Our family needs a personal assistant

Because why?  Because every now and again when I go to clear the answering machine of messages - I discover things.  Things that should have been written down kind of things.  When we get to around 8 saved messages, I try to clean them out.  Yesterday I discovered that, unbeknownst to me, my friend Lisa had called.  Might have been sometime in the last week.  Did I know about it?  No.

So I asked at the breakfast table this morning. "Did Lisa happen to call in the last little while?"

David and Rissa made thinking faces for a moment before they both said, "Nope.  Don't think so.  I didn't take a message from Lisa."  Then they went back to enjoying their breakfast.

"So there wasn't say, a message on the answering machine from Lisa maybe?"

Immediately, David reconfirmed.  "Nope.  No messages."

"No messages.  From Lisa.  On the answering machine?"

David's eyes rolled into his head, trying to access his internal CPU.  His shoulders hunched a tiny bit.

"Ummmm...  Which Lisa?"

He was playing it that way.  "The Lisa, who was the Matron of Honour at our wedding, Lisa..."

He winced.  "That Lisa.  Yes, there might have been a message from that Lisa."

"So when you said that Lisa didn't call..."

"I wasn't lying..."

"You weren't?"

"No," he said emphatically.  "I wasn't.  I just couldn't recall the existence of such a message."

Note to self: check the phone messages daily.

I love sleep so much I want to marry it.

I need to wax poetic for a moment.

Sleep, oh thou elixir of life, how your enveloping embrace maketh me to want to give you sexual favours. 

Calcium Channel blockers, oh thou relaxer of blood vessels (even the small ones), how your pervasive travel through my system maketh me want to praise your merits in song to the heavens! 

"I love my drugs!  I love my drugs!  I L-O-O-O-OVE MY DRUUUUUUUUUUUGS!!!"

My angina drugs are working again!  I woke today after a good 8 hours sleep.  Halle-freaking-lujah!!

Sleep just makes EVERYTHING better.  (Especially when you haven't been sleeping through the night for more than a couple of weeks.)  Look family!  It's your wife/mother - she's smiling and it's morning!

I'm not saying that you should just leap onto the Calcium Channel blocker train for your night sweats, but for me, when the angina meds finally kicked in, my night sweats became manageable, and my secret boyfriend, SLEEP, came back to me.  Anecdotal evidence at best, but it works for me!  I am human once more.

Ladies and Gentlemen - I give you the well-rested Heather!

No still means NO

Rehtaeh Parsons case: RCMP worried posters supporting 4 boys could incite vigilantism

 

ALL KINDS OF WRONG: CNN Pays Touching Tribute To The Rapists Who Attacked A 16-Year-Old Girl

 

Michigan High School Chooses To Protect Star Basketball Player Instead Of His Rape Victims

So I guess this is the beginning of the end.  This is when civilization collapses around us.  Our society, has lost its collective mind.  Apparently, we now throw our support behind those who violate, assault and rape girls.   And then we justify our support because it was alleged that the girl was drunk, dressed a certain way, or 'asking for it.'

When did it become acceptable to sexually assault a girl?  When did it become acceptable to watch a girl get sexually assaulted and then Instagram and Tweet it?  When did it become acceptable to call a girl a slut and make her life a living hell after the pics and tweets went public?

Oh wait!  I remember, IT DIDN'T.

IT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.  

How about the next time a young woman is at a party, the people around her PROTECT her?  How about we treat her with the same care we would show towards our sisters... daughters... nieces... cousins and granddaughters?   How about we stand UP, not stand BY?   Even if the people doing the violating are on the football team or basketball team or 'popular.' Even if it means that by standing up you might not be popular afterwards.  How about we lay blame where it belongs: at the feet of the perpetrators - all of them - those hands-on and the ones who give them tacit permission, by doing nothing to stop them.

'Cause if this is the way the world is going?  If my daughter isn't safe with her peers?  I will quit civilization, start a commune in the middle of nowhere and surround myself with people who will respect and protect one another.

