Hell of a time to show up, complications. Hell of a time.

So, when I visited the lovely Nikki and her cronies up in Seattle (heeeeeyyyy!), I came down with a Horrible East-Coast Plague brought by the lovely Lara. Lara is Gwyneth Paltrow; don't let anybody tell you different. Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice; *I* say it will end with an innocent-sounding sneeze from Pittsburgh.

Three days ago, I came down with Plague Two-Point-Ought.

The doc could do nothing for me, since I declined her kind offer of multiple opiates for cough suppression. Even as lovely as that stuff can be, I'd rather cough until my toenails come loose than itch and be constipated and paranoid for days on end. Delsym, combined with Tiger Balm, Benadryl, and bourbon, does just as well.

She did, however, tell me that I can probably expect this to happen more often in the future. Not that she has a whole lot of patients with their palates missing, but, as she pointed out, it's only natural that the deficiencies in my muscosa would lead to greater susceptibility to virii.

I wash my hands. I alcohol-foam them. I keep them away from my face. I take prenatal vitamins, for God's sake, and zinc, and Vitamin D. I clean my prosthetic until it shines like unto the sun at noonday on the new-fallen snow. I stay away from sick people (yes, yes, I know, but stroke does not equal sick), I eat well, I exercise moderately at the frequency recommended by experts.

I fucking FLOSS.

And I got two colds in six weeks, both of which have left me sounding like I ate a bagpiper and producing snot the likes of which I won't describe.

Bourbon. Focus on that, chum. Bourbon, and Benadryl, and sit sleeping up so you don't cough.

Yeah. Somethin' like that.

Yep.

(Another one of) Jo's Annual Gardening Post(s)

It's been a good-news, bad-news kind of almost-month.

The good news is that we're very busy at Sunnydale (Healthcare for the Hellmouth). The bad news is that we're so short-staffed in every department except the one that does, like, colonoscopies and stuff that I've had five-patient days lately. As in, start with two, discharge those, get three.

The good news is that The Boy is moving down here in a couple of weeks, and that he has a fabulous new job that will keep me in beer to the point that I'll need to have my own floating scooter to get around the house. The bad news is that he's got shingles.

Yes, shingles. I diagnosed them over the phone after thinking to myself, "Gee, poison ivy doesn't usually occur along dermatomes along with a scratchy throat and a headache." He later went to an actual medical professional and confirmed it, and got all the meds he needs to fight off the outbreak.

Which is good, because the bad news is that I've never had chicken pox, and my titers have been falling the last few years. Herpatic encephalopathy is all fun and games until somebody goes blind or dies, and I, personally, have no intention of spending my remaining years drooling onto my own shirt while sitting strapped into a high-backed chair.

...Even though that sounds a lot like work.

Good news: I have, thanks to The Boy, newly weeded and replanted front beds. Bad news: we lost two tomato plants to unknown causes. Good news: there's a cardinal nesting in my rose bush, and she's laid three eggs. Bad news: I now have to find out what cardinals eat.

Good news: Changes are afoot at Sunnydale!

Bad news: They involve uniforms, not staffing. Manglement--and by this I mean the Tippy-Top people, who haven't, as far as I can tell, set foot in either Sunnydale or Holy Kamole in ten years--have decided that we all need to wear the exact same thing. From housekeeping to nursing to radiology, we'll all be wearing the same. damn. thing. Clinics to hospitals, top to bottom.

Good news: The uniforms are cheap. Bad news: They're in extremely limited sizes and are 100% polyester.

But, you know, what do you expect? When you're faced with a shortfall in staffing that's brought about by crappy working conditions and low pay, why *not* require everybody to buy new uniforms from the one place that you've declared will sell them? Bravo, Manglement, for addressing the troubles in our facilities in a constructive and thoughtful way!

Good news: I planted beans and peas and melons and carrots and radishes and okra this past week. Bad news: I watched a blue jay, that bastard, pull up each and every okra plant one by one and fling the sprouts around. The next batch I put in will be coated with cayenne pepper and bobcat pee. And will be hiding special Bastard Blue Jay Killing Machines.

Unmitigated good newses: The Boys went to the vet today and got a collectively clean bill of health. The exact words the vet used were "perfect," "beautiful," and "sweet." They're now sleeping off both the trauma of being cooed over and petted by six attractive young women, and vaccines. Flashes huddled in the exam room sink while Notamus tried to stand on his head in the corner of the room, but they both got over their jitters pretty quickly.

And now I am going to go Google cardinals' diets and head to bed. That's very good news indeed.

Malarkey: How to Put It Over Effectively.

For some reason which I have been, as yet, unable to discern, those members of the public who are most inclined to attempt malarkey at the hospital choose neurological afflictions as their mode de malarkification.

I am SO TIRED of people who insist--insist!--that there is indeed a brain tumor, right here (points to right temporal lobe), despite the evidence of repeated MRIs to the contrary. I am equally as tired of people who have trouble remembering on which side they ought to be weak. And I've had it up to my moustache with folk who think that squinting is a facial droop.

