Average Bear

Yogi has it better than a millionaire.
That's because he's smarter than the average bear.

I'm not so much calling myself an average bear, or smart or not smart. However, in very many ways, I probably do have it better than than a lot of millionaires, except, of course, in the having money department. I shall backtrack.

This has been not so much a good day, although it's mostly okay now. Once again, I fell asleep after four, and after a couple of hours of disturbing dreams, I woke up about 6:15, shortly after which it became apparent to me that I must have a UTI.* Ick. I slept for another couple of hours, woke up feeling pretty crappy, decided not to go out, and left it at that. At nine, I called the doctor's office and they called in a prescription for me.

The Hubs had a business appointment and K went out for a long walk, so I was here alone, which rarely happens these days. I thought this would be my golden opportunity to start a little packing -- it's only five and a half weeks until the Disney trip, so I'm getting a late start for me -- but I found there really wasn't much I could do at this point except put a few things inside the suitcase that I had had sitting on top of it. Oh well, I had some bills to pay, so I fired up Quicken. That's when the fun started.

Let's just say the family Chai is having its own little economic crisis and it all hit the fan today. It's always been a bad subject for me, but with the help of therapy and other stuff, I've managed the stress very well for awhile, but it fell on me hard today. The old familiar knot reappeared in its traditional place in my gut, and I was stressed out, more than I've been in ... well, a year, really; I started taking the anti-depressants a year ago this week. I was still holding on, though, I was managing. I just knew I'd need to have a talk with the Hubs when he got home.

K came home, we had lunch and such, and then, I guess it was around 3:00? Maybe? we had an odd bit of an altercation, this because she commented about something she saw in the backyard and I didn't hear her and said "What?" and she repeated it and I still didn't get it and must have said "What?" again, and she lost it. And I felt like shit, mostly because it makes me angry when she does this; I mean, I didn't ask to become hearing impaired and I don't personally enjoy it, and I was close to being a mess already. She quickly gathered up her things and retreated up to her room.

The Hubs came home moments later, and we talked. I told him that other than the obvious need for more money, it needs to be not my problem anymore because the stress is not good for me. And he took it, I think, and told me that the meeting he was at all day was in setting up a kind of new business plan and stuff, so, YAY! I felt soooo much better after I talked to him and got the weight taken off of me. And while I was adjusting to the knot getting smaller ...

K came downstairs, took the remote off my desk and switched my TV from Law and Order to a new channel we're getting called Boomerang. Why? Because there was a Quick Draw McGraw cartoon on -- she had been watching it upstairs -- and she knows that Quick Draw is my most favorite of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters. (They show the Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound hour every day at three.) It was an apology that worked for me, and after grinning like an idiot at the cartoon for a few minutes, I gave her a hug. (We also watched a very early Snagglepuss cartoon together.) Oh, and K had offered to make dinner (chicken parm) if I don't feel up to it.

(I mentioned to the Hubs that I have never gone so begrudgingly to Disney World; I wouldn't have spent a dime on a trip now, but I didn't have much choice, it being the wish of a dying aunt. The second Florida trip, in September, is something I could also pass on, but unfortunately, we didn't go to my cousin's first son's Bar Mitzvah two years ago because of a threatened hurricane, and not going to this one would cause a breach in the family that no one wants. I'm pretty much taking both trips against my will, which is not to say that I don't want to enjoy them when I go. I just wish someone else had paid for them.)

So, it's been quite the day for me here. Not so much ups and downs, but a long down followed by a nice little sequence of ups.

*For those that need an explanation, a UTI is a urinary tract infection.




no wait ... it's

no. more like


okay. I'll go with
and maybe one more
watching L/O :: ENTRY #2083
READING: ----- by -----

THREE! (But Not Really)

So it was another day of insanity at work today, and now on Friday -- that alleged first day of summer vacation -- I not only have a meeting at 9.00, I have a meeting at 2.00. It's just more and more annoying each time we have a "meeting" with these people, but at least it will be over next Tuesday. Part of the problem is that one of the middle school librarians cannot bear to leave any i un-dotted, and when they offered us the extra training meeting, she could not bear to say no. She's also the one who said today that she doesn't see how she could possibly be finished in her library for the summer before mid-July, and so she'll keep coming in until then. The other one and I just rolled our eyes. Listen, honey, there is no reward for this kind of behavior. The only thing that happens is that when they screw you over in the end, you feel like a bigger fool.