Sneezy Pee...

I should have done WAY more Kegels while pregnant.  Firming up that pelvic floor should have been a priority.  Sure I did them, but I don't think I did enough of them.  Kegels are a bit weird...  I don't know, kind of... squidgy...  Concentrating on those muscles for too long - it made me feel like I was trying to turn myself inside out.

Of course if I had taken the Kegels seriously, perhaps I wouldn't now have to stop walking when I sneeze... or cough.  If I feel a sneeze (or cough) coming on while I'm walking, I have to stop in mid-stride so that I can do a quick, standing leg-cross to ensure that I don't wet my pants.   My friends and I used to laugh at those commercials for the adult diapers - I especially remember the one with an attractive 50-something gal laughing while trying on clothes and she gets this look and you know that she's just peed her pants. 

Now, when I have to pee - I really have to pee.  There is no 'holding it.'  If I even think about it too much, that might set me off.  I try tightening those pelvic floor muscles, but if I'm not close to a bathroom?  Game over.  And God!  If you happen to cough or sneeze as you're getting ready to sit on the toilet?  You might as well disrobe and head straight to the shower - it'll be easier than trying to dry yourself up with wadded toilet paper.

And that's when I figured out I was deformed...

These little piggies need to go to a podiatrist...

Ladies and Gentlemen I give you... HAMMER TOE GIRL!!!  Or possibly MALLET TOE GIRL! or CLAW TOE GIRL!  44 years old and I just realized that I have mutant feet.  I thought I was dealing with some minor foot pain, brought on by corns.   Turns out I'm actually a GEN-U-INE mutant!  My feet have mutated!  And it's all brought on by wearing bad shoes - the fashionable yet tight, the beautiful yet pointy, the drop-dead-gorgeous yet heely - kinds.  My feet have been fucked over by beautiful shoes.

David is threatening to have me committed if I spend any more time fixating on my toes or looking at any pictures of weird-ass toes online.  In comparison to Google search images, mine really aren't that bad.  It's just the two next to my baby toe - on both feet.  They've always been a little bit 'piggy' in my opinion.  But seeing as I'd been brought up playing the "This Little Piggy" game - my toes totally seemed to make sense.  But then, in researching corns, I looked up hammer toes and found out there was a whole tool-oriented labelling system for weird-ass toes - and then I realized, "Wait a second - those sort of look like MY weird-ass toes!"

I knew that my feet had spread after having kids.  I knew that.  They are definitely wider.  I had to purchase a whole 1/2 size larger after having Rissa.  I replaced ALL my shoes because they weren't wide enough.  But my feet never hurt until recently.  OH GOD!  It was March Break!  I wore a pair of wedge-heeled boots and we walked so much - I had to purchase an emergency pair of converse just so that I wouldn't die from the pain.  That was the beginning of the end.

I don't want to have to wear Birkenstocks all the time!  I get that they're comfy - I get that they feel good - I even owned a knock-off pair myself, when I was in university.  But here's the thing: you start off thinking that you'll just wear them in the summer, but then you end up wearing them with socks in the fall, then winter and soon, you've morphed into a modern-day hippie and once that happens, you might as well start that commune, wear a poncho and grow pot to sell to glaucoma patients.  I'm totally going to end up in the BIG HOUSE because of my mutant feet.

PMS Dance Party

The days of miracles have returned!  I am the living, breathing recipient of a freaking miracle!  PRAISE BE TO EVERY GODDESS ASSOCIATED WITH THE FEMININE CYCLE!! For the first time in over 8 years, my period is LATE!!!  (insert Hallelujah Chorus here)

It has been almost 5 weeks since my last cycle.  To some women - this is a nothing, a bit of fluff in the great scheme of things.  Some women have long, irregular cycles as a matter of course.  Not I.  Lately, I was down to the 15 or 17 day cycle.  Now every time I go to pee - knowing that I'm past my 'regular' cycle, I do a spot check.  Seriously.  "Am I bleeding?  Now?  "How 'bout now?"

