Rain, With a Chance of Torrential Downpours

I can already confidently cross off several things on my resolution list—and sadly, it’s only January 7th. The "Positive Thinking" flew out of the window when the clock struck midnight on New Year's Eve. The “Do something new everyday” that I so eagerly lifted from my friend’s list was a crash a burn. After the first 3 days I found myself too busy and forgetting to do something new or simply not having the strength to muster the creativity to think of anything new. This New Year couldn’t have come at a more uninspiring time in my life. I even sealed last year with a reading of “The Alchemist” known to be the “book that comes along each decade that changes the lives of its readers forever,” and I was left with nothing.
No inspiration. No optimism. No sense of renewal. I do plan to give this novel another visit at a future date, but what I had hoped to gain from this book was swallowed by my present feelings of defeat. But oh, you say, this should be the best time of your life. You’ve recently gotten married and now have a bundle of joy on the way, and you’re right, one would think that this would be one of the pivotal highlights of my life, and yet, there are so many other burdens clouding this vision that I cannot see past the rain.

Of course, to begin, there is the common third trimester agitation of wanting my own body back from the discomfort of not being able to lean forward to enjoy a meal without my stomach getting in the way, the hip pain that comes from the daily regimen of sleep, the back pain due to the asymmetry of my protruding stomach, and the constant urge to release my bladder.

To compound this problem I have been having routine biopsies done on a batch of pre-cancerous cells that plagued my body early last year. I had an initial surgery to remove them hoping that would take care of the problem but soon after I found out that I was pregnant, before I hit my 6-month check-up mark from my surgery, it was discovered that the cells had returned, and better yet, more aggressively. The cells that have invaded me run on a scale from 1-5. 1 being considered “abnormal,” then there is 2,3, and 4, and finally 5, which is cancer. Last year, these cells were at a solid 2 and since then they have increased to level 3, a mere level away from cancer. The good news is that the baby is now big enough where if my results from yesterdays biopsy prove to be cancerous, he is at what is considered a healthy weight and size to easily survive living outside of the womb with proper medical attention, should they need to take him in order to get me started on immediate treatment. Should all go well and the cells remain under control at a steady level 3 or even 4, then I will simply have another surgery to remove them after we are introduced to Wyatt for the first time. In the meantime, what this means for me is numerous biopsies which get more and more painful the further I am along, as well as the sheer torture of waiting for the results of how these cells are progressing.

I’m in agreement on your thought about my having just gotten married, although I certainly don’t feel married. My husband’s current job has him working and living over an hour away from me, which may not seem like much, but between both of our jobs and each of out children, the time we have available to actually travel those few miles to spend time with one another is limited to about one day per week.
I spend most nights with the sound of the ticking clock in my living room and my dog, my nose glued to the pages of whatever book I have available for my mind to temporarily escape the loneliness that eats me up inside. Gives whole new meaning to my blog title of "The Lone Reed" doesn't it? I feel, even though technically speaking I am not, that I am going through yet another pregnancy, alone. The lack of time spent with my husband has taken a severely negative toll on me and to make matters worse because of our physical distance we have become spiritually distant from one another as well and spend many conversations in argument about the most trivial of things, yet when we're together what becomes painfully obvious is just how desperately we miss each other.

These past few difficult months have reflected on my graduate school work and I ended up with my first “C” in the one class that my fall schedule had dwindled down to after dropping a few others that I simply couldn’t handle with everything else going on. The graduate program at my University holds that any student who receives a grade lower than a “B” must be reviewed for continuance, meaning the panel could decide that I am not a suitable match for their graduate program and dismiss me altogether, and along with that, my career goals, all of my hard work up to this point, not to mention any and all student loans that I have financially accrued. The continuance hearing is supposed to take place this month.

This is honestly, just to name a few of the things that are constantly running through my mind. I could add to this list several others that include but are not limited to finances, anxiety over the new baby, and dissatisfaction with my employment, again, just to name a few, but what is the use. To see all of this laid out in black and white just enhances the depression that has already started to wash over me. Perhaps rather than crossing off “Thinking Positive” from my resolution list, I should cross everything else off and solely work towards this goal in hopes that a little change in thinking might help me make sense of all of this. Then again, maybe not.