The invader I referred to isn’t actually an invader.  It’s a bacteria that everyone already has, even you.  It resides quite happily in your digestive tract and does quite a service for you.

However, in my case, it’s moved around a bit and has decided to go make itself at home in some other systems, where it does not belong.

I can’t take the antibiotics prescribed for me, they make me so incredibly sick that I can’t cope.  It’s simply too much for me.  What’s the point of gagging down a horse pill only to throw it up within a mere 20 minutes or so?

Yeah, that’s what I thought.  Pointless.

I called the doctor this morning and left 8 million messages that I need something new.  And then, because I simply couldn’t sit there home alone anymore, I came into the office.

Where colds and runny noses seem to be around every corner.  Which, normally?  Who cares, right?  Sharing colds is what we do.

Except that I have a somewhat weakened respiratory system.  That whole emphysema thing that I tend to ignore.  And this particular little bug playing pinochle in my body right now?

I can’t even fucking type it.

Fuck this noise, somebody stop the planet.  I want to get off.

My doctor?  I hate her.

Okay, maybe not really her.  My body?  That I hate.  Passionately.

Today’s lovely bit of news from the doctor was so upsetting to me that I took that afternoon off and have been hiding in my bedroom for the last three hours.  Three hours of a seriously over-active imagination, I’m sure.  However, when your doctor tells you to Leave Work Right This Minute And Go Pick Up Your Medication, it’s probably not good.

*blah*

Yes, I am being extremely pessimistic right now.  I’ll return to bouncy later.  Right now I just feel like curling up in a ball and crying for days.  But that’s not an option, is it?  Smile, gag down the pills, and try to pretend that you aren’t really alone.  That’s the only option.

I’ll be over here in a hole for the next few days trying to kill some new freakish invader in my body.

So, I went to the girly doctor yesterday. And lord knows how much I just -love- laying on that cold table with my feet in stirrups while a stranger inspects my delicate bits.

*cough*

Oh, yeah, there are guys reading this. Sorry fellas.

Moving on…

She decreed that not only did I need to get the annual boobie inspection taken care of, but she’d also like to have a vampire suck some blood out of me for various tests.

Can I just state for the record that I absolutely hate having blood drawn? I used to donate blood (until I lost too much weight and got all anemic like, bah) and would always be the one sitting there with tears streaming down her face the entire time because it hurts so damn much. But I did it, as often as they would let me. I have craptacular veins kids, the kind that do a little dance and try to avoid being poked. I usually end up with glorious bruising to boot.

So when she informed me that I needed all this blood work done, naturally I gave her a good dose of the hairy eyeball. And silently wished her uterus would fall out. But being a very polite person, I merely smiled and said, “Okay, great!”

So after fasting, and skipping my morning coffee (!!!!!!!) I trudged my happy ass over to the vampire’s lair. A very nice gentleman brought me in the back and reviewed the orders from the doctor. He studied both arms very carefully and finally agreed with me that, yes, the left arm is the better one to poke. I told him that I was a lousy stick and that I would try not to cry, but no guarantees.

He handed me some gauze and said, “Here, for the tears,” with a snarky smile on his face. He was actually rather amusing. And seemed somewhat bemused at my fear of needles.

“Okay, this is going to hurt, don’t move!”

I waited. And waited. And finally looked down at my arm. The needle was in and I never felt a thing. Never felt a thing. That is a first in 40 years of being poked and prodded.

God bless that man, I think I’m in love.

My girl Robi came over yesterday and took me to get my meds. Yay! Her boyfriend dragged the recycling out to the curb for me since I couldn’t manage to do much on my own.

We sat on the front step and handed out candy to all the little trick or treaters, yacking with the neighbors who were also out on their step. It was a decent night and we went through a ton of candy. Although watching me try to get up from the front step I think may have been the funniest thing anyone has seen in a long time.

Today I’m home from work, completely doped up and feeling very little pain. Tomorrow I go back to work, which is cool, because quite frankly, I’m terribly bored! There’s only so much entertainment one can get from contemplating ones navel.

Wow, it’s taken me seven minutes to type this. Mind boggling. It’s a sign to go back to bed.

Later

So I’m sitting here waiting for 9:00 am to roll around so I can call my doctor and beg her to see me today.  And if she can’t, Mistress Sabre shall be carting herself to the ER and begging them to see her.

Still trying to figure out how I’m going to drive myself.  This should be fun.

Owies

I can’t move! My back is all out of whack and every muscle in my body aches.

I want to go back to bed with my teddy bear and just lay there for the next 48 hours. But noooo, I have to sit here at my desk and work.

Oh well, least I get to work from home!

Send chocolate!

The amount of energy I’ve put into wearing the mask I found shoved into a dusty corner apparently takes much more from me than I’ve realized. The mask is simply an attempt to retain sanity and dignity, when what I really want to do right now is scream and cry and try to hold on to things that need to be let go. So the mask stays, but maybe I should start eating a little more again and smoking a little less.

