It’s been a little over two months since my last post. I’ve been feeling a little guilty for abandoning my blog, but on the other hand I’ve felt like I’ve had too much going on to stop and write about it. I won’t try to write a blow-by-blow catch-up post here, but for myself I’d like to cover a few things.

My grades for the summer classes were a little unexpected. An A in English, and a B in Sociology. After classes were finished, I really wanted to go on Ratemyprofessor.com and rant about my Soc prof. but then I realized my problem with him was more of a personal one than his ability to teach. I left it alone, and I’m sure he’s busy terrorizing another group of students.

My last post here was about my stepmother ODing, and as horrible as it might sound, I wish it had been as simple as an overdose. Unfortunately, there has been some deeper mental issues going on and she’s been hospitalized at least three times since the end of July. Now that we’ve moved into October, the doctors feel that they have her condition fairly well controlled by medication, and she is starting to behave more like herself.

When my stepmom was at her worst, my dad asked me several times if I would move to live with him. The pressure he put on me to drop everything here and move to Texas was unbelievable. I know that most of it was because he was feeling overwhelmed and he needed to have someone to share it with, but it was, unfortunately, bad timing. I know that might sound horrible, but, honestly, the whole thing went down about 2 weeks too late. By the time my dad asked me to move there, I had already started my school loans, gotten my first disbursement, enrolled in classes, and spent half the money.

Fortunately, she does seem to be doing better. The pressure from my dad is off, and my family has stopped reminding me about it.

School is going fairly well. I’m taking US Federal Government, and Nutrition. The Gov’t class is a lot easier than I expected it to be. The hardest part so far has just been staying awake. The class is 5 hours long every Wednesday night. The nutrition class was supposed to be an “easier” Biology class. I’ll be lucky to pass.

My exes cat, Bits, that came to live with me early this year died about 3 weeks ago. It was unexpected, shocking, and heartbreaking. I don’t handle death well, and I had to deal with this on my own because the ex was out of town. When I finally disposed of her body, I got into my bed and cried myself to sleep and slept for about 14 hours. Now I feel super-protective of Bug, my other cat, and I’m constantly worried I’ll find her dead too.

I’ve debated on whether or not I’d write about Edgar in this post, but…in my life or out of it, he’s in my head so often. There was a really bad typhoon where he lives, a little over a week ago. I tried not to care, but every time I saw his city mentioned in an article about it, I’d wonder if he was okay. Then mutual acquaintances started asking if I had heard from him. I tried to joke about it, that he’s fine because rats can swim, that you can’t kill a cockroach, that shit floats etc… but then I’d see pictures on the news and any jokes or humor would go right out the window and then I’d worry anyway.

I wrote him a short email asking if he was okay, told myself it meant nothing and that I didn’t care if he replied or not. In the grand scheme of things, his response means nothing except “yes, I’m alive” and I really shouldn’t care, but if I’m to be honest, I have to say I’m glad he’s alive to lie another day. I still miss him sometimes, and I know that seems stupid and foolish, but its fact.

I’ve already said more than I wanted to say, and written more than I planned to so I’ll wrap this up. I’ll try  not to let another two months pass before writing again.

My dad called me this afternoon to apologize for not getting my birthday card mailed yesterday. We’ve got a long-standing tradition of giving each other our birthday cards late, but he’s a little later than usual.

His voice cracked when he said “Something happened to [stepmother].” My heart sank, I was imagining a car accident, a heart attack…some horrible accident. No.

“She overdosed yesterday.”

This is a 60 year old woman who has been married to my dad almost 20 years. She’s had the same job for 15 years. She’s got two kids (three if you count me), and nine grand kids. This is a woman who, while she might drive me crazy with her batty personality and strange habits…is pretty settled. I guess this is one of those moments where you have to sit back and realize that there is no one, not one of us, who is immune to depression.

My dad is convinced that it was accidental, and that she emptied her two prescription bottles in an effort to get some “relief” from her “pain.” He said that these scripts were refilled on the 9th of July. So, a little math: 30 pills in each bottle, subtract 17 pills from each bottle, that leaves 13 pills in each bottle. 26 pills. One, her “nerve pill” and the other some sort of pain pill with codeine.

