The Year of Mystery

I should be grading (shut up!) but we’re taking a small break to discuss the awesomeness of my health issues for a second. Mostly because I think everyone else deserves to know about the tremendousness of my year.

I think I’ll name it…The Year of Mystery. That has a nice ring to it don’t you think? Kind of like a pompous literary work about a woman, alone in the world, striving to discover the secrets of her great grandmother’s past before the ghost of her long lost great uncle kills the man she loves and forces her to bear the child of a fallen angel?

So anyway, it all started last year when I went for my yearly and a week later the dear doctor called me to tell me I had abnormal cells. And she kept saying “abnormal GLANDULAR cells” as if the fact that they were glandular instead of skin cells should mean something to me. After listening to her explain things and tell me I needed to come back for this and that test I finally said, “I don’t understand.” It wasn’t the most useful comment as I clearly understood that something was amiss and I was to come back for more tests, but I couldn’t understand why she kept saying “glandular” like you might say, oh I don’t know, cancer. The dear wonderful doctor then says, “I’m not saying you have cancer,” and I’m like whoa lady! I didn’t even know we had to say you weren’t saying that! Cause really, when the doctor starts comforting you, you know you’re in trouble.

So that was like February and long about May I FINALLY get in (which by the way, now that I understand that when they say GLANDULAR they aren’t looking for pre-cancerous cells--at least that was my understanding--I will not be talked down by the nurse who assured me there was no problem with waiting) and this other doctor kept saying GLANDULAR and I’m like, “WHAT THE HECK WITH THE GLANDULAR PEOPLE?!” Apparently that’s less common which means more possibility for trouble? I still don’t understand, but I share for all you girls out there who have a similar experience because I pretty much gave myself an aneurysm trying to figure all of this out.

Anyway, he asked me if I’d ever had a baby and I, not exactly in my right state of mind, snapped, “NO!” because I felt like he was calling my cervix fat. It’s not logical. Don’t question it. And when all was said and done I did not have cancer though I do have mutated cells (let the jokes begin) and every time I go back I get a nurse that doesn’t know what’s going on who is sure I DO have cancer or at least HPV and doesn’t believe me when I try to explain that we’ve done all of this before. It’s awesome.

This gloriousness is compounded by a twitchy shoulder blade (muscle relaxers for that bad boy) and a mystery rash. I blame the mystery rash on band camp since that’s when it started, but basically I scratch myself raw about every other night. The scabs on my hands, legs, arms, and chest are super sexy. Going back to the doctor she looks at me and says, “I have no idea what that is.” Exactly the words you want to hear when the only relief to be found is under ice packs that numb the majority of your skin.

So I’m recommended to a dermatologist who can’t get me in for two weeks and at this point I just don’t have any fight left in me. They ask what’s going on and I say “itchy, painful rash” and they say “Okay, see you in two weeks!” Because apparently when I say “itchy, painful rash” that actually translates to a mild discomfort, barely noticeable symptoms with no need for urgency.

And, AND I’m sunburned. So now I can’t tell what is itchy from the rash and what is itchy from the peeling sunburn and I’m hot ALL THE TIME. For reals all the time. Like basically I sit around and sweat which, when teaching, is absolutely fabulous.

So I’m scabbed, peeling, and sweaty with mutated cells. This could be the most attractive I’ve ever been in my life. Clearly it’s time for me to make my move on Gerard Butler or Paul Telfer because when my sweaty scabby self walks up they won’t even know how to contain their tremendous love.

Seriously. Two weeks. And I have some steroid cream which kinda works but not really. She put me on the oral roids last week and that made for an insatiable appetite and some really awesome mood swings. And my students wonder why I’m short tempered.

And (because this story isn’t epic enough) I caught one of them staring at the scab on my chest yesterday and it suddenly occurred to me it looked an awful lot like rug burn.

I’m a classy dame.