Conversation With Gastroenterologist

 Back in April, I had a Fibroscan of my liver in a gastroenterologist’s office. At the time, they had told me that if they found anything serious, the doctor would call me. If not, then I could discuss my results at my follow up on June 17th. Only, I canceled the appointment on June 17th due to anxiety. I found out that I have non-alcoholic fatty liver disease back in November of 2021. It was discovered when I went to the emergency room for panic attacks that caused cardio symptoms. 

But with so many things going well in my life, I’m afraid I’ll die. So back on Monday, I called the GI office and was like look, is there any way the Dr can just call me. She was extremely rude, “Your insurance doesn’t cover that.” She snapped. I replied, “I will pay for it. I will pay 100% if he just calls me about this.”  I explained that I have severe anxiety over the issue and do no want to have to handle talking about it in the office. It would not only be humiliating for me, but they don’t want to deal with that, I don’t want to deal with that, and I would have to drive upset. She snapped again, “But your insurance doesn’t allow for a phone consult.”  And that’s true with Obamacare- if you have it and something is not covered and you are able/willing to pay out of pocket anyway, they won’t let you. But I started getting attitude back and said, “It lets me go on the teledoc app, that’s who referred me to y’all in the first place.”  She said hang on for her manager and then came back saying the manager wasn’t answering and then gave me her direct line. I called the direct line, and it was a non working number. That bitch! So I called back, got a completely different operator and started over. She put me on hold for the manager. I told the office manager everything and she asked, “Would you like me to run your insurance to see if it covers telehealth or would you like me to leave the doctor a message?” I said, “Can you do both?”  

So I was on kind of a long hold, she came back and said that yes my insurance covers telemedicine, she left my message for my doctor, and he’d call me Thursday the 3rd at 5:00 pm. 

He called a little before then. Immediately I started having panic attacks, but I did mention to him that this liver condition is an extremely serious cause of anxiety for me and that I wasn’t really interested in knowing what my liver looked like, I just had five questions- 1. Is there any medication he wants me to take? 2. Is there any medication he doesn’t want me to take? 3. Is there any specific food I should eat? 4. Is there any specific foods I should not eat and 5. How often do I have to keep coming back for this test? 

He told me first of all, to calm my fears, that everything on the test looks “promising”. He said a few more vague positive things before answering my five questions- there isn’t really a pill to take; my atorvastatin and metformin as long as they work controlling pre diabetes and cholesterol do fine. There is not anything to “not take”, he said, just don’t overdose on anything. As far as foods he described “The Mediterranean Diet” which is what they  all say, but there are more strict guidelines online. And that I should repeat the test about once a year. 

I then stepped back a little and said, “ok since it looks promising then I guess you can tell me what my liver looks like.” He seemed glad and said “Ok well your fatty liver disease is currently at a stage 0, which is the best it can be.”

I know from reading online that stage 4 would be cirrhosis.  Didn’t mention that though, was just glad to hear the number zero. He said the fibroscan was to check for hardening, and other bad things, of which I had none. 

I thanked him and before he hung up. He tried to convince me to get a colonoscopy again. I said, “Let me psych myself up for it for a couple months.”  He said that was fine. 

I told my mom, and she said, “I never had a colonoscopy, and I’m fine.”  

🤦🏻‍♀️ 

I’ve explained survivor bias to her before, but you can’t teach an old dog. 

I believe I know what causes this in me. It wasn’t the panic attacks. As a young woman, I was too skinny. I didn’t even reach 100 pounds until I was 22. Because of that, I constantly had older people telling me I had to gain weight and eat a burger and eat a pizza and I mean it was constantly skinny shaming. This seems counterintuitive to people, because only fat shaming is talked about. I was 220-something at my heaviest, and no one ever said anything about me being fat to my face. They kept it to themselves. Skinny shaming, though, is literally always 100% of the time, said to a person’s face. Because of that I spent many years making myself eat fatty unhealthy things, and that’s what I believe caused this. I feel like I’m not ever allowed to say that out loud though. People don’t like to hear about skinny shaming because they want to believe “society” wants women to be thin. But who exactly is “society”?  I’ve been working hard the last few years trying to reverse the habits and learn more about food. Combined with people who “wanted more for me than to just be in the kitchen” it has taken a lot of work and resisting. But I’m doing it. This morning I weighed 192.2, so some kind of plateau is happening. 

