When Life Gives Me Lemons, It Tends To Give Them Via Papercuts
Originally published at Five Second Dance Party. Please leave any comments there.
I swear to you all that there’s a very very good reason why I haven’t blogged in the last, oh, month and a bit. Pretty much April ended with a score of Life: 53,404 and Courtney: 0. Let me share (because if there’s anything that I’ve learned, it’s that misery loves company and damnit, I want to share my misery).
It all started a few days before my last post. I was all amped to go to the Britney Spears concert (oh hell yeah, I love me some Britney, laugh all you want). I woke up that morning sick as all hell. I ate very little that day, I felt lousy and then Britney walked off stage three songs into her set because “the smoke was too bad.” Right. She eventually came back on, but really, it was lame. I still love the songs, but I was disappointed in the show - I was expecting a much better performance from someone who doesn’t even have to actually sing.
The nasty cold stuck around for a few days and I regained my appetite on Saturday - just in time for me to have the wisdom teeth on the left side of my mouth removed. When I had the ones on my right side taken out, I was back to normal one week later. Not so much this time. I was barely able to eat even ten days after the fact.
Of course, on the tenth day after the wisdom teeth extraction, I wasn’t thinking too awfully much about the pain in my mouth because I was in the hospital with abdominal pain. I had woken up at 1:30 in the morning with horrid horrid pain in my back and left side. I was writhing and crying and I couldn’t seem to find a comfortable spot. I told Derek that I felt like I was in labor all over again. Derek thought I was faking it because I was writhing around so much. He didn’t see how or why I could be in that much pain. Eventually, when it still wasn’t easing off, we called an ambulance (so we didn’t have to wake Ana up) and off I went at 4:30 to the emergency room. At 9:30 I finally saw a doctor who sent me in for a CT Scan and confirmed that I had (dum dum dum) a kidney stone. Fantastic. He told me that I shouldn’t leave for Mexico as I was scheduled to five days later. Yeah. Right. Like I’m going to skip a freaking expensive vacation and my good friend’s wedding for pain that may or may not occur.
I probably should have stayed home from my “vacation,” but my kidney stone had nothing to do with and never made a reappearance. To this day I’ve stayed pain free in that regard. We left on Saturday as scheduled for Mexico. On Sunday, Ana was violently sick. On Monday she threw up. On Tuesday she threw up and had diarrhea and something Derek had eaten for dinner the night before didn’t agree with him and he was sick all day. On Wednesday she threw up and had nasty diapers. On Thursday we were blessed with no vomit, but were still stuck changing diapers on the hour and then I stubbed my toe (twice) and broke it. Yes, I broke my toe. That or bruised the bone, but in either case, my foot turned black and blue within hours. Friday had more vomit and with the exception of Sunday’s vomit-fest, it was the most we’d seen yet. Joy. The next day we went home.
I wish that I could tell you that the vacation-that-wasn’t was the last of my drama, but no, it was not to be. Last week I received a letter from the Canadian government telling me that my 2006 taxes were incorrect and that I now owed them all of my refund back, plus interest, plus late fees. That meant I owed them $2K. Oh, and by the way, they wanted it in two weeks. ARGH. Turns out, it was a mistake on our tax-preparer’s end and since he’s family, he just paid it and now we’re going to pay him back slowly so it’s not a total crisis, but still, that’s $2K that I would just rather have never had in the first place then something I have to try to come up with now. Gar.
Nope. It doesn’t end there.
Finally, two days ago, I was driving down to Seattle to go see Taylor Swift with my sister. (I’m not really such a teeny-bopper, I swear. These particular tickets were free.) I was thinking I was looking all sassy thinking that the only good thing to come out of the last few weeks was the weight loss from stress and/or not eating, when the gas station attendant asked me if I knew what I was having - a boy or a girl. I’m not pregnant.
And that, my friends, concludes my month ‘o shit. So forgive me for not having posted sooner. Now I’m just trying to put all of that behind me and move the fuck on. ‘Cause seriously? UGH.