It's not my heart!

Woohoo! All of my heart testing came back normal.

Also, my new doctor is AMAZEBALLS.

Friends, if your doctor tries to force you to get a flu shot, even when you don't really need one, they're not a good doctor. Also, if your doctor does not give you their unvarnished opinion about flu shots when you ask for it, they are not a good doctor.

Of course, I could just be thinking this because I got validation on my viewpoint about flu shots when my doctor agreed with me on it without even knowing it.

I'm one of those assholes who thinks that flu shots are pointless and will express my opinion about it to anyone who asks. I have a couple of risk factors for the flu (asthma being chiefly among them) that would make it about eleventy billion times worse if I ever got it, yet I still refuse to get the vaccine. Why? Because it's probably not going to protect me. The vaccine industry takes a WILD stab in the dark and picks the strains they're going to vaccinate against every year and most of the time, they get it wrong. So, why would I get a shot that I don't need?

Am I an anti-vaxxer? NO. I think that tetanus shots are good. MMR vaccines are great. Also, hepatitis B shots are fantastic, as are all of those other ones that we get as babies that protect us and those around us from really terrible diseases. I think that if we know what we are protecting ourselves from and the shot that we are getting stands a good shot of protecting us (pun not intended!), then we should get that vaccine. Flu vaccines do not meet that criteria for me. For others, sure! Why not? If it gives a person even a little bit of peace of mind, then why not? I get peace of mind from alarmingly few things (thanks again, anxiety), so it would not do that for me. So, no flu shots for me.

Also, I'm taking the bull by the horns allergy-wise early this year and starting on a long-acting inhaler, which I think I've needed for a long time but just never got. My new doctor was like "ok, so if you don't have a heart issue, which you clearly don't, then it's probably your asthma." We talked about long-acting and short-acting inhalers, and I have a short-acting one that I never use because it just makes me feel jittery and more anxious and awful. When I told him that, he was like "yeah, I totally get that." DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY DOCTORS HAVE SAID THAT TO ME IN THE PAST WHEN I TELL THEM THAT MY INHALER JUST SERVES TO COLLECT DUST?

ONE. HIM.

All of the rest of them have been like "just get past the side effects. It's not a big deal. Breathing is more important than addressing these side effects and you don't need a long-acting inhaler." So, just telling me that I'm being crazy and invalidating me and not changing anything at all was SUPER effective (as it always is, right? Who doesn't like to be told that they're being ridiculous?), because I just threw it away eventually because it expired anyway after literally years of not being used.

What's great is that I now have this inhaler, and I'm going to use it for three weeks, and then I'm going to try Singulair for another three weeks. Singular is what I take when my allergies are so bad I can't get out of bed. It allows me to at least drag myself out of bed and into the shower three times a day when my allergies get terrible. I'm starting it early this year because SHOCK OF ALL SHOCKS I CAN'T BELIEVE I DIDN'T KNOW THIS BEFORE (OH WAIT YES I DID), but my allergies get worse when my lungs aren't working at their full potential! And then my allergies get even worse and my lungs can't work! And this is the pattern that I've been trying to tell doctors for YEARS, and this is the first time anyone has ever listened to me about it. That allergy cycle is what has caused my lifetime of sinus infections and bronchitis, I'm 90% sure at this point.

But I don't need a long-acting inhaler, especially not to start it early, or to prevent the suffering I feel every fall. Of course I don't. I can TOTALLY stand letting it just hit me in the face every year and spend a larger time than necessary totally debilitated every fall and then get a cold that lingers for an entire winter season because my allergies go unaddressed.

It's the best thing ever to be listened to by my doctor. You know what else is the best thing ever? Breathing. Being able to, that is. After one dose, I'm coughing less and I can breathe better. This is promising!

Down with the Sickness

You know what sucks about being gluten free?

Nothing.

Except when I'm sick. Then, everything sucks.

What especially sucks is that cough drops, those industrial-strength-knock-the-cough-out ones, have gluten in them. So does most cold medicine.

Except these:

What's great about these is that they're gluten free. Also I can recognize every single ingredient in them.

What sucks about these is that one package is $9.39.