I’m sorry, it doesn’t sound like an accident to me, and my dad is deluding himself.

I’m not angry with her, I know the headspace she had to have been in to do what she did. I’ve been there. I think that’s why I’m so  disappointed in her. She was married to my dad when, many years ago, I overdosed. She saw how it crushed my dad. She saw what it did to my family. She lived through it from the “other” side…and she still made the choice to do what she did.

I hurt for my daddy. He’s such a good man, and he’s so tenderhearted. He worries about everything, and he loves his family so much. This has hurt him in ways that my stepmother will never know.

No really. My birthday is July 24th. I was 35 this year. Somehow the whole year that I was 34 seems to have disappeared. I could have sworn I just turned 33, and suddenly I’m 35. It’s so strange.

In other news, I managed to survive both of my summer classes. I’ve not gotten my grades back yet but I’m quite certain I pulled in two B’s. I think it was an 88 in Sociology, and…86-88ish in English Comp 2. That English class was not nice. That English class made me change my mind about ever considering a career in Journalism. Kudos to Miss Pantry, who not only survived English classes, but chose a career in journalism. More power to ya, sister, and you never need to worry about me coming to take your job. I couldn’t tolerate another English class, I could never be an English major of any sort.

Honestly, I’d have had a B if I hadn’t turned in my last paper late. It’s just that it was an 8 page synthesis…argument…rogerian…something or another. Hell I don’t even remember. I chose Healthcare Reform as my topic, I used super long quotes, and I rambled quite a bit. In the end I wasn’t sure if I was arguing for or against healthcare reform, or if maybe the argument had suddenly shifted to starving chihuahuas in Chihuahua, but I finished the essay. I turned it in two days late, the fuckface professor took 10% off my grade, and I was just happy not to give in to the urge to stab him with my #2 pencil.

Passive aggressive? Me? Pfft.

I admit I’m having some anger issues lately. I’d like to put my foot in somebody’s ass, but unfortunately that person lives too far away for me to reach, and he’s really not worth the effort. That being said, I’d still like to put my foot in his ass.

Is it strange that I’m getting angry almost 3 months later?

I can’t help it, really. Every time I have a moment where  I miss him, I feel so incredibly stupid for missing him, and that pisses me off. The more I think of him, the more I miss him, and the more I get mad at him, and the more I want to hurt him. I want to hurt him worse than he hurt me.

Somebody that used to be his friend told me today that it would basically be a waste of time to try and hurt him, that he’s unfeeling. Then I got really pissed off, because I know it’s true. He’s a heartless bastard, and a fraud in every sense of the word. For all I know “he” is a 16 year old girl from Sacramento who is a vegetarian that eats meat on the 29th of each month. Or maybe he is a 40 year old married man from Moscow who is a manager at a sex toy store.

You see how these thoughts make me want to hurt “him”? I don’t even know him.

I heard his voice once when he let me, and once I heard his voice when he didn’t know I could, so I do know he really does speak Tagalog. Chances are he really does live in the Philippines. I saw lots of pictures of “him” but I never saw him on camera. I don’t think he is who he pretended to be.  He’s a fake and a fraud and a stupid fucking pig, and I hate him.

And I miss him.

Anyway, now that that’s out of my system, I think I’ll sleep. I hope I haven’t offended anyone with my potty mouth. If I have, oh fucking well. Go read my Disclaimer.

Love.

Have you ever had one of those really deeply intensely emotional dreams that when you wake up, the dream leaves lingering emotions? Like, you have a dream that you see a horrible accident, and you wake up still feeling traumatized by what you saw. Or maybe you dreamt that you won the lottery and woke up feeling rich.

Okay maybe not so much that second one, but for me, I dreamt I was in love! Shaquille O’Neal was my boyfriend! Haha. I don’t even like basketball ya’ll. But in this dream, Shaq and I were cuddled up in bed playing grabass and talking about sandals vs. flip-flops. Seriously, I cant make this crap up. Well, I mean, my brain made it up, but you know what I’m saying.

