Saan is now officially done with her homework, chores and packing. She discovered everything she needed to know. She's on schedule with her meds. She told her dad where he has to be tomorrow morning. She does not look like a five-year old on a midwinter school trip any more.
And seeing that she still has more than forty minutes to eat a quick bowl of soup (with cream cheese and microwaved warmth) before she has to leave, she's quickly making a short post on the blog. ... Her bag still looks as though she'll be camping out in a blizzard instead of taking a nighttime hike in a forest, though.
Whoops. Half past nine already. Where did Saan's afternoon go off to? One minute she's napping, the next it's dark outside. And she was planning on for once breaking her Friday-ly habit of not doing any homework, under the prospect of having to get up early and do it on a Saturday morning.
She'll be going to watch the lunar eclipse tomorrow evening, but she has to leave in mid-afternoon, so she'll miss out on her usual homework time. And her mom was going to go look for a new lamp for Saan's room with Saan. And Saan still has to pack her overnight bag! And figure out how the camera works at night! (If H. is reading this: only found the 1 GB card. Should also do the trick.) And do her chemistry and Latin homework!
Okay, so Saan's good at procrastination. It's fun to do, seeing as she can work efficiently under pressure and relax fully when not under pressure. One of the bad things about it is that, about the minute before she actually gets her ass in gear, the work just sort of looms up in front of her like a miniature Mt. Everest. Which Saan has to scale with just dental floss and a handful of popsicle sticks. Please excuse her as she starts climbing.
If there's no post tomorrow, there will be one on Sunday.
...She got to shower today. Which means she got to wash her own hair, and scrape some of the caked-on disinfectant from her toe and didn't have to turn all wrinkly to get clean. After two weeks, that's pretty much heaven. ...She finished her paper on Euripides. Which means she's now officially released from all horny women tearing men and cattle limb from limb. Women of Troy got replaced by the Bacchants. ...She's going on another trip with Li'll Miss H. No butterflies. ...She might get a small gift in the mail one of these days. Might. Gifts are always fun. ...She might go to sleep before 11 pm for the second night in a row. Woohoo. ...Her face is slowly starting to hand back the full control to Saan. Slowly.
...where you're serving as a weight for someone scaling a wall? Saan usually takes that position in favor of dangling three feet above the ground, scrambling for a foothold. At the time itself, everything's straining at your body and you just want the person on the other end to move. Saan actually managed a teensy-weensy nap today, at noon. Consequence: headache for an hour, pissy mood and now she's less tired than she should be. Her hair cut got reduced from short layers to a shortish... something. It looks a little like a more mature version of Saan's portrait at five years old. Minus the red bow in her hair. Saan's betting it'll look like it did this morning (only shorter) after a night of kicking the sheets around. But until then, she's gonna enjoy the fact that the hair dresser (albeit with too much products and blow dryers) managed to get her hair flat, soft and managable. And finish her Latin homework.
Okay, so the really, really worst thing that happened today was the hour where Saan believed herself to have murdered her brother's thick sock with isobetadine wraps. The music is gone because Saan's got a headache which is not passing for the next few days. She managed to get her homework done, and her +dozen pages of 'Women of Troy' tied together. The fact that it took her hours to do those three small things is irrelevant. Tomorrow, Saan is continuing her quest to find a hair dresser's that is not infested by five-year olds gaping away at Disney DVD's. And going to the Oxfam shop. She's dead tired and her eyes are light-sensitive, but school is trudging on mercilessly with presentations, tests and assignments. The doctor hinted at keeping Saan at home. Saan sees the point, but it's either struggling through exhaustion now, or dying of too much work later. Or being accused once again of 'not participating in group work' because she's sick or someone sends her last-minute mails when Saan's getting her eye gelled shut so her coronas won't dry out. Which probably makes Saan anti-social. Not so bad. She'll get social when she's not risking her eye-sight or the muscle functions in the right side of her face in favor of jumping through hoops for a gang of ungrateful teenagers. And now she's going to gel her eye shut and catch some sleep.
