Trying To Not

Get abroad the self-pity express.

But I’m not doing so hot and I’m afraid that I might have slipped on when I was taking pictures of my bunny slippers to post to Instagram.

The only part of me I want to photograph at the moment.

I look a mess.

I cried off a lot of mascara, wiped down the face with makeup removing wipe, but I still look pretty wrecked.

I had to cancel my Friday after work client.

I went to the doctor today.

It’s official.

I have shingles.

And motherfucker.

They hurt!

I am in a lot of pain.

I was tentatively offered narcotics, my doc knows my history though and I was pretty up front about not wanting anything hard.

So I’m doing 600mg of ibuprofen three times a day for pain management.

Frankly.

Hasn’t seemed to work for shit.

But who knows, I’m not going to not take them as the pain is god awful.

I had one spot of shingles yesterday and now I have them all over my right hip and wrapped around to the small of my back.

Tiny red patches of blisters.

Just makes me want to cry.

I’m on house arrest.

I’m contagious, to anyone who’s not had chicken pox, for a few days until the antiviral meds kick in.

I should be fine by the end of the weekend, I’m on a seven-day course for the meds, but I’m being on the safe side of things.

I cancelled all my clients for Saturday, tomorrow.

Aside from the ethical ramifications I really didn’t know if I could sit through four therapy clients.

Sometimes just shifting where I’m sitting is enough to make me gasp out loud in pain.

I’m trying to stay pretty still.

And the pain has progressively gotten worse throughout the day.

Fortunately for me the doctor said we caught it fast enough so the antiviral should kick it out within the week.

I fucking hope so.

I cannot handle this for too long.

My person said it was God trying to slow me down.

Fuck slowing me down.

I’m at a full on dead stop.

I couldn’t even really do homework today.

I just felt demoralized.

I cancelled on the friend’s birthday party I was supposed to go to tomorrow night and I also cancelled my dentist appointment for tomorrow plus the ladies I usually meet with on Sunday as well as my person I normally meet with.

I’ll just be staying home, watching the sky change colors and trying to not cry.

I suppose I’ll give into the schoolwork, I don’t feel that I can not attend to it, but not tonight, obviously.

Netflix and chill.

A very, very, very still.

Chill.

Sigh.

Strange Little Day

I called in sick today.

Which is very, very, very rare for me.

However.

I was really, really, really sick.

I had begun to feel sick last night, in retrospect, I was coming down with a pretty bad headache, bad enough that I didn’t write my blog last night when I got back from my evening commitment.

Pretty unusual for me and when I think about it, pretty indicative of how bad I was feeling.

I don’t always let myself be sick.

Not like I really have a choice, but my brain seems to think that it does, that it can choose whether or not I’ll react to the illness.

Last night I made myself a cup of tea and a little snack and even while I was enjoying it I was not enjoying myself at all.

My head fucking hurt.

And.

I couldn’t take any ibuprofen.

Not since getting the diagnosis of silent reflux from my doctor and when we had gone through all the things I didn’t eat and she couldn’t figure out why the hell I had all the symptoms but wasn’t eating any of the foods that would cause it, she hit on it, almost by accident.

“Ibuprofen?”

Oh yeah.

I take a lot of that.

And pretty much I’m causing my stomach to bleed out, I’ve been ulcerating it causing the reflux, causing all the off again on again pain, which, yes, was probably also exacerbated by the stress of this past semester.

It was a touch stressful, yes, it fucking was.

Anyway.

I have a headache.

It’s rotten bad.

And.

I can’t take the only pain-killer I have in the house, ibuprofen.

I can take it and maybe alleviate my headache, but it will blow my stomach out of whack.

So I make the decision to just go to bed and try to sleep it off.

Like a fucking hangover, which, for the record, it’s been a long fucking time since I’ve had one of those, but that’s what it felt like I was doing, trying to sleep it off.

I was in bed by 10:15 p.m. and had the alarm set for 6:30 a.m.

I woke up once around 3 a.m. to use the loo and the headache was still there and pretty awful.

I stumbled back into bed and prayed that when I woke up it would be gone.

It was not gone.

I got up anyway and got myself into the shower.

My head still hurt and my stomach felt horrid.

I dried my hair and started to get dressed.

It took a long time.

It really took too long a time.

I knelt down by my bed and started my morning readings and prayers and I started to get sweaty, like awful, cold sweat, I got super hot, broke out into a sweat and could barely say my prayers.

I finished, got up, felt woozy, sat down on my chaise and thought, fuck, maybe I should call into work.

No.

I can’t do that.

I have the next four days off and the family needs me.

