When Madison gets home from school, I’m going to be shaving my head again. I don’t want to but I don’t really feel that I have a choice. My hair has been steadily falling out since August and it’s gotten to the point where it is so sparse, it just looks terrible and I don’t want to look terrible at Touched By Fire next Thursday.

Last night after my shower, Blake was brushing my hair because I have a hard time getting all the knots out so he does it for me most of the time, and when he was finished, there was so much hair all over me that I had to change my shirt. That ball of hair above the clippers is what came out of my brush last night and that’s how much comes out every time I wash my hair. Blake tries to hide it from me, which I appreciate, but there’s no hiding from what I’ve got going on on top of my head these days, it just looks awful.

The hair that I have left looks scraggly and this week I was going to have my friend Jen come cut it (she’s in hair school) but there really isn’t enough to cut and I don’t think there would be any way to make what I have left look good. What I have left looks really dry and frizzy, even though it isn’t. It just looks that way because of how little there is and how fine my hair is to begin with. My roots are about 4 inches long but I’ve been afraid to dye my hair in case more of it fell out (I’m naturally blonde, just not THIS blonde…).

Since so much has fallen out, I’m just giving up and shaving it off. There’s no saving what I have left. I’ve been thinking about it for a while now, but today’s the day because I’m feeling brave. I’m going to videotape the process but I’m not sure if I’ll put it online or not. It depends on how much I cry. (I’m an ugly cryer.)

So that’s what’s happening today.

WATCH GODAMMIT.

Don’t make me post it again! Okay that’s not true, I’m not posting it for you guys. I’m posting it for me because this is how my tabs are laid out every day (I don’t close my browser or turn off my computer like, ever): Live Journal, my e-mail, my site, Etsy, Facebook, Anybeat and then whatever I’m working on, like a post or whatever in other tabs. SO, if I post my boyfriend’s video at the top of a post, I have easy access to it in TWO TABS and can replay it at my leisure. Which I do. A whole lot.

It IS Friday though, kids, and that means MAYBE, JUST MAYBE there will be a new Erock video tonight! I’m creaming my panties in antici…pation. (Not really, just curious as to what he’s gonna shoot out next. Hey wait that sounded dirty too, I can’t win….*facepalm*)

So I went to the doctor on Wednesday and now I need a new doctor. My newfie surgeon is a fucking OTTAWA FAN with the JERSEY AND EVERYTHING! THE NERVE! I wore my Leafs jersey on Wednesday because we won TWO games 7-1 recently and like, you wear your jersey while they’re doing well because who knows when they’re gonna shit the bed, so I wore my jersey and first of all, when we were at Chapters, we were getting into the car and some lady yelled “Is that a Leafs jersey I see? Good job!” or something like that but I didn’t hear it so my mom had to tell me second hand. Bummer, but still, compliment, so…WIN! But then when I was at Dr. Hanrahan’s office, she walked in and was like “oh no you are NOT wearing that jersey in my office!” and then we had words, bonded over the loveliness of Sydney Crosby (oh be quiet, he’s lovely) and got down to brass tacks.

She thinks she’ll be closing me up as a Christmas present. Her words. That means late December. I still have to hear from the guy at St. Mike’s to have the pseudocyst drained but Dr. Hanrahan said that since we haven’t heard from him, she’s going to chase him down herself. Whether that’s true or not, I’m not sure, but let’s hope because I would really like to have my surgery before Xmas. I don’t care if I have to spend Xmas in the hospital, I want this over with. Plus I hate Xmas anyway, for the most part. Xmas Xmas Xmas.

So that was pretty much all she said. She had a medical student named Magda with her and she went over my whole history with her so she could follow what was going on and Dr. Hanrahan said something like, “There’s 4 rules in surgery: sleep when you can, eat when you can, spend as much time with your partner as you can and don’t mess with the pancreas!” The pancreas, in case you all weren’t aware yet, is a VERY BIG DEAL.

Anyway, Renee, as my mom likes to call her went down my history and basically said, “This lady should not be sitting here right now, she had every single possible complication, you name it, she had it and she’s here to live to tell about it and that’s a miracle.”

Hearing that is very hard for me. I don’t like to hear about how I almost died. I mean I do like to hear about what happened to me at St. Mike’s because I don’t remember any of it but I don’t like to hear about how I should NOT be here because I am here and that’s kinda like talking about me in past tense or something and I just don’t like it. It makes me cry.

My new friend Jessie, who has chronic pancreatitis and who, unlike me, can’t just have surgery to make it all better, left me this amazing comment that I want to share with everyone because it was just so damn beautiful and exactly what I needed to hear after I got home on Wednesday:

“Wow. You heal super fast! Yeah, I saw your wound. That’s all scar tissue now? Damn, girl! Go you!

 Yeah, it’s hard to deal with it. I was suicidal for a very long time. It’s been almost 6 years, 5.5 years, I remind myself that all the time. For a long time it was hard for me to cope with my loss… because, really, it IS a loss. You lose your life as you know it. Forever and ever. I am still accepting that, every.single.day. You have to mourn your experience. It takes a loong time. It’s difficult.

I tried to force my self to move forward with life and it was impossible. You know the seven stages of grief, right? Well, be prepared to go through every one of them. And give yourself a lot of time. It’s been 6 years and I’m still not done.

 I don’t know. It’s hard. It takes time.

 It helped me to track my progress. Tiny things… like healed wounds and days without puking. Those things matter. Because there will be times when you feel like you have been sick FOREVER and that you’ll NEVER get any better. But, you will. Slowly but surely. Whether it be getting physically healthier or just getting better at coping with the sickness.

 Human beings were meant to survive. We were built to forget pain; a survival skill. We were built to move forward and live. Just care for yourself and appreciate your life and take it as slow as you need to.

 Oh, jeezus… look at me getting all emotional.

 I have no idea how I get all my nutrients. I drink a lot of those protein drinks, too, take prenatal gummy vitamins (omg im addicted), and vit B, and load up on great-for-me-foods when I’m actually able to keep things down. Soup helps. I love soup. It’s easy on the stomach and you can cram a lot of veggies and protein into soup.

