OWW MY SCREAMY ::INSERT RANDOM PART::

I am a rigid weapons specialist. I have firearms and a crap load of tactical training. I have the peculiar talent of being able to pick up almost anything and use it as a weapon. My house is fully alarmed as well as guarded by two beasts who have the innate ability to pick out a bad guy at 40 paces, but not bite him until told to do so. None of these things are any help at all when I'm lying on my back in the dark at 1:00 AM.

A couple weeks ago while letting the dogs out, I fell. I was exactly half in and half out of the door, my upper body on the floor inside, and my legs stuck under the screen door to the patio outside. I absolutely could not get up. Rue came inside, through the Rue-sized crack in the screen door...I am glad I fell in such a way so the door did not completely shut. I was scared. She sat by my my head for about 15 minutes and scrubbed the side of my face with her nose the whole time I was blubbering. When I finally regained my wits, I stuck my right hand in her collar and she was able to drag me inside enough so the door closed. I was finally able to get my feet on the floor and push myself inside--sliding on my back while I pushed with my feet. I made it to the rug where I had enough traction to roll over and get on all-fours, crawl to a chair and eventually stand by climbing up the chair, although bent over at the waist, The time spent wallowing around was about an hour in total. I was not terribly hurt, just bruised and breathless.

The following day I realized what Rue had been doing. In the past, when she has wanted me up, awake and out of bed for various reasons, she will touch her nose to my cheek, then scrub vigorously back and forth. To Rue, face-scrubbing means "GET UP!" It has always worked for her in the past, why wouldn't it work this time? She was trying to help me get up in the only way she knew how, the way that has worked best for her in the past. If I have nothing else, at least I have a smart dog.

The latest on my screamy heart is I have a major (80%) blockage in the right coronary artery. I have grown a collateral vessel that is the only supplier of blood to the right side of my heart, and now it too has a blockage. Because of that I have near constant heart-type chest pain (over and above the chest pain caused by nerve damage). I am gasping for breath with even the slightest bit of movement. They can't fix the new blockage with surgery, and definitely not with stents, since it is too far down in the vessel. They can only give me drugs and hope that they work. In the meantime, I feel so bad that I am actually surprised when I wake up in the morning. I open my eyes and look around and think, "DAMMIT! I survived another night."

I haven't published since March. The biggest event in that missing time period was a car crash in early May, about which I am not allowed to speak per my lawyer. Gah. Suffice it to say I am still broken and seeking people to put me back together in the correct order.

My heart sucks more than usual, in that it has actually become an obstacle in treating my various wounds. Because I have metal in my chest, I cannot have an MRI. One guy said, "I can't fix anything I can't see. Without an MRI I can't see any of the parts." I shouted at him, "What the hell did people do before the MRI was invented? DO THAT, FFS!" This coming Thursday, I see a bone doctor. Oh joy, oh rapture, more pain...I can hardly wait.

You know, there is not much in life that I'm afraid of--I've been in a number of life-threatening scrapes. I have physically been unable to run for many years, so anything that calls for the flight or fight adrenalin surge, will always make me choose to stand and fight, out of sheer necessity. I developed skills that the ordinary person does not have just because my one fear is that of being helpless. Well, helpless is coming at me like a steam train, and there's nothing I can do about it. Skills mean nothing when I'm lying on my back in the dark at 1:00 AM.

Bad Luck o' the Irish

Throughout history, the Irish have had some of the worst luck ever. People should think this through before wishing it on anyone.

St. Patrick's day became popular because it was the only feast day that always fell during Lent.
This meant Catholics were allowed to eat meat and butter on this day and this day only, then not again until Easter Sunday. The Catholic Church used to suck with its rules and rituals. It still sucks, just not as hard.

I give to you today my favorite Irish saying/toast/prayer:

May those that love us continue to love us
May those that hate us turn to love us, and
Dear Lord, if you cannot turn their hearts, turn their ankles
   so that we may know them by their limps.

OWW MY SCREAMY HEART

Spent all day with the Heart doc. Left feeling crushed. They'll be calling me tomorrow to make test appointments. He suspects blockage in additional vessels. I can't breathe. I can't breathe because all the air has suddenly been sucked out of my world by the enormous vacuum called *bad news.* I have the misfortune of having shitty genes and an abundance of lipoprotein-a. I am about to crawl under the porch, taking my nitro pills with me. Nobody better get a stick and poke at me, because by God I just might snap.

Bad Haiku of December

My winter pallor

Not unlike summer pallor

I am milk on snow

OWW MY SCREAMY BOOBS, ROUND 3

This morning bright and early I toddled off to Dr. Turban-wearer's office. I waited in the waiting room. I waited in the exam room. When he finally got to me he said straight away, "I am sending you back to your referring physician and releasing you. There is nothing I can do for you."

