This will always be my favorite cartoon ever

Flexinations!

1. I just had my annual physical.
2. It turns out I am NOT—despite physical appearances to the contrary—pregnant.
3. Those of you who decided I was pregnant—even silently to yourselves—are just rude.
4. RUDE.
5. I’ve known my doctor since we were in middle school.
6. He just touched my bits.
7. It wasn’t awkward.
8. Not at all.
9. NOT. AT. ALL.
10. HE. TOUCHED. MY. BITS.
11. But I didn’t get pregnant.
12. It’s already flu-shot season.
13. Seriously.
14. VACCINES CAUSE NOT DYING.
15. So my body is now coursing with flu germs.
16. HE TOUCHED MY BITS.
17. Not awkward.
18. As the flu-shot nurse was setting out her supplies before injecting me with flu germs, I asked if instead of her boring Band-Aid she might have a Superman Band-Aid.
19. I was just being silly.
20. BUT SHE HAD ONE.
21. So now my flu-germy arm is also a flu-germy bird and a flu-germy plane.
22. And it can leap tall buildings in a single bound.
23. Of course I needed to take a picture of it.
24. The flexing was totally accidental.
25. Because I would NEVER do that on purpose.
26. 🙄
27. That’s my favorite emoji!
28. HE TOUCHED MY BITS.

I’m at my three-month nephrology checkup to monitor any potential kidney damage from my psych and various other meds

My kidney doctor’s office ALWAYS has HGTV playing in the waiting room, so every time I talk about my pee (oops ... creatinine) I hate the countertops and I think the en-suite is too small.

Also: boat anchor shorts!

Also: super-expensive-super-awesome adidas x Raf Simons sneaks that were super-super-mega-super 75% on sale!

Also: adidas doesn’t capitalize its name, lest you think I’d EVER make a fashion typo!

I canceled my trip to the pain clinic last week because my headache pain was (and still is!) virtually gone

I decided to keep my ophthalmologist appointment today though because 1) I’m waaaaay overdue for an eye appointment anyway and 2) it took forever to get on the schedule and 3) ophthalmologist is fun to spell. Ophthalmologist! See?

So I’m here and artfully masking the signs for the ladies’ bathroom in my selfie and moments away from getting to tell people that I’m dilated to meet them.

Ophthalmologist!

You know how I never have stupid medical problems like chronic running injuries or bipolar disorder or a now five-week occipital neuralgia headache? Ahem.

I mean remember how I had a suspicious mole on my wrist biopsied two months ago? Turns out it’s squamous cell carcinoma, which wouldn’t exactly be a headlining drag name. And after a month-long wait to get on his super-packed calendar (pro tip: go into dermatology if you want ironclad job security) and I’m finally at a dermatologist’s (at the cruel buttcrack of dawn) for a preliminary look at it to schedule coming back to have it removed.

SO. MANY. DOCTOR. APPOINTMENTS.

Back at the doctor for another attempt to figure out what the hell is wrong with my stupid head

While I’m waiting and the pain is throbbing and my eyes are crossing and my ears are screaming, help me figure out this shirt. Age appropriate? On trend? Flattering colorways? Chick magnet? I’m totally lost in this quest.

HEADACHE UPDATE:

I got a shot of Toredol industrial-strength painkiller in my shoulder this morning, and OHMYGODITHURT. It took its sweet time killing the pain in my head—and it never killed the pain from the damn shot—and now, just seven hours later, it’s quickly wearing off. I feel my eyes trying to cross as I type this.

I finally got my CT scan at 4:30, and apparently there’s nothing remarkable in my head. So I’m back to ingesting mountains of painkillers and snorting gallons of squirty sinus stuff, as they say in the ouch-my-head-hurts medical world. And in the mean time I just saw—and subsequently googled to discern the marital status of—Rob Marciano and Will Carr reporting on the ABC Nightly News. In summary: They’re both hot, they’re both married, and they’re both not offering to provide curative hugs and kisses to me and my achy head.

Fuuuuuuuuuck

What began as a throbbing headache over the weekend has escalated into breathtaking waves of pain, ringing ears, cloudy peripheral vision and constant cold sweats. The alarmist in me is obsessing over the fact that I’ve recently been struggling to find words when I talk so I probably should will my estate to the brain cancer society right now and start picking out caskets. But as I’m currently waiting for my doctor to find a place that can get me in for a CT scan this morning, I’m thankful for small favors from the universe like the fact that I didn’t end up in stirrups covered in smiley-face footies as he examined me.

Today in Stupid

Guess who—after eagerly waiting six months to finally have two big ugly pilar cysts removed from his head—initially went to the wrong doctor’s office this afternoon and had to race across town to get to the right one in time for his appointment?

THIS NO-LONGER-LUMPY GUY!

