And Then They Uncovered Them, And This Happened, etc.

Off the antipsychotic, I've found that I'm happier. I'm less out-of-it. My son says I'm more sharply witty. But piss me off? I'm a violent yeller with Tourette's Syndrome. It's kind of like this:

Such was the case when I got to band practice last night, uncovered my extremely expensive drum kit and found it had been TAKEN APART somehow, fiddled about, cymbals turned backwards, snare picked up and put back on the stand backwards (and that's a HUGE no-no) and my hi-hat coming apart. A tom-tom was unscrewed and falling off its base and the entire tom set up could be lifted off of the bass drum. I was FUMING. That is NOT the church's equipment to fuck around with. I found out later that the church custodian polished the floors before Christmas, me having missed the last service and leaving my drums covered. Dude. Go around them or for Christ's sake, take a fucking picture with your phone as to how they're supposed to go when you're done polishing the floor and screw them back together properly and put them where they belong, you dickwad! The vintage, original hardware is difficult to tighten and line up. The hi-hat is tricky, but not as tricky as the Dynasonic snare which has to be at a certain angle in its stand so I'm not hitting the rim constantly and can hit the skins. I didn't care one shit that I was in the house of God. I was almost screaming obscenities as I kept finding more things wrong. 

I'm kind of like this, like Ringo, only less polite: 

On the plus side, however, it was perhaps the first gig where I actually felt honestly talented. Our douchebag band leader included 2 brand new songs into the set list (we've bargained with him to limit it to one, but he's gone back to 2), Neither I nor 2 of the singers had ever heard these songs, so it was a huge act of improvisation on our parts with only 2 run-throughs on each song. But I nailed it. Right away. I came in once I heard the initial beat at practice and just pounded away. That almost never happens unless I'm on the djembe. I had asked the band leader 4 days ago for chord sheets to follow along with and a YouTube link in order to hear how the songs went, but he claimed he never received the email (when I copied the WHOLE band, and they all got it). YouTube searching would be fruitless, because with CCM (Crappy Christian Music), there are dozens of covers with different arrangements and God, literally, only knows what is in the leader's mind. 

On the double-plus-side, I had another EKG this week, which showed that this pesky Long QT Syndrome has since resolved itself coming off of the antipsychotic. The psychiatrist agreed with the Uber-Specialist Heart Lady. But it still came out abnormal, which Uber said is up to my cardiologist to figure out. I had the echocardiogram, which he still has to call me about with the results, and set up a stress test. There's a bet whether or not he'll see me or pass me off to another doctor. I saw him through a door at the hospital in Cardiology, and he knew I was there from the chitter-chatter while I was checking in, but he didn't appear in person in front of me. I fear he ran darting in the other direction, clutching his wedding ring and shouting Hail Marys.

If the psychiatrist wants to wait and see if I have a psychotic break before putting me on a different drug, I'm not sure I want to tell her about last night's violent outburst. We're giving it a month. If I Hulk out more than, let's say 5 times, I'll call for a new medication. Or maybe I just need to learn to control my temper. Nah. How bland would that be?

This. Honestly. Yes.

Expanded post to come.

For now, this is SO SO SO true.

And it made me feel less crummy about myself.

So that's a good thing. Because this is true.

Arrhythmias From the Offbeat Drummer

Things I shouldn't have to answer, explain or justify to a medical assistant:

1) What are your hobbies? (I'm a dominatrix. What? Don't look at me like that.)
2) What CHRISTIAN denomination are you? (Whichever is the least Christianesque at the moment. What if I wasn't a Christian to begin with?)
3) How many cigarettes are in a pack? (Oh boy! Are we going to guess how many jelly beans are in the jar? I get a keychain?)
4) You're STILL divorced? (Ok, this conversation is over.)

