A new journey

This is the beginning of a new set of posts. The seasons have changed since I began this blog, in most every way. My children are grown, in college or beyond. Climate change is here. And yet the wheel still turns.

September 22

    "Sitting here in limbo..."
     Lying in bed before dawn, these are the words that gently sing in my mind, like a gull sitting on a smooth undulating ocean. "I should write this, journal it" I thought. Go back a few weeks, then take it forward step-by-step as it unfolds.
     I first noticed the bloating in my belly when I stepped off the porch of our cabin at Temagami to pee in the middle of the night. Squatting in the pine duff, it felt like there was a pressure in there that wouldn't ease up. It will pass, I thought. Gas.
     Ten days later, at home, still with the bloating, I had a sinking feeling that perhaps the water we were drinking hadn't been as pure as everyone said. I must have picked up an amoeba, something that was causing this constant bloating. If it didn't resolve, I'd have to go to my doctor and admit I'd been drinking unfiltered lake water. Beautiful, clear, deep, big, wild, unpolluted lake water. But yes, unfiltered.
     The inquiry through my doctor's portal resulted in a phone call from the nurse. She asked a whole list of severe questions like was I having pain, was there blood in my stool, when was my last period? (8-10 years ago). No, no, no. So she suggested I eat more frequent smaller meals and keep Dr. S informed. When she asked if I still wanted to be seen, I declined because I felt that since I'd said no to all the severe questions, it couldn't be that bad.
     Six days later, in a yoga class, we were told to go into shoulder stand. In shoulder stand, you lay on the edge of some stacked blankets, flip your legs over your head onto the floor behind you, then raise them up vertically straight towards the ceiling, like two clock hands going from 9 to 12. I was having a little trouble straightening which was unusual for me. With my chin curled into my chest and my eyes looking up my torso to my toes, a horror began to rise in me as my yoga teacher came over to assist. I stopped hearing her, focusing instead on the distinct mound stretching the skin of my tight yoga shirt, a mound more on the right than left side, a mound with a confirmed shape and not just 58-year-old belly flab, a mound in me that wasn't mine.