Good problems

When I think of good problems to have, I think of things like, oh my gosh, we have too much ice cream and not enough room in the freezer.

This blanket is so soft and snuggly it's making it hard to get out of bed.

My pants are uncomfortable because I ate too much pie.

Ooh, the tea is too hot. I have to wait to drink it.

We have too many puppies. (Can you have too many puppies? I want a puppy.)

These are the things that spring to mind with good problems.

I don't know if you ever read, "Where'd You Go, Bernadette," but there's a part where one character calls the brain a "discounting mechanism"—discounting in that you get incrementally less excited about something new, or less upset about something terrible.

They said something about it being a survival mechanism. Humans cannot stay super excited about every new thing because then in the olden (prehistoric?) days you wouldn't process threats, or something like that.

So your brain makes sure it gets less and less shiny and exciting, or less calamitous, as time goes on.

I find this idea soothing. It makes sense to me.

You can get used to anything. 

Anything.

I have known this forever.

The problem is, it can give you a super fucked up worldview, and in the Venn diagram of life, your circle might not even have any overlap with most people's. You could just be your own adjacent circle.

Or anyway, it might feel like that. If you feel like you're always inside outside.

But just about anything can be normalized.

I'd known this for a long time, but hadn't thought about what our brains were doing. 

Discounting! If you act fast, you can have 30% of this emotion. Today only.

So on Monday, Nick went with me to my quarterly oncology checkup.

We passed the Pope, we walked across the walkway, we hung out all masked up in the very full  oncology waiting room.

Friends who'd had breast cancer told me that at first you thought and worried about it all the time. And then after a while, it becomes normal, and you just live. Which makes sense.

Because there are so many other things that require your focus in life. So what else are you going to do?

Anyway, I wanted Nick to come with me, because when I told him I didn't need him to accompany me to my annual visit with my breast surgeon, that's when she found the lump.

I'd rather he were with me than not.

Last time I saw the oncologist, so this time I was seeing Terri, the Nurse Practitioner. She's terrific. She asked me if I'd considered the new medication that she was under the impression the oncologist had suggested to me three months prior.

And I was all, maybe I was too sick to remember? Or maybe she didn't talk to us about it because she was so worried about me having pneumonia?

I couldn't remember any medication discussion, and neither could Nick.

So according to Terri, there's a medication that is not new, but it's newly available to a lower-risk group of people than before. Because I had lymph involvement, I now qualify. And so they wanted to know if I wanted to try.

I know that I had a .3 mm spot in the one lymph node they removed. I know this. And I know I didn't need chemo, and my scores were so good that radiation was optional, so after a second opinion, I decided not to.

Because there might be more in other lymph nodes, but there might not. And radiation has its own complications.

At first I worried about my decision all the time. And then, after a while, I just kind of stopped thinking about it.

I know the facts, but I don't feel them all the time. Sometimes I ruminate. Sometimes I what-if, particularly about my parents.

But I try not to do this, because it doesn't solve the past. It just hurts me now.

You have to live.

But suddenly, there I was, feeling the big anxiety feelings again.

This new medication would be in addition to, rather than replacing, my current medications, and would  further reduce the risk of recurrence.

The risks, because there are always risks, include liver injury and heart problems, so they monitor you carefully in the beginning.

So Nick and I were like, it seems like you think it's a good idea, even though it's adding another medication with possible side effects?

She said yes. If I couldn't tolerate it, then I'd just quit taking it. But no harm in trying.

It takes a while, because it comes from a specialty pharmacy, plus insurance has to approve it, and that is its own process.

So maybe I'd be starting it in the new year.

It felt like something huge, adding another medication. 

And I'm already on medication that makes my joints hurt, and it's aging my skin, and when I look in the mirror, some days I feel like I look like that actor who plays River Cartwright's grandfather. If you've watched Slow Horses.

Although a friend assured me I don't look like River Cartwright's grandfather.

But even if I do, that's just vanity. I want to be around for my kids.

So then I wouldn't want to not have tried, because what if I didn't try, and then down the road it comes back?

And then I'd be all, fuck a duck, I should have added that other medication.

Right?

This news felt so heavy.

Maybe it's because it's winter, or maybe I just got used to things being the way they are, whatever that might be.

We talked about it on the way home. Of course I should try it. Then no regrets.

Then, shortly after we got home, Terri called me. She'd spoken to the oncologist.

As it turns out, the oncologist hadn't offered it to me because I don't qualify. My risk of recurrence isn't high enough for this study. My tumor wasn't big enough in the first place. And I only had a micro-met. 

