My Summer from Hell - Part One: The Surgery

I just got a computer, yesterday, after 5 months of being without so my first task after restoring all my files and programs is posting for you guys. Thank you, Black Friday sales for decent computers cheap enough I can afford. The last time that I was without dedicated computer access for this long was in 1994, my freshman year of college, but most people didn't have computers then, so it wasn't quite as jarring then as it is now, especially when my entire life exists online.

So I wrote on Cheeseblarg's facebook page a while ago that y'all would find it hard to believe all the shit I had been through this summer, for those of you who aren't following along there, and you probably won't, but I assure you, it's all true, and it's absolute bullshit.

My wish for the upcoming year is that I never have to hear the words, "We're afraid it might be cancer," ever a-fucking-gain from a doctor. This summer started with a mysterious mass in my cervix. I went to the doctor in June because I was experiencing this weird feeling of all of my insides dropping when I stood up for more than 15 minutes which in itself is pretty alarming, but it was accompanied with sweating and feeling like I was going to pass out. Once it got to the point that I couldn't stand long enough to shower without feeling like I was dying, I decided I should probably do something about it, so I bucked up and went to have my lady bits probed by a stranger. I mean, she was a professional, not just some random person on the street with a speculum and a hankering for some gynecological exploring.

Since scraping my lady bits turned up nothing, we went to the next step of sonic spelunking. This revealed the aforementioned "mysterious mass" and then we went to the next step of traumatizing me forever and ever, amen.

Frankly, the whole business gives me more ammunition for the idea that there is a grand conspiracy of hatred for women in this world because I cannot believe that any kind of human rights coalition would allow the equivalent to a cervical/uterine biopsy to be done to any man without general anesthetic. And I've heard that testicular biopsies are done under local and still hurt like hell, but I'm arguing that that is not really equivalent, because testes are not muscles that try to slam shut when you drill pieces out of them causing your entire body to try to escape from what's going on in your nether regions. It was really awful.  So awful in fact, that before I even left that appointment, I made plans with my doctor, before the results came back, to have my uterus and accompanying accouterments removed as soon as possible so I would no longer have a cervix so that procedure could never ever happen to me again.

And my uterus was mint, guys, never been used, though it had been remodeled monthly since I was about 10, so I don't know if I could have gotten full price for it. Anyway, it's totally lost its value now because I took it out of the box. At the end of August, I had them remove my reproductive organs (though I kept my ovaries so they can grow cysts and be generally annoying to keep me off of hormone replacement therapy), and I finally finished healing last month after one of the holes popped open in a cinematic fashion when we thought they were all almost closed.
So that's the story of how I spent 3 months worrying that I had cancer before having a hysterectomy. I didn't have uterine or cervical cancer, but my cervix was faulty and if I had kept it, I would have continued to need biopsies regularly and it would have continued to make me feel like I was dying, and frankly, I wasn't planning on using it anyway, and I'm much happier to have it gone.

Spending all the time in a gynecologist's office, of course, led to appointments with mammography. And instead of just being routine, of course, I got my next, "it might be cancer." I was supposed to be going tomorrow, in fact, to have a lumpectomy to ensure that the tumor they found in my breast during the first biopsy is completely non-cancerous, but I got an ear infection, so now I get to add two more weeks to my 3 months of waiting to find out that this one is nothing too.

And I know that countless people who aren't so lucky would love to be told that it is nothing repeatedly, but having six months of your body constantly trolling you that is mutating and is gonna kill you only to have it yell "PSYCH" after you've had surgeries and near constant stress diarrhea, is relieving as hell, but also really fucking annoying that you had to go through all of that in the first place when your body could have just stopped growing benign tumors in the first damned place.

So that's part one of my trauma. I'm thinking I can wrap it up in one other post, hopefully, next week.

Google Image Upgrade: Medical SafeSearch

I recently went to the doctor because I had to go off of my medications that quiet all of my crazy autoimmune diseases and I acquired a weird sore on my thumb that caused a volcano like hole that was fairly concerning to me.

He told me that if it got worse, I was to come back immediately, so of course, I went home and google imaged my diagnosis to see what "worse" would look like and then I immediately wanted to stab my eyes out with forks.

