Not Dead or Dying

Today I tried an hour-long session of manual lymph node drainage with bits of traiger mixed in so that I wouldn't be "overwhelmed" by too much lymph at my first session or something like that. It was wonderful. It gave me new ways to look at my migraines and the pain and something that's like visualization except I'm capable of doing it, and everything felt really good even if it didn't get rid of the pain it helped give me tools to cope with the pain and lessen it and make it not matter as much. Very handy. I also became aware of quite how much I live in my head, not just in the metaphoric sense, but I carry myself from my shoulders on up and basically ignore the rest of me except as it connects to my head. My head rules everything. It's the bratty kid in class who takes over all the attention and ruins it for everybody else. I have to learn to acknowledge the head but then quickly move on to everything else. You are not the boss of me.

Then I went to the Saab dealer to get the recalled piece of my car fixed and get my $100 oil change that they say I'm supposed to get as a peace offering to my car, hoping it will start liking me better and stop having huge problems all the time. My phone right now only charges when it feels like it, so it was completely dead and I had no concept of time as I waited at the Starbucks down the street and read the Onion and did yesterday's RedEye crossword and Sudoku, still stoned on Lymph and Traiger. It was oddly pleasant.

When I got home and checked my email, I learned that my friend from camp who had all her guts transplanted in October and has been in the ICU ever since died this morning. While I'm heavy-hearted and feel terrible for her parents and family, I'm less sad or upset than I expected or somehow think I should be. I guess with all the months of misery and knowing every time I checked the blog her family kept of her progress that it could say that this was the day she finally died, that entry finally appearing wasn't much of a surprise. She'd been getting a little better, but really, she was still suffering and living a sad pantomime of a life. I thought about her a lot when I started complaining to myself and others about my own current life position and inabilities, since the world's my fucking oyster by comparison. After all, I can do things that really are living. Even if I can't eat certain foods or drink hard liquor or go party my brains out or work a normal job, I can feed myself through my mouth and eat many many many things that taste wonderful and I can still drink beer and smoke pot in moderation and I can even take care of myself on all basic and most higher levels 99% of the time. And my migraines can't kill me. So for as frustrated as I get looking at all the people who can just fucking live and not have to think about it or fight with their bodies on a day-to-day basis, I've been worse myself and I could be a whole lot worse, as in dying or dead.
Maybe I'll start chanting "not dead or dying" every morning while I shower and brush my teeth. See what that does to my psyche.

Neurology, Neurosis

An hour and a half on the train this morning with temperatures around -3°F not including windchill and I got my car back in time to drive to my neurologist appointment. I held January 11, 2009 as a special date in my heart for some time now, since that was when my "pre-existing condition exclusions" expired on my insurance. Translation: migraine- and depression-related medical shit now gets paid for. And while there's still no new incredible cure for my lame vessel of a head, I'm getting an MRI as soon as I schedule it so we can see pictures of my lame head. It's been about 10 years since my last MRI, but I'm not particularly hopeful that updated photos will say anything new. Maybe there's something that this much better neurologist can see or catch, but from everything he says, I'm an extremely typical severe migraine patient and the best we can do is pain manage with drugs drugs drugs and acupuncture and anything else I find that helps. Because my left eye droops when I'm migrainey, I'm supposed to look in the mirror the next time I'm mid-migraine and see if my left eye and nostril are also runny and if the left side of my face is red and splotchy. If so, I have a very specific type of migraine (definitely probable candidates...I know that's the sinus side that gets cranky) called Paroxysmal Hemicrania. If so, the one and only treatment is an NSAID called that indomethacin that I'd take daily, possibly instead of the gazillion pills I'm on now. Downside: indomethacin does terrible things long-term to your guts, particularly your stomach and kidneys. I'd have to get all of my everything else checked constantly, and if anything started going downhill, I'd have to stop the only medication that's been found do really help that type of headache. My migraines aren't going to kill me, but they can't really be fixed, either. And no birth control pills, like, ever, even with the ovarian cyst thing and the evil clotty crampy periods and my promiscuous unprotected sex. Ok, two out of three. But once again, I'm reminded of how much modern medicine still doesn't know. We think our bodies are supposed to work and when they don't we should be able to fix them or quit whining about it and overcome and Just Do It and No Fear and all those other slogans and mottos and things people say on ESPN and to 9-year-olds in football helmets. But fighting isn't working for me. I should go back to the meditation center, except that felt like a fight with myself, too. I have to stop fighting myself and my body all the time. I'm trying so hard to accept what I am. It's hard and it hurts because I still get mad at myself for not just being ok or at least accepting my not being ok. I've always been much quicker to understand things on an intellectual level than to feel them, and it frustrates the hell out of me that I can't just make myself feel what I think.
I just want to be happy.
I'm taking the steps that are supposed to help all of that (going to therapy, on happy drugs, trying to cultivate new friendships and keep stoking old ones, concentrating on the good things in my life...which I actually do but I use this blog to get my whining and bitching out since I'm spending so much energy the rest of the time trying to put a positive spin on everything).