Metastasis, but super tiny, which they call a micro-met.

Like if you get introduced to someone, but only briefly. Steve? Oh, I micro-met him at a party last year. 

I was like, "Wait, so now I can't have this medication?"

She said, "You're too low risk. It's a good problem to have."

Which is, of course, true. Being too low risk is a good problem to have.

But then suddenly I felt like I had this amazing option taken away. Like, what if this was the solution, the thing that bumped me over into safety from a future problem I might not even have?

When, realistically speaking, it might've given me annoying side effects for three years and not made any difference.

You don't know until you know. Which I guess is true about everything.

But now it's been four days. And the discounting has begun happening. Monday felt like crisis. Tuesday less so. 

It's Friday, and I can talk about it in a more dispassionate way, because I just don't feel it so much.

And plus, now we are in the end-of-year-holidays-are-upon-us frenzy, and there are so many things to do. 

The tree us up, and that's a whole nother thing, and holiday sads do catch me unawares and wallop me every once in a while.

So actually, while I'm thinking about it, I would definitely take a coupon for a massive discount on those feelings.

Neurodivergence, or: We always hang in a Buffalo Stance/We do the dive every time we dance

OK, so, I know you're not supposed to diagnose yourself using social media.

And this is not exactly what I've done.

But I've discovered that one of the best things about memes is that they've helped me learn about my neurodivergence, and they've shown me I'm not alone.

I was diagnosed with ADHD a couple years ago. It was a huge relief. I've been very open about this and written about it a little.

This diagnoses explained so many things about me that were either pieces of me that frustrated me and made me insecure, or were things that made me feel like I was kinda quirky, and if you appreciated quirky, you might appreciate me extra.

Or not. Because it works both ways.

There were things I'd try to hide, because for a long time I wanted to seem normal. Ha. 

And there were lots of things I did that I didn't think about one way or another until someone pointed them out to me.

Now, there are numerous memes about autism and ADHD, and it seems like they share commonalities and maybe even significant overlap. I don't know anything about autism. But a lot of these memes resonate with me.

I don't assume that just because my brain works in a particular way means that someone else's brain works the same way.

But ooh, it's nice to learn that those similar-brain-working-people are out there!

I've delightedly learned that I'm not alone.

There are other people in the world who will choose a song and play it on repeat 372 times. There are people who will go back to the beginning of the song if they dissociated and missed part of it.

I honestly didn't know other people did that.

I also didn't know that other people just checked out for a while and then dropped back in and realized they'd missed a significant part of the song. Or the conversation. Or the lesson.

Whatever might be going on, that continued to go on while my brain went myriad other places. Or not really anywhere, but not here.

So sometimes I learn that all along, I've been approaching things in the same manner as other neurodivergent humans.

And then I sometimes I learn I take a neurodivergent approach from someone telling me not to do what they assume I do, because it's (apparently) what most people do.

Like, my yoga teacher is always making daily tasks into opportunities for strengthening or stretching.

So the other day he was giving us examples like when you soap yourself in the shower, do forward fold. When you're drying off, raise your straight leg up and put your foot on the sink, so you get that strengthening and stretch.

And so on.

He said not to just stand at the sink when you brush your teeth. He, personally, holds horse stance.

Use all the small opportunities.

But I was like, who stands at the sink when they brush their teeth?

(Do you?)

When I brush my teeth, I'm always wandering around trying to do also something else. Like remove or put on my socks with the other hand. Or pull on or take off my pants. Or open a jar.

I  have successfully removed my tee shirt while brushing my teeth, but it's a big hassle and the chances of getting toothpaste on your shirt are high.

The chances of flinging your electric toothbrush through the head hole and across the room are also high.

So it's really not worth it.

But I've always tasked my self with something hard to do one-handed. I guess most things are hard to do one-handed. 

This is never a time-saver, in case you're wondering.

I'm not offering up helpful tips or tricks.

No. 

It's more like it never occurred to me to stand at the sink. Why would I just stand at the sink when I can wander and even mildly complicate my life?

Who, I wondered, stands at the sink the whole time?

My husband. 

My husband stands at the sink the entire time he's brushing his teeth.

He's surely done this throughout our 16 years of marriage, because he's done this every morning and night that I've observed in the last couple weeks.

But I've never noticed, because I'm busy not successfully accomplishing tasks one handed in the next room.

Me, I'm now aiming for horse stance.

(Also, this is really the only way to eat raspberries.)