(no subject)
So, I started to write this, and it suddenly took a hard left turn into medical TMI and a long-winded attempts to get My Thoughts On Achalasia*, And Specifically Where I Am Now, a year after my operation, down on virtual paper - as such I wrote it mainly for my own benefit, and it is very stream-of-couciousy and rambly and tl;dr.
A year ago yesterday, I had an operation on my oesophagus, which had narrowed at the bottom. This formed a sort of funnel or bottleneck, through which food/drink couldn't pass easily, making the oesophagus expand above the bottleneck, where food would get jammed. Before that, eating was Not Very Fun - it came on when I was about 17, and developed gradually enough to make me constantly doubt what was actually happening, resulting in body issues and lots of attempts to deny that there was a problem.
So, I started to write a post about Renee Vivien and my Essay of Doom and awesome lesbian poetry - but this is what I actually wrote:
It’s snowing! A year ago today, I was in Decize, probably tramping through the snow to the supermarket to buy something or other so that I could cook All The Things. I spent most of time in Decize cooking all the things and watching A:TLA, which sounds in retrospect a much more idyllic existence than it actually felt at the time.
...Actually, no, I wouldn’t have been in Decize in early February last year; I’d have come back home for my operation by that point. Actually, thinking about it, a year ago today I had had my operation yesterday and would be in hospuital, feeling dozy and optimistic and also terrified that I would do something that messed it all up and resulted in the wall of my gut bursting and extreme agony and/or death. Fun times.
Things are certainly better now; I can eat much more easily than I could. I think now I’m confident that that is the objective truth, not just an empty reassurance or a subjective impression. I still regurgitate a fraction of most food and drink I take down, but things go down more easily, with way less discomfort, than they did. For some reason, liquid is more difficult than solid to keep down; I almost always bring up my drinks. I’m still underweight, but I’ve come to accept that it seems pretty stable, and doesn’t seem to give me any problems - weight loss used to be a huge worry of mine, but I think I have gradually come to let it go, and no longer make it an important issue.
...And the fact that I write about this as such a normal state of affairs shows that my perceptions are pretty skewed on it all. I’ve had to deal with it for about four years; normalising it and ignoring that there was a problem used to be my main coping mechanism. So you can see why I find it hard to trust my impressions that Yeah, it’s totally better than it was - although as I said, I do think that this is objectively true. My dad was annoyed at me when I told the surgeon - back in March, a month after the op, when it was worse than it is now - “Things are much better, though; I keep down most of most meals”, which I thought accurately represented the situation and the fact that, contrary to the surgeon’s expectations, I didn’t keep everything down. As my dad said, he didn’t pick up on the subtext that “I still bring up some of most meals” from my phrasing, and so it wasn’t until November, when I saw him again, that he became surprised and concerned by my current state. I can’t bring myself to feel surprised and concerned myself; it would take too much energy since I AM comfortable, not in pain and not especially inconvenienced by it. They did a scan over Christmas; I need to get round to ringing the surgeon and asking what his conclusions were. I’ve avoided doing so for several weeks, for no conscious reason.
This is a very long-winded way of saying that things aren’t perfect in re. eating and drinking - and I ackownledge that they aren’t perfect, and occasionally cause me inconvenience - but that they are infinitely improved on what they were up until February 2011, and I am truly grateful to my surgeon, the NHS and Modern Medicine (pretty sure that even 10 years ago, the keyhole surgery that made it so non-invasive and easy to recover from, if still just as complex medically, wouldn’t have been available). Over the last year, I’ve become comfortable in my body, and able to predict its reactions better and more physically comfortable. The fact that I’ve written all this while feeling pretty calm and not crying and/or blaming myself AT ALL is actually, pretty fucking significant in terms of my general pattern for discussions of the whole thing.
And sometime soon (Monday maybe), I’ll ring my surgeon’s secretary and ask what the state of play is and what the next set of hoops I’ll need to jump through are - but I know that this is something I can deal with and just get on with life. If he were to tell me that there’s nothing further he can do, I am pretty okay with the idea being the way I am now for the rest of my life.
Normally I am pretty good at analysing my thoughts and figuring out what they mean; with this it is so subjective that I have absolutely no fucking clue what they will conclude. if someone has actually read all the way to the bottom of this.
