cindy's world

(a little homage to my favorite modern poet and cartoonist, Bill Watterson, creator of “Calvin & Hobbes”)

I have the day off work today to get those pesky polyps removed from my uterus. The procedure kinda wigs me out, because it’s pretty invasive to go into an organ and snip pieces of it out. (Just my opinion, though.) The bigger bummer to having to do this is the fact that, when I called the fertility doctor for advice on timing the in vitro stuff relative to this procedure, I was told that I should wait a month to heal and given 6 weeks of hormone therapy in preparation for in vitro, we’re looking at April for implantation. The kid just keeps getting more and more delayed.

This past Sunday, Mr. W and I met up with my parents in Seal Beach, and then we visited with our clairvoyant friend Rebecca at her usual coffee shop. My parents remain skeptical despite some amazing stuff Rebecca told my mom that was dead-on (the multiple miscarriages she’d had, mentioned the TWINS she’d lost, I mean, HELLO…among other stuff). Anyway, Rebecca told me, as she’d told me before, “November.” I told her sadly that the doctors are now looking at April for implantation, and she said she may be wrong, but it still feels like November to her. Not that it really matters in the long run anyway. For my wigging out about the procedure today, she told me to visualize myself in a bubble of light, and also from underneath, being held up in God’s hands. She said to also picture the doctor and nurses in bubbles of light, and as they work on me, to visualize their hands being guided and controlled by God’s hands, as they do God’s work on me. She said it’ll be fine, very smooth. I remembered that when I’d first told her I had this procedure scheduled to remove some polyps the fertility doctor found via ultrasound, she was surprised, saying she saw nothing wrong with me, and didn’t see anything preventing this pregnancy from going through just fine. Rebecca told me to practice the visualizations to calm myself down during the procedure, so I practiced it last night laying in bed, and briefly thought about the bubble of light from God being so healing that the polyps just disappear. Wouldn’t that be cool.

So anyway, in the doctor’s office early this morning and later in the operating room, I was laying on my back in a long bubble of light, each of the two nurses and the doctor were walking around my room in their own bubbles of light, and since I was lighting everyone, Mr. W, where he sat in a chair nearby, was reading his iPad in a bubble of light. God cradled me in his great big hands, comforting me. The procedure had points of discomfort and pressure, but was pretty much pain-free, and on the monitor, we watched as the doctor explored every part of me from the cervix to the walls to the fallopian tubes, and found…NOTHING. “There’s nothing here,” she said as the nurses stared behind her in amazement. “The polyps are gone. You’re clean as a whistle. There’s nothing for me to biopsy.” She pulled out to re-examine the cervix, then went back in again, slowly, exploring everything. “Nothing. Totally clean, and very healthy.”
“So is this common?” I asked.
“No, it’s not very common, but does happen. The body can sometimes heal itself, or maybe the polyps just fell out on their own. You also have a long cervix, which is good because sometimes after a LEEP the cervix is shortened which can affect pregnancy, but yours is fine. You should have no problems. This is good news, I’m happy for you! Tell your fertility doctor to go ahead and start.”
!!!
So wait a minute, there was this big delay from them finding the polyps and delaying the process, for nothing?
“No, well, you definitely had polyps,” the doctor pointed out. She said no fertility doctor in good conscience would implant an embryo when there are polyps in there, so this had to be done. No one could’ve known that my polyps were just going to disappear on their own. We all saw ultrasound photos of multiple polyps, clear as day.

Since I had refused drugs (they offered Xanax to help relax me but I’m kinda anti-pharmaceuticals if I can help it, so I just took a few Ibuprofen, and the injected cervical block did the rest), they told me I have no restrictions, just go about my day the way I want. As Mr. W and I exited the room in amazement, he had this great idea. “Maybe you can still use this cycle then, since you’re on day 5 of this cycle. Don’t they start the process on Day 5?”
!!!
I put in a call and left a message for my reproductive doctor’s office, hoping we get a call-back soon. We had lunch at Mother’s, an organic market with an attached vegetarian healthy cafe. I texted some friends with this unexpected miraculous development. Flip Flop Girl wrote, “Wow. Everything is just falling into place. From the bank fraud to this…Good news all around!” That’s when I realized…this polyp discovery had a purpose after all. It delayed the in vitro process just enough for me to get 6 months interest-free funding for the procedure thanks to the bank fraud, and didn’t delay a DAY beyond that. The discovery of a clean bill of health is made on the right day of the cycle, so long as the fertilty doctor called us back!
“The universe loves you,” Flip Flop Girl wrote.
“Or this kid is pulling major strings over there,” I responded.
“If you believe in reincarnation this soul just can’t wait to get to earth, and he’s making it as easy for you as possible. 🙂 ”
“I do believe, and I don’t know what his rush is. Haha”
“He’s got things to do! World-changing technologies to invent. Novels to write. Nobel peace prizes to win.”
“Haha, I should save this text and use it to make him study more.”
“Yeah, no pressure or anything. =P”

