I'm a hormonal mess

Despite being susceptible to all things germ-related right now, I've been spending a helluva lot of time around sick people this week. Monday with my GP, Tuesday in nuclear medicine at the hospital for my heart scan, and today with Stella at a different hospital for a respiratory test to see if she has asthma (she does, but will likely outgrow it).

The heart scan yesterday was, well, unpleasant. As soon as I was greeted by miss young and friendly I knew I was doomed. With my shy veins I've become a champion pain-ignorer with the countless IV shenanigans to this point, but even I had to wince after three painful poke and digs while Nurse Cutesy panned for gold.

"Weird - I get a bit of blood each time but then it goes back in!" Um yeah. It's called NOT finding a vein, sweetheart.

While she was snaking around in my inner arms with the needle, I spotted another, no nonsense and very capable nurse I'd had for a couple of scans back in June and I was this close to being all entitled-like and asking to switch up. But alas. The champion prevailed, I kept mum and my inept one finally found a portal.

The worst part, though - and honestly, it's been the worst part of this whole cancer mess - was the nausea. When you get a heart scan, they inject tin into your veins to get the read they need from your valves, etc., and as soon as it went in, a lovely metallic taste lit up my tastebuds and I had to choke back the varmint yet again. I had to wait 45 minutes for the tin to do its stuff and then once I was settled on the scan machine, a different nurse withdrew some blood, waited another 10 minutes and then reinjected it into my IV. More tin. More chunks in my mouth.

When the three 15-minute scans finally got underway, I was choking back tears instead of barf. They come from nowhere these days, like the related hot flashes. In my everyday life I feel pretty great - gettin' shit done, cooking dinner, walking, mentally beating this cancer crap - but I can tear up at the most random things. Yesterday it was the sight of an old man cleaning his glasses while he was in the waiting room in nuclear medicine. This morning it was Stella telling me I looked cool with my peach fuzz hair growing back. "No - I actually mean it!" she insisted.

I am no longer in control of when and where I get all sucky and it, well, sucks.

Does it end? If this menopause is permanent, will I always be an emotional mess? Seriously - I'm not the crying type. I once reached a rather low point of hormone-fueled crying while listening to Easy to Tame by Kim Mitchell when I was eight months pregnant with Stella (believe me, it took everything in me just to write that sentence). I swore then and there that I'd never live by my hormones again and never ever listen to classic Canadian rock stations.

So keep your orphaned kittens, your sick babies and your reunited relatives away from me, dammit!