So when I woke up yesterday, I was all heavy-hearted about Shaq. Or maybe it wasn’t so much about Shaq, as I’m lonely! I suppose dreaming about some random sports figure is better than dreaming about the guy who dumped me more than two months ago, right?

Speaking of…him. What’s wrong with my brain that he dumped me in the cruelest way possible, and has made no attempts to contact me whatsoever, and I still miss him like crazy? Dreaming about Shaq was a  welcome break from the almost constant dreams about Edgar. Even last night I dreamt that I had a daughter named Alirah, and that  he was the father and I was looking for him to tell him we had a baby.

Sorry, I won’t go on and on, but sometimes my head gets so full of it I just want to scream.

Tonight was my last Sociology class. I got an 84 on the last test, which leaves me with an 88 final grade. Damn. I hate  a B.

I was supposed to turn in a rough draft for my final essay in Comp2 on Thursday last week, but I didn’t get it finished. I said I’d email it to him over the weekend, but…my computer crashed. Seriously. Not only did the computer crash, but I lost every damn file on the computer. Every picture, text file, chat log, program….everything. Gone. I downloaded a data recovery program at work today and burned it to a disk, and sometime tomorrow morning I should know whether or not I can recover any of that data…but I’m certainly not going to hold my breath.

My truck did finally get fixed by the way. It cost me a grand total of $285 with al the parts and gas I had to put in it, but I”ve got some really cool pictures that sort of make up for it all. (Not to mention that, hey, I”ve got a new fuel pump and my truck is running better!) I probably should add in the cost of having to hear lectures from the Tard about taking care of my vehicle, and also the moment that the Tard and Red told me that putting the fuel pump in it didn’t fix it, and that it was probably an electronic issue and might take weeks to fx….and how I thought the world might end….but they were lying to teach me a lesson. Ugh.

Anyway, I really do have an essay to write, and no topic to speak of, so it looks like I might be up a while. Thursday is the end of the summer semester! I can see the finish line!

I often do stupid things. I won’t even begin to list them because I’m already having to fight off a pity party, so I’ll just stick to the latest incident in the very long list of stupid things.

I have a bad habit of running out of gas. It’s about time or convenience. My favorite gas station is a few blocks from my apartment, but lately their prices have been a few cents higher than a couple of others, and I’ve stopped using them. The gas stations with really great prices are often five to ten miles away from me. So, there has been many an occasion that I’ve driven to work on the E, and coasted my way into a gas station with my truck begging for mercy.

Usually, when my truck putters out, I can let it sit for a couple minutes, and then it will turn over and I can drive another couple miles on it, and I don’t go very many places where I would be more than a couple miles away from a gas station. (I say usually like it happens a lot. Does once or twice a month count as “a lot”? Yeah, I thought so.)

Today when I got off work, I was in a hurry to go buy a vacuum. I didn’t even realize I was on Empty. I stopped at a red light, and when the light turned green, I put my foot on the gas and my truck said Prrghhhh. (How come guys are so much better at making engine sounds?) So I died in the intersection, but was able to coast through…and almost into the gas station parking lot! I literally was in the driveway of the gas station! It’s just that the entry is uphill a bit, and there was no oomph in my truck.

I thought if I sat there for a minute looking pathetic, that some kind stranger might stop and push me in (and believe me that had this happened, my night would have ended on a different note.) Instead, people honked at me because I was in the way. So, after a few minutes of honking and hand gestures, I gave up, put the truck in reverse, and took my foot off the brake. This got me out of the drive for the gas station, but put me right on the street in front of it.

Two men saw me in the street…and pulled over to push me into the parking lot…of the restaurant across the street! Apparently nobody wanted to risk damaging their own vehicle to push me into the gas station where I needed to be, so I had to be pushed out of the way.

This is where this story turns to crap, because had I just left my truck alone, walked across the street to the gas station, borrowed a gas can and put gas in my truck, the whole embarrassing ordeal could have been wrapped up in about ten minutes. Instead, I decided to call for help. I called my ex. (Yes, the fucktard.)

