Uncategorized – Page 5 – The only certainty is bad grammar

Immediate Care is what I need immediately.

Published: April 5, 2013 / Updated: April 5, 2013 Crystal Uncategorized

I went to Immediate Care at Loyola in Burr Ridge Tuesday morning because I felt like someone was stabbing me in my right rib.

Which wouldn’t be a big deal in an of itself, except that it has felt like someone has been stabbing me in the right rib for about two months now, which makes it hard to think clearly and stuff.

And I wanted to go to Loyola because that’s where my doctors are and I have no idea where their actual ER is but their Immediate Care is kind of on my way to work.

And I’ve been having trouble working lately, what with the stabbing pain and all, so I kind of wanted to make it to the office. I thought that best case scenario I could stop in, get some help and maybe make it into to work for the afternoon.

Except when I got there, the doctor was all, “Why didn’t you go to the ER?”

And I was all, “Well last time I went to the ER, they diagnosed me with an ulcer, which was technically correct but not really the source of my pain at all, and then I spent a month with stabbing rib pain thinking an ulcer was causing it when it wasn’t. And I gave up tomatoes for no reason.”

And she was all, “Oh.”

And then she offered me a prescription for codeine.

And I was all, “Umm, ya, codeine doesn’t do anything for my pain.”

And then, with a very exasperated voice, she was all, “Well! I can’t give you anything stronger than codeine at Immediate Care!”

As my boyfriend says, “Immediate Care: Unless you’re in too bad of shape.”

She did give me a steroid pack. Which I thought was working. But now I feel like I’m dying again, so I don’t think it is.

I also tried to take two of the codeine she did give me anyway. The had the same effect as an M&M.

I want to cry a lot.

I can’t believe Heather B. Armstrong is getting divorced.

December 17, 2012 Crystal Uncategorized

I know it’s not really any of my business that Heather B. Armstrong is getting divorced.

I know that I don’t actually know her (even though we met that one time), and that we are not actually friends, and that it has no bearing on my life whatsoever. I also know that any desire to learn the details of her divorce, no matter how well I justify them in my brain, are purely out of desire to know. For my own, selfish sake. I just want to know.

For those who do not follow Dooce.com, Heather is pretty much the blogger who all the other bloggers in the world want to be when they grow up. She writes about her life, and makes about a $1 million a year doing so. And, she writes books on the side like other people knit on the side, she has two beautiful daughters and I truly, truly thought she had the perfect life.

And I don’t mean “perfect” in the sense that nothing bad ever happens to her, because her books are mostly about bad things happening to her. (See: It sucked and then I cried: How I had a baby, a meltdown and a much needed margarita).

I mean “perfect” in that she had everything important. A great, tech-savvy husband who treated her as an equal, a way to make a living a writer on her own terms, and a community of support on the Internet that she could turn to no matter what was happening to her.

And then, a few months ago, she got separated from her great, tech-savvy husband. And she has recently announced that they will, in fact, be getting a full divorce.

For some reason, the news was devastating to me. If Heather B. Armstrong can’t keep her marriage together, what the heck hope is there for the rest of us?

I think what makes the news even more stunning is that Heather has decided not to share the ins and out of the decision. Which makes perfect sense on a human level. But after reading about everything that’s ever happened to her over the years, it makes this news so much more striking. What went wrong? Why did this happen? Can a marriage really dissolve that quickly? Without anyone noticing until it was gone?

As a child of divorce, I though that I understood what really happens to a family when parents split up, but I have to say that during my last four years a youth leader, I have come to see first-hand how completely tragic divorce is for everyone involved. For the parents, for the kids, for everyone. It’s tragic. And I would not wish that on anybody.

I know they had their reasons and that most of us will never be privy too them. I get that. And for them, the reasons were surly tragic enough to warrant this tragic outcome. I am not judging in the least. But I am saying extra prayers for their family right now.

I’m also, slowly, starting to see, that really, nobody out there has the perfect life. Not even Heather B. Armstrong.

Which makes it a little easier to live my own life, I guess. All of us are struggling after all, bearing our crosses and slaying dragons on a daily basis. And it is that common struggle that bonds us all as equals. And makes it so important to do as Jesus commanded, and “Love One Another.”

Wrist rest: De Quervain’s tenosynovitis

Published: November 29, 2012 / Updated: November 29, 2012 Crystal sh*tty things that happen to me, short, Uncategorized

Typing really sucks right now because I have De Quervain’s tenosynovitis, which is more commonly known as Tendonitis.

Basically my tendons are swollen in my wrists. Both of them. And the part where they go over the bone feels like someone is jabbing an ice hammer into the side of my arm and trying to crush my bones at all times.

I’m on prescription pain meds and have to do “wrist rest” (say that 10 times. Strike that. Try to say that even three times fast. I dare you) for two weeks. Part of the wrist rest involves wearing super sexy braces that curve up over my thumb, and make it impossible to bend them my wrist. Basically, their only downfall is that they are removable.

So all day, I’m like, “Well, obviously the doctor didn’t mean I had to wear them when I do my hair and make-up in the morning.” And, “Obviously, I’m not actually supposed to wear them when I’m getting dressed.” Followed by, “Well it’s not like I can actually wear them when I put clothes in the washer, or brush my teeth or rinse dishes or breathe. No reasonable person would ask me to do that.”

So ya, I need to work on that.

Anyway, all this means that playing Words with Friends really hurts, checking emails really hurts, and typing this post really hurts. So I’m going to be healing my wrists for at least the next week and likely won’t get back to your Words with Friends game until it automatically resigns me for not playing for 22 days or whatever the limit is.

Sorry in advance.