Also, the one thing I want when I'm sick is soup, and I can't have like 90% of commercially-produced soups. So, I'm left with chicken broth if I want it, or getting creative and making my own chicken soup, which I can easily do when I am not sick and just getting off of the couch isn't like running a marathon.

Speaking of running, I ran most of a 5k yesterday. You know how sometimes, your car might make a noise that is alarming enough to bring into a mechanic to take a look, and as soon as the mechanic pops the hood, the noise stops?

I feel like that might be what my heart was doing. It was being all haywire and then when I got to the doctor, it was all, "never mind. I'll behave now." I say this because my heart rate at no point went too high or feel like it was pounding out of my chest. At no point did I feel like I was going to throw up because my heart was beating too fast. I didn't get too hot, and my face did not turn red outside of what is normal for strenuous exercise.

I should have a heart scare and then get sick and have to take three weeks off from running more often. Also, I got close to a 40-minute time if I didn't sub-40 (which I'm pretty sure I didn't, but that's totally ok!) - I don't know because the race wasn't timed, which took a lot of the pressure off, I think.

Or maybe I just needed to hear from a medical professional that my heart is ok. It's something that I have been pretty scared about in the past (I've had a weird heart something since I was a teenager that has always felt too scary to get checked), so maybe it was reassurance that I needed. I still haven't gotten my echocardiogram back yet, so who knows. All I know is that yesterday was the best run I have had in years, and I feel pretty darn proud of myself for how far I have come.

Also, I have a full draft of my article done. 

Let me say that again.

I have a full first draft of my article done.

I'm ahead of schedule at this point, and after I meet with my research mentor on Wednesday and make my revisions, I'm going to be ready to submit.

That's all I have to say about that right now. I could go on a whole rant about work as self-care, because sometimes it is (especially in this case), but I'll save that for another day. :)

Heart Stuff

Sooooo, I was really cooking along on the couch to 5k. Like, doing great. I was just starting on my second iteration of week 4, I was running outside three times a week, I was getting it done. I was even able to run for the entire time each interval! And, I was starting to feel super ready and excited for three races that I'm running in the next few months.

Then I had a couple of weird things that I started noticing again that have always kind of been these problems when I run: my heart beats fast. Like, up over 190 beats a minute and sometimes dry-heaving kind of fast. My face gets SUPER red, almost purple. Also, my heart rate will stay over 100 for the rest of the day after I run, and I don't quite feel fully recovered from it until the next day. If you think that this isn't alarming, let me put it into context for you by telling you that I had just started to consistently hit the 2-mile mark in my running when these shenanigans started happening full force.

This has always happened, but it has gotten markedly worse over the years. So, while I was on vacation last week, I took advantage of some of my time off and went to the doctor. Then I proceeded to get a bunch of tests - an EKG, a chest x-ray, an echocardiogram, and a stress test.

There are a few things about all of this stuff that I have noticed:

1. In the waiting rooms of cardiac wards in medical centers, I was the youngest person by two or three decades.

2. Electrodes leave marks on me for days. Like, my echo happened on Wednesday and I still have marks.

3. WATCHING YOUR HEART BEAT ON A SONOGRAM IS THE COOLEST THING EVER.

I'm not sure what's going to come out of all of this testing. Aside from the echo, which I don't know the results of yet, all the rest of it has come back normal. So, maybe I'm just perpetually out of shape. To learn that after all of this would suck a lot, but at least I'd know.

Therapy Shenanigans

Friends, I am the worst therapy client ever.

Like, literally the worst. I even no-showed an appointment once inadvertently. My therapist also once texted me a time that she was available, and I didn't get back to her for seven months. If that were me, I would have dropped that person like a bad effing habit. Not her, though. She's a game-day player, my therapist. Also, shit that makes me frustrated because my clients do it? I have NO problem doing those things whatsoever.

The biggest example of this is catastrophizing. BOY, do I do this.ALL.THE.TIME.

As a result, I don't talk about my feelings to people because I'm afraid that if I do, I'm going to blow up my whole life.

In my head, I KNOW this is crazy-pants.

But I can't help it anyway.

