It’s a 2009 Toyota Corolla. It had 18 miles on it when I drove it off the lot. It’s safe, reliable and great on gas mileage. The VW passat already has 105,000 miles on it so it was time to get another one, especially if we are to make any road trips to Colorado or California. Anyway, I’m excited and happy with it

After taking my husband to work and as I walked through the parking lot back to my own work, I stepped in it. It was hot, sizzling, gooey, and slimy.

Karma is so fast.

The first incoming news on Monday was incredible news to say the least. My husband has finally found a job at Publix. When he called me at work I nearly jumped off my chair with excitement. I went in with him after work to take his drug test and all that stuff. One of the managers I met there was really nice, except she talked really really fast. I wanted to tell her to take a breath. By the time she was doing saying whatever it was she was saying she was almost gasping for air. It made me giggle inside.

So with exciting good news, came my IV treatment on Wednesday. They couldn’t find my vein in my right arm and after 2 sticks and a lot of digging around for a vein UNDER my skin did the nurse try for my left are. Two more sticks, a lot of digging and eventual infusion (where the medicine goes under your skin instead of in your vein) did she bypass trying again and finally got a vein in my hand that didn’t try dodging away. Sure is a good thing I’m not scared of needles.

Usually when I go through treatment the first IV bag of medicine is always the worst. It makes me feel sooo ill. I sit there and squirm while I’m having cold sweats wishing the hour it takes for the medicine to get into me would hurry along. The second IV bag is cake. No pain associated with that one. Its like the cool down from a vigorous work out. The ill feeling always seems to come back in an hour or two tho, and last throughout the day. Only 10 more courses of treatment left. Sigh.

Starting next week I’m going to have to give myself my own shots, 1-2 times a week. Like I said before. Good thing I’m not scared of needles.

Sad news came yesterday, when my Mother and I sold “The Farm” .. the place I grew up. Where the memories of my Father still remain locked in my head. It was very emotional for me. I cried off and on at work even, trying to dab the tears from my eyes at work so no one would see. That’s the last piece of my childhood left that I was holding onto. It’s for the better, especially financially, but it still stings.

So today marks Friday, and I’m glad to have the next two days off. I’m exhausted, and in a bit more pain today than yesterday. I just want to go home.

My office is the smallest room in the house. And the hottest.

Maybe it’s the cozy feeling?

Ohhhh boy. I knew something was bad when it was 11:30 at night and my iPhone started ringing off the hook. It’s a well known fact that my Mother is horrible at telling me bad news. My Aunt Donna has had “The-One-Who-Tells-Jen-Bad-News” title for about 15 years now, so I automatically assume if she calls me (especially late at night) that it’s not good. I couldn’t bring myself to answer the phone. My Aunt Donna knows this well too. It’s my way of sliding “into” the news. This is my Aunt Donna’s trick. She will leave me a message, and she will tell me right off the bat that she misses me and loves me. Then she doesn’t tell me anything about what the bad news is, except that I need to call her right away because she needs to talk to me and she, Uncle Don and my Mother weren’t going to sleep until I did, and it was very important. Then she ends it with she loves me again. She’s so good at this, and she’s also so brave at being “The-One-Who-Tells-Jen-Bad-News”. Believe me, no one wants that role. No one.

So, I get myself a glass of milk and waddle (I have to walk on the heels of my feet because of how swollen my feet and ankles were) out to the back porch and touch the Call Back button. I sit and listen. She’s very good at explaining things without actually telling me the bloody details while giving special care on the urgency of the matter. Then Uncle (Dr) Don gets on the phone. He sucks at telling me bad news, but he usually doesn’t get on the phone. My Aunt Donna quickly takes the phone back and I had agreed to go to the ER by the time I had hung up the phone, but ONLY until I took a shower first. Aunt Donna said it was fine, but to please try not to doddle (I learned the word doddle from her, I love that word).

Shortly after that, somewhere in between calling my Mother, taking a shower and doddling, my brain sort of unplugged itself. That’s the best way I can describe it since the next 1.5 hours are really fuzzy in my head. I could hear what Brendan and my Mother were saying to me, but I couldn’t match up the words. I was confused, and nothing made sense. It’s like everyone started talking in tongues. Brendan tells me that while I was in the shower I asked him what I was doing. My Mother called while we were in the car on the way to the hospital and she kept asking me how far from the hospital I was. I just couldn’t understand the how far part, like my brain was skipping like a scratched record. I had to keep asking Brendan for help. When I got to the hospital I couldn’t tell them my birthdate, except that I wasn’t 30 yet. I just couldn’t figure out anything past that. When the nurse asked me what year it was, I said that I knew it wasn’t 2006, but I couldn’t give her the year. I guess I did know that Bush was president tho, altho Clinton was at the tip of my tongue. I felt so, dumb. My brain, got stuck, and after the nurse asked me more questions I couldn’t answer I just started crying. I mean, I know I should have known that stuff, but … my brain was just stuck. I knew enough to know that wasn’t right or normal. That’s when I got scared. Something, in me, broke. Something just wasn’t right, something was really wrong.

For the next 6 hours on an EKG I had three IV’s stuck in me and I was just staring at the heart meter, watching my pulse and pulse oxygen level. Just watching. And then my brain turned back on. It went from pause to play again. Ironically during the foggy time, I don’t remember as much pain. I just felt like my toe was dead. When my brain turned back on, pain from all over my body throbbed. Blood test after blood test were taken. When one blood test came back as being fine, another one was ordered up. At around 6 or 7 AM the doctor came in the room (he had only been by for about 25 seconds previously just to ask what was going on) he said that they couldn’t find anything wrong and they were going to send me home with water pills to help drain the swelling, and to follow up with my primary care physician.

