Category Archives: Dammit!

Three Things Thursday: My baby’s in kindergarten

Posted on September 7, 2017 | 3 comments
  1. After a one-day delay due to heat and terrible air quality, Alvie Bean started kindergarten yesterday. He was beyond ready, and so was I. Kind of. I mean, my eyes watered a bit off and on all day yesterday, but that was probably from the smoke. I got to FaceTime with him last night and I don’t think he even took a breath while telling me all about his first day. I’m sad that I won’t get to see him again until Monday (or, as he informed me, his fourth day of kindergarten), but I’m glad he had a wonderful time.

    First day of kindergarten!

    He was so ready for school that he didn’t even notice I wasn’t next to him as he took off.

  2. Speaking of air quality, it’s so bad here. My throat hurts, my eyes burn, and I have a constant headache. The whole western US is on fire, I think. Obviously the fires in the Columbia River Gorge are my main concern, both due to their proximity and the fact that I love that area so much (and it’s been destroyed because of teens with fireworks). All spring, Portland (and the PNW in general) was breaking precipitation records. Between our snowfall in January and the rain that lasted until June 13, it was wet. So wet. Since June 13, we’ve had 0.01″ of rain in Portland (8/13/17). Seriously: 0.01 inches in the last 88 days. So much precipitation early led to a lot of growth and then our record heat and extended dry spell made everything a tinderbox. There’s no real rain in the forecast for the next ten days, and between our fires, the hurricanes in the Atlantic, the earthquakes in SE Idaho, I’m beginning to wonder if this is the apocalpyse. (Eleanor is really sorry.)

    Ashfall on my car Tuesday morning

    Regional Wildfire map as of 9 am this morning

    This morning’s smoke-obscured red sun.

     

  3. I am so ready for rain and autumn and sweaters and leaves turning colors and cooler weather and Halloween. (True fact: I got married on Halloween so that even if I ended up divorced, there wouldn’t be a sad divorce day, just a “it’s still Halloween and Halloween is awesome” day.)

    Me, last night, pretending it’s autumn…and sweating like crazy.

    I’m just gonna leaf this here.

    Halloween is the best

    I’ve really grown as a person since my excessively DIY hippie days of a decade ago.

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Three Things Thursday: Uterus TMI

Posted on August 31, 2017 | 1 comment
  1. You may or may not have blocked out the fact that I am in a war with my uterus, and so far, it’s winning. In the last six years, I have tried the following methods to wrangle it into submission:
    1. Pregnancy (worked for a while, but then I was no longer pregnant [and thank fuck for that] and all the bad came back).
    2. IUD. I had one of these inserted a few months after Bean was born. Actually, it took two tries (and literally three people to move my abdomen around and tilt my cervix up so someone could get it in because everything is wonky in there). Finally, I had an IUD and I hated it. I was in extreme discomfort all the time in the lower left quadrant, i.e. the  fallopian tube region. After eight months of stupid pain and major discomfort, I requested it get evicted. I knew I was done procreating, so we went to step 3.
    3. Essure. Little springs are inserted into the fallopian tubes and in about 3 months, scar tissue grows over them blocking the passages so sperm can’t get in and eggs can’t get out. (Sidenote: Bean loves anatomy books and we were looking at the reproductive system. “Mom, what are testicles even for? They’re weird.” Me: “They make the sperm that is needed to make babies.” Horrified look. “I don’t want any sperm.” “No worries, my love. You’re too young to be making sperm.” Bean: “Well, when I’m old enough, how do I make it? Do I eat some eggs and flour and sugar?” Me: “I can’t stop laughing long enough to admit I don’t know the exact mechanics of sperm production.”)
      Anyway, when the Essure procedure was happening, the docs found that my IUD wasn’t hanging out all happy like the below image, but instead was trying to make friends with my left ovary via the fallopian tube. That is not ideal and explains the discomfort.
    4. Essure sterilized me, but did nothing for the dysmenorrhea or anemia-inducing flow, so I was put on a progesterone-only pill, which stopped working effectively about a year ago. (I can’t have estrogen birth control because I get ocular migraines, and apparently having a stroke is bad.)
    5. After a few months of having menstrual cycles averaging 9-15 days, I’d had enough. We scheduled an ablation to destroy the lining of my uterus, eliminating menstruation and hopefully the majority of the dysmenorrhea. That didn’t take. My uterus, rather than looking like a nice little triangle, is roughly diamond-shaped (which might also explain the IUD issues, and btw – fuck you to the person who accused me of lying about my IUD issues; you are a twat of the first order). Several attempts to deploy the uterus blaster failed, leaving me sore and really fucking sad that once again, my uterus was winning.

      After staring at uterus pictures for a long time, I am now convinced those are arms and hands and they want to strangle me.
      I’m not sure exactly what my abnormal shaped uterus looks like (it’s definitely not a fully bicornated one), but it’s not fucking normal, because of course it’s not.

