Category Archives: everyday kimli

unbreak my heart

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Hi!

It’s been an interesting 24 hours!

Last night around 9:30, I started to wheeze. I decided that the time was as good as it was ever going to get, so I asked Ed to take me to the ER in North Vancouver (closest one to our place). We got there around 10pm, and settled in for a long, long night of waiting.

Blood was drawn and x-rays were taken and the doctor determined that they couldn’t determine anything other than the fact that what I have is definitely not asthma. My blood was showing something, but more testing was needed to figure out what. They discharged us at 3am, and told me to be back at 7am for a CT scan. Okay then!

The ER visit itself wasn’t going all that well, because before we left the house I threw up .. which made all the rattling stop. As expected, when the doctor listened to my lungs, there was nothing amiss. Luckily (I guess) I had another barf attack at 2am, and violently and loudly threw up in the triage bathroom. This was enough to make the doctors say “wtf is that”, and soon after I was told I needed to come back in 4 hours. As shitty as that was, I was actually thrilled .. they were listening to me. They knew something was wrong. They weren’t going to send me home to keep an eye on things for myself. Praise Jeebus!

So, home. I managed to get onto the couch around 4am, and slept fitfully/sweatily for an hour before I had to get up and head back to the hospital. I took a cab so Ed could get more sleep, and checked myself in for some CT scans and bonus vein trauma. My veins have always been dicks when it comes to getting blood drawn or IVs inserted or my next fix, but today they were brutal. It took 7? needles, an IV technician, and finally the old standby – a baby needle in the back of the hand – to get anything in or out of me. I’m covered in bruises and sticky residue from my elbows to knuckles.

The CT scan was interesting, what with the injection that makes you feel like you’re peeing yourself, but when it was done they propped me up in a chair to await my fate. It was handed down soon afterward. The good news: there were no blood clots in my lungs. Hooray!

The bad news: heart failure.

The doctor was quick to assure me that “heart failure” is really a catch-all term for anything wrong with the heart that isn’t out-and-out cardiac arrest. Basically, all my symptoms were being caused by my heart not operating at 100%, which caused fluid to back up, which made my lungs work harder, which made it hard to catch my breath, and so on. I was going to be sent for an echolocation and an ultrasound, and we would see what was happening. Also, I’m pretty young and all, so do I want them to do everything possible to save me if it gets to that? Yes, that would be lovely, thank you. I understand it’s a routine question, but HOLY JESUS WHY.

I had the tests done, I ate my hospital lunch, and .. I don’t have any other news. I’m in the hospital overnight, as I have yet to talk to the heart doctor to find out what the bat test and ultrasound showed. I’m clammy and bored and don’t want to be here .. but at the same time, I DO want to be here. I’m almost giddy with relief that the doctors and nurses listened to me and realized something was wrong and ordered the tests that could solve this once and for all. The nurses here have been amazingly nice, I’m fully connected to the outside world thanks to Ed bringing my laptop and Renee working her wifi magic, and I’ve already had awesome visitors bearing flowers and sparkly pandas riding unicorns. Yes, I’m uncomfortable and filthy and they keep pumping my IV full of stuff that makes me pee the universe and wish I was at home, but I’m being taken care of and that’s all that really matters right now.

I haven’t spent the night in the hospital since I was 5 and had my tail removed. This is really weird.

More details when I get them, but for now, I’m #stillalive.

sdk (super duper kimli) update

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Sorry about the pun – I’ve been elbow-deep in SDK documentation for weeks, and it’s starting to infiltrate my subconscious. Also, I am pretty super duper. You know, in case you missed that part.

.. actually, I’m not super at all. My health is probably the worst it’s ever been, and I can’t get help. I’ve been to walk-in clinics, used Medeo multiple times, called 811 to talk to a nurse, tried to get sleep tests done .. and it’s all failed. I’m no closer to finding out what’s wrong with me than I was two months ago, and in the meantime, things have gotten so much worse. If I stop to think about my symptoms, I legit start to cry because I’m so fucking scared and feeling helpless and like I’m going to keel over and die any minute, and I can’t get any fucking help.

I still can’t catch a full breath, and the fatigue is worse than ever. I’ve basically given up on leaving the house: I work from home 3-4 days a week because I just don’t have the energy necessary to get to the office. Every fucking thing I do winds me like I ran three miles – I can’t even get dressed without having to stop to catch my fucking breath. It’s scary and humiliating and I don’t know what to do.

My lungs rattle at night, making me cough, which makes me throw up. Rinse and repeat, every night. I’m lucky if I get 3-5 hours of fitful, rattly sleep. Every doctor I manage to see listens to my lungs, and doesn’t hear a thing – because the rattling only happens after midnight. I’ve recorded it, I’ve sent it to doctors, I’ve played it in people’s faces, and they ignore it. Want to hear? Click away. It’s awesome. That’s what I sound like every night after midnight, but no one will help me because it doesn’t happen in front of their eyes.

