You have got to be kidding me. A mammogram. A mammogram was ordered for me today. Me.

I'm sitting there in the office with a fever of 99.5 (it's been pretty much exactly that for the past 2 months) and my head is filled with pressure and I'm having trouble staying alert, and the perky nurse is lecturing me on the importance of regular mammograms. I managed to blurt out something to the effect of, there's no room for anything there, that's when she told me about her mom having ninnies the size of "2 eggs over-easy" and yet she still passed from breast cancer. She then put that into the computer as something I need done, along with a tetnus shot. I am not joking. After the mammogram lecture, I was asked when my last one was. As if I can remember that? I tried to think if I had stepped on anything rusty lately, or even in the past decade. Eventually the conversation came to what I was there for: my head. The doctor referred me to the usual avenues- MRI, neuro clinic, and blood work, including a new test to check my liver and kidney stuff because of all the freaking dye they have been injecting into me each time an MRI is done. Sometimes I think that dye is what's doing me in. You should see how it feels for weeks afterwards. You feel like your bloodstream and your brain is filled with corn syrup. Or cheese. Nothing is clear, everything feels thick and you can't think. And you sit around and cry alot.

So I'm stuck with a mammorgram order to take care of as well. I don't think that's something I'm ready to do. I just turned 40. I need more of a grace period before I start doing that kind of thing. Fortunately for me, she left off a tetnus shot order. She entered it in but for some reason it didn't print out. If I remember right, those hurt.

I feel horrible today. I couldn't sleep last night and I woke up feeling sick again. It was so cold outside it chilled me to the bone. I sat and shivered in the car the whole way there even though the heater was on. There was a man in the waiting room who came in on crutches and in alot of pain, he started heaving and coughing and someone brought him a pink container. He sat there moaning and coughing and heaving into it. My mom was mortified. It was a scary sight. She went up to the man he was with and said, shouldn't he be in the ER? The man said they sent him back here. He hurt his knee and the pain was so bad it was making him throw up. He was really loud and miserable. Finally they said he could wait back in a waiting room. I felt really bad for him. I feel bad for all of the people in these waiting rooms. I look around me and see so much. I see old people who can barely walk, quietly waiting their turn. I see lots of disabled vets everywhere. In almost every corner, nook, and cranny of the hospital you can see at least one disabled vet, sitting in their wheelchair, waiting for someone or something. They wear their hats with their pins and their jackets with their earned patches, and yet there they sit, almost invisible. God have mercy.

I have to wait a couple of weeks now and then all the testing begins again, but this time it should go pretty quick. The doctor today did me a favor and ordered my MRI so I would already have it when I see the neuro again. That should speed everything up. In the meantime I'm trying to hold myself together. My mom lost it a little bit today and cried a little, saying how hard it is for her to see me sick. I told her it was all going to be ok, I'll get all fixed up soon, and I'm just fine. I hate to see her stressed. She's making goulash right now. I can hear her chopping the bell peppers and humming to herself.

I had a dream today. I dreamed I was still somewhere I shouldn't have gone. And while there, I snuck away and ran down a runway and caught a plane, without saying goodbye or where I was going, it felt wonderful. It's what I should have done. Doing it in a dream is second best but I'll take that. As I took my seat and waited for takeoff I knew someone was in the terminal looking for me. I escaped before anything happened. It was a flight back home, and I sat there beside some guy who befriended me and talked with me and made me laugh. I think my mind is trying to compensate for the real way I got home. That's another story entirely.