It really sucks that Mike works third shift at the most popular store during the holidays. Every year, as we get closer to Christmas, I see him less and less. This year, it’s a little different since we live together, but it still sucks; from here on out, he has no days off until Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. At least he doesn’t have to work Christmas Eve, like he did last year. The year before that, when he gave me my promise ring, I barely saw him until Christmas, either.
Whine.
I know, I know. It won’t kill me; I live with him! But it might kill him. He’s already working longer shifts because of the truck deliveries. Last night, he went in for eight instead of ten. I don’t know what time he got home this morning, but he’s supposed to be out at six. How often that happens — he usually comes home later — depends on how much stuff they have to do. I just hope he doesn’t end up overexhausted.
Tonight we’re going to a wake for Robbie’s — Mike’s brother, my future brother-in-law — grandma. The funeral is tomorrow morning, so Mike is just going to come home from work and then we’ll go. He’s such a good brother.
I’m still not ready for Christmas. Tomorrow I’m making cookies with Noni, Mom, and Lauren, then going out shopping with Sandy. I doubt I’ll be doing any shopping. It’s all going to depend on Mike’s paycheck (since he offered to let me borrow money for gifts), or if I get paid by some miracle this weekend. Christmas is a week away.
It sucks that I might not be able to get anyone gifts until after Christmas — or that I might have to do my shopping completely last minute, gah — but I’m trying not to stress too much about it. I did get gifts for all the kids on my list: Kaylene, Konner, Katarina, Tony, and Ciana. They’re all small gifts, but good ones.
Oh, if only the holidays weren’t so damn stressful. I might actually get a good night of sleep! I remember being a kid and being excited. Now I just can’t wait to get it over with! I’m kidding. The time with my family — and that includes Mike’s side of the family — will be nice. We’re going to have dinner on Christmas Eve with my dad’s side of the family. Then, on Christmas Day, we’re having dinner with his mom’s side of the family, and then dessert at my aunt’s with my mom’s side of the family. I feel accomplished for having figured out how to split up fair time with all of our family.
I’m also taking tons of pictures this year, of everyone. This will be Mike’s and my fifth Christmas. It’s kind of romantic, when I think about it.
I have two sweet cats (even though they aren’t so sweet to each other). I have a printer that does print (even though it is mentally challenged), and a laptop, both of which I use to write stories. Which reminds me — I am thankful that I have the ability to put my thoughts and feelings and imagination into words.
I have an awesome sister who is my best friend, and an awesome best friend who is like a sister. I have a beautiful family: my mom, dad, sister, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. I have a boyfriend who fits me completely.
I also have a mouth, which can taste and chew and eat (pleasepleaseplease let 2:00 tomorrow come quickly)! I have a body that may be diseased, but does allow me — roadblocks and all — to do what I love , and I am so thankful for that.
I have a great group of friends, both online and offline. I have a job that, although it can be stressful, I love, and allows me to work from home, during my own hours. I am so thankful that I don’t have to get up early in the morning, that I can work in my pajamas or sweats, and take as many breaks as I want, so that I can rest when I need to.
I have a beautiful niece and beautiful godchildren.
I have so much good in my life that, when I lump it all together, it far outweighs the bad.
I spent this weekend cleaning and organizing at my house because we’re doing some moving. My grandparents are staying downstairs, and my parents, sister, and I are moving some of our stuff out of storage and into here (and vice versa). I feel like I got absolutely nothing accomplished, especially since I got none of the work that is coming out of my ears done. I did get to see Ciana, my niece, for a little. I took the cutest picture of Mike holding her. I so wish I could post it here. It’s proof that he’s going to be an awesome dad (although, when she wouldn’t stop crying, he passed her to me with a “Here ya go!” and left the scene pretty quickly, hahaha).
Tomorrow is my prep for the colonoscopy I’m having Wednesday. It feels so weird to say that; usually it’s elderly or middle-aged people who get them done, not almost twenty-two-year-olds. I’m mostly nervous about tomorrow, at the moment, because I won’t be able to eat anything but clear, not red, liquids and Jell-O (again, no red). I’m hypoglycemic, so this is a scary thing for me. I really don’t want to spend one day nauseous all day and then the next day on the toilet all day, but here we are. I still don’t know what time my procedure is, either, so I have to call them and find out.
