Well, earlier in the week I was suffering from breathing problems -- I blame the wildfires down in the southern part of the state. Then Tuesday night I woke up in the middle of the night with horrible abdominal pains again (much like the episdoe last month). I woke up Tim, who was none too pleased with me for waking him up, though by that point I really needed him to help me up and into the bathroom. After awhile, he woke up enough to be concerned, and he brought me a pillow (in case I passed out again) and water and sat next to me and made cooing noises. Eventually, after about a half an hour of horrible pain and sweating so much it was dripping off me and pooling on the floor at my feet, I felt well enough to go back to bed.

Two hours later, it happened again. I didn't bother Tim that time. Nor did I bother him when it happened again two hours after that.

Needless to say, I called in sick and went to the doctor. Tim stayed home with me because, though I hadn't passed out this time, I was really weak and dizzy and was afraid of being alone like that.

The doctor? Completely unhelpful. She actually told me that happened to her once a month, that it was "no big deal". I have trouble believing that she experiences that much pain once a month and then says it's "no big deal". She refused to do any sort of testing, and I had to argue with her to get her to fucking examine me.

Fucking Kaiser.

The advice nurse, who was way more helpful on the phone than the doctor was in the office, told me the one good piece of advice: hot baths. So, I took two hot baths yesterday. Ahh. Zanzi only fell in once, and luckily it was just after I'd gotten out (but before I'd pulled the plug).

I'm going to try and bully my primary care physcian (who doesn't work on Wednesdays, it seems) to at least test me for, I dunno, parasites or something. But, really, my best plan of attack is to find a good accupuncturist who can, I dunno, get my chi flowing properly and maybe stop this from happening again?

Anyone know of a good accupuncturist in the East Bay?

I was reading a really cool book at the time, which made me think about Eastern medicine. It also reminded me to breathe through the pain, which made it a bit easier to deal with, I think.

It still hurts, though not all the time and not as bad when it does. I'm really terrified of solid foods. I'm doing my breathing exercises a lot, and I'm wishing I'd brought my heating pad to work today . . .

And I'm so very, very hungry.

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In completely unrelated news: Did you know Shrub has declared this week Protection from Pornography Week? Grrr. It makes me so angry when people conflate child pornography with regular, adult pornography. To be clear: I'm very very against the former, and very very for the latter.

Here at work, we're considering having a sale on movies to celebrate.