Bad Shit Happens

Well, the past few months have been a bit of a rollercoaster ride, here in Mel-land.

The Mister has had some stomach issues since March, I would say.  In the end of April, he came down with something and was home sick for a few days.  I thought I knew what it might be from, but didn't make him go to the doctor because it went away and he felt better.  Until 2 weeks later, when he woke me up at 3 AM to take him to the emergency room.  He was in excruciating pain, he'd been up since midnight being ill.  The ER nurses had to pump him full of pain meds (which he has a ridiculously high tolerance for) and an ultrasound tech came to examine him with her magic wand.
The verdict:  he had gallbladder disease.  The offending organ would need to be removed for him to have any lasting relief.  Time to panic--we don't have insurance.  But he needed to be taken care of, so...he went in for surgery.  Where they found out that he had some giant gall stones.  Stones that were so big, he'd have to go back in the following day for another procedure to remove them from his bile duct.
So he spent 2 nights in the hospital.  He was pretty sore afterwards, from the gas they push into the abdominal cavity to see things while they poke around with their mad scientist instruments.  When I had my gallbladder out in 2004, he called to see how I was doing after surgery.  I told him my shoulder was sore from the gas rising and he said, "Why does your shoulder hurt?  Were they standing on it when they yanked your gallbladder out?"  To which I laughed, causing even more knife-like pain, then I had to call him an asshole.
Luckily for him, I didn't try to make any jokes.  I just tried to take care of him and make him more comfortable while he healed.
But wait!  There's more!
Because that wasn't enough of a health issue....a couple weeks after he came home from the hospital, he developed some strange sore on his forearm.  When he went in to have it looked at (since it was extremely painful and causing his hand/wrist to swell), they said it was an infected cyst.  They had to cut open his arm and do tortuous  things to it to get the infection dealt with.  This was followed up with an oral antibiotic.
Apparently that didn't matter all that much, because 2 days later, the same type of sore grew on his other forearm.  Completely weird, completely random, extremely painful for him.  They didn't try the torture on the new one, just let the antibiotics do their thing...which took another week, but it did go away eventually.
Between surgery, recovery, and then this infection, the Mister missed about 3 weeks of work.  Since he works completely on commission....this totally sucked.
But wait!!  There's more!!
Around this time, a long-term friendship was abruptly terminated.  A guy friend I've known for 5 1/2 years, who started a new relationship with a formerly ok-with-me chick, gave in to her insecurity and stopped talking to me, because our "relationship" was a form of "emotional infidelity."  Which is such complete bullshit.  Aside from the fact that I'm a girl, and he's a boy, our friendship has never been a big deal to anyone....well, except me, because I'm an antisocial introvert who has a hard time making & keeping friends.
Our friendship continued through a lot of ups and downs through both of our lives, which I thought made it a stronger connection.  It was never anything but platonic.  
Did I picture him shirtless atop a big black stallion?  No.  Did I want to buy him a beer at the end of a long day?  Yes.
Did I imagine him hosing off in the sun after working on the car?  Nope.  Did I want to hug him after a really tough decision or big exciting news?  Sure.
Well, I must be a horrible person, a home-wrecker, and a general bad influence.
Then again, since he was mostly an internet friend, maybe he made up the neurotic girlfriend and decided he didn't want to be a friend anymore because I didn't picture him atop that stallion, or hosing off.  Or hosing off on top of the stallion.  Whatever.
All I know is that there's a pretty big hole in my life now and I miss him a lot, even though I want to slap him.
But wait!!!  There's more!!!
While trying to do things on my 5-year-old iMac, it suddenly decided to argue with me.  I got stuck in a loop of "there's issues, restart" so I'd restart and then get the same message.  I tried different things, looked it up on the internet on my iPad (thankfully, I had that at least), but it seemed as though my first Mac was going on strike.
So I took it to a local Apple repair shop and the verdict wasn't good:  my hard drive was fried and it was going to be almost $400 to repair it.  After the Mister missing so much work from being sick, this was pretty much the worst time for it to happen.  Ugh.
But wait!!!!  There's MORE!!!!
I believe it was the day of, or the day after we got my computer back, that the Mister had to go into the crawl space for something.  Where he discovered, horror of horrors, that...it was flooded.  It seems that the pipe leading to the spigot on the outside of the house had cracked at some point, and every time we used the hose, the crawlspace got sprayed.  Since I'd been trying to keep on top of watering my strawberry plants, this was a relatively frequent occurrence.  
The bad part:  we'd been using the crawl space (it's large enough) for storage.  The good part:  most of the stuff we put down there was in totes.  The bad part:  not all of it.
Our Christmas tree, that we bought our first year here, was a rusty mess.  Some Christmas decorations and various household items were damaged from being immersed as well.  A box of our financial stuff for the last few years got soaked.  And a big box of clothes I'd put down there got sprayed and wet and stinky.
We had to call a restoration business to come and suck out all the water, run fans and a dehumidifier for a few days.  I cringe at the thought of what our power bill will be.  Eep!
We had to file a claim because of the amount of stuff involved, but I'm just happy it wasn't worse.
But WAIT!!!!!  There's MORE!!!!!
I've been dealing with some health issues--here and there stuff that I didn't think was a very big deal.  It finally got to be too much and I went to see my doctor.  She ran some blood tests and ultimately diagnosed me with having PCOS, Poly-Cystic Ovarian Syndrome.  It boils down to hormone imbalances and insulin-resistance.  I'm not diabetic or pre-diabetic, but I could get there thanks to PCOS, because it's probably been the main reason I've gained weight and haven't been able to lose it, no matter how hard I try.  On top of the weight, there's been facial hair, oily skin, acne, high blood pressure, and fatigue to deal with.
The number one way of dealing with PCOS:  diet and exercise.  My doctor also put me on a medicine to help regulate my hormones (hopefully).  The nutritionist I spoke with seems to be very anti-pharma, and says that this is my wake-up call, and if I stop eating wheat and dairy products and exercise a lot, with the right supplements, I won't need any prescriptions.  I say, I'll moderately adjust my (not unhealthy) diet and exercise more, but how about we wait and see if the (cheap, once-daily) prescription helps me in any way before I just decide to pay up the wazoo for 6 or 7 expensive supplements that I'll have to choke down multiple times a day.  As well as give up wheat and dairy?  Wheat, maybe; dairy, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAno.  What's the point in living if you're miserably denying yourself things that are delicious?  Like cheese, cream cheese, milk, cheesecake, ice cream, cottage cheese, yogurt, sour cream......