 I’m tired all the time, too, but autoimmune disorders will do that to ya. You will heal. Sleeeeep and try to eat and just take care of yourself. Take vitamins. They’re my best friend.

 While I’m having an emotional moment let me say:

 Don’t ever feel guilty for being sick, okay?

It’s plagued me for years. It caused me to push myself and hurt myself and not help myself at all. You deserve to get better. You deserve LIFE! I know you have a family and obviously it has/will be hard on everybody… But, LOVE yourself. Just as much as they do. More. Take care of yourself. Don’t get down on yourself. You’re a survivor and you are alive for a reason.

 You will go on with your life again. You will. It will be changed. For the better, though, if you let it. <3

 /Emotional Rant (SHUT UP JESSIE!)

 :) <3″

I barely know this girl, but we’re basically kin at this point because we’re going/have gone through pretty much the exact same things.

So something I asked the doctor about was my thinning hair. It is simply falling out. A lot. In fact if I lose much more, I’m literally just going to shave it all off again because it’s really starting to look like crap. The short and sweet of it is that I need protein in mass quantities and I need to supplement my diet with a protein drink. The only protein drink I can stomach, which I didn’t even know about until this week, is called Isopure PLUS and it’s a clear juicy drink that’s actually not that bad. The problem though, is that it’s $17 for 6 drinks (after tax) and that’s an extra expense we really can’t afford. But I need it, so on Visa it shall go, we guess. It has 15g of protein per bottle and according to my mother I need around 45g per day based on some weight chart she found online. I’m trying really hard to eat that much protein but it’s not easy when A) you can’t keep everything down and B) you’re as picky an eater as I am. I simply cannot eat beans, they’re just too disgusting.

So that’s the gist of what’s happened this week. My mom bought me a Sharpie Liquid Pencil (which I keep forgetting to test out but they’re really neat!) and a clear t-square at Curry’s. At Curry’s I bought 3 sketchbooks for $15 (score!), a PINK mechanical pencil with PINK erasable lead and a pink pen to use in my pink journal.

As I mentioned we also went to Chapters before my appointment and there we got the new issue of Juztapoz because Mark Ryden did the cover and poor Sunnies can only afford to frame covers of magazines and put them on the wall.

Yesterday I also started playing Warcraft again…god help me…I will never get this sketchbook finished…(I also postponed getting Skyrim so Blake can get his Star Wars game when it comes out)…

So if you know me at all, you know I get crushes on various boys pretty easily, especially if they happen to be in the arts in any way. ESPECIALLY if they’re super good or super passionate about something. Then I go mental.

So right now I have this pretty massive crush on Eric Calderone who’s this metal genius on YouTube who does covers of popular songs. And he’s absolutely, drop dead motherfucking gorgeous. Not to be crude (too late) but whenever he posts a new video, I sit there watching and my clitoris literally twitches, it’s the most bizarre thing that’s never happened before.

Now of course I would never act on any of these crushes and if faced with one of them I’d probably embarrass myself by crying or something lame like that, but I would definitely like to be friends with them. Like, internet friends. The way I am with you guys except like…we e-mail dumb shit to each other and stuff. Like I do with other people. Like like like.

But anyway, I love him and here’s some of my favourite Erock videos (yes, he calls himself Erock and yes I think that’s kinda stupid – no offence Eric, I love your nerdy ways):

“Hey guys,

So I had requests for more 80s songs and had requests for classical songs which ended up as a combo. The Mozart parts I used just in case anyone is wondering were Symphony no. 25, Symphony no. 40, and part of his Requiem. There were so many to choose from but I fell upon the ones I thought could work best. Hopefully Mozart’s not rolling in his grave. Thanks so much for the comments, messages, and subs. Once again, you guys amaze me, BIG UPS.

Best to ya

E”

OH SWOON. BE STILL MY BEATING FUCKING HEART OR HOWEVER THAT GOES. *fans self*

Okay I’ll stop, I just fucking love the shit out of him. I want Blake to fly him to Canada to play our anniversary party, if we ever actually have one. (Looks like 10 years ain’t gonna be it, so maybe 15?) But watch the videos, isn’t he beautiful? Don’t you hate him for his ability to grow hair? Cuz I totally do.

Anyway, enough about Mr. Crittenden the Second.

[Insert photo of the elusive Benton here]

So Ben’s not really a boyfriend, by my usual definition because I don’t really have a crush on him, but he is a boy and he’s going to be my goddamn friend if I have to hunt him down and sit on him.

Ben is one of my nurses. He’s 29, from Vancouver and from what I can tell, all he does is work. That means he has no friends here and I swear to Christ, I will take drastic measures to ensure that he has people here because he’s great and it bothers me thinking about him just being alone all the time. But hey, what do I know? Maybe he does have friends here and he just hasn’t told me about them yet. YET.

Anyway, I get excited about the prospect of new friends (I never used to, I’m growing soft in my old age) and Ben is a potential new friend and I’m looking forward to having a little party at our house with Alex and Ronny and Ben and lots of booze.

Speaking of booze, I’m too scared to ask my doctor but with all the drugs I’m on, do you think I could get drunk and not die? I guess I’ll ask her when I see her tomorrow. Honestly, all I want to do these days is be drunk and listen to music and cry. I am so goddamned depressed it’s not even funny. I have S.A.D. pretty majorly and like, I missed the whole summer. I went from winter, to barely any spring, to fall, to winter. There was snow on the ground this morning! This is not good for my mental health!

Blake’s mom and Charlie just bought a house in Florida with an indoor hot tub and pool and all I want to do is go there. I need sunshine. Badly. I want to get this stupid pseudocyst “procedure” done (still haven’t heard from the specialist), have my big surgery, go to Florida with Blake’s parents and the kids (that I have no idea how we’ll afford but I really need it :o( Maybe a Chip In account thing?) and then get my job back. That’s how I want things to go. That’s what I want for my life for the next few months.

