http://perezhilton.com/page/2/

God bless america...LOL.

The Best Voting 'Gift' of All

1. the amazing group of friends that have been helping me through everything that has happened this year
2. my new nephew Logan and gorgeous niece Devyn
3. my job even if it makes me crazy sometimes.  I know people who have lost their job lately...ugh
4. the fact that my cousin Joei is no longer in pain
5. chunky monkey ice cream
6. liquid paper that comes in a tape
7. the lunch wraps and muffins in the office kitchen.  No need to buy lunch today, sweet!
8. mineral makeup that erases the redness from blowing my nose and coughing
9. the pigeon feathers swirling around the roof of the building across the way.  He was just a buffet for a peregrin falcon and it was quite an amazing site to watch.  God, I love nature at work.
10. Facebook.  I love finding old friends and playing stupid mob games
11. everyone who pronounces anacronyms as if they were an actual word.  For example, in my work MWRD stands for the water reclamation district but friends and I like to pronounce it as "MoRid"....sound it out...
12. anyone who reads this and doesn't delete me as a friend
13. parents who, for the most part, have been really understanding and supportive
14. my cell phone with internet access.  It can really be a lifesaver.
15. birthday scotch
16. a full 24-hours without tears.  Death takes it out of me.
17. camel lights...most days
18. the Tina Turner concert on Monday night
19. post it notes with lines
20. advil
21. Goose Island beer in almost any variety
22. naked days...ex:  Naked Saturdays
23. my awesome boobs
24. a very flat, firm matress
25. new friends
26. blogs from crazy girls living in Korea
27. fresh baked bread
28. fresh batteries
29. a good medium rare steak
30. every one of my Lill bags
31. PerezHilton.com (dorky but true)
32. bad teen movies
33. flannel anything...sheets, shirts...ect
34. nail files

From The Times

July 25, 2008

He ventured forth to bring light to the world

The anointed one's pilgrimage to the Holy Land is a miracle in action - and a blessing to all his faithful followers

Gerard Baker

And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.

The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.

When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago , arguing the finer points of community organisation with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: “Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?”

In the great Battles of Caucus and Primary he smote the conniving Hillary, wife of the deposed King Bill the Priapic and their barbarian hordes of Working Class Whites.

And so it was, in the fullness of time, before the harvest month of the appointed year, the Child ventured forth - for the first time - to bring the light unto all the world.

He travelled fleet of foot and light of camel, with a small retinue that consisted only of his loyal disciples from the tribe of the Media. He ventured first to the land of the Hindu Kush , where the

Taleban had harboured the viper of al-Qaeda in their bosom, raining terror on all the world.

And the Child spake and the tribes of Nato immediately loosed the Caveats that had previously bound them. And in the great battle that ensued the forces of the light were triumphant. For as long as the

Child stood with his arms raised aloft, the enemy suffered great blows and the threat of terror was no more.

From there he went forth to Mesopotamia where he was received by the great ruler al-Maliki, and al-Maliki spake unto him and blessed his Sixteen Month Troop Withdrawal Plan even as the imperial warrior Petraeus tried to destroy it.

And lo, in Mesopotamia , a miracle occurred. Even though the Great Surge of Armour that the evil Bush had ordered had been a terrible mistake, a waste of vital military resources and doomed to end in disaster, the Child's very presence suddenly brought forth a great victory for the forces of the light.

And the Persians, who saw all this and were greatly fearful, longed to speak with the Child and saw that the Child was the bringer of peace. At the mention of his name they quickly laid aside their intrigues and beat their uranium swords into civil nuclear energy ploughshares.

From there the Child went up to the city of Jerusalem , and entered through the gate seated on an ass. The crowds of network anchors who had followed him from afar cheered “Hosanna” and waved great palm fronds and strewed them at his feet.

In Jerusalem and in surrounding Palestine , the Child spake to the Hebrews and the Arabs, as the Scripture had foretold. And in an instant, the lion lay down with the lamb, and the Israelites and Ishmaelites ended their long enmity and lived for ever after in peace.

As word spread throughout the land about the Child's wondrous works, peoples from all over flocked to hear him; Hittites and Abbasids; Obamacons and McCainiacs; Cameroonians and Blairites.

And they told of strange and wondrous things that greeted the news of the Child's journey. Around the world, global temperatures began to decline, and the ocean levels fell and the great warming was over.

