I have it on good word at least some of you find this sort of thing hilarious. (If I really thought of this as a make-you-all-miserable sort of thing, I'd dump it on the cat instead. Really.) So, what sucks oozing rat ass about the holiday season this year.
Well, you know, first of all it's living in a 700 square foot apartment. With a rampaging husbeast, the cat from hell, and a four year old (who really needs no further description in terms of potential disaster - 'four year old' pretty well sums it up). My furniture is in a box (okay more than one box if we're going to be literal about it) in South Carolina, where it is probably being eaten right this minute by pestilential tides of termites. Every scrap of furniture in this apartment came from the in-laws' basement or GoodWill. I don't really have anything against my in-laws OR GoodWill, it's the principle of the thing. Oh, no, wait, sorry, we've got a table along one wall of the living room, holding the husbeast's computer and printer (taking up 3/4 of the space so as to be perfectly organized) and my office gear (on the other 1/4 and in a milk crate underneath). It's plastic. We bought it at Sam's Club.
Then there's the fact that my dad died. Not to get sarcastic over it (okay, okay, so I am) but it's totally fucked MY attitude. The next person who is aware that my father died two weeks ago, who asks me 'what's wrong?' shall die of a knitting needle to the throat.
As seems to be a holiday tradition for the last five years, I've got doctors (now more than one!) fucking with my medication and not listening to me when I talk. This includes a chronic pain specialist who can't seem to understand I've got TWO PROBLEMS - nerve and bone pain - and keeps telling me what I don't have (thanks, chump) and diagnosing me with things I've never had symptoms of in twelve fucking years of feeling like my arm has been broken. Next doctoral clusterfuck of infinite proportion? We're all sick. The husbeast brought home some germ from hell (we think a virus because no one's got a fever) and the Goob and I caught it. The Goob seems to be fine, other than a tendency to lie about a bit more than usual:
I, on the other hand, spent the entire fucking day e-mailing back and forth to fuckhead the wonder monkey's dumber cousin at the doctor's office (not my usual doc) about how my chest is congested and often when it feels like this it TURNS INTO PNEUMONIA, and I need a decongestant. What's he eventually give me after I nag his ass off for the entire day? Steroids. What is the LAST thing you want to be huffing if worried about lung infection? STEROIDS. HOW IS IT THAT I KNOW THIS AND SOME ALLEGEDLY MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL DOES NOT??!!??
The husbeast just called from the pharmacy where he was picking up some medication (HIS doctor gave him drugs, fucker), and he explained the whole congestion/pneumonia/fuck steroids issue to the pharmacist. The PHARMACIST came through with some 'turned up to eleven' decongestants for me. (Pharmacist's description.) So I get treated, finally, not by the bloody doctor who took an oath, but a pharmacist whose problem I am not. (Though I do appreciate the guy.)
What next? Oh, hell, what isn't next? Christmas is in four days, we haven't made the gift bags yet (the Goober and I are going to 'stamp' some plain brown gift bags with sponges and paint and -shudder- glitter glue), I've got a mitten and a half done, and have TOTALLY given up on the alpaca for my mother-in-law. I'll run up to the yarn store Wednesday (after another appointment with the pain specialist who thinks nerve damage medication is going to make my bones feel better) and buy her some cashmere.
Where was I?
Oh, fuck it.
Anyway. Thanks to all of you for the support over the weekend, with the reviews issue. And I hope to all that is holy (and unholy) that I am not in this mood when it's time to review the next bloody VK. But I know all of you hope I AM. Because you're all evil like that. (Blessings on your holidays. No, really.)
24 comments:
Happy holidays. No, really. I know you're in pain and you're sick but, Julie, I gotta say that seeing that you posted just boosted my day immesurably. I'm going home to eat Toffee Shortbread, praising your name with every bite. We'll never meet but you keep me sane and I can never thank you enough for sharing the Goob with us. You make my day.