I really didn’t want it to be him that rescued me, so I kept trying to start my truck. Apparently this is not the proper procedure. Apparently my truck has electronic fuel injection. Apparently in my efforts to save myself, I screwed my truck up.

The tard got there, we put 5 gallons of gas in my truck, it wouldn’t start. We tried to start it for about 30 minutes, and he proclaimed “Well you royally fucked up this time, kid!” Thank you, Captain Obvious.

He called his best friend, Red, who is a mechanic. (Yeah, that’s not really his name, but it’s what color his face turns when he’s annoyed by the stupid things that women do to their vehicles.) Red tried to fix it. He got underneath my truck, banged things around for 20 minutes or so, and decided it’s my fuel pump. (No big deal…just the most expensive problem of all the problems it could have been.)

$230 later, I’ve got a fuel pump waiting to be installed in my truck. My truck is parked at Reds house. I am spending the night at….

wait for it…

yeah…

the tards house.

Could this day get any worse? Actually, yes it can. Because now it’s almost 3 a.m. and I can’t go to sleep on the couch because the fuckknuckle is on his laptop in the living room. I’m tired and grumpy and, oh by the way, I’ve got an 8 page rough draft due tomorrow.

So the plan is: I’m going to drive the tards truck to work in the morning. I’m going to work until about 2:00, and then I’m going to have to be “sick” or something. Then I’ll have until 5:30 to scrounge together some semblance of a rough draft. Brutal.

How come I have to learn everything the hard way? Don’t take your medicine, Steph? Bleed to death! Don’t put gas in your truck, Steph? Mess your truck up and spend hard earned cash fixing something that wasn’t broke until you got stupid!

Next, it’ll be a “craigslist serial stalker” followed by “why you shouldn’t buy prescription drugs from countries you can’t pronounce.”

Just so I can end on a high note…at least I didn’t get a ticket for not having insurance, right? Right.

“Five hours in Sociology is nothing to sneeze at.”  I actually hear that tonight. From a student. Do people really still use that phrase? I mean, obviously she does…but seriously, she’s not even using it right! Maybe she can get away with it because she’s 18, blonde, and cute, but it didn’t stop me from rolling my eyes. (To myself, with my back turned. Gosh, I’m not a total bitch!)

We had our 5th of 6 exams tonight. I actually studied for this one, but the man totally blew my plan. I studied our study guide, and the notes I took in class last week, and a few of the graphs from the four chapters that the exam covered. I did not, however, go online and study the bonus material that goes with our book. Apparently I should have. We usually have 60 questions on our exams, and this one was 72 questions. I made an 86. That’s a B. I suck.

Next Monday is the last night of class, and we have our last exam. It’s not a “final” or even a comprehensive exam, just one more multi-chapter quiz. Fortunately this one will only cover two chapters. Unfortunately it will only cover two chapters. Yeah yeah, I know what I said. But really, the ones with 60 questions cover enough material that you can miss “a few” and not fail. This quiz promises to have no more than 40 questions…so the pressure is on! I have poor study skills and I’m easily distracted. Have I ever mentioned that?

I also have really bad homework habits. Case in point, the rogerian argument that is due in English tomorrow. We’ve had this assignment for ummm, four weeks now…and I finished writing my essay TONIGHT!

Here’s the thing about English. My prof likes to push my buttons. He says I don’t try hard enough, and the assface keeps giving me B’s! Nevermind that he’s probably right. He’s supposed to be blinded by my fantastic vocabulary and brilliant writing style, and give me A’s simply for being the wittiest woman in class. So far that plan has failed. He says I have “more” in me and that I need to push myself a little.

So I used this damned rogerian argument as the time to push myself past what is usually comfortable, and it’s pretty much pissed me off. It irks me to write paragrpahs longer than 5 sentences, and the way he wants me to write, there’s just no way to cover everything I need to say, per paragraph, in 5 sentences. The man is making me change my style!

I had all my research done, notes made, and reams of printed materials for quotes etc…but I don’t focus when I’m at home. (Especially with the cats in heat, and it being 100freakingdegrees outside.) I also don’t focus while at the library, because I can’t seem to stop staring at all the pretty, artsy fartsy, happy people. So I did what any unpretty, unartsy fartsy, unhappy person would do…

I went to IHOP.