I got an e-mail from my boss last week, which is promising. I explained everything to her and offered to work part-time until my big surgery if there was work available, but I haven’t heard anything back. We are so ridiculously broke. :o( The thought of Xmas makes me really upset because I just don’t know how we’re going to afford anything when we’re going into debt EATING. Madison’s said that all she wants for Xmas this year is a $25 iTunes gift card which very well may be the only thing she gets. I don’t know what to get Wes. Then there’s my mom, Phil, Lisa, Raili and Rachael. I just don’t know what to do.

Blake’s getting me Skyrim for Xmas, but I’m getting it on Thursday. We can only afford to get that because he’s going to trade in some of his old games and one of mine (Final Fantasy whatever # came out for PS3 that I hated and barely played). My one year old computer isn’t good enough to play the game so I have to get it on PS3, which sucks (and I know how whiny and privileged that sounded) because I hate consoles, but I really want to play the game so I guess thems the breaks. And these days it’s not like I have anything better to do. I sit on this bed in the living room and refresh Facebook and e-mail every 2 minutes, all day, every day. I haven’t even been creating anything because I just too depressed. I should be working on my sketchbook but I just don’t have it in me right now. If I send it unfinished, I send it unfinished.

So that’s life at the moment.

PS. My hair’s falling out at an alarming rate and if I lose much more, I’m just going to shave my head again.

PPS. Water For Elephants was a HORRIBLE movie, but an excellent book. Why is that always the way?

Hi.

So it’s been a while since I’ve written. I’m sorry. Well…I guess it’s only Tuesday so it hasn’t been that long, but still, enough’s happened since the last time I wrote that I really should have tried to find the time to write before now, but I didn’t/couldn’t so now here I am.

Hello.

So Saturday night was an experiment gone…okay. Kinda horrible, but kinda awesome at the same time. Every year since (I believe) 2009, Toronto has put on this thing called Nuit Blanche where the entire city is full of art of all types from performance to giant Lite Brite boards in the middle of the street where 2L pop bottles are the pegs, from dusk ’til dawn. At this year’s Nuit Blanche, Art House Co-Op, the people responsible for A Million Little Pictures, The Sketchbook Project and The Fiction Project were in town at 401 Richmond with their Photomobile where Blake, our friend Charlie and myself each had work and we wanted to see the whole thing in person so we decided that Charlie would fly into town for the weekend and we’d go.

First, let it be known that I don’t meet “internet people”. I used to, hell I used to post on my Live Journal where I was going to be beforehand SO internet people would show up in the interest of promoting Scratching Post, but then I had one or two bad experiences too many and got turned off the practice fairly quickly. Meeting Charlie would be the first time in probably about 8 years that I’d be meeting someone from the internet and I was a bit nervous about it. Blake had met Charlie before when they went out for dinner last year because Blake was working in the city and that’s where Charlie happened to be and since Blake thought he was a pretty decent person, I wasn’t *too* nervous or at least no more nervous than I would be meeting anyone for the first time. So that was a plus.

There was some last minute “where do we eat?” drama that needed to be taken care of because it had to be close to the venue or I wouldn’t be able to get there on foot with my walker and wherever we ate had to have *something* on the menu that I could actually eat. We settled on a vegan restaurant called Fresh on Spadina which was about a block from the venue and which also had sweet potato fries AND a make-your-own-juice option. I love drinking. I don’t know if I’ve ever really mentioned this about myself but I absolutely love drinks. Liquids are my friends. Liquids have never betrayed me (except for that one unfortunate event in the hospital involving chocolate milk). So I got the aforementioned sweet potato fries (which were just alright) and a strawberry, orange, cherry and pomegranate juice which sounds lovely in theory but in practice was sour as hell because I didn’t ask them to add agave nectar and immediately heartburn inducing, which is a very bad thing when you’re prone to puking your guts up, so I’d take a sip of juice, then a sip of water. Blake & Charlie got tofu burgers. Blake’s had thai peanut sauce on it that looked like diarrhea and Charlie got one with sauteed mushrooms, which I was envious of because I love mushrooms and I would have got a side order of those if I knew it was an option (it wasn’t on the menu as such, so I suppose it probably wasn’t an option).

When dinner was finished, I was feeling pretty good, no real nausea to speak of, so we went to the art gallery that was hosting the Photomobile, which was multi-leveled and we started watching the flamenco dancers as we’d agreed upon beforehand. I used the little seat on my walker to sit while Blake and Charlie stood behind me and Charlie told us a bit about the history of that type of dancing and how he’d seen it before when he’d spent time in Spain. As he was telling us this, the first wave of nausea hit where I thought I might be okay, that it was *just* nausea and that I wouldn’t puke, but then the second wave hit and I asked Blake to scope out a bathroom sooner rather than later. He found one and came back and we left Charlie to watch the rest of the performance while I left my walker outside the bathroom with Blake and in I went, into the handicap stall so I’d have room to kneel down and pretty much as soon as I did, I started hurling. Violently. Now, the problem with puking in a public bathroom when you’re me, as opposed to a bowl on my bed, is that my legs still aren’t that strong and I had a HELL of a time getting back up. I thought I was going to have to call Blake on my cell phone to come in and help get me up off the floor because I just couldn’t do it and after barfing like that, I was left feeling pretty weak. Luckily though, I made it up, I blew the vomit out of my nose, rinsed my mouth with water, got a piece of gum and was ready to go.

Charlie had spoken to a woman who worked for the gallery prior to his flying out here, to make sure that there would be wheelchair/walker access to the Photomobile and since there wasn’t really, she arranged for us to go down to the loading dock, where the Photomobile was, in their freight elevator and the elevator operator would stay with us to take us back up when we were finished which was VERY nice of her and VERY thoughtful of Charlie.

So apres vomitage, we headed down to the Photomobile where, as it turned out, each of us had 2 photographs in the exhibit. We tried to find our photos on our own, but I could only find one of mine (one of the shots of Wes, but not the best shot), Blake only found one of his and Charlie couldn’t find any of his at all, so we had to ask the organizer for assistance, which we got, and our photos were found. I took my camera with me and took pictures of our pictures but they were kinda dark/blurry and you guys have already seen the scanned ones (if you read my last post) anyway so I didn’t upload those to post here this time. My second photo was one of Blake and Madison, Blake’s second photo was a crappy, blurry one of two mini flower pots on our windowsill  and both of Charlie’s were carnival shots. I think one was a ride of some sort and one was of a concession stand, both night shots and both better than mine or Blake’s (bastard!). In hindsight what I should have taken a picture of was the Photomobile itself so you could see how it was set up but I never even thought of that until about half an hour ago. Oops.

