Tuesday, September 23, 2008
SUCK IT, KIDNEY
My left kidney hates me. This I know. Either that, or God does. One or the other because it's happening all over again.For the past few days, I have been in tremendous pain with tremendous nausea, and a tremendous amount of vomiting. Lovely. Nothing says "healthy" like bending over the toilet every 10 mins barfing your brains out. Now I'm back on my chemotherapy nausea medication to try and keep it under control. Thankfully I can take pills now, so it's all a heck of a lot easier to manage this time around and I don't have to beg the doctors like a strung-out junkie for some liquid painkiller.
Now lest you think this has something to do with my gastric bypass surgery: wrong. I've had issues with this bitchy kidney since I got the Ecoli virus (yes, THAT was a good time) back in my late 20s and almost died*. The doctor told me then that I had some kidney damage and I'd likely be dealing with suck-ass** kidneys for the rest of my life. I suppose there's worse things I could be dealing with, but with this kind of pain, it's hard to imagine what.
And in the wake of all this, I'm getting bills for my summer surgeries that the insurance companies haven't covered. I just got a $7100*** bill from the hospital for my first kidney surgery this summer. I still have to call them and yell at them, but what the F was I supposed to do? My kidney was septic and if they hadn't operated, I would have DIED. I'm pretty sure my options were kind of limited there. Of course, if I had this $7100 bill in hand, I may have made another choice.
Now can we PLEASE have some serious discussion about socialized health care? Pretty please?!?!?
P.S. My kidney thanks you in advance.
*I was 27 and had I waited one more day to come in, I would have died. Not exactly the chipper kind of news you want to hear when lying on a table IN YOUR 20s trying to not go into the light.
**Not his words, but might as well have been.
***I shit you not.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
WEEK # 25 WEIGH-IN RESULTS
Monday, September 15, 2008
WEEK # 24 WEIGH-IN RESULTS & I MET BARACK OBAMA!!!!
Saturday, September 06, 2008
TURNING BACK THE CLOCK
One of my biggest fears with losing weight (besides the inevitable plastic surgery) was looking OLDER. For most of my life, I looked much younger than I was, but as soon as I hit 30 - WHAM! I was looking like a seriously old hag. After watching a lot of post-op videos and looking at post-op pics, I realized that I could be potentially setting myself up for early admittance into the old-folks home. That scared me, because if my fat was good for anything, it was good for plumping up wrinkles and acting as Mother Nature's botox. I saw too many photos and videos of people looking older, and I *so* don't want that to be me. Vain? Yes. I admit it.This week has proven to be a huge ego boost for me. I've been mistaken for much younger than I am no fewer than three times. I had two auditions this week where I had to reveal my age. At the first one, the 30-ish woman standing next to me joked about the age section of the audition form and then watched me write "36." She literally gasped and said, "You're 36!?!?" I told her yes and she said, "I would have guessed 28." I told her she was my new best friend.
The next audition, I was joking with one of the younger girls in the dance audition that the young people had to be in the front. She said that I was not much older than her, and then I laughed out loud when she said she was 26. I told her I was 10 years older than her and she said, "Huh. I would have guessed 30."
After that, I was a Target talking with the cashier about something age-related, and she said something like, "you're far too young for that anyway." I told her I was 36 and she said, "Wow - I would not have guessed over 30."
NICE.
I also got a lot of comments about how much younger I look on my youtube videos, which is so nice. (Important to note: my video camera is pretty awesome at hiding wrinkles and signs of aging, though.) So I'm feeling much, much better about the aging thing. It seems like time might be going slightly backwards for me now, and I dig it.
Now, am I hearing what I want to hear? Probably, but I don't care. Youth is energy and outlook too, so I'm sticking with it. I refuse to look the part. Hair dye, boas, and all things sparkly for me, please.
Now if you'll excuse me, Hannah Montana is on TV right now.
