Shhh…. I have a secret

Looking forward to a new year is almost always filled with hope for a new and better future. Resolutions and promises are made, plans are plotted out to ‘make this year the best year ever!’

And yet….

And yet. Something happens and people give up on their hopes for a better, more prosperous new year.

Goddess know I have in the past.

But ‘this year will be different!’ This year I have plans that simply must come to fruition.

1. We are going on a cruise in March and April. I know! A cruise. I have never been on one, and I have never left my kids alone for that long. Hell, they went on our honeymoon and our 10-year anniversary trip- both were to Disneyland. This time is just for us. To bad I will be working on my dissertation while on the cruise. I have tried, but there is no way that I can take the entire 4 weeks off. My university allows for 21 days tops. So, chapters two and three will be written on a cruise ship.
2. Before the cruise, I need to lose at least 40 pounds. I know I can do it if I don’t wait until the last minute. I’m going to start with a ‘pouch’ reset and walking again. I need to reawaken my willpower and excitement about becoming a better me. I’ve had it before, I can do it again.
3. Figure out what these new medical issues are and if they are serious. Right now, I am looking at endometriosis. Not that big of a deal, but I have polyps on my uterus. However, according to the internet (lol, the best and the worst reference), polyps and other symptoms such as post-menopause bleeding, cramps, etc., can be signs of the polyps being cancerous. Removal of the polyps is required, and a complete hysterectomy is recommended. Why does this bother me? I have had my tubes tied since the birth of my last child- 23 1/2 years ago, so no more kids are really a possibility (plus, the hubby had a vasectomy after his last one was born. But this seems more…. permanent. Like it is removing even the possibility of having more kids. For goddess sake, I am 58! And I was considered a high risk before the youngest was born, and my doctor stated that my body would not survive another pregnancy. As if it were, the youngest was a miracle baby. I miscarried twice in the year before his pregnancy stuck. Once in January and again at the end of September. My doctor told me that she doubted that I would get pregnant again, and even if I did it would be at lest 3 months.
   • I was pregnant with him six weeks later.
   • Yeah, neither one of us believed it either.
   • I felt off, so I went to the clinic to take a test. It was positive. I ran into my doctor outside the clinic and told her. She said that wasn’t possible, and off we went to her office. An ultrasound later, she verified that I was six weeks pregnant, and everything looked good again.
   • It was a middle to high-risk pregnancy. I had a couple of scares along the way. But months later, but three weeks early, my beautiful baby boy was born. And my tubes were tied on the table.
   • So, why does it bother me that I might lose all of the baby-making/growing parts, that didn’t work anyway? Fear it will make be less of a woman?
   • Yeah, that’s part of it.
   • But the real thing that troubles me is that my daughter also has endometriosis. She has cysts on her ovaries. One is benign, they think. The other, they believe, is hemorrhagic. It can bleed into her abdomen, become infected, cause a lot of pain. But they are taking a wait-and-see approach. However, if things run in families, which they do in ours, the best course may be a hysterectomy for her too.
   • I have said nothing to anyone but my husband so far. It’s like when I had thyroid cancer. I didn’t tell anyone until a course of action had been decided upon. Of course, I then had half of my thyroid removed. The other half was supposed to come out as well, but the surgeon said that my vocal cords were wrapped around it, and the chances were I wouldn’t be able to talk. So it is still there, and I am still doing ultrasounds and, at times, biopsies to make sure that the growing nodes are benign.
   • Fun, huh.
4. And, yeah there is more, I found a lump in my breast. Catastrophization thus ensued. It is too a word.
   • I have a mammogram scheduled for tomorrow. Hopefully I am wrong.
5. I want/need to finish my dissertation this (2025) year. I have been in school too long. I need to be done! I am tired of the constant stress.
   • But, I was told that the average dissertation takes 2-3 years. Nope! I refuse to be average. I am afraid to say that so far, it is going well, It went to the committee right before break so I have no idea what the subject matter expert will say. Until then I continue to write and hope for the best.
6. I also need to have my left knee replaced this year.
7. And my right shoulder needs to have a calcification shaved off (can’t for the life of me think of the name for it.)
8. Busy year ahead. But it will be better than at least 2020, right?