Back to Work

Well, I managed to get out here and clock in... an hour.

I'm now tired and going home.

I have the rest of the week off - working from home on Thursday.

Gonna blow this popsicle stand.

Hold the Line: Or, it's Called "Catastrophic Insurance" For A Reason

Last Friday night, I felt kind of down after work so stopped in the 7-eleven on the way home and picked up a couple of hot dogs, looking for an energy boost. The hot dogs gave me heartburn, and I ended up not being hungry for a proper dinner that night. Jenn ordered her own Thai food and we watched some Babylon 5.

The next morning, I made some pancakes, as we do on Saturdays, but wasn't hungry. I tried to drink a protein shake, but my body kept insisting I wasn't hungry. Instead, I continued to drink a lot of water...

I slept all day Saturday. I felt so tired. I figured I'd been stressed all week again, taken 3 days in Indy instead of 2, stressed about the job, the book, all the stuff I should be doing. I was just tired. I was stressed out.

And so, so, tired.

Sunday, the heartburn got worse and worse. I vomited up the protein shake from the day before and started stumbling around like a drunk person, making a beeline from my room to the bathroom. I was so tired and so thirsty.

Jenn went out and bought me some Gatorade, and suggested I slow down my fluid intake and just sip my water. I felt like I had some kind of stomach flu again. Getting to the bathroom was getting tougher.

The last thing I remember is leaning over in my bed and drinking some more juice.

I was just so tired.

I just wanted to sleep forever.

And when I came to, a team of concerned hospital staff were all surrounding me and I was in some kind of windowless room. I could remember my name, and Jenn was there, and I knew who she was, but had no idea what the day was. Apparently, knowing Jenn's name and knowing I was in a hospital was a big step. When they initially brought me in, about all I knew was my own name.

So I'm told.

I have no recollection of much of anything until Tuesday; I was in and out of consciousness Sunday/Monday.

Apparently, Jenn found me standing in the bathroom at around 11:30pm or so Sunday night. She heard me breathing heavily in the bathroom, and when she pushed open the door, found me standing - dead eyed - in the middle of the room facing the door, one pupil dilated more than the other.

She managed to get me to the couch where I apparently starting vomiting red bile.

When she yelled at me, I apparently made odd grunting sounds of acknowledgement, but not coherence. Jenn called 911, and when the paramedics got me into the open air and started yelling at me, they did get actual words from me (so I hear).

From her place in the front of the ambulance, Jenn heard me tell the paramedic, "I'm fine! I'm fine!"

I could barely remember my own name, but I could tell people I was totally, totally fine and nothing was wrong with me.

But I don't remember any of that, and I don't remember anything clearly until they hefted me out of the bed in the emergency room. I'm told they put me on a general floor and I got worse; so they put me back in the ICU. I have little to no memory of Monday, but at some point Jenn came in and asked if she should call my parents. At this point, I still had no idea what was wrong with me, and Jenn had no idea how bad things were.

When my mother talked to the docotr, she said, "How serious is this?"

The doctor said, "Ma'am, let's just say she was my highest priority case last night."

A normal person's blood sugar count should be about 50-100.

When they brought me into the ICU, my blood sugar count was 640-680.

I was pretty much dead.

If I would have gone to bed; if Jenn hadn't checked on me in the bathroom; if Jenn had just shrugged and went to be early; if I was in a hotel room in Indy; I'd be dead right now.

And all I wanted to do was go to sleep. I just wanted to sleep. I'm so tired. Death, for me, was just about being so, so, so, tired.

I have been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. This means that my pancreas has stopped producing insulin all together. Best it's been explained to me, I had the genetic propensity for diabetes, and 6-8 months ago, when I started losing all this weight and getting really thirsty and tired and stressed all the time, I got a virus. It was likely the stomach flu that took me down for a week last year. As with AIDS or cancer, my body turned not only on the virus, but on my pancreas as well.

Because I took good care of myself and was in such good shape, it's taken this long to basically break down my body. My body bled through every single defense it had, and was literally eating me alive, which is why I lost so much weight. Since I couldn't process the food I was eating, I could eat whatever I wanted, and my body burned all of my fat and muscle.

I spent three days in the ICU getting my blood taken every few hours and having my blood sugar taken every hour. They tried three times to dig into my right wrist to open up a line so they wouldn't have to tap me out every time they needed to draw blood. The third time they tried to do this to me, I was actually conscious, and thrashed on the bed while the doctor hunted for an artery with a huge needle and finally stopped - while blood rushed out all over the bed - because I was in too much pain. I'm having trouble using my right hand to turn keys in doors now.