"Releasing me? After only one visit and only one drug?" I pleaded.  No response. "WTF is the matter with you?"

"There is nothing I can do to help you." He looked at the floor.

"So you're just giving up? You're not even going to try? What about the drugs I'm on now? Where am I supposed to get those? You know perfectly well a primary won't prescribe the narcotics I've been taking! What about my panic attacks? Where am I supposed to get Ativan, without which I will soon be hospital-bound?"

Without looking at me even once, he launched into preaching mode, "This is a pain you are just going to have to learn to live with. You have too many things wrong with you. Your heart, your back, your various injuries, your neuro-muscular issues...all of these are sources of pain and there is nothing I can do that will make it better. We all have to live with pain. For instance right now I have a headache and my hip hurts. See how I am standing?"

"I don't give a shit about your headache or your fucking hip. Take some aspirin and go see your referring physician."  I left.

I got into my car and sat in the parking lot for about 15 minutes just weeping. I have 24 days to find a drug source or I'm up shit creek. This pain is unendurable. Even with drugs it is barely manageable. I can't just *learn to live with it* since it affects every aspect of my life. It affects how I get out of bed, how I put on clothes, how I comb my hair, what I eat and how I eat it. Goddammit I can't even take a shower since each bead of water that falls on my skin feels like a dagger.

Sheer desperation has made me consider having mastectomies, wondering if I actually cut off my screamy boobs if they'll stop being so urgently screamy. On the other hand, if it's the nerve that is damaged, the nerve will still be there, and so will the pain. I can't win.

Suddenly it all becomes clear, and I understand it completely. This my friends, is exactly how heroin addicts get made -- out of sheer desperation.

OWW MY IMAGINARY BACON

I had high hopes for the drug, Lyrica. I took it for a total of two weeks. The first week I felt pretty good. The second week I started crying. Not just crying like my eyes were leaking, but crying as in sobbing and wailing in grief. I'm still not over it.

I called Dr. Turban-wearer's office to report my symptoms. After taking a ration of shit from his secretary, my phone call was returned later that day.  She had the gall to say to me, "Well, are you a patient of Dr. Turban-wearer's? I just don't know why you would be calling here to tell me you're having symptoms." I was stunned.  I said, "No, lady. I just picked a random phone number to call out of the phone book.  YES, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, I AM A PATIENT.  Do you have a pen in your hand? Yes? Great, write this down..."

Last night I dreamt I was eating a bacon sandwich with mayonnaise and cranberry sauce, of all things. I was crying while I was eating it. I woke up crying in actuality. This is how fuckered my brain has become in only two short weeks of Lyrica. I can't sleep worth a damn. Not sleeping is nothing new, but I certainly don't need dreams that make me cry when I finally do manage to fall into a deep enough sleep to conjure up a dream.

If you engage me in conversation, you might not get answers you're expecting. Consider this fair warning: I am not my usual "ray of sunshine" self. The fact that I can recognize that I am slightly off is a good thing, I suppose. Now, I'm just hoping it passes quickly. I don't need to be a total uber-depressed nutjob in addition to my *regular* ailments.

My next appointment with Dr. Turban-wearer is October 24, when I suppose he will move onto the next drug. I'm running out of possibilities and time both, FFS. Since the recent news of contaminated steroid shots and the resulting outbreak of meningitis, I am ever so glad I didn't jump on the shot bandwagon right away. I'm desperate, but not desperate enough for meningitis.

THE HOARD OF PAIN

Dammit, I started a gout attack yesterday. Just what I needed, another pain. Incidentally, let's talk about SCREAMY FRIGGIN PAINS...Gout is a very urgent, acute type of stabbing pain. I don't know if it's connected to the change in meds or not.  It is on the opposite side from where my previous attacks have occurred. I guess I'll find out, won't I? The only bonus in having a gout attack is that it makes my other pains seem less urgent. Yay for the brain, which has a way of addressing the most hideous pain first, and kind of shoving the other pains into the background. UGH!

It occurred to me today while watching TLC, that I have become a collector of pains-- a pain hoarder, if you will. Honest-to-goodness *stuff* hoarders will collect things and not even notice it's a problem until they are positively inundated by their items, or killed when a pile collapses on them. They rarely seek help unless until their horrible secret is discovered by loved ones, or the stench alerts authorities.  My hoard of various pains is slowly killing me, smothering me under their weight, looming over me in a great, teetering pile, affecting every aspect of my life.  Where did I put that snorkel?