I got myself up went to the bathroom and checked my face out in the mirror, fuck, I was shining with sweat and now I was chilled.

Eek.

I wiped my face, washed my face, and took a big deep breath, just go make your breakfast and you’ll be fine once you get some coffee in yourself.

I started to make breakfast.

I couldn’t fathom how I was going to eat.

The smell of the coffee wasn’t good, the apple I was cutting up to put in my oatmeal nauseating, I started to get sweaty again.

I couldn’t eat.

I was not going to be able to eat anything.

How the fuck was I going to go into work without eating breakfast?

I turned back to the stove, I poured some almond milk in a heating canister and the smell was way too much.

I turned off all the burners, walked away, left the bowl of cut up apples on the counter, the milk in the can, the percolator on the stove, an egg in a pan of water and I picked up my phone.

I stared at it.

I have to call in.

I can’t go in.

I called.

I lost the signal.

I called again.

Same thing.

I tried one more time.

Got through.

Told my employer I was super sorry, don’t know what was going on, food poisoning, stomach bug, then I started to cry.

I don’t cry.

Ok.

Sure.

I cry if you know me, if you don’t know me, you’re my boss or someone I engage with professionally, I’m not going to cry in front of you (doesn’t mean I won’t cry in the bathroom at work, but that’s different), and I started to cry, which is the ultimate sign to me, I was really sick.

My boss was sweet told me to get some rest and I got off the phone, took off my clothes and crawled right back into bed.

About ten minutes, maybe fifteen minutes of being in bed I sat up with a bolt, I’m going to actually throw up.

No, no, I’m not, I haven’t thrown up in years.

But I wobbled quickly to the bathroom.

And.

Holy shit.

I threw the fuck up.

I barely had time to drop to my knees and pull my hair out of my face.

My super pretty hair, I was having a great hair day, all for naught, the nice hair.

I vomited three times in succession and then got up, rinsed out my mouth, flushed the toilet and tottered back to bed.

I considered grabbing a bowl just in case to put by the bed, but I fell asleep too quickly to do anything about it.

I recall, in a dreamy sort of way, responding to a few text messages that came in during the morning, but most of what I did was drift in and out of sleep for the next five hours.

I got up a little after 1 p.m.

I drank a little water, my head still hurt, but I didn’t feel nauseous.

I made some of my breakfast that I had left on the stove hours earlier.

I was able to eat about half of it.

I talked with my best friend on the phone for a bit and by the time I was done with the conversation I felt better.

Well enough to finish the other half of the oatmeal and drink some coffee.

The headache went away about an hour later and the stomach totally settled.

I have no idea if it was food poisoning or if I was just suffering a migraine.

I don’t remember having an aura, which I typically do before a migraine, and I haven’t had a migraine in such a long time that I wasn’t sure if it was that or just a bad headache.

Either way.

It’s gone.

And.

I spent the entire day at home.

I rested.

I watched Blade Runner 2049 and chilled out.

I feel a lot better.

Good enough that I signed up for a yoga class in the morning.

I will take it easy, but I feel like I’m back to myself.

Sometimes a girl just has to take a sick day.

Grateful as fuck that I didn’t push myself to go into work, I would have probably thrown up in my new car.

No thank you.

I’ve got a super nice day off planned for tomorrow.

I am über grateful that I feel better.

Like over the moon.

Night friend.

See you on the flip.

Sweetest dreams ever.

Turn On The Heat

It’s cold out there.

The rains are coming.

It’s November.

Hello.

The chill in the air, with the almost full moon rising, was spooky and intense, bright and crisp, fall is here, winter is coming.

I hopefully will be getting a car soon, as I noted that there is rain in the near forecast.

I don’t have the time to do it before the rains start and I have some homework yet to do, but I’m pretty decided and as soon as I have the down time I will be getting my butt to a dealership in the East Bay.

Soon.

Not soon enough to save me from some more cold scooter rides home, or wet rides home.

I am still debating riding in to work tomorrow on my scooter, even though there is some rain in the forecast–it’s off and on and not 100% rain all day.

There are windows of time when it’s not raining and they both fall around when I would be going into work and when I’d be coming home.

I get to come home early tomorrow, both of my clients cancelled and instead of trying to squeeze in a consult, like I did tonight when my client cancelled, I decided to take the night off and just come home.

Take a hot shower.

Wash the week off of me.

Cook myself a nice dinner.

Be cozy.

Reflect on my life and the last six months.

My God.

The last six months.

So much love.

So much change.

Some quiet and private.

Some big and public.

Lots of internal change.

Loads.

And just extraordinary amounts of gratitude for where I am in my life and the people I get to spend time with.