*Achalasia - a condition I've had for several years. The name means 'failure to relax', which I have just discovered and find rather hilarious; it apparently affects about 1 in 100 000 people a year.
A year ago yesterday, I had an operation on my oesophagus, which had narrowed at the bottom. This formed a sort of funnel or bottleneck, through which food/drink couldn't pass easily, making the oesophagus expand above the bottleneck, where food would get jammed. Before that, eating was Not Very Fun - it came on when I was about 17, and developed gradually enough to make me constantly doubt what was actually happening, resulting in body issues and lots of attempts to deny that there was a problem.
So, I started to write a post about Renee Vivien and my Essay of Doom and awesome lesbian poetry - but this is what I actually wrote:
It’s snowing! A year ago today, I was in Decize, probably tramping through the snow to the supermarket to buy something or other so that I could cook All The Things. I spent most of time in Decize cooking all the things and watching A:TLA, which sounds in retrospect a much more idyllic existence than it actually felt at the time.
...Actually, no, I wouldn’t have been in Decize in early February last year; I’d have come back home for my operation by that point. Actually, thinking about it, a year ago today I had had my operation yesterday and would be in hospuital, feeling dozy and optimistic and also terrified that I would do something that messed it all up and resulted in the wall of my gut bursting and extreme agony and/or death. Fun times.
Things are certainly better now; I can eat much more easily than I could. I think now I’m confident that that is the objective truth, not just an empty reassurance or a subjective impression. I still regurgitate a fraction of most food and drink I take down, but things go down more easily, with way less discomfort, than they did. For some reason, liquid is more difficult than solid to keep down; I almost always bring up my drinks. I’m still underweight, but I’ve come to accept that it seems pretty stable, and doesn’t seem to give me any problems - weight loss used to be a huge worry of mine, but I think I have gradually come to let it go, and no longer make it an important issue.
...And the fact that I write about this as such a normal state of affairs shows that my perceptions are pretty skewed on it all. I’ve had to deal with it for about four years; normalising it and ignoring that there was a problem used to be my main coping mechanism. So you can see why I find it hard to trust my impressions that Yeah, it’s totally better than it was - although as I said, I do think that this is objectively true. My dad was annoyed at me when I told the surgeon - back in March, a month after the op, when it was worse than it is now - “Things are much better, though; I keep down most of most meals”, which I thought accurately represented the situation and the fact that, contrary to the surgeon’s expectations, I didn’t keep everything down. As my dad said, he didn’t pick up on the subtext that “I still bring up some of most meals” from my phrasing, and so it wasn’t until November, when I saw him again, that he became surprised and concerned by my current state. I can’t bring myself to feel surprised and concerned myself; it would take too much energy since I AM comfortable, not in pain and not especially inconvenienced by it. They did a scan over Christmas; I need to get round to ringing the surgeon and asking what his conclusions were. I’ve avoided doing so for several weeks, for no conscious reason.
This is a very long-winded way of saying that things aren’t perfect in re. eating and drinking - and I ackownledge that they aren’t perfect, and occasionally cause me inconvenience - but that they are infinitely improved on what they were up until February 2011, and I am truly grateful to my surgeon, the NHS and Modern Medicine (pretty sure that even 10 years ago, the keyhole surgery that made it so non-invasive and easy to recover from, if still just as complex medically, wouldn’t have been available). Over the last year, I’ve become comfortable in my body, and able to predict its reactions better and more physically comfortable. The fact that I’ve written all this while feeling pretty calm and not crying and/or blaming myself AT ALL is actually, pretty fucking significant in terms of my general pattern for discussions of the whole thing.
And sometime soon (Monday maybe), I’ll ring my surgeon’s secretary and ask what the state of play is and what the next set of hoops I’ll need to jump through are - but I know that this is something I can deal with and just get on with life. If he were to tell me that there’s nothing further he can do, I am pretty okay with the idea being the way I am now for the rest of my life.
Normally I am pretty good at analysing my thoughts and figuring out what they mean; with this it is so subjective that I have absolutely no fucking clue what they will conclude. if someone has actually read all the way to the bottom of this.
*Achalasia - a condition I've had for several years. The name means 'failure to relax', which I have just discovered and find rather hilarious; it apparently affects about 1 in 100 000 people a year.