Aw geez! MRSA blows! May your boil remain unburst, and your next antibiotic not smell like cat piss! (I swear - Tony was on Teflaro for six weeks. It smelled just like cat urine.) I’m so sorry.
Thanks. I’m hoping they can lance the damned thing Tuesday and I can get away with taking 7-10 days worth of pills. The PICC line I had in my right arm was painful, annoying, and didn’t work right half the time. The Cubicin was sent to me in those screw on syringe things made for IV push, so I don’t know what it smelled like. It had to be kept in the fridge though, and felling that cold stuff go in was weird and unpleasant. Then there was “the process” to deal with at the same time every day:
Put on gloves
Expel air from all syringes and replace cap without touching inside of cap
Unwrap line extensions to reach port and take clips off line
Clean port with alcohol swabs and don’t let it touch anything else
Inject saline leave syringe attached while you ready the next one
Inject Cubicin over a five minute period (or it will burn so bad you’ll scream)
Inject saline again
Inject Heparin
Reclip lines so they don’t leak
Rewrap line extensions (so they don’t get hung on something and accidentally rip out your PICC)
Properly dispose of all medical waste
This was especially annoying If I had to be out of the house. I had to make sure I carried everything with me in a cooler bag. Then I had to find somewhere clean and private to do it so there was nobody to gawk at me or accuse me of doing something illegal.
I’m going to cry if I have to go through it again. I know I’m a grown woman and I should just suck it up and deal but I don’t care. I’m sick of this shit. I’m sick of being sick. I’m sick of being in pain. I’m sick of the ugly looks and being treated like a junkie when I ask for pain meds. I’m on the next to lowest dosage they even make. I know your books say I should be all better now but obviously, I’m not. I AM NOT A STATISTIC IN A BOOK. I am an actual human being you ignorant fuckers. Sometimes we’re different from what you learned in school. Sorry about that.
uuhhh…That kind of came out of nowhere. Lacunae Matata, thank you for your well wishes. I feel for Tony because I know what it’s like to have your recovery drag on. I understand the crushing disappointment of thinking you’re ready to get back to your life and having reality slap you down, hard. I’m going to start seeing a therapist soon so I can cope with all of this a little better. I’ve been through cognitive behavioral therapy before, but it’s becoming more obvious by the day that I need a refresher course. This post has made it even more clear to me that I’ve been holding a lot in that needs to get out. If Tony isn’t seeing somebody, it might not be a bad idea for him to start. You should see somebody, too. It can’t have been easy for you to live through all of this. Taking care of somebody else day in, day out, will wear you down and burn you out. There are things you need express that you could never tell family and friends. It’s nice to have someone to talk to without fear of judgement or criticism.
Y’all are the people I tell things I’d never say to family or friends! I’d probably benefit from a touch of therapy, and so would Tony. Unfortunately, even with insurance, the cost is out of reach for me right now. I’m pushing Tony’s primary doctor and his case manager to recommend for him, though. Fingers crossed.
Take care of yourself, and be kind to yourself, and ignore anyone who tries to convince you that “should” and “average” mean a damned thing in any individual’s situation. If you’d like, I will happily volunteer to go kick the next person who tells you that you should recuperate at a certain pace, because that’s what the average person does. Heck, that would probably do me as much good as therapy right now! 
Last time someone tried to convince me that I had to do something because it’s what’s “normal” (used to mean “the rule”), I pointed out that the average Spanish woman of my generation has 1.something children, so should we chop off a chunk of my niece?
Apparently not, there is no obligation to be the one person who embodies averagity (is too a word).
Awww, thanks. You guys are great. I admit that I do tell the Dope things that I wouldn’t tell people who know me IRL, too.
Does your county offer mental health services? That’s the only way I can afford it. You pay on a sliding scale based on income. For someone employed by the city/state, I’m surprised it hasn’t been offered already. My state (NC) allows access to a psychiatrist, therapy, and drug rehab even if you’re on Medicaid or Medicare and can’t pay anything out of pocket. I see my psychiatrist every 2-4 months for a 15 minute med check appointment. They’ve always had group therapy available but had discontinued individual therapy until recently. It’s something you can look into.
Hey, Ann Hedonia, it could be worse. My housemate refurbishes amps for a living, so we get a crazy amount of large parcels deliveres on a regular basis. A while back, he got a massive box, knee high, the size he was expecting, but oddly light.
It contained: a mass of packaging material, one catalogue, and and a note saying ‘the item you ordered is not in stock’.
I get sick and tired of being sick and tired, but then I thank my lucky stars that what I have to deal with is not as bad as some. Hope you don’t have to go through that whole rigamarole again, Sodalite, and hope that Lacunae Matata’s Tony gets better and whoever else I’ve missed who’s struggling with stuff right now. Big healing fluffy wing hugs for all.
