Fear for Zoe

Zoe did something super scary this morning.

She woke me up by pressing herself forcefully against me (she is an affectionate dog, but not to this extreme and especially not during the summer) and the skin on her back and sides was trembling violently like she was shivering (the room was at least 60 degrees).

My initial concern was a seizure.  I know a couple dogs who’ve had them.  But she was responsive to me, let me move her and manipulate her while following my hands or mouth.  She did not whimper, pant, or drool.  Her legs did not stiffen or twitch.

When I tried to get up, she flung herself into my lap and continued to tremble.  Her eyes stared up into my face and her nose tried to touch the nearest bit of me she could.  I thought then that perhaps she was just scared (a bad dream?) and picked her up as I stood.  I carried her to the couch and sat with her, saying soothing words and petting her lightly.  

As soon as I was within a couple feet of the door, she started squirming and I put her down so I wouldn’t harm her.  She ran to the front door and pressed herself against it, staring up at me.

Ok. She wants to go outside.  I’m not an idiot.  I took her outside where she halfheartedly sniffed and wandered around, sniffed, peed, had a small poo (normal-looking) and then let me take her inside.  

She then proceeded to climb up next to me on the couch and do the same thing from the morning.  Pressing herself against me almost painfully with her back and sides trembling.

I called the vet.  They were not very helpful.  They said it could be a toxin she ingested (though I informed them she hasn’t vomited or had diarrhea, or trouble eating and drinking), seizures (though they admitted they agreed it was unlikely with her responsiveness to me), or just “a behavior possibility” (i.e. she just freaked herself out).

My dog is not a timid thing.  She comforts me during thunder storms, she asserts herself with all strangers (dog and people alike), she boldly goes in the car and into new buildings she’s never been in.

When I pressed the vet further, they stated they would have to have her come in for an appointment.  However, until July 15th, I absolutely CANNOT miss any work (not to mention I don’t have any leave time left after my most recent hospitalization).  They don’t have any openings before or after I get off.

Tomorrow is July 4th, a national holiday.  They are closed.  They say if she gets worse, I will have to take her to an emergency vet.

I desperately wanted to stay home with her.  I desperately wish my mother wasn’t out of town so she could watch her.

Neither of those two things are an option.

So here I am, physically at work, while my mind is frantically trying to reach back and be with my guardian angel of a dog.

It breaks my heart that she is always with me with I feel unwell, but I cannot be with her.

My system is fractured too.  I have yelling, crying, screaming, sobbing, begging, on and on and on in my head.  It’s all I can do to try and maintain some semblance of normalcy here at work.

I am hoping our office closes early for the holiday.

Pneumonia

My lack of involvement in the blog world is due to the fact that my cold turned into bronchitis, which turned into pneumonia over this past week.  So I’ve been basically trying not to curl into a ball and die.

It meant another trip to the ER, dragged by my mother.
(Ya’ll remember how much I love hospitals, right? I’ll just skip on down there all on my own)
It was awful.  My pulse was crazy high, my BP crazy high, my x-ray showed a compromised section of lung that has me at reduced breathing capacity (i.e. the pneumonia).  The woman who did the IV prick sucked at it.

Today is first day back and at work. Technically I’m not fully recovered yet (still not at full lung capacity).  It’s sucking a lot.  This level of exhaustion is puzzling to me.  I tend to be someone who can pull energy outta my butt if necessary and that ability has completely deserted me.  It’s frustrating and disheartening and I hate it.

I hate having auto-immune condition.  Basically every little tiny illness I get turns into something ginormous.

I’ve never had pneumonia before and my only memory of it is when I was young and my dad got double pneumonia (it’s a real thing) and almost died in the hospital.  And I was terrified and sad and begging the universe to just let him live and I’d be a good girl just like he wanted. 
It was that first moment where I knew that despite his distance and our issues, I love him no matter what and it will break my heart if he ever goes anywhere.

Good news is the man has been like an ox since then and has waaaaaay better health than me, so he’ll probably outlive me.

Anyway, I hope all of you are doing well.

I’ll have a much more interesting post once I’m able to breath without wheezing and bubbling.

Much love to all ❤

Baby Steps

I think I really am going to try being single.  For reals. 

it’s probably going to suck, but perhaps- just perhaps- it may be awesome and enlightening and I will get to know me better.  It’s been awhile since I’ve done the whole single thing for real.

And besides the whole Craig being weird thing, there are some other things that the Universe I think is using to try and tell me to stop doing the whole dating thing.

#1
I am super sick.  Out of nowhere yesterday, I just started feeling like I’d been beaten up and my head hurt.  Then all last night I had a high fever and this morning I had to take a pile of drugs in order to go to work.  In fact, such a pile that I had to be driven to work as I didn’t trust myself to drive.
(I think I’ve mentioned before that ephedrine is magic 😉 )
Sick on Vday??? How strange!  Also, I doubt I’ll be feeling better enough to go on a stupid date with Craig tomorrow night.

