Admission

I am really an idiot for never really listening to the Radiohead cd's I own. It's sad that I've had these cd's for years and I am just tonight realizing how damn good they are.

Wow.

The magic donut speaks!

Well, I made it through the scan yesterday.

I was so nervous, had a pounding headache, I'm sure my blood pressure was through the roof. I got an informed consent form when I first walked in and had to read through that before I went...it said something about how the contrast agent (in rare cases) has killed people. Needless to say, I was thrilled. When the Nurse took me in, she told me that they might not even need to use the contrast agent; they were going to take a few scans first and if they couldn't see well enough, they would have to use it.

I got on the table and was inserted into the donut and told that it was going to tell me what to do and that I would go through 3 times. She left the room and I moved further into the hole and the machine said, "BREATHE IN", "HOLD YOUR BREATH", and finally, "BREATHE" in this loud and deep voice. The first 2x it actually made me laugh. After 3 passes, I was waiting for the nurse to come back and she didn't. Then I started going in again and once more, for a total of 5. Of course, by this point, I'm thinking they saw something and they're just trying to get a better look...nervous as can be.

The Nurse walked in smiling and said, "You're all set. The Dr. looked at the scan and he was underwhelmed which is a great thing!" I was so relieved...then after, she took John and I in the booth and showed us the scans. She said that what they were looking at looked "pretty much like it should" and that I shouldn't worry. I just liked looking at my spine, and I was glad to hear her say that all those little black dots were actually gas bubbles and not tumors...haha .

So, the Dr. is going to have a more thorough look and send off his official report to my other Dr., but at this point, I'm fairly certain everything is okay. I would think that if they saw anything strange, they would have done another scan with the contrast agent just to be sure. Since that didn't happen and both the Dr. and Nurse thought it looked fine...I feel good about it.

Thank you everyone for all your prayers and support! Love you guys!

Many rivers to cross...

...but I can't seem to find my way over.

I am really going to have to find a new way to deal with the unknown and fear of it. I am a pessimist to the core and I hate that about myself. I am wrong 99% of the time anyway, and when I'm right it's never as bad as I worried it might be. I've got this idea in my head that you only go for a CT scan when they think there is something horrible to find. In my case, I think it's just a precautionary thing just to be sure...and I don't think they are really expecting to find anything. John says they are just playing a big game of "cover your ass".

I am realizing right now how much time I have wasted over the past year fraught with anxiety and worry...and for nothing. I am just as healthy now (more so, actually) than I was a year ago.

I've got a fun weekend coming up. I'm going to focus on that for a while and forget about this appointment I have today. John will be with me, so I'll be okay.

I knew I should have stayed home today

Most people relax when they sleep. Not me. It's weird, I curl up and tighten all my muscles and that is how I fall asleep. John tells me I grind my teeth pretty badly too. So, a lot of times when I wake up in the morning I feel like I've been in a fist fight. My shoulders are stuck up like if I was shrugging and my jaw is all tight. Well, my back and shoulder have bothered me for a while and last night, John suggested I pop a muscle relaxer before bed. (I have a bunch leftover from when I hurt my back in June) I awoke this morning...well...if you want to call it that. I arose this morning feeling quite slack but also extremely tired. I spent a half hour in the shower debating whether to even come to work. Obviously, I'm at work, but I am falling asleep at my desk! This sucks! I figured the effects would have worn off by now but I feel like I could use a good 4 more hours of sleep.

I have to go get a CT scan tomorrow, and I'm really nervous. I've never had one before... I'm sure I'll be fine and everyone keeps telling me so. We shall see.

I am psychic. There is this girl that used to come to our church with her husband and 2 daughters. They moved to NY a few years ago to start a church in the husband's hometown. Well, they ended up splitting up and now she is with his brother, but that's besides the point. Yesterday, on the way to church, for some reason, I thought, "She is going to be there today." It made no sense because no one has seen her since they moved and there was no word that she might be visiting. So, I thought to myself, that would be really weird if she is there and I just somehow knew...but I need a witness. I asked John, "Do you think C.L. will ever come back to the church to visit?" He said, "I doubt it.", and that was it. We got to church and looked around for a place to sit and he said, "Look who's here." I thought maybe my brother-in-law David was there, or my sister-in-law Theresa maybe...so I'm looking for them. When I didn't see them I said to John, "Who?" and he said, "You were just talking about her!" Sure enough, C.L. was there with her girls and the new man. Freaked me out. I know everyone gets those gut feelings from time to time, but this was just so random. I don't want to be psychic.

