6/05/2004

Awwwww!!

Let me know, what's your heart made of?? Mine is:


gold heart
Heart of Gold


What is Your Heart REALLY Made of?
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EUREKA!

Well, I think I figured out at least part of it.

She keeps working herself up into hissyfits, then she SAYS that her blood pressure goes up. Except that she has been taken to 3 separate cardiologists in the past 10 days or so.. and all of them say the same thing... ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG WITH HER. General concensus is she's doing it for attention. Thing is, i think she IS working herself up into like a panic attack, which the symptoms sort of mimic. Trust me, I know... I've had them and been afraid to go to sleep at night.

But why doing a 360 on me?? Then last night, I figured it out when she came and was grabbing my arm in a vise-like grip saying "IM SCARED IM SCARED!!" (you should be honey, you have some serious Karma coming your way)

See, last week, they brought the copy of her various checks on her heart and all... but between Z and his sisters.. it was like reading greek.. and MIL kept swearing that they were lying to her. The only thing they could all make out was the work NORMAL all through it..I got so fed up, that Dr.Cyn (yes me) got up and swiped the medical report and started reading... then I started explaining it in easy terms.. see, Im used to reading these reports because of my mom's heart problem and plus... I really enjoyed science and biology class in school and also reading... medical books when I was younger. I am fascinated by the way the body works. I just kinda like to know whats going on. Sooooo.... I started explaining the test results of the flow from one ventricle into a chamber of the heart, the aeortic valve blah blah blah... and explaining to all of them. That everything was perfectly normal. She is 75, heart is fine, cholestorol is perfect, and no diabetes or anything else for that matter other than a little arthritis. She doesn't know how lucky she is and I said it to the whole room when I finally ended up reading. My final comment of that evening was said nicely but firmly: "She is sitting here DEPRESSED that there is nothing wrong with her. She'd rather be dying!The she says that she IS dying and you are all lying about it. Instead of her sitting here screaming and yelling at the top of her voice that she is dying and no one is telling her the truth, she should get on her knees and thank her maker that she has reached the age she is with the excellent health she has. I wish MY parents could be so healthy!" and I walked out. So ...yet again.. the Oscar goes to..........my MIL. I swear, she will probably outlive me.

Also, I am the ONLY one that is excellent in an emergency situation. I am calm cool and focused. I may very well pass out after the fact, but during an actual situation, Im the one you want around. Z's older sister DOES have high blood pressure and when they took her to emergency... Im the one she wanted with her the whole time.

MIL also knows that I know CPR and no one else does... since she watched me perform it both on her grandaughter and on my baby kitten, which would explain why she was literally hangning off me reciting what the doctor last night told her thing by thing.. asking does it make sense or does it sound like they are lying to her. So yeah, she's being nice (for her) to me thinking that I may be the one to save her life.

Heh. Even deep in her gut, as much as she hates me, she knows that if she wants the TRUTH, Im the one to tell it.

Now isn't THAT ironic?

6/04/2004

In The Twilight Zone

Something is up. My gut instinct's warning bells are SCREAMING at maximum volume and I feel that I should state it "for the record".

Monster is being..... "nice" (well, for her) to me. All of a sudden. She is even SPEAKING to me.(With me tentatively answering-problem is.. I have to be EXTREMELY wary of what I say, even the most banal reply will become twisted around. Example: I say "What a beautiful sunny day today Not a cloud in the blue sky!" It becomes: "Can you BELIEVE she said how black the sky is and it's probably going to pour for 3 days??!!!) Get the idea? So understand my alarm when,for no apparent reason,she just started talking this morning. This is SO not normal.

She's got something up her sleeve, definetly. What terrifies me is that no matter how I rack my brain, I can't imagine what it might be.

I'm not being mean. I'm speaking from first-hand experience of 15 years day in and day out with her. When she is like this there is ALWAYS an ulterior motive. Once Upon A Time, I used to think it was my imagination... but now... nuh-uh. Sadly, I just face the bald fact that: It means one of TWO things.... she is up to something, plotting and planning... OR - Heaven help me- she has done something.. in which case, I will have to wait for the proverbial shit to hit the fan and find out. God knows how long it will take too. Sometimes the plans are long-range, others.... immediate and lethal.

