You got to learn to live with what you can't rise above. Bruce Springsteen

26 June 2003, 4:52 peeyem

Last night I dreamed I was one of a set of twins who were Martha Stewart's daughters. My sister, who was the good child, was Gwyneth Paltrow. Martha, who I called by her first name (to her consternation), couldn't seem to get a grip on the idea that the trash truck stops at the curb, but they won't come get things off the porch. Then on the way to work this morning, I saw a young man who was wearing his shorts down around his butt and had a black t-shirt on his head, a la Cher hair.

23 June 2003, 2:33 peeyem

Must do better about updating. It's not that nothing is going on, it's that everything is going on.

I'm playing KSwiss this season and for some reason I feel oddly hectic about it. I'm not used to such a lack of structure when it comes to matches. I'm used to having to be somewhere at the same time every week. And too, I don't actually play singles, so this is somewhat of a learning experience for me.

The weekend was oddly peaceful, aside from when Leanne mowed the top off my clean-out valve in the backyard, but leaving a hole and making it devoid of the thing that you get a purchase on with a knucklebuster to take it off. I heard a kerwhomp! and went to see if she'd cut her toe off or something, and she looked horrified. She, in fact, was far more worried about it than I was. The look on her face was priceless.

Aside from that, I had a very social weekend, and I cleaned house, moved the sewing machine, that sort of thing. I felt productive whether I was or not.

And no headache for the moment, so that's a good thing.

18 June 2003, 4:41 peeyem

Today has been fraught with technological peril. I had to change the email settings for the bidness email and something went haywire. It's a good thing that mish is the smartest woman in the world, because we just now needed email so that I could resend the databases to the mailhouse, since the file they got was incomplete and our guy is on vacation. Hopefully they can do what needs to be done with what I sent.

And to think, last night I dreamt that my email at home went bananas and the icons were all different and I couldn't figure out which button did what any more.

Sheesh. The mailhouse just called again. They want to know if I have PK Zip. I don't even know what PK Zip is, so I don't know if I have it or not.

I had a blast with the George kids over the weekend. They are 8, 10, and 12, and they are growing up so well. All three of them are really funny, smart kids.

The headaches continue apace. Atlanta soon won't be landlocked anymore. I played for a very long time last night, and not only did I not win, but I also got a headache, and it's been since I had the spinal tap that I've done anything even remotely vigorous and my shoulders are sore. But I got my hair cut Saturday and my brows waxed today and life is good. Or, at the very least, I don't look like I'm wearing one of those Russian fur hats anymore.

10 June 2003, 3:08 peeyem

Thank God I'm not a horse...

The spinal tap was a roaring success. It was painless. I watched the whole think on the X-ray machine while it was happening. The doctor asked me what my major is, even.

Then they sent me home to lie on my back and drink Coke and take it easy. And you know, I'm pretty adept at taking it easy and drinking Coke.

But they didn't mean a Coke, they meant gallons of Coke. I don't take a lot of caffeine, so as you might imagine, I'm the least bit on edge now.

Despite my following of directions, I found myself with a spinal tap headache. About the only way I can describe the pain is to say that my brain felt like my throat was trying to swallow it. Which makes sense when you consider that the level of the lake inside my skull that my brain should float in had dropped and wasn't going back up, due to the leakage of fluid. Oy vey.

I spent most of yesterday alternately waiting for Jesus to come take me home and calling the doctor's office to bitch and moan.

This morning I went to the pain clinic and they gave me a blood patch, which is, more or less, a reverse spinal tap in which instead of taking something out, they put something back in, namely my own blood.

The headache is gone, but the blood patch causes a stupefying back ache that feels like a really horrific case of very stiff muscles. I came back to work, and I'm moving very slowly when at all. I'm afraid my reaction time will be off, so I have contacted members of my posse to come get me and take me and the car home, and others are on standby to bring me to work in the morning.

I hate asking for help.

But I'm glad there's someone to say yes.

I'm very nearly at the end of the headache odyssey, though.

Only maybe not. The neurologist just called and my pressure is borderline, so before committing to another drug, she's upping my migraine prevention program.

I cannot say I'm not just the least little bit sad.

Like I keep saying, nobody told me there'd be days like this.

5 June 2003, 5:03 peeyem

Oh, and my little friend Riley, who kneels down beside his bed each night and includes me in his prayers.

5 June 2003, 4:18 peeyem

Tomorrow is my spinal tap. I won't probably be taking phone calls, as I won't be able to get to the phone, in that real literal way. So if you're thinking of calling, please be advised that a ringing phone is a source of great frustration and irritation to me. That said, at some point, I will rise from my supine position on the floor to send an email to them as what needs to know I'm doing fine. If you think there's a chance I won't put you on that list, send me an email tonight and I'll make note to add you to it.

I continue to be amazed at the outpouring of offers of assistance from my friends, and especially from my surrogate mama R, who knows from hospitals. I cannot imagine that there is even one person in the world who is more loved by more people than I am.

That's all. It's tomorrow morning, and if you are feeling compelled toward intercession of any sort, in the interest of being careful what you wish for, I want (and believe it will be so) for them to be able to do it quickly and with a minimum of pain, and I want the results to be as my fantastic doctor says they will be, and thus easily and quickly curable.

Thanks again for everything.

Love,

Susan

3 June 2003, 12:12 peeyem

Updates to site...

except you can't use the form above just yet...

3 June 2003, 10:14 ayem

Problem exists between chair and keyboard...

My employer just shouted to me from her office that her mouse was dead. I went in there, and sure enough, no little light coming out the bottom. I asked her what she'd done to it and she said, of course, that she had done nothing. I asked if she'd unplugged it and she said that of course she had not. I unplugged the mouse from the keyboard and plugged it into the monitor and naturally it fired right up, which made me think her keyboard might be dead (not beyond the realms of possibility, because she goes through a staggering number of pieces of equipment).

I came back in my office and started working on something else when she hollered that her keyboard didn't work and would I go get another one for her. "In a little while," I told her. I heard her rattling around in there and then she yelled back that she had, indeed, unplugged the keyboard, thinking it was the printer (?!).

It's always something.

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