I look and feel like utter shit. I’m pale and blotchy and there are bags under my eyes big enough to smuggle dogs in. I feel fragile and broken and I don’t know how to fix it. I’ve been trying, with no luck – each doctor I talk to tells me to talk to someone else. Online they tell me to see a live doctor. Live doctors refer me to hospitals, but the referrals don’t come through. The sleep test equipment I got was broken, and it took another 4 weeks to get another loaner appointment. Assuming that equipment works, it’ll be 2-4 weeks before they can analyze the results. I don’t think I can do this for another 6 weeks.

Ed tries to anticipate what the doctors will tell me – that it’s my diet causing all this. That doesn’t help. I can’t eat because I’m so tired, and when I do, I struggle to keep food down. Also, most of the reason I’m afraid to see a live doctor is because I’m convinced they’re going to dismiss every symptom I have, because I’m fat. You can’t breathe? You’re fat. You can’t sleep? Fat. Tired all the time, throwing up every night, pink jellyfish in your lungs? So fat. I’m desperate to have some kind of medical professional take me seriously and look for symptoms beyond my size, but I’m terrified of being ignored – and Ed’s comments aren’t helping. He means well, but .. no. Stop. Please.

If this keeps up, I’m going to have to take some medical leave from work. I can’t cope anymore, I don’t have a family doctor I can see, and everything left of me is in the hands of people who have a website proudly stating:

The Clinic takes walk-in patients from 8am-9pm Monday- Friday and from 9am-9pm Saturday’s and Sunday’s.

I’m as good as dead. Who wants my stuff?

not an octopus

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Good news, everybody! I’m not an octopus!

My fingers have been mysteriously ink-stained all day. I haven’t been fingerprinted recently (that YOU know of), and I don’t work in 1885 so I was a little curious as to where the stains were coming from, but then I saw something shiny and totally forgot about my hands.

Eventually, I went to the bathroom. I had taken off my jacket to pee (don’t ask), and when I finished my urinary business I flung the coat over my shoulders jauntily and prepared to exit the stall. It was then that I saw it – freshly sprayed ink all over the walls in a neat splatter trajectory.

What the fuck?

My first thought was that perhaps my jacket hadn’t been properly detagged when I bought it and some sort of security device had burst. A careful inspection of my clothes revealed this was not the case, so where was the ink coming from? And why was I spraying it all over the walls? Clearly, I was an octopus. It was the only logical explanation.

I was halfway decided on my new octopus name when I retraced my steps in the stall and realized that the ink wasn’t ink at all, but black water – and it was coming from the tank of the toilet. The building I work in was built before modern plumbing, and our toilets are terrible – so in order to stop the constant flow of water and actually have the toilet flush, I was reaching into the toilet tank to firmly press down the seal on the drainy thing, which would cause the toilet to fill, which would make flush go – and in doing so, coming in contact with the evidently filthy and oozing black rubber seal. This is problematic, so I am going to request a toilet-fixing stick. But in the meantime, I am officially not an octopus. Today is a good day!

my jam

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The following things are currently my jam:

  • Every label artist collaborating on an album together? Yes please.
  • This idea to donate new or gently used slow cookers to the DTES, where they’ll be distributed to residents who’ve been taught how to make affordable, healthy meals using the power of slow heat
  • This actual jam (but don’t pay that price, it’s like $4 in Trader Joe’s or $5 at Pirate Joe’s)
  • I’ve been listening to a lot of Dessa lately because she’s awesome and she used to be a technical writer, so my dream of one day being a hip hop superstar lives on
  • These wrap bracelets are sparkly and fun and look pretty awesome, along with some great customer service and super fast shipping
  • The cast of the upcoming female Ghostbusters movie
  • Excitement over taking the train to Seattle tomorrow evening and staying in a Fancy Hotel (I’m crashing Ed’s work trip, I only pay for travel if London is involved)
  • This song
  • Crying for no reason
  • Insomnia

Not all of my jams are delicious.

?

199 days

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.. that’s how long I made it without wearing pants to work. I started this job on July 7th of last year, and until today, had not once worn pants to the office. Today, I broke that streak with some shameful (but really cute) jeans I bought last weekend. I can see my lack of thigh-gap, and I am flummoxed.

No real updates on the lung front, other than my growing suspicion that I have tuberculosis. Going to a walk-in clinic was a waste of time, the sleep test was a waste of time, and everything is a giant fucking hassle. In the meantime, I still can’t sleep when I’m all rattly, and I’m coughing up jellyfish.

