zeptember

Ever since getting diagnosed with a 4cm ovarian cyst on November 7th, I’ve had pain consistently since then.

I did have a good couple of days this weekend that were partly pain-free with regards to the ovarian cyst. But then the pain returned today. I was at a baby shower sitting on a hard chair when the pain hit. I got up and paced around for a bit in another room, then stood through the rest of the event. I had to take 800mg Ibuprofen halfway through the event because of the pain.

The pain feels like it is in both ovaries, now, and I still have the low back pain. Within 4 hours of taking the Ibuprofen, I took half a Tylenol 3. It is not good to take medication right now, because I’m on the herbal detox program, trying to clean out my kidneys and liver, and the medication is what puts a load on the kidneys and liver.

On Friday I had called my GYN again - I’d been leaving messages all week - and finally got through to someone who told me the blood test I took came back fine. That is, I am not anaemic.
But I wanted to know, why do I have to wait 6 weeks to be checked again if the ovarian cyst is already at 4cm? From all that I’m reading, 4cm is the threshold for when one should get a radiology appointment for cancer screening. I want that screening NOW, not in 6 weeks.
I was told I’d get a call back. I never did.

I will call my GYN again tomorrow and try again to be seen earlier than 6 weeks.

The pain is with me every day when I have to sit in my car and drive (an hour or longer each way, depending on traffic). The pain occurs whenever I sit on hard surfaces or have to lean forward, or twist my torso.

The pain feels like I have a full stomach, a full bladder, and am constipated. But I am not constipated because on the herbal detox program, I’ve been having a movement up to 3 times per day.

The pain went away on Friday evening and then returned here and there on Saturday, leaving again by Saturday evening, then returning again by afternoon today.

I’ve never had pelvic region pain last this long before. I want this cyst to be reabsorbed already, dammit. I fear I’ll have no reprieve from the pain before my next menstrual cycle, and that REALLY pisses me off.
George is slated to arrive Thanksgiving Day weekend, and again for Christmas. I’m really just NOT happy right now to also be hosting a huge fucking ovarian cyst which takes any uptime away from me inbetween the downtime.

I’ve been fretting at work that the child I care for hasn’t had a stroller ride in likely over a month while under my watch. Last month, I was laid up with george, then for the next two weeks, I didn’t want to risk getting sunburned before my wedding, nor did I want to risk getting skin breakouts from sunblock again (I’ve gone through several brands to no avail). Then the week after the wedding, the weather was cold and wet, and I wasn’t feeling well, and then that turned into another week of george.

So yesterday, I was feeling better and still had the energy that began anew on Sunday, and I decided to take the baby for a walk up to the local elementary school and back again.

This still means walking up a steep hill, back down again, and then another steep hill leading back to the child’s house.

And all the while I was prepping the child for her walk, I was excited to get out of the house and be active again, but I had a nagging thought in the back of my head, telling me I should still be taking it easy, and that over exertion could lead to more pain.
But I dismissed the nag with confidence, declaring back to myself that george was gone for another 22ish days, so I’ll be fine.

“But, the cyst…” my inner nag bleated…

“I’ll be FINE.” I retorted inwardly.

So we went on our walk. I must note that the stroller probably weighs about 8lbs, and the baby weighs 18lbs, and the diaper bag is 10lbs. Add to that my huge full water bottle, which weighs 5lbs. That’s 41lbs (18kg) I’m pushing up the hills and holding back on the downhills. It’s quite a workout.

About 1/4 way into the walk, I grew very tired, and my pace slowed to a snail. I usually take it slow walking up hills anyway due to my congenitally misaligned knees (did you know that as a child all the way through high school, I was forbidden by doctor’s orders to participate in any gym exercises that required me to put a lot of stress on my knees?).
But I was walking even slower than usual and was really out of breath.

Even getting up and down from the floor while playing with baby yesterday, I was really out of breath. Moreso than usual after coming back from several days bedridden.

When we got back to the house, the day continued on as normal.