The appointment with the Uber-Specialist electrophysiologist, whose job it is to decipher and treat conditions like arrhythmias and like my other heart thingy, POTS, was EXTREMELY confusing. Right call on, uh, my cardiologist's part to refer me to her for the Long QT Syndrome, but as happens so frequently in the medical Wimbledon, I (the bouncy yellow ball which frequently goes out-of-bounds) have been volleyed over the net (score: Advantage Uber Specialist) for an ace against the cardiologist. Long story shortened, she'd already started a note to him, and whacked me (the helpless ball) back to the cardiologist to read tomorrow's echocardiogram (an ultrasound of the heart), take a look at my swelling, and figure out why, on the third line of the EKG, there's so little activity, it looks like I've flatlined. That said, we all die a little bit more every day, don't we? She also wants him to order a stress test, since I haven't had one in 5 years. He'll be THRILLED, unless (and if you've read this blog, you know who he is) he denies me the mercy of treatment and sends me on a long, drawn-out hunt over the course of the next few months trying to find another cardiologist in our hospital who'll accept my insurance. Be a nice Guy.

Let's pretend, for a moment, that I know anything about cardiology. Let's also factor in that I DO know a lot about psychiatry and the side effects of those medications. Comparing the EKG from December, which the Uber-Specialist looked at with me, yes, the QT intervals have improved from 469 down to 409. I was a little tachy today, pulse over 100. This doctor thinks those QT numbers are "normal." My psychiatrist is still going to flip out against that when she takes into account that result and what it means in the grand scheme of what Geodon, the antipsychotic, has done to damage my heart.

Once again, as is my modus operandi, I have managed to baffle beyond comprehension the very well-trained specialists I've seen. I wonder to whom I'll be bounced next. Probably back to the psychiatrist, because obviously, I've lost my mind (again).

But I'm not hearing things when Uber says, "I can't tell if you've had a heart attack or not!" or "I honestly have no idea why that line is so flat." When she asked me if I had any questions, I bit my tongue and said no, when in actuality, I wanted to ask her if she had a better way of explaining the EKG other than, "See these little mountains and valleys? There aren't any here."

School tomorrow for Luke was canceled because we'll have like -30 wind chills. I still have to go out to the hospital for the ECG and (for more reasons not understood), an ultrasound of my upper right abdominal quadrant.

I suppose if the cardiologist can't look into my heart, at least he look at my heart.

It Was What It Was: 2014

Can we just pretend 2014 didn't happen?

Help me, 2015! You're my only hope!

Long story short: 2014 sucked. Apart from my son's Confirmation (which, since, he's become an agnostic) and his elementary school graduation and turning into the most popular schmuck in his artsy crowd in high school with his own radio show and Peter Framptonesque long tendrils, and being Student of the Month in his photography class, the year was wrought with disaster after disaster, which sucked, Luke being the gleaming north star at the end of a very dark tunnel.

Luke saved my life from a paralyzing panic attack late this summer, that I'll credit him. I got stuck in the mud, literally, needed a Valium (which I had on hand), he bummed a fresh bottle of water off another fella, and pulled me out. Later that evening, we got to visit with a dear friend I haven't seen in a couple of years for a good, long while. (Yes, THAT friend.) He adores Luke, who wouldn't? He loves me, who wouldn't? The mud trap sucked but, uh, that friend most certainly brightened my life in spades. After many suicidal considerations and plans and means to carry it out, I kept peeking in at my boy, we'd talk or get laughing and the impulse would pass. It's nice that I have a teenager who doesn't hate me, who doesn't think I'm a bitch and still hugs me goodnight every night.

I had to switch grad schools, which turned out to be a big old mess because I have to repeat 2 courses due to absences for health-related problems. My current school has these ridiculous in-residence intensive weekends, for 3 days, and if you miss ANY of that class time, you automatically fail the course. That's when I got a serious infection in one of my right fingers after a doctor and 4 nurses had to cut one of my rings--my thickest ring--off of my hand because it was getting infected underneath and wouldn't come off, because I was so water-weighted down with edema. The infection caused me to miss 2 days of this particular residency weekend, so booted was I. It just sucked.