In the meantime, things are otherwise rolling along. My ear just started buzzing a few minutes ago after a conversation over a bad phone connection, so I don't know what's up with that.

Otherwise, not much to report. Hot today. Hotter tomorrow.


watching The Simpsons :: entry #1500

Where Can I Even Start?

At the punchline, I guess: my good ear is down again. It isn't even scary at this point -- three times in a month -- just annoying. It's not going to kill me, but it's going to annoy me until I die.

I'll spare you the details except to say I had it this morning, it got better by the time I was sitting in the doctor's office at 10.00, and it got much, much worse after school. The sibilant ear noise is drowning out most other sound, or distorting it. The doctor is puzzled, curious, and stumped. Oh, good. For now, we're trying more antihistamines, which will, in his words, knock me flat on my ass. I really don't think it's more than allergies. It got very active when the pollen got bad, and otherwise hadn't bothered me for a year or two, I think. The prednisone helps, which means it's some kind inflammation, and not another tumor or a blood clot (one of Harry Katz's possible theories).

Voices and sounds are strange and distorted. The laugh track on a TV show sounds like somebody guzzling up the last drops of a drink through a straw. Eeuw.

In other news, I picked up my hearing aids after school. Ironic, isn't it? I can't even try them out until this other thing clears up.

Although I'm okay now, I was very bummed by this and other surrounding crap this afternoon. K was in a bad mood, which is never pleasant for me. I understand why and all, but please. Do not take your moods out on your mother when you are 23 years old. (Oooh, there's something coming back to haunt me. Sorry, Shirl, really.) I won't even go into all the other nonsense going on; I don't even know if I can recall it all. But I'm better.

I had dinner last night with E and the Chum, and I really, really loved seeing E. (I generally only see her once or twice a year.) But she's checking her email regularly now, and we've already emailed today, so I'm hopeful for seeing her more. She is the one person in my 3D world that I would give full access to my diary and archives. I don't know if she'd want it, and I wouldn't want anyone else stumbling across it on her computer, but I would. Hopefully, we'll get together more this summer.

BTW, I have to say: I LOVE GOOGLE READER. Google Reader is changing my life, folks, or at least, the way I use the Internet. It's da bomb. Thank you, thank you, bluesleepy, for suggesting it, and golfwidow for giving me the final piece of the puzzle.

I believe I am going to put a Google Groups notify box up in a day or two, and take off the blogarithm thing that's there. I think I can do the GG and keep it up, but I'm still testing it out.

My mouse died this afternoon (prompting K to ask if I hate meeces to pieces), but after a few reboots and resets, I got it going again, and got the computer to recognize the bluetooth. I must say, this is the most trouble I've ever had with the Mac. Love this thing. And I shop at Ikea, too, Jane! (But I don't wear Pumas. So there.)

And now, a fond good-night. I have points-worth of snacks to consume before I sleep (should that ever occur.)

watching Reba :: entry #1487

Yes, Scarlet

Today is, indeed, another day. Let's see where the day took me.

Hey, here's a suprise. I woke up with my good ear all blocked again. Looks like this year, the lovely spring allergies have decided to attack me in the form of inner ear blockups, and hives. I'm adjusting my allergy meds tonight -- taking a benadryl instead of a zyrtec, that's for the hives -- and I started a three day course of prednisone this morning, although if I wake up this deaf tomorrow, I'm making it a four day course. This deaf thing is wearing very thin.

I didn't have to be at work today until 8.30; usually I get to school at 7.00, so that left me with time to kill. I Walked Away Some Pounds -- really -- and then reported to the Board of Ed. office for my workshop. It was as I anticipated, and yes, I will be facilitating at the all day workshop in October, the one I usually skip. Guess I'll have to skip the May in service next year. I'll be the one talking about using library resources.

I came home for lunch, by which time I had a killer headache, probably sinus, so there's that going on, too. Tell me, where can you live that allergies won't bother you? Not Alaska, I know; Alaska has its share of grass and trees and pollen. Maybe Antarctica, but of course, the ground is disappearing beneath your feet there, so that doesn't say much for property values.

