Queen of the Cat People

Still alive. I think?

Wicked Faire was a lot of fun. Even though I was feeling pretty wiped out, despite surprise days off before hand, but it was easy enough to chill at my booth and let the con come to me. And the lower table price took a HUGE weight off my mind. And we had really nice neighbors, and really good traffic flow. I brought the puppet, which actually made salesmanship a lot easier for me. W00t!

It was a good reintroduction to sellin stuffs in person, and I'm looking forward to Steampunk World's Faire with my two friends' jewelry companies. We've been approved for hotel-room vending so all of my nefarious b'day plans are coming together. Yay!



Unfortunately, aside from that there were many weeks of badness for my brain. First there was the massive roach incident in January, but then a week before Wicked I had a FRIKING MOUSE in my home. On the 15th floor of a building that does not have hollow walls. Just... ARGH. The anxiety backlash of that was a lot worse than the roach, I had to stay over my friend's house overnight, it was pretty bad. And just as I was getting over the roach incident, so all of *those* feelings came back too.

The Monday before Wicked, a big water tank on the roof of my work-building broke and flooded the whole building. The library I work in is the second floor down, and is probably the only floor with extensive carpeting instead of linoleum, so we got some extra time off while people came in to repair the damage. It was still pretty wet and disheveled when we came back, and only this week things seem to be going back to normal. All of last week I had an obstacle course of extra displaced furniture between the door and my desk, that was not fun. Not to mention displaced books to look for, loud fans, and our new carpets getting pulled back up. Barely any books were damaged (about 20) so the worst part of this so far has been all our newly renovated stuff getting wrecked and thrown out. And the renovation wasn't fun for me in the first place. At least this work stress (supposedly) has a time limit?


So for the last few weeks, between the fun Wicked Faire, office stress, and the brain-cracking phobias, I've been really f'ing drained. Being at home is not relaxing when you're afraid to work in your kitchen, and looking nervously in all the dark corners every five minutes. It slowly sucked all the excitement out of upcoming SWF, ICON (oh F$%# I still need to buy my ticket), and other things. Last week I felt like I'd been thrown back into November as Little Miss Mononucleosis. Too tired to have a social life, frequent migraines, misery at my inability to do anything with my marvelous plans and schemes. I am sho frustrated, considering how much better I felt in early January, and how Wicked Faire turned out well.

( Schemes Interrupted )

Last night I really fell into a pit of angst, about my lack of energy and my life going nowhere as a result. I resisted *most* of the miserably whiny FB updates I wanted to write. I decided "Fine. I give up. No more life or projects until I feel better, F.U. body!! *angstangstangst*"

And today I feel ... better. Not 100%, but better than yesterday and last week. Like I could go to the NYRSF reading tonight without collapsing. So... srsly? I have to have to out-drama my own body to get it to work right? *sigh*

<3 Chrysilla

Despite lingering stomach problems that refuse to get lost, I felt better than usual all of last week. Even when I was sick and tired, the feeling of "My body is a big lead, dead weight that needs to be dragged around," did not return.

Friday I left a third message at the doc's office, and she finally got back to me after her listed office hours. My thyroid is mostly normal, except for the T4 level with is at 11.9 instead of 11, but I certainly haven't felt hyper-thyroid-ish lately. So that's something to keep track of for the future. Definitely don't have HIV either, which was the false positive that came back with the previous blood tests, which I found out about the Friday before Xmas weekend. Just ... wtf medicine?

Then my doctor says "Oh, and the tests we did show that you have had mono... sometime in the past, but not right now. We can't pinpoint an exact time. But it shouldn't take someone six months to get over mono." Just like all my T levels should be as normal as my TSH levels? Yeah, sure.

Upon my Book of Faces inquiry, it turns out I have friends that did indeed need 6+ months to totally get over mono and get their groove back. With more similar stories from the interwebs, tho I'm not sure I'd count that as a reliable source. And I can't think of any other time in my life when I felt that way. Even after pneumonia in the summer of 2007, sure I was home resting and taking it easy after going back to work, but I was still getting stuff done at home and not living in a perpetual brain fog. More like this past week where I was beading and writing while sitting at home with stomach aches and sinus problems.

So unless this sudden energy surge f's off and leaves me stranded again, my working theory is that I had mono sometime in the spring or summer, coinciding with one of the massive sinus infections, and it took me until the next year to recover. Did I do something over winter break to finally jump start my system? While having *another* sinus infection at the same time? I dunno.

Am less sure about keeping up with the elimination diet indefinitely, tho. It may have helped me jumpstart, but now I feel much better and my tummy definitely does not. And... I just don't get it. So by *not* eating dairy my tummy is also cranky? WTF? Will give it to the end of January and see if it gets better. I guess.


In the meantime, I'm slowly trying to put my life and social-life back together. Looking forward to trying out Nerd NYC events this weekend and meeting new people (and hoping certain members of my larper lynch mob are not already there). I'm also working on a Steampunk costume ideas and will try one of their meetups at the end of the month. Will try to hit KGB Fantastic Fiction next Wednesday, tho not sure about staying for dinner.

Did go to Necromantic on Saturday, and spent a while working myself into full dance mode, but after an hour of not-all-heavy dancing I got too dizzy to keep going. Got a second glass of water and sat in front for a bit, it didn't go away, so I went home. I think I need to be more careful with exercise for the time being, I haven't been very active at all since summer-ish. Actually, maybe not since early spring-ish before the allergy season started. Whups.

I haven't had another good writing night since that Tuesday before I got sick again, but I'm getting bits and pieces typed out, or transcribed from my notebooks. Will see where it goes.

<3 Chrysilla