Also, whenever I'm in therapy and I just start out either in the beginning or after a long break, things that were acceptable, possibly forever, suddenly become unbearable. I can't take it. I have to tinker. I have to do something to throw the pattern off kilter, because all of a sudden it's bugging me and I can't tolerate it. The clinician inside of me KNOWS this is normal.

The 14-year-old child inside of me that got chided and shamed for expressing her feelings and other utterly normal teenage behavior does not know this is normal and wants the status quo back even though it means sitting in the corner and shutting the hell up, and starts to all-out panic because suddenly people are getting angry and this kid doesn't know what to do. Like, legit panic. Like, caged animal kind of panic.

The long and short of it is that two relationships in my life have been imploding for a while, and it's coming to a head right about now on both fronts. Intellectually, I know that this is not bad or unnecessary, but it's happening. And, it's stressful on top of the huge professional transition that I am currently making. (Of course that's going swimmingly, because it's rarely, if ever, the other way around.)

I was raised to never express my feelings. I was taught that if I do express my feelings or opinions and it makes someone else not feel so great, even for a hot second, then I did something wrong. I would need to explain myself somehow. Don't be too loud. Don't express your feelings. Don't be too much for other people. Apologize when you make someone else feel bad by expressing your feelings, even if you were right. Your feelings are not valid if they make someone else feel bad or uncomfortable. Your feelings are only valid if they serve to stroke the ego of another person.

Yeah, fuck that noise. Guess what? Other people sometimes feel angry or bad about my feelings or what I say when I set boundaries. This does not create a need for me to explain myself in any way, shape, or form. I create that all on my own when I panic. Then I back-pedal. Then I obsess about how I could have approached it differently. Then I give others room to invalidate my feelings, and then I invalidate my own feelings by saying to myself that the other person must be right. UGH WHAT AN EXHAUSTING CYCLE NOW THAT I RECOGNIZE IT.

THIS is the piece of work that I've needed to do for my whole life. I am a person who feels things. This is both healthy and valid. Intellectually, I know this. Shit, I preach it every day of my life lately. Yet I don't practice it. THIS is what doesn't quite line up for me in terms of my actions and my feelings. I consistently push my feelings into a corner to not piss off too many people, and to not make waves. Being invisible is easier, even if it's at the expense of my feelings.

Or rather, it was. Not anymore.

Oh, Family.

So, my dad is moving to Kentucky in a week and a half. I'm super excited for him, and even though I am also sad that he's going, I also know that much isn't going to change between us as a result of this move.

Right.

So there's this whole side of my family that I don't ever mention. Like, to anyone. It's because I usually get weird looks from people who didn't realize that I actually had these people in my life. At first it was because I felt pretty deep resentment toward them. Now, i just feel nothing because they are such a small factor in my life that they don't even enter my radar. They're all on my dad's side, and I'm pretty sure those friends closest to me learned of their existence at my wedding festivities. I remember my in-laws asking why they were so isolated and didn't talk to me or anyone else at my bridal shower, and feeling weird about it, but also knowing that this is just how they are and I didn't really have a choice in inviting them. If I had, I would not have invited them.

My sister's wedding celebration 2 years ago and her baby shower back in February was pretty much the last time I saw any of them, and before that, the last time was my wedding in 2009, and I'm totally ok with that. Historically, these people have treated me like shit for what appears to be sport my entire life, no matter how hard I cared or tried to make them a part of my life. When I told one of them that I had just gotten my masters degree in something other than music, they were disappointed because now they wouldn't hear from their friends about how talented I am and what I was up to with flute playing. That was their response to this huge and positive life event and accomplishment that I had just told them about.

Right.

Now that I'm an adult and can make my own choices, my choice is to keep these people as far away from me as I can. They are the very definition of venomous, in my opinion, and I have done a lot of work in taking away the guilt behind cutting people like this entirely out of my life. They didn't know that I went to grad school, they didn't know that rob and I bought a house - they had no involvement in The Big Stuff or the little stuff, and that is totally fine with me. This is actually the huge positive byproduct of having a whole side of the family that doesn't communicate with each other - it's safer because there is no access to emotional ammunition.

Anywho. Why am I telling you this, readers?

I finally had the choice to decline going to a family event because these people would be there and I took it. I TOOK IT. Do you know how weird that is? And huge and freeing and awesome?