Okay, so it's probably just a combination of lack of sleep, irritated eyes, cortisones and PMS more than just bad karma these last few days, but Saan is sort of dragging herself out of the abyss of self-pity. Or trying to. Really. The eye-gel and -drops are doing a lot of work (apart from in the middle of the night, when Saan longs desperately to un-stick her eyelashes with some cold water) and she has to take a whole half yucky-tablet less.
Her two little oral excercises today sucked, even though she really had practised them. No one believed that one since she was mumbling and losing track of her lines. Fuck them. Saan couldn't care less about school at the moment, however important that might be in later life. Eye-sight and a functioning face seem more important than rattling off a text she doesn't give a shit about. Some French guy made money by letting a gay guy die of cancer on screen (or playing it out anyway) and some British teenage twerp raped 'Cinderella' into snobby spoilt-bitch play. Any comments made by Saan are ignored or sneered at, so Saan is fully planning on not doing a single thing for them any more. They want to walk over something, let them spend some money on a doormat.
But at least she didn't feel like crying and burying herself under her pink playbunny-covers or hitting someone in the face for the entire day. Just the first eighty percent of the day. And the doctor (the nice, half-hour ride doctor) proclaimed Saan's face to have 95% chances of healing. Apparently, pareses are more worrying as you grow older. Seventeen is a youthful, recovering age. Saan has also been proclaimed not fat and not tiny, with a nice and stable weight. And free of breast cancer. With a healthy liver. And lungs. And blood pressure. And the stitches are out of Saan's toe. The toe stings again, and she still can't shower, but she's been excused from soccer for an entire month and the bloody stiff wires are out. Hurrah!
1. Saan's medication seems to effectively disable all effects of the pill. Saan's PMS returns with a vengeance. 2. Saan will be in London in 5 weeks. She has no bank card. 3. There's a diner named 'Philou' in Scherpenheuvel. 4. Nikon has a few taglines that seem to go towards honesty when promoting their cameras. Example: 'The greatest pictures you'll ever take without knowing what the heck you're doing.' for their new D50 digital SLR 5. Saan's homework will take her well into the night. And she does not sleep well these days. 6. Lack of sleep seems dangerous when there's sciences among her subjects tomorrow.
Okay, so Saan was planning on doing a post yesterday. Really. Right after typing out her medication schedule. But then she got frustrated with her new MS Word's total and utter lack of fonts. So now she has all sorts of things no one really needs (and a few she needs to remove because they have one letter that works and no more); a few cute ones that tend to turn into Arial, lots of flowing, handwritten-like scripts, warped up and down things, backward typewriters and a few half-way decent ones. Getting them all to work took a while. Next she spent half an hour waiting for her dad to get ready to go to the book fair, for which a few cousins had invited themselves. So what was meant to be a quick stop 'n' drop of forgotten jackets and shoes turned into another half hour to round up three girls and two cell phones. They spent until closing time at the book fair. Saan's booty: one manga volume, two novels, a clip-on reading lamp and a tiny, tiny pocket book. By then it was nine pm and Saan hadn't eaten yet.The next hour and half was spent de-virusing another cousin's pc, whose anti-virus had upped it and died, and looking at the insanely expensive electric trains of the first male cousin of the evening. On her way home, Saan got herself some dinner. At home, there was the small celebration of her parents' 28th wedding anniversary. By the time that was over, it was more than time for bed for Saan.
Neurologist proclaimed Saan's paresis (Look it! Name!) caused most probably by her little flu attack of last week. The right facial nerve (Which is situated in a tight little bone canal behind the ear. You've got one on each side) got infected and cut off its own blood flow when it swelled up. Normally, 70% of the people who come across this problem find that it cures itself. The doctor thought 30% was too big a risk for a 'young woman' to be what amounts to disfigured for life, and prescribed (again) an intensive but short treatment, this time with cortisones, a type of steroid usually found and produced in the body itself. Adding more of it to what her body is producing on its own may have nasty side effects, both outward (like, general swelling of the body) as well as inward (like, your immune system being suppressed). Saan is really hoping she won't get any of those. The treatment pushes back the risk of the paresis being permanent to fifteen percent at most, five at least.
