It’s 9:35 PM, and I just might make it to be before 10 tonight. That would be appreciated because my body wants the rest. And my mind. I stayed at work until about 8 tonight working on updating an application that doesn’t want to let go of me. It was developed by someone else, and is usually the case, when you crack open someone else’s work, you find a lot of little detours you have to take or changes you didn’t think you needed to make to bring it up to what was envisioned by the client. I have been working on it pretty hard, but it just doesn’t want me to put it down. I’ll be in early tomorrow to work on it again, and hopefully wrap it up by mid-morning. If no new surprises show up.

What is getting at me is an escalation in abdominal pain over the last few weeks. I’ve had periods of abdominal discomfort before in the past, but this episode seems to want to settle in. I’ve had a dry cough for over a month now that bugs me throughout the day, and I believe the cough is from esophageal damage from reflux. I now either have a swollen feeling in my mid-torso where the gallbladder and liver sit, or short burning episodes in my lower colon or bladder, or unnatural, grotesque pains that transverse my stomach. And why have I let things get like this? At the end of the year last year, my insurance carrier dropped my doctor, leaving me on my own to find a new one. I hate the doctor courting process. You got to their office and wait for them to see you to try and tell them about yourself and having to recap your medical history, only to have them swoosh you out of their office so they can get to next, whatever that is. I generally don’t trust that a doctor has my best interest in mind because he or she can’t take the time to hear what I think is a problem I am dealing with. I’ve had rare experiences with physicians who would do that. And the last two who were good at that were women.

Naturally, after 5 years of similar symptoms coming and going, I am now just feeling anxious. My esophagus feels perpetually irritated. My stomach and colon don’t seem to be processing nutrients well. My lower right abdomen would greet a spear to it if it would relieve some of the persistent pressure and discomfort it gives. And the stomach stuff is relatively new and unfamiliar. My mind goes to bad places, to some extent because of recent fights and losses to cancer by friends I’ve been hearing about. The C word is probably the most frightening one I wrestle with in all of this. Tiredness, bowel issues, stomach pains, heartburn, reflux. Just tell me it’s my gall bladder and take it out already. But please, give me something I can work with.

It’s September and fall is in the air. It rained pretty heavily today over the city and the sky was cloudy, so it felt like a Seattle or a San Francisco day. I love fall for the beauty that comes with it, but the transition of seasons reminds me that the clock is ticking, and you can’t rewind it.

I feel frustrated. I am pretty unspiritual and unfaithful right now. But all I know to do is to keep plowing forward.

I did find a new doctor to try afew weeks ago, when some of this abdomen stuff started to frighten me a bit. My appointment is in a few weeks. We’ll see if I can get an audience, let alone a plan of action.

Lord, wandering in the dark shadows within the earth, I do not forget you. I fear you, but I also ask for your grace as I stoop in my squalor.

“Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.