A Fruitful Wednesday Off

I started yesterday with a trip to 25 cent day at my favorite thrift store. I spent $13.25 plus tax, which means i got 53 pairs of jeans.  This is my second full ziplock bag of buttons harvested from 25 cent jeans. I cannot and do not remove buttons that were attached with grommets. I think it’s time for some button art. I was in a button art facebook group for a while, and I think the easiest thing to do would be a tree.  Some of the white buttons may have to be painted green. 

Also while cutting the waists off below the pockets, I thought to myself- if I was more careful in my cutting of these, did then more straight and intentionally, I could add flowy fabrics to them and make skirts. What are y’all’s opinions on that? 

I then took my daughter to Niko Niko’s for lunch and afterwards, we went to the metaphysical gift shop which is right next door. I needed scented votive candles, because I did receive nice votive size candle holders as a wedding gift. Anna bought little heart shaped stones to give to her friends. Her last day at her job is tomorrow. I’m actually kind of glad because I want her to spend more time up here with me. That’s one of the reasons she’s quitting. She wants to spend more time with me and with her friends before she leaves for San Marcos on 8/15.  

I then went to Walmart and not only got what seems like the perfect glass container for my own sourdough starter, but in the sewing department, three yard packs of solid 100% quilting fabrics were on sale for $5.94. They’re usually over $8. 

 

Stephen Hawking Movie Scene- Explanation

 Two posts ago, I mentioned this movie scene and how I thought about it when thinking of my deceased first boyfriend. This scene was from a movie called “The
Theory of Everything” about the life of Stephen Hawking. My first love didn’t have Lou Gherig’s disease like Stephen Hawking did, but he did have cardiomyopathy as a result of long term Ritalin use as a child. I suspect that’s how he died, but I’m not sure.

He and I used to daydream out loud to each other about our future kids and what they’d be like. In reality, we went our separate ways, married and divorced other people, and he had two sons while I had a daughter. In this scene, Stephen Hawking is with his estranged wife at an event and their three kids- two sons and a daughter- are playing. Stephen is so advanced in his disease at this point that he can only communicate by typing. He starts typing, and his ex wife leans over to read it. He says in his iconic robot voice, “Look what we made!” And they gaze at their girl and two boys. 

Of course that scene hits different now that I know about Matt’s passing. We didn’t get to do it together, but we did it.  Of course I see that scene and think of my daughter and his two sons. 

Then, it starts showing major memories of his life in reverse.  The scenes reverse all the way through the advancement of his disease, as if he’s getting better and better until he’s perfectly healthy and sees his wife for the first time- as two little 18 year old nerds like me and Matt were.  

Someone put this in the comments: 

I often wonder if when we come into this life, if there are truly hundreds of possibilities of what will happen based on what choices we make.  When Matt and I used to attend church, they used to argue about “predestination vs free will”.  But I believe in a mix of both.  The high number of possibilities is predestined.  Our free will determines what possibility actually happens.  I hope that makes sense. 

What ended up happening is that Matt and I broke up and I was so brokenhearted that I dove into working jobs that helped abused kids.  I was pressured to break up with Matt, so I did.  But when I tried to reconcile a month later, he rejected me and said I’d hurt him too much.  I became obsessed with my career goals.   I did several jobs that helped children, and there was so much sadness.  I look back on it now, and I don’t even know how I handled all of that weight on my shoulders being just barely out of childhood myself.  What was I doing and how did I do it?  

What if Matt and I could rewind like that, maybe all the way back to when we were in kindergarten, before we knew each other, and someone could convince his parents not to give him Ritalin?  Maybe they could have met my anti-helping kids- with mental health- and learning disability parents and been swayed by them.  Maybe Matt could have had a childhood like mine where he was just yelled at and told to buckle down instead of drugged.  It may sound like I’m being snarky, but his death has made me almost glad I never got help for my own neurodivergence.  I didn’t have that male privilege! (Snark intended since I’m alive and he’s dead)

What if we did get to get married and have our seven kids?  Would there be as much sadness as I’ve had working with kids?  Maybe  or maybe not.  

