zombie_nirbhao

I've lost about 40 pounds this year. that is pretty exciting, right? I am way hot now. not as hot as I was in high school, and not so hot without clothing because I have righteous stretch marks, but hot nonetheless.

the losing weight started off pretty cool. I cut white sugars and I was exercising 45 minutes a day. I was kicking ass. then it started to suck. according to my doctor, I had heartburn. I always watched heartburn medicine commercials with disgust, thinking that those people were being huge whiners. no. they are not. heartburn blows. my doctor gave me medication and told me to change my diet. I did both of these things and neither worked. my doctor doubled my medication. things still sucked. my doctor referred me to an -ologist.

the -ologist did an endoscope and dilated my esophagus. that helped a little bit, but I was still in pain, nauseous, and pretty much couldn't eat anything at all.

I like eating.

the results of the endoscope showed some mild irritation. nothing big. BUT! my -ologist told me to stop taking aspirin. he also recommended a fat-restricted diet, which is a joke considering that I have been living off cream of wheat, toast and eggs, edamame, soy milk, and white fish for the past two or three months. anyway, I told him I could not stop the aspirin and he told me to talk to my other -ologist. so I did. he said absolutely do not stop the aspirin. this is how it went:
if you stop the aspirin, you risk blood clots and stroke. people with pfo repairs and a history of tias need to stay on aspirin for the rest of their lives.
if you don't stop the aspirin, your gi conditions will not improve. in fact, it is likely that they will get worse. at this point, we know that you have damaged your stomach and esophagus. it is not only possible but also likely that you have damaged your gallbladder, pancreas, and liver. in fact, that damage explains your symptoms. we need to find out the extent of the damage so we can decide how to proceed.
the compromise was that I continue the aspirin until (not unless) I vomit blood.

so I said, "fuck it." how stupid is it for me to pick which organ I want to fail? they had ordered all these tests, and I am so sick of spending all of my time in the hospital that I canceled them. none of the possible outcomes could possibly be good. they could give the symptoms a name and not treat them, they could load me up with more chemicals, they could cut me open, or they could order more tests. no thank you. further, I decided, for some reason, that I was making it all up. I decided that if I just ignored it, it would go away.

I very much appreciate my friends and family who respected my opinion. really. it's what I wanted from you.

at the same time, I am grateful to my friend who was a dick and gave me a hard time about how doing nothing is a bad idea. I got pretty mad at him during the first hour and a half injected with radioactive chemicals under a nuclear scanner. pissed. furious. I got especially angry because he's a busy guy and seemed to vanish a bit. then I got mad at me. I was the one who rescheduled the tests. I was the one who went to the appointments. then I peed dark brown with powder, and I decided that it was a really good thing I was in the process of getting tested.

today I had my follow up with my -ologist, and apparently everything speaks to a non- (or not correctly) functioning gallbladder. on friday, I have a consult with a surgeon about having it removed.

I'm *so* relieved this isn't some of the terrible possibilities suggested. I'm so relieved it will be so easy to fix. honestly, I miss eating food and was not looking forward to a fat restricted, bland, soft to liquid diet for the rest of my life. my concerns, honestly, are that I'm going to have to miss class and that they might mess up my tattoo. coming up from under anesthetic sucks, but, you know...

I could do without the constant pain and nausea.