The universe had yet another surprise for us. I shared it with Flip Flop Girl.
“Guess what! Both our lunches just got comped! Today must be good news day!”
“What?? Why? Where are you? Buy a lotto ticket!!!”
“HAHAHA! We’re at Mother’s and I had another green drink. [Mr. W] found a paper tag in his tofu piccata. Not that he was concerned.”
The restaurant INSISTED on comping both our meals and our Goddess of Greens fresh juice bar drinks (a blend of apple, celery, cucumber, spinach, parsley and kale).

On the way home, I got the call from the fertility doctor’s office. They can use this cycle and start today! There’s no delay to April needed, and they phoned in the first prescription to my local pharmacy. Hello, November! (Of course I called Rebecca and told her the good news; the timing she saw is back on!)

I know my stepkidlet had said some prayers for me for the procedure. On her way out the door to class this morning, she said, “I hope things go well today. Don’t be scared, the Lord is with you.” How right she was. And those are some powerful bubbles of light. 😀 I’m humbled, amazed, and SO grateful for the magic everywhere. Thank you, Universe! Your wisdom and perfect planning awe me.
I’m gonna go pick up my prescription now and maybe go for a bike ride or a hike with the hubby. Love to all!

I meant the title as in “ahem,” altho I just started coughing, too.

We saw Rebecca on Wednesday and she advised me to hold off on the surgery until January. I was troubled and said something about it being so far away. She said, “There’s too much going on right now,” motioning around me with her hand, as if to circle me in her field of vision. “It won’t make a difference,” she reassured me. “You’ll be so much calmer after the surgery, and the extra time doesn’t make a difference. You understand what I’m saying? Does that make you feel better?” Trying to be discreet. Yes, I knew what she was saying. The kid will be the same kid, whether born a month sooner or months later. He’s still gonna be born in 2011. What’s the difference? And now I can drink at college roommie Diana’s wedding in January. “And the surgery will go well; they’ll go in and take care of it. It’s a small thing, no problems.” All this was prompted by, “I have an upcoming coming surgery that I’m nervous about.”

She’s right; there is a LOT going on, more than I thought there would be when I sat there near her. I think a lot got resolved last night in the wee hours, but not before the stress sent me dry-heaving over the toilet. As I sat on the floor of the bathroom, I thought, “She was right. If I were pregnant now, I’d probably be too affected and lose the baby.” Thank you for knowing what’s best, Universe.

And, given the fact that there’s a lot going on, and I’m still blogging, you lazy bloggers should feel inspired! Hint, hint!

…I can drink and eat chocolate again.

It was a day of great people and bad circumstances. I took the morning off to go to two girlie doctor appointments. At the request of the fertility specialist we’d been working with, I scheduled a pap smear with my regular doctor for this morning, and then after that I’d scheduled another appointment with the fertility doctor’s office. Both are to make sure my reproductive parts are healthy and ready before we get into the heavy stuff. I had written down that my pap appointment was 8:40a, but on my drive there, I checked my voice mail just to make sure. I knew that over the weekend, while I was in San Francisco celebrating college roommie Diana’s bachelorette shindig, I had missed an automated call reminding me of that appointment. I stopped breathing when I heard the voice mail play back that my appointment for 8:20 was confirmed. I was 20 minutes late! The receptionist called up to the doctor right away and said that it wasn’t a problem, I was the first patient and they would still see me. Thank gawd. I hurried up and apologized profusely to the nurse who took my vitals, and then profusely to my doctor. Everyone was calmer about it than I was and said it wasn’t a big deal, they’ll catch up. I just hate thinking that I was one of “those” patients who threw off the entire day’s appointments. Luckily they only had one other morning appointment aside from myself. I had the quickest pap smear in history (2-3 minutes just like he promised) and they sent me on my way to my next appointment. It was a great thing they hurried for me, because I had instructions to “empty [my] bladder” at 9am, then to drink 16 oz of water at 9:30am to prepare for the trial transfer and sonohysterogram.