I was feeling pretty sick/wiped out after the Photomobile so we had the elevator operator drop us off at the basement where artists were making art and we milled around there for a while just shooting the shit until it got to the point where I felt like I was going to start passing out, so we took the inner elevator up to the ground floor, Blake pulled the car around, we said good-bye to Charlie and we started driving toward home.

The drive was pretty uneventful.

When we got home, I had Blake help me out of my clothes and into my hospital gown as fast as possible because I was feeling like I was going to hurl again and as soon as we got my gown on, I grabbed the bowl on the bed and barfed up the rest of my dinner. Then I checked e-mail, e-mailed Charlie (or maybe that was Sunday morning, I forget) and went to bed.

So that was basically my weekend.

Today was another hectic day because today was the day I’d be seeing my surgeon. To be fair, it wasn’t supposed to be hectic, things just turned out that way.

First, Blake woke me up early. I hate waking up early. But at least I didn’t have to get up as early as my mother, who lives about an hour and 15 minutes away from us and who would be accompanying us to the doctor’s office. So  I got up early, got washed up, got dressed (with Blake’s help) and we waited for her because we were all going to go in our car.

My mom got here and we shot the shit for a bit while Blake finished up some work because technically he worked from home today, and then it was time to leave so we did. (Riveting! I know!)

I should also mention that until today at 3pm, I was vac-free because the doctor would want to see my cheese pizza wound, so yesterday when Siske came, she put on a “traditional dressing”, as opposed to the vac dressing because the vac dressing is a pain in the ass to put on for one day and it hurts like hell when they take it off. Also, you can’t just take a vac dressing off a bit of the way to “take a peek” and retape it because you break the seal, so it was decided that a traditional dressing was the way to go and that consisted of some gauze laid over the wound, followed by this big bad thing, and then the whole thing taped down with the same drape they use for the vac that looks like Mac-Tak (not sure if I spelled that correctly, think clear vinyl shelf paper). That way the doctor could take it almost all of the way down to look at the wound and then put it back with more drape.

So we get to the doctor’s office and almost immediately we’re put into an exam room (so much for the myth of Canadian waiting times) even though we were early. Not 5 minutes later, the doctor was in there with us and she had me up on the table to look at my wound. The good news is that it’s healing a LOT faster than expected (cuz I’m muthafuckin’ WOLVERINE *snick snick*), the bad news is that it’s a little bit infected. To fight the infection, she’s asked the nurses to dress it with silver somehow, like in a cream (??) underneath the vac dressing but the order wasn’t sent out until after Siske was here so we won’t be doing that until Friday.

The doctor asked me how I was feeling so I told her about all of the barfing and she prescribed me a drug called domperidone which basically pushes food through you faster. Her theory on what has been happening is that my stomach is so messed up by my organs being all over the place that food sits in my stomach longer than the body thinks is permissible and so instead of sending it down, it comes up instead. This drug will remedy that and just based on using it today before lunch, I agree. I haven’t eaten a whole ton today (so far) but I haven’t thrown any of it up either when just last week I barfed up THREE GODDAMN RASPBERRIES. I just took my second dose of it now with intentions of eating in about half an hour and I’m almost positive I won’t feel sick afterward.

The doctor wanted to see another CAT scan of my abdomen, blood work and a urine test before making any surgical decisions today, so she made some calls and the hospital said I could come in “right now” and they’d do the CAT scan. So off we went to the hospital where I was given a gown and a housecoat and asked to wait in the waiting room with my posse. Five minutes later (oh, damn those Canadian wait times!) they called my name and I was brought to the nurse’s room where I had to drink this fucking nasty dye in two cups of orange juice. Then they told me to wait while they called the lab to have someone come down and take blood to check my creatine levels to make sure my kidneys could handle the IV kind of dye (which had been an issue when I was in the hospital before). While we waited, the nurse put an IV in the crook of my right arm “just in case” (I hate that) and by the time she was finished, the lab guy was there to take blood so she got out of the way for him and he poked and prodded and then he gave me the bad news that the only decent vein he could find was on my ring finger’s knuckle which is a VERY painful place to have blood drawn from. Possibly the worst. And even then, when you draw blood from there, you don’t get as much blood as you would from other sites and he only got 1/2-3/4 of a vial.

After he was finished, the nurse said I could go in the waiting room with Blake and my mom because I had to wait another 45 minutes or so for the dye to take effect so that’s what I did. The whole time trying really hard not to puke it all up even though there was a nice, clean, inviting garbage can within spitting distance of where I was sitting. Oh and for anyone who cares, I now weigh 55kg or 121 lbs. Before I got sick, I weighed around 160 lbs and at the height of my fluid retention, I weighed 220 lbs.

Anyway, when it was my turn (I waited no more than 10 minutes over the time it would have taken the dye to take effect), they escorted me to the CT room and a lady helped me lay on my back on the slidey tray thing and they did the first round of images. Then one of the techs came in, while I was still deep in the machine, with my arms over my head, and hooked up my IV to…something, I couldn’t see. He held my hands while the lady in the booth injected the dye, which was a very strange experience. First it makes you feel really warm like you’re having a hot flash, then it makes you feel like you’ve pee’d your pants. Once the dye was in me, the guy left the room and the lady started the machine back up for the next series of images. Then I was finished and the guy slid me out and he asked me what caused all of “this” so I explained to him that a gallstone clogged my pancreatic duct and everything kinda went to hell from there. I should also mention that this tech had seen me earlier when I was in the nurse’s office and he recognized me because he was the tech for the two times they drained my lungs. Who knew I was so memorable?

