What a night...

Apologies for the long, boring story that follows, but I've had a lot of email and a lot of concerned friends. Thank you so much - your concern for me touches me and makes me feel very loved. I'm fortunate to have such good friends! So I thought I'd just do a post here to let you all know I'm not about to die.

If you've been following my saga at all either here or over at Facebook, you know that I've had a migraine for a solid week. Bad. It started to get a little better mid-week, then worse toward the end of the week. Yesterday, it was so bad that I seriously considered I was going to have a stroke, or had an aneurysm, or some other terrible diagnosis. I take medication twice a day prophylactically, as well as having meds on hand for acute flareups. Nothing was helping, and the amount of Advil I was taking on top of it all was going to tear my stomach to shreds.

So about 5 pm, Bob decided enough was enough, and off to the ER we went.

Well, the first thing that happened was, it was Saturday evening in the ER. Not the quietest place to be. In the waiting room was a spanish-speaking family there with about 20 members of their immediate and extended family. Including every whiny, obnoxious child they could drum up. Thankfully, I was seen fairly quickly. Only to be placed on a gurney in the hallway - they were full. Normally, I can roll with the punches, and I wouldn't care. But with a migraine from hell, every single noise and light was amplified. All the crying, screaming, and the radio transmissions (and there were a lot last night considering my sleepy little town) seemed to make everything worse. So much so that I started crying (no help for the headache at all!) and asked Bob to take me home and let me have my stroke in peace, LOL. Drama queen much?

I got a nice young fresh-faced doctor who immediately gave me morphine (which I absolutely HATE!) along with an anti-nausea medication. It didn't touch the pain, but did give me loads of nausea along with a pretty decent buzz. I floated along above my body noting that the poor girl there had a really awful headache. That buzz lasted about an hour, at which point she gave me dilaudid - even stronger than morphine. And a sublibgual anti-nausea med. Both of which served to make me even more woozy, and more nauseous. But didn't touch my headache.

I finally realized that Bob keeps earplugs in the car, so asked him to go get them. While he was gone, some guy started freaking out. I didn't open my eyes, but heard a lot of "f" words and mother"f" words. Needless to say, they didn't allow Bob back into the patient area for a good long time. But I finally got my earplugs which helped a little.

FINALLY, around midnight, enough folks either got sent home or admitted that I got moved into a real room, where they could close the door and turn off the lights. But the damn nurse kept lowering the head of the bed to make me more comfortable, when all it did was make me puke. Duh - get a clue. I kept asking her to leave it up, too. Oy!

Anyway, finally the doctor says she's run out of narcotics to try - to which I say good! I didn't want them in the first place - I had told her I don't react well to them. So she decides to give me some heavy duty steroids. Now, as an asthmatic and a former respiratory therapist, me likey the steroids. Great, I say. In goes the IV, and along with the steroids goes some Reglan, another heavy-duty anti-nausea med. Finally, a little relief. I once again say to the doctor that it's so unusual for me to have a migraine of this length and maybe something else is going on? So she shuffles her feet and says... in a big Aha! moment... I'm going to order a CT scan! Great, now we're getting somewhere. And the headache is finally starting to get a little better with the steroids on board.

30 minutes after the CT, mystery solved. I had a migraine on top of a massive sinus infection, and they were feeding off one another. So I couldn't get rid of the migraine because I have a sinus infection feeding it. But I don't have any of my usual sinus infection symptoms, which was really weird. So anyway, after getting home at 3AM, (and how happy am I that we can leave the kids home), I am now on antibiotics.

And she still forced a narcotic prescription on me in case I had some more severe pain over the next couple days. LOL. I didn't fill that one. Sure, narcotics have their place - after major surgery, or for people with a low pain tolerance, or for those with debilitating illness. But I don't care for the way they make me feel. No thank you.

Anyway, end of story, and g-d willing, end of headache. Hopefully between the drugs and the glasses, I'll be as good as new in a week or so. Thank you again for your thoughts and emails over the last week. You are awesome!

Damn, they grow so fast....

We just got Jeff's football pics back.








Where did my little boy go?

Can I just say???

I want to be a SAHM. I want to be at home, on my computer, having fun all day. I want to go to my kids' school events without having to rush back to work. I want to cook dinner every night (yes, really), and have a clean house, and clean laundry, and have time to go to the gym, or walk around the block.

And I feel really guilty for whining about going to work in this horrible economy when so many don't have a job to go to, but I can't afford to not work, either. Why, oh why couldn't that rock star gig have worked out for my hubby instead of the teacher thing?

K. Whine over.

Wintah has arrived...

Seriously. Crying fucking Uncle here.

Damn, Damn, DAMN!!!

Look what's out!! It's available in ebook from Samhain.



And my eBookwise picked this week to crap out!!

In other news, check out the new look on I Just Finished Reading... guess we'll have to put up some new reviews, huh? I read about 10 books on my UK trip, so I'll have to review some of 'em. Of course, I chose to buy the new JQ in EBOOK. Damn, damn, DAMN!!!