Today I’m just very sad, and I shouldn’t be.  I came home from work and immediately got in bed.  When I got hungry I just had (baked whole grain) chips and salsa.  I’m very happy with my life. But I’m so sad today.  

I should be happy that my car is paid off and that I got a raise.  And that I’m happily married to a man that’s honestly much easier to be married to than Matt would have been.  And my kid is going to college. I am just sad as hell and I want to spend all day tomorrow crying since there’s no inventory- BUT it will be 25 cent day and Anna wants to spend the night so if I want to cry I better do it now 

New Budget

 Phone: $164.74  This includes the WiFi for this house. 

Health insurance: $102.98 But I hate my insurance. Changing January first, asap. 

Car insurance is now $79.75 a month now that I paid the car off. At one point, it was $349 a month , went down to $2-something and is now under $80. Love it. 

I don’t have a minimum payment required for my student loans, because of my income, but I also realized that I didn’t tell them I got married. They’ll figure it out when we file jointly. Each time I log in to the servicer “Aidvantage”, I make a payment that decreases the principal balance. When you’re on an income based repayment plan, your interest compounds and compounds and compounds. If I left it alone, then I’d never retire because it would be over $100K by the time I got to my 60’s. This is why you hear people talking about having made significant payments every month, but the balance keeps increasing. What a scam. The plan now is to pay it down much more than “just a little bit” each time I log in. 

For the three years that interest was frozen during the pandemic, the balance was $20K even. I started paying it down in September of 2023 when the interest started accruing again. My balance is now $18,200 even. Of course now I’m going to be tackling it more aggressively

When I graduated, it was somewhere between $37K-$39K  I don’t remember anything except that it was “close to 40”  

Kevin pays the rent here, but I can definitely pay it sometimes now too.  It’s low, because this is his parents’ property. 

Goals now:

this booklet I have in lavender. It’s stuck in the seat pocket of the passenger seat of my car. It’s full of slots you number from 1-100. In the 1 slot, you put $1, in the 53 slot, you put $53, in the 100 slot you put $100 and so on. I fill some slots and then take them out. I’m terrible at this challenge. I wanted to give it to Anna, but she’s going to be living in a dorm and I didn’t want it to get stolen. I’m going to be better at it now with no car note. And I’m not going to keep it in the seat pocket of the car when it starts to get high.  If you fill all the slots, you’ve just saved $5,050. And I am not able to do it daily, it’s going to be a per payday thing. 

I have a retirement account on the Robin Hood app. It’s super low. Part of me hasn’t expected to live long enough to retire, but now I think I will. I’ll keep adding small amounts to it. I was always raised to believe that social security would go away by the time I was old enough for it. But people my age and younger are fighting back on that now. We are realizing that that was probably just said to us in order for the people saying it to drain social security. And my husband is turning 62 in February of 2026. He can collect it at that point but doesn’t seem to want to yet. 

My side jobs on the apps- I’m going to lay off of those and work on my writing and sewing more. Of course, if I’m driving to my mother’s house 65 miles away, there’s likely to be a handful of them there and back. It would make sense to do them then. We have two HEB stores we go to- in cypress and in Brenham. One is 30 miles east, and one is 30 miles west. When Kevin and I shop together, I always push to go to Brenham because that HEB always has a bunch of jobs at that location. 

I’m going to be giving my daughter HEB gift cards since there’s one in San Marcos walking distance to the university and she’s only on a two meal a day plan. And because the university has convinced her not to work her first semester- I think her dad and stepmom told her that too. It’s not wise. But I can’t say anything- when I first married her dad, there actually was a few month period where I was a stay at home wife. Before my pregnancy with her. There was a few month period when I was about 20-21 ish that I lived with my parents and didn’t work. I was a stay at home daughter. So it’s not like I ALWAYS worked. I did have breaks. Would my maternity leave with her also count since she was the easiest baby ever?  Most people would say no, but that was a chill time for me. (I also had a supportive partner!)

