Purim 2018

Purim was on Thursday. Between preparing mishloach manot and doing my part of the potluck meal it kept me busy. Even though we didn't host for the first time in ten years (we were both working), it turned out to be a lovely day itself.

Tuesday I had an appointment for my yearly eye checkup. I had a little twitch in my right eye plus they were both dry so timing worked out well. She didn't find anything specific to cause the dryness or twitch but suggested drops I can start using. She said the twitch can be anything from stress, lack of sleep, caffeine, etc. Later in the conversation she looked at my medical history and meds I'm taking and saw a prenatal and asked, are you pregnant? And I said, "trying... IVF stuff." To that she responded, "Well, there you go: that can cause a lot of stress." Since then the twitch has actually been getting better and fading away - maybe the drops help too. 

This past weekend we had the craziest winds. There were downed trees and neighbors losing power. Our house is older and one of the things that needs updating is the windows. They're not very energy efficient and the winds were just seeping right through making it so cold. I found a space heater to put in our bedroom last night which made a huge difference but we weren't comfortable leaving it on overnight. We had it on for a few hours with the door closed and then turned it off right before bed. It worked really well and now I carry it around to whatever room I'm in to keep me company. If I tried to turn the heat up to the entire house it would pool around one room and shoot my electricity bill up through the roof; this is a much better solution. 

Over the weekend I also had some stomach issues. I don't know if it was something I ate over Purim (we ate a lot of junk) or on Friday, but I had the worst stomach pain on early Sat morning. I ran back and forth to the bathroom literally every 20 min until about 5pm. I didn't have anything left and still I was having stomach pains as though I needed to go. Not even gas was coming out at that point. We considered going to urgent care to get it checked out. I'm a big fan of checking things out and going to the doc for even the most minor things, but this felt silly - it was just a little bug, right? I wanted to see if it would resolve on its own. It was concerning that it wasn't resolving fast enough, and without getting into too many details there were also different colors that were  unexpected and causing alarm. I hadn't really eaten all day because I was worried it would make it worse. After shabbat I took a hot shower and it seemed to really sooth whatever tension was causing the cramping/urge to go. I guess being cold all day wasn't helping? I don't know. I went to a post-Purim party and had a nice time - no bathroom emergencies. It's not completely gone but I'll keep drinking water and monitoring. Maybe it was a stomach bug and hopefully it's over. I will say I feel about 10 lbs lighter. 

I'm currently fighting with the clinic about a new charge on my account. Last year's February cycle produced two embryos, one tested healthy and the other not. We transferred the healthy one in April which resulted in the blighted ovum. The other was cryopreserved. A lot has happened in the meantime and since it's not a viable embryo I kind of forgot about it until last week when taking inventory. I asked my nurse to get rid of any of the non-transferable embryos so she said she'll get paperwork ready. In the meantime, they want to charge me for another year of storage. I'm not paying for storage for an abnormal embryo we're not planning to transfer and about to thaw and dispose. So the due date was 2/24 for payment. No notice that it's coming up, no heads up or anything. The card they have on file was replaced which is the only reason I got notified. They were trying to just take the payment directly and it didn't go through. It's amazing that the departments there don't talk to each other. Now I have get some paperwork notarized and send it over and then dispute the charge. It's always something.

Dentist and toots

I went to the dentist this morning for a cleaning and checkup. In general I usually have no issues with my teeth. There's one exception, a back molar, that needed a crown last summer. It's not even a year later and I'm having issues with the tooth again. In part, the crown is not getting enough contact on either side so they are replacing it at no charge. But it's also started being sensitive to heat in recent weeks and he's concerned the nerve may be dying. Being proactive, the dentist suggested getting the root canal now as part of the process of replacing the crown instead of waiting until it hurts and then having to replace the crown a third time.

I told the dentist that there's a chance I may be pregnant (that's as comfortable as I could get to mentioning it) and asked whether that may effect treatment. He said in that case wait until second trimester to schedule the root canal. He was talking loudly about trimesters and pregnancy, which made me think, "Ugh, keep it down."  Dentist left and the hygienist was so great about it - she kept saying, "When you have the information... So when you confirm..." She got me. She totally got me on this.

As I was walking toward the front desk, I saw my supervisor with her son sitting in the waiting room, smiling and waving as they saw me approach. Omg did she hear? Does she know? Immediately I worry about what was or wasn't overheard. It's not like she won't know eventually but it's too early. Too soon. Not ready. Anything can happen. She's a great supervisor and of all people to overhear, if she did, I'm glad it was her, but still.

In other news I emailed my doctor about some specific discomfort. I know it's normal to be gassy and that's just something I embrace as part of the package of this magical time. My concern is that when I get gassy I feel pressure on the left side of my chest. I'm not interested in dropping dead of a heart attack so I got nervous and emailed my RE asking if the meds I'm on are a possible culprit of this symptom.  His response was, "The symptoms you describe are not related to any of the medications you are taking. You could contact your primary care physician but doubt there is a problem."

While that's reassuring, I still put in a call to my PCP and am waiting to hear back from her. I just had blood pressure and cholesterol checked in March so that's also reassuring. It's still disconcerting to feel pain around the heart area. For all I know it's perfectly normal and not at all an issue and if that's the case it's not at all bothering me. I wouldn't even call it pain, it's more pressure and doesn't come with any of the other classic symptoms (shortness of breath, tingly arm, neck pain, sweating, etc.) that are known as classic heart problems. I'd still rather check it out just in case. I'm fine with being slightly embarrassed to be an alarmist or tell the doctors I'm gassy on the off-chance this is an actual issue.