The Great Prophet Algore of Nobel and Oscar, who many had believed was the anointed one, smiled and told his followers that the Child was the one generations had been waiting for.

And there were other wonderful signs. In the city of the Street at the Wall, spreads on interbank interest rates dropped like manna from Heaven and rates on credit default swaps fell to the ground as dead birds from the almond tree, and the people who had lived in foreclosure were able to borrow again.

Black gold gushed from the ground at prices well below $140 per barrel. In hospitals across the land the sick were cured even though they were uninsured. And all because the Child had pronounced it.

And this is the testimony of one who speaks the truth and bears witness to the truth so that you might believe. And he knows it is the truth for he saw it all on CNN and the BBC and in the pages of The New York Times.

Then the Child ventured forth from Israel and Palestine and stepped onto the shores of the Old Continent. In the land of Queen Angela of Merkel, vast multitudes gathered to hear his voice, and he preached to them at length.

But when he had finished speaking his disciples told him the crowd was hungry, for they had had nothing to eat all the hours they had waited for him.

And so the Child told his disciples to fetch some food but all they had was five loaves and a couple of frankfurters. So he took the bread and the frankfurters and blessed them and told his disciples to feed the multitudes. And when all had eaten their fill, the scraps filled twelve baskets.

Thence he travelled west to Mount Sarkozy . Even the beauteous Princess Carla of the tribe of the Bruni was struck by awe and she was great in love with the Child, but he was tempted not.

On the Seventh Day he walked across the Channel of the Angles to the ancient land of the hooligans. There he was welcomed with open arms by the once great prophet Blair and his successor, Gordon the Leper, and his successor, David the Golden One.

And suddenly, with the men appeared the archangel Gabriel and the whole host of the heavenly choir, ranks of cherubim and seraphim, all praising God and singing: “Yes, We Can.”

I felt pretty good getting out the house and even though I was tired, I was happy.  We brought everything upstairs into my apartment and we ordered mediterian food from Andes.  It was good.

Later, I was SO ready for bed.  Tim and I were all cuddled up when he noticed how cold my right leg was.  It was kind of crazy.  It was a couple degrees colder.  The doctor said it might be affecting my circulation but Tim was worried which made me worried.  He wanted to call his mom who's a nurse but it was too late.  So, now, I'm all paranoid that maybe I have blood clot in my leg.  We were almost debating going to the hospital but I decided that I had enough hospitals and that I would call the neurologist in the morning.

