MFA Mama

slump

   I have missed a LOT of work over this latest oral surgery drama of Hotter's. This whole "easily could have gone septic and died" thing hit me like a ton of bricks and I just want to make sure he's breathing, OKAY PEOPLE? Also I have some kind of lung lurgy and my entire back is seized up and OH MY GOD MONEY and...I dunno. I feel like I could sleep for a week. At least.

   How do YOU break out of a slump?

I hate people, bunnies, rainbows, happiness...and anything I may have omitted from that list

   I finally dragged my arse back to work today, despite an aching back and still feeling like utter dookie from this bronchitis-y largynitis-y Cold of Filth (tm May)...but had to leave before lunch because I am cursed by life, as evidenced by a) Pfeffer the very-pregnant rabbit disappearing on Hotter and b) the HEALTH DEPARTMENT sending us a notice that they'd received a complaint about our not using a proper outdoor trash receptacle and threatening to charge us with a class III misdemeanor. SERIOUSLY, CRAZY TRASHCAN NEIGHBOR??? So I had to come home, assess the situation, bust up the floor of an old shed in order to reach and extract the (very angry, vicious, HOLY HAND-GRENADEWORTHY) rabbit hiding underneath, make a garbage run, and mow the lawn for good measure. And sometime in the course of all of that, a mosquito bit the HELL out of me. Remember how I said I'm allergic to mosquito bites and prefer beestings? This is why:

Figure One: Hand shown for scale. And yes, I just put my stretchmarks on the innernet. It's not so much that I have no shame (although I pretty much don't) as that I have a connective tissue disease, and therefore I have these from my neck to my ankles. So I'm kind of over them.

Figure Two: In this one you can see how it's starting to swell. 

   So yeah, I hate everygoddamnthing right now. But especially Crazy Trashcan Neighbor. I think next payday I WILL go and buy a trashcan JUST LIKE HERS, but I will have to mark it with spraypaint so that we can tell them apart.

   Mine will be the one that says "SCREW YOU" in foot-high neon letters.

MFA Mama: 0/MFA Honeybees: 3

   So I'm still home sick, although I think I'm on the mend (I can make a noise besides a whisper today, although I still sound like a pubescent goose). This gave me a chance to go and mess with the bees, though! When I picked them up the beekeeping instructor showed me where they'd built one of the frames out a bit too far. "You'll want to go in tomorrow and trim that back," he said nonchalantly. Okay! Right! 

   So this morning I set out to do just that, and about the best thing I can say about how it went is that I am DEFINITELY not allergic to beestings. Note to self: do NOT forget to rubberband your pants-legs next time! I got the comb trimmed, but made kind of a mess of it, and I'm sad that I ended up killing the three bees that crawled up my pants and stung me (plus however many I may have smooshed in manipulating the frames). I guess it's kind of a good thing I got that over with, though. The last time I was stung by a bee before today I was just a kid and I remember it as SEARING AGONY. The me of today found the stings to be less unpleasant than mosquito bites (I am VERY allergic to mosquitoes) and won't be scared to mess with the hive next time.

today was a lot like my ex-husband...

...in that all it did was kick my ass, spend my money, and waste my fucking time.

   *rimshot*

   Seriously though, the ER did a CT scan of Hotter's head and some bloodwork, said everything looked good and they had NO idea why he was so ill, and discharged him with instructions to follow up with...TRANSPLANT. So it's like a giant medical circlejerk with my husband in the middle (barfing, most likely), and this is why Hotter usually isn't allowed to go to the doctor without me. Because I probably would've cut Transplant off at the knees when they sent him to the goddamn ER, or at the very least put the kibosh on the ER being all "your brain and blood are normal so have fun throwing up and passing out at home, sucka!" Since he's been hypotensive for the past week I'm thinking SOMEbody probably needs to scale back one or more of his BP meds, which only Transplant can really do (they manage those, plus nobody else will alter a transplant patient's meds). Either that or Hotter just needs to sack up and quit being such a wussy about having a BP in the 90s over 60s, because I walk around like that every goddamn day and you don't see ME retiring to my fainting couch over it.

   The MFA Children and I were actually on our way to go and get our bees when Hotter called to say he'd been discharged. So everybody got to go along for the ride! I was kind of worried because I have the kind of veil that goes over a hat (that is the cheapest kind) and my feral children destroyed my straw gardening hat (which I'd been planning to use with the veil) doing some kind of Mexican hat dance on the thing, but then I realized that their plastic Bob the Builder hard hat would a) fit me and b) have enough of a brim all the way around it to hold the veil. So I swiped that to use (really, it's the least those rotten kids could do!), and my beekeeping instructor at least had the courtesy to go and laugh at me in private. And now we have bees!