Until around 3pm, when I was sitting on the couch in the living room, and the baby dropped her toy on the floor. She was sitting not more than 18 inches away from me in her exersaucer. Naturally, I leaned forward to pick up the baby’s toy.

That’s when I gasped and nearly fell off the couch from the pain. It was sudden, sharp, jarring, knifing pain. But just like that, it was over with, leaving me near tears, and really fatigued again. Every few minutes, I’d also get a sharp pain through my anus, just like I do right before or during george.

I got the same pains no less than three times apiece while upstairs with the baby, sitting on the floor with her. Each time, I would either lean forward to get up, or I would twist my sitting torso to the side to reach for something when the pain knifed me again.
It didn’t matter which side I turned to.

So I looked up symptoms of an ovarian cyst:

• Lower abdominal or pelvic pain, which may start and stop and may be severe, sudden, and sharp

• Irregular menstrual periods
• Feeling of lower abdominal or pelvic pressure or fullness
• Long-term pelvic pain during menstrual period that may also be felt in the lower back
• Pelvic pain after strenuous exercise or sexual intercourse
• Pain or pressure with urination or bowel movements
• Nausea and vomiting
• Vaginal pain or spots of blood from vagina

I have most of those symptoms (except for the pain w/ bowel movements and vaginal pain/bleeding). I’m watching closely to see if any non-menstrual-cycle bleeding develops. If it does, I’m hightailing it to the emergency room. There’s a whole other list of stuff I have to watch for, which will land me in the E.R., too.

When the baby’s mother got home from work, I had a talk with her. I asked her how this arrangement is working out, now that she’s had a chance to see my illness in action, and knowing well ahead of me working for her that I have Endometriosis, but not knowing that I’d developed a cyst, which gave more uncertainty to the days off of work.

She replied that it’s really frustrating and tough on her and her husband. But she still thinks it’s working out well with me as their nanny because the baby, although getting off to a rough start, has really taken to me.

While talking with her, I leaned forward and gasped in horrific pain again. The mother stopped mid-sentence and looked at me. I told her “it’s that fast, the pain is gone. It happens when I sit forward. It’s the cyst.”

The parent continued that she worries that although her job and her husband’s job says it’s fine that they take 1-3 days off work each month on account of me, they are worried that at some point in the not too distant future, their jobs will decide otherwise - that it’s actually NOT okay.
They both work for the dotcom industry, and having worked there for a decade myself, I totally understand that fear. Dotcoms are notoriously backstabbing towards their employees.

I asked the parent if she had any sort of backup - a substitute - in place for when I’m not there. She said no. I asked her if I could appeal to the Bay Area Nanny group that I belong to. She said not unless there’s someone there that I know in person and really trust. I told her there’s not, because I’m new to the group and haven’t actually met anyone in person, yet.

So basically, they are screwing themselves. I advised them of my illness and sent them resources to educate them of my illness before I started working for them. If something happens to me, they’re totally up shit’s creek. This is in no way my fault. I must not let any thinking get into my head that I HAVE to be here at all costs for this family. I’ve had a lot of problems easing into this family - they didn’t have their baby bottle or sleep trained when I arrived. They didn’t have their baby socialised in any form - she’d only been around mommy, and mommy took 2 extra months of maternity leave. So instead of isolation for four months, it was six months, extending into the phase of a child’s life where it begins to develop fear of strangers. This is also in no way my fault. I have tried my best to be the best person for this job and for this family. I will continue to do my best but it is time that I work on a replacement and start presenting options to the family.

Getting back to the side effects of having this ovarian cyst, on my way home from work, I had gotten no further than 2 miles when sudden fatigue and weakness overtook me. I literally had to fight to hold onto the steering wheel, and keep my eyes open. The lower back pain set in on the way home, affecting both sides of my lower back. Not even my little car pillow helped ease the pain.
When I got home, I staggered through the front door and almost collapsed in my husband’s arms. I had no bleeding - just massive fatigue and moderate low back pain. I was put immediately to bed with a heating pad. I napped for at least half an hour before my husband insisted I have some dinner. After dinner, I watched some TV while still applying a heating pad. At one point, I broke down and sobbed to my husband that I feel like I somehow either manifested the ovarian cyst with all the stress of wedding planning over a year’s time, or the cyst was already forming and made me so much girlier than I normally am, and I should have caught that as a warning sign rather than thinking it was the wedding planning itself making me more girly. My husband told me not to think like that, that it’s totally out of my control and not my fault. He hugged me tight.
I went to bed for the night at 9:30pm, about two hours earlier than I normally get to bed these days.

