My Alien Spawn...

Hello dear readers!  Are any of you still with me?  I was doing pretty good for a minute there, blogging more regularly as per my new year's resolution for 2010.  And now another month has gone by with nothing new from yours truly (though I have a bunch of unfinished posts in the draft queue that I should go back and post one of these days).  My apologies to you all.  And to me.  For a gal who would really like to be writing for a living, I sure haven't been doing a whole lot of writing.

I've been a little distracted.  Perhaps you noticed in more recent posts my mention of things really happening for me lately, that my life was firing on all cylinders and improving in wholly new and beautiful ways.  Which was true.  And still is true.  But, all good things must come to an end, and my whirlwind ride at the top of the wheel of fortune seems to be through for the time being.

For the last few months, my typical response to the question "How's it going?" has been something along the lines of, "Everything is just going great these days!  Except for some stomach problems, I really have nothing to complain about."  Well, it turns out the stomach problems became more and more severe - and frequent - until finally requiring some medical attention.   So a couple of weeks ago I went to a doctor - which was, aside from regular visits to Planned Parenthood, my first conventional doctor's appointment in the three years since I've lived in Utah - to get checked out.  After an ultrasound, we learned that my stomach problems were not the result of gallbladder issues, as the doc had suspected, but rather due to a cyst on my spleen roughly the size of a tennis ball.  

So that was a total surprise.  I had never even heard of anyone having a spleen cyst (or splenic cyst, as they're referred to in the medical community) before.  I've since learned that they're somewhat rare, especially in developed countries.  In developing countries they're seen more often as the result of a common parasite.  In the US and Europe, people with splenic cysts are typically either born with them, or develop them after an injury or trauma to that part of the body.  So far, the doctors I've seen seem to think mine is probably a developmental cyst (that I was born with), or that I've at least had for quite some time due to its size and other qualities I won't bore you with here.  Doesn't much matter at this point, either way the fucker needs to come out.

The good news is that splenic cysts are almost always benign, and mine shows no characteristics of malignancy.   The bad news is that the cyst is at the very top of my spleen.  The spleen, I've learned, is sort of shaped like a pickle, or a bratwurst, and hangs out in the left side of your abdomen wedged between your diaphragm, stomach, left kidney, and the upper intestine.  The top of the spleen is - I think, but I could for sure be wrong here - is above the stomach and just below the left rib cage.  So anyway, the bad news is that because my cyst is up at the top of my spleen, it is much more difficult to get to.  The gastroenterolgy specialist I saw last week seemed fairly certain that I would have to have a complete splenectomy.  This is not good news.  While you can live without a spleen, it puts you at increased risk for immune system deficiencies and getting sick more often.  Apparently, if my spleen is removed, I'll have to spend at least six months on some hardcore antibiotics, and get immunized every year for pneumonia, flu, and possibly some other nasty viruses.

For a young and healthy person such as myself, I can probably still live a good, long life sans spleen.  And the gastro doc did say not to take her word as the final authority.  "I'm not a surgeon," she said, "and that's a question for a surgeon."

At this point, I'm just trying to get through life one day at a time.  I'm not overcome with worry and fear like I was upon first finding out about this situation, but the stomach problems seem to get worse with each passing day and I'm pretty miserable most of the time.  For now, I'm waiting to meet with my surgeon for a consult on the 15th, and keeping my fingers crossed that the gastroenterologist's prediction of total splenectomy doesn't come to fruition.

So there you go readers.  Probably a lot more information than you ever cared to read about splenic cysts and my personal health.  But I feel I owe you an explanation for the deadening silence in blogland.  This is heavier stuff than I like to post over here, saltychelle having been created as an exhibition of all the strange and funny stories I witness in my day-to-day life.  These days though, I have been neither observant enough to notice much of the entertaining business of my day-to-day, nor feeling physically well or creatively inspired enough to sit down and write them on the blog.

Keep your fingers crossed, say a prayer for me, send your positive vibes out into the universe - whatever it is that works for you.  I appreciate any help I can get these days.

