Still in Motion

So…here it is Monday morning…O-dark-thirty….the house quiet and plenty of time to think about how completely different this weekend turned out from what had been planned….

This was the first gig I had missed since I started performing with the band, and honestly, it was incredibly disappointing. Over the years, I have watched my husband and our band members get onstage sick, injured, exhausted, and nowhere near their best, so powering through has always seemed like part of the job. That was certainly the plan for me too—pull it together, get dressed, and show up.

But the pain in my abdomen had become excruciating. Standing was nearly impossible, tears were involved, and there was no way to know what was happening inside me. Because I have known people whose appendixes ruptured, what I was feeling sounded close enough that ignoring it no longer seemed responsible. Urgent care, followed by the emergency room, felt like a much better choice than having the night end with an ambulance picking me up from our gig like an Uber.

For the record, it was definitely not explosive Taco Bell diarrhea. I don’t eat like that anymore, so apparently becoming about as close to a health nut as I have ever been does not prevent my body from occasionally creating its own drama.

We are trying to sort out what is actually going on, because the human body apparently enjoys keeping things interesting. None of it is particularly glamorous, but it is real, and I am getting much more comfortable talking about the health stuff people usually whisper about.

Something else feels important to say here: I do not take having healthcare for granted, but even with insurance, deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses are completely out of their freaking minds. Seeking medical care becomes this awful calculation between, “What is this going to cost?” and “What could it cost me not to go?” That is a ridiculous decision to have to make while already frightened and in pain, but thankfully this year has brought a lot of progress in listening to my body instead of waiting until something becomes impossible to ignore.

My grandfather was a mechanic and owned an automotive repair shop, and there was always some version of a running joke about hearing a terrible noise coming from the car and turning up the radio. The exact joke has escaped me, but the point has not: the noise is still there, and turning up the music does not fix anything. A lot of us do the same thing with our bodies. We stay busy, go to work, take care of everyone else, dismiss what hurts, and hope it eventually stops making noise. Even worse, some people will help you minimize it because they have spent their own lives doing the same thing, and suddenly being concerned about legitimate pain gets treated like weakness, inconvenience, or unnecessary drama.

That is bullshit.

Nobody wants to run to the doctor every time something aches, and medical offices are certainly not where I choose to spend my free time. But ignoring serious pain is not how this part of my life is going to be lived. Getting checked and discovering that something is manageable makes far more sense than turning up the radio until the body leaves no choice but to listen. Right now, the healthcare plan is still somewhat up in the air. Medicine has been prescribed for the time being, and today involves checking into TMC, getting a CT scan, and finding out what comes next.

Just to be clear, this is not an invitation for anyone to diagnose me, and I don’t need anyone to feel sorry for me. This is just life on life’s terms. The weekend did not unfold the way it was supposed to, everything changed quickly, and now this is part of what needs to be handled.

A huge thank-you also has to go to my Bill-ieys….My cousin Billie-Leigh dropped everything to come get me because the other Billy had to go to the gig I had to miss, since the one person who cannot exactly be replaced in the Billy Shaw Jr. Band is Billy Shaw Jr. She stayed with me and also called her mom, my Aunt Lynda, who expertly couch-quarterbacked the situation and helped us determine what needed to happen next which might’ve even included a flowchart, a decision tree, and several supporting exhibits. She is absolutely priceless-a total gem! And my husband, Billy, is absolutely one of the best humans you could ever have on your side. I am incredibly lucky to be surrounded by love, and I do not take any of it for granted.

For now, everything is still in motion. My plan is to follow Good Orderly Direction—a nod to GOD—which means going to the appointments, getting the tests, listening to the doctors, and doing the next right thing without losing my shit because life did not follow my itinerary. Of course, the roof is also being replaced this week, because nothing says rest and recovery quite like people pounding directly above your head all day. Evidently, this week’s version of serenity comes with power tools.

But stuff comes up, plans change, and sometimes the timing sucks. You acknowledge what happened, pivot, do what needs to be done, and keep going. It does not have to become a catastrophe simply because it was not supposed to go that way.

And since all my business goes on the internet now, I did what every good blogger does after a weekend involving abdominal pain, urgent care, the emergency room, medical uncertainty, and an incoming roofing crew….I wrote about it.