Regardless of the fact it's been nearly a year since I've written anything here, a lot has happened. In fact, it keeps happening. Constantly. I am currently curled in bed between my husband and a Great Dane. Little room for the Amazon.
I keep thinking that I'm a failure, in more ways than one. I am sitting here contemplating dropping a class. I hate dropping classes, but I am taking 21 hours this semester. This is a course load so heavy, I had to get permission. Under normal circumstances, I like to think that I could have pulled this off. As it stands, I've been so sick for two months that I've missed the vast majority of this class. This professor has been beyond kind and understanding in her dealings with me. I have it in my head that by asking to drop the class, I am abusing her kindness. Is that the case? Probably not, but I feel like it. I feel like a quitter. I've been on six different antibiotics since January. Six. FINALLY, I am seeing some relief from this plaguing upper respiratory infection. But, the damage has been done to my schoolwork. Especially in 7 classes. I've managed to keep up in all but this one class, despite my efforts. I get shot backward.
I've also been having a lot of the usual girl pains. A lot. Since Thanksgiving. Progressively worse. Speaking in fragments. The first part of the plaguing infection, I had a blood pressure scare. My BP was 208/110 at one point because of how much pain I was in, because high blood pressure runs in the family, and because I was on a really high dose of estrogen birth control pills. We've finally got that under control, sort of. It was scary. Very scary. Back to the pain. After a sonogram, it was determined that nothing life threatening was in my ovaries and/or uterus. Just the numerous cysts that are omnipresent with PCOS. So, my other option is surgery. It's been about four years since the last one I had to remove the endometriosis build-up. Yeah, I have a diagnosed history of endometriosis AND polycystic ovary syndrome. Lucky me, I get to have both, which is unusual because of the nature of the diseases. I can't afford the surgery, nor do I have time for the surgery. Right now, it's a matter of tolerating the pain for as long as I possibly can. Past August, because hopefully, I will graduate in August.
I'm hoping August. I have to have thirty hours between now and then. If I drop this one class, then I will be down three credit hours, but there is an online class I can substitue for it that is offered in the summer. I believe I am going to have to do that. Why do I feel like such a failure? Probably because I've been after a degree since 2002. Granted, I had a six year break before I went back. Regardless, I am here now and fighting tooth and nail for this degree so I can go on to make a better life for me, my husband, and whatever future children God will bless us with. Right now, though, it's so hard to see past the looming walls of deadlines and homework and doctors' visits and antibiotics and painkillers and financial difficulty. It is so very hard. Yet, here I am, fighting and struggling to keep my head above water with seemingly little support. I do have support, but it is often caried and unreliable. Occasionally, I just need a hug and a pat on the back with words of encouragement like, "You're doing well. Keep it up," instead of, "You need to get your homework done and you can't miss any more class. What are you doing? I'm hungry." That just drags me down more. In the wise words of Jackson Browne, "Do not confront me with my failures, for I have not forgotten them."
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