Thursday, June 04, 2009

I'm Not Quitting My Blog, I'm Just Sparing You Posts Like This One

Despite the long periods of blog silence, things are actually quite normal over here at hypochondria central. Would you like to hear about it?

And would you like to hear about it in run-on-sentence form with no discernible punctuation?

WELL OF COURSE YOU WOULD.

First of all, you should know that every other week or so I wake up at night feeling a sharp stabbing pain in the front of my calf, kind of like a really ticked off hornet is messing with me. I always reach down to brush it away, then realize there's nothing there, then start to say "SON OF A -," then I realize the pain is gone, and then I go back to sleep.

I keep meaning to talk it over with the doctor, but whenever I go to see her I completely forget to mention it, so distracted am I by our regular monthly discussion/game of "so when exactly do you think my uterus might rupture?"

Her standard response is some variation on "there's really no way of knowing if it will, or when it will, but let me know if you have sudden sharp uterine pain," and then I ask her to quantify what she means by pain, exactly. The sharp pain I sometimes get when I sneeze, is that a rupture? Or when the baby kicks an internal organ really hard and I have pain, is that a rupture? Or when I feel this sharp stabbing pain in my leg, is THAT a rupture? And could she possibly give me her cell phone number so that I can call her late at night when I feel a pain that might be a rupture?

By the time we finish having this discussion, she is usually giving me this look (this look like, who referred you to my practice again?) and I've completely forgotten about the leg thing because I'm busy rocking back and forth on the exam table imagining my own death.

Most likely the pain in my leg is from a (non-imaginary) blood clot, and probably I will die. (Farewell, internet.) The good news is that I'm so forgetful lately that most days I don't remember my impending death and life proceeds quite normally.

The first real day of summer vacation for the kids was Monday. I've been busy reading things like Last Child in the Woods and Free Range Kids (which I LOVED and made my book club pick this month), and I'm determined to make sure my kids spend their summer out exploring NATURE, dagnabbit. We have a perfectly good gully across the street with a stream in it, and a park down the road with a stream in it, and mountains five minutes from our doorstep, so in theory we are all set. Now all I need is a non-pregnant friend to con into taking them on all of these nature adventures while I lie on the couch.

Yesterday I took the kids swimming at a completely fantastic pool down the road (complete with water slides, a lazy river, play structures, and water shallow enough to keep my non-swimmers from drowning). They loved it, and I loved it too - as long as I stayed in the water. Since I am not one of those adorable little pocket-sized pregnant women with a cute baby bump, I don't look pregnant - I just look incredibly fat.

I'm fighting the urge to iron a patch onto my swimsuit, something about baby on board, something that will make it obvious to everyone that YES, I'm fat, but at least some of it is virtuous baby-related fat (as opposed to my regular slothful, doughnut-related fat). It turns out that all this time I thought it was obvious I was pregnant, what with my shirts stretched against my baby belly, but a few of my real life friends had no idea because apparently that's JUST WHAT I USUALLY LOOK LIKE. Egads.

By the way, thanks so much to everyone who so sweetly and generously offered to send me baby and maternity stuff after my last post. Hormonal as I am, I sniffled my way through most of those comments. Whoever says blogging friends aren't real friends - well, the maternity shirt on my back is here to tell you otherwise.

74 comments:

  1. It's goo to see you, or is it hear from you again?;-). We're here to hear, read?, anything you want to blog about. we just use blogstalking as a way to ignore our children anyways!!! ;-)

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  2. Err, I'd kind of guess leg clot too. Whatever you do, don't rub at it or it might break lose and travel up to your heart or something. I think I saw that on an episode of a medical drama type tv show, so it must be true.

    I've missed you. I feel like a total cornball for saying so though because I bet EVERYONE is going to say that.

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  3. i too am a long-range, google-infected, I'm-probably-going-to-eventually-die-of-something-exotic type of relatively harmless imaginative hypochondriac. Glad to know that I am not alone. If you ever start a support group, let me know.

    Love your post tonight. It made me laugh!

    Hang in there!!

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  4. I tend to think any quick pain like that is deadly. Nothing's killed me yet, but I'm just waiting for it.

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  5. Hey if you find that friend to take your kids nature-ing will you ask if mine can come, too? I'm not pregnant. Just lazy.

    Hang in there! You know how awesome the end result is! That should keep you comforted in the middle of the night.

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  6. I'm sorry things are still so rough. How much longer do you have to your due date? I understand that not wanting to blog feeling; I get it often. However, my mom would kill me if I stopped because it's the only way she sees pictures of her grandkids.

