Nonsequitur Life

February.

Week 100.

I am so goddamn tired.

After a suspiciously long lull in the Bad! News! Every! Where! when it comes to our limited bubble (because fuck the world at large), everything hits in a matter of a week. But even in the age of INFORMATION OVERLOAD, details are scarce, because who needs to know what’s ACTUALLY going on?

FNEH.

I finally went in for my annual physical Here’s a List of Problems I Won’t Get Answers To. And by annual I mean, I can’t get anymore refills on my medications without an appointment because who wants to set foot near a medical facility on a good day much less at the top of year three of a GLOBAL FUCKING PANDEMIC. I had a 7AM appointment (because you take what you can get when you’re out of pills and more than two weeks was not far enough in advance to secure a damn appointment) which meant I had two shots, five vials of blood drawn, and a pap-smear all before 8AM on a fucking cold Friday morning. When I left the house it was pitch black out except for the full moon and there were exactly two cars in the parking lot of the clinic. I walked into the building feeling like I was about to become the focus of an episode of On The Case With Paula Zahn. I remembered to ask about roughly half the things on my list of Shit That Needs to Be Addressed but all that blood they took did actually confirm my suspicions on a long running problem, which was validating and could explain a long list of issues, but it’s still one more diagnosis, one more pill, and one more thing to slog through a shit-ton of conflicting information about. And now I have more related and unrelated appointments to make.

Also…that third phase of micro-chipping hits fucking hard.

But hey, I’m three for three on self-diagnosing significant issues, so……go me?

For those of you keeping track at home:
1.) ADHD (MD and Psychologist said, “How did we miss THAT?”)
2.) Deviated Septum (ENT said, “Everything about your face is normal except your mangled septum and giant turbinates.”)
3.) Defective Thyroid (Hashimoto’s disease causing hypothyroidism.)

Here’s a story…

I have been told by many dental professionals that I have a very small mouth, often making it difficult to access my back teeth. A few years ago I saw a TMD specialist (to investigate ear pain) and he informed me that in my very small mouth, I also have an abnormally large tongue. No one else had ever pointed this out before, and he didn’t offer any explanation or concern. (Aside from “You probably shouldn’t sleep on your back.”) I was dumbfounded by the news so I didn’t think to ask any follow up questions. So I chalked it up to all my other weird things and didn’t worry much, but it did make me hyper aware of how much my tongue constantly presses against my teeth and provided an explanation of why there are ALWAYS teeth marks when I am not prone to chewing/biting my tongue.

Anyroad. Fast forward to recent months…I’d spent a lot of time ruminating over a laundry list of problems and saw someone mention being recently diagnosed with a thyroid issue. I knew extreme fatigue and unexpected weight gain were two common hallmarks so I decided to look it up. When I took to ye olde Google, I didn’t really expect to get much useful information, but then I realized I checked off almost every single symptom on the list down to the ENLARGED TONGUE. I thought maybe it would be worth bringing up. When I did, and listed off all the symptoms I could remember in the moment, MD nodded and said, “it fits.” So she added two tests to the list of blood work I was already getting done, and…there it was. My appointment was a Friday morning and I got a phone call from a nurse the following Monday to tell me the findings (Hashimoto’s disease causing hypothyroidism) and that they were sending a prescription to my pharmacy for a thyroid hormone pill.

Well then.

I have to go back in six to eight weeks for a follow-up blood test to see if my numbers have changed. And I still have a lot of my own research to do on all of it. But what I have read so far has just made me want to break shit because all the information contradicted itself within the same damn articles. They kept using the phrase evidence based studies but every piece of “evidence” contradicted the last piece of “evidence” and I think their “evidence” was just rotting bullshit. So my research continues. In small doses. Because I do not have the mental fortitude for MORE conflicting information.

When I picked up my prescription, the pharmacist told me to take it at least four hours before everything else I take every day because it doesn’t play nice with things like calcium and iron. And she also emphasized drinking a full glass of water with the (itty-bitty-teeny-tiny) pill. I am guilty of not drinking a full glass of water when I take most pills. I just drink enough to get it down, but I drink plenty of water otherwise, so I’m getting at least that much within a relatively small window. I set an alarm for every morning so I keep the time consistent and far enough away from everything else, and I did not anticipate just how difficult it would be to drink a full glass of water in a matter of minutes when I am barely awake. It doesn’t matter the temperature (hot, cold, lukewarm and foul-tasting straight from the tap) it irritates my throat, feeling like I’m getting a cold. It’s gone within a few minutes, but it hasn’t gotten any easier in a few weeks. Hopefully it will with more time since this is likely now a permanent fixture in my daily existence.

Anyway.

While Ryan seems to think he owns my giant, over-ear headphones, Tedger seems to think my everyday Porta Pros are his.

His favorite song is Mine by Matt Nathanson.

He’s trying to skew the Last.fm stats.

—

Top 10 Most Played Artists for January 2022…

1.) Brandon Flowers … 220 plays

2.) The Killers … 194 plays

3.) Splender … 163 plays

4.) Matt Nathanson … 161 plays

5.) I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME … 158 plays

6.) The Young Veins … 128 plays

7.) Ingram Hill … 123 plays

8.) Nine Days … 96 plays

9.) Billy Joel … 84 plays

10.) The Monkees … 76 plays

Honorable mention: Gavin DeGraw, O.A.R., Parachute, Sara Bareilles, Carbon Leaf, Emerson Hart, 2AM Club, Patrick Stump, Toad the Wet Sprocket, The Fray, Tonic, Elton John

Total of 1,813 plays of 809 tracks from 87 albums by 22 artists.

—

Hold On Girl The Monkees