There were never such devoted cysters

I know two of the (currently four) lumpy little (fatty, non-cancerous) pilar cysts on the back of my head had grown significantly bigger over the last year, and I finally had my mom take a picture of them for me because I somehow was unable to take a decent selfie of the back of my head and anyway HOLY CRAP HOW COME NOBODY TOLD ME HOW HORRIFYING THEY LOOKED? I’m so sorry for scarring all your retinas with their alarming hideousness, but I’m pleased to announce that they’re finally meeting their oozy, squishy, gross demise today at 2:30. (But don’t think the terror is over; there are two left, and I’ve had four removed to date ... and the damn things keep sprouting up. So my disfigurement is more of a journey than a destination.)

Anyway, I’m providing some helpful disguise options for the current enlarged ones to protect you until they’re safely dead and gone. You’re welcome.

5-Day #ChristmasCountdown

My. Skin. Hurts.

While Productive Cough and the Why Does My Skin Hurt When I Move Pestilence would be a catchy name for an Eastern European boy band, it’s an even catchier description for how I woke up this morning. But I’m too miserable to go on a boy-band tour right now. 

I did just go on an emergency-clinic-to-pharmacy tour though. The clinic was only taking walk-ins and I was told I’d have a 35-50 minute wait when I got there but I was called right in and after the nurse took my vitals and left the room, the doctor came in and OH MY GOD HE WAS HANDSOME and he looked in my ears and throat and did other things that I’m sure in some cultures count as pitching woo but WHY DOES HE ALSO HAVE TO HAVE A SHY SMILE AND A SELF-EFFACING DEMEANOR he had on a jet-black wedding ring THAT MADE HIM EVEN SEXIER IF THAT’S EVEN POSSIBLE which I took to mean he piloted jets or something because that makes sense right AND HE WAS WEARING KICK-ASS RED RUNNING SHOES BUT HE KIND OF IGNORED ME WHEN I COMPLIMENTED HIM ON THEM BUT I’M SURE IT WAS BECAUSE HE WAS HUMMING “TRUMPET VOLUNTARY” IN HIS HEAD BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT HE WANTED FOR OUR WEDDING PROCESSIONAL and anyway STOP IT WITH THESE INSANELY HOT DOCTORSCEDAR RAPIDS BECAUSE I’M RUNNING OUT OF CAPITAL LETTERS TO SWOON OVER THEM.

His verdict, unfortunately, was the flu.

You might say I opened the window and influenza.

But you shouldn’t say that. Nobody should say that. Ever.

So anyway, this week brought us Mom’s aggressive UTI and Dad’s COPD exacerbation plus pneumonia plus staph plus MRSA plus five days and counting in the hospital and the only thing our family was missing on our sickening scourge scavenger hunt was the flu so now our punch card is full and we all win a chalupa.

Speaking of chalupas, the pharmacist told me I needed to eat before I took my Tamiflu and it’s almost like we were having a cosmic mind meld because I’d picked up a package of Chips Ahoy! on my way to the pharmacy counter partly because I like using exclamation points in the middle of sentences and partly because pestilent people deserve partially hydrogenated pastries but mostly because I was stocking up on food items to be a responsible Tamiflu taker and WHY ARE YOUR DAMN BLISTER PACKS SO DAMN HARD TO OPEN, TAMIFLU?

So now I’m home eating cookies and drinking Gatorade and listening to Sunday morning 88.3 kcck jazz, which is the balm that cures all ills, but I’m still coughing up hearty chunks of lung and I’m still so feverish that I’m unsteady on my feet and I’m modeling the latest trend in face masks which makes me catnip to the ladies but can you really blame them and MY SKIN HURTS WHEN I MOVE WHY THE HELL DOES MY SKIN HURT WHEN I MOVE?

Pestilential parents update

Things have declined a bit since last night. Dad’s oxygen levels have dropped and his lung fluid has increased, which apparently doesn’t equal each other out. But he’s in a hospital surrounded by medical people who stick things in his nose for fun and profit, so we’re leaving him in their hands for the morning.

Mom developed violent shivers late last night so I slept next to her in case they got worse and this morning she had a temperature of 102.2°, plus I figured out how to make a ° on my phone so I’ll be reporting her temperature using little ° signs every f°ur minutes on here. I’ll als° be staying h°me with her f°r a few h°urs this m°rning instead °f g°ing t° w°rk, where I write t°tally g°°d w°rds.

Plus I just googled “doctor cat” and the Internet did not disappoint.

Remember the hot hot hot medical resident with the distractingly sexy forearms who sat in on my psychiatrist appointment a month ago?

I SAW HIM AGAIN LAST NIGHT!

Unfortunately it was in the ER.