    I would get those leg pains, too. I don't think mine was a clot, though. I just figured they were weird pregnancy pains that would go away when I wasn't pregnant anymore.

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  7. Good to hear from you, we missed you!! Thank you for making me happy...happy that I'm not preggo!!! (Sorry) Oh don't burst into tears I'm kidding!!! Hope all is well...it will be over soon!

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  8. I would like to be supportive, but I'm not. I want you to blog more.

    There, I said it.

    Oh, but I'm supportive of your pregnancy woes. And as soon as we get pregnant again, I'm going to get days of the week shirts with a "baby on board" type logo or maybe it will just say "It's a baby" and then I won't suck my stomach in anymore. I'm stocking up on those shirts about two seconds after I take my first positive pregnancy test.

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  9. Anonymous8:16 PM

    I'll trade you a rash and a swollen ankle that suddenly popped up Google is not helping me and I dont feel like calling the doc to get yelled at.

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  10. Please don't spare us anymore posts like this one. I love this one. And all of them. Spare me nothing!

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  11. Oh I am so glad you posted something I was starting to worry. I saw that you twittered the other day and tried to DM you and ask how you are doing.

    No pressure to blog all the time, but we miss you.

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  12. It's good to have you pop up again. Since I took several pregnancy related hiatus - (hiati?) I figure you don't have anything to prove to me! Glad you're still hanging in there.

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  13. I think you should move in with your doctor. Set up an aerobed in her house so you can have her check out your pains when you have them in the middle of the night. Seriously, that would be so much more convenient than having to call her.

    I was glad to see that you posted!

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  14. Oh man, I LOVE that pool! I wish I'd gone yesterday so I could spy you out. Except my son hates the big scary bucket thing.

    And I've been trying to find Last Child in the Woods forever but my library doesn't carry it apparently, and anyway, my kiddo hates grass.

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  15. Glad you posted again...I saw-in person- that you were still alive and well and packing around a non-ruptured uterus, so I wasn't too worried.
    But I like to see your words once in awhile...

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  16. Oooh, I missed you! I found the book I wanted to send to you - email me your address again.

    On my fifth pregnancy, I would get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and there would be this horrible squeez-y pain in my calves if I stood up; so I would crawl in there instead of walking. My husband was usually sleeping during all this, but one night he woke up to find me crawling on the bedroom floor and sort of freaked out.

    I assume the pain was just blood clots that never made it to my lungs.

    Now I have a weird sort of spot on some of my worst veins, so I have convinced myself that that is the one that is going to kill me.

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  17. Oh, and "FreeRange" means they go by themselves. Survival of the fittest and all that...

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  18. Yay your posts have been missed!

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  19. I hope that maternity shirt is mine.

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  20. Yippee! You're still here! I'd come take your kiddos to come swim in my pool but I think the US/Mexico border is a little far from you. Just guessing.

    It will be over soon! Just keep repeating: over soon, over soon.

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  21. Yeah, I haven't felt like blogging either, but I'm not as smart as you and continue to put up crappy posts regularly.

    But, you are inspiring me into silence.

    (Thank you.)

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  22. Anonymous11:55 PM

    I'm commenting before even reading because I just want to say that I'm happy to see you posting -- I was just thinking about you today, and even went over to Annie Valentine's blog this afternoon just so I could nag her about the blog shower she'd mentioned she might host for you. Okay, now I'll go read.

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  23. Anonymous12:15 AM

    Okay, I'm back. When are you due, again? (Or anyway when are they saying you have to deliver?) And it's a boy, right?

    There's no such thing as lazy when you're pregnant -- just growing that baby trumps every other consideration. Seriously. (In spite of kind of knowing this, I still feel lazy every time I'm pregnant -- but am always amazed later when actual energy returns.) I do hope you'll take up book-writing again some day, but there will be plenty of time for that later.

    I used to be a hypochondriac, but all my actual chronic health conditions have knocked that right out of me -- now, when I feel sick, I know I probably actually am sick.

    I always wake up with fierce muscle knots in my calves when I'm pregnant -- do yours go away once you stretch them out?

    Without telling me, my 9-year-old borrowed her friend's extra swimsuit and they played with water outside all afternoon today, without applying sunscreen. Now she has a fierce sunburn. Does that count as free range? Can I tell her so when she gets skin cancer later in life?

    All right, I'll leave you alone now -- I thought I'd gotten my baby trained to sleep through the night, but it sounds like she forgot.