But while I’m here, I pit the pain and illness that meant that I didn’t get to enjoy my birthday trip to Glasgow as much as I had hoped. We did manage to do the planned discount sushi dinner and spend way too much on a corset that will act as decorative back support, so that was nice. But other than that I was in too much hip and back pain to walk around and go to pubs or sightsee or visit friends or pretty much anything but knock myself out with substandard painkillers while Parkhead had to go out to the pub alone with a book for a few hours because he can’t get to sleep that early.
I had also hoped to find a recycled bike with the proper pedal position for me to be able to ride it, so I can get more exercise and make my pain a bit less, but 1) I spent the money I’d intended to invest in a cheap bike on a not-cheap corset and 2) I’m discovering that this kind of bike is extremely uncommon here, so they probably wouldn’t have had one at the recycled bike place even if I’d felt up to going out and looking instead of coming straight home. To buy a new one, at least of the brand I’m aware of that makes bikes like these (Electra ‘Townie’ if anyone’s interested), would cost at least £400 for the one I’d settle for, and £500 for the one I’d prefer (with balloon tires for a gentler ride). So, not in the budget any time in the forseeable future.
Fucking fibromyalgia can go fuck itself with a rusty chainsaw. At least, that’s what it feels like it’s doing to me sometimes. At least I have had a physical therapist for the last while who’s actually understood the issues and had some helpful advice and exercises I can do to try and counter some of the fibro-related issues, but she’s leaving the practice and going to another one, so I’ll have someone else from now on. I hope she’s just as good.
I also finally got to the end of the psychotherapy waiting list so I can get some help with coping tools for dealing with the stress in my life so it doesn’t incapacitate me. I also recently got a referral to a pain specialist, so I hope I will hear from them soon and they will be able to help me, and I do have access to the NHS so I don’t end up going bankrupt from medical bills to try and deal with all this shit, so I am trying to count my blessings.
I am so weary of having so much crap to deal with and not being able to actually do and enjoy fun things that might make me feel better mentally (and physically if I could get past the pain long enough to move more and grow stronger). I’m weary of having too much responsibility and feeling like I’m going to fail any minute. Sometimes I wish I could just lie down and give up, but there are too many people who would be devastated if I did.
You’d think after all those years, they’d have just moved that damn ottoman.
They did, but Rob started tripping on the rug.
Have you tried applying tea tree oil topically? It’s not a cure-all, but the last I heard the in-vitro test results of tea tree oil on staph aureus were pretty good. I think you can pick it up in places like GNC.
If you leave a sopping-wet sponge at the bottom of the sink, it is going to get that gross mildew smell very quickly.
Who does not know this? Wring that damn thing out and set on the edge of the sink!
One of my ongoing pet peeves: people who cross the street at the bus terminal against the light. (when the light is red.)
Hey, imbeciles. I know crossing on red lights is a bit of a tradition in Montreal, but if you do it here of all places, you run the risk of getting hit by a bus. I’ve seen so many narrow misses.
I’m not entirely sure why it bothers me that so many people try to cross on the red light. It doesn’t even affect me directly because I always cross on the green light/walk signal at that intersection and I don’t drive a bus around that area. Maybe it’s just because, you know, I don’t want people to be run over in general.
I’d like to dig up the idiot that thought up the chore of lawn mowing and kick them in the dust. What a useless chore.
" … Where they hung the jerk
Who invented work,
In the big rock candy mountain."
I always loved that line. Makes me picture a conversation like, “Waitaminnit … Bob did what now? Are you serious? What a JERK!”
I’ve checked into our county’s mental health services. Pretty much, unless you’re in crisis, or dealing with a major substance abuse problem, the waiting list is at least six months - realistically, more like a year. Thanks Obama! 
But in the “good for my mental health” category: One of my teen son’s friends was perusing Boy 2.0’s Facebook photos, and found one that I had posted of me with then-baby 2.0. Friend messaged: “Your mom is hot!” Weird, but at least I had it going on a few years ago!
Whoo, I need to go home. Writing an email, I wrote about “getting into Dave’s drawers” :eek: and almost sent it before realizing what I said and changing it to “accessing the locked cabinet.” That would have been awkward! (He’s the Executive Director)
OMG, you do need to go home, but thank you so much for making me literally laugh out loud!
OK; he’s the Exec, but… is he hot?
Actually, he kinda is. Still, we’ve worked together for over 10 years. Anything more than casual work banter would be really weird.
I’m home, having some dinner and not quite so fuzzy headed!
I haven’t tried anything yet. This is the first time I’ve had any kind of external manifestation of it. I’ll ask my doctor when I see him next week. Tea tree oil would be way easier, and hopefully quicker, than a trip to the office. For right now though, I’ve been instructed to leave it alone as much as possible.