Stress 101

On Friday afternoon, I had an appointment with my GP. She was glad to see me, and she was genuinely happy for us in having gotten this far; she knows even this little success was extremely hard-won as she's followed us for years.

A few things came out of that appointment. First up, my blood pressure is good, measuring 122/76. I remarked to her that I'd had one or two severely dizzy spells. Hopefully that won't be the norm. Hubby commented later that, "Funny, you get p/g and your blood pressure goes down!" Blood pressure is something I have to watch. High blood pressure runs in our family and I'd rather avoid having to take yet another pill.

I asked the doctor about a plethora of things, like taking extra folic acid (she gave me a 'script for some), the nausea (again, a 'script in case it becomes horrid), about talking to a lactation consultant later on as women who are hypothyroid often have problems producing enough milk, and about the metformin and the synthroid. I'll return to the endocrinologist shortly; in the meantime she ordered some bloodwork to measure those levels as well as progesterone (it'd be nice to reduce the frequency of these injections, lemme tell ya!) and iron levels and the like.

The most interesting bit of the appointment was her recommendation to take one or two weeks off work. As I described to her, right now I'm spending five to six hours per day commuting. Now, this isn't the norm but right now, our city is experiencing a bus strike. And that means that hubby needs a ride to work... and of course he works right in the heart of the downtown core. Ugh. So we're up at 5 a.m., out the door at 6:15, picking up hubby's co-worker (who lives near us but is also stranded because of the bus strike) at 6:30, and I manage to drop them off somewhere around 7:50 or 8 a.m., arriving at my office just after 9 a.m. I'm working through my lunches to save that hour on the back end, and when I finally manage to leave the office, I do it all in reverse. We arrive home after 7 p.m. some days. It's insane. Completely, totally insane.

Now, add to that the recent stress levels at the office. I haven't written much about work and what goes on at our workplace but lately, what used to be enjoyable is certainly far from it. Honestly. I blew up at my boss the other day and in that 'conversation' I referred to our director as "the asshole in the corner who can't seem to get his head out of his ass and if he doesn't do it soon, there won't BE anyone here to work with!"

This stems from the goings-on in May. Back in May, we got ourselves a new Director. And by September, this director determined that our entire branch needed a re-org (as frequently happens in government). Well, he went so far as to merge our team with another, tossing me out of the acting manager position and bringing in a new woman who herself had just joined our department from outside. She still doesn't understand much of what we do or how we do it. Honestly. It isn't fun.

So moving forward, I'm the first one to embrace change. I think that if there are more effective ways to work, I'm willing to give it a shot. Five or six months into it, it's quite obvious this isn't working. I've been moved from one office to another (for a new, less-senior employee apparently) and then asked to share a cubicle with three other people. Yeah... real nice when I'm nauseous ain't it?

To name a few of the problems: we have an acting liaison who stepped down, another who tried filling the shoes in a different position but told our manager last week that he is no longer interested, two women retired right off the bat, another is gone on (assumed) stress leave and is not permitted to talk about the differences between her and her previous supervisor, another who has been bitched at for his hours of work (although he works his time always!), and still another who was told last week that after 10 years of working compressed hours, she is no longer permitted to do it. As for me, this new manager has bitched at me a few times about my appointments, all valid and all get put into the system. I make SURE of that! I've been moved from Technical Writing to French/English Quality Control, to editing Policy (come on people, cut and paste editing does not literally mean cut and paste!! Sheesh!) and now back to Tech Writing because I had enough of being tossed around. I have been asked to move offices twice. And all in all, it's making me livid. Stressed. Pissed off. And I'm definitely looking elsewhere. But putting myself through a full competition to find some new work at this time isn't wise either. I'm just trying to hang in there and not let too much of it get to me.

I told my doctor a lot of this and she figures I just need time to breathe. Like she said, if I take a week or two off work, that would put me a week or two further into this p/g, making it safer for both me and Petit, it would let me de-stress a touch and it would give me an opportunity to get some much-needed sleep. These days, I'm falling asleep on the couch at about 8 p.m. Hubby wakes me at 9 p.m. for the PIO injection and I collapse in bed right thereafter. It's nuts. I can't keep doing it, that's for sure. Somethin's gotta give...

On Tuesday I have another ultrasound. We'll see if Petit is doing okay. I'm worried of course and I just keep hoping that all will be well.