Water Critter

I have not missed a day at the pool since I joined. It's open every day but Sunday. I am up to walking and swimming almost an hour now. It's unusual for me to feel faint more than twice a day now, so that is huge. Still can't really stand enough food, especially protein, but I walked through a WalMart today. Which I haven't done since....um.... September that I can think of. I got sick in October but I had already started feeling too bad to make it through Walmart and had started sending my fella or just going to the grocery since I don't like going there anyway. I got my kid some Halloween stuff there when it first came out in Sept and never went back. Now if my guts would stop hurting and start working right. But the pool seems to have helped me a tremendous amount. The awesome thing is the saltwater part, it's easy on the eyes, hair and respiratory system.  I do not miss the constant fainting and sweating one tiny bit. I'm discouraged that my metabolism has evidently been ruined; I've only lost four pounds, and I'm just convinced the gut pain won't go away until I get some more of the pain-medicine weight from last winter off them, fifteen pounds minimum to go.
Four better than zero, however.

Ha Mutherfuckin Ha

Yeah, baby. Strolled on downtown, got on my reserved computer, stuffed my ears full of silicone earplugs, did my best to ignore the persistent funk of skunk from some stoner nearby, and TOOK that mutherfuckin final. Passed it, too, the bastard. I have an A in the class that two weeks ago I had despaired of passing because I could not recall a single number I had studied. Or a single new fact. So it was all old stuff I knew before and whatever of the class I taught myself since my memory came back LAST WEEK. Bastard.
Bring it, ostomy class.
The sleep lab called today. Evidently my choking efforts impressed the pulmonologist because they were in a big-ass hurry to get me back in to the lab and try to fit me with a mask. Like, tonight. I pissed and moaned a little about how uncomfortable the other one was and ta da....they have a new, nice one, in the new, nice building where I used to go to pain management. Away from the emergency room for godsakes. So I am going tonight and doing my Horton Hears a Who imitation with an effalump trunk attached to my loud obnoxious snorey nose. Yay!!!! I hope I find a mask I can stand and the machine says it's all good, I have been scaring the crap out of the cats at night lately with the choking. I had to put old lady dog in the front of the house because she wouldn't quit pawing at me, apparently I was keeping her ass up and she would keep trying to wake me like Lassie; all it did was piss me off.

This has got to be a joke

The good news is, my short-term memory started coming back. About a week ago I was able to close the book I was studying from in my graduate on-line class and remember some facts. That is huge: I was unable to do that and passed the January quiz by dint of Post-It flags throughout the text readings and class notes, and the fact that I could still read fast so I could pass an open-book test.
Same for the first two quizzes in February, and I was really starting to sweat the closed-book, proctored final. The only thing that would save me would be if they asked LOTS of practical questions, I never missed those because that is something I did for years. But last week's quiz I had all my flags at the ready, all new material, and didn't really need them, I had finally started being able to learn my work again. Brilliant, right, because today is the final. I had gone as the class required to my local college and had the librarian sign up to be my proctor. I gave her all the details on her own copies and even had her access the test site to make sure there weren't any firewalls in the way.
Right.
I got to the library today and she wasn't there. She had forgotten and gone to lunch. The assistant, a student worker, didn't know what to do. Timed test, now. Starts on time, ends on time. Fight off panic; here she comes, right as the clock ticks to test hour. Um. She is unable to access the Internet for me to take my test. When she did it before, it was on her password, and she won't do that now. Turns out? University policy is that there is no way to access the internet without being a student or teacher there. Oops. Lots of dithering in the middle here and calling the IT guy and stuff; I am 1) trying not to cry or scream, but am pretty sure I am sweating in my crotch; 2) Hoping this does not do what any stress usually does and give me huge uncontrollable diarrhea to just completely ice this fucking cake. When she just tries to blow me off twenty minutes in, I guilt her into sending an email to the online school about the situation. She takes full responsibility and admits she did not read or understand the proctor agreement.
They are supposed to let me take it tomorrow. The library downtown has signed off and they seem sane and competent. I don't have a rabbit's foot but there are four cats over here that should watch their p's and q's.

Meanness

So OoA#2, boyfriend, is terrified of children. He is also terrified of flying monkeys, witches, and munchkins, but children are more common and equally terrifying to him. He is a nice guy generally but grumpy by nature to people he is very close to. It drives his mother mad and made his previous fiancee' apopletic with rage; he will literally say no when he means yes just as a reflex and growl when asked for assistance. It's gotten really annoying lately and we've actually had some huge, one-sided fights about it, with me getting hugely angry and him apologizing but once I'm mad, I'm mad. And I'm tired of discussing it with him. So today we were at the hockey game and the folks in front of us had their little baby man, about eight months old, and he was grinning at us. I scooped him up and let him grab my fella and just squeeze the crap out of his shirt and hair and everything his spitty little precious paws could grab. Cute as shit. OoA is steadily protesting, squirming, asking me to stop, stating ow, while we are laughing foolishly, egging on the baby, and taking pictures. I did it twice. The baby had a ball. Once we got home OoA remonstrated with me; after all, he had asked me to stop. "How does it feel?  When someone knows you'll be upset but you do something anyway." I asked. "Oh. You were getting me back. That's not like you." He was amazed.  We'll see if he learned anything.