I am so lucky.

If the rain stays away and the cloud cover is not to bad, it might be a great night to go down to the beach for the full moon.

It will be full at midnight tomorrow, but I suspect that it will look full when it rises, I thought it was full tonight as it was coming up.

I had to check online to see when it was complete.

Tomorrow.

Midnight.

The witching hour.

Magic.

Love.

The ocean.

Dancing on the beach.

Wrapping myself up in love.

The full moon reminding me of you.

Of promise.

Of joy.

Of laughter that falls from my mouth.

How sustained I am and how loved.

My life is extraordinary, even when I am tired, like I was today and a little bit in H.A.L.T.

Hungry.

Angry.

Lonely.

Tired.

I was hungry since I didn’t have the best lunch, not a bad lunch, no not at all, just not the lunch I’d planned, as the container that my chicken soup was in broke in my scooter basket and I had chicken soup all over my school books, shoes, and paperwork.

Sigh.

Tired.

As I went to bed late.

Not horribly late, just later than normal and up a little earlier to help the mom out at work by coming in a half hour early.

Lonely.

Well.

Sometimes a girl gets lonely.

I was listening to Coleman Hawkins today, late afternoon, at work, the mom had all the kids and I was at the house waiting for an important delivery and doing food prep and cleaning and household stuff.

The music moved me.

The view moved me.

I danced by myself.

Dreamy and slow, folding the laundry, looking out the window towards downtown San Francisco, dreaming of being in another’s arms.

Angry.

Well.

It passed.

But it was there for a little bit.

I got boonswoggled into a playdate/babysitting gig, without compensation.

I felt manipulated, annoyed, angry, pissed off, victimized and aware that, in the passive aggressive text, I had been played.

Or so it felt.

And I knew that I was tired and I knew that I was lonely and I knew that I was hungry, so I prayed and asked for it to be removed and I asked myself what my fear was, and I asked if I needed to manipulate through withholding my honest response, and I asked myself to see the situation with perspective and wait for clarification before getting more pissed off.

Which I’m very happy for.

I also had a snack.

Which fucking helped.

And I took some ibuprofen, too much carrying the baby this week in the carrier, which is how I started out my day, so I was a bit sore and tender all day too, which helped.

Then I had a talk with the mom and we divided and conquered and, yes, I will, in a way be baby sitting–I’m just going to call it an extended play date, but it is for a charge I have already had, who I love so dearly that I am more than happy to help and that the mom is taking two of her three kids, so that I will just have two to take care of, instead of the four I thought I was going to be saddled with, and it doesn’t happen til next Wednesday and fuck if I’m going to be upset about it and carry it forward.

Thank God for spot check inventory.

Also.

Thank God for getting home and making myself a nice hot meal, pan-fried Japanese sweet potato with garlic and pulled meat from a roasted chicken with melted butter.

That along with turning up the heat in my studio and realizing it’s Friday tomorrow and I have wonderful plans for it and I’ll get a paycheck and my health insurance stipend and really, there are no problems.

None.

Just love.

Abundance.

Perspective.

Joy.

And the nearly, almost, not quite, but soon to be.

Full moon.

OUCHY

Ouch.

Damn it.

Fucking to all hell.

I have a tooth ache.

And.

Yes.

I suspect.

An infection.

Currently running a fever, experiencing some tenderness and swelling on the right side of my face.

The fever is recent.

Started about half hour, 45 minutes ago.

The swelling is also new.

But I suspect that the infection, because that’s what I think it is, started in the last day or two.

I have had some tooth pain, sharp, unexpected, piercing pain, on and off for a couple of weeks.

But nothing like this.

Nothing where I am gasping out loud when it hits.

I almost did so with a client tonight.

Thank God I only had one client.

Yesterday I was feeling pretty punked by the end of the day and I thought, though the tooth was hurting a bit, I just thought, I’m tired, it’s been a long week, I’m not feeling great, and I cancelled my 7:30p.m.

But today.

I woke up and everything was fine.

Until about 3:30p.m. maybe four p.m.

Then I started to feel weird and a couple of times on the walk up the hill on Chenery Street I had a quick, fast, stabbing, piercing, white hot siren of pain in my tooth.

When I got back to the house with my charges I took some ibuprofen and I called my dentist.

I had an appointment in early November, I think somewhere in the back of my head that I thought I could make it until then, grin and bear it so to speak, but after the walk up the hill and realizing that once again I felt exhausted and the idea of going to my friends birthday dinner and dance party made me want to cry, that something was seriously wrong.

My god.

I am fucking burning up.

Fevers are weird.