After that we had to go to the lab, which was down the road from the hospital. The hospital lab doesn’t do outpatient blood work anymore, which is why we had to go to the second location. When we got there, they saw me right away (again, with the cursed wait times!) and the lady had a fairly easy time finding a vein in the crook of my arm which pissed me off because the hand one fucking HURT and the guy didn’t even really TRY to find a vein in my arm. Also the nurse who put my IV in had little to no trouble finding a vein to put my IV in either so I conclude that the lab guy was a DOUCHE.

Then I had to pee in a little plastic jar and of course I pee’d all over my hand because for some reason, I find the older I get, the harder it is to pee into one of those little bottles. Maybe it’s because I have bigger vulva than I did when I was a kid? That’s my theory because when I was a kid and I had to do it (I used to get a lot of bladder infections), I could fit my entire genitalia inside the jar and that’s just not possible now. Also now there’s hair which misdirects all over the damn place, making things difficult. But I did it and that was that and we came home and then my mom went home and then Siske came and put the vac dressing on me and then Blake got me a 4″ sub for lunch from Subway but they put too much pepper on it so I gave it to Madison after about 4 bites and that was basically my whole day. I’ve just been internetting ever since Siske left, pretty much.

Two observations of my surgeon though, good signs if you will:

1. She has the top part of the bridge of her nose pierced. She wears glasses at the office to cover it up but I bet she wears contacts during her off hours.

2. She has a tattoo on her foot. Something small and Celtic-y.

These two things obviously impressed me. Another thing is that Siske has nothing but nice things to say about her, going so far as to say that if she ever needed ANY type of surgery, she’d want my surgeon to do it. Siske says she’s the best. Plus I just really like her, she’s down to earth and no bullshit. I kinda wish she were my big sister.

So that was my day.

Now I have two things to show you. First, my trache hole, which the doctor says I don’t have to bandage anymore:

Second…I can’t remember if I mentioned this before but during my time at St. Mike’s where I was unconscious most of the time, I developed a pretty huge bedsore on the back of my head, which has only just healed itself. This bedsore is surrounded by a rather large bald spot where the hair is just starting to grow back. I was really embarrassed about it so I wasn’t going to show you guys, but I’m kind of over that now, it’s not like it was my fault and my hair covers it so you can’t even see it, so what the fuck, here it is:

These pics were taken on Thursday or Friday.

Okay, now I’m going to eat my dinner and put my tired ass to bed.
Hope everyone had a great day!

Hi there.

It is I, Sunny Crittenden, textibitionist extraordinaire and I’m here to…probably bore you to tears.

Honestly, nothing’s really been happening. Life’s just kinda gone by without any real events or anything.

Raymond has decided to join us for D&D and since we’ve only had 2 encounters so far, we’re just going to pull a Buffy and pretend he’s Dawn and just have him appear and give him the XP that we all have.  And and and…

So we did that on Sunday, then we watched Game of Thrones. I haven’t read those books but I cannot conceive of how they’re going to resolve everything in one hour next Sunday. Is it a 2 hour finale?

I have cramps like fucking crazy and they will not go away no matter how many drugs I throw at them. I just ran out of Tylenol 3 a few days ago and can’t get any more for another 30 days because that’s how my doctor prescribes it.

This morning I had a shower. Shocking, I know. But when I got out of the shower, the nail polish on my fingers was peeling off! And now, since the nail polish was green, my fingernails are yellow! I look like I’ve been smoking 6 packs a day with all of my fingers or something and no amount of nail polish remover is getting it off. I’m told, via Twitter, that I should have used a basecoat but since I already spent *murmers* on nail polish this month, I don’t want to go out and buy any of that but I’m told topcoat will probably do the trick.

HOWEVER, I think tonight we should really go to Wal*Mart to buy dirt and hooks so I can get my cucumbers planted and I bet they sell basecoat there, just not OPI basecoat, unfortunately. Blake won’t like that I want to go to Wal*Mart but it’s something that needs to be done or my cucumber plants are going to die. They look as though they’re getting ready to flower as it is and right now they’re just in beer cups. We need the hooks to hang the planters because we’re growing them upside down. And we need to do it like, 2 weeks ago.

So I’ve been using Lush’s Big shampoo and Veganese conditioner and I’ve noticed that in using these two products, one of which is 50% sea salt, it makes my hair kinda curly. My VERY straight, won’t hold a curl to save its life, hair. Wavy. Little loose ringlets. Here, let me show you (please ignore my fat, ugly face):

Isn’t that weird? When I brush it out, it goes straight again, but with the slightest bit of humidity it curls right back up. I’m thinking it’s gotta be the sea salt in the Big shampoo doing this and I realize it’s a small thing on the surface but I’ve had stick straight hair my whole life, the idea of volume and BODY has been absolutely unheard of. Many times in my childhood I had perms, only to have them fall out a few weeks later, if that.

Anyway, it’s a bloody miracle.

Y’know what I love? Cakepops. Just throwin’ that out there.

Know what I don’t love? The fact that I haven’t sold a painting in like, over 8 months. That sucks. What sucks even more, which pertains to this, is that I have absolutely no desire to paint right now. I’m all out of inspiration. I am sick to death of fairies. And mermaids. And angels. And I’m tired of making pretty girls in pretty dresses JUST to make pretty girls in pretty dresses. I *should* be painting Asian girls as mermaids and fairies and angels and pretty girls in dresses now that I know how to draw them but I just don’t want to. I’m burnt out. I should also be making more ACEOs with girls of colour on them since all the ACEOs I have up in my Etsy shop are all white girls, but I just don’t have it in me right now.

All I seem to want to do any more is sleep and read books and work and that’s it. That’s all I’ve got.

But I feel like I should be squeezing every drop of productivity out of myself and it makes me very upset that I’m not doing that, that I’m not over-achieving. That I don’t have something “on the go”. I *ALWAYS* have something “on the go”, just not right now and that bothers me immensely. I feel like I’m in a rut and I don’t know how to get out of it.

I see my shrink during my vacation and I’m afraid her only advice is going to be to quit my job, which simply isn’t an option, but what else can she tell me? This is not a chemical thing, she can’t adjust my meds and make this better.