Fail

So I snore horribly. Undisputed; the noise will peel paint. Never had a guy enjoy sleeping with me who wasn't a liar or hearing impaired. I wake myself choking. Every morning, I'm bleary-eyed, exhausted, feel more like I fought a bear all night than slept.  So I probably need a CPAP mask which you need a sleep study to get from the insurance. Off to the sleep lab I go; fitted out with all kinds of wires and straps and a SNORE MIC. Which they are going to need to turn the sound down on. Then the news starts up with the tech: she doesn't want my room very warm because my leads will melt off (they are taped on). She wants me to go to sleep on my back. Sigh. Confirmed warm bed, side sleeper. I gave it a try but felt like I was hovering like a frozen fish fillet above the surface of the bed most of the night. I actually woke myself choking a couple of times but: not enough to get a mask test. Because you have to choke yourself a bunch BEFORE 2am to get a mask test. And I did not get all my choking in on time. I woke at about 4 am with an awful bellyache from the tight strap around my middle, was allowed a bathroom break, and couldn't go back to sleep until my release, shivering and CPAP-less, at 5:30. All that for nothing.  I did stop at the fitness center instead of going home straightaway; I washed my hair to try to get the EEG paste out, walked and swam, chatted while doing that, and washed my hair again...twice.  After feeding old lady dog when I got home I passed out and woke up, drooling, on my side, four hours later. Stunned.

Twitchy Butt

I have had a couple of days without excruciating butt pain. Not many. Stepped up my night meds, didn't help much. The other night OoA#2's crazy neighbor came over to invite herself to dinner and offered me the use of her TENS unit. So I stuck it to my butt and made my ass twitch. Seriously. It hurt but I really think it helped. And I walked farther in the pool, have gotten less faint, more steady on my feet. So almost an hour twice walking, less butt pain, and one short trip to the grocery without fainting or having to sit down. Huge week. Plus got some money from the disability people...finally. I think maybe stopping worrying about money for ten minutes might have helped as much as anything else. But I'll take it.

Memaw Car's White Dress

Memaw Car had a white dress moment two mornings running. She did not know what to do with herself. The next day she was actually buried in the snow, about four inches. That has never happened to her before. Ice, yes. The snow was all gone by the second afternoon. She's still surprisingly clean, I thought it would make her look really grimy again. 

Where printers go to die

Yet another printer came to my house today. This one is a discarded HP laserjet from someone's office. It prints! A little on the gray side, maybe. I feel like buying toner is jinxing it. Can't anyway until I get my tax refund. I am going to need to have a garage sale and sell all the other ones. Or give them away as door prizes at the garage sale. It's getting super randomly full of non-printing printers around here. But I had to have one, the "online class" is just one printout after another to be tested on; I blew over twenty bucks at FedEx Office that I really couldn't afford last week. You can buy a printer for about seventy bucks. But they break, which is how I have so many that don't work. I hope this latest free one lives through March anyway.
I started drinking vodka at one oclock this afternoon because of some muscle spasms in my butt. Seriously. This one muscle called the piriformis goes into spasm and it twists my sciatic nerve. Vodka numbs it down some and keeps me from killing someone. I paced myself, there was only about four ounces of vodka total but that was a lot for me. This whole going to the pool and getting in shape thing can really piss a girl off.

Jonesin'

It was bright and sunshiny the other day so even though it was cold outside, I got some good rays in my eyes doing my pool walking thing. I guess because it was through glass that it didn't take. There's always a point in the winter where the cold and the gray just starts to get to me SO MUCH. And I really need to figure out how to make a living near the equator. I am hitting that point this week or so. Need me some warm airs and blue waterses. Figuring this out.
One thing I am not figuring out is how not to hate the online class I am taking. I always hated school, and the only thing I ever really liked about it is learning new stuff and making fun of the teacher with my hoodlum friends on the back row. Online classes dole out the stuff to learn in little boring chunks with very few pictures, and there are no hoodlum friends. So there is lots to hate about this process. Plus, they seem disorganized to me, sending important stuff by email and posting others in three or four places. Seems like they would have one place for policies and schedules so you didn't spend so much time finding things. I did bust my priss-pot instructor and her bullshit incomplete syllabus on the cyber-cafe, and she posted a big ole mea culpa for her sloppiness. Now I will have to be extra careful. Even though my posting was all, "I can't find the answer in the syllabus to this, what do you guys think" I knew full well she had omitted it. And it takes the fun out to not have hoodlum friends to laugh at her with. Oh well. I can get through this too.