This morning, once again, I woke up with my pillow soaked with tears, the sobs still fresh in my throat. I wiped my face off with my sleeve, as I sat up, trying to remember what dream I’d had, what had made me so bitterly sad that I’d wept in my sleep loudly enough to wake myself. Nothing. My memory banks came up with nothing.

I sighed as I changed my pillow case. Normally I dream about new and exciting ways to mock John C. Mayer, and although John C. Mayer could have been the reasons for my sobs (Hey, “Your Body is a Wonderland” is a terrible song), I don’t think it was.

This is the fifth time in as many days I’ve woken up with a wet pillow case. On the rare times I can fall asleep (a hearty fuck you goes out to insomnia), this is what I’m repaid with: night terrors.

Amelia’s appointment yesterday with the EI evaluators went as expected. She’s ahead in some areas, behind in others. It’s the medical equivalent of a push and it’s certainly not something that keeps me up at night, her inability to perform quadratic equations and properly discuss string theory aside.

I’ve managed to buy her a birthday present and pink cupcake mix for her birthday on Friday (still haven’t done anything for a big blowout bash), both of which should delight her. I’m thrilled that she’s going to be thrilled by this. Everyone should be so lucky as to have pink sparkles on their birthday cuppity-cakes.

And yet I’ve spent the last couple weeks talking through clenched teeth, the most minor of infractions setting me off, sending me into a blind panic. A dead weight has settled onto my chest there’s an omnipotent feeling of cosmic not-rightness. Everything feels wrong. Nothing is wrong, yet everything feels wrong.

My feelings make no sense to me.

I know what this is. It’s PTSD. Post-traumatic stress disorder. I hate to even write those words out because I see them and I know some assjacket is going to be all, “YER NOT A VET, YEW WHOR,” and then I’m going to feel worse because I’m already feeling guilty about feeling the way I do. I have the Girl That Lived and still I have PTSD? Certainly, I do not have a right to those feelings.

And yet I do. I’m as entitled to my feelings as the next assjacket.

Really, I liked it better when I pretended I had no feelings. I think sociopaths have that part down. Feelings are kinda bullshit. Unless we’re talking about my love of Bob Ross and Richard Simmons. Or any white guy with an Afro. White guys with Afros are most certainly NOT bullshit.

It began with a tiny pink lollipop, really no bigger than the tip of my finger.

I saw it sitting quietly on the counter as I stood there in the kitchen, seething; a drinking glass clutched in my hand, poised to throw at the wall, the blood pounding in my ears, drowning out all other noise.

The rage had come from nowhere it seemed, and in an instant, as I looked at that tiny pink lollipop, part of the My Little Pony advent calendar I’d bought my daughter (apparently boys are the only ones who should be taught to rob banks at Christmas), it evaporated. What came next was a sorrow so deep that it shook me to my bones, and I nearly fell to my knees as the sobs wracked my body. I wept, consumed with the kind of feral cry that reminds us that we’re not really that far removed from our animal ancestors.

In that instant, I was transported back to that room. The room where no pink balloons floated. No baskets of flowers were delivered. No visitors came to offer their congratulations. There were no happy phone calls made or cheerful cards read. The room was a barren hospital room overlooking an ice-covered roof and had two – not three – occupants. Both sat on the bed, weeping. Later, it was only one.

I think about that room a lot. I spend a lot of time with my ghosts, roaming those halls and reliving those uncertain days after my daughter was born.

But it is that room that haunts me most.

I want so badly to go back to that room and take that weeping, fractured, shattered woman into my arms and say to her, “Your daughter will live. She will live. She will go on to do amazing things with her life and so will you. Amelia will do much good for so many people. You will take all of these broken pieces and you will rebuild into someone else. Someone better. You will take all of this pain and you will use it to fortify you; to guide you; to help you find yourself. Please know that you are so loved.”

Because I will never forget how alone I felt. Maybe that is where that chasm of rage came from. That secret place, that land of tears and sorrow, that is ours to face alone. It was in that room, where no balloons bobbed and swayed, where no one celebrated Amelia’s life, that I sat alone in my own land of sorrow.

Seeing that lollipop on the kitchen counter brought it all back. It took me back to that room, the most uncertain, horrifying time in my life, and it reminded me of the days when no one celebrated her birth. The memories left me gasping.

I’d wanted so badly to celebrate her first birthday. To throw an ebullient celebration of Amelia’s life, a Fuck You to the Universe. I even had a CandyLand theme picked out. But I was so stuck in that land of tears that I simply couldn’t. It broke my heart.

