Still here, with giant glands

Hello all.

First off, thank you for the encouraging words about my crazy neck glands, and also all of your sympathies on Liam's birthday. My spirits are much higher today if my neck is not smaller.

Regarding that, I thought I would give you a little update. I went in to the doctor, and she told me that she thought I had mono. Blood tests revealed no mono, but elevated SED rates which points to infection. So the official diagnosis is "probably a virus that acts like mono, but not mono." Fabulous. So I'm supposed to wait 3-6 weeks to see if giganto neck goes away, taking aspirin if a fever crops up, and that's it. If big neck is still around after that, then I have to go back for testing.

Giganto neck seems to be in it's full glory in the mornings directly when I wake up. So I thought I'd give you a visual.

First, is the "good" side of my neck. Notice the smooth curve from my ear lobe to the base of my neck.



Here is the "bad" side. Today is a particularly fun day, because the underneath of my chin is swollen as well, giving me an attractive bull frog look. Note the lump 3/4 of the way down, breaking that smooth curve from ear to shoulder. Also notice, swelling in the front, and lack of definition in my chin.



So sexy, I know, right? It's pretty painful, not going to lie. I'm going to try not to worry too much over the next few weeks. No more net-diagnosing!

Later today or tomorrow I'll return to our regularly scheduled crafty/cooking/fun stuff blog posts. Just thought you all might like a health update. Thank you for your notes and concern!

Gloom and Doom (and Garlands and Knitting)

It has happened...first cold of the year, and it's a doozy! The aches and croaky voice started in on me yesterday at work and by this morning I had a fever, headache and a nose running like a faucet. Yippee!

To make today extra enjoyable it is gloomy and rainy here in Boston. Later in the afternoon, the already icky weather morphed into this:



SNOW! I couldn't believe it! Normally I would be the first to cheer for a first snow but a) It's October and b) It's crappy wet snow, not fluffy Christmas happiness inducing tra-la-la snow!

GRR, so that's my gloom and doom report for the day. Let's lighten things up a bit shall we?

After seeing many, many examples on blogs and Flickr, earlier this week I made a scrap paper garland for myself.



It's pretty cute, if I do say so myself! Bettie Page is hiding up there too!



I'm also back on the Holiday Handmade Crusade bandwagon. I'm ashamed to say that I've been a very lazy Craftastic Christmas Crusader in the past few months. Late with themes, late with prizes, but it's October people and it's time for me to get movin'! My October theme is Hearth and Home. Let me explain:

During autumn and harvest time, I get decidedly nest-y. I think something about my personality makes me want to prepare our little home and make it as comfortable as possible as we transition to spending more time indoors. So, therefore, I declare October's theme Hearth and Home. Make something that will spruce up someone on your gift list's home. This time of year is great for finding wreath making materials, or perhaps you could sew a pillow or create a beautiful piece of art. Anything to make a home more cozy! The sky is the the limit!

I've been working on multiple wash cloths for this very theme:



I'm going to purchase locally made bars of soap, wrap them in the wash cloths and tie them up with some scrap fabric. These will go to some of the ladies in my family. Hopefully they will appreciate a little hand made goodness to brighten up their bathrooms. I have three out of five done and luckily these knit up fast.

Have any of you been doing some holiday crafting in advance? I'd love to hear about it :)

Alright folks, back to guzzling tea, blowing my nose and sleeping. REPEAT.

Greetings from Bronchitis Land

Greetings from Bronchitis Land



aka my bed, where I have been for the past three days. The sum of my time here has been spent...

...forming dreads (not on purpose!)...



...knitting a sock...



...and drinking tea.



That's pretty much it.

Warning: F-bombs abound below...

Yesterday had a rather interesting start. I woke up, and did not feel well enough to go into work, so I went to call in. I find out that my Nextel service has been shut off. I'm changing providers, and it was supposed to be shut off on Sunday. So, I take my new cell phone out of its box and see that it has to be activated from a land line...which I do not have. The number I had to call was an 800 number, so being resourceful I threw on a polar fleece over my pjs and went down to the local gas station to activate the phone.

Nothing is that easy.

Keep in mind that I have severe, severe laryngitis. Speaking at an audible level for someone to hear me over the phone, pretty much requires monumental screaming effort on my part.

I get a hold of a representative who cannot find my number. Asks if it might be under another name. I tell him to try my husband's and there it is. He tells me that he needs to speak to my husband in order to activated the account. I tell him that my husband is in China until Monday. He tells me that he cannot help me. I tell him that I have to call in to work, and that my phone service has been shut off and I'm standing in a gas station in my FUCKING pajamas and what am I supposed to do? I apologize for shouting and tell him that I realize that this isn't his fault alone, but his company has made a mistake by canceling my old service too soon. He tells me to hang on a minute.

I hang on for more than a minute.

He comes back and tells me "Unfortunately there is nothing we can do to activate, blah blah blah..." I start seeing red. I ask what security questions about my husbands account do they need to know, because I would probably know the answers. He tells me that he can't ask me, he has to ask my husband. I tell him that that's fucking ridiculous, because we're speaking over the phone, and how the hell would he know the difference if I just called up, spoke to another rep and pretended to be my husband? Every time I ask him a question he launches into "Unfortunately..."

By the fourth "unfortunately" I slammed the phone down.

By that point I had shredded whatever whisper of a voice that I had left. I didn't know what to do. So I drove to work, in my pajamas, tried to explain why I was in my pajamas and my voice just gave out. So I had to go through the slightly humiliating comedy act of writing this whole ordeal on little slips of paper, much to my co-workers amusement. I had to call in today as well, which I had to pre-plan for by asking one of my co-workers to check his Facebook account before he went in, because I have no phone. I asked him to message me back if he received my message alright, and he never did. I have no idea if my manager knows what's going on - so hopefully I don't get fired!

So here I sit. Desperately ill, alone and possibly jobless.

Matt comes home from China tomorrow. I can't wait!

Today I'm grateful for my super cuddly cats and my f-ing great sense of humor. HAHAHA! What are you grateful for today?