I appreciate that Google image has been proactive in filtering sexual content with their SafeSearch, which blocks out hardcore images (not that I ever use it, VIVA LA BOOBIES!), but what we really need is a search filter for medical images.

Without fail, every time you do a Google Image Search on a medical issue, there is one mild image showing what a normal case of the disease looks like, and EVERY OTHER IMAGE is like a 20 inch hole with gore and carnage exploding out of it.

Serious, no matter what it is. Hangnail? Stubbed Toe? Splinter? OMG!!! How the hell did someone get a log sized splinter in their eye!?

I'm not arguing that these images shouldn't be available, but dear lord, we need to be able to choose from mild, moderate and horrendous images when we're searching for actual medical images.

Someone ought to make a petition!

(^I did, that's a link to it right there^)

Some Like It Hot!

Someone needs to take my adult badge away...

This is the second time I have burned myself this week. 

The first time, I was melting wax on my stove to use while felting and I accidentally placed my hand on the element. I think I should get a pass on that one, because I have one of those flat top stoves and when the element area is being lazy, it's black (instead of glowing red) like the rest of stove top (Wow, that comes off as really racist upon reading it aloud).

Tonight's burning really is putting me in the realms of, "You can't use the stove any more."

I was innocently heating up a tortilla to make another pulled pork soft taco to eat while watching "We Are The Millers" and the tortilla, which I had just placed in the pan that had been sitting over heat for a few minutes, wasn't particularly warm when I touched it, so I lifted it up and put the back of my fingers directly on the pan... that had been sitting on the heat for a few minutes. As you might expect, which somehow I didn't, it was hot. Very fucking hot. I will need adult supervision until further notice.

Sucky, Suckier, Suckiest.

Last week was one of the suckiest of suck weeks in my life. I just had to add suckiest to my dictionary, because really, it needs to recognize degrees of suck. So yeah, it started off innocuously enough with awesome stuff on TV. I don't watch all that much TV any more, but Sunday evenings, I am there from 6-midnight, pretty much. It brings me joy.  The rest of the week, not so much. 

So yeah, I am back to being destitute, and my mom has thyroid cancer. She goes in a week to have it removed and hopefully that will be the end of it. They assured us that although it is a very large tumor, it is unlikely that it has metastasized, so she should be just fine... hopefully.

The husband losing the job is another matter all together. It took him a year to get a job last time, and places around here aren't really hiring, so I am trying to convince him to go pick up applications for jobs where he obviously isn't going to get hired wearing a magician's cape, since I figure he might as well be amused if he is going to be rejected. Also because flourishing a cape while introducing yourself and asking for an application sounds incredibly fun and the man seriously needs some fun.

So if anyone has an adult sized magician's cape they could loan us, just let me know!

The Day I Stopped Smoking Cloves.

A (n unfortunately true) Cautionary Tale

And in case you can't read my chicken scratch:

Remember that time in high school that I went to Dick Clark's American Bandstand 

to hit on my adult neighbor who was DJing there? And I was smoking clove cigarettes? 

And then I threw up in my hair? And  on the dance floor... and in their bathroom sink

because all the bathroom stalls were taken? 

Good times...good times.

J-san Learns Japanese

I am learning Kana while hanging out with my friend for my annual birthday trip.  Kana, for those of you who are not the sort of person who has all the written languages of the world memorized, is what part of the Japanese written language is called.  It breaks down to Hirigana and Katakana, both of which I am currently trying to learn.

As usual, I end up sounding like I have Tourrette's while attempting to read out loud.

I went to Japan when I was 3.  I don't remember much but toys and big silver and glass buildings, and lots of neon.  My mother informs me that I threw up in my father's pocket while in a Teppanyaki restaurant, before I freaked out screaming, terrified of knife throwing ninja chefs. I can't be sure that the same wouldn't happen if I manage to get back there, but I would love to go!

The Tragic Tale of Carlos and Mari

(there is a video here, RSS subscribers)

I used to have two Siberian dwarf hamsters just like these when I was in college. My boyfriend and I bought them together. It was his idea and when we broke up, not long after we bought them, I retained custody of them. They were named Carlos and Mari. They were both very cute but they met bad ends.