When I was mostly conscious, one of the doctors - a cardiologist from Durban of all places - came in and explained what had happened.

My pancreas had stopped working and I was going to have to rely on insulin shots for the rest of my life.

It was like being hit on the back of the head with a shovel.

My feet started to get numb. My vision was blurry. There was pain and blood every few hours. My period started. My catheter leaked. I got thrush.

Jenn was able to sleep overnight in the room with me the first couple nights, and my mom arrived on Tuesday evening.

On Wednesday, I was moved from the ICU to the general ward; a cold, stark, lonely room with a big dirty window that looked out over the building site of a parking garage.

People in the ICU kept coming in and checking on me. I was the talk of Sunday night, apparently, and no one could quite believe I was alive. All the staff who talked to Jenn asked why I wasn't taking my shots or following my "diabetic diet."

Getting hit on the head with the diabetes type 1 shovel doesn't often happen to a 26 year old. If you have type 1, you generally get it early.

Mine pretty much brought me to death's door.

They got me off the catheter on Wednesday, but that night, my blood sugar spiked again, and they put me back on the insulin. One of my IVs came out, so when the night nurse came to check on me, she found that my arm had swelled up, and had to take out the IV from there and hook it up to the backup IV.

It was cold and dark and awful in that airless room, and when a nurse walked in at 12:30am telling me she was taking my blood again (not the finger prick but the actual digging with a needle, again), I lost it. I lost it just like a little kid and put one hand over my face and said, "No, no no."

"It's fine," she said, "you're going to be fine."

But my wrists and arms were covered in bruises and track marks. The nurses and doctors kept changing. No one knew when I was going to go home. I'd been told I was going home Wednesday, but that didn't happen. I was lucky to get the catheter out (I had to beg and beg). If you want to torture someone, put them in a dank, cold, whitewashed room and leave them alone there. Come in and randomly draw blood and confuse their eating schedules (I had one idiot nurse turn my food away because she was looking at the previous day's meal chart for me), give them a good case of thrush so by the time they're ready to eat solid food swallowing is painful, keep the lights coming on and off and having strange people come in and out and make them lie around in their own blood and urine for three days, and see how it goes.

Three days was my breaking point. I lay there in bed and sobbed and clutched at a bunched up blanket.

Then I was done.

They kept me until Thursday, after much debate among a number of doctors.

I picked up how to do the shots pretty easily, so I guess they felt it was best to send me home before my hospital bill reached 50K (we have a running bet about how much this will be. I have a $2500 deductible, then my insurance pays 80%, and I'll pay the other 20%. Guess where my money's going if I ever sell a book?).

I spent $400 out of pocket for medication, and tottered home with Jenn and my mom.

Jenn saved my life. I was and am lucky to have her. She made surviving the hospital possible. My mom's been invaluable here just for helping with basic things like taking out the trash and doing the laundry and getting us food. I'm so happy to have them both here. I love them so much.

I haven't had much time to process what all this means. I just got out of the hospital on Thursday, and right now I'm just struggling to get my blood sugar count to even out.

I'm focusing on trying not to die.

I picked up one of those bracelets that ID me as diabetic. I'm not a fool. I realize that not having a working pancreas means death's a lot closer than it used to be. Death is just so easy. It's such an easy thing - I was just going to go to sleep.

There are things I'm going to have to come to terms with - the fact that I could fall into a coma and die without anyone around is now a real, tangible concern.

I don't intend to be an invalid, of course - lot of people have diabetes- but it means that I'm going to have to work harder than other people to have the life I want.

Right now my wrists and arms hurt so badly I can't lift weights, and Jenn's giving me foot rubs to help my numb feet.

I am blessed to have such wonderful people in my life, and I think I need to take some time and enjoy that.

However, if I seem a bit drawn and pale at Wiscon (yes, I'm still going!), well, I do have a pretty good story.

Uplifting Thought of the Day:

If I get fired, I can go on unemployment!

"Subservience Isn't Good For Heroines"

"If I could go back in time to when I was first submitting work to publishers and give myself one piece of advice it would be: If a publisher wants to publish my book, it’s because they believe my book will make them money."

Oh, My Chicago Office, How I Have Missed You

Dilbert cartoon tacked above the copy machine this morning:

Dilbert is sitting eating a banana. Below is the caption:

"Doing it right is no excuse not to meet the schedule."

We have 36 sites to integrate in two weeks.

HAH HHAHA AHAHa hHAHA AHAHa hahAH AHAH AH

We're so all going to lose our jobs.

