I’ve just come back from the doctor.  I don’t have just one brain tumor.

I have 10 of them.

I have 10 brain tumors.

The good news is that they are very small and benign and they’re not going to treat them, but just keep an eye on them.  They’re called “microadenomas” and aside from causing annoying symptoms like the boob juice and maybe the sudden and intense bout with anxiety and the weird periods, they are not cause for alarm.

Except now I totally intend to use them as an excuse for any number of behaviors, like, “I couldn’t do the dishes!  I have 10 brain tumors!” or “I cannot WORK, I have 10 brain tumors.”  or ” I cannot give you a blow job, I have 10 brain tumors!”

So now we need to think of a new superhero name for me.  I’m thinking Adenoma Woman or Super Tumor Lady or something much cooler than something someone with a brain full of tumors can come up with.

I don’t know.

Suggestions are welcome below.

Your Queen is going to live and if I may be honest here, I think I’m pretty badass because when I go, I go BIG.  I don’t just get a brain tumor.  I get 10.

Top THAT, bitches.

PS: In celebration, I went across the street and bought a pair of very nice and very expensive boots I’ve been lusting after for a long time.  Also, I sense a HUGE hangover in my future.  Like, tomorrow morning at this time, I should be barely functional.

I wish I could tell you I have some health related updates and answers for you guys, but I don’t.

I still have swollen lymph nodes and I even have a few new ones, I still have boob juice, and I still have double periods. Is that everything? I think that’s everything. Sometimes I forget all the stuff and remember there was another thing in my pile of ailments.

Oh, right. There is now a lump on my thyroid that my OBGYN said is another lymph node. She’s testing for all kinds of stuff now too. I get that bloodwork back on the 18th.

I went for an MRI on the 30th to see about the toomah.

It was okay—the MRI, not the toomah. I don’t know about the toomah yet. I only started crying when they showed me the cage they were going to put over my face before sliding me into the machine. I thought “Open MRI” meant like, you know, OPEN? But no. It doesn’t. It means the sides of the thing are open so you don’t go into a tunnel, but you are still enclosed very closely AROUND YOUR HEAD. Had I known there would be a cage put over my head I never would have shown up for that thing conscious. Instead I popped a Xanax and went about my way, Mister at my side and a guided relaxation CD in my hand.

I bumped into the glass on the receptionist’s window because it was so clean I couldn’t see it. I felt like a Major Asshole. Then I handed her my credit card instead of my insurance card and I only filled out one of the three forms she asked me to do. I handed in INCOMPLETE WORK!

She must have thought I was a moron, so, to cover it up, I told her I took a Xanax. I don’t know if that helped my case or just made me look like a bigger douche.

And then I got into the MRI machine room thing and saw the cage they were going to put on my head and I lost it a little bit. But the guy was really nice and very soothing and he helped me through the whole thing. I couldn’t hear my CD though because the machine was so loud. It kind of sucked being injected with dye with the cage thing still on my head. I don’t like needles.

I hate them, actually. I hate them even more when there’s a thing holding my head still and I can’t see what’s going on.

But I survived it, you guys. I survived it. Mister held my hand the whole time and it took about 30 minutes. I got to see my brain afterward. I’m no doctor, but it looked okay to me. I won’t find out if my actual doctor agrees until the 11th. I guess the good news is that there is a brain in there. We wondered about that, so that’s a relief. Mister made jokes to the MRI guy like “I’ve been trying to figure out what’s going on inside my wife’s head for years!” because he’s fucking funny.

I’m just glad he didn’t try to bring his camera because I’d rather not have pictures of me wearing a Hannibal Lector mask and a blue hospital gown. He thinks I’m a bitch for interfering with his art. I just think we can stop at that picture he posted of my placenta and have that be enough of enough.

Other than that scary MRI bullshit, we had a good Christmas which I was able to actually enjoy thanks to the Lexapro starting to work, and a wonderful New Year’s Eve. THE Melissa Lion came with Fancyhats and Archie and stayed the night. We ate absolute crap food almost continuously for like, 10 hours, and drank way too much champagne. Basically we did all the stuff you’re supposed to do on New Year’s Eve except we were all wearing pajamas and didn’t give a shit about our hair. We had a wonderful time together and I’m really sad that they don’t live near us. We would hang with them all the time and Melissa would never hurt me or abandon me. I know she wouldn’t. Girlfriend and Archie totally hit it off and didn’t have one single argument. That’s pretty remarkable because just between you and me, Girlfriend has attitude. But Archie has the same type of attitude. It’s like they were made for each other!