Anyway.

I called and the receptionist said they could see me on Wednesday at 2 p.m.

I took the appointment and when the mom got home I told her and when I was telling her I could feel tears, OUCH! OUCH! Oof, sorry, yikes, tooth said hello, in my eyes.

That is a huge sign for me.

I have learned that I am sick not necessarily from actually acknowledging the symptoms, but from being in enough pain that it solicits tears.

Then.

Well, then I know.

And that took me years to learn.

I got used to turning off the pain receptors, ignoring them, not letting myself feel the pain, emotional or physical, a long, long, long time ago.

It was not safe to express pain.

It was not safe to be vulnerable.

Not at all.

Never.

Never.

Never.

I got used to toughing it out without realizing I was toughing it out.

I recall being 17 years old and having gotten really sick, so sick that I was walking around the house in a nightgown hallucinating and in so much pain I could barely talk, the back of my throat was on fire and coated with white mucus and my tonsils were so big I could barely breathe.

I called my mom at work and she couldn’t come to get me, she couldn’t leave work.

I called in sick to my debate team, we had a meet that next morning.

It was the only one we lost that year and boy howdy did I never hear the freaking end of it, but hey, I was in the emergency room by that point, so whatever.

I don’t remember much of what happened.

Except that the doctor yelled, I mean, yelled, at my mom for not bringing me in sooner.

I overheard, “she could have died,” and drowned the rest of it out.

Severe tonsillitis and strep and yes, wait for it, MONO.

How the fuck I caught the kissing disease is beyond me, but I had the trifecta.

The doctors didn’t want to do a tonsillectomy because they felt I was too old, it was too risky.

They pumped me full of antibiotics and I think I slept a lot for a few days.

I was back at school Monday though, to hear all about how I had let down the team.

The funny thing.

I can remember a lot of, what to me were wonderful things, about that Saturday afternoon after we left the hospital.

My mom took us, to the Willy Street market and bought crab salad and croissants, they were a day old, but fuck, they were croissants.

And ice cream.

And she was really nice to me.

I remember the way that crab salad sandwich tasted and the bowl of ice cream, butter pecan, and falling asleep on the couch.

It was wonderful.

How crazy is that, that one of my fondest memories is of being terrifically sick.

Anyway.

I wasn’t allowed to feel sick or be sick or act sick, or sad or angry, or any emotions really.

Maybe happy was allowed.

I don’t recall.

So today I was pretty impressed with myself, even though, yes, it could be argued that I should have called in a few days ago.

Should, would, could.

Ways to beat myself up that right now I prefer to not do.

Instead.

I will celebrate the fact that I listened to someone admonish me to take care of myself and I heard my boss in my head saying, “call in the mornings, every morning and see if there are any cancellations.”

Because when I got off the phone with my best friend I felt the fever tick up a notch and I could feel an intense hotness in my cheek starting.

I called my dentist.

8:45 p.m. on a Friday.

Expecting to leave a message and hope that someone would cancel and they would call me in.

Except.

Holy shit!

Someone answered.

My dentist has an answering service!

After listening to what I said and pulling up my chart she said come in tomorrow at 9 a.m.

There’s already an appointment, but she’d make sure that the dentist would see me, it meant double booking and it means I might have to wait, but better to wait in the office and be ready to go than wait until Wednesday.

Because frankly.

I am not going to make it until Wednesday.

Super freaking grateful I know to take suggestions.

So grateful.

I won’t be going to yoga in the morning.

Nope.

I’m going to the dentist.

Wish me luck.

I am a little scared.

Just a little.

Ok.

A lot.

I am a lot scared.

And that’s ok.

I’m going anyway.

I will be taken care of.

I always am.

God Damn

That hurt.

I think I broke my toe.

I am not fucking pleased.

I was really hoping it would feel better and when I took off my sock.

Gah.

It don’t look good.

It’s swollen, blackish purple blue.

Grr.

I can walk on it, in fact, I walked on it all day, but it hurts in a few spots that don’t feel right.

I can flex the toe and I gently checked it out, but yeah, I think I may have fractured it.

I’ll be calling the advice nurse in the morning.

On my way to therapy.

Sigh.

I really don’t want to deal with this right now.

I suspect that there is little to nothing that can be done.

Take some ibuprofen and elevate it, I’ve currently got it up and I’ve a bag of frozen corn on my foot.

Damn it foot.

This is the foot I always hurt.

The one with the bad ankle.

The one that I broke before when I was a kid.

In fact.

One of the very same toes.

I broke three toes and part of the bones in my foot the summer between second and third grade.