On the tiny, tiny chance that she did not induce swelling of the nerve through infection, but through brain damage, Saan received a brain-activity scan and will receive a scan of her entire skull later. Her registered brain activity was perfectly normal, despite what some people might think after reading some of the fatigue-induced musings dumped here. The only thing she had to suffer through was being poked in the head (but not pierced, luckily) by a needle in the head and have conducting gel smeared through her hair. Imagine how smug Saan felt after being scolded for not taking a shower that morning or the evening before (Saan can't, since her stitches can't get wet. She'll have them removed on Monday) after that.
The treatment should help speed up the healing process. If the treatment doesn't have any effect whatsoever or the second scan shows something it normally should not, or both happen, Saan has to go back to the hospital. She did get some eye drops for the eye that won't close fully, which help, but make her eye feel cold a lot.
On a lighter note, Saan finally got to leave the house for something other than pharmacists, doctors or hospitals. She did spend most of the time in the car, reading, trying to get past the car's eco-mode and playing music on her cell phone, but it was nice all the same. Especially the restaurant afterwards. The waitress was kind enough not to make any comment or strange face when a seventeen year old requested a straw for her lemonade, while the three younger girls did not. Which limited the spillage to just the dessert. Solids go down better than anything drippy, which tends to end up on Saan's chin and face, if not her hands.
More happy news: Saan is mobile in time for THIS. It's the first time in...Four years that her dad wants to take her. Admitted, all books there are cheaper than most worthwile sized drinks in a cinema. Saan should not have managed to chase the price up to fifty euros all (or pretty much, anyway) by herself. She did. Her mom freaked. Her dad was surprised when he saw the bottom line of Saan's little rampage and proclaimed in the car that he would never, ever take her again. Ever. Apparently, he thinks Saan has matured enough for her to choose a little. Sadly enough, Saan doubts it.
The movie Saan spent her evening watching. Makes you think. Really. About... relationships, memories, ethics, hair colors, second chances and the fact that Saan has to go to the hospital tomorrow.
Part of the title is due to Saan stubbing her toenail two minutes ago. Which strained the stitches enough to make her gasp. It doesn't really hurt anymore. It's just being whiny in an annoying, distracting, almost-pain kind of way. If she's damaged anything vital, she'll be very sorry in the morning.
Okay, so the face-thing got taken to the doctor's (new, unknown, but nice doctor). Diagnose: facial semi-paralysis (nerves work, eyes work, left half works, muscles of the right half don't work at all). Possible causes: a) sudden change in temperature (think: hanging your head out of the car window when driving fast and it's hot in the car. Bad-kids-paralysis, in other words) b) lack of vitamins (possible. Saan's been living off chocolate spread, junk-food and cereal with milk since her toe became a very demotivating factor in coming out of bed in the morning) c) her flu from last week d) a mysterious hospital-virus that does not affect cartillage, but the right half of her facial muscles.
Saan has not been in a car since driving to the doctors. In her mom's shuddery car, which made Saan actually watch the news that night. Her dad had banned her from her bed until sleepy-time. So Saan went to lie down very quietly in the sofa. Discovery: her toe pities her enough to quiet down if she stays very, very still. And lies down. If she just stays very, very still, sitting or something, the toe just feels tight. Ignorable.
Saan has god-awful eating habits. Being half-mobile in the face makes the actual eating quite spectacular. A straw and a lot of time solve most of it. She ate about a tenth of her plate and was then excused on the grounds of a) having eaten a bit of everything, even the parts she doesn't like, plus a full bowl of soup and b) everyone else having finished a plate or more. She had some home-made chocolate mousse later. A little runny, and with chocolate curls on top. Try to imagine: right half of the face out of order, right-handed Saan and a large wineglass full of semi-fluid and loose chunks. It took her nearly an entire glass to figure out that licking was the easiest and fastest way to get everything done. The doctor put her on vitamin B supplements, her dad added omega-3 capsules. Because being off the humongous anti-biotics was too good to be true, probably.