Amelia will be two on January 28 and I have not planned a party for her. I want to. But it’s hard. This particular party is hard for me. It dredges up memories of some of the worst days of my life.

But I think that is what I need to do; throw her a birthday party, a REAL birthday party, the kind of party she deserved when she entered the world and defied all odds. I’m struggling, battling my demons, my dragons all rearing their heads as I work to slay them.

I will do it. I must do it.

I may never be able to go back in time to reach those two people in the room where no one celebrated her birth, but I can show Amelia how many people celebrate her life.

I will fill the rooms with balloons and shout to the world from the rooftops that this, this was the day that my daughter, Amelia Grace, the Warrior Princess of the Bells, she arrived.

And nothing, not one damn thing, has been the same.

Then I will sit back and watch my daughter giggle and snort and dash about, her curls bouncing merrily as she chases her balloons; her life finally, at long last, celebrated.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what I’d say to her, given the chance. It’s a pointless endeavor, for sure, considering she’s been dead for almost three years. Or is it more than three years? She died when Alex was a baby, a couple months before I got pregnant with my daughter.

One last conversation. What would I say to her?

I could tell her that I admired her from the moment I met her, when we were eleven and thirteen, respectively; just kids, really. There was an instant chemical reaction between us, the kind that occurs once or twice in a lifetime, if you’re really lucky. It’s like our cells pulled us toward other. We would be friends. Our cells were determined. So were The Fates.

We’d always be thrown in front of each other, at this party or that. She dated one of my best friends for a very long time. She was friends with the little sister of one of my older friends. We were both talented cellists – although her talent was far beyond mine – which meant we were in orchestra together for a couple of years.

In Beethoven’s String Quartet Number, he scribbled Grave, (Muss es sein?/Must it be?), Allegro (Es muss sein!/It must be!), and that’s how I thought of our friendship, of any good friendship:

Must it be? It must be.

I’ve stopped believing in the randomness of the universe and when I think back to all of the times we happened upon each other, once again, I realize: It Must Be.

Would I tell her how I admired her when she walked tall and proud so sure of herself, while the rest of us shuffled along; all elbows and knees, not sure what we stood for? Because I admired the hell out of her. Bracelets jangling, jeans hugging her hips, a vintage Stones t-shirt effortless put together, she was larger than life at age sixteen.

I’d never known anyone like that before.

I’d never known anyone who would take my side, either. Every other friend I’d had shoved me under the bus at wink of an eye or waggle of the hips; the betrayals vaguely reminiscent of my childhood, where no one had ever been on my side. When she showed up to tell my cheating boyfriend to fuck off or my former friend that she was being a total asshole, I was stunned. It had always just been me. Defending, well, me. Maybe I’d tell her that it was sad that I was twenty before I knew that kind of friendship.

Maybe I’d tell her that I’d lived my life the daughter of a bipolar alcoholic and I was sorry that she’d found herself there, too. Because I was. So sorry. We’d tried to reach her, my God we tried, but she was lost in the bottle and not a single one of us who had loved her back when she sparkled and shone, not one of us could get through. But we tried because we still loved her and we still believed that she was in there.

I could tell her that her funeral was so full of people who loved her that it was standing room only.

That when the string trio started playing “As Tears Go By,” the entire room wept. We all wept at the tragedy of losing someone who had so much of that sparkle, so much of that shine.

How the image of her two sons screaming and wailing to, “See MOMMY!” as they shut the casket will be forever seared into the brains of so many as the most heartbreaking thing we’ve ever seen.

She is so, so loved.

I could tell her that two years later, I still cannot talk about her without crying. How I cannot hear “Tears Go By” without weeping. How I still have her phone number in my address book. How I dedicated Band Back Together to her because I think the stigma of mental illness and alcoholism and all those demons we hide, I think that’s bullshit. How I think she’d like the site.

I guess I could tell her any of those things if I saw Stef again. But I think she’d already know.

Maybe I’d just hug her one last time, have one last laugh and say the right words: Must it be? It must be.

Aunt Becky: “So I was reading in Time Magazine about our oldest living relative, Ardi…”

The Daver: “Oh yeah?”

Aunt Becky: “It’s pretty interesting, actually. She’s kind of like the Missing Link between humans and chimps.”

The Daver: “That’s pretty wicked. But don’t tell the Christians about it.”

Aunt Becky: “I wasn’t going to.”

The Daver: “Good, because they’ll torch you.”

