Category Archives: If I was a dog I’d be dead by now

First off, several of you recently asked if I was tested for Hashimoto’s Disease and so yesterday I asked my doctor when I was in for more blood work and she was like, “Yeah, of course you have Hashimoto’s Disease.  You have a lot of diseases.”  And then she shrugged and went back to listing all the things I was doing wrong.  And that sort of sums up my whole year.

I am feeling a bit better compared to where I was a few months ago but not sure if it’s because of the meds, diet, testosterone, supplements or the fact that since I feel better I finally have the strength to leave the house and walk or swim again.  I’ve been on this awful doctor-mandated low carb/low sugar diet for a month and the good thing is that I’ve lost 12 pounds and the bad thing is pretty much everything else involved in eating low carb/ low sugar.  It’s nice that I’ve lost 12 pounds but I still have to lose more and I sort of wonder if I just feel less awful because there’s now slightly less of me to feel awful and by that reasoning I will probably feel my best after I’ve been dead for 6 months.

Also, when I saw my doctor she was putting another woman on the same diet and I was like, “It’s a weird diet.  You can have all the bacon and vodka you want, but no carrots” and my doctor was like, “That’s…not really the diet I put you on” I was all, “You specifically said no carrots” and she was like, “Yeah, I’m not arguing about the carrot part…” and she started talking about heart problems but I stopped listening because basically every time she talks I get a new disease.

Also, helpful hint for people on the same low carb, low sugar diet I’m on: Get some of those already roasted whole chickens at the grocery store because they’re delicious and when you rip it apart with your hands you can pretend you’re a giant and that it’s the torso of the person who put you on the low carb diet.  Additionally, hummus wrapped in lettuce leaves = somewhat filling and also the saddest burrito ever.  I plan on staying on the diet for another month or two but I don’t think I can do longer than that because bread is delicious and with all the vodka I’m drinking I might be getting too healthy.

PS.  FUCK.  I have to do blood work each year to make sure I’m healthy enough to stay on my injections for rheumatoid arthritis and as I was finishing this post my rheumatologist just called to let me know that my blood work shows that I’ve been infected with tuberculosis bacteria.

JESUS CHRIST.  I APOLOGIZE TO WHOEVER I HAVE OFFENDED.  PLEASE REMOVE WHATEVER TERRIBLE CURSE YOU PUT ON ME.  I HAVE LEARNED MY LESSON.  (Disclaimer: I’ve learned nothing, but I will  pretend I have as hard as you want if you make this all stop.)

Apparently it’s not incredibly uncommon for people to carry the TB bacteria if you live in a third world country, are in prison, or have auto-immune diseases (bingo) but only like 10% of us will actually progress to full-blown tuberculosis so today I have to get chest x-rays to see if I’m more “moderately healthy ex-felon” or “Doc Holliday with a vagina.”  Chances are that I’m the first (and not contagious, so no worries if you hugged me recently) but because I’m more susceptible to TB now I have to meet with my doctor to find other treatment options for my RA because my injections make it super easy to get severe TB so I probably can’t stay on them and these injections are the only thing keeping me out of that wheelchair and now I’m going to just cry for an hour.

It could be worse and I’m sure it’ll be fine but I’m just really sick and tired of being sick and tired and of having my whole life revolve around not dying.  And I’m sure you’re tired of hearing about it too.  Sorry.  I feel your pain, dude.

PPS.  I looked for a gif to sum all this up and when I looked up “I’M HAVING A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN” this came up, and yeah…it’s pretty perfect:

UPDATED: “Your chest x-rays look clear. Your TB is just in your blood.” NOT DYING OF CONSUMPTION YET, MOTHERFUCKER! This is a weird thing to celebrate, but I will take it.

In the ongoing of saga of my-body-is-trying-to-kill-me I got my results back from my endoscopy/colonoscopy but instead of a call I got an email with my results, and the subject was “FU CALL”:

Phrasing.

Which is apparently shorthand for “follow-up call” but it’s still concerning.  Also, an email isn’t a call.   Just saying.  But the biopsy results were best expressed in this gif:

Mostly because it was filled with scary words that I didn’t understand but then I talked to the doctor and he was like,

Because there’s some crappy stuff like “chronic gastritis” and “intestinal metaplasia” but nothing that says, “THIS IS WHERE ALL YOUR MISSING BLOOD IS GOING.”  Also, the results were confusing but as I understand it there are four stages of your stomach and the first is “I AM IMMORTAL” and the second is “Ew” and the third is “Well that’s not good” and the fourth is “YOU’VE GOT CANCER” and I’m on the third, but apparently lots of people stay on the third stage forever so I guess it’s not as scary as it sounds?