Oh yes I did.

All by myself!

And yes, I wrote a 6 page essay (handwritten on college rule, who knows how short it will be when I type it up tomorrow.) …and yes that assface better give me an A. Or I’m going to have the homeless guys at IHOP beat him up.

OH! And while I was at IHOP…I had what has to rank in the top 5 of Stephanie’s Most Embarrassing Moments. Should I write it here for my 3 readers to laugh at my mortification?

Okay, well, after I had my oatmeal and toast…and half a carafe of coffee, I had to pee. In my peripheral vision, I saw a mother letting her two little boys go into the restroom, so I went to the one across the hall. I have to say that I did notice the urinal, but I just thought “What a nice idea to put a urinal in the women’s bathroom, so that mothers can let their little boys go…” but by this time I was already in the stall, and was thinking I shouldn’t drink so much coffee…and then there were ugly feet next to the stall. Big feet. At the urinal.

Oh yes ladies, I was in the boys room.

This story can only get worse when I mention how I was stuck in the stall for more than 5 minutes because every man this side of the Red River obviously needed to pee in THAT urinal, and there was nofreakinway I was going to come out of there until the bathroom was EMPTY!

When I did finally stop laughing, I slipped quietly (read: hysterically laughing) from the men’s room to the women’s room to wash my hands and face. And hands again. And again. Ugh.

I took a good 5 minutes to compose myself, then went and found the mother that had taken her two sweet little boys to the ladies room and had totally thrown me off. We had a good laugh, and she said she was glad that it was me and not her, and “We’ve all done that….” (yeah, I bet she’s not done it twice. I have. The horror!)

Anyway, I’m not sure how I managed to pull my head back together after the bathroom incident, but I have to say that my writing was a bit improved after the laugh. I’ve been writing about Solitude and the Modern Man, and it’s actually turned out to be a bit depressing.

I’ll refrain from making jokes about solitude in the men’s room…and I’ll go to bed now. God I hope I don’t dream about ugly feet.

So this weekend my dads family is having a family reunion. There are at least 70 people expected to show, possibly more. At last count, 22 ‘first cousins’ had confirmed. (Those are my dads first cousins. They range in age from mid-40’s to mid-60’s.) Those cousins will bring their kids…who will bring their kids…etc…

Some of them haven’t seen me since I was about 10 years old. I haven’t seen some of them since before they lost their hair and suffered their midlife crises. This should be interesting.

I have thrombophlebitis in my arm from when I had my IV. My arm is sore as hell…and the pain meds make me itchy. Honestly, can someone tell me how anybody could tolerate the icky side effects of taking pain medication just to have a few hours of ‘high’? I take enough to stay comfortable, and only when I know I’ll be sleeping.

Anyway, happy Fourth of July weekend to my American friends. Stay safe and have fun!

Okay so that sounds a little melodramatic, but it’s only a mild exaggeration. I should warn you that this post is about “female issues” and lots of bleeding, so you’ve got my permission to skip it and read something else.

So last weekend I was a little wrapped up with homework and other things going on and I forgot to take my prescriptions. This isn’t all that unusual for me, in fact, I’m notorious for forgetting to take my medication. Under normal circumstances, I’d start feeling a little off and then quickly realize the error of my ways, and I’d double up on everything. Usually this works, and within 24 hours I’m feeling spiffy again.

Monday morning came around and I had the moment of realization that I had forgotten to take my meds. I wasn’t feeling any adverse effects yet, so I didn’t double up on anything. By Monday evening, I had started my period, which was the first sign that something bad was going to happen. You see, since I had my surgery in December, I’ve been taking birth control pills to stop my body from menstruating. So far, I’ve only had very light, spotty periods, and even when I missed a couple days, I haven’t started bleeding heavily.

