I am seriously driving myself nuts here.

For the past two years I’ve done nothing but whine about how mindless my job is. (With the caveat, of course, that I know it is a very good job and I’m very well compensated compared to anything else I could be doing…basically I have no right to complain, not in this economy!). I’ve made it pretty clear in all my reviews and meetings with higher ups that my goal was to move out of the operations group and into the front office but I was really starting to feel resigned to the fact that it was never going to happen.

And then it happened.

Or apparently, will be happening if all goes according to the plan that’s been laid out for me. And it sounds like it will be happening quickly.

To be honest, I think I’m still kind of in shock over the whole thing. I am really excited because I really haven’t done anything new at work on a day to day basis in over two years and from what I remember, I like being challenged, right? Right?? I hope so anyway.

Commence freakout.

I’ve been stuck in a rut at work for the past two years but I have to admit now that it was a comfortable rut. And maybe there is a secret part of me that has grown sort of fond of the rut. And resigned to the fact that I was stuck and trying to see the bright side of it.

That same part of me is now causing panic attacks fueled by wondering about whether I can handle the hours, the scrutiny, the pressure of learning by being thrown into the deep end…I feel too old for this even though I’m probably not.

I think at the end of the day I just need to have a little more faith in myself. I’m not a natural sales person by any stretch of the imagination. But I think I do have the ability for this and for so many reasons this is the perfect time to transition. If this had happened a few months earlier I’m not sure what I would have done about all the doctors visits. Or if I had gotten that job in LA (right after we closed on our condo!)…yikes that would have been a mess. This allows me to basically transition into a better role while working with people who already know me. I really couldn’t ask for more, so why do I continue to let these self-doubts and fears plague me. I wish I could be one of those people who wasn’t constantly mired in insecurity and fear of failure.

I don’t even know what I’m trying to say anymore. Clearly, I’m very effed in the head.

Of what, you might ask? Failure. Being exposed as a dummy. General sucking. (Oh and getting into the office at 4:30am every day for the rest of my life).

And I don’t even know why I let myself have these bad thoughts when they don’t help the situation at all. I wish I could physically suppress the crazy neurotic debby downer alter ego of mine, maybe shove a sock or two in her mouth.

I figured it out though. She’s that person. See? It wasn’t me after all.

Recently I’ve been having my blood drawn a lot more than usual. My poor veins have been tapped so often I’m pretty sure the marks are permanent. You know how I know I’ve been having my blood drawn way too often?

Last trip to the lab

Phlebotomist: *takes a look at my arm* Oh hun, how often have you been coming in?

Me: About every other week or so.

Phlebotomist: I can tell. I can see still see the marks. Good thing you have good veins!

She was super sympathetic and the whole exchange sort of took me by surprise because I’ve had her once or twice before and she’s always very nice and courteous but we’ve never really chit-chatted before. And it seemed like she felt really bad for me and it was very sweet of her but it made me feel kind of weird.

I mean, wow, you really have to be getting poked with way too many needles if a phlebotomist is feeling bad for you.

The funniest part of the whole thing? She should have seen the other arm, which had a fresh 5-day old IV wound on it!

Anyway, to sum up, I hate needles.

So why am I actually considering acupuncture? You know, the thing where they STAB a hundred litttle NEEDLES into your FLESH.

Yes, I’m actually starting to feel that desperate. And I’m starting to realize that I have to do more. Not just because I want to get pregnant but also just because I really want to get off all these meds. And since evidently, just taking the meds doesn’t *fix* me, I must need to do more. I’m also planning to go on a one month beef, dairy and candy fast (Paul is going to do it with me as soon as we finish off the meat from our last Costco trip). The more I look into nutrition-related information pertaining to lupus patients the more annoyed I am that doctors don’t tell you about things like the fact that dairy is highly correlated to lupus flares and autoimmune issues in general. My doctors are extremely intelligent men but why is it that they a) don’t know these things or b) don’t bother to tell their patients?

I’m trying to be more pro-active about my health as opposed to sitting by and hoping the meds do what they failed to do last time.

Or maybe this is the only thing I can do to feel like I have a tiny bit of control over all of this. Who knows, maybe getting poked with a zillion teeny needles won’t do a damn thing, but at least I’ll know that I did everything I could to get better (for real).

