Fail-o-rama and a Blind Date

So much for posting daily. Sitting down and writing out a coherent thought was a little bit beyond me the last few days.

We've been taking a crash course in learning to read Hebrew. Learning to read a language without really understanding it is something that has always baffled me and is why I got kicked out of Hebrew School when I was a kid. So in class on Sunday the teacher got to the letter that makes a "P" sound. As she went though reading it with the various vowel sounds and got to "oo" husband and I were compelled to look at each other and simultaneously say "She said 'poo'" and then we both were failing miserably at not giggling madly. Yup, we're soul mates.

 In other news: It's probably time to watch an episode of Hoarders again and get inspired to get rid of more stuff. We live in a two bedroom place, but it's itty bitty. We had intended that the second bedroom would be a craft/hobby room for both of us. We now call it "The Crap Room". There is so much stuff in there that neither one of us like to go in there anymore.

Too much of what I have is just taking up space. I need to say:  "I'm not ever going to get to this," and send it out into the world to fend for itself. What hangs me up is the variety of people who then tell me "...you should sell that on (insert name of your favorite internet shopping site)". I am NOT fond of the main internet selling crap place. And while I like etsy.com I still have to take and post pictures. Every time this happens I start to think... maybe I should try to sell this stuff, we could use the money. And then nothing happens for another three months.

Saw a new doctor. Meeting a new doctor always feels like I'm going on a blind date. You hope that the person you're meeting is friendly, has a sense of humor, is smart, doesn't act like a pompous jerk and is interested in what you have to say. I now force my husband to come along like a chaperone. This really cuts down on the abusive behavior of the assholes... although we've met some real class A jerks.

This date went pretty well and I guess I'm gonna be seeing this M.D. a few more times in the near future and I'm ardently hoping that we don't get to the "there's something wrong but I don't know what to do for you" place.

Does this count?

I said that I wanted to start posting daily. So I guess I better do this before I forget again.

Today I was reminded of how mean and nasty some people are and how they can rationalize their narrow-mindedness and unkind treatment of other human beings as righteous behavior.  There are so many people in this world that are just unable to show a shred of humanity to those that need it the most, and then they claim that this is okay because the people they're debasing are somehow the dregs of society.

Maybe, just maybe... if someone bothered to respect their humanity they might have a chance.

Second Verse Same as the First

Really overdue to update this thing... I think I will challenge myself to post every day until my next surgery is scheduled.

Yesterday I went to meet a new (to me) endocrinologist. I'm hoping that she will be someone good to work with. She listened, was baffled by my need to avoid things that would prevent me from getting a diagnosis but make me feel better, and was still willing to go forward for now. She ordered a lot of labs and as soon as I get those done I'll make my next appointment with her.

As things stand right now we're moving forward to another pituitary surgery. It's really the only option that I have unless I want to go on with the way things are. I'm looking into seeing if I can get a doctor to do some additional labs that are really only for research purposes but might answer some questions that have no answer right now. Of course there's always the chance that it will just confuse everything more. Yay me.

Next up is this test that is kind of like an angiogram but not at all like an angiogram. They'll insert catheters into my femoral vein at the groin on both sides and thread those catheters up to an area behind my eyes called the inferior petrosal sinuses. If you're bored or really interested you can read more about it here: BIPSS

The last time I had this done the radiologist was not very experienced (the word liar comes to mind) and he was very irresponsible with the amount of radiation I was exposed to. I experienced mild radiation burns in two areas and my hair fell out. The doctor that will be doing it this time has more experience. He also nearly jumped out of his chair when I told him how much "focused fluoroscopy time" I was exposed to. It was nice to see someone not try to pretend that something I knew was ill-advised was okay.

In the meantime the next thing I'm to do is see a cardiologist because my blood pressures have been doing some disconcerting things of late... on top of the chest pains and feelings of irregular heart beats that I've been trying to ignore for years now because the problems are intermittent and previously they were unable to find a cause.

And today... the hot water heater quit. So we'll be dining out (yay! no dishes to wash!) until that fixed and going to the gym to take showers I guess... I mean, who needs a shower? Microwave sponge baths!

Coughing Heads

Would that I had something other to talk about... but having been sick for over a month now, I've got nothing. Well, I have an appointment with a pulmonologist mid-week. So I expect to be better by then.

second verse, same as the first

I've been sick with some evil bacteria or virus since Oct. 5th. We've tried it evict it with antibiotics and steroids, I fucking hate steroids. Did I mention that I hate taking steroids? Because I do. They make The Crayzee, that I sometimes have to drag out back and chain to the tree, look domesticated.

Steroids make me bat-shit-crayzee. They put me on an emotional ride that I do. Not. Want. Also, they make my husband even more miserable because he's the one that has to deal with me and our home is too small and cluttered for either of us to really get away from the other. Next time they try to give me steroids I'm going to insist that they also give me Xanax or something. Either that or I'm going on a strict margarita diet.

Tomorrow I see a M.D. again. At least she doesn't seem scared of me. That's always a plus. I don't know why I've been having all this trouble with breathing... I have gotten some better, but then it starts to come back and I'm just not getting enough oxygen.

I'll try to update this more often so you don't have to wonder if I've crawled off and died. I don't have any plans to in the near future... just so you know.

It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife

The dog is sick, both birds are sick, I get to have an endometrial biopsy next week and I might have Lupus on top of whatever else is wrong but the rheumatologist says I have to wait a month to do more testing. We all need to come out of this okay. DO YOU HEAR ME UNIVERSE?! We're all gonna make it through this month or someone is going to pay.. of course it'll probably be me, paying the vet. 

These Things Take Time

A while back I decided it couldn't hurt if I saw a naturopath. I mean... after I declared myself willing to even try eating cow patties for a week if it would help, I thought maybe that wasn't so far off. So I'm supposed to take a host of expensive vitamins (which I sometimes forget) and drink a shake thingy twice a day (which I'm often too tired to make) and eliminate gluten and cows milk from my diet.

It hasn't been as hard as you might think. God bless Trader Joe's for having lots of gluten free foods as well as lots of things made from goat or sheep milk. I really don't think I could live without cheese. Cheese is like a metaphor for life dood.

So, it's like a month later and I have no idea if this is helping me. But I just finished eating a late breakfast consisting of one hard boiled egg, 3 smallish Persian cucumbers, a tablespoon of real mayo from the aforementioned store, a shake of celery salt and a sprinkle of toasted sesame seeds. And now I'm either breaking out in hives on the right side of the roof of my mouth right behind my teeth, or immediately as I finished eating starting to develop the cold sore from hell.

Yay me. I guess I'll remember to take those vitamins today and have the shake, because if this keeps up eating anything else will just be painful. Follow up with Rheumatologist on Friday cannot come soon enough. I just pray that she's got an itty bitty idea of what might be going on with me.