yearly evaluations tonight at work...urgh. don't think i have too much to worry about, but ya never know...

currently reading "Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal" - it certainly gives me pause before considering that next trip to mickey d's...

urgh...work SUCKS, can i just say that...office morale stands at a steady ZERO percent, and that's being generous. 't all started monday evening, when we got our packets for the new health insurance - since aetna bought out prudential (our current insurer) we'll be on the aetna plan effective 01-01-02. no more hmo, it's not even an option. besides our rates going up, the so-called "benefits" to this plan suck compared to what we have now. seeing the doc will cost $15, instead of $10, and a specialist will cost $20. but the thing that REALLY sucks is the mail-order prescription service. right now i can mail in a one month copay for an rx and get a three month supply - no more of that, we'll send in a two month copay and get a two month supply - where's the benefit there? hell, i'm better off just going month by month and getting the rx's filled at the drug store, since i have dosage changes and the like happening. there's also a $300 deductible that wasn't there before. it just majorly sucks, but what the hell can i do? i'm sure with all my preexisting conditions it'll be hard to get coverage anywhere else, but i don't really have time to check it out - we got the paperwork monday and they want it back friday...of course, this is our hell week, we're kind of busy with WORK and everything. arghhhh.

just woke up from what had to be the most bizarre dream i've had in a while...

i murdered someone with a dirty steak knife from mom's kitchen...except i don't really remember doing it - i was just accused of it and didn't seem to have an alibi, so i went along when some evil bitch (dunno who it was) said i was guilty and insisted on calling the cops...so the cops came (i was at some tupperware party-type event) and said they couldn't arrest me without one of the witnesses being there so i figured it was time to make my mad dash and get outta dodge...but someone was stealing my car (a gold lexus, btw) and i managed to grab a hold of the inside through the back window and the guy took off...so i'm hanging on for dear life and trying to get this guy to stop the car - ripped off his sunglasses, tried tickling him, tried hitting him...

and then i woke up.

i think america's getting back to it's old self - top two news headlines this evening? #1 - "Bin Laden surrounded?" - certainly a valid news story, deserving of the #1 spot...

and #2? "Winona Ryder arrested"...yup, back to the priorities, stuff that really matters to us americans - hey, shouldn't we be getting updates on gary condit and shark attacks on the east coast? poor winona...

can i just say...dr. english is so cool...it just blows me away that i can call at 1:30 on a friday afternoon and get an appointment for 4:10 that same day! previous doctors i've had would just laugh if ya tried something like that, even if ya just wanted to see a nurse practitioner...

so, the reason i called for an appointment is that i'm not feeling too good...do i have some sort of infection? my blood sugars are out of whack (yes, i have been taking all my meds!) and i was puking yesterday and i've had diarrhea - urgh! my top incision looks really weird - right now it appears to be oozing yellow-green stuff...the other 3 are healing up nicely though...

hungry? have a nice weiner!

stetmagazine.com bills itself as "the finest in cutting-edge fluff" - and i'd have to agree...check it out!

AWESOME! and oh so true...

If I were a work of art, I would be Salvador Dali's Persistence of Memory. I am a surreal landscape composed of several disjointed and bizarre components. I like to keep an eye on the time, although the very concept is fluid for me. People are never sure what they are seeing when they look at me. Which work of art would you be? The Art Test

i've learned something about myself tonight - i'm an old jewish lady...

for a couple of years now, saturday nights are generally reserved for mah jongg...go to mom's house and play with her and my bestest buds dale and greg...

mom got me a movie for my birthday that i had on my amazon.com wish list - Mah Jongg: The Tiles That Bind ...well, it finally arrived and i set it aside till we could all watch it together...we watched it tonight...and it was hysterical - looking at these groups of old jewish and chinese ladies and seeing that we're just like them! mah jongg has bound us together in ways that nothing else could...it's amazing, we sit around and play this game and eat and gossip and it's just wonderful...almost mystical, this connection we have when it comes to mah jongg...if we miss a week on occasion, i really miss it - i'd almost consider it an addiction. suppose i could be out cruising the bars for chicks on saturday nights, but no, i'd rather be at mom's playing with her and the gay boys...