This means that for over a month I haven't had to be drugged!  Well, not for this.  I have a spring in my step, a swagger in my walk, a smile in my speech - all the time.  Well, most of the time.

Yesterday, I might have wanted to kill all living things in my house.  Blinding rage when they had the nerve to ask me how my day was, or whether or not one of them had time for a dentist appointment today.  "Why should I know, what YOUR schedule is?!?

I went driving and had to stop myself from forcing idiot drivers off the freaking road.  "Oh, you had to turn there?!?  Do you know what a fucking turn signal is?!?  DO YOU, YOU YELLOW RAT BASTARD?!?"

I was packaging books to ship and became so stressed that my angina kicked in.  I cried in the parking lot after buying food for dinner.

That's when it struck me that my behaviour was not in the normal range. Disproportionate emotional response to stimuli, weepiness, revenge fantasies... this was PMS.  REALLY BAD PMS.  Crazy-ass PMS which apparently has me teetering on the edge of The Cliffs of Insanity.  Worse PMS than usual.  Is that the trade-off?  Longer periods, but I might get arrested for manslaughter?  I can't believe I'm saying this, but I might prefer the saner, shorter periods.  Seriously.  If I'm going to turn into an emotional fuck nut who is pissed off at the world - who scares her spouse, child and pets... I'll take a little more blood, more frequently and just spend those first two days drugged out of mind.

How long can you tread water?

Underwater photography by the amazing Rafal Makiela

I'm making the effort.  My head's above the surface... but there are days....  Days when, honestly, it would be easier to go under and stay under.  Suck in water and sit at the bottom of the pool.  Instead, I drown proof.

I've been fighting my body for as long as I can remember.  Since I was a kid.  But the last 6 years have been particularly challenging.  72 Months.  2190 Days.  Some of those days I just want to raise the white flag.

I am a walking, talking bundle of symptoms.  Every new doctor has a new theory.  I suspect that many of their theories centre around me being a hypochondriacal fuck-nut.  I'm not crazy.  There are times when I just want to do my best Barbra Streisand and yell at the top of my lungs "I WON'T BE NUTS FOR YOU!!"

My mother says I'm "sensitive," that I'm 'in tune' with my body.  I'm pretty sure she says this, while inside, she wonders where the hell I came from.  Migraines, Hypoglycemia, Peri-menopause, Hashimoto's Disease, and Microvascular Angina.  I am so tired of being tired.  And when I'm this exhausted the bitter twins gang up on me: ennui and entropy.  They make me want to sit... and eat ice cream.. and weep,  instead of purposefully walking out into the fresh air.  They turn me into a peevish sheep.  I HATE being a peevish sheep!  Meh.

And I know, I KNOW that I'm fighting symptoms that I really can't control.  People ask me how I am and, for the most part, I lie.  Because they don't want to know... not really.  I don't want to be the girl who whines, but she's there inside me, just itching to get out.   The thyroid crap and the peri-menopause alone can make a gal wiggy, but it's the attending depression on the periphery, hiding just out of sight, that terrifies me.  I lost 2 years of my life to it when I was in my 20s.  I don't ever want to go back.

So I sit up a little taller.  I take in a breath.  Sometimes I cry.  I distract myself with the wonderful.  And often, when another day has crept above the horizon - it's better.

Doesn't that jiggle when you run?

I said to David, as I watched him in the bathroom this morning.  He was in his boxer shorts, shaving in the other mirror,  and it struck me how loose they were and that they wouldn't give a guy ANY support for his manly bits.  That's why I asked.

He looked at me, confused for a second.  I made a downward glance.  "You know.  Your penis.  Does it hurt when you run without a jockstrap?"

That's when Rissa walked in to the bathroom.  She rolled her eyes at us, said "PARENTS!" deposited her toothbrush back in the toothbrush glass and then left.

David and I shared a glance. "I think that was a flounce," said David.  "I think you're right," said I.