In the other class, I simply couldn't keep up with the workload because I was in and out of doctors' offices on an almost daily basis while my medical team tried to figure out the swelling. The diuretics finally worked and in a matter of a little over a month in November and December, I lost 35 pounds, which helped my back pain and knee pain. (I still have to go to physical therapy for the pain in my knees.)  So I now have skinny legs again but I'm top and neck heavy. Most disproportionate, which is embarrassing and aggravating. I'm a little woman trapped in a heavy body, which has done a number on my self-esteem. My asthma is also slowly improving the more weight I lose. Most of that still sucks.

Never mind with the school, I can produce dozens of medical visit reports, doctors' notes, etc. to corroborate my absence and lack of completion of work. It just sucked.

I had a battery of tests and long visits with an ear doctor because I was getting piercing earaches in my right ear when I was lying on it, which would wake me up from sound sleep. Several doctors looked at my ear, and it wasn't infected. It, as with most of my medical problems, was a mystery. Had an ear MRI (leaving all my piercings in, thank God) and the ear doctor was baffled. I went for a hearing test, and apart from markedly poor hearing in my right ear (huh?), I'm just using numbing drops when I get an earache. That sucks and doesn't suck. Ok, well, yeah, it sucks.

This Long QT Syndrome issue is still of prevalence. Getting in to see the electrocardiologist won't be happening until the middle of this month. I've tapered off the antipsychotic which was to blame, and my liver function issue should also be improving. (Geodon malfunctions the liver, the heart, I swear--every rare but life-threatening side effect has befallen me after having taken the drug since 2009.) Next week, I'm having an EKG, an echocardiogram and an abdominal ultrasound, then seeing my psychiatrist on Thursday. She wants to see an EKG to see if the Long QT has improved or escalated. Did I tell you that my psychiatrist was really intrigued with a long-term study that came out which blamed Geodon for multiple cases of pancreatitis? Well, if that don't beat all. Let's rewind to 2010-2011, when I had it 4 or 5 times and was in the hospital or operating room.

'Twill be a busy week with tests. I don't start school again until the 15th, and I'm lucky I don't have to be on campus that day. Uber has become my best friend. Parking downtown for school costs twice as much. That just sucks.

Sad to have said goodbye to "The Colbert Report" right before the holidays, as it was one of my favorite shows. I have not only deep respect and find Stephen Colbert a comedic genius, but he just seems like a really sweet guy out of character as well. That, and he did receive an honorary doctorate from my alma mater, Knox College, in 2006, which he tried to burn on his show at some point, but it wouldn't start on fire. Between "The Office" reruns, "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report," I don't watch much on the boob tube. Colbert's finale was a star-studded spectacular, and I'll have to start DVR'ing the "Late Night" show when he replaces Letterman. But then I found this picture on Pinterest, and it's just too much oof for me to handle. What can I say?

Christmas wasn't necessarily stress-free but it was enjoyable after all. My nephew and his boyfriend (who was also part of the festivities) got me "Cards Against Humanity" as a gift, which, if you haven't heard of it, has the tagline: "A card game for horrible people." It's filthy and insulting. And who played it with us until 1am on Christmas Eve? My mother! Oh, Mylanta! Christmas Day was just my mother and I, so we ate a fancy dinner she whipped up and watched "Silver Linings Playbook," which was most excellent. (I wonder if Guy ever got the "Lego Movie" I tried to anonymously send to him after he kicked my ass to the curb.) That all didn't suck too badly. Nobody killed anyone. Always a good thing.

New Year's Eve could've been more boring, but the TCM channel was showing "Elvis on Tour," "A Hard Day's Night," "Gimme Shelter," and "Tommy." I was pretty much set, with my laptop in the dining room, spending time with my mom. Luke was out at a house party until 1:45 in the morning (yes, the parents were home).  Toasts with sparkling grape juice that I wish was champagne, some good snacks, so that didn't suck as badly as it could have.