Oh well.

New "Anti Abortion Pill" Kills Mother, Leaves Fetus Alive!!

Sometimes, The Onion scares me.


(thanks, Patrick!)

Oh, the Joys of Antenna Radiation Exposure!

Today we are learning about the joys of antenna radiation over-exposure.

Keep throwing those cellphone antennas on top of your buildings, chiklits!

I Am Growing Soft in My Old Age

Our office is built on a huge swamp over here in Indy. So today we got to watch some of these cross the parking lot and hop up on the curb -



Way too cute. Perhaps the springtime is bringing out my affection for cuteness.

Do Women Deserve the Right To Vote?

Yes, she's seriously asking that question.

First abortion, then contraception, then the right to vote...

Most frightening of all?

These are women arguing to take away these rights from other women.

What a surreal world I live in. It's like being in Eastern Europe during the Russian occupation.

If I'm not stuck in some vile 1980s movie about Soviet oppression, I feel surreally stuck in V for Vendetta (you go, Colbert!).

(via pandagon)

"If I Can Dissuade You From Becoming a Writer, Then You Never Should Have Thought About Becoming a Writer"

"I'm of the perhaps unpopular opinion that anyone who can be dissuaded from writing, should be dissuaded from writing."

Dream

I had a dream last night that Yellow had converted to Islam.

I asked him, "What's the worst part about being a Muslim?"

And he said, "I keep hitting my head all the time."

That's what I get for working on God's War right before bed.

Why Dan Brown's Writing is Really Bad

Really, really bad.

(via mumpsimus)

Why is it I Still Get So Excited When I See That Someone's Going to Do a Radio Show "Aimed at Women?"

Because it's the same old story.

Whoopi Goldberg will be doing a radio show "for women", but:

Her voice will be "lighter" than the current crop of predominantly male morning DJs, she says. "I want to have fun."

It's almost like she's afraid of causing controversy.

Her topics will include:

banter on American Idol or Lost, she says. Or chatter on where to find the best hot dog in America. "Not just a good one," she says. But "Who has the best hot dog?"

Oh, come on! I can get that over at Nick's blog!

heh heh

If they really want "ratings" how about talking about Plan B, street harassment, women heroes and atheletes, abortion, how to run for Senate, and whether or not strong women really cause erectile dysfuction?

Now that's a radio show I'd tune into.

The One Good Thing About Spending Every Week In Indy...

Is that after awhile, you get into a routine. Stay at the same hotel. Walk the 1/3 of a mile to the little restaurant complex, choose the Mexican place, the Sports Bar, the Cafe, or the sandwich shop. Stop into Starbucks, perhaps. Walk to the grocery store to pick up bottled water and the next day's lunch.

Walk back to the hotel, get to the gym perhaps, play a little Neverwinter Nights, do some novel writing, take a bath, hop into bed and watch "Animal Rescue" on Animal Planet, sleep, get up at 7am, shower, head down to breakfast, walk across the street to work.

When you fly every week, it's nice to have a routine. I was really worried about all this traveling getting me really depressed and down, but the weather's good and every meal and Starbuck's coffee is on the company's tab.

It could be worse.

Indy

Another day, another dollar.

The Writing Life

Kidnapping scene, trade off, cutting off Raine's ear, big boxing climax scene (you know I've been dying to use that phrase), wrap up.

And then I'll have a draft of God's War!!

More or less.

Spring is Arrived!

Jenn and I were lying in bed the other night, reading. The window was open, the room was cool; it was a lovely spring night. I'd gotten some writing done; she'd been working diligently all week on a bunch of psych studies for her doctoral thesis.

I turned to her and said, "It's nice to be happy. I don't think I ever really knew what a normal relationship was like."

For the first time in my life, I feel like I'm dating an adult. Our biggest arguments revolve around stuff like who gets to use the 30% off coupon at Borders and whether or not we'll watch another episode of Babylon 5.

I tended to end up with guys who had mother issues. I got to fill in as Mom; if they could convince themselves that I loved them, then maybe it would make up for the absent or abusive mothers they had in their past. It's nice to be wanted and loved, but all that wanting and love starts to suffocate when you realize that you've gotten emmeshed with someone who's an emotional black hole. No matter how much you love them, no matter how often you say it, no matter how much you try and change your behavior because they find it abhorrent, you'll always be the bad guy. You'll always be the terrible mother figure. You'll never do or be enough, no matter the contortions you engage in.