I’ve had an ongoing issue with weight, pretty much all of my life. When under extreme stress, I generally drop weight very quickly, to unhealthy levels (current BMI? underweight), with the exception of the couple of years that I packed on more pounds than I’m comfortable admitting. In the last week, I’ve eaten very little. The box of granola bars that I bought a couple of weeks ago is still sitting in my desk, begging me to partake of the crunchy goodness. But it’s not very appealing to me right now. Weird how women are with the whole weight/food thing.

At any rate, what does this have to do with traffic, right? Well, you know I have a rather interesting commute on a good day. I’ve got that one strip of ten miles or so that can sometimes take 30 minutes. Today? Over an hour from the start of 193 to the beltway.

And believe me, that was a good thing.

I’m guessing the lack of real eating, the stress I’m coping with, the weight of the mask of normalcy, the chain smoking… well, it’s certainly taking its toll. If traffic had actually been moving at more than 3 miles an hour, I would have caused a rather nasty head-on collision.

So I’m watching the clock because I know I’m going to be late, listening to nonsense on Elliot’s show about orgies (gross, totally gross), thinking about the task list for the day at work and what I’m going to be doing tonight, planning out those first couple of weeks in November where I’m going to lose my little mind, you know, basic morning drive time thoughts. And then horns blaring at me, I’m well over the double yellow, and the clock has skipped forward.

So you see, I’m thankful for the craptactular traffic. Everyone was moving far too slowly for my drifting to mean anything. Maybe somebunny is looking out for me after all.

It certainly has given me something to think about. A different perspective, if you will, about what is important to me right now and what is not. Survival? Important. Dignity? Yeah, that’s important too. Pretending to be something/someone I am not? Really, not so important. Realizing that my friends really are going to be there for me, and are here for me now? Very, very important.

Here’s to a crappy beginning of a better day. It only goes up from here.

Yours truly, being of unsound mind most of the time, completely forgot that today was the day of her wellness screening at the office. Okay, so no big deal, right?

*blah*

I was supposed to begin fasting at 10:00 last night and have nothing but water until after the screening. Whoopsie. Guinness last night, a cup of coffee this morning. No food, but yeah, that Guinness.

So now I’m sitting here, contemplating whether I should just say screw it and go get another cup of coffee before I bleed out of my eyeballs or if I should hold out until 10:00 when it’s time for my screening.

It wouldn’t be so bad if I weren’t living on about three hours of sleep *wah*

MRI results are finally in and there are no changes from last year. So, like, yay me!

That is all, carry on.

I had planned on writing something different today.  However, I spent some quiet time reflecting this morning, and realized that whatever it is I might want to say about a certain psychotic fool would only serve to spin the beast up a bit, and I was done playing that game a couple of months ago.

Okay, I admit, it was sort of fun for a bit to write blogs that I knew would be discussed in certain quarters, discussed and parodied, and I took a certain amount of pleasure out of watching it.

And then, as is my nature, I got bored of the game.  So I stopped looking to see if the beast and her imaginary friends were still babbling on about me.  I don’t know, it just wasn’t that interesting anymore.  Yesterday, just for S&G, I took a look (yes, that was me, looking at ~you~, I want those five minutes of my life back).  And yup, it’s still going on.

One would think that I wouldn’t be the only one bored of the same old routine, but apparently not.  I actually had a lot to say about this, but I just can’t seem to work up the energy to do so.  In the grand scheme of things, whether or not someone out there who has never met me actually hates me with such force and venom really doesn’t matter.  It doesn’t even make me giggle anymore to know that little old me has such incredible power as to spin up that much emotion in a perfect stranger.  It used to, but now, meh.

And where did I come up with this brilliant insight this morning?  Well, I may have said it was quiet reflection, but there really isn’t a whole lot of quiet to be found in an MRI tube.

MRIs are not fun.  But, in keeping with my “it could always be worse” routine, it wasn’t a biopsy.  No, that was last year, and damn did it suck.

This year, my doctor and I opted to skip through the mammogram, because it would have led to an ultrasound, which most likely would have led to a much unneeded biopsy, which would have come back “inconclusive”, leading, inevitably, to an MRI.  We skipped everything and went straight for the MRI.

Mmm, fun.

Besides the lovely noise one actually finds oneself getting used to, there is that oh so wonderful moment where the tech says brightly, “Okay, I’m going to start the injection now for the contrast.”

Godfuckingdamn that shit hurts.

I’m absolutely convinced the entire medical industry takes great pleasure out of causing me pain.  Rat bastards!

It will take several days before results are sent to my doctor, and probably a few more after that before she calls me.  Considering that for me, this is just routine, I’m not overly worried.  Okay, maybe a little.  But only a little.  And only because it’s a scary thing they are always looking for in me.  I saw what that shit did to my mother, it was ugly and nasty.  I don’t mind the thought of dying, that’s a no-brainer, we are all going to die eventually.  But to go like that?  No way, not me.

So every year I go through all of the little pokes, prods, tests, and procedures, and every year I stare at my phone and wonder if this is going to be the year that I don’t hear the words I wait patiently for.  And while I’m pretty sure that this isn’t going to be that year, it’s still nerve wracking all the same.

Tomorrow, blood work.  I was going to do it today, but you know, I’ve had just about enough of needles for one day thanks.

Now, entertain me with funny stuff and keep my mind off the waiting.