So, in the interest of having something actually fascinating to deal with, I've come up with a list of things that malingerers shouldn't try, because we've seen them all before.

Numero Uno: SQUINTING IS NOT FACIAL DROOP. Seriously. I have all these fun little tests that I can do to prove it to you, plus: I watch you when you think I'm not watching you. Oh, and I read the charting from your forty previous admissions, so I know what you're likely to try. How many times do I have to say this, anyway?

Number Two: If you're gonna have weakness, make sure it's not distractable.

Number Two, subsection A: If you're gonna fall over, do it on a hard surface once in a while. We have a name for what you're doing: it's astasia-abasia, and it means we know you're bullshitting.

Number Two, subsection B: The same goes for upper extremity weakness. If you pretend to pass out, seize, or otherwise suffer an alteration in your level of consciousness, you bet I'll hold your hand about a foot above your nose and then drop it. If it misses your nose, I know you're faking.

Number Three: Telling me that you're allergic to morphine and "all NSAIDS" will not get you the IV Dilaudid you want. I weep for you, the Walrus said, I deeply sympathize: Dilaudid is the best shit ever in the history of the universe, and I certainly understand why you want it. However, you won't get it. Nor will you get Phenergan IV, or any of the other cool drugs, like Stadol. Here; I'll help you fill out the AMA paperwork.

Numero Quatro: Threatening to sue me won't work. Don't try it. Besides being rude and laughable, it's out of character for your illness for you to be able to holler unslurred words at me.

Number Five: This might bust up the angel-at-the-bedside myth about nurses, but: We Judge By Appearances. If you have no teeth, a heavy backwoods accent, track marks on your neck, and smell like an ashtray, we're going to be very, very cautious about what you're reporting in terms of symptoms.

Number Five, Addendum One: Likewise, if we read in your chart that you're on your fourth revision of a gastric bypass, have recently gotten out of rehab for the third time, and are allergic to morphine and all NSAIDS (see above), we're gonna lock up the narcotics.

Number Five, Addendum Two: In the same vein (no pun intended), we automatically double or treble the amount of alcohol use you admit to. That's why you're getting Librium with your scrambled eggs.

Number Five, Addendum Three: Yes, I will search your bag, your bed, your closet, your pockets, and everyplace else you could hide a stash after your family visits. I know these rooms better than you do, so don't even try.

Thank you for your time. We at Consolidated Research and Healthcare, Inc. know that you have a choice in healthcare providers, and we thank you for choosing us. We hope, wherever your final destination may be, that you have a safe trip. We hope to see you again soon, perhaps even in a sober state.

It's the Most Horrible Time of the year, and other observations. . .

The Festival That Cannot Be Pronounced has begun--well, technically is beginning--in Bigton. Littleton, where I live, is not unscathed by this yearly influx of techies, hipsters, and people who haven't seen soap in entirely too long. The traffic is horrible, my favorite beer store is out of my favorite beer, and the highways are full of people who, as they approach both downton Bigton and Sunnydale General, aren't quite sure where they're going. Hilarity, if you mean hilarity-in-a-natural-disaster-sense, often ensues.

Luckily, I've been flat on my back since Monday. Why, you ask? Well, let me tell you:

This past weekend, I flew to Seattle to attend the Emerald City Comic-Con. With me there were Tashi of Learning to Hope, Mary from The Bright Optimist, Lara of Get Up Swinging, and Nikki, late of CatsNotCancer, who let us all crash at her pad.

Let it be recorded here that we, the group of women who if combined into one body, might make a fully functioning human being, had a hell of a time. We saw celebrities. We took pictures. Nikki and Tashi cosplayed and looked kickass doing it. I stretched my skillset by painting a tattoo on Tashi and fixing her wig. Lara became the human landing pad for a tiny kitten named Magda, who learned to kitty-parkour while we were there. The amazing Coyote, most patient man in the Universe, kept us supplied with donuts, fried chicken, and emergency telephone numbers. We played with makeup. We swapped war stories. We talked, ninety-nine percent of the time, about things having nothing to do with cancer (mostly Magda, who is at the Excruciatingly Cute stage). Der Alter Jo joined us one day, and it was all good.

Except that Lara brought some amazing East Coast Death Rhinovirus with her, and by day four, we were all down for the count.

The fun started on Friday night, when Lara damn near passed out during a midnight bathroom break, and yelled for Nurse Jo. By Saturday night, Nikki was feeling peaked, and by Monday, I was fully in the grip of the plague and on a plane home (sorry, seatmates).

I don't know what they do differently in Pittsburgh, but their upper respiratory infections are like nothing on this earth. In terms of body aches, it was right up there with the flu; the only difference was more snot and a lower fever.

Today I rose from my bed, looked around blearily, and ate some soup. Tonight I'll go to bed early and sleep through the night with any luck. Tomorrow it's back to work for me.

It was a hella fun time.

I love my friends.