Holy shit, I am starting to realize that my serious bitching out of CL&P in writing to their board of directors must have put our road on their first list, we lost it at 545 am sunday morning, and it was restored around noon:eek:
We took coffee out to the repair crew and chatted them up for a bit, they only had 5 2 man repair crews for eastern CT … I seem to remember they had around 500 repair crews back during Bob.
You know the old line about how just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you?
Well, just because I’m a hypochondriac doesn’t mean I’m not sick.
Hey, I’m used to the ADHD-PI, the PCOS, benign atrial fibrillation, and the bouts of severe depression. I have coping mechanisms for them, and given a couple of good weeks, I can even get some basic tasks of living accomplished.
What pisses me off is the never-ending list of sub-clinical pain-in-the-ass amorphous, nonspecific bullshit symptoms that keep sending me to the doctor with what sounds like the whiniest, wimpiest panty-waisted constitution this side of a 3d6 crit fail.
Frequent headaches? Pah. Fatigue, and sometimes full on exhaustion? Please. Achy joints? Oh, we’ll do a blood test, sure. Skin that’s gone from greasy to scaly and red? First world problem, little girl. Insomnia, then hypersomnia? Try a little exercise, fatty. Nagging cough? Use your inhaler like a grown up.
The Og damn blood panel by the rheumatologist costs $400 a pop, show that I don’t have fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, chronic fatigue syndrome, sjogren’s, lupus, or any of the big names. Yet, the initial test (anti-nuclear antibodies) consistently shows that something is out of whack. So while I don’t have a disabling disease - yay! - I have . . . something.
I figure out on my own that two of my medications - oral contraceptive and SSRI - have actually made my health problems worse. So, I stop taking them. Happiness lasts for a couple weeks until I go full on narcoleptic - can’t fall asleep for hours, and once the sun has risen, keel over and sleep for four hours with the most vivid dreams I’ve ever had. Great! A new, pointlessly vague complaint to tell my doctor.
Oh, and just because I’m a complete baby, I have a pimple behind my left earlobe that will not go away. It’s been there for over a month. It doesn’t respond to antibiotic ointment or hot compresses, and it won’t come to a head. But, at least it doesn’t hurt.
And then, yesterday . . .
I found a lump in my groin. The size of my fingertip. It’s definitely not a pimple. It’s well beneath the skin. It’s solid, it’s anchored, but moves freely, and it doesn’t hurt.
Several alarms start ringing quietly in the back of my head.
Painless lump where there are a lot of lymph nodes. Fatigue. Headaches. Achy joints. Insomnia. Nagging cough. Patches of red, scaly skin. (Oh, and occasional non-muscular backaches that I refused to pay attention to, because, dammit, I’m not that much of a wimp.)
And a second, painless lump, behind my ear, where lymph nodes also like to congregate.
You know what? It’s probably nothing. I have been a sicky/frequent flyer/hypochondriac since my late twenties. I don’t have any of the major risk factors, and my blood work has never shown any problems with white blood cells, LDL, or any of the other indicators. It’s just me, creating drama in the feverish curliques of my hypersensitive ego.
Ha ha.
Ha.
[sub]fuck[/sub]
I have a doctor appointment in the morning. I swear to Og, if he doesn’t stick a needle in the damn lump behind my ear, I will carve it out myself and send it to an independent lab in a Ziploc bag.
I can’t stand it. We’re still out here in the middle of CT. I’ve seen virtually no crews out. This just sucks.
I should get on the treadmill. I know I should. Unfortunately, I have a cold. Not a bad one, but one where my throat is extremely dry and just breathing makes me cough, which makes my head hurt like hell. Complicating matters is that I learned the hard way that medicating a cold with chocolate isn’t nearly as effective as medicating myself with cough syrup and going to bed. So now I feel fat, my head hurts and I can’t stop coughing. Dammit.
Oh, and our fucking fridge is still broken. In fact, it’s broken enough and I’ve made enough of a stink about it not being fixed that GE is going to give us a new fridge “for free.” Given our success with our GE products so far, I’m not convinced of the quality of anything I’ll get, especially if I’m not paying for it.
Google: Quit fucking with goddamn Gmail’s design. The re-design looks like fucking shit. It’s like Facebook with two very slightly different shades of [pick color theme].
That could be it; I was driving under a section of large, overhanging tree branches at the time.
I went to get my pre-surgery stuff done today. I know that the plan has been made, I know that my surgeon has been planning for this. I only have one foster cat left and she will not come back.
This is scaring the crap out of me. I can’t tell M about it because as soon as I do, he will drop everything and fly out. The rest of my friends think I’m doing great because I’m planning so well.
I want to just hide under my bed until next Wednesday.
I will admit it was a bit tongue in cheek, but I am sorry for forgetting that Canadians celebrate Thanksbitching in October.
–
I would like to take a minute to pit my own quickly fattening ass. Drewtwo99, get your ass to the gym and work out over these next 4 weeks you have off. You could barely button your pants today, what happened to you? A year ago you were in the best shape of your life, and you have easily gained nearly 20 lbs since then. I know the holiday season is coming up and it’s going to be really tempting to overeat, but please, for the sake of you and your boyfriend, let’s agree to be good and work hard to lose our flab.
Plus, weren’t you just ragging on people a few weeks ago for not exercising regularly, saying that fat people were driving up the cost of healthcare in this country? You fucking hypocrite.
I have not seen the second half of Doctor Who, Season 6 - the one that’s currently airing, or has just finished, or whatever. I am absolutely anal about avoiding spoilers, and as soon as it’s on disk, I don’t expect anyone to make an exception for me, and will watch it.