Variations on a theme

So, it's 4:45 on Sunday on Labor Day weekend. Guess where I am?

The OFFICE. Yep, been here since about 11. Oh the joys of the promotion I got. See...

The 50 hour work weeks weren't quite enough. Now I get to do 60. Yipee!!! Some of it I can do from home. But, see, the thing is, 18 months ago, I was working half time and loving it! What happened?

I was planning to come in yesterday, but had a whopper of a migraine. I was in bed till 4:30. In the afternoon. At which point I announced that my head felt better but my back was killing me and we were not putting off the new bed any longer. Bob & I bought a bed in 1987 for ... $99, I think? It was all we could afford. Anyway, at the time we wanted a firm mattress. So what we have 20 years later is a rock with the Grand Canyon in the middle. You know the huge crevice the you both roll into in the middle? Needless to say, now that we're over 40, we both wake up each morning in agony.

So off we trotted this morning to the mattress store. $1200 later, I can't wait for my new SOFT bed to be delivered. Hell, it's just money, right? *cough, choke* And of course, since mattresses are way thicker than they were 20 years ago, we have to buy all new sheets, too. *sigh*

Which brings me full circle. That's why I'm in the office on Sunday of Labor Day weekend laboring. Someone has to pay for the new damn bed.

Not a bad problem to have, I guess.

My TBR list has spun out of control—but not in the usual way. I actually have just a few books on-hand. It is my list, or rather my method for keeping track, that has derailed. I keep a hand-written list, adding titles as I go and crossing them off as I read them. It is usually no more than one sheet, front and back. Most titles make it to my list via blog reviews. The rest I pull from coming soon sites.

My ‘process’ suffers if I am not online regularly. As I have not been online regularly for nearly three months, the whole thing is whacked. Instead of writing down recommended reads in blogland, I’ve been ‘starring’ them in my Google reader. Short on time, that seemed a good idea. Until I pulled up my starred posts. Apparently, I thought nothing of starring anything and everything that looked worth a second look. Seriously, it would take me another three months just to catch up.

I also fell off the coming soon watch and missed most of the big new releases this summer. Burns my ass when I’m not first in the library line for the newest Nora, Evanovich (Plum series) or Linda Howard. I feel like I spent the whole summer scrambling to read the big ones. Then, when I do get my shit together (briefly) and take first dibs on Brockmann’s latest, I pick it up ONE day before I move into a new house. Nothing like reading a Brockmann book ten pages at a time. I think I’ll start it over tonight.

So now I’m moved in, connected and ready to catch up. But I just can’t shake the feeling that I’m missing out on good reads. Argh.

What have you read this summer that qualifies as a must-have?

Is Anyone Ever Going To Announce The Winners...

of the Passionate Ink Stroke of Midnight contest or Passionate Plumes? Jeepers cripes!

Enough whining, look at Lori's lovely 8 Things Meme that Bob did for her. She's been outed(heh heh) and we've also been shown how wonderful of a mother, wife, and best friend she is to her family. Love you, Lori!

UPDATE: Well, MAJOR PFFFT! They announced the winners of the Passionate Plume, but we unpubbed(at least I thought it was for unpubbed), Stroke of Midnighters have to wait. Waaaaaah!

Yes, that was a whine. Not sure why I’m whining, I’m not going to win against a pubbed author anyway!

The 2006 Passionate Plume
Final Round Results

Contemporary:
First – Double Dare, Saskia Walker
Second – A Tall Dark Cowboy, Mackenzie McKade
Third – Treacherous Wishes, Denise A Agnew
Honorable Mention – Dangerous Intentions, Denise A Agnew
Honorable Mention – Strip Search, Shelley Bradley

Futuristic / Fantasy / Sci-Fi:
First - Almost Human, Cat Marsters
Second - Inferno, Vivi Anna
Third - Torc’s Salvation, Melany Logen
Honorable Mention - The Lawman’s Wife, Lara Santiago
Honorable Mention - Roping Savannah, Jory Strong

Historical:
First - Burning Tigress by Jade Lee
Second - Sin by Sharon Page
Third - Master of Desire by Jessica Trapp
Honorable Mention - Ask for It by Sylvia Day
Honorable Mention - The Courage to Love by Samantha Kane

Novella:
First - Anna Leigh Keaton, Five Alarm Neighbor
Second - Nikki Alton, Rodeo Man
Third - Loribelle Hunt, Defending Serenity
Honorable Mention — Summer Devon, Invisible Touch
Honorable Mention — Anna Leigh Keaton and Madison Layle, Return To Me

Paranormal / TT:
First - Fallon’s Revenge - Mackenzie McKade
Second - Bloodlines: Conduit - Mechele Armstrong
Third - Seduced by Magic - Cheyenne McCray
Honorable mention: Enthralled - Laura Baumbach
Honorable mention : d’Argent Honor 2: Eternally - Ann Jacobs