Health/Love Update - Counting down!

Today I had my last visit for the year to Professor McCool. 

.

He, like everyone who sees me, couldn't help but notice the elevation in my mood and energy level.  It was an uneventful visit comprised of reports on a series of negatives.  They say you can't prove a negative and I suspect that is the problem with rotten old Fibromyalgia.  Until they can find some specific physiological symbol we are just a bunch of people with a range of similar symptoms who aren't testing positive to any of the things that could be causing our problems.

Good news was that the MRI was totally clear and my brain (and I resent this comment) "is perfectly normal".  Aside from the slight against my exceptionalism it really was very good news.

I don't have any of the odd things he was looking for.  There are still some irregular markers of an auto-immune condition in my blood but whatever it is has decided to remain anonymous.  He did tell me to go ahead and take the Lyrica prescribed by the Pain Clinic, but he was concerned that it would need to be increased and the Pain Clinic doc had not allowed for that in the script.  I was on Lyrica for a while in the US (before I ran out of health insurance) and it had no effect but who knows?  It's worth a try.

I have been feeling pretty good lately.  Fatigue levels are quite low, baseline pain is manageable and breakthrough pain is nasty but at least it isn't constant.  It might not surprise you that this growing thing with TLOML is keeping me pretty excited and upbeat.  We are down to counting hours (being inside 3 days).  In the last few days we have progressed to talking on Skype.  

It's interesting but this relationship has moved through these stages of growth in such a way as to remind me of when The Boy was young.  Those of you who are parents will probably identify with this metaphor.  You have a baby and it stays whereever you put it then it starts to roll over and sit up and you LOVE the new stage but a part of your mourns the old one...  Then the baby starts to walk or crawl and becomes mobile and you LOVE the new phase but you mourn the one that has passed... Then they become fully fledged toddlers and you LOVE etc etc... Then you have a school child and you LOVE etc etc and so on through to adulthood.  I distinctly remember the pain of knowing that my baby wasn't a baby any more, my little kid was a teenager, my teenager is a man...  I have felt this way during the growth of this relationship... we started with instant messages... moved to texts... to phone calls... to skype... in less than three days we will be together.  Each phase has its joys and leaving each stage has been a little bit scary, a little bit sad, and a big bit exciting!

I saw a documentary a while back (I have tried to find information on it unsuccessfully) in which scientists identified scent profiles and who would likely be attracted to them.  Then set a bunch of hetero people loose in a cocktail party kind of environment with instructions to sniff the necks of the people of the opposite sex.  They then compared the participants statements of how attracted they were to the various opposite sex participants.  The interesting thing was that there was a strong correlation with the chemical analyses prediction and the anecdotal reports.  Their conclusion was that we are pre-programmed, chemically, to be attracted to certain scents.  It appears TLOML and I have only the scratch and sniff component of this relationship to confirm.  We are wondering if the scent profile for people who like each other as friends is the same or different... Mostly because we already liked each other all those years ago when we were nearly blank slates.

Between you and me (and the giant internet stranger who might be reading this) I think the pheromone check is almost a formality *Smile*...  I just hope I can live up to her expectations.

Stay tuned for more news ... same bat channel... same bat station!