hurt.

Hello again.

I am hurting today, I am. But this is a good hurt, from kicking practice last night at martial arts. Oh, and the being kicked part doesn’t help, either. The thing I like about sparring? You yell. You’re all sweaty and exhausted and you’re kicking somebody’s heavily-padded ass, and you shout while you do it. That’s some good therapy.

So, the bad kinda hurt was this last weekend. Now, in the prequel the week before, I looked in the mirror to find a blood spot in my eye. It scared me a little, because I hadn’t done anything to cause it. I thought maybe weightlifting, but I do that all the time. Anyway, after the obligatory tossing-and-turning that night, I got over it and started using it to frighten people. It was funny to see them wince.

Friday night, I was scrubbing the bathroom and bumped my wrist on something. I don’t remember what, because it’s the kind of thing I do a hundred times a day in my frantic attempt to get everything done. Ten minutes later, it was a hurting a lot, so I looked and noticed a bruise spreading from inside my wrist up into my palm. And that just struck me as no damn good. It definitely wasn’t normal.

See, both my mom and my sister almost died of bleeding problems. They both went through chemo. My sister had regular dialysis for 6 months. So yeah, I’m paranoid about too much blood. Stephanie came over and took me to urgent care. We sat in the waiting room for 15 minutes, trying not the cry at the sight of this little girl who looked like she wanted to die. The doctor spent some time examining the inside of my head (through my eyes), and asked me what was going on in my life. I told her. She said that was the answer.

Stress! My blood pressure is up 30 points from one month ago. I need more sleep than I used to. The nearly-two weeks of storms and overcast weather drained me. I was apathetic and quiet. I considered maybe talking to none of you ever, ever again. That was dumb. So I hung out over the weekend, and I did stuff I like. I spent eight hours doing the seams on my sweater, and it’s still not totally done. I exercised. I went out with my friends, and they didn’t even mind that they had to do most of the talking. I tried my new unpowered lawnmower¹. I worked on protein bar experiment v3.0. I cleaned the house spotless. I did a freelance project and submitted my invoice. And I also gave up caffeine, after repeated assurances from my medical-geek sister that the last thing I needed was more adrenaline.

Saturday, I was fine. I went and got decaf, because I missed the people at the coffeeshop. They made me explain twice how I could possibly order something other than my usual americano. Sunday, my head hurt badly, and I called Stephanie to officially recant my former statement about not being addicted to caffeine. Monday I didn’t hurt, but was really groggy. I fell asleep knitting. Tuesday morning, I woke up feeling like there was a layer of gravel between my brain and my skull.

I took painkillers and drove to work. I staggered into the office and Pam said, “Jenni, you look… terrible!” I grumbled and went to my desk, where I spent most of the day taking pills and squinting because light hurt my eyes. It was unbelievable. And yeah, I know you’re supposed to go off caffeine slowly. But if you know me at all, you know it’s cold turkey or nothing.

Tuesday afternoon, I dragged my sorry ass to the gym and forced myself to get on the elliptical machine, even though my head was pounding. Within 5 minutes, I was fine. I did my usual half-hour, I stretched, and I lifted. When I left the Y, the headache was gone, and I felt like the usual me had returned. Well, minus the stupid giddiness, but sometimes you take what you can get. At least I didn’t hurt.

And yesterday, the sun came out. I’m taking that as proof that things are going to be OK.

Nice to see you again.
Jenni