Perpetual Smile

I’ve always had a hard time admitting when something is too hard or when I need help. I’m stubborn and fiercely independent. I also tend to get hit with big ideas and goals, and then I jump into them without thinking them through.

During the last couple of months, I’ve constantly felt as if I could barely keep my head above the water. It wasn’t just school. It was also work, my health problems, my relationship with Mike, and a deep inner yearning to toss everything away and get back to writing. Every aspect of my life suffered, and I with it. I kept trying to ignore the problem, kept trying to look at the bright side. “I can do this,” I’d tell myself, and with renewed strength I’d plow on through. But several days later I would be back in the same position, tired from all of the swimming and barely avoiding the waves of my To Do list from pulling me completely under.

Tuesday night I did not sleep. My legs were wrecked with a pain so intense that I could not do anything other than toss and turn. I wanted to scream, but the people in my house slept soundly around me. I lay there for hours, trapped in a prison that is supposed to be my body, until I finally threw the covers back and got up. I did a lot of bitching on Facebook, which I sort of regret (but only because I don’t like showing any kind of weakness).

I popped in the last DVD of Dollhouse Season 1 and watched “Epitaph One” and the original unaired pilot. I watched a whole bunch of special features. And still the pain wore on. I could barely concentrate, and although I felt so tired, I could not fall asleep. Pain like that is maddening, and I didn’t think I could stand another minute of it.

I logged into Facebook again, wandering around aimlessly, when Mike messaged me. He couldn’t sleep either. We had each been awake for hours, fighting our demons alone, but a simple website had allowed us to come together. We talked on the phone for a long time, sharing our thoughts and soothing each other. I asked him the question that I have been longing to ask but too proud to put into words: “Why is this happening to me?”

“I don’t know. I wish I had an answer,” he said, and I could hear in his voice the frustration and pain he felt for me.

We talked some more, and suddenly the conversation turned to school. Suddenly, I could no longer hide the sensation of drowning that I had been feeling for the last couple of months. “I don’t even know where I’m going to be in five years,” I said, possibly unnecessarily morbidly. I confessed how stressed out I’m feeling, and how I just can’t seem to stay ahead or even on track of everything.

“Well,” he said. “I’m not saying this is what you should do, but maybe you should think about dropping out. Take the time to concentrate on finding out what’s wrong. You can always go back.”

There. He’d said the words that I’d been too stubborn to even think about, but had known deep in my heart for several weeks.

“But, I don’t know if it will affect my GPA,” I said, still stubbornly clinging.

“Screw the GPA,” he said. “It’s just a GPA.”

(Twenty-four hours later, my mom and I would have the same conversation, and she would say the exact thing he had: “It’s just a GPA.”)

“Just think about it,” he said. “School will always be there.”

For the next several hours, while I lay in bed not sleeping, and then when I barely slept tossing and turning, I thought about it. I admitted to myself that the stress of all the things I had stubbornly taken on might be making things worse. I admitted that I’m doing horribly in school and that at this point it is probably too late. I admitted that I needed to really concentrate on me, and that only then would I be able to do well in school.

After talking to my mom and then thinking about it a little more, I decided to do what my heart has wanted to do for several weeks now. I began the withdrawal process yesterday, and already I feel as if a huge weight has been lifted from me.

I have promised myself that I am not going to do this to myself again. I’m not going to jump into an idea that sounds awesome without thinking it through first. I’m going to learn to concentrate on one or two things at a time, without overloading myself. I’m going to take care of myself and find a way to find out what it wrong with me. I’m going to stop taking on so much that I end up burning myself out.

And, more importantly, I’m going to do what I love: I’m going to spend the entire month of November writing a novel without worrying about exams and portfolios and lesson plans and math.

I have taken the first step: I’ve admitted that, while I do really love kids, I’ve had doubts about becoming a teacher and going through this program. While I like school, it’s been incredibly stressful for me and I just honestly can’t handle it right now.

And that is okay. Just hearing it from Mike and Mom, that it’s okay, makes it easier for me to believe.

It’s okay, and I’m going to be okay.

In case you needed to know, I feel like a zombie that got ran over by a school bus about ninety times. I’ve got some kind of bug — or a really, really brutal sinus infection — and missed work and class today because I feel like crap.

To top it off, when I called my regular doctor (my primary care doctor, NOT the office where I see Pam the PA), they didn’t even seem to care. The receptionist just brushed me off and told me she’d have the doctor call in a prescription. Um, hello? You can’t just call in a prescription without seeing me! I could have swine flu or something, for all you know!! (Not that I have swine flu. I’m just sayin’.)

This was at 9:30 this morning. Two episodes of Dollhouse later, I still hadn’t heard back from them. So I called again, she brushed me off again, and told me the doctor just got in — apparently doctors don’t have to come in to the office until 11 am now — and that they would call me once he’d called in the prescription. I felt too shitty and dumbfounded to argue.

“Okay…” I said before she hung up. Hooray for health care.

