Marginal Thoughts.
The new Diarist Award finalists are up.
I didn't make the cut in any of the categories this time, so I think the awards are stinky and horrible and smell like poo and everyone who gets into the finalists list is obviously part of some eeevil Journaling Clique and it's all really highschool and unfair and terrible and how can the awards people not recognize my tortured genius and why don't these pompous jerks just go away and leave everyone alone, cause who the hell asked them anyway?
(But if something of mine gets picked next quarter, I'll love everyone again.)
Oh well.
Amazingly little besides sleeping, moaning, and trying not to throw up has occupied my last several days, so there ain't much to write about here.
I didn't get a single copy of the "ILOVEYOU" virus. *snif* Nobody loves me.
... All written content copyright 1999-2000 by Nicole Willson. No ripping me off.
5/9 -- I'm Still Alive.
For
those of you who actually still come by to check this journal, here I
am again, somewhat worse for all the wear.
I don't want to bore my few remaining readers crosseyed with the blow-by-blow description of my latest round of hell, so instead I'll just share a few relevant facts:
1. You know how sometimes people say "Gee -- that wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting?" The spinal tap was worse than I was expecting. My mother came down from Annapolis to spend the night and take me to the hospital the next day. She spent a good part of that night holding my hand while I tried to stop sniveling. I just had a bad, bad feeling about the whole thing. And we didn't know the half of it then.
2. Either I don't have a lot of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) or my body just didn't want to give it up, because it took three different needle jabs, the doctor tilting me in several odd directions on a tilt table, and several x-rays to verify that the needle was placed correctly in my spine (shudder) for the doctor to get enough fluid for all the tests. No fun. At all.
3. Although most post-spinal tap advice I read on the Net (and heard from both my neurologist and my regular doctor) stated that you should lay flat in the hospital for several hours after the procedure in order to avoid the dreaded spinal-fluid-leakage headache, the hospital I went to booted me out after a half-hour. "Just lay flat at home!" they told me, which rather begs the question of how one is supposed to lay flat while getting in and out of a car or up and down the flights of stairs to my apartment. This may well have contributed to what happened next:
4. From Thursday to Sunday, I got progressively sicker and sicker. It started with a very sore upper back and difficulty standing up (which the radiology nurse I called at the hospital said should go away and probably wasn't related to the spinal tap -- perhaps I had some previous back problem that chose that very moment to manifest itself?) and progressed to severe headaches, near-constant nausea, and dizziness when sitting up, much less standing up. I spent most of Saturday and Sunday cocooned in our dark and cool bedroom, sleeping, swallowing Tylenol, and whimpering.
5. Why'd I let this go on as long as I did? Because I'm a fucking idiot, as you already know if you've read this page for any amount of time. I still stubbornly cling to the belief that "It'll all go away if you just ignore it or take lots and lots of Advil," no matter how many times circumstances have proved me wrong this year. (And hell -- it's only May. I wonder how many more times I'm going to manage to not learn this particular lesson this year.) Besides, I suspected that fixing this problem was going to involve even more prodding at my spine, the thought of which filled me with terror.
6. By Monday, both Bill and I had had enough; I went to my regular doctor, who consulted with my neurologist's office and ended up recommending that I go back to the hospital to have a "blood patch" (don't ask) done on my spine in order to stop up the leakage that was almost certainly making me so sick. I didn't know that leaky spine fluid could do so much damage. Wow. I was inconsolable; as bad as I already felt, I couldn't bear the thought of anyone doing anything else to my back. I wailed "I don't waaanna go baaaack theeeere" and bawled like a five-year-old as Bill led me to the car and back to the hospital.
I really don't know how Bill can stand me at this point.
Back we went. The blood patch was almost as un-fun as the original spinal tap, but I got to stay a WHOLE HOUR in the hospital this time and the headaches, nausea, and dizziness stopped almost immediately. Of course, now my lower back hurts like all kinds of hell, but being able to walk around and sit at the computer seems like a fair trade.
I'm not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow, though. Nope. Not even a little bit. My supervisor was a little ticked at me for not coming in last Thursday because I had to talk her through the process of putting together our weekly journal, something she'd never done before.
Little did either one of us know I wasn't going to be back in fighting trim until the following Wednesday. (If then.)
Back to the main journal page.