everything will be alright

Wow, is it just me or is today's Writer's Block really morbid? x.x I really don't think it's me, heh. Not what I want to be thinking about first thing in the morning, thanks, or at all for that matter.

Not much else new to report. Feeling much better than last Thursday/Friday, ugh, I got knocked out, son. Down for the count, first time that's happened to me in such a fast and effective way in years. I got back up on my feet on Saturday, after being in bed for two days, and started eating more and actually got out of the house, and have been doing ok since. Still have a cough and am taking my penicillin and cough drops as needed, but at least I have energy to get up and move, little things like that. XD

Someone's new album comes out today but I can't remember who. Hmmm.

[eta] A quick google shows that it's the Foo Fighters that I was thinking about, but also apparently Paul Simon and TV On The Radio too, wtf, awesome day!

So begins day 3 of being sick. It all started on Thursday with a sore throat, which, by the time I got home after work, turned into coughing, headache, nausea, etc. Went to the clinic and got some penicillin but still far from good. Just can't rest, both nights I've maybe gotten 2-3 hours of uninterrupted sleep in a row, with the odd hour here and there and napping as I can in the day. Persistent headache and fever make it too hard, and just can't lie down any more, been laying down since Thursday night pretty much, ugh.

Feeling a bit better today, and the iPad has been a nice help last night and today so far. Am going to attempt a shower and maybe venture as far as the living room today. Wish me luck!

My left eye is twitching / throbbing a little bit, kinda hard to describe. It's not a good idea to try and self-diagnose this via Google, is it? Not late at night and being the hypochondriac that I am.

Crazy updates after not updating in ages ftw, y/n? >.>

[eta] Pretty sure now it's stress and/or staring at a computer screen way too darn much lately. And if it's not the PC it's the iPad, or the phone. Been trying to cut down on that anyway so all the more reason to do so now.

So, it's been awhile since my last update, and there's quite a lot to write about, at least from the recent past.

In general: work has been crazy, ever since I had a long trial that set me back even further than normal with respect to just about everything else. The trial ended in, oh, early June or so, and I'm still not caught up. Of course, that's a relative term because in my profession you never really get fully caught up, not truly. You can get close and be on top of things, but if you're ever completely caught up then you'd be out of work, I think. On the other hand, of course, no one wants to be constantly behind on nearly everything, which has been pretty much exactly my experience for a few months now. There's no lying that the stress of that (and some other self-imposed stresses, but more on that later or in another post, perhaps) has taken its toll on me, which, well, it sucks.

Going back to last Tuesday, I started having some abdominal pain, right in the middle of the region. It wasn't too bad at first, I chalked it up to indigestion and didn't think much of it, even as it persisted into the night. Waking up on Wednesday, I found it was still there. It lasted all day and evening as well, more of a nuisance than a severe pain, but it would come and go, pulsating and making me screw up my face a little in the worse moments. I called my family doctor but the closest appointment I could get was Monday morning. I told myself that if it persisted into Thursday I'd see another doctor or go to emergency about it.

Thursday it was still there, and it had made it very difficult to sleep on Wednesday night, so I called into work and told them I'd be going into the hospital. After calling the clinic to see if there was any other doctor I could see (in case of a cancellation or something, you never know) I found out that they could sneak me in before 11 to see my family doctor. Great, or so I thought. I went in and saw him, but he didn't really know what it was that was wrong. Due to the lack of certain specific symptoms he didn't think it was my bladder or my large intestine or anything, maybe my prostate but I'm too young for that really, so instead of ordering tests on the latter he said to go rest and if I got worse then to come back or go to emergency. In the meantime I was to rest and take it easy, so I did.

I got home, had a nap, and tried to relax. Unfortunately, this is where things take a big turn for the worst. I ended up napping for a bit but then I awoke with a yelp and a huge cramp in one of my legs. They hurt like hell and, while I don't get them too, too often, oh man. When they do, look out. Just ask believeitup how cautious and paranoid I get when I think there's even a chance one's coming on and how I get up to walk and try to head it off, heh. >.> But yes, one hit and OW, hell, so my instinct, as per usual, is to get out of bed asap and stand up, stretching it out, which hurts too but doing so shortens the cramp I find and overall lessens the pain. But as I'm swinging my other leg out of bad, BANG. Cramp #2 in the other leg. FML, etc. etc. So here I am, yelling out a couple of times, standing and leaning on my computer chair and in severe pain. Mom was working in the next room and came out at my cries, and I told her it was just cramps, it'd be ok (though I still had a pain to deal with, it wasn't a heart attack or anything). Dad's downstairs and she goes out to answer him calling out about what's going on, and then that's when the nausea hit me.