David continued shaving.

"Seriously," I said.  "Isn't it uncomfortable?"

David shrugged.  "Not really.  You kind of get used to it.  When you're wearing shorts, you can kind of tuck it."

"Tuck it?!?"  I'm trying to figure out the logistics of that.

"You know, if the shorts are tight enough," he says.

I continued looking at how baggy the boxers were.  It just didn't seem right to me.  Then I looked down at my own boobs and did a size comparison.

"Oh, I get it!!  Your penis is nowhere close to the size of my boobs and it's lower to the ground."

"Huh?"  He looked a little insulted.

"Your regular, every day penis, when it's not, excited - not as much extra flesh to bob around, as say," I grab my boobs, "THESE."

When in doubt, if you've wounded a man's ego - distract him with breasts.

Why CAN'T you 'spot lose' your inner thigh fat?

I know.  I know.  We've been told... and told again.  You cannot 'spot lose' weight.  Like, say, if your body is in great shape, except for your inner thighs, or back fat, or armpit pudge.  There are NO exercises that you can do to get rid of the extra flesh in one specific area.    You lose weight from all over your body when you drop the poundage.

Thing is?  I'm pretty sure that you lose it from your extremities first.  Which is why I have astonishingly delicate wrists, ankles and cheekbones for a girl of my bodaciousness.  Which would be awesome if I were completely covered from neckline to ankle, but summer's coming up and that means it's bathing suit/camisole/shorts season.

My worry is this... if I lose the extra 30 pounds that the BMI says I should lose - so that I get rid of the inner thigh, back and armpit fat - won't that mean that my wrists, ankles and cheekbones will give me the look of a cadaver, or at the very least Vera Ellen in White Christmas?

Why, oh why, can I not view myself with my spouse's eyes?  David's eyes... that love every ounce of me.  The eyes that waggle their eyebrows when he sees me bend over to do anything...  Hyper-critical Heather focuses on the back fat and the crazy-ass veins in my hands and the face wrinkles and he... he calls me beautiful.  And not only does he call me beautiful he actually believes it!

So as I sit, having had an extra helping of apple crisp after dinner, near to tears because I did not walk on the treadmill today, feeling like a slug,  I'm attempting to see myself through David-Perspective Glasses.  I just have to get through this pathetic, wallowing moment and then I can make better choices tomorrow.  There.  (deep breath) I have shaken this off and am now revelling in my delicate extremities. 

Check out the ankles on me!!

You can't die from these, right?!?

Heather the Valkyrie
Deviant Art
(helmet acquired from the artist Lodin)

It's been more than two weeks now, suffering from the Nachtschweiß.  I feel the German phrasing is warranted  because night-sweat effects are near-Wagnerian.  I am THIS close to grabbing a winged helmet and shrieking from a mountain top.  

Sunday morning, I was doing the dishes naked.  I'd had a bathrobe on, but when that burst into flames, I dropped it. David really wanted to take a picture of me at the sink like that, "You are ADORABLE!" but didn't want to get arrested for promoting pornography.  Rissa just shook her head.  "You are naked ALL the time!"

If only I could use this power for good.  Like Johnny Storm.  "FLAME ON!"    Although in my case it might be "SWEAT ON!"  I could emit a shower of sweat from my body and drown criminals in it.

But if I go around naked, I just get cold.  Too hot - then too cold.  I need Open & Close Clothes so that I can just open up when I'm hot and close when I'm cold.  Wait, I think they have that already - it's called a trench-coat.  Maybe flashers are just men having hot flashes...

I've been taking a sleeping pill every third evening, so that I can occasionally get a full night's sleep, but not get addicted to sleeping pills.  The after-effects of the pill stay with you for a bit, but so totally worth it to be able to sleep for more than 45 minutes at a time.     I've been walking around like a freaking zombie.  I can't do caffeine - because it's bad for hot flashes.  At turns, I'm grumpy and weepy... my family just has to guess which version of me they'll find.  It's like having a new baby or a puppy in the house.  I'm 44 frickin' years old.  Rissa was a baby a dozen years ago - I didn't  have the energy for no sleep when I was 32, I certainly can't pull an all-nighter now.  I can't stay up past 10:00 pm - unless I'm reading a good book.