And I was like,

But then my doctor was like, “We gotta do more tests” BECAUSE OF COURSE THEY DO so he wanted to check me for parasites and bacteria and the nurse handed me a cup and said, “We’re going to need you to bring us a sample” but I needed more details because I wasn’t sure exactly what she wanted so I was like, “Do I…shit in this?” because it would suck to hand someone a jar of poop they didn’t ask for and she nodded like I was crazy and gave me a brown bag filled with gloves and a hat and I was like, “This seems like a very formal dress code for pooping in a cup.”

…and she was like, “That’s a toilet hat” which was even more confusing because why does my toilet need a hat?  I don’t even have matching towels.  But turns out it’s like a plastic hat that you put on the toilet seat so you can shit in it and then transfer the poo into a jar.  (WTF.)

Which seems like a lot of work, but it gets even more complicated because then you have to freeze it into a poopsicle before you turn it into the lab and Victor was like, “NOOPE.  YOU ARE NOT PUTTING HUMAN FECES IN THE SAME DRAWER AS THE HOT POCKETS” but I explained that it was fine because there was a hat and gloves involved so it was super fancy and I put the hat on and did a small dance but then he was like, “LADY, THAT’S A TOILET HAT” and I was both impressed and concerned that he knew that, but I agreed to write “DO NOT EAT SHIT” on the bag in the freezer so that no one would touch it, and actually that works out well because from now on I’m going to put all of the ice cream drum sticks in a brown bag that says “DO NOT EAT SHIT” to make everyone else not eat them and finally there’s a bright side to this bullshit.

Toilet hat. Like a clear Smokey Bear hat that you can also use as a very large measuring cup. But not if you use it on the toilet. Gross.  That probably goes without saying

Anyway, if my poop doesn’t have all the answers (there’s a phrase I never thought I’d write) then I move on to swallowing the camera pill that takes a terrible torso ride, which I can only assume will give me even more confusing non-answers that help nothing.

Just a guess, but this is what I assume will be the next gif I use to explain my medical stuff:

To be continued.

So today I had my endoscopy/colonoscopy procedure and (as you told me) the prep from yesterday was worse than the actual procedure.

From twitter yesterday:

• Today’s menu : clear liquids, jello and laxatives. Feels like I’m back in college…
• …except that the nurse says vodka does not count as a “clear liquid”.  Which makes me doubt she’s ever had vodka.  Now I’m said for both of us.
• This clear broth tastes like I want a hamburger.
• So, I have to take ANOTHER dose of prescription strength laxatives at 5am tomorrow?  There could not *possibly* be anything left in me.
• …Victor: “We’re taking your car tomorrow.”  His beside manner, you guys.

I had an anxiety attack waiting for the procedure but I asked twitter to distract me and they flooded with otter videos and stuff like this:

.

I was very high for the procedure and was assured I would feel and remember nothing but still panicked a little when they strapped one of those masks on my face which was supposedly some sort of mouth guard to keep me from biting the scope but which felt more like the mask that Hannibal Lector had to wear to keep from killing people with his teeth.  The anesthesiologist was awesome in that he gave me the BEST drugs but right before he put them in my IV he told me that the drugs can cause super-strong dreams so to think of a good place, and that was nice except that he was like, “Don’t think about work or pain” or a list of other things he told me not to think about which of course I immediately thought about, but it didn’t matter because I didn’t dream and the next second I was in recovery and couldn’t believe it was over so quickly.  Also, I was very high but I didn’t think I was and Victor wouldn’t let me have my phone.

Me: “I’m fine.  I can tweet now.” Victor: “You really can’t.” Me: “I’m totally fine.” Victor: “You keep trying to reboot your water bottle.”

But then he gave up and it’s obvious that he shouldn’t have because I was like, “TAKE MY PICTURE TO PROVE I’M ALIVE” and then I tweeted it because I was too high to realize it was not a good picture.  Victor later defended himself by pointing out that I was sober enough to use a black and white filter but that’s just muscle memory.

