Take Deep Breaths

Originally published at constant-casualty.net. You can comment here or there.

It’s after 1am and I really should be sleeping.

I can’t, though.  Just like last night, I’ve been up on the hour, every hour since we went to sleep at 9:30.  I texted the manager again to tell her I wouldn’t make it into work again tomorrow, because I couldn’t get into the clinic today.  I haven’t checked my phone since I went to bed, but I haven’t heard back from her yet.  I really don’t want to have to call her in the morning, because it will only make me feel more guilty.  Whenever I don’t go into work, I spend the day feeling awful and thinking to myself, “I should have gone in.  It really isn’t that bad.  I probably could have made it.  They probably hate me.” But to be honest I just don’t have it in me.  I said to Simon tonight, “there are few things I despise more than not being able to breathe.”  It’s like this… ache… in my chest.  Every time I try to breathe in, my chest hurts and my clavicle hurts and I just can’t get a good breath in.  It’s getting more frustrating than anything now.

There was only one packet of the medication left for my nebulizer to take a treatment, so I waited until I woke up the first time to take it.  I didn’t finish the whole thing, so now I’m up again finishing it up.  I’m almost out of my inhaler, and I only refilled it about two weeks ago.  The last one I had lasted me at least three months.  I’m beginning to worry that I’m going to be doing damage to my lungs if I keep this up all night.  Not to mention how sick I feel with all this medication pumped into my system.  I can’t seem to stop shaking.

I know that this is all partially due to Hopkins and the fact that I haven’t built an immunity up against him yet.  But I’ve never had this kind of reaction towards an animal.  It’s usually accompanied with itchy, watery eyes and rash spots and an itchy nose - none of which I have.  So I’m willing to bet it’s more due to this damn cold I’ve been fighting for the past week.  I think tomorrow is my last day of my antibiotic… I wonder if I’ll actually feel better.

So, the plan is to go to the doctor’s as soon as I drop Simon off at work tomorrow and (hopefully) get some steroids, the Advair inhaler that I should really be on, some allergy medications that I used to take, and hopefully a refill prescription of my rescue inhaler and some more nebulizer treatments.  Let’s just hope the doctor who is on duty won’t give me a hard time.  Sometimes they tend to.  I’ve been dealing with this since I was two, so give me a break… I know the routine.

I just can’t keep from feeling worried about the manager and work.  Granted, on Monday when she was away and I had to be at work - even though I sounded (and felt) absolutely horrid, she called and heard me, felt awful and said to me, “If you’re still feeling crappy, just don’t come in Friday and Saturday, because I’ll be back.”  She didn’t seem to have a problem when I texted her and told her I wouldn’t be in today.  I just have this paranoid fear that somehow she didn’t get my text today and that she’ll be expecting me at work tomorrow and then it will create an even more awkward situation.  But it’s not like I’m going to go in either way, so I suppose it doesn’t really even matter.

So, this was my first post in keeping my New Year’s Resolution of sorts.  Was this completely rambling and random enough?  Sometimes I just have this need to type.  Which is why I’m beginning to love my Tumblr so much.

I really think I need to go back to bed now.

That Goth Girl

Originally published at constant-casualty.net. You can comment here or there.

“You Bring Out the Best In Me” taken on October 31st, 2008

This struck me as hysterical when I was in the midst of a conversation held by two of my co-workers a few weeks ago.  It’s sort of an on-going joke with a few people at work that I’m “goth” (or, as they put it: “into all that gothic stuff”) because I wear mainly black, have black hair, etc. etc.  All this is true, but I don’t really consider myself “gothic” because of it.  So the two co-workers were talking about how I have a tattoo on my hand.  The older driver (a guy) asked me if it was the only one I had.  I said it was, but I wanted more.  Then he asked me what my real hair color was, so I told him it was some sort of brown that I couldn’t even remember, because I have been dying my hair since I was in sixth grade.  He joked that I must be “into that goth stuff,” because there wasn’t a day he has seen me that I wasn’t wearing black.  And because of the hair, the tattoo, the black clothes and the eyebrown ring…  I laughed and told him I understood where he was coming from, but I really didn’t think I was all that goth-looking.

That was when the other co-worker, a friend of mine, chimed in talking about how they were shocked to see how I looked, because after talking to me on the phone so much they had a completely different image of what I looked like.  I was curious.  What could they possibly think I looked like due to my voice and phone manners?  Their answer?  “Some ditzy blonde bimbo.”  My co-worker friend said that when I finally came in for the first time and introduced myself as Jessica, she was floored at how I looked because it was pretty much the exact opposite as to how I sound when I’m on the phone.

I could not stop laughing.  So apparently I’m a rare mix of Blonde-Bimbo and Goth-Girl.  I have no idea anyone could ever pull such a thing off!