Here's a quirky thing. When I was a kid, what I thought of as "apple" is what most people think of as a "Macintosh apple." I had no idea that there were other kinds, because my parents only bought Macintoshes. (They had a very limited menu, which I've described before somewhere.) Now that I am all grown up, I only eat Golden Delicious apples because I looooooove them. But today after the workshop, I was oddly motivated to go the produce market and buy a whole variety of apples, just a couple of each, to see if I like them. Now I will probably fall in love with Gala apples or something, and eat only them. I'm weird that way. I'll let you know.

Cosmic asked an interesting question: do I sign? The answer is that I do not (although it's a language I always wanted to learn), and it wouldn't help me if I did because no one else in my world signs, either. Signing -- and anybody, please, correct me if I'm wrong -- is the language of people who live in the deaf community, or who live with people who live in the deaf community. I do not, and the deaf community, I'm pretty sure, is not interested in people like me. I lost a substantial part of my hearing as an adult, but not all of it. I hear well enough to function in the hearing world the same way I did before I lost it, and even if I were to become completely deaf at some point, I would still live in the hearing world. I might learn sign at some point as a lark, or to help me along if I ever do lose a substantial part of what's left, but that's unlikely anyway. If I spoke sign, I'd have to have an interpreter with me all the time to sign to me what other people are saying, and I don't need that (and it would be really, really strange.)

The other deaf thing I don't have and don't want is a cochlear implant. For one, it's not suited to me because it's my actual acoustic nerve that's damaged, and that's what a cochlear implant implants to. There is some new thing, similar, called a "brain stem implant", which would work in my case. However, on December 17, 1991, I made an extremely serious vow that no human being was EVER to see my brain stem again while I lived (that's where my tumor was), and baby, I am sticking to that one like velcro. Like glue. Like crazy glue. I'm keeping my damn brain stem to myself from now on, thankyouverymuch.

Tomorrow is K's last day of the summer session, and she is studying like mad for her economics exam, which I think she will pass, because she exceeds expectations academically, but I think she is also genetically incapable of knowing this stuff. The Hubs, who was actually an economics major, has offered to help tonight when he gets back from his meeting. (Her mad math skilz come from me, of course.)

My headache is a bit better, and I'm having some shrimp for dinner. Maybe I'll take a quick run to the supermarket after that, since neither the Hubs nor K will be home for awhile. I didn't see R today, which is an achievement considering she doesn't live here anymore.

Okay.

watching Still Standing :: entry #1480

Kind of a Hush

Things are very quiet today.

I called the audiologist's office this morning to give my report on the little repair they did on Thursday, and the report was not good. They asked me to drop the hearing aids off there and they are sending them back to the company to be taken apart and, hopefully, put back together again so they work. I had time to dash over there during third period; I have classes in the afternoon so that was the best way, since they close at 2.00 today. In the meantime, I'm at school without hearing aids.

Either the library is very quiet -- it actually is, at the moment, very few kids here -- or I am experiencing the world without its normal complement of sound. Or both. The public announcement bell just rang, which is normally unpleasantly loud to everyone, and it sounded muted to me. Some of the announcements are clear, others are not.

No one has spoken to me directly since I got back, so I can't tell you how that sounds. But lunch is starting now, and we're usually busy during lunch, so I guess I'll be able to let you know before long.

I think I mentioned yesterday how unpleasant the sound experience was at the movies. I think that put me over some kind of edge. I have no hostility towards the audiologist and what he's doing, but I'm very hostile towards the non-working hearing aids. I had actually toyed with the idea of not wearing them to school today at all, or not wearing them anymore in general. I may try the old ones again when I get home later, but maybe not. I already know they don't work, although with them it's not a matter of the sound randomly changing from one thing to another to another without warning. They just don't work. So I guess there wouldn't be much point in that, then.

I do like the feeling of hearing "naked", even though what I hear isn't loud enough. I like not hearing things channelled through a radio system, or mechanically reproduced or enhanced. It does make me more aware of the tinnitus, what I generally call "my ear noise," because when the world is quiet, the ear noise is often the loudest thing I hear. It's not terribly loud at the moment, but I'm aware of it. No ringing today, at least. The ringing sounds are most annoying. Can I describe the ear noise? It's almost as if there's another room, very close by, and in that room, the radiator is hissing softly. Once, I was walking in the park with my sister, and we approached a small waterall, but weren't close enough to see it yet. I stopped and listened for a minute, and said to her "That's it. That's what I hear all the time." The ear noise is always, always there, sometimes louder than other times, and with luck, I'd be wearing hearing aids that would make the sounds I want to hear louder than the ear noise. But not today. And loud ear noise is especially sucky when you're trying to fall asleep, since it's a sound you can't block out. Maybe that's why I like to fall asleep with the TV on, now that I think of it. I listen to that and i don't hear the ear noise. Hadn't thought of that before.