The original plan for next weekend was that my dad, stepmom, sister, nephie, brother in law, me, and Rob were all going to hang at my sister's place on Sunday, also known as The Day Before My Dad Closes On The Sale of His House and Moves to Kentucky. 

Right.

I got a voicemail from my sister yesterday saying that plans had changed, and they were moving the festivities to Saturday so that a whole bunch of people could also come up and also say their goodbyes.

All of these are people I just told you about.

Right.

I said thanks but we can't make it.

HAVING THAT KIND OF POWER FEELS AWESOME.

Do I feel guilty? Historically I have, but this time, No. If things other than geography were changing drastically, maybe. But they're not. Also, I already have a day at my dad's planned for Vacation Extravaganza 2017. We'll wish them safe travels then. And, I like the idea of getting out of dodge for the holidays sometimes, so maybe this is our reason this year or next.

This invitation decline is stuck in my craw for the moment, and I'm sure I'll figure out why, but the overwhelming sense I feel at the moment is sweet, sweet relief. So I'll just focus on that. :) this is a form of self-care that I consistently neglect, but it's what I need the most - to practice shedding that sense of obligation to people who only hurt me is the best feeling ever, and I need to do it way more often than I do so that I can finally tune into that side of me who needs nurturing and give that little kid inside of me what she actually needs instead of what she got. (Yeah, I've been doing a lot a lot a lot of inner child work in therapy. Totally ok with it.)

Three Stages of Invisalign Tightening

Friends, I got my Invisalign tightened last Friday, and in my very short time of having it so far, I have discovered three stages. Keep in mind that I went through these stages ON STEROIDS with my first set of trays and it lasted at least the first week and a half, if not a little longer:

Stage 1: The Holy Shit Is This Tight Stage: This is characterized by feeling like I have a vice grip in my mouth. The trays are tight and loose at the same time, which is pretty confusing, but that's literally the only way I can describe it. Also, it is uncomfortable. In the first two weeks though, this HURT. A LOT. For this second set, though, it mercifully both hurt less and lasted a much shorter length of time - about a day and a half. I don't really want to take the trays out because it hurts, but also it will hurt worse if I take them out because that means putting them back in, which hurts like a BITCH. Like, I have intense, almost blinding pain for about five seconds while I snap the aligners back into my mouth, so I rarely want to touch them or take them out. This takes us to...

Stage Two: The It Hurts Worse When The Trays Aren't In My Mouth Stage: this is actually kind of perpetual, I think. I'm generally very, very careful when I'm eating - the 10 Invisalign buttons pretty much guarantee that. But the other piece of this is that it's uncomfortable to eat, especially if it's anything crunchy. My teeth just low-key hurt all the time whenever I bite down on anything that is harder than the consistency of fresh mozzarella. Also, my bite has already drastically changed, so my teeth hit other teeth when I chew now and when it's unexpected, it hurts. A LOT. Luckily, this does eventually go away, but even brushing my teeth (which happens about four times a day) can get uncomfortable. The best time, interestingly, is in the morning - my trays have been in all night and some kind of wizard voodoo or something makes it so that my mouth is entirely discomfort-free for about two hours every morning. It's pretty nice! The aligners also feel like they fit right eventually in this stage, so that's nice too.

Stage Three: The Rage Stage: So, I haven't hit this one yet for this set, but it will probably happen within the next few days, especially since I'm off to a conference this weekend and that will put a HUGE dent in my dental regimen, and I won't be able to snack as much as I usually do at this particular conference place. (Which is all the time because THE FOOD IS AMAZEBALLS.) What happens is that I just get sick of it. I look at my wear indicators and they are faded enough for me to be like "...I could, y'know, not wear them for a little bit longer today..." and it is SO HARD TO RESIST. Then I remember how much I'm paying to get this done AND the progress I'm already seeing and I pull it together and click the trays back in.

I'm sure there are other nuances, and I have been taking pictures, but I want to wait a few more weeks so there is more progress. I wish I had a copy of that super neat video that my dentist showed me about exactly how my teeth are going to straighten, but alas, I do not. It's a pretty fascinating process, all told.

Seventeen months, one week, and two days until I can snack again. (Yes, I'm still counting.)