I don’t take photos like this very often. But as I draft this post it is 11:18 AM and I am eating my favorite kind of Kirkland protein bar in the bed. Because it is that kind of morning.
And as it happens, I went to bed in the most awfully despondent kind of mood last night. The kind where I become uber dramatic and morose about the future; I will not repeat what was said.
It was the kind of morning where I did not set an alarm; Jared woke me up long after he’d woken the boys up, to get me to take my morning medicines. He knew he had to do this because if he did not, I might or might not actually take said medications (note: it was my thyroid meds so the likelihood of me taking them was high. But still).
And because Jared loves me and spoils me rotten, for breakfast because he knew comfort foods were in order, he brought me a baggie of Cheez-It’s and my favorite Kirkland Chocolate and Peanut Butter Protein Bar.
And I promptly fell back asleep until after 10 AM.
Because it’s difficult to maintain hope right now.
But, I do have two goals for today:
finish the stitching on my newest jute bag’s liner
Get my jewelry collection back in order, because it is in the kind of embarrassing state that does not reflect my feelings about it.
That’s true, actually, about our house and my body, too; both are in the kind of embarrassing state that does not reflect my feelings about either of them.
Jared told me, as he frequently does, to “be kind to yourself” before he left.
So that’s today’s goal. Even if today is starting at 11:28 AM.
I referred to it a little on the 12th but last week, on the 12th, I had a check-up with my orthopedic PA.
I’m not really sure why I even go. It’s not like there’s more surgery I will ever let them do to me, even if my neck discs are seriously degenerating.
The photo above is my back as it looked on x-ray on Wednesday, November 12.
It’s pretty crazy.
And that whole top curve wasn’t there when I was a teenager or young adult. I assume that is what 4 pregnancies (yes, there were 4 even though there are only 3 boys) and years upon years of laying-in-the-bed-depressed depression will do to me with my brand of scoliosis.
The only real comment the orthopedic PA made was that indeed, there is significant degeneration in the discs in my neck. Such that actually, there was a blank space where there should have been a disc at the base of my neck in front, actually.
That’s probably why my neck hurts when I transition from standing or sitting to lying down in the bed.
And maybe I should feign terror at the utter basic breakdown that is my spine, that is my body.
But to be honest, it’s just my normal. I’ve dealt with this since I was 6 years old, way back in the back brace days.
At least I’ve spent the vast majority of my life without the large lumbar hump that was on the left side of my back as a kid.
My orthopedic PA says she doesn’t measure degrees. She says she’ll know when she should refer me to her surgeon, and he’ll measure degrees then. She knows– rightly– that people obsess over degrees of curvature when– also rightly– degrees don’t necessarily mean a damn thing, especially when there’s rotation or some other such craziness going on.
She didn’t say this time, though, that she’d never see me needing surgery again.
Not sure I would do it though. I’d have to be in an awful– a very awful– amount of pain to agree to give up the mobility I have in my upper back and neck, and that’s what would happen with more fusions.
I’ve had probably 2% of progression in the last two years. She says that’s pretty stable for my particular situation. So much so, that she won’t worry about x-rays when I come back next year.
I did get another referral for physical therapy. I still know a lot of the exercises I was taught last year but I haven’t been super reliable about it since I got depressed and had very bad mental health in the Spring and summer. And of course, I did have a whole hysterectomy in May.
All you people with normal bodies, it must be nice.
When I look at this photo of my x-ray though, it makes complete sense as to why I have mental health issues AND why I have been the object of not-nice men.
On Sunday evening, October 19, I threw in a load of laundry. I knew I’d be busy on dedicated laundry day, Monday the 20th, so I was trying to get ahead so my whole routine wouldn’t be blown to smithereens.
I was fooling myself. Not because the premise of the idea wasn’t good, but because Monday the 20th threw me into a whirlwind of emotions I can only tangentially talk about at the moment. Mostly self-destructive despair and self-loathing.
I think I actually did a load of laundry on the 20th, or I actually switched the laundry, early that morning.
And, maybe three loads of laundry have gotten done since then. Maybe four.
Monday is still laundry day. But, I am starting laundry day today, on Saturday, so that maybe laundry day will be done by Tuesday or early Wednesday– we have that much laundry. If I finish it on Monday, all the better but I am not holding my breath.
Dana K. White from A Slob Comes Clean was the first person who I listened to about laundry day. My aunt said years ago she tried to tell me once it would be easier to just have a laundry day when the boys were little, but I have no memory of that.
But, Dana says that a first laundry day, in no way, is likely to be only one day if you have an actual family you are doing laundry for.
And in my experience, she’s 100% right.
So, here I am, it’s 12:46 PM on Saturday November 8, 2025, and I am started Monday’s the 10th’s laundry day at 11:30 this morning.
Because I was doing pretty good before the 20th. And I feel pretty good this morning, aside from feeling like my routine is gone to crap.
And, this afternoon, there is a maternity session and it is exclusively a Cinelux lens maternity session. I am taking along the Minolta lens just in case I need it, but I don’t anticipate needing it. A former bride approached me about maternity photos several months ago, about the time I was shutting down the business and sold the bulk of my lenses, and I turned them down. But I reached out later and showed her some of the photos with the lenses and told her it wouldn’t be a typical session but that I was willing to do it for free if I could use these lenses and use them for my portfolio, and she agreed. So here we are, and it is a beautiful day with perfect weather, and I get to have a Cinelux session.
The idea was that if the photos turned out, I might decide to take on limited Cinelux sessions in the future.
I already used this lens once in a session, a few years ago now. I just chickened out and got complacent with my autofocus lenses.
I forgot to slow down and enjoy photography.