But for fuck’s sake, it’s not even on DVD yet, and someone spoiled a fundamental plot point on TV tropes. I mean, like a serious, season-spanning plot point - didn’t put it behind a spoiler box, didn’t mark it “Doctor Who Season 6 Spoiler” - just put it there. And I read fast. Faster than I can realize I shouldn’t be reading this. What a fucking asshole. I called him out as politely as I could and put it behind a spoiler box.
Is it really too goddamn much trouble to ask to keep things a secret at least until they are available on DVD? I don’t ask everyone to follow my rule (I never give unmarked spoilers until it’s been at least a year on DVD) but it totally isn’t fair that I know this big secret now. And don’t tell me I should have been reading TV tropes - 99.9% of the time people put things in spoiler boxes. Just this one dipshit saw it and then raced to TV tropes to be FIRST! to put it on there.
AAAAAARGH!
I, too, would like to pit my fat ass. Yes, I know I’m pregnant and that women do tend to gain weight during pregnancy. However, I did so well keeping the weight gain slow and steady for the first few months, and now I feel like I’ve lost control completely. Meanwhile, my husband is more fit than he’s been in years, while I can hear myself getting fatter. It seems somehow unfair, as much as I admire his discipline.
I also pit hormones, for everything from my random weepiness to my horribly itchy dry skin, which I can partially blame on getting FUCKING SNOW IN OCTOBER, which I hate worst of all, as winter is my enemy.
I need a coffee. A DECAF coffee, I suppose. Bah.
I need to freaking finish my dissertation already. I hate it. I hate everything about it. I don’t care about the topic anymore. It’s just a pointless exercise to get a fucking piece of paper that no one but me cares about as I will clearly not be working in academia. (I have a very nice, non-academic job, so I’m not (currently) sad about the lack of academia in my future - it just makes finishing the degree that much more irrelevant. Anyway.) Carved out a good chunk of time to work on it today. I am using a poorly documented secondary data set for the unfinished portion of this goddamned dissertation, and I just can’t make heads or tails of a key piece of information. I am so, so frustrated. I have e-mailed the help line, but honestly, this is a no-longer-funded project and I just don’t know what kind of response I’ll get, if any. And I am out of ideas for figuring out what could be going on here. Grr.
And I feel (internally) pressured to “friend” her.
Facebook friend: “Anybody at OccupyPortland want me to pick them up anything at Starbucks before I head down there?” 
AAAAAHHHHHH
I said to myself I wouldn’t make this a habit but I am ready to let it all out again.
I have been waiting for MONTHS to finally see a psychiatrist about the phobias and anxiety. One was a no-go because they wanted to do blood tests before they even saw me, and my number one phobia is NEEDLES so that was a wasted visit. But today I went in, told the good doctor about the phobia and he fucking LAUGHED.
He LAUGHED AT ME.
It is so hard for me to tell people about it, and it’s so embarrassing that I’ve gone 20 years since my last psychiatrist told me “You just need to get over that.” without offering any suggestions on how to do it.
And then I told him about the binging and he suggested I limit my binging to fruit. That’s his bright idea for helping someone with what is clearly a binge eating disorder. Then told me he wants me to set a goal of losing five pounds every month.
By binging on fruit.
Sigh.
Well this DOUCHE (in the words of my dear BloodyL) made me feel like a total idiot, but at least he gave me drugs. He told me Zoloft was the number 1 med for phobias so I was at least happy about that. Then he prescribed something called hydroxyzine for nighttime anxiety attacks. I looked it up and it’s just a generic for Zyrtec allergy medication, but whatever, maybe it will work.
Only I don’t HAVE IT because when I went to fill the prescription they tell me it’s not covered under my state insurance. But of course I can pay 170 dollars for it. Right. If I had that kind of money for pills I would get the good shit. Or ya know, pay my light bill.
So I’ve missed my class and my day of work (volunteer but still, I have to make up for the work tomorrow) FOR ABSOLUTELY NOTHING other than another fucking kick in the ass.
** and I can’t see another psychiatrist. This was the only one left who accepts Tenncare and had an opening for a new patient.
S’alright - there are plenty of US Americans who aren’t even aware that Canada is a separate country. 
I know you are because when I last went up there people were smoking joints on the front lawn of some building. :eek: Nobody cared.
Heh - I’ve seen that too - downtown Calgary, middle of the day, and like you say, nobody cares.
Plus, we let 18 year olds drink legally. Your drinking age laws seem draconian to me.
This better be simply viral and it better go away quick. Swollen lymph nodes on one side of my body. Pain in my hand and arm on the other. Vertigo. Nausea. (On all sides, heh.)
I blame Trick or Treaters. Always seems that two days after exposure to little kids I get sick! Those little darlings with their cute costumes and their plague!
Went to bed at 10pm. Tired, exhausted and depressed.
Woke at 3:35am, went to the bathroom, went back to bed.
Spent the entire night in the Spin Cycle (wake up every couple of minutes and roll over)
Next thing I know, it is 8:35am, two hours after my alarm should have gone off.
I check, it is still set. Volume is good.
So either I slept through an hour of music playing, or I turned it off without waking up.
Hour and a half late for work. First time done this in perhaps over 20 years.
Not a fun day at work either.
You have the sympathy of a fellow needlephobe. When I was having to get IVs every week to three months, do you know how many doctors, nurses, and phlebotomists said “You’ll get used to it?” If you do, you’re doing better than I am because I lost count. Do you know how long it took me to “get used to it”? Oh, about NEVER AGO. I pass out watching people give shots in movies (*I Am Legend *was especially fun). I have to warn people to sneak up on me so I don’t see the needle and start climbing the walls.
It is a phobia. You don’t get over it without therapy. You’d think doctors would understand this. They don’t.