I jumped off a piece of playground equipment, missed the pole I was leaping for and smashed down, bare foot, onto a cement anchor.

I don’t remember the pain, thank god really, I just know it was bad and it was a while before it was properly taken care of, I was probably in shock for a while, my babysitter kept insisting that I had just twisted an ankle.

Of course.

When my mom came to pick me up she took one look at my foot, went sheet white and scooped me up off the baby sitter’s couch and walked me over to the emergency care clinic across the street.

It was touch and go.

They had to reset my toes and inject pain killers into each one, I got at least three shots that I can remember, the needles so long and spooky, to this day I do not like getting shots.

Tattoos, no problem, though, truth be told, I don’t watch myself getting a tattoo, I’m just not that into it.

You know what.

Fuck trying to figure this out.

Time to make a phone call.

And now.

I’m on hold.

I figured I might as well call the advice nurse at Kaiser now instead of googling what a broken toe looks like and how to deal with it, because that’s what I did first and all I did was freak myself out.

I just checked it again and it does feel tender, and it’s definitely bruised and swollen, but it’s not obviously broken.

Maybe a fracture.

Maybe my imagination.

It just is something I do want to address.

I need to be on my feet and I need to take care of myself.

I don’t want to ignore it and it get worse.

I am hoping that the nurse says keep ice on it, elevate it, and keep an eye on it.

And miraculously the swelling will go away and I’ll be fine.

I checked a few decent sources on the web and I’m getting about all the same thing, ice, elevation, ibuprofen, and watch for swelling, bruising, and discoloration and if it doesn’t go away after a few days then maybe a trip to the doctor.

I mean.

It can’t be that fucking bad, I worked all day on it.

Granted I was aware of it on occasion.

And.

The oldest boy can be rambunctious with me and has a tendency to hop on my feet or steps on my toes.

I pulled him aside at the cafe and told him I really needed him to be careful around my feet today.

It wasn’t until we got back to the house in the late afternoon that I actually looked at it.

Yeesh.

That’s not pretty.

I also showed my charge who was super sympathetic and sweet with me and shared how he had bruised his knee badly on a recent field trip with school and how it hurt to walk and he patted my foot.

It was adorable.

I will say I was a bit surprised to see the amount of bruising.

Since, as I mentioned, I worked on it all day.

It’s not the big toe, which is good, I do know if it was the big toe I would have taken myself in to the urgent care.

It’s the one next to the baby toe.

It wasn’t something glamorous or fun, like when I was a kid and smashed my toe, it was a rousing game of tag and I was fleeing a pursuer.

Nope.

I just banged the damn thing on the foot of my bed while I was changing my sheets.

I’ve banged it before in the same spot, it’s a small area, my space is, well-appointed and everything just where it should be, but a tiny bit tight.

I recall clapping my hands over my mouth to stop myself from screaming.

So.

Let’s just say I hit it much harder than I have in the past.

And this is definitely the first time that I have ever seen a bruise on my toe from stubbing it.

I really do not want to be dealing with this.

“All advice nurses are still assisting other members, please stay on the line.”

Yeah, yeah.

Hurry up.

Thy will not my will be done.

Note to self.

Nothing horrible is happening.

I can walk.

This is nowhere near the extraordinary bad sprain I suffered a few years ago.

It’s just a bit of a nuisance, really.

Small things can unloose me, but I think I’m going to be ok.

I’ll chat up the nurse, keep telling myself it’s fine and.

Nurse!

Yes!

Yes!

Yes!

I don’t have to go in.

It’s not the big toe, and I didn’t break skin, and there’s not much to do unless it was an obvious break.

It was suggested I take it easy, not be on my feet too much (bwahahahahaha), ice and ibuprofen and if the swelling gets worse or the bruising spreads call back, but she didn’t think it was going to be necessary.

Thank God.

I’m not a hypochondriac, but I also tend to down play when I am sick or hurt and muster through.

Grateful I called and I can now say I did, I didn’t just rely on the interwebs to diagnose myself and I’m ok.

I really am.

Just a tiny bit slowed down.

Which in the end is not a bad thing at all.

Nope.

In fact.

It’s just what the doctor ordered.

Pun fucking intended.

Ha.

Twelve Hour Headache

Seriously.

Go away.

I’m on my second dose of 600 milligrams of ibuprofen.

I’m not a happy lady.

I’m also not horrified, it’s not a migraine.

It’s annoying, it hurts, but it’s not a migraine.

And for that I am hella grateful.

It’s been a few years since I have had a migraine and I certainly don’t need to start now.

I used to get them as a kid, but didn’t know that’s what was happening.

I just thought I had really bad head aches.