Either way, I'm SOOOOOOOO screwed.
I'm Still Laughing!!

You know, I really am still snickering over this. It is one of my favorite Homer Simpson "DUH!" moments. Allow me to explain.

It cracks me up when men get so flabbergasted that they start to eat their foot and end up with the whole leg. Makes me wanna say: "So, would you like fries with that??" Bwahahahah. A prime example happened to me today.

Went to the hospital for a doctor appointement, (OK, to weasel my way OUT of a hospital stay) and since I was there, I thought I'd go literally pop my head in the neice's room that deliverd the triplets (3 stooges)and say congrats, since I'm so damn sick with this "camel hacking up a lung" cough I have. Don't want anyone getting my cooties! Now then...

I went in. Made my congrats, Hellos and Sorry I can't stay Im sick just wanted to say hello. babies are beautiful thank God they are breathing on their own..etc...blah blah, blah. Her cousin is sitting there with his wife and their 3 month old. This cousin has only seen me hanging out at his cousins house at around midnight in clothes that were 2 steps up from my pj's. SO today, when I was all gussied up, I guess he didn't recognize me right off. because he said, LOUD in front of the whole room:

"OHHHHH! That's YOU!!! I saw you downstairs... um, yeah I saw you, Hi, but I didn't think I knew you! Um, I ...um.." Then he got this OH SHIT! Look on his face and clammed up. By then everyone in the room everyone stared at him and the other men just gave him pitiful looks.. DUH! Would you like fries with that pal?

Dork. ie: I was checking you out downstairs but didn't realize I actually knew you. Typical, just typical. If he had not stumbled around the sentence, it would have been considered pretty vague... but, he didn't. But I must say it made my day, considering how sick I was feeling. made me snicker my head off all the way to the car.

Just what a woman needs every now and then...

6/02/2004

Somebody STILL Loves Me!!!!

Ahhhh, rotten as I am feeling still *lungs wheezing and heaving* I got the most WONDERFUL surprise in my Inbox this morning that just made my day. An email from Rose, my bestest friend in Los Angeles, where I used to live up until six years ago. I thought that she too, like me, had dropped off the face of the Earth, but no! She sent me an email! Wooooooohoooo!!! Yaaaaaaaaaaay! My heart is happy.

Rose and I worked together. But it was more than that. We were/are like sisters. Close sisters! We spent loads of time outside of work together...getting into various mischief. We would connive at work to weasel our lunches at the same time so we could "escape". We were always snickering between ourselves. Giggling. (Grrrrrrrrrllllll!!!) After work... we'd either go shopping... or hit the mexican restaurant up the street for drinks and just kill time until the weekly staff meeting at 7pm, then go back to the meeting and try to not act inebriated! Heh. I have missed her so much for so many reasons. The hardest part of my moving away from L.A. was not so much leaving the state/country, no. It was leaving my mom and.... my friends...like Rose. In particluar my Mom and Rose.

She came to the house that last day, when I didn't know which way was up. She came into the middle of a war zone, actually. It wasn't pretty. The whole time is still a daze to me...even now.But Rose came, and sat down with me for just a few minutes and said "breathe." She brought me a little going away gift (that I still have and guard jealously) and one for Arianna,and a bit of calm to the storm. The saddest thing was watching her leave my house that day, and not knowing when I'd see her again.

So anyway, her timing now couldn't have been more strange.But then again, maybe not so strange.

Just yesterday, I was telling Z that I want to go home for a visit in October if "the planets align properly" cause.. well shit happens, you know? I mean, IF my work doesn't mind... etc..The night before that, I was thinking of Rose so much.... Rose, if you're reading this... I had cooked your FAVORITE PERSIAN FOOD! I was looking at it, remembering how I used to bring you some for lunch to work.

So now, I really hope, and wish that this trip works out for me.Well isn't this interesting? Sometimes wishes DO come true.

