Don't know what you've got til it's gum.

Does this happen to you?

You're chewing some gum and your friend has a spaz as soon as they notice.  "Is that GUM?  Where did you get it?!  Do you have more?!!?!?"

They've just been handed the opportunity to achieve their lifetime goal, which is to chew gum and you're possibly holding their keys to a dream come true.

It's only gum, you both know this.  Anywhere that sells anything sells gum.  Hardly an endangered food species, kids.  You can buy it at the auto parts store!  Nothing has less to do with food than the auto parts store.  What does that tell you about gum?

Hold on though, it gets complicated...  If you /do not/ have gum, you friend will practically start sobbing like you ran over their family pet.  That level of disappointment is irrational, don't you think?

Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.

Shit has been weird lately.  More weird that usual.  Hard to believe, right?

Several weeks ago, I decided I was fed up with having hyperhidrosis, so I went to the Revolving Door Dermatology Warehouse (where you never see the same doctor twice!) and the Flavor of the Week Nurse Practitioner referred me to another dermatologist in Olathe.  She all but swore on her life that Dr. Olathe was the answer to my problem.  If you don't know your greater Kansas City area geography, Olathe is an hour from almost everywhere on the Missouri side.

Of course I request an ass-crack-of-dawn appointment because the more work I miss the more it will pile up on my already buried desk.  And we all know how I LOVE to get up ridiculously early and fight obnoxious commuter traffic.

Once I'm in front of Olathe's Super Dermatologist, I tell her to please perform the treatment that Revolving Door NP claimed Dr. Olathe did.  Uhhh... nope.  Never.  Has never treated hyper-hell-drosis in the fashion that RDNP assured me she did.  At first I was peeved with the seeing of different people at every appointment and the getting up stupid early and the driving an hour away from home to the tune of almost $4 a gallon for gas.  But now I'm fully pissed off and I have a strong suspicion that RDNP referred me to Dr. Olathe just to get me out of her office.  Bitch.

That week got even more mega fun when I realized RDNP didn't give me a refill on the pill I take for my breakouts (and it is coincidentally a pill Nice Fat Lady Doctor prescribed to help my circulation for the steroid-induced vein damage from several years ago when my body decided to attack itself and produce awful itchy hives almost every day for two solid years... but when Nice Fat Lady Doctor moved to a different practice group, I decided to just get it from the dermatologists because they were prescribing the same thing even though it was for two different reasons).  TMI?  I thought so.  Moving along...

Call her office.  Request the drug.  Another nurse calls me back (ha, figures) and said RDNP won't refill until I get blood tests.  So I have to go to a lab (thankfully there was one within my home zip code) and get poked.  That was the day they took seven vials of my blood.  Waited a week, got test results.  Called RDNP because, of course, she isn't going to call me.  She says there's something wrong with my endocrine system.  No pills until I see endocrinologist.  I'm assuming since I've already chased wild geese in Olathe, maybe she'll send me to Wichita this time.  Perhaps Topeka.  Hell, what about Denver?  Guess I caught her in a good mood because the endocrinologist is in Overland Park.  Bad part?  Can't see me until almost a month later.

Here's the deal with the pills...  When you're on them, you don't even notice they do anything.  But once you quit them, gird your loins.  Pain.  Unbelievable pain.  Pain like I have never known before.  Whatever empathy or sympathy I had for people with chronic pain, it's a million times more now.  Holy shitballs, worst agony of my life.

After a week or so, I couldn't take it.  Called RDNP and literally begged her to give it back.  With a crap-ton of attitude and reluctance, she called in a refill.  FOR HALF THE STRENGTH.  Boo.  What a whore.

Screw her though, I'm taking two pills instead of one and I'm never going back to the Revolving Door Dermatology Warehouse anyway so I'll get my fix from the new Not-So-Fat-But-Still-Nice-Lady-Doctor I started seeing a couple years ago.  In your face, RDNP!

The health weirdness has persisted though and I am concerned.  Sometimes I'm stay-awake-all-night-and-fret worried and other times I think it's probably minor and this will be one very expensive quest to find nothing of significance.