I missed a lot of band this year because of illness, injury and school, which bummed me out. I even missed the contemporary Christmas carols service because my knee was too swollen to play my drums and I was in too much pain. All of that alternating heat and ice. Heat and ice. Heat and ice. THAT sucked.

I'm not writing as much as I could be, given all the free time I'm seemingly allotted. I just haven't felt creative spunk lately. It's bad enough I'm blogging now, relaying all of my woes of the year and believe me, my friends, family and acquaintances all concur that 2014 was just a plain shitty year. It was all over Facebook--friends bidding adieu to the year which has thankfully passed. In all seriousness, I haven't seen THAT many people proclaim unhappiness in synopses over a few days as I have since around the 30th of December. Those poor people! The year sucked across the board! It wasn't just me!

Other friends have had serious problems too, both physical and emotional. I've tried to be the rock that holds everyone together, but like a globally warming glacier, I'm disappearing. I can't remember the last time I was truly manic, though right now I feel a little hypomanic (probably because I was looking at pictures of Stephen Colbert on Pinterest) and not yet sleepy. (He really should hire me as a writer. I am hella witty and sharp when I want to be, when I'm not constantly bitching.) Mostly it's been bipolar depression. I would love to exercise, but I'm not cleared to yet, and even if I tried something relaxing and healthy like swimming, I could go into cardiac arrest. That would suck.

The burgeoning year, 2015, you know, things can only get better. They have to, because too many of us have seen and been to the depths of hell and back in the last 365-ish days.

Heading off to make my Sleepytime tea (which I'll no doubt spill on myself in bed trying to use the laptop and drink at the same time, and one more smoke (down to half a pack a day with the e-cigarette!) outside in the rainy sleety mixture that's supposed to turn into 4-7" of snow by the end of tomorrow. Super. I can't shovel, which I actually enjoy. It's an OCD thing with me.

My wish is that you all fare well, have happiness and not suckiness in your new year. Don't make resolutions you can't keep, or promises which are empty to the people about whom you care. Don't break anyone's heart if you can help it. Smile a lot and make up jokes. Be free. Don't cast the first stone. Eat, drink and be merry. Do your best to tell the people you love that you love them, but if you don't really love them, don't say it at all. Support gay marriage and marijuana legalization, and the women's right to choose what happens to her body. Don't watch Fox News unless it's for amusement purposes only. Eat less cheese and drink more water. Those are the best pieces of advice I can muster at this late hour.

Most of all, don't suck and don't let the year suck you down.

Happy New Year, 4 days late, from The Offbeat Drummer! Wish me luck!

Step Out of Christmas

This was the attitude I had towards Christmas when I was young:

Weeee! Ho! Ho! Ho! Santa! Presents! A Charlie Brown Christmas! Rudolph! Frosty! My whole family together! Star Wars toys! Trying to stay awake at the midnight church service! My brother waking me up at 6am to play with all of  our new toys! Sunday school Christmas Programs! Snow in which to play! Daddy's firehouse Christmas party, where we'd all sit on Santa's lap and get a gift! Baby Jesus! It was all so thrilling.

As I matured, my attitude was more like this:

I wouldn't necessarily say I was growing cynical, but more realistic. My father was gone, and as families grew and married and split off, there was less of sense of gathering together, less joy. Less magic. I suppose that happens to everybody. But I still believed in miracles. I still got choked up singing "Silent Night" under candlelight at church, though we all got too tired to go to the midnight service anymore and went at like 7:00 pm. I figured out that Santa didn't exist. (I think when I broke the news to Luke about that, he was much younger, like 6, and I just said, "You do realize that there's no Santa and it's really your dad and me, right?" And Luke said something nonplussed like, "Yeah, I figured.") As Greg Lake closes "I Believe in Father Christmas," "The Christmas we get, we deserve." 

Ouch.

