wtf?

That was the reply that I got via email from my best friend yesterday. I emailed her to tell her that my white blood count "normalized" so I'm fine. Except I am having swelling in my legs and feet and my arms and hands and it hurts to use them. Yesterday seemed worse than today- but I slept weird so I have a weird kink in my back so that seems to be consuming all the pain I have available today. I sound like my husband...what can I bitch about today?? But I am apparently fine, even though I still don't FEEL fine.

I watched "Walk the Line" last night. I really enjoyed it. At the end I realized that June Carter Cash died and then Johnny died 4 months later. 4 months. I always think it's so interesting and romantic when these couples die so close together. That's when you die of a broken heart, I think. When even death can keep some people apart. Romantic. And I love a good love story.

This weekend I am going to visit my sisters and attend a Cookie Lee party. It's a fund raiser for the Cure Autism Now walk, so I will also buy some new jewelry and that always makes me happy too. I spoke to my sister the other day and I was so pleased to hear that my neice is doing so well. I have not seen her, Megan, in a few months and I am looking forward to seeing her tomorrow. I can't wait to hang out with my sisters for a little while. Just be me, and I like who I am when I'm with them.

Happy Friday.

Excuse me while I bitch this out....

Ok, so now I have actual symptoms. My joints hurt. My wrists, and fingers and ankles and knees and everything that bends...hurts. I woke up this morning and my hands are swollen. My feet are a little swollen too, but it's only noticable because my shoes feel tighter.
My doctor mentioned that my white blood count was low, so I called back and asked HOW low. 2.6. The normal range is 4.5-10, so 2.6 is low.... What does that mean? who knows. It might mean nothing- it might be a fluke, I'm not a doctor and Google gives me all sorts of things. So we will see what the blood test comes back with. I don't know what she is checking for, complete blood count, and some sort of liver enzymes. Can you imagine how fucking ironic it would be for ME to have some liver disease???
This morning it hurt to wash my hair. Lifting my arms to wash my hair was painful because my fingers hurt, my wrists, elbows shoulders... all my moving parts. Not to mention that I have ALOT of hair. So you can imagine. I feel like such a little bitch for complaining about this crap. I asked my husband to help me get dressed this morning. As he was helping me clasp my bra I thought for a moment, Oh God, what if I ever get REALLY sick and I need him to take care of me?? I'll be dead for sure...

So I'm reminded of a joke...
A woman is in a coma and as she is getting bathed, the nurses notice a reaction as they are cleaning her va-jay-jay. So the doctor says to the husband, why don't you perform oral sex on her, and see what happens. So they leave the room and wait outside. Suddenly the heart monitor goes off and the woman dies. The doctor asks the husband, "what the hell happened?" and he husband replies, "I dont know...I guess she choked."

At least I still have my sense of humor....

Stress is for wimps....

Since I do NOT have mono- and I do not have lupus (I didn't even know she was CHECKING for lupus), I have decided that my problem is just stress. My new doctor suggested that my fever, achiness, and all out exhaustion for the past month is possibly just a result of my life.
What a cop-out.
Like 40 minutes of traffic and you never see any actual accident.
You'd think that a doctor could come up with something better than stress.... but to make it all better, my skin has started to crawl and I am itching, constantly.
No hives, no rash, just itching.
Years ago I used to break out in a rash before I came home from work, because I never knew just how drunk my husband was going to be. But once I identified what was happening, when and why, it stopped. I have this way of being able to identify my troubles away. As soon as I acknowledge that "X situation" is what is causing me so much grief, it sort of subsides. X situation no longer seems so bad and I start to feel better about it.

So ok, here I am acknowledging that I am stressed... I am willing to start feeling better any time now.

I am so pissed off and annoyed that I am so fucking tired. I cannot sit anywhere quietly for more than 15 minutes without falling asleep. My fever goes up and down all day long. Not enough to put me in bed, but enough that I can FEEL by body temperature rising.
It's like I'm ovulating ALL DAY EVERY DAY.... oh, and like there would be any point in THAT, even if I was.
My muscles ache and now I'm itching.... don't get me started on the teeth pain. I am taking Tylenol, and now benadryl around the clock.

OK, I get it.... I've got too much going on. What the hell am I supposed to do about that????

So tomorrow I'm going to the doctor again to let her take more blood. So she can figure out that there is nothing REALLY wrong with me. It's all in my head. I am overwhelmed, overtired, got it. It's not going to stop any time soon, so I may as well get used to it so I can start feeling better.

I don't have time to be stressed sick. I don't have big enough problems for that. Really, I don't. So, perhaps the way taking a pregnancy test will make you start your period, perhaps going back to the doctors for a second blood test will make me better.

Gratitude

This afternoon I was walking back to my office and there was a patient who was walking down the hall doing Physical Therapy. Alot of our patients need Physical Therapy after a stroke. This patient was probably in his late 50's, and being helped to stand and walk by a girl, who was half his age and half his height. Anyway, as there were telemetry monitors in the hall way I had to stop and wait for this patient and his physical therapist to walk by me. I stopped and smiled at her, and took a minute to notice this man- curious what his name was, his diagnosis, and if he was one of the patients on my list for our data.
He was well over 6 feet tall. In two hospital gowns, covering front and back. Clearly struggling to take each step and physically exhausted. I waited patiently as they passed by me, and I recognized that I really need to be grateful today. Grateful that I don't need help walking. That I am in generally good health. That the basic funtions of my body, still function. All day long I analyze the files of patients who suddenly could not lift thier arms, or who woke up and could not speak. What a horrifying experience.
Today I am grateful that my body is still my own and that my brain is still working for me.
Some days it's just not worth it to complain about being tired.

Experience is not cheap.

"How thankful I am today, to know that all my past failures were necessary for me to be where I am now. Through much pain came experience."














I liked this secret. It went along nicely with the passage above that I read today in my daily reading. My decisions, good or bad, do not define who I am. It's just where I am today. We all have our reasons for the things that we do. It's not anyone else's right to judge me.