Anyway.  That's catch-up.  Hopefully, there's not more now.  The Mister isn't allowed to get sick anymore, I'm being treated for my lady stuff, the house and computer got to have their tantrums, so that's that.

I'm off to find something to snack on.  Like macaroni and cheese.  mmmmm, cheese.

Tough day

Today I'm grateful for a job that allows me to be alone in the office for awhile so no one can see me cry.

Oh, the whooshing!

In March 2011, I came down with a cold.  It was the standard head cold--plugged nose, scratchy throat, and occasionally plugged up ears.
It lasted a few days and went away, except for one symptom: noise in my ear.  Not just any noise, not a ringing or a roaring, but a whooshing sound, like the sound of a heartbeat on an ultrasound.  Very distinct, and sometimes loud enough that I couldn't concentrate.
So I saw my doctor, who basically told me it was because I had a blocked eustachian tube that was keeping fluid in my ear.  The tube was blocked because my tonsil was swollen, from being sick.  She told me to give it a few weeks and hopefully it would clear up.
I waited a few weeks, which turned into a couple months, and when I went back for my physical in the summer, I told her the noise was still there.  Her reaction was basically a shrug and she told me to wait longer still, since those tubes can be tricky.

I waited.
And I waited.
And I waited some more.
The noise never went away.  Sometimes it was quieter, and if I forced myself to concentrate on relaxing and breathing carefully, it would almost disappear.  And sometimes, generally at night, it would get so loud that I'd be unable to get to sleep.
When I saw my doctor last summer for my physical, I told her again of the noise and she told me that maybe I should get my hearing checked, to make sure I hadn't had any hearing loss.  Yes, the noise was that loud--it drowned out the sound of other things unless they were really loud, too.
Well, I went one better:  yesterday, I saw an Ear Nose & Throat specialist.  He looked in my ears and mouth with some funky instruments--and couldn't find anything visibly wrong.  He looked at the MRI I had done when I had the eye drama and didn't see anything wrong with my ear in that, either
But, he gave me a name--veinous hum (which sounds like "venus hum", which sounds like a sex trick to me--but I'm a perv).
Apparently I have a blood vessel pressing up against something in my ear, and the flow of blood is causing the noise.  My options for treatment are surgical; I can have them tie off my jugular vein on the right side, but he said that more blood vessels would grow in, so it's not likely to work in the long run.  Or he could try to find the blood vessel, which is likely minute, and "disconnect" it.  The possibility of that working is even more unlikely because there's so many blood vessels and some are microscopic, so he wouldn't even necessarily be able to locate it.

So frustrating.  I'm beginning to think the right side of my head is going on strike.  At least I don't hear voices in my ear, though...

yet.

Closing a Chapter

....or so I thought.

I was fully prepared for 2012 to be over and 2013 to be the start of a great year.
Last year sucked.  Hard.  It was the worst year I can remember having.  So bad, in fact, I can't even bring myself to do a year-in-review because it might bring on a serious pity party.

As the Mister & I rang in the new year, I felt hopeful and optimistic and so sure that things were going to finally move into a more positive direction.
Well, that didn't really happen.
On January 2nd, the Mister lost his job.

For a second year in a row, the Mister doesn't have a job at the new year.

I feel like our life is going somewhere dark and depressing.
blah.