Once I had a child, I sort of got to relive all of that childhood wonder, except it all left me exhausted, because it was I (and my husband) who had to assemble all the toys from Santa in the middle of the night, but it was wonderful to see my son's eyes full of wonder and charm. He loved to help decorate the tree and would put all of the ornaments on the very bottom, almost toppling the tree over. He took away a lot of the disillusion I'd been feeling towards Christmas. I tried to keep that spark alive, if only for Luke's sake, even after the divorce. I'd try to fulfill his every wish and fantasy. I wanted Christmas to always be as special to him as a kid as it was to me. I did my best, even when the purse strings were really tight.

The entire time I dated Chris, I never once met his family or was invited over for a holiday. He was always welcome to come to our house for a meal, dessert or just to visit, and he'd met my family, but I was never invited over to his or his parents' house, as if I was some sort of embarrassment. The closest I got to people he knew was a stuffy New Year's Eve dinner with some of his old Northwestern cronies and their uptight, snooty spouses and one smart-mouth brat who magically disappeared into the transoms of nowhere. Nobody was nice to me and I felt like a total outcast. Meh, fuck 'em. But I always thought it was odd that in 3 1/2 years, I never met Chris' parents or his sister and only met his daughter once, as a "friend" of Chris'.

Our last New Year's Eve as a couple, he was having a dinner party at HIS apartment for all the aforementioned assholes, so I made plans with a girlfriend to go to a singles' party out in the suburbs. She met a guy and blew me off, so I stayed home alone and watched a Flaming Lips streaming concert on the internet lying on my bed. My son and mom were away. Granted, I gave my friend the go-ahead to dump me for the guy, but it was still a shitty time. My then-boyfriend, finding out I had no plans for NYE, didn't even extend a sympathy invitation to me? Are you starting to see why I hate the holidays?

My friends and I, who are NOT by ANY MEANS stuffy people, have always been very generous and inventive with one another at Christmastime, which results in smiles, imbibing and merriment. The kind of inventive merriment you don't need a PhD to understand. One friend in particular got extremely creative a couple of years ago and if you read my blog regularly, you'll find it around Christmas of 2012. 

Sadly, so very sadly, we're not friends anymore and that bums me out majorly this time of year, when I'm at least usually excited about picking out that special something for a special someone. I cry a lot. I am left singing something more along these lines:

Christmas is two weeks away. My health has been dangerously poor. I'm blown up like a puffer fish with water weight that just won't go away (the doctors call it "cyclical edema"). Too many diuretics fuck up your whole body, and aren't working to rid myself of the swelling. I had a residency weekend at school last weekend, and in walking too much and lugging around my 40 lb briefcase, I wrenched my already weighed down back and it's killing me. My right knee is totally swelled up and hurts like a son of a bitch. Pain management? The utterly useless Naproxen, which is literally the same ingredients and makeup of taking 2 Aleve. Not cutting it at all. I can barely walk and when I do, I can't catch my breath, so I'm double-dutying on the inhalers. I was in the ER on Sunday night (after the marathon school weekend) thinking I had congestive heart failure, I was so blown up and unable to breathe. I got an albuterol treatment and was sent home. 

Naturally, since I have a congenital heart condition already, I had 2 EKG's taken--one in the ambulance and one in the ER. My psychiatrist wanted a copy of the ER EKG to check for what are called QT intervals...something to do with the length of electrical impulses between heartbeats. I don't know. In any event, I have "Long QT Syndrome." Mine is bordering on moderate to severe. The ER wasn't looking for it. They were just checking to see if I was in normal sinus rhythm,which I was. But the psychiatrist knows to look for it because it is a huge risk factor in taking Geodon,especially for such a long time. All kinds of complications can arise from it, and you're not supposed to exert yourself physically at all or it can cause things like...well, sudden death. I wanted to exercise some of this weight away after the water weight is gone, but I can't even swim!! Isn't that cray-cray? I need to see an electrocardiologist, a specialized cardiologist. This is out of Guy's area of expertise. I tried texting him when I found out I had this disorder, but he didn't respond. I called his office and was referred back out to the electrocardiologist and that he, like her, was booked until February anyway. So nothing will be done about this life-threatening condition until mid-January. 

