school started and i'm going to live



We never get to start school without some crisis event to make it more interesting. Usually it's grandparents coming to stay and wondering if we always run around like insane people. Or sometimes it's a business trip. (Worldcon is extraordinarily well timed) (Oops, I forgot the sarcasm font)

This year was going to be different.

I bought school supplies in July and a few new clothes in smallish 6th grader and huge 9th grader sizes,  had one kid's bedroom cleaned out of old shit, plus the kids' bathroom tile will be finished on Monday, which is epic considering the amount of time I dithered away trying to figure out what I was going to do with it.

I was way fucking ahead.

And then I got this pulled muscle, which turned out not to be a pulled muscle but which in layman's terms is called a superficial blood clot.

In 1999/2000, right when the world was about to end, mine very nearly did. I had a huge internal bloodclot and I got to spend a week in the hospital bleeding through pillows and sheets at the rate of about a set an hour in ICU and every doctor in the hospital came to visit me because it was all amazing I was alive with no pulmonary embolism and shit. Plus the procedure they did to me was so new everyone had to come see the evidence it actually worked, I guess. It was the doctor's first time at doing it. Isn't that exciting?? It was for him!

Not to be outdone, this new blood clot is even bigger! Who knew they were competitive, blood clots? You can even feel it through my skin. Crazy town, right there on my inner thigh and calf.

It's not life threatening, but because of my history and because this blood clot is such an overachiever, I have to be on a drug that prevents me careening down snowy mountainsides, taking any extra drugs that helps the pain in my leg, eating kale, and drinking too much.

Though my friend argued that Coors Light is not real beer so it doesn't count. Drink a water in between beers, she said. You won't even be able to tell the difference!

Haha, that would be amusing if I had much sense of humor left.

Upside: I got to meet a cool new vascular doc. Dr Juan, we'll call him.

Dr Juan came in the room and stared. "You really don't look forty-six."

I said, "I like you already. You're hired!"

When I pushed back on his diagnosis and treatment he said, "Look.  This is a thing."

The man obviously spends too much time on Twitter.
But then  he said he'll buy my book and told me a great pub to visit in San Antonio right after prescribing drugs that come with a warning not to drink too much alcohol. So he was basically all "Leave here thinking you're going to have fun, but end up not having much fun at all. It'll be the Alamo all over again." Or something. Which strangely made me like him even more.

In conclusion, I'm apparently going to live.






3 comments:

Unknown said...

Excellent news about the living. The rest sucks.

PJD said...

PLUS they hung up their backpacks.

Stacy said...

Glad you're going to live. Yikes about all the other stuff. Blood clots are no fun at all.