Somebody's Gonna Lose an Eye

And by "somebody," I mean me.

After nearly fifteen years wearing glasses, I've finally decided to try contact lenses. My friends have made fun of me for years. But I am slow to adopt change. I was one of those people that thought the internet was a fad. I didn't bother double-clicking that little internet explorer icon until I had a teacher who decided to be savvy and post study guides on SLU's intranet. I don't think I even had an email address until 2003. I like paper letters, I like to seal them with my little wax-embosser stamp of my initials, I like decorating the envelopes with cute designs and depositing them into the big blue USPS box on the corner. I like to make food from scratch. I balance my checkbook the way my mom and grandma did, complete with color-coded highlighting and red-ink checkmarks for checks that have cleared. I'm a dinosaur, and I like it that way.

Over the years however, I've succumbed to a few trends, like the cell phone, text messaging, picture messaging, online-bill-pay (ok, so I just did that last month, but it's SO COOL - even though it has thrown a glitch into my checkbook register system), facebook, a dyson, and even wireless internet. Though, to be honest, I had NO idea how to get that wireless crap all up and running and had to call in my sweetheart neighbor Frank for assistance. And now, I've jumped on this crazy new contact lens bandwagon. It's a brave new world...

There is only one thing that has driven me to this point: snowboarding. Last winter I spent every day on the mountain in a neverending battle with the fog that constantly accumulated on either my glasses or my ski goggles. The glasses would fog up and I'd remove the goggles, use my little fog-wipe to wipe the glasses, replace the goggles over the glasses, and within minutes I'd be in a fog again. And while I'm used to going through life in a bit of a fog, this was NOT cool given my level of snowboarding prowess (i.e., no prowess at all). I am not a good snowboarder. I don't steer well, I haven't fully mastered the S-turn, I fall a lot, and so on. Combine this with constantly blurred and foggy vision and I'm just screwed.

So, I decided to solve at least one of my snowboarding problems and remove the glasses, and thus, the fog, from the equation. Contacts it is! I said. And I went to the doctor and got fitted for them, went back to pick them up and the nice lady taught me to put them in and I did. I wore them for four hours that first day and endured the pain and mild vertigo like a champ. Second day, I'm supposed to wear them for six hours. So, I put them in before work and head out for my day. I got a new haircut the night before too, and was feeling like a whole new me, a little spring in my step and the pain of a thousand tiny daggers in my eye.

My coworkers noticed my missing glasses and asked, and I explained.

"How do you like them so far?" Brian asked.

"Mmm, not so much," I say.

"They'll get better, don't worry." He says. "You'll get to the point where you love them."

I don't believe him, but smile politely. Because that's how it goes at work.

Rose asks the same questions, and I explain that the left contact doesn't hurt so much, but the right one is KILLING me, and the prescription is all wrong. Everything is incredibly blurry.

"Your doctor will fix that for you, don't worry," she says.

Everyone is so encouraging. And I want to stab them all.

By 1:00 p.m. it had been five hours and I'd had enough. I go to the bathroom to pick the little bastards off my eyeballs so that I might at least enjoy my lunch date with Rose. I pop the right one out, stick it in its little case, squirt in some opti-whatever, and move on to the left. It doesn't want to come. I continue to poke around in my eye to try and pry the little fucker out to no avail. Why does this one hurt so bad? I wonder. The left eye had acclimated pretty well to the contacts actually, it hadn't really been hurting all day, so why is it so excruciating trying to get it out now? I give myself a pep talk and remember my "just pluck it right off your eyeball" training from the nice lady at the doctor's office, and try again. And again. And again. No dice. At this point, my eye is watering all over my face, my nose is running down over my upper lip and into my mouth, I'm sweating and really, REALLY don't want to try again. But I can't walk around with one contact in, and I can't put my glasses on over one contact, and I can't see without either wearing glasses or two contacts and ok, come on, I've gotta be able to get this thing out. I mean, is it suctioned on there forever?

I keep trying.

And poking.