Carlos died during winter break while being watched by my sister, and is buried behind the dorm I lived in at the time. I paid my friend to clean out the cage and bury him for me, because he had been dead a while apparently, before I had been made aware of his demise. We used a spork to mark his grave.

Mari had a stroke sometime the next semester, I think (though I am not veterinarian), and I released her into the wild to enjoy her freedom as an act of kindness, and also because seeing her dragging herself around her cage in circles made me sad. My family likes to tell me that she was probably promptly eaten by a hawk the moment I set her free.

This is part and parcel to why I don't own pets anymore and why I don't think having children is a good idea for me either.

One-Uppers and Grief Shamers

While writing my post about Suffering Magnets, I came to the realization that I may be a One-Upper.

You know, those people who tell you something of equal or greater horror when you tell them something bad that happened to you?


I don't mean to be a One-Upper, it is just that people tell me something has happened to them and then, in an effort to relate, I tell a story about something similar that has happened to me, which usually tends to be a bit more terrible because, as we have established, things are always bafflingly fucked up in my life. So I hear the words just flowing out of my head and I think, 'SHUT UP, JUST SHUT UP. They think you are playing the Grief Olympics.. they think you are an asshole, just shut the hell up'... but OMG it just feels so good to share grief, to remove it from your stupid jerk head and let it out into the world like a little grief dragon, to let it stretch and spread its wings after keeping it cooped up in your belfry of a brain ALL THE TIME.

I'd like to quietly listen and say, "Oh jeepers! That is just so awful, you poor person, what can I do?" but it is rarely what ends up happening. Even though I try... really really hard.

 But in no way am I trying to be a Grief Shamer.

Grief Shamers are the type of people who won't let you have a second of complaining without reminding you that no matter what you are are upset about, other people have it 7 billion times worse so you should just STFU and be glad your grandpa was eaten by a tiger because your ENTIRE FAMILY could have been eaten by A STREAK OF TIGERS EQUIPPED WITH LASERS!

I don't even believe in shaming "First World Problems."  I think sharing suffering make it suck less and there is no shame in that. So, if people wanna complain to me about Bravo's Twitter team spoiling the winner of Top Chef for every time zone other than Eastern, like a bunch of assholes, or finding that their bag of chips is lacking in delicious powdered flavor, I have no problem with that. I just have a problem if you don't want to hear about the time my Chili Cheese Fritos were kinda flavorless, too, and were full of bees that stung my throat and I had to go to the emergency room, but I couldn't get in because it was full of wolves... with lasers.

Sponsor my Pooping!

I have a colonoscopy scheduled for next Thursday. My doctor keeps on harping at me, "blah blah, have a colonoscopy, colon cancer risk, blah blah blah." And I have no problem with HAVING a colonoscopy; they put you to sleep for it and give you drugs that make you mostly forget the procedure (though I have a knack of waking up during it each time until they realize I am awake and pump more drugs into me)... the problem is the prep.  If they could somehow give me amnesia through the whole prep leading up to the procedure, I would have those things any damned time they asked me to.

If you are not familiar with colonoscopies, after they install an IV drip to flood you with drugs of joy, a doctor takes a flexible tube with a camera type device on it and sticks it up your poop chute, looking for any signs of scarring, or cancer, or bleeding, or polyps, or wormholes that make you poop out of your own mouth. But to do that, they have to remove all the everything that usually hangs out in one's intestines so they can get a clear view of the intestine walls, and to do THAT, they make you drink a bunch of gnarly tasting junk that turns your butt into Old Faithful.. for 20 hours.

During my last colonoscopy, 4 years ago, they apparently replaced the regular nursing staff with some Medieval Inquisitionist who clearly thought I was harboring some serious secrets, because she was more than happy to torture me by refusing to let me get up to go to the bathroom. "Just go on the table." I don't WANT to go on the table!! They break prisoners by making them violate potty training! JUST LET ME GO! But nope, she apparently wanted to scar me for life, which she has done, which is part of why, though I am supposed to have a colonoscopy every year, I have avoided doing so.