Her flu is the next possible bd guy on the list. Seeing as all things medical, viral, bacterial, disinfectional and pill-shaped have turned against Saan, she is rooting for that being the cause.
The hospital thingy is her mom's theory, not the doctors. Saan and the doctor agree on the fact that it seems unlikely that anything would go from her toe to her face. Saan thinks her right ankle would make an easier target, as it's prone to just going 'Okay, we've walked half a kilometre. I'm going to HURT now' in the wrong shoes. In the right shoes, she lasts up to five km. One of the many reasons why Saan always wears running shoes and all her running shoes are smelly and icky. She's got two pairs, and a pair with one of the laces gone and half of the soles missing. So, she's got two pairs and three quarters of another pair of running shoes. And is in the need for a new one, since all three are falling apart (or starting to) at the seams. Saan's inability to wear shoes has put that need on hold.
So, the doctor sent Saan to a neurologist. More hospitals. Her mom wanted to go to the emergency thingy, since she was going to the hospital for a physical check-up anyway. Saan's toe felt hurt-y enough for Saan to... Well, kick up a fuss, make a scene and proclaim her never-ending hatred for hospitals, waiting rooms and stitches in the most essential toe of her entire walking system. Yes, Saan is right handed as well as right footed. She discovered this through soccer and her ingrown toenail, which put her in the toe-operational mess to begin with. No PE for the next two weeks, though. Her mom was in enough of a hurry to just call... okay, so she called three hospitals before phoning the medical center the closest after Saan's hometown, where they apparently grow the neurologists on special trees. All other guys were like 'ninth of May should work', 'I've got a tiny spot for you in three weeks, lady'. The doctor's orders were: 'find a neuro-hospital-dude as fast as possible'. So now she'll be going to one this Thursday. Eek, much. But, apparently, it's not all bad. Saan can still control her right eyelid to some extent. Some people get it stuck up, and need eyedrops. Saan can close her eye--right up to the point where upper meets bottom lid. Then there's a teensie-weensie gap that dries her eye out some, making it itchy. So now Saan's constantly rubbing her eye behind her glasses, because she can't blink fully.
Yif came in for the second time this vacation to check up on Saan. Saan was asleep and buried under her duvet. Yif took two tries to notice the top of unwashed hair and the foot sticking out. She did tell Saan that the face-thing doesn't really stand out if you don't know, but Saan's brother knows (has to look at Saan whole days, so he probably notices the subtle differences) and kept on picking on it until she cried. Saan took the crying as her cue for a nap, until Yif showed up. Saan escaped Yif's usual irresistible urge to take pictures on the grounds of being hurt and having been woken from a perfectly fine nap.
Yif's visit reminded Saan of her lack of shower for the last few days. She can't, because the stitches have to stay dry. Once again, boo for stitches and hospitals. Both are mean and hurt. Saan is not much of a bath-girl, and hasn't been since she was twelve. Usually, it takes things like injuries or someone working on the shower to force her into the bath. Or holidays to Damme (near Bruges), where they don't have a shower. So, after getting soap in her mouth, playing with the foam and not flooding the bathroom thanks to her mom spraying out her hair, Saan got clean. She smells like something that she later discovered to be shower gel meant for traveling. Whoops. It's good for sensitive skin, which is why Saan put it in to begin with. Saan is planning on smuggling a bottle to the shower once she can shower again. The stuff does not dry out her legs in a snowfall of tiny dead skin flakes.
