So the root canal pain is totally gone, the sinus infection is still around, I had a severely sore throat on Tuesday so I went to the doctor’s office to get some meds for that and tested negative for strep again.

I had to go back today because I was having trouble with gross goopy eyes. Now I have conjunctivitis. The doctor thinks the tooth, the cold and sinus trouble, the eyes, the weight, and probably the depression are all related to my hypothyroidism and I’m supposed to go see an endocrinologist.

On the bright side I no longer smell pickles all the time.

There was an hour and a half wait in the doctor’s office, even after checking in and seeing two nurses. It was very, very crowded today too. I had a feeling a lot of us had the same cold. We were all coughing and sniffling. They had a television in the waiting room and at one point the tv mysteriously changed channels from msnbc to the game show network.

Despite everyone’s obvious sickness and inpatience we all kind of enjoyed watching Card Sharks and making fun of how outdated the statistics in the polls were. 15% of young boys in a Rhode Island middle school admitted to turning their report card Fs into Bs. 26% of the marriage counselors thought wives tended to be too overbearing. 13% of the high school boys with steady girlfriends admitted that they wished they could date other women. 3 out of 10 women have experienced unrequited love. 55% of the psychologists thought that women would feel more fulfilled with jobs outside of the home. We kind of had fun laughing at it.

Then the channel was changed to some sort of celebrity shopping network and we all went back to being sick impatient grumps.

to mention that last week, January 29th, was my fourth anniversary of quitting smoking.

In that time I would have smoked roughly 51,418 cigarettes and spent about $8,998.15 US dollars, even if I’d been going to the smoke shops on the pueblos. I smoked American Spirits they’re expensive.

I don’t think I’ve spent that much on yarn. Geez I hope not.

Yep. I had to get another root canal. I think that makes it five? At least it was on a different tooth, I’ve had to have three on the same tooth. Melon’s had to be spayed twice and I’ve had to have three root canals on one tooth. We have bad luck.

Interestingly the dentist thinks the abcess that this tooth’s roots had were what was causing my sinus infection. The doctor thought it was just a general sinus infection (although I was cleared on the strep, I found out that I didn’t actually have that). Both put me on antibiotics. The dentist’s antibiotics win the big prize for the nasty smell. They beat the dog’s farts any day, and that’s really an accomplishment. The doctor’s antibiotics were a nice quick and easy dose - one a day for just five days, which made me wonder if it was going to work at all anyway. They also both gave me various pain prescriptions and other interesting things. The root canal pain has subsided for the most part, although my gums are mighty pissed off.

The sinus issue comes and goes. At the moment, it’s here again. So I took the guafinex or whatever it was that the doctor had prescribed for the sinus congestion. Now everything smells like pickles. Strangest thing.

The in-laws had a party for that football game thingy. I got to stay home in bed trying to sleep and watching Puppy Bowl III (with the kitten half time show!) instead. Hey at least I didn’t record it on the Tivo like I did last year.

I hate to be whiny sick blogger but geez I feel like I’ve been consistently sick since Xmas day, just getting little breaks in-between. There are so many things I want to be doing instead. I have all kinds of beautiful roving to spin and I fixed the bobbin for the Lendrum’s plying head - one end just needed some wood glue. I’ve been dyeing yarn like crazy with Ashley. I started a needle felting project at Mara’s house. And I have so many beautiful beads to play with.

I’ve been working on the besotted scarf with little cable Xs and Os for Cody’s Valentine’s present. I hope he’ll be ok with the yarn, it’s red but has some pink tweedy bits.

I’m stumped about what to get for our third annual stupid t shirt valentine’s gifts. He never wore the “No one knows I’m a lesbian” shirt but I have several times; he wears both of our ThinkGeek code shirts from the first year. What to do.

The good:

The Bad:

The Crackly:

I’ve had a bad neck/shoulder/back issue for years. Like, now that I’ve been thinking about it, fifteen years. Oops! I had a friend back at Birmingham-Southern that I would pay to massage my back. Then my best friend and roommate in Santa Fe got the honors since she went to a hippie school for a while and knew how to massage really well. She kept saying, “You really need to get an adjustment,” and I had no idea what that meant.