I would’ve been a tad early to the fertility clinic except that the freeway exit I was to get off on was closed due to construction. I went one exit past, then came back on the freeway the other way, hoping the same exit wouldn’t be closed to both northbound AND southbound traffic. The rest of the drive was uneventful and I was just barely on time, so it didn’t help the anxious state I was already in. Signing the consent form for the sonohysterogram, I read about potential side risks that made me even more nervous (bleeding, infection, dizziness, etc.). So in this other doctor’s office across town, I was once again on my back in stirrups, this time for a quick initial ultrasound (everything still looked normal; they counted 8 eggs on one ovary, 7 on the other, which is pretty good). Then the speculum is inserted for the trial transfer, and a very thin clear rubber/plastic hose is threaded through my cervix into the uterus so they can measure where they need to turn and direct the actual hose that they will use to implant the embryo when that time comes. This caused some cramping. I “ow ow ow”ed it a few times and the doctor stopped, letting the cramping subside. “Sorry, that was me,” she said, “I contacted the front of your uterus.” I knew they would have to do that to measure where they can put the instruments later on. You can’t go bumbling around in there when there’s a delicate embryo stuck to the end of that instrument later on. So once the thin hose was in place, the ultrasound instrument went in again for their measurements. And then, “Saline is going in now,” they told me, and I watched a dark cavity blossom on the screen. “Wow, that’s interesting,” I said. Then we all saw something fluttering in the black space as saline fluid inflated and lifted my uterine lining. I didn’t know what I was looking at, attached to the side of the uterus, and the doctor didn’t say anything yet, just took a bunch of screen shots. About a minute later the ultrasound wand came out, and the doctor and nurse said, “Okay, saline will start leaking out now, it’s okay,” and the tube was pulled out. I didn’t feel much leakage, I don’t think they put in much liquid. I was, more than anything, relieved at how quick the procedure was. “I told you it’d be nothing,” the doctor joked. After that, the bad news came. The doctor pointed at a screen shot of two oblongish, droplet-shaped things sticking out the side of my uterine wall. “Those are polyps,” she said. “You’re going to need to get those surgically removed before we can do anything further.” So it turns out that, although the polyps are not dangerous, just 1-2mm skin flaps, there’s a chance the embryo could adhere to a polyp instead of to the actual uterine wall, and that would prevent blood supply from forming to the embryo, or it simply wouldn’t stick and I’d lose the embryo. I was advised to call my regular doctor and schedule the surgery as soon as possible. After that, I’d get a month of recovery, and we’d start this fertility thing again.

So this means that this cycle isn’t going to be “the” cycle. I guess I could’ve drunk champagne and coffee and eaten the chocolate-covered strawberries with the girls this weekend. I can go take a shot of chocolate liqueur and chase it with a cigarette. The nurse said I can stop the prenatal vitamins, but to keep taking the birth control pills for now until the doctor calls and tells me otherwise. Meanwhile, they’ll call the Mr. W’s urologist, who had coordinated his schedule to be available for the sperm retrieval mid-December, and let him know it will all be rescheduled for later on. The pharmacy providing my shots and estrogen patches were also put on hold (I was supposed to start a series of shots called Lupron tomorrow, which I’d spent all week mentally preparing myself for). When the doctor (who is not my fertility doctor but another doctor in the same office) was explaining the polyps to me immediately after she discovered them, she said, “You seem to be very rational about all this.” And I am rational. I’m glad that they did this check first, or it would’ve been a lot of time, medication, and money wasted if something kept the embryo from attaching properly. I’m glad to know that there’s something minor wrong with me that could easily be fixed with a 1.5 hr surgery. Timing-wise, it means I have another month to recover economically from our vacation because all I paid for today was $903 for the ultrasounds and some other things, and not $10,000+ to start on the baby cycle. And I’m pretty sure insurance would pay for my surgery, since this is a non-elective medical issue that would interfere with fertility. The nurse handed me an antibiotic “just in case” since the procedure was invasive, told me to take it soon with food, and I was done there for now.

In the car after walking out of the fertility clinic, I called the regular appointment line for Kaiser and asked how to get a referral for this surgeon. The guy was very nice and sent a detailed message to my primary care doctor, whom I’d just seen earlier that morning for the pap. “He’ll let you know whether he’ll refer you to a general surgeon, or an ob-gyn surgeon.” I heard from my primary care doctor’s office within 15 minutes as I was driving to work. His assistant or nurse asked me to fax my doctor a copy of the Follicular Sonohysterogram Report, which had lots of photos of the ultrasound screen shots. The fertility doctor had printed the report and given it to me, saying my primary doctor may want to see it for the referral. So I faxed that over to my primary doctor’s office as soon as I got to work. His office got back to me within a few hours, relaying my doctor’s message that a referral is not needed in my situation; to just go ahead and call the ob-gyn specialist for an appointment. He also instructed the caller to tell me that the follicles on the ovaries may be normal. That was odd; I was never told anything may have been abnormal with the follicles (egg sacs) in my ovaries. So anyway, I will make that appointment with the ob-gyn shortly since I received this call in the middle of my blog post.