Usually I approach a painting thinking “this is going to be the best thing I’ve ever painted!” and generally I do tend to top myself most of the time, I think. But now I just don’t have the fire in my belly, I don’t have the ideas I usually have. I wonder if this *isn’t* because of my last increase in my meds and maybe she needs to up the Wellbutrin. I dunno. I’m just not happy with myself ion any way, shape or form lately and I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t feel myself.

Blah. Whining. I’ll stop.

In other news, it’s been 11 days since my last cigarette and I have (almost) no desire to smoke ever again. A few days ago I kinda wanted to, but now I think I’m okay. I’m still going to be avoiding any and all smokers like the plague for the next few months but I think I’m okay doing my own thing right now. I’m lucky that none of my friends smoke. Really the only person I know who smokes anymore is my mom. They’re a dying breed, fortunately. (Well, depending on how you want to look at it…I don’t really want my mom to die but she’s killing herself of her own free will and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Emphysema, here she comes. At the VERY least. I told you I was in the preachy phase of quitting smoking!)

Right now I’m re-reading The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and I totally forgot how freaky her version of the future is in this book. I haven’t seen the movie, but I want to.

Anyway, I think I’m going to go find something else to do. I can’t think of anything else to write or bitch about and nothing much is really happening in my life these days (that I can write about anyway). Have your pets spayed and neutered and have a lovely day.

Speaking of spaying and neutering…

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Help RAPS win $25,000!

My friend Phaedie loses one of her friends at least once a week. That’s because she works for a high-capacity cat sanctuary in Richmond, British Columbia, run by the Richmond Animal Protection Society, and unfortunately feline leukemia and feline AIDS is a part of the job, especially when dealing with such close quarters.

To keep cats out of shelters, people need to spay and neuter their pets and that’s what RAPS is aiming to do with Pepsi Canada’s Refresh Project contest. Their aim, with the $25,000 to be won, is to help low-income families spay, neuter and vaccinate their pets in order to help curb the already problematic business of sick, unwanted pets.

So how can you help? It’s easy. Click here and vote. You can sign in using Facebook connect so it really does only take 2 clicks and you’d be making a world of difference for animals and their people. Plus you’d be making Phaedie and I incredibly happy.

We need to try and get them to #1 or #2 as only the top 2 spots receive funding. Currently they’re in 3rd place, so we need to make a solid push to get then into 2nd! I know people don’t have money to give to every charity that comes their way, but if you’d normally be clicking on Farmville crops anyway, please use your mouse-fingers for this as well and help make a difference in the world. Thanks.

The contest voting is until June 30th, it’s a daily vote and I’ll be posting every few days to remind you to vote in case you forget.

Last night was Madison’s birthday and we decided not to go to yoga in favour of her opening her gift (a keyboard) and a trip to….drumroll please….the Lush store! I’d never actually been to a Lush store before, so I was pretty stoked and Madison was pretty stoked because I said I’d buy her stuff.

So without further ado, here’s my haul.

First, the store:

I was too chickenshit to pull my camera out IN the store so this is where the pictures end of that.

The experience was GREAT. The guy who was helping us was knowledgeable and nice and helpful and helped me find everything I had on my list. Something I learned about actual Lush stores is that first of all, that’s the only way you can get fresh face masks because they’re so fresh and they only last 3 weeks so you can’t get them on the website and they’re lovely. Second of all, you can get your soap cut to any amount you want, so I got 405g of Summer Pudding soap, with the intention of cutting it up once I got home. When you order from the website, they send you 100g chunks. There was something very satisfying about having a HUGE chunk of soap to cut up, but more on that later. Here’s what else I got:

Hippy Chick bath bombs for Wes

Dorothy bubble bar for Eryn (Madison’s best friend)

Sunny Side bubble bar for Madison

Bubblegum Lip Scrub for Madison

Self explanatory – for me.

Essentials.

I’ve never used this one before but hopefully it reverses what the one called Cupcake did to me. For the first time in my 32 years on this Earth, I have acne and I blame Cupcake.

Ocean Salt Scrub samples

Big Shampoo, which is the best shampoo I’ve ever used.
It’s 50% sea salt!

A metric fuck tonne of Summer Pudding soap!

So that was my night. After we got home, we watched the season finale of 90210 and I cut up soap into single-serve pieces. And my office still smells lovely!

I wanted the Summer Pudding soap to use when I use bath bombs like Dragon’s Egg or Twilight that are sweet-smelling and since I have a ton of both of those, I needed a ton of soap. One day I’ll show you all my Lush drawer; one drawer in my dresser is ALL full of Lush stuff.

Anyway, after all that I couldn’t sleep and I was laying in bed regretting all the things I didn’t buy, like a Buffy exfoliant body butter bar, so at midnight I got up and made another Lush order online and then I could finally sleep. SO expect another Lush haul post soon!

The present.

This post is going to be done in pieces because technically I’m at work, so I apologize if it’s disjointed. Just for posterity, I started writing this at 10:30am.

Last night my mom, John and John’s son Chris were here, delivering to us a new fridge and stove. We didn’t particularly need a new fridge and stove, but John had updated his and his old ones didn’t have a home, so I called dibs for the sole reason that if we included a fridge and stove with the sale of our house, we might get more money for it. I like the fridge we have (it’s the only appliance I’ve ever picked out myself, not counting the washing machine, which I picked out too, but based on the fact that it was cheap) so we’d take that one with us, but put John’s fridge in its place when we start showing the house and then tell people the stove comes with the house too. The next house we have will probably have a stove and if it doesn’t, we’re financially stable enough right now that we could theoretically buy a new stove.

I’m still not sure about the washer and dryer though. Our washing machine is only 5 years old and the dryer is old, it came with the house. So I’m thinking we’d leave the dryer but take the washer, if the new house doesn’t come with one or both.

My mom gave me a Maple Leafs puck and I started bawling. She hugged me and I almost snotted all over her coat. She said she wasn’t mad at me for not being able to stay at the Leafs game on Saturday. I feel better about the whole thing now because my mom and John being mad at me for wasting the tickets was my biggest fear. I mean, they were a gift and the best Xmas gift I’ve ever gotten at that, too, which made the whole thing sting even more.

Anyway, I don’t want to talk about it.

