If misery loves company...

...than I am having a P-A-R-T-Y!!!

I turned 36 last week, and apparently 36 is the year my body has decided to Go To Hell In A Hand Basket. You may remember I was in the hospital for a brief stay involving abdominal pain the week prior to my birthday. Well as it turns out, that was just a ramping up, a precursor of sorts, the hors d'oeuvres to the main course that is my current physical state.

To be honest I haven't been 100% since leaving the hospital and should probably have never undertaken my subsequent trip to NY. I didn't not give my body the time, rest, diet and attention it deserved and needed to get healthy. Yes, I was feeling run down and I went to NY and ate a slice (pie) of pizza, drank a glass (bottle) of wine and smoked a cigarette(s.)

Guilty as charged.

Okay!! Enough of this responsibility rubbish. This is a self pitying rant. More importantly this is MY self pitying rant and I am shutting down that avenue of thought because it is distracting me from my true purpose of garnering sympathy and wallowing in the mud of my self indulgence.

Where to start? How about on the plane ride back to Dublin in which I was able to sleep most of the flight thanks to Mr. Xanex. Waking up in the final hour I had some leg pain, thought I could walk it off, stumbled to the bathroom, no improvement. It got worse but we just went home and went to sleep. Getting up after our nap I was worse than ever. Hobbling around like a 90 year old woman with rheumatoid arthritis.

It's most severe in the mornings. Right hand, left kneecap, calves, ankles, one big toe. Deep muscle and joint pain. Some swelling. Red spots appear after a day. Keeping it elevated. Applying heat. At least two baths a day. Taking the odd aspirin when I can't hold back (remember the ulcer!) Moving around in the morning loosens me up and by mid day I no longer look like a 90 year old woman suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. I look like a 60 year old woman suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. Which, I will admit, is an improvement, but not the one I've been hoping for. Plus I live in fear of sleeping because when I wake up I will be 90 again. Not that I can sleep well anyway.

I self diagnose myself with deep vein thrombosis, which is when you get blood clots stuck deep in your veins and they thromb? Seriously, I have some but not all the symptoms and hello? This started while I was on the plane. That's GOTTA have something to do with it. Right?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

A few little nagging things that had been, well, nagging at me since the hospital visit suddenly become large things. Only they are no longer nagging me so much as clubbing me over the head with a two-by-four to get their point across. I've had lower back pain and my noggin aches. I had chalked these two up to sleeping in the hospital, compensating for abdominal pain, odd sleeping position, weird adjustable beds that are NEVER comfortable, snoring old ladies etc etc etc. But wait a second...I've had these symptoms and it's been two weeks since I've left the hospital! And just as my head is actually splitting open in migraine-esque pain I realize...duh!...this may all be connected. Elementary my dear Watson (you idiot!!)

Add a terrible sore throat and some really weird and scary looking mottled skin and you get a midnight trip to the accident and emergency room, aka, The A&E (I'll take arts and entertainment for $800, Alex.)

sidebar: this what you get when you google image "mottled skin" to make sure you've used the right word, and yes, I used exactly the right word. freaky eh?

As if Friday at midnight at the emergency room weren't bad enough my delightful and loving body which would never do me wrong throws a little something fun into the mix. Throwing up!! With red sauce!! (and by that I mean blood, duh!?)

Far be it from me to profane but Christ on a Cracker!!! Can a girl get a break?? They are going to think I am insane when I start listing all my random symptoms:

deep pain in both legs, one knee, one foot, one hand
red spots on all the above
mottled skin on all extremities
killer headache radiating in all directions
lower back pain with odd, small bumps (do we have lymph nodes back there?)
sore throat
vomiting with blood
deep sense of despair

To keep a long story long we waited in the room designated for that purpose among track suited, drunk and bloody knackers with ears halfway ripped off, 70 year old women with rheumatoid arthritis, several characters straight from a Ross O'Carroll Kelly story, roysh? And many other interesting types. No tests, no blood drawn, some questions, some listening, a look around, a second closer look at the sore throat and "It's a infection, I'm giving you antibiotics."

me: "But the sore throat only really started yesterday."
I'm thinking I am a medical mystery. I'm thinking I need a genius at Diagnostic Medicine. I'm thinking I need that guy House. (a show that I have recently discovered in repeats here...love it!)

Then the ER doctor shoots me a well deserved look that says "Listen lady, I have worked many, many long hours at this damn emergency room on this Friday night, I have been to medical school, I sewed that dude's ear back on...shut up and take your medicine."

I realize he is probably right. Take my medicine. Take a taxi home. Throw up. Go to bed.

And God is merciful up in his heaven because I actually achieve the blissful and recently rare state of SLEEP. Would like to say I got a good night's sleep, but it was actually a good day's sleep, cause it came mostly after Chris picked up my prescriptions first thing in the morning. (God bless that man, he is a saint. I have undeservedly bitten his head off a thousand times in the last few days in my frustration. Love you honey, even when you are not dosing me with codeine.)

Friday morning - about 14 hours before the trip to emergency - we had gone to a clinic where they did mostly nothing and told me to come back Monday for a blood test so I will keep that appointment in case there is something else to find out about what's going on with me. Also on the rare chance that I caught something weird from the cheap pedicure place I went to in NY...an infection (ew) a fungus (double ew) or a parasite (triple EW EW EW!!!!) This is probably my overactive imagination coupled with some Discovery Channel Scare-You-Into-Hysterics Show I saw years ago. It's an irrational fear I carry around, ok?
Let's leave this line of thinking.

Anywho...that's where things stand now. We have friends visiting tomorrow and I look forward to seeing them but won't be joining in on any reindeer games :(
I am feeling the tiniest bit better, not sure if I can even hang my hat on that just yet. But I am trying. Am feeling hopeful which is an improvement. I figure I have sent enough cry-baby e-mails out to so many of you individually that I ought to just post it all up here and get my self pity out in the open where I can be rightly ashamed of it and proceed to kick it's ass!!!

My place is MESS, my hair is even WORSE. Our sleep schedule is completely screwy. I haven't accomplished one single, solitary useful thing in DAYS. But today I am laughing about it all and that is a big improvement. Thanks for sticking with me through my wallow. I hate being sick and frankly find all of this a little embarrassing. Hope to update with good news soon. Then we can just drop it and forget it ever happened.
:)

peace out
-k.


(music: Harry Nilsson "Lime in the Coconut"