Through the bars of iron rain...

My new chair should be coming today!!!! I can't wait...my back has been killing me lately! I can't wait...it will be a nice break from work to sit and put the chair together. Wow, that's pathetic, isn't it? Sometimes I just can't look at the computer screen anymore!

John and I saw Bourne Ultimatum last night. It was pretty cool, there were some great chase and fight scenes, and a car crash that was just insane. I had downloaded it already, but the copy I got had a timer running along the bottom throughout the entire movie. John did manage to get a perfect copy of the Simpsons Movie and burned it to dvd, but we haven't watched that yet...probably tonight.

**********************

I feel good today. So far

I know it must be really annoying sometimes for some of you to listen to me complain about my anxiety...so I really want to thank each of you who has lent an ear. I know a lot of you think I should talk to my doctor about possibly taking something to help me relax, but I honestly don't believe that is the answer for me. I know what is causing my anxiety to be so overwhelming, and it can be fixed in other ways without having to take drugs. If it was something about which I could do nothing, I might reconsider. I have friends & family who use medications to help them with depression and/or anxiety and I know it really works for some of them. However, there are also people I know who have taken psychotropic drugs and have never been the same and are now either just as bad or worse off than they were to begin with. So, it's just a decision I've had to make based on my own personal experience and knowledge of my chemistry and I just believe at that point that it is not something that requires medicating. It all comes down to self-control in my situation. Some of you know the details...for others maybe that statement doesn't make any sense, but trust me, it's true.

I have faith, and that is what sees me through the unbearable times.

Oh, me.

I am so seriously screwed in the head it's not even funny. I really want to know when/where/why I turned into a psycho.

Of course, I'm Googling symptoms again and diagnosing myself with deadly diseases and freaking out and having a panic attack. Right now, I am in a cold sweat, I can feel my heart beating fast, I'm shaky, I feel numb, I feel like I want to cry, I have a lump in my throat, I am nauseous and I have cramps in my stomach.

I just want OUT! I really can't take this anymore. I just can't.

For a minute there...

I lost myself.

lalalalalaaaaaaaaa

Drive

Saturday, John and I decided to go out exploring. We headed towards the Quabbin Reservoir and ended up finding this spectacular view:

Can that be my front yard?

We continued driving and found ourselves in Hardwick, MA. It was really pretty...we saw this abandoned factory and decided to check it out.

Then, we saw this really pretty church:

I want a house that looks like that :)

We finished up our afternoon at Longhorn with some lunch AAAANND my favorite dessert of all time, the Chocolate Stampede. Don't I look excited?

Either happy or crazy...take your pick.

We had meant to go away for the weekend and had decided on Salem, MA but late Friday afternoon, we changed our minds. All the hotels were booked and the bed & breakfasts were all so expensive. I really wanted to see the ocean, but there's always next weekend...or the Fall. I like it better when it's deserted anyway. We'll be going to Montreal in October to see Les Charbonniers De L'Enfer perform. They are an acapella group we first saw on World Music (on Link TV, check it out!). We downloaded the rest of their stuff and it's fantastic!

I just don't want to feel like this anymore.

I am crazy.

There are times, days, when I am consumed with anxiety and fear. I honestly don't know what the hell happened to me. I used to be so...normal. I was happy and I enjoyed my life and I never worried about what-ifs, ever. It's been going on for a year now and I am SO sick of it. When it first began, I took the fears seriously, I fed into them, I had doctors check me out, I had many tests. The result of it all? I was fine, they couldn't find a thing wrong with me. Now, when I have fears, I just get pissed, like I wish they would just stop now, I am just tired from it, mentally.