Yesterday I finished reading The Colour Purple, which I loved, but I knew I would because I love the movie. The book is different of course, but not by much, it’s just the relationships, really, that are richer in the book than in the movie. For example, lesbianism between Celie and Shug is only really hinted at in the movie, but it’s blatant and more fleshed out in the book. When I finished it, I kinda felt sad though. That book won the Pulitzer Prize when it was originally published and I’ll never write anything even remotely close to being that good as long as I live. I may write a book or two before my time is up, even if they’re published on a vanity press, but I know they won’t be at par with any of the books I love and that bothers me. The solution of course, is to do better, but I’m not sure I can. I just don’t think I’m talented enough for it.

Blake is though, but he never writes anymore. I’m half-assedly (not really) working on something, but even I can recognize it as basically pulp trash that’ll probably never see the light of day. My friend Robert is casually helping me make it better though, but I’m still only half-assedly working on it (for example, I still haven’t even read the whole thing, since I started writing it over 6 years ago; I’m reading books instead).  Blake and I are brainstorming on a writing project that I think has a lot of promise, but who knows what’ll ever happen with that. We have the kernel of an idea, a GOOD idea, but that’s about it.

Speaking of creativity, yesterday 13 new canvases and 12 x 16 inch watercolour paper arrived. The canvases I got because I only had 12 x 12 inch ones and I wanted ones that were long enough to make flying fairies and angels on. The big watercolour paper is for making girls to put on the 24 x 48 inch canvas I bought a while back. I can really only work on one project or thing at a time, for example, if I’m reading a book, that’s all I can do, if I’m working on a story, that’s all I can do, if I’m working on a painting, that’s all I can do, I can’t do any other activities – except maybe watching TV – outside of the thing I’m working on. I don’t know why this is.

Last night after I finished The Colour Purple, I started reading Room, so I guess that’s my project for the time being, although at this point it’s relegated to the bathroom so it’s possible I can work on something at the same time, but probably not a writing project. I also still have to read Robert’s book, which should probably take priority over Room.

I also want to go to Michael’s this weekend and buy up all of their glitter paper because that shit is magic and I’m terrified they’ll discontinue it. It’s cardstock encrusted with glitter. I used it on the angel’s gown that I put in my sketchbook for The Sketchbook Project. The stuff’s $3.99 a sheet but totally worth it, in my opinion. I have one sheet of every colour, but I want to get as much of it as I can for the painting projects I have planned for the year, the first of which is that giant canvas, except I can’t figure out a background for it or WHERE to work on it because it’s so big, so that’s why I haven’t done anything with it yet. I also don’t have a circle-draw-er that’s big enough to do big girls, so I have to get one of those too.  I’m hoping to find something that let’s you trace big circles, like the circle ruler I have, rather than the math kind of circle-draw-er because that leaves a pointy dent in the middle and my girls’ eyes will never be uniform if I use one of those and that’s no good. But now I have the right size paper and I’m going to be buying more glitter paper this weekend (hopefully) and then I have to figure out my circle dilemma.

~*IT’S ALMOST KWISH TIME*~

My kwish is done and is cooling on the other side of my desk. Lately I’ve been making it with only 2 eggs, cut up shaved ham, frozen broccoli (in the bottom), a touch of salt and what I call “diet cheese” because I never really looked at the package so I’m not sure what its deal really is. I think it might be made out of 2% milk instead of regular milk or something, but it has like, half the calories of regular cheese and about 1/3 of the fat. I haven’t reduced the caloric count of this type of kwish, like on paper, mostly because I’m lazy, but I know it’s a big less than the 400 calorie kwish I originally made with regular cheese and bacon.

I’ve lost 3 & a half lbs in 2 weeks just by eating kwish for breakfast and eating less junk food.

And this brings me to….the metabolic clinic I’m in.

~*THE METABOLIC CLINIC DEBACLE*~

Okay so it’s not really a “debacle” but so far it’s felt like one. Last Tuesday I had to go to the clinic for 2 hours, see a dietitian for an hour and right after that, see a recreation therapist for an hour and it was all just way too much for one day.

The first “module” of the metabolic clinic was about the metabolism and metabolic syndrome, which all of the participants, including me, have because of our medications.  Long story short, all of our metabolisms are now slow because of the medications we’re on and that has lead us all to gain weight and in some cases gain weight AND crave food where there were no cravings before. I don’t have the craving food thing but I did when I was on risperidone and olanzapine and that’s what caused most of my weight gain, along with the slowed metabolism at the same time. I know I’ve explained this before.

So the beginning of the first clinic module was introductions, which I can’t really tell you about because everything is supposed to be confidential and I’m choosing to respect that for the most part, and just telling my side of things. After introductions, which took forever because this one girl wouldn’t stop talking, Dr. D, the shrink who runs the clinic, along with 2 nurses, did a powerpoint presentation that was like an introduction to the clinic and what we’re going to be talking about, what’s expected of them, what’s expected of us. After she was finished, we took a break so the smokers could go out and have a smoke and snacks were served (not all of them healthy, I might add, which I found kinda fucked up) and also during this time, binders and pedometers were handed out. The binders contained a copy of Dr. D’s presentation, the one the nurse was going to give after the break and a copy of the next week’s (this week’s) presentation called “My Body and I”.

They told us they wanted us to keep a food journal and to wear our pedometers with the goal being 3k steps per day, which I laughed at because, yeah right…and that was pretty much the end of the first module.

Something noteworthy before I continue though, is that there was this guy in the group who was a nursing student and he kept STARING AT ME. Like, overtly. It was creepy and I don’t know what his deal was. I mean, it’s possible he’s seen me naked on the internet and that’s the connection, but whatever it was it was so obnoxious I almost didn’t go to this week’s module.

