Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Lupron Day One

Here is how my morning went yesterday after my last post:

-Took shower, cried for a few minutes, but quickly got over myself, regained my senses, etc.
-Shot up with the Lup.ron. Utterly uneventful, considering that I spent the earliest two decades of my life passing out (literally) when a needle so much as entered the room.
-Carefully packed the remainder of my belongings into my already overfull suitcase.
-Carefully UN-packed my belongings, realizing that if my bag got lost, I'd be out several thousand dollars to replace those drugs.
-Carefully repacked my belongings. Realize that there are two additional large-ish things to fit in my suitcase.
-Not-so-carefully UNpack my mother-effin' suitcase, putting part of the contents into a box to be shipped back to me at a later date, and REpack my mother-effin' suitcase.
-Realize the suitcase still doesn't close. Cry a little.
-Remove the tripod, as it is the very last thing that was in my suitcase that I don't necessarily need in the next month or so, even though the tripod won't fit in the box I am using to ship the overflow from my suitcase.
-Father hands me six or seven old bows (instrument bows, that is) that he garbage picked and tells me to take what's good and toss the rest. Cry a little when I get back to my room, because how sweet is it that my dad garbage picked some bows for me, and also because I cannot bear to re-open the suitcase and try to fit them in. Leave them to be picked up at Christmas...
-Finally leave the house with everything in it's appropriate place (as available), and make it to the airport, having only shed a single tear on the way, thinking about my family, who I was suddenly surprisingly sentimental about. WTF.
-Check in with the loudest, most demanding (yet oddly friendly) airline employee helping a crowd of people use the self-check in thingys. Pay TWENTY EFFIN' DOLLARS to check the stupid suitcase, because I forgot to pay at home.
-Place my suitcase on the weighing thingy to discover that it weighs ONE POUND over the limit. Am directed by bitch-hole airline person to "just remove some things" from my checked baggage and place them into my carry-on (which is stuffed with reproductive hormone boxes...).
-Squat on the floor in front of a line of 50 people, trying to find something in my bag that weighs at least a pound but is also compact enough to fit into my over full carryon.
-Sob. Sob in earnest, great gulping sobs, rivulets of snot running from my nose, totally incapable of containing my anger at the unfairness of it all. Cannot think straight. Cannot find something to remove from suitcase. Bitch-hole asks if I want to put my suitcase on the scale again, even though she can see my suitcase is still gaping open. Meanwhile some group of SEVEN grungy musicians is checking their bags at the counter adjacent to where I am standing, and keep coming inches from stepping on me and my stuff, and GIVE ME DIRTY LOOKS. GO FUCK YOURSELF, though I'd recommend taking a shower first because GOD KNOWS what's on your junk, you NASTY, SMELLY, RUDE MOTHERFUCKERS.

Ahem.