J--I get it. I really do. My wish for you is for whatever will bring you comfort & relief. If all else fails, I hope the holiday shit passes quickly.
Oh you poor thing, hang in there! The holiday shit will be over soon. How is it that doctors who are supposedly so bloomin' smart, don't know how to listen? I have the same issues with my doctors though my problems don't have near the severity of yours. Good luck with that!
I feel your pain with being locked in a house with a sick four year old. Mine will be four in ten days and has a nasty little cold too and I'm stuck with him in the house. It's lousy.
I do have to admit that just the title to your post had me laughing before I even read the rest. Merry Christmas anyway!
Julie, I don't think I've ever commented here. Time to remedy that.
I love you, I love the Goob, I love your husbeast, and I love Sekhmet (the fucker).
Now please stay out of jail. I don't think they let you knit there.
(My word verification here is "sueaterm." Part of me is trying to read it as a rendition of "sweater," while another part says, sensibly, 'It says "sue a term." WTF does that mean?')
merryfreakinxmas, huh?
my sympathies. and yeah, why isn't a course in how to listen required in med school?
i once had a doc tell me that oral steroids could not possibly have caused/contributed to a rage episode that very nearly endangered my two goobers, then 5 and 7. (instead, i "merely" scared the living $#!+ out of them.)
oh, yeah, doc? then how d'you splain the broken capillaries under my eyes if not from screaming in intense rage over a mess the (grown) kids and i now laugh about. i've never had such a rage before or since. and i've never taken oral steroids again.
(if anybody in the pigsbird area knows a GOOD pain doc, ship that person's name and number to julie muy pronto!)
meanwhile, julie, please just rest as much as you can. i'm sure pigsbird-area family members figure that their best gift already arrived this year when you, huz and goob moved back.
Hey ducks, thanks for the note you sent, truly appreciate hearing from someone who has so recently been through losing a parent *non-creepy internet-sistah hugs-in-return*. It sucks and it is no wonder your pain management isn't working. That and a 700 sq. ft. apartment will fuck with your shit in the worst of ways. The pain aside I have been there, done that, got the dust-bunny baby-puke covered t-shirt to prove it. Will send good karma your way Jules (hope you get called that...you just seem like such an amazing bad-ass it just fits). Anyway girl, take care, remember it's okay to cry between the f-shots. Personally I like to remember that there is a higher power of whatever ilk one likes to imagine it...gives me something to yell at when everything else simply doesn't work the way it should in my world. Try it...but not in the apartment. Take care, Tina
*hugs*
Dude, may the pharmacology gods bless you--you rant, rage, get pissed, kick the pseudo-furniture and yell at the stars all you want here. It's your blog. We love you. And I, for one, TOTALLY get it.
Feel better.
Having to explain why you aren't Susie Sunshine when you've just lost a parent is sucky. I have days when I feel intense desire to see my mother and then I walk around and people are saying "are you ok" and I want to slap them and say NO but of course I don't. I just remind them that some days are better than others.
Four days till christmas and no one in my family is sick. I think that is a first. I hope you are all feeling better soon. And you get your stuff back. Having your stuff around you makes up for an awful lot.
I'm amazed that you are still functioning let alone thinking about lack of Christmas spirit.
I remember the Christmas after my mom died as very difficult, primarily because I had small children who needed me to put on a happy face and share their excitement.
Hang in there and know Christmas is almost over!
P.S. Venting here seems a very sane choice as opposed to dragging a physician over broken glass (or other more creative option)
I hear you and oh so sympathise. This year is being a major challenge for me for numerous reasons. With three small children I am finding it increasingly difficult to maintain any sense of joy in my voice and am almost over the whole "When is Santa getting here?" Today they were told if they didn't pick up their act there wouldn't be presents from Santa. I don't want to be narky, it's just hard some years. So best wishes for a more relaxing approach to Christmas, that the knitting is relaxing, the Goober is relaxed if not relaxing and the husbeast keeps any further illnesses to himself or just spreads them around at work instead!