Anyway, after the clinic I had to see the dietitian who I disliked. Her whole deal was following Canada’s Food Guide, which I mostly think is bunk. She didn’t like my high protein, low carb diet and asked that I start eating toast with my kwish so that is what I’m doing to mostly humour her. I used to eat 2 pieces of toast with my eggs before, so I know it’s probably not going to hurt me, but I don’t see why it’s necessary considering I’m not hungry after eating kwish, but whatever, that’s what she told me to do so that’s what I’m doing. She told me about the “glycemic index” and therefore I’ve been eating wholegrain honey wheat toast every day after my kwish even though I think toast is disgusting and we’re even out of jam, so all I have to put on it is margarine, which is just *shudder*.  She also said that I’m not eating enough calories in a day but she got sidetracked and failed to tell me how many calories I SHOULD be eating per day. From what I’ve read online, I need 2000 to MAINTAIN weight, 1500 to LOSE weight. I usually end up eating about 1200-1300, often less, sometimes more, but on AVERAGE, 1200-1300. I usually aim for meals to be 300-400 calories and snacks around 100 (x2). I don’t eat lunch because it’s now almost 1pm and I just finished BREAKFAST. If I ate lunch a few hours from now, I wouldn’t eat dinner.

Anyway, she was boring, judgmental, holier than thou and mostly uninformative. She’d never heard of the paleo diet, she’d never heard of the Android app “Calorie Counter” where you can use your phone to scan barcodes and it’ll bring up the nutritional information and she wanted me to eat way more than anything I’ve ever read says I should. Blake didn’t like her either.

After we saw her, we had to go across the road and see the recreation therapist, which was mostly useless too. She gave me “homework”, which I’ll scan at some point, but I still have no idea what the point of seeing this woman was. She was nice, an optimist to the core but not in an obnoxious way, but ultimately useless to me, I think. I do recreation quite well on my own, I don’t need someone to help me with that. She was talking about super longterm goals, none of which had anything to do with losing weight or getting more exercise, which I appreciated, but I don’t need her help with my art goals, which is what she focused on. (Which which which.) I’m supposed to see her again in February for reasons I don’t quite understand and then hopefully I’ll never have to see her again. I mean, we’re not even going to be living in the area by the time these “goals” come around, so they’re empty goals anyway. Like, one of her suggestions was to do local art shows in the future, well for one, I wouldn’t do that and for two, where is “local”? Anything “local” is a waste of time and like I said, we’ll have moved by the time these things roll around anyway so making them and seeing this woman is just a waste of my time. In fact, I don’t even think I’m going to go see her in February, I thought the whole thing was that useless. Nice lady, but seriously not needed. I can see how other people might need her services, I just don’t.

So that was all last Tuesday. Then yoga was cancelled. (Booooo.)

This Tuesday was module 2, “My Body & I”, which was more about metabolism and really a more fleshed out version of the first one. Staring nurse boy wasn’t there, there was another nurse GIRL, so maybe we get a different one each time.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that they take our blood pressure, weight and waist measurement before each class. I won’t tell you what my stats are but this week their scale said I GAINED a lb (Wii Fit disagrees by -3 lbs) but I lost an inch on my waist. The nurse said their scale sucked and to go with what the Wii Fit said. She also said I could gain depending on where I am in my menstrual cycle and I’m only a few days away so that’s a possibility too.

My pedometer wasn’t working properly, so I had them switch it with a new one (they come from the government) but the screen was so faint I could only read the numbers if I held it at the right angle, so I gave up on it and on our way home I stopped off at Wal*Mart and got Blake and I each new ones. I’ll give the old one back to the people at the clinic.

According to my new pedometer that actually works, I average about 1500 steps just puttering around the house. I have no idea how I’m going to double that though. (And I’m not looking for suggestions either. That’ll just piss me off.) What I need is a treadmill that I can use during my newly imposed forced breaks from work. That way I could read while I walk and I wouldn’t get sweaty & need a shower after like I do on the elliptical, which I hate and will not use because of the sweat factor and the “not being able to read while doing it” factor and the “not enough time to watch something on TV while doing it” factor. Also I just hate the fucking thing and it’s mostly used as a coat rack. A treadmill I’d actually use and that’s what I wanted to get originally anyway, but the elliptical was cheaper so that’s what we got. Blake uses it occasionally and I use it never.

Anyway, blah, I don’t have the money for a treadmill so I don’t even know why I’m going on and on about it. I have no idea how I’m going to double my steps.

And that’s pretty much all there is to the metabolic clinic so far.  It’s apparently won all these awards and stuff but so far they haven’t told me anything I didn’t already know and the only thing they’ve really said to do to lose weight so far is to walk 3k steps/day. Next week and the week after, the dietitian is going to be doing her powerpoint presentations, so we’ll see what she has to say. Also included in the group is a pharmacist, who’s going to talk to us one-on-one about our medications, which again, may be helpful for some, but there’s not a whole lot I don’t know about the ones I’m on because I know how to use the internet. But we’ll see what she has to say, I guess. She seems to be the most knowledgeable out of all the “professionals” involved in this thing and drugs are interesting to me so I don’t mind seeing her even though I have very little to discuss with her.

I’m not sure what next week’s module is about but there are 9 weeks left. On Tuesdays I work 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours when I get back from the clinic and then I make up the other 4 hours by doing 2 hours each on Saturday and Sunday. I hate working weekends, it’s really starting to burn me out, but I don’t really have a choice and I’m fortunate enough to have a flexible employer so I can’t really complain. When the clinic is done, she wants me to take 1 or 2 hour breaks every day and make up 5 hours on weekends, which is what I meant by “forced breaks”. I was really upset when she proposed this and I still kind of am because working 7 days a week really is burning me out and frying my nerves, but if I need her to be flexible to do this metabolic clinic then I have to be flexible for her too. She said that if I needed a weekend I could work my normal 8 hour shift during the week and take one, but I won’t be able to do that for another 9 weeks because of the stupid clinic.

People have told me that I could have used this opportunity to get a raise, but I trust my bosses to reward me for good work done when they feel it’s time. I’ve only been working for them for 4 & a half months.

What else? Hrm…

Blake got me a card for the new hair salon that opened up in town and after the metabolic clinic ends, I’m going to make an appointment for a cut & colour and I’m going to walk there and back myself. Or at least that’s the idea. We’ll see how it goes.

And that’s really all I can think of at the moment, so I think I’m going to look at Lush stuff while I answer work e-mails.

Today a box came.

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