You know the one I’m talking about.

The one who is never happy with what she has going on today.

The one who is always looking ahead. The one who is always thinking, if only…[fill in the blank]…then I could be really happy.

Years ago, when I was still living in LA, my favorite pastor gave a sermon about this. How it’s easy to fall into the trap of always wanting The Next Thing, forgetting what we already have and have already achieved. Forgetting that yesterday we swore up and down that if only we could have Something We Have Today But Didn’t Have Yesterday, then we would be content.

Right before Paul and I got engaged, I can actually remember thinking to myself, once Paul and I get married, then I will be completely happy. And when I had just come back from France and was looking for a job and was kind of freaking out over it and I thought, if only I could find a decent job, then I’ll be set.

Well, obviously, I lied to myself.

Not to say I’m not 100% happy in my marriage (because I seriously could not ask for a better husband and I must say I’m pretty good at this whole being married thing!) but no, it was not a magic bullet. It did not suddenly make me a beacon of peace and contentment. It kind of suddenly made me start thinking about other things I wanted…like babies.

(And I’m not even going to go into the whole job thing because I’ve already written extensively about how conflicted I feel towards that nowadays).

Anyway, I just kind of can’t take it anymore. I don’t want to feel like my life won’t be complete until I have, whatever, fill in the blank.

Except.

The blank right now is a baby and maybe this is always what I tell myself, but it feels like it makes sense to feel this way about having a baby. Because I mean, isn’t that always what people say? That they weren’t complete until they had their children, that you won’t understand until you have your own?

And evolution has coded it into our DNA to desperately want children right? And evolution is logical, therefore this feeling must also be logical…

Sigh.

Clearly, I’m still that person.

Although that’s not totally true since I have done a bit of writing, it’s just all ended up being deleted for the reason of sucking. I guess the main issue is that I don’t know what I’m trying to say.

I realized today, that I feel stuck. I told Paul that I’m not sure I’d be feeling so badly like I need to be doing something towards becoming a parent if we didn’t have these obstacles looming in the distance. I can’t suddenly decide I want to be a mom, it has to be carefully planned. Coordinated amongst a team of specialists. Specialists, I have been told (my rheumy actually said this to me), who will be walking on eggshells with their fingers crossed the entire nine months. That sounds encouraging doesn’t it?

But as much fun as that sounds, just to even get to a place where my team of specialists decide that it might be an acceptable time for my husband and I to begin attempting to procreate is going to be a long road ahead.

Yesterday it hit me. I was hoping to be pregnant by the end of the year and now the earliest that will be able to happen is probably at least 1.5yrs out, which means I will be nearly 30yo before we could possibly get pregnant? Wtf? Didn’t I start talking about this like two years ago? I mean, I don’t know. Maybe without all of this I wouldn’t really feel the pressure to have kids asap but being that I am in this predicament I really feel like I need a PLAN. Now. Wait, scratch that, I had a plan and (I’m supposed to be off all meds right now preparing to start trying in a month or two) but the plan veered off a bridge (flare, back on full dose and then some) and basically I’m right back where I started. Ok, I’m not picky, we don’t have to make forward progress on The Plan, but can we at least not go fucking backwards?

Out of all of this I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that Paul very much wants to be a father but he’s still in no rush so the situation doesn’t bother him too much. Mainly because he doesn’t really think about the possibility that that might never happen. He believes in doctors and medicine and that somehow this is all going to work itself out and he’ll be a dad to a biological child and maybe an adopted child.

Me? I don’t know. On the one hand I am so thankful that we got married early and decided relatively soon into the marriage to talk to my doctors about getting pregnant (normal couples talk to each other about getting pregnant and then go forth and get pregnant – me? I talk to my husband about when we should let the doctors know so we can get their opinion on it…romantic isn’t it?). The fact that we are still relatively young means we have a good number of years, hopefully we can find at least a year’s worth of good health sans medication in there somewhere.

But I also for some reason constantly dwell on the worst case scenario even though I know I shouldn’t. And then I feel mopey and sorry for myself and way more damaged than I should. Because really, I know my body is pretty broken but that doesn’t mean it’s irrepareable.

