Goodbye, My Love. Goodbye

Physicals. They giveth. And they taketh away.

Four-something years ago we were informed our daughters's first mother's rights to them were terminated, and their last name was magically now the same as ours.

My first reaction was, wow. I now almost officially have four children, ages 6, 5, 4, and 2.
My second was, wow. What if I had a baby, too.

I ran into my doctor's office the next day.

"I need birth control. I need it NOW. Oh, and I've been having anxiety attacks."

She had good news. There was a way to kill both birds with one Pill. Er, stone. Yay.

Three years later I walked into my annual physical. More like my eighteen-month physical, because I put it off until I start to panic about uterine cancer. And she said, "sorry. I have to give you something else." And I said, "no. Absolutely not. No way." And she said, "yes I am. Because otherwise you're going to have a stroke. New research. You'll have to start exercising instead."

Poo.

And so this week begins my new voyage with the new anti-stroke pro-anxiety anti-fifth-child prescription.
It's day two. So far, not so good.

Not helping the situation is Vacation. Anyone who's lived with RAD for more that two days just got heart palpitations from reading that word. And actually, it's not been bad. Princess has been doing surprisingly well this summer and is working with me more and more to calm herself, but Vacation is a test of all things. Although, honestly, it's turned out to be more about dread for me than anything Princess has shelled out. Even coming home has gone surprisingly well. In fact, it's the first time we've made that particular (6-hour) drive without a rage or tantrum. Granted, no one was sitting by her in the Suburban. Josh and Buddy were driving back another way from their Canadian Boys Beer and Belches fishing vacation. But that means I was driving ALONE, so they cancel each other out. There have been almost no issues since we've been home either. Which means it's me. Anticipation will do you in every time.

So it's day two. And I discovered Princess is out of underwear. It's both our faults. I emptied all the suitcases into the washing machine, but not the drier. But Princess is the proud owner of 20 pairs of underwear, and if ten of them weren't already in her laundry box from the three days before we left, some of them would be available for use. But do you think I handled this calmly, apologetically, with sillines and a dash of not my problem? Not so much. Nope.

So I popped some adrenal support, some niacin, some vitamin D, and prayed for some grace. I'll start training for a 5K (hahahahahahahaha!!!!) again, even though I'm pretty sure it's going to give me elderly, arthritic knees before my time.

What else can you do when your doctor insists against your will that you don't have a stroke?