Getting on With It.

9/19 -- Getting on With It.

On Thursday and Friday, the days after the big diagnosis, I went to work and didn't tell anyone what had happened. I felt spacey and distracted all day (yo, supervisor -- you don't really expect me to give a shit about adding a "bold" tag to someone's home page when I need to get the Copaxone on its way to me?) but I definitely needed to be out in the "real" world.

In 1987, I found it weird and unsettling when I went back to college after my dad's death and saw how little everything around me had changed. People didn't know what happened to me unless I told them, and few of them really cared. How could something that blew my world apart and affected me so much leave everything and everyone else so untouched? (I was 18 and in case you were wondering, I did think the whole world revolved around me. Why?)

Last week, getting back into my daily routine as quickly as possible definitely helped me. It felt comforting to schlep in at 8:30, latté in hand, and start posting my daily updates. The day-to-day jobs that I face at work were welcome distractions. My life is still going on, and I still have a job to do.

I grappled with the issue of whether or not to tell my supervisor. Did I tell you that Z, the co-worker of mine I always considered my unofficial supervisor, is now my real supervisor? After the previous manager suddenly bailed to go to another department, Z finally got the job. And I'm delighted. I always treated him like a supervisor anyhow, so nothing's changed.

And we have a great working relationship going, and I didn't know how my news would affect that. Would it make him feel sorry for me? Look down on me? Start hunting for an excuse to get rid of me? He's always seemed like a genuinely good and patient guy, but I've never had to tell anyone something like this before and I was nervous. I considered not letting him know unless my health really starts declining.

Over the weekend, though, I had a change of heart. I'm going to be missing at least a few days in October because of various trips to doctors, and in the end I decided it was only fair to tell him. Z gave me my final probation-period review on Monday morning, and I made up my mind to tell him during the meeting. I passed the probationary period with flying colors, but I can't remember much of what Z said. "Yeah, yeah, yeah ... I'm a great worker ... yada yada yada ... I'm really dependable ... whatever ... yeah, I walk on fucking water. Now shut up, because I've got something important to say!"

I needn't have worried. He was shocked to hear it, but sympathetic. He assured me he'd be understanding if I needed to take time off. And since then, I haven't picked up on any discernible difference in the way he's treating me. Which just plain rocks.

Careful What You Wish For: First, I bitched to high heaven because I wasn't getting an official diagnosis and ergo, no treatment. Now I've got the treatment in the works and to be quite honest, I'm being a huge baby about the whole thing. The more I'm reading about the daily injections of Copaxone, the more I've been giving myself the squicks. I don't usually have a thing about needles, but by the end of the instruction booklet I was writhing in my chair. I still haven't watched the video. Fran was right -- my mind was even less ready to handle that aspect than I thought.

Of course, I might be a cockeyed optimist to assume I'm going to get the drugs just like that. I made my second call to the medical company today, and ended up with an assurance that within a couple of days, I'll be getting the very information that I was supposed to have by today -- the very pressing answer to whether or not my insurance will cover this stuff.

And the shit costs $10,000 a year, so if they don't cover it, you're going to be reading some queen-hell rants in this space. Just so you know. Don't say I didn't warn you.

The next entry.

The previous entry.

One year ago: Two different sets of my aunts and uncles celebrated their 60th wedding anniversaries. And now it's 61 for both couples. How incredible is that?

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