I'm back!

Hellloooooooo, my friends. Welcome! I am returned to myself. A long post is incoming, so if you have time to read and would like to experience the past couple of days with me, grab a drink and settle in. I was feeling pretty good last night but didn’t want to jinx myself by saying I’d be back to normal today. I woke up feeling 99% today, so I giddily slipped on my swimsuit and took my happy self to the gym.

But first! Yesterday. Boy, oh boy, yesterday was a test of my body in progress. I briefly mentioned this collar/shoulder pain I’d been having for a while but didn’t really discuss much past that. A little additional context here: my body has done some really mysterious things since starting the journey to not just become healthy (because that is an understatement and a half because of the point I started from), but to reverse the many dangerously unhealthy illnesses I brought upon myself. I’ve experienced the return of menses after almost a year of its absence. I’ve seen lumps and bumps in places I quite literally couldn’t see on my body before. I’ve had random fevers. I’ve found veins and muscles that have been entrenched for a decade that I genuinely forgot existed. I have become so asymmetrical that it would be comical if you drew me on a piece of paper. But the strangest and admittedly, most frightening mysterious change has been in my breasts.

At 418lbs, my body was a mostly homogenous blubber sack. Things looked fairly proportionate (except my lack of any buttcheeks to be found, regardless of my size—thank you Rose genes) and nothing stood out. As I started losing, things got awkward. This leg is much bigger, this arm is much fatter, this part of my stomach is still inflated but this side got hit by a dart… Nothing too overly concerning, even if I feel like a kindergarten art project sometimes when I look in the mirror. But about 6 weeks ago, the first alarm bells went off when I noticed nipple discharge. It’s not super rare so I didn’t pay much mind to it aside from a panicked pregnancy test. A few weeks pass and I take my unclothed progress pictures and notice, oh geez, my boobs have now come to exist in two different solar systems, like Pluto took off pouting so he could be a big shot in a different galaxy. Then 2 weeks ago, the pain began. Like millions of tiny tattoo needles all across the upper portions of my breasts. I finally decided it was time to get checked out. After a quick GP visit and referral to Breast Health, I was scheduled for a mammogram and bilateral ultrasound to see if something was wrong.

To my credit, especially given my history of extreme health anxiety, I handled it fairly well. I did a comparatively excellent job managing my fears and stress. One thing I’ve really managed to grasp since starting E2M is that I am a lot freaking stronger than I knew, and I can and will meet any challenge to my health head on. I left the house yesterday alone. Not ideal to be alone for this kind of visit under these circumstances, but with an entire family of mostly bed-ridden sickies, my usual husbando-support-bot had to stay home with my daughter. Not only would this have been reason enough before for me to reschedule, but the imaging was also in a major hospital complex, meaning lots of walking. I’m still not a walker, and it’s still a huge source of anxiety for me to go somewhere huge like this hospital without someone who can drop me off at the door or push me in a wheelchair. But gosh darn it, I put my brave pants on and went.

I had to park much further away than I anticipated. I could feel the anxiety welling in my chest as I looked in the rearview at the distance between where I was parked and the entrance to the 6 story building I had to get to. “I can at least make it to the door, and then ask for help,” I thought. Deep breath, and I submerged from my ground-level sedan and sat off toward the front door. But something spectacular happened. I made it 50’, no pain; 100’, no pain; 200’, no pain; 500’, no pain. What the… I put a hand on the spot in my back where the nerve that has been pinched between my L5 and S1 vertebrae for years should have been stabbing me, but it just wasn’t. It just didn’t hurt. The lady at registration clearly mistook the confusion on my face, because she asked if I was lost. After checking in, she sent me toward radiology.

Now, by the time I made it to radiology, my lungs were on fire. My back did finally start to threaten me, but I was safely sitting by that point. I’ll spare the full details of the appointment and the many, many hilarious moments of boob fails for the sake of time. I had absolutely amazing staff for my tests. The mammogram took a long time because by that point, my back was completely over my expedition, so I had to reset my back several times. They were very understanding and made what could have been a frightening visit into a very comfortable one. After 4 hours of making paper bag puppets out of my boobs, I walked out with a clean bill of breast health. If you haven’t gotten your routine checks, consider this your loving reminder to take schedule your screenings.

So, the search continues for the source of the pain, but the prevailing opinion currently is that my boobs are too damn big, and their collapse is straining my chest wall muscles. Since I’m very, very unable to find sports bras that fit both the band and the cup, I’m going to have to get crafty and creative to make something to help me with supporting them outside of the pool. Investing in a $150 bra that won’t fit in 3 weeks or having surgery I would just have to have repeated later in my journey, neither are logical. So, time to get inventive.

It was so late by the time I got home yesterday that I went to bed, got up at 10 to take my antiviral, and then went back to bed. I am sooooo glad I woke up still feeling strong and well this morning. The relief and joy that washed over me as I got into the water manifested into an eye-shutting grin and aloud chuckle. It was home, and my gosh it made my body and mind happy. It took me longer to complete my routine this morning, but I did every rep, every minute of cardio, and I loved every moment of it. Would that I could have just stayed all day. After 2 hours, I got out for a shower and headed home.

The exercise gave me so much of a boost that I was a hyperactive ball of eardrum-busting energy by the time I got home. And that paid off when, yet another demon leaf attempted to take me out. That story will probably just be on my personal page. But my husband was quite entertained, and who knew I could exit a vehicle that quickly!? Anyway, after my recovery from that fiasco, we rounded off our afternoon by taking a trip to my favorite Dollar Tree to buy a coffee mug for pictures. Can I tell you the coffee mug was $45 so I can pretend I didn’t buy a whole cart of things alongside the coffee mug? Yes? Thanks for having my back.

Phew, that’s a lot of words. I have missed my routine, my posting, my E2M family while I battled the cooties this week. My post tomorrow will be for the NGs, who I can’t wait to watch grow and succeed. Love you all!