Hopefully my financial situation turns around. I make good money at my job in my opinion. It’s actually insane behavior that I returned to a job I had in my early 20’s that everyone told me to leave and go back for my degree, and even more insane is that I married my supervisor/coworker. Goals are shifting now that I’m getting older. In 2014, I didn’t think I’d live through each day. Now I rock. 

A Funny and a Sad

There was a post on facebook that was complaining about menopause symptoms, including chin hair. I made this comment, “I just know it feels super victorious when I pluck a chin hair with just my fingers.”  

My comment got over 2,000 likes and hundreds of comments telling me I have skills. It’s rare that I make a comment and get so many likes and comments. 

On a sad note, I had a weird dream last night about my first boyfriend who passed away in February 9th of this year. I had put an ambient sound on YouTube to fall asleep to. The video was three hours long. I fell asleep and then I started having a dream that I was trying to save the life of my first boyfriend. In the dream, I was trying to get him out of an area that was basically the afterlife, but I couldn’t do it. In my dream, I could hear the song kind of loudly, “Saving Me” by Nickleback. I forced myself to wake up and discovered that that song was now playing on YouTube

  It was the actual music video that was playing, but I linked to the lyric video just to show how weird this dream was. The lyrics fit. 

I am madly in love with my husband Kevin.  I still grieve when I think of Matt and how he was lost too soon. 

I haven’t thought of him lately, other than when I marvel at how proud I am of my daughter. My daughter is now the same age I was when I met Matt, and she’s everything we dreamed our future kids would be. He was not her father- we broke up in our early 20’s and I married Anna’s father when I was 26. Anna’s father is still living. Matt was my first love. Just to clarify. 

We couldn’t wait to have a large family and see how “our kids” would turn out. We had a lot of opposition, but in the end it seems like we were right about giving our kids a better start in life than what we had. When we were dating, we were considered failures by the older people in our life. He went on to have two sons that I never knew- one older and one younger than my child. I’m sure they’re just as amazing as Anna, even if his passing was a setback for them. Sometimes me and Kevin look at each other and say, “We did it!”  

If Matt was here, I think at this point in life, we could have told each other, “We did it.”  Maybe not together, but we did it- we raised amazing kids with a better start in life than we had. 

Also This scene comes to mind. I saw that movie a long time ago. 
 

Reflections

For funsies, here’s a cute picture I took of Alex last night. He wanted his breakfast at 11:45 PM. I asked him, “Are you hungry?” And then snapped his picture right as he answered me yes. 

Today is the 18th anniversary of the death of my aunt Mary. She’s on the right in this picture, my mom is on the left, and I’m in the middle. I believe this was in the spring of 1992.  Aunt Mary was my grandmother’s oldest daughter. She was born in 1929 and passed away in 2007. When I was giving birth to my daughter on June 11,2007, we thought Aunt Mary would pass away that day. She was given last rights just as I was entering the maternity ward. I was afraid that she would die and no one would inform me just because I was in labor. I remember begging, PLEASE inform me when she passes, even if I’m with legs apart and they’re saying here comes the head, if she dies I want to be informed. They were all “iffy” when they said ok. I didn’t believe they would really tell me. At 5:00 pm on the day Anna was born, I called my other aunt who’s also now deceased. I told her I had the baby, and after she got done squealing with excitement, she said Aunt Mary was still in a coma. She said they held the phone up to her ear as my mother announced to her that she was now a grandmother and “mother and baby are doing fine.” 

I look back on that now and I kind of understand- I would not want to tell a woman in labor or a brand new mom that her aunt died. But I also really needed and wanted to be informed no matter what condition I was in. 

Aunt Mary stayed in a coma for the next 19 days and died June 30, 2007 at age 78. 

She was one of the cool aunts. Actually, all of my cool aunts and uncles are dead now, and the abusive ones are still alive. Why did it have to happen that way?  

I wish Aunt Mary could see my daughter. She also has two great grandchildren that have been born since her passing. I miss her. 

 

Guess Who Paid Off Her Car

 Yours truly! 

My car was paid off this morning!  

I don’t think I’m really celebrating until the payment posts. I think now I’m supposed to get the title and also my car insurance goes down. 

This frees me up sooooooo much. 

Thank you God and thank you me!  

As a gift for getting paid off, my car got this TXST Bobcat Mom bumper sticker