I was finally diagnosed with them in my early to mid-twenties.

“I don’t think you have migraines,” the doctor told me looking over some paperwork as I sat on the table in the examining room at the clinic.

“I do think that you have some issues that need to be addressed, however,” he said, looking up from the clip board.

Then he told me a story about people who smoke.

Now.

At that time I was definitely smoking.

Not my all time high, that would have been in Iowa when I was living in Newton and bartending at Boots and Spurs, Iowa’s Largest Country Western nightclub (I shit you not, they even had a mechanical bull), I could smoke behind the bar and would find myself going through a pack and a half to two packs a day.

Of course I left many a cigarette smoldering in an ashtray as I was slinging drinks, oh so many margaritas and pitchers of Bud Lite, but still, I was smoking a lot.

At the time I was seeing this doctor I must have been slightly younger than I was first thinking, as I was still with the boyfriend of five years and I was working at the Essen Haus as their General Manager.

I couldn’t have been more than 23 years old, 24 years old, tops.

I don’t recall a lot of the conversation, but I remember how he told me a story, the doctor did, about himself and when he had been a cigarette smoker and how he smoked to cope with emotional issues.

I think he was hinting at I needed psychological help rather than medical help.

And he was right.

And.

I still wanted him to go through with the exam.

I still had headaches, which I was pretty sure might be migraines, despite the doctor telling me that the pain I was experiencing did not corroborate a migraine diagnosis.

We did talk for a while and he got a lot of my family history and then he said, “well, you’re here, we might as well do a quick exam and check you out.”

He listened to my heart.

Checked my throat.

Shined a light into my eyes.

“Well, look at that,” he whistled softly, “you do get migraines.”

It turns out that there were broken blood vessels on the backs of my eyes that indicated migraines.

“You have stress migraines,” was the doctor’s diagnosis.

I was given a prescription.

I don’t recall what it was for.

But.

I do know that I filled it and I followed the directions and it worked.

I had to take it at the first sign of a migraine for it to be effective and I wasn’t able to figure out what my body was telling me the first couple of times after I had the medication to dose myself in time.

I had what I learned to call “pre-migraine” symptoms, but I didn’t recognize them right away.

Until.

One day I did.

And it was a revelation.

I was able to take the medication before the migraine landed.

It was miraculous.

I had migraines on and off over the years, but they eventually tapered off.

I stopped taking medication for them over 12 years ago.

My stress levels have decidedly changed over the years, and I have learned how to manage it better, so I know this is not a stress migraine, but it is a bad headache.

What I am hoping is that it is just that, not whatever cold was going around at school.

One of my professors showed up sick the first two days of class and got progressively worse over the weekend and had to call in by Sunday.

I am, however, not feeling anything but pain in my right temple.

I think I just have a nasty headache and hopefully, my dinner will kick in, the ibuprofen will kick in and some nice hot tea will help.

Plus a full night’s sleep.

These things will turn the trick I am certain.

I hope so anyway.

I meet with my internship supervisor tomorrow to fill out paper work after I get done with work and I am also going to be interviewing him for a class project I am doing for Community Mental Health.

I would like to be on point.

So.

With that.

I am going to wrap this up.

Do some self-care.

Get some rest.

Night y’all.

Sweetest dreams.

 

OW

Fuck that hurt.

That hurt more than I expected.

Hurt my face.

Face still hurts.

Hours later, my jaw is aching from having a weird rubber thingamabob in my mouth for too long.

No.

I was not at a sex play party.

I was at the dentist.

Yes.

I finally went.

Ten years later.

Pro tip.

When they say get a cleaning every six months.

Listen.

Walk through the fear, just go.

I am smacking myself for letting it lapse so long.

I can only beat myself up for so long though, I haven’t had dental insurance and it’s a pretty penny to get dental work done and you know, I have things to do, places to go, people to see, I’m busy.

Too busy.

But when my teeth felt.

Well.

Achey.

I guess is the word.

Back in December I made the decision to go back to the dentist and I used part of my Christmas bonus to buy dental insurance for the year.

It became activated in February, so as soon as I had the card I made the appointment and my dentist has Saturday hours, and voila, there I am sitting in a chair at Sunset Premier Dental at 4 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon listening to a child screaming.

This does not bode well, I can see in hindsight.

AND.

I do not joke, I thought I was hearing things, I really did, I thought, ladybug you are just anxious, they are not talking about you.

They were talking in rapid fire Chinese, Mandarin I believe, and occasionally in between the crying and the screaming of the little girl I could swear I heard my name, “Carmen” being spoken.

Turns out the little girl was named Carmen.