Unfortunately it was because my dad’s COPD complications that landed him in the hospital last week got alarmingly bad enough yesterday that we rushed him back gasping for air.

Unfortunately he also has pneumonia this time.

Unfortunately they also found evidence of staph.

Unfortunately my mom is home with fevery, shaky flu symptoms so she can’t even visit him.

Fortunately though, my sister is able to take the day off to stay in the hospital with Dad.

Fortunately also, I’m able to take the day off to stay home with Mom.

So fortunately things are as under control as we can make them.

But unfortunately—and I’m trying to maintain my emotional composure here—the hot hot hot medical resident with the distractingly sexy forearms who first attended to Dad in the ER last night didn’t look at me with a flicker of either recognition or interest. On any the times he stopped in Dad’s room. ANY. OF. THEM. So our marriage is clearly over before we even scheduled a cake tasting.

So to lighten the mood, I’m posting something that the Internet gave me when I googled “funny sick cat photos.”

Flashback Friday: Dilated To Meet You Edition

Seven years ago today there was fresh snow everywhere in Chicago, refracting every beam and glint of sunlight with laser focus directly into my dilated eyes.

Now when there's fresh snow everywhere in Cedar Rapids, there's fresh snow. End of story. Because I’m not stupid.

I just had my six-week psychiatrist checkup

(I'm still crazypants biploar but things continue to be stable and we're not altering my meds this time, thanks for asking) and when my psychiatrist met me in the waiting room she asked me if it was OK if a residency doctor observed my visit and of course I said yes because I'm clearly not a hide-my-crazypants-biploarness person and when we got to her office and she opened the door and he was politely standing there waiting to shake hands and introduce himself OH MY GOD HE WAS TALL AND HANDSOME AND LET'S NOT MINCE WORDS HERE HOT HOT HOT and we sat down for my visit but I kept looking over at his let's still not mince words here sexy forearms because that's all I could see besides his face because he rudely wasn't wearing a Speedo and WHY ARE YOU SO HOT STOP DISTRACTING ME and we talked about all the usual stuff like my moods and my appetite and my feelings of control and my ability to concen OH MY GOD I CAN'T CONCENTRATE BECAUSE JUST LOOK AT HIM HE'S TOO HOT TO WALK THIS EARTH trate and any side effects of my meds (still lingering exhaustion, but thankfully it's not 24 hours a day like it has been) and is there anything else I think would be relevant to tell her WHY ARE YOU TALKING TO ME HAVE YOU EVEN NOTICED THE LET'S AGAIN NOT MINCE WORDS HERE HOT HOT HOT MAN WHO'S ABOUT TO BE A DOCTOR AND I THINK WE CAN ALL AGREE IT WOULD BE A VERY GOOD THING FOR ME TO MARRY A DOCTOR AND HE'S SITTING IN THAT CHAIR RIGHT THERE SO CLOSE I COULD STARE AT HIM FOR HOURS WHOOPS I JUST DID and I said that I've actually ramped up the activities in my life like Follies rehearsals and editing a massive book pro bono and making my bedroom renovation finally really start to happen and cleaning out the storage room in our basement AND WHY WHY WHY DOES THIS INSANELY HANDSOME MAN HAVE TO KNOW I'M CRAZYPANTS BIPOLAR PLUS NOW HAVE A DOCTOR-PATIENT RELATIONSHIP WITH ME BECAUSE THAT PRETTY MUCH GUARANTEES THAT'S THE ONLY KIND OF RELATIONSHIP WE'LL EVER HAVE BUT HOLY SHIT WE'D LOOK HANDSOME IN OUR WEDDING PHOTOS and she gave me some more free samples of my really expensive medication and we scheduled my next six-week visit AND FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS GOOD AND HOLY MAKE SURE HE'S STILL RESIDENTING WITH YOU WHEN I GET BACK IN SIX WEEKS and I think we had a really productive visit.

I have a monster headache that's so bad I can barely see out of one eye

I'm going to close the other eye and crawl back under the covers and whimper myself to sleep. Please don't slap my forehead.

I made it to 12

I tell myself I always know when a bipolar depressive episode is hitting me. I get achingly tired, but I also get TIRED. Despondent. Hoarse. Blurry. I can feel myself teetering off the precipice, but once I gauge the velocity of the free-fall, I know whether I can at least fight it or if I just have to give in, hide under the pillows and wait out the drenching storm. But at least I KNOW.

This morning I woke up profoundly exhausted. So I did my usual things that help pull me out of a rough morning fog: talk to my parents, eat something sweet, play on Facebook, start the momentum of my day by getting dressed for the gym and packing up my clothes for work. But ... nothing. I didn't feel like I was depressed, but I just couldn't un-tired myself.

