State of the Me Address

It has been an interesting few weeks for me...... yeah, let's just say "interesting." I wrote in September about having a few days off. I ended up taking an extra day, very unplanned, due to a medical emergency.

On my last planned day off, I was at a meeting of our lymphedema support group. We had a special guest speaker, and as I was listening to her talk, I suddenly felt very queasy and then this overriding sensation that I was dizzy and needed to get some fresh air. My body and brain were not in communication with each other all that well, and swoooooooooon down I went. Short story: there was no medical reason I should have fainted. So they asked me to follow up with my primary care doc -- and as luck would have it, I had an appointment with her the next week. We were due to go over some labwork that I'd had done the week before.

My doctor, to her credit, said, "Labwork, yeah yeah. What's the deal with you fainting?" We went over the labwork which did show a couple of areas of concern -- but she did not want to start me on any medication until they had ruled out a cardiac issue. She set up a referral for me to a cardiologist. Words I never thought I'd utter: "Hi, my name is Nettiemac, I am 42, and I have a cardiologist."

So a couple of weeks later (end of October), I found myself in a cardiologist's office, being hooked up for an EKG. And afterwards, they sent me to another area, where I was immediately fitted with a holter monitor, which I wore dutifully for 24 hours. I go in this week for an echocardiogram, and then we'll go from there.

THEN, a week after that, I was sitting in my office at mid-morning when I felt this pain in my stomach -- the kind that you feel during a bout of food poisoning. Hey, having gone through that just once in my life, believe me, I never want to go through it again. Four hours later, I was driving myself home, sick as could be. I collapsed onto the bed and did not move again for four-and-a-half hours. I swear, I think I stayed in the same position that entire time. I woke up the next morning fully expecting to be okay enough to go into work. But other plans were afoot: I didn't even have the energy to stand long enough to make breakfast. Oh yeah. I was going nowhere but back to sleep. By the evening, I felt well enough to plan to go in the next day. So I am guessing it was some sort of 24-hour stomach bug. But UGH UGH UGH!!!

Health issues aside, there have been some changes at work too. Plans are for our sister company to move under the same roof as us, and so there has been some restructuring and reorganization of duties. So come January 1, I will be the main point-of-contact for payroll and a few other HR/accounting related reports. And we have a new HR generalist to handle the heavier-duty HR responsibilities. I met her this week (first week) and so far, so very good.

The only downside is that my plans for NaNoWriMo 2011 are out the window. Who has time? I can't even hope to make it up over Thanksgiving weekend!

All in all, it's a good life, and I have so much to be thankful for -- a doctor that is looking out for my health, good friends who love me, a great job, and much much more!!