Then the doctor came out and showed me close-ups of my insides, and my stomach lining looked like Mars from a distance, which I thought was very pretty but apparently not really what it was supposed to look like because it was “very irritated for unknown reasons”.  (Much like Victor)

Things I learned today: The inside of my stomach looks like an active volcano.

He found some issues but nothing that screamed “THIS IS WHERE ALL HER MISSING BLOOD IS GOING”.  They did a biopsy to check for cancer and another to check for celiac disease, but other than the same stomach ache that’s plagued me for a month I feel fine.

Apparently there’s a part that they couldn’t get to even with the human shishkabobing so I might need to do another scoping where I swallow a pill that’s actually a tiny camera, and I find it weird that we’re living in a future where science can take a ride through my body in a pill but they can’t make fat-free egg rolls.

So basically what I learned is that there’s still something wrong but no clear answers on what exactly, which is sort of how all of my medical misadventures go so I’m kind of used to it.  I should know more in a week or so when the biopsies are finished.  Meh.

On the way out I (literally) ran into the anesthesiologist and I asked him if I said anything mortifying when I was under, but he smiled and gave a wink to Victor and said, “Oh, just about how much you love your husband” and I was like, “Well that’s embarrassing because this is my boyfriend.  My husband’s a real bastard,” and Victor was like “Yeah, we hate that guy.”

PS. When I left they gave me a sticker that said “GET BEHIND COLON CANCER AWARENESS” and I’m not entirely sure if that phrasing was on purpose but it is my new favorite thing.

Remember how last week I was in the hospital for stomach bullshit and the week before that I was looking at TMS (electroshock therapy lite?) because my head was all fucked up?  Well, I decided that before doing TMS I’d check to see if there were any other issues that could be causing this depression/sickness/body fuckery so my doc did a shit ton of blood tests and  she was like, “You’re all fucked up,” and that’s pretty accurate.

I literally lost track of how many vitamin deficiencies I have but I’m now taking an extra 8 pills a day just to get back to normal.  My hormones are off and I’m way low on testosterone (I didn’t even know I was supposed to have testosterone?) and apparently that causes fatigue, foggy thinking, depression and anxiety which is pretty much all of the things I’m made of, so I’ll be starting testosterone meds this week.

Also, I have things like “pernicious anemia”, which I just assumed was something Lemony Snicket made up.  But instead it’s something probably related to whatever is wrong with my stomach, or ulcers, or my antibodies that are all fucked up as well.

And add “pre-diabetic” to the list because WHY NOT, RIGHT?  So now I’m on  day 5 of a low-carb, low-sugar diet to “fix my sugars” as your grandma would say, and I’m shocked I haven’t murdered everyone in the house yet.  Last night I yelled “I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE.  SOMEONE GET MAMA A MASHED POTATER SANDWICH” and Victor was like, “Have some protein.  Protein is good for you” but I don’t think so, Victor, because my entire body is a protein and it’s trying to kill me. 

Long story short, things are wrong inside me and no one really knows the cause but maybe the diet, supplements, and meds will help.  Or they won’t.  Hard to tell.  But it could be worse and at least I have things to focus on that might make me better, and that’s a relief in itself.

I don’t have a funny ending here.  I blame the lack of popsicles in my body.

I would kill someone for a popsicle.

PS.  Bonus Dorothy Barker video to make up for this slightly whiney post:

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Sometimes she forgets she left her tongue out.

A post shared by Jenny Lawson (@thebloggess) on May 8, 2017 at 6:20pm PDT

So.  I’ve been a bit MIA because after my emergency room crisis I was a limp rag and unable to do much more than just breathe this week.  Even sitting up to draw was too taxing (WTF, BODY?) so I spent the last few days reading, sleeping and crying to Victor about how sad my life is in spite of the fact that he’s working his ass off  while I’m complaining about my “napping struggles” and I’m like, “But I’m too tired to even watch TV.  PITY ME.”  And then I did literally cry and he did literally pity me because I’m not the crying type and so he realized it was serious.  But today I feel a bit better and I have more doctor’s appointments this week and next week, and I was able to stop taking the pain pills yesterday and maybe it’ll all just fade away like the pneumonia did?  I mean, with my luck it’ll just fade into something else, like radiation poisoning or unexpected leglessness, but still…a change is as good as a rest.  Probably.

