Before I get into the nitty gritty stuff, I want to share this: I have some strange and hilariously wonderful friends. Meet Odette the Ostrich. Thank you Annie and Wendy. This poor birdy looks like I feel his morning – we both could have done with a sleep in. I suspect, also like me, she prefers to keep her head buried in the sand. I might take her for an MRI too.
This week’s Rub
Chris and I have this phrase – it used to apply to our gigs, when we’d had a great run of easy, fun functions and then we came across a cow of a coordinator who shouldn’t be working in hospitality, or an arrogant best man who expected everyone to wait for him to finish his cigarette before the speeches could start, or a drunk who broke your front tooth because he wouldn’t let go of the microphone (true story). We call this phenomenon The Equaliser.
Yesterday I had an anxiety attack – some stupid little occurrence triggered me. It was nothing I couldn’t calm by stopping to breathe, talking myself out of it and getting on with my editing work, but there you have it: hidden stresses have to come out one way or another.
I know some friends and family have been worried – trying to read between the lines of my blogs – in case I’ve fallen into a crack. You can stop waiting for the shoe to drop – I think this week might be my equaliser – the one that tests me, that says stop trying to be so f#cking brave and let yourself feel.
Today’s clusterfluff:
- 6.30am Wake up, shower
- 7.00am Discover we have no caffeine
- 7.45am Hospital
- 8.00am Lying on CT machine in awkward position with MF headache
- 8.20am It’s too quiet. These are noisy machines. Why is nothing is happening?
- 8.25am ‘Sorry, I just need to check something with the neurology department.’
- 8.30am ‘Sorry, but the surgeon wants an MRI with measurement dots, not a CT.
Me: ‘I’ve had an MRI done. My scans are there in the envelope.’
Her: ‘Blah blah blah … MRI … blah blah blah … GPS tracking measuring stuff … blah blah blah … CT now and during the surgery means double doses of radiation. Not good.’
Me: ‘Yeah, fair call. I’d prefer not to have radiation poisoning.’ - 8.35am: Leave hospital, buy caffeine, go home, wait for phone call and hope surgery doesn’t get shunted.
- Now: Remind myself to suck it up; we’re the lucky country and there are so many people don’t have access to medical systems like ours.
Meh. Onto better things.
Good News Department
Chris and I had a great time playing at the Editors Victoria Xmas party at CQ last night. My man is awesome. Love him to bits. He can play guitar all right too. And Fiona Scott-Norman, our guest speaker, was hilarious and poignant, as I knew she would be.
Thank you to Susan M., my friend who has ESP, and who happened to call just at the right time yesterday. I don’t know why I didn’t tell you what I was going through, but just bitching about mundane stuff helped.
And lastly, I freakin’ deserve this caffeine and choc chip cookie brekky today.
Disagree at your peril.
*Update: The MRI with GPS tracking dots will go ahead on Monday. Whoo!