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  24. I always got bag leg cramps while sleeping when I was pregnant, so MAYBE you're not going to die. But you should still check. Maybe make a little label and stick it on your shirt that says, "ASK ME ABOUT LEG PAIN" at your next appointment. Yes, that ought to do.

    I think I might get a Baby on Board swimsuit. I'm not pregnant, but then people might say I look great, and believe me, that would otherwise never happen in a swimsuit.

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  25. It's always nice to see you posting.

    Oh, and thanks for clearing up the normal hypochondria vs. rabid hypochondria thing for me. Now it's all so much clearer. Or something.

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  26. "The good news is that I'm so forgetful lately that most days I don't remember my impending death and life proceeds quite normally." I think I will have that made into a vinyl saying and put it on my front room wall.
    I hope your uterus stays in tact and may the pregnancy pains be diluted by massive amounts of happy endorphins (from eating chocolate and donuts).

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  27. Free Range Kids, Sue...they don't need rides to these places, they can walk. That's the beauty of this concept. If that lady's 9 year old could maneuver the NYC subway on his own, then my 4yo can certainly cross some wimpy little 4 lane streets. Right???

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  28. She speaks! Well, blogs anyway. Thanks for the update!

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  29. It was good to hear from you! :)

    So...do you think you can drag your sorry hypochondriac self up to the Utah boggers lunch next Saturday?

    http://adamandkristinapulsipher.blogspot.com

    Spaghetti Mama's in Sandy, 1pm.

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  30. Oh. And I'm guessing you need some potassium/magnesium/calcium to help with the leg cramping.

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  31. Look at that! You are still alive. And here we were planning your virtual funeral. Hope the pg goes well! I just am praying for a healthy baby for your family.

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  32. I know you wrote about all sorts of other things here, but I'm stuck on the comment about blogging = friends. Because, really, it's true.

    There are many days I feel like maybe I should walk away from the blog. I don't have time or energy to write well most days, and mediocre frustrates me.

    But I can't walk away from the friendships.

    Crazy world, eh?

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  33. I'm so glad you've posted! I found your blog before you went on a small hiatus - which meant I had to survive (happily) on your archives. The only thing I'm bummed about is that you don't have time to write that book! But your pregnancy complications are definitely enough to allow you to stop everything and anything you desire.

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  34. I'm leaving a comment because I know you like them, even though I really don't have anything to say. boo to pregnancy, yay to babies, next time, I vote you just buy one. hoo-ha, NEXT TIME.

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  35. Oh lovely girl! I am so glad that you're doing well despite your impending death. I will read each and everyone one of your posts regardless of how rare they are.

    Glad you got some maternity clothes. I'm sure the nudity was beginning to bother your nice neighbors!

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  36. Dang woman even something that bores you to tears cracks me up and you still have a huge following. Your public has spoken - blog on!

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  37. Anonymous10:33 AM

    YAY! You're alive! :D You know, I don't get posts through a feeder or anything, but seriously I check in here almost EVERY FREAKIN' DAY, just in case.

    Why, no, I don't have a life. Why do you ask? ;)

    Marste

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  38. Good to hear from you again! We missed you! Pleeease don't forget to log in and at least let us know when Junior makes an appearance :)

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  39. I loved both of those books. I'm with Melanie J - post more, it's fun to have something non-giveaway oriented to read. I get tired of giveaways. Probably because I never win.

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  40. So good to hear you are alive and well - or as well as can be expected. I check your blog daily on my lunch break and nearly fell out of my chair when I saw that you had posted yesterday. Thanks for the laugh - you are a treasure!!!

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  41. Good to have you back Sue. It's always a pleasure to read whatever you might say :)

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  42. I was trying to leave a witty comment. But I'll leave the wit to you.

    I, too hope your uterus does not rupture. That sounds...messy.

    Free range kids, huh? Does that mean you just let them graze on grass all day? It sounds very farmer-y.

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  43. SO excited to read your blog, and believe me, what you might view as an unimpressive entry is already infinitely better than my most clever one.

    Blog every chance you get. (My grandmother in the assisted living facility says "visit every chance you get" everytime I leave there. It makes me feel horribly guilty, so I thought I'd try it out on you. I'm not really selfish and insensitive. Well, I'm not insensitive, anyway.) :)

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  44. Glad you're doing ok!!

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  45. I really glad to hear from you again. I missed reading of your hypocondrism (that is in no way spelled right! LOL!) Anyway. Keep posting randomly as you wish :) We love to read, as boring as it sounds to you.

