Thursday, February 07, 2002

A Freaky Day In Lockdown

The Princess came down with an ear infection and left school early on Monday, and I’ve been home with her since Tuesday.  3 sick days this week {sigh}!  It’s really a good thing I’ve been feeling so well myself, and that the Company allows us to use our own sick days to take care of sick family members.  Regardless, I can’t help feeling guilty for not being in the office working.  Someday, perhaps, I’ll finally break free of the Puritan Work Ethic the US is so freakin’ proud of.  It’s really not healthy.

Tuesday was a totally FREAKY day.  From noon until after midnight, my neighborhood was in a state of lockdown by the LAPD.  There’s nothing like hearing helicopters overhead for 12 solid hours, knowing there’s an armed-and-dangerous criminal on the loose and being advised hourly on the news that the police want the residents to stay inside with all their windows and doors locked.  I wasn’t all that worried, but the Princess was really scared (her dad’s done a pretty good job at cultivating the paranoia, I guess!  Though he’d NOT be amused by my saying so; what I call paranoia he calls being “safety conscious.” No matter, he never looks at this site anyway...).  Between the place crawling with LAPD, our property’s iron perimeter fence, the security doors, the fact that I live on a cul-de-sac and the presence of Apache (living proof that you can’t judge a book—or a dog—by its cover.  She’s a wuss; which is not to say she’s not a great guard dog, though!), I felt quite safe.  Poor Apache, not only was there all this crazy activity going on but my sister, her “mom,” was one of the people trying unsuccessfully to get back into the neighborhood.  Apache did a lot of whining for her mom, but also spent quite a bit of time just sitting inside the gate at the end of the driveway guarding the premises.

I’ll bet the city spent several hundred thousand dollars on that lockdown… and the guy was probably halfway to Mexico by the time they even secured the neighborhood.  What a waste!  My friggin’ tax dollars at work.  Damn!

Monday, September 03, 2001

Summer is officially over

Not that it makes much difference to those of us who no longer attend school, except that the freeways are a bit less crowded.  I’ll be laboring on Labor Day, since there are still so many unfinished domestic tasks.  My entire body is stiff and sore from yard work 2 days ago, but I can’t let that stand in the way of getting as much work done as I possibly can!  When weekends present the only opportunity to get things done, time slips by quickly.  Next thing I know, it’ll be too cold and wet to get anything accomplished so I’m feeling the pressure to get the yard done to my satisfaction before the weather turns.

Wednesday, July 25, 2001

You can, in fact, go home again

My trip back to Waterbury was an emotional roller coaster!  I finally got to meet my hero, Dee Snider, which was the biggest thrill of my lifetime so far.  See pix of Dee Day here. 

While I was elated to see family and friends after being so long away, there was some sadness in having to visit other loved ones who left this life too soon.  I finally went and visited my father’s grave, and kept a promise I made to a lover many years ago:  to smoke a joint at his grave.  Damn him, I really wanted to be an 80-year-old crazy lady before having to keep that vow.  Sadly, he took himself out in 1993… and it hurts to this day to know he’s gone forever.

It was a bit surreal to pop in to the old neighborhood bar with Rob, and be faced with a picture and a plaque hanging on the wall in memory of someone who meant so much to me that the sight of it caused the same feeling of iron bands choking my heart that assailed me when I heard he’d passed away.  To make matters worse, I spent almost an hour trying to find his resting place before giving up and going to the bar to ask someone to direct me.  I kept thinking to myself, “Even in death this bastard’s leading me a merry chase!”.  That was the way of things with us all those years ago, too, when I was young and foolish and let myself be misused by those I loved. Anyhow, I still wandered a bit trying to locate his grave but just when I was about to give up I saw a beautiful young buck standing amidst the headstones.  He took off before I could get my camera out and turned on, but by following in the direction of his escape I finally found what I sought. 

In death, unlike life, I guess it was ok for me to catch the guy and let him know how much I cared.

Monday, June 11, 2001

Sometimes the gods smile

Woo hoo!  Dr. C is indeed a member of my provider network once again, so I’ll be making an appointment with him ASAP after I get back from Connecticut.

Sunday, June 10, 2001

Don’t read this if you’re easily grossed out!

For anyone with an IBD or similar medical condition, such plain talk is generally the norm… but “polite society” deems speaking of such things to be inappropriate in public.  Which is why so many sufferers go undiagnosed for years, generally until their symptoms become life-threatening.  Fuck polite society anyway.  Everywhere we turn, there’s pressure to be on guard and carefully craft anything we say so that no one feels harassed, or libeled or (oh! the horror!) shocked and offended by our words.  Little by little we’re losing our right to speak freely.  The government faces some (but not enough) opposition to legislate away our 1st Amendment rights, and since it’s a tough road, apparently it’s become necessary to put the burden on our culture to shame one another into never speaking of life’s ugliness.  But I digress.