Got up this morning feeling better, and went off to work. Halfway to work, I was overcome with massive fatigue again, and moderate low back pain. In addition to that, I developed left side shoulder stiffness with mild pain.

I started to really worry that a hospital visit is in my near future.
When I got to work, I let the parent know my current condition. She and my husband do have each other’s cell numbers ever since the emergency on Friday when I had to leave work.

I called my GYN yesterday for status but have not heard back from her. Feeling very frustrated right now.

Also, totally taking it easy for the rest of the week, if not the rest of the month. No strenuous exercise for me. The baby wrangling is exercise enough.

The baby did have a nice nap at an hour and 45 minutes, but unfortunately my pain and severe bleeding had not finished with me in that time, and the meds were full steam ahead in my bloodstream.

It took all my strength just to carry the baby from her bedroom to the changing table in the parents’ room.

Baby definitely knew something was up, because usually when she wakes, she’s fussy or bounding and ready to go. Today she just hung in my arms looking up at me with concern, and once I had her on the changing table, she would normally squirm all over the place but she didn’t move. She just stared at me. I apologised profusely and tried not to cry from the pain. I didn’t want her to cry - babies are SOOOOOOO intuitive.

I changed the baby and then notified the baby’s mother (K) of the situation, as well as notifying my husband B.

K and B both talked with each other and found out they work near the same BART station. So they took the BART together back to K’s car and she drove B back to her house, where I was at. In the meantime, K called her neighbor (H) to come over and help me out. H was over within ten minutes and so I was able to stagger downstairs and drool on the couch.

I wasn’t down there for long, though, before I realised that H wasn’t coming down to feed the baby like I told her. I think perhaps she didn’t know the routine or know what to do. Nothing worse than a baby who realises it’s suddenly very hungry, so I staggered to the kitchen and put all baby’s solids together and warmed a bottle, then called H down. She fed the baby for me. I thanked her repeatedly.

K and B came through the door around noon, and I was told to just hang out and rest until it was time to go to the doctor. So the four of us hung out in the living room for a bit. H had to go, then we eventually had to get on the road, too. I thanked H and K and apologised to K for still being sick. I just felt bad - I had no idea why my body insisted I miss most of a work week like this. Are my cycles getting longer and more intense as I age?

B got me to the doctor in time - it was all the way up in Richmond because my GYN wasn’t at the Berkeley office today. The mess had abated by this time, and I was left with sharp, jarring pains on the left side, and having to pee every five minutes.

After I told the GYN my story, she said I should have gone to E.R., because there they could have done blood workups and scans and such, and she’s not equipped there to do that. I broke down and cried. Didn’t expect that. She was patient with me and asked me to tell her what I was so anxious about. I relayed the story about the botched E.R. visit back in April. She remembered. I told her that although they have a care plan in place for me now after I filed a huge complaint, that when the GYN office said they had an appointment today, I took it rather than chancing another E.R. disaster again. My GYN told me she understood the trauma I went through would have made me act the way I did (coming to see her instead today). She sympathised with me.

Got a pee test - negative for pregnancy - she’s worried about ectopic pregnancy. I told her there’s no way. She gave me an external ultrasound and didn’t see anything abnormal.

I said perhaps I have a cyst. I told her the left side is what’s killing me right now, and that’s the ovary that was stuck behind my uterus from the disease when the surgeon went in last year to have a look.

So she performed an internal ultrasound and her tone changed.

She told me the uterine lining is still very thick, which means much more clotting is on the way.
Then she exclaimed OH! You DO have a cyst!!”