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  46. Hooray! You are posting again!

    My fear was that I had killed you by sucking your soul out by reading several years of your blog and not leaving a comment...

    I even created a google account only to leave this comment!

    Hang on - and please blog more if you are feeling like it! I was missing you!

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  47. I totally think I'm going to die all the time too! I just posted about it a couple back, crazy! I just adore you, I wish we were best friends. :D I'm non-pregnant. I can take your kids on all their nature adventures! Whoo!

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  48. Thanks for coming out of hiding. And, hey, it isn't really an insult until someone asks you if you are still pregnant waaaay after you've given birth--like after you've weaned the child and taught him how to cut the grass. Now that's an insult to boast about. ;)

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  49. It takes a lot of guts and personal integrity to change your course during life (book, money blogging, whatever) because you want to. GOOD FOR YOU! Lucky, lucky baby of yours. . .

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  50. OH YEA!!!! It's so good to hear from you. And that you and the pregnancy are doing well... and when I mean well I mean worrying about everything! ;)

    I have decided just to do that with my blog... just to chat and speak to friends and have it fun!

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  51. I love run on sentences. Writing on blogs is like so much funner than real writing anyways :) no stress. It was nice to see you post again. I get it. I'm a lazy blogger too.

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  52. SHE'S ALIVE!

    It was fun to see your name pop up in my Google reader and hear your witty voice again and I love run on sentences, they're like my favorite kind of sentences because they make me feel happy and all warm and fuzzy inside.

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  53. It was me who referred you, ME!! I'll gladly take the blame for sending her the most awesome patient ever.

    Let's hang out. I'll make sandwiches.

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  54. Anonymous11:18 AM

    Great post on your real life adventure. I loved it. I realized I am a much better blogger when I am deep and dark and down. When I am happy I just cannot be funny or interesting. Right now I am happy, so you know it isn't working out for me very well. Continue to take care of yourself and that baby!

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  55. It's great to see you whenever the heck you want to post. I'm with you on not feeling the blogging vibe right now --especially since my mother-in-law is visiting and I can't blog what I REALLY want to say. But anyway, happy baby and happy you!

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  56. Hmmm,hmmm, hmmm. The pain in the calf. Pregnancy. Shortage of calcium. Muscle cramps, especially in knots, which are sometimes caused by a certain level of anxiety. Funny, huh - the mechanism that lets ten thousand loving reassurances be instantly wiped out by one nasty comment from a scum-sucking bottom feeder who doesn't deserve a moment's respect also can take an entire lovely life, throw it into blurry background for one, tiny, mysterious painful bump on a leg.

    I have one varicose vein (if you don't count hemorrhoids, which I'm not sure you have to) out of four pregnancies. Last pregnancy: 20 years ago. Vein? Finally looks like a super highway running up the back of one calf and knee. Result: that and the pouch below my navel are my whole life. $3500 to fix the vein. I'm trying to figure out how to come up with the bucks so that it will go away. Because I can't seem to remove it from my mind any other way.

    It's like I'm a lovely, floating blimp with this ugly, nasty, inarguable knot of iron slung from my undersides.

    Why do we do this to ourselves, I wonder? Fear? of what? (No, that's too easy a question to answer.)

    I chuckle about the blog thing. I have my theories about the psychology of all that, too. But here you are, after a month, and you have more comments on one post than a I garnered over that same month (even counting the ones I answer)- and many of them real ones. You've got to count that as a precious and wonderful thing. Feedback. We're like bats - have I said this before? We define our own shapes by the echo location.

    It's not good for the baby for you to worry so much, Sue. This is what I'd like you to do (since I'm so wise): I'd like you to take time, right in the middle of the worst fears or stresses, to stretch five muscles: slowly, elegantly. Imagine yourself a pregnant cat, and to pay attention to the speed of your breathing. Slow it down. Very zen. The baby needs the O2, not the side products of stress breathing.

    And remember, there just may really be a God, and if there is, certainly he loves you, scrappy little daughter that you are. Float in his hand.

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  57. Last time I was pregnant, my doctor put me on bedrest without telling me WHY. True story!
    "We're both happier this way" she said, blithely.

    I miss having you post, but I never found pregnancy a wildly creative time, aside from the whole Making a BABY thing.

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  58. Nothin' but love for ya.

    Yes, this was the most boring post I've ever read in my whole life ever. I mean, who doesn't think blood clots and rupturing uteruses are a totally lame BOREfest.

    And your humor too...sheesh, yawn.