By Tuesday morning I was having a light-to-regular period, so I doubled up on my birth control pills. By Wednesday afternoon, I was bleeding so heavily that I was having visions of horror movie scenes. (I was thinking of linking to a couple of scenes from Carrie and The Shining, but I’m sure nobody needs the visual.) I called my doctors office, and ended up talking to the doctor on call. His suggestion was to go to the emergency room immediately.

The shortest version of my Wednesday emergency room trip is that I got there  around 3 p.m., didn’t get in to see the doctor until almost 8 p.m., had a horrible pelvic examination, and was pretty well blown off by the doctor in the end. At 11:30, the doctor sent me home with instructions to come back if my bleeding increased.

This is when this story gets scary and gross. I was bleeding far faster than I have ever bled before. Between 1:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m Thursday, I had gone through 20 overnight maxi pads. I called my doctors office when they opened up, and they made an appointment for me to see the doctor at 3:30. I graciously accepted that appointment time, and decided I would just try to sleep the day away.

The only problem with that plan is that I was still bleeding very heavily, and I was losing strength, and I was too weak to do much more than lay down or sit at the computer. Even the effort of trying to shower to clean up made me feel as if I was going to pass out.

By 1:00 I realized I was in very bad shape, and that I probably wasn’t going to last until 3:30. I tried to call around to have a friend come take me to the hospital, but ultimately ended up taking a taxi. At this point I wish I could say that the staff recognized me from my visit less than 24 hours prior, but they did not. I was shuffled into line behind the 30-odd people in the waiting room, and I started to wonder if I was going to end up on the 6:00 news as the woman who bled to death in hospital emergency waiting room.

My ex boyfriends mother is a nurse in the hospital, and she had spent the majority of the evening with me on Wednesday, but when she took one look at me on Thursday she became very concerned. I had lost all color, even my lips. The insides of my eyelids, even my gums, every part of me was just white.

I made one attempt to get the nursing staff to push me ahead, but I was put back in my place, and I was too weak to argue. Finally, when I was seen by the triage nurse, the seriousness of my condition started to manifest. The doctor came to the triage area to see me right away, and ordered that I have blood drawn immediately to check my hemoglobin levels.

The only problem with that was that there were no wheelchairs to take me the 20 feet to get the blood drawn, and there was no way I could walk it. Even going from a sitting position to a standing position was enough to make me almost lose consciousness. So, the nurses had me sit…and wait…for a wheelchair. Have I mentioned how heavily and quickly I was bleeding?

Twenty minutes after the nurses left me, I told my exes mom that I had to go to the bathroom, with or without a wheelchair. So, to the bathroom we waddled, and I’m so glad that she insisted on coming in with me. (It’s a really good thing that having children takes away most of a woman’s dignity, because, really, if she hadn’t been in the bathroom with me, I’m afraid I might have died right there in that bathroom with the ER staff all buzzing around 10 feet away from me.)

It’s a bit hazy now, but I know that I was trying to use the restroom, and then I was suddenly very hot and very cold at the same time, and I was sweating, wanting to take my clothes off, and then I was vomiting. Once I started vomiting, I couldn’t seem to stop, and I remember her telling me to take deep breaths. She opened the door and shouted that she needed a wheelchair, and suddenly there were two or three people in the bathroom with us. (Hello, people. Sorry that my pants are around my knees. Yes, I’ve vomited. I’m just bleeding to death, don’t mind me.)

The next thing that happened was either pure coincidence, or marvelous miracle, but the nurse that had given me my IV the night before walked by as they were wheeling me out of the bathroom, and she took one look at me and said “Oh honey, you look awful!” …then a couple of other people recognized me, and suddenly everything started happening very quickly.

I got an IV, I got a room, I was seen by an ER doctor, a nurse, then a gynecology doctor. I had another awful pelvic exam, more blood drawn, and argued with the staff about not giving a urine sample. (Hello, I’ve not been sexually active for almost two years, I can pretty well guarantee you that I’m not pregnant. You can skip that test. No, really.)

Finally, the results of my blood tests came in (almost 7 hours after I arrived), and my hemoglobin levels had dropped from 9.1 to 7.1 in less than 24 hours. The doctor admitted me to the observation unit for a blood transfusion, and I was put in a room that reminded me very much of ICU rooms I’ve seen before.

