What am I, FIVE?!

BY THE WAY…thank you all so much for all the comments and support. I’ve been taking the probiotics and I think they are helping a lot; and the doubling up Vicodin + Motrin hint probably saved my life this weekend. (I did call the hospital drug hotline first to make sure I wasn’t poisoning myself, though; there are so many stupid ways to die and I probably will pick one of them eventually, but I like to avoid it whenever I can because, well, you only get one shot at a stupid death, and I want to make sure it’s the right fit for me, you know?)

Now, boy, did I have a weird morning. Surreal. I mean, it started off kind of lazy and nice. Got up slowly, and took the old time getting the Denizens going because we had plenty of time, right?

Well. We hit some kind of time warp thing and one second it was 6:15 and I had “plenty of time,” the next it was 7:15 and the kids are still half-dressed and I’m all, CRAP! because they have now missed “breakfast” at the sitter’s house (which would be cold cereal…every.single.day…) and are less than ten minutes from missing the van to school, too.

Sooooooooooo…I made them toast and eggs and bacon for breakfast. (They were pleased.)

Then I dropped them off at school instead of the sitter’s house. (Double pleased.)

And took Captain Adventure to the sitter’s house to wait for his bus. (Sorta pleased, sorta not.)

Then I got all wild! and also crazy! and stopped by Barista’s on the way home for a orange dark chocolate mocha (oh, I was verrrrrry pleased!).

Then I came home and rolled up my sleeves (well, actually, I put on a sweater because it was a little chilly in here) and got to work.

Sat through a meeting, during which my stomach decided to start rolling and flopping around because it thought maybe I was distracted. Ha. Allow me to introduce you to my little friend, Multi-Tasking. That’s right. I can listen to a guy describe why something on a spreadsheet Ain’t Quite Right and boss my stomach around.

This is how talented I am.

And then it turned out the tables I had been using weren’t quite right (fortunately, not because of something I did…not really because of something anybody “did,” more just because when you’ve got something as complex as this something is, with whackity majillion fingers in eighteen pies, well, it’s easy for something to get overlooked in the process).

We had another meeting about this. And at the end of it, we were going to chat over IM. And I waited for a while, but no chat was forthcoming.

So I said, “You know what? This is probably going to result in me having to re-run everything I did today which is going to take a while sooooooooooo I’m going to go ahead and get myself a bowl of soup while the getting is good.”

I went downstairs. Put a bowl of soup in the microwave. (Homemade semi-cream of tomato soup – it has some small chunks of homegrown tomatoes in it, not big enough to be a problem for the chew-less but enough to make me feel like I’m “eating” something.)

Took a couple more Motrin and a Vicodin and my next dose of antibiotics.

Was sitting at the table with the newspaper getting my daily dose of outrage while I drank my soup…

…and then, it happened again!!!!!!!! Time folded itself around my house and I blinked and it was almost 3:30!!!!!!

And I had a big red blotch on my forehead and cheek from the table.

Whoa. Maybe I was, like, abducted by aliens who performed brain experiments on me!

…or, possibly, I put my head down on my kitchen table like an exhausted toddler and fell asleep.

For almost two hours!!!!!!!

I mean seriously, what is this, kindergarten?!

I wasn’t that tired, either. (Or, I wouldn’t have said I was, anyway.) (Hmmm…I’m sounding more and more like a toddler every second here, aren’t I…)

Even more strangely, Vicodin doesn’t usually do that to me. Usually, it actually makes me kind of hyper and keeps me up at night, which has been part of the problem this week. “Oh, the Vicodin will help you sleep!” The Experts™ say, nodding wisely. “No, no it won’t. It will make my hyper and keep me up all night,” I will say. And then they go, “Ha ha ha, no, it’s a sedative, dear…”

Because obviously, having lived inside my skin for forty{mumble} years is as nothing to their knowledge of what they’re prescribing. Which says right on the label, “May cause excitability in some patients.”

Hmm. Maybe I should change my name to Some Patients.

ANYWAY. It was so embarrassing I naturally had to rush right out and tell the entire Internet about it. (Well, after I frantically answered a bunch of emails, ‘fessed up to my project manager that I’d just taken a two-and-a-half hour “lunch” in the middle of all our Crazy and kicked off three simultaneous data pulls to pop into spreadsheets so I can pretend I wasn’t asleep for two and a half hours at my kitchen table, drooling on the story about adult education centers in peril of losing funding.)

Sigh.

On the one hand, obviously, I must be sicker and more in need of sleep than I feel like I am.

On the other, you know what I did not need today – or this week, for that matter? More lost hours. My task list (both at work and at home, thank you very much) isn’t getting any shorter, and my paycheck isn’t getting any bigger, and I’m going to have two more days fully off next week…argh.

But I guess it’s kind of to be expected. I keep thinking I can just suck it up and walk it off, no matter what “it” is. I get angry when I can’t. I’ll be the first in line to tell somebody else that holy crap, woman, go to bed!…but when we’re talking about me I’m all, “Nah. I can take it. I’m prairie-tough.”

And boy, do I ever howl when it doesn’t work out the way I wanted it to work out. (Ohmygah…I really am only five years old…well…sure explains a lot, don’t it?)

I’m really looking forward to this being over. Funny how something so small can just…take over your whole life, you know? The outward signs are so tiny; even the Yucky Thing that had me so thoroughly freaked out was no bigger than my pinkie toenail. (And about as attractive, come to think of it.) (Memo to me: Pedicure. Look into it.)

But man oh man…everything from my diet to my sleeping to even when I can work is being dictated by this thing.

Kind of humbling, really. There you are, going about your life like the Queen of Everything, thinkin’ you’re totally in charge and some junk and then wham. Something you need a microscope to actually see grabs you by the knees and sends you flat on your face.

Glad I worked from home today. I mean, I probably wouldn’t have fallen asleep on my desk in front of God and everybody at work…but you never know.

Especially as I’m not actually in charge of these things, it would seem.