    Of course I'm joking because I loved the post and missed you just like everyone else. (except MORE)

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  59. I missed you.

    For the shin: Eat more bananas. I know, random internet strangers give the BEST advice EVER.

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  60. Sue. I missed you. I truly did. Don't care that I'm not original. Don't care.

    DO CARE that you're doing okay! And here's some completely unsolicited advice from a mom of four: MILK THE PREGNANCY. Last chance to play fat-and-lazy card and still get my husband to deliver me food on the couch.

    Hmm. I wonder whether a fifth would be worth it? (A baby. Not the other kind of fifth. Sheesh.)

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  61. That water park sounds like fun. I'm glad to see a post from you. If I were closer, ya know, like, in the same state, I'd offer to take the kids on nature adventures. I hope you feel better as well :) I'll look forward to any posts you feel like writing. There has definitely not been enough Sue lately ;)

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  62. Well, I'm glad to see your blog showing up on my Google reader again, blood clots and all.

    And are you going to Kristina P's bloggy lunch this Saturday? I would really, really love to meet you.

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  63. When I was pregnant with Harrison, my upper arm would regularly twitch. I think it was his foot, reaching up to kick the fat pockets I like to store there.

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  64. Thank you for putting into words the whole spiel about your blog. That's how I feel. I am not making money and am too lazy to write a book and why would I give away stuff. Sorry about the hypochondria. I have it too but I think it makes me a much more interesting person than the next dolt. Plus I consider my time researching on the internet a helpful tool in fending off the ravages of early onset Alzheimers...ouch there goes my carpal tunnel syndrome. keep up the good work.

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  65. Anonymous6:49 PM

    Eat more bananas and milk to help get rid those leg cramps ...lack of potassium and calcium can cause them. If the rain ever stops I will be happy to take the kiddos for a walk in the gully. If it keeps raining, maybe we can swim in the gully.

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  66. Anonymous2:27 PM

    Hi, Sue! I hope you're hanging in there. (Once in a while you might consider dropping us one or two sentences just so we don't start thinking some little thing went wrong, like you died. Just a thought.)

    You were part of the inspiration for a post I just wrote so I thought I'd come over here and point you towards it. It's an idea for dealing with blog post plagiarism.

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  67. oh yes... i remember when my mom was pregnant with my brother. i was 11 and bought her the greatest gift ever: a poo-brown tshirt that said (i remember watching them iron it on), I'M NOT FAT, I'M PREGNANT. shockingly, my mother didn't find it endearing... nor do i remember her wearing it. ever.

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  68. I miss you! But completely understand. Hope all is well.

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  69. I actually thought your punctuation was rather accurate. You're too hard on yourself.

    p.s. I haven't read those books you mentioned, but I was a free range child myself. Grew up in an urban oasis of trees and hills and a sluggish river and a black pond filled with mosquito larvea and many goldfish to eat the mosquito larvea, right in the middle of Detroit. And it MADE ME WHO I AM. So buy each of your kids a cheap magnifying glass and send them outside!

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  70. I'm in the health food industry...whenever I hear something to do with "legs" I think "Magnesium." Sometimes your legs can do funny things if you are lacking magnesium. If you aren't already taking it with calcium...I suggest you do so ASAP (I prefer the liquid form - because who wants to take more pills?). If you are currently taking a calcium/magnesium supplement, I would up your dosage. The baby's probably depleting your body of all the magnesium and this is your body's way of reacting. Also - if you're a caffeine drinker...stop now. It inhibits your body's ability to absorb magnesium.

    Um...you probably didn't want to read an essay from a complete stranger, and I'm sorry for the unsolicited advice! I love your blog but I'm not a regular commenter.

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  71. gosh, seems as if I've caught you at a, ah, delicate moment in your life! Found your blog when I googled "navel gazing." I love your humor and your writing and your crazy hypochondriacal ways (I'm going to die of throat cancer, I've had a sore throat for months - never mind that it is allergy season). Rock on! Good luck with your pregnancy and impending uterine explosion.

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  72. Oh the blogging funk---it's hard to deal with. I have certainly been on one, with all the "life changing" things going on for me right now. But --BUT --I do enjoy my blogging friends and thier comments and support. so --I will continue to try and blog. take care of yourself ok

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  73. Welcome back. I'd love to come and pick up the kids! What day is good for you? We'll go up the canyon rock hunting, and I promise to have them back in one piece. Really, I would get them tomorrow!

    And I really really really love your blog. Never stop. I love the way you think, speak, blog!!!

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