'I'd been back in the In-Between several times since that first horrifying jaunt; basic training stuff, honing my ability to find various entry and exit points, learning what surfaces not to step on...and how to recognize mudluffs and other dangers. I still didn't like the place. It was too bizarre, too unstable. In one of the many survival classes we took, the instructor described navigating the In-Between as "intuitively imposing directional order in an inchoate fractal hyperfold." I said it struck me more like trying to find your way out from inside a giant Lava lamp. She said it came to the same thing.'
Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves ~ Interworld
It's some kind of irony that I start harping on and on about liminality and then find myself thrown into it. I saw the doctor last week and have spent the week waiting for the result of tests. In all likelihood what ails me (lady problems, as a friend calls it - problems with my inchoate fractal hyperfold) is nothing more than being a forty-something woman, with all that particular liminality entails (which is to say, perimenopause). However, among the list of standard things the doctor is testing for (iron, thyroid, hormone levels, etc) is ovarian cancer (and pancreatic cancer, actually, because she got the wrong code and the blood-taking lady noticed, so I got two for one). So I have spent the week sitting in an in-between space with that even though I know it's only a 'ruling out' sort of thing done by a new doctor who wants to cover her bases (a goal which also includes having an ultrasound in a few weeks, which I'm quite looking forward to, assuming nothing untoward is found - I like x-rays and scans and such - I find it fascinating to see inside my body).
I had got myself into somewhat of a tizzy over the previous month of weird symptoms so that by the time I actually saw the doctor I was having a lot of nausea and fuzzy-headedness that I put down to anxiety since as soon as I had seen her I started feeling better (must remember this lesson!), but I think may have had her thinking I was sicker than I probably am hence the battery of tests. I'll take them, they're free after all (God bless Canada).
So that's been my extra level of 'betwixting' this week. Lots of ginger tea and (cheap) retail therapy, mainlining Friends on Netflix and stepping away from unnecessary stress.
image by me
2 comments:
I hope the inside of your body is like deep pink camellias and lovely fronds of things. All niceness.
I enjoy looking at the insides of my body too. We are fascinatingly composed.
I don't usually like to recommend things to people because we all give advice but please consider researching natural progesterone, and don't confuse it with synthetic progesterone. What you describe here can be put down to estrogen dominance, which I would suspect we all have considering there are so many xenoestrogens in our environment. The natural progesterone. has been wonderful for me - no more night sweats and only the occasional palpitation. The work of Katherine (or Katherina) Dalton is pretty amazing. She worked from memory in the 40's (perhaps later; sieve brain) and was the first person to coin the term PMS. She used to treat women who'd given birth and developed postnatal psychosis with high, high doses of progesterone, with great success rate.
I'm convinced we know dangerously little about progesterone, and completely overstate the importance of estrogen, ascribing to it what should be ascribed to progesterone (eg antiinflammatory). The website of Ray Peat is also worth a look.
Sorry if I'm nagging :) And enjoy your Friends mainlining. That is a most enjoyable luxury, isn't it?
Excellent - I see you will be my Official Resource Person for this particular journey, if that is what this is. And also nice use of the word fronds. I think people should make a point of using uncommon words so they don't get thrown out like unused library books (sometimes I check out random library books just so they get to stay in the library).
I will investigate these things. Thanks!
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