The only problem is that, while it's from a brand that Saan cheers on and loves to all infintiy, the brand a) is so expensive that it's starting to get unreasonable and b) has tupperware-like buying system. So you have to tackle down a sales(wo)man, bully an order form out of her, order small amounts (because everything has a sell-by date), wait a few weeks and pay an arm, a leg, and the same of your firstborn son and daughter. In return, you get shampoo that doesn't lie when it says 'we do not kill your hair, but it'll keep the grease at bay' and shower gel in nifty hanging bottles that is actually serious about 'very kind to the skin', and does not need any tests to prove it. (Anyone ever notice that they always say the product is tested, but never give the results about said tests?) Saanonly uses the nail polish because she's allergic to on-skin makeup, but the polish is actually quite good, and her mom swears by the other makeup for all special occasions. Strangely enough, they charge semi-reasonable prices for the (ordinary) makeup. Seven euros for a bottle of nail polish and twenty-something for powdery stuff is reasonable. All major, non-supermarket brands charge the same or more.
So, short recap of the Siege on Saan: flu-operation-face thingy-sudden drop in eyesight-next hospital on Thursday. And Saan suspects she's got the first mosquito bite on the bottom of her right foot, since there's a bite-like sting there, and she slept with that foot bare for the last few days. She's just not motivated enough to go and see.
Okay, this was Saan's daily whine for attention and spouting of her gall, in the hopes that she'll miraculously heal overnight or will not be stuck with half of her face frozen for half a year (which was the doctor's estimate. It'll pass, but slllllllowwwwwlllly.). Not having to face her childish classmates who only poke fun at things they don't see every day (books in different languages, someone who has absolutely no interest in their idea of a social life, drinking or smoking, white socks, open conversations about sexuality that do not turn into porn, people with a different religion or skin color and history, to name a few), would also be nice.
Okay, so for the last three days, Saan has been in bed, hurting enough that she could not be tempted to haul herself over to her laptop, a yard or so away from aforementioned bed. Everything was fine until the anesthethic wore off (four hours after surgery). Then everything she could do without hurting was reading and sleeping. She's now sitting up straight (as opposed to with her hurt foot elevated) for the first time in days, and the (three) stitches do not like it. Her toe feels like it's going to explode. Slowly and painfully. Later she'll be dragging herself to the bathroom to comb out her hair, brush her teeth and wash her face.
One of the nasty side effects of sleeping too much has manifested itself in the right half of Saan's face being and staying asleep. It's been poked, she still feels it, so paralysis due to an overdose of pain killers seems unlikely. Saan is the kind of suspicious person who does not trust doctors and pharmacists when it comes to what amount is the limit. Meaning she's been taking two bags where the pharmacist said four and the PIL said six.
And to top it all off, she's got a half past one appointment with her ophthalmologist for her first twice-a-year checkup. When her right eye is being wonky enough not to close completely or as quickly as it should. ...Help?
...Or that was about the argument that also did not work for Dylan (see kid in picture) in Daddy Daycare. Saan is beginning to understand how the kid felt, after a week of taking footbaths in the basement because natural stone tends to disagree with the stuff she has to put in the water andswallowing tablets not suitable for children under the age of three. The amount of antibiotics (875 mg, twice a day) and the size would have them killed before the day was over. Saan does not like doctors, and she does not like hospitals. They stick stuff into her, prescribe pills instead of liquid medication and once went as far as dabbing various chemicals on her arms in thick drops, and then using tiny hooks to open up the skin underneath. So now she's going to sulk about it on the internet, because she knows she'll have to go sooner or later, and tomorrow's a very good time (schoolwise) to go.
Her body has finally decided to give up the unfair fight against chemistry and those tiny little germs responsible for a healthy digestive system (or at least the end product of one) have been slaughtered. On the other hand, her toe is it's normal pinky shade of healthiness once more, partly thanks to her father yanking out another chunk of it, mostly thanks to the rather radical approach of the toe-doctor. 'Infection gone in one week? You weight more than X kg? Goody!' Purple is not a color you want to see at any extremity. It's worrying and scary. Biological warfare on Saan's own body seemed like a reasonable solution at the time.
