Not Now, Not Yet, Soon

Today I got good news.

Nothing writing-related, mind you. Life-related. The sort of news that’s supposed to make you kick off your shoes, dance a jig and then scream at the world, “Take that! I’m still here, bitches!”

But it wasn’t. At least not for me. Relief, mostly, but soured with a drop of doubt. I never get quite clear and free from this sort of thing. There are always more tests in another year’s time. The standard ultrasounds, chest x-rays, seasonal blood work requisitions, and now a bone density test thrown in there to make sure the endoskeleton doesn’t get any ideas about going soft. It’s always another year. For followups that were supposed to last only five years after surgery, we’re now in year seven, and I keep wondering if I will ever get to walk away from this and be told, “Your clean. Your family doctor can take it from here.”

I’m a subscriber to my own health, chronically behind, asking the company for a promise-to-pay, an extension, that just keeps getting renewed and renewed, one year at a time. I never get ahead, and that deadline is always looming.

Someone suggested that it must give me a different perspective, a zest for life, that sort of thing. It doesn’t. There’s never a final answer; the one you do get flickers between “not now” and “not yet” depending on your point of view. It’s a gloomy thing, a weight that’s heavy. I normally try my best to not focus on it but sometimes it doesn’t give me the choice, and today was one of those days. Even after the good (and yet “not now”) news. I went to work late because of the appointment and ended up leaving early. If I’d stayed on the phones, if I’d had to listen to just one asshole, I’d have lost it.

The sleep helped. I’m clear-headed. I’m calm. I’m just not bouncing around yet.

I keep waiting to be joyous about the results, but I don’t think it’s coming.

Oh, well. Gotta make your own joy, right?

59 Inches Or So

I’ve been obsessed with ergonomically improving my workspace at home. Not that I’m normally not fiddling with things, but after the last Hypergraphics meeting, where we changed venues and I sat at this desk, this table, this wonderful, perfectly-suited workspace, my obsession has manifested in me carting around a measuring tape between work and home. It’s not pretty, but it’s true.

The Table, which shall forthwith be acknowledged by a capitalized first letter, was an IKEA standard, flat and about 59 inches long. The legs were the cheap non-adjustable variety. And the chair? Ha. Plastic. Unadjustable. And yet the whole thing felt so tailored to my body, my moods, my needs. It said, quietly, stately, that this is a table for work, beautiful, creative work, and that I should sit at it and become one with the work.

Not to get too romantic here, but maybe the table carries some of the resonance of the crafters that use it – the venue ended up being the storefront of one of the members and she offers craft supplies and workshops set around this table.

I’ve long found the desks at work to be exceptionally productive. They’re a good height for me to lean over them and chairs that are low and firm without too many unnecessary adjustment wheels or flaps. It seems so much lower than my desk at home. So did the desk at the meeting. But when I measured them all out, my desk at home is only about an inch taller. Can I really justify swapping everything out for an inch?

We also thought it may just be the chair I’m using. I’m sitting in Todd’s now and I like it, though it leans too far back. And it’s cushy, which is something I always thought I wanted in a chair but the slim little number at work has proved that to be wrong. And what’s really maddening is that I mostly have the go ahead to have an IKEA run for an office update yet I won’t be the one able to go myself. If it happens I’ll be sending Todd out with a list of color coded numbers into the wilds of IKEA alone.

Besides my fussing, the Novelist Blood Pact has been born! I’ve paired up with one of my fellow Hypergraphics for one-on-one encouragement. Time for me to get to work.

PS: A low-iodine diet sucks. That’s all I’m gonna say besides, “Thank god it’s only for three weeks!”

All The Space I Need

Virtually, anyways.

Today was rather productive, with no small thanks to Things, I think. Having the list is really helping, and so is having it on both the computer and the iPhone. I’m even adding things like mini-reminders, things like “bring the magazine to the Hypergraphics meeting” stuff. And now I’ve configured Hyperspaces into four discrete workspaces. Look at me, all organizing and stuff!

Got five days of words typed in over the course of the day, read a bit from The Days Of Rice And Salt, and got house-type stuff like laundry and homemade beef soup. Now it’s computer playtime which, frankly, is never boring.

On the writing front:

1) I was a little overwhelmed at how much I had to type in today – something like 1,600 words. It was helpful to see just how much time I was spending on things other than writing. My time spent chatting with a friend was higher, for a while, then the amount of time spent writing. By the end of the day, it was reverse. Now instead of just suspecting that I’m wasting time, I know.

2) I think I should be done the third short story by Friday. I think. But that still leaves me no close to editing anything. I still need a linking paragraph or two for the second one before I can go back to do an edit. But as for the current story, I’m about to run headlong into the finale. The only weird thing is that there will end up being a break about three-quarters of the way through before linking to the final scene. Is that weird? I don’t know.

3) Hypergraphics Meeting coming up around the corner, too. More discussion of Ad Astra, and possibly World Con. If not World Con, I’m toying with the idea of Artsperience up in North Bay.

4) Had half of my “novel date” session. I think I know how to continue from where I left off and I think that will be next up once I finish the short story draft.

5) I may be going to down to part-time at work. Maybe. We’re going to do our taxes and see where we might be after that. I’d have mornings to write, and evenings to cook, hang out, be social. Could be a very, very good thing, but the decision on that would be a couple of months away.

