This is been a hellish Holiday Season so far. If you've been keeping up, you know that I have been sick for a couple of weeks now. It started out resembling some kind of stomach flu and soon I was taking Cipro for an infection. That didn't help AT ALL, in fact it made me feel even worse. Over the past few days I've started to change color, too. At least that's what everyone around me keeps telling me. I'm not jaundiced, as far as I can tell, but I look more grey than anything. My mom claims I'm green. People keep asking me if I have a tan. Yeah, that kid with skin cancer has a tan in the middle of winter. That right there is a big red flag.

So I did the first batch of blood tests about two weeks ago, from which the results came back last week. It took me only three days to get someone from my doctor's office to call me back with the test results. Apparently my doctor was on vacation, something he failed to tell me during our first visit. So when I finally did talk to the doctor on call about the results, he seemed a bit clueless as to what he was looking at. His assessment was that they need some more blood to do some more tests. So on Wednesday I went back to the lab and gave them more blood. While I was there one of the nurses showed me a print out of my test results, which she pretty much left to me to decipher. I asked if she could point out anything abnormal and all I could get out of her were that two or three of the numbers in the liver panel looked high and the blood platelets were higher than normal. No idea what any of that means.

I was told my doctor would be back Monday and he would be able to go over the results with me then. Have a great weekend, sicky. Thursday and Friday I was totally wiped out. Just felt like total crap. Sore, achy, fatigued. Other than going into work, I did nothing. In fact, Deni cleaned the entire apartment while I laid on the couch groaning in discomfort.

Saturday was Madison's big second birthday party. We had around 16 people over for the big festivities. Again, everyone who saw me commented on my coloration and kept asking me if I was ok. Judy and Marie even went as far as to try and kidnap me and drive me to the hospital. A nice gesture, sure, but I was dead set on not making the memory of Madison's 2nd birthday one that involved taking dad to the ER.

Sunday I felt a little better, but still tired. I attempted to go to band practice, but that didn't work out. I was waaaay too sick. My abdomen and back were giving me some trouble - just some soreness, not sure if that would be anything too bad that I need to worry about, but it was uncomfortable. So sitting on the couch wasn't as relaxing as it could have been. And what the hell is up with the Steelers? Where was that team a few weeks ago? Jeeze.

So, anyhoo, I'm waiting ONCE AGAIN to hear back from my doctor. I called three times so far today and finally got someone on the horn about what's going on. She also told me that today is the only day he is going to be in until Saturday, so I'm sure he is totally slammed with patients and catch up work. I like him pretty much, but I think when it's this hard to get a hold of him, I should probably start looking for a new doctor! Actually, starting on Jan 1 our health care is going to change so we no longer need a referral to see a doctor, so I can pretty much go to whomever I want. I may just find someone at the Hillman Cancer Center and go to them instead. I do have a melanoma doctor that I see there every six weeks, but since I'm in my 3rd year of recovery, he doesn't seem to care too much about my health. That's a harsh statement, sure, but I've received better and more personal medical care from bank tellers.

Whatever. I'm sure I'll have more annoying news to report by the end of the day, so feel free to check back.