The Melissa Lions didn’t even notice that for breakfast on New Year’s Day I totally bought pre-made fruit salad and then I had Mister cut it up smaller because they always do huge chunks (seriously whose mouth is that big? Are they making it for a yeti?) and then I had him dump it into a bowl and made it look like we made it ourselves when really, no such thing had occurred.

Sshhhhhh!

So, in summary, I’m not dead yet, we had a really great holiday season and I faked a fruit salad and fed it to The Melissa Lions.

The end.

PS: The title to this post has absolutely nothing to do with anything except that Mister said it while on the phone with me last night and I thought it was funny, so there you have it. That’s the funniest thing about this whole post other than me bumping into the receptionist window and telling everyone I came across that I took a Xanax.

PSS: Today is a Toy with Me day. It’s one of my last as I just found out that they are changing their format back to doing only toy reviews, so enjoy it while it’s here. I’ll link you up when that becomes available.

PSSS: Why My Vagina Is Steaming

Are those public bathroom toilet seats as yucky as you think?

The Dreaded Public Restroom

Well.

I’m on Klonopin now.

If I had to trace back to the thing that started me on the journey to needing Klonopin, I think I would start with Homeslice.

The pregnancy.

And my angst has gotten just a tiny bit worse every day, almost imperceptibly, but day by day it has built itself into a big, giant, PROBLEM.

It escalated quickly with the screwy hormones from the weird periods and then the uterus thing and then the bronchitis and then the swollen lymph nodes on Homeslice (which we had checked again yesterday and are completely healthy and fine) and also in my armpits and I started walking around like Mary Katherine Gallagher

checking, checking, checking, checking a thousand times a day to see if they were still swollen.

Because it’s The Cancer again, you know.

And so I made an appointment with my doctor and just before the appointment while talking on the phone to Rachel, I felt a tingle. Like, the kind you feel when your milk lets down, so I gave it a little squeeze and sure enough, there was milk.

I nearly passed out.

And I was all “Oh my God, Rachel! I HAVE MILK COMING OUT OF ME!”
And she’s all, “That’s pretty disturbing. What’s more disturbing to me is why you’re squeezing your nipples while you’re talking to me on the phone.”

And so she laughed at me and told me to go be crazy somewhere else and hung up. She’s 9 months pregnant and she’s got cankles. Some of us have REAL problems to deal with, you know.

When I got to the doctor, I was way past screech level.

I was on…chihuahua level, at least.

And the doctor walked in and before asking me anything about myself or what I was doing in his office shedding fur all over his exam table, he was just like “you look like you need to be sedated for at least 48 hours.”

And then I told him all the things that were bothering me–irregular periods, thickened uterus, bronchitis, swollen lymph nodes, lactation, EEEEEEEKKKKKKKKK!!!!! And when he asked me what was bothering me the most, I told him it was my swollen lymph nodes because of The Cancer, he let out a big chuckle.

He went “hahahahahahaha!” at me just like that, you guys.

Apparently, the lymph nodes are not a concern. He felt them. They’re fine.

But the lactation?

Pretty much a concern.

You, my about to be informed Queefies, can actually work yourself up into such a fit of anxiety that you LACTATE!

It’s completely true. I don’t think men can, though. That’s just a guess. I’m no doctor.

What happens is that your brain releases too much dopamine and to counteract that, you release prolactin, the hormone responsible for helping to stimulate milk production.

The problem is that the lactation can also be caused by a pituitary gland issue.

So, to rule that out, I have to take Klonopin for two weeks to see if the milk dries up with my stress level. I do not like that I have to take Klonopin, but I have to say it is helping. The crazy, obsessive, racing paranoid thoughts are going away and I keep catching myself thinking about normal stuff and not nutsy stuff. I haven’t taken my tiny one eighth of one milligram since yesterday morning and I’m actually feeling like myself again. I even had a cup of caffeinated tea this morning and I’m still okay. I’m totally carrying that bottle around in my purse though, just in case The Crazy tries to sneak back in. Oh, and I haven’t lactated in three days.

