Saturday, February 28, 2009

guilty reality

last night we had to wait for the cops to arrive and tow the car that was parked on the street directly in front of s's driveway. (as you can see, the green car has its tires on both sides of the driveway. the idgit must've thought what a perfect spot on the street with plenty of room! still wish i could've seen their expression when they returned to find their car missing.)

as a result, we couldn't go get our fast food fish sammiches (friday/lent & all). after 2 hours, the parking cop finally showed; he was the only one on duty & had four more stops after ours. luckily the tow truck arrived soon after & s went to pick up our mesa pizza instead. eggplant (parm with mozz & red peppers) & half spinach feta tomato pizza.

at that point it was 8.30pm and s was due to head to role playing. we were still watching torchwood season 1 when he found out one of his friends was unexpectedly ill. we continued watching the last of season 1 & turned our sights to 'regular' tv. in the course of channel surfing, i landed on bravo & some bizarre show 'millionaire matchmaker'. now, reality tv is one of my least favourite things & s hates it even more. one of my few enjoyments in that genre is 'the amazing race' & s will concede that it isn't too terrible. oh, and most of the food network shows ('ace of cakes' & co.) aren't that bad.

anyway, this millionaire show is a total trainwreck. neither of us could turn away. i tried to, but s wouldn't let me. there's this tranny-looking yenta (she's stated she's a 3rd generation matchmaker) in la with scarily enhanced lips & quite the attitude. her other coworkers include a goth girl with purple bangs & the coo is a mohawked goth guy. the two clients on this episode were a creepy 38 year old millionaire self-styled playboy whose dream date would start with a massage at a spa & end with taking his girl to rodeo drive for some shopping (even though he stated he didn't like shopping, but knew women loved it-thanks generalization) & a shy 34 year old internet entrepreuner who was incredibly awkward with conversation. both guys were jewish, so they were looking for a nice jewish girl. unfortunately, most of the ladies who came in for interviews for a private party weren't jewish, which enraged patti, the matchmaker. eventually, the private party to introduce the girls to the millionaires went over fairly well with a nice mix of girls, shiksa or otherwise.

creepy dude & shy guy both picked the same (christian) girl as their first choice, but she picked the shy, super-cute one rather than than mr. comes-on-too-strong. it seemed he really couldn't get over the i'm paying for an outfit to get a chick into bed on the first date, overly sexual conversation & he did not take any of the (pushy, but true) advice of patti to tone it down. no wonder he said he hadn't been in a relationship in 6 or 7 years.

i cannot relay enough how we could not turn away, despite how terribly voyeuristic it felt. i'm afraid we may have to watch another episode.

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Wednesday, February 25, 2009

aches again

so, yet again i'm at that point where simply sitting in one spot hurts. there is no position that is comfortable. either my knee or my hip aches, more like screams. yesterday & part of today it was the inability to move my neck. most of today i had a headache and i never have headaches, maybe once every 3 months. (please don't hate me, those of you for whom headaches are a daily trial.)
on monday i went to see a rheumatologist to see what was up with my joint pain. she spent over an hour in the exam room with me, getting my history & manipulating various body parts to see what was causing the problems. of course on monday things weren't so severe, a little twinge in my shoulder.

her diagnosis: arthralgia.

literally, joint pain. seems like a copout diagnosis, since none of my joints were swollen when she saw me. that was not the case when i saw the internist last year on my birthday. i was closer to tears than not & he wanted to give me steroid injections in all my major joints then & there.
dr. s thinks i probably built up antibodies to the remicade infusions & that the joint pain is my colitis manifesting itself in ways other than digestive disturbances. she told me i need to take sulfasalazine two pills twice a day, along with the remicade infusion every 7 to 8 weeks. then, i'm supposed to see her back on june 1st. if things haven't improved, she wants to discuss humira injections (every 2 weeks), instead of the remicade with my gastroenterologist. all the drugs for my autoimmune condition were originally used for arthritis, so it just depends on what my insurance will cover. on one hand, i won't have to take a day off from work to sit with an iv-needle in my arm. on the other, i (or possibly s because i asked if he would do it for me) would have to give myself an injection, at home, every two weeks. guess it's less than a diabetic who needs to inject insulin daily, if i want to look on the bright side.
for now, i just want something to take away the pain i feel on a daily basis. but i'm not going to ask for painkillers. i don't like taking aspirin and i do not intend to be labeled a drug-seeking patient. we get plenty of those who 'need another refill on narcotics' in the clinic & i know how the nurses & doctors treat those people. right now i really feel for them, the ones who are truly in pain, because i completely understand their need to get by & simply function.

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Wednesday, February 18, 2009

monday fun day

this hasn't been the best week at work and i haven't even made it through wednesday yet! superbusy and we're a bit short staffed since my supervisor was in cali on monday & the other m had her peds rotation for nursing school from 7-3:30 yesterday, plus she's deathly ill with a cold.
the upside is that i have a new cell phone in the mail (lg env2!) and monday night after work, i called s to say hi and that i was gonna head home rather than see him. he said he'd call a little later because he was at his folks' place. over an hour had passed & i was about to take my laundry over to the washer, but grabbed my phone before i went out the door in case he called. as i walked to the other side of the building i saw my car sitting at the back of the parking lot with the lights on & s inside. shrugging, i took my laundry downstairs & tossed it in. then i walked back over to the car & stood by the driver's side until s rolled down the window.

me: "uh, hi."
s: "helllooo. whatcha doin'?"
me: "what am i doing? laundry. what are you doing?"
he was eating a frosty.
s: "i thought i'd surprise you. um, after i ate this."

silly boy, trying to keep ice cream from me. he came in for a bit & watched ncis while i stumbled around in the crawlspace trying to empty the last couple boxes. then he took me over to his house to spend the night. unfortunately, i decided to partake of a tiny glass of mountain dew after 9pm and with my body's caffeine sensitivity, i was up until 2am. and kept s up when he finally crawled into bed at 1am. i can't stop talking when that happens. he just finds me silly since he couldn't fall asleep either.
hope all are having a good week!

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Wednesday, February 04, 2009

today is a new day

today i had a meeting, via work, with a health coach, to help me be more accountable with my life and stuff. in the past year, since the arthritis hit me hard, i've had an incredibly difficult time with keeping up on exercise and eating right has never been much of a priority. i'm not technically overweight (depends on the fluctuation within a pound or two) according to my bmi, but i'd prefer to be more in the midrange than threatening to teeter over the edge with a single macaroon. this is difficult with the pain in my joints that can start at any time before & after my infusions. but i intend to get a referral from one of the docs in the clinic where i work & see a rheumatologist to see if physical therapy is the appropriate step or what kind of exercises (swimming, i know!) are best for my circumstances.
i am also completely addicted to the food network. i'm not sure this is a detriment to my goal about eats. not that man vs. food is truly tempting me to go eat 15 dozen oysters or the world's largest donut (i wouldn't mind a bite).
it is going to be quite difficult to remain accountable with s, especially when my suggestion of salmon, asparagus & cottage fries (i know, but i need my starch!) was met with "let's have calzones! i'm buying!" okay, so i crumbled already, but at least i had spinach & mushrooms on mine. i'm planning to do a workout in front of the telly & possibly some extracurricular activities.
besides the health/eating/exercise issues, i need to rein in the procrastination. one of my short term (two weeks) goals before my next appointment with the health coach is to finish writing an article for a children's magazine. obviously with a two week timeframe, i'm not aiming for actually being published, but at the least i want something i will submit for consideration. and not chicken out about the rejection factor.
so wish me luck (or please, nag/ask/encourage). here's hoping that 30 is the best year yet!

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