My doctors have been making minute changes to the dosages of my psych meds since early summer (and if you've never had a cut-up fourth of a tiny, chalky little pill completely short-circuit your brain, you look like you're frolicking in the warm sunshine from the foggy window I've been peering through off and on for the last few months) and I've had plenty of exhausted mornings because of it. Again, in those instances either I've tried to push through and wander about the motions of my day or turn off the lights and hope I can sleep without the bipolar-attendant nightmares.

Today I gave in. I emailed my boss, I set my alarm for noon on the off chance all I needed was a half day of sleep and curled up in a ball. I could tell I was on the upswing when my alarm saved me from the amorphous demons prowling around in my dreams, but -- as is becoming the new pattern -- I couldn't gauge when or even how I was going to arrive back at normal. I just didn't KNOW.

Depression is not sadness. It's not a lack of happiness. The verbs "choose" and "decide" and "control" don't have anything to do with making it happen or making it go away. Depression is misfiring synapses and out-of-code wiring and we're still learning what else that cause fog and blur and despondency and sandbags and wet wool blankets wrapped around our heads and emotive responses that are completely unrelated to and sometimes completely inappropriate for the situations and environments and world around us. It's stupid. It's destructive. It's embarrassing. It's time-wasting and pain-causing and life-destroying.

It's exhausting. I'm exhausted. I'm STILL exhausted.

And the compass I've been using to steer my ship out of my exhaustion is suddenly fixed to new magnetic poles. And I don't know where they are. I can search for them only when I'm having a depressive episode, and I haven't located them yet. I. Just. Can't. Find. Them.

My life is pretty awesome right now. I'm surrounded by family and friends who love and support me. I have a job I love working for an understanding boss and a company I respect. I'm taking on writing projects that are big and small and fun and high-profile and just-because and I'm relishing every word of them. I'm not just doing tons of really awesome theater, but I also finally feel confident that I'm actually contributing to what's making it good. The city I grew up in and just came back to and will always love is rising from the destruction of a catastrophic flood to experience a full-on renaissance in everything from architecture to culture to public amenities to recreation to community redevelopment, and I love taking small detours and out-of-the-way routes and the time to stop and take pictures just so I can try to see and learn about it all. Plus I keep getting told I don't look anywhere near my age. Which when you're my age is HUGE.

Like all bipolar depressives past, present and hopefully not much longer into the future, I tell myself that I won't let my depression control me, that I won't allow it to interfere with my life, that I'm better and stronger and more willful than it is, that I'll never let it win. And through pharmaceutical powers whose lingering uncertainties and dartboard guesswork sometimes feel almost Medieval, through a potent mix of hope and willpower and sometimes desperation, through the immeasurably therapeutic benefits of broadcasting all my battles on social media and my blog, through the light that eventually pierces the fog to remind me about the wondrous life that awaits me when I get back to my normal -- and especially through the tireless and certifiably saintly effort and devotion and support of my mom and the rest of my family -- I've learned and I'm going to keep re-learning as the poles change how to manage this ... if not beat it.

After years and years of bipolar episodes that left me hidden in my bed, I still always feel guilty when I miss a day of work because of one. But it happens. And it's going to keep happening. And it happened today. Even though as of this writing the fog has cleared enough for me to write ten (and counting!) paragraphs about it, I'm still not sure what exactly happened today or where it falls on the exhaustion-depression continuum or what I was able to learn from it that I can use when the time comes to fight my way out of or give in to or maybe just try to manage the next episode.

But I have that awesome life to live. And I have that wonderful, fun, creative, educational job to go to. And I have lines to learn and music to memorize and tap classes to take and show tunes to listen to. And I have people counting on me. And I want to be there for them, for whatever it is they're counting on me for. So even though I'm still foggy and still trying to suss out a viable coping mechanism from today's episode, I'm up and moving and participating as hard as I can so I don't miss a moment of anything.

And this one-sentence closing paragraph takes the count to twelve.

Big. Gay. Gayness.

So Mom's in surgery and for reasons known only to the drugs she insisted I hold on to her lipstick for her AND I brought a mending kit to sew a button onto some shorts -- which I rocked like a boss, for the record -- AND I'm reading a big colorful book about big gay musicals AND my Diet Coke says Veronica AND I have a still-kinda-wispy disco-fantasy mustache so OF COURSE the anesthesiologist is totally hot and all but recoiled around me and my big gay gayness when he talked to us.

But hey -- look at that perfectly placed button!

Please notice that I did not make a gratuitous pee joke

I took the morning off for my six-month neurology appointment, which is in the same building as this helpful sign. I'm--either cynically or proactively--always worried my doctors will run late, so for the big appointments I always take a half day of vacation for my visits. But my doctor was right on time and now I have a lot of time to kill before work. So I'm following the arrows on this sign to get myself a refreshing beverage and we'll just have to wait and see which arrow I follow after that.