So yes.

I am an anxious cow, but I think I might be done embarrassing myself at the doctor’s office for a while.

Fingers crossed because after all, it’s Thanksgiving and somebody at some point is bound to cause a kerfuffle.

I’m actually a little happy this has happened because maybe I can get back on the road to feeling like myself again.

And it’s a Toy with Me day today!!!!

HAVE YOU EVER WANTED TO BE SPANKED?

So there I was admiring the artwork in the waiting room of Dr. Jan Penkala, Wookie Doctor Extraordinaire, and wondering what yard sale he got that shit from.

There’s a clown picture apparently painted by a fifth grader, a HUGE photo portrait of somebody’s baby girl that is undoubtedly meant to be the focal point of the room, a sketch of an old fashioned baby carriage, and a pastel elephant holding an umbrella.

These babyish things are punctuated by the long shelf full of birth control brochures. Are we decorating a gynecologist’s office or a nursery here? Make up your mind, Wookie man. You can’t have your birth control AND your babies. Come on now.

I wondered how many times I studied that clown picture while sitting in that waiting area, feeling really nervous because I knew I wasn’t getting out of there without taking my pants off and being violated first.

So I waited and waited. Waitwaitwaitwaitwait and then finally I hear my favorite nurse, the one who calls me “honey” and makes me feel safe, say “Kristen?”

It was finally my time to go into the back where the magic happens. I thought I’d be seeing the good doctor any minute, but there I was, naked from bottoms down with my paper skirt on, waiting some more. I studied the charts detailing ovulation and pregnancy and read the warning label on the light they use to light up the ol’ love tunnel. I tried not to look at the cart full of scary looking gynecological accoutrements. Once I’d looked at everything except that, there was nothing more to look at in the exam room, so I started looking at myself.

I found a little ingrown hair on my pubical area and of course, I picked at it.

Instantly, there was a knock on the door and in walked Dr. Jan Penkala, Wookie Doctor Extraordinaire. As soon as he pulled back my paper skirt, he exclaimed “oh WOW! Have you been operating on yourself here, dear?” And at first I didn’t know what he was talking about but then I realized.

The ingrown hair was bleeding.

Oh, jeezus. He told me to take it easy on myself and kept checking to see if I had stopped bleeding yet.

What we can learn from this experience Queefies is that if there is a way for me to add extra humiliation to an already humiliating experience, I will find it instinctively.

God, Crissy! Seriously!

The rest of the exam went well and the shadow he saw on the ultrasound was nothing, and even though I have a thicker than average uterus, he’s not going to treat me with any hormones. He wants to see more consistently irregular bleeding first. He’s very conservative, so that’s good.

I guess I shouldn’t be too embarrassed though. The man has seen me shit out a baby, so really my pride flew out the window 17 months ago.

But still.

UGH! Rookie mistake.

Also, it’s Wednesday!

Americans Suck At Flirting

So today is an epic suckfest, you guys. I wouldn’t ordinarily tell you about it but someone on facebook requested a blog post about my Monday, and so here it goes.

Homeslice is acting kind of tired and quiet and of course her lymph nodes are popped back out again and so of course I’m insane over that. She didn’t even cry when I left her with The Other Kristin (a friend who babysits her on Mondays so I can go to work early, heretofore unbeknownst to you, but now beknownst) this morning. That’s unusual, you guys. Usually she cries “mama! maaaammmaaa!” just for that extra layer of mommy guilt as I’m leaving.

She’s got a nervous mother and will probably wind up in a doctor’s office soon. I wouldn’t worry too much, but you know.

It’s kind of my thing.

So there’s that, and I finally broke down and went to the doctor for a cough I’ve had for two weeks–lung chewies and everything.  Turns out it’s The Bronchitis again, and I had to do a breathing treatment and that was really fun. At least this time, Homeslice was at Kristin’s house and I didn’t have to do the breathing treatment smoke machine thing while bouncing her on my hip and keeping her out of the cabinets. That would have been a layer of awesome I don’t think I’m ready for.