I told Mr. W about the findings at the fertility clinic. He seemed…crestfallen. That surprised me. I felt okay about it; I can see the advantages of finding out all this. But he thought we would be doing baby stuff within days, and now we have to wait at least a month after the surgery to allow my uterus to heal. But really, it’s not a big deal, right? What’s a month when there’s no actual deadline anyway? I’m gonna be over 35 when I give birth no matter what, and this way we ensure it’s not a wasted effort.

I briefed my supervisor on the sonohysterogram’s findings and warned him a future surgery is coming, but that it should be simple and out-patient. He said to go ahead and schedule it based on the surgeon’s availability, and not to worry about work; he’ll figure things out and get me the time off when I need it. He also told me my judge called out today. I was surprised; he never calls out. He comes in on his days off to do extra work. (I later found out he was in a car accident last nite. I should call and check up on him later.) Since I don’t have a judge, this means I can be floated out anywhere. I asked where I was to be this afternoon. My supervisor told me to go to my own courtroom and do whatever work I may still have. Basically he was giving me a freebie. That was very nice of him.

Mr. W and I went to lunch together. He asked me what I’d like to eat, and I suggested pho, knowing he craves that stuff. He was surprised, as I’d sworn off pho at our local area because of the high MSG content. I said I didn’t really care about it at this time, so he took me up on the suggestion. Walking into the pho restaurant, I thought about how I had been refraining from alcohol, fish, caffeine, raw foods, chocolate, etc. because my focus was on giving the baby the best chance at health. It wasn’t difficult, altho it was a bummer. I would’ve liked to celebrate the same way as the girls did this last weekend (everyone was respectful of my dietary restrictions and didn’t pressure me about anything). But because my goal was something so much bigger than myself, I wasn’t even tempted to drink tea or taste the free chocolate bon bon the restaurant made for each girl. I had refrained from MSG and unhealthy foods long before the baby thing, but I had done that for myself. My personal health (and yes, vanity to a degree) was very important to me. But after I started prepping my body for a pregnancy, THAT became the focus of the goal of health. Suddenly, that focus no longer exists for now. And instead of reverting back to my original focus that had been a part of my thought process for so much longer, I instead felt like I had no focus. No goal. I felt a little self-destructive. But what changed, physically? Nothing. I didn’t LOSE a baby. Human psychology is interesting. But I’ll refrain from drinking myself into oblivion tonight; I will still have use for this body, even if later than originally expected.

After retrieving all spare keys from non-residents, and professional maids bleached, deep-cleaned and vacuumed all surfaces reachable, the house is starting to feel a little less violated and I’m feeling more like myself. Except for the fact that I either don’t sleep, or sleep immediately upon my return home from work and skip dinner. Mr. W remarked this morning that he likes my early bedtimes as it ensures early mornings wherein I watch the news with him. I’m still not quite loving the news.

Yesterday evening Dodo came downstairs for water, then beelined to the stepdaughter (even though we were all there), meowing at her. She started petting him and he stuck to her side. This is new. Even more new: as he ascended the stairs, she walked up to the landing from downstairs and cooed his name. He went right to her on the other side of the stairway railing and she petted him as he flopped back and forth on the landing floor trustingly, enjoying her affection. You can really tell she’d put in her time with him while we were gone. The two have well-bonded, because Dodo is not normally a love-everybody cat. Not that he dislikes people, but he’s just usually cautious.

The early mornings have another advantage. I’ve been put on a pill regimen, and some of these require to be taken in conjunction with food, so I have to eat breakfast. I had no idea that prenatal vitamins are horsepill-sized, or that they are prescription. The antibiotics (azythromycin 500mg; double the dose of a z-pack) I was put on as a precaution is probably a good thing, given that I’d been traveling in 3 different countries that rained consistently, was confined to a cruiseship and planes with international diseases onboard, and have not been sleeping well or been in the best spirits. It’s a wonder I didn’t catch some exotic ailment already. I’ve also been banned from any intake of caffeine (this includes chocolate! and tea!), alcohol (great for my gutline, since moderate drinking has become a regular thing in the past month or so and I’d been meaning to cut it out), and tobacco (good thing I’m back from Europe; just being there probably gave me the equivalent of a cig or two a day from second-hand smoke alone, despite all my efforts to avoid it). Mr. W has to avoid alcohol for the next month, too. I had my concerns about that, since his stress level hasn’t been low either and he would normally turn to whiskey or add a little something to his coffee for a picker-upper. I think he’s been straight, though. It’s only fair; if I have to do everything I can and be as clean as possible to make sure this ridiculously expensive procedure doesn’t go awry, he could at least do his part. It’s not like they told HIM to cut caffeine, which would be close to torture for him. I find it interesting that I wasn’t told to avoid raw meats or fish. Does this mean that the cliche sushi-ban is based on nothing more than old wives’ tales?

So the much-anticipated (i.e., dreaded) Boot Camp Challenge has come and gone, and I live to blog another day.