Aunt Becky: “Actually, I was planning to call Time Magazine myself. What are you doing Thursday night?”

The Daver: “Why?”

Aunt Becky: “Well, I think they’re going to want to interview you.”

The Daver: “Huh?”

Aunt Becky: “Well, I’m going to explain to them that YOU are the Missing Link.”

The Daver: “…”

Aunt Becky: “You and your Carnie Feet.”

The Daver: “…”

Aunt Becky: “They’re practically flippers, Daver. I mean, do you actually need to use those feet-thingies when we go scuba diving?”

The Daver: “…”

Aunt Becky: “Remember that time we were at Wal-Mart and I screamed at you to cover your feet because I was afraid the Carnies would take you away if they saw your feet because they’d see you were one of them and then you’d have to live out your life manning the Ring Toss Booth?”

The Daver: “Yes. I tried to leave you at Wal-Mart, if you remember correctly.”

Aunt Becky: “I’ve done some thinking and I’m pretty sure it’s because you’re actually The Missing Link between Man and Ape.”

The Daver: “Gee, thanks.”

Aunt Becky: “Or part duck.”

The Daver: “This conversation keeps getting better.”

Aunt Becky: “Do you have any relatives that are ducks?”

The Daver: “I’m not going to dignify that with a response.”

Aunt Becky: “Either way, I’m calling Time Magazine to tell them that I have the Missing Link in my house so please be home on Thursday so the film crew can see your Carnie Feet in person.”

The Daver: “You’re fired.”

—————-

If’n you want to vote for me in the BlogLuxe awards for funniest blog (which I am, of course, not), you may vote once per day here.

When I was in the third grade, I got my first hate mail:

Dear Becky,

I like you a little bit, but it grows smaller every day.

Love,

Becky

First, yes, her name was Becky also, and Part B, she signed it “Love, Becky” so I knew she wasn’t entirely serious. Third graders are notoriously fickle and she was probably pissed that my bejeweledness was awesomer than hers. Because it was.

Also, I had an older brother who could REALLY insult me and frankly, hers couldn’t hold a candle to what Uncle Aunt Becky could say.

But it DID hurt because those things DO matter when you’re eight and I vividly remember trying to tell my mom about “THIS ONE TIME THAT…”

She totally didn’t get it. My mother was never terribly hip about that sort of thing because she was too busy listening to folk music and churning butter and canning *shudder* tomatoes to care about what her “Ice-Ice-Baby,” bejeweled daughter could be upset about. I think that stuff just eluded her.

She just couldn’t possibly understand how it might matter that I have the right jacket and the right song to slow dance to at the skate rink and the perfect bangs that DID NOT start at approximately the back of my neck, like she always cut them.

Butter took precedence. Which, whatever. I MIGHT have a bang phobia now.

So my kid just graduated the third grade and yesterday he went over to a friend’s house on a playdate (okay, when we were kids, my mom just kicked us out and locked the door when the sun came up. There were no “playdates,” right?).

After he got home, he confessed that he didn’t have very much fun because they’d been fighting, and inwardly I groaned, because instantly I flashed back to all of the fights I’d had with my friends at that age over, well, anything. It seemed I was always stomping away from something or another or baffled because my friends were doing the same.

He explained what had happened, and it involved telling a secret that he hadn’t been informed WAS a secret, something I informed him wasn’t a particularly heinous crime, and he informed me that this was pretty much standard behavior for this friend.

Luckily, he wasn’t overly upset by this and isn’t planning on going back. This is the part of raising an autistic kid that’s fairly awesome. The hurt feelings aren’t quite of the same caliber as they are with someone like, oh, I don’t know, YOUR AUNT BECKY.

I submit this photo as proof:

This is Your Aunt Becky, circa 1989 (ish). Clearly, I am upset by something (and it’s not my uncle, who, despite the fact that he looks like he wants to throttle me or perhaps stone me to death or sell me for parts, is actually one of my favorite people).

What could that possibly be, you ask innocently, my Pranksters?

I have enhanced the photo for your digital pleasure so that you may see PRECISELY why I have such a look upon my face.

A-HA!

It’s because I hate Jethro TULL! CLEARLY at age 9, I already knew that while I enjoy most classic rock, Jethro Tull is one of the few exceptions! Aqua-Lung, one of the WORST songs out there!

Clever, CLEVER girl!

But did I have to look so fucking EMO about it?

The answer is OBVIOUSLY. Because at age 9, everything is very, very serious, I am learning, and nothing is not worth a good door-slamming.