There it is, on the left side. 4cm ovarian cyst. I’m not too worried. I’ve had one larger than that before and it reabsorbed. But I did cry again because goddammit, I’m tired of all the pain. And why is my endometrium so thick with clots? She couldn’t answer that.

We talked about my pain management options again. I’m still refusing anything hormone-based or lupron-based.
She suggested acupunture but I’ve already tried that. Works great but doesn’t last longer than several hours to a day).

She gave me the number of a homeopathy specialist she trusts.

She gave me a lab slip to see how anaemic I am.

She told me I must see a radiologist in 6 weeks to follow up for the cyst, to see if it’s reabsorbed or if it’s growing.

Got my blood drawn on the way home.

And tomorrow I already have an appointment for a Chi Nei Tsang treatment and will be getting started on a gallbladder cleanse.

Until then, I’m wiped out from the pain, the crying and the meds. It’s 6:30pm on a Friday night and I’m heading for a bath and then bed. This will be the second weekend in a row that I’m too ill to enjoy life. I’d only been married a week when I fell ill, and it wasn’t supposed to last this long. I’m quite depressed. I’d like to be a happy giddy bride again, please.

I’m home alone on a Saturday night because I’m still too ill to do anything besides sit in bed on pain medication. The Endometriosis pain started on Tuesday so should have abated by now. Alas. I could think of a million reasons why I brought this upon myself. I could blame the lovely hot bath I had last night. I could blame the food I ate today or yesterday or for the past month. I could blame being too active too quickly when I should have continued taking it easy.

I go through this mindset every single fucking month for the past 23 years. When really the deal is that I am ill. I have an incurable illness which behaves as erratically as it grows inside my body. The Endometriosis is cancer-like - it grows out of control - how am I to expect that with out of control growth that the pain would somehow not be out of control or on a whim?

This means I am not in control. I am at the mercy of this illness. I am a prisoner in my own body.

And then the guilt. Every single month for years now - I feel guilty for whining when I know full well that many women NEVER get out of bed because of this illness. At least I get roughly 16 - 23 days each month to be free, to feel energetic, to rebuild my strength, to get shit done in life, and to have fun before my body shuts down again and shudders in severe pain.

What a way to live. Back and forth like this - pity party and guilt tripping in the same breath.

I got a wheelchair on freecycle.org so that when events are happening and I’m ill, I can still go out - if I have a buddy to help me out. But tonight, although I was hoping to be out somewhere having fun on a Saturday night, all I want to do is lament.

I’m sure having been on Tylenol 3 and muscle relaxers for the past week hasn’t helped with my mood AT ALL. They are known depressants.

*sigh*

Last night I was crying because I was upset for my chosen sister, whose cat of 16 years (and a cousin to my cats, so I knew him well) passed away. My sister has endured a lot of loss this month and I just feel it isn’t fair.

My eyes were red and hurty last night so I put in some Visine drops.

This morning I woke up with my eyes puffed nearly shut.
In the 20 minutes I’ve been awake, the left eye seems to have improved somewhat, but the right eye still has major swelling near the duct (near the bridge of the nose). And I have a headache.
Is this JUST from crying so hard? Or is this because of a reaction to Visine?

GAH…this bullshit, on top of the Endometriosis pain.

Oh and have I mentioned my cough returned yesterday?

I’d like to sob uncontrollably but that will just make my eyes, and just everything, worse.

The pain got worse today and I asked to work a half a day.

I’ve had symptoms for two weeks leading up to today and was positive that I was going to be early. Nope! Not early. As a matter of fact, I might be late. However, the pain is kicking my ass as if I’m menstruating. Such is the life of a person who suffers from Endometriosis.

I was literally holding on with dear life to the railing on the stairs as I carried the baby I look after upstairs to her play room, because the pain and weakness had gotten so bad. I was gasping from sharp knifing pains zipping through my ass and across my pelvic region. Every time I gasped, the baby spun her head and just looooked at me. Poor kiddo.

And the irony of that? Just this morning I had a burst of “Hey! I’m okay! I feel great!” and took the baby for a stroller ride around the block.

“Around the block” in this neighborhood means steep hills.