And pulling at my eyeball.

It's not coming.

"Fucking FUCK!" I yell at the bathroom mirror. "Motherfuckingfuckfucker!" The fucks are echoing off the entirely-tiled bathroom walls and floor, taunting me.

I remove my arm brace (battling a little tendon-lining-inflammation, boo), my jacket, and my sweater. I step out of my shoes. My shit is strewn all over the bathroom counter and floor, amidst the zillion wadded-up tissues I've been using to wipe the tears and snot from my beet-red face. I'm jumping around. Because I don't want to keep trying to get this out. But what's the alternative? Going to the doctor, the hospital? I don't have that kind of time. And for some reason jumping around and yelling motherfucker eases the pain. But only slightly.

At this point, another woman comes in the bathroom, surveys the mess I have made with my clothes and kleenex, and asks if I could use some help. I explain that I cannot for the life of me get this damn contact out.

"The other one was so easy," I say through my snot and tears.

"Come here," she says.

I do a backbend onto the bathroom counter to get my face into the light so she can look at my eye. She doesn't see it, but the bathroom is dim. She goes to get Rose, and leaves me to poke around and jump around and motherfuck my way through a few more minutes. When they both return, they pull me out into the hallway where the light is better, leaving my mess behind in the bathroom. Shirley, who sits nearby, comes and joins the party too. So now I am squatting into the position I assume when pooping in the woods (I'm not a giant, but I am taller than these three women, and have to maneuver so they can see into my swollen, scratchy, blood-red eyeball), Lyle, Rose and Shirley are investigating my eyeball, and through my one good eye I notice them all beginning to frown.

"I don't see it," Shirley says.

"Nope."

Rose delivers the final blow. "Its definitely not in there."

"What do you mean, its not in there?" I nearly scream. And Rose - sweet, goodly, devout LDS Rose - is not a woman one yells at. Not unless one wishes to burn in hell for all eternity. Yelling at Rose is akin to stealing a blind man's walking stick, kicking a 3-legged dog, poking a sleeping baby, or any other crime upon the innocent.

"There isn't a contact in your eye, poor thing," she says.

"But I never got it out. I've been poking around in my eye for a half hour and it never came out."

"Well then, it probably never went in, genius," Lyle quips. Because Lyle's a smartass.

They inform me that I need to find the contact, because it will shrivel up and die like a fish out of water. I skip my lunch date with Rose and drive home and find the little piece of shit all curled up like the world's tiniest taco on my bathroom counter. Which explains the fuzzy vision and the reason my left eye was so mysteriously comfortable all day.

That is, until I spent thirty minutes ramming my fingernails into its flesh.

Sometimes its just the simplest thing...

...that can make you feel alright again. I'm a lover of the little things, life's easy pleasures. A slyly-human-looking peanut that I can make dance around on the table and give a little voice to. The wind blowing my pajama pants just so against my legs. The first time it smells like the next season. Really, really enormous (or tiny) versions of anything at all.

But sometimes you just have a total SHIT day and no amount of tiny humanesque peanuts will erase it. Like mine, this past Friday. It all began Thursday evening, with an uber-rude text from the ex-boyfriend and a bunch of uber-annoying texts from stereo-stalker (more on this, below). Though it didn't dampen my cheery mood as Thursday night was girls-dinner at my place. ALWAYS good for the soul. --- So, Friday. I get to work and pen an email to the ex asking (as I've asked at least a thousand times over the past four months) for some space and privacy and for him to respect me enough to leave me alone. Receive a nasty email in response, prompting me to, like a dumbass, engage with yet another email in return. What exactly these nasty emails were about, I'm not even sure. I can't bring myself to go back and read them because they're hurtful and awful and I don't want any of that in my life. I do know that I was so upset and confused and pissed off and freaked out that I ended up sending him an email telling him I hated him, and listing off a good fifty or so reasons why, complete with examples of his poor treatment of me throughout the course of our relationship. I think I thought it would make me feel better. But it didn't. It made me feel all of the pain I used to feel when those things happened, and then have to go hide in the bathroom at work and cry and throw up my lunch.