Pants, though. That’s the real news.

oh kolkata

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Well, now I need to go to Calcutta Kolkata:

kimli-chinese-thai-restaurant

Apparently I’m a Chinese-Thai restaurant of questionable quality. From a write-up in a local paper:

The Kimli special, however, is Chimney Soup — a clear soup with mushroom, chicken, prawn, fish and crab along with glass (silky) noodles.

“Chimney Soup is one of the fast movers. Many also like our Thai Soup, which is a bit spicy and thick,” says restaurant manager Bidyut Denra.

Spicy and thick, JUST LIKE ME.

Seriously, do I know anyone who knows anyone anywhere near Kolkata? I want many pictures of this sign. I may make it my life mission to get to this sign and stand under it with a smug sense of self-satisfaction. Bucket list! This is a bucket list thing!

Where do I catch the bus to Kolkata?

is this a review, or personal advice?

is this a review, or personal advice?

classic kimli

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That thing where you don’t eat all day then when you finally get a chance you inhale something so quickly your body rejects it like a baboon heart and you literally vomit into the remnants of the LAST time you did this, all in the parking lot of a pet food store.

I am not having a good day.

bagged

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We’re getting rid of our old futon, and I’m trying to find a suitable replacement sitting platform to go in my lady cave. Ed and I have been discussing various sitting options for a while, and today he reminded me about bean bag chairs and how I totally love bean bag chairs. Right! A bean bag chair would be awesome in my lady cave, would allow for a lot of dramatic flopping (accompanied by heaving sighs), and could be used as a bed in a pinch. With visions of squishy sacs in my head, I went a-Googling.

If money was no object, I would totally love to get a Love Sac. I’ve sat/slept/cuddled on them before, and they’re great – but also really expensive. Like, for the price of the setup I want, I could get a $1300 hooker bot (or 1300 $1 hooker bots). That seems like an ill-advised way to spend a lot of money, so I moved down the list of luxury.

Next up were Sumo Bean Bags. These are a great deal cheaper, and while they don’t come in fluffy faux-fur form, they’ve got a bunch of solid colours to choose from. The Sumo was pretty high on my list, until I spent some time on their website:

sorry, our bean bags only work if you are eagle spread

sorry, our bean bags only work if you are eagle spread

Picture after picture of girls hunched over, showing boob, sitting with their legs open, and being all sultry. Why. Why is this necessary. Compare that with every other beanbag site – even other sites that are marketing specifically towards gamers – and you see regular people bean bagging without trying to make you think of vagina. No thanks, Sumo. I’ll take my money elsewhere.

The last two brands that made my list are FatBoy and CordaRoy. I’ve use FatBoy chairs before (I have a great deal more bean bag experience than I realized), and a friend just got a CordaRoy bag she swears by. Both are reasonably priced (when compared to LoveSac, anything that doesn’t require a second mortgage is now considered reasonable), but I’m torn:

  • CR bags are also a bed – they unzip into a sleeping pad. I like sleeping, so this appeals to me
  • FB bags come in pretty patterns! I like pretty things, so this appeals to me
  • FB doesn’t ship to Canada (annoying but not a deal breaker, I have resources), but CR does
  • CR would be more useful (see: bed), but is twice the price of the FB I want

So, I don’t know. This time yesterday I was sold on a love seat, and now I’m looking at tits and bean bags and I’m all turned around. I think I’ll go pick up my mail and think this through.

Are there any other bean baggery options I have not considered? Share! Bonus points if the website isn’t dripping in cheesy sex poses!

 

so on trend

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I hate it when I’m accidentally trendy.

I’ve been planning a solo trip (you’ll never guess where) since last year, and apparently, solo travel is a hot new feminist trend. Well, that’s annoying. I’ll be the first to admit I’m a proud card-carrying feminist, but trendy? Eww, no. And why now? I would have thought that everyone did all their Eat, Pray, Love-ing between 2006 and 2010, when dropping everything to find yourself was all the rage. A new movie along the exact same lines just came out (Wild, which is not to be confused with The Wild [talking animals in New York], or Into the Wild [man vs wilderness, potato wins], or Into the Woods [every actor ever, in a fairy tale]), but didn’t seem to make that big a splash – definitely not enough to start a whole trend, anyway.

My motives for taking a solo trip won’t make for a good Hollywood movie on account of my not being a rich white woman trying to find herself after a bitter divorce, but I think they’re still good reasons full of logic and only-child justifications:

  • Ed has no interest in going to London again
  • I’ve been to London with friends, with Ed, and with friends AND Ed – never by myself
  • Every time I’ve gone, there are things I want to do that are dropped from the itinerary for the sake of time or peace-keeping
  • I’ve never travelled by myself before
  • I’m a rich white woman trying to find herself after a bitter divorce
  • Why the hell not?
  • Adventure!