It's not uncommon when I have these cramps to feel sick to my stomach, and lightheaded, along with the pain. I've even seen stars before, my vision getting blurry / hazy, it's bad news. And this was in both legs at the same time, the muscles (my calves, specifically) of which are knotted up and hurting like hell. I felt like I had to throw up and my little waste basket in my room, which was half filled with paper and bags and such, wasn't going to cut it. So I made the stupid, instinctual decision to make a bee-line for the bathroom. About 3-4 steps later I'm leaning against the door frame, exhausted, and calling out for someone to come help me get to the bathroom.

The next thing I remember was waking up as from a long, long sleep, everything out of focus and being so, so weak. It took a few seconds to realize I wasn't in my bed but I was on the floor, legs out in the hall, Dad holding me up on a 45 degree angle with a cold cloth to my head and Mom out in the hall. I'd passed out, for about 45 seconds they said, cold junk. Thankfully I'd been leaning on the door frame so when I passed out I just kinda slumped against the wall, letting my folks get me down easily so there was no chance for my body to strike anything else on the way down. Having just passed out I was, of course, completely out of it - so weak I couldn't move, could hardly speak, my vision was blurry (they took my glasses off), and I was kinda terrified myself too - so they ended up calling an ambulance. It took them ~10-15 minutes to get here and by then I was sitting up on my own power, holding my calves - don't you bastards dare try to cramp up on me again now! - and able to talk, see (yay for glasses being back on!), etc. Once they got here they did their own tests to make sure I was stable and whatnot, then off to the hospital.

It was quite the experience - I'd never had to ride in one before, not that I can recall anyway, and they even had to use the sirens thanks to traffic. Policy meant that, even though they both cautiously hovered around me as I walked to the ambulance under my own power, they had to strap me in, hook up oxygen, etc. Then when we got there I was wheeled in from the back and put into a room. They did so many tests - urine, blood, blood culture, EKG, x-ray, and some others - to make sure everything was ok. The doctor's final diagnosis was to go home and rest, not to eat anything too hard on my stomach in case that was the abdominal problem, and to order a CAT scan. I got called the next morning at just before 9am and told to come over, and they were surprised in the CT department that I hadn't had one on Thursday, but I did one, necessitating two more further needles (right arm first and when that failed the left, for an IV for dye). I felt like a frickin' pin cushion at that point but I did it and it wasn't too bad.

So, now tomorrow I have the day off for Orangemen's Day, though my assistant made an appointment with someone out of province a few weeks' ago for tomorrow at 10am and by the time she realized it was a holiday it was too late to reach them. So I have an appointment tomorrow morning, but I'd already made my family doctor appointment for 10:30am pre-fainting last week, both to get it done early and to also give me an excuse to make the work appointment short, heh. I'm going to have a long talk with my doctor tomorrow, I hope, to figure out what's going on. I do feel much better now; yesterday I spent the day in the city with Mom looking at beds and couches for the new house, putting a set of each on layaway and should have them for when the wife is here, and getting some other misc. household goods. :) But yes, want to see what the heck's going on tomorrow.

I'm wondering how much stress has to do with it. There's tons at work, as usual, which has been amplified by 1,000,000 lately for the aforementioned reasons, and I'm putting pressure on myself, too, to work on the house and to keep up in LOTRO and to read books as fast as I can, etc. These things on their own aren't that unusual and are often good things, motivation is good at times, but maybe all of this at the same time has been hurting me. Or it could be a virus or something, or something else entirely. The point is to find out as much as I possibly can tomorrow, so that's where things stand now. The abdominal pain is almost 100% gone now, only palpable if I push down really hard or force it, there's no random pulsating or pangs of pain, thank heavens.

That's the biggest news anyway, haha. XD Other than that, well, I talked about it a little above: picked out a bed set and some couches for the new house, omg. Which are so nice, and are on hold for now, but I need to contact them asap if they're to order them in for sure. They get shipments every 5 weeks so if I want them to be here by the time Sara gets here (which is 5 weeks from tomorrow to the day, but who's counting?) I need to let them know soon. It may be quicker than that, we'll see, but I'm very excited. The current deal includes free endtables with the couches, and the bedding comes with a free frame and pillows - the pillows are not a big deal but the frame will do once we get another mattress for the spare bedroom. We'd still need a headboard too but that'll be easy. Actually, to be specific, we'll be getting a cheaper mattress and boxspring right now with the good bedroom set, just to have something to sleep on while Sara's here, and once she arrives we'll look at a really nice mattress to put in the master bedroom for later on and we'll move the first mattress to the spare bedroom on the free frame we'll be getting. :)

Other than that, I finally finished The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo today and it was great, didn't expect the ending to it at all. Well, part of it I kind of thought about, but not all of it, haha. Very good book, and I have the second and third book queued up on the Kobo, and have the movie to watch too, now that I've finished the book. Maybe for tomorrow night.