Just like that. Not only was I more swollen (my hand was starting to swell at that point), but I was mad, stressed, frustrated at being dismissed when nothing had really changed (besides my brain going from the off to the on switch). Everything my Aunt Donna told me she was scared of happening, happened in regards to how the doctor was going to dismiss it and to be persistant). I again asked him how this had happened before in 2002 and how I’ve felt so horrible the last few weeks, and how my tests always come back showing good stats, but obviously there was something really wrong. He said to see my primary care doc and elivate my feet in the meantime. Here is what just one of my feet looked like. I thought if I went to sleep, I’d wake up and my toes would dead.

I won’t go into a tangent about how I hate healthcare in this country. If no one has seen the movie “sicko” then see it, please. It’s such bullshit. Brains don’t just “turn off” and body limbs don’t swell up to the point of cutting circulation randomly or by a fluke like travel or such. It just doesn’t happen.

So, me and my balloon feet are going to see my primary care doc and go through the whole thing again, with a new set of bloodwork and repeating events of the last few weeks. And I’m scared. I’m scared that they still won’t find anything and I’ll still go on with all this for the rest of my life wishing for one day, I could get through the day, without pain. I just want to feel good.

I’ve had Comcast for as long as they had broadband internet in my area back when I lived in Fort Collins, Colorado. At that time I was high on speed, internet speed that is. It was like a totally new experience. Before I dove into the word of broadband I had a 50 ft phone cable plugged into the back of my laptop which went wherever I did in my condo. But this new broadband thing, I never had to sign off, I never had to hold up the telephone line, it was like any young geek girls dream. Ever since the beginning .. I had problems with them but I was living in cyberspace and it was the only alternative I had. When I moved to Florida, it was the only alternative I had. When we moved to Georgia, it was the only service available with such speeds, but the problems never quit. When I think of Comcast I have this bad taste in my mouth reflecting on bad experiences, shotty service, and extremely poor customer service.

AT&T fiber is going to give me HDTV (when reading all the forums it’s supposed to be way better than Comcast), move my current phone number over, and feed 10mbps through fiber optic paradise right into my house.

One of the big sellers for me was if we had any problems AT&T would send out a tech within 24 hours. That’s unheard of with Comcast.

I’m excited. I’m not canceling Comcast yet, but I can’t wait to drop them if this service is better.

Oh ya, and I fed the guy and girl that were here. Because they were cool.

I brace myself in the doorway to hear her out, not wanting to be rude. I mean, she’s just trying to make money and survive too, right? Well, she fucked up on her first line.

“Hello, I wanted to let you know that AT&T has put in fiber optic lines and speeds have never been faster reaching 10 milligrams!”

:: head desk ::

I’m trying to make my life easier, I really am.

Speaking of Mac products, I got a mighty mouse for my MBP and after a few weeks it would stop scrolling down. I was within my 30 days of purchase so I simply took it back to Bestbuy and got a new one. Then this new one did the same thing. I should have googled it the first time, but it’s a simple fix. The little roller-ball gets dirty see, so to make it clean I did this:

1. Turned mouse off so it didn’t cause havoc all over my screen.
2. Got a new blank piece of printer paper and laid it flat on my desk.
3. Turned the mighty mouse upside down and went up and down the sheet of paper with the roller ball.
4. I’m horrible at explanation, here watch this video.

Thanks little man. I just might subscribe to you.

We’ll move your old data for you
That’s right. If you’re migrating from an existing host that utilise Cpanel/WHM, then we will move your data and files for you. Simply contact our support team and provide us with your existing account information with your old host, and we’ll do the rest. Once complete, we’ll let you know when to update the DNS or nameservers. Can’t get better than that, eh?

So I did. I put in a ticket and said, move my stuff! Please. My previous host (IX web hosting, horrible horrible company, stay away from them) didn’t even have cpanel set up correctly so I got a support email asking how I would like to proceed. That was around the time I was leaving work last night so instead of replying I packed up my stuff and headed home. By the time I got home (remember, I live 3.8 miles away from work) I had another email saying

“I just moved everything manually to your new remote server and everything seems to be working, I hope that was ok?”

Um, gee. Was that ok? ZOMG you people are awesome! And quick, dang my site loads fast and such. I’m very happy with my new business relationship.

I’ve been up all night looking at design and getting idea’s. I do this from time to time. Just cuz.

A new nurse called me back to the maze of examination rooms, one I hadn’t seen before as I’m all to familiar by the usual wonderful nurse “Sandy” that does all the pre-exam stuff like taking your weight (seems I’ve lost weight) and blood pressure, etc. Always skeptical of new people I tried to feel this new young black nurse out.

By the time we got in the examination room she asked me what brought me in today.

Me: I have that crud that has been going around.
Her: Oh really? Did you go to the emergency room?
Me: No …
Her: Have you been officially diagnosed with The Crud?
Me: No … I just meant …
Her: The Crud is an official diagnosis now ….. blah blah blah blah .. trying to sound smart.
Me: It was just a phrase, I think I have a sinus/cold thing. I’m sorry, where is Sandy?
Her: She’s still here, she just takes phone calls. I’m new, I’ve been here 5 weeks.
Me: Oh, I see.

What’s the first thing I do when I get home? I look on wikipedia for so called “The Crud” and on Web MD and find no such slang diagnosis.

I’m not liking this humorless young nurse so much. I want my funny personable mom-like Sandy nurse back.

Hopefully the anti-biotics and decongestant start working.