#2
Stupid Craig texted me this morning bitching about feeling “under the weather” and that he called off work.  I feel like a bitch, but I have little sympathy considering I was up all night with a fever of 102 and still dragged my butt to work today.  Granted, that’s mostly because I need the money and there are other people in my department that took today off, so I would get a mark on my record for not coming in (and possibly fired).  But I really don’t want to play the whole nursing/sympathy thing with Craig feeling ill.  I suck at it and I know it’s selfish, but I hate doing it.  I really have to care about someone before I’ll play nurses aid to their ailments.  It’s not that I’m actively trying to be a bitch, I just hate illness and I was never “taken care of” as a child when I was sick, so I have absolutely no clue how to go about doing that whole thing.  The most I’ve ever done is brought Texas and Germany meds or special food/drink.  I think I made soup for Army once.  But I don’t do much in that whole department.  Not my thing.  Sorry Craig- barking up the wrong tree.

#3
My coworker that I’m starting to become good friends with- ahem I should take a leaf out of Weegee’s book and actually give her a blog-name- let’s go with…Hannah.  Not sure why.  Not even close to her real name.  I just like that name.   Anyway, Hannah reminds me of Germany a lot.  She’s really smart, doesn’t take shit, hilarious, and has a healthy interest in men and booze.  However, she’s had the same sort of crummy luck that I have with men lately.  We’ve been comparing notes for weeks and laughing about our similar disappointments.  Today she asked if I would want to go get drinks tonight to celebrate being unattached, single, and fantabuloso.  I told her I most certainly would like to.  She said she’d text me when she gets off her evening job, which should be at about 8.  I’m sort of proud of myself for being excited about it.

#4
Zoe.  I don’t really need to go into this much, I’m sure.  Ya’ll know how much I adore my lil’ puppy kid.  She is my world and I love her.  It said a lot that she didn’t like Craig.  I don’t think it’s a good idea to pursue a relationship with a person my dog dislikes.  Simple as that.

So, baby steps.  I can do this.  I think as long as I remain semi-social, I can manage being single.

-crosses fingers-

Laryngitis

It sucks.

I can’t speak above a whisper today.  I couldn’t even sing along with the radio on my way into work, which really bummed me out.

At work, everyone seems distantly grumpy that I can’t talk or answer the phone.  I want to be like “Hey. At least I showed up to do paperwork. I could have just stayed home.”

But that involves talking.  Even whispering hurts- sending sharp stabbing spikes of pain all over my throat.  I drank some Theraflu Sore Throat to try and feel better, but so far I still feel pretty shitty.
I can feel the tickles of the coughing wanting to break free, but the two times I allowed it the pain was so excruciating that I started crying.  So now I just fight the coughing sensation, which makes it a bit hard to breath sometimes (due to the gunk build-up), but at least doesn’t hurt as much.

I just want this to go away.

I hate my crummy immune system.

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Ephedrine is Magic

I shouldn’t take ephedrine.

It raises my normally high blood pressure to scary amounts.

However, as Shadow Dragon has mentioned in previous posts of her’s, I have been very very sick for going on about 3 weeks now.  I’m tired of it.  I’ve missed way too much work, I haven’t been able to be social much at all, I’ve been a terrible doggy-mommy to Zoe.

It got to a point Monday where I just couldn’t handle it anymore.  Fortunately, I also saw Army on Monday and he was nice enough to give me some of his “wonder drugs” he keeps on hand.  No worries, they aren’t illegal, and they’re technically over the counter.  They’re just restricted.

Because they have ephedrine.  Which if you didn’t know, can be used to make meth.

Basically it’s Speed in simple pill form.

I took some Monday and felt fantastic.  I skipped yesterday because I don’t want to die of a stroke or kidney failure.  Then yesterday I felt awful, threw up a couple times, had a headache (and had some emotional/friends crap I soooooo didn’t need to deal with, but that’s not something I really want to talk about), so it was a disaster anyway.  So today I took another dose.

I am freakin’ Wonder Woman.  Yes. I feel like I can do fucking anything right now.  I could stop a speeding train with the flick of my wrist.

Ok, maybe not.

But I can multitask at work without dying and pretend to be friendly towards my coworkers.  And that’s a big step forward.

Ephedrine is magic.

I already suck

Well. This is supposed to be a post about the Renaissance Festival, since I did go today.  But I’m not going to do it.

First of all, the visit was rather crummy.  The weather was crummy and the company wasn’t who I’d hoped for (with the exception of Texas, I did want her there),

And I feel awful today.  I’m not sure exactly what’s wrong.  It feels like I’ve been beaten up both on the outside and on the inside, especially my stomach and chest area.  I just took my blood pressure and it’s sky high, of course.

If this tells you anything- I managed a single pickle at the Ren Fest. That’s how sick I feel. I love pickles.  I am known in my family and circle of friends for finishing a huge wholesale sized jar in a single day.
Every time I go to Ren Fest I eat a minimum of three pickles.

I hate that I could only handle one.  And my stomach is pretty angry for that one too.  I wanted to get an apple dumpling, but definitely couldn’t manage that.  I spent most of my money on soft drinks to try and settle my tummy (Coke helps my nausea).

Then Texas made dinner for a group of us this evening and it tasted weird.  I would say it was the lack of mustard (my favorite condiment), but I had a glass of water here at home to take some pills and it tasted weird.  And then the cigarette I had tasted weird (please don’t lecture me on the whole smoking and high BP thing.  My BP is high even when I don’t smoke).
I think it’s me.

And I ended up throwing up the dinner right before I went home anyway.  My stomach is very upset. I hate it.

So I suppose this is me saying I have to take a hiatus.  Hopefully.  Maybe this 30 Day Challenge was a terrible idea.  I should just quit.

I really don’t want to go back to the hospital…