Then I decided to call Pam the PA’s office. They can’t fit me in until tomorrow morning, so it looks like I’m going to miss another day of work (missed Monday because of the holiday), which means I’m going to have to use my vacation time (since I don’t get sick time). Either that or be broke, which I already am. (I’m a web designer and I’m broke. I still can’t figure that out.)

My primary care doctor’s office finally called me around 2 this afternoon. She said the doctor called in a prescription for an antibiotic and a cough medicine.

“Cough medicine?” I asked.

“You said you had a cough.”

“Yeah, from my allergies!” I then explained my symptoms again: low fever, sinus pressure, very sore throat, fatigue.

“Well, we don’t have to call in the cough medicine. We can just call in the antibiotic.”

I sighed. “Fine.”

I have yet to go pick up my prescription. I don’t have the energy, and how do I even know that I need an antibiotic? There are a lot of bugs going around right now, so I don’t want to just take some medicine if I don’t need it. Maybe I need a specific antibiotic. Of course, they wouldn’t know, because they couldn’t be bothered to see me.

Argh, health care.

Did I mention that my good friend, Chronic Pain, is here to visit today too? So on top of a sinus headache and a sore throat, I’ve also got achy legs.

At least I get to watch Dollhouse.

Growing up, my mom always reminded us over and over to change our underwear. The old mantra goes something like, “change your underwear in case you have to go to the emergency room.” I always changed my underwear, of course, but I could never figure out why it mattered. In my little mind, I thought the only reason I’d go to the emergency room would be if I got into a car accident. And, of course, if I got into a car accident I would probably wet myself (or worse), so obviously my underwear wouldn’t be clean when I got there.

I made it almost twenty-one years without ever going to the emergency room. Well, wait. I went once when I was fifteen, when I was more depressed than I’ve ever been in my life and didn’t want to be in my head anymore. But I went to the Behavioral Health section and spent the night locked in a narrow room, lying on a narrow bed. I didn’t get any IVs, though I did get to wear a gown (never understood why hospital gowns have open backs; they’re so freaking cold!), and little booties. The only other times I’d been to the ER were to bring someone else, and I almost went in that time I got stung by a wasp and my hand went numb but decided not to sign in and went home instead. (I like to push my luck, what can I say?)

So I pretty much made it twenty-one years without anything really major happening to me, until Tuesday.

I held my face over the plastic bowl we normally use for baking, balancing on my hands and knees. My entire body kept shaking, but not from being cold. I’d been randomly twitching and shaking for the last couple of hours, but hadn’t said anything because I’d felt so out of it. Spots danced in front of my eyes and my vision kept flickering, like strobe lights. I had no idea how many times I’d thrown up in the last five or so hours.

“Mom,” I said. I couldn’t breathe through my nose, so my voice sounded strange. “I wanna go to the hospital.”

She didn’t hear me in the other room. She came rushing in with two cold cloths — one to clean my face and one to cool me off. I felt like a prisoner inside of my own head. I couldn’t calm down, but I knew that I had to stay calm or things would only get worse. I felt dizzy and nauseous, and the fact that I was still shaking and my vision was still off scared me more than anything.

“I want to go to the hospital,” I said again.

“Okay,” she said. I stayed on the floor while she called my dad and told him she wanted to take me. I couldn’t keep anything down; not ginger ale, not chamomile tea — nothing. I hadn’t taken any of the pain medication my oral surgeon had prescribed me in about ten hours because I’d been so nauseous and sick, but the pain was besides the point. I didn’t have any strength left in me, and I was terrified.

We drove to the hospital at about eleven-thirty that night. I could barely remember the day or even the last couple of hours. I remember clinging to the door handle the entire ride there, my eyes closed. I remember it feeling like my mom was speeding, even though she normally drives the speed limit.

The emergency room was nearly empty by some stroke of luck. They took my vitals and information as soon as we walked in. I couldn’t stop apologizing, to myself or my parents. “I was doing so well. I was taking deep breaths and that was helping with the nausea. I was sipping the tea.” I think I was delirious.

In less than twenty minutes they had me in a gown lying on a really comfortable gurney. My nurse — Emily — popped an IV in me and gave me fluids and some anti-nausea medicine. Within ten minutes I began to feel a little better. I could stop fighting — almost.

The doctor who saw me — Dr. Sanders — said I was dehydrated. We’d been so worried about me getting dehydrated that none of us had realized it had already happened. Dr. Sanders was really nice. For some reason, I had expected her and all of the other staff to be rushed and stone cold. Maybe I watch too many movies. Maybe they all had an extra supply of TLC because the ER was so slow. Maybe I just looked pathetic.

Once the fluids and the Zofran kicked in, the pain volume went way up. Normally, I think I’m pretty good at dealing with pain. I mean, I deal with it every day so I think I’ve gotten pretty good at managingignoring it. But at that point, I was just too tired. I had used every ounce of energy in me fighting the nausea and the pain for the last two hours. I didn’t want any more Vicodin (what my surgeon had prescribed me initially), and I didn’t want any Percocet (what my surgeon prescribed me after the Vicodin stopped working).

