Monday I had an appointment with an accupuncturist.

I've had accupuncture treatments before, 4 treatments did wonders for my carpal tunnel. I also took a class on chinese holistic medicine, and during the accupuncture portion of the class, the teacher treated my three-week-long sinus infection with just 4 needles in my left ear. They were there for about 15 minutes. Over the next two days the infection cleared up & went away.

Suffice to say I'm not afraid of accupuncture at all: I've had excellent results from it. I also know that my experience has been an American accupuncture experience. I went in with a definite problem, and I received very specific treatments for those problems. I guess that happens in the chinese model too, but I also know from my class that there is "The Full Treatment".

Until Monday I'd never gone in for The Full Treatment.

I didn't really plan to have The Full Treatment on Monday. I went in under the guise of Stress(TM). This wasn't total bullshit… When your stress level gets high enough to require a trip to the emergency room, you need to do something. So the next day I made an appointment with the accupuncturist my mother's been raving about.

My prior experiences with accupuncture have all left me feeling a little odd. Sometimes I feel stoned. Sometimes, lightly buzzed. The feeling always fades, leaving me tired & ready for bed. This last time varied in 2 ways: 1) I came away feeling emotionally detatched & 2) even after I slept, I still sort of felt that way. Specifically, I felt that way about *food*.

Those of you who know me know how bloody unfathomable that is for me. It's persisted all day.

My accupuncturist seems to think he can make that be the norm for me.

I don't know how to express how inconcievable that concept is. It's the kind of thing I dream about, the kind of thing I want so badly, I'd start sacrificing pets & small children if I thought it would help. It's the kind of thing that I almost can't hope for because if it's not true it will be devastating.

I feel these ephemeral wings of hope in my heart. I'm so scared if I say something I'll kill it, yet the anticipation of the idea that there could be another way is keeping me up at night.

I hope I don't destroy this by blogging.

I hope this is real.

My nurse is a dumbass Apparently he missed the part of my chart that says “Coumadin”, & dropped a huge, open IV needle straight into my best blood draw vein. Blood started pouring down my arm, leaked down onto my gown, and off my knee onto the floor. The nurse turned turned pale. Watching his reaction made it funny.

Originally uploaded by Valued Sony Customer

Two days ago, Rita and I ducked out for coffee, I ran into the Bitch Scientist while getting said coffee, and we all came back to work to discover that the hospital had laid off 84 people. (For those not in the know, I work in the research institute, and am not part of the general hospital staff.)

Rita noticed that when I saw the Bitch Scientist, I tensed up. Drastically.

What can I say, I was caught off guard. I didn’t expect to see her there.

Anyway, Tuesday was a wee bit stressful.

At about 6 PM, Admin finally let us know that there was an all staff meeting at 8:30 Thursday morning. This would be considered an “ungodly hour” here at the research institute, where people are pretty much allowed to keep whatever hours they want as long as they get their work done.

We’ll get back to the meeting.

Flash forward to yesterday: life around here has been a wee bit stressful, financially things are a little strained at home, and the Bitch scientist and interns have made work a bit more high demand than usual. I’m paranoid about my health, the problems with my meds, and maintaining my weight loss. (I’m currently in the maintenance portion of the program, and apparently I’m not great at it.) So when I walked into fat camp, paranoid that I was going to have gained weight again, I was more than just a little stressed. I was late, and didn’t get weighed in at the beginning, but instead got shuffled off to group therapy. I sat down, and instantly experienced something I could only describe as a blood pressure spike.

I promptly excused myself, and asked to see the nurse to get my blood pressure taken. I’ve had this happen before, but I’ve never been in a place where I could actually check what my blood pressure was.

And apparently I still wasn’t in a place where I could check it. I was promptly asked to have a seat and wait. For about 15 minutes. By the time the nurse saw me, I’d quit having the symptoms, and was just stressed and concerned. She checked my blood pressure which WAS 20 points higher than normal for me, but my blood pressure is so low from the blood thinners that every says the number is just fine. I asked her if I should go to emergency. She told me that I didn’t need to.

For those of you who’ve heard the rant about last October, yes, this is the same nurse who said I didn’t need to go to emergency last time as well. (For those of you who haven’t heard the rant, last time I ignored her advice & went to emergency, I was checked in for a 4 night hospital stay when they found the half dozen blood clots hanging out around my lungs.)

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, ignoring the nurse. When I got out of fat camp (turns out I lost weight this week) I went down to my car, but I could still feel the tension/pressure in my neck & head, and I wasn’t sure what to do. Several semi-hysterical phone calls later, everyone sort of agreed that it would be better for me to go for no reason than be wrong.

Except for my dumbass nurse, the trip was uneventful. I had my first CT scan. I have a picture of my brain and brain stem at home. (If I get a chance, I’ll scan them.) The doctor couldn’t find a damn thing wrong with me.

The assumption is it’s probably stress. Which I have now confirmed.

That brings us back to this morning’s meeting. They talked about what happened at the hospital. They talked about why the current California state budget crisis is at the heart of the issue. (Short version: there’s a shortage of about $10 million a month because Medi-Cal is all jacked up. In that context I can’t believe they ONLY laid 84 people off.) They also how the hospital’s indecision about it where it wants to go in the long term has hindered relationships both for the hospital and the research institute… it was a stressful meeting. Things are not okay. Being grant funded, the first round of cuts for us is tiny, which is good. The problem is that they’re looking at a tremendous cut in grants next year because the available amount of NIH funding has gone down.

In other words, it was the kind of meeting you want to drown the memory of in a bottle of alcohol ASAP.

I spent the whole meeting with a re-surge of pressure in my neck, my head, and, now that I’m looking for it, slightly blurred vision. All the same symptoms I had last night. I had an anxiety attack.

Last night I spent $50 and 4 hours in the emergency room for an anxiety attack.

Dumbass.

Lunch for 7/1/08
Originally uploaded by Valued Sony Customer

It seems like all I photograph these days is food. But I can’t help it. I love food, and I love making beautiful meals. And summer is an absolute delight because the vegetation is so amazing. Plus I got a secret joy out of eating this in front of other people and being called a gourmet.. I’m not really, I’m just trying to learn a new way of eating, and learning more about the food I eat. It’s fun, it’s pretty damn good for me, and holy shit, does it taste good.

Ironically, I never cared this much about produce until the fast prevented me from having any.

I only ate the bottom tier at lunch (the left side), and saved the salad for a late afternoon snack. Except for the flower. The people I had lunch with had never eaten nasturtiums before, so we passed it around and people plucked petals off to try them. I really enjoyed it.

I have taken to posting pictures not just of my lunches, but of the new ingredients I try. I’m trying to remember to put what I thought of each item after I try it. I’ve eaten many kinds of food I’ve never had before in the last couple of weeks, and I want some sort of record of them.