I always have a hard time in winter. I need to declare a time to drive down to Nashville and romp around with HDS in the warmer and our dogs can try to eat eachother. I wish it was less than an 8 hour drive, but maybe that would help. I don't know. I keep looking for these things to help or cure or fix. That's part of who I am, too, and that needs to be ok, too. More time in the meditation center with the Buddhists, less time in the internal throes of Jewy guilt.

Cold Comfort Ferrari

NBF is back from his South American Christmas and New Years and I am very happy. I missed him way more than I expected to. I keep telling myself it was because I was sick for much of the time, battling the nastiest cold I've had in at least 10 years (I still have the remnants) and just wanting live human companionship that required minimal effort on my part. I have other friends who are zero effort, but they do not live in my neighborhood. I've been working on cultivating my other Chicago friends, and I have some great other Chicago friends, but they still require calls and plans and wearing pants, and when NBF moves, that's a big hole he will leave behind. I knew that already, but his three week absence made it clear how much it's going to hurt.

My car died again. No clue why this time. I was driving down Lake Shore Drive when it started feeling funny, like the acceleration was jerky even when I wasn't accelerating or something, but no lights were going on and we were almost to where we were going anyway and I pulled into the turn-off lane and started to break when all the lights came on at once and the car died right there and wouldn't start up again. The City of Chicago tow truck people came before I'd even found the phone number for AAA and towed me onto Lower Wacker so I'd be out of traffic (no tickets or impounding or anything, it's just their way of getting you off the highway so you don't cause more problems...very smart in my opinion and the woman who towed me was very nice) and I then got a four hour time window from AAA that they wanted me to spend in the freezing cold in the car waiting for the tow truck. NBF spent the first two hours with me, no truck. Called AAA back and they said I could wait in a cafe and they'd give me 15 minutes warning before the truck arrived so I could get back to my car. NBF went home to walk the dogs and I went into Descartes on Michigan Ave to drink hot chai late and knit until the tow truck came about half an hour later.
The driver of the AAA truck was probably in his 40s and while we drove through snowy rush hour traffic, he rambled and I coaxed his life story. He's a single dad who ended up raising his two daughters after his wife of 15 years turned out to be batshit. He didn't say batshit, but the woman flew off the handle and had multiple affairs and didn't really fight for custody or anything then tried to blame her older daughter for not just saying in court "I want to go with my mom." Mind you, I only heard his side of the story, but from his side, she sounds pretty batshit. He's also extremely happy and proud that his daughter made it through high school considering what a rough time she had with the divorce and everything and that she's not pregnant or into drugs, and while he hopes she will some day go to college or something, he's glad she's come this far. It was nice to hear. He just seemed like a really solid, decent guy trying to make the best possible lives for his two girls. It was a good story.

Now I have no car again. It would be easier if I really had no car and just lived my life carless and maybe belonged to iGo or something for the times I needed a car. It would be easiest if my car didn't randomly die on my every other month. I don't know what I do wrong. I take it for its regular oil changes. I feed it premium gas. I even got it exciting snow wipers this year. Still, it insists on hating me. Maybe I should blame the entire country of Sweden. Next time, I'm getting a hybrid Camry. The Camry gods are punishing me for straying.

My sister moved to Portland, Oregon. Portland is the new Brooklyn. I'm still looking at condos here in Chicago, even though it's freezing and I think I'm crazy and still can't really believe I'm looking at condos.

Now that it's 2009, my 10 year high school reunion is officially next year. If I don't do something awesome really soon, I'm going to have to make a baby so I have something to show for myself. I was so scarily driven in high school and the people who actually remember me probably expect me to be a Fulbright scholar or have a Pulitzer or something by now, instead of spending a good 8 years trying to figure out how to reconcile what I want with what I think I should want and how to make what I want happen without feeling guilty for not doing what I think I should want or do.

Warm sleepy dog on lap is a wonderful thing. Too bad I don't feel like that's enough to show off, and that I need something to show off, because warm sleepy dog makes me happy. I'm just still not strong enough in what makes me happy. Bah.