The Always Leave Home Wearing Clean Underwear Rule

The following post may have moments of too much information, but I swear there won’t be any dirty underwear.

Tuesday before last, I had a cable repair person scheduled to arrive during the specific hours of sometime between 9am and 5pm EST; so I arranged with my manager to “Work At Home”, which is an almost impossible status of being to gain permission to be. For example, my Director believes that you cannot Work At Home for personal reasons such as home repair, sick children, sick self, snow storms or broken automobiles; however, if you have a provable reason to need to do your real work at home, such as you can only get it done due to too many distractions, if you work from home for one day, you can apply for a Work At Home day. My Manager convinced my Director that I needed to work on some documentation from home coincidentally the same day the cable person was coming to my home.

Now, I happened to notice there was a giant snow storm coming to Maine scheduled for that Wednesday, so I called my Manager and suggested that an extra Work At Home day would be needed for this documentation. It worked. I woke up on Wednesday morning with a small stomachache, nothing unusual for someone who is used to being in pain. In fact, I now believe that the two types of people most in danger of unexpected illness are those that feel no pain and those that suffer chronically from it. The pain in my stomach grew such that by lunch time, I no longer could work or do anything except think about the pain; it was sharp, cutting and spread through my abdomen top to bottom and cut to my back, as my stomachaches always do. I began to assume this stomachache similar to two previous ones that took me to the E.D. — once in New Orleans when after spending a whole night of unbearable pain and not being able to find a comfortable position to sit, lay, or stand, I stumbled down the street and up the ramp to East Jefferson General Hospital, and then once here in Maine, when I collapsed at work from the blinding, shooting pains. Both times, tests revealed nothing definitive and I was sent home with painkillers and continued discomfort.

So, since I was watching the first big snow storm outside my picture window and I was sure I knew that going to the ED was a waste of time — that is if I could manage driving myself into Portland to go to the ED, which would have been 40 min on a day without a snow storm — I decided I could tough it out. Of course, part of my problem was that though my GP had given me a prescription for Oxycodone for my migraines just the week before, I had not had time to get it filled because I am a workoholic. Plus, by the time I thought about going to get it filled, the storm was in full force and so even though the pharmacy was just 5 minutes away, it was not open. Following my mother’s advice, I doped myself up on muscle relaxants and went to bed, trying to sleep. Eventually I found a position that didn’t hurt as bad as any of the other 100 other positions though it was completely awkward.

The next morning, the pain was not as bad but still awful, so I called in sick. I also ignored my mother’s and my Manager’s advice to call the doctor, because the doctor was in Portland and in my mind, if I was too sick to drive to work in Portland, I was too sick to drive to the doctor in Portland. By Thursday evening the pain was less. Not better. Just less. I was planning to go to work the next day and I was planning ahead. I needed to spend the weekend cleaning house — I had a house appraiser coming the following Thursday (hoping to refinance based on home improvement home value increase) and I was going out of town a week from Sunday and my house had gotten into that condition where you think you’d be embarrassed if your mother came by, let alone a stranger.

Friday morning, my furnace seemed to have had a thermostat issue overnight and I had no hot water — note, this is part of the “always leave home wearing clean underwear rule” nightmare I’ll be coming to. Because of this, I couldn’t wash my hair or shave my legs; thus, I put on a cute “newsboy” hat to wear to work. My mother called as I slowly got ready and again, my mother told me to call the doctor since I was still experiencing pain, though it was now only 20% of what it once was.

I was getting things done at work, feeling accomplished, and placed a call to the doctor’s office while I had a minute. They felt I should come in just to have a look-see. I thought it was going to be no big deal, so I mentioned it to my Manager and zipped down the street. The next thing I knew I was being told that I needed to have CT Scans and stat labs and go to the ED. They couldn’t tell if it was my always-in-danger kidneys or my appendix. I was a little freaked but for the most part, all I could think about was how boring it was going to be sitting in the ED for hours, so I stopped back at the office to borrow the Duty Officer laptop — workohlic, anyone?

I was actually feeling better, almost fine, except extremely thirsty. I was working wirelessly, watching CNN report the latest about Tiger Woods every 20 minutes, between blood- letting and CT scans and the next thing I know, it’s my worst nightmare. Dirty hair, unshaved legs, house so messy I wouldn’t want the cats to see it, and suddendly I need surgery and need to ask neighbors to feed & walk the dog, & God, I am so embarrassed. Plus, the house was not going to be cleaned before appraisal or trip to New Mexico, which surprisingly I can still take. This is why you should not put off what you can do today.

After the emergency appendectomy, because I didn’t have anyone to come to the hospital to get me, I didn’t have after surgery meds so I could drive myself home. I actually stopped at the grocery store too. I was in massive pain. I barely managed to put everything away and take care of the cats and my Pug baby, and change into PJs and take pain meds and call everyone I was supposed to before I passed out in bed.

Sunday night I woke up to discover the furnace was still not working. Had to call for emergency maintenance I could have done myself if I could move and bend and lift. And while that was happening, a second snow storm was occurring.

I’ve spent the last few days sleeping with no appetite and lots of nausea, but I’m always thirsty. Every time I eat anything more than a popsicle or a cracker, I have extreme nausea or worse. I’ve got lots of migraine to share and I can’t decide if I’m hot or cold but I do not have a fever. Plus, I’ve had some really weird dreams — like going to Martha Stewart’s house which is like Toyland or having to abandon the planet due to environmental crisis but the Republicans are dragging their feet on something yet blaming the Democrats for stalling on something specific or invasion by some sort of Klingon-Decepticon hybrid invasion where the guy from Law & Order who used to be on KVille also plays a cop in the new Star Trek movie and there is a reference to Law & Order. I also dreamt I went back to college and roomed with this girl I was best friends with then, but who I had a falling out with since — this is a reoccurring dream where the roommate changes.

I’ve had to cancel my hair appointment, reschedule the home appraisal, and Loki can’t come with me to New Mexico now because I can’t carry him — he’s off to boarding at doggy daycare. Actually, I can’t take my laptop, semi-professional camera, or much of anything on my trip. I haven’t finished knitting my mother’s present. Or shopping. I’ve been trying to backup my laptop for 8 days, but haven’t been awake enough to do things correctly; so I can’t upgrade to Windows 7. I wanted to work from home this week and amazingly the Director finally agreed but I haven’t been able to stay awake or focus.

It’s a typical J. Lynne holiday season. Historically, December, especially right around December 12th, is really not good for me. Seemingly catastrophic things seem to occur around that date.