Later.

I had two classes after lunch which went pretty well, all things considered. The new building at the school, including the library and the library's computer lab/classroom, is all cinderblock, and the acoustics are just terrible for someone who hears well. For me, combined with the erratic hearing aids, teaching in the classroom was often uncomfortable; at best, I couldn't hear anything else going on while I was talking myself. (And if you know kids, you know that they're doing other things while you're talking, including talking. Come on, you all went to school.) But that was better today, somehow, I guess because my own voice wasn't uncomfortably loud.

After school, I ran a few errands and then went over to R's -- for a change -- to bring some stuff and pick up some stuff. She called in sick today, having gotten a sunburn yesterday and generally crashing after the last few weeks of intense activity. So she was home when she wouldn't normally have been. Her place is shaping up nicely; it's very cute. And with any luck, from this point on, she'll be doing her own laundry.

But the hearing was very good over there. Every time I was there since Friday, the air conditioner was so loud, I couldn't hear people speak, but today, that sound was muted and I could focus on the person speaking to me. I'm getting used to this deaf thing. I may be starting to enjoy it.

Tomorrow, though, I am at an all-day workshop, which should be a barrel of laughs. If everyone talks at once, I'm screwed. I'll just have to see what happens.

Must remember to tell you about the monster house. Perhaps tomorrow.

watching Reba :: entry #1479

What? Memorial Day?

Have you ever had this experience, that you are exposed to some loud noise for a period of time, say, at a rock concert, and it leaves you somewhat deaf for some time after, maybe an hour or two?

Yeah. So I have to keep the hearing aids turned up so loud to get them to more or less work, that my ear is bombarded with noise and when I take them off, I'm even more deaf. I've got them off now for the rest of the day, and I'm hoping some of my natural hearing comes back, or else I'll be back on prednisone tomorrow morning.

The really loud noise I was exposed to via the turned-up hearing aids was a movie. K and I went to see Shrek, which we both enjoyed, although my hearing totally sucked and was not at all adjusted for going to the movies. Here's hoping that's something else they can work on and I don't have to spend the rest of my life wishing I could get closed captioning in a movie theatre. I rarely go to the movies now, but I'd like to keep my options open.

Memorial Day. Aside from the true meaning of the day, which I'm saving for another time, Memorial Day is interlinked to my father because he was born on May 30, which was the real date for Memorial Day for many, many years. When he was a little boy, his father told him the parade each year was for him. In his earliest memories -- he was born in 1919 -- he remembered seeing Civil War veterans, in their uniforms and with their long, white beards -- marching in the parade in his Massachusetts home town. Like every other village and hamlet in New England, there was a Civil War memorial on the town green. For some reason, I don't see those all over New Jersey, but I know I've seen them all over Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Anyway.

So the days feel off to me, the dates feel off. If Memorial Day isn't the 30th -- and I don't think it ever is anymore, is it? -- I get all mixed up.

But I do have to go to school tomorrow. That much I've got.

watching Roseanne :: entry #1478

Second Entry Today: Bitch, Bitch, Bitch

So we just got back from dinner with the ILs, which was mostly pleasant. K decided not to go, but my nephew showed up unexpectedly, which was nice, and a surprise. He came with his girlfriend, which made him a bit more animated and conversational.

Amusingly, if this sort of thing amuses you, of the ten people there, three have substantial hearing problems, which is kind of funny in a group. The FIL has age-related hearing loss and tinnitus (ringing in the ear), so he wears one hearing aid. Uncle Al began to lose his hearing in his twenties and is now about 80, I guess, so he's pretty much profoundly deaf, and has a rather complicated hearing aid setup that of course is useless in a crowded restaurant. He makes funny faces and such, which is about all he can communicate in a place like that. I adore him, as does everyone. He is the Hubs' uncle, as in married to the FIL's sister, whom I adore as well. But we sat at a long table, which makes it really hard to talk to anyone who's not sitting right in front of you.