It's not general anxiety, it's got one main focus and that is fear of illness and/or death. Any little ache or pain I get, I start thinking of all the worst possible things it could mean. Any slight mark on my body is skin cancer, any pain in my head is an aneurysm, any pain in my leg is a blood clot, any pain in my stomach is one of many different cancers, if my leg falls asleep it's circulatory problems, if I twitch, it's Parkinson's. Google is not my friend in these times. If I look up symptoms and find that whatever I am feeling is one of many symptoms for a particular ailment, I will convince myself I have the others! Sometimes it lasts throughout the day and really, it dominates my thoughts to the point where I have a hard time concentrating on anything else or enjoying my life. Things that normally make me happy (music, books, movies, etc.) have no effect.

Then, when the fear passes and I realize how ridiculous I've been, I get depressed because I feel like I should be able to control my own mind and when I am in that moment, I have thoughts about whether I even want to live like this. Don't get me wrong, I am NOT suicidal and I would never take my life. It's just the feeling of, "is this really worth it?".

Through everything, John has been a constant, strong presence. He is always telling me everything is going to be fine and he is the only thing in the world that can comfort me when I am feeling anxious or panic. Worry breeds worry - I worry that I am making his life miserable by being so distraught.

I am a basket case.

Oh, day.

Here are the facts, I have bad sitting posture, I like to sit with my legs crossed or under me, I stretch my left arm way out in front of me to reach the keyboard and my fingers rarely leave asdf. Therefore, my left shoulder bothers me ALL the time. Since we have no ergonomics expert here, I am redesigning my office myself. I just bought me this new chair:

and I moved my desks around so that I have the monitor directly in front of my face now...before it was sort of diagonally off to the left which meant I was reaching my left arm as well as twisting slightly to the left. Anyway, I'm sure you all care...lol

Today I got Photoshop CS3 - and I've never before used any photo editing software more complicated than MS Paint or the one on Kodakgallery.com - and I'm a bit intimidated. I think I'm going to watch the tutorials that came with it and if I still can't figure it out I'll either pick up a book or just look online. I'm sure it's all out there. I know a few people that use it, so I could always hook up with them for some lessons too.

************

Last night, John and I went and had dinner at Cracker Barrel. About halfway through our time there, this dad and his son sat down at a table near us. The dad was typing on his Blackberry while walking to the table and continued to type after he sat down. He didn't even look at the waitress when she took their drink order and what's worse, he didn't say a word to or look at his son at all. Finally, he put it down to quickly peruse the menu and went right back to typing. He didn't look when he gave his order either. So then they are waiting for food and the son is just playing the little peg game on the table and the dad is just typing away. I just got kind of angry because I felt like there should be some kind of interaction there, I mean what the hell??? Anyway, this is what it looked like:

Isn't that sad? I can understand being busy, but honestly, you can't put it down for 30 minutes and say some words to your son? Loser.

The horror!

I had the most HORRIFIC experience in the shower this morning. Let me lay the foundation...when I wake up in the morning, I almost never get right out of bed...I stay there going in and out of consciousness for about 20 minutes and eventually I roll (yes, literally roll) off the side of the bed into a somewhat standing position, which is not that hard because our bed is like 10 feet off the floor. I then make my way around to John's side of the bed and proceed to push on his leg and say "Sweetie, time to get up, are you awake yet, are you sure?" When I'm sure he's awake, I go to take a shower. Usually the first 20 or so minutes in the shower are spent leaning against the wall trying to sleep until I figure I'd better get moving or I'm going to be late.

I have had some experiences with spiders in the shower...and I really, really, really HATE spiders. I once was in the leaning against the wall stage of the shower when I opened my eyes to see a gigantic house spider on the wall about 6 inches in front of my face. My breath was sucked out of me and I jumped out until it crawled away, then I had John get it. So, before I get in the shower now, I always open my eyes wide and check between the curtains, all around the tub and on the ceiling to make sure I'm not showering with any arachnids. Did the same this morning, nothing.