So to be in a relationship with someone who's emotionally stable, has a normal family life, and doesn't try and claw you into pieces so that they feel better is a new experience. It's strange to have long weeks of total happiness without emotional freak-outs or strange, sudden emotional reversals. I spent so long in relationships where somebody screaming or crying all the time was the norm that I had no idea that it was possible to have a relationship where you could just be happy... and have the luxery of engaging in arguments about Borders coupons.

If you date a crazy person, you eventually become a crazy person too.

I'd always wanted to date someone I thought was my equal, somebody who was my buddy, and that's exactly what this relationship is. And... we're getting things done. So much work is getting done in this house. There are no screaming fights, no sobbing fits, no work-tradeoffs so we can spend three or four hours calming the other one down from some perceived slight. We can tackle each other and harrass each other and read books and quote from things and write books and stay late working on various projects as needed without worrying about what the emotional fall out will be if our actions are misinterpreted. If I'm having a bad night and want to go to bed, I can say I'm having a bad night and want to go to bed, and Jenn doesn't accuse me of hating her (and vice versa).

Since we both came out of relationships with partners where one didn't take such things for granted, it's been a revelation to realize that that's *not* how relationships have to be. The problem was, Jenn and I had done so little dating that we weren't sure how "hard" a relationship should be. How much fighting and exhaustion and depression and counseling and hysteria should you put up with before you realize you and your partner aren't compatible?

Because it's not only Jenn and I who are doing much better since our breakups (we were both the ones who did the breaking). Our respective exes are doing a hell of a lot better as well. They hate us (mine especially hates me), but they're doing way, way better than they were when they were dating us.

I'm so happy I made the right decision. If my ex has to hate me and paint me into the Big Bad Monster from his childhood in order to deal with the breakup, that's OK, because that's how he has to get through it, and he's been doing a lot better since. I hope things continue to go well for him.

As for me, I'm loving life. I'm loving springtime. The tree outside my window has put on its leaves, I just bought some tomato plants, and my backstoop garden is looking lovely (particularly the morning glories). Wiscon is coming up, my buddy Patrick and his family will be here soon, God's War is clipping along nicely once again, I cleaned out my closet so I've now only got clothes that acutally *fit* me in there, I'm reading lots of books, and have I mentioned how lovely spring is?

What a terrible thing stress and depression are.

I really don't want to box myself in like that ever again. I don't want to live in a world covered over in the gray gauze of depression, or suffer long stress-induced illnesses.

I need to figure out the life I want and live that. I can't try to live the life I think will make someone else happy, or the life I think other people think will make me happy.

Deep breath.

Springtime.

I Am Hungry

I need a cheeseburger.

So *That's* What That Thing Is

The Indianapolis Airport has one of those GE "puffer" machines. It's not neccessarily used in secondary security screenings as happened to this woman - I've been through it the last two times I headed back to Chicago. It was the shortest line, so I stepped into it.

Here's what it is:

GE Ion Track's revolutionary walk-through portal quickly screens people for contraband without physical contact. Thanks to our patented Ion Trap Mobility Spectrometer (ITMS®) technology, EntryScan3 detects a wider range of explosives and narcotics with unprecedented sensitivity. It is the ideal complement to X-ray and metal detectors.

For higher throughput, visible and audible commands streamline checkpoints by automatically directing passengers to enter or leave the portal. If traces of explosives or narcotics are detected-or a person leaves before being prompted-EntryScan3 instantly sounds an alarm to facilitate rapid containment.

"To facilitate rapid containment."

Oh, how I love techno-terror-babble.

Here's what it looks like:



The "puffs" of air are just like those puffs you have to get when they check your eyes for.. what is it? Cataracts or something. Not terribly pleasant.

It's an odd, science-fictional little machine. You have to stand there inside the machine and wait for it to blast you with air. Then wait some more for the voice to tell you you're "allowed" to step out.

Just one more fun contrapment to run us all through so we'll feel more safe and secure under the watchful eye of Big Brother.

Perhaps it's better than drug-sniffing dogs and AK-47s.

Perhaps.

Haircut

I had a first-generation Ukrainian cut my hair yesterday (I work with a ton of first-generation Ukrainians at work - Yellow is 2nd generation Ukrainian - so I'm pretty good at pegging the accent. Sadly, I don't know any Ukrainian words however), and I think there may have been a bit of a language barrier involved in me understanding what she thought I saying I wanted, and I ended up with a haircut that makes me look like one of the original 70s Charlie's Angels, only shorter (I told Jenn, "I have Farrah hair. Dear God.")

Hopefully it'll grow out a little before Wiscon. I look so dorky.