    Man, I hope I'm well enough to go to work tomorrow.

crowdsourcing, because I really don't even know what to do with this

   So. I didn"t go to work, which should tell you everything you need to know about how my back is. I got up when the alarm went off, and shuffled to the bathroom, holding onto the hallway wall all the way, and then in transferring into the bathroom, proper, almost fell flat because my right leg twitched out and then buckled at the knee. I caught myself on the vanity (my arms are okay--it hurts to move them, but only because that pulls on my trunk; whatever this is is down at L5, which I know because that is where I broke my back and it is ALWAYS L5), and took a moment to get my shit together and think. Seeing as it's my right leg that's the most wonky (and given that I have nerve damage in my left leg from the break twenty-one years ago that alone is pretty alarming), that was one strike against going to work anyway. Because that's my pedal-pushing leg, obviously, and while the MFA Minivan has cruise control, braking in a timely manner is essential to safe driving. The whole "not able to walk/balance worth a shit without holding onto things" scenario was strike two, obviously. I mean, I do possess a Rollator, but all concerns of personal dignity aside (I pretty much got over those when I had to use the thing to get around for months and months a few years ago), the idea of lifting it in and out of the MFA Minivan seemed tremendously optimistic at best (and downright idiotic at worst) (in the Rollator's defense it is VERY lightweight, but it weighs more than string cheese. So). Strike three was the fact that I had an hour-long anxiety attack* in the wee hours of the morning after sternly telling myself I NEEDED to sleep to go to work and that it was mind over motherfucking matter, and I looked and felt like someone operating on three hours' nightmare-riddled sleep following an hour's helpless tears.

   I so totally can't even afford this, y'all.

   But since my body doesn't seem to give a shit about what I can and cannot afford or tolerate, I have to decide what to do about this, and since I cannot, even with unpacking and examining my reasons for liking or disliking any one option, discern what the best way to handle this would be, I'm crowdsourcing it and giving y'all a chance to weigh in.

Option One: Do nothing, by which I mean continue to take NSAIDs and Tylenol-laced narcotics, ice my lower back, and move as little as possible up until VERY CAREFULLY stretching, applying heat, and gradually ramping my level of activity back up is feasible. This is what I've been doing so far. Pros include not costing anything, not having to leave the house, and the fact that historically this always turns out to have been the wisest course of action in cases like this. Cons include possibly running out of leftover dentist pills before the pain is less terrifying, the possibility of overlooking something like a disc issue, and the fact that seeking some medical attention MIGHT have me back in fighting (or at least white-collar working) form sooner than this.

Option Two: Drag my sorry ass to Urgent Care (my GP, in addition to being on my shit list, doesn't have an x-ray suite in her office). Pros include ruling disc issues in or out via x-ray and neuro exam, documentation to show my boss (who doesn't care about such things and kind of rolls his eyes when I present him with doctor's notes after absences, but I like to demonstrate accountability), and possibly obtaining better pain relief in the form of steroids and/or more narcotics. Cons include costing money,having to leave the house, and  the fact that realistically and based on precedent this won't actually make me feel any better any sooner than waiting it out.

   What say ye? At this point I could argue either side, and Hotter is the KING of "whatever you want to do about it, baby," so I'm interested to see what other people think.

 

*   Which...what the fuck? All self-deprecating hyperbole aside, I haven't had a genuine anxiety attack like that in YEARS, like, probably at least three of them. And yet there I was having a conversation with myself in the wee hours that went something like "There is absolutely no reason to hurt yourself rolling over to make sure nobody is standing at the end of the bed, because the dogs would've gone nuts if someone had broken in and ZOMBIES ARE NOT REAL YOU ARE JUST BEING STUPID ABOUT THE ZOMBIES, THIS IS NOT AT ALL LIKE YOU WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, ANYWAY I MEAN ZOMBIES, SERIOUSLY???" And then I finally went to sleep and had nightmares about my maternal progenitor until the alarm went off.

in which I have a mostly good weekend and clearly it angers the gods

*   Friday night Hotter came down with Middle Child's most recent GI bug.