Although the Southern Californian weather has been nice and autumny for a month or so now, clear and cool in the 70s, suddenly the Boot Camp weekend comes and temperatures were predicted to spike into triple-digits. It happened. The morning of, Vanessa came by my house at 6am and the two of us set off for San Diego. It very quickly got very bright and very warm. We made good time getting there, turning off our exit at 7:20a for a 9:20a start time. Immediately, we came to a standstill along with lines of cars coming from different directions all going into the Marine Corps Recruitment Depo. A girl who got out of her car and jogged ahead to see what was going on up ahead came back and reported that Marine security was doing thorough car/trunk checks on each car before allowing anyone on-base. We sat in that ridiculous line for an hour and a half to move 2 blocks. Dwaine and Claudio, who had driven from San Diego to do the race for the first time, complained to me via cell phone that this was crap and that they were NEVER going to do this race again. They pulled out of line, parked on some random street, prepared to walk the nearly 2 miles to the start point on-base and happened to run into us in the car security line, so they jumped in and I drove everyone there. (The security check even asked for car registration, which made me a little nervous since I was driving hubby’s car. But it was fine because the registered address matched up against the address on my driver’s license.)

Luckily, because so many people were so delayed due to the checks outside, the race start times were pushed back to give everyone time to get in. We had enough time to get our “goody bags” before the race, except it turns out, hard times have hit the Marines, too, because there was no goody bag this year, no dog tags, just the usual commemorative T-shirt. Oh well. The crazy duo, Dwaine and Claudio, went to the race registration desk as I went to check in my bag. When we all met up again, Dwaine announced, “I signed us up for the elite division, so we’re lining up to start now.” WHAT? They’d never even done this race before and had no idea what to expect. I waved them off and we agreed on a meeting place for after the race. Soon, the elite men and women were off. Then the civilian men runners lined up, time was counted off, then they were off. And then the women. Vanessa and I made our way to the center-ish of the giant cluster of runners at the start line. We saw some men here and there with us and wondered why they weren’t running with men. She guessed they may have been late. She again told me that because she was feeling less-than-perfect, and because she felt under-trained, that if at some point she fell behind, to just leave her. I already knew I was not going to do that. Finishing time on this race (which wasn’t even chipped so the times aren’t accurate anyway) is not as important as being the friend to Vanessa that Vanessa has always been to me.

The gun fired, and we slowly, like cattle, made our way to the start line and crossed it to begin the race. The sun was beaming and we were all sweating before we came out of the corral. No shade, no moisture in the air, the temps must’ve been in the mid-80s already at about 9:50 when we finally got going. I’ve never tolerated direct sunlight well athletically, and I felt the energy sap from my body as I jogged lightly with Vanessa toward the first obstacle. I could hear her, recovering from a cold, wheezing next to me. The first series of bounding over stacked haystacks was surprisingly effortless. After that, we rounded a corner, went under a misting doorway and dripping, hit the first series of true obstacles. 8 or 10 large round logs were placed horizontally, about 3 feet apart, like hurdles that we had to get over. Unfortunately, they came up to about chest level for me so although running momentum got me past the first one or two easily enough, I didn’t have enough space to create momentum for the next ones and couldn’t get myself over. I got one leg up and slid back, then noticed some hay bales down the center of the hurdles to give height. I went to the center and borrowed some height and made my way across more easily, finishing with a 6′ high hurdle that I again used some hay stack to get over, landing easily on my feet on the other side, thanks to the glucosamine+chondroitin supplements I’d been taking recently for joint support. A few steps in later, I noticed that the discomfort on the back of my right leg wasn’t going away. I did a test high-step and realized I’d pulled my hamstring when I hyperextended it on the log I slid off of with my right leg still over it. I forced a quick stretch, pulling my right knee into my chest while standing, and the pain increased, but decreased tremendously when I dropped my leg back down. I did this few more times between obstacles and the pain became very manageable so that’s how I finished the race, doing overs and unders, dropping into and coming out of foxholes, going through speedy pushups (thanks, Insanity!) crouching and running through tunnels (thanks, short-genes!). And then I came to The 6 Foot wall. The thing that had intimidated me for weeks leading up to the race, so much so that I went out of my way and trained on this wall at a nearby sheriff’s academy:

The training there was very discouraging; I was instructed by people who can climb these things, to run toward the wall and to take my next right-foot step onto the wall, which would then boost me up and I’d have the height gained to simultaneously grab the top of the wall and pull the rest of the way up. Sounded good in theory, except this wall was painted and slick. Any step on the wall instantly robbed my momentum by sliding the mounted foot downward, and I’d end up lower on the wall than if I’d just walked up to it, and jumped up. I could still go up the wall by jumping straight up, getting my right forearm over the top, and then pulling myself up by upper body strength alone, but it’s slower than a true step-up. I could do a true step-up if I lodged my stepping foot in the chipped-out foothole in the center of this wall, but that’s cheating, right? I doubted I’d have a foot-hole at the Marine Corps Boot Camp Challenge wall. I left that sheriff’s wall frustrated and bruised, but figuring I’d use the haystacks to “cheat” if I had to, and if the lines there were too long, I’d just do my jump-up instead of run-up over the wall, which I’d practiced a few times on the sheriff’s wall.