See, all good reasons (and almost entirely factual). I don’t know when the trip will happen (outside of “sometime this year”) or how long it’ll be, but I’m already excited about it. An unknown number of days alone with my camera and the voices inside my head! Oh, the online content that’ll come out of that. I will be amusing to myself for days!

I haven’t been neglecting the Q&A book, but none of the questions were enough to warrant a post in the middle of the week. What you missed:

  • Last restaurant you went to: Five Guys. Delicious!
  • You are lucky. Why or why not?: I’m most definitely lucky, and grateful for all that I have. I have the freedom to work, live, and love how I choose. I have the means to plan exotic adventures, and a partner who mostly understands (or claims to understand) what makes me tick. I have a very comfortable lifestyle, adorable cats, and 18 bottles of Diet Coke in the car. I am a lucky Kimli. I should remind myself of that daily.
  • What song is stuck in your head?: Um, none. Sometimes I get Taylor Swift’s Blank Space stuck in my head, but that’s because I’m only human.
  • Was today typical? Why or why not?: It was a typical Saturday – we slept in, then ran errands in the afternoon, then spent the evening in front of various screens. The only truly non-typical aspect to it was Ed tuning into the footballs, to see if the Seahawks would make it to the football-equivalent of the Stanley Cup finals. They did! So, that was odd (the football, not the winning).
  • Today was tough because _____: .. I didn’t get any mail. Seriously, that’s it. Oh, and Ed pulled a muscle in his neck and has limited mobility, so most of today was kind of like hanging out with a Ken doll. Also, I’m still itchy as all hell from the penicillin reaction and I’m none to pleased about it. Today was tough, okay.
  • The best part of today?: (all these questions originally had dates, but I can’t remember what I did an hour ago let alone Monday so you’re getting responses for today only) Hanging out with Ed all afternoon was pretty fun, muscle pulling and all. We had delicious burgers and tested out mattresses (not like that) and debated love seat placement and wrote a Canadian Heritage Moment about Johan Yield, inventor of the Yield Sign. Laughs were had! Later, I had a selfie epiphany. Not at all bad for a regular old trendy Saturday in January.

none today, either.

 

he says she says

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Has anyone ever taken part in a sleep study? Will they look the other way if you have a wet dream?

If you don’t want to read about the seamy going-ons in the Delicious Juice Dot Bedroom, look away now:

Ed and I have been sleeping in separate beds for the past couple of months. It started out as a nice gesture, because we were both terribly sick at different times – one or the other of us would move to the futon or the couch and let the other thrash about the bed in peace and delirium. However, as time goes on, we’ve found ourselves getting really used to the whole “separate bed” thing: I kind of love not getting elbowed in the face, and Ed likes not hearing me snore.

For reasons that are probably incredibly stupid, I am mortified to acknowledge that I quite possibly snore. Fat old bald men snore, not delicate flowers in their busty prime. Guys with hairy shoulders and gravy stains on their undershirts snore. Middle-aged guys with beach ball bellies. Men who wear Speedos with no sense of irony. They snore. Ralph Kramden snores. Not me.

But, according to Ed, I snore. I snore loudly enough to keep him awake or wake him up, even with ear plugs in. He gets mad and huffy when my snoring wakes him up, so he wakes me up – and then I get pissed off because I was soundly asleep until he started sighing like the world’s biggest martyr. He feels like I’m snoring on purpose (however that works), and I feel like he’s maliciously waking me up because HE can’t sleep so why should I. Enter the separate bedrooms, and how we haven’t killed each other yet.

Ed is worried that my snoring goes deeper than chainsaws, though – he thinks I have sleep apnea. This is a further source of embarrassment for me, and makes me feel really terrible about myself because of the aforementioned stereotypes: clearly if I have sleep apnea, I am a gross fat old fatty fat fat who is fat. I don’t want to sleep hooked up to a machine (that’s how Skynet started), Ed doesn’t want to share a bed with me if I won’t man up and breathe properly, and everything makes me full of sad and shame and self-loathing. Basically, I’m a sleepy fucking party over here.

There’s also the small matter of my office: I want it back. I have a ridiculous new retina iMac I can’t fully enjoy because there’s man junk all over my stuff. He’s keeping me from my phone booth! It’s not fair.

I didn’t know that sleep monitoring mostly happens at home now, so I’ve made an appointment to see about getting a referral. I’m hoping whatever my deal is can be fixed without turning me into Robocop, because we don’t really have the space for us to maintain separate bedrooms. I may not miss Ed’s elbows and Salad Fingers, but I do miss cuddling. And penis. Penis is great.

Still feeling that shame, though.

this is what it looks like inside my head