I was hearing things right.

The dental assistant was very sweet and kind and did my ex-rays, then I sat for a while, looking at flower decals on the wall and owls and clouds and soft pastel paintings, listening with half an ear to the easy listening on the radio.

I now will have Huey Lewis and The News imprinted in my mental memory of the dentist visit.

The dentist was super kind Chinese man, Vincent Leung, D.D.S. who made many nice jokes and patted me on my shoulder a lot and also, yes, I am not joking, wiped tears, the continual stream of tears, off my face as I cried in the chair with the big rubber block thing holding open my jaw.

He did the initial exam and looked over the ex-rays and then went and consulted on another client while the nurse came back, or dental assistant, not sure what the difference is exactly, to inform me that yes, my insurance did cover a good amount of the necessary care, but, I would still need to cover some out-of-pocket costs and she explained that I had to have some fillings, Doctor Leung had joked that I had a smattering of “baby cavities” and also, fuck me.

Gum Disease.

I have heard of it but I did not know what it was really.

The doctor came back, showed me my ex-rays, pointed out the baby cavities then pointed out what was happening with my gums, why ten years of not getting my teeth regularly cleaned was not the best idea for me, even with brushing three times a day and flossing once a day, for real, that’s my routine, my gums were receding and if I let it go too long I was going to start losing teeth.

Fuck no.

Do the damn cleaning and scrape the teeth, underneath the gum line.

The sound it made.

Like tiny high-powered squirrel robots screaming in my mouth.

Getting to that point though I skip the worst part.

The part that was the hardest to bear, the part that had me crying and scared and shook up.

Yes, it was painful.

Even though I was numbed out.

It was the pain of the numbing out that shook me up.

First, the local anesthesia.

So much of it and the taste, and then I ended up swallowing some and oh my god, so grateful I had a decent lunch, if I had gone in on an empty stomach I would have thrown up on nice Doctor Vincent.

Second.

I have not been on anything, nothing, nada, zip, zilch, zero, since I got sober.

Nothing.

NOTHING.

No pain relievers, no prescribed meds, I have not had any surgeries, although I have had some challenges, hello severe ankle sprain two years ago that still bothers me, but nothing stronger than ibuprofen in twelve years.

I had a physical reaction to the anesthesia and it felt awful to have something in my body, intrusive and I shook a bit and I got super cold and shivery.

Then the injections of Novocaine, super long thin scary needles, had my eyes shut, but still, super long thin scary needles, and even with the local, it still hurt to get the injections, the needle had to hit bone before it could be pulled out.

Six times.

Six injections.

I was destroyed.

Tears rolling down my face.

The doctor kept patting my shoulder and gently dabbing my closed eyes with tissues.

Probably not the doctor now that I think of it, the assistant, but yes, much was made of me crying.

I just oozed and leaked tears the entire time.

And prayed.

I prayed a lot.

I said the Serenity Prayer over and over and over again.

So many times.

I had a cute thought in there at one point.

“God wants me to have sexy teeth.”

Yup.

I thought that.

Made me smile on the inside.

I couldn’t smile for hours after, it was so disconcerting.

I had so much Novocaine in my face my ears had numbed out.

I am not kidding.

Afterwards I was told I needed to come back, I am going to need to come back for a while on the regular and get the deep cleanings.

The good news is that the biggest part of it was dealt with today and the maintenance cleaning though frequent, I have another appointment in May, it will only be $70 and not $1350 as today’s visit was.

Thank fucking God.

And I had the money in my account.

Thank God for that too.

I paid rent yesterday and bought groceries and after that I still had a good lump in my account for whatever today was going to cost.

I have $350 left in my checking account.

But.

Hey.

My teeth are hella clean, sexy and super fucking white.

And soon available for making out.

As soon as my jaw stops hurting.

Grateful it wasn’t worse, I didn’t have any teeth extractions, I don’t need a root canal, I don’t need crowns.

It was scary and hard to sit through, but I made it through and although the Novocaine was wildly uncomfortable and the injection process was painful, I got through.

I lived to tell my tale.

I will be able to do it again and I will know going into it.

It wasn’t exactly the Saturday I had planned.

But.

I am grateful for getting through with it, for showing up, and for taking care of it.

It could have been so much worse.

Frankly I’m not sure I could have handled much worse.

Grateful beyond words that I didn’t have to.

Seriously.

Then It Was Monday Again

Still working with the sore shoulder.

Which has prompted me to buy some ibuprofen and to let the monkey’s walk more.

I can still pick up the kids, I can still lift and haul.

It’s the pushing the stroller that is getting to be a challenge.