So I have my shower this morning. I did the whole 20 minute lazy bit and then reached up to grab my shampoo (Vive Pro, for body, so good) and squeezed some into my hand when I realized I had seen something black out of the corner of my eye, so I look back up on the windowsill and I see a giant black WASP (or hornet, I'm not sure...it looked all black to me). So, I dropped the shampoo, started whining/yelling and jumped out and ran out of the bathroom. Then I started crying. John had been standing in front of the mirror and he was like, "What is it, what happened, what's wrong?!!?" He thought I burned myself. All I could do was point and whimper and he says, "Wow, how did THAT get in here??" Anyway, he turned his back and the thing started to fly away but got caught in the water and then he couldn't find it. I spotted it at the far end of the shower by the curtain and John killed it with my Neutrogena Pore Cleanser bottle! He's my hero!

You might think my reaction was a bit crazy, but I have never been stung by a bee, hornet or wasp, so I am absolutely terrified of them. If one flies near me I freeze for a few seconds but if it doesn't fly away quickly, I start running and flailing and screaming. Yeah, I'm one of those people, deal with it.

In other news, John might be coming to work with me!!!!!! I have talked to my boss about it and gave him John's resume last week. He e-mailed me this morning and asked me to have John fill out an application and bring it in tomorrow. I think he's going to write some kind of cover letter and put some samples of his work inside too. As long as they can afford to pay him, I'm SURE he'll get this job. I would be the happiest girl in the entire world if I got to come to work with him every day again !!!!!!

Tired, busy.

We live in a building with two other apartments, and the whole situation is really laid back most of the time. Nobody really cares how much noise you make (even we don't mind the surround sound downstairs usually) as long as it's during normal daytime hours. Last night, I decided to go to bed at 10:30 because I hadn't slept much the night before and I was exhausted. I get into bed and get all comfy and I hear, THUMP THUMP...THUMPTHUMPTHUMP...THUMP THUMP...THUMP...ETC. Directly below our bedroom is the room that a couple of young teenage sisters share and while I often hear music coming from their room, it's usually in the afternoons. So, I waited a bit, about 15 minutes to see if they would turn it down and when they still didn't, John stomped on the floor a couple of times. Still, it persisted. So, I told him to give them a call and just ask them to turn it down because it was after 11:00 and we wanted to get some sleep. Ring, ring, ring, ring.....nothing. At this point, I'm furious...I sat up on the edge of the bed and hit the floor so hard I probably bruised my heel. STILL, nothing. John tried calling again, no answer. John gets dressed and goes downstairs and proceeds to knock on the door multiple times, and loudly. They didn't even answer the door!!! So, he came back up and we tried banging some more, thinking that since we were directly above them, they might hear it. Finally, when we heard a song end, we tried calling again and they answered. It was like 11:45. One of the girls answered and John says, "Ah, yeah, you mind turning the music down?" She said, "Okay." Even then they didn't turn it down much but at least I couldn't feel the bass anymore.

Work kinda stinks this week. There is a lot going on and since the lady who does all our shipping is out, my boss and I have had to spend hours back there packaging stuff to ship. It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have so much paperwork to do in my office! We have some people here from the UK helping us get all our ISO stuff in order before the big audit in September and everything is quite a mess. We have a machine shop next door that needs to be integrated into our ISO system which only means one thing to me, more procedures to control!

Oh, and everyone go see Stardust on Friday!!! It's gonna be so good!

Precious and fragile things...

I got a phone call from my mother last night. My Nana had breast cancer a few years ago, had surgery, got over it and then they found a spot in her lung. Well, they kept an eye on it and it appeared to get smaller and stay small. She just had another checkup and they called to tell her that it's "grown significantly" and that she needed to come in for a follow-up. She said to the doctor, "Well, I have an appt. with you at the end of August already." and he replied, "No, I need to see you sooner than that. That might be too late."

It's hard to put into words the bond that I have with my Nana. It's just pure and perfect and love. I love her more than anyone in this entire world save John. My mother told me that she's shaky and nervous and that (even more than the spot) is what upsets me. What matters to me most is that she has peace. She just turned 77 on Sunday and quit smoking yesterday (same day she got the call).

To all my friends who talk to God, pray for my Nana please.

Thanks

******************UPDATE********************

She does not want a biopsy, she does not want surgery. The doctor told her that if they waited until the end of the month it could be inoperable. It's the size of a quarter and they don't know what it is and she doesn't want to know because she feels great right now. So...time will tell.

This was a couple of years ago.