6) Health stuff. My doctors are running some additional tests in April of the sort where I can make jokes about gamma rays and “HULK SMASH!” Relatively minor(ish), but still something on my mind. There will be a period of days in April where I’m not sure if I should be touching any of my electronics so there may be a personal black-out up ahead. For all my talk last week of an e-hermitage, the real thing is coming up. Going to catch up on my reading, methinks.

Dispel!

If only I was at a high enough level for those spells to work.

First day on the new meds, though I don’t expect to notice anything yet. I’ve had a bit of breakfast (english muffins, three-citrus marmalade, globe grapes and two cups of English Breatkfast tea) and packed, ready to go. Watched yesterday’s Coronation Street and watched the snow come down in furious waves.

Lesley’s co-workers were freaking her out yesterday about the driving conditions.  And, true to form, we got all the snow they promised. Don’t forget the freezing rain in Toronto, too.

*sigh*

But we have all day to get there, so I’m not worried. She’s taken the morning off, so there is aboslutely no rush.

In the meantime, I’m trying to be mellow. March will be mellow. No more freaking myself out. Ride out the low dosage, get my sleep, get back to work when I come home recharged from Ad Astra.

I’ll be computer free until then, so have yourselves a great weekend!

The Vortex

Currently reading The Night Watch.  Modern supernatural horror set in Russia, by a Russian author.  One of the parts of the story entails a woman who is curse, self-cursed in fact, and when you are in the Twilight you can see the manifestation of this curse.  All curses work the same here, some are minor, some catastrophic.  They appear as black, twisting vortexes hanging over the person.  Casual “damn you!” from a stranger, you might have a tiny one circling over head for a day or two, affecting your mood, your luck.  This one, the one the M.C. must deal with, is huge.

I feel like I have my own at the moment.

Called about the blood work and, after being on hold for 45 minutes and being disconnected in the middle, he told me that my THT was very suppressed, perhaps a little too suppressed, and osteoperosis popped up again.  Then he asked how I felt, and I told him.  But how much is real and how much anxiety, eh?  Or the migraines he floated out there last time.  So then instead of refilling me at 150, he says we’ll go down to 125.  He gets off the phone and I’m thinking that it’s less than what I had before, at 137, when after going off the birth control was too low!  

So, a month of being really low then?  Great.

I also asked for one more check-up, some time late April, to be sure as possible that everything was alright before I left for Esnagi.  There’s no hospital up there, no drug store.  He became abrupt, and passed me off to the secretary.  I mentioned the level thing, but I don’t know if that will change anything.

Maybe being so low will help me sleep.  Maybe sleep will help me.

And now, of all things, I cannot get all of the old Liquid Story Binder files to work, IE7 refuses to load either the government website for my EI (but Firefox does) and now won’t let me access Gmail (Firefox does not help me here).  And then the fucker (the computer) crashed on me, but good, when I was browsing RPG.net and updating my iPod.

Just feeling so scared and tense and freaked out … like I’m just shy of slipping away, the world’s going to go sideways on me.  And the low-grade headaches, my neck that feels thick, always stuffed up and feeling like I can’t breathe sometimes.  I wonder if its food related.  I don’t always eat on a regular schedule, and I wonder if I am not drinking enough, not eating enough of the right things. 

Sorry for the babble.  I’ve not edited a thing today so far.  It probably reads very needy and psychotic, but it helps, a little, if I can get it out.  

Tomorrow is Ad Astra.  Maybe I just need a change of scenery.

More tests …

… and not the fun, “I’m going to get my Red Seal!” kind, either.

I had my yearly appointment with the Cancer Center last week. Normally it takes a while, first to register, then to wait, then to be weighed and then called to wait in a different room. This time it was even longer than usual, with me being in the exam room for about a half hour before the doctor came in. He’s a new doctor for me – they are transfering all the thyroid patients over to him – and he’s really going over my file.

He wants all new tests. I’m getting another chest x-ray (they stopped that two years ago), I’m getting an ultrasound in my neck (haven’t had one since the diagnosis process before my surgery), and a new test, to check for trace elements of cancer.

o.O

You would have thought that they would have done this … I dunno … after surgery or something. But instead of the iradiated pill therapy (I think), I’m going to get this $1500 injection that will fool my body (into something) and give them a reading on what’s going on in my throat. The upside is that my drug plan will pay for it, if they deem it necessary (no, I’m asking to take it for kicks …), and that if they don’t, another agency will.

The downside is that there is a 10% chance of getting really sick while I’m on it. Severe headaches, nausea, and vomitting.

Considering how great my chances were the last time around (“Oh, it’s a small chance that it’s anything serious.” … “Oh, it’s a 5% chance that it’s cancer.” …) I’ve decided to pre-emptively take care of it by requesting a week off. I take two injections, on a Monday and Tuesday, and then they take a blood sample on the Friday. I can’t really in good conscious not take the week off – if I don’t and I do get sick, it will screw up the schedule at work.

So, worst case scenario, I’m taking a week off to be sick. Best case scenario, I’m taking a week off to study for my Red Seal test. On Thursday I’m bringing my book into work for him to sign off. If he doesn’t sign it off, then my whole vacation request may be moot anyhow.

Gah … I feel like vomitting just thinking about it all.