It seemed to take hours for them to get the blood. I was afraid to sleep, because my heart was beating so erratically that I was actually worried I might not wake up. Besides, my family was texting me so frequently that it might have been impossible to sleep anyway.

I took percocet and motrin and somewhere in the middle of the night I had two units of blood pumped into me. The plan was that I would be discharged at 7 a.m., but my hemoglobin levels hadn’t come up enough with the two units of blood, so the doctor ordered two more!

I don’t want to remember the nightmare of the IV coming loose and someone else’s blood running down my arm and the nurses trying to ’save’ the IV so that I didn’t have to get stuck again. They saved the IV long enough to get the third bag of blood, but then I had to be taken to ultrasound for a while. After my ultrasound (yes, that kind of ultrasound, ladies), I was sent back to the observation unit to be hooked up for the fourth and final bag of blood. Only, instead of the blood going into my veins, the blood started running down my arm as quickly as it was coming out of the bag.

The IV blew, and there was no saving it this time. I was trying not to get hysterical, but almost all the veins in my arms had been poked somehow, and I wasn’t looking forward to an IV in a vein still tender from another needle. The nurse understood my anxiety, and decided that the simplest way to deal with things would be to draw my blood and have my hemoglobin levels tested. It was a bit of a gamble because if the levels weren’t up high enough then I’d have to have the IV anyway so that I could get the 4th unit of blood, but if the levels were high enough, then it would have been worth that extra needle stick.

Things worked out in my favor, and I didn’t have to have the fourth unit of blood (which was kind of sad because only a very small amount of that blood actually made it into my veins, the rest of it was wasted.) I had to stay around for another three hours to be observed for reactions, but I was finally discharged at 5:00 on Friday.

I had a few hours on Saturday where I was scared I might end up back in the hospital, but things are finally under control. If there’s a lesson to be learned in all of this it’s do NOT forget to take your medicine, for fucks sake!

I shudder to think how much money those two days in the ER and 18 hours in observation and numerous blood tests, and ultrasounds, and visits with doctors are going to cost me. Not to mention the 2 1/2 days missed from work. Nevermind the emotional trauma. Oh, and I should also mention that the area around my IV site is swollen, red, and painful to the touch. If I’ve got some infection from the IV…who knows how much more trouble I could go through.

And to think that all of this could have been prevented if I had just taken my medicine.

As an aside, I started a post in the hours between my first visit and second visit to the E.R. entitled “If anything ever were to happen…” with a list of things I wanted to say, should have said, will likely never say, and probably should never say. I’m not sure I’ll publish it, mainly because it’s morbid, depressing, and delves a bit deeper into my thoughts than I care to share. I’ll probably just leave it in my drafts, and if anything ever happens, someone can publish it for me.

For now, I’ll keep taking my pills.

I just wanted to let my three readers know that I’m still alive. I’m just very busy and feeling a bit overwhelmed with school.

I think I got spoiled with easy classes last summer, so this summers classes seem exceptionally hard. I came out of last summer with two A’s…I’ll be lucky if I end up with two B’s this time. It’s such a bruise to my ego!

I’ve become totally absorbed with news out of Iran. I feel compelled to stay up-to-date on the current events, but the technology that makes everyone a reporter and journalist means that we are swamped with unfiltered information. Sometimes it’s very difficult to make sense of the videos and quick reports.

The video of Neda absolutely broke my heart. To see this beautiful young woman lose her life within those few seconds of video was horrifying. I know that it’s not our war to fight, and that things like this have been happening there for centuries, but I feel such compassion for the Iranian people and this situation.

I don’t know what we can do to help, it’s more of a religious or civil war than anything…and I just don’t think it’s our right to go over and try and “fix” things. Actually, I think that if the US were to become involved, that the situation would become Iran vs. The US and would escalate into a global war that would be catastrophic and fatal for hundreds of thousands of people.

So, I’ll keep watching the news, and taking in the stories as quickly as I can. I’ll be a witness to the crimes against innocents, and I’ll pray that there will soon be a peaceful resolution.