Also, Friday, I was being bombarded with texts from stereo-stalker - this ridiculous guy that I bought a stereo from on Craigslist who I owe $18.00 to. Yes, you read that right: eighteen dollars. And he is HOUNDING me. "I really need that money, can you leave it on your porch?" Um, sorry, you really need eighteen dollars? Dude drives a brand new Audi, just moved to California and lived with his parents for a few months, decided to move back, owns a clothing company (local, sure, but still)... I mean, he's an artist, but I seriously don't think he's a starving artist. Just a STALKER. I told him I thought his fervent attempts to get his money were just a ruse to try and see me again (which he has been attempting since I bought the stereo from him in JUNE). And then he sends a nasty text saying he never wants to see me again but he wants his money, can he come over in an hour? Sorry asshole, it's girls night and no, I'm not making a special trip to the ATM for your fucking $18.00. I responded that he needed to send me his address and I would mail him his money, and after I ignored his next 10 texts about coming over, he finally sent the address. As of today, he hasn't contacted me since. So maybe I finally have one guy that I don't want to talk to who will actually leave me alone.


A smattering of other crap that happened Friday: Secretary at work is leaving, Friday is her last day. I've been assigned one of her attorneys to support in her absence. So I'm thinking Friday I will get my own desk clean and organized and ready to begin working for this attorney on Monday. But apparently she decided that I would report for duty on Friday, because she hadn't done much of anything to prepare for her departure. So I did ALL of his work on Friday, and had all of her disorganized crap dumped on my desk, plus all of my own work. So I'm swamped and trying not to cry all day and was here until 6:30. On a Friday.


So I get home and decide to take the dog for a relaxing walk over to Memory Grove/City Creek. All is well until we're way up in the canyon/creek and Rascal hears some skateboarders on the paved road above us. He tears off up the bank and onto the road to chase them, and I hear them all shouting "Oh, shit! Whoa! Get away dog!" And I'm yelling "STOP!" but they can't hear me and aren't stopping. The bank is too steep for me scramble up, so I have to run all the way back down the creek trail until I can cut over to the road, nearly knock some woman who is meditating off a bridge and into the creek, get up onto the road and these guys still haven't stopped, and are all the way down at the end near where the road goes into the neighborhood (and there is traffic). So I'm screaming for them to stop, lose a flip flop and keep running, and tear the hell out of the bottom of my foot. Finally, they stop and my dog just comes right on back, smiling at me when he gets there, like "Hey, look what I did! I chased those scary rolling men away!"


So at this point I just sit down on the grass and cry.


And then my friend Richy calls and asks if I want to go get dinner. I'm not sure I'm in much of the mood for anything, but knew what I really wanted was a hug, and I wasn't going to get that sitting around my house alone feeling sorry for myself. So we decide on Charlie Chow's, which I did not have high hopes for at all. And it was AWESOME. You get to make your own chinese food! And then they cook it and bring it to your table! And then you get to do it AGAIN! And so we did that a few times, watched the Olympics while we ate and got to see Phelps win his 7th medal. All of which was very exciting for me because I don't have TV and so haven't seen one ounce of the Olympics. And I had a nice big glass of wine and Richy made me laugh and suddenly I realized I felt a hell of a lot better.


And then we took his motorcycle up into the foothills, and some sort of magical mystery mix of wind-in-my-hair and arms around Richy and amazingly gorgeous evening with fall breezes blowing in just sort of cleansed me. We parked and hiked around through the tall grasses under the nearly full moon and saw all of the lights of the city and the outline of the Wasatch and everything was all blue and shimmery and perfect for however long we were up there. At one point he jumped out from behind a tree and scared the living hell out of me and I jumped and screamed and suddenly we were laughing so hard we nearly fell on the ground. And with that, it was a new day. Even at the end of a shit one.



The lights of our fair city, from the foothills above the Aves:

Richy under a full moon.

Watching the clouds roll by...