*   Undaunted, and fortified with Immodium and a fabulous purse filled with snacks, we sallied forth on Saturday and saw The Hunger Games with those movie vouchers. It was excellent.

*   Sunday I mowed, edged, trimmed, and weeded ALL THE THINGS. Which is good, because it rained all damn day Saturday and rained again today and the plants (the grass included) are all growing like mofos.

*   Today was Big Child's birthday. In preparation for that I went into work an hour and fifteen minutes early, left early, ran to Trader Joe's with my rubber checkbook, and got groceries (we were out of EVERYTHING). Then I headed straight home, brought the groceries into the house, and...threw my back ALL THE WAY OUT reaching to put a package of organic string cheese away in the fridge.

*   Yeah. I can dig three-foot trenches, throw sixty-pound bags of potting soil around, hell, I can dead-lift my HUSBAND and carry him on a triumphant lap around our living room just to be a dick prove a point, but a one-pound bag of cheese sticks? Dropped me in my tracks today like I'd been pole-axed.

*   This is the worst back pain I have ever experienced, I think. Including the time I broke my goddamn back. I have taken a liver-damaging amount of Tylenol-laced narcotics and a hefty dose of naproxen (FUCK MY CLOTTING TIME! IN THE ASS! WITH EVERY DICK THAT EVER THERE WAS, THIS IS THAT BAD) and I still can't move any of my limbs without yelping. Also, my legs aren't working very well. Nobody panic, this isn't all that unusual for me when my back is acting up, it's just never been THIS BAD before. I like to think I have a pretty robust pain threshold, but this has me whimpering like a little bitch. If I don't wake up tomorrow miraculously improved I don't have any idea what I'll do.

*   Well, that's a damn lie. Unless I lose the ability to walk I will go to work anyway and be fucking MISERABLE all day, is what I'll do. But right now I don't see how I'll manage. Of course, I didn't see how I'd bake the requested triple-coconut/vanilla layer cake earlier, either, and I still did that, so I guess I'll do what I have to do and even smile during if need be. I'm just not particularly looking forward to it.

*   How are all of YOU?

...and today forgot it entirely :(

   This morning I woke up before my (extra-early) alarm, and got to the office before dawn, and was kicking ass and taking names RIGHT UP UNTIL LUNCHTIME when I got The Call from the elementary school clinic: "Middly is complaining of a stomachache and headache, and has a temperature. Isn't this what happened when he ended up in the hospital?"

   Eff. Word.

   A quick call to the Lord of The Douche (a.k.a. the XY) was fruitless, and the across-the-street neighbors who have given Hotter an emergency ride to the elementary school with replacement pants in the past weren't home, so I packed up my work computer and hit the road, employing every four-letter word I know on the way (it's a twenty-five minute drive).

   While I am very relieved to report that this is NOTHING like what happened when he ended up in the hospital, the kid IS sick. He complained of nausea when we got home, so I dosed him up on Tylenol and Zofran, and he was able to keep some ramen down and is hydrated. So that's good.

   What's NOT good is that I had to cancel two meetings, and was already down four hours from Monday (when I worked a half-day from home while caring for Hotter after his oral surgery), and tomorrow is Friday so I don't have time to make up the hours before the end of the week. BALLS!

   So yeah, I'll be going in early again tomorrow, and Hotter is under strict orders to keep anyone who looks the least bit peaked home tomorrow, because GAHHH.

   How are all of YOU?

poverty shaming, the 261-calorie lunch, and Hotter has oral surgery

I.   So I think maybe I'm still a little raw from the incident with the Old Biddy Neighbor. Today I am off work, because I had to go to traffic court over one of the expired registration tickets I got when I couldn't afford to update the MFA Minivan's registration and got ticketed (the case was dismissed when I showed the judge my registration and I was out the door in ten minutes), and also Hotter had oral surgery (which I scheduled for a day I knew I'd have to miss work anyway, because I am efficient like that) and I had to drive him to and from that and take care of him afterward. I was also thinking that maybe if Hotter was feeling up to it, we could use a movie ticket voucher I've had kicking around for a while and go to see The Hunger Games. Here is an update I wrote on the Facespace earlier today:

Figure One: Yeah, I didn't match the shade on the name-text very well, but use your imaginations.

   Here is the comment addendum I added to the first status (I had already covered this on the Twitter, then forgot I hadn't told the facespace about the ticket voucher and panicked a little), and what a couple of friends had to say about it:

Figure Two: This time I didn't even try. Y'all can tell which one I am, right?