I am praying with every fibre of my being that when my calcium channel blockers kick back in, this spate of Nachtschweiß will settle down.  If not, my mother assures me that "This too shall pass."  WHEN?!?  WHEN shall it pass?  "Well, my hot flashes stopped by the time I was... maybe... 63."   I can therefore optimistically say that it won't be two full decades of suffering then - just 18 years.   See, there's always a silver lining.

They'd get scared off by the smut...

I highly recommend Megan Hart's erotica

Friends want me to join them on "Goodreads."  I would, but I worry that they'd get scared off by the smut.  I read smut.  And lots of it.  I could varnish the truth and say I read romance, but really, it's smut.  I'm not dog-earing pages in these books to re-read passages for their pithy wording or great insights into philosophy.

That's not to say that I don't also read lit-ruh-cha... (please read that with a poncy upper class British accent).  I do.  I've read and continue to read Pulitzer Prize, Governor General and Hugo award-winning books.  Shakespeare's my guy!  It might be surprising to realize, but there is smut out there that is well-written.  And no, I ain't talking Fifty Shades of Grey.  I did a whole other post about that last summer.

It's just that I'd feel bad, say, if a friend who might have wanted a closer bond with me by looking through my "want to read" section, then panics when s/he discovers many of my titles might involve... threesomes featuring strong men with single syllable masculine names like Nick, or Zach or Jake spending all their waking hours pleasuring a woman whom they both love and worship.  Though honestly?  Most of the time I read for escapism and what better way for me to escape ... then to imagine two men making sure that my breasts are warm?  A gal has two breasts, she might as well have a mouth on each of them... I'm just saying...  But To Kill A Mockingbird is still totally my favourite book.

ps.  Thank you to Badger for reminding me of Tom Leher's take on SMUT

JK Rowling got it right...

A respectful deviation on Wingsdomain Art and Photography's - Quoth the Raven Nevermore

Picture, if you will, a raven.  Now imagine that raven on the inside of your skull.  Imagine that raven has its claws firmly around your eyeballs.  Your optic nerves haven't been severed... yet... but you can actually feel the claws around the eyeball.  That is what a migraine feels like.  Raven claws around your eyeballs."RAVENCLAW" The perfect description for an ocular migraine.  JK Rowling must get them.


Am I right?  Can I hear a "TESTIFY!!" from all the other ocular migraine sufferers?  It doesn't take the pain away, but knowing exactly how to describe it?  Gives some measure of comfort.  And it makes me feel like I know JK Rowling just that much better.  She's probably an asthma sufferer too - I mean, come on... HUFFLEPUFF?!?   I'm not saying that I'd fist bump her or anything upon sight, but I think we'd give each other this knowing, yet pained, looked.

Hooray for Bollywood!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alpOkCbt5SU

Bollywood.  I want to be covered in Bollywood.  I want to wallow in its delicious colour and music.  I've been on the periphery for several years.  I saw Bride and Prejudice,  Monsoon Wedding and Slumdog Millionaire.  I love when So You Think You Can Dance assigns Bollywood as a dance style.  But last weekend?  Last weekend I experienced all that was Jhoom Barabar Jhoom.  There should be appropriately placed Bollywood Bangra music to accompany that last sentence.

It was perfection.  I had a big stupid grin on my face the whole time.  I was almost crying I was so happy.  Rissa and David thought that I'd lost my mind, but they didn't understand the brilliance of the film.  It was cheese from beginning to end.  Spontaneous dance numbers, over-the-top comedy, self-aware irony - PLUS (but wait there's more!) a seemingly endless dance competition sequence!  And yet... and yet in the midst of all of this... there were a couple of tender and true dramatic moments that honest to God, caught my breath.

