Today started with the problem I’ve been avoiding literally waking me up from my quetiapine-induced slumber – the GP was calling me. Struggling to understand what was being said due to sedated zombie brain, I heard something about going to the doctors today at 3.30pm, which I asked her to repeat three times. As she continued, she woke me up more than my deafeningly loud Cyberpunk ringtone:
“It’s about your blood tests. You have raised liver enzymes and iron deficiency.”

So, come with me and my new plushie – Sticky Junior – to the doctors as I tell you what has been happening.

The Lore of the Lymph Nodes

I’ve previously written about my swollen lymph nodes, but so you don’t have to read another post, here’s a catch-up paragraph:
My lymph nodes have been swollen for months now. They haven’t improved at all – sometimes they swell up more, then go back to what they are today: two swollen peas, one behind my ear and one at the back of my neck. The ones in the front under my neck sometimes swell up and then go back to normal. When I last wrote about it, I had been given a blood test and was waiting for results. The results I was woken up with today were those results.

Putting it Off

The doctors had actually tried to contact me about these results before, but as I was in the Minor Injuries Unit with my son at the time waiting to get an X-ray of his foot, I couldn’t answer. The nurse left me a message though and said:
“There is nothing at all to worry about. I’ll ring you back in a few days.”

She didn’t ring me back in a few days. It has now been about three weeks – and no, I don’t blame her. I should have phoned her back. But I didn’t. I convinced myself it was fine, and honestly, I just didn’t want to deal with it because… I just didn’t care anymore.

To be fair to myself, I did go to the dentist to double-check it wasn’t some tooth infection I didn’t know I had or something, but my teeth are fine. After the trip to the dentist I just gave up. I’ve been struggling so much with my mental health that I couldn’t even face ringing them. Not in the “ringing them is hard” way – although I do find phone calls quite difficult – but in the, “I don’t even care about these lymph nodes being swollen anymore, and I don’t have the energy to care about it and push myself through the anxiety of ringing them” way.

This isn’t me AT ALL. Usually, anything medical forces me into a state of panic – pretty sure it’s trauma from living through my dad’s multiple medical mistreatments leading to him being disabled for the rest of his life. Usually, I wouldn’t be able to STOP thinking about it and would take all the action immediately to not have history repeat itself with me.

Just proves how flat and anhedonic my brain is – that it can’t even be bothered to elicit trauma responses that have been deeply wired into me and shaped my whole life.

This is usually when people think someone suffering with depression is lazy because I “Couldn’t be bothered” to make that call. But you would seem lazy too if you didn’t even care anymore if the glands on your neck might cause your eventual demise – despite the fact you’re currently grieving for your best friend who died of cancer.

I’ve been anything but lazy. I’ve been working so hard in my anorexia recovery that I got burnt out, and my anhedonia is a direct result of working so hard to gain over 10kg in weight with all the physical (the foreshadowing of this post) and mental health issues that causes.

I’ve also, while working so hard, been supporting my son through his still sore foot and something else really important and huge (which I will talk about very soon – I want to give him the whole post he deserves).

I am just so anhedonic, burnt out, and down, that I just didn’t even care about myself anymore. Every time I touched the glands accidentally when doing my hair, I’d say:
“That didn’t happen. They are fine. I am fine. They do not exist.”

And I’d even go about my day and forget all about it – for having too many recovery things to deal with, like suddenly gaining 3kg in one night, or running out of food again, or oedema, or dealing with the fact my knees now hurt all of the time no matter what.

So after grabbing my newest plushie, Sticky Junior, we left the house and went on our way to the doctors to finally deal with what I should have dealt with weeks ago.

Sticky Junior

My son bought me Sticky Junior – he wanted to cheer me up. I had the larger Build-a-Bear Pompompurin but I didn’t bond with him, so I ended up giving him up for adoption to my son. So that I wasn’t left Stickyless, he bought me the mini one from the new Build-a-Bear drop.
So adorable.

He was my perfect companion, as my son couldn’t come with me – his foot is still healing, and he’s saving it for tomorrow. He really wants to go to town to get a new Holly Jackson book from Waterstones, so I planned us a new book adventure.
He’d also already done some foot exercises by the time I told him about the doctors, and it’s not a good idea to overextend.

However, my son would still be with me – in the form of the happiest dog in existence and Biscoff the bear mischief updates.

At the Doctors

I dissociated most of the way to the doctors, and I REALLY don’t understand how I even got there so fast – but I ended up being half an hour early for my appointment. My son, despite not being with me, still kept me company – sending me pictures of Biscoff the bear and showing me what mischief he was getting up to.

Apparently he was using my laptop to order 100kg of Biscoff biscuits:-

Eventually, after seeing more of Biscoff’s exploits, and after wondering why
“Don’t assume you’re entitled to free prescriptions” flashed on the screen when that only applies to England, not Wales – I was called in to see the doctor.

She was SO LOVELY. She was caring, didn’t rush me, and let me speak without interruption. She said my raised liver enzymes might be somewhat normal, especially for recovery reasons. Refeeding from being underweight and malnourished is very taxing on the body. I’ve also dealt with pretty bad oedema.

She just wanted me to repeat the blood test in 3 months. Hopefully it’ll be normal by then.

She also gave me iron tablets for my anaemia, and for my lymph nodes she wanted me to have an ultrasound scan to rule things out. I’ll have to wait for an appointment through the post for that.

With that, I left the doctors – and I still didn’t really feel anything about it. I’m not worried, I’m not even stressed. I just felt absolutely exhausted. But, while making videos of Sticky for my Instagram stories, I managed to go to Lidl on the way home and then decided to get my son and I a treat from Greggs.

Drink Iced Coffee, Wait – Where’s the Panic Attack?

Armed with some emergency Lidl food (to complete my monthly Lidl app quota to get a much-needed 10% off coupon for my next shop), and also armed with a Biscoff iced latte and mint lemonade along with sausage rolls – not thrice – I made it home.

I ate my sausage roll and drank my iced Biscoff latte as we watched EastEnders. I told my son everything the doctor said – and still felt nothing.

I was expecting to crash or something. Feeling flat in appointments is pretty normal for me, but usually I come home, finally feel safe, and because of that, crash – get hit with a tidal wave of emotion.

I drank the iced coffee. But I didn’t get the panic attack. I’ve been sat in the nothingness ever since.

All’s not lost though – I decided to wash the doctors off me and do my hair for tomorrow, and then I did my nails. I’ve been making an effort to keep up with those little things, even through not caring. I just couldn’t apply the same effort to the lymph node situation.

At the End of the Day When All Is Said and Done

I’m sure everything is fine and I don’t need to worry anyway. Maybe the crash is still coming. Maybe it’ll hit me when I least expect it. It would actually be a relief if it does.

Feeling flat is awful – because the same “I don’t care” feelings have been applied to things that usually bring me joy. But instead, there’s nothing.

So if I crash, then at least my capacity to feel joy will crash down on me along with it.

Recovery was not like this last time. It gave me euphoria instead – and well, that led to hypomania. That’s what I was expecting and instead I’ve been greeted by an exhausted flatness.

I feel like I’m at a pivotal crossroads where, if I don’t care, why am I still going down this recovery path?

The only reason I can think of is Sir Isaac Newton’s First Law of Motion:
An object in motion stays in motion –
but today I’ve been acted on by another force,
and I’m still eating sausage rolls and drinking iced Biscoff lattes.
I guess somewhere inside my soul exists a part of me that still does care.

I don’t have an applicable song, but I do have what I was listening to while writing this post:-