On March 20, I had surgery to remove the many huge and painful hemorrhoids I got as a bonus for having Crohn’s Disease.  Normally I’d have been back to work in 2 weeks’ time, but because the surgery was extensive and complicated I wasn’t released until after 4 weeks of recovery.  Naturally, before I could be released I had to be examined by the surgeon, Dr.Q.  Since as a Crohn’s patient my risk of developing an abscess or perianal fistula was quite high, during that visit I expressed my concern about a small area that was painfully inflamed and seemed to be draining.  I’ve lived in this body for 39 years, and I know when something isn’t right!  Dr. Q blew me off with, “I did extensive surgery, it’ll be at least 2 months from the operation before everything will be healed.” Whatever, dude… it’s not YOUR ass that’s leaking something that’s not supposed to be there, and making you miserable with the pain.

So I made an appointment with my gastroenterologist, Dr. A, because I knew something wasn’t right, and all the research I did leads me to believe I have developed a perianal fistula.  I see Dr. A and tell him I think Dr. Q’s full of shit, ask him to please take a look.  He does, and tells me he agrees with Dr. Q; things should be normal (for me, anyway) soon, and advises me to continue with sitz baths and keep the thing draining.  Ok, so what you’re really saying is I’m just a Nervous Nelly wasting the time of valuable professionals with my paranoia over something that, while painful and EXTREMELY difficult to live with on a daily basis, is apparently nothing to worry about.  Uh-huh.

Just this past week I went back to Dr. Q for a check-up.  I tell him, “Gee doc, I still have this lump near my butt crack that’s leaking pus out of my anus when I push on it to drain it.” He takes a look and says, “You’ve got an abscess, a perianal fistula.  That’s Crohn’s.  I’ll give you some Cipro, but if it doesn’t go away in 3 weeks, I’ll have to do surgery to correct it.” That was the last straw.  I reminded him (quite bitchily) that I’d brought it to his attention 6 weeks ago, and he blew me off for “worrying over nothing,” when MY diagnosis was correct all along.  I know my body goddammit!  I also insisted that before I’d let him perform another surgery on me, I’d be asking Dr. A to try Remicade infusions.  Dr. Q can go fuck himself if he thinks he’s cutting me again.  After this last fiasco, I’ll be asking Dr. A to refer me to a different surgeon. 

Dr. A just recently started taking care of me when my favorite doctor, Dr. C, left the medical group to work at UCLA Medical Center.  Dr. C was fabulous!  I’d have stayed with him, even driving all the way to Santa Monica for visits, if only my insurance would allow it.  He thought I should put off a hemorrhoidectomy as long as I possibly could, which I did (far longer than I’d have liked, too!).  Shortly before he left, I asked again about surgery.  He told me he’d give me the name of a good colorectal surgeon (who unfortunately wasn’t covered by my insurance either), and that he’d prefer Dr. Q not operate on me, but he had to refer me to him for any surgical procedures because of the medical group agreements.  So I held out as long as I could but by March things had progressed to where the constant pain was seriously affecting my ability to lead a normal life.  Not only do I have to take a dump at least once every day (or 15 times on some days), but I’m a web geek and sit on my ass for a living—just two daily activities that had become nothing less than excruciating.  All I wanted was to have my asshole back!  I should have heeded Dr. C’s advice and seen if there was any way I could have Dr. A find a different surgeon to refer me to. 

Too late now, though.  The best I can hope for is that Dr. A will prescribe the Remicade infusions, and that they’ll work.  If I have to have surgery again, I don’t care WHAT I have to do, I’ll be getting someone other than Dr. Q.  As an intelligent person who has to deal with doctors on a frequent basis, I am absolutely furious over those bad apples who fail to give any credence to what their patients tell them.  I realize they’ve attended umpteen years of school to learn their craft, but that doesn’t give the sanctimonious pricks the right to discount what’s being said and felt by the person who’s been living in their own body their entire life. Because of Dr. Q’s ignoring my concerns almost 2 months ago, I may end up needing yet another surgery that will take me off my feet and out of work again… and I’ve got this painful pus-filled pocket on my ass that requires frequent care at home, where I have everything I need, meaning on work days it doesn’t get tended to and becomes almost unbearable.  Thanks, Doc.

Speaking of work and a painful pus-filled pocket… I hate AOL!  We’re forced to use it for our corporate mail now, and it is absolutely unmanageable.  I spend so much time trying to figure out where mail is in my “handy Filing Cabinet,” that I’d like to request a separate category in our time-tracking program just for dealing with the unwieldy piece of shit every day.  To add insult to injury, my new corporate screen name has already been harvested somehow by spammers, despite the protection we supposedly have when there is no profile associated with the screen name.  I sent a nasty email to the TOS team, not that they’ll give two shits.  The largest internet and media company in the world, and no one can come up with a better corporate mail system than a consumer app written for the braindead?  That’s just priceless.