Anyway, the bitch bitch bitch is that, for a change, my husband is a lunatic. Fortunately for me, we were with his family, so everyone already knows it. The topic of the DVR came up. (This is like Tivo, it's the Digital Video Recorder that we can get in place of our regular cable boxes and it has a hard drive so you can save stuff on it.) So let's see, the Hubs' sister has one, and his aunt and uncle, and then he says, to everyone, that he's "not allowed" to use the DVR we have. His mother rolls her eyes.

"Not allowed by whom?" I asked him.

So he says that he's not allowed to program anything onto the DVR in the family room (where I watch.) I remind him that I have offered to record things for him many times. Yes, but that's not the same as him doing it. I remind him that I have offered to pick up a DVR box for his study several times, and he says he's "not allowed" to have one. (MIL rolls eyes again. She must have been the most thankful mother on earth the day I married him.) Again, I asked, "Not allowed by whom?" Now he says, well, you can only have one in the house, and it's in the family room.

Uh, hello? Did a mysterious vision tell him that tidbit of news? I didn't roll my eyes at him, but I did do the eyelid-droop "you moron" look at him, as I told him that in fact, we have two in the house now, as K has one in her room, and I will pick up a box for him any time he wants, since there's an office right here in town but which is only open during business hours (so I can go after school.)

On the way home, I mentioned again that I could get him a box anytime he wants. He says he thinks he will never figure out how to use it. No, but your 80 year old aunt can. Right. He is a pain in the ass sometimes, but he's quick and clever and smart, whatever smart is. I think he can figure it out. Oh wait, you need to use the remote, so maybe not.

He doesn't like using remotes. Really, he thinks it's some kind of cheating. Cheating what or whom, I do not know. There are varieties of technology that he will simply not indulge in. And yet the first thing he did when we sat down at the dinner table in the restaurant tonight?

He checked his Blackberry.

Yeah.

watching 2nd Pirate Movie :: entry #1476

So I Had a Bad Day

(copied from dland)

I woke up this morning and could not hear at all, which means most likely an inner ear infection. That one cannot be ignored, and requires prednisone. So I called in sick (so to speak, we now log in absences via computer) and have been trying to get an appointment with the doctor. I'm having trouble with their phone people/voice mail. Last time, I called at 9 and left a message, and heard back from them in ten minutes and got a 9.45 appointment. Today, I can't connect with the right people. It's 9.30. I'll try again in five minutes, and report my progress here as things go on.

I could not read Timequake. Allegedly a novel, it has no story that I could detect, just ramblings about what Vonnegut would have written if he had decided to write this book. Okay, that's not so unusual for him, but he usually keeps that stuff in the preface. This was the whole book, so I gave up around chapter 7. If I can't find that queens book downstairs, I'm going to re-read The Order of the Phoenix and the The Half-Blood Prince.

12.15

I never did get a call back from the regular doctor's office -- not a good sign -- but I'm going to see the ear-nose-throat guy at 1.45. I'm just going to see my regular sinus guy who will hopefully give me prednisone for a week so that I can continue to hear. Although my hearing is a bit better now. But my head was ringing like a bell for hours last night, and again this morning when I woke up and couldn't hear.

I still feel pretty crappy in general, but I'm going to try to get some things done as long as I'm out, like get to the bank and drop something off at my sister's house (she's not home, just leaving it in her mailbox.) I have to pick up a few groceries and when I get home, attempt yet again to pay K's summer tuition. They are really not making it easy.

Later.

4.20

Have you seen a doctor, or spoken to a doctor? Because I haven't.

Long story short, I got to my 1.45 appointment at 1.30, and at 3.00, somehow found myself still sitting in the waiting room and crying. Why? No clue, except that the burning feeling in my face for the last few days (due to the congestion, I assume) feels the way you do before you're about to cry, so I guess the dam just burst. I did not want to sit there on display, crying, so I got up and left. By the time I got home, there was a message wondering where I was, and apologizing for the delay, etc. We played a little phone tag, but allegedly, the doctor is going to call me any minute here. Yeah, I'm holding my breath.

There was also a message from the regular doctor's office that hadn't called back this morning, so I called them and left a rather detailed account of my symptoms on their voice mail -- they asked for it -- and a lot of snuffles and sobs. Because I am still crying, off and on. I don't want to say for no reason. The reason came to me on the drive home. Here ya go.

