According to my therapist, I am displaying behavior that shows a healthy acceptance of my situation. Naturally, I’m still angry about some things, and that anger will take time to fade, but for the most part, I am at peace. 

I’m not stressed at all. There is so much power in finally having answers to questions I’ve been asking for around 6 years. 6 years of vomiting for no reason, 6 years of always feeling “a bit off”, 6 years of randomly feeling tired but thinking I was just feeling lazy, 6 years of a first a gradual and eventually rapid decline of an ability to digest a random array of foods. 6 years of pushing, searching, googling, asking, and coming up short. But now! Now I have answers, and for this, I will again tell you, I am thrilled!

I realize that my lack of stress is also largely due to the fact that not a single person in Spain has asked me to pay to find this answer or to solve it. I pay €138 monthly for private health insurance. This has covered all my doctor’s visits, ultrasounds, the MRI, the lab tests, and inevitably the PCR test, Myomectomy, and subsequent inpatient hospital stay. The doctor gave me these little slips that I had to take to my insurance company’s office in Girona for authorization. When the authorization person read the slips, typed some things into their computer, and signed off on everything, I cried. They received the most emphatic “Gracias” I’ve ever mustered, and it totally flustered them. I still have some unresolved debt from my doctor visits and tests when trying to figure this out last year, and my decision to simply stop and follow the “do nothing” advice from my doctors was also a based on the financial implications of seeking more opinions, I simply couldn’t afford to dig deeper. My thoughts on this are that the American healthcare system is criminal and Americans are traumatized by it. Apparently… there is a better way.

TMI time! Every month I would hop on Twitter and complain that Eve was a scrub for eating an apple in exchange for a menstrual cycle (amongst other unpleasant things). I still hope she at least got a Fuji, or a Honey Crisp because if homegirl put us through his over a Granny Smith, I will find her descendants, and we will have words. 

I would read and hear things about how your body Is actually supposed to be stronger during your cycle, and how some folks have their best performances during that time, and I’d look at myself and think. I don’t even want to leave the bed during my cycle, I am usually in so much pain, all I want are painkillers and a heating pad. I’m thinking that maybe, after this surgery, even if I don’t feel super strong during my cycle, maybe I’ll at least not want to strangle Eve for her poor decision-making. 

I was reading a forum about people who had a myomectomy, and one person exclaimed that afterward, they have normal bowel movements again. I let out an audibly excited gasp. Y’all. I DREAM of pooping. I rarely poop. I am literally full of it, every day, all the time. I only wish this intense level of constipation on a few VERY evil humans that have done some of the most horridly unforgivable things. 

Anywho, maybe in a few weeks’ time, I will eat food, digest food, and POOP! Such a basic human function that I pray I’ll soon experience regularly. 

My social media break ends tomorrow, but I am holding myself accountable to maintaining a healthier distance from that medium than I have in the past. I’m way less stressed, and I’d like to keep it that way. I was burnt out on projects, and influencer things. But now I feel ready to take on a thing or two and see if I can find joy in them. 

Things I’m looking forward to during my forced downtime: 

• Sleep

• Visiting museums

• Seeing my mom

• Learning to make cinnamon rolls

• Sleep