Well, it really didn't make any difference.  I stayed up all night trying to focus on my breathing and not focusing on how if I fell asleep and a blood clot travelled from my leg into my heart that Iwould die.  I HATE THAT GUY FROM ST. FRANCIS HOSPITAL.  I was a paranoid spaz.

~~~~

In the morning, I called Dr. Lazar's office and left a message.  I also decided that it was time to start doing some more research to find a second opinion about my back because Dr.  Lazar was a "you need surgery guy".  I found a clinic at Rush that looked at surgical and non-surgical approach at their back and spine clinic.  I called the neurolgy department and emailed the back/spine clinic.  I just wanted something proactive to be happening.  It took Dr. Lazar until the afternoon to call me back.  He told me that poor circulation was normal so long as I could still feel everything...which I could....so...he said I would be ok and that he wanted to see me in a couple weeks.   I asked him...should I be in physical theraphy or something???  Uh...no....just chill out.  Ugh...I do not like Dr. Lazar very much.  I don't like that he doesn't seem to be very proactive with me.  Whatever....  Tuesday was spent calling doctors. 

Tommorrow blog -- My return to St. Francis to collect all my medical records to send to Rush University AND the next Dr. to say "huh, maybe you should come is sooner."

Last Friday, Mom came to the city to take me for my check up with my neurologist from the hospital.   I had been spending the last week and half on my back, drugged out of my gourd recovering from my "trophy-award winning" herniated disk.  My neurologist wanted me to come in for a visit and I was eager to get started on some sort of physical therapy. 

Mom decided she would come up to take me to the doctor.  The appointment was just up the street at 8 a.m. in Evanston so she left home, in Channahon, at 5 a.m.  She wasn't sure how long traffic would take on the normally one hour drive.  She arrived at about 6 a.m. with McDonald's coffee and cookies for Tim and I.  Tim, of course, decided to sleep late as he was not going to the doctor's office with us.  Mom and I hung out for an hour or so and set off for the doctor's office.  The plan was to see Dr. Lazar, get some breakfast and go home. 

It took everything that I had to get dressed, down the stairs of my apartment, into the car and out the door.  I had been so drugged and slow that getting into the doctor's office really took it out of me.  I walked from the parking lot at the office into the building...we got a bit lost...and to the doctor's suite.  By the time I got there, I was totally exhausted and winded.  The doctor's office didn't open on time so mom and I chilled out a few minutes waiting to see the doctor.  I was the person on his schedule so we were sent in right away. 

I walked into the office and checked in.  I had to write a check for my co-pay.  Dr. Lazar had just walked in and was kind of looking at me strangely.  He came up to me and asked me why I was so winded.  "I don't know... I just walked into the building.  I haven't done much the past two weeks so I'm just tired."  That's when the fun began.  He looked at me and said..."there is no reason on earth that a 31-year old woman should be out of breath or winded walking from the parking lot into the office."  I was like...uhh...ok.  Whatever.  "I have been laying on my ass and drugged for the last two weeks.  I'm weak.  I don't know what to say."  He looked concerned but brought me into a exam room. 

He proceeded to ask me some questions about how I had been feeling.  I walked back and forth in the room and he just sort of looked dumbfounded.  He looked at my mom and asked if she noticed anything weird had been going on.  I could walk relatively ok...I could walk on both of my heels but not on the tippy toes...especially on my right leg.  Apparently, that's expected....me being winded was REALLY bad.

Dr. Lazar said that he was really concerned because I couldn't catch my breath.  That wasn't exactly how I would put it but I'm not the doctor so....  He said that he wanted me to immediately go new door to St. Francis Hospital emergency room to get tested for blood clots in my lungs.  I had been on my back for so long, on the birth control pills and he was worried that this wasw affecting my breathing.  GREAT!!!!!!!  My mom just looked at me sort of horrified.  He called ahead and sent us on our way.

OK....so now we are going to get a test, check for clots and be on our way.  If it was only that simple.  We walked into the emergency room at abou 9 a.m.  on Friday morning.  We were the only people in the ER so they were all falling over themselves trying to get us checked in and into a room for the CT-Scan.  It was like....yea...new people and the interns were all asking me questions and hooking me up to EKG machines, checking my blood pressure, putting in IV's all that fun stuff.  (I still have a hideous bruse on my hand from the bitch that fucked up the first IV.  She was too busy asking me who go eliminated from American Idol to notice that she blew my fucking vein...  Like I watch that crap...bitch.)  So, the little intern kid who was trying to put me at ease was telling me all about how bad it was if I had a blood clot in my lungs because if I would leave the hospital and a blood clot went to my heart "I would die."  Yes, I would die.  Fun, fun.

I was slowly losing my patience and just said set up the fucking test.  Well, even though the ER was slow, the CT-Scan had to wait in line.  Mom and I were put into the back corner of the ER in a private room.  The ONLY good thing that happened there.  Well, the room we were in was....well, to put it mildly...the most repulsively filthy room on earth.  My mom, who is normally pretty laid back, was freaking out because there was medical garbage on the floor, the garbages were filled with junk and our feet were sticking to the floor.  My mom became so compulstive that she actually counted 34 pieces of garbage on the floor including the backings of the stickies I was wearing fromt he EKG machine, caps from needles and the ripped off finger of a glove.  She was so repulsed.

