So yesterday I got to spend the entire day in a fabulous downtown emergency room. What fun!
I’ve been having a blinding headache nearly every day from about 11am until about 4pm since I got home from the hospital. I kept asking my doctors about it, and they didn’t seem that alarmed until it had been going on for nearly two weeks. While my GP wanted to continue to ignore the headaches, my OB was a bit freaked out. He tried to just schedule a cat scan for me, but since my insurance is an HMO and we all know that HMOs are run by small minded little number crunching people that look like naked mole rats, and try really hard to prevent you from doing anything that would cost them money, I had to go through the ER and waste everyone’s time instead.
Sigh.
So after getting to listen to a strapped down homeless man sing “New York, New York” at the top of his lungs for three hours (and intermittingly shout “God damn it!” a sentimet with which I heartily agreed), I got my cat scan. I didn’t even get a room, it was that crowded. I had a bed in a hallway. Until they ran out of beds and made me go sit in the lobby while they waited for my cat scan results.
The TV in the lobby was showing an episode of “Strong Medicine,” a crappy Lifetime medical show. Guess what the topic was?
It was an episode where a woman gives birth to IVF twins, only to discover that one of the babies isn’t hers (they know because the baby’s African-American, and she’s white). And she and the boy’s biological mother, another infertile woman, spend the rest of the show fighting over who gets the baby. I shit you not.
Eventually, the lovely doctor (he really was nice) came out and told me my brain was fine. That I should take Advil with my Excedrin migraine, and follow up with a neurologist about whether or not I need migraine medication.
Yee-fucking-ha. When will the side effects go away?
And that brings up another subject.
I’m feeling a little bitter these days.
This quote is from a troll that posted on Tertia’s blog:
“I find it ironic that people are praying to God when God had nothing to do with these pregnancies. When Cecily wanted to be pregnant, God had an answer, and that answer was "no." Who needs God, when there's IVF? Perhaps God, in His infinite wisdom, was trying to keep her from having precisely this kind of tragedy?"
What bothers me about this statement is that there is a part of me, larger than I’d like to admit, that thinks she is dead-on correct.
In recovery, it’s said that God has three answers to prayers: “Yes,” “Maybe,” and “Not now.” But more often than not for me, the answer is “Are you out of your fucking mind? Of course not!”
I’m getting pretty pissed off about it.
The other thing that keeps coming up in my mind is that to some extent this is all my fault.
Because I’m fat.
Since fat chicks like me are considered to be at a higher risk of preeclampsia, there is some merit to this argument, although I’m sure many of you will tell me that you or people you know who went through preeclampsia actually only weigh 23 lbs, 28lbs at the time of giving birth, but still—the doctors say it’s a risk, so I believe them.
It’s so easy to slide into self-blame. It’s a comfortable spot for me, especially when it comes to my weight. I’ve tried so hard these last six years to come to terms with my overeating. I’ve never been able to successfully combat it for more than a year, and I’ve never successfully gotten under 200lbs. The pain becomes too great, and food makes me feel better. I don’t have cigarettes, drugs, alcohol, or sex with random strangers anymore to fill that space. The only thing I have left is food, food, food.
The thing about all my other addictions, of course, is that I can survive without ingesting whatever substance it is. No one needs heroin or Old Granddad to live; but food, well, you gotta eat. If I could get some sort of implants that provided me with sufficient nutrition, and allowed me to abstain from eating entirely, I think I might be able to actually get a handle on this.
I know I want to spend this time of healing losing weight. But I still find myself reaching for food to soothe my grief and rage. I have to make a decision to change, but I’m unwilling to give up this last little crutch, even though this crutch may have played a role in killing my babies. And nearly killing me.
God damn it.
Well, writing about this will surely shake something loose. I’ve also a member of a recovery group that deals with this specifically, so that will help too. But I’m tired of feeling shitty about myself. I really am.