slowly edging back to "normal" status - well, we can dream, can't we? i know i'll never be "normal", but i'm back to feeling among the living...

that said, now i have the sudden urge to go take a nap...*yawn*

feeling a lot better - i suspect being off the vicodin's helped with the nausea and such - sticking to tylenol for pain now...doc english says 2 weeks off is standard, so i'll be away from work till 17 december - just in time to go back to the Hell Week (TM) that is the week before xmas...of course, then we'll get most of xmas week off, then it'll be yet another Hell Week (TM) for New Year's...

global warming's been a topic of interest lately - primarily cuz it's december and we had temps in the 70's today! guess this will explain why it'll be snowing in may, eh? people think this warm weather now is wonderful - i'm dubious...it just ain't natural!

still recuperating...still nauseous/dizzy as all hell...i go see doc english on wednesday...not much else to report, since all i'm doing is lying down and recuperating...

oh, one thing i forgot to mention about the ultrasound - it turned me into a country music song...

i actually had 2 people doing the ultrasound, the first chick didn't really hurt me...but she couldn't find my "common bile duct" (guess it's an uncommon bile duct that i've got) and so she sent for another chick...the second chick is the one that pressed my oozing throbbing flesh into the cold hard table, reducing me to tears...oh, it hurt...i wasn't crying, but the tears were streaming down my face - since i was lying on my back, i ended up with "tears in my ears" - had to clean them out when i sat up!

so, the gall bladder thing...i'd been having mild throbbing pains in my upper right abdomen for a week, but monday night at work they just became horrendous - i left work early to go to the hospital. for some reason, i went to community hospital, the one near my house...they seem to have a differing view of "emergency", nobody was in a hurry to get anything done...so 45 minutes goes by before i get into a room...then a while passes before i see a doc...he says he wants pee and blood, so i give it to him...he comes back and says it's probably gall bladder, but can't be sure since they don't have an ultrasound at night - what the hell? 3+ hours in the er...so i head to mom's with my vicodin rx and sleep till i can call the doc's office. call the doc's office, they get me in at 1pm - doc tells me to go to st. francis south to get an ultrasound done. go to st. francis south and get the ultrasound (which hurt like a bitch! oh, you have pain here? lemme press harder!) and they tell me i have to go to the er at st. francis beech grove immediately, they're ready for me, and dr. mandelbaum will evaluate me for surgery there. momma takes me to st. francis and i ask for dr. mandelbaum and they ask which one - apparently there's two, they're brothers in the same practice - and i tell them doc english told me "dr. mandelbaum"...they find out it's jonathan and get me hooked up to the morphine pump and set up in a regular room. the surgery was scheduled for wednesday, the next day. in the meantime, i went from no liquids to a solid liquid diet - i tell ya, the jello/apple juice/chicken broth/raspberry popsicle combo was a four-course gourmet meal! until i puked it up, that is, then it was a rainbow - red jello, blue popsicle and i'm assuming bile (it was green) made for quite a color combo! mom had raved about the wonderfullness of the morphine pump - i thought it was okay, but i wasn't screaming its praises like mom did...

so, wednesday rolls around and i head to surgery in the afternoon...i remember being in the surgery room and having a gas mask put over my face...then nothing, till i was back in my room, screaming and writhing in pain. they kept telling me to stop and breathe, that it wouldn't hurt so much - i kept trying to catch my breath, but it hurt so much...i had to ask mom for a recap, since i was pretty fuzzy on the events...she told me the surgery took about 45 minutes and there were no complications. i woke up in excruiciating pain, and i had to pee...we buzzed the nurses 3 times before they came...it was more difficult getting out of bed than before the surgery because they'd hooked up these things on my legs, to prevent blood clots...so i had the two things hooked to my legs, an iv with two plugs, oxygen and a drain from my belly to contend with...once i peed, the pain lessened quite a bit...at some point, someone from work called - still not sure who it was...they asked how things went, and i told them it "hurt like a motherfucker" - right in front of my mother and the nurses!! all i remember was the pain - oh damn, it hurt!! but once i got back to sleep and woke up again, i was okay...still pretty sore, but much better...i stayed in the hospital through friday...doc mandelbaum had come in 6:30 friday morning and i said i didn't think i was ready to go home, but he said he thought i was, if my stats got better by the end of the day...i was too asleep to argue...so friday evening i got out and now i've just been hanging at mom's...i find if i sit up for too long, i get dizzy, or nauseous, or both...not sure if i'll be out of work one week or two, we'll see what the doc says...