I IM'd Z and told him about my email surprise and he too agreed how coincedental it all was. Then he said to me a Persian quote: "Del beh Del raah dareh." Which basically means that "Two hearts joined walk together[regardless of distance between them]".

And you know, I liked the thought of that. Thanks hon.

6/01/2004

Strangely Enough,I'd Rather Be At Work!

Yes, you read right. I'd rather be at work. Im sick as hell. But I'd rather be at work. But NOOOOOOOO. Doctor made me PROMISE, damn his eyes, that I would sit my ass at home for the next 2 days and try and get better.

He is right of course. Last time I got sick like this, was last September in the hellish crappy year of 2003. I went to work. It was a new job... ie: i'd just been working 2 weeks. So, sick as hell - and looking it- I would dutifully show up to work UNABLE to BREATHE. I had been out of work due to the damn war for 8 months... and I'd be DAMMNED if I lost this job. My boss, who was a sweetie, told me to go home. I felt guilty though. So I would stay. I couldn't afford to lose this job. Doctor kept trying to admit me to the hospital. I refused. I told him why. He understood. He still wanted me in the ward, but he understood.

At least he understood until the day I showed up in his office unable to talk, and unable to get any air into my lungs. My airways had almost swollen shut. Into the ward I went... onto an almost constant oxygen/nebulizer with an IV shoved in my arm pumping in heavy antibiotics into me. 8 days later I was released, ON MY BIRTHDAY. I begged him... please, don't make me spend my birthday here! So I got to go home. Boss gave me get well/Happy birthday flowers. NICE ONES.He told me "we miss you around here, but YOU TAKE AS LONG AS YOU NEED. I JUST WANT YOU WELL, OK??" Sweetheart, ain't he?

So now I find myself in an almost identical position. Excecpt, that this time, I didn't fuck around and wait until I was REALLY bad to go to the doctor. SO. I have this on my side. Pray for me, will ya? But BOY have I digressed. I was saying WHY I hate staying home, now wasn't I?

My MIL. I'm home alone with my MIL. (Mindy, I know you are shuddering right now!)This is not a good thing by a long shot.Do you know what MIL stands for? MONSTER-IN-LAW. Now wait, before you get all huffy on me. Even Z calls her that. My mom is the one that thought up the nickname for her after a two month visit and first-hand experience. You think I'm gonna argue with my MAMA?? Um, NO!

See, she hates my GUTS. Literally. NO, Im SERIOUS. She daily curses me... for breathing. For eating, for sleeping.For not divorcing her son.For being on the computer.For cooking. SHE KICKS MY CATS. For... aw hell, you name it. Im serious. When I sneeze, instead of "Bless you" I get "God willing, you die". No shit!(Did I mention i've been sneezing a helluva lot lately? no?)I swear she says that. She frequently tells me "I will shit in your grave". How pleasant. I get called every cuss word in the PERSIAN langueage (and the few English ones she's managed to learn). It is quite an eloquent langeage too. Have I mentioned they have at least 15 words for bowel movements, for example? No? Well now I have. Anyway, when I'm home and her son isn't around to hear, she SCREAMS and SHREIKS CURSES AT ME.For nothing. Just for existing. Even with my bedroom door shut. Even with the music or TV loud.All day long. Doc wants me to stay home and REST? Yeah, sure.

I'm a very forgiving person. I put up with a lot. She steals from me. (from going through my purse taking money- and YES I saw that with my own eyes!- to makeup, to perfume, to.. to.. to...you name it!) she makes oodles of trouble for me wherever and whenever she can,talks shit about me as much as possible to neighbors, family.. strangers....etc.)My favorite freak out is when she got pissed that we had gone out to dinner on the way home from work, and she had cooked and we didn't know it. We were both too stuffed to eat again just to please her. She ranted and raved. When we went to bed, I heard a THUNK on the closed bedroom door. I was too scared, honestly to stick my head out, cause she was still shreiking. next morning, guess what it was? Hmmm? The CURRY SHE HAD MADE. She threw the WHOLE GODDAMN POT AT MY BEDROOM DOOR.At my WHITE bedroom door. It-was-everywhere! I have tried EVERYTHING UNDER THE SUN TO GET HER TO LIKE ME. Tried to bribe her out of desperation with gifts, lunches, clothing,take her shopping, money,etc.. you name it.(cause she's shallow that way) I even learned HER language so we could communicate. (BIG FUCKING MISTAKE) No go. Hell, I even smuggled in booze and cigs AND helped her hide them from Z! I kept her boyfriend from next door a secret who used to sneak over after Z and his brother toddled off to work. OOPS! Well, not anymore. Oh well, that was 12 years ago. I did things for her that her own CHILDREN DONT DO. Driving her 2 hours on the freeway to a doctor when I was 9 months pregnant and so violently ill that I couldn't be in a moving car without pulling over to heave every 15 minutes. But even like that, I took her.Just to be kind. She doesn't refer to me by name, she refers to me as "it", or "this" or "that". How...pleasant.

