"Me fail English? That's unpossible!" -Ralph Wiggum

If you asked me on any given day, “Hey, Jennie? How many medical professionals did you cry in front of recently?” the answer would USUALLY be, “Oh, none.” (That’s if things are going normally, that is. Which, you know, happens every now and then for us.)

But if you’d asked me that yesterday? The answer would have been, “Why, ALL OF THEM, thank you for asking.” 

I don’t know what was going on with me yesterday but all the feels were there and they came to party. 

I had actually been feeling it coming on. It had felt like I was on the verge of tears for the last few days, and it was getting progressively worse. I knew only one thing would help: a big old sobfest. But because I am a stubborn, dumb asshole, I kept pushing the tears away anytime they crept up. I knew, I KNEW, I should get it out before my doctor’s appointments, because the last thing I wanted to do was have a menty b in front of doctors I’d never met before (I save that for at least the third visit, I’m not a tear hussy). But even though I knew it would be better to get it all out, I couldn’t help pushing it away. Crying is exhausting, you guys, and I’m tired (ha) of doing it. I thought maybe, just maybe, I’d be able to hold it off until those appointments were over. 

I was wrong. 

Maybe I would have been OK had I not woken up at 4:30 that morning, completely unable to fall back to sleep. Maybe if I hadn’t had chemo the day before. Maybe if I hadn’t been in more pain than normal. It was really the perfect storm for MAXIMUM TEARS. 

My first appointment yesterday was for a barium swallow test, which is exactly as fun as it sounds. It was something I was doing because I wouldn’t let them stick a scope down my throat (with zero notice!) a few weeks ago. (Yes, I cried that day, which is maybe why I got my way.)

The trade off was, I would come in later for a barium swallow test, where they make you swallow foods of different consistencies on x-ray so they can make sure you’re not aspirating anything, and to assess your swallowing ability. All of the food has barium in it so they can see the liquid on screen. As you can imagine, it’s important to assess this for anyone who has had surgery on their tongue and then let medical professionals shoot radiation at their face. 

The appointment started off fine, really. One of the techs shouted, “Loon!” when he saw me, which sounds rude until I tell you there was a loon on my shirt. We discussed how freaky the loon’s call is as they got set up for the test. 

Mostly, the test went fine. I’m not silently aspirating anything and everything else looked as good as expected for someone in my situation. But that didn’t stop me from crying several times when the doctor started asking me questions about eating, my least favorite topic, or when she pushed me a few times to try to eat food I don’t normally eat. I kept apologizing, mostly because I wasn’t sure WHY I was even crying, other than it was early and I was having to eat gross barium food on camera. 

After that appointment, Joe and I had some time to kill before the next one, so we got in the car, where I immediately started crying. Again, I had very little understanding of why, until I shouted, “I’m so sick of this being my life!” at poor Joe. Which. Fair, I guess. 

Things didn’t improve when we got a call about another upcoming appointment being denied by insurance, meaning we spent the rest of the day on and off the phone with people of varying degrees of helpfulness at CIGNA. It’s all settled now, but I cannot tell you how frustrating it is to be in a situation where you’re already just…stressed and worried and exhausted and then you have to talk to insurance? Well, really, in my case, it’s sitting next to Joe as he talks to insurance and I whisper/cry angry things to him to pass along to whoever he’s speaking to. Long story short (ha!), insurance in this country is a mess and if you disagree…you’re wrong. I’m sorry (no, I’m not). 

I pulled it back together before my next appointment which was with a Speech & Swallow Therapist. As soon as I met her, she was incredibly kind and my reaction was…”Shit, I’m gonna cry again.” Because people being nice to me = automatic tears. 

And boy did I cry! Turns out talking about my limited eating and speaking abilities is still a touchy subject. We spent most of the visit talking about my goals and landed on improving eating ability (sure, why not dream big) and better articulation when I speak. It would be nice to be more understandable. Mostly I am, especially if I talk to you fairly frequently, but that doesn’t stop the murderous rage that fills my body when someone asks me to repeat myself or, worse, when I can tell they have no idea what I said but they don’t want to ask. The exercises were very basic. Just saying different sounds, over and over, and I was flooded with emotion every time she shook her head. 

”You’re thinking about it too much,” she said. “Relax.” 

HI HAVE WE MET?

After we left that appointment, we got in the car and Joe asked how it was. I said, “I’m just gonna cry really hard for a while. I’m fine, really, I just need to get it out.” So I did. And I felt a little better. Once I’d gotten myself back together, Joe very gently asked, “This is unrelated to anything that just happened, but when is it you start therapy?”

Monday, y’all. The answer is Monday. I don’t imagine it’ll be a quick fix or anything, but I am looking forward to having a new person whose sole responsibility it is to just let me dump all my messy feelings on them, who will help me unravel them and develop better coping skills than taking a depression nap or watching seasons and seasons of old reality shows. 

If I could, my coping mechanism would be to just run away. From everything. I’m sick of going to the doctor all the time, sick of talking about my health with everyone like it’s the only thing about me now, I’m sick of being sick. But running away won’t do anything, because my problems would all just come with me. I can’t run away from being sick without somehow escaping from my body (hence the depression naps). 

Today, when I woke up, I told Joe that it felt like yesterday broke me. And the weird thing was, nothing that big or crazy happened. Sure, everything with insurance was frustrating and unnecessary, and I didn’t particularly want to be at the doctor, but it wasn’t anything new. But it broke me just the same. 

So today, I was gentle with myself. (It’s my bad chemo day, anyway.) I took a long nap. I stayed in my pajamas all day. I did little things around the house to make it more livable…laundry, more unpacking, more organizing. I thought, maybe if I can put the things around me in order, my mind won’t be far behind. 

Anything could happen, right?