so sick. & the story of the killer squirrel.

Omg. My head is going to explode. My ears are "full". I'm coughing like there is no tomorrow. (if there really was no tomorrow, why would I want to spend my last day coughing?) I'm clammy. Ugh. Want. To. Die.

I need/want to check up on all of you. But I can't seem to stay in an upright position.


updated:

After talking about the plague with Sarah, I wanted to tell you all the story of The Not So Friendly Squirrel (or The Really Stupid Girl Named Nancy Who Thought Squirrels are for Petting.).

I was living in Arizona at the time and a friend from Baltimore came out to visit. He's never seen the desert, so I took him to the Grand Canyon. When we got there, we did the normal oohing and aahing then headed down the trail. No, we weren't going to hike the grand canyon, but we did take a nice hike down about 1/2 mile.

There were lots of squirrels on the path, as lots of visitors bring lots of snacks. This one particular squirrel looked so damned tame and fluffy that I had the "petting" urge. Don't ask why. I know squirrels aren't the petting type. But here I am, sticking my hand out to pet the damned thing.

It looked all cute and charming as I approached. It's big black eyes looking at me all sadlike, his tail all fluffy, his hands in front of him as he stood on his hind legs.

And then he turned into this maniacal looking rodent who bared his teeth and bit the shit out of my hand.

I tried to act all cool. My friend was like "what the fuck did you do that for?? Did he bite you?" And I said "No, I just got too close. He didn't bite me."

We walk back up with me keeping my hand behind my back is it was literally pouring blood. The bit was deep and on the fingertip - right where it bleeds ~a lot~. We get out of the path area and I see a sign "Don't feed the squirrels. They have been known to carry the plague".

THE PLAGUE.

Holy shit. The plague. That's an awfully scary word to think of when you think of an illness YOU may have been infected with. My mind goes back to the stories of the Black Death of Europe in the 1300s. Where I've seen images of people decomposing while still alive, oozing black pus. Ugh. (Although I was wrong in which kind of plague I was freaking out about - for I could have contracted the bubonic plague, the classic sign being the appearance of buboes in the groin, the neck and armpits, which oozed pus and bled - which isn't much more appealing).

I go into a panic. I start thinking I need to get the plague out of my body immediately. I think of how they suck out the poision from snake bites and go with that, knowing damn well it's been too long for any such thing to work. But I suck on that bite. I suck and spit mouthful after mouthful of blood. Mind you, all the while pretending nothing was wrong. My friend didn't notice at all, as he was ahead of me walking around.

Seriously, for weeks I waited for the sign of the plague to fall upon me. Thankfully, it never did hit me. Unless it waited, hiding inside me, only to strike now - 12 years later.

Crap. There goes my protocol knowledge.

Since my beta was a mere 4.1 last week, they wanted me to come in again two days later for a recheck. But since my lovely AF came right along on time, I obviously didn't need to go today.

I forgot there was a second reason for today - I was going to get my IVF schedule. Crap.

It's not like I ~need~ to know anything right now. I don't start stims until March 17th-ish. But since I was planning to be out of town on the 17th, I was going to wait to see how she worked with my schedule before I bought the plane tickets. I wanted to do that this weekend. And now I can't.

Plus, having a known schedule would have just been cool.

I'm back.

I'm back from Boston with a case of extreme exhaustion and a to do list of about 1,500 things. I'll be back to posting soon!

The sights and smells of Boston.

I guess I wouldn't fully feel like I was in the big city of Boston without smelling it too.

The bum in Subway soiled himself. In the worst way. The manager tried to throw him out telling him he needed to bathe. The bum argued on how did HE know he hadn't bathed. All the while I'm standing in between them literally gagging. Oh good lord - the gag reflex was in full force. I must've gagged 6 times.

A little bit of smelling trivia. The reason why you have the ability to smell if because tiny particles of what you are smelling are landing in your nose and mouth. So my work buddy trying to tell me to "breathe through your mouth!" over and over was simply making it worse.