Cody is not a very good massager because he’s afraid he’ll hurt me. Believe me, it would take A LOT to hurt my neck and shoulders. I am one seriously tough woman in that particular area thanks to softball in my early years and stretches and stuff trying to fix my issues in the more recent ones.

So for years now I’ve been dealing with pain on the left side of my neck down into my shoulder and to this one weird spot in my shoulder blade. It comes and goes. But for the last year or so it’s gotten increasingly worse. Sitting at the computer for hours then going and sitting on the sofa to knit with really bad posture doesn’t help. And I’m almost positive I sleep “wrong” too although we bought a great bed about a year ago.

Monday we didn’t get to the fair which was disappointing. But I finally did give it up and go to a chiropractor. I’d just had it with the neck pain. We just went to a local chain that I remembered had a “Walk ins Welcome” sign. I was terrified. All those rumors about people being paralyzed and stuff. And this guy did take my head and crack the living shit out of my neck. Three times. Then did these little electronic stimulator things on my neck and upper back. It was scary but it felt a lot better! Not perfect but better.

When he asked me if I’d had a car wreck or something fifteen years ago I couldn’t really think of what had happened to cause this neck pain. I usually assumed it was a combination of bad posture and an injury from chiseling stone in sculpture classes. But Monday night I remembered what happened when I was nineteen: I was in the mosh pit at a Vomit Spots concert and someone jumped off the stage directly onto my head. I went straight down. Will was there and he probably even remembers. I got right back up but my neck was so stiff for days afterwards. And so it has been ever since on and off.

It’s a mosh pit injury! How totally punk rock!

I went back this morning and it’s a bit better. The chiropractor did the same stuff again and said we’ll be doing the same thing for a month or something then we’ll see how I’m feeling. But I’m not supposed to be sitting at the computer very much with all this going on so I’ll only be checking in every once in a while.

So that’s it..the good, the bad, and the crackly.

and gets the CRAP beat out of her gums! Yeah, ok I deserved it. I don’t take nearly as good care of my teeth as I should and ok, yeah I haven’t had an in-office cleaning since 2000. Mix this with the genetic lottery number I pulled (which includes great intelligence, naturally good skin and hair, a penchant for rich foods with a comparatively small metabolism and extremely high maintenance teeth) and I shouldn’t expect anything less.

Lucky me I get to have a crown that’s already been drilled through for a re-root canal replaced and two other crowns put in. YAY!

When I start to think about how much money has been spent on my teeth over the years what with the pediatric cavities, braces, wisdom teeth extraction alone I start to get a bit woozy. Or maybe that’s the killer pain meds the dentist prescribed for me.

The good news is I think we’ve finally found an acceptable dentist in the state of New Mexico. He seemed hyper-aware of my low pain threshold and was equally appalled when I told him about the dentist in Santa Fe that told me to drink a bottle of wine rather than prescribe pills when I complained about tooth pain from his last filling. This new guys’ hygienists were very nice (considering what they had to do) and his bill wasn’t completely outrageous, well, for what all is going on. So anyone in Albuquerque that needs a new dentist I TOTALLY recommend Dr. Tom Heflin.

In other news I added a few things to the etsy shop.

Today it’s been 970 days since my last cigarette.

2 years 7 months 3 weeks 5 days 3 hours and 40 minutes

33,922 cigarettes I haven’t smoked

$5,936.35 I haven’t spent on cigarettes (I smoked expensive American Spirits)

3m 3w 5d 18:50 life saved (all according to the QuitTime program I still run on my computer)

I work very hard to not be an obnoxious ex-smoker to people who are still smoking, not say stupid things or be a general pain in the ass. But at the same time I am very, very proud of this accomplishment. It took three tries to finally have it stick. The longest time I’d quit before this was eight months.