And now I’m on antibiotics, so that’s that.

Oh, and on my way in between leaving Homeslice and the Urgent Care, my cell phone went down, so I had to drive to work to tell them I’d be late instead of just calling. That was a pain in the ass. I grabbed the first person I saw and told them I would be in later. Luckily, she was an administratorial type so I guess that was like a total SCORE!

Then later today, I’ll go to the wookie doctor to talk about my lady business problems and have a very special, extra thorough lady exam to make sure that “shadow” the good doctor saw on one of my ultrasound pictures really is just a shadow. He’s probably going to reach all the way up to my throat. I wouldn’t be surprised if I somehow wind up married to my wookie doctor by the end of the day.

I’m still a little freaked out about my lady business. My mother always had lady problems and she suffered a lot and went through some scary stuff throughout my childhood. I just hope I don’t have her genetics. I hope I got my dad’s uterus instead of my mom’s.

Fingers crossed.

And all of this on a work day and I have to make up the time I missed at work while I was playing around at the doctor’s office(s). That’s what I’m doing now. I’m getting in a couple of hours at work in between doctor appointments.

I’m just looking forward to surviving the day at this point.

So that, my friends, is my Monday.

YOU?

What kind of suckfest you got goin’ on? Or, are you a lucky asshole who is having a pretty decent day?

Remember how on Monday I said  something like I hope we can all look back on this and laugh?

Well, WE CAN LAUGH ALREADY!

The PA called about an hour ago and explained everything and told me not to worry and that I am completely fixable and that my ultrasound was normal and everything looked good.  He just wants me to come in so he can talk about treatment options and to  feel around and double check a shadow that appeared on one of the ultrasound pictures.

That’s all.

It would have taken him thirty seconds to tell me that.  I am totally calling him on that bullshit when I see him on Monday because seriously?  People get scared.

I have to go cry tears of relief now and hug my baby and pet my dogs and thank the imaginary people/persons in the sky for like, everything.

Including you guys.

You’ve been so sweet and supportive and Queefly.

I will have doggie updates for you tomorrow…

XO

Thank you so much you guys!

I feel better hearing all of your stories and knowing that so many of you have gone through something very much like this.  I’m still pretty scared, but I’m at least not planning my funeral every moment.

My doctor is notoriously hard to read, and so he scared the crap out of me.  I called his PA yesterday to see if she could explain things a little more to me.  She hasn’t called back yet, but I was crying when I spoke to the nurse and she agreed that somebody should talk to me.  So, I expect a phone call sometime today.

But you guys are so wonderful and I really, really appreciate your stories.

Keep telling me stories!  I need stories!!!!

PS: Today is a Toy with Me day!

The Sexiest Movie Scenes of All Time

Do you guys remember how I have this remarkable talent for getting my period like, every two weeks sometimes and I call it My Superpower? (that post was written back when I had a sense of humor. You should read it.)

Well, it’s been happening on and off for years and October was a particularly interesting month because I had My Superpower at the beginning of the month and it was normal and perfectly on time and everything and then I got it again in the middle of the month and it didn’t quite go away completely and so I called the doctor and they brought me in for an ultrasound.

Well, my doctor called me at work which made all the blood leave my head and I started crying because I’m always healthy and OH MY GOD MY DOCTOR IS CALLING ME AT WORK I HAVE THE CANCER!!!!

The good news is that my very small fibroids didn’t get any bigger and my ultrasound “looks good overall,” but the lining of my lovely uterus is too thick.   And he wouldn’t tell me what that might mean, but he wants to see me.  But he can’t do an exam until next week because I have My Superpower again, which I’m actually due for and it’s right on time.  Except I just had it.

I have to wait a whole week thinking I might have The Cancer.

So of course I Google “thick uterine lining” and what comes up first  but UTERINE CANCER.

The blood left my head again  and that’s all I needed to see because here’s where what my first grade teacher called “a wonderful imagination” fucks me and I immediately start picturing my funeral.