Then came the day that she did something I will NEVER EVER forgive. If you think I'm a bitch for being so hard-ass about this, so be it.

Back in 1999, a year after we moved here, and after fertility meds,I became pregnant. Almost by accident really. Unfortunately, I became pregnant when I was severely ill with walking pnumonia that was misdiagnosed as "bronchitis". For FOUR months.Asshats. anyhoo... turns out I also came down with contagious mono as well. I was so damn sick. I was hospitalized for almost a month. I was in Quarantine... people had to wear gloves and masks to visit me. Fun eh? And you know what's interesing? As sick to death, (nearly) as I was... and during all those chest x-rays.... Not one person asked me if I might be pregnant. If I wasn't so sick and vomiting constantly, (I lost 25lbs in 13 days and was severely dehydrated also)watching the MIL looking happier and happier the sicker I got, hearing her thanking God...LOUD... I might have rememberd that I had swallowed those damn Clomid pills. That there could have been a snowballs chance in hell I was pregnant.But no. Actually, I almost died they told me. So. I was in the hospital. I got better. I went home. I went back to work. Then, then. My period started. Or what I thought was my period. But it kept on. and on. and on.Now this might startle some. But to me, not really. I've had this happen before. It's one of the little side effects of my infertility. Either you don't get the damn thing at all..... you force it by taking medications..... or it comes in a deluge for about a month.straight.so... things were getting bad. I was still working. The abdominal pain was crippling, again I thought it was just bad cramps. after a month of this.. I bought the pill my doctor in the US had told me to take to make it stop. I took as told. IT.DIDN"T.STOP. You know, I remember thinking, "if I didn't know better, I'd say I was miscarrying! yeah right!" Freaked, I went to a Gynae. He did a hemoglobin test. Guess what? I was bleeding to death.for almost two months.There was hardly any blood left in my body. My hemoglobin was 4.2. It should have been 14., folks.I'd fainted-blacked out actually-more times than I care to remember.. coming to... alone with my cat franticlly meowing in my face, terrified and running in circles around my prone body. I used to have to prop myself up on the wall in order to walk. During this time... I was working as a KINDERGARDEN teacher. I was going to work everyday, wrangling 2 sets of 24 4-year-olds for six hours. I was making lesson plans. Arranging curriculum. And this school sent home homework folks. Every week.

So, back into the hospital I go. This time... BLOOD TRANSFUSION AND IV.One in each arm. I would like to point out that watching strangers blood going into my arm freaked the shit out of me. As soon as my blood levels were pumped back up to more normal levels, I had an emergency D&C AND a laprascopy. Heh. They almost lost me while I was under the anesthesia. Fucking great. I went home. Weak, worn out, and half dead. I could not walk. So I was crawling to the bathroom on my hands and knees after trying to yell for help, because well, I couldn't hold it anymore. No resoponse from anywhere in the house. So I crawl, crying, so slowly and in such horrific pain.. then I hear the most evil sound I have EVER heard in my life and it sent chills up my spine. I stopped crawling and looked behind me. MIL was there, laughing, and saying "Get up you bitch! there's nothing wrong with you! GET UP! Why don't you die? I keep praying for you to die, but you keep surviving time and time again. You're stronger than you should be.You're supposed to be dead". I was just there on the floor, crying and so terrified.What blood there was was like ice in my veins. Then she left. I continued my crawl to the bathroom.

