A-a-a-hem

About six months ago, I noticed my voice was getting hoarse. No big deal: it was probably a cold. 

I wouldn't say I ignored it; more like I didn't put much thought into what seemed like a normal wintertime annoyance.

The hoarseness didn't go away. It started getting worse. I felt like I needed to clear my throat every few minutes. Part of my job at the time was to produce a podcast, which is how I noticed it: I'd have to stop and cough, or retake a question because my voice had dropped a few seconds in. It was starting to cause problems, in other words.

I felt a bit silly. I was healthy. I do not think healthy people should waste precious health-care resources seeking treatment for imagined ailments or minor issues that will heal on their own. But I started to worry that perhaps I had a problem with my vocal cords. Maybe even -- YIKES -- cancer or something else that was equally horrible. I swallowed my principles -- carefully, as by then it almost felt like I had a lump in my throat -- and booked an appointment with the local nurse practitioner.

The NP thought I might have a thyroid problem, based largely on a mass she could feel in my throat and the fact that I'd lost about ten pounds without warning about a year earlier. (I did not tell her that the weight loss had coincided with some emotional trauma; there are some things I just don't want to get into with people.) She ordered thyroid tests, which were inconclusive.

One piece of advice I will offer for people with an Internet connection is that googling "thyroiditis" is a bad idea. People who have, or believe they have, thyroid problems are an unhappy lot. Those who cannot seem to convince their doctors they have thyroid problems are especially miserable. I wanted to put the computer down and back away slowly. 

And so I was relieved when an ultrasound showed the size of my thyroid was within normal parameters. But I still had a lump in my throat and was having trouble talking. (Yes, go ahead; HA HA.)

The ear, nose, and throat specialist had other ideas. His scope (through the nostril and down down down COUGH COUGH COUGH) showed a polyp beneath my vocal cords, pressing against them and inflamed from causes unknown but likely caused by...uhhhhhh...talking too much. (I heard you the first time: HA HA.)

He prescribed meds for acid reflux, which I still doubt I actually have, but I suppose that is a minor thing. And today I went to the hospital for surgery to poke at this damned polyp. It was a bit of a procession of "you're too small for this medical device" and I hope there is now a note on my chart: USE PEDIATRIC EQUIPMENT. It took three tries to get the IV line in and two tries to intubate me, and they needed to find a smaller blood-pressure cuff. And after all of that, they found they would need different equipment to remove the polyp, so they simply biopsied it. I was displeased when they woke me up and told me this, as I'd been hoping this would be the end of the line and I understood the options to be "remove it" and "biopsy it and then travel to another city for a second surgery to remove it". It sounds like vocal therapy may be a third option, though; I'm hoping this is the case because I have zero desire to have surgery alone in a far-away city. I'll know more in a week or so.

Finally home. And finally awake.

I got off the plane after a day and a half in cars, planes, and airports, and went almost directly to bed, where I stayed for 15 hours. You could say I was worn out.

I woke up in the middle of a dream. 

There was a raffle, the small-town sort where they call numbers and people "win" prizes of dubious quality. They called my number last, and my unironically raffish prize was pressed into my hands over my objections: a wedding dress, a size-eighteen mass of white satin and gathered seams. 

I protested. No! No! I didn't want to get married! I wanted to get divorced! 

This seemed like a good time to wake up, heavens to mercies.

I don't know why the dress size mattered. Perhaps if I hadn't ripped myself from somnolence, I would have started shouting in my dream that it wouldn't fit.

It will be nice to be able to say that this process is over. It has seemed very long. I have a lot of lawyer friends, and they tend to agree: you spend so much time thinking about leaving and putting it off, by the time you finally make the decision to go, the year-long wait to file the paperwork seems far too long. That said, it has taken a year to get everything in place to deal with custody and assets, so perhaps a year-long wait isn't such a bad thing. 

You don't really need a divorce unless you want to get married again, but I want some finality to this. I want a piece of paper that says it is over. I want a judge to stamp my file and put it in storage. It is further and further in the past every day; I am settling into a contented life with a smart and nice guy who loves me, and "normal" is within striking distance. 

I will eventually lock a few of the older posts and attempt to turn this into a regular blog instead of a blog about some of the more  sucky things that have happened over the past ten years. Finality, you know. 

All is well.

Camp is great. It has been a good summer. The family is doing well.

I've decided to move out of the house Son and I have been living in. We will get our own place around the corner. We'd been talking about moving for a while and I'd started quietly looking at apartments, but a house became available as of October 1 and I finally had the kick in the pants I needed to take initiative and move. 

More later. I'm enjoying my time at the lake.