Alright, that's my update for now. Hope everyone else has been having a better time of it than I have lately, haha, and that everyone had a nice weekend. :)

Called in sick today as I was still having a whole slew of annoying aches and pains, which on their own wouldn't be so bad, but together have just been irking the crap out of me. The sore throat / headache / fever combo is gone, thankfully, and the only thing still bugging me is the residual stuffed-up-y-ness I've had since before coming home. It's not as bad as it was the last few days though, so I'm taking that as a good sign.

I slept until way, waaaaaaaay late (close to 4pm), though I did wake up several times and called in sick, took cold pills, drank some fluids, etc., but I rested until then. Then I tried eating some cereal, watched Pineapple Express (which wasn't nearly as funny as I remember it from the theatres, but still good), called believeitup to whine to and get attention from (hee), and then hopped on LOTRO for awhile. We tried to take down the Balrog for hope for this weekend's Watcher run, which failed miserably, then I just kinda hung out all night, the last part of which was with onlyonechoice and elsewhere7 and others, which was a blast. I need to level my RK up so I can be of more use to you guys, but it was still great. :)

Alright, off to bed again. I'm hardly tired as I had ~14 hours of rest really, heh, but I need to sleep and reading for a bit should help with that.

I'm still sick, and I have been pretty much since Friday when I got home from work. What a waste of a long weekend. ._. I didn't get out of bed today until like 4pm and only got a few hours of actual sleep despite being in bed all that time. My room is either too hot or too cold and it's so hard to get comfy. I drank lots of fluids though and got better earlier this afternoon, but I think it's coming on again. On the plus side, I'm almost finished book #2 of the Dresden files which I hope to finish before the night's out, or at least before I go to sleep. :D

I'm so glad that we have tomorrow off, I'll need it to recuperate from what I hope is the tail end of this flu. After drinking more juice and stuff I was able to get some rest, so I'm off to get some more before going to bed in the hopes that it'll work again!

Well, another birthday has come and gone. Thanks for all the birthday wishes, people. :D It was a good day, didn't do much, but my sister bought me a DVD I wanted (I got her Garden State at her behest for her bday back in January, she got me the new special edition of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead). I also picked up this awesome Mega Man collection for Xbox (10 classic Mega Man games :D) and The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy books in one set. Good times.

I do feel a little sick because of something that I ate, I think. Blah. It's not too bad though, just annoying. Watching late night tv now and thinking about going to bed. I have stuff to read and all, have to go home tomorrow. Not back to where I stay at my aunt's, but to my parent's place. I'll stay there tomorrow night and I have an appointment out there on Monday, then it's back to my aunt's on Monday afternoon or so. Yay for long weekends!

Whoa, it's after 4 in the morning now. :o And there's an old episode of SNL on with Jamie Lee Curtis on tv, from 1980. x.x Think I'll go lie down, read and watch that. This has been about the quietest birthday ever, but I've enjoyed it that way for a change. :)

I should be tired now, but I'm not. Probably because I slept in today and took the morning off as 1/2 a sick day. I did have a cough and a headache when I woke up, but mostly I was exhausted. I took some aspirin and rolled over, falling asleep before I called the office. Oops! They called me at noonish, wondering where the hell I was heh. Oh well, it's all good. But yes, as a result of the mucho sleep I'm not tired now. Which means I'll take forever to get to sleep now and I'll be tired tomorrow. Boo-urns.

At least tomorrow's Thursday, one day closer to Friday. But damn, I have a trial on a week from Friday. And I have to prepare and everything for it. Which probably means working a little this weekend. And it's scary to think about, I hope I don't screw it up. There's been a lot of crap going down at work lately, which I haven't mentioned in here, and it's aprt of the reason I've been pretty blah lately. Plus my 'net connection sucks, boo to that.

World of Warcraft is still cool, I play for an hour or two a day and that's cool. Much better grip than when I played SWG and was logging 6-7 hours a day, even weekdays. x.x Lots to read on the website too, still trying to learn all the little nuances. The only problem is lag, though it was fine today. Let's hope it stays that way.

Anyway, off to bed. I'm hoping to finish the first Anita Blake book soon, ~40-50 pages left. Probably not tonight, but I'm hoping for tomorrow. Here goes nothing!