The interesting thing about living under extreme stress for a very long period of time is that your relative estimation of how stressed you feel keeps shifting. When for me the primary comparison point is that of existential terror, then a merely life-changing event can be shrugged off as no big deal. The other interesting thing about this all is that your body doesn't give a damn about what your mind thinks. That's why yesterday and for half the day today from the moment I woke up I was dealing with my left hearing having gone completely bonkers, with each sound coming in through my left ear sounding heavily distorted, muffled and with a bizarre reverb effect applied. It made listening to other people talk or just going to the toilet or any other place with running water a bit of torture.
Yesterday I vented a lot of my feelings on the subject of me waiting for test and examination results. Today I got the results from my gynaecologist after he called me shortly after noon to discuss matters. In short, the pregnancy test was negative, no inflammation factors were found in my blood either, and my liver, kidneys are healthy. While I was freaking out for most of yesterday and this morning, I must admit to feeling most relieved at this news, as it was basically as expected. It also means that I can have next month's MRI scan with contrast dye without any issues.
What it also does mean is that unless the MRI scan shows something interesting in about three weeks time, I'm definitely in for the long haul. My gynaecologist still cannot offer me an explanation for the appearance of the linea nigra on my abdomen, or for the abdominal and vaginal pains and cramping I suffer. Maybe at the very least the MRI scan will show what exactly is happening inside my abdomen that it has become so swollen and is apparently pressing on nerves, including those of my right leg.
While I felt mostly relief at the test results, and the weird issues with my hearing on the left side vanished pretty much along with it, I still cannot help but feel a sense of bitterness at that after more than a decade of trying to find medical help it's now seemingly taking the development of real, tangible medical complications to be taken seriously. More than a decade during which I had no chance to develop myself much as a person, let alone learn to or make time for connecting with others.
At the sight of this female couple walking hand in hand on the streets today on my way home I could only feel the bitterness and sadness welling up inside of me as I realized that my life likely won't ever be like that. There's only hospitals, doctors and controversy for me. That's what having this body means. Even if someone out there were to desire contact with me, maybe even a relationship, there's simply no way for that to become reality. Not while I'm still waiting to figure out what the hell this body I found myself in all those years ago even is. All I can offer another person is a body I do not care about since I do not know it, and a tortured, traumatised and broken psyche.
Maybe things will get better if there's an actual end to this waiting game. Maybe not. For now all I can do is soldier on, no matter how garish my wounds or how excruciating the pain, for to give up is to die. Maybe I'll have to suffer another decade. Maybe it'll all be resolved this year. There's no solution, no answers, no end. Just the endless horizon I will keep walking towards until this worthless body finally succumbs to the ravages of time. Who needs to enjoy life, or spend a moment without pain, when you can merely exist?
This body exists to torture me. That's its sole function and all it will ever mean to me.
Maya
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