I need more.  I need recommendations.  I want the best.  I want the worst.  I want to get on the ride again and wave my arms in the air shrieking with the all-encompassing joy of it.  I mean, sure, I can make my way through Netflix and just try everything...   Wait!  What am I saying?!? That's exactly what I'm going to do... The good, the bad, the ridiculous - I will discover it all.  BRING IT ON!!

I am now officially pretentious...

David bought me a single serving Bodum.  I have a freaking French Press.  I'm going to start using he word 'whom' from now on.

Thing is?  In its adorably wee and compact single coffee serving sized carafe, it makes a helluva good cup of coffee.  I feel so Cosmopolitan.  And pretentious.  I am prepared to accept the pretension because I am now enjoying my morning coffee so much more on account of the fact that it tastes like, well, coffee... instead of weak chicory-flavoured bark.

Death sucks

Big time.  Really a lot.  I mean, HOLY CRAP does death suck!  You think you're doing okay until the deathiversary happens.  That day bitch slaps you every time.  Four years gone and your heart ruptures all over again - an explosion of cardiac tissue splattering your rib cage and spine.

You struggle for breath. A sip of air dragged into your red-covered lungs.  How is it that you can still breathe without a heart?  Cling to a memory - one of the good ones - where you were laughing together, being silly.  That split-second of joy chased away by anger and sadness and pain.  The hurt.  Not as bad as when you first found out, not as bad as that first fortnight staggering through life without her in the world, but those waves of pain tearing through you, in the now, have you teetering on the edge of nausea.

And even though you know she wouldn't want you to wallow in it - to drown in that pain - you think you're entitled.  Just for today.  For today you will rage against the fucking senseless loss of her.  You can remember the good tomorrow.  But today, the anniversary of her death, you're going to wail, you're going to scream, you're going to pray for the calm to eventually return.  Tomorrow, you'll smile when you think of her, but today... today you're fucking decimated.

memoria meus amicus

Pouty Mc-Pouts-A-Lot...

In the continuing saga of how Heather is a brain-dead bunny...  Apparently, I caused my own withdrawal. Because why?  Because I am a moron.  I mean, seriously.  WHAT. THE. FUCK.  There should be a picture of me next to the "Do not operate heavy machinery" warning.  

Last week?  When I tried to circumvent the pharmacy staff to get the refills on my old angina prescription?  I didn't even need to. The pharmacy had already filled the scrip.  The day I went in.  A week before I ran out of meds.  They called my doc and he faxed it in, I guess.  But did the pharmacy call to tell ME they did this?  NO.  They did NOT.  So here I was, trying to tricky-dick my way around the system and I didn't even need to.    I should have double-checked with the pharmacy!  Why didn't I check with the pharmacy?!?  Because I'm a moron.  Because I forgot.  Because my body is being held hostage by thyroid and/or  peri-menopause symptoms!

This entire last week of me not being able to sleep because of horrendous hot flashes, nausea and chest pain?  Could have been completely avoided...  if I weren't a moron.  Next time, and there WILL be a next time, I'll send myself reminders through my email...  Or maybe, I should just hire an assistant to help me with all of this!  A fit, attractive, young man who could, you know, keep me on task.   By reminding me of my appointments... whispering hotly in my ear as he gave me scheduled back rubs...  I'm pretty sure that would keep me on the ball... so to speak...

I won't wear pajamas! I won't! I won't! I won't!

I don't know if it was a byproduct of me still jonesing for my angina meds or the couple of glasses of wine I had last night during dinner, but Sweet Bleeding Yoni - Saturday night's night-sweats were EPIC.

Jenn from The IT Crowd during Aunt Irma's visit

I was UP.  All night.  Every hour on the hour from 12:30 a.m.  Jet engine torso - whipping off the blankets - micro-seconds of cool-air respite before room temperature chills upon my naked body forced me to reach for the blankets once more. Cycling through that chain of events ALL freaking night.  I might have to wear freaking pajamas in bed.  I hate pajamas.  What is the point of having spouse to snuggle with under the blankets if you can't be naked with the spouse!?!

