One Year Ago

Here's how life was for me a year ago. The bladder stone grew so large that it split my bladder in half and I was unable to eat enough so I also developed fatty liver as my body tried to survive at any cost. I had surgery to remove the stone and it's been a whole year of critical care nursing, feeding tubes, PT, a few scares with infections, rehabilitation and relearning to feed myself. After all this time, I thought I was out of the woods.

But Dr. Johnson just called with my latest blood test results after the trek to his exam room last Saturday. It turns out that I have elevated lymphocytes and calcium which could mean a reproductive tract problem. So Dr. Johnson wants another x-ray next week to look for blocked eggs. I didn't even know this was possible. I'm 45 years old. Don't I get ever to "enjoy" Tort-O-Pause and skip this whole egg-production business?

Meanwhile I'm really gearing up to hibernate. Not too interested in food but I do come out of the burrow to check out the yard. When I try to eat, my heart just isn't in it. It's been 106 degrees all week but we tortoises go by seasons rather than temperature for hibernation. Anyway our body clocks are more accurate than any calendar. We know how many days it's been since the autumnal equinox. It's like a giant switch gets flipped on the tortoise metabolism.

I'm trying not to think about it but I did hear Dr. Johnson say the results of the x-ray will decide if I can hibernate indoors or outdoors. And if the x-ray shows no eggs blocking my reproductive tract, I still won't get to hibernate in the old burrow. Now that is hard to take!!!! But the new burrow is shallower which makes it possible to pull me out once a month to check my weight during the winter. If I stay in the old burrow, which of course is my favorite, they can't check on me to make sure I'm not losing too much weight or getting too weak to survive the winter.

So stay tuned. I hope the next x-ray shows a smiley face and permission to hibernate outdoors this winter. If I'm not well enough, I'll have to hibernate in a box in the garage and then be weighed and SOAKED every month all winter. Now you know how I feel about soaking..... Ok I'm trying to think positive about all this. But really, I'm very disappointed that I didn't get that clean bill of health we've all worked so hard to get for a whole year. But we just have to wait and see. I wonder what the new x-ray will look like? Maybe a really happy bladder? I'm still grateful. I wouldn't be here at all if I didn't have that surgery and all this TLC. For a whole year. No matter how you look at it, that's pretty incredible.