Shelli’s Sentiments

I wasn’t going to write about this, but it is really bothering me. That’s what we write about on our blogs, right? Stuff that is happening with us? Plus, it’s the reason that there was no post yesterday. I was just too tired. I mentioned the beginnings of it at the bottom of this post and again in this post.

It started almost a month ago with some sores in my mouth and a fever. It continued with nausea, vomiting and diarrhea (sorry, yuck) and then progressed into the most intense fatigue that you could ever imagine. I felt too weak to even sit on the couch. Walking was a huge effort and I felt like I should stay away from the staircases in the house because I was afraid that my legs might give out and I would end up falling down the stairs. Imagine yourself walking in waist deep mud and muck. It felt like that or worse. I made myself think that I was better enough to go to TequilaCon and I did and I was okay, but I could have had more energy there, I think. I think the trip did set me back. My joints, mainly my ankles and my hands have been swollen and the fatigue has continued and, of course, the headaches. I just knew something was not right.

Last Thursday, I went to the doctor. She did some blood work and the preliminary stuff looked okay, but Monday, I got the result of my c-reactive protein. A normal level is <0.5 and she said mine was very high at 2.0. This shows that there is inflammation in my body. This could mean it is from my autoimmune disease (see #8) or it could be viral. She started me on some steroids to take care of the inflammation. If I don’t get better or I get worse, I am supposed to go back for more testing and maybe go back to see the rheumatologist.

What is bothering me is the not knowing. I am a girl who has to know. If I could read one, I would have a crystal ball. I like to know how things are going to turn out and I want to know the answers. It bugs me that when I have been seen by the rheumatologist in the past, they have never given me a definitive diagnosis. They say it could be lupus, it could be rheumatoid arthrits, etc. It’s frustrating. And now to be told it could be autoimmune or it could be viral, it bugs me. I don’t think it is viral. It doesn’t feel like that. Plus, Tuesday, I started having the butterfly rash on my face. I also nearly fainted a few times on Tuesday.

It was hard for me to go to the doctor. I was scared. I was afraid that they would tell me it was lupus and I was having a flare up. I was afraid of that because I have been hoping that all this time that I have been well and “in remission”, that it wasn’t real; that I didn’t really have an autoimmune disease. I had hoped that it meant that I really didn’t need to be on anti-inflammatory drugs and steroids and other helpful drugs that have their own set of awful side effects. I have a dear friend who has lupus and I am watching her fade away. It scares me. I went to the doctor because it was that bad. Jason and Fab didn’t have to push me to go this time. I went on my own because I felt that bad. Plus, I feel so guilty for not feeling like doing anything and laying around and being useless to my husband and family. It makes me cry.

I thought the knowing that it was lupus would be hard. I think what is worse is the not knowing what it is. If we knew definitively, then we could face it head on and I would know where I stood and what I could do. Right now I just feel like we are shooting in the dark. Sure the steroids will help, but I still want to know. Does that seem crazy? Am I crazy? I mean, crazier?

I have a bullet post, but I’m not doing bullets because it’s too much work and I am lazy. Instead, you are getting a bullet post that is bullet free. Aren’t you lucky?

I got myself a Flickr Pro account. I’m pretty happy about it. Now I am addicted to uploading my photos from my phone and my camera. They even have video upload ability on Flickr, too. It’s really awesome.

I installed a new plugin. You can now subscribe to comments. Now, not only can you get my reply via email through “commentemailresponder“, you can subscribe to comments and see what everyone else is saying and what I respond to everyone else, too. Isn’t that awesome!

I’m sick of winter like temperatures in the spring. Especially when I am at the ball field. I’m sick of freezing my ass off there. I mean, I wouldn’t mind if I actually lost a little of my ass there, but when I get home, it’s all still there. I froze for NOTHING.

Isabelle asked me the other night, “What kind of cat is Liberty?” I told her that Liberty was a Siamese cat. She was frustrated and said, “I know but, what kind of animal is she? Is she nocturmonal?” My jaw dropped to the floor. I didn’t say anything. She said, “you know, the kind of animal that stays awake all night and sleeps all day? You know, nocturnal!” I said, “Yes, I know. Where the hell did you learn that?” (Yes, I said “hell”. I’m not the best grandma all the time.) She flippantly replied, “Oh, you know, shows.” Of course.

I’ve been a busy girl this last week or so. I’m trying to read lots and lots of new blogs and all my old favorites, too. Plus I am doing some blog work on the side. I love doing that. It’s a good hobby for me and keeps my mind working. Plus the Flickr addiction. And the Twitter addiction. And the Parking Wars addiction. I seriously need to go to a group or something. Well, not too seriously. And I really need to get some more work done on johnvleck.org. I need to upload photos from the benefit and some other stuff that we all were throwing around about starting a store for him. I am a busy girl, I tell you.

