Just some venting

This story occurs one week ago:

 

I barely remember the drive home. My mind focuses on the tight grip of the steering wheel and I barely feel my limbs as I shut off the car and grab my bags before walking into the house. I give a mumbled greeting to my father as I wobble over to my room. I set my things down on the bed, turn around, and promptly kneel on the floor. As I fall onto my side, all I can think of is how nice it is to just rest for a bit on solid ground. 

Some minutes later, the voice in the back of my mind screeching to grab my cell phone out of my bag that’s fallen to the floor to call for help manages to pierce through the dizziness and numb feeling of my thoughts. I shuffle slowly, already feeling tears dripping down my cheeks as my body starts reacting to the stress of being unable to distinguish up from down. The world tilts, and my phone is in my hand. My skull feels too tight, there is a pounding pain in my sinuses, and I feel as though I'm stuffed with cotton balls. I’m distantly aware I need to move my fingers on the touch screen of the phone, but it’s all I can do is grip the device tight in my hand to assure my body that I’m not about to fall into an empty abyss and recite the mantra that the tilting sensation will pass. I lay down again and close my eyes, trying to keep breathing through the panic that’s beginning to overwhelm me.

That is the position my father finds me in some minutes later, and promptly screams for my mom and brother to come help him guide me through another episode of overwhelming vertigo. Eventually I become aware of my body again, and even manage to sit up with some assistance from my brother. Ben at least knows how to keep his wits about him even if he's freaking out over seeing one of my 'episodes.' I have to mix a dose of Head-B-Clear bath salt mix to clear my head of the congestion that aggravated my condition, as no one could read the recipe I typed out for the homemade bath product, or else they couldn't find it in the box of bath product ingredients, but that sort of thing happens a lot around here. Apparently I have the sort of mind that is difficult to predict.

It’s episodes like these that make me wonder if I’ll ever be able to have a normal career, though, or be able to live on my own. When I get a bad enough episode of vertigo thanks to Miniere's syndrome or something else that remains undiagnosed, I’m literally needing to be laid out flat, unable to focus on much besides inane media on the internet or flip through the tv channels. When I can’t even control my body or feel like I’m even ’present,’ I feel very down and hopeless for a long while afterwards. Heck, I've already run into difficulties in two different semesters because I wasn't able to even attend classes. I really don’t know much else to do except keep trying to move forward and wait for my body to become mine to control once more.

Today Was Worth Writing About

An indication of how interesting my life might be today started at about 6:00 am. This hour is not my typical wake up time on a Friday, but my dad had scheduled for an exterminator to spray poison to ward off spiders, ants, and possibly other things we didn't want to think about crawling around in our walls, so we had to pack ourselves and our animals up to be gone by 7:30 am. The menagerie consists of one dog, three cats, and a tarantula. As a bit of a treat to keep us out of the house, we would go eat breakfast and take care of some errands in town.

In attempting to put our male cat in his cage, he repaid our foresight by mauling me rather well. I managed to acquire battle wounds all over my chest, stomach, and arms. Those who know me personally can guess how irritable I might be when injured, exhausted, and on an empty stomach before the magic of caffeine has calmed me somewhat. It didn't help that as my mother and I struggled to get the adult cats into their cage, my dad didn't really act for some time and merely questioned what the heck we were doing allowing ourselves to be attacked by the ferocious household felines. One of my favorite shirts must now be retired with full honors for attempting to stand up to shredding claws.

After the wild animals pets were dealt with, I had to change my shirt and bandage up. My little brother helped carry my sister's tarantula tank out to the car in the meantime. Unwilling to take pain meds on an empty stomach, I had to endure the 15 minute drive to the restaurant with falling blood sugar and increasing dizziness from the pain. However, the next interesting thing to occur, was the loud crash from the backseat where the tarantula cage was being stored as my mother made a tight turn. Understandably alarmed, she pulled over, and we had to talk my little brother through determining the simple observation of WHETHER OR NOT THE TANK TIPPED OVER. Little brother is not the most articulate of people on a good day. The next ten minutes are spent in tense silence as my mom fishes around in the tank with first my father's cane, then a hammer handle to make sure the tarantula is 1) in the tank, and 2) not squished. I was secretly hoping 2) would be proven false. Unfortunately, Fuzz Lightyear will live a little longer to rejoice at the rain of crickets his owner provides him.