   And now it is kind of bothering me because I wonder if I'm not being a jerk here. My friends are easier on me than I am about pretty much everything, I think out of affection, but...am I being a jerk? Goodness knows I am against poverty-shaming. Poor folks have enough to worry about without judgment from others, and I hate to read about this kind of thing, because I've been judged in the grocery line before and it doesn't feel good (like okay, with Food Stamps? They give you WAY MORE to spend on food each month than I do when I am buying our groceries out of pocket, and when my family received Food Stamps I often used to buy fresh organic berries with them because fresh berries used to be one of the only things Little Child would eat by mouth and with the way he used to be allergic to so many things I wanted to make sure he didn't react to some pesticide or herbicide on the berries and cause us to think he couldn't have the berries themSELVES...more than once I had a cashier look at me like "SERIOUSLY?" and it's not like the g-tube showed when Little Child had clothes on)...but then I see some folks talking about how poor they are but going out to eat frequently, going on vacations where they spend a lot on travel costs and hotel rooms, seeing movies several times per month, and it irks me. Because while I don't doubt that those people FEEL like they're poor, in my reality if I did those things we'd have to go without something really important, like my health insurance coverage (the MFA Children are on the XY's policy), or car insurance (which we did go without for a while, and which I got roasted for openly in the comments one time and remedied as soon as I was able to), or, you know, FOOD or MEDICINE or something. It's been over a year since I saw a movie in the theater. The last time I went on vacation was BlogHer '10 and we've NEVER been on a family vacation. We don't eat out, PERIOD (I think the last time we ate out as a family was Big Child's birthday last year, and when we did that it was because a generous friend had given us a gift card to Red Robin...and Big Child's birthday is coming up AGAIN in a week and a half,* so...yeah. It's been a while. The last time before THAT was over a year previous, too.). Maybe our definition of "poor" and other people's definition of "poor" differ? Or maybe I should feel badly for the folks who are crying poor and still doing all of those things, because maybe it indicates an inability to be realistic about their situation and make smart choices? I don't know. I might be wired a little different in that I've NEVER really had the money to do those kinds of things, and therefore don't miss them--maybe some folks really DO feel like life isn't worth living without seeing movies, eating out, and going on trips (although personally I think if I was feeling that way I'd be more tempted to break the bank on a co-payment to talk to my psychiatrist about it, if anything)? Something about this whole thing isn't sitting right with me, and I can't quite put my finger on it. Ideas?

II. I mentioned on the Twitter that I'd made myself a 261-calorie lunch and it was delicious and filled my belly, and someone asked me to blog about it, so here goes. You will need:

a pat of butter
a splash of milk
five eggs
1 ounce Trader Joe's light feta cheese (most "light" cheese isn't worth eating, but this stuff is a delightful exception--I actually prefer it to the regular variety taste-wise!) 
2 cups baby spinach
a slice of onion
Texas Pete
salt and pepper to taste 

   Dice the onion up and saute it in the butter. Break the eggs into a bowl, separating out all but one of the yolks (discard the four other yolks, or feed them to your pets, or whatever), then add the splash of milk, a few sprinkles of Texas Pete (which adds an excellent flavor and also colors the egg so that it doesn't have that unappetizing white-y look you get when using just or mostly eggwhites), and your spices. Whisk it together. When the onions have clarified, add the spinach, and when the spinach has wilted, add the egg mixture to the pan. Cook until the eggs are the way you like them (I like mine hard-cooked, because runny eggs squick me out). Dish that up, crumble the feta on top, and enjoy. According to Myfitnesspal this has 261 calories.

III. Hotter had oral surgery today. Our dentist did it in his office, but it was kind of gory (Hotter had a tooth that was broken off below the gumline except for one lone splinter that stuck up a little...I couldn't even look at it without gagging and don't know how he stood it, although he said it didn't really bother him). While we were there I went ahead and scheduled the next round of work for the end of May (when my NEXT traffic court date for the expired registration is) (that's the last one though!)...it will be $360. I don't know how I am going to pay for that, but I said that about this month's work and last month's, and I guess I'll think of something. I will be SO GLAD when every month doesn't include a bunch of dental work for Hotter, y'all, you don't even KNOW. In the post-op instructions they said Hotter wasn't allowed to suck on anything because it could cause dry sockets. I turned to him and said "WELL THAT IS JUST GREAT, HOW ARE YOU GOING TO RAISE THE MONEY TO PAY ME BACK NOW?" because I am awesome like that. Also, here are some things I tweeted while I was waiting that people seemed to find amusing:

Figure Three: He doesn't actually have a third nipple. But then I DO NOT ACTUALLY FART IN MY SLEEP, so we're even!