6AM: wake up, 500mg cellc.ept, 20mg las.ix, 5mg BP#1
7AM: fruit/yogurt, 5mg BP#2
8AM: breakfast, 15mg pred.nisone
10AM: 500mg cellc.ept
11AM: lunch, 5mg BP#2, MWF sep.tra & other days iron pill
2PM: 500mg cellc.ept
Bedtime: 1000mg cellc.ept

It’s actually pretty easy to follow the schedule during the work week because I wake up at a set time and so all my meds are taken on time. Weekends are tougher since I could theoretically wake up anytime and mealtimes have to be much more flexible to accomodate weekend plans.

I’m getting pretty sick of it…though I guess I can’t complain too much since they are doing their job. But I did buy a groupon for acupuncture (is that ghetto?), because I was already reaching a breaking point with how I feel about the meds and that was before I recently became the proud owner of this (which by the way is very handy, I love, and I definitely recommend if you have eight zillion pills to take a day).

Anyway, that’s all I got for now. Maybe next time I’ll tell you about the super cute paramedic that came to the condo that time I had a panic attack and thought it was a heart attack.

Physically, I feel both *better* but also awful. The meds appear to slowly be doing what they’re supposed to but the side effects…oh the side effects. What they are doing to me physically and psychologically is pretty nasty. I was lucky the last three times and had minimal issues but I guess my body just decided that four is one too many times to be doing this. I’d tell you about them, but I don’t necessarily know that I need to remember all of this later.

Anyway, I’m still (slowly) figuring out what I want to say about all of this, because there’s a lot, and a lot of it doesn’t make sense, especially right now when I’m in this prednisone fog, but I’ll continue to mull it over.

For now, let me write about something a little more tangible, a project I’m putting in place for myself in anticipation of being able to stand for more than five minutes at a time again at some point and lifting a small package without getting winded! Hooray for reachable goals (hopefully). The last time Paul and I went to Asia I tried dragon fruit for the first time and loved it. We’ve been finding them at a few of the Asian markets near my parents house and when I was googling how to prepare them I found out that they are actually relatively easy to grow in a range of climates since they’re cacti!

I have never grown anything in my life. Mainly because I am not good at tending to things on a schedule…and I don’t like dirt…or being outside much. But, for some reason I really want to do this, so I bought a bunch of seeds of ebay (50 of the purple flesh and 50 of the white flesh) and we’re going to Home Depot today to pick up some gardening trays and cactus soil. I don’t know if I’ll start working on the seedlings right away since I’m still not feeling that well most of the time, but hopefully I can get something growing soon!

I feel really old that I’m getting so excited about a cactus growing project. Heh.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll feel good enough to actually say something.

I’ve resorted to doing whatever needs to be done to give myself a little relief.

Maybe this shouldn’t be the first thing on my mind right now, but really, isn’t this why I put my health on the line in the first place? Because as weird as it sounds to say this (I mean, am I really this old already?), we want to be parents. And I guess one good thing that has come out of all this is that Paul and I have been able to be really honest about the fact that we both want to be parents, however it happens. I’m grateful that I have a husband who values being a dad above just being biologically a dad. I know I’m really lucky to have a partner who is on the same page as I am when it comes to what being a family means.

I am also extremely grateful for the fact that I have always had top-notch medical care. My rheumatologist, who is on vacation this week, told me to call him on his cell phone if I have any issues and can’t get ahold of anyone. My first rheumatologist in LA (who Paul picked for his name and Beverly Hills address – not exactly extensive research) turned out to be one of the leading rheumy’s in the area (who had a minimum 4-6mo waitlist and yet heard the desperation in my voice and agreed to see me the day I called, after hours, on a Friday). My mom was recently reading Reader’s Digest and discovered that the nephrologist who did my biopsy also happens to be the same nephrologist that did Natalie King Cole’s sister’s kidney transplant. So not only have I had world-class medical care, I kind of stumbled upon it by the grace of God.

I am refusing to let myself be bitter. Maybe that will change. I hope not. I think bitterness comes naturally but I know it’s not going to help and it’s not going to make me feel better about any of this. So for now I am just going to do my best to stay positive. My sister and parents just adopted a new puppy named Hope. Somehow it feels like a sign.

Everything rides on hope now
Everything rides on faith somehow
When the world has broken me down
Your love sets me free