Feh

Well, I went to the doctor this morning, and learned the following: "…"

Yes, that's right. The result of the ultrasound last week? "…"

They see nothing of any interest. To which my doctor rejoins, "Well, I didn't really expect anything…" (THEN WHY SEND ME FOR THE STUPID THING IN THE FIRST PLACE?!) "…so now we'll do this other test where they inject (!) radioactive (!!) dye (!!!), wait around an hour (feh) and then inject (!!!!) garblegehkthock (!!!!!), which causes the gallbladder to constrict and then they can measure how much it does(n't) function, after which we can go do our surgery."

On the plus side, it should be immediately evident if there is blockage lurking around when they inject the garblegehkthock. Ha ha, yes, if there's blockage, apparently, heh heh, oh, this is just SO funny, I'll double over grabbing my side screaming for someone to come shoot me.

So. I've got that to look forward to. (They're bastards. Every single one of them. Bas. Tards.)

We agreed that on the whole, if we're positive we're going to surgery we'd just as soon skip this charming little step…but we can’t. Why? Because insurance won't let us. Oh no. The insurance company needs to have pictorial proof of my malfunctioning gallbladder before we're allowed to do anything.

On the one hand, I'm down with that. Running around cutting organs out of my body at random isn't what I would consider to be the best of ideas. "Let's see if it's this! No? Let's try that! No? OK…I'm not sure what this dingle-dongy thing is, let's cut it out and see if THAT helps…"

On the other hand…let's review:

I can't sleep at night, and am ergo dragging around all day barely able to keep my eyeballs open. I have back pain you wouldn't believe. I have gone through an entire bottle of 250 Motrin in a little over two weeks, which just can't be helping my stomach issues. Everything I eat, low fat or not, makes me queasy; and occasionally I explode in spite of having carefully scrutinized the labels for things like a 1:1 ratio of calories to calories from fat. I have a constant low grade headache which occasionally (whenever most inconvenient) explodes into blinding migraine-like pain. My entire lower abdomen hurts, especially when I walk, sit, or lie down. I have trouble driving, concentrating, or even talking – I especially like it when my speech goes all slurry and the words coming out my mouth bear almost no resemblance whatsoever to the thoughts in my brain.

Oh yes. That's my favorite. Especially when I'm on the phone with my new boss. Oooh goody. Pass the party hats, it's a real knee-slapper going on in here…

And now we have another week (or so) before I can get in for this test. Then we wait another week after that (or so) until somebody can get off their tuckus and get the results to my doctor, plus another day or two (or so) for good measure until I can get in to see him again, at which point we move on in the whole process toward getting the gallbladder removed.

So I'm looking at another three weeks minimum of this before we can start really making progress toward a solution?

Argh.

On the bright side, if I keep losing weight at my current rate, I should be down to about 105-110 at that point. See? There just ain't no rain don't bring no flowers. Hmm. Wait. How many negatives is that…ain't no, don't bring no, um. Carry the one, multiply by my age, divide by number of children…well, anyway. Silver lining and all that. My new pants are already falling off my hips and I tell myself it's all worth it because of same.

I'm lying, of course, and I know it, and I'm about as depressed as I can remember being since the Great Post Partum Depression Ordeal I Don't Like To Talk About Because It Makes Me Feel Like A Really Really Bad Mother™ of 1998.

There is, of course, only one thing to do. Well, two things.

First! I am getting a box of !!BRIGHT RED!! hair dye at the supermarket today when I go to pick up my prescription for stuff that is (allegedly) going to make my stomach feel better while we wait for the actual cure. Enough of this 'I'm going to just let it grow out and be proudly brownish-gray' bullshit. I'm goin' firecracker, and that's that. I can handle gallbladder disease or seeing all that @(*^&@ gray in the mirror, but not both at the same time.

Second! I am casting on a 5-Hour Baby Sweater (with hat and blankie but no booties because I always found those dumb things to be utterly worthless – lots of points for cute, but they never, ever, EVER fit or stayed on or otherwise got used for anything other than a tabletop display), to be donated to Stitches from the Heart.

I don't care how pissy I am, I find it physically impossible to knit something for a newborn, especially of the preemie size, and not get all snuggly inside. 'Cause life goes on, with me or without me, good times and bad. And it goes on in such adorable forms as this, which make men who otherwise would probably prefer a punch to the kidneys over schmaltz do things like this, and just darn it makes you go awwwwwwwwww.