I at least opened my mouth today, let it be known that life has not been a vacation this last week or so, that I am in pain, that the promise of a new double stroller is real.

And vacation pay.

My two main families worked it out while I was working it last week and decided to offer me the same ten days paid leave that I would request from any family that I was doing full-time work for.

That blew me away.

I was hoping for five days, I figured that was fair, since I don’t work full-time for the families.

I will for the next two weeks, then boom.

Thanksgiving.

I will take some paid time off that week.

Three days.

Three days pay is better than no days paid.

Then I don’t plan on having any more time off.

Both the families and the other family I work with exclusively on Thursdays, will be staying in town for Christmas.

I won’t, of course, work Christmas, but I will work during the holidays and that is a good feeling.

And when January comes around and I fly down to Florida to see my family I won’t be taking the hit on the chin, I will cover my days off with the offered paid time off days.

That is a relief.

Staying with these families feels right.

I freak out a little when I think about finding new work.

I say, let it look for me.

I don’t have to procure anything, I don’t have to go anywhere, I just have to show up for the children I have and do my job.

My basics are covered and when the Universe wants me to have more, more, well, it is usually revealed.

I don’t have to spend time thinking that I don’t have enough.

Even with the pandemonium my brain put me through last week.

I walked through, I am fine, yeah my shoulder hurts, but the good news?

I discovered an awesome Thai massage business and my posture for the last week has been absolutely incredible.

I find that sucking in my gut, pulling back my shoulders, walking more upright and straight, alleviates a lot of the strain.

Leading me to believe that it is indeed a strain caused by something I was doing when I was nannying.  I do feel inclined to think it is the stress of pushing the unwieldy double stroller, or maybe just that I work a lot and don’t always rest during my days off.

To that extent I found myself doing things to help with that at work.

I stretched.

A lot.

I also sat and did another meditation.

It really settles me and keeps me bright at work.

That and lots of tea.

Damn.

It got cold today and it got dark by 5p.m.

I thought, what time is it, when I was walking the baby swaddled in the carrier back to the house, I couldn’t have been gone that long.

Oh, yeah.

Day light savings.

It really is quite dark.

Grateful to be getting up by 7 a.m. and getting out into the world while there is sunlight.  I know people who are doing the opposite and most times I cannot imagine.

I have not done nights for some time.

I debated last night setting the alarm for 6:45 a.m. to give myself a little more time in the morning to write, but at the last-minute, I switched the alarm back to 7 a.m.

It’s early enough as it is.

I do enjoy doing my morning pages at home, though, not on the napping schedule of two different babies that may or may not sync up their sleep schedules.

I was able to kick out the three pages long hand before heading out the door, I want to not feel so pressured, however, to do them fast, I want them to flow, but not be a  way to berate myself for not being a faster writer.

Facts are I used to have to get up way earlier because I did not write the morning pages that quickly, my hand writing, like my typing has gotten a lot swifter.

I generally do my blog in less than an hour, on the occasion in less than 45 minutes.

I edit them, lightly, you will catch errors, I do a spell check, I read the preview, I correct whatever seems glaring, then it gets posted.

That’s pretty fast comparatively to what it was when I first began this adventure.

Speaking of adventure I have been looking for just the perfect “prom” dress.

My darling friend Shannon is turning 40 this week and there will be a dress up masquerade ball for the birthday party.

I checked out the Goodwill on Haight Street briefly before heading over to my commitment at 7th and Irving.

I tried on one dress, not a good fit, and resolved to try on more as the week goes by.  I want to dress up for the event, 40 is pretty fucking special.

I should know, I took myself to Paris for it.

Shannon and her partner Alex were such big supporters of me, I can’t not go to her birthday party.  Although it will mean wearing out the dress, whatever I end up getting, and the fabulousness, up into Noe Valley for a few hours before the event.

I’ll take care of my Saturday responsibility and then head to the ball.

Heh.

I currently do not have an escort, how awkward, not, but I wouldn’t mind a friend to go a long with me in dress up.

Or a date.

We’ll see.

I did not exactly get my Halloween on, even though I did go a big part of the day in bunny rabbit ears, so this is my chance to dress it up.

Some feathers or sequins, definitely some sparkle, and a mask.

Sexy.

I have a week to find the appropriate dress, mask, and assorted geegaws.

In between now and then?

Work.

Taking care of my shoulder.

Writing.

The usual suspects.

And love.

Opening myself to not isolating, to committing to be at my friends important birthday milestone, and being available for further continued intimacy with my fellows.

Doesn’t sound like a bad week at all.

Nice to meet you again Monday.

Let’s be friends.