*   And I don't EVEN want to think about it, because a) I haven't gotten him anything and b) he has mentioned several times that he wants to go to Red Robin again this year because he enjoyed it so much last year, but um, NOT GONNA HAPPEN. Crap. 

a partial list of reasons why I pretty much quit life

*   I am having a full-blown autoimmune flare, which sucks immeasurably. I've been limping around in denial for a couple of days, but had to admit today that my SI joint is in open rebellion. The funny thing is, I actually sat there all confused for a minute when it dawned on me that this was autoimmune in nature. "How odd," I though. "I haven't been under any extraordinary stress recentl--oh." While I was not, at any point, even when he was screaming his head off and frantic in the ER, concerned for Middly's life or long-term wellbeing, spending the night at St. Somebody's where most of Little Child's scariest hospitalizations took place...well, I think it broke my psyche to the point that I honestly blocked it out until I took a moment to think about what in my life might've stressed me out to the point that my body turned on me.

*   Dr. Plastic Fantastic's office e-mailed me an estimate for the procedure for Jank Jaw:

Figure One: Today I balanced the checkbook, and we have $1.26 to get us through until Tuesday, so. Yeah. Not doing THIS any time soon...

*   Apparently, Bayer doesn't feel like honeybees are going extinct fast enough. Dick move, Bayer. I will never buy your brand of 81-mg aspirin for Hotter again, or anything else you make (we use mostly generics here at Casa MFA, so this won't hurt TOO much, although we do use Advantage on the dogs...it's not the only spot-treatment for flea and tick control though!).

*   One of my children is going through a period of OCD-like behaviors and germaphobia that is...well. Let's just say that said child finding an aphid on a leaf of lettuce in their salad bowl tonight ruined dinner for EVERYONE. It was so ridiculous that halfway through the fit I plucked the offending lettuce leaf out of the child's hand and ATE IT, APHID AND ALL just to prove that that isn't something that'll kill you. Yeah, I ate a bug. At the dinner table. IT'S COME TO THAT.

*   And then I went outside to grab some seedlings that I bring in at night and stepped down barefoot on a huge, juicy slug. *GAG*

*   And how are all of YOU?

my body is an asshole

*   I am home sick today, which I can ill afford, but the stomach bug that felled Middle Child over the last Daddy Weekend got Hotter, Little Child, and Big Child yesterday and today it is my turn. I'm actually less sick than I thought I would be when I took stock after the alarm went off and kind of regretting staying home, because I *probably* could have at least APPEARED to keep it together at work today, but...meh. Probably I could use the rest. I've developed a whole new fear of what my body will unleash on me if I don't listen to it lately...

*   Speaking of which, yesterday was a horrible day with Jank Jaw; Hotter reported that the night before last it sounded like I was chewing rocks in my sleep, which I guess accounts for the ringing earache and splitting headache that lasted ALL DAY. Eff me. I am starting to think the grisly procedure the oral surgeon suggested might be warranted, after all (although there is a huge difference between "warranted" and "going to happen" because of "money").

*   The above might have SEEMED like I was just whining, but apparently calling my body out on stuff shames it into toeing the line. Remember the weight issue? Well, now look:

Figure One: Yeah, I dunno either, but I'll take it! Five weeks into the diet, and I am down by 0.2 pounds. Still, things are heading in the right direction! I was seriously considering calling my endocrinologist and asking him to weigh in (SEE WHAT I DID THERE?) on this, because while on one hand going to the doctor for anything short of "arterial spurting" at this point goes against every frugal little fiber of my being, on the other hand gaining a significant amount of weight while active and on a reduced-calorie diet is potentially a sign of Things Going Awry that ought to be addressed. For now I'm just going to keep watching this and blame the steroids.

*   I feel like all I talk about anymore on here is my stupid health, which is not what I want this blog to turn into AT ALL. What would y'all like to hear about next? Possible topics include DIY drip irrigation, how I haven't used shampoo in over a month and don't miss it a bit, homemade dishwasher detergent, and what's growing in the garden. Also I read the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy if anyone wants to talk about that. How are all of YOU?