On the upside, I have years of emo jokes ahead of me. On the downside, I have years of emo jokes ahead of me.

—————

So gather up around me, Pranksters, and grab a tall drink because I sure as shit need one and it’s only 9 AM. What were YOU like at this age?

—————

I am at Toy With Me talking about my, well, my sex-after-three-kids-life. And I need help. No, seriously, I’m asking for help.

—————-

If you’d like, you can vote for me for Funniest Blog once per day until like July 11 (it’s only an email address thingy, not like a big ass give-them-your-first-born-child-thing) and I would hump your leg. HARD. Consider it an early birthday present!

After my quivery “Not Without My Roses” post on Thursday, my friend Mitch, who is always sending me awesome links, sends me this:

Lightning strikes three of the tallest buildings in Chicago at the same time! from Craig Shimala on Vimeo.

I don’t tend to watch videos on blogs because I always assume it they are hilarious pictures of cats playing the piano and frankly, I have SCADS of (insert term for computer memory) of my OWN fake cat Mr. Sprinkles and his wacky antics! He’s quite an accomplished fake piano player, don’t you know!

But this, well, Mitch doesn’t send me bullshit, so I watched it. You should to. It’s like 40 seconds, and it’s WICKED AWESOME. DO IT, I’ll wait here.

Apparently, The Daver did have reason to worry…IF I WERE AS TALL AS THE SEARS TOWER*.

(hint, I’m not, but I’d be WAY cooler if I were)

Or perhaps had he come outside to see this:

I know, can you believe it? How had I not shown you photographic proof before? How had it not ruined my camera? How had I not been sucked off to Kansas City to be welcomed by a swarm of very tiny people?

It’s almost like it hadn’t existed in nature before Photoshop was invented. (thank you Mrs. Soup for helping this bitch out).

While I was selfishly off pruning my roses, my daughter escaped from jail:

Then, proving that she learned what thug life means, she stole a cookie and ate it wearing her gold chains. Maybe SHE stole my pants!

And indeed, she never DOES say please. Or anything else, really.

(I do have to tell you more about that, but for now, know that I have read every single email, comment, Tweet and DM you have sent me, but I have been literally paralyzed by the gravity of the situation. I am sorry. I promise I am not being rude)

Then, my middle son decided to outdo us all and become half human-half arachnoid:

When he starts scaling buildings and fighting crime, I’ll totally claim it’s my awesome genetics.

And my last son, Benjamin, became a teenager at age 9. He is also for sale.

Actually, I may PAY you to take him for a couple of years. Attitude is included. All sales final.

And now that I have offered to sell my son (POOR TASTE, AUNT BECKY), I will advise you to pretty PLEASE vote for me (for funniest blog), which is ALSO in poor taste, I know. But what can you do? You may vote once per day.

If’n you are the voting type, you can also vote for me in the awards on my sidebar, which would be rad. Voting is good for karma, unlike stealing, which gives you herpes.

*No, I will NEVER, EVER call it the (Wesley) Willis Tower, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

People would all cluck sympathetically when I told them that I had a two-year old and I was always kinda stuck scratching my head. Now, I’m always kind of scratching my head because I’m stupid and things like “In” and “Out” doors leave me stuck outside for hours, but this was especially bad. Because my TWO year old was awesome.

My THREE year old is Of The Devil.

I know, I know, I’m not supposed liken my child to a mythical creature that lives in a fake underworld because that’s NOT NICE AUNT BECKY, but it’s true. The THREE year old is a beast and the TWO year old was a living, breathing angel sent from heaven.

I think the Terrible Two’s are full of bullshit, Pranksters because with both of the boys, I never saw it. Maybe my daughter, who already throws tantrums when she doesn’t get what she wants, will prove otherwise, but I remain unconvinced.

This is pretty typical in my house now:

Aunt Becky: “I have to go to the bathroom now.”

Alex: “NO!” (stamps foot)

Aunt Becky: (laughs) “Well, actually, Alex, I do. I don’t have the luxury of a diaper, baby.”

Alex: “NO!” (stamps feet)

Aunt Becky: (goes to the bathroom, is followed by Alex and Amelia)

Alex: “You don’t have a diaper, Mommy.”

Aunt Becky: “No baby, I don’t.”

Alex: “Can we buy a kitty?”

Aunt Becky: “Ask your daddy.”

Alex: “NO!” (stamps foot)

Amelia: (begins shrieking because she believes that we should now pack up and leave the house on an adventure. She lays down on the floor and begins to kick and scream until the hallway is wet with tears and boogers) (also, you’re welcome for the free birth control)

Alex: “Mimi STOP YELLING.” (STAMPS FEET LOUDLY)

Aunt Becky: (buries her head in her hands)

Alex: “Mommy, you sad?”

