Which is cool, because it’s my favorite season, but HECK has the last month been wild.
September ended with a busy week: an appointment with my GI doctor where we decided to do a FibroScan of my liver to check on my NAFLD/MASLD (more on that in a bit…), catered lunch and dinner for Tufts because I love them and they deserve nice things, and a weekend of moving a bunch of Grammy’s things into the Residence at Five Corners in preparation for her discharge from the Life Care Center…which never came because she fell and broke her hip the day before she was supposed to leave (she had a couple of pins put in and is recovering fine).
Can’t make it up.
Anyway, that meant the next weekend included moving all of that stuff back out, on top of the other things I had to do (shelter shifts! Wheaton events for LGBTQ+ history month! prepping for Norton Pride’s coming out day event!), then the first full week of October I had some dental work (couple small fillings) and my FibroScan…and that weekend, we had a great Coming Out Day event at the library.
That Sunday, we then made a drive to Acushnet for candy apples, because I wanted one- a REAL CANDY APPLE, not caramel. This I found at a little family-run shed-by-the-road called The Candy Apple Farm that’s been there since the ‘70s, and they did not disappoint! Then, since we were already down that way, we finally went by The Sea Witch, which has been on my list since I saw it on Chronicle a while back.
And then the Thursday after that, I got the news that my liver is fucked up! My FibroScan showed the fattiest possible liver and…A LOT OF SCARRING. Which, you know, makes little to no fucking sense, but okay. I’d read that these scans were less accurate regarding scarring with too much fat in the liver (or even just too much visceral fat), but I still spent the weekend freaking out, made all these dietary plan changes, and so on.
I’d messaged my doctor on the Friday to ask the things I froze up about when she delivered the news, and she called back Monday and volunteered (I hadn’t wanted to mention it, lest I be seen as one of Those Patients and she got defensive) the whole thing about fat making it harder to tell, how this didn’t mean I had fibrosis, how it’s probably reversible and fine, etc. So I’ll probably just keep doing what I’m doing (mostly-Mediterranean diet, more walking/exercise in general) and see what my tests say in the future. It really just feels unfair that my barely-drinking self, without a family history that I know of, has liver issues. >:[
Anyway, apart from that, the gutters are done (rain is now EXCITING to watch because WOW, DRAINAGE HAPPENS) and we also had a couple of great nights at our friends’ outdoor movies. This past weekend continued the busy trend, between a shelter fundraiser, a rail trail event, and putting out bags and flyers for the annual Desfosses/Petersen memorial food drive for the Cupboard of Kindness. But you know, that’s good busy. I’d rather that than The Grind…which I’ve only got 3 more days of this week, since I took Samhain off as a floating holiday.
Hope you’re all well, feel free to reply so we can catch up (YES I WILL RESPOND…eventually…sorry to those who I haven’t gotten back to yet from past emails).
<3
Val