I’m going to miss two days of work, which is going to put me two days behind, and then Thursday is going to be really crazy: business meeting early in the morning, part-time job, writers’ group, and softball practice. Why can’t I seem to break this nasty habit of taking on too much? These are all things I want to do (except for the two jobs), but the worst part is that I don’t even have time to write anything to bring to my writers’ group.
Today was Robbie’s birthday. He is 22 and is one of three of Mike’s siblings. He’s also a new daddy — someone PLEASE remind me to ask permission to post photos of Ciana — and has a wonderful girlfriend, Jaysa. We all went out tonight with a couple of his friends to the Chinese buffet in Watertown.
Sushi and beer, a girl's best friend
After over three years of dating Mike — we don’t subtract the two months we were broken up — I’d like to say that his family is pretty much my family. We’ve known for a while now that we are going to get married. He is my best, best friend, and the connection between us goes deeper than words can explain. If one of us is hurting, both of us are hurting. I don’t know about him, but I feel physically drawn to him, like a magnet to a refrigerator door (or to an old-school chalkboard, if you remember them).
Right now, we are both hurting.
That magnetic connection is still there, but we both are currently faced with the C word. I can no longer lean on him when I’m having a hard time accepting that Popi is sick and may not be with us much longer. Now, we must lean on each other, and I honestly don’t know how to be there for him when I am hurting so much myself.
You see, today we found out that there is a tumor in his mom’s brain. This strong, beautiful woman is like a second mother to me. No one could ever replace my own mother — I love you very, very much, Mommy — but Tracy is very dear to me. They — meaning the doctors — don’t know if it’s malignant or benign, so we have to wait and see, and anyone who knows me knows that I suck at the waiting game.
I thought for sure that maybe she had MS, and it was an MS lesion. I wanted it to be MS, so very badly, just like I wanted my grandfather to just have a damaged sciatic nerve. Instead, the C word looms.
And people act surprised when they discover I am smoking again.
With makeup and au natural hair
Don’t get me wrong, things aren’t all bad. I went to my writers’ group this afternoon, although I was half an hour late because it started at 3:30 and I work at my PT job until 4. I didn’t bring anything with me, either, so it ended early because out of the four of us, only two people brought something in. One of us wasn’t even there to perfect her writing; she is an ESL student and joined the group so that she could hear more conversational English and learn from listening to us pick apart language in our writing. She’s Russian, so she is automatically cool in my book. I sometimes desperately wish I knew more about my Russian heritage, but thanks to my mom’s dad taking off when she was a teenager, we know next to nothing.
Anyway, she was very cool and for someone who claimed to not be a writer, she had quite a bit to offer to the conversation and lots of suggestions for Chick’s poem.
Even though I had nothing to bring in with me, I did spend almost two hours yesterday writing a chapter for Secondhand Mom. So far, it’s nine pages long and is probably going to be twice as long when I finish it. It might be so long that I’ll have to break it up into at least two separate chapters. Regardless, it felt really good to actually do some writing. I fell right back into pace, and am really loving my characters right now. I just wish that I had more time to spend on writing as opposed to working.
Yesterday was also my first appointment with my new psychologist, but that’s a whole other post.
I am trying really hard to see the good side of life right now, or else I’ll probably lose my mind. I often feel like my whole childhood, my history, is just being pulled right out from underneath me by some meaner, bigger kid. Life’s a bitch like that.
The headache started at about 7. It felt like just another, “Hey, asshole, you need to eat something” warning. So I ignored it for a little longer, working on my client’s blog design until I finally gave in and ate. It didn’t go away.