Did I ever tell you about the time I worked for someone who had chronic pain?  She drove me batshit.  In the moment, I was certain she hated me because no matter what I did, it was always wrong or not good enough.  She probably could have conducted herself better but I probably could have tried harder to understand why she was always channeling Satan.

When the pain started, everything was on my nerves.  There's a particularly noisy neighbor on our block and they picked an amazingly bad week to turn it up to 11.  One night I had taken some Vicodin and just wanted to try and get some decent sleep.  Pain meds help but the only time during this ordeal when I haven't been miserable is when I'm sleeping.  It was between 10:30 and 11 p.m. on a Monday or a Tuesday night.  At this point, school is out for summer so all the teen fuckheads are running loose in the streets later than usual.

Noisy neighbor house is Teen Fuckhead HQ.  I think just one or two teens actually live there but at any given moment, there are at least five cars in the driveway and on the street.  A frequent visitor has a TRAIN HORN and likes to show it off.  Annoying.  Obviously compensating for lack of girth, if you know what I mean.  But if he feels the need to show it off in broad daylight, I can tolerate it occasionally.  It's when he uses it in the middle of the night that truly makes my blood boil.  Between him and the boom cars, it's a wonder anyone in this neighborhood sleeps through the night.

So yeah, I'm hopped up on meds and trying to escape the horror show that my body has become... on the verge of drifting off then HONK!  A few seconds later HONK HONK!  Another couple of seconds HONK HONK HONKHONKHONKHOOONNNKKK!!!

Are you fucking serious?  I look out the window and of course there is a teen fuckhead convention across the street and Honky VonHonkerstein is parked in front of a fire hydrant and attempting to summon someone inside Fuckhead HQ with her horn.  Aren't the little shits born with mobile phones these days?  Couldn't she text whoever was inside???  Of course not!  I mean, it's late in the evening and people are trying to sleep so the horn is the obvious choice.  Duh!

My rage took on telepathic powers because Mr. Buffie was out the front door before I could even get to the stairs.  Rude Teen With Horn got a piece of his mind.  I fully expect toilet paper in my trees any day now.  Haven't seen her car since that night.  Fine by me.

The Saturday after Honkpocalypse, I needed a pick-me-up so I went to the salon.  When I got home, I failed to notice Mr. Groundhog Day at the mailbox.  We call him Groundhog Day because, as nice as he is, we always have the exact same conversation with him.  Everyone does.  He will tell you about his job, his wife's health problems, his daughter and the Civil War.  In that order.  Every time.  And usually for half an hour.

It is officially hot in Missouri and people with hyper-hell-drosis are especially sensitive to heat.  The last thing I want to do after having a relaxing morning is stand in the sun and listen to Groundhog Day tell me about the Civil War.  I was in furious pain, melting and dying from boredom.  The situation was made worse by the fact that Mr. Buffie had lunch waiting inside.  So close, yet so far away.  Like being caught in a bear trap.  A Civil War bear trap stuck on repeat.  Once I chewed my leg off, I ran for the door like Flo Jo.

Poor Groundhog Day.  I feel badly for him but how do you nicely tell someone you've already heard everything they're about to say and you don't have an extra 30 minutes to hear it again?  You don't.  You chew your leg out of the bear trap and limp toward freedom.

Anyway, pain, work, more pain, no sleep, work, pain, and a week has passed.  (I'm back on the pills but it takes a while before they start doing their magic.)  It's Saturday again and a friend of ours has asked us to dinner.  He's a chef and he's making cochinita pibil, margaritas and some of the most incredible salsa known to humanity.

I'm getting ready for dinner, siting at the vanity in my bedroom when I hear sirens and horns.  An ambulance and a fire truck are in front of Casa De Groundhog.  Really wanted to rubberneck but I didn't want to be late for yummy goodness, so I went back about my business.

Then the night before last, I was in bed not sleeping as usual and heard what sounded like air brakes outside.  It was almost 3 a.m.  Got up and was able to see an ambulance in front of the Groundhog house again.  Strange because there were no sirens, not even coming up the highway.  I couldn't make out much else.  It was there for about 45 minutes and then left, again with no sirens, no flashing lights either.  What does it mean when an ambulance comes to your house at that hour and in such a way?  Mrs. Groundhog does have some serious health issues.  Dreadful thoughts lately and I'm sad for the Groundhogs because they are good people, even if I do actively avoid one of them.