We sat in that room for a couple hours before they finally got me into CT.  That test sucks.  They filled me full of this metal dye that made me body heat up and made me feel like I had to pee.  Now, the two tech's in the CT were awesome.  They had to reset my second IV after my left hand filled up with saline because they blew the vein...again. 

Now, by this time, I am almost irate because they haven't let me get anything eat or drink.  All I was sustained on at this point was a cup of coffee and two cookies that I ate at 7 a.m.  It's now after noon.

We waited forever for the radiologist to read the CT.  The young asian intern kid came into the room and said that the test was inconclusive and that they needed to run another test.  I went nuts!!  We had been waiting forever, they would not let me eat, they had bascially been ignoring me and my mom aking for updates and NOW they wanted me to do another test.  I said no.  I said...you guys are just fucking around now.  You said do the test, it went well, now you are saying something else.  Well, asian intern was clearly nervous.  He went and got asshole, indian resident.  Yes...I'm starting to be pissy racially insenstive girl.

The resident came into the room all pissy.  He marched into the room and said..."listen, we aren't happy about this either but the fact is, if you leave the hospital with a blood clot in your lungs, it will travel to your heart and you WILL DIE."  My mom just looked horrified.  He said, look at your EKG...your heart is racing.  WELL, DUH ASSHOLE.  YOU KEEP TELLING ME I WILL DIE AND ORDERING FUCKING TEST AFTER TEST WITHOUT TELLING ME ANYTHING THAT PUTS ME AT EASE.  My mom started getting really crabby.  She was like "she doesn't have the best insurance, you guys aren't telling us anything good but taking blood and making her do more tests.  AND, he said that he was going to order me admitting to the hospital." 

Finally, the evil resident made me take a Zanax to calm me down.  Never mind the fact that my blood pressure and heart rate only went up when he was in the room.  My mom said just order the dam test because we wanted out.  That test....the lung profusion test...was seriously shitty.   This test is when they hook you up to a gas mask that makes you breath in radioactive isotopes for 20 minutes so that they can fill every last pocket of your lungs with a glowy substance and then they smosh you between plates looking at how much radioactive stuff you can take.  That lasted about 30 minutes.  

When they wheeled me back to the ER, my mom was fuming.  Apparently, my mom was sitting on the bed waiting for me and someone tried to come and take her upstairs to the hospital.  She went bulistic because they almost didn't believe that she wasn't even the patient.  When I came back in the room, I just burst into tears.  I hurt....i was filled with this shitty gas and everything hurt.  I felt like I was smoking and I could still feel the gas in my lungs.  That test took about another hour or so to read.  Finallly....nothing.  No clots.

My mom just looked at the nurse and said, I'm getting her a soda and some crackers, you go get the paperwork and we are out of here now.  Crabby indian resident came into the room and tried to get me to admit myself...I amost told him to fuck off.  After that, we didn't see him again.

Mom and I got the final paperwork, including a prescription for Zanax "to calm me" at 4 p.m.  Mom was all ass-backward trying to figure out what way to get out of the hospital parking lot so she stopped to ask the security guard a bunch of questions.  I just looked at her and said "I'm leaving" we can figure it out."  She was not convinced.

If I could have ran from the hospital, I would have.  I pushed a woman bleeding in a wheelchair out of my way.  I didn't care anymore.   I wanted out.  I litereally was hobbling out the door with my mother running after me screaming about what direction.  I didn't fucking care.  

St. Francis Hospital in Evanston is a fucking pit. 

I was drugged out of my gourd for the next week and a half.  I was on morphine, blood thinners, lidocaine back patches, muscle relaxers, steroids and norco (pain killer).  I was so snowed and zombie-like that I could barely function.  Honestly, I didn't even care.  I couldn't move on my side, I couldn't sleep flat....I was just drugged.

The hospital was loads of laughs.  There was a crazy 80-something year old woman in the room next to me screaming the whole fucking night.   Apparently, old people have extraordinary rights to act like crazies without drugging them.  I thought that was the whole point of the hospital.  Let people convalese and drug the geezers to keep them under control.  Anyhow... 

MY PARENTS

So, you think I had problems....my mom is a trouper.  When I was on the floor screaming in pain, my mother was a school.  She's a gym teacher...and she teaches one math class (but that is a VERY touchy subject).  Mom called me about something when I was laid out on the floor.  Obviously, hearing me screaming in pain and on my way to the emergency room freaked her out.  She was in Joliet, not sure what was going on and clearly concerned.  BUT, of course, that wasn't her only problem. 

My dad had a big lump of some sort on he neck.  It had become painful and irrititating.  He went to Dr. Gunderson, the doctor that removed my appendix some 20 years earlier, and had that thing yanked out.  Seemingly innocent you would think.

As constant as the sun, my dad went down the street to the local marina to have coffee with his buddies.  It's his daily tradition...go to the bar, drink some coffee, come home and work around the house or make my mom crazy.   Some of his favorite things to do.

This same Monday that I am being rushed to the hospital, my dad innocently drinking his coffee starts to feel light headed and his buddy realizes that blood is pouring from his head.  The stitches on his three inch inscission is pouring blood.  The guys immediately grabbed him and tried to stop the bleeding but apparently it was a gusher.  So, my father, covered in blood is rushed back to the doctor's office where he breezes past a waiting room of 30 people up to the second floor doctor's area and suprises Dr. Gunderson for more stitches. 

So, mom has me screaming on the way to the emergency room, my dad covered in blood being rushed back to Joliet and a math class she hated. 

My mom was not having a good day.