Attack

So, yep, with all the anger swirling around in me, I should have seen it coming. I should have.

I should have thought that something was up when it felt like there was a sock stuffed behind my right ribcage. When I felt the dull ache in my left hip, felt the slicing pain running down the outside of my legs, I should have taken better care of myself.

I should have.

But on Saturday morning, I ate my usual breakfast (eggs and potatoes), and the sock behind my right ribs threatened to explode out of me. I was queasy, bloated, and just downright miserable.

It appears that my gallbladder and/or my IBS has flared back up. I was miserable most of the day on Saturday, and did whatever I could to rest and let my body heal.

Yesterday, we went on a road trip down to Oscar's Smokehouse. When we got home, I felt terrible. More muscle pains, aches, bloating, gas. (Sorry for the details.) I was supposed to lead a yoga class at the studio, but that wasn't going to happen. I couldn't move without feeling miserable, so I made the decision to cancel class, took a hot shower, and tried to eat.

I debated going back to the doctor this morning, but then hesitated. I know what this is, and it's not like it's an emergency situation right now. I am not jaundiced. I am not in excruciating pain. I do not have a fever. I simply have an attack of gallbladder/IBS that is trying to tell me something, and I need to slow down, pay attention, and listen.

There are two reasons I'm hesitant to rush off to the doctor now: the first is that since I don't have any of those severe symptoms, I'm probably okay. It's not an emergency. The doctor would probably just ask me if I wanted anything for the pain (no) and if I wanted to try some acid-reducing drugs again (definitely not). She might offer to do another ultrasound and maybe another function test on my gallbladder, but since everything seems to have been humming along nicely for the last 18 months, and this is the first time I've been this uncomfortable since then, I doubt she'd find anything earth-shattering.

The other reason? Our health insurance. We have been paying through the nose for this new plan that Tom's employer switched to, and we still have another $1,500 to go on our deductible. I'm still trying to pay off an emergency room visit from earlier this year, plus some bills from the psychiatrist and the retina specialist that I've seen a couple of times this year. If it were an emergency, I'd say, okay, we just have to figure it out. But since I'm still relatively functional and not in excruciating pain, I'm just going to suck it up and see what happens.

Mornings and evenings are hard. It takes me a little longer to start moving in the early mornings, and by 7:30, I'm so exhausted that all I can do is curl up under the blankets and watch old episodes of "Benson".

Lately, I've been a yoga book junkie. Which is a good thing and a bad thing - bad for my bank account, but good for my practice. I read these books and then try to use what I read in my practice. ('Cause, really, you can read all you want, but unless you get your butt on the mat and practice, it's all worthless, right?)

Two books in my new yoga library are Insight Yoga by Sarah Powers, and a little $2 diddy I downloaded from Amazon about yoga for the gallbladder and liver meridians. Insight Yoga is broken down with yin poses based on the different meridians in the body, as well, based on Traditional Chinese Medicine. So this morning after I got Colden to school and ate some breakfast and got some work done, I rolled out my mat and put on some music for a little gallbladder/liver meridian yoga.

It felt like the hour rushed by, even when I was holding in poses like lizard and pigeon. It felt good to really stretch out the ache in my left hip. It felt good to lay down in Savasana and just let it all go.

And then when I got up, I cried.

And cried, and cried, and cried some more.

Obviously, this little yoga practice for my gallbladder meridians not only released tension in my body, it released something in my emotions. (Gallbladder and liver meridians are related to feelings of anger in the body.)

I cried until I thought I was going to be sick, and then I managed to calm myself down, focus on the tasks that I needed to finish this morning, and got a cup of yogurt and some crackers.

I can't say that I feel a whole lot better. But a little bit. It's a start. More yoga tonight. We'll see how I feel.