Aunt Becky: “Yes, my head hurts now.”

Alex: “NO!”

I know from years of dealing with a know-it-all ex-boyfriend that arguing with him is pointless so I just ignore him when he acts like that. Plus, he’s not sleeping, which isn’t making the situation any easier on any of us. It’s sort of making me want to send The Daver to get a SECOND vasectomy just in case this one didn’t take.

It’s a good damn thing that he’ll then counter all of his annoying three-ness with doing something full of the awesome like yelling, “LOOK AT MY BEAUTIFUL GERBER DAISY, MOMMY.”

Then I take a deep breath and remember that this too, shall pass. And I stop and smell the Gerber Daisies.

It’s pretty safe to say that no one thinks that I’m very bright. I mean, I routinely give myself the Nobel Prize for Awesomeness just for existing, but after admitting that I have been inadvertently getting myself loaded in the morning WITHOUT REALIZING IT, I don’t think I’ll be winning any sorts of genius competitions. Mostly because I don’t know that there ARE any genius competitions, and let’s face it, if I knew of any, I’d just drive by and whip donuts at the contestants.

I’d like to blame it on my almond-extract-spiked-coffee, but really, this weekend, it’s actually just that I am that stupid.

So I’m going on this cruise, right? And I knew that I had a passport because I’m all wordly and shit, but I neglected to actually see if my passport was up-to-date. Turns out, it expired two months ago. Just realized it, yo.

Well, no worries, Pranksters, I can get use my birth certificate, right? Well, apparently I was dropped onto this planet by a mother-ship because no one actually has a physical copy of the record of my birth. So I rushed around like an asshole this morning and had to beg Lake County, IL to send me brand new copies certifying that I was, in fact, born of this world.

*crosses fingers wildly*

This weekend was The March of Dimes March for Babies, (not to be confused with the March ON Babies, which would be a completely different kind of march) and I’ve been looking forward to it since last year. I would have marched then, but I was kind of a quivering mass of Jello and I could barely organize myself to walk to the bathroom, let alone walk for babies.

But I’m not really a “details person.” I’m just sort of the person who organizes things broadly and let’s other people worry about the other things. Like dates, or plane tickets, or whatever. I assume that I’ll figure it out, or if I don’t, whatever.

So I thought the walk was on Sunday, although I didn’t specifically LOOK at the date and like circle it in big puffy hearts on the calendar, right? Then I made an appointment to get my eyes checked on Saturday and The Daver was all “ZOMG, THE WALK IS THAT DAY, YOU MORON!” and I was all, “Whoops!” sheepishly because that really is something I would do.

I canceled the appointment, got the kids off to my mom’s house on Saturday morning, printed out the sponsor sheets and got in my walkin’ gear. We showed up to the walk site and….

….

….

No one was there.

Yep.

Turns out I was motherfucking RIGHT all along. It was pretty hilarious to sit in the empty parking lot and laugh at The Daver, who was FURIOUS GEORGE (I should add that I was not furious when I thought that I was wrong).

We used the opportunity to sneakily eat some motherfucking breakfast without our crotch parasites and then ambled on home. BRILLIANTLY, I took it upon myself to do a bit of Bushwacking because the best thing to do when you are about to walk 5.5 miles with a foot injury is to do some really strenuous digging. Of course, I hurt myself. Of course it was with the pickax. Really, no one is surprised.

I mean, it’s just a giant knot on my leg and I knarfed up my foot again, but really, did I HAVE to get out there and attempt to dig out the bushes before the walk? CLEARLY I did. Anyway, the bushes, like my stupidity, are going nowhere. Those motherfucking roots are of The Devil. If I see the person who invented evergreen bushes, I will punch him in the testicle.

Sunday dawned beautifully, and while I may not have been able to move comfortably, I was beyond happy to be walking, although I was eying Amelia’s stroller jealously.

The park where the March of Dimes walk was held was the very same park where we, in high school, used to hang out and party every night, so to be there in a very different fashion was completely discomfiting to me. But when we walked in and saw all of the March of Dimes families gearing up to walk, I’m going to admit to you that I got choked up.

Just knowing that we were there–that we’d all survived–it made it all that much more real to me. I don’t sit around all day every day thinking about my daughter or about all of my nieces and nephews that have been born too soon, or stillborn, or those who have passed. They’re always with me, but I couldn’t possibly function if I thought about that all the time.