-Collect myself, and realize that if I place my suitcase on the unused scale next to me that I can remove something that weighs the right amount. Notice that even though I haven't removed anything, when I place the suitcase on the scale at that station, it weighs a pound less, and thus is within the limits. Wait effin' FOREVER for Bitch Hole to finish with Stanky Musician Assholes. Check my bag and leave.
-Get to security check and nearly die looking at the line that is seven rows deep, but actually get through relatively quickly, and with absolutely NO hassle regarding the 15 tiny vials of liquid inside various boxes in my carry-on. Wonder if terrorists are aware of the ease of carrying liquids inside tiny vials, rather than in one giant container. Get quite irrationally worried.
-Pull out phone to call my mom (who was waiting at the gas station across from the airport for my call to let her know that I made it through security with my drugs), and see message from CC.
-Check message, then stop myself at a table to cry, because CC likes me, and she likes me WAY more than she likes L. (Well, that's not her *exact* words, but that's why I think I cried...) Because true, good friends are sometimes hard to find, and I've truly found a gem with CC. Love her. Miss her.
-Board plane without incident, and am seated next to a tiny woman who (other than eating *constantly*, for the two hour flight) was totally normal. I almost forgive her for eating that banana shortly before we landed. I mean, I like bananas just fine, but MAN, they smell strong.
-Cry a bunch mid-flight because I miss my husband. And I miss Austin. And I'm just ready to be HOME and am pissed because "home" cannot be in Austin, and that Austin has changed such that it really isn't home anymore either. And that song, you know that one*? It's so sad. It's just so very sad.
-Layover in Atlanta for an hour or so. Board plane to Greensboro. Hot flash. Sit down next to a giant sort of fellow, who not only is so large that he takes up all of his seat and some of mine, also has some sort of intestinal issue (or so I assume as he proceeds to fart repeatedly throughout the flight).
-Sit on the runway for 20 minutes, during which time the a/c blowers aren't working. More hot flashes. Fanning myself with safety card, but that only stirs up the farty air in the cabin.
-Realize once airborne, that the vents don't work AT ALL. Am visibly perspiring, crammed into a corner of my seat, with giant man being a MAN (why is it that men think they always have the right to take up twice as much space as women? Even smallish men get all hyper-possessive of the armrest as though it is their right...), and cannot even get enough shoulder room to comfortably hold a book.
-Determine that giant man is traveling with his giant wife who is across the aisle and get PISSED that these two people, who really each need two seats, insist on impinging their largeness on other people, rather than cramming themselves into a set of seats directly adjacent. Get far, FAR more pissed than I should about this.
-Cry a little because I remember being larger and I wonder if anyone ever thought this about me when I got on a flight. Feel bad for taking up more than my share of room. Feel bad for being so blatantly sizist, when it truly could be through no fault of their own that they are larger.
-Get really pissed at the flight attendant for not INSISTING THAT THESE GIANT PEOPLE GET TWO SEATS EACH. Get pissed that I paid for a whole seat which I don't get to use, get pissed that I am on a flight with apparently no temperature control, get pissed that I am being olfactorily assaulted once a minute by Mr. Fat Farty Pants. Get really, really pissed.
-Get off plane, want to kiss the tarmac. Am greeted less than enthusiastically by a still semi-sick husband who insists after my long day of travel that I drive us home from the airport. Am told that husband has determined that entire department is out to get him because he is sick(?), and end up yelling at husband because GRR WTF FUCKING GROW UP ALREADY.
-Cry a little because I was so mean to him. Apologize to him, and declare a start-over.
-Eat dinner, watch Family Guy, have fabulous roll-in-hay, read new IVF book, and fall asleep early.

So.

As to whether the Lupr.on caused the anger and hot flashes and weepiness that quickly is unlikely. I think perhaps things were just a bit magnified by it, perhaps. Or maybe it was all in my head. I didn't sleep much at all on Monday night, and I had not slept well for my entire trip, so maybe it was a weeks worth of crappy sleep and no privacy that left my emotions so close to the surface. That IVF is an emotional process is a given. That the drugs eventually make you a touch crazy is perfectly understandable. That a visit home can stir up some emotions, that returning home to someone you haven't seen in too long can make you choke up, is normal. And that doing so on little sleep, and adding in the general stressfulness of airline travel during all of it, can leave you frustrated and exhausted and at the end of all of the various ropes of emotions you have is probably normal, is also not lost on me. While I don't know that the Lu.pron is directly to blame, I am assuming that it at least plays a role, and maybe, just possibly, a quite big role.

So if you want to know how my first day on leuprolide acetate went, there you have it. Probably the worst possible scenario in which to start taking this drug, but yet, I survived anyhow. If this is what Lup.ron does, I cannot WAIT to see how the Gona.l-f and the Meno.pur will treat me.

Yeehaw. Saddle up, folks. It's gonna be a fun ride!

(I don't say it often enough here, but MAN. I love you guys. I love my internet friends. I feel closer to most of you than I do to many in-real-life people. Hearing your words of support and understanding are like salves to my emotionally-wrought heart. So thank you. A thousand times over, THANK YOU.)

*This song...


Oh, and this one, too.


And as long as were in that general theme, there's always this one, too:


And one more that while good is NOT really part of the set above, but nonetheless is a new(-ish) Willie Nelson song that simply must be heard...