When I took my mom in for a colonoscopy last year and they told her to just let them know when she needed to go again so they could help her up, I yelped out "WHAT THE HELL!?" and told my tale of Nurse Torment.  "Here?!" the nurse asked incredulously. "That is NOT our policy! I don't know why that happened to you." Uh, because I have to write a blarg somehow and if things were always boring and sane around me, I'd have to ACTUALLY be entertaining, instead of just telling what happens to me or laying in fetal position rocking back and forth.

But as usual, there is more to it than just doing the prep and having this test done. The prep meds cost about 4 times my budget for buying things in a week. The colonoscopy, itself, is totally covered by the hospital now, but the Old Faithful intestinal cleanser, nope... they won't pay for it, so I have to find a way to make it so.

I have toyed with the idea of having sponsored pooping. For a minimum of ten dollars, I could announce on Twitter and/or Facebook

with the inclusion of a link and logo or quick drawing from me. For more than 10 dollars, they could actually make up their own tagline, instead of leaving it to me.  Then I would send the sponsors a card and an I HELP FIGHT COLON CANCER sticker with a brown ribbon, of course*, to thank them for their support, or something along those lines. There is 20 hours of prep, but I wouldn't need that many sponsors to cover the cost, and any extra could go to buy me a solid lunch after the procedure. Genius, no?

I also thought we could have a betting pool to guess how many polyps I have this time.


Regardless, I shall be live tweeting my colonoscopy prep on the 28th of March. It should be a rocking good time. And I promise not to post any pictures of toilets or things that have come out of my butt. I might describe some of it though... but with a sense of humor, always a sense of humor.


*no, really, that is the ribbon color for colon cancer, because someone has quite a sense of humor, and laughter is still the best medicine.

MY EYEBALLS!!!!!

Oh yeah, because I am going blind from all the floaters in my eyes, and the flashy things. 

I'm still not okay with it.

If they blind me with their eye touching machine, I am going to be angry.

And my drawings will probably not be as pretty as they are now.

Ice, Ice, Baby!

Yesterday, after 4 years of being in Montana, I broke my falling on ice virginity. It was almost as traumatic as losing the other virginity... only less bruises this time (I kid).

I had a series of falling incidents in college where I would just be walking along, my ankle would twist, and next thing I knew, I would find myself on the floor while my friends walked on, not even noticing I was no longer next to them.

A slipping fall is much more traumatic, I think, because your brain has the time to register that you will be falling soon. It seems to happen almost in slow motion. The most damaging part for me, since I am well padded, is that it seems I pulled about every muscle in my body trying to recover my balance instead of just going with the fall.


That is why I think people should ALWAYS be drunk while walking on ice.

Why I am a follower RE: SOPA and PiPA

So I blacked out the blarg to support the total eradication of SOPA and PiPA (though I could totally go for some sopa, since it is so cold outside- that's a spanish joke). The thing is, I have been an artist for a very long time, and in that time, I have both had my art stolen, and been accused of stealing art. Every time my art was stolen, I used the laws ALREADY in place to get the work taken down, and every time I was accused of stealing art, it was because the person accusing me was an asshole.

For example, a gentleman posted a lovely nude photo of himself in a community I belonged to and I said, "My, that is lovely, may I paint it?" and he said
"Oh yes, I would love to be painted!"
And then I painted his lovely nude picture (digitally, because I paint digitally), and when I showed it to him, he said, "WELL, IF I KNEW YOU WERE JUST GOING TO PUT A FILTER ON IT I WOULDN'T HAVE LET YOU USE MY IMAGE!!!!!" presumably because he thought having an altered photo of him in the world altered his soul or something, though my painting was indeed a painting and not just some filtered image.
And so I replied, "I'm sorry, if I had known that you expected me to be unable to paint convincingly and realistically, I wouldn't have bothered taking time to paint your ass (literally) for free." and then I took it down, and then I told the internet about it 8 years later, because that guy was a douche.
There was also the craptacular time that my elementary school had a contest to draw a new tiger mascot for a wall mural, with a cash prize, and I was disqualified because they thought I had traced my entry instead of having drawn it from scratch. I had drawn it from scratch. Being a good artist doesn't pay sometimes.