David is researching how he can help me (and as a by-product of that, help him) through this time of my life.  These can apparently trigger hot flashes:

• Stress
• Caffeine
• Alcohol
• Spicy foods
• Tight clothing
• Heat
• Cigarette smoke

I don't smoke - boo yeah - big line through that one!  I try to avoid caffeine because I already knew that was a trigger.   How tight are we talking for clothing??  I don't wear skinny jeans and my torso apparel is generally loose to mask my back boobs and armpit boobs, so I think I'm good there.  That leaves stress, alcohol, spicy foods and heat.  Right now, until I get more angina meds, my reaction to stress is challenged, at best.  Alcohol - when I'm stressed - alcohol is incredibly helpful - not only does a Rusty Nail taste freaking great, the relaxation factor cannot be underestimated.  Please, oh please, please, please - I don't want to give up alcohol.  I will give up spicy foods if I'm allowed to keep the alcohol.  And  then there's HEAT.  It's Canada in the early spring.  It's not HOT.  At night our thermostat already goes down to 17 degrees.  Heat should not be a factor right now.

David's top idea is to have a small freezer in our room, storing specially-made cold pack gloves that he can whip on in the middle of the night when my core is heating to boiling and then he'll just rub them all over my naked body.  If we're both up anyway - we might as well do something fun, right?

Women know EVERYTHING!

Last weekend, my Mom and I were discussing periods.  You know, in that mother/daughter bonding/commiserative sort of way.  We waxed nostalgic about the days we started - she, the first day of high school... I, the evening after I'd been sexually molested by adolescent youths from my mixed softball team...  Mom then recounted, in minute detail, the weekend that she had her last ever period...  where they were, the drive up the mountain to the cabin... My Dad looked at us like we were idiot savants.

"How is is that you can remember the exact day that this happens?  How is that possible?"

"Dad, if you were bleeding out of your penis... you'd remember when it happened."

And that's how my accidental withdrawal started...

Okay, seriously?  Peri-menopause AND withdrawal symptoms?!?  WHAT.  THE.  FUCK.  Just frickin' shoot me now.

Last week, when I went to the pharmacy to refill my angina medication, they told me the scrip was over a year old and that they had to contact the physician to see if he would okay it.  Admittedly, the prescription was that old, but it still had 2 refills on it!    I'd only just started taking it again a couple of months ago, on account of the fact that when my attacks got really bad I did some more reading about this particular drug and discovered that said meds might take up to 4 weeks to work - which, it appears, they totally do, because after about 4 weeks, I could actually go out in cold air without pain and only the worst of stressors brought on agony in my chestal region. 

Yes, I should have called the doc's office myself and talked to them right then, when I had 6 more pills in the queue.  I forgot to call.  And then, when I finally remembered, it wasn't during office hours and the cardiologist's answering machine DOESN'T ALLOW YOU TO LEAVE MESSAGES!!  The fucking point of having an answering machine is to allow you LEAVE messages!!  Don't tease people by having an outgoing message and then totally fuck them over by informing them they can't LEAVE a message!!  What kind of sick fucks are you?  After some vehement ranting, I forgot... again.  Because, in addition to the angina, I have thyroid issues, of which, one of the symptoms is that you... FORGET THINGS.