So Twitter me, Flickr me or Google me. Be careful, though, I’m ticklish. *giggle*

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

31. I don’t like onions. I especially don’t like them raw. I love onion rings. I mean the kind that are battered and deep fried. I also don’t mind onions in my food, like in casseroles and lasagna and such. But not in my salads. I don’t like peppers, no matter the color, or radishes, either. I mean what is the point of eating foods that burn your taste buds. Except salsa, I mean. I love salsa. If it’s mild, of course, and chunky. No watery salsa for me.

32. I have been going to Weight Watchers for almost as many years as it’s been since my Dad died. A couple years ago, I lost 30 pounds. I gained it back. I keep going. Partly it’s because I hope eventually I will get my shit together and finally lose the 75 pounds that I need to lose. Also, it’s partly that I am afraid of what will happen to me if I quit going. Finally, I have friends there that I would miss terribly if I quit going. So, I guess you could say that it is a rather expensive coffee with friends every Saturday morning.

33. The ring finger and pinky finger on my left hand are shorter than the ones on my right hand. To show you all how much I love you, I took pictures of my dorky looking hands and am posting them here.

34. In relation to that, I also don’t have knuckles at the base of those same two fingers on my left hand nor do I have a knuckle at the base of the pinky finger on my right hand. Check it out:

If you want to examine them more closely, just click on any of the pictures and it will take you to my Flickr account and you can enlarge them as you see fit.

35. Even in the hottest days of the summer, I have to have a comforter (not a sheet or blanket, it has to be a comforter, something with weight to it) pulled all the way up to my neck or I can’t sleep. That’s why it is imperative that we have AC and that I constantly (24/7, 365) have the ceiling fan running in my bedroom.

36. I was born with a very large birthmark on my neck. For most of my life, nearly every day in the summertime, someone would say to me, “You have a wood tick on your neck.” My Dad had one like it on his chest. Eventually, the doctors said mine needed to come off. Now in the crease of my neck is a very tiny, barely visible scar.

37. I really don’t care for fishing. I go sometimes. I like to sit in the boat with my family. I don’t really like baiting the hook, sitting there boringly staring at a little bobber in the water until my eyes threaten to explode right out of my head, trying to decide whether it was actually moving or if it was the waves and sun playing tricks on my eyes. I don’t like to take the fish off the hook, either. I don’t like the blood. (I know, I’m a nurse. Fish blood is different than human blood.) I don’t like to clean them or even watch them being cleaned. Call me The Little Red Hen, if you want, but I like to eat the fish after it has been caught and cleaned and deboned (if possible) and cooked. It’s how I roll.

38. I barely have toenails on my little toes on each foot. Sometimes, they will just fall off for no apparent reason. No one would notice anyway. I have little feet and little toes. It’s hard to tell if one of them is missing a toenail.

39. My favorite color is purple. No. Really. It is. I love purple. I’m passionate about it. Purple is the greatest color. It is the color of royalty and passion and beauty. (Okay, I made that beauty one up. But it is beautiful.) Part of my love for the color may be because of my favorite football team. Just a little bit though. I have scrubs in several shades of purple. My stethoscope is purple. My badge holder is purple. I have purple Crocs. (Actually, they’re Vikings Crocs.) Even my tennis shoes always have some purple in them. You could say that I am a purple freak.

40. I love sleeping. Love it. I don’t know if that’s because I am always profoundly tired, if it’s because I am depressed (although I feel really good in that aspect lately, thanks for asking) or if it is because I just really love it.

I know that most of you are tired of hearing about TequilaCon. Especially if you weren’t there. Aren’t we a narcissistic bunch? Thinking that you wanted to see all of our photos that we took and hear about all the fun we had when you weren’t there? The truth is, we would have had even more fun if you had been. That is not just a line. I promise you. There are many people from the Internet (and my husband) that I wished had been there who were not.

This started out to be a different post. I was going to write about all the things that happened at the actual event and post all my pictures. The truth is, I didn’t want to. Part of it is because I was thinking about those that weren’t there and I know that they have been reading this stuff all over the Internet all week. It feels, to me, a little like rubbing their noses in it. I’ve done that unintentionally in other places on the Internet this week and I feel really bad about it. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t write about TC if that’s what we want to do, I just don’t feel like I can do it myself. I’ve already hurt one of my friends and, as I said, I felt really bad about it.

So, if you want to see the pictures that I took while in Philadelphia, both of the sight-seeing and of the event itself, you can do so here.

I will tell you what this event did for me. It made me feel like I belonged somewhere. It strengthened my self esteem which, as many of you know, badly needs strengthening. It helped me to see that I do have friends who love me and, although I met them through the computer, they are just as much real as those people that I see in my day-to-day life. Also, I need them just as much, if not more, as my F2F people.

