I just can’t believe my strange luck and weirdness abounding. This could be long.
You’ve been warned and you most likely will be bored.
I get that, but I am still a freeking freak and need to write this out.
As some of you might know, I was diagnosed last year with Fibro, extreme onset peri due to trauma, adrenal exhaustion, post traumatic stress and few other things tossed in. The symptoms are similar for most of those crazy labels, so I’ve just been treating the symptoms…fuck the labels.
Peri hit me hard with my very first migraines and a 6 week late period Nov-Dec. of 2007. Hard. I went to a Naturopath MD when we lived in Maui. She helped direct me and label me. Not exactly what I wanted, but she did get me on the EPO, Motherwort and cal/mag, which have helped me tremendously. But the full blown panic and fear of EVERYTHING and almost agorophobic feelings just were too unpredictable. While not incapacitating, the feelings hit when I least expected it and started to impact our loves. I knew that I needed to bring in the big guns. I read and researched and read some more. Found a great online peri community and discovered that I was not losing my mind, there is hope and I can get through this. I started researching doctors and kept coming back to the same one. In Sacramento. He has people fly in from all over the place to see him. I kept getting pointed back to him. First saw his name last Fall, but kept putting of making an appt. I kept thinking I’d get better. I got worse. So finally, I called last month to get an appt. They were booking two months out, but called me right back with a cancellation for today. I talked to the physicians’s asst., Diane, for about 30 minutes. She got all my info and said it sounded like I needed to get my thyroid tested, for sure, but that I was definitely in peri. Yep. I know. It was just so nice to get it all confirmed by a kind, compassionate woman.
So we drive down to Sacramento today. I’m a nervous wreck. Hate doc and dentist appts. I get in to the office, everyone is so sweet. I feel like I can breathe. They take me into the doctor’s office and I sit across from him. He tells me all about himself and asks about me. Where I’m from. How long I’ve been in Tahoe. We talk about when my issues started. I tell him about Eric. He is sympathetic, tells me that has definitely impacted my hormonal health. We talk some more about my symptoms. We somehow get on the topic that I lived in Los Gatos for 41 years. He looks at me strangely and just sits silently for a minute. Then asks if I know where he practiced medicine for 40 years? Uh, no. Nope. Not a clue. LOS GATOS. Oh, small world. Yeah, best friends with Eric and my entire family’s doctor for years. The doctor that delivered Gracie. So many people that we both know. He’s probably late 60′s-ish. Lived there until about 5 years ago. As a matter of fact, (he starts putting it all together), he has a grandson that went to Los Gatos High and graduated 5 or 6 years ago. Wonder if my son knew him. What’s his name? Andrew. ANDREW Q.? Yes. Yes. Yes. He is my grandson. WHAT THE HELL??????
Andrew was one of Eric’s best friends. Since elementary. Wait a minute, wait a minute. Eric Q? YES! Oh my.
I started bawling. I was just in shock. Andrew is like my son. He calls me on Mother’s Day. We see each other as often as possible. He flies into LG from Newport Beach to celebrate G’s birthday. He makes a HUGE effort. He and his Mom always attend family events, if they can. His Mom came to my baby shower. I love Cheryl.
The doctor is flustered and freaked out. He starts talking about the documentary that Andrew made about Eric’s life and death. The one that went out to all of No. California’s high schools. He spent every minute after Eric died, in our house, making that movie. ( and many months before eric died sitting at our computer) He won a film festival award for his film about Eric. It was such a passion of love. I could go on and on and on….it was surreal.
He told me to hang on a minute and leaves the room. I am not sure what he is doing, but start to almost hyperventilate. I can’t explain it, but it was like a direct punch to my gut. Such mixed emotions. Fucking weird. I’m shaking. (my body is dramatic, my mind is telling it to settle the hell down and relax)
He walks back in with an older woman. She sees me crying. She looks worried. He tells her to sit down and listen. He’s kind and teary eyed. She’s worried. I touch her arm and tell her that I’m alright. I fear that she thinks I’m the bearer of bad news. She sits. He tells me that this is Diane. Andrew’s GRANDMOTHER!!! The woman I spoke to on the phone is his wife, Andrew’s Grandmother and his PA.
He tells her who I am. She immediately bursts into tears and holds onto me for dear life. It was so fucking weird. We know so much about each other, but had never met. She has seen the movie. She knows all about Gracie. She tells me that I saved those kids when Eric died. I tell her that they saved me. It just went on and on and on. It was bizarre and exhausting and heart warming and strange and weird…… We just could not believe that I was sitting there in their office in Sac. Via Tahoe, Maui and back to Los Gatos. What are the fucking odds. Really. Who would this happen to, besides me? Again, I’m not being dramatic, but it really was so weird, so weird, so weird.
I know so much about his Grandmother. She and Andrew are very close. She helped his Mom raise him, like my Mom helped me with Eric. Andrew and Eric had very similar lives. Both raised by poor single Moms in a VERY wealthy town. They were both so sweet and kind and loved by all. They hit it off in grade 5 and spent as much time together as possible. Many video clips I have of Eric are from Andrew. I love that boy and I loved his Mom. I was just blown away to meet his Grandmother. Words don’t really do the surreal-ness of it all. Talk about kookiness…my life.
We wrapped up the freak show and got back to me and my ailments, but I really had a hard time getting back to that calm place that I had been. Did. not. Happen.
Doctor was amazing. Kind of confirmed everything that I already knew. Is starting me on some bio hormones. Loved being validated. He told me that I was at extreme end of peri scale. A 10 all the way around. Is going to get some bloodword for my thyroid. My dry, crepey skin, brittle nails, cold feet and hands, dry everything else. is a huge sign, but testing freeT3 and FreeT4 will confirm it. I went out of his office right into Diane’s office. We sat and talked for about 15 minutes and then Karl and Gracie came in and got to meet both the Doctor and Diane. (karl was confused, and when we got in the car told me that could only happen to me…duh)
I am still reeling from it. I guess I could say not in a [i]bad[/i] way, just dizzy from it all. My life. How the fuck did I get here. I can’t even go see a Doctor in the middle of nowhere without it being brought back. All of it. Diane talked about how horrible that Thanksgiving was…..how upset her daughter and Andrew were. Nobody had Thanksgiving that year that knew Eric. It was the Thanksgiving that wasn’t, she said.
I can run, but I can’t hide from it, from him, from my sadness, from my grief, from my wonderful memories, from everyone’s memories. Can I? I throw in the towel.
(we had a great rest of the day. we went to old town sacramento, walked along the river, ate some peanut butter/chocolate fudge, loved my girl and karl. i am just so grateful for all that i have and have had, but talk about wow. wow)