The bum ended up standing up, wiped some brown sludge off his chair with a napkin, and took off outside. And I gagged again.

How long do cease and desist orders last?

If two high ranking members of opposing forces agreed upon a cease and desist order, is it set for only a certain amount of time? Does it just expire without any common knowledge between the two partners? Or is a cease and desist order so flimsy that as soon as one party breaks their promise, things just immediately roll back to the way there were?

Per the amazing wikipedia resource:

• Cease and desist (also called C & D) is a legal term used primarily in the United States which essentially means "to halt" or "to end" an action ("cease") and to refrain from doing it again in the future ("desist"). The recipient of the cease-and-desist may be an individual or an organization.
• These orders usually specify a period of time for the recipient of the order to request a hearing. If a hearing is not requested by the recipient in the given time, the cease-and-desist order becomes final and the agency has the ability to enforce its order in a court of law.

Hrm, so things like that become final.

Something that caught my attention was the word “stalk”: Some types of behaviors that may prompt such cease and desist actions include:

Stalking or other forms of harassment:

Stalking is a continuous process, consisting of a series of actions, each of which may be entirely legal in itself. Lambèr Royakkers writes that: "Stalking is a form of mental assault, in which the perpetrator repeatedly, unwontedly, and disruptively breaks into the life-world of the victim, with whom he has no relationship (or no longer has), with motives that are directly or indirectly traceable to the affective sphere. Moreover, the separated acts that make up the intrusion cannot by themselves cause the mental abuse, but do taken together (cumulative effect)."

CyberAngels has written about how to identify cyberstalking: When identifying cyberstalking "in the field," and particularly when considering whether to report it to any kind of legal authority, the following features or combination of features can be considered to characterize a true stalking situation: malice, premeditation, repetition, distress, obsession, vendetta, no legitimate purpose, personally directed, disregarded warnings to stop, harassment, and threats.

A number of key factors have been identified:

• False accusations. Many cyberstalkers try to damage the reputation of their victim and turn other people against them. They post false information about them on websites. They may set up their own websites, blogs or user pages for this purpose. They post allegations about the victim to newsgroups, chat rooms or other sites that allow public contributions, such as Wikipedia or Amazon.com.
• Attempts to gather information about the victim. Cyberstalkers may approach their victim's friends, family and work colleagues to obtain personal information. They may advertise for information on the Internet, or hire a private detective. They often will monitor the victim's online activities and attempt to trace their IP address in an effort to gather more information about their victims.
• Encouraging others to harass the victim. Many cyberstalkers try to involve third parties in the harassment. They may claim the victim has harmed the stalker or his family in some way, or may post the victim's name and telephone number in order to encourage others to join the pursuit.
• False victimization. The cyberstalker will claim that the victim is harassing him. Bocij writes that this phenomenon has been noted in a number of well-known cases.
  Attacks on data and equipment. They may try to damage the victim's computer by sending viruses.
• Ordering goods and services. They order items or subscribe to magazines in the victim's name. These often involve subscriptions to pornography or ordering sex toys then having them delivered to the victim's workplace.

Holy Crud. Some interesting thoughts for the day. I never realized how bad it actually was.

hello from boston!

Hi there! I'm in Boson this week working. What a freaking cool city this is - even if it's all rainy and crappy outside.

Wow - what responses to my last post. Thanks everyone! And I was bowled over by the haters. Not that they are out there, nor that I even have some, but they were particularly nasty this time. Too bad they won't get the "press" they want so badly. I only get as far as the first sentance to see what horrid people they are before I hit "delete". I can't imagine living my life with so much anger inside. When I get mad at something, at least it's something that is happening to ~me~. I couldn't imagine having to go out and find something to be mad about. To actually go find blogs that don't even pertain to me - just to piss myself off. Shrug. To each their own I guess. I won't pretend to understand and I really don't care to try to.

