Arrgghhhhh!

No, I'm not being particularly piratical; that was a scream of frustration. My pirate Web site has disappeared, and Geocities/Yahoo is claiming it no longer exists. I had just posted a new entry! I'd been doing various things on it for nearly an hour, and suddenly it doesn't exist? Grumble, grouse.

I was already feeling cranky because of the rigamarole I had to go through this morning. I was getting my blood tested to see if I have diabetes yet, or if we have to look elsewhere for the cause of my feet hurting all over, all the time. It wasn't so bad at first; even though I had an empty stomach (except for the pint of exceedingly sweet soda syrup), I felt fine and I had a book to read for the 3 hours I was (supposed to be) there. The first couple of blood draws weren't bad, either. After the second, I had cotton taped to the inside of both elbows, but it wasn't painful. The third one came and went; I had a second poke on one of my elbows, but again, not too bad. At this point, I was getting pretty thirsty, and the lab assistant said she'd bring me some water. Well, she didn't, and before too long, I was feeling dizzy and sick. When they called me in for the fourth blood draw, I was so dehydrated they couldn't get into my veins-- any of my veins. And believe me, they did try. The backs of the hands are the worst, and they didn't work either. Eventually, they managed to find some blood in my forearm and sucked it out quickly while I fought back the tears.

Then and only then did they offer (and mean it) something to drink. I slurped down some orange juice and staggered to the door. The lab techs had left me alone-- and they'd left my last vial of blood on the counter. I told them about it as I left, but I didn't stay to see whether they went back for it. I was too anxious to get home. It was nearly noon, and I was near fainting. Considering that, I did remarkably well when, a mere 50 yards from my street, a train decided to park across the road for half an hour.

So anyway, it really wasn't that bad. Really. But in my attempt to keep my stomach empty for this test, I didn't take my anti-depressant meds this morning (nor, may I add, my painkiller), and as a result, I'm a bit moodier than usual.

I guess I need to focus on my blessings and caring more about others. Like my dear soul-sister Dorothy, whose family might be out on the street tonight because some people (including her own biological family members) refuse to pay their bills to the point that Dorothy and her husband and kids are about to lose their new house. I could just scream. Arrghhhh! Ah, that's better.