Procrastination the best way to Avoid my current reality

I’ve always found myself to procrastinate, and this week is no different. I think it started out as a coping mechanism. As a very young child if I was told about something early on even if it was just letting me know we’d be going somewhere I’d start fixating on it and get myself so worked up that before we were to head out I’d be sick to my stomach, and at times it would make doing what was planned impossible at worst and at best un-enjoyable due to how sick I’d end up feeling. After witnessing this, my parents would do their best to hold off on giving me information about trips, special activities or any plans that might get me excited until the very last minute so I wouldn’t get myself worked up. Well now I find I in some ways do the same thing to myself. On one hand I like to know things early so I can be prepared, BUT if I follow through with preparing early I get worked up. So here I am 1day 23hours from being on the operating table and none of the things I wanted to have done prior to surgery are done yet. I’m trying to get myself to do them now, but the moment I start to get into the swing of things I feel this pit in my stomach, preparing makes it real. If I just continue to procrastinate I get much less worked up, of course it also means I won’t be at all prepared around the house but at this moment in time feeling terribly sick and filled with anxiety is the more present issue.

If I was smart I would have prepped as much as possible last week, when I could also take the anxiety meds I was given due to this situation I find myself in, but than there’s a good chance I’d be prepared but find myself curled up in a total meltdown all this week. Who knows what would have been best. I know that I’ve had my meltdowns this week, but not as bad as I would have expected and in fact most of my meltdowns have focused around the fact I’ve been in a shit load of pain this week and it was just too much to cope with the pain and knowing I’d also be having surgery for a totally separate health issue that could turn out to be yet another health related nightmare added to my plate.

I think I’ve done well this week considering. Monday I ran out of my pain patch prescription without cluing in, normally I can just call and he will refill them when I am in a pinch but as I haven’t seen him in 6+months his reception is acting as a road block and told me I would have to see him before he would refill the script. She also suggested I could speak to my family dr. about it, well my family dr. I can’t see for over a week and I can’t go without my pain patches. luckily I hadn’t used the additional 1/2dose patches he prescribed so I had some of those still with refills, although I didn’t have them on hand so I went 24hours with only half the medication I’m prescribed. Now instead of one full dose Butrans patch I now have two 1/2 dose patches on, works the exact same its just not a long term solution as I am prescribed the half dose patches for a reason, to use in addition to my other patch as needed. Just irks me a bit as I know if the receptionist passed along the message the pain management dr. I have would have no issue prescribing another month or so until I can get in to see him when a cancellation appointment becomes available. The medications I’m on are impossible to abuse at least in any common way that I can think of and I’ve been on them for 2years now so I don’t see the issue but whatever I will deal with this mess after surgery is over with.

If I start to think about surgery though I start trembling, it’s weird though as someone who has been but under for 4 previous surgeries none of them fazed me really. I guess because this one affects a part of my body that I connect with femininity, sexuality and my being. It’s the last part that makes me female that hadn’t yet mistreated me, won’t do into all that but all the other parts that connect to women and their “femininity” have all seemed to stab me in the back so frankly I like my boobs, and I don’t want them messed up. This surgery will leave me with a scar even if the surgeon is able to do what she hopes to and hide as much as possible. The surgery could also leave me with a very visible keloid scar, in a very visible spot (even in my regular clothing) and possibly a clearly visible size difference between breasts and then there’s the chance of puckering or other healing issues. Even if it goes “perfectly” I am still 26 and having a lumpectomy. It also means that the last part of my body that I connect femininity and sexuality to that I didn’t yet hold some grudge against is now causing me issues at the least and at the worst trying to kill me. I of course hope that after surgery that pathology comes back and the tumor was cancer free, but having had a tumor found I’m sure I will always have it haunt me that what else or how many more tumors will show in my breasts in the years to come.

Thinking About The Future

I’ve been thinking about the future lately, something I haven’t done in ages. Something if you live in chronic pain you too have avoided thinking about for quite some time like me since it isn’t happy and hopeful like it might be for others but scary and impossible and often hopeless.

To be fair though, although I have been thinking of the future I haven’t been like you would expect a twenty something to think, but more like I did as a child in the “wouldn’t it be fun if I were/ could do...” sort of manner. Granted within that I have been trying to make sure my mind doesn’t wander into anything that requires a/or much education and many other limits but I have been thinking.

I spend allot of my free time looking on blogs that inspire me to refinish furniture, or make this or that and I love it. I have always loved doing things where there was a true finished product at the end of my work, something I could look at and think “I did that”. The reality is those things I don’t think could make me money and even if I wanted to try we have no true place that I could use as a shop here, so like S my dreams might depend on our winning the lotto and us each having our own shop (his for working on cars, and mine for working on furniture/making things unlike his I would want mine well heated). Right now though what could I do? I should try and get a part time job at something local but each time I get really set on that my pain gets worse for a month making me feel useless.

I also have a choice in my head going over and over again (well only a choice if I am hired by who I want) and that is when I look for work do I find a place I won’t really enjoy overly so if and when they fire me it won’t hurt so bad or do I try to find something I will like and hope I can make it work? I know letting fear get in the way of life is bad but it’s me fear and it has been for ages. The thought of being fired and outright told I am useless is more then I can handle even if the alternative is wasting my savings to live on and feeling useless at home doing nothing with no chance to social with anyone outside of S.

(Warning this part gets extremely off topic into my fears of next week)
While thinking about possible futures I have realised I love animals and recently a vet moved extremely close to us (there are now 2 veterinary offices within walking distance one that is a doable walk even on a not great day). I was thinking perhaps I could try to get a job there cleaning cages or something along those lines part time and then in my other time I can try to be a better “housewife” since right now I am a terrible one. In fact I had my mother over yesterday to help me do some tidying/organizing so that something got done since I will be away over a week and when I return my grandmother will be seeing our place for the first time ever (intact although I have lived with S for 4years now this will be the first time she will have ever seen anywhere we have lived... well that brings up a sore nerve... anyways). The key is although I love my grandma she has always been a little rough around the edges and often says what she wants when she wants without thinking about how soul crushing her words might be, so even if I had this place up to S's expectations of perfect (WAY above my own) she will see the problems.

With the week away being with her my walls I build up while with her would have likely been shot to hell by the time we get back here so anything she says will hit me that much harder but hopefully it will be okay. Last week I was going into a week alone with her with hope, now after talking with some people I am more worried how it will be. Either way it is going to happen and with everything that is happening with selling her house perhaps she will be so distracted or happy about it that everything will be fine.

Clearly I lost my train of thought there, but there is no going back since now my mind is overrun with how the weekend+ week at the cottage with my grandma will go. I will have to remember at the time if it does go bad that I agreed to it since I did want to spend time with her and haven’t alone in ages, but also that it was so I would be able to attend my cousin’s Bridal shower that I otherwise had no way of getting to and I really wanted to be able to be there and see her likely one last time before her wedding.