And then I put Mister on it and as it turns out it might be something as simple as a hormone imbalance and I’m wondering why my doctor couldn’t have just said that so I don’t spend the next week shitting myself and looking at my kids and tearing up because I might not live to see them grow up.

That would be crazy, right?  I don’t have The Cancer, right you guys?

Everyone gets Female Problems sometimes, don’t they?

Except men.  They don’t have trouble with their periods.  Usually.

I’m freaking out and I hope that in like a month from now we all look back on this and laugh and say “remember you had a couple of weird periods and you totally freaked out and you thought you had The Cancer, Crissy?”

Hahahahahahahaha!

That was so silly.

Tell me about your Female Problems and about how you did not die from them, Queefies.

So we’re going to start with the thing that’s bothering me the most and work our way down to the mildly irritating and/or totally stupid.

First up we have Homeslice’s lymph nodes in her little groin area.  The one that was swollen over a month ago is still swollen and now there’s another one right next to it that keeps getting bigger although it’s still smaller than the other one.  And then sometimes they seem to be almost gone, and then sometimes they swell back up again.  I’m hysterical. I think I’m going to bring her back to the doctor because my anxiety disorder is pretty much demanding a blood test at this point even though she’s acting perfectly fine and healthy and has no fever and the swellings don’t hurt her at all and the original one hasn’t gotten any bigger than it was since it first appeared.  But then I think maybe I won’t have her tested because  I’m really scared of the blood test BECAUSE WHAT IF SHE’S REALLY SICK?

I need to know but I’m really afraid to find out.

And I’m giving up on the dog adoption situation.    I had an appointment with a guy last night and he was supposed to bring 2 dogs for us to meet, but then it was just one dog and then he changed the time and THEN HE DIDN’T SHOW UP OR BOTHER TO CALL TO TELL ME HE WASN’T COMING OR ANSWER HIS PHONE.

This is a totally different organization than the other one that blew me off like this FIVE TIMES.  They still haven’t returned my call after blowing me off the fifth time.  It’s been two weeks.

I guess doing this to people and not respecting their time and the fact that adopting a pet is an EMOTIONAL thing and telling someone they will get to meet a potential new family member and then not even having enough respect for them to tell them you need to re-schedule and instead just letting them clear an entire day or a whole weekend and then completely blowing them off like they don’t matter is the way to run a dog rescue.

They’re always whining about how hard it is to be volunteers and that they have lives, you know, and that people need to be patient and blah, blah, blah, WHAT ABOUT ME?  AM I NOT A PERSON TOO?  I also have a life and I’m trying to do the right thing by adopting a homeless animal, but I’m getting treated like shit by these people.

I don’t understand.

I’ve learned a lot about people through this experience and it’s not good news, you guys.  It’s not good news at all.

So, I’m giving up because I can’t deal with the disappointment and heartbreak anymore.

And moving back to Saturday night having gone to bed late after our Zombie Prom, I woke up at 3 in the morning feeling sticky and wet to discover that Alice had thrown up in our bed, under the blankets, and that I had been sleeping in it.  At first I only noticed that I had slid my foot into something, so I checked it out and it was a HUGE pile of super-chunky something.  I didn’t know what the hell it was, so I got out of bed to take a look and determined that it was  some sort of really putrid contents from something (ass? stomach?) and so I limped into the bathroom to wash my foot off and re-group a little bit.

Mister got up to scrape what he determined to be vomit off the bed when I noticed that my back felt cold and wet, too.  I had barf chunks stuck all over my shirt and I had left a trail of them behind me on the way to the bathroom.  I had to take a complete shower and rinse the chunks out of my pajamas while Mister stripped the bed.

It took two trips to get all our bedding down to the basement washing machine, Alice following me the whole way and throwing up more little piles of goodness as we went.

It was…very special.

I never got back to sleep after that, so  I basically got about 3 hours in before all the specialness was discovered.

That was the second night of sleep deprivation because on Friday night, we went to my friend Gina’s annual Halloween party and when we got home, Homeslice was wide awake and hanging out with the babysitter.  She never went back to sleep for more than ten minutes at a time.

That was also a Very Special Evening.

We won best couple’s costume at Gina’s party though, so that was something good riding on the shitwagon that was our weekend.

(huge version here)