“Can I have Tylenol?”

Emily went to go grab Dr. Sanders for orders for Tylenol. She came back with morphine.

My eyes widened. “It’s not gonna make me sick, is it?” The thought of throwing up one more time sent me into a frenzy; if given the choice, I’ll take pain over nausea any day.

“No, it won’t make you sick. I’ll give it to you real slow. And I have extra Zofran in my pocket, just in case.”

“Okay,” I said, deciding that maybe at that point I could throw up one more time, if it meant that the mindless throbbing in my mouth would stop.

There really are no words to describe the pain. Basically, it radiated from the four holes where my wisdom teeth had been into the top of my head, my jaw, and my ears. It was like a red pulse, except I could feel it and it did NOT feel good.

And suddenly, it was gone. My head felt light and airy. I felt like all of the pain had been soaked up into some invisible atom inside of my head.

“Mommy,” I said. “My head feels spongy!” Emily, Mom, and Dad all laughed, and I laughed with them. I felt like I was floating on clouds. I could feel my mouth, but there was no pain. At all. My teeth felt like they were sinking into my head. Like a sponge.

I stayed for another little while, long enough to finish up the fluids and for Dr. Sanders to write me a prescription for more Zofran and Tylenol with codeine (AKA Tylenol 3) in lieu of the Percocet. I was advised to drink tons of Gatorade and to start out eating soups, working my way up to solid foods. Then they discharged me. I went home, had some tomato soup and some Gatorade, and passed out.

I got the best sleep I’d gotten — and would get — in days. And my underwear? Were clean the entire time.

What was the scariest thing that’s ever happened to you? Tell me, I demand to know!

I feel sick right now, and it isn’t just the cold I caught.

I just got back from a vacation in Idiotville and decided to register for a class this summer. The bill? $1126. For just one class.

I can set up a payment plan, which would be four payments of $281.50, plus a $45 payment plan fee with the first payment. Can you say ouch?

Did I mention that I also need to buy CS4? The copy of CS3 that I had is dead (don’t ask: it’s a long, painful story), and the trial I downloaded dies in three or four days.

I’d just let the CS4 go but I need it for work. I can’t very well take on freelance jobs with just MS Paint and Notepad.

The question here, folks, is why in the world does one class cost more than a thousand beans?

I know I’ll figure it out — I always do — but in the meantime, I’m going to consider bounty hunting or human trafficking.

PS: I forgot to add that I also need to buy a new phone; my current phone keeps turning itself on, even though it’s already on. Yeah.

My sister is eating Spicy Doritos and popcorn — right in front of me.

This wouldn’t be such a big deal if I could swallow.

This morning, as I got ready for work (I went in to make up for being out Tues/Weds), my throat was a little sore. By the time I got home early this afternoon, I was having a bitch of a time swallowing.

I talked to my aunt a little while ago. She said this virus has been going around, and even with antibiotics it takes forever to go away.

I thought I was home free. I spent yesterday eating pretty normal food — as opposed to soup and oatmeal. I was saving the Doritos for today.

I can smell those delicious spicy nacho chips from five feet away, and it’s driving me crazy.

Since my throat feels like it’s swollen ten times its normal size, and I know you guys don’t wanna read about how awful I feel, I thought I’d give you a list of three things that are more important than how sick I am right now. Particularly this goes out to Sarcastica, who seems to have a lot of jokes about my current condition.

1. Diary of a Palestinian Mother is a firsthand account of how it feels to have family on the war-torn Gaza Strip. Laila shows us that there is a lot more going on in our world than we know.
2. Elizabeth and Katy Hughes give homelessness a face. It’s time to stop ignoring what is happening right in front of our faces. One of our fellow bloggers is living it, but she isn’t the only one. Help Liz and Katy get off the streets, and then help the homeless in your neighborhood.
3. Ten Thousand Questions gets you to think about things you normally don’t think about. By thinking about the questions posted every day, you get to know yourself just a little better.

• Her equilibrium will most likely be more off than usual. Be prepared to catch her when she falls or when she sways to the left or right. Leave extra lights on just in case she has to make a midnight trip to the bathroom, and keep a flashlight on hand for emergencies.
• Be her personal heater or air conditioner. She’s probably going to take the blankets off and put them right back on more than you can count, so be sure to keep her extra tucked in when she’s cold and allow her easy escape for when she gets hot.
• If your gal is using NyQuil, refrain from keeping her awake. She will most likely babble and then fall over drunk when she tries to get up. When you catch her, tuck her right back in and stop any attempts she makes at getting up again.
• When she tries to steal the blanket from you in her sleep — even if she already has her own — let her. She’ll probably be hot again in a minute, anyway.
• In the morning, when she tells you she feels unsexy, don’t lie to her. Instead, tell her how unsexy you feel.
• Don’t sweat it when she doesn’t thank you for taking her out to breakfast. She’s too out of it to remember her manners.