Sometimes I'm a little freaked out

Anyway, so I lost my job today.

Everybody laugh heartily with me now, this is the job I haven't been to regularly in almost 18 months. It's not so bad and I'm not going to fight it. My disability benefits will continue as long as I'm sick, and I can COBRA my health benefits for around $225 per month up to three years. I hope that's enough to get me through.

I wonder if I can collect unemployment?

My day has also included double vision, and I don't mean the song by Foreigner. (Guh, remember Foreigner? Don't you feel old now?) I was hooked up to the pheresis machine, sound asleep, and I started to feel weird. I told the nurse that I didn't feel well then when I opened my eyes I saw two of everything. Even without my glasses on, my vision was astonishingly clear, but doubled. I can't say I've ever seen anything quite like that, even in a dream; I had to close my eyes again.

Turns out that my calcium level was extremely low, which can happen during what they call "the procedure." They fixed me up, my vision returned to normal and I went back to sleep.

In any case, I've already been upset today and discovered that I've more or less lost the ability to cry. I think that if I were to start crying, I'd never stop, and that's not an option. By now I'm fine, even with all that's happened in the last 24 hours. I still think I can handle everything.

I get my eyes fixed next week, we've hit the tail end of summer, and I think I've got an interim solution to keep the house secure until those windows can be replaced. I don't know if this round of treatment is going to save the kidney or whether I'm going to have to go back on the UNOS list for a new one and a second transplant, but that really doesn't matter. The pancreas still works like a champ, and being able to eat whatever I want makes me happy.

I know it could get worse, and I even have a couple of ideas how it could get worse, but I'm not worried. Not yet. I don't have time to cry and I don't have the energy to worry. The last time I got a tube put in my chest, I thought about that Bob Marley song that has the refrain that starts out "don't worry 'bout a thing." I guess I've been thinking about that song ever since then.

I should find out what it's called.

before - after