    6. The last few months since the failed ablation have been awful. Cramps lasting upwards of two weeks, including 24-36 hours of full-body cramps, vicious headaches, and pain in my legs rendering me unable to walk. There is a lot of crying and nausea involved and it is no good.Now that you’re all caught up, let’s go to Tuesday!
  2. Last Friday, while on day 7 of cramps, I gave up and contacted my doctor. “Please do something to help with pain management!” I begged. “It is sucking the life out of me and I can’t do this every 3 weeks for the rest of my life.” So yesterday I went in and got a Nexplanon implant in my arm. I read a few pubmed studies on using the implant to treat severe dysmenorrhea, and for the 80% who kept the implant past 3 months (20% dropped out because of an increase in irregularity and volume of bleeding), they almost across the board saw a huge reduction in pain. Like pain levels previously at an 8 or 9 dropped down to below 5 in six months and below 2 in nine months. (And 20% of women saw an almost complete cessation in menstruation.) My uterus has not been giving me the best outcomes so far, but I am hopeful that this one fucking time, I can get the pain reduction and have no more bleeding. Ever. So, I’d appreciate all the well-wishes, prayers, positive energy, and candles lit for my uterus. (My NP said she was going to go home and light a candle for my uterus and I just love her so much.)

There is a surprising dearth of uterus candles on the internet. Someone needs to get on that.

  1. Ten days of cramps plus the other stuff that comes with it (bodily fluids = ewwww…) mean my mental acuity is not top-notch. Chronic pain plus borderline anemia really fucks with your brain. Yesterday was a hard, hard day. I went to get my implant and couldn’t remember what floor my doctor was on in the hospital, even though this was my sixth visit in three months. I asked the reception desk if it was on the 3rd or 5th floor. Turns out it was on the 4th.Next, I had to do a pregnancy test, because those are the rules even when you’ve been spayed. I took my labeled cup into the bathroom, peed, flushed, washed my hands, and then looked at the cup I’d set on the shelf and not used at all.And then last night, I attempted to make dinner. Nothing fancy. It was taco Tuesday, but Bean requested burritos (he then refused to eat those burritos because he wants to see how fast mama can lose her mind). First, I set the plastic salsa container on the stove while I heated up the back burned to warm tortillas. (You know where this is going, right?) Yeah. I didn’t turn on the back burner. You know what smells great? Melted plastic mixed with salsa. Then, when adding avocado to the beer guy’s burrito, I threw it on myself and the floor. And then, my tortilla flipping, which I usually excel at, was terrible. And to wrap it all up, when flipping the beer guy’s burrito, it didn’t flip and everything ended in sadness and tears for everyone. (Mostly me.)

    (For Marcy)

    I am really, really looking forward to feeling better and hope this implant will be the key to getting me there sooner. I’m pretty tired of always being tired. I’d like to have the energy back and not be alternately a giant ball of intense cramps or sore from being a giant ball of intense cramps.


    In conclusion, you know more about my reproductive system’s fuckery than you probably wanted to, but if you send me a case of red wine, I promise to not talk about it any more.

 

 

 

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Three Things Thursday: Keeping it Real Edition

Posted on August 3, 2017 | Comments Off on Three Things Thursday: Keeping it Real Edition
  1. I know I owe you a review of The Silent. And I want to give it to you. But the last week has been a rough one for Amy-kind. I was felled with some kind of likely migraine issues last Thursday, and then have had various levels of horrific cramps over the past few days. Hunter deserves more than a half-assed review written when I couldn’t think straight. If you’re desperate for a great review and don’t feel like waiting around until I can pull myself together, check out my PSM’s.
  2. I am (with the exception of yesterday) making excellent progress on my rewrites of The Ruby Blade. I am hoping to finish up in the next week to ten days. Rewriting is ever so much harder than writing, because I have to make sure additions make sense within the story, and add rather than detract. There are a couple new characters in The Ruby Blade, and I hope you love them as much as I do. There’s also a lot more Raj, and he is even more morally ambiguous than I was expecting him to be. Still hot AF, though.
  3. Did I mention the cramps? Yeah. This month has not been good. I was a wreck last night. There may have been tears. And sobbing. And the inability to walk properly due to pain. Today, I feel like I was in a fight or something (on top of the only slightly less awful cramps I have today) because my body aches all over from the aftermath of the full-body cramps I had last night. Since I can’t take vicodin at work (or drink a bottle of wine at my desk), I’m thinking a combo of reiki and essential oils might be my only hope. Maybe also coconut oil, although I’m not sure of the proper application. (Please don’t chime in with advice on pain management…trust me, I’ve probably tried it, or considered it and dismissed it for legitimate reasons.) (The no assvice thing goes double for the non-uterus havers.)

 

Have a great rest of the week and fantabulous weekend. If you don’t hear from me again, it’s probably because the entire Pacific Northwest melted, thus saving me from further pain.

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Meh. And also blah. With a side of blech. (And way too much TMI)

Posted on July 17, 2017 | 6 comments

I’ve been so, so good at staying dairy free. SO GOOD! And on those rare occasions when I’ve broken down and had a cheese item, I’ve doubled-up on the lactaid. The result? My stomach has been much more pleased with me the last few months.