The holidays. Lots of suicides. Just have to keep thinking Luke, Luke, Luke, LUKE.

Not looking forward to family tension, people crabbing, who's bringing who to Christmas, how much indigestion I'll get, or if I'll keel over the whole shebang. I'm very, very depressed over the whole thing, and to boot, I still have school shit to finish up on and registration for next term to complete.

This leaves me with this musical sentiment, which is where I'm totally at right now: 

Keep the "ist" in Christmas and have some grog.

Hope your holidays are happier than mine will be.
But I've got my Luke, the best gift ever. 

Chipping Away

It's really stupid. I chipped both of my front teeth today. The right one worse than the left, and in thinking I'd need crowns, I immediately called my dentist, whom I have not seen in a decade. I'm absolutely petrified of the dentist. It triggers all sorts of PTSD fears in me..being confined in a chair with a giant light on my face, with a man standing above me with instruments of torture, and I can't move. He took X-rays and said the chips weren't bad, and that he could fix them with fillings....on Monday. Today is Wednesday. The right one is very irritating and rubbing up against my inner lip. I was hoping to score some painkillers out of him, but he sent me home with Sensodyne toothpaste. I guess I could get some of that teething gel for babies to numb the area. That might help.

In other stupid news, tomorrow is the ear doctor appointment. I only got off my ditty bag to call for an appointment when I took a nap a couple of days ago in horrific pain in my right ear. The pain is getting worse. It's radiating to when I'm upright instead of just lying down. My GP found me an ENT who takes my insurance, so yay. If all goes well, I'll be doing the Woody Allen skipping and jumping down the street that he's healthy dance. If not, I'll probably die and no one will give a damn.

Strangest thing happened this morning. I was dead ass asleep, and was awakened by my phone ringing. It was 7:20 in the morning. Groggily, I grabbed the phone from under the covers just as the caller hung up. It was the hospital number. It would seem awfully odd that my GP would call me at such an ungodly hour to tell me he did the referral to the ear doctor (which he would email me about anyway), and it wasn't the ENT people, because they have a different phone # and called late this afternoon to confirm my appointment. Either the hospital dialed the wrong number, or someone important was trying to call me, but didn't leave a message. My wildest dreams were that it was Guy.

We haven't spoken in 5 months, other than me emailing him asking him to please refill my heart medication twice. I did, however, recently have Meg either text or email him a certain lyric from Dido's "White Flag." It was "And when we meet, which I'm sure we will, all that was there will be there still. I'll let it pass, and hold my tongue. And you will think that I've moved on." She said it was a message from me.

It's really a rather beautiful and sad song. But it hits the nail on the head. I'm not out to change his life. And I do understand if he can't talk to me anymore. But putting it into a grander perspective, I think it's a) because of his wife's ultimatum and b) because he did, in fact love me too much to keep me in his life and had to let me go. I just wish I knew what the truth was. 

Meg asked me if Guy would be at the hospital that early in the morning. Yes, he would've been. He does some rounds in the morning, and sees patients, and does heart procedures early in the morning. 

I keep having these recurring dreams where Craig (my ex-husband), Luke and I are going on vacation together, pack up and drive to our destination, and they both leave me there and the only one there is Guy. And they leave me a car, but I don't know how to get home. To me, anyway, that means there's unfinished business. These aren't lustful dreams whatsoever. I also had a dream recently that I was texting him my random banterings throughout the day (the ones he used to love to read) and he was responding like there was nothing wrong between us. I must admit I miss that...quite a bit. Rarely, I message POE with such stories on Facebook, but he doesn't even answer, so he's a dead shark. It all enhances my sense of isolation. Thankfully, BMF has been really responsive and charging forward as my partner-in-crime, but he has multiple responsibilities (more than Guy, even) and can't always communicate back immediately, but he always does. That was one of Guy's last points in our farewell conversation..."You'll always have BMF...." And I will. 

