Lara I.

Let me tell you what I feel like right now.

My back hurts.

I don't believe for a minute the simple statement "my back hurts" is an accurate description of what I feel like. Let me try again.

The center of my back is ON FUCKING FIRE. There is a white-hot ball of fucking fire dead center between my shoulder blades and the pain is radiating outward and upward across my shoulders, up my neck and into my head.

Did you know that pretty much every time you move your back moves? Did you know that you use your back to do pretty much everything?

Of course, it fucking hurts whether I move or not, so I might as well move, but not if I'm going to end up passing out from the pain. Or puking my guts out. Neither is ideal.

Yes, I have already double-dosed on anything that could possibly help. This is it. I should have just taken a tranquilizer and knocked myself the fuck out, but there were things I wanted to do today. I would rather have done them anyway, even half out of my head on painkillers, but that's not going to be possible, I'm in too much pain to do any fucking thing at all, and I can't do a fucking thing about it but just sit here and take it.

No tranquilizer, see, because I certainly don't want to OD. And yeah, you can tack "again" on to the end of that. I don't want to OD again.

I don't want to watch a show because I can't even fucking pay attention to it. I'm just so pissed - why does my body do this to me? Why does it not comprehend that there IS NO FUCKING FIRE in my spine and react accordingly? I am doing EVERYTHING I am supposed to be doing - I AM DOING IT RIGHT, WHY DO I NOT GET MY WAY?

I felt fine yesterday, what THE FUCK did I do differently today?

I don't have work today - I do have work tomorrow. So what do I do if I keep feeling this shitty? I can't go to work - I can hardly get the fuck up. If I keep calling out of work, I have to bring a doctor's note - so I have to go see a doctor, who will be like, blah blah blah, oh, you say you're in pain, SORRY ABOUT THAT, why don't you try this that and the other thing that HAVE NEVER WORKED BEFORE? Hm wait, let's see, are you sure you're not just trying to get DRUGS?

I want to be so advanced that I can make my brain tell my body it simply refuses to register this kind of UNCALLED FOR BULLSHIT.

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS? I haven't felt pain this intense in years! My shoulder? My shoulder hurt? NO IT DOESN'T, THAT IS NOTHING COMPARED TO THIS.

And there's nothing I can do. There is not one single thing I can do about it.

LIFE FUCKING SUCKS.

So yesterday I came home from work (coffee co) and flopped down on my couch fully intending to fall asleep and stay asleep until I woke up again. This was around ten in the morning. I sort of drifted off - wasn't really sleeping but wasn't really awake either.

My phone rings. I'm like, blllleeeeeghhhhh? And I answer it, begrudgingly, because it's work (restaurant) calling me. My manager Vicki asked me to come in and work the lunch shift and I said I couldn't because I had no ride. Which was true, but also, I had my heart set on sleeping for the afternoon.

Apparently she had been calling people all morning to come in for lunch, because there were a couple graduations yesterday and she was afraid she didn't have enough people scheduled to handle the increased business that could possibly result. She told me she already called Bevan to come in and he said he could pick me up.

Plotting against me you see.

And she was right, it was a very, very busy shift. Pretty exhausting, actually. Did I mention I don't like that job?

Also, Bevan brought me a coffee when he came to get me :P

And so I did not get to sleep like I wanted to.

And then after work I went to Erica's house and we stayed up, oh, pretty much all night talking. That girl can talk like no one else I've ever met. And it's not the boring kind of talking, either - we're deep in conversation and then all of a sudden hours have passed.

So that's pretty cool. But what I should have done was gone back home and gotten some sleep, cause I'm missing it right about now.

And... my shoulder hurts. My back hurts. A lot. My jaw is sore. That is a new one. I don't really even want to be sitting here typing, but not doing anything is about as intolerable as doing something, so at least this way I'm distracted

What I needed to do yesterday, that I did not do because I was busy making extra money and hanging out with Erica, was clean up the upstairs for the next renters and wash the sheets and stuff - I didn't do that. I haven't done that yet. I need to do that now. Like, tonight. Except for I feel like shit.

Oh well.

So yesterday morning I woke up with my right shoulder hurting. That's right, my right shoulder. Not my left shoulder.

WTF???

But, I took my muscle relaxer, and eventually it felt tolerable.

BUT FIRST. Ok see here is how my day went yesterday. I had to be at work at 5am. Ok, so, I left the house in plenty of time to get to work on time. I was not late. I am very rarely ever late. My boss, Renee, is late at least once a week. I think I've bitched about that before. So let me just say one more time that I was not late. In fact, I was probably a few minutes early. And the doors are unlocked and the lights are on, so I figure Renee is there already. Which is rare - usually she and I arrive at the same time, or I get there first. I go inside - it's Renee and Other Girl opening up. And I'm like... hi? And she's like oh, Lara, what are you doing here? We don't need you today, I have Other Girl coming in for you all week. And I was like, well, we spoke on the phone, remember, and I told you I was coming back today, here is all my documentation, doctor's note, etc.

