4.24.2012

Long Time No See!

Bet you thought I died, huh? No postings since the end of August of 2011! Well, I'm not dead. Not yet, anyway. But a lot has happened. I'll try not to bore you to death as I fill you in... First, on August 28th, I officially got a boyfriend! I know, I know. How can an Old French Whore have a boyfriend? Isn't that against the rules? Well, it's not against the rules, which, by the way, I make up as I go along. Plus, he's both UNEMPLOYED and a MUSICIAN! So, I got that going for me. Now I know again what you're thinking. (It's so cool to be psychic) "Does an OFW have to support her boyfriend to retain her status as an OFW?" The answer, mes etre cheris, is "Mais NON!" OFW's DO NOT support boyfriends!!! EVER! Well, emotionally they do, but that's all. Unless they are filthy rich, which I am not. So, let's just say he is self-supporting through his own contributions made to himself while employed by a certain behemoth local software company for many years. So he enjoys the lifestyle that all us OFW's aspire to: one of laziness and sloth. Well, I aspire to laziness anyway. Sloth I think I have down pat. Even though I HATE the sight of the word, I admire his ability to live 'frugally' (it's such an UGLY word!). Now here's something about this OFW that you probably don't know: I'm crazy about the bass guitar. Always have been. As a kid I was always listening for the bass line. While others my age were listening to The Partridge Family, I was listening to P-Funk. Get it? It's in my blood. Now that I think about it, though, not sure where it came from. No one else in my family is a bass freak. Must've been the mailman...just kidding! My sainted mother, may she rest in peace, would never have cheated on my father. Anyway, my personal crest, if I had one, would read "Verdere Bass!" Which is of course Latin for "Turn Up The Bass!" And my fella is a BASS PLAYER!!! How cool is that? A whip-smart, smart-ass, computer-geek musician! I hit the mother load!!!! As grandma would say, I must be livin' right. Aaaaanywayyyyy, this musical genius is always transcribing chord tones, writing books about Triad Pairs, attending and participating in "Jam Sessions" around town, composing music, and making tremendous messes in my kitchen. Be still my heart. It makes me swoon just to think about it. Sigh... Secondly, my job has literally (OK not literally, figuratively. Sheesh.) eaten my brain. Between having a brain-eating job and a boyfriend, I haven't had the time or energy to devote to my most unimportant blog. Until now. Now that I have been sicker than a dog for 17 days with an upper respiratory infection from HELL (which I contracted from the BF while nursing him back to health. Hmmm....he must pay.) So today, I broke down and called my pulmonologist, the charming and talented Dr. H. He's the best in town and he's been "mine" since 1999 when he correctly diagnosed me with Atypical Walking Pneumonia and lung abscesses (eeewww gross!). My G.P. kept telling me I had a cold. For 7-1/2 months. While I was coughing up blood. When I pushed her for some tests, she called me a hypochondriac & recommended I see a therapist. I may be a hypochondriac, and I certainly need therapy, but I think maybe she shoulda ordered a chest X-Ray and a culture, dontcha think? Fucking doctors!!! Some of them are so good and some of them should have just gone to plumbing school. Then 15 months ago, while being treated for a spine injury with long needles (it's a technique called 'dry needling'. Sounds nasty, huh?) the incompetent nurse practitioner performing said treatment punctured my lung! I ended up in the E.R. I walked in clutching my chest. The man at the desk said, "What seems to be the trouble?" I said, "My chest hurts. I think my lung is collapsing." I shit you not, he pushed a button and 3 nurses rushed through the double doors and grabbed me and whisked me into an exam room. "Slow night?" I asked, head swiveling between the three of them. "Heart patients have priority", one of them said. "I'm a lung patient, not a heart patient", I said. They ignored me. The E.R. Doctor came in and barked orders and told me I'd be OK. I said, "I'll be OK when you get my left lung to stop collapsing." He actually argued with me. Then he got surly, & after all my heart tests came back negative, he asked me, with a sneer, "WHY do you think your lung is collapsed?" I told him about the 'dry needling'. He said, "Well, your blood pressure is through the roof." I said, "Well, what happens to your blood pressure when you're in pain and no one is listening to you?" He was not amused. But he ordered a chest X-Ray which showed that, indeed, my lung it was a-collapsin'. "Whaddaya know, she's right!" He said. Asshole. Anyway, I digress. So I went back to my trusty pulmonologist then, and he being the. best. doctor. ever. said, "Well of course you weren't having a heart attack! You're too young and pretty for a heart attack!" I love him. You gotta love a physician that insightful. Soooo, I called his office this morning because if I don't work I don't get paid, and I cannot afford much more of this staying home sick crap. I told his nurse my symptoms and asked, "Should I come in or am I just being a hypochondriac?" She says, "It doesn't sound like hypochondria to me. Let me talk to the doctor and call you back." She called back and said, "Dr. doesn't see patients on Wednesdays but he wants to see you tomorrow at 10:15." So now I'm not sure whether to be relieved or scared. After all the work absence from this illness I probably won't have a job to worry about anymore, so I'll probably be writing more often. Silver linings. I'll let ya know how it goes tomorrow...

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