So at the actual race, imagine my surprise to see that the 6′ wall is actually a stack of ROUND logs. Hand- and foot-holds galore in the spaces between the logs! There was one haystack against the right side that a bunch of girls were lined up to “cheat” on, and a drill instructor stood at the middle of the wall, facing us as we ran toward it, pointing to his right and yelling, “The hay is a CRUTCH! You do not need to use a CRUTCH! Get up the WALL!” I got up the wall. Aside from the pushup stations, this was THE easiest obstacle in the race. After jumping down, I immediately threw myself on my stomach and did a crawl underneath a cargo net. There are some advantages to being small.

The bad thing was that after this series, I lost Vanessa. We’d separate for the obstacles and rejoin to run together to the next obstacle, and she was usually just ahead of me, so all I had to do was find her and catch up. But this time, I couldn’t find her. I spent the next mile or so running looking back, surprised I wasn’t being yelled at by DIs for it, hoping she’d just emerge in front of me or next to me. Vanessa said she saw me ahead of her rounding a corner, but didn’t have the energy to make the sprint toward me. I ended up finishing the race about 4 minutes ahead of her, just enough time to come back and look for her, see her coming to the finish corral, and get a cup of Gatoraid to hand her as she walked by. I was exhausted and winded, surprised that the race took so much out of me, my hamstring was humming, and I had small jolts of pain on my left side somewhere mid-course where I finally stopped to walk it off, but it was nowhere as horrible as when I ran the race a few years ago. Unfortunately, the time also showed that I’m about 4 minutes slower than before, but I choose not to rely on this time (about 34 minutes) because it wasn’t chipped like it was before, so the time didn’t start at my crossing the start line, and didn’t stop at my crossing the finish line. =P

Claudio and Dwaine were looking for us as Vanessa and I walked toward them, and Claudio snapped this photo, saying something about my looking way more exhausted than I should’ve looked. I’ve never done well in direct sun and by this time, it was close to 90 degrees if not over.

The first thing Dwaine said to me was, “This was fun! We’re gonna train for this and do it again next year!” They did well, btw, finishing the 3 mile obstacle course in 27, 28 minutes. We wandered the booths on premises for a little bit afterwards, loading up on free Myoplex shakes, Cliff Bars, photo ops, then changed and walked back to my car. Speaking of “changed,” did anyone know that Claudio’s really a Thundercat?

I drove the boys back to their street-parked spot (LUCKY that they didn’t get a ticket), and we disbanded. Vanessa and I opted to spoil ourselves. So we went to RipTide for this…

After lunch, we wandered by a Halloween Boo-tique in the same shopping area, where suddenly, Vanessa’s thyroid medication went horribly wrong…

And THEN, the best part…pampering ourselves at my 4th salon pedicure ever! How cute is this, now that I won’t be tearing my feet up in running shoes for at least a few days?

All’s well that ends well (except for Claudio’s injured knee). I’ve missed Vanessa, and it was really great to see the guys, too. I’m glad I did this incredibly uncomfortable race. 🙂

(As usual, rest mouse pointers over photos for captions.)

On a social networking site a few hours ago:

Cindy is counting down…11 hours till the Marine Corps Boot Camp Challenge with Vanessa, Claudio, and Dwaine! …maybe I should get some sleep.
Maggie: Good luck. Think tall thoughts as you approach that 6 ft wall.
Me: HAHAHA! “I am taaaaall. I am feather-liiight. Gravity does not define my movement…” *falling on face*

* Rebecca said last nite that Mr. W and I have had 4 past lives together, and I said you’d think we would’ve learned by now.
* After looking like I suffered massive defensive wounds on my forearms and knees, I’m only slightly more confident that my practice climbing 6-foot walls would make this Saturday’s MCRD Boot Camp Challenge better.
* Mr. W and I think it’s time to take action on Daughter’s stalker.
* 4 friends’ babies popped out in the last month; 2 last week, 1 yesterday, and more on the way.
* According to my dentist at my teeth cleaning last week, my mouth is not ridden with cavities, but with cavity-looking stains from my recent 2 weeks’ worth of black tea and coffee consumption, so I have now cut both from my diet.
* Kenny Loggins performed at the lake, and I only recognized two songs, “This Is It” and “Footloose,” the latter of which he did on encore although the crowd wanted to hear Top Gun’s “Danger Zone,” which he did not play.
* I have no idea what to pack for Greece and Italy to not stand out as a tourist ripe for being pick-pocketed.
* I am still faithfully doing “Insanity” at lunchtime, and my cardio is getting stronger.
* I may have finally outgrown Dinneylan (plus ghetto misbehaved people inundating the place is quite the turn-off).

