Surprise!

I wish that I could tell you all that I've not been writing here because things have continued to be great for me.

They haven't.

I haven't been writing here because I've been CRAZY busy.  Maybe also because I get tired of spending so much of my focus on my bathroom habits. 

But whatever.

So, long story short, things are back to crappy.

(Side note, I've really been realizing how many scatological terms I use in every day conversation.  "What a crappy day", "This is crap", etc.  Makes me wonder if I was destined to have this condition all along, or maybe that I "put it out into the Universe unconsciously" like they talked about in that weird book "The Secret".  Food for thought.)

Not as crappy as they were in the summer time, mind you.  I'm managing pretty well, despite making many more trips to the bathroom than ought to be possible given the volume of food that I consume.  I need to plan my driving routes carefully in order to be near enough to a gas station or coffee shop in case I need to stop half-way to my destination (which I generally do, especially in the mornings on my way to work).

But mostly I wasn't minding because I knew I had a specialist appointment coming up in December.  I don't know what I really thought would happen at that appointment, maybe that I'd tell him about my awful experiences throughout the summer and he'd say something like "OH!  Well, I know exactly what will help!".  And then write me a prescription for a spa day or something.  

Clearly, I hadn't really thought it through.

In reality, what happened went like this:

Him: Hello, how are you?
Me: Good, thanks.  You?
Him: Good thanks.  So how have things been since we last saw each other?
Me: Awful. Booo hooo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo!!!

Well, that took me by surprise!  Where the hell did all those tears come from?  Not the dab the corner of your eyes demurely with a tissue kind of tears, but the full out running out of your eyes and nose kind of tears.  The poor man, he didn't look like he had a clue what to do with me so he just started avoiding eye contact and leafing through my chart.

After a few minutes of clarifying questions from him, a few minutes of swallowing sobs from me, lots more leafing through my chart and several confused sounding "hmmmmm"s, he comes up with this:

Him: Well, this is concerning indeed.
Me: (nodding)
Him:  Your last scope was in June of 2011?
Me: (shrugging and nodding)
Him: Well, I think we need to do another one.
Me: (nodding)

(Why the hell am I so damn agreeable?!!)

Him: (nodding)
Me:  Um, do you (sniff) have a sense for (snerk) time frame?
Him: Well, I can check on that.
Me: Last time I waited for a year.
Him: A year?
Me: Yep.
Him: Well, let me check the scheduling and we'll see what we can get done.  But I am concerned so I think it will be sooner than a year.

He leaves.  I try (and mostly fail) to compose myself.

A few minutes later he returns.  

Him: Well, it's not a year...
Me: (echoing stupidly) not a year...
Him: How about Thursday.
Me: Thursday?  Like in 2 days?
Him: Yep.  And then we'll get you in for the results before the holidays.
Me: (silence, while I'm trying to wrap my head around what this all will mean for my schedule.  And then I realize...) I don't know if I can find someone to pick me up.
Him: (silence)
Me: Umm, never mind, I'll figure it out (oh damn, there are the tears again)
Him: (back to avoiding eye contact and rifling through paperwork) Ok, well here are the forms, take them to the reception and she'll book you in.
Me: (back to being agreeable) Ok.  Sorry for crying.

And then I left.  But I was still quite fragile until almost the end of the day.  Not because I have to have the scope, I've done that before.  But because it was such a rush.  Because it took me by surprise.  Because maybe things are worse than before.

As always, I try to find an angle that will make me laugh about the whole situation.  At work, we have an annual staff appreciation day.  I often laugh about how it's positioned as a "mandatory staff appreciation day", like they need to make it mandatory for the staff to show up or something.  Anyway, I joke about how far I would go to get out of it -- just on principle.  Like "Ha!  I won't allow you to force me to be appreciated!"

This year?  It falls on Thursday.  

Take THAT system, I WIN!!