I learned that drinking makes me have a head bigger than those balloons you see flying in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I apparently am very funny when I am drunk. Who knew? The reason I don’t drink very often is because I am afraid of who I will become when I am drunk and also that I won’t be able to stop drinking. I come from a family where chemical dependency is common, so it scares me. Other than being a braggart, I think I was okay.

You can see some of the things I did at TequilaCon if you look around the ‘net (to link a few). Most of you know already anyway. I had a blast. I can’t wait to do it again. I hope it will be somewhere that I can afford to go and that gas prices aren’t $10 a gallon by then. I would like to see all of you there next year. Well, except you Mom and Emily. No offense.

Thank you, Megan for coming there with me and for encouraging my self-assuredness when I was drunk and telling everyone to “google me”. You are an awesome friend. I can’t tell you how much I love you. You are the other side of my soul. And, Libragirl? You are the awesomest hostess. I didn’t get to see my room at your place while I was there, but I know that it will be the first place I think of if I ever need a place to go. You both are awesome and you made TequilaCon possible for me.

Saturday we got up with the intention of seeing lots of sights. You know the historical crap. I wouldn’t say we saw a lot, but I enjoyed myself anyway. We wanted to go to Independence Hall because some important shit happened there, although I’m not sure what because we didn’t get to go on the tour and I didn’t do any research ahead of time. We didn’t get to go on the tour because, apparently, you have to buy your tickets to get in 3 years in advance. (Slight exaggeration.) We tried to hook up with others, but they were parking in handicap parking spots and we were, yet again, walking from our hotel.

We did wait in line to see the Liberty Bell. I had to because I told Isabelle that I was going to see the Liberty Bell, which she thought was totally hilarious because we have a cat named Liberty and Isabelle is known informally as Belle. I had to buy her a Liberty Bell, too. While we were waiting in line, there was a demonstration about freeing Tibet in the courtyard next to the Liberty Bell house. A lot of people talked about how they thought this was symbolic and cool. I guess it was. I have more on that, but I’ll save it for another time. This is about being in Philly!

Ain’t it pretty?

They aren’t too concerned about securing these things of our history because it was only surrounded by one of those fabric ropes that you sometimes see closing off areas at movie theaters. I found myself, again, wondering if I could get as far as actually touching the bell before the security people came and hauled me away. I don’t know what the hell it was about Philly that made me want to be such a rebel, but I found myself thinking WAY outside the box. And not in a good way, either. Funny, but not good.

I guess when you are in Philly, you are really free to do whatever you want because when we came out of the Liberty Bell house, there were these old fashioned gigolos propositioning us to ride in their fancy cars. You know what it really means when gigolos ask you to ride in their cars, right?

See, aren’t they old fashioned and their cars fancy?

After the Liberty Bell was when we wanted to go to Independence Hall so we walked over to Constitution Hall to buy the tickets and that’s when we found out they were sold out. We decided to look around anyway. I’m glad we did because we found this:

Because nothing says “Freedom” like the constitution written on a cow/bull. I’m sure there is some tradition or reasoning, but I was unable to find it anywhere around the cow/bull. (Before someone points out that cows have udders, pay attention to the fact that this “cow” has horns. ??)

My favorite part was this:

Yes, those are signatures on the utters of that bull/cow.

And this was weird, too:

I’m not going to pretend to know what the building is that is in the eye of this bull/cow.

I actually really like this picture of Finn. I think she looks so beautiful. Minus the $5 bill around her face, I mean.

See what I mean? Isn’t she beautiful?

We did have to eat, so we decided to find a Philly cheese steak place, since I was told that I must have one while I was in Philly. Rachel and Robyn decided we should walk to Reading Station (pronounced redding, which is completely different than I have thought it was pronounced my whole life). We got our steak sandwiches there at the place where they supposedly got their start. I later found out that this is something that everyone says to get you to eat at their place. Or something like that. Here’s Rachel and Robin at our table at Rick’s or Pete’s or Jim’s (I really can’t remember the name):

Aren’t they cute?

My cheese steak left a little to be desired. I found out later that the only way to eat them is with Cheese Whiz. I ordered mine with provolone. I got a quarter size piece of provolone in the middle of my sandwich. I ordered it without onions because I don’t like onions on my food. In my food is okay, but not on it. This is my very first cheese steak:

Pretty boring. Pretty much a heart attack on a bun.

After Reading Station, I needed to go back to the hotel and nap before we had to get ready for the big event. I had a splitting headache and I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the party if I didn’t get some rest first. Me and Finn napped, Rachel and Robin went to Rachel’s house and then the liquor store.

We napped, got ready, had a drink and headed to the party…