Don't Phunk With My Heart

Yesterday I went to see my GP over a few minor concerns with what Captain Jack Sparrow would fondly refer to as his "thump thump."

My thump-thump has been...well, thumping rather erratically recently so I figured it was better to veer on the side of caution and see a doctor. However, I couldn't help but feel like a bit of hypochondriac when I was sitting in the office trying to explain exactly what was freaking me out.

In layman's terms, I believe I garbled out, "It sometimes it goes thump...thump...thump...paaaause...gurgle.....thump thump...."

And all credit to my doctor, I think he managed to decipher this (including my lame tapping demonstration on his desk). He said it could be a combination of factors, including lack of sleep, caffeine, stress, thyroid problems, or heart defects (tick tick tick for the first three) and then followed it up with the cheerful question, "Has anyone in your family ever dropped dead for no apparent reason?"

To which I said that there was no history of Long QT or anything like that, which made him ask me if I'd been Googling. To this, I indignantly replied that no, I was not one of those people who print out a whole list of their symptoms off Ask Jeeves and take them into their doctor....but I sort of left off the fact that I learnt about Long QT Syndrome from a storyline on Neighbours.

Anyway, he then ordered a blood test and an electrocardiogram (ECG) and I toddled off next door to get all the Pathology stuff done.

And then as I was sitting there holding my waiting line number, I realised that this was my first ever blood test.

Eep.

I'm not good with blood. I don't dissolve into hysterics, I don't scream, and I don't faint, but I dislike needles immensely. I can normally sit there quite calmly but there is generally a lot of panicking beforehand. Fortunately, I only had seven minutes of panicking before the nurse was passing me vials.

Vials.

Vials in which to hold my blood.

Oh, God.

See, there's just something about the thought of blood being drawn from my body which makes me very very uneasy. When the nurse actually stuck the needle into my skin I was fine, but then I heard this gurgling as my blood was being drawn up the syringe and all I could think of was AAARRRRGGH! AAARGGGGGH! AAARGGGGGHH! AARGGGGH! AAARGGGGGH! AARRGGGGH!!!!!

I tried to toughen myself up my doing Work Experience seven years ago at a veterinary clinic. And I found out that I'm okay with operations, and blood, and seeing a dog's innards on the operating table, and having the vet chat happily about his new Lord of the Rings DVD with collectible Gollum figure while his scalpel was poking at an infected doggy spleen in front of him...but when it comes to things like papercuts or needles on humans it's something different altogether.

What I did do was concentrate very very hard on the radio that was playing some kind of obnoxious ad for Harvey Norman. So I sat there and focussed on the fact that Harvey Norman were having some kind of sale, and this sale was offering 24 months interest-free....that's right, 24 months interest-free and that this had nothing to do with the gurgling...OMG PLEASE STOP THE GURGLING...of my blood being drawn up into a needle.

It was over quicker than I expected, so then I had to lie down while the nurse ran SANDPAPER over my skin and stuck electrodes to it. Then she began clipping leads to all these electrodes, so I felt like one big human component switch as she plugged me into the ECG machine thingy.

So now I'm waiting on the test results. On the upside, my doctor didn't tell me to lay off caffeine or anything like that, which was quite a relief, so I had two very large cups of coffee in the afternoon. The nurse sternly told me that I wasn't allowed to lift anything heavy with my left arm for the rest of the day (where the blood had been drawn) and as I rose to shove my tote bag over my left shoulder she squawked at me "I hope you're not going to put that on that arm! Put it on the other one!"

This made things quite irritating when I had to go to work in the afternoon...I ended up dragging out a 700VA uninterruptible power supply out using only my right arm, and that was all kinds of not-fun. And because I am physically uncoordinated and have issues wearing things over my right arm, I accidentally smashed into the toy keyboard stand at work on my way out and knocked the entire thing over with my handbag.

Obviously I'm not an ambi-wearer.

But since I have no restrictions on my caffeine intake as yet, I'm going to go and have a nice afternoon coffee :)

Mmmm. Coffee. How I thump thump thee.

The Miracle Cure-All

Today, I had a headache. I blamed it on the early morning start at the legal centre and the fact that we had NO clients, so I was doing filework all morning, staring at the computer screen while trying to figure out how superannuation works in matters of divorce.