But then again, her suffering, tomorrow morning, will not end after they've finished. Once the anesthethic wears off, she'll hurt. And be unable to shower or walk for a few days. She's trying to make up for it by dancing through the house (her parents are probably thinking she's never been this enthusiastic about bleeding before) to a tune she can't get out of her head. It doesn't really help, but it's fun. It does remind her of the fact that she's got another toe with the same problem, and it might require the same remedy.
Another thing on her mind is the fact that while she has reasonable fingernails, her toenails and toes are sort of the ground zero in every way of her body. The nails tend to break off at inopportune moments, and be very stubborn in the way of being cut at other times, which can make removal of the pointy bits poking her flesh a painful and tricky chore. Visions of no toenail whatsoever remaining are haunting her mind at the moment.
Wikipedia, like always, has an article on possible treatments. Saan is apparently going to get 'phenolizated', but without the phenol, if she understands correctly. They're not going to burn away the root, they're going to scrape it out. Which is why she has to go to a hospital and a specialised doctor instead of her normal GP.
Her GP knows how to handle her. A few questions, totally unrelated to Saan's physical wellbeing (Last time it was "What on EARTH do you drag around on your back? Jesus, your schoolbag weighs nearly twelve kilos! Is this NORMAL?"), ask if she has any problems with her allergies, poke around, announce the unpleasant stuff, do the unpleasant stuff, let Saan dress as soon as possible after that, give her the candy on display for the last baby she followed the pregnancy of, talk about puppies, let her go. That works. The other doc went like "You're here because? Let's see. Can I poke it? Does it hurt when I push it?". Ten minutes, which is time-efficient, but Saan did not like them at all. Also because she was sick at the time.
And so Saan has to get up early on her first free day to get tortur--treated in a town she doesn't know, by a guy who's nice enough, but will not receive a lot of sympathy from Saan.
Saan doesn't have a boyfriend, so no Valentine. Elly's birthday, but it's kinda hard to celebrate when friend a and friend b are talking less and less, and common friend c is in a different school. Sort of sad. So, in answer to the sadness and... chocolates that'll make women all over the globe feel guilty afterwards, here are few ideas for this Valentine, courtsey of Dane Cook (who wrote and performed them), the YouTubes who made movies from them (which are more fun than staring at the same artist all the time) and Saan (who put them here, even if they only fit into Valentine in her own special way):
If all goes well, Saan will be attenting school tomorrow. She's feeling a whole lot better. The reason today's post is so short is because Saan used her day of non-school to enjoy the silence, play on the Sims 2 and not start on the Resurecction of Fido the Great until rather late. Then she didn't start on today's post until Yif was gone. And then the sort of forgot to make her schoolbag and put some clothes at the ready for tomorrow. Whoops.
okay, so she called three hospitals before phoning the medical center the closest after Saan's hometown, where they apparently grow the neurologists on special trees. All other guys were like 'ninth of May should work', 'I've got a tiny spot for you in three weeks, lady'. The doctor's orders were: 'find a neuro-hospital-dude as fast as possible'. So now she'll be going to one this Thursday. Eek, much. But, apparently, it's not all bad. Saan can still control her right eyelid to some extent. Some people get it stuck up, and need eyedrops. Saan can close her eye--right up to the point where upper meets bottom lid. Then there's a teensie-weensie gap that dries her eye out some, making it itchy. So now Saan's constantly rubbing her eye behind her glasses, because she can't blink fully.
...Or that was about the argument that also did not work for Dylan (see kid in picture) in Daddy Daycare. Saan is beginning to understand how the kid felt, after a week of taking footbaths in the basement because natural stone tends to disagree with the stuff she has to put in the water andswallowing tablets not suitable for children under the age of three. The amount of antibiotics (875 mg, twice a day) and the size would have them killed before the day was over. Saan does not like doctors, and she does not like hospitals. They stick stuff into her, prescribe pills instead of liquid medication and once went as far as dabbing various chemicals on her arms in thick drops, and then using tiny hooks to open up the skin underneath. So now she's going to sulk about it on the internet, because she knows she'll have to go sooner or later, and tomorrow's a very good time (schoolwise) to go.
