Stand in the place where you live

When I went back to university not so many years ago, I had this one professor with a....distinctive style of lecturing. Standing at the podium in front of 150 students, she would talk for an hour AT TOP VOLUME. Now, bearing in mind that a good many of the other lecturers would mumble their inaudible way through the material, this was not always a bad thing. She was screechy and extremely nasal, but you weren't going to miss a key point as a result of not being being able to hear her properly.

The only time it became unbearable was when she became overly excitable about one of those key points. She was fond, for example, of posing "yes or no" questions to the class, which no one had any intention of answering in front of their peer group. When enough of an excruciating pause had elapsed, she would SHRIEK the answer in a banshee cry- OVER AND ABOVE what was already TOP VOLUME.

"THE ANSWER", she would bellow, "is NO!"

And the "No!" would be sort of drawn out in a long pitchy nasal kind of wailing shriek. "Noooooooo!" Think Cartman from South Park, only female and about 3,000 time louder.

I nicknamed her "The Jackhammer". Which, unfortunately, kind of caught on amongst my fellow students, and I lived in mortal dread for the next year that she would find out it was me who had labeled her so. Especially since she was my course adviser, and I needed her to sign stuff on a regular basis.

I tell this story apropos of nothing, really, except that to this day, sometimes when I am answering a question for myself, I hear her voice in my head. If nothing else, she was definitive. And loud.

The question for me the last couple days was brought about by the whole "HSG-Christma"s dilemma. (To digress again for a second- I do wonder if those two words- "HSG & Christmas" have ever been juxtaposed before in this way- I'll have to keep an eye on the Google searches.)

Specifically, a number of you posed the very good question/suggestion/advice that I could have the HSG done when I was home visiting with my parents over the festive season. Thus cutting through the logistical knot of when to go, and as opposed to being jerked around here, trying to hoop jump referrals, re-scheduling yadda yadda.

Now, can I just say that:

a: this was a very good suggestion, and thank you to everyone for your comments and views
b: I had already thought briefly of the idea, but hadn't really gnashed it over in my mind at that point of writing the last post.

I have thought about it. And Class, the ANSWER is NOOOOO!

See what I mean? The Jackhammer.

Now I will try to give you an insight into my thinking. This is difficult, because at the risk of being overly cryptic, the main reason would involve writing about a conversation I had with my mother, and my feelings thereto. Now, I know I write about all sorts of personal stuff here, but I made a solemn vow awhile back that one of the things I would not blog about in any detail is my parents, or our relationship. I had once written a post about something that happened with them which, in retrospect, was unkind, and not the kind of thing I would want to air in public. I felt really uncomfortable about it, and finally deleted it. So I am trying to stay true to those self-imposed limits. Also, I am scared my mother will find my blog, kill me, then disown me.

But let us suffice to say that at this point, I think it would be better for me and my mental health if I took care of it here.

The other reason is also a little hard to articulate. But I got to thinking that the whole treatment option in America vs UK touches upon an issue which does come up for me from time to time.

You see, moving here was very hard in lots of ways. Maybe it was because things went badly wrong for the first two or three years, but I spent a great deal of time regretting my decision. I thought a lot about what I had given up, what I missed. About whether to go back.

However, much as some people are able to make the world their pingpong ball, I really couldn't face the prospect of another international move- which, in reality, would have been a retreat- and the inevitable starting all over again with nothing- no home, no friends, no job. And it wasn't even if as if I had burned my bridges- it was that I felt those bridges were never mine in the first place- that they had never existed.

Finally I decided the only way to not make myself crazy was to focus, fully focus, on living here, and to not constantly compare the two places, or long for things which may or may have come to pass if I had remained in the States. To make the best of things in the place I had landed, the place I had chosen for better or worse, to call home.

Now, I know that what is being proposed- namely, one test- is not the equivalent of saying "adieu" to my adopted homeland and relocating permanently to America. That in fact, it would be a good solution to a logistical problem, no more. I realise this. And, believe me, depending on how things go for us, we certainly would not rule out the option of pursuing treatment in the States someday.

But in the short term, I feel like I need to somehow make this work for me here. I am hopeful that in learning my way around the system, I can gain some control, which will enable me to make some positive decisions, based on the best possible options, and not necessarily what looks easiest at the time. I am not wholly confident that I can successfully negotiate the minefield of treatment Scheduling with a capital S, as Karen so aptly put it. However, at this point, I am determined to try.

For example, after I wrote the last post, I wrote a letter to Dr Best Friend asking if we could expedite the whole referral process. She phoned today to say of course, she would get on it right away, and that I didn't need to go in for an appointment with her next week just for that. That I was on a "treatment journey" and her job was to help me tie this up as neatly as possible. I have yet to hear back to confirm an appointment date, but it was step in the right direction, I thought.

I love Dr Best Friend. Remind me to ask her, when next we speak, if she can fix me up with some heavy duty painkillers prior to the HSG, cause from the sounds of it, ibuprofen is not going to cut it.