Today though Victor insisted that I leave the house and we went to Luby’s Cafeteria and we were the only people under 70 there, except for the guy behind us who was about 40 and was a tough-looking biker who was very distracting because he kept taking obvious pictures of his food and I told Victor that he was probably a famous instagram star and he couldn’t find the right filter for his carrot-n-raisin salad,but Victor thought that he was taking a picture of his food to add it to his weight-watchers journal and I shook my head and we continued to argue about why the biker was taking pictures of his food, including:

• Texting pictures of his fresh fruit to taunt his estranged brother who lives in a submarine and maybe has scurvy.
• Beets remind him of a simpler time and he wanted to remember the moment so he could commemorate it with a short story or haiku  later.
• He saw Jesus in his mashed potatoes.
• He secretly wants to open an off-brand Hooter’s combined with a Luby’s and name it “Boobie’s” and so every day he comes and takes pictures of his food so that he can recreate it, stealing the menu one photo at a time.

Then I laughed and things felt brighter.  And now I’m actually blogging.  Sort of.  Mostly just to say why I’m not blogging, but I think it still counts.  Long story short, I’m less dead today than I was yesterday and I would totally eat at “Boobie’s”.

Also, books have been my life raft lately and there are a bunch of brand new ones out this week you should be reading. Priestdaddy: A Memoir (achingly amazing prose),  Confessions of a Domestic Failure, One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter and We Are Never Meeting in Real Life.  The last one doesn’t come out for a few weeks but you should preorder it because it is painfully funny.  And since I’m still spending most of my days under blankets with a book, please share any new reading suggestions you have in the comments.

PS. Last week I challenged my friend (and fellow collector of creepy dolls) Bonnie to see who could rework this doll into the creepiest thing possible.  Mine arrived and I’ve been too tired to start deconstructing her yet, but she’s already slightly creepy to begin with and I haven’t even added the spider legs.  (SPOILERS.)

More soon…

So…yeah.  In incredibly repetitive news, I’ve been sick.  And I’m getting better but so. fucking. slowly.  The pneumonia is now just bronchitis and exhaustion but being sick for over a week kicked in my natural inclination for depression because my body is an asshole.  Today I made myself eat lunch and told Victor that when things get this bad for so long I start to think that I should have died a long time ago and that my body wasn’t meant to last this long.  Or that maybe I died a long time ago and I’m just too stubborn to realize it and that’s why my immune system is basically missing.  Then he was like, “Well, that’s bleak” and I said, “I am a hungry ghost who has forgotten she died” and he looked at me and said with the same intonation, “I am a horny goat who has something in his eye.”  And it was so ludicrous and ridiculous coming after my overly-dramatic statement that I started laughing in spite of myself.  And then I said that probably ghosts don’t laugh and Victor went back to his soup and was like, “Probably” and I felt better.

This doesn’t lend itself to a blog post very well but I still wanted to share in case right now you’re feeling the same.  You are not a hungry ghost.  Or a horny goat.  You are going to be okay.  And so am I.

PS. The news is scary right now and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by it but just remember that a new study in the Washington Post shows that the current spider population could devour every human on earth in one year and still be hungry.  And that probably there’s a spider looking at you right now.  That doesn’t sound like it’s a good thing but it’s important for two reasons.  1) When I read this my first thought was that I needed to stock up on flamethrowers to stop the spider horde and that’s a good thing because it reminded me that I want to live.  Thank you, spiders.  I weirdly needed to be reminded that I don’t want you to eat me.  And 2) because it proves that just because spiders COULD eat us, it doesn’t mean that they will.  We’re still alive today in spite of spiders.  The glass is half full.  Of spiders.  But of spiders who won’t eat you.  Probably because they don’t realize that they’d have to join forces to kill us and they don’t know their own collective strength because they don’t read the Washington Post, but still.  The point is that we’re still alive, and spiders live on strings that come out of their buttholes.  We win.  It’s not a great win, but you know what?  I’ll take it.

PPS. I don’t know how to end this post.

PPPS. Tomorrow I’m going to BookPeople to sign some books people have ordered so if you want one personalized just go to their website or call them.  They ship all over the world.  I’m going to tuck a bunch of YOU ARE HERE tattoos into each them as well for as long as they last so be sure to check your book when it arrives.

PPPPS. This post needs a picture.  This is the face stuck in mine whenever I open my eyes.  Dorothy Barker, furry nursemaid, eater of spiders.