You know, I make a whole lot of jokes about being a hypochondriac and/or having all these varied ailments, but the reality of it just kind of hit me, right there in the doctor's office, I guess. I have finally accepted that I am not a hypochondriac. The only truth left is that there is a lot of shit wrong with me. If I were a car, I'd be a lemon.

The first wave of this, in the doctor's office, was that now I can't go to this doctor anymore, and that made me very, very sad, because I've been going to him for a long time and he pretty much keeps me breathing. But I'm better on that score now, because it was his office that made the call to apologize to me, so I don't have feel that since I walked out, they're mad at me or won't want me back. That part of it is resolved, anyway.

But I think the rest of it has kicked off a depression, which, you know, you usually don't realize in the first hour, but I was in the car and I was driving, and I had that one thought that has always been there when I'm depressed: Wouldn't it be easier if I just drove into a brick wall and it was all over? I could avoid all the drama.

Now, I am not suicidal, not at all, but that one image has been in my mind for 30 years whenever I'm actually depressed. So it's like a benchmark, and now I know I'm depressed. Timing sure sucks, with R's play next week and a million plans going along with it. But I'll be okay. If I could do something for the health concerns of the moment, I could pull out of it, and I guess I will.

As for the full depth of the thoughts of depression, you don't want to know. Maybe I can share them more objectively tomorrow, and maybe if I do, it'll bum you out, too.

I'm going to blow my nose now, and then go to the bathroom, and then sit here with my thumb up my ass waiting for two different doctors' offices to call. Sounds like a good time for Harry Potter.


watching Ellen :: entry #1450

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

The Most Wonderful Children in the World

[copied from dland]

... are mine. Because ...

K made the decision herself not to go to DC because of the weather. This meant that I did not need to leave work at noon and drive down the Parkway to the train station in this horribly disgusting snow/sleet/slush storm to catch her 2.30 train. She's pretty bummed that she couldn't go, and has good reason to be, but she knows she made the right choice.

R decided as well not to drive to Atlantic City tonight. No car should be on the road that doesn't need to be, and she's got the stomach bug anyway, so she's staying home. What a good kid.

(And just as I was about to bitch about the Hubs and where the hell was he, he walked in. And to my amazement, did not drop his briefcase and go right out again to shovel. He's having dinner like a normal person. Better go check the basement for pods.)

As you might surmise, it is a horribly yucky day of weather out there. And as K has pointed out more than once, yesterday she went out wearing flip-flops. And it creeps me out when it snows after the clocks have changed; I can only remember that happening once or twice before. (Of course, we always changed the clocks weeks later, but you know what I mean.)

In other news, here's a weird turn of events. Stop me if I've mentioned this before, but I don't think I have; it's mostly a today revelation. Even after the adjustment the other night, I was still having trouble with the hearing aid and the telephone. It's very hard to get a phone to fit over an in-the-ear aid without causing all kinds of static and feedback. But this morning I realized that if the aids are set to the right volume, I can always use any phone on my right ear. This is the ear that is 100% cold stone deaf, folks, but the microphone I'm wearing there now is soooooo good that it's actually preferable to use the phone that way. But it's such a disorienting change of a 15 year old habit! I have not held a telephone to my right ear -- or more to the point, with my right hand -- in 15 years. And now that I have to, if I need to write something down while I'm on the phone .... well, I'll figure it out. I just love that I can do it.

You know, and I think I have said this before, a hearing loss becomes very ingrained in you; you lose the sense of what it was like to hear 20/20, as it were. In my dreams, when I'm involved in a conversation with someone, I am always positioned to the right of all the other people so that I can hear them with my left ear. In my dreams! So it's very much a part of me, and getting used to what I hear now is the part of the adjustment that I have to make myself. I don't know if every other hearing aid I've had has been crap or if my hearing has gotten worse, but I seem to be hearing more "new" sounds now than I did with any other new hearing aid. The water rushing in the stainless steel sink is so loud! The sleet on the windows! There was an annoying background noise that I couldn't get rid of, so I kept working on what it might be, and I finally got it a few hours ago: it's my computer. Computers make noise when they're on! Did you all know that? I didn't. Either I didn't have a computer 15 years ago -- okay, I did; I'd already had a Commodore 64 and was on my first PC -- but if they made noise then, I had no memory of it. I didn't need to, until now. That's today's installment of Adventures of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

So now I'm in for the duration, which is supposed to be sometime tomorrow morning. I do need to get to the supermarket (since it's a day that ends in y) since I forgot to get bananas yesterday, and now that, surprise! the kids will both be home for dinner on Sunday, it looks like I get to make the corned beef and cabbage after all, presuming I can still find one to buy tomorrow. And yes, tomorrow is the birthday of my firstborn, which has already led to the annual questions, which begin at any random point on the evening of the 15th: What were you doing 26 (this year) years ago right this minute? My answer to K this last time was: I was in fucking labor. Because you know, even after 26 years, you don't forget 36 hours of labor. (Maybe after 36 years, I'll stop bitching about it.)