And she just looked at me, didn't take the papers from me, and was like, "I said I didn't need you today."

And I was like, ok, well, when we spoke on the phone, you didn't say anything about me not coming in today.

And she was like, well, you said you couldn't work, so I had to get your shifts covered.

And I was like, yes, but I still don't see what that has to do with today.

So, screw you, Renee, this will now be a whole week of not working, and so this will be a skipped paycheck. Not a small paycheck, a skipped paycheck. No money.

So I stopped in the back to look at next week's schedule, just to make sure. Usually I work Monday-Friday at 5am, but my shift ends at a different time every day, totally randomly. Well next week she has me working 5-7. Yep, that's five am to seven am. Two hours every day. That's eight hours for the week. Usually I work about fifteen or twenty. EIGHT.

Like I said, though, my shoulder was really hurting and so I just left rather than say anything else to her, and went back home. Of course I couldn't sleep or anything, so I just screwed around all morning and got more and more pissy as the day went on.

( Click to continue reading this long ass-entry. LOL I love doing that, sticking the hyphen in the wrong space! )

Anyway. Doctor Who hopefully tonight, definitely by tomorrow.

I am miserable. As in, mis-er-a-ble. Completely. I've had a fuck of a day. And I hurt. I mentioned I burned myself cooking? It hurts. It really hurts. It swelled up and blistered and now everything that brushes up against it hurts and it hurts even when nothing touches it and IT HURTS. Wah.

And MY SHOULDER HURTS. Again with the shoulder pain. Tonight it's my left shoulder. Actually, it's been my left shoulder for the past few days. In increasing amounts. At first it was just, meh, my shoulder hurts. Now I'm practically in tears. It's to the point where all across my back and all down my left arm feel weird and icy cold from the pain in my shoulder. I don't know what to do. I've already taken as many pain pills as I can - if I take more, I'll just get sick. They worked for, oh, two hours or so, but they've worn off now and I can't take anymore for another four and I am fucking MIS-ER-A-BLE. I don't know how I'm going to get to sleep tonight. I can hardly just sit still and type.

Work this morning (coffee shop) was not too bad, but work tonight (restaurant) was pretty god-awful. When I got there I was like, listen, I am not feeling well at all, is it absolutely necessary that I stay until close? And of course my manager was like, yes. Even though I'm not convinced it really was. I really, really try not to ask to go home, or call in sick or anything, because I don't want them to think I'm unreliable or anything, even if it's for health reasons. But I really, really should not have been at work tonight. Of course the other host let me just stand at the podium and take names, which was pretty pointless because the place just wasn't busy enough to need to take names in the first place - it sucked.

And I really don't know what to do about my shoulder hurting. It's hurt off and on like this for about a year now. It just started all of a sudden. Sometimes it stops, sometimes the other shoulder hurts instead (but never both) and I have all kinds of theories as to why this is happening and really, I guess I need to go to the doctor. But I'm kind of afraid the doctor will be like, well, your shoulder hurts because you put too much stress on it. You need to let it rest and give it a chance to heal. That, of course, is not what I want to hear, because "resting my shoulder" would pretty much amount to CRAWLING INTO A HOLE AND DIEING. Then again, the doctor could say nothing is wrong and it's all in my head. Cause if sometimes it doesn't hurt, and sometimes the OTHER SHOULDER hurts, well, that sounds like nothing is physically wrong, right? Or the doctor could say, this is all an effect from your last surgery, your nerves and muscles are confused, your brain is used to feeling pain so it's imagining your shoulder hurts because it can't register pain where it's used to feeling it - oh my imagination is just running wild with this.

I don't care about anything else right now. I don't care about meeting a pretty girl and telling her a story about a wide-mouthed frog. I don't care about Bevan not remembering having sex with me. I don't care about picking out furniture for my house. I just want to not be in pain - is that too much to ask? I understand that my body is never going to be normal again - I get that. But can I at least be assured that it's not getting worse? Cause it feels like it is. I feel like I'm falling the fuck apart. Like little by little every part of me is crumbling to pieces. When I said "I can do this," this is not what I had in mind.

...if it weren't for the stabbing pain in my head.

Julia sent me home this afternoon because she said I looked like death. I can't believe I worked a whole six hours at the bean shop tonight. I barely remember it.

My head hurts so much.

I don't know why.

No luck in the second-job search. I know it can take some time to find a job, any kind of job, even a minimum wage job, but I need money NOW.
No emergency room last night. No, no, none of that. No time for that shit. I could feel it coming, the answer to "my shoulder hurts": oh, does it?
I dunno what's going on with my shoulder, but I figure, it has to be in my head. Something's very wrong with me, and I am certain its not something that can be fixed by the ER.
How can pain like that fucking switch sides?
I was busy all day at work framing shit. No pain.
I come home, settle down, chill out? Pain.
It's gotta be in my head.