughter when she was THREE. She's in Junior Highschool now.

That may not sound like much to some, especially since it was just the floor, but I was dripping sweat after 20 minutes, and had filled a kitchen-size garbage bag.

As well, I've been struggling with just doing dishes and laundry (not even folding) on a regular basis, let alone most other chores; that's kinda one reason the place has gotten to this point. Yes, doing things consistently, or at all, is a struggle when I'm depressed, anxious, trying to distract myself from mania (although mania does sometimes result in a burst of productivity, which I'm afraid may be the impetus behind this project). Most of the time though I'm fighting the things mania urges me to do that aren't good; that means there's not alot of me left over for ADL's (activities of daily life, as they say).

Regardless of the reason for doing this, I'm hoping blogging about it will A) help me stay somewhat organized about it, B) help my sense of efficacy and build upon it as I can look at the blog and see the progress I've made, C) help keep me motivated and carrying on with this even if the urge of productivity should desert me, and D) maybe keep alive some unreal notion that my non-existent blog readers might be sending me thoughts of support.

Yeah, that last one, not gonna happen. I need to do this for me, anyway, and I recognize that. Support doesn't hurt, though!

So . . . small moves.

I've been feeling overwhelmed over the last 24 hours, just looking at the whole room. As Adam Savage of Mythbusters would say (and that's how I hear it in my head), "There's your problem!" I have problems with looking too far into the future, looking at problems upon problems (it's turtles all the way down), as if I was looking at the humongous pile of food you need to eat over the next month or year, and feeling overwhelmed by it all.

We don't eat all that at once. It's made up of smaller meals, and those are further broken down into food groups, or various ingredients, or various steps of the recipe.

You can make your moves as small as you like; moving forward, even if it feels equivalent to maybe one frog hop, is the important thing. Just because it feels like a frog hop, doesn't mean it IS one.

The first day, I made a list (a HUGE one), took and posted the photos, and blogged about this. The next day, I took one of the categories of items I needed to research selling/trading, and started that process. (I'll be trading some old collectable gaming figures for a game I want, that takes up less than 1/4 of the space the figures did; a win/win, there. Boardgamegeek.com is great for exchanging, occasionally selling, old or new games and related items.) So, a small move.

I did not beat myself up inside about how little that seemed to accomplish in relation to the whole; the urge to do that came to me as it so easily does, but I countered those thoughts with, "No, it's not too little. You are no longer stuck and you are moving forward. FEEL how good that feels after being stagnant for so long!"

And I did. Feel good, that is. I transformed my negative thoughts and feelings not just into banishing the negative, but I created positive thoughts and feelings to replace them.

My mantra going forward will be, as you may guess, "Small moves, Sara. Small moves."

(P.S. Who wants to watch that movie now? Me . . .)

Updating the Blog When You Have OCD

I spent 4 hours updating the blog today, and several the other day starting to add tags/categories to posts.

The thing is, I look at the Category Cloud and I can see a couple I can get rid of, which is good, but then the urge to add more as I categorize further back is hard to resist.  It's kind of frustrating and a little embarassing.

Much of the time spent today on the sidebar widgets, was spent super-fine tuning the size or the details like the order the books are shown in, their size, etc.  I think I spent two hours alone on the boardgamegeek widget, although that one required more primitive-level tweaking in the code itself.

It's going to take me some time to add categories to older posts; hopefully I can do just a few at a time, and not feel compelled to do a year's worth in one sitting . . .

My OCD is acting up, partly because I've been taking my Vyvanse, that lets it come out a bit more when I'm more active, and I'm under a huge amount of stress.

 

Maintain Lamictal @ 150mg

I went back to the doc and told her about what I did. At 150mg there was a faint rash but I'm not vain, so we continued it, although at one point it seems like she was going to try something else, then thought better of it.

As the last couple weeks have gone on the rash is more than faint, now, and itches occasionally, but it's not driving me nuts, so I'm fine with it. It's "livable" for me; for people who put on makeup everyday and care how they look, it might not be, but I don't wear low-cut tops anyway. Only when I wear my modest v-necks can you see it, and it's not obvious to most people.

The more important question at this point, is if the medication is effective to any degree and if so how much, and then is that enough? I'm having a hard time assessing this, so I'll just see how I do over time . . . . my next shrink appt. is 6 weeks from the last one; the secretary said that's how it's starting to be now and I am a little frustrated because that means I'll have to make an extra trip in to her office, an hour round trip, for my ADD medication once a month.

If she's too busy to see her patients as frequently as they need to be seen, she's got too many patients, imho . . . if this keeps up I may stop treatment entirely. I'm not going to make extra trips for longer than 5-6 months. Especially since I'm scared of her anyway, and now that I know most bipolar meds won't work for me I don't see the point of trying any more if this one doesn't pan out . . . . I may try another if she switches me but like I say, if she is seeing pt's every 6 weeks, and maybe it'll get worse to every 7-8 weeks who knows, if she can't manage her patient load, then that's that.

Yeah lots of fortune-telling and stuff in there. I wonder if she's going to lose other patients from being too busy to see them, requiring extra trips in for prescriptions for some of them . . .

On another note I'm feeling like I've put my foot in it again, but that's nothing new for me. STUPID. Labeling . . . ugh.