Well, on the downhill back towards her house, my legs went weak. That’s always the first sign for me that the pain is going to be bad, and soon.

I took it VERY slow.

On the next uphill as the last leg of the journey back to her house, I was okay on and off. Got her back into the house and that’s when the arse pain started. When the baby woke from her nap, I wanted to cry, because I knew picking her up was gonna kill me.

Babies are good at sensing when something is wrong, too. She gave me a worried look and I had to force a smile and reassure her so she’d not start crying. Poor babies are so empathic that way.

And upstairs we went with me holding on with dear life to the railing as I said earlier.

Thankfully, I did get my half day - her daddy came home early to relieve me. Now I dig in for a very long couple or few days of worsening pain and staring at the walls high on drugs (and not even the good kind). You’d think with this downtime, I could get some shit accomplished. Oh hell no. I can’t focus for anything. Tylenol 3 makes me drooly and out of focus.

Speaking of out of focus, that’s what the world looks like when I’m in pain from the Endometriosis.

Everyday people see this:

I see this:

Like another friend in pain right now, I’m totally caving in to cravings, which will ultimately make the pain worse. That’s one of the biggest challenges we face - and for me anyway, I get to a point where I think,

“fuck dietary restriction! I’m gonna die someday anyway, who knows when! Might as well live for the now!

I don’t want to meticulously monitor after my diet until all I’m left with is rice porridge because everything else sets off the Endo, or worse, until my body goes ahead and gets cancer anyway like it’s predisposed to with this illness.”

So it’s hard for me to focus when I get in a funk like that. Say like, right now…

Just finished my first full week on the new job.

In one week I’ve gotten plugged ears from having to wear earplugs all day after having my eardrums pierced by screams of a 6-month-old for two days straight. She screams all day because she misses her mother. She’s inconsolable. I’ve tried everything within humane ability to calm the child - to no avail.

In one week I’ve gained weight rather than losing it.

In one week I’ve gotten very sore calves and shins from hiking with a stroller up suburban sidewalks and roads that I estimate to be 10 to 15% gradient steep.

So I should be losing weight. But I get home from work and chow down on fatty and sugary foods for comfort. I’ve been officially depressed since Wednesday, the day of my birthday. My man took me out for drinks and dinner that night, and I overdid it. I woke with thee worst headache and the spins around 4am. Great going.

I don’t think I’ve had a healthy meal once this week. This child doesn’t even let me have time to eat a meal in silence. Even when she’s sleeping, unless the stroller is continually moving, she wakes up and the screaming starts again. So I get no break. I have to move the stroller. It’s hard to prepare food for lunch and type up how the day is going when having to keep a stroller rocking to and fro. I can’t make any phone calls because the slightest murmur out of me wakes her up and she begins screaming. But noise from passing trucks outside when I’m walking her, or noise from the TV when I’m rocking the stroller back and forth - those are fine for her.

I had a heart to heart with the parent of the child I’m working with, and told her that if the baby doesn’t begin adjusting to me and getting better bottle training from mom and dad this weekend and continuing nightly when I’m not there, then the absolute most I can last will be to mid-October.

I have bruises on my inner thigh where it nearly meets the pubic area because that’s where the baby pounds her feet on me when I’m trying to put her to my shoulder and rock her to calm her down. She has slapped me repeatedly on the arms and face, and has spat food and milk on my shirt, my face, and my coat. Her screams are with such force and shrill that I crack after an hour and a half. I got two full days of work in this week but the other three, I had to call the mother home because I just couldn’t handle it anymore. And to be extra cruel, it’s as if the baby knows I’ve just called mom home, because she settles down in time for mom to walk through the door and give me that look like I’ve just cried wolf.

So today I let the mom hear her baby by phone, rather than texting her or Internet chatting with her about how the day is going.

On Monday, the mother is sending her friend over to give me a break for a bit and we’ll see how that goes. Gotta see if this will be a daily thing or what. I guess it all depends on how it goes on Monday. And on Friday, my friend is bringing her baby over to see if another baby’s face might help calm the girl I’m caring for. There are no parks nearby where other babies would be found playing. There’s an elementary school up the hill, but the kids are not available to play with a baby off the street. They’re in school.

