Hurry up and wait

A lot has been going on.

The summer started with my mom in and out of the hospital (actually at the beginning of finals week). She had a gastric? ulcer and cellulitis. It has taken her most of the summer, but she is on the mend now. Finally.

In the interim, I had separated my shoulder the first weekend after finals.

While working, I helped my mother around the house. Dasc helped us both before going to northern California for over a month. While I was on the mend, I continued helping my parents as well as my grandparents. My grandfather was diagnosed with cataracts and I took him (sometimes with my grandmother, who has dementia, in tow) to a series of appointments including a surgery and post-op appointment.

During all of that, an old family friend (also my sister’s boyfriend’s mother) died and an old acquaintance of mine died a month later.

I was simultaneously fighting the university’s bureaucracy to reinstate my loans. Apparently having had medical issues and all of the steps required for medical leave (and I did everything required) in addition to scoring a 4·O GPA upon my return wasn’t good enough. I did everything they wanted, twice already. Then I had to do it a third time plus a signed and dated written statement. I wrote and sent them a five page narrative about my entire experience and every step I took, counting repeated steps, from the summer term with the professor who didn’t like teaching to fall term with the daily horrible pain and fatigue and scores of medical appointments to the process of getting myself back to a semi-functional level.

I still had problems during Spring Term, but survived it by doing nothing other than school (study, coursework, attend classes, etc) and self-maintenance.

I finally got reinstated under the condition that I pass 100% of all attempted credit hours for fall and winter term. “NO problem,” I thought.

Well, The regular debilitating levels of back and sciatic pain returned and it brought friends. Well, maybe some of the friends arrived first. Since last spring, I had noticed that I had urgent sensations for bathroom needs. But then it took me a really long time to go. Even then, I had to do multiple sessions to fully complete the bathroom needs. Now, not only do I experience that, but whenever I engage in the slightest physical activity (and I’m doing my best to remain active), I keep experiencing sensations that feel as if I messed my pants. I rush to the bathroom every time because it feels so real. Upon investigation, I find nothing–not even sweat. Yet it still feels warm and wet and like it’s running down my thigh. But, I inspect both by sight and by touching my thigh and it’s really very dry.

Dasc persistently urged me to call the doctor for a couple of weeks before I finally relented. I swore it wouldn’t do any good, but the doctor ordered another MRI with possible surgeon’s consult post-haste and the insurance company approved it surprisingly quickly. The first MRI took more than a year to be approved, but this one took less than a week.

The MRI was Thursday and I’m waiting to hear back about the results. I’ve been somewhat anxious about it, but I’m trying to keep my mind occupied in the meantime.

In other news, I attended a wedding party and an old high school mate was there taking photos. She was in Future Starving Artists of America with me. The friends who got married had hired her. It was kind of cool.

The groom was CB, the old English and Writing teacher who was also Academic Advisor of the Writers’ Club at community college.

I saw my old boss from Humanities and some of the faculty I was once well acquainted with.

Unfortunately, I had to bail before too long because the pain levels escalated quickly.

Next weekend is my little cousin’s wedding. It’s a Catholic Ceremony and I already know that I’m going to be paying a very high price to attend.

I’m just waiting for the MRI results and whatever else is next.