Thank goodness for blogging. I can spill my guts, good or bad. People can respond or they can ignore. (or of course, write something extraodinarily ugly and petty). I can discuss the successes. I can discuss my failures. And I don't have to pay an ounce of attention to the childish and seemingly jealous.

but I really wish blogger would fix it's spellcheck.

irony. and bad manners.

heh.

So I have a rant that I just can't take any more BFP announcements from anyone who hasn't been trying for more than a year. And do you know how someone responded to me? She told me about her BFP.

lol.

That's so funny. And she's got NO IDEA what a rude person she just made herself out to be. She's all excited. heh. (she's super young though, what else could I expect out of her?)


---

OMG! The webmd "moderator" took it down. Not hers - but mine. She told we should all be positive and support one another. But we (the ones who fail) aren't allowed to cry about how things are hard for us.

I'll bet you a thousand dollars. The webmd moderator " Dorothea" NEVER dealt with infertility. She would never EVER put up a response like the one she did if she understood how we felt. Wow. Looks like I won't be going back there. Freedom of speech is a biggie for me and Webmd is taking that away. I broke NO rule in my post. I did not speak ill of any other member. I spoke of my feelings about other bfps in general. (there were NO bfp announcements, except from that chick who felt it necessary to pick that moment to announce her bfp in response to my cries.).

Wow. I guess if you are on WebMD, you must just keep a smile on your face so none of the preggos who are "lurking" lose their warm and fuzzy feelings.

Hey WebMD, ever hear of the constitution? At least hold up your end of the bargain and let posts stay up that do NOT break your OWN predetermined rules. In 4 years of being on Webmd, I've seen a lot of "big brother" removing of posts. But never anything so blatently disgusting like "Dorothea" just did. She removed a post that followed every single rule they set forth.

cd1, c17.

AF is right on time.

I'm not happy I have a "plan". It's not giving me something to focus on because it's still very far away. It's not making not dwell on the failure. In fact, it's making me think ~more~ about my failures. Thank you for all your very nice comments, but everyone just seems so much more positive about this that I feel about it.

I am happy IVF is an option. Yes, I know how lucky I am. I'm not afraid of IVF in any way. I don't view it as some big scary thing. When I say how shocked I am that I'm moving to IVF - it's just because I never thought it would be an option for us financially. IVF is just another treatment cycle, that's all. Definitely more involved, but still trying for the same thing.

I'm very disillusioned.

How come just about every one else's IUI worked this cycle? I swear, about 85% of the IUIs worked! How come not for me? How come not for a few others who worked so hard for this? How come the shitty statistics of IUI ~worked~ for everyone else??? How come cycle 16 isn't deemed worthy enough when other people's cycle 6 or 9 or 11 is? How come everyone else gets their BFP in their FIRST few treatment cycles? How come??? What the hell is the criteria for success? Who makes it up? Why am I not good enough? Why does everyone else get the good news?

Beta = 4.1

Negative. The 4.1 is "most likely" from trigger, so they wanted me to come in for beta#2 in a few days - but I'll be out of town. I have another beta next saturday (don't know why they'd want a second one since my AF would have already started).

We discussed March IVF. If I wasn't going out of town, I could have possibly started THIS MONTH, but with insurance and all that, it'd be a little iffy. So we're going to start suppression with bcp as soon as AF arrives and March 17th will mark when things start to happen. She'll give me a detailed protocol/calendar at my appointment next Saturday.

IVF#1 starts March 17th.

The clinic does their cycles in batches, so next cycle is March 17th. I may be able to sneak in a natural cycle, but the idea of cysts or a long cycle would knock me out of the IVF batch, so that is scary. I'm just going to await cd1 and give the nurse a call. I think they start suppression March 17th, so maybe getting in a cycle wouldn't be too bad. We'll just have to wait and see.

Oh yeah, blood already given. I'll update you with my negative beta later :)

(and the "upbeat" attitude it seems like I have? Yeah - it's fake. My heart is broken. In pieces.)