But the point is, SOPA and PiPA want to make it so that this site could be taken down if they even suspect that I am breaking someone's copyright. No due process, no questions, just gone... and that is not okay.  There are already laws that cover piracy and maybe we copyright holders need more avenues for recourse, but creating sweeping laws that take away our freedoms in the hopes that it might help get rid of copyright violation outside the US is ultimately not helpful. They need to find a better way. So, that was what that was all about.

p.s. Don't forget to get your animal high fives in before midnight my time. cheeseblarg at live dot com

How to Ensure a Prosperous New Year.

Everyone in my family is pretty damned funny.  My sister likes to start traditions in our family, and 14 years ago, shortly before she had our First Annual Christmas Weenie Roast (I don't know that we had more than one), she created the tradition of The Christmas Snake.

It goes thusly:
If you wake up Christmas morning with a bed full of snakes, you will have a prosperous and happy New Year... if you don't die of fright, from waking up with a bed full of (rubber) snakes.

And this is probably why non-Christian funny people shouldn't be trusted to come up with Christmas traditions.

Another time I thought I had cancer.

I learned yesterday that I don't like having needles stuck into my face.  I had an inkling before that it was the sort of thing that I would not be in to, but having it done totally cemented in my mind that I REALLY don't like it. I probably like it more than the prospect of having cancer though, which is why I allowed my doctor to put a needle into my face.  If he had just been like, "You know what would be fun? Stabbing you in the face with a needle!" and then he'd come at me all:

 I would have had to use my Hamster Style on him.

But why was a doctor sticking a needle into your face, JRose?

Funny you should ask.

On Friday, my face went all Volcano-mode and the mole by my nose did a dramatic recreation of the movie 2012.

I thought, eh, pimple, whatevs, because I like to talk to myself like I am cool and hep, as the kids say. I kept screwing with it 'til it popped because if I have a giant "end of the world" sort of face sore, I cannot do anything but poke and prod until it goes away or I pass out from pain.
I am not sure what it was, I don't think it was actually a pimple, but it had its sights on my signature mole which is now gone completely because it fell off.  PART OF MY FACE FELL OFF! One of my favorite parts of my face, too. I mean, I would miss my eyelids more, but I really liked that damned mole.

Of course, by "fell off" I mean I kept messing with the little flappy part that was threatening to fall off until it ripped off, but the results are the same, a bloody gross face hole that I was pretty sure was the deadliest kind of cancer, because I always think everything is the worst thing it could ever be... and obviously, my inane expectation that I'm going to die eminently led me to the doctor's office where I allowed him to inject shots into my face to do a biopsy because while it probably isn't cancer, he says, it would super suck to be wrong.

And now I feel sorry for strangers who have to look at my post-biopsy face because I am sure they must feel uncomfortable looking at me. It kind of looks like someone put a cigarette out on my face, which should totally be my story if anyone breaks social code and asks why I am so horribly disfigured.

Cake continues to be a lie.

Yes, I'm alive. Thank you for checking on me.  I went for a three-hour cruise on the S.S. F.U.NABLAPOMO and after several days of getting stranded on the isle of Mai Intestines Haight Me with the professor and Mary Ann, I am back.


And now that I can tentatively keep food down again, my body delivered the following message via twitter:

"I think I'd like Pepperidge Farm vanilla cake with chocolate frosting for breakfast. I don't have any but that's what my body wants."

Well, I mean, I wrote that, I don't have some internal twitterater, but it was a direct message from my body.

So I set out to find my precious Pepperidge Farm Golden 3-Layer Cake, directly.

And then, 4 hours later:

THERE IS NO CAKE!

Seriously, this town is like a black hole of things that JRose wants to eat.



And yes, I am aware that I can ask my store to order things, but that doesn't put the cake in my mouth when I want it... which is now.

Why you should leave aversion therapy to the professionals.

I hate black pepper. You know, the seasoning, that everyone in the world uses, that makes people sneeze? Yes. I hate it. And I hate it, I realized a few years ago, because I was conditioned, as a child, to hate it.

