Hubby always laughed that he didn't have the Marijuana box checked on the "drugs in bloodstream" test. I told him it wasn't Bingo.

Anyhow, I'm emotionally in a much better place than I was when I was working

Holy shit yes. I lost my job the Monday before Thanksgiving, and while the not having a paycheck sucks, the not being miserable part outweighs all of it.

Almost all my best friends, even if I didn't meet them here, I met because of you.

Echoed right back at you, Plei.

But various of the other meds I *do* take are creeping up the Schedule charts, so it could all happen all over again.

This has been an incredibly unnerving part of my own medical progression, Betsy. You're thrust into a different world, almost. It's kind of like a scene in The Wire.

I wouldn't be here, on this couch, in my jammies, without all of us.

Thirded, Juliana, +dog.

I'd like to legislate "ita's Law": If a doctor doesn't prescribe a person in pain adequate pain meds, they get a solid kick in the nads and tasered while they're down, and then two doctors stand over them, one to ask them to rate their pain on this frowny-face chart, and the other to write them a scrip for one Tylenol.

This is now my favorite. God, the stupid frowny-face chart. Such a useless thing to evaluate something that can't be objectively evaluated.

I jumped back into William Gibson's book Pattern Recognition because it has been the only book to ever fully capture the idea of an online message board community for me.

Cash, me too! I remember reading it on an airplane (with that bit about how the soul catches up with you) and thinking that Gibson had lurked on WX or something to get it so spot on.

Betsy, that's wonderful news.

So nice to "see" you all again. That's all I've got this morning.

I somehow was a person while discussing how to enter patient death on a CRF and saying the word "death" over and over like it was a meaningless data point and not an event that destroys people's lives.

I am making it through the day with my Pandora station called Aural Valium (tm Teppy).

Work on ita's law and I will spread it around.

Speaking of pain meds and other fun medical stuff....

It looks like I will be having surgery sometime soon. I don't know exactly when yet, as I just got the authorization for the surgical consult, and I have to schedule that first, then I imagine we'll schedule the surgery during the office visit.

The upside of being completely student-ass broke right now is that I get free healthcare. The downside is that they send me all sorts of places. This surgeon is located in Torrance, way the hell on the other side of town from me. And I don't own a car.

I expect family will help cover transportation for that visit, and they've said they'll come down for my surgery and recovery.

All of that being said, I am fucking TERRIFIED of this surgery. It's probably a little ridiculous, as it's minimal, but I'm highly surgery-phobic.

To say nothing of the fact that my understanding is that the recovery pain from this surgery is..... intense. I already have a little taste of it, because of the problem it will be correcting, but I worry that some of the awful pain I've had will be nothing compared to what the healing surgery will be like.

But I keep trying to tell myself that it's temporary, and when it's over, there will be a major improvement in my quality of life.

Still, highly surgery-phobic.

Seeing so many returnees posting is the best part of this tragedy.

It is so good to see all of you here, though I hate the reason for it.

It's been bumpy yesterday and today since I've had advising sessions with students at UCLA, as well as meetings with new clients for the business and I've had to work to put all of this aside while dealing with those, and then come back to it.

I wish that I could just take some time to process, but alas, that isn't going to be the case. It is one of the downsides to running a small business.

All of that being said, I am fucking TERRIFIED of this surgery. It's probably a little ridiculous, as it's minimal, but I'm highly surgery-phobic.

While chances are everything will go just fine, there is nothing wrong with having fear of surgery. I learned that first hand. I never had a big surgery fear, and then I had what was a very routine procedure and I'm sure folks remember how that ended.

This sounds like I'm trying to scare you, and I'm not. What I'm saying is that the fear is okay and that you have support here. Recovery from any surgery is a drag, but you'll have family around, and you'll have us around to help you through it.

On a personal level, let me know what I can do to help.

My husband's bonus mom (his brother's mother, his father's wife, too close to be called stepmom) is going in for a partial glossectomy tomorrow along with having some lymph nodes removed, due to cancer on her tongue/in her throat from a decaying dental filling. She gets there at 6 am and is set for surgery to start at 7:30. She'll have 8-12 hours of surgery, 24-48 hours in the ICU, and 10-14 days in the hospital, before the long road of recovery at home begins.

If you find yourself awake between 6 and 7:30 am Eastern tomorrow, please imagine her covered by a quilt with a twilight blue blending into a deep violet covered with the moon, stars, the sun and dragonflies.