Tissue from the D&C was sent to UK for analysis. 2 weeks later, once I was home and the results were in that I had in fact miscarried, and after her son told her that I had lost a baby that I had wanted for so long and walked out of the room , I heard her say... "Thank you God! Thank you for not letting her have another child! Thank you for answering my prayer!" In that moment, I decided that I would never, ever make another effort for her... for anything.

Now I ask you: Would YOU want to be sick, weak, and alone in a house with her?

I thought not.
Welcome to the World

I am officially Auntie Cyn to three-countem'!- THREE more babies as of about an hour ago. Yes, my neice had her triplets. 2 girls and 1 boy born at 33 weeks gestation. All three were not breathing right after birth. All three had to be recussitated. All three are breathing fine now on their own. THANK YOU GOD! I can only tell you the girls names.. Maya and Talia. The boy... well, my neice has been bandying around about a GIZILLION boys names.. so Lord only knows what she's finally decided now that he's actually here. Their size is apparently good as well. The poor pediatrician said "OH MY GOD! I became an old man tonight! I was horrified when all 3 weren't breathing!"He is a wonderful doctor with loads of experience in dealing with multiples... PLUS he is Arianna's doctor too! (and she and I are both DAMN picky!)

Im stuck at home, sick, not able to be there. Dammit. I wanna see! Sigh. Nevermind... I'm sure I'll have baby duty when they come home as they live next door to me! GOODIE!Bring em on! Lurrrve me some babies!! Wooohooo.

5/31/2004

"It Is Beyond My Control"

First, I'd like to wish a very Happy Memorial Day Weekend to my fellow Americans. I hope you get loads of rest, enjoy the barbeques, etc... et al. Oh yeah, and don't forget to pray that Kerry wins in November!

Now, back to ME!!

I'm....hanging in there. All things considered. I think I'm doing ok, but then I have my moments. My hellish moments. There is a question I can't help but keep asking myself: Since I had about 50 eggs growing.. I get the sinking feeling that they end up in the "trash". you know, as in... wasted.. and well, that bothers me... A LOT. I mean, lets do the math *shudder*, shall we? say 48 eggs? The average woman ovulates 1 (yes, ONE) egg a month, every month. So, keeping that in mind.... in the space of 8 days..... I LOST 4 YEARS WORTH OF EGGS FROM MY OVARIES. *acknowledges panic attack setting in* Why do I let this get to me? I don't want it to. Trust me. I even hate math.But still I find myself tallying numbers. Add that to the 30 or so eggs wasted per previous IVF cycle... and who could blame me? But, I can't help but think that that is FOUR Reproductive YEARS OF EGGS from my ovaries!!! I honestly try not to think about this, but in the immortal words of John Malkovitch in Dangerous Liasons..."It is beyond my control"

Oh, I almost forgot....there is the little matter of:

THE RETURN OF THE RAGING SINUS/THROAT INFECTION!!!!!

Yes, that's right folks.... it's BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!! Feels worse this time though. Wanna know just how crappy I feel? When I went to the ENT (A truly LOVELY man who actually gives me some credit for owning a semblance of intelligence)he said... "You are right... it's the same thing... Sinuses infected... spread to your throat...bad this time.Well, I could give you a shot, but I know.." (very very quietly) and I said "OK!!!!! GIMMIE!" Now THAT'S what I call sick. I still feel like shit tho. It was a cortosteroid... and Im pretty damn sure it's worn off now. Drat. I keep thinking that MAYBE if I just hurry up and cough up a lung... I'll be better soon. I just don't want to end up in the hospital (yet again!)in Ward 1. Sigh.I mean, they do have a FAB cook... but-hey!- Im serious about the cook! Best hospital food you'll ever eat. Fever is BAD. Methinks I need to go beg for another shot.... of antibiotic this time. I'll go tomorrow. I promise. I must be at least marginally insane... I came home from work half-dead and cooked a HUGE dinner. Anyway, for now, I'll go crawl into bed and curl up in a ball.

I want my Mama. Now!!!!!!!