My other big plan for the weekend consists of trying some new eyeshadow to see if it looks good or makes me look like an escapee from the set of The Addams Family. Maybe if the weather clears up tomorrow afternoon, K will go hang out with R and I'll have some TV time to myself, and I'll watch Stranger Than Fiction, which I got from Blockbuster online about three weeks ago. This no late fee thing is great, but they sure are making their money on me, since it takes me forever to watch one movie.

My feet are cold. Time to burrow.

WATCHING THE SIMPSONS :: ENTRY #1403

I Believe That

[copied from dland]

It’s almost eleven years. It all started around this time of the year, autumn, eleven years ago. It sounded like I had an ear infection all the time, a rushing sound in my right ear. Actually the sound had started during the summer, but sometimes I could make it go away. By October, I had it all the time, and sometimes the throbbing noise. Not a throbbing pain, in fact, no pain at all, but the sound of throbbing in my ear, especially when I would lie down at night to go to sleep. Sometimes I would get up and watch TV, because the sound of the throbbing in a quiet room would drive me crazy. When I could hear the throbbing, it would drown out other sounds, but in and out, in and out. It was like a heartbeat, and whenever it would beat, I could hear nothing else.

It was the throbbing that finally made me ditch the allergist who was treating me for an ear infection and go to see an ear specialist. There were tests, yada yada yada. It was the Friday before Thanksgiving that I went to get the results and while we were waiting for the doctor to come in, sister and I looked at the x-ray in the light box on the wall. There was a silver spot about the size of a quarter, but not quite round, right in the middle of someone’s brain. I saw my name on the x-ray and said “Oh shit, they’re gonna make me go back and get another x-ray. There’s something wrong with that one. There’s a big spot on it.” She didn’t say anything, but I think that was when she figured it out. But not me.

So he came in, the doctor, and took my hand in one of his. Odd, I thought. He said, “It’s not good.” I looked at him. He said, “It’s a brain tumor.” I thought – maybe even said – “You mean that silver thing in my brain is really there?” He nodded. I said “Can you get it out?” He said “Yes.” So it was okay.

I went to see the neurosurgeon the next week, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. He said it was a tumor, one of three possible kinds. One, he said, a glioma, always malignant. I didn’t want that one. Next, he said, a meningioma, maybe malignant and maybe not, but taking it out would have consequences. I didn’t so much want that one either. Remotely possible, he said, was an acoustic neuroma. Never malignant and would leave me deaf on one side, maybe a little facial paralysis. I was rooting for the acoustic neuroma, even though he said they almost never happen as deep in the brain as my tumor was. “I can have it done after the holidays, right?” I asked. “After Christmas?” “No,” he said.

Nasty day the next day, all the pep rally crap going on in school and me thinking that everything I saw I wouldn’t ever ever see again. I was having Thanksgiving dinner at my house on Thursday like every year, and I figured this was going to be my last one of those, too. Cousin was coming in from Colorado with her new husband. Maybe I wouldn’t ever see her again either.

I came home from school, half day before a holiday. The kids would be home a little later. They really were kids then too, only ten and seven years old. Maybe they wouldn’t even really remember me when they were all grown up.

I sat there, wondering about all kinds of shit. I thought, this will be okay if I can only think of something to hold onto, something that I can plan to do when this is all over. Something that would make me happy.

I said out loud to no one else there, “In April, when spring vacation comes, I’m going to DisneyWorld.” Just sister and I, just the two of us. No kids. “I’m going to DisneyWorld.” And then I was okay.

Went over that afternoon with the kids to see Jack and Shirl, and cousin, and all the assembled family, including my two girls and my sister’s three kids. Nephew #1 was a senior in high school then, in my high school, and going through a lot of crap times. Everybody in the room was depressed except for me. They weren’t sure that I was as okay as I seemed to be. I assured them all that I was fine, because I was going to DisneyWorld. There was a heartbeat’s worth of pause, and then Jack said he’d pay for us to go. So then everybody was okay, pretty much.