Enter Saturday: I was out and about much of the day. I had a tattoo consult, and an eye doctor appointment, and other random stuff. I stopped for lunch at about one, and even though I texted the Beer Guy that I would cheerfully kill someone for a melted cheese food item, I had no intention of following through (with either the murder or the cheese).

Instead, I ordered a meat pasty. (I literally just typed “cheese pasty” and had to go delete. I am obsessed with cheese.) It was delicious. I felt a little off that evening, but attributed it to having skipped breakfast (mostly) and it being several hours since my 100% cheese-free lunch. The beer guy & I went out to eat, and I ordered my wrap sans dairy, but continued to feel not quite right.

The next morning (yesterday), I woke up and was miserable. I told the beer guy that I felt like I’d eaten cheese, but couldn’t figure out how that’d happened. After all, I’d been so careful. And then I looked up the menu for the place I’d gotten my pasty to prove how careful I was. Second listed ingredient on the menu item I ordered? FUCKING SWISS CHEESE. How I missed that when ordering is beyond me.

So yeah. Yesterday was a barrel of fun. It’s really depressing that cheese–the one food item to which I have devoted more time and energy (and money; I have a lot of cheese making apparati)–has betrayed me this way.

 

ANYWAY – finally my stomach ache went away, and I was all yay! AND THEN THERE WAS FURTHER BETRAYAL.

My left ovary tried to kill me. It was so evil that, after a vicodin, I decided it needed a name. I googled “evil name generator” and the first name on the list was Cat.

As you may or may not know, Cat is also the name of my PSM. Obviously, I texted her immediately to know I’d named my evil left ovary after her. (I’m not sure if she hasn’t responded because of the time difference or because she’s just backing away from our friendship slowly or because she hasn’t seen it yet.)

(I also texted her that I was planning on becoming a vicodin addict, which is probably no longer true as I had a really hard time falling asleep last night, but also couldn’t get out of bed to do anything else.)

So, long and extremely TMI story short – my body hates me and wants me to die. My left ovary is named Cat. Cheese is my best frenemy. I’m probably going to name my right ovary Xyla. The jury’s still out on what I’m going to name my uterus.

My goal for this week is to remain cheese free and be as active as Amy-ly possible, whilst also getting at least 12-15K words down. I need to finish this rewrite by the end of the month so The Ruby Blade can get to my editor in *gulp*   six weeks. That sounds like such a long time, but it really, really isn’t. (PS, if you would like to give me a great deal of money to stay home and write, I would appreciate it!)

Indian khanda sword…

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Posted in Aggressive Happiness, Blessed are the Cheesemakers, Book-It! Please send pizza, Dammit!, Gin, Cheese & Other Necessities, Not Dead Yet!, The Beer Guy, Write Now!

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Sleep Report

Posted on July 10, 2017 | 2 comments

Remember last week when I said I was going to spend the weekend resetting my sleep clock and get to bed every night by 10:45 and sleep and be happy and that would be the magical key to everything in life and then I would get my very own unicorn and life would be amazing?

 

hahahahahhahahahahhahahahahahahah

 

Friday night went well, actually. I was in bed and asleep by 10 and slept until almost 8 am Saturday morning.

My planned run didn’t happen on Saturday, but we still got out, ran some errands, and I used the gas grill all by myself for the first time.

Then came Saturday night. I texted the Beer Guy at about 9 to say goodnight. And then we texted for a bit at 10:30. And then I said goodnight FOR REAL at 12:30. Last time I saw the clock it was 4. My kid woke me up at 7 to ask if it was time to wake me up yet.

So – three hours of sleep, roughly.

I took Bean to the park yesterday afternoon and he played himself out. He barely made it through dinner.

I was excited! I would work! And do laundry! And clean the kitchen! (I did all the laundry and all the dishes, but no work…the words kept swimming in front of my eyes.)

At 10:15ish, I texted my goodnight to the beer guy and went to bed. At 2, I posted on Facebook my dismay at being awake at 2 for the 2nd night in a row. At 3:30, I posted again (and then deleted) the number of hours I could sleep if I fell asleep RIGHT THEN.

At 4:15, I started debating whether or not it’d even be worth it to try. I wanted to sleep, but even after listening to my GUARANTEED ASLEEP IN 12 MINUTES OR LESS meditation multiple times, there was nothing.

At shortly after 5, I gave up, made double the amount of coffee I was planning on making, took a shower, tried to write, gave up, drank coffee, made Bean’s lunch, drank coffee, roused the Bean, drank coffee, and took him to school.

Now I’m having a coke.

I should probably eat a food, but that sounds like a terrible idea, frankly.

I’m not thrilled that operation sleep failed after one day. Hopefully, tonight will be a night of sleep. (I’m actually pretty confident about this…I have drugs that can force the issue, I just don’t like to take them. However, I like seeing auras around everything even less.)

Now that I’ve gotten this far, I’ve no idea how to end it. Usually, my brain does a thinking thing and that triggers my fingers to do a writing thing and it quite often makes sense.

Currently, the thinking thing seems to be short-circuiting.

So, ummm…. I guess Happy Monday? Hope you slept some?

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