Judecorp.

There are a million things I could post about, if only I had more time.

1. New Job - I like my new job so far. The people I am working with seem pretty nice and very supportive, and so far no one seems ridiculously crazy. There is a little tension that I am picking up in the office, but nothing major and otherwise everything should be swell. I have to park in a parking lot a million miles away and take a shuttle bus to the hospital. It feels like I work at the airport. Also, there seem to be a healthy number of queers in my office, which is a nice change. Regardless, I'm now working at one of the major employers of the area and it's one of those situations where you never leave, you just change jobs sometimes. So I guess I know where I'll be working for, like, ever.

2. Grandma - We went to see Grandma yesterday and she is holding up as well as she can. She is having some trouble adjusting to going from having my uncle stay with my grandparents to having my aunt and uncle start to move in. It is kind of awkward and I don't particularly like it. My cousin, who is somewhat estranged from my family as he can't seem to get his life together and did a lot of shady money things, and his birth family have been spending a lot of time at my grandmother's house and she is not very pleased with that. I'm not really sure how this is going to play out. We went to visit Grandma yesterday and met my cousin's sister, her husband, and their two kids. The whole gang sat in my grandmother's living room all day watching the Sox game while Jen and I (and Punk) entertained their 8-year-old. Seriously, no one ever came out to check on him or interact with him or anything. It was incredibly sad and frustrating.

3. Tonsil - My new health insurance kicks in on June 1st, so it makes more sense to find an ENT in my new system rather than pay a $500 co-insurance. I need to get on that. I hope my new job doesn't freak about this tonsil business.

4. Punk - She is growing in leaps and bounds and impresses me every day with what she's into and what she's doing. She has a bit of a cold right now though, poor thing. This morning I took her to the grocery store and let her ride in one of those carts with the car attachment, and she was so full of glee and excitement. She sang for at least the first half hour straight. It was so cute, but I imagine I will NEVER be able to go to the store without one of those car things again.

5. Day Off - I now have Mondays off instead of Fridays. This is kind of a bummer because Jen gets off work early on Fridays, but it will give her some time to play with Punk too, which is nice. Also, it is nice to still have a four-day week.

I'm sure there's more, but I'm at a loss. Peace!

It's been crazy around here.

I have been in High Tonsil Drama since Saturday, and Sunday I almost didn't go to my grandparents' house for Easter dinner because I felt crappy and didn't want to risk possibly passing on any germs. I ended up going (since my grandfather really wanted everyone there) but never even made it to the dinner table and instead napped on the guest bed until it was time to go home. I feel bad about that, as I wasn't able to sit for dinner with my grandfather, but I had a wicked fever and couldn't eat anyway. Then we all came home.

Monday night, I couldn't sleep because my stupid tonsil hurt so much and was so swollen, and had caused my soft palate and the rest of my mouth/neck to be swollen, and advil and tylenol weren't cutting it, and it was miserable, so Jen told me to go to the ER. While I was at the ER (got there at midnight), I read a book and had to get a CT scan, which was crazy because I had to take out all of my piercings. With no mirror. Score! And then the CT scan showed that it appeared that I had multiple abcesses, so the ER doctor (who was actually quite cool) said that he was going to stick a needle into my peritonsillar area to drain it. (Don't read anymore if you are squeamish).

So I move into this dental-type chair and first he shoots me up with lidocaine and then proceeds to try three times to suck out pus. No pus. He says he has a rule that after three times, he stops. But then he wanted to do one more time. Still nothing. And then he called me the most awesome patient ever for not even flinching and being a rock star. And I got some IV antibiotics and got sent home with instructions to call my ENT doctor in the morning.

I got home at 4:30, fell asleep around 5, and Punk woke me up at 6. GOOD TIMES. I was even more swollen than before, probably from all of the poking around, and could no longer swallow and it was very difficult to talk. I called the ENT doc with a lot of effort and they told me to come in right away. He saw my CT pictures and tried AGAIN to do the needle-pus thing, twice. He also got nothing, and oh my god, by that time, I was so DONE with needles. But he said that since I couldn't swallow, couldn't take my antibiotics, and hadn't eaten since Saturday, that I needed to be admitted into the hospital. Yikes!

I drove myself over there (Tuesday morning), got admitted, and had Jen call my new job to tell them I wouldn't be in the next day for my medical screening. It took forEVer for them to get me into a bed and then they tried SIX times to get an IV (it's not that hard, people) with three different people. And then I watched a marathon of Top Chef and waited for Jen to come by with all of our tax stuff, because we still had to do our state taxes. (Whoops.) I was pretty much the laughing stock of the hospital, sitting in my bed doing taxes. Good times.

Anyway, I got a bunch of antibiotics, an anti-inflammatory, a steroid, and a bunch of other stuff. But while I was in IV hell, I got a call from my uncle that my grandfather had died that morning. And there I was stuck in the hospital and not able to go see my grandmother or anything. I pretty much told all of the staff that I was leaving the next day no matter what (although I needed to get the doctor to agree). But I started feeling a bit better and by the end of Tuesday was eating solid food, so it was all good.

The ENT doc visited me twice in the hospital on Tuesday, once at about 8pm! And then he came again around 8am on Wednesday. On Tuesday he showed up with this weird camera that goes up your nose and down your throat. I seriously hope I don't have to repeat any of these procedures ever again. Freaky. But yeah, when he came on Wednesday morning, he said things were looking much better but that my palate was (very bruised) - probably from all of that needle action, dude! - and that I could leave. WAHOO!

I got home, took a shower (thank you, Jesus), made a couple of calls to reschedule my medical screening to next week, and went to see my grandmother. Then stopped at the flower shop to order funeral flowers, came home, and got to hang out with my kid for a while.

Tomorrow's the visiting hours, with the funeral and burial on Saturday morning. I've never had to navigate a wake/funeral/burial with a toddler. Should be interesting.

I am thankful for the ability to be out of the hospital and that my grandfather had a long and prosperous life, and died peacefully during a nap in his own bed after having a nice big breakfast. God bless you, Grandpa. I love you very much.

1. I am so thoroughly tired of one-way friends. I'm done with them. I am tired of being the person who always has to go to the other person's place. The ONLY people who can get away with that (making me go there without ever coming here) are my grandparents. Because they're freaking old.

2. I am so thoroughly tired of my stupid left tonsil. It is inflamed AGAIN after being big as a house in October. I went in to the doctor today, the useless PCP that I desperately need to get rid of, and she just kept saying, "It's bizarre, I don't understand, it's just bizarre," and I said, "Okay, just give me a referral to an ENT, lady." But apparently it was so bizarre (not to me, I've been dealing with it for 6 years) that I am going to the ENT tomorrow. Which means two days in a row of dragging Punk to a doctor appointment during what would be her morning nap. Sigh.

3. I have no idea how much freaking stuff I have to pack to bring an infant on a trip. We rented a crib on the other side but I am freaking out about making sure we have enough formula, bottles, diapers, toys, clothes, etc. AND how we're going to maneuver the suitcases, the stroller, the car seat... oy.

4. I would like to get an actual night's sleep, please. I am not picky and am not looking for more than 5.5 hours or so. Punk would gladly offer this (she gets up to eat at midnight and then wakes up for the day a little after 6, nothing in between) but lately my stupid-ass tonsil has been waking me up in the middle of the night with pain as soon as the advil wears off. Argh argh argh!

5. There is a lot of frickin' snow outside. One more storm and our mailbox is going to disappear.

Lefty Tonsil is totally at it again. I can literally FEEL him getting bigger (I feel it in my ear, usually) and now it hurts when I swallow. This does not bode well since there's not much I can take. I can do the occasional Tylenol and all, but Lefty's not as scared of Tylenol as he is of ibuprofen. Gosh, I just hope it doesn't get bad. Usually Lefty is pretty manageable but annoying for a week or so at a time.

Dang I should get these cheeky bastards taken out someday. Quel annoying.

~//~

Also, Jen and I got a pumpkin today for carving. I don't know if it wasn't ripe or if it was just a freak of nature, but the darn thing is like 6 feet thick! I traced a kickass pattern on it to carve but it was so thick that I couldn't do ANY of the intricacies. Finally I gave up and just carved two giant eyes, a big old nose, and a weird looking mouth. It's SO not my usual style (I go a little crazy with the pumpkins) and I'm kind of bummed, but oh well. If I had continued trying to carve through that mutant pumpkin I would have had to poke myself in the eyes.

Dear Lefty Tonsil:

You suck. I should have removed you a long time ago. It was annoying enough when you would randomly get swollen, sore, and puffy all those other times, when I would just take Advil once a day when I got to work and be set. Now I can't take anything but Tylenol. And Tylenol just doesn't cut it.

You knew that, didn't you, Lefty? It's all a big tonsil conspiracy.

No love,
me

p.s. It is supposed to rain until like the middle of next week. Not only does it SUCK to do home visits in the rain, but that means that we're having yet another special weekend away where it rains the whole time. (When we went to Ogunquit for our birthday it rained like woah and we spent the whole trip locked in our room pretty much.) Hopefully the weather people are mistaken - I will even take "mostly cloudy" right about now.

Do I really have to go to work tomorrow??!?!

Lefty Tonsil was a little sore today but doesn't appear swollen. Here's hoping it's just a fluke. I am so tired of being surrounded by sick kids, their germs, and their bodily fluids. Today in playgroup I actually had a 2-year-old dig a booger out of his nose, show it to me on his finger, and say, "Look at my boogie!" On Tuesday, he was telling a co-teacher and I all about how he likes to eat boogies because they are yummy.

Man, kids are GROSS!

I had a really good advocacy moment at work today. Too bad it wasn't for one of my clients. I supervise an undergraduate intern who observes 2 playgroups (mine and a coworker's). I don't have a problem with her but my coworker REALLY does. And today she made a couple of majorly inappropriate comments about my intern to me. They bothered me, so I actually sucked it up and left her a voicemail calling her on her unprofessionalism and lack of respect. And she called me back and agreed with me!

Sometimes being a grownup kind of rocks.

( Fertility Stuff: )

p.s. Mayonnaise is disgusting.

I skipped out on volunteering at the HelpLine tonight. Old Left Tonsil is at it again.

It started being sore on Sunday night at cranapril's and continued to bother me through yesterday. It's a bit bigger today, so I'm more annoyed by the pressure than the pain. I'm hoping that if I don't do too much talking tonight, and if I eat soft foods, gargle, and take advil that it will go back down or at least not be any bigger tomorrow.

I called the volunteer coordinator and asked for the likelihood that my co-volunteer would show up. When zie said zie didn't know, I got in the car and started driving over. Halfway through Roxbury, zie calls and says my co-volunteer is there and I should turn around, go home, and feel better. I [heart] hir.

I feel like a boob for not volunteering, though. But I think 2.5 hours on the phone would have been a poor choice.