In the afternoon, I tried:

1. Drinking more water
2. Drinking green tea with lemon
3. Eating
4. Eating something with sugar
5. Eating something high in sodium
6. Eating something else just because I wanted to
7. Taking paracetamol
8. Playing Rainbox Six Vegas 2 and getting myself repeatedly killed
9. Eating (again)
10. Sprawling on my sister's bed interrupting her study session and thumping my head repeatedly on her mattress to the sound of my own wailing

Then I had to go to work.

Now that I'm doing an average of 3-5 hours a week, instead of 30, I'm finding work much more relaxing- a sort of antidote to law school. Of course, working full-time in the holidays really did suck, so I suppose absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that jazz. I don't know how my managers put up with the weekly tirade that follows their innocent question of, "How's uni?"and I sure as hell don't know why they bother to listen, but it's nice to get an outside perspective on things.

Anyway, headache persisted until I was about to get another paracetamol from my bag- it's a giant tote that I discovered is actually giving me back pain in my left side, that's how much crap I stuff into it on a daily basis- when my assistant manager (bless him) shoved a $20 note and a loyalty card at me and told me to get coffee.

Coffee.

COFFEE.

So we got coffee.

And headache DISAPPEARED.

Gone. Dissipated. Goooooone.

Which just goes to show that coffee is a miracle panacea and the most amazing thing ever.

(And also why I'm awake and blogging at 12:48 a.m in the morning.)

And yes, this is yet another of my 'Coffee is the Best Thing Ever' posts...prepare to see quite a few of them in the lead-up to exams...

Awake is the New Sleep*

It's 1 a.m in the morning and I am about as sleepy as a squirrel on Red Bull.

I'm not a morning person. This much is obvious from anyone who has seen me in my tousled, bunny-pyjama-clad, squinting glory at any time before 10 a.m. In fact, I once frightened our local Avon representative when she dared disturb my slumber at 9 a.m in the middle of my summer holidays.

I opened the door in my pyjamas and blinked half-lucidly at the horrible sunlight behind her head.

She didn't come back after that.

I've often wondered if my morning beauty would be strong enough to repel a Mormon.

Anyway, Daylight Savings started on the weekend, and I'm still fighting to adjust to having that extra hour of daylight. It would normally be midnight right about now, but of course, it's now 1 a.m and I am still absolutely awake.

However, I am also quite cold right now, so I might attempt to grab some shut-eye before I frighten my Torts tutor with my scowling visage tomorrow morning.

I also plan to get some decent coffee. Ever since I stopped part-time work, paring it down to 4.5 hours a week, I had to make certain sacrifices....and the coffee was the first to go. I've been living, albeit miserably, off instant cappuccinos and Jarrah and Robert Timms instant granulated, and it just isn't the same.

Four weeks. Four weeks until I finish exams, four weeks until I recommence part-time work dispensing tired advice, four weeks until I get that part-time income back and I can get access to my caffeinated precioussssss...



* kudos to Ben Lee for the blog title

The Filler Post

It's 1:18 a.m.

And I am still awake. Very very awake.

I blame my friend. I blame my friend and her wonderful coffee machine. I blame my friend and my friend's wonderful coffee machine and the fact that when my friend makes a mocha, she uses chocolate and cream instead of powder and pours freshly ground and brewed coffee over it all.

I also suspect that she may have given me a double shot of espresso as I am wide awake and blinking at the screen in the early hours of the morning.

*taps fingers*

But mostly, this is just a filler post- I apologise for the lack of blogging, but uni's started up again and I'm knee-deep in constructive trusts, negligence, the preterit tense in Spanish, and the works of Shakespeare and Wordsworth.

And oddly enough, lovin' it.

I'd also like to say that I've tried cutting down on coffee for the past two weeks. It's made me utterly miserable- and since there's a Coffee HQ on the university basement level, I've had to put up with people gliding up and down past me on the escalators with little takeaway cups of molten espresso heaven, the smell of roast coffee beans wafting past me as the escalator makes its inexorable way up to Level Four...

(Screw coffee abstinence.)

I make an exception on Sundays, where the time seems to slow to a crawl on work shifts- and in the morning, my voice is reduced a series of guttural grunts unless I get some form of caffeine in a little takeaway cup.

Oh coffee, how I love thee.