I got out of lunch a tad late yesterday and had to cover for a busy court in the afternoon, so I had to skip the lunchtime Insanity workout. To make up for that, Mr. W and I ran my usual course last nite — a hilly trek from our house down past the lake and back, 4.42 miles total. I’d started running it (sometimes with the girl stepkidlet) at a pace taking me about an hour and some odd minutes. (There are some really long killer uphills!) We managed to get the time down to right about an hour when her summer vacation hit and she stopped running. I still went on for a few more runs on my own, shaving more time off until I averaged about 49, 50 minutes. I used to run flat land at approximately an 8.5-minute mile pace, so this wasn’t good enough. I know I have to make allowances for the extra hills, but still. Anyway, my last run was in June. Last nite, I donned my brand new Asics (coolest, most comfortable model ever! I have these in the blue), and ran it with Mr. W. The weather was perfect and cool. Not only did I not get blisters, and didn’t die without my iPod (which is battery juice-less), but I felt good thru most of my run and ended up shaving more time off! 45 minutes! It’s still a hair over a 10-minute mile, but I’m much closer. I think the Insanity workouts have helped strengthen my legs and cardio.

Now I’m less nervous about this month’s boot camp race I signed up for.

I have a dream…

🙂 I want to eat “bad” stuff once in awhile without worrying about the ramifications.
🙂 I want to eat on a whim without planning for it 2 weeks in advance and creating a 3000-calorie deficit first between now and then.
🙂 I want to be ready to go do anything athletic on a whim without having to train for it first so I don’t die out there.
🙂 I want to be able to hit the beach or a formal occasion on a whim without having to drop 10 lbs to look good in a swimsuit or a formal dress first.

The first two statements and the last two statements seem like they should be mutually exclusive. Either I eat what I want, when I want, and be happy with having a few extra pounds on me, OR I’m trim and athletic. But they’re not. I’m gonna force both categories to coexist. I restarted the Insanity program today. It’s been nearly impossible to do at home due to our very small house, but I did Day 1 at lunch today in an empty jury room, borrowing another courtroom’s carted TV/DVD. This was actually Mr. W’s idea, and it worked out well. I was able to do the 40-minute program AND make it to my 1pm meeting, with only some shaky legs to pay for the time spent. Okay, I admit it, I didn’t put in the solid 40 minutes; I took breaks when I needed it to not overexert since my first attempt at Insanity was such an epic fail. Even if I have to half-ass it through my first 60-day circuit, I’d be in better shape than NOT doing it, which will allow me to relax my strict dietary guidelines (because I know I would have either already burned off the calories, or that I will in the next day or so), and be able to just up and do a race or, say, the Marine Corps Boot Camp Challenge next month, without having to do a lifestyle overhaul in preparation. Yes, thorough preparation makes its own luck.

Not that I don’t like the kale salads and the chia seed beverages…

…but there’s a container of white chocolate turtles behind me at work that I don’t want to curse myself out for eating (I only eat 1 a day, and not every day), and I want to sleep rather than lay awake in self-loathing after I attend a Mexican food and tequila pairing event in Laguna Beach next week.

I feel good right now — and I know I should feel better because I’d neglected to take iron supplements the past 2 days (careless me). I’m looking forward to dropping below the next 10s in weight.

I talked to the Universe through Rebecca again last nite, after being dropped off with Ann, going to the grocery store with her and buying jello, then coming home to make 2 boxes’ worth of lime and strawberry jello shots for whitewater rafting. Rebecca did confirm that the owl references and appearances means SOMEthing, but told me to do the research myself and let her know. She suggested it could mean something nocturnal (one or two owl references recently was people calling me a night owl, to which I reply, “Who? Whooooo?!”), and/or that my animal guide is an owl. I didn’t know I could have an animal guide. That’s pretty cool. Thinking back to the earliest specific owl thing (not counting seeing them on TV in zoos or animal books), I remember in junior high art class, we were randomly given photos of animals to draw, and I was given a photo of a beautiful barn owl sitting atop a roof with a dead mouse in its beak. That pencil drawing is still one of my best. I still have it somewhere, I think. BTW, I’ve always said that my Dodo’s face looks like that of an owl.

