Woot! Good one, Dana. I love those sorts of deals.

I had a bad day.

Actually that's an understatement. I had an epic meltdown this morning and then a smaller one at the pharmacy.

The meltdown was over crap. And I don't want to rehash it but I turned into yelling ranting throwing things in anger. And Will was close by and he came over and was able to calm me down and get me out the door.

I'm just stressed, I can't get an straight answer about the Vermont Health Connect and if I would qualify for a subsidy. But it doesn't matter because I applied and haven't heard back. In the meantime I have to apply for benefits through my job by the end of the month. Which I'm going to do, but I'd rather be under Blue Cross Blue Shield than whatever insurance my company uses.

And there's the whole issue of kerosone and getting the tank filled and that's a whole other story but Will has taken over that issue.

Finally there's work. This week I work 41 hours and 6 days. Which I know is nothing compared to what some people do. Next week I have something around 49 hours in 6 days.

It's stressful because it's a lot of work, I don't have any help and other days there has been coverage enough where I could get some help. But for some reason there was only one cashier scheduled from open until 2 pm. So the priority was that.

I'm all ragey.

Insufficient retail staffing for the Christmas shopping rush is pretty rage worthy. I'm sorry you have to deal with it, askye.

We met with the surgeon who is going to do Hubby's biopsy today (that will be on the 20th). The brightest mass that came up on the scan is right under his pancreas, but they're taking the biopsy from the lymph node in his left groin.

The doc had his back turned while Hubby was taking off his shirt, and when he turned around and saw the amount of surgical scarring on Hubby's torso, he actually gasped and took a step back. I said, "That's from the gall bladder. The surgeon wasn't that good." He said something about so much scar tissue, and I said, "You haven't seen his back yet," and Hubby obligingly turned around to see the runic pattern that had been carved into his back from all those surgeries.

Should surgeons be struck speechless by the visual confirmation of a patient telling them "I've had lots of surgeries"?

So a biopsy the Friday before Christmas. We'll see the oncologist in January. The surgeon confirmed that lymphomas generally respond well to chemo. It begins.

Sorry about the ragey, askye. Do you have an end date for the madness? Can that be a helpful light at the end of the tunnel? Or shall I come up there and kick someone's ass?

The surgeon sounds confident, Connie. It's a good beginning. It is.

Connie,

sounds to me like the surgeon was not impressed with a previous surgeon's work. If possible, you should attempt to play poker with him. He sounds like an easy mark.

Previous surgeon was a quack, apparently. He vertically bisected Hubby's entire lower torso, splitting all the abdominal muscles, and botched the sewing up. So the abdominal support for his back is, shall we say, lacking. But that was 30 years ago, before I even met him.

Should surgeons be struck speechless by the visual confirmation of a patient telling them "I've had lots of surgeries"?

I guess I would be reassured that he was still human enough to be taken aback.

Yeah, my SiL, a nurse, laughed at my ginormous splenectomy scar when she saw it.

Sorry the doctor couldn't hold it together when he saw your Hubby Connie. And that the original doctor was such a quack. Hopefully everything will go well.

Trudy estimated date for things to slow down is - maybe the week of Jan 5th. Maybe, depends on how returns go.

Part of the stress is the lack of knowledge I need to do the job right, normally they would only put someone in this position with at least 6 months experience on the sales floor, preferably 1 year and in at least 2 different departments.

They gave me a shot, I appreciate it. But then the person who worked for the company and in the position for 6 years left and I'm left without a huge resource. Originally they were going to wait and hire someone, but they changed that. And my supervisor, or I guess ex supervisor, got a job more in her field so she's working part time, at least until after Xmas.

It's not so much tiny ducks nibbling me to death, but big giant specific ducks biting huge chunks out of me.