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.