Arriving at the restaurant it is now 7:52 am. I am moments away from a blood sugar crisis, and the stupid restaurant doesn't open until 8:00 am! Therefore an excursion must be made into the neighboring grocery store where I buy a mango/banana puree pouch for myself (and thusly, Sirenidi as well). Calmed, we have to wait outside while little brother goes to the bathroom before entering the restaurant. It is typical diner food and I settle for an egg, cheese, and bacon sandwich with iced tea. Somehow I managed to dust myself with sweetener while attempting to pour it into my drink. The joys of eating out, eh?

Next stop is getting a spare key made. My car is from a company decent enough to only manufacture ignition keys that require a computer chip to start the vehicle. They were also kind enough to only allow certain stores other than the dealership to make such keys. My town apparently only has such a store 20 miles from my house. My dad said he researched the place to find out what was needed, however he failed to ask if the car would be needed to program the key (spoiler: THEY DO). Therefore, we had to schlep the whole crew back to the house to actually fetch my car. Luckily, enough time had passed we could return and let the animals out without accidentally poisoning anyone. Of course, SOMEONE thought it was a good idea to let the dog loose before opening the cat cages, so my mom gets to have a repeat of a desperate freak out of the sort that anyone else would have assumed meant a murder was in progress had they heard it.

After so much excitement, I decide the best thing to do is take a nap. It was lovely. Then the day continued. My dad had forgotten he had scheduled to leave my car at the mechanic's to be serviced before my road trip. D'oh! I still had to return to the hardware store to get the spare ignition key made, so instead I went to a Jiffy Lube for a once over on the car. It takes nearly an hour for my key to get made when I return to the store, because the machine was being touchy. I was careful to control my anger tics.

Needing to buy a suitcase, as no one could remember where the ones we owned had ended up, I did some thrift store shopping. Ah, the soothing balm of a bargain. Then I arrive home to find that my mom had found the travel suitcases. FACEPALM!

Then more chaos happened as my parents realized that dinner, preparations for the day trip to the lake the next day, and me attempting to pack needed to happen, and fast! Becerra family excursions can quickly become needlessly complicated if no one tries to organize. We shall see what may come of trying to bond over sand, expensive snack bars, and the Nevada weather in August upon the morrow.*

*This statement indicates there may or may not be an update about Saturday's day trip.

Things That Happened Today

Today I woke to my mom screaming bloody murder at the dog like it was killing something. Actually he was just chasing one of our cats around the yard (again), which never leads to actual death, and is not likely to. The dog is afraid of the young cat in our house that is 1/8 his size, see, and he only ever chews on synthetic products or his rawhide bones. The entire house was nicely awake after this episode.

I arrived at my new internship site on time, but had to wait, as no one else could access the computer database I needed in order to do my job that day. After an hour I was permitted to leave, as my supervisor who did know how to work the database had not arrived, nor left any message as to where she was. About 45 minutes after leaving, I not only discovered that Walmart apparently didn't sell lunch box freezer packs, but my supervisor had made it into the office.

Swinging back to said office, I was finally permitted to search through 29 pages of data, looking for any errors. Five hours later I managed to finish the project, after some boosts from my good friend caffeine. Somewhere between walking out the building and to my car 30 ft away, I lost my last pair of sunglasses, D'oh!

By this time it was well after 5:30pm, and I had promised to visit a friend. Also needing to wash my car, I got a sandwich at Port of Subs, headed to the nearby auto car wash, and jammed to indie rock and the swoosh of running water while I ate.

Visiting my friend went well, I got to show off my new ipad, and we chatted about random stuff. We're going to the midnight showing of Dark Knight Rises, it's gonna be awesome! I headed to the nearby shopping center and managed to score a 2/$15 deal on sunglasses. They fit nice enough, but I noticed on the 30 minute drive home that they put a lot of aching pressure on my nose. So the search is still on.

Kind of a crazy Monday, not sure if these events will be an indicator of the rest of the week...

An Actual Conversation

I am sitting in anatomy lab, going over the pictures in the coloring book for the upcoming quiz, when one of the girls starts talking about the endocrine chapters she read ahead on.

Girl: "I was also looking up pictures online to use for reference, but I kept getting stuff on vaginas and androgyny."

Me: "You have something against vaginas?"

Girl: "Well, I like looking at cuts and blood."

Me: "Do you realize how much that statement makes you sound like a serial killer?"

Girl: "No! I mean it doesn't bother me."

Me: "But pictures of vaginas do."

Girl: "Well, yeah."

Me: "....."

Me: "I'm going to sit over here, now."

I'm not sure whether to be worried I called one of my *potentially a serial killer in secret* classmates out on their disturbing tendencies. Also, I'm pulling a B again, what the heck?