Oh and there’s the bees. I get chased by yellow jackets every fucking time I set foot outside of that house. The hills and brush around where that family lives, all the way down to the shoreline, is teeming with yellow jackets. If they’re not after the milk on the baby’s breath, they’re after my sunblock or my hair or something.

While rushing uphill away from a yellow jacket yesterday, I stepped in dog shit. I began cursing and this woke the baby and for the next half hour, I now had a screaming baby that I had to take back down the 15% gradient hill. People on the street walking their dogs or tending their lawns kept looking at me. They’d look away, then back again as the child screamed and screamed. I would stop the carriage, peek in at her, and she’d scream even harder.

She wants nothing to do with me. So long as I’m behind the carriage, she’s more fine than with me in front of it, but the screaming is a given. This all started on my birthday, because on Monday and Tuesday, I was able to rock her to sleep and she slept on me. I don’t know what the change was.

All I know is, if she doesn’t get used to me soon, I’m resigning. And I’m only doing babysitting gigs until the wedding is over. Maybe even take a break til the end of the year. Who knows.

On a bittersweet note, I like all the exercise I’m getting, and the ocean view I get is really awesome. I will have to take my camera with me next week on the job. Hopefully there will still be some sunny days left, cuz that area is usually fogged in for most of the day. When I used to live down the road from this area back in 2000, I used to joke that I lived in Alaska because of the constant gloom, the fog so dense that it felt like it was raining all the time, and then the rain in wintertime pelting and accompanied by gale force winds.

There is truth to the saying, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.'’

The promise of a phonecall from my brother today never came true and I know you are all shocked and awed by this. :p

I called my ma’s doctor this morning and told her I’m the daughter, I’m in California, I’d like to come home to tend to my mother after surgery, and so I had questions about the diagnosis and procedure. The doctor was really rude to me, declaring first of all that no aftercare is necessary. She then told me that my ma DOES in fact have an incarcerated/strangulated inguinal hernia. I asked “isn’t that more of a risk to her health then?” and the doctor snapped at me, telling me my ma is fine, the skin looks fine, she has had no nausea or bowel obstruction, and the surgery is one of hundreds done daily and she’ll be FINE.
I asked the doctor about anesthesia and was told my ma gets to choose between a spinal where she’s kept conscious but drowsy, or to receive gas anesthetic. I thanked her for her time and can only imagine her saying the same thing to me as I said to her after hanging up:

BITCH!

I called my ma and left a message for an update. I called my brother again but it just goes to voicemail so I hang up at this point.

My man called to ask if I’d gone in to work and he noticed I left my packed bags at the house. I thought he was gonna take me to the airport with cheapest fare so I’d have to come home from work first and get my bags…but he told me he was late to work today so I was led to believe that meant he had no idea when he’d be home, which made it difficult in trying to choose a flight home.

But this didn’t dawn on me right away. I called my chosen sister and together we looked for airfare. Cheaptickets.com is like trying to play duck hunter. You find the fare you want, you click to purchase it and OHHHH! IT’S GONE! SORRY TRY AGAIN.
Fares on other sites seemed to be too expensive for a one-way ticket. And round trip tickets are well over $800. After about half an hour I gave up, upon realising that I had no way to get back to my house in time, get my luggage, and drive all the way back to SFO, which has the cheaper fares. And besides, it’s the first day back to work for the woman I’m nannying for, and I had no idea when she’d be home, so how could I book a ticket not knowing? The depression and the feeling of everything being such bad timing and out of my control has started to take its toll, and I was near tears all day today.

I want to take this opportunity though to thank my chosen sis for totally being there for me on a moment’s notice. You mean the world to me.