Last night, when I had the mother of all hot flash attacks with accompanying nausea, I was all, "What the...?  Hot flash with a side of NAUSEA?!?"  I thought it might be the beginning of full-on fertility dry up, because why WOULDN'T the already enjoyable peri-menopause symptoms now involve incapacitating nausea?  So I got out of bed prepared to learn that my peri-menopause symptoms now had a +1.  Which is definitely a possibility according to many cross-referenced menopause sites, (you can't just read Wikipedia, it only counts if you look at at least another 4 sites) but (and this is one of those buts that you don't really want) I discovered that hot flashes with nausea could also be a sign of withdrawal - which set off my internal sound track that went DUN, DUN, DUUUUUUUUN... because I quickly realized that I've now run out of my angina meds.   So I called the cardiologist's office - again - outside of business hours, because that's the ONLY time I can apparently  remember to do it - and was reminded - again that their answering machine  DOESN'T ALLOW YOU TO LEAVE MESSAGES!!    Which I should have known, but FORGOT, because I have thyroid issues.

So now, I'm jonesing for calcium channel blockers.  Which, in turn, is making me stressed, which isn't the best thing for someone with angina who is no longer on her angina meds because she's been a complete fuck-nut and hasn't remembered to get in touch with the cardiologist during business hours to beg him to let the pharmacy fill her prescription.  Which he won't do, because the last time he saw me in person was over a year ago and if I wanted to see him again, even though I have seen him more than a 1/2 dozen times in the last 5 years, I have to go to my GP and get another referral to see the cardiologist.  I'm like that guest at a cocktail party who nobody ever remembers meeting, even though I'm at the same cocktail party EVERY frickin' Christmas!!

This morning, I circumvented the pharmacy and called the prescription in to their automated service, thinking that maybe the automated service would ignore that pesky date and only look at the number of refills and give them to me, because it's a machine - but then I realized that the machine probably won't actually be filling the prescription and that I'll get a phone call from a human at the pharmacy telling me that I have to see my doctor.  If this were The Matrix and the machines had already taken over the world, I'd have my meds by now.  And I'd bet they let me leave a message to thank them for it.

Small pill... SO much blood...

I'm taking baby aspirin.  In these wee, tiny, little pills - scattered amongst my morning vitamins.  They seem so innocent and nothing at all like blood thinners. 

Recently, when I maybe, just perhaps, gouged compulsively into my inner thigh, digging for a covert ingrown hair (for the love of Eastern Block Estheticians, can we please stop with the extra hair?!?), there was some self-surgical fallout...     resulting in lots and lots and lots of blood.  So much so, that I started quoting Lady Macbeth.  (Had I hit a freaking artery?!?)

I applied pressure with wadded up toilet paper for several minutes, but when that didn't work, I then sought out cotton balls... and band-aids.   And maybe a tourniquet.  Later, when I was taking the band-aid off, the teeny, tiny wound started to bleed again.  All this from one freaking baby aspirin a day.  Who would've thunk that such a small pill could be so powerful?  I'm glad that it was only one teeny-tiny ingrown hair that left me wounded - I'd have bled out if there'd been two.

Eat more! Get skinnier!

I think I need to eat more.  At meal times.  Since I started working 'outside the home' again, my eating habits have gone to utter crap.  Over lunch I usually have a dozen rice crackers with one of those wee cans of tuna - or maybe I'll have a Lara Bar and wash it down with some herbal tea.  Here I thought with me NOT having a calorie-laden lunch - I'd be back down to fighting trim, but it seems the opposite is happening.

The muffin-top approacheth.  When I sit at the computer (which is pretty much what I do at work, and then at home when I'm writing), I am now aware of my stomach over top of whatever waistband I'm wearing.  I think it's because when I get home from work, I now feel the need to snack/binge on salty and/or chocolaty things.  On account of the fact that I might actually be, I hate to suggest this... HUNGRY?!?

So today, I'm trying something different. I'm going out on a limb. Doing something crazy.  I'm adding applesauce at lunch.  Unbelievable, right?  But maybe if I have that little something more, that's actually good for me, I might be able to get a handle on these snacky cravings that I'm having later in the day.  I might even have some carrot sticks. (I don't want to go too over the top, but it might just come to that.)  I'm trying the 'MORE healthful calories during the day = LESS compulsive salt/chocolate bingeing in the afternoon' plan... ergo... EAT MORE!  GET SKINNIER!!  Fingers crossed my hypothesis will work.