This was probably the hardest thing I’ve had to do in my life. I’m not even exaggerating. I had started smoking at fourteen at boarding school. I quit at thirty-one. By then I’d smoked for about sixteen years. Don’t even want to think about how many cigarettes or “life not saved” Quittimer would calculate for that.

If you’re curious this is what worked for me. I’m certainly not saying it’s the only way to do it. I was on a combination of prescriptions for Wellbutrin, Zoloft, my thyroid meds (of course), and I used the nicotine patch. I started with the highest dose of Nicoderm CQ. I found that the clear ones stuck better. I didn’t even complete the cycle with the patches. One day I forgot to put one on and just kept forgetting.

I honestly believe it was the Wellbutrin and the patches that did the trick. Cody couldn’t take the Wellbutrin and had a relapse with the smoking for six months (meanie that I am I made him go outside). Then he actually got addicted to the patches. He would wear more than one at a time, changing them after twelve hours. He used the patches for a year and a half. But we got him off of them too. Now we’re both nicotine free.

When I first quit smoking I ate approximately 10 thousand Salsa flavored sunflower seeds and went through about two cases of coke per week to counteract all that salt. I quit both of those a few months later. Now I stick to diet sodas with the occasional sonic drink. I’m not counting starbucks coffee drinks right now.

Yes I gained weight. I’ve since lost it and more and gained it all back. I’ll probably be doing that the rest of my life. I’d been doing that anyway even when I was a smoker.

But at least I’m not always thinking about when I’ll get to smoke next. Or have to worry about whether or not I have enough cigarettes to make it through the night. Or get so stressed on airplanes because I can’t smoke. Or make my mother cringe every time I have to go smoke on their back porch when I visit.

I finished the baby sweater late late Saturday night. When I woke up to go to the shower my sinuses felt like they were packed with cotton so I didn’t go.

The house is as clean as it’s going to be for now. My parents arrive in about four hours. I still have a head cold / sinus thing and I just washed my hair anyway.

Melon’s favorite food this week is a canned kipper snack we found in the exotic tinned foods aisle. It’s among the more disgusting seafood items I’ve ever seen but she’s eating it so I’ll put up with it.

The construction seems to be going on further down the road now. Although sometimes we get a boom or vibration from the trucks. That makes the dog bark. She’s also taken to barking when the phone rings. Good thing it doesn’t ring that often. I think she can sense our annoyance with the phone so she barks at it to make it go away.

I’ve eaten so many cough drops I’ve given myself a stomachache.

And I’m on the third day of my period but I can’t eat chocolate because it coats my throat and makes me cough.

Please excuse my posts all being about whining or knitting lately. I haven’t really been thinking about the website very much and when I do it’s usually to whine or show off knitting.

too bad I didn’t notice at 2:22 eh?

Three months? That’s all I’ve saved? Dammit!

as always I praise Quittime.

Yes, I still miss it every day. Sorry.

The good news: I’m alive
The bad news: I’m never eating sag paneer again.

I don’t think it was food poisoning (as Cody does) because I’ve been feeling queasy on and off for a week. And no it’s not that either. Actually I think this is the next evil phase of the cold/flu that wouldn’t die - the stomach edition. I could go into a lot more details but trust me, you don’t want to know that such a delicious spinach and cubed farmer’s cheese dish could become a projectile from opposite human orifices at the same time like that. A bit tmi there eh? Well, just thank your lucky stars you weren’t there you might’ve gotten hit.

During a two hour lull in the waves of nausea yesterday I took some self-portraits and monkeyed around with them in photo impact. Don’t you love that nauseated wan look? Almost like those early nineties’ Calvin Klein ads if you ask me.

There are several more in the photo journal.

1y 10m 2w 4d 0:24 smoke-free

24,080 cigs not smoked

$4,214.00 saved

2m 3w 2d 14:40 life saved

according to QuitTime

And I’d still light one up and smoke it right now if I could. But I don’t want to go through quitting ever ever ever ever EVER ever again.