Saturday, January 31, 2009

Farewell, Appie!

It's completely unnecessary, and now it's gone. Good riddance to my appendix!

A week ago, following two bouts with stomach bugs since Christmas, I woke up feeling like crap yet again. My stomach hurt. My sides hurt. My back hurt. Matt and I had already rented a van to go to Williamsport for the weekend to pick up the remaining stuff my dad left us in his will, and this was probably our third attempt to do so. It's a lot of stuff, and every time we try to get it, I either get sick or we can't rent a vehicle large enough to pack it all in.

I have Matt drive me in the rental van to the Immediate Care Clinic nearby. It's about 10am. They see me in about 10 minutes from my arrival, and decide I need a CAT scan. (Insert jokes about waving cats that detect sickness over people here.) After I get the results of that, I am told I have acute appendicitis and need to get myself to the nearest emergency room.

Off we went. One thing led to another, and at 6pm they wheeled me in for my first-ever major surgery. Needless to say, I was pretty darn scared.

I spent most of this week at the hospital. My appendix had ruptured, so they had to do a traditional surgery and clean out all the icky pus. Some people are fortunate enough to get their appendixes (appendices?) removed laproscopically (how DO you spell that anyway?) these days, but oh no. Not me. Why would my body choose to do anything the easy way?

Yesterday, they finally let me come home, so here I am. I hope the rest of the year brings more health and happiness, but in a nutshell, I'm just glad all of that is over and done with.

There are many other tidbits from my hospital stay I want to share with you all, and also another major story from my personal life that you should know about. I'm excited that I'll have the time to do that this week--even if I am all hopped up on Percocet.

See you 'round the net!

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

"The More It Shakes, The More I Have To Let Go..."

(Song Title Subject Post Reference Here...an excellent Nada Surf song. Why did I choose a line for my subject? Because that's how I'm feeling--I need to let go of this somehow.)

Blog World, I am stressed out over a girl.

Not a romantic-interest type girl, I'm happily married thank you very much, and while I am known to get crushes easily, one thing I have never been is fully bisexual. I apologize to any girls I find cute, here and now: sorry, I don't want to make out. I shall pass on a secondary apology to any guys I know who would like to see me make out with said cute girls. NOT HAPPENING, and not the point of this blog post.

You may remember (if you were reading back then) my ridiculously hard time with my roommate Nigel's previous girlfriend, The Leech, who was a completely immature nutball who never left our apartment. Nigel's most recent girlfriend is really sweet, smart and funny. She ran into some hard times and moved in with us temporarily. However, temporarily has stacked up to more months than I thought it would be.

Nigel and P are starting to look for a place of their own now, which is cool, but unfortunately, P is having some major problems with her health. They think it might be MS, so if anybody can refer me to any good MS blogs or resources, I'd love to pass them along to her.

But here is where my problem lies: I like her, but living with her seems bad for my own health. Have you ever met someone who seems to be your trigger person? For example, even if you're not completely in tune with that individual, their moods can affect your own? My stress and anxiety levels automatically skyrocket when she's around. If she's not having a good time, I am still having a good time, but I am hyper-aware that she's having a terrible time, and I just feel upset and angry about it. If I know she's truly upset while we're all out together, I get just as anxious as she does.

This is why I've been so distressed and distant in recent months. My living situation is stressing the hell out of me because our previous Hannah-Matt-Nigel dynamic has changed. The three of us functioned somewhat as a family, but we are NOT equipped to be a family of four. Our trips to dinner no longer end with spontaneous trips to the movies. Our trips to the movies become more difficult as only 3 of us can always agree on what to see, and our fourth counterpart doesn't do well with horror films or cheesy action. We are some zombie-loving folks around here. Not to mention our love for Jason Statham (who loves insulin pumps)! We could kill 2-3 hours at a time playing co-op mode on various first-person shooters; she doesn't like creepy games with guns and asks Nigel not to spend "all night" in front of the TV.

The pace of life and my ability to truly relax have been severely compromised for about 4 months now. It's a little ridiculous, even to me. Do you have friends who you love dearly, but you just know that cohabitation with those people would be the worst idea since New Coke? I think that is where my issue lies with P. Having her around all the time is making me resent her, and that's not necessary at all.

But some days, I just think, "If I find one more half-finished glass of soda around here, I'm gonna....AAARRRGHHHH!!!" Or, "You can't possibly have a bad reaction to every medicine in the entire world....AAARRRGHHHHH!!"

But I am really concerned for her and her pending diagnosis, and I do not want to channel my "AAAARGHHHH"-energy towards her regarding that. No one with a chronic illness deserves that, and I am finding I'm not sure how to relate to a newly-diagnosed person, since I've spent nearly 19 years in the company of diabetes. This really bothers me, as I want to be as supportive as I can.

Their moving plans are coming along. I am excited and even a little nervous about living as a proper married couple (meaning a roommate-less couple). I have furniture in mind. I just hope we can manage to sync up enough after the move-out to hang out as much as we'd like.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Lazy Sunday Advice

Ah, another lazy Sunday draws to a close. I'm feeling much better now, thanks.

Just a question for anyone out there who might be able to answer it:

How the heck can a sassy blogger/writer like me get into more freelancing?

I want to write more in 2009, and finding some actual projects to commit to might help me a bit, I'd suppose. Sitting around and writing when I get home from work (or any other time of day) is simultaneously a passion for me and great escape from my daily grind. While I may be the most creative person in my office, my work is far from writing-related at this point, unless you count the few small projects I get to assemble on occasion, like a student newsletter or a new bulletin board.

Writing, even with its occasional stresses, is my way of de-stressing and decompressing from the rest of the world. I always love any excuses to do more of it. And believe you me, friends, I hope to do more of it here in this space as well.

Soooo...any tips? Pointers? Sources? Web sites? Advice? Give me something to look forward to on Monday. Thanks, all!

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Health from Hell!

Ughhh.

Remember that stomach virus I caught right before Christmas?

Guess who has another one? This time accompanied by a fever of 101.1 degrees Fahrenheit! Yippee!

Now if you don't mind, I will be going back to bed. Again. Actually, the only times I've left my bed today was to go to the doctor's office, and also to go to the bathroom. Every part of my body hurts. I definitely will not be going to work tomorrow either.

Ughhhhhhh.

Sunday, January 4, 2009