They'll All Be Sorry When I'm Gone

[copied from dland]

(I'm not going anywhere.)

I'm all into self-pity mode here, and the chest pain just keeps making me think that when I have my heart attack next week (or at whatever time is convenient for me), then all the morons where I work will realize that they have done me wrong and will feel remorse and will apologize to me when I come back to work all healthy-like.

Yeah.

Did I even mention this part of the story yesterday? (I'm writing at work, so I can't check my diary to see what I wrote.) At the stupid faculty meeting, we were working in departmental groups -- the SCM and I were dumped in with another department -- and the new VP strolled by and I mentioned that our "group" answers might make more sense if the SCM and I submitted as our own group. She said no, we should be part of the larger group, even though I pointed out that we don't teach the same thing or in the same way. Anyway, I told her, the chairman of the project for our group was sitting at the other end of the table in a very noisy room, and I couldn't hear anything he said, so I didn't expect to be able to participate much.

And as she breezed off to monitor the next table, she gave me this advice: "Talk louder!"

I almost exploded. And I replied, in the loudest voice I could muster: "I CAN TALK LOUD. I'M DEAF!"

The sad truth is, if I even have a heart attack, when I come back to school, this clueless babe will say to me, if she says anything, Oh, were you out?

Okay, here's news from the heart attack front.

I don't mean to alarm anyone, because I'm not really alarmed or changing my life or even going to see a doctor, but I do think it could be possible that I am having a small heart attack, or at least some sort of heart incident. I feel fine except for this intermittent chest pain, which is not that bad, it's just there. It almost feels like constant heartburn, but nothing is making it go away. (Although it does come and go.) It's also possible that there's some connection to why I'm so tired and lethargic all the time.

I am not telling anyone but you. Anyone in my 3D world would make me go to the doctor, or worse, the hospital, and I am not doing that. Yet. For one, I am fully functional, and only have this little pain and it is not getting in the way of anything I'm doing or need to do. (I'm still walking for 15 - 20 minutes around the school in the morning; I just don't go up any steps.) For another ... okay, here it is. K is finally getting to go away this weekend. She's planned a much, much better trip to DC than the one that was canceled two weeks ago because of the snow. She's going Thursday to Monday, staying in a hotel (one of her friends is staying with her for a night or two), and seeing way more of her DC friends than she would have last time. And the weather should be beautiful. And she's not taking the train either way in the dark, which means I feel comfortable with her driving herself back and forth from the station here in NJ and I don't have to drop her off or pick her up. And she totally needs this vacation and I am totally paying for it, which is another whole issue, but I want her to have this. And if I have a damn heart attack, she won't go, or will go and have a terrible time, or will go and have to come back early.

If this all hasn't gone away by next week, I'll go to the doctor. Promise. I'm sure it's all a figment of my imagination anyway. Here, I made a list:

1. I have stopped smoking.
2. My diet is

   1. low fat
   
   
   2. low calorie
   
   
   3. low sodium
   
   
   4. high fiber
   
   
   5. whole grain
   
   
   6. full of fruit and vegetables

3. I am losing weight.
4. I have lowered my cholesterol, and take cholesterol meds.
5. I take two blood pressure meds.
6. I walk 15 - 20 minutes 5 or 6 days a week.
7. I have gastric reflux but take meds for it.

So there you go. No heart attacks for me, right? Despite the specters of my father and three of my grandparents hovering around me, like the final dueling scene in The Goblet of Fire? But they were all much older before they had their heart attacks and/or strokes, in their 60s at least, and one in her 80s. So we're settled. No heart attacks for me. Not yet, anyway.

It's funny, isn't it; if I didn't have you all to vent to, I'd be keeping this totally to myself and all bottled up, and who knows what effect that could have?

Hours pass.

Okay, I wrote that whole long thing at school, and I'm home now. No change in the chest pain, really, but I think I'm less committed to the having-a-heart-attack thing. Again, I will go to the doctor next week if it hasn't gone away, but whatever it is, clearly it is not getting worse, and it's mostly just annoying. The only real effect it's had on me is that I decided not to have hot dogs for dinner, because hot dog indigestion on top of whatever this is would just be too much.

I slept weirdly last night, so maybe I'm just tired. Oh, I'm always tired, you know what I mean. I'm going to lie down for a nap before I even open the new eye shadows I got in the mail.

WATCHING DR. PHIL :: ENTRY #1413