Yesterday wasn't necessarily weird but it sure wasn't fun.  Went to the New Nice Lady Doctor for the routine physical.  Ladies you know the one.  NNLD has been keeping an eye on the vein problem in my legs for a while now and out of nowhere sent me directly to the hospital because with the recent godawful pain, she was thinking possible blood clot.  Needed that like a hole in the head.  Shot my entire day.  But a few hours later, another nice lady at the hospital said I wouldn't be admitted and she let me come home.

Today is where the weirdness came back.  Went to the psychiatrist for the usual anxiety disorder treatment.  He likes to take my vitals every visit.  My blood pressure was through the roof.  He didn't even want to talk about anxiety.  He immediately called NNLD and asked if she could see me or if I needed to go to the ER.  ER!?!  Hold up, Mr. Psychiatrist, you didn't say jack to me about the ER.  If my blood pressure wasn't already on the moon, it is now.  ER?  Hell to the no.  ER = lost time at work + expensive + potential for needles + no kitty cats.  No gracias.

I should mention that when I got home yesterday, I broke yet another toe.  Not too bad this time.  Probably just cracked it but that was another shock of pain that I could do without.

I explain to Mr. Psychiatrist that the BP is probably because of my toe.  He notices it's huge and purple but doesn't think it is bad enough to cause the BP to spike.  Asks me to chill for 10 minutes in a quiet place and he'll check it again.

Is this just a fat thing or do blood pressure cuffs hurt everyone?  He used a different cuff when he checked it the second time and it hurt so bad my eyes watered.  It was kind of him to apologize for that but he didn't apologize for the ER scare so I'm holding a bit of a grudge.

NNLD was able to see my this afternoon.  She was kind of tripping on the BP too.  I admit, it was high. Not as high as that day Mr. Buffie dragged me to the urgent care clinic in the snow because my little tumor thing was infected but it was close.

Third BP check, same result.  Chill for a while.  Fourth BP check, can you guess?  Ah yes, same result.  So she orders an EKG.  Nurse comes in and puts about two dozen sticky things on my chest, arms and legs.  I think it was really more like 10 but when she was peeling them off, it felt like someone jerking giant leeches out of my flesh.

Want to know what happens next?  BP check!  How do you think it went?  Same result!

Weird Alert:  EKG was normal.  Blood tests from yesterday's physical were normal.  Basically every other exam that's been done on me (other than the hormone/endocrine junk) has been normal.  Same as it ever was... same as it ever was, to quote David Byrne.

So why are my blood pressure numbers so high they require commas?  Yeah, my toe hurts but I have to agree with Mr. Psychiatrist, it doesn't justify this.

NNLD gave me pills, I see her again next week.  Another reason to lose sleep but I'm trying to put it out of my mind.

Now for what will hopefully be the end of a series of odd events... As I was driving home from the hospital yesterday, I noticed a car in front of me had 'RIP' written on the back window with shoe polish, along with a person's name and a giant heart.  I recognized the name as an acquaintance who had been pointedly and repeatedly unkind cruel to me about six years ago.  Elephants never forget.

When I got home, you know I went directly to Google.

Without divulging too much, I will say he was engaging in dangerous and illegal behavior and thankfully he did not injure or kill anyone else in the process.

I joke that if I could go back in time, I'd probably do some serious physical harm to the people who taught me all I know about hate, bigotry and bullying.  But I would never wish them dead.

Maybe there was a good side of him?  I never saw it, so I wouldn't know.  This is the first time I've ever been faced with the death of a known bully.  It's awkward and a little confusing.  By no means will I celebrate what happened to him.  But I won't lie, I am not mourning the loss in the slightest.  I'm sure his family loved him.  However I wonder if there are other big people he treated like shit, unprovoked, based solely on the fact that they're fat.

It's weird because I intimately know the profound life-changing damage people suffer at the hands of bullies and I am thankful for one less bully in this world.  But I also know bullies' families love them and his family is suffering the ultimate loss.

Perhaps there are times when death is neither a negative nor a positive.  It all depends on which side of the fence you're standing when it happens.

In my personal experience, death has always been sad, but also strange in some way.  This time, it is only strange.