In the early afternoon, my ma called me back, and gave me an update. She’s had a day and a half bedrest and feels a lot better, she says. Being up walking and bending and such at work is what took a toll on her condition, so being off work the last couple of days alleviated the pain. She doesn’t have the nausea or bowel restriction going on. Says she feels fine. Said she saw the anesthesiologist but no decision was made yet on how they’d administer. She didn’t seem concerned. Ma urged me not to fly home for this surgery. She insisted she’s doing fine, and that she’d recover well. She told me she had surgery years ago for something and was told she’d be on bedrest for 6 weeks, and she was up and back to work in two weeks. Ma is confident that her body still has that strength and fast healing.

Long story short:
So it is based partially upon throwing my hands in the air at not being able to score tickets and partially because ma told me to please not come home and reiterating several times that she’s okay now and will be fine after surgery, that I made the decision to not fly home.
But I’m not unpacking my bags until the weekend is over.

Ma said she had to call between 4pm - 7pm Eastern Time to get her surgery time for tomorrow. Well, it’s 9pm her time now and I’ve not heard from her so I’m calling her now.

ok…Ma laughed and said she was just about to call me. She always gets a kick out of me doing this - she’s fundamentalist but believes she and I share a psychic link, heh..
Anyway, ma said my brother promised he’d be there at 7am tomorrow to take her to surgery, and promised to be there with her the entire day, even if she has to get admitted overnight. I hope he keeps his word on this one, or else I’ll fly out there just to stuff him into a steel drum and toss him into Lake Michigan. I’m sick of all his empty promises and lies. I’m beyond emotional and angry at him.

When I got home from work, I ate half a pint of ice cream, took 1mg atavan, 1/2 muscle relaxer, and three hours later I’m having a glass of plum wine. I’ve been working on this post since 5:40pm. It’s taken me 3 hours and 20 minutes to just try to focus even a little bit of the stress outwards via journaling.

“Ohmygod what is going on” - Nick Fiend in the song “Camel”

I can barely see straight now that the drugs have kicked in, but I want to communicate with you before I go into this dark tunnel for the next three days.

The last couple of days have been so surreal to me when I step outside and see yellow diffused sunlight on the ground. I keep looking up at the sky and instinctively looking for storm clouds. Yellow diffused light in Michigan means “storm’s a comin’”.

Normally in California, the sun shining down leaves crisp, white light on the ground. Not yellow. The yellow of course is because the skies are still thick with forest fire smoke.

This month marks eleven years that I’ve lived in California, and yet things like yellow diffused sunlight on the ground still throws me right back into instinctively looking up at the sky to check for storm clouds. Because I spent the first twenty-five years of my life - my formative years as they say - in Michigan, I don’t think I’ll ever let go of a lot of instinctual habits, or of certain words, or behaviours.

And over the last couple of days, I can’t help but to just stare at the ground, marveling at the yellow light, then looking back up at the sky a second and third and fourth time, hoping to see storm clouds. When my gaze comes back down from the sky, I hope to see giant maple trees in the full bloom of summer, the thick lush green grass and trees everywhere, and to feel the humidity that sets it all in place.

But instead, I get dry, yellowing grass (where grass can be found), California poppies, palm trees, the crazy viney ground cover that people out here jokingly call Kudzu, and dry, dusty air.

I find myself wistful. I miss home. I miss a good summer storm.

Blah. I’ve got iTunes playing on ‘random’. The first iTunes song on random was “Third Eye” by Tool, which makes me really miss home and people from back home, and a time in my life where I really did open my Third Eye.

And the very next song that came on? “Mary” by Oingo Boingo. Which of course applies perfectly to me.

Last night I went into an emotional tailspin, having flashbacks of my childhood up through my early twenties, and all the bad shit that happened to me, growing up in poverty and watching crime and shady dealings all around me.

Some people have dreams to tell them what’s going on in their life. Sometimes I have magickal synchronistic iTunes.

“See I think drugs have done some good things for us, I really do. And if you don’t believe drugs have done good things for us, do me a favor, go home tonight and take all your albums, all your tapes, and all your CDs and burn ‘em. Cuz you know what, the musicians who made all that great music that’s enhanced your lives throughout the years? RrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrEAL fuckin’ high on drugs.” - Bill Hicks, quoted in Tool’s song Third Eye.

My head hurts.