The second thing I asked… I said that I try to be in tune with the lessons and signs my guides or the Other Side impart on me, but was wondering whether there’s something they want to tell me that I’m missing. While Rebecca closed her eyes to receive the message, I felt the fairly familiar presence of a male guide over my right shoulder, left arm or wing wrapped around my shoulders from behind in a sort of side hug. This time I felt tremendous warmth in the area, too, along with an almost overwhelming feeling of love projected on me, so seeing Rebecca’s serene smile as her eyes were closed, I totally expected the messages from the Other Side to be, “We love her! She’s great! She’s doing wonderfully! She gets our signs!” That was not the message. I don’t remember Rebecca’s words for some reason altho I remember things about other people, so I’ll just give the gist.
* The main thing They are concerned about with me is that altho I know the path I’m supposed to walk and I know what the end destination is supposed to be, I let others take me off the path and distract me with their opinions and objections. This confused me because I thought my life was pretty well in order, so I asked Rebecca, “Is this referring to life in general, or…?” She said she’d ask and give me better specifics. While she had her eyes closed asking, I ran through the pillars of my life. My marriage is on track; there’s a baby coming at some point according to past readings, so that seems to be going the right direction. My friends and social life are doing well, no complaints. And then the one thing that nudges me every so often, which thing I feel so guilty about that I usually push it away so that I don’t have to think about it… I’d always said this was supposed to be a 3-year job while I figured out what else I wanted to do. My education and earlier goals were geared toward writing, so once I stayed on past 3 years, I comforted myself saying that the job will provide stable income and benefits for my writing, but I haven’t written much. And also recently, Mr. W and others have noted my abilities in counseling people and having some odd gift for making even strangers comfortable that they’ll want to unload their troubles and secrets on me for advice. Mr. W asked why I don’t go into psychotherapy. I told him it was because I didn’t want to deal with truly crazy people but if I were being honest with myself, I don’t want to go back to school for a degree to do it (altho Dentist Andy had suggested exactly that back when I was still an undergrad, saying, “And you’ll be Dr. [my last name],” which sounded good to me).
* Opening her eyes, Rebecca answered me that this refers to my career. Bingo. She repeated that I know what it is I’m meant for and drawn toward, but that I let myself get deterred from my path there by others. I nodded along listening, and she told me that when people are handed a gift from God, to take that gift and use it is serving the highest good (*pointing up to the heavens*). When we ignore our gift, God’s kind of like, “Hey, what about what I gave you?!” We should feel a natural pull toward gift-related things, activities, careers, etc. She said resisting being where I’m going to be anyway is like going down a river in a strong current and trying to clutch onto rocks and shrubs I’m passing — in the end I’m still going to be downriver, but fighting it just makes it harder and more painful in the meantime. It reminded me of what my dad always said to me when I was younger: “You can be mad and complain all you want about having to do the dishes, but you’re going to be doing the dishes anyway, so you may as well just not be upset and go enjoy the water and do the dishes.” My dad is very zen, by the way. So anyway, Rebecca advises me to do whatever it takes to get to the goal and stop getting sidestepped — even if it means going back to school. And out of nowhere, she said, “You’re not too old to do this and start on a different career path,” which is something I was thinking. She relayed her personal experience of being in police dispatch for years and ignoring the nudges that point to that it’s the wrong line of work, until she had to get kicked in the butt by God giving her a near-stroke, and her doctor forbidding her to return to that job. She then found this path which is more fulfilling. “When I was a kid I never thought, ‘I wanna be a psychic when I grow up!’ But I’ve done this for 20 years now and I get to help people and I love it.”
* She said that I’m very smart, and I know what to do, and people are drawn to come to me for advice because I’m grounded and give them a calming influence. But that I don’t do that when it comes to my own life, my own problems. (Ann said from behind me, “YES!” because she had only last week lectured me on this point.) Rebecca acknowledged that I’m much better adjusted this week than I was last week when I saw her, and that it was nice to see me more at peace now. However, when I go into chaos over the issues in my personal situation, the people who see me as guidance get thrown. She says they’re like, “How can she get like this? NOW where do I turn for help and advice?” I could feel indignance and vindication coming from Ann behind me. Heh.
* Regarding the stuff that throws me into chaos, Rebecca assured me as an aside that I’ll get through this stuff, I have “a lot of support.” I took that to mean Other Side support, but even on this side, I know I have tons more support and love than the source of the chaos has. She said the recent references to this little dichotomy of mine is a message for me to work on this.

[Aside: As I am writing this post, Rebecca responded to a message I’d written her thanking her for “bringing your special touch of spirituality into our week.” She wrote back, “Thank You, Cindy. A person can only ‘receive’ my spirituality if he or she is open-minded and willing to trust me enough to allow a connection. Thank you for allowing me to connect with you and for sharing some moments of your journey with me. It is my greatest delight to do this work and I appreciate every moment of it! Love and Blessings to you.”]