Oh, Julie. What a rough Christmas this one is.
Go ahead & yell. I'm another who's glad to see you posted, but I hope the virus passes off quickly; that's just the icing on the damned cake. (Have you ever had so much shit happen at once that you suddenly had to laugh, because it was like a bad TV show? I have. There just comes a point, for me, when it all becomes outrageous.)
Must be something in the air. Last night I had Night Terrors for the first time in months.
Seeing you express the frustration makes me fell better. Hope it helps you out, too.
The Husband and I are headed for Pigsbird on Christmas Eve to see "White Christmas" with Elder Son. Hope you can find something (and all feel well enough to do it) fun for the holidays outside of the 700 sq. ft. apt.
I sympathise with the 700 sq foot thing, and also the steroids. Himself was prescribed steroids for what turned out to be pneumonia (diagnosed by the hospital staff). His doctor said when he saw her again that she thought he had "man-flu". He does't intend to go back there.
Glitter glue is nowhere as bad as glitter (although I'm sure you know that)
*hugs* on the rest.
I'm with you in the "Christmas sucks this year" My mother keeps ringing God's doorbell and then leaving before he opens the door...sigh Can't concentrate on K2P2..pathetic. I am worn out with worry. Aren't I just a ray of supportive sunshine? I think I will go buy a box of chocolates...for me. Hanging in there with you.
Hope you feel better soon.
Word Verification: blessed
Hugs and bunny snuggles to you. My wife and I decided that (since we don't have kids and aren't terribly religious) we are just going to wait to be festive until we can actually get the family we like together. The month of December has been crazy in the bunny world and we're just too darned busy finding spaces for rabbits to even think about holidays.
Your post put it in perspective for me, though. Our one remaining parent is healthy; we haven't moved (nor do we plan to); everybody in the house is reasonably healthy; we have doctors that we basically love. Life is good. Now if we could just get people to quit dumping 60+ rabbits at the local shelter all at once, I might actually remember that for more than 5 minutes.
And here I was under the impression that the internet was invented expressly so people would have a place to vent and bitch and therefore not slay folks in real life. :)
Rant away, lady. You don't have to keep your spirits up for us.
Loads of sympathy and huge hugs. Understand entirely. When life is this shit, nothing anyone says will make it better. In the mean time, hang in there sweets.
Oh, Happy Holidays by the way.
When I read the title of your post to my (almost) husbeast, he said to tell you he has a bottle of very good bourbon with your name on it and where should he send it? I have the cashmere you need for the scarf - with I could wrinkle my nose, blink my eyes and have both materialize there in Pigsbird for you.
Like all the others who've commented, I hope this holiday season passes quickly and painlessly for you and yours.
Julie,
Cleveland is not that far away. The Cleveland Clinic has a pain rehab thing. http://my.clevelandclinic.org/psychiatry/services/chronic_pain/program.aspx
I know that you have dealt with many doctors over many places, but my brother who suffers from horrible chronic pain, swears by these guys.
Doctors, for the most part, are egomanical shits.
On the upside, the Goob is very little, and wouldn't recognize a low-key Christmas as opposed to a full blown, gotta do it for the kid-type Christmas. You need to do what is bestest for you.
I have walked in your shoes, and I know how you feel. I found out who were my true friends the year my mom died -- and they weren't the people who couldn't figure out why I couldn't just "snap out of it." Fuckers.
The holidays are not about the stuff -- it's about being with the people (and Sekhmets) who really love you. You feel the way you do because THAT'S HOW YOU FEEL. No apologies needed.
Where do you need the booze sent?
I think 4 was the hardest age. I never yelled at a kid so much to so little effect. Probably the world is lucky I didn't have a blog then. And that's without the additional crap you deal with.
My holiday shit seems small... Keep your anger up, it is a kind of drug.
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