Just recently I threw away an old journal that I thought might be embarrasing if I were to die and someone found it and read it. (The reason I thought that might be a concern in the immediate future is another story entirely.) Not because of anything bad that I did, or because of embarrasing stories it contained, but because it was just kind of dumb. And I complained a lot in it. A couple months earlier I had also purchased new letter boxes to store all my old letters and memorabilia in – pre-internet I was a prolific letter writer. I threw away lots of letters too that I thought I didn’t want anyone else to see. Same reasons – too much complaining about stupid stuff. I have also been contemplating throwing out the journal I kept when I was on my study abroad program in Ecuador. I am sure there are some things in there that I would love to read again – details that I don’t remember anymore from my trip – but I am also certain that I complained a lot about my crazy host mother and cultural things that I had no appreciation for at the time. And let’s face it, maybe I wouldn’t now. Though I would hope that I would be a little more understanding of cultural differences and be able to laugh things off a little more.
So now I am pressuring myself to not sound dumb or whiny in my brand new blog. I want to be optimisitc! I want to be smart! I want to be funny! I want to be happy! I (think) I am all of those things usually, but sometimes I let stupid drama get me down.
There’s been a bit of drama in my life recently. First, I will say I am a 30-year-old red-headed midwesterner who lived on the East Coast for 6 years and moved to Chicago two years ago. I am married to a great guy, M, who I dated for 5 years before we got married. He’s Japanese-American. I work full time in a job that I dislike pretty actively, and I am also in culinary school, planning on graduating in 11 short weeks at which point I will hopefully quit my day job and become a Personal Chef. Overall I have a very good life – a wonderful husband, a nice place to live in the greatest city in the country, a group of amazing friends nearby (and far away), no debt and a comfortable income, and the ability to pursue a dream of starting my own business and getting out of this 9-to-5 cubicle living.
On to the drama: In 2001 I had my gallbladder removed and contracted a post-surgical infection, but recovered without too much trouble. La dee dah. Six years went by with no major health issues and then I got another abdominal infection in March 2007. Antibiotics, no problem. It was gone in a few days. La dee dah. August 2007 arrives and I get another abdominal infection. This time the pain was so bad I couldn’t walk when I got to the ER and I spent 5 days in the hospital while the infection resisted the IV antibiotics. I missed some school, I missed a lot of work, and at the end of September I am still not feeling like my old self physically. I am well enough to continue with school and be at work and maybe even go for a run tonight for the first time in 7 weeks. So, anyway, the other result of my infections is that I am now infertile. Fallopian tubes sealed shut with scar tissue and also somehow filled with fluid, ovaries riddles with abcesses and cysts, and no way for Mrs. Egg to meet her partner. We’ve been trying to get pregnant for a year now, and my doctor has told us to proceed with IVF because of this last illness and the test results that have come back. With my hospital stay and the weekly tests and appointments since then, sometimes with good news (no infection remaining!) and sometimes with bad news (we may have to consider using donor eggs!), I’ve had a lot of depressed days. I feel a lot better and more emotionally stable now. I do not cry every single day like I did for the first three or four weeks.
I have some great friends who I have been able to talk to about all of this, and of course my husband is also well apprised of both the details of my health and mental status. But, my intention with this blog is to have somewhere to talk about the coming months/years (please, God, no) of treatments and procedures and other drama, which I hope will lead to the adventure of having a family – maybe even a little red-headed Japanese kid or two (I guess it would be greedy to say ‘or three’, but that’s what I really hope for).