On December 17 I went to the hospital at about six a.m. Husband and sister came with me, and stayed while they got me all set up before the operation, with tubes sticking out of everywhere and hooked up to all kinds of equipment. Then I was in for about eight hours while they cut a hole in my head about an inch behind my right ear and took out what turned out to be a rather large acoustic neuroma that was leaning against my brain stem. They almost never find them there.

I could write all kinds of other things about my surgery, and in time, I probably will. It seems pretty bizarre that after being exposed to the wonderful Grandpa Sam for 18 years, and being raised by two goofy people with solid values, and after dedicating myself to reading and literature and learning and writing, not to mention an amazing abundance of popular culture, the defining experience of my life is that one of my nerve cells went nuts and grew a great big lump right in the middle of my brain, and someone had to cut open my head and take it out.

For now, what made me write this just today is that I came across something I wrote when I was in the hospital after my surgery. I was in for about a week altogether; I came home the morning of Christmas Eve, the 24th. I was in surgery on the 17th, and spent the next two days in the recovery room instead of intensive care. After that I went to a private room, so I wrote this on one of the days I was in there. I hardly slept when I was there, so I may have written it in the middle of the night. I had taken with me to the hospital a steno pad on which I had made notes about the surgery before hand, like what the doctors said to me, schedule dates and times, and so on. Now I was also writing down when they brought me pain medication, because I wanted to make sure they brought the next dose when I was supposed to get it. But I wasn’t in an awful lot of pain from the surgery. It was that they were taking me off the high does of prednisone, and each time the dose went down, I was being torn apart by muscle aches, mostly in my legs and back.

By this time, it was clear that I wasn’t ever going to hear anymore in my right ear, and that the right side of my face was never going to move of its own free will. But my face hadn’t “fallen” so I didn’t look all that grotesque. They were coming from physical therapy to teach me to walk without banging into walls all the time, and to go up and down steps. I remember that one afternoon Jack came to visit when I had to go to PT and he watched while I tried without much success to go up and down two steps. I think if I had to watch my grown child do that, I couldn’t.

So here’s what I wrote in my steno pad, and kept. A couple of years ago I typed it into a file on the computer so I wouldn’t ever lose it. At the top of the page I wrote

I believe that

-I will have some bad days. Most days will be good.

-On bad days, my neck and scar will be stiff and sore. I will have eye sutures removed. I will feel pain, and discomfort, and nausea.

-On good days I will have some stiffness and soreness but probably not much pain. I will not walk into walls or fall down or step on the cat.

-In February I will do laundry again and I will start to prepare to move around the kids' rooms.

-I am very happy that I am alive. I want to see my children grow up, and I will. I still want to go to DisneyWorld.

- It is okay to cry on bad days.

- Life is not all black and white. Mostly it is light gray.

- When I have pain-killers I feel pretty good.

- It is okay to feel good whenever you can.

- Sometimes I dribble.

And I still believe it, all of it, after eleven years.

ENTRY #16

The Continuing Saga of the Self-Centered Man

[copied from dland]

So somebody comes in early in the morning and schedules her class to come in here and work later in the day. As soon as she leaves, I see that SCM has taken out the equipment the class is going to need to work. I ask why he has taken it out now when the class is coming in for seventh period (assuring him at the same time that I probably heard it wrong.) He says he thought he heard second period, but his hearing is bad, too. His general take here is that his hearing is as bad as mine, if not worse. He begins to regale me with the tales of how hard it is to hear the TV at home. At least he has stopped asking me what volume setting I use on my TV. "I have to turn mine up to about 32," he used to say. "Do you listen to yours that loud?" "Mine only goes up to 10," I would point out. "Every TV works on its own system." Duh.

So he's telling me about his hearing problems, which are basically the degenerating hearing of any aging baby-boomer who's listened to too much rock'n'roll. Hello, hello! I had my head cut open so they could see my brain! Somebody disconnected the nerve that hears so it doesn't go from my ear to my brain anymore! Hello, hello, clinically deaf person over here!

So once again, an encounter with SCM leaves me wondering if I am not as self-centered as he is. Perhaps, perhaps not. Sometimes he just drives me crazy.


ENTRY #13