And, for the occasion, I downloaded again the UnScripted app, my posing Bible I used for so very long. I am very excited about the poses I found.
Eight years in, I no longer feel any shame whatsoever in the fact that coming up with natural poses on my own is no, in fact, natural for me.
But, I found the UnScripted app when it was first barely out of beta, brand new, years ago and it has served me very well. I paid for a lifetime membership around 2020 in fact, when it was dirt cheap– definitely not what it is now. It was probably 1/5 of what it is now — at $499– or else I wouldn’t have paid for it at all.
Looking back on this week: there were nerves about the potential health scare. There was leftover fallout from meeting with someone I shouldn’t have on October 20. There was fallout from having told that person exactly what I think of them in writing since apparently I am incapable of doing so to their face though at least I can, indeed, face them. But, also: the time change hit me really, really hard, really, really suddenly.
I do not do well with limited daylight hours. Which is why I use a light therapy lamp to begin with.
So I draft this from a small Winship Emory Midtown waiting room. I have my coffee from home, my phone, a white robe that has no tie at the waist like it should, and a bag with my tops inside. Jared is waiting in the main lobby. The diagnostic mammogram is done.
But at the end… The tech told me she was going to give me validation for my parking.
I do not know what that meant…. but it does not bode good things.
I have delivered two children at Emory Midtown — I have probably been here over 50 times in the last 18 years — and they never validated my parking before.
I know the ultrasound was an optional follow-up and the tech made out like I’d be having the ultrasound but then she backtracked and said it was pending the doctor looking at the images…
And now, wistfully, I wait.
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And the tech came back for me. We repeated the images, for “spot checks,” on the concerning side.
I am pretty sure I know what is coming.
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I sit and wait. At least six people have come and gone back and left. I texted with Jared a little, telling him I was sure I have breast cancer. Jared says to wait and see what the doctor says.
I waited over a month for this diagnostic mammogram and ultrasound. I panicked when the date was so far out and scheduled one at Tanner for October 15, but I ended up having a late-scheduled tele-health appointment with my endocrinologist on the 15th and had to cancel the Tanner appointment.
It meant waiting, but honestly if I have to deal with medical complications I am grateful to be dealing with Emory, not Tanner.
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The wait on the ultrasound table for the radiologist, after the tech did the ultrasound, was the longest ever.
Turns out, I am fine. No breast cancer, no problems under my arm at all. They were very thorough. The radiologist herself came in to explain the mammogram was clear, the ultrasound was clear.
I probably have a fungal rash (I have been telling Jared since my appointment last week that it is probably ringworm) like the dermatologist thought it might be. The spot is fading with the creams she gave me. I didn’t tell them that this morning though.
I still have zero idea why they validated my parking, though. Or why they repeated the mammogram on the concerning spots. At all. Oh well.
Thank you to everyone who reached out after yesterday’s post. I will be okay.
Today has been better; I still slept in until 9:30 and didn’t get up until nearly 10:30. Jared is gone to a day conference and left about 6:30 this morning but he made sure the boys were up and getting ready and I got up and took my meds and stayed up until the boys left for school.
One of the BIG bonuses to having a teen driver in the house is that he can take his little brother to school. We ask him to do it as little as possible, but this morning it felt necessary.
My solitary task for the day, the one non-negotiable, is that I have to get Oliver from school, after school today.
And I suppose if I’d had to I could have done it in my jammies– or more accurately– the clothes I put on after my shower last night. Most of my clothes double as jammies; one of the bonuses to living in leggings.
But, when I got up, I came out and got myself some plain greek yogurt and walnuts for breakfast. I sat down at my computer and I did my gratitude list for the first time since October 21. I actually journaled, as opposed to coming straight here to blog.
Things on the gratitude list for the day:
— I am grateful it was a Democratic sweep yesterday
— I am grateful for Abby
— I am grateful we have plastic to put over the windows because of the cold
— I am grateful I have the luxury of being bored
There were 50 things on my list, but you get the idea.
And then I remembered my Minolta lenses, and went to read a few reviews between the 58mm 1.2 (a lens I used to have and sold) and the 58mm 1.4 (a lens I currently have) and got the lens out and put it on the GFX:
And obviously, I took a photo of the GFX with the 58mm lens on it, with the X-S20.
And then I took this photo of Trixie, with the GFX:
I do love Minolta lenses. And this one works in regular crop, so I don’t have to use the 35mm crop setting on the GFX. See the above photos? They don’t have the same dimensions because the top one is APS-C and the bottom one is medium format.
And then after poking around online for a while…..I got myself cleaned up. And then I sent this photo to J:
And along with the photo, I sent this text to J:
“I cut on my hair so that it is now all close to properly one length; most of the layers including the thin section at the back of my neck are gone. Back to properly chin length but it felt good to give myself a haircut. And I got a shower. And now I am about to warm up 3-day old coffee. I feel not quite myself, but almost.”
The hair thing: I desperately want long hair. But my hair is extremely fine, and thinning by the day. So chin-length it may be. Regardless: now that it is all one length, it is so very obvious that my hair definitely needs absolutely not one single solitary layer in it at all. Too thin for that.
And yes, I do feel almost myself. A pizza is about to go into the oven for Oliver for when he gets home from school, and after I get him I am going to set to work about finishing the plastic-over-the-windows projects in both our bedroom and the living room. There is an awful lot more to do window-wise– the rest of the house– but if I can just get the hole in the plastic Trixie pierced the other day in the living room and the final door in the living room, along with the second window in our bedroom, it will be a successful day. I am determined to get most of this project done before the extreme cold hits next week.
Tomorrow is the diagnostic mammogram with potential ultrasound. I’m trying hard to not think about it.
If you’re new here, you can read more about me here.
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