But standing there in the park, the ghost of who I was and who I am, now a March of Dimes Mom, beside each other, my daughter chirping away in her stroller, her scar very visible in the morning sun, it was as much a celebration of life as it was a mourning of what could have been and what once was.

I walked for all of the names on my Wall of Remembrance, all of my nieces and nephews on that wall; I walked for my friend Heather’s daughter Maddie Spohr; I walked so that some day all babies will be born healthy.

And I walked proudly with you, my Amelia, who defied the odds. Born with a very serious neural tube defect, an encephalocele, that should have killed you, you now take life by the balls and you make it your bitch. There’s nothing about you that doesn’t make me proud to be your mother.

Because you will continue to help give a voice to those who cannot speak. You will give a face to babies who are sick or dying. You will help give hope to those who need it most. You will help make the world a better place.

I know this to be true, love, because you already have.

You let your light shine, baby girl. Clearly, you’re showing us the way.

The Daver: “I was reading your friend’s blog, and she was talking about how she’d gotten some nasty look from some parent when she said she was taking her kid to McDonald’s.”

Aunt Becky: “Ha! Figures.”

The Daver: “I said that ‘The Daver would give them a McSmackdown.'”

Aunt Becky: “Totally, yo. What the hell is wrong with McDonald’s once in awhile? Let kids be kids, man.”

The Daver: “Exactly! People like that can take their organic bento boxes and shove them up their asses.”

Aunt Becky: “I tweeted last night that whomever wrote the ‘I could be your hero baby’ song was singing about Chicken McNuggets. And I meant it.”

The Daver: “That’s fucked up.”

Aunt Becky: “The only thing wrong with McDonald’s is the ball pits. They always smell like pee.”

The Daver: “What the hell are you talking about?”

Aunt Becky: “You never noticed that?”

The Daver: “No.”

Aunt Becky: “Dude. Kids are always whizzing in the ball pits. It’s disgusting.”

The Daver: “….”

Aunt Becky: “It’s kind of awesome if you don’t play in there.”

The Daver: “….”

Aunt Becky: “You totally played in the pee balls, didn’t you? That sucks.”

The Daver: “….”

Aunt Becky: “That’s okay. I think there’s some bleach leftover from the time I accidentally saw pictures of Carrot Top naked. You can bathe with that.”

The Daver: “I have a sudden hankering for a Shamrock Shake.”

My neurologist looks like he stepped off a the set of a Western. I wouldn’t be surprised if, at any moment, he said “Saddle up, Pardner.” In fact, I’m kind of hoping for it. It beats the shit out of all the depressing options for different options for treating my My Grains.

Also, I have diagnosed him with GERD. I can’t remember anything about Nursing Diagnosis, but I remember most of the medical diagnoses we learned to get INTO nursing school.

My neurologist has GERD (gastroesophogeal reflux disease). I’m sure of it. I sort of want to tell him. I wonder if he knows…

Wow, these drugs all have incredible side effects, and in spite of the fact that he’s not wearing a fringe jacket or a gun holster and is telling me about drugs that may kill me, I really, really like my neurologist. This makes my current tally for neuros that I like at 3/3. Must be a record.

Okay, after all of that, we’re going to increase my Topamax dosage and add in a non-narcotic. Who knew narcotics could change headaches? Also, do you think he thought it was weird that I insisted that I DIDN’T WANT VICODIN over and over?

I was kind of the antithesis of drug-seeking behavior.

I was all “No, doctor who normally gives out pain meds, don’t give me drugs!” I probably said it 50 times. Probably the opposite of what he normally gets. Heh.

Oh shit. Now he’s asking me what I do for a living. Does “lazily pollute the Internet count?”

Phew. Went with “writer.” That’s an odd question.

OH. Now I see why. He’s warning me that I’m about to get stupider. Except he said it all fancy-like. “Cognitive impairment.” 1 out of 4 patients may experience cognitive impairment.

Well, now, I’m officially screwed.

Now I’m laughing like the village idiot. I mean, how do you get much dumber than this? Tears are coursing down my cheeks because I’m laughing so hard and the doctor is beginning to look alarmed.

Finally I catch my breath and explain that my stupidity is okay because no one’s lives are at stake with my job anymore. Then I take my new script, walk into several walls, and try to get into 3 cars that are not my own before realizing that I sold that particular car 5 years ago.

But the guy totally has GERD. For sure. I should call him and tell him so.

*A Fsssssshhhhh.