School is going ok, but not as well as I'd hoped upon entering Argosy, still with a lot of work to do to finish those fucking Adler classes in which I got incompletes. I'm falling behind at Argosy too. I'm reminded of this Warren Zevon lyric, from "The French Inhaler," which is "How are you gonna make your way in this world when you weren't cut out for workin', and you just can't concentrate? And you always show up late?"

(No, I don't plan on becoming a prostitute.) 

"Loneliness and frustration...we both came down with an acute case." It must be contagious. Thank you, Doctor.

It didn't help that I passed by his apartment building on my way home from Argosy the other night. Hi, trigger!

Yes, I'm still depressed. I wish something would lift me out of it, or give me some type of thoughts other than my son to look forward to. Especially if I have in operable brain tumor! Because that would suck balls! 

The holidays are coming. The most dreaded time of the year for me, I'm afraid. It starts with Thanksgiving and doesn't remit until after the new year. The most I have to look forward to is meeting my nephew's incredible boyfriend, whom I already love and we haven't even met in person. But for the last several years, I've searched high and low to get Guy something or somethings spectacular. I really tried hard to impress him and make him happy. BMF? He's easy to shop for. My girlfriends? Pretty easy. My family gives me a list, so no biggie. But Guy? Le Estrango Mysterioso. I used all my creative energy to get him things nobody else would think to get him. And I'm not used to *not* having that as part of my holidays anymore. 

Still, it ended. Badly, Without closure. I want so much to be his friend again, his buddy. 

Uh oh. Luke's microwaving downstairs. I best see what's going on. Hopefully, I'll dream more peacefully tonight. I can't imagine it getting any more sorrowful than it already is.

Thank you, Dr. Genius. I'll Call In the Morning.

The characters Woody Allen portrays are typically notorious hypochondriacs. He always thinks he's dying from some dreaded illness. And it's usually nothing. But he always thinks he's dying. Oh my, yes.

And then it hit me, suddenly, right after I got off the phone with my doctor just now. See, I've been having these ever-increasing, terrible earaches just in my right ear for like 3 months which wake me up from sleep, whether it's at night or when I'm taking a nap (which is, like, always). It's this sharp, shooting pain. The frequency is increasing to 4-5 times a week. It goes away once I'm upright, But sometimes when I'm waking up in the morning, my vision is like a movie reel. It's shifting up and down quickly, usually when I have these earaches, when I'm looking at my iPhone and cringing that yet again, I'd slept until 11:00 in the morning. Otherwise, it's not throwing off my equilibrium or impairing my vision any worse than it's already impaired.

Such so happened last night, and I was so a) awake and b) aggravated, I emailed my doctor. (The capacity to email doctors with questions has to be THE worst advance in medical technology ever invented for patients like me, who ALWAYS have something wrong with them.) 

I am a Woody Allen character.

BECAUSE...

In my email, I said this: "I'm getting convinced I either have some type of disgusting, lurking parasite in my head or a brain tumor." 

When, usually, the end result is more like this:

I don't have a cold. I haven't had a cold in a very long time. It's not my allergies. SOMETHING HAS INVADED MY HEAD. The doctor looked in my ear a couple of months ago and said I didn't have an ear infection or a build up of wax. He couldn't figure out why I had these earaches.

I'm all behind in my therapy notes and paperwork, I have a residency weekend at school for a class all weekend, and my depressive episode....today, at least....was one of those mixed-mood episodes (ultradian cycling, where you go from one mood to another in a matter of hours) where I either just want to sleep and cry all day, or I literally laugh at everything. EVERYTHING. EVERYTHING.

It's like the maniacal laughter in the background of Pink Floyd's "Brain Damage/Eclipse." I cackle.

To myself.

The lunatic is in my head. Or the brain tumor. Or maybe just a huge chunk of wax. I'll call for an appointment tomorrow.