it's world aids day...sad that we still have to have one. aids has been around far too long, i thought we'd have a cure by now. alas we don't. in honor of world aids day, we're asked to "link and think" - to take a moment and think about aids and maybe add a few links in our blog...

so here are some links:
lesbians & hiv
safersex.org - a journal of online safe sexuality
the NAMES project
the us department of health & human services

and the personal stories?

pastor jon was a close friend that died of aids. in the church, we didn't know he was gay, it was never mentioned. of course, all the signs were there, but we chose to be in denial or whatever. he was the leader of our youth group, and i worked with him quite a bit since i was the youth rep to the church board. it just blew me away - why him?!? he was such a good guy - why would GOD do such a thing to one of his servants, a man that devoted his life to Him? i think that was one of the major events that caused my agnosticism - if there is a god, why does he/she/it allow such horrible things to happen to good people?

i worked with indiana cares long ago, when they still existed, a separate entity from icaan...i worked with micheal breese in the stop aids project - we did "bar raids", going to gay bars in town with condom hats on our heads and smiles on our faces, passing out condoms, lube, gloves and safer sex info...it was a lot of fun, and it made the topic of safer sex easier to talk about...i wonder what micheal would say about us now if he were still alive? he'd be very disappointed, i think. all the in-fighting and crap - it disgusts me that this year's garage party raised 39,704.93 and only 4,738.45 ended up going to the cause. that's 8.4%!!! something is seriously wrong there...

i volunteered at parkview manor, a nursing facility for people with aids....no longer exists because the money isn't there for it...wonder where all those people went, how many of them are still around...*sigh*

more thoughts later...

oh, the er wasn't totally horrible - met a cute chick there *smirk*...the "room" i was in was really just one fourth of a room, enclosed by a curtain...not much privacy at all...well, the chick across from me was in cuz she had a terrible headache...then i heard her mention she was a patient of dr. mohan's (my neurologist) and that she was epileptic...when her doc left i made a comment about the lack of privacy and that i heard her mention dr. mohan and so we chatted quite a bit...her name's shirley, she works at wal-mart...got epilepsy and sleep apnea...she told me a bit about what to expect in the video eeg, tho hers was at community north and sounded pretty dreadful...she asked if i'd ever had dr. wallack and i told her it'd been 13 years and she told me he's still an asshole. *8-) then when she left she gave me a few coupons - a woman after my own heart! *8-) guess she has a connection at foot locker and these coupons are for 30% off - whoo hoo! i'm tempted to drop in at wal-mart sometime and look her up - kinda got that queer vibe, but there was a guy there with her...*shrug*

hmmm, think this vicodin's kicking in...

just got out of the emergency room - left work early cuz i was having pains from hell...my gut wasn't very happy with me - a rock-hard fist inside, just cramping and making me miserable...so i went to the er, peed in a cup, got needles stuck in a variety of places...doc said he thinks it's a gall bladder problem, but they don't have an ultrasound available to the night shift so i'll hafta check in with doc english...meanwhile, it's vicodin and clear liquids for me!

argh.

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wow - a blog all about er!

Take the Affliction Test Today!

is there such a thing as fate? what's in charge of what things go on? sometimes it just seems like there are too many coincidences for some things to just "happen" - something drives you to a certain time, place, event...*shrug*

i'm feeling really weird right now...was reading the indy star on the web and one of the cover stories is about crown hill cemetery, and how some tv show's filming there to show some of the historical stuff...so i drift off to the crown hill website. a few clicks, and i find that chuck avery has died, and will be buried there later today. i knew chuck from my days at the thrifty nickel - he was the circulation manager, and the only other queer that worked there. i knew his health wasn't good - last time i saw him he was just recovering from a stroke - but it's still a shock.

it just freaks me out - seems like i was lead to his obituary...i'm not the type of person that reads the obituaries (tho i did as a kid - finding how who the oldest and youngest people were, what people died from - all that macabre stuff fascinated me) so it just seems weird that i'd find this one.