When I picked Mike up from work at about 9:20, the headache continue to hang around. Robbie invited us over to Jaysa’s for a bit, so we decided to head over after going to Mike’s so that he could change out of his work clothes. I figured the headache would hit the road once I’d had a couple of drinks, as we were going to play a little beer pong. As soon as I walked in the door and saw my niece Ciana, though, I lost all interest in beer. I know, I know; there must be something wrong with me! But no, it’s just the part of me that absolutely adores kids and is completely addicted to very cute newborns. So while Mike played a couple games of beer pong and the rest of the gang finished off the few remaining bottles of beer, I snuggled with Ciana, talking to her about this and that, and then fed her while her mommy and daddy got to have some fun.
The headache moved into the background, and I figured it would finally fade.
After the last drop of beer was gone, the four of us — Mike, Robbie, Jaysa, and I — sat around the kitchen table and chatted while Ciana slept in her infant carseat.
The night wore on, and soon Mike decided that he wanted to go home. He also decided that he wanted a Big Mac, so we stopped at McDonald’s. As we sat in the drive-thru, my blood sugar dropped and I felt pretty crummy, so I decided I’d get some fries and a McDouble (which is the double cheeseburger). I drove back to his house carefully, very aware of the snow, the slickness of the road, and my dangerously low blood sugar. (Ever since I was a little Elizabeth, I’ve been hypoglycemic, which basically means that my metabolism is really fast and keeps me skinny, but also absorbs sugar very quickly and leaves me really sick if I don’t eat every few hours AND eat foods high in protein.)
By the time I got to Mike’s, my head was pounding, my stomach was queasy, and I pretty much sat on the floor of the kitchen while he ate, occasionally nibbling on a fry or two when the headache and nausea ebbed momentarily. It would come back quickly, and all I could do was sit on the floor with my head between my knees, my hands pressing hard on the top of my head where the headache seared, making it feel like my brain was swelling against my skull.
I could barely eat, I felt so horrible.
I forced myself to eat a little more, if only to raise my blood sugar. Then, suddenly, the headache turned into a monster migraine. Pain would flare across my brow, through my eyes, looping in a nightmare. It would cease for a second, then it would go back around the front of my head. When it paused, the headache would go back to the back and top of my head. I knew I needed to go home so I could make some soup, take a Tramadol, and take my Seroquel, but I could barely move, it hurt so bad.
I’ve never had a headache like it.
When the searing pain in the front of my head stopped, I put my boots and coat on, grabbed the rest of my fries, and got into the car, hoping that I would make it home before it came back.
By the time I got home, I felt too exhausted to make the soup. I took 50mg of Tramadol, hoping that it would kick the migraine’s ass and let me sleep, as well as the 400mg of Seroquel (Pam bumped me up to 400 to see if it would make an even bigger difference from the 300 I was taking). I put my cold eye mask on, put my regular sleeping eye mask over it, and lay flat on my back as the headache sat in front of my head.
My plan was to get up at noon and work on my client’s site so that I could have everything done and go out bowling with Mike and his coworkers.
I woke up fifteen hours later.
Dazed, groggy, and annoyed that I’d woken up so late, I stumbled around trying to clear my head enough to do at least SOME work. I figured I could cram it all into a few hours and still be able to go bowling.
WRONG.
Pam had warned me that going up to 400mg would make me drowsy. Normally, Tramadol gives me a high and allows me to sleep really, really well if I take it before bed. Apparently, combining the two is a recipe for a fifteen-hour coma (but it did make my headache go away, so I guess we’re even). Gone were my plans of going to my aunt’s to work with her for a few hours and then coming home for a shower before going out to the bowling alley.
It’s kind of a good thing, though; Mike and I do a lot of stuff together, so it’s nice to see him go out and have fun without me. I do feel a little left out, but it’s my own damn fault.
I’m not sure what the lesson is here. Both medications are okay to take together — I made sure to ask Pam about it. I think what happened was, I took both too late (at about four in the morning), and should have just gone to bed with nothing instead. Had I known that we did have some Aleve in the house, I would have just taken that.
I just know that that headache was NOT a normal headache. It was awful, beyond any words. I’ve only had one migraine before it and that wasn’t even close to how bad last night’s headache was.
I still feel it, faintly there, as if it’s just waiting to come back and torture me more. It could be worse, though:
