...Suicide May Occur...
I've never been much of one to write during the day. Lately I haven't been much of one to write at all, though, so I've decided that if the fancy strikes me mid-afternoon to type a little bit I should take full advantage of that.
When last we spoke the Winter Olympics were coming to a close. I thoroughly enjoyed the Olympics this year, as I always do, but had the opportunity this time around to spend Way more time watching them than ever before. Not having a job and not being in school meant I could spend a large part of the day...no...most of...let's go with a conservative "all day" - I could spend all day watching cross-country skiing, curling, hockey, curling, bobseld, curling, ice skating, curling. In short, I watched Way More Olympic coverage than you did. After the games I looked over the lists of events and medals and determined that I saw every -type- of event (skiing, sliding, skating, etc.), at least a portion of every -competition- in every type (ex: short track speed skating 500m, 1000m, 1500m, etc.), and estimate that I saw Nearly all the Gold Medal finals of every competition. I think there was a cross-country final I missed one of the first days, and maybe one of the women's sliding finals...maybe. I was even watching hockey when nothing else was being covered! I was completely infatuated with the Games and still miss having my lunch while watching curling.
About a week after the Olympics ended I woke up with a familiar, intense pain in my back - I felt exactly as I had in December when the doctors said I was having back spasms. In December we had waited about five days before deciding the pain wasn't going away and I needed to get to a doctor, but this time Mom was very insistant (thankfully) that we go right away. So Dad took the day off work (which broke his heart...not) to take me to the doctor where I was expecting the exact same diagnosis and treatment as I had before: pain pills that made me throw up so much I stopped taking them, muscle relaxers that kind of worked, and a solid week of agony beyond my previous imagining. Instead they CT scanned my chest and said, "Kidney stones!" And I was crazy scared. Ever sinse I was old enough to be afraid of medical problems (8? 9? I don't know) my biggest medical fear was having kidney stones. The pain depicted on sitcoms (Kramer's stones on Seinfeld come to mind) had scared the crap out of me my whole life, and now my fear had caught up to me.
But it wasn't really as bad as I had always thought it would be. Don't get me wrong, it hurt like eight bitches on a bitch-boat, but they gave me some kind of narcotic, designer-drug painkiller at the PromptCare that had me feelin' fine for about the first 24 hours. After that the Vicodin they fixed me up with worked like a charm, and this time didn't make me throw up. We assume that's because I wasn't waiting for the pain to get unbearable before taking them, but who knows. Anyway, after about a week of drinking a Ton of water, takin' it easy, and walking around the neighborhood I finally passed the stone - Talk about a good feeling! Once it was out I was Happy in a way I haven't been in a loooong time. The doctor says if I drink about 2 and 1/2 quarts of water every day I should be able to keep my kidneys clean, so I've been doing that and walking every day since and hope I never have to go through that again.
And now we're pretty sure that what we thought were back spasms in December was actually a kidney stone. I say pretty sure: The doc says the pain is so similar that without taking some pictures it's hard to tell the difference. I feel about 70% sure it was a stone. Mom is positive it was a stone. All together that's "pretty sure." If you have the means I DO NOT recommend growing and attempting to pass your own kidney stone.
One of the suckiest parts of the whole experience was the week After the stone came out, though. The Vicodin was taking care of the Big Pain, but it was also knocking out the everyday, constant pain from my arthritis, meaning I felt better than I have in years while taking the stuff. After I stopped taking it my body had a hard time getting used to once again living with my everyday pain level, and I more than once thought about dashing out to the kitchen and popping another wonderful pill. Eventually that urge subsided though, and now I'm back to abiding my regular pain with the trusty Aleve.
I've fashioned myself a World Cup countdown calendar and affixed it to the back of the front door. I needed something to be excited about after the Olympics ended, and having it is a nice way to stay excited. Paraguay all the way, baby!
I've been spending a lot of my time plalying video games lately. Or, always. I'm currently playing Half-Life 2, Perfect Dark (remade on XBox - very cool!), and Mario Galaxy. I just finished New Super Mario Bros. on Wii and loved it, so thought it was time to give Galaxy a try...I'm less-than-in-love with it. It has its moments and a few clever mechanics I like, but overall I'd rather be playing New SMB again. And Rock Band just recently opened up the Rock Band Network, which is basically a seperate store in-game for independent artists to post their own music tracks for the game - very cool. Seems that if I ever got around to writing/recording something badass it might be possible to get it on there, and how cool would that be? Pretty darn cool, that's right. Step One, of course, would be writing something badass...and so far...*sigh*.
Theo's opened yesterday! Hooray! I celebrated with my first Birthday Cake Iceberg of the season, and it was glorious!
Part of me loves having nothing to do - It's a pretty chill way to live. But part of me is getting bored and telling me to get a job. So, maybe I'll try to do that here in a little while. In the meantime I'm going to keep playing games, and I'll try to write a bit more frequently. No R2D2 note today, as he lives in the basement and I am typing this (unusually ind33d) upstaires in the living room. Drink lots of water and have a great day!