Maybe going to the hospital was good for something after all. . .

I just noticed my sciatic nerve problem seems to have disappeared. (Yay!)

Hmm. . . About the hospital visit. It wasn't as easy as a fever this time.

(I think I'll just use the read more thingie when going into disgusting detail. . .)

I want. . .

to be pain free.

My urethra feels like it's make out of the stiffest, most unbending bamboo, which makes sitting down torture until I'm lucky enough to find a comfy position.

Also complicating that sitting thing is my sciatic nerve apparently feeling I'm a bit. . .hefty.

My urethra also feels like it's some kind of ring of fire when I go to the bathroom. I'm convinced I pee lighter fluid. It's cry-inducing painful. Unfortunately, people panic when you cry while going to the bathroom (especially 12 year old Beasties).

I've got all these wonderful drugs that don't do anything. What's the big fucking whoop about Oxycodone (or whatever it's called)? All that shit does is put me to sleep. Putting me to sleep is not alleviating my pain. It's just moving it to a later time slot. I want that shit GONE.

I can find relief from all my pains (except the peeing thing) when I lay down, but all that does is put me to sleep, because I can't hold books over my head for long and I suck at reading sideways.

Part of me is looking forward to the surgery on Wednesday, because when you don't have a bladder, you don't pee out your urethra, though I guess that doesn't take care of the bamboo problem. Maybe I can get them to just remove the damn thing entirely. . .

So I got sick at home yesterday. . .

(I'm noticing a trend)

Threw up, had an equal and opposite reaction (but probably not the one you're thinking and definitely one I'm not going into here) and developed a fever. When I discovered said fever, it was 101.9.

About 10 minutes later, it was 103.4. That was the point when I started making my way to the emergency.

Got to the ER at about 5pm-ish.

Got out at midnight.

During that time, I had 50 bazillion vials of blood drawn, all kinds of fluids and antibiotics pumped into me and no food given to me until I snagged a (thin) slice of roast beef and a (also thin) slice of turkey off some sandwich they dug up just before my midnight deadline. (I had planned on grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner and I REALLY wanted those damn sandwiches. But alas, my consumption of them was not meant to be. . .)

Why the midnight deadline? Because I had a procedure scheduled for this morning at 8am. For this procedure, I'm not allowed to eat after midnight, no drinks, no medicines, nothing. So after we got out of the hospital, and I took Le Beastie to McD's to get her something to eat, I had to drive the twenty minutes home smelling the delicious smells of grilled chicken wraps (plain, thank you) and fries stinking up my car.

It was torture.

Got to bed about 1 (had to clean up the mess I made pre-ER visit) and was up and back at the hospital at 8. Sluggish, groggy and pissed, cuz I was hungry.

Everything was going good until I got that needle (they had to inject radioactive dye into my bloodstream). Well, I got dizzy and apparently passed out (though I have no memory of such happenings). I came to just at the nurse who ran the machinery came back into the trailer (it's like an 18-wheeler trailer type deal) with like 4 nurses. So now it's the nurse, the 4 OTHER nurses and the guy of undetermined job status who stuck me with the needle. Exciting times. . .

I, of course, hate all this attention, so while they're all asking me the same questions ("How do you feel? Are you dizzy? Do you want to go to the ER?"), I just want them to leave me alone so I can get this procedure done and eat.

I finally sorta convinced them I was ok. (Three nurses left, but one stayed behind "just in case.") The procedure seems to take twice as long today. Was v. v. annoying.

Procedure gets done and the nurse running the machinery turns into this REALLY BIG mother hen. She's hovering over me. Got me three packs of graham crackers, two little containers of orange juice and a mini-bottle of Gatoraid. Offered to call a Med-trans van to get me home. I thought she was gonna break out the straps and tie me to the chair, but I finally convinced her that really, really, really, I was OK.

Now I'm home, and I didn't have the post procedure McD's I usually have, and I'm tired and I haven't had my medication today.

PLEASE LET MY WEEK OF EXCITEMENT BE OVER!!

Let's be real for a moment, mkay?

I find it funny that I can't talk frankly with my friends about the fact that I'm dying of cancer. They say all the things friends are supposed to say, "Don't talk like that!" "You gotta stay positive!"

It's hard to stay positive when go through 4 pads on a GOOD day and who knows how much toilet paper.

(It gets worse. If you like cherry cobbler, stop reading now!)

So I got sick at work on Sunday. . .

They paged my oncologist and he told me to come in to the cancer center on Monday for a checkup. I really wasn't expecting (translation: REALLY didn't want) the whole lab work thing, but I guess it's a good thing they did it.

Turns out my hemoglobin was "critically low." (It was like a 7 or something.)

Yay me. Got to spend all day Monday and half of Tuesday getting three units of primo A+ pumped into me. (I slept through all of it and a good 5 hours afterwards.)

Waiting for all that blood to kick in so I can stop sleeping so damn much. . .