Here is a pro-tip for you: If you decide that it is a good idea to do DIY aversion therapy on your grandchild to get her to stop sucking her thumb by mixing something bad tasting into nail polish that is placed on her thumbnail, don't use a common spice that will be in her food for the rest of her life. Unless you want to be a dick, in which case, go for it.

On Veteran's Day

I'm not going to be funny today, and I usually refrain from posting when I am not going to be funny, but I would like to say "Thank You" to all of our veterans everywhere today.  Being the child of two veterans of war, I know what a sacrifice you make, so, again:

If you would like to listen to the personal stories of how war affected my family members and my feelings on war, which again, is not funny at all and might cause facial wetness and feelings of sadness, you can watch this video I made 3 years ago on the subject. (There are a few not nice words in there, just so you know)

New York: Secrets Revealed

I've learned from my trip here that all of the toilet paper in New York City is made from sadness and crushed dreams.

Really, I think it may be the reason for the stereotypical bad attitude associated with New Yorkers. They seem like great people, their nether regions are just horribly chaffed.


p.s.

Happy Anniversary- My Wedding Cake Wreck

Twelve years ago today, I was getting married in a hurricane. And I had a really ugly cake.

Being the artistic type that I am, I, of course, had an artistic vision for my cake.  I was very into Martha Stewart at the time (I still love her, but I am a bit less obsessed.  For example, I no longer tape her shows, all of them, to watch later because I am doing other things. I think I have just seen them all now, though) and so my cake was a simple clean design.  I drew it from different angles, attached swatches of color for them to match it to my dress (which I also designed and which came out almost as bad as my cake) and took it to Pubic's Supermarket to have it made. Now, yes, I know, when you have a wedding cake made at a grocery store, it is not made by the top bakers in the country. I'm poor and my design was simple enough that I thought it would work, AND they have the most delicious frosting of all the stores in the entire United States.

So this was my design :

I went over it with the baker. Yes all green and ivory. No other colors. Just stacked. etc.

This was the cake of my dreams. So simple, yet different.  So Martha.



This, on the other hand,

was NOT the cake of my dreams.

The cake was not set up before the wedding started, which I am kind of glad of. I'd already had enough disappointment with my dress. Before I entered the reception, my mom sidled up to me and whispered, "You're gonna be mad."

Thankfully, someone managed to snap a picture of me reacting to my first view of it, while my husband laughed at me, most likely because I was saying dirty words and questioning the IQ of the decorator.

That is my "WTF is this shit!?" look.

No really, let's break this down.

Totally NOT Martha!

But it really was delicious, especially since I got my money back for it. Plus, it gave us something to eat while we sat in my grandma's house with no power during aforementioned hurricane.

I'd also like to mention that both of my parents, while walking me down the aisle, stepped on the train of my dress, almost knocking me over.  I am going to guess, for my sanity, that it was not planned.


p.s. My comment section no longer has captchas in an attempt to get you people to comment more. YES, YOU PEOPLE! =P

Change is hard.

I don't buy into the whole, "If it's free, you can't complain" dogma.  My lungs are free, came with the package, but I am totally complaining, as loudly as I possibly can, if they stop working in a useful and helpful way. Something being free doesn't and shouldn't preclude it from receiving feedback, as far as I am concerned.

I do, however, think that making the best of everything is the easiest policy, for one's own sanity, and I rarely join in the "OMG! MAKE IT GO BACK!" crowd. I would rather just make fun of the situation and get on with it... so I have annotated my personal Facebook page below to give everyone a positive spin on all the changes that have happened to the Facebook Layout.

While it seems horrifically changed, it really isn't.  

• There is the addition of the "Awesome Stalk-O-Matic ™" scrolling bar on the right - which is perfect for people who like to obsessively keep up with their favorite people and see EVERY SINGLE INTERACTION THEY HAVE... which is right up my alley.  

          These can likely be cut down by altering your subscriptions to people you don't give a damn about.

• Then there is the "Ninja Algorithm Cool Stuff ™" that is marked by little blue triangles which seems to have no rhyme or reason, but a game can be made of trying to figure out the pattern.

• And all the other stuff that you saw before the change lives underneath the new stuff. Mostly. Except possibly your own posts. Unless you are popular.