Snowballing......

 In December, our office installed a new electronic medical record system. It was overdue, necessary, and entirely complicated.  New screen patterns created massive migraines and eyestrain. 

My life since then, in roughly chronological order: 

I went to the family doc (step one).  He changed some meds and referred me to a new neurologist (step two), as I've retired 3 of them so far. I was doing better so the new doc agreed with the changes, but recommended an updated MRI.

We did our amazing Australia trip (which I am still day-to-day living on!), and re-entered life.  I kept my already-scheduled annual cardiology appointment (step one).  "Any concerning symptoms?"  Well, doc, I did a 3 hour climb to the top of a massive bridge in Australia, and was fine except that at the very top I had chest pain and difficulty breathing that lasted just long enough that I was wondering if they could get a helicopter up there...."  Oh. "You need a stress test."  I'm pretty sure that no amount of jogging on a treadmill is going to reproduce those symptoms, but, okay I guess. 

One of the nose pads on my glasses fell off on a Friday.  I crafted a temporary replacement with a glue gun, but schedule a visit to the eye doctor (step one), since it's been a minute.  It turns out that I have almost NO distance vision in my right eye.  This moves me up the food chain to the opthalmologist (step two), who then schedules me for cataract surgery (steps 3 and 4). And just like that! Active Senior to Little Old Lady LOL. Turns out the eyestrain wasn't the new computer system.

The stress test comes (step two). ("You needed that for cataract surgery??" Well, no, it's just a timing issue.)  I'm injected with radioactive stuff, run the treadmill, get MORE radioactive stuff, and pass.  So far, this is the first stop-at-the-second-step event this year.

I get my routine mammogram.  For the first time EVER I get the "We see something we can't explain and you need to come back in." I can't feel ANYTHING in the area of concern, but... I hand my office manager yet another (and now entirely on-brand) request for an afternoon off. 

At this point, I'm laughing, like, "Can any of the routine stuff just be simple?" I'm not feeling particularly worried about it all, and I have solidly learned over the past 14 years that worrying about "maybes" is a zero sum game. But an unrelated random call to my cousin the next day reveals that she has melanoma. And, unrelated but discovered during the workup, breast cancer. 

Cue the snowball. 

I finally have the MRI, step 3 of the neurology path. On the paperwork for that, there is a question to the effect of "Do you have or does anyone suspect you have cancer? 

Start that snowball down the mountain.

My brain entirely stopped, as my Schrodinger's mammogram report flashes through my head. Do I? Don't I? The unexpectedness of the question and the now-I-have-family-history fun fact collided HARD, loading up all of the hamster wheels in my head, adding a layer of what-if-the-migraines-aren't-migraines?? to the mix. 

Watch that snowball ROLLING. 

The MRI was fine. My brain is older, but otherwise okay.  No visible hamster wheels. The migraines are just migraines. See you in 6 months. The only remaining issue is getting the new medication correctly prescribed, but, hey. 

Well.

I get to the step-two boob follow up appointment, and they do a "compression view" of my left nipple.  Mammos are uncomfortable to start with, but this was....breathtaking.  The ultrasound that followed was also somewhat intense.  The nurse practitioner comes in to do a breast exam. "Have you had any breast pain?" "Not until today, thanks."

All the exams were fine.  My ongoing weight loss apparently changed the appearance of the test but there were no real problems. See you in a year.

Now...I have gotten a reminder that I am due for a colonoscopy.  Actually, that came in during Snowball Week. I took a couple of days to catch up on sleep, because I DID lose some sleep there, and got a referral placed. 

But DAMN, lets let that snowball run out of energy before we set off the next avalanche. 

DeeDee

PS This all took from before Christmas until almost Easter to happen. And I still haven't had the cataract surgeries. And now that I know I can't see, the fact that I can't is pissing me off.

PPS Because you all love her: Babygirl is fine.  No one but me had chest pain on the bridge. But I was the only one without jellylegs on the descent.

PPPS Prayers for my cousin. 

I Bet on the Bay Mare.....

 Babygirl and I repainted the downstairs of the house last year.  Furniture rearranged.  And we bought each other a frame TV for Christmas (honestly, not one other gift, not even Reeses trees for the stockings).  It's lovely, and we can either set it to some piece of art or have it rotate through seasonal artwork, which is what it has been doing since Thanksgiving.

This morning the art became more....springy, and I was suddenly looking into the eyes of a bay horse with a white star on its forehead.

When I was about 14, we moved from a village to the country.  Among the many changes?  I finally got the horse that little girls spend their lives dreaming about. She was a miscellaneous brown horse, in a little rough condition.  I fed her up, treated the saddle sores with twice daily Epsom salts, and brushed out the winter fur.  It turned out that under all of that, she was an amazing bay (red) with a white star and socks.  

The horse in the picture clearly was not her, and I honestly don't think I have a photo of her.  But....living in the country with a horse?  There were a couple of other girls in the area that had horses, and I made friends with people I might not otherwise have met.  

That picture took me back to a far less complicated life.  I spent hours riding with Becky all through the woods and fields within a 5 mile radius of home. Becky and I loved each other, our horses, and our lives.  We had a lot in common: Our dads were strict and somewhat frightening. Our moms became friends. We did sleepovers and helped each other with chores. My horse was terrified of water and hers liked to swim. We took falls, got concussed, and kept on riding regardless of season or weather.

When I went away to college, the horse was sold. I still hope she was treated well, but there was a little girl involved, so....

The sight of that picture made me cry. I miss it all: My home, my parents, my younger self, the simplicity of it all, and Becky. She and I lost touch until the miracle of the internet made us intersect.  We admire each others grandchildren and observe each others lives.

We remain more-or-less quiet about how different we are from each other. We share a blessed history, a million experiences, and a memory of years of close and loving friendship.  But we are currently on completely opposite poles of the political and scientific spectrum. We haven't had a live conversation in over 30 years. A deep and abiding love for each other keeps us respectful, I think. 

But in addition to childhood loves and memories,  I miss the world in which there was a time when a discussion of Carter vs Ford (which I think really never came up between us as high school students - I voted for Carter and she was too young to vote) would have been an intellectual exercise with intersectional agreements and not an area with almost no common ground at all. 

I miss the fact that we as a population could have friends in both parties without tiptoeing around the volitility and vitriol, or in fact, even noticing that someone voted differently. 

I am certain that different life experiences lead us down different paths.  Understanding that we can have similar upbringings and radically different outlooks is entirely intuitive. Why are we still friends? Because if we all give up on what connects us, the country will never heal. If we cannot discuss what unites us, we will never overcome what divides us.  If one half of the country continues to believe that the other half has lost its ever-ducking-mind, well.....

Sometimes what holds us together is betting on the bay mare and a pinto pony. 

I'm know she prays for me. I pray for her as well.  And we both pray for our country.

DeeDee