1) I just got a kick-ass retro chrome watch with red LED read-outs.
2) I am feeling a lot better, and went to work today.
3) My daughter made me SO angry today I wanted to lock her in her room until she’s 28.
4) I’m down to 171 lbs… which is 4 over my wedding weight in 1995.
5) Let’s change “28″ to “56.”
Jul 292005
One of the comments I received mistakenly states that antibiotics make viruses stronger over time. While this isn’t correct (in fact, the near-opposite is true: antiobiotics only affect biotics, i.e. bacteria, etc), it raises a really good point.
Take your medicine. ALL of it.
In New York City, we have something called Super Tuberculosis. Or super TB. It’s a multiply resistant form of the disease which came about because a whole lot of TB patients stopped taking their medicine as soon as they felt better. What they didn’t realize was this: they felt better because the medicine had killed a whole lot of bacteria. But not all of them.
The last to die? Those are the strongest of them all.
And what these patients were left with, then, was a rapid regrowth of the strongest TB bugs their body had left, ones that were resistant to the drugs, and would be near impossible to treat.
TB is just one example. Super Bugs are becoming more common across the board.
Thanks for all the wishes, by the way. I’m so much better today that I’ve already overdone it. I carried a 19″ monitor (LCD) and two laptops from home to work… including walking from 35th street to where I work in the East Village. Zzzz.
Jul 262005
This is the first time I haven’t just rocketed back to health after starting antibiotics.
I have GOT to go back to bed. I really want to go to work tomorrow, but if I feel anything like this, that would be totally stupid. I feel okay when I’m sitting on the couch… my eyes burn a little, and I feel kinda dizzy… but when I stand up, I feel TOTALLY weak.
It’s kind of like pneumonia, only I can breathe.
This is quite a little challenge. My chest hurts, I’m achy all over, and I feel like I could fall asleep in a few minutes.
Perhaps I will.
Over the last 48 hours, I got super-sick. Chills, 104-degree fever, total fatigue. I wound up in the ER. They did bloodwork, and found my liver enzymes were wacked. My platelets and white blood cell counts were low. They said “you have ehrlichiosis.”
I said “Whoa.”
Just got back from the hospital. ‘Night.
Sorry about the vagueness of this one. I won’t do it again.
On Friday, I did my first full and complete 5th step. It was an absolutely amazing experience, and completely different than what I expected. When it was over, I felt infused by light, and totally excited about the future.
During the process, there was one point where I tapped into this unbelievably strong wellspring of sorry over my father and mother. Although, having thought about it, i think it was two things: 1) Crazy-ass borderline that he is, I still miss him tremendously. 2) Having three kids of my own, I have no clue as to how he could act the way he does. I understand that he’s sick, but when my kids do the exact same shit that, when I did it, was termed “evil,” I’m like: “What the FUCK? This is just normal KID stuff.”
Well, God bless the man.
I didn’t engage those feelings. I realize I’m going to have to, eventually. But not now. For the moment, I am reveling in the fact… the concrete realization… that doing a fifth step, and following it quickly with the 6th and 7th, means that I am totally responsible from my actions from here on out. No blaming anyone, no matter what they did, do or will do.
I am totally accountable. Rock on.
Holy Smokes!
So, three days after running the Nike Run-Hit Wonder Race, I ran the 4-mile Run for Central Park. My clock time was 28:29, which means I had at least a 7:07 pace. My previous fastest was 7:42 in a 5k race back in March.
Yeesh! Yay!
I almost lost it, though. I ran the first mile in 7:21, and the second in 6:50. So by the third, I was feeling a whipped. I’ve never experienced the “recovering your breath while still running pretty hard” thing before. It’s amazing how, if you slow down just a little, you’ll slowly recover enough to start speeding up again. I never really tried that before.
…
The official results just came online: I ran a 7:04 pace. ROCK ON.
Hey, cool!
I came in the the top 650 out of 3700-something guys. That ROCKS. I ran a 7:51 pace. My second fastest to date. Yay!
And no, I don’t mean the Rush album. Wait, you mean you don’t *have* that one?
I saw my oldest in a swim meet today. It’s his first year on the team. When the race started (he’s on the “exhibition team,” which means “beginner so it doesn’t really count”), I got confused. I saw this speedy, graceful, muscular Big Kid sliding through the water, and I said to Maggie: Is that really him?
It was.
So. Maggie is sick. She actually asked me to come home from work early today to take care of the kids. And she’s a true Irish “work-through-the-pain” type. So you know she’s hurting. And I did this. But my main employee is out sick (for the second day), and I’ve got all these open orders I really need to work on pronto. I feel like I’m torn between family needs and family funding, you know.
Then, fuck, we’re closing on a refinance on the house tomorrow. We’re rolling in our home equity line and getting a 1% reduction in the 30-year to 5.875%. I say “fuck” not only because I like to, on occasion, say “fuck,” but because after stringing us along… they moved the closing to 3:30 in White Plains, NY. This bums me out because I’m running the Nike Run-Hit Wonder Race tomorrow, and if things get delayed, I’m going to miss it. This is my fourth race this year that counts towards the 2006 New York Marathon. My fifth is Sunday.
Anyway: work, family, self. Anybody know how to balance this stuff?
Jul 182005
Maggie is sick. Maybe with a recurrence of Lyme disease. She’s tired and fluish and aches all over. Her test results come back Thursday. I got home around 9… just in time to say goodnight to her and my oldest. My two youngest were already asleep.
I’m missing my parents, right now. It’s such a strange thing to say. But I really do. The thing about my father is this: he’s not a bad guy… he’s just got a major problem. Let me correct that. He’s can be a GREAT guy, but he’s got a major problem. And when that problem focuses on you (like it did to my Uncle and my Grandmother)… oh my God, is it frightening.
Folks with Borderline Personality Disorder are persuasive and relentless and frightening.
The thing is, I love my parents dearly. And I miss them. In spite of the fact that they think I’m evil… that they think I’ve been trying to destroy their marriage since I was four years old… I still think this is driven by illness, and hope that, one day, I could at least say hello again.
The caveat: I will not let Maggie get hurt by them again. While I watched the decades-long rage against my Uncle and Grandmother… she never experienced a Borderline in action. She was unprepared, and thought that she could win them over with honesty and kindness. No wonder she got shingles. Twice.
Ugh.
I’ll be happier tomorrow.
Recent Comments