Oh. My. God. This day has been the opposite of what it needed to be.

I called the neurosurgeon promptly at 9 and left a message with the nurse practitioner, explaining that I went to the ER and had the blood patch which didn’t really work. I gave her my cell phone to call, because I don’t know, I guess I thought I was going somewhere. Or because I’m stupid. Whatever.

At 10:55, my phone made a noise. A noise indicating that while it didn’t ring, I had a voicemail.

Of course it was from the nurse practitioner and of course when I called her back less than 2 minutes later she didn’t answer. I love my iPhone, but I hate AT&T coverage with a conviction that borders on sacrilegious. If Apple announces tomorrow that their iPhones will be useable on the Verizon network, I will go out, pay whatever enormous fee AT&T wants and run for my life.

Ahem. Anyways.

And so I waited. And waited. And cried. And called. And waited. And called. And waited.

At 3, I got a call from the nurse practitioner. The neurosurgeon wants to do another blood patch, a much higher volume one (for those who missed the blood patch explanation last time, it’s when they take blood from your own veins and inject it into the area just outside your spinal canal (the epidural space) and then it clots and closes the hole where the spinal fluid is leaking) to seal this leak for good.

But, this can’t happen until:

a) I got an get a FULL history and physical. Um. What the hell? It’s my own blood. Are you afraid I’m going to give MYSELF something? REALLY? I understand checking my clotting factors, but a full physical? So I have to ride for a solid hour in the car tomorrow morning to get to my student health center to get a physical. And let’s not forget that we’re doing this because I can’t even sit up for more than about 2 minutes at a time, but yea, let’s go ahead and do a fucking physical.

and

b) We wait a few days. Because the blood that was shot into my epidural space yesterday has to absorb some so that there’s room to shoot more in (more needles in my spine. HOORAY!). And if we don’t give it time, the blood might not go to the right place and then this big fucking circus will be for nothing. Which you know, only sounds EXACTLY like something that would happen to me.

So the nurse is going to see if she can schedule it for Friday.

FRIDAY.

In case you were keeping track, that’ll be six consecutive school days I’ll have to miss if they can even get it scheduled for Friday. If not, we might be waiting until Monday. If we’re waiting until Monday, I just might lose my mind. Oh wait, too late.

My twitter stream, much like my attitude, is a little toxic today, and I apologize for that. I’m doing the best that I can. But right now the best that I can is being bitter and in pain. I’m tired of always having the unexpected complications, I’m tired of the worst case scenario always being the only scenario.

I’m tired.

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