her

I want to talk to her. I miss her. Whenever something's happened in my life, she's my first call. But when we're on the phone now, she seems a million miles away and I don't want to stay on the phone long. I find excuses. For the first time in my life I can't look at her. I want to fly to see her, but I also don't want it. What do I say? How can I walk the tightrope across this divide?

I've lost my best friend. I can't figure out what to say to her. She must feel so abandoned and I don't know what to do. I've always been honest with her, always managed to confront every issue - but this is something else. She chose not to tell me. It makes me see her differently, shuts me off from her. Can something like this take away decades of trust and mutual support? It must be unbearable for her. It's unbearable for me.

Who are you? In this agony I reach out to you. Besides you, only Marie and Lee know. When I see you there, I alternate between rage and peace. Rage, because you remind me that nothing I do is private and that I'm always at risk for having my life blown apart again. But then I sometimes feel relief because having you know what is happening makes it more bearable somehow. I let myself imagine that you are Sjors, reading my words as you once did. That you still care. That you are still there for me. Why do I so badly need you to be Sjors right now? One more agonizing fantasy.

I continue living as if nothing had happened. I make plans, cook dinners, help little boys in and out of their snowsuits. It snowed today.

January

Boys had vomiting and diarrhea last night and so stayed home from school today. The tummy aching was enough to cause moaning and choruses of "I want my mom," in various degrees of piteousness that ranged from genuine to truly melodramatic. I had the fortune to be able to leave the house and get work done in a coffee shop around lunch time but returned home to babysit for a few hours.
Love the kids but, fed up with cabin-fever, they were little monsters. Had to physically carry Loftin to his room on my sprained ankle. Rational discussion with a six-year-old seems like it should be a feasible thing but was, in practice, not.
Me: "Hey buddy, I need you to look at me."
Him (head lolling about like a bobble-headed toy): "yuuuuuuuugh"
Me (taking his head in my hands and facing him towards me): "Look at me. Look at my face. I'm serious. I need you to make good choices. Do you think you can make good choices?"
Him (lolling his eyes and knees wobbling so they collapse beneath him, forcing me to release his head which then also wobbles unsteadily): "Yeeeeeeeeeeaaahhhsssssss"
Sure.
Me: "Do you think that you can stop teasing your brother if I let you come back out in the living room?"
Him (jiggling and wobbling and throwing himself onto the floor): "I want to be goooofy".

I'm trying to remotely access a university account to do calculations but the software isn't loading properly. Very irritated by that. I feel impotent. I can't get anything done properly. I can't develop my research and  I can't protect my invention with international patents because I can't afford it. The deadline is March...May? I can't remember. Then the international placeholder expires and anyone can infringe on what I've done. The elation of receiving the U.S. patent in October is dulled by the knowledge that my investment of time and money during the past ten years will go down the drain because I can't afford anything. The lawyer's invoices are in a stack by my computer. I don't even bother opening them because whether the price is $9K or $15K it doesn't matter. I can't afford to pay anything. I couldn't afford to go to the fucking hospital for an x-ray when I fell off a mountain. Now, I can't even run and get fit again after getting fat with hormone injections and inactivity.

I realized today how tired I've become. Not recently. Not because of exertion or lack of sleep. No. This is a different tired. Its set in so slowly I barely noticed it: a gradual realization that this is what life is going to be now. I don't get to develop any of the work to which I've dedicated the past decade of my life. I've lost time and, worse, I've lost the ability to trust and attach.
God, what a fucking disaster.

busted up

I dreamed about you last night. Its been a long time since you've shown up in my dreams. And I kissed you there.
What a thing to do. Why now, I wonder? Where are you?

Hiked today. Along the Millcreek pipeline trail. Beautiful day. Crisp blue sky and deep snow from the recent storm. 1.5 miles in slipped, twisted my ankle, and tumbled down the slope. Arrested the fall but could tell immediately the ankle was bad. Sat in the snow, took off the boot and watched the swelling. Felt the bone, not convinced it isn't broken. Put the boot back on while I still could. Couldn't stand for the pain so I just sat there. No cell-signal. Not really dressed for being stationary in that level of cold - my gear only worked as long as I was moving. Decided it was best to try and walk while adrenaline was pumping. If I waited, I might not ever be able to get out on my own steam. Hobbled off the mountain like a badass. Like a screaming, swearing, crying badass.

Marathon training's gonna have to wait. Fuck.

Walking on trails with boys

I'll look back on this time and wonder why I wasn't perpetually amazed and grateful. How often does life give a gift like this? People who love and care about me, time enough to explore the relationships, time to find the next path, and the chance to hit "pause" on something that has pained and troubled me for years. 

Last Friday, J-dog and I took the boys hiking on the Pipeline trail up Millcreek canyon. I packed a thermos of hot chocolate, bags-full of chips and grapes and oranges. The boys are still too young to tolerate the long trudge, and Dean was out of gas long before the journey's end. But it was fun nonetheless. Loftin threw himself enthusiastically into every snowbank, and he and I staged an ambush for the slower members of our crew. 

Today, I came home from the gym and showered. 

Dean, wearing a mask, said, "Why did you make yourself clean?" 

"Because I like to be clean," I said. 

"I like to be STINKY," he shouted and launched himself onto me. 

How the hell do you not love that? 

I had a morning video-conference with a potential employer. Its comforting to discover that they're planning to integrate me onto their team. Its nice to think I'll have a real-person job soon. Its been years since I was paid to do work I cared about, and this is good and interesting. After months of income-free living, maybe I get to step into a different life. 

FIVE plus SIX

The surgery was at 0700 this morning. 36 hours before, on day 10, I'd triggered with 10,000 IUs of HCG. It had taken me some time to find a distributor in the valley on Saturday and the pharmacy who finally sold it to me was only one of two I could locate. My estrogen levels were nearly at 1200 - an excellent indicator, and far better than my numbers last time.

There is no part of my body I recognize. For the past six weeks I haven't been allowed to run or play hard. I've had 78 subcutaneous injections of hormone in my abdomen which have made my belly and legs swell and distend. I've had ten ultrasounds, two surgeries and one emergency-room visit (in Portugal). I've completely decimated my retirement account, paying doctors and pharmacies and laboratories and anesthesiologists $15,000 at a time when I have no income or prospects...

...and I don't regret a thing.

 I have eleven vitrified eggs. Eleven pieces of me preserved in liquid nitrogen that have the prospect of becoming people someday. Children of my own.

The past five years have been so sad. So full of loss and betrayal and pain. I couldn't bear the thought of losing all my hope for having a child of my own in another five or seven years of continuing pain. And now I don't have to.

I have eleven eggs. No matter what the future holds, no matter the acceleration of life and its inevitable tight times and disappointments, I will have a child. The statistics are good. For one child I need to cryo-preserve ten eggs because fertilization rates for eggs is 50% and successful implantation is less than that. So eleven is good. Perfect. I will have a child someday.

During this round, the doctor waived her fee and I had to pay just the $6000 for the drugs because the last time around had such a difficult outcome: by day 8 there were only two viable follicles and the outcome crushed me with its weight. In the end, she collected five mature eggs - which was better than we hoped, but still not the right numbers. "I can do better than this," she told me. "I want to try." And she was as good as her word. I didn't pay her a cent and today's surgery was free. She collected thirteen eggs - and six were good to vitrify. Five plus six. Wonderful.

There is some core of sadness that has been eased today. Some glimmer of joy on the horizon. Nothing in life has happened as I planned or wanted, but then in the heart of the night, I find Grace and Intercession. And these are beautiful things.

Hours in DC

It was an early-morning flight to DC. Corinne and I were out the door and on our way through the dark and fog to the airport at 0330. Poor Corinne never gets any sleep - and my flight time was a particular bummer. It was good to spend time with her, for all that she is the "zombie mother" and I am hovering in the personality-free zone, occasionally riled into passion by the stress of trying to make this process work at a distance (phone calls, finding new doctors, new pharmacies). I also enjoyed the doodlers. At last they warmed to me and I to them. They made me happy.

The trip to DC was unplanned. I needed to root around in my storage unit and find an official document for a potential employer (of all things - my Masters' diploma. Never mind that they have my PhD diploma already in-hand). I couldn't stay long because I had a doctor's appointment on the 31st. So it was an 0600 Jet-Blue flight to DCA and a Delta-Skymiles fly back to Utah the following morning at 0700.

 Shelly was nice enough to pick me up at the airport in DC and I was irrationally happy to see her. She's a lovely person with a generous heart ready to invest. It's a rare person who shares freely and I was grateful for it.  We stopped for croissants and coffee before driving to the storage unit. I worried it would be a terrible ordeal, but I'd organized the place far more efficiently than I recalled. Even the bicycles were nicely lined up. So it was the work of moments to locate my file box, find the file, and send a photo image overseas. Afterwards we went to her apartment, dropped off my bags, then walked to a local Italian restaurant and bookstore in Dupont Circle.

Shelly had to leave at around 3PM and so I spent the rest of the day walking around the city in the misting rain. I stopped by the Natural History museum and ate dinner at my usual sushi joint before moving back towards Shelly's apartment.

In Utah and Florida I feel stifled, unclear. Foggy. It's difficult to make myself do any of my favorite things. When I was working in Italy and Africa, I felt on-fire, alive. I loved my work and it drove me. In DC, there's at least some passion and a sense of hope. It isn't as though my business or life was actually successful in the city, but there is such a feeling of promise - the certainty of something good and interesting right around the corner. I was glad to feel that again before I came back to Utah.

Dad picked me up at the airport in Salt Lake City and we drove straight to the doctor's office. It was kind and generous of him, but I was worried that the improperly-shipped medication had lost all efficacy. I hadn't visited a doctor since the baseline appointment. My anxiety made me short-tempered.
Dad said, "there's a guy in my choir - a physics teacher. I was telling him about you and he's agreed to go out to dinner with us. I figure it's always good to meet new people."
"Is this guy single?" I asked. "Are you trying to set me up on a date?"
"Well, yes," said my sweet father after a hesitation. "Its worth a try."
I should have put the pieces together, realized he was trying to solve the problem he sees me working on through these treatments. In his mind its so simple. But it isn't simple.
"Thanks," I said. "I appreciate what you're trying to do. But I can't. I'm sorry."

Today is day 10 and the numbers are good. Much better than the last go-around. I check in again first-thing tomorow. And then they decide.

Left side:

• 10.5; 11.2